Eden of the East - Spoilers & Speculation

[izmosmolnar]

Spoiler for previews:

I don't quite understand why Hirasawa didn't went on the trip. From the few scenes he has been involved, he seemed to be a positive, cheerful, sound lad. (A bit sarcastic too maybe or it's just my imagination?)
My intuition tells me that, he and Micchon plays probably the largest role in the club, but that's just speculation, and we barely know anything about them.

Well, it's no small wonder #11 gonna take advantage of Oosugi, and possibly try to lure using him, in order to trap Akira in some way, due to Akira's "girlfriend" (finally) gets worried about his whereabouts, and they righteously fly to the rescue, right into the grasp of evil #11. Which means, he also plays the "damsel" in distress!
(Of course that's only just my ironic half-serious guess, don't take it at face-value ).

Anyway, what would happen if say, Diana would order Juiz to kill Akira? Would the cost of killing another selecao too expensive?

[Tamad]

I'm surprised nobody has tried that actually, though I wouldn't be surprised if killing a Selecao cost more than 10 billion yen, or is breaking a rule that we haven't heard of yet.

If I were a Selecao, I would try asking Juiz to kill Mr. Outside. >_>

[Ender!]

Originally Posted by Tamad

I'm surprised nobody has tried that actually, though I wouldn't be surprised if killing a Selecao cost more than 10 billion yen, or is breaking a rule that we haven't heard of yet.

If I were a Selecao, I would try asking Juiz to kill Mr. Outside. >_>

Or the supporter. ...Unless you turned out to be the supporter. o_o Oh mannn

[voxxa]

More from the 2ch summaries...

Spoiler for episode 8:

Episode 8: Search for a Fore-Lost Journey
In order to regain the eliminated phone history and his memory, Takisawa decides to analyze the Noblesse phone. For this reason, he looks up an amazingly skilled hacker in Kyoto. However, this man is currently a shut in…?

Spoiler for episode 9:

Episode 9: A Man Too Transient
With the phone’s analysis begun, Takizawa’s past is finally revealed. According to the past activity, Did Seleção X accept a request to give a catastrophic blow to the country. ..?

[izmosmolnar]

Originally Posted by Tamad

I'm surprised nobody has tried that actually, though I wouldn't be surprised if killing a Selecao cost more than 10 billion yen, or is breaking a rule that we haven't heard of yet.

If I were a Selecao, I would try asking Juiz to kill Mr. Outside. >_>

@Tamad. Yeah, actually that's an even better idea. Akira seemed quite keen to kill Outside in the last episode anyway, why don't he just ask Juiz whether she could do something about it?
@Ender!. Well, he could also try to "buy" that information about the Supporter's whereabouts from Juiz somehow (and whether he's the supporter in the first place). Even if that information is protected, I reckon it could be possible to phrase it delicately in a roundabout, tricky way, which would make Juiz to answer that question.

Also, I wonder if you can actually go "overdraft" with the Juiz system to a certain amount. It's highly doubtful the message sent by Kondo was EXACTLY the right amount needed to completely empty his account to zero. (Those who still use top-up mobiles know what I'm talking about probably). If you can go overdraft, than what would be the limit?

Edit2: By the way, I know that sounds stupid, but is it possible to transfer (physical) money on the Selecao account? If it's seemingly that popular, that even airport shops have a way to charge from it, I can easily imagine they could put their own money on the Selecao account.
I might be thinking too much again, but there could be multiple ways to abuse that system if they are indeed able to do that.

[Envoy]

Spoiler for Episodes 7 8 9 Summaries:

Episode 6
http://www.srsfkn.biz/2009/05/08/rel-eden-5/

Episode 7
Saki's childhood friend Oosugi has suddenly gone missing. Using the Noblesse mobile, Takizawa tries to ascertain Oosugi's whereabouts, but thanks to the interference of Selecao No. 11 - the one who kidnapped Oosugi, he gets caught up in a traffic accident. Shiratori, the president of a modelling agency, possesses a hidden side as a serial killer.

Episode 8
Takizawa is determined to regain the history of his Noblesse mobile from before the erasure. He visits Kyoto to request a genius hacker once feared as a "prodigy" - Yutaka Itazu - to analyse his Noblesse mobile. However, persuading Itazu, who has been living as a shut-in, proves difficult.

Episode 9
The Noblesse mobile's analysis by Itazu has begun. Looking through the erased records, they discover that a request proposed by No. 10 to inflict catastrophic damage on Japan was accepted. Takizawa and Itazu shudder at the realization. Meanwhile, Selecao No. 10's car appears in front of Itazu's apartment.

