Binged to here from chapter 42 around Hermit's awful flashback... The art of the chapters is astounding and I'm really glad the fanservice is effective as always... BUT reading Eden's Zero is like watching a supermodel with very good constitution and low charisma values... She's gorgeous to look at but most of what you hear from her is some kind of white noise... And DAMN this sounded sexist... feel welcomed to change the pronouns as you see fit...
The thing is if you are NEW to the battle shounen genre and Eden's Zero is your gateway I dare to say this should be an incredible read... I could double dare and say as good as people feel about Rave in older days... This is Mashima-sensei at his best. You can bet once this piece gets animated youtubers all around the world will sing it high praises... A-1 pictures is prone to put a good team behind this one I guess... My problem is why all this feels so much weightless?... And why I'm failing all my analogies when hot air balloons are amazing?
Let's see how much putting it into written words really can help... I followed the boy for 83 chapters and his death today just felt like narm... Should I blame Mashima-sensei writing or super-estimulation after the events of the most recent One Piece chapter (btw last week 972)? Some good critiques I follow out there rule that the fair measure is to judge the work for it's own merits, making exceptions only for previous works of the same author... All other form of comparison is absolutely a subjective and "who did better" is just your opinion[1]...
Shiki's execution was done very well yet I can't really explain why it felt so weak... so I will just everything that comes to mind until something click... Be warned that it won't be a good reading...
External consistency a.k.a. realism can be ruled out since this is a soft fantasy setting... check
Internal consistency a.k.a. verisimilitude? Ether Gear is everything the plot needs to be so there's no way around rating it... check. It's instated that the time eater is there to make a mess of everyone (readers and characters alike) notion of time... so anything can come of it... check. It's said that Mother can concede ANY KIND of wish but no one ever comments of using her power to bring dead characters back so it just make her a voluptuous, gargantuan and redundant tourist trap and it bothers me a little... If you think about it a little she's as valuable to the plot as Moscoy's bellybutton and this just make it gross... Up to now the only thing that really bothered me is that they instated earlier that the four starshines were needed to travel to the Sakura Cosmos but sensei just went and decided Valkyrie as disposable so they moved the goalpost and made Homura the substitute as the other three can make up for it anyway... It should be minor since Shiki is subbing for the Demon King Ziggy so they had a precedent but it still bothers me...
And today chapter Drakken Joe just broke his no kill policy for some petty reason[2].
That's it: "disposable" is the word that concerns me... It's darker and edgier so it's cool by default... People are ease to praise the "Anyone can die" trope and as much as I disliked it nowadays I came to understand that it's the same as a political incorrect joke: Everyone can do it, but it takes some incredible timing and skill to use it well... Maybe it's wishful to expect that every death should tell? That you could learn more from the killer as from the victim? Since the Dunbar number dictates that you are set to certain number of deaths before the grief stops hurting and you just get stuck in the acceptance stage by default...
There's the pacing too... You see how a common complaint about One Piece has a very slow start? Once I read that a "good author" would make the Strawhat crew reach the Reverse Mountain in 5 volumes or less... and I'm sure Mashima-sensei is someone that could accomplish that with ease... the thing here is that it should be a merit how bustling and fast everything the plot is prone to challenge the good guys but since Eden's Zero algorithm of evil can't register anything different from "plain asshole"... You are left with the feeling that these guys are just a waste of good character designs...
Probably the last thing to discuss by now is Shiki's last words... the jarring part is how much this fit his character to a T... apparently Joe is so worthless that even at gunpoint Shiki can´t feel anything but pity for him...
Yep I tried and I failed... Makes one wonder if a different writer could do justice to such good fanservice...
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mr. Poneis
[1] It's a good exercise to measure everything by Dragon Ball (Fight Choreography), One Piece (Worldbuilding) and Naruto (Character Drama) rules... But leave that as such... Just for fun, in a scale measuring shounen works where the D.O.N. triad makes a 10 Hunter x Hunter, Full Metal Alchemist are 11's, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Meitantei Conan and Boku no Hero Academia are 9's and everything else is an 8 or less... Your mileage might vary... Jojo (any part) and Yuu Yuu Hakusho are 10's in their own way...
[2] Maybe later we will get the reveal that the Satan's gravity is something really fearsome and my comment will just fall to the ground...
