THE GREATEST ANIME OF THE SPRING SEASON HANDS DOWN Eden of the East’s opening garnered some attention because of its pretty lights, use of Oasis and text scrawled all over the place. I for one loved it the 1st, 5th and 20th times I watched it, but when I actually paused the video to read what the text says I found myself slightly disappointed, mostly because it wasn’t philosophical phrases. I love seeing philosophical phrases in OPs because it gives me things to puzzle over about the relation of said jargon to the messages conveyed in the show (like in Serial Experiments Lain). Then again, from the first episode of Eden of the East (as well as a host of other factors) I doubt it’s going to be as confounding as Lain, so I probably shouldn’t expect much in that respect.
What can be said is that there are layes upon layers of references and hints towards the series plot and progression. It’s all good in theory and does work well with phrases such as “10 Billion Charged” and “Selecao” appearing now and again (as by Episode 3 we see their relevance to the story) but the Engrish religious phrases just come off as awkward and kind of pretentious. For me, I doubt that this would be the case if the religious parts were better translated. Of course, even they have important meaning in the story (i.e “messiah”) and I’m almost certain that as the series progresses I’ll come to appreciate the text more (love the name Mr. Outside, must know importance!) but for now I’ll remain skeptical.
Eternal puzzled out some of the meanings in the OP (I didn;t even bother to look up Noblesse Oblige, very pleased after finding out what it means) and came up with a couple of pretty credible theories. IKnight also gives a handy insight into the source of the phrase “The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power”.
As for the visuals, I like anything that’s shiny so I immediately fell in love with it, but I could also see why Omo calls it gimmicky; there’s a fine line between an artistic opening and one that simply bombards you with images, colours and special effects. I fall into the opinion of the former.
As for the use of Oasis itself:
To be honest, I’m pretty sure that the director of the show just thought that using an English song would be cool and tried to find a song w/ lyrics that had at least some relation to the anime. Oasis are a big name in music and they released a chart topping album recently so…
And that pretty much sums up my thoughts. The show itself is coming together well, except for Saki. DO SOMETHING, GIRL.
Ending’s animation rocks btw.
Grand Punk Railroad 
See, I tried to be an ass-hat about the use of the OP, but everyone went all SRS BIZNES on me about it.
There are hundreds of anime with English OPs. Didn’t think any differently about this one until everyone started making a racket about it.
I second bakaraptor; but here’s something to go with the flow….
There’s no doubt that the OP is not unintentionally filled with thought-provoking allusions to a wide range of sources, but that (as well as the series) in itself seems to me as one big psychological calling since different sources attract different people.
Just look at how many people think Eden is the PWNZ..
I’m sure Saki will do something…eventually……
With regards to the OP, though, the Engrish was a little awkward. Pretentiousness in anime doesn’t usually bother me (I loved ef), but there were a few moments where you can clearly tell that there’s something funny about the text. I think it works if you look at the big picture though, and it was fun going through it to figure out what the plot was about. I’m not sure if that means the video was good or if it simply gave me good material for a post, but it looks good either way. Pretty lights FTW!
It’s interesting to see how we watch the same thing but see different things 🙂 I thought animation is pretty nice. Im not a native speaker so I didnt really notice engrish, and to be honest I didnt really care that much, since I was immensely enjoying music 🙂
I also find it quite funny that there is a lot of people who only learned about Oasis after watching this anime.
I still find the use of “selecao” hilarious. Just picturing replacing characters with actual selecao is mindblowingly surreal. Anyway, I guess I don’t really remember the rest of the OP, only seen it once after all:D
@adaywithoutme
Sowwy ;_;
@bakaraptor
Hmm, I can only name about 3 off the bat, such as Lain, Gunslinger Girls and Cowboy Bebop. Haven’t seen enough anime to judge properly though.
@7
IT’S SUBLIMINAL MESSAGING 😮
@ETERNAL
Can’t it be both :P? Multi-purpose ftw.
@bradamante
It’s a damn shame, to be honest, their stuff is good. But people must have heard of WONDERWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL.
@Emperor J
THIS IS A SIN. YOU MUST WATCH IT AT LEAST 10 TIMES.