Time of Eve - ONA (2008) - Review
"Are you enjoying the Time of EVE?"
I'm here again with a (possible) contender for my Definitive Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List.
This one is an interesting one, because I first saw this anime way back when it released and I was first digging deeper into anime I found interesting outside of the typical classics and Shonen, and I wanted to rewatch it to see if it held up to that nostalgic view. So, let's see if it did:
Time of Eve is a a 6 episode ONA that was released in 2008 and was directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, who had previously directed short films like Aquatics and Pale Cocoon, and would go on to direct the film Patema Inverted.
This anime explores the idea of the Laws of Robotics, first conceived by Isaac Asimov (The author of books like I, Robot and Foundation). When the main character's Android starts to go off the beaten path, he gets curious and follows that path - stumbling into a cafe where the main rule is "No discrimination between humans and robots", and he realizes that an android he had just seen outside no longer has his signifying ring, and that any one of the patrons inside the cafe could be a robot without his knowledge.
The line between human and android gets murkier and murkier as the series progresses, causing the main character to rethink everything he thought he knew about not just robots, but humanity as a whole. The blurred line makes the anime a hard pill to swallow at times, as the main character is still conflicted on his feelings towards robots having freedom and acting on their own, so seeing the ways in which he expresses that conflict can be difficult.
On the production side of things, the character designs, lighting, and color, are all reminiscent of Oshii's work - which absolutely tracks as far as the story goes, what with both Time of Eve and Ghost in the Shell dealing with similar themes. The camera movement itself, and the style of dialogue and plot are far more reminiscent of Shinkai's earlier works, like The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
While plot of the show does explore the ideas of the Laws of Robotics in really interesting ways, the theme is a barely veiled metaphor for racism/sexism. That idea could have been dug into a little bit deeper than what the anime managed to do, though in fairness it only had 6 episodes with which to do so - and it did offer a really playful spin on perception, since the characters that went to the cafe had no visual indicator as to who was robot and who was human. When using that storytelling technique, they were able to showcase how easily words could be misconstrued to fit your own bias, when in reality the opposite was actually happening. Towards the end, it even manages to toy with the idea of public perception being twisted by bias media with specific agendas, which was arguably some of the more interesting ideas that didn't have enough time to be fleshed out.
The runtime is the cause of the few faults in this anime - all of what was able to be showcased was done wonderfully, from the animation and camera work, to the music and sound design, and more. The themes and plot, while engrossing on paper, just did not have enough runtime to truly encompass all of what it had to offer, which is just a testament to how strong of a premise it really was.
Despite the runtime of the OVA ultimately being a detriment, Time of Eve manages to be a sturdy showing with wonderful characters that feel fully alive, interesting takes on the Laws of Robotics and human perception, and loads of genuine emotion to back it all up. While it might end up falling a little lower on the list just due to that frustrating shortness, it absolutely deserves to be a contender for the Top 100 Greatest Anime of All Time List.
My Current MAL Rating: 8/10
Top 100 Contender: Yes
Current Top 100 Rank: 33/100