Source

[Jan-Poo]

nyway, what would happen if say, Diana would order Juiz to kill Akira? Would the cost of killing another selecao too expensive?

That's a nice question, I've been thinking a lot about this issue. I was just thinking what would I do if I were a seleçao and i wanted to survive at all costs. And then I realized that the safest way would be to order Juiz to kill all the other seleçao. With this smart move one would not only remove all the competitors but the supporter too!
I don't think the outsider didn't contemplate this possibility, it would be too easy, too obvious. There must be a rule that prevent seleçao from killing each other. And by the way this also would explain why the supporter used such an elaborate way to kill Kondo. That is probably because he could not kill him directly, so he created the situation to get him killed instead. This could also explain the elaborate strategy to kill Akira if that was really his doing.

Edit2: By the way, I know that sounds stupid, but is it possible to transfer (physical) money on the Selecao account?

I don't think it's possible, it has been said that you can't convert the money on the phone into real money, so I think it is logical to assume that this also applies to the opposite. I know Akira offered Hiura to give him part of his money, but Akira is clueless about the various rules so I think that that attempt would have failed even if Hiura accepted.

[Schneizel]

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

I don't quite understand why Hirasawa didn't went on the trip.

Well, why go on a graduation trip when you're not going to graduate?

[izmosmolnar]

Well, I'd still go along with my clubmembers, even if I don't really care about graduating. It's not everyday you'd travel across the globe with your friends. Especially if I wouldn't have to worry about the money, due to my parents being loaded.
It's possible he just didn't wanted to go for whatever reason (my guess), or it was a strict, official trip only for the already graduated students (in which case it's a bit odd Saki was able to detour to DC, and there have been only the five of them on the photos). *shrug*

Ps: thanks for subbing Eden.

@Jan-Poo. To be frank, even if Outside probably made some rule regarding killing other selecaos, one could still kill all the others manually, by convincing someone trustworthy (ergo not by bribing) to murder them (a bit similarly to Kondo's murder, but in a much bigger scale and a bit differently).
If you want their locations, you can estimate their whereabouts from the purchase history (not that impossible, since the city (?) is there anyway), or possibly even Juiz would "sell" that info, unless she's restricted about that too.
From the rules I've seen so far, no punishment would occur in that case, but of course it's quite uncertain, whether we know all the rules already.
edit: maybe they fear Outside could use Juiz too, and he/she could kill the last Selecao.

[~BC~]

Hmm, I didn't get the impression that Hirasawa's parents were loaded though. Especially if we go by Oosugi's comment about how only people whose family have money can start a business. Chances are he wanted to save his money for his next year of classes.

[izmosmolnar]

Yeah you are right, they aren't so loaded as I first thought (I've thought Osugi refers on him at the part you mentioned).
Still, I imagine they have to be rich enough to support him, and not to pester him about accepting one of the 6 offers. (And he still has a car though, so he mustn't be poor neither).

Anyway. Judging from the preview we gonna see what sort of fellow he is in the next episode.
*eagerly anticipating*

[k//eternal]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

And then I realized that the safest way would be to order Juiz to kill all the other seleçao. With this smart move one would not only remove all the competitors but the supporter too!

Pretty sure at the end of the day he'd consider that one of the worst uses of money possible and have you killed one way or another (probably Juiz). Not really safe at all, and I'm thinking the end solution will require cooperation between a few of the Selecao.

Just because accomplishing the goal gets all the others killed doesn't mean getting all the others killed counts as accomplishing the goal.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

@Jan-Poo. To be frank, even if Outside probably made some rule regarding killing other selecaos, one could still kill all the others manually, by convincing someone trustworthy (ergo not by bribing) to murder them (a bit similarly to Kondo's murder, but in a much bigger scale and a bit differently).
If you want their locations, you can estimate their whereabouts from the purchase history (not that impossible, since the city (?) is there anyway), or possibly even Juiz would "sell" that info, unless she's restricted about that too.
From the rules I've seen so far, no punishment would occur in that case, but of course it's quite uncertain, whether we know all the rules already.
edit: maybe they fear Outside could use Juiz too, and he/she could kill the last Selecao.

Yes in fact that was what Kondo did following Akira. However why he didn't just asked Juiz to tell him his location? Well ok he didn't have many money left, but I'm left with the impression that he can't ask for that. Akira himself thought to used this system to locate Saki, but he didn't use it to find number IV (he found him by himself). In brief, I'm speculating that Juiz just won't accept these kind of orders, but nothing prevents seleçao to do stuff by themselves.

Originally Posted by ~BC~

Hmm, I didn't get the impression that Hirasawa's parents were loaded though. Especially if we go by Oosugi's comment about how only people whose family have money can start a business. Chances are he wanted to save his money for his next year of classes.

