YMMV / Eden

The Anime:

• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A small complaint is that this is only four episodes.

The Novel:

• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The behavior of the humans on Eden (roaming around the backwoods, entering random small towns, vaporizing or abducting people and destroying a large military force without a scratch to their vehicle) sounds very much like the behavior attributed to stereotypical creepy UFO aliens. They even dissect one of the locals on their ship (although to be fair, that Doubler killed himself by carelessly flipping switches in the engine room.)
  • Conversely, the discussions the crew have about how to deal with Doubler society, and if they should use their superior technology to interfere, with the physician arguing for compassion, the engineer/science officer arguing for caution, and the captain having to decide between the two positions, sounds like a Trek episode nearly a decade before the first show's debut.
• Nightmare Fuel: The clash between the human and Doubler civilization leads to some grim results:
  • The narration itself explictly describes the chapter where the Physicist and Doctor explore a village in a valley as nightmarish. The lights of the village get killed soon after the crew members get a glimpse of it, giving the impression that the Doublers know that they're coming. When the two crew members enter the village, it appears completely deserted, except that every once in a while they hear soft footsteps following them, or a face looking at them through a distant window. They find Doublers hiding in their houses, unresponsive, and already scared out of their mind of something. Then all hell breaks lose, as a stampede of dozens of Doublers nearly crush the crew members to death. They escape almost unharmed but severely rattled.
  • There is a horrible escalation of events as the crew are hiding on a roadside on one of their expeditions. A Doubler out on a drive discovers them and leaves his vehicle to get a closer look. An alien pet he has with him launches a ball of lightning at the crew, which causes them, in a panic, to kill the pet, then the Doubler with their ray guns. They then realize they can't leave the body behind to be discovered, so the Coordinator continuously fires his raygun at the body until it turns into a charred chunk, and then, together with the Doctor, kicks and stomps the greasy ash into the earth.
  • The "torso" of the Doublers is repeatedly described as frail, thin, almost childlike. Which makes the descriptions of Doubler mass graves especially hard to stomach, with small corpses thrown over each other in a pit.
• Tear Jerker: The Doubler scholar does not take long to understand the consequences of following the Defender through an irradiated hole in the black wall. Despite his failing health, he is determined to teach the humans as much as possible about his world.
• Ugly Cute: When the crew is joking and laughing on a break, "their" Doubler moves to join them and starts twitching his head and hands in a strange way, which the Doctor interprets as its attempt at laughter. Noticing that the crew is staring at it in wonder, it retreats back into its body until only its eyes can be seen.