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arkus-rhapsode · 6 years ago

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Eden’s Zero Chapter 1 Review

Hey guys, now before I dive into this already longer than usual review, I did wanna take this time to mention something. Its been no secret that I turned on Mashima and FT pretty hardly after the end of FT and some of you may be aware that I was moderately active in the fanbase with putting out my reviews and such. That said some may liken that shift in mentality to me not liking how the story went and a common critique of fans is that when what they’re fans of doesn’t gel with what they want they wanna destroy it. As if the fan has ownership of the source of the fanaticism.

I admit there are times that I’ve question decisions on Hiro Mashima’s end and has posted rewrites, but that’s not me doing it out of a sense of ownership. I’m doing it because I have a standard. Being a fan of something and letting your disappointment get to you and fester into salty, bitchy purest is one thing, but being a person who’s judging what a series puts out and actually caring about the quality of what’s in the popular media is important. FT got negative reviews in its latter half because it was that bad. By the end of the series it was legit that bad. Now I don’t say that is someone who was in the fanbase and hated Hiro’s decisions cause they weren’t mine, I hated them because it was bad writing. I’m a reader with standards, as are all of you, and in the digestion of media we make distinctions between good and bad. I make this claim with more concrete surety now that I’ve been around longer and have reviewed more series than just FT, I think it be harder to believe if I made this case when I was just starting and all I was talking about at the time was FT.

Some of you might remember when I first started out on MHA, my second chapter I ever reviewed I had found it boring and mundane and to date its my least popular MHA review and I still stand by that assertion. I hold everything to the same standard, and that includes FT. The reason I write this is that while throughout this review I will mention comparison’s to FT’s first chapter (and yes, even ways Eden’s Zero improved on it), but I will be holding it to the same standard. So this entire review won’t be me holding a grudge against Hiro, but it will be me holding it to the same standard as I do everything I read. That out of the way lets dive in.

We open on a hill side and met our MC named Shiki. Beside him is the mecha demon from the cover page and what they see is a... dragon. Yeah, Hiro I thought you wanted this to be wholely original?

On the hand I actually like this scene in the sense robo demon here is actually encourging actual adventure (something FT lacked) and its kinda amazing listening to this demon looking guy talking about friendship, yet on the other hand, damnit Hiro. Is this the only thing how to write about? Like damn man.

We cut to the future where we see our main female Lucy-I mean Rebecca! Y’know I could make a Rebecca from One Piece joke, but she’s kinda already a bit of a decisivee figure so I’m not gonna bother.

I mean its okay. Its just castle theme park. Also Rebecca we find out is apparently a youtuber. Look if DBS can have GodTube then I can put up with Blue Cate (Aoneko) website. Also yeah Happy here, no sugar coating its just Happy. Also Rebecca here purposely made her skirt short. Just because you point out the sexualization in canon doesn’t make it better, ya still drew it, Hiro.

We see that the theme park is full of robots and each one acts as an assist in sending the guest through some kind of medieval simulator. And if anyone has seen Westworld you know where this is heading. To be fair I love worldbuilding so please, explore!

So we find out Rebecca’s dream is to have one million suscribers and now here’s where I gotta give props to Hiro because he actual made a dream for a character that doesn’t seem like it can be achieved a chapter from now. Granted this seems a bit hard to actually quantify, but this dream could potenially evolve into something of why she wants the suscribers and could be like Nami making the map of the world that getting video of unknown locations may actually be worth something to the general population.

We see that Rebecca chooses to go on a monster hunting quest and they encounter...

...This thing. Also it seems Rebecca’s character quirk is she really likes cats I guess? But this doesn’t last long as someone crashes down on mecha cat.

Okay that was kinda funny. I mean if this was FT would’ve actually gotten the panty shot so maybe Hiro has learned his lesson! Also note that wrench!

Oh god damnit Hiro. So this tarzan guy after acting like an animal is knocked out by Rebecca. Y’know it took about 60 chapters before Natsu got all up in Lucy’s chest, guess we’re cutting straight to the chase here.