Hirasawa might not be loaded but his family certainly isn't poor. He's got a car.
Now I guess you might think what's the big deal with a car, but you need to know a few things about cars and Tokyo.
Since the extremily high population density in Tokyo you can't just buy a car and park it wherever you want like in most cities fo the world. In order to posses a car you need to prove you have a parking lot both in your house and your working place. This is why you don't see many people owning cars in anime. I'm assuming that the car we see is actually Hirasawa's parents's car. However that means they have a house with a garage or a parking lot. Such thing in a city like Tokyo is luxury. Well this doesn't prove he's loaded with money, but his family must be above average.

Originally Posted by k//eternal

Pretty sure at the end of the day he'd consider that one of the worst uses of money possible and have you killed one way or another (probably Juiz). Not really safe at all, and I'm thinking the end solution will require cooperation between a few of the Selecao.

Just because accomplishing the goal gets all the others killed doesn't mean getting all the others killed counts as accomplishing the goal.

Well this mean you are assuming that someone else other than the supporter himself will do the killings. If not, who would kill you if there's no supporter around?
The cooperation you are suggesting would make sense (and I also noted that), if there wasn't that incomprehensible rule that states you get killed if someone else saves the country before you. That rule completely removes any chance of cooperation. It looks like the outsider doesn't want them to cooperate.
And no, killing others won't accomplish your goal but it would remove any chance for them to beat you or kill you (which is the same thing according to the rules)

[Haak]

It seems to me like the rulea are designed specifically to make the Selecao think more about themselves than 'saving Japan'.

[izmosmolnar]

Ok now we got some clues finally again.
It seemed to me by the reaction of Hirasawa, that Saki actually contributed quite a lot to that project they have been working on (maybe even more than Micchan)
I still maintain my theory from several pages back, and expand it.

Spoiler for long theory speculation thingie:

Outside (or whoever helped setting up his system for him) is actually using the program Saki's club has been working on in some way, probably fundamentally using some part of it in the Juiz system. More accurately I'd say, the Juiz system probably uses a modified, extended version of the Eden of the East's recognizing program, to estimate the value of Juiz's "services". If that program can recognize every stuff that quickly, I could imagine they could use it's recognizing abilities and expand it to the current Juiz system with several valuing and organizing additions.

In the meanwhile memory-intact Akira (I'll call him pre-Akira before the memorywhipe for simplicity), rebels against Outside for some reason, and he wants to kill him. Of course he doesn't know anything about his whereabouts. He possibly warned the NEETs, that he might going to die, or he might lose his memories.
Anyway he starts with the obvious choice, and he finds out more about his phone. Eventually he makes the connection between the Juiz system and the Eden of the East.
He makes the idea, that he is going to extract all the information they know about Outside, by kidnapping an influential person from the group (Saki).
Because the Supporter is likely going to intervene, if he endangers Outside (I'm assuming from here #1 is the Supporter even though it's fishy), he thinks it might be safer to interrogate/question Saki abroad. He notices they are going on a trip to the US, and he sees Saki actually going to fly back from DC and not NY (it's even possible that's when he decided about Saki and not someone else). He thinks she is going to detour while completely alone -which she did-, and goes to DC some time before the club's trip, to get weaponry and extra stuff preparing for the worst case scenario (my intuition tells me he stayed there for about 2 weeks).

-------
(That's where the speculation is gonna be a bit foggy)
In the meanwhile #1 followed pre-Akira because he thought pre-Akira might intervene with the club and he could see that pre-Akira is scheming something and eventually concludes he is going to move against Outside by finding out his location via kidnapping/interrogating Saki. He buys a purchase history deletion for the past 2 months on Akira's account during the night...

• Possibly 2 month is the limit they can delete stuff
• or #1 deletes stuff manually (which still costs money though) and he decided to leave the older entries in, so the new Akira might do similar things again.
• or Akira didn't even used Juiz for the past month at all, and the deletion is just a decoy to confuse new Akira.

... plus he also purchased a memorywhipe for the following day to pre-Akira.
My theory is he bought such a program that he could even stop in the last minute, if by any chance Akira is not going to try interfering with Saki, and that's the reason #1 was supervising him.
He/they don't want to kill him, because Akira was quite promising with the NEETs and he/they are hoping he is going to try the same approach again after the amnesia, plus he still has most of his money left anyway.
It's also possible #1 purchased it on his own phone and transferred it later on Akira's account, so every Selecao would think Akira whiped his own memory.

