Eden: It's an Endless World!

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Eden is the best completed manga I've read up to date.

Why?

Because Hiroki Endo's post-apocalyptic tale has got almost everything that can be considered good in manga in spades: great story, gorgeous art and near perfect characterization. Imagine a well thought-out, mature story clashing seamlessly with art that manages to be both realistic and beautiful and characters that almost seem more real than the people one encounters in their daily lives. If painting a picture in your mind of a manga with such merits proves to be too difficult for you, grab Eden and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Science fiction is a major element in ... Eden's story. In Hiroki Endo's hands, though, the act of toying with wild speculations about the future has not gotten out of hand at all. The story is set in a world that has undergone a large disaster, but that disaster wasn't an attack from outer space, a sudden detonation of the world, the work of a mad scientist, or any other pompous crap like that. Rather, Endo has chosen an evolved killer virus as a means that almost lead to the end of the world; something that people living in a world riddled with various epidemics, deadly or not, can surely identify with. The workings of this closure-virus (as well as other scifi-esque stuff that comes up later on) have been explained thoroughly enough that the reader can easily grasp what's going on.

But Eden is much more than just another heap of end-of-the-world-scifi-shit. It has a lot of drama stemming from the interactions between the characters, a touch of romance and happiness even amidst the harsh realities of a world gone from bad to worse, and even an occasional spark of humour.

The tale's maturity comes from the way these different aspects are handled: carefully and with a clear effort regarding good taste. The world in which Eden is set is brutal and cold, but it doesn't preach about bottomless gloom and doom and hopelessness and depression and whatnot. Yes the world is sometimes harsh and uncaring, but in Eden, there is room left for the good things as well.

Just like all the good stories, love and romance and dramatic relationships have their place in Eden. Following along Endo's decision to keep things from flying off the handle, there are some hugs and kisses (...), but not in ridiculous abundance. Love happens, just like hate, friendships, sadness, happiness and other kind of shit happens. It isn't overly highlighted or downplayed, it's simply there with all the other aspects of life.

The less serious side of Eden starts to become more prominent as the story goes on. At some point the readers find themselves seeing sexual jokes, chibi characters and some other silly characteristics of manga art more and more often. Some people have found this upsetting. I liked it. It made me laugh. I also think that paradoxically, a dose of good humour brings more credibility to a story dealing with serious issues rather than a no light in sight-type of tragedy.

A common way of defining whether a story is mature or not is to measure how much it has blood, gore, violence, sex and all that type of jazz. Though I'm not one to promote that way as a measuring stick for how grown up the story is, Eden does show its assets in this regard as well. If Endo wants to give us gore, he gives us showers of blood, shredded limbs and cracked bones instead of some lame stumps a la Claymore. Also, one of the ugliest torture scenes I've seen in manga. And when it's time for sex, we see passionate screwing, kissing, and gropin' in place of the usual cheek smooches and blushes so typical in common "romance" mangas. And just like with all the other faces of Eden, realism is the key word here: in no point does Endo slip into sloppy tastelessness with his more graphic imagery.

Imagery, which is, as I stated early on, simply gorgeous. Endo manages to capture that unique beauty in Japanese style of comic-writing, be that in the characters, sceneries or anything else, without drowning us in saucer-sized eyes or over-groomed scenes. Realistic beauty. Wait, is that even possible? In Eden, it is.

Other aspects adding on the reading pleasure include clean panel arrangements and the author's interesting essays at the end of each volume. Like cherries atop a well creamed cake.

As per everything else, not all is perfect, or even excellent, in Eden. I could go on about some of the manga's minor issues for a paragraph or two, but it'd be a waste of time. The occasional bore of reading long lines of science jargon. A misplaced joke here and there. Some over the top philosophy. Consider it a cow chip next to Mt. Everest.

The bottom line? Go read it. Rite nao.

Eden: It's An Endless World is a very aptly-named manga, in that its definitive feature is how utterly, endlessly sprawling it is. Eden covers several decades (to the degree that it begins a long time before the protagonist was even born), numerous locales, and more characters and plot points than you can possibly hope to keep track of all of.

It begins in a post-apocalyptic society that is being devastated by a pandemic. This new virus known as "Closure" causes people's skin to harden into an outer shell as their internal organs gradually liquify - an agonizing process which often takes years. The series begins with ... two children, Enoa Ballard and Hana Mayer, who currently live separated from society alongside their heavily-religious guardian who is slowly dying of Closure. In of itself, their story is excellent, but this is merely the one-volume prologue.

Many years later, the story moves to their son, Elijah Ballard. Initially he is making his way in the post-apocalyptic society, alongside his father's robot, Cherubim. However, he rapidly gets involved with a band of guerrillas. From here, the story begins properly, but this barely scratches the surface of it.

To call Eden "ambitious" would be an understatement - think of any major, lofty theme found in fiction and Eden probably has it. This can be something of a double-edged sword; some people complain about Eden being "unfocused". This is understandable, as Eden is so utterly dense with plot threads and characters that it sometimes collapses under its own weight. However, it's a necessary evil - if it restrained itself even a little, Eden would most likely lack the sheer scale it has.

This definitely isn't a manga for the faint of heart - it's incredibly explicit, in terms of both sex and violence. It's unflinchingly brutal, and absolutely no character has plot immunity; anyone can die at almost any time. Similarly, it has no reservations when it comes to sex - as the post-apocalyptic society has caused sexual trafficking and prostitution to become all the more common, it's only logical. Hell, a reasonable chunk of the story is set in a brothel and revolves around prostitutes, amongst whom one of the best characters in the whole series can count herself. Unsurprisingly for something as thematically heavy as Eden, "good" and "bad" are near-meaningless. Don't expect morality to play any big part in it.

Unfortunately, around the halfway mark, Eden dilutes itself with comedic elements that are uncharacteristic of it (and also aren't very funny). This also happens around the same time as a rather ill-advised timeskip that happened to ruin a great character who was soon after killed off unceremoniously. There is a stretch of a couple volumes that were littered with mistakes that unfortunately drags it down - which is a shame, because outside of that Eden is my absolute gold standard for manga.

Of course, there's only so much damage that can do to something otherwise so very strong. Eden definitely sits among the best manga I've read.

Final Words: Though it occasionally stumbles under its own weight, Eden is a manga so overwhelming that few can hope to compare to it.

Story/Plot: 9/10.
Characters: 8/10.
Art: 10/10.

Overall: 9/10.

For fans of: Akira, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

I don't know how to review manga, but I want to still share some of my thoughts on Eden: It's an Endless World! This'll be spoiler-ish.

I was suggested this fairly intriguing looking manga by a mysterious forum user. It was in response to a forum post I had made on here, I wanted to read something truly apocalyptic. Where humanity gets obliterated to hell and back. It could've very well been that for a good while. No, no such luck. So that's why I am more than glad I skipped ahead to see the ending. ( No one in their right mind should waste their ... time reading such a long tale if it might not even be headed in a desirable direction...)

This is a POST-APOCALYPTIC manga. That's what Eden ultimately is. I could insert some biased criticisms about it's natalistic and not so... dark ways of thinking, but they're reasonably presented that it would be pointless. I am just let down that I didn't get to see some deliciously grim destruction and rape of mankind.

Apocalyptic to me is when literally all hope is squashed through and through, and it focuses on it's eve. The end of everything. Post-apocalypses don't have this, and as a result more often than not give me boredom with all the what ifs and what not attached.

I guess... it was refreshing to see the gnostic influences. They're I imagine uncommon in manga.