Okay is joke with here just going be about here short skirt? Damning it with faint praise here, but at least he still hven’t flashed us them yet. Also Tarzan here is the only human on the island.

We get some scenes of Shiki here wanting to be friends with Rebecca cause she’s a human and Rebecca isn’t interested and she returns to the Granbell town where Shiki is there and the robots know who he is.

Shiki’s expressions and creepy advances really gives off this tinge of sci-fi horror, unfortunate Hiro doesn’t really go that route and we’ll get to it. Also that wizard looking robot from the color page is also here.

They then have a party where the robots all celebrate them having a costumer for the first time in so long they have a party being nice to Rebecca and lavishing her with stuff outside is robot that looks like Robin Hood and he reports to his boss this machine king.

Oh look, Hades if he was a robot.

We see Shiki trying to bond with Rebecca and it leads to him expressing he wants to leave the kingdom and see another country, but we also learn he’s in charge of fixing this and the robots are acting up lately. We find out that the one who was talking to Shiki and is his “Grandfather” was called the Demon King a robot designed for playing that role in the park.

Umm Rebecca... That’s being a dick. So you don’t like it, so you decide to cut it, cause it bothers you. You could’ve framed it like, “If he fixes you up then maybe he needs better vision” or “He’s been so nice to me, let me do something for him.” And what makes this worse s that Shiki is asleep, so she doesn’t even consult his feelings. Like seriously, that’s not being a good friend . But for contrivances sake I’m sure Shiki will wake up and love it, won’t he?

Huh? I was wrong instead we got shitty 80s comedy. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

Y’know I said I’d give Hiro atleast two free fanservice moments for his first 3 chapters. He’s now used all of them up in a single chapter. Also Rebecca is tied to a stake while robots with torches surround her along with the machine king.

Shiki is also there and here’s something that did remind me of rave, the tightness of the first chapter. Everything seems to flow like one continuous story and doesn’t seem to do some dumb interlude like FTs first chapter did with that awkward moment where Lucy leaves Natsu and she’s just randomly in the park reading.

The King wants to use her ship to leave this world and we get som kind of motivation out of him.

Oh wow, for a first chapter villain that’s actually a really deep thing to unload. That as amusment park hosts they must’ve just been seen as pleasure tools and with no one around these robots who seem to be senstinent must’ve felt betrayed and...

Oooooor you cut out all moral ambiguity by just saying they have a virus. Sure. Trust me, this is where it gets stupid really stupid. And that’s the inconsistency.

So these robots I guess are like the ones from the Animatrix where they just kinda develop sentience out of nowhere. But unlike Animatrix it doesn’t seem to imply when they developed this sentience and that they began to think they were being abused.

Tired of Friendship already, it ain’t leaving.

So why do you hate humans? They abandoned you I guess, but there’s not other robot saying “hey our times were fun together” no everyone is like they left us to rot so we hate them. Not like Humans did anything legitimate bad. We actually see that at the end of the chapter that there is some sort of central battery on the park that all robots are hooked up to. You could make their reason for hating humans that. That even though they left these sentiment robots still had a little kingdom to themselves, but realized that its all just going to end one day and humans didn’t even bother to unplug them. They’re existence is literally knowing when they’ll die, imagine that as why they harbor negative emotions and maybe Shiki actually fixing things might’ve actually been prolonging their lives so maybe that be why they kept him around. This whole sentience things just feels like Hiro wanted to do a trope of crazy robots and ended using multiple to fit the whatever story purpose at the moment.

You do run the planet, dumbasses. This entire plane, apparently for hundreds of years, has been solely controlled by you. Maye this should be rephrased as, going to the place that built you to get revenge or as I spoiled with the battery we’ll take the ship to get more power for our kingdom?

Shiki doesn’t do anything and kinda lets the robots just wail on him as he found out all things in his life were a lie. Then Rebecca gives a friendship speech. A stupid stupid friendship speech.