Anyway Akira predicted Saki is going to go the White House, and he decided that's where he is going to kidnap her (imagine such a plan in the real world after 9/11...).
He might have also thought he is going to be more scary, and he might accomplish his goal sooner if he gets naked, and kidnaps Saki like that. (I know, I know there are weak points like that in my theory...).
However Stephen Colbert didn't stopped the memory-erasing, and before pre-Akira was able to approach Saki, his memory was whiped.

Of course it's also possible Akira thought out some masterplan to fool the Supporter, he did the memorywhipe on his own initiative. He also left some clues for himself, and later we gonna see some KEIKAKU DOORI, where he is going to find out, what he has been doing in the past.

I'm aware how stupid it sounds, but like that I could connect everything together, even though quite a lot parts are questionable and very dubious at the moment. I'm not saying it has a high chances to turn out to be true, but for the moment that's my theory.
Anyway, even if most of the above turns out to be wrong, I still think the connection between pre-memorywhiped-Akira and Saki, is probably something to do with that program they have been designing and it's probably being used by the Juiz system.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

Ok now we got some clues finally again.
It seemed to me by the reaction of Hirasawa, that Saki actually contributed quite a lot to that project they have been working on (maybe even more than Micchan)
I still maintain my theory from several pages back, and expand it.

Spoiler for long theory speculation thingie:

Outside (or whoever helped setting up his system for him) is actually using the program Saki's club has been working on in some way, probably fundamentally using some part of it in the Juiz system. More accurately I'd say, the Juiz system probably uses a modified, extended version of the Eden of the East's recognizing program, to estimate the value of Juiz's "services". If that program can recognize every stuff that quickly, I could imagine they could use it's recognizing abilities and expand it to the current Juiz system with several valuing and organizing additions.

You're thinking too much about the Eden program, and it doesn't even seem to work that way. It doesn't estimate value, it actually has nothing to do with value per se. Besides, the program doesn't work with unknown objects/people. You have to enter the subject into the database (Akira registered his dog, Mameshiba, and that's why it got recognized).

Saki added value to the recycled products by adding characteristic about such products into the database. So, although when you see a recycled object your first impression is that it is a piece of junk, by checking the object with the Eden program you'll find out there's more to it than meets the eyes (because Saki entered that info there before). That way, Saki added "value" to those things, but we're not talking about monetary value.

[izmosmolnar]

It's probable I'm overanalyzing again as usual.
As I said, I know their program doesn't have anything to do with value, but I can easily imagine whoever designed Outside's game could expand it with lots of other stuff, and the result could be pretty much similar to Juiz.
I rephrase it then: the program Eden of the East designed might be an "ingredient" or "component" for Juiz system (among many others).

Edit: Additionally, in episode 2 when Akira said the word Juiz, Saki seemed to me like someone who heard the word Juiz before. (And I doubt she watches Brazilian/Portuguese football )

[fish eric]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

You're thinking too much about the Eden program, and it doesn't even seem to work that way. It doesn't estimate value, it actually has nothing to do with value per se. Besides, the program doesn't work with unknown objects/people. You have to enter the subject into the database (Akira registered his dog, Mameshiba, and that's why it got recognized).

Saki added value to the recycled products by adding characteristic about such products into the database. So, although when you see a recycled object your first impression is that it is a piece of junk, by checking the object with the Eden program you'll find out there's more to it than meets the eyes (because Saki entered that info there before). That way, Saki added "value" to those things, but we're not talking about monetary value.

It wouldn't be very hard to build a data base of cost for items.

Simply take e-bays history over the past 10 years and use that.

Look at wikipedia. Make the master database a wiki.

[Jan-Poo]

Well I dunno about your whole theory Izmosmolnar but the idea that the Juiz system is using Eden of the East technology would explain how come Juiz seems completely aware of anything that the seleçao see.

But even in that case it's clear that the Juiz system has a lot more technological stuff on its side. Just to mention one: memory eraser. So even if there is this connection between Juiz and Saki, it's still not enough to think Saki is so important for the outsider and the Juiz system.

We are talking about someone who has the power to make the prime minister say whatever he wants, someone who can bribe the whole police, someone who can make the SDF throw missiles in the center of Tokyo and at the same time evacuate the areas of the explosions so to avoid any casualty.

As much as the image recognization system is revolutionary it's still little thing compared to what Juiz is capable of. And besides shouldn't be Micchon be even more important for that matter?

If Juiz is an AI as I think she is then it's even more incredible than what micchon created.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

As much as the image recognization system is revolutionary it's still little thing compared to what Juiz is capable of.

But is it really Juiz? I personally think she's just the concierge (whether she's an AI or not), as she claims to be, and that what makes everything possible (make the prime minister say whatever, or the SDF throw missiles in the center of Tokyo) is just Mr. Outside's political and economic power.

Just my two cents.