[3] Eda graduated the University of Tokyo having passed the Japanese bar examination while studying in its law faculty.

In 1969, he won a government scholarship to attend Linacre College, Oxford (together with then-Finance Ministry bureaucrat Haruhiko Kuroda, who went on to head the Bank of Japan).

Eda was quickly enlisted as a SDF at-large candidate to take his father's place, and won a seat.

He held this seat until 1996, when he resigned to unsuccessfully run for Governor of Okayama Prefecture.

Eda returned to the House of Councillors in the 1998 election as a member of the Democratic Party of Japan.