You’re right, Rebecca! Too bad we didn’t see that. I’m serious we barely see memories of Shiki with any robot outside of the demon king and Michael so there’s no weight to this conflict. We only get the vague sense they raised hm, but there’s no moments of Shiki really laughingg and enjoying their company outside of the party with Rebecca which rather is made more for getting Shiki to like Rebecca for this moment.

Shiki remembers what his Grandpa the Demon King said and just blows them all away.

We see Shiki’s hand and apparently he has these marks indicating he has Ether gear. The power system of this series.

You’re sentiment! You have out grown your programming! You can choose to have a concept of friendship.

So they fight with shitty action scenes (If I can give Horikoshi a hard time for how he draws his fight choreography, then I sure as hell will give Hiro the once over.) Happy manages to save Rebecca and like Happy from early FT, he basically spots off exposition on powers.

So is it like a literal gear? Because Happy afterward destincties as the Gear of Gravity, so is it like a devil fruit? Is ether in all humans, but this specific gear brings it out in a certain way? If its internal then I guess its like the magic circuits from Fate? And then every of has their own unique variation like Nen? Like cause Happy gives it the distinction of Gravity it doesn’t seem like Shiki gives a reason why he has this power. I’m hoping \its like devil fruits, literal gears you implant and then it brings out your ether in a certain way.

Shiki punches out the machine king and cause a massive collapse.

Credit where credit is due, Hiro actually did build up the reveal of this power throughout the chapter and its actually really well done. Kinda reminds of something Oda would do with subtly building up a devil fruit power without revealing it. Like Crocodile drying out a flower but it isn’t stated his power is specifically sand.

They then flee when the other robots rally and Shiki takes Rebecca back to her ship.

This scene would actually be really nice if we actually saw more young shiki actually having fun with the machines and not a being a creeper with them.

Shiki and Rebecca take off and we see the universe.

Not gonna lie, that’s a really pretty shot. Like damn, I could get behind this.

It seems like worlds in this universe are basically like kingdom hearts worlds. They’re not real “worlds” so much as they are islands in space.

Sure, keep the mystery alive why don’t you, no that be too much.

Well great place to end the chapter. Little dry of a first story, but I definetly see that has room for improvment and there is something-Wait this isn’t the last page? But what else is there to talk about. There’s nothing left-

Oh for fuck sake. That’s right they were trying to send SHiki away. Because apparently these robots thought there was no way to restore battery life even if stayed.

Here’s a tip, ifyou really care, and had such a close bond, maybe tell him to leave? Tell SHiki the truth that you guys are tied to a battery and instead of Shiki vowing to leave for the stars so he can make 100 friends (I’m not kiding that’s his actual goal here). Then this would be an interesting goal.

But no, you have to act like human hating jackasses and shatter the boy’s entire reality, just so you he would go out and “change the universe”

This would be a really nice scene with a very nice amount of character development starting point, if we actually saw their past. All we know is they raised Shiki, but its never really seemed like they’re loving or caring or Shiki openly gets upset if one of them had a problem. Again the biggest flaw with this chapter is that it sacrifices seeing one potentially interesting relationship (Shiki and the robots) for another one (Rebecca).

So we end on this page which reveals that Shiki’s goal is to have a hundred friends. Not going to say something snarky I just realized this is the same motivation as Yuki from future diary. Like before the crazy yandere shit.

Post Chapter follow up:

Lets be positive and look at the good stuff in this chapter. The first thing great about this chapter is it improved upon two of the biggest failings in the first chapter FT. Goals established and world building. Not only does this set up force Hiro Mashima to actually world build (literally) but each person in the first chapter has a goal that doesn’t seem like it can be accomplished quickly. It means we can have investment in the story.

Another thing I’ll give is Shiki is an okay MC. He has more personality than Natsu, but not as much as Haru and this first chapter is about him. Its easy to understand that Lucy is often considered the MC of FT because it literally focuses on her for the story than Natsu. But this chapter had a healthy balance.

Also the power system at least seems to have some definition. Unlike how anyone could have magic yet normal people just don’t choose to use it like in FT. Ether Gear seems to be a powersource that only a select few can use. Now we need to see first if there are ways of combating it like technology or such so a non ether gear person can still fight.

It also has its own unique aesthetic. Ft is a pretty generic fantasy world. It doesn’t have the bleakness of bereserk or the Japanese aesthetic of naruto. You could say Black CLover, Fairy Tail, and Seven Deadly sins all had their first chapter happen in the same world and I’d have trouble arguing it.

Now on to the crappy stuff. This series suffers from the usual Mashima foibles such as the sexual harassment, the stupidly way it tries to justify and give all conflict happy ending, not actually bothering to have a situation drawn out ad built up too, etc. I mean for the first conflict of the chapter its a heavy one, these guys raised SHiki yet their own mentality is against humans so Shiki has to choose, but instead of actually answering that question, it turns out there was no real conflict and the machines were just faking.

As for my like for Shiki, I flat hate Rebecca. She is so pointless and useless. Look I will defend Lucy and she actually can d things. First chapter she saved Natsu by using aquarius. But Rebecca? She’s just all of the bad traits of post timeskip Lucy. She is used for pointless fanservice, does nothing contribute, and becomes a mouth piece for friendship.

Speaking of friendship as a concept and goal here, Hiro just rewrite what you mean. Have deeper meaning than friends for once. There is ways you could take the motivation “I want to make 100 friends” in a compelling way. Prehaps Shiki is going out to make his own world where he can make a happy place for people where they can laugh and cry in harmony. Like story telling wise its pretty weak.

Like me personally, I would’ve taken the first chapter like this, the robots are sentinet and they are nice to Shiki and Rebecca and they have genuine fun together. They gradually reveal that they are shutting down maybe one starts acting wonky and tries to hide it and maybe the machine king is the real bad guy. He has sentinece and hates humans and he wants to eliminate SHiki and Rebecca and that’s because they’re shutting down. The other robots say they don’t care they were abandoned, they were mad at first but Shiki showed them that why they loved catering to humans. King and Shiki fight and they all reveal they’re shutting down and Shiki cries he doesn’t want them to go. The robots say its inevitable and they don’t hpw to recharge the battery and Shiki vows to leave the planet and search for a power source to bring them all back. Then that’s shiki’s goal and it even can cause questions like “Is it worth all this for machines?” or “who designed them maybe we can figure out the right substance to power them up?”

or if Hiro wanted to go a more darker route. Have the machines have no sentience and literally be dolls for the King who turns out to be a human who stayed here on Granbell and made his own little kingdom. Make it a bit meta on how Shiki’s only friends were just hollow imitations of people who were only friends because that’s what their programming dictated and they can all be switched off. It be meta as critiquing Ft and how all the guild characters basically had no conflicts, all got along, and were just friends with no depth or reason.

This all highlights the issue with Hiro Mashima and that’s he is not a good a writer. Hiro is an incredibly talented person and can come up with incredibly unique ideas and looks, which is why his cover pages are the best things he puts out because its him free forming. But writing. He has a limited scope on that and stuff like sci-fi and fantasy can be very morally grey things. But Hiro doesn’t seem to understand tragedy in the sense that its tragic because a person fails or dies unsatisfied. But he only seems to know how to write painfully obvious concepts like “save the world” or “friendship” instead doing a concept like “what it is to be a hero” like MHA does which can have a variety of answers to it.

So what’s the final verdict? Well I actually am going to do something different than usual. I’m going to say what I though the quality was compared to FT and then to what I’d consider this work compared to anything else.

In comparison to FT, Eden’s Zero gets a Final verdict of 8/10

Improves on a lot of FT’s first chapter flaws

Created a more unique environment for a story

And actually has a lot tighter narrative

But in comparison to everything else...

Final Verdict: 5/10

Even if it wasn’t Hiro, its a pretty generic start (some names aren’t even all that inspired like Machine King, Demon King)

Potential to grow into something better is there

Nothing is outright offensive

Cool concept

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