Eden: It‘s An Endless World

And here‘s yet another work that took me more than a decade to finish until I read it in Japanese. Starting to notice a pattern.

As a global pandemic eradicates 15% of the worldwide population, the world is thrown into disarray. The Propater, a criminal organization, takes helm of the UN and effectively of the world. The global order, now thwarted, has become a hostile living environment for many countries, especially so those that have always been at the poorer end of the stick. Two teenagers carrying immunity within their bodies flee from their test facility, their perfect garden Eden, and so the story begins as we follow the adventures of their son Elijah two decades later and his fight against Propater as well as humanity‘s never-ending fight against itself and this time even the planet.

I think I first read six volumes or so of Eden more than a decade ago when I discovered those in Germany – by that time, the volumes had already been out on the market for another decade. I then failed to catch up and let’s just say that non-used market prices put an end to that. And yet, I could never quite shake off the incomplete first third of Eden that I had read since it was just so engrossing, fascinating and unlike anything I had read back then. And that statement still stands today. Eden: It‘s An Endless World is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story of thoroughly unorthodox nature that doesn‘t shy away from depicting the ruthless brutality of its world as it handles all kinds of lofty concepts and avoids the typical pitfalls of its genre. It‘s the kind of story that one would not expect to be told in manga form – yet here it is. As such, it is a one of a kind gem. I suppose it‘s a good thing I bought all of those volumes from a no longer existing Japanese bowling alley, including stains, yellow paper, torn out bits and cigarette smell lasting two decades and half across the globe and, for some reason, it feels like that is the very best way to experience Eden as that just mirrors its global, erratic, uncomfortable, occasionally dysfunctional and always time-encompassing story so very well.

Eden is a very special story insofar as that its setting is shockingly international for a manga and primarily set in countries you would have never even thought of. When we think of international settings for anime and manga, a rarity already in its own right, intuitively, you would think of important, largely Western countries such as Germany or the US but at the end of the day, while Eden mentions these as places of global importance, as a story, it outright shuns them, treating them as mere anecdotes, much like Japan, which is briefly touched upon in a conversation about one of the protagonists being Japanese but him flat-out stating that he doesn‘t represent Japan or identifies with it. Eden views mankind as a collective entity, free of borders.

Eden is a multi-perspective story told with exceeding quality. It doesn‘t shy away from not featuring its main characters for several volumes. In every sense, Eden is consequential with what it does in both vision and world matters. There is a story arc mentioning the fate of the Uigurs under Chinese suppression and bringing up Japan‘s discrimination of the Ainu people just to give you an idea.

Eden pays a great deal of attention to the oppressed much more than the oppressors, putting misery and suffering to the forefront. Most of these people from poor countries are not priviledged enough to have a plot armor or happy ending. Eden is shockingly provocational in reminding its audience of what most of the world is like – from poverty to straight up human evil. It‘s a cruel world but not in an edgy sense but with a fact of the matter approach.

Eden has its fair share of morals yet is not a morality play but it‘s no an anti-morality play either. This gives Eden a very realistic edge during its various battles and gunfights. The action does flow superbly, your eyes essentially zip across the action panel as if you were watching a movie. The visual depiction of murder follows suit accordingly. The violence is grotesque and visceral yet at the same time has a very cold outlook at what happens when human beings get torn apart. There is no shock value and no voyeurism but also no glorification or rule of cool in it. When human beings are shredded and shot, they turn into pieces of flesh with no more conscience, falling apart like a puppet with its strings cut. Those death scenes feel like momentary close ups in that sense, it really is as if it was like someone just happened to take a picture in the moment of people getting killed – their faces have no aesthetic to them, their mouths are open, their eyes focused on something they can no longer see, like an inbetween picture.

It‘s hard to call Eden a survival of the fittest story because that would imply any kind of ideology of control which clearly is not reflected in reality. Instead, Eden makes it very much clear that whether you survive or not coincidentally hinges on whether a bullet flies your way or not, with very little input on the outcome from your side of things. In Eden, life masters people, not vice versa. Eden‘s characters would like to believe that they are in control but they are nowhere near that.

The multi-perspective story approach makes a lot of sense. Characters join ways, part them, get reshuffled and the list goes on. Because that’s exactly how life is. And Eden goes through so many themes, conflicts and regions that all of these being attributed to a single character as anime and manga usually do would just be absurd. And a lot of people will be discarded along the way. It‘s like our main characters are tourists or grim reapers as they move on from one place to the next and casualties become human anecdotes. The variety of ways of life and degree of earnestness that Eden dedicates to its various subject matters is quite astounding and once again justifies the manga‘s length and plenty of characters undergoing their very own journeys. How could there possibly be one main character? If there was supposed to be one, who would Eden be about? A young man, lost in the world of organized crime? Drug traffickers? Mercenaries? Prostitutes? Police? Politicians? Scientists? A doctor? Simply put, it‘s about all of them. That‘s why it‘s called “It‘s An Endless World“.

Granted, in the strictest sense, there is that one protagonist and that is Elijah. But if you removed just one of these people, something would be missing, a puzzle piece to this world. As such, Eden understands that stories don‘t become interesting because they follow the main characters. Main characters just so happen to be part of interesting stories. You can tell the author is a beread person, operating way, way outside of the scope of your average manga artist and all that fuels Eden, which almost reads like a manga-turned manifesto.

Be it terrorism, religious fundamentalism, transhumanism, prostitution, racism, ethnic cleansings, the responsibilities of powerful countries, economic inequalities, there is much to tell and it never feels like the self-congratulatory issue listing that so much media nowadays does in service of its audience to pat itself on its own back while stating “I have become aware of these issues now. Good job, me.“ despite not actually having done anything. It‘s also far beyond the checklist genre aspect writing of drivel like Cyberpunk.

It‘s also a thoroughly political work, which is a rarity for anime and manga. It is such a stark contrast to most of its peers with how direct it is. It feels more like a genre contribution, which is rife with politics, rather than a manga contribution. There is a large sense of overarching humanism but it‘s not rose tinted glasses. Reality always comes first in the storytelling. When Eden tells us about the people who fall to the wayside or get tossed there, it does not write about heroes but sacrifices. No ideals in the world can win against a gun and that is something that Eden is painfully aware of.

The overall sense of politics here is very leftist and internationally oriented, while also being very blatantly in favor of progressivism, from positive but risk-aware portrayal of prostitution (think Sekien no Inganock or Poor Things for reference) to same-sex relationships. In our times, this might not amount to much and be somewhat offturning even with how easy it has become for filmmakers to say “Oh yeah, I‘m also on the side of this thing everyone mostly agrees with me on in my audience, even though I was silent for the last few decades when my voice would have actually made a difference“. This is a manga that started in the 90s. It is progressive in the truest sense, not the “I Voted“ sticker nonsense. This has the credentials of the time to back its messages up.

As such Eden is also such a good example of a manga that is all about diversity due to its highly global setting far beyond any other manga I‘ve read without pandering to any leftist-liberal diversity quotas or other such modern nonsense US academia narrative control attempts. In that sense, it‘s probably closest to something like Black Lagoon, albeit much bigger in scale. It is once again utterly absurd that a manga like this exists, let alone managed to run for 18 volumes. This is, by the very definition of the term, a magnum opus.

Eden is a story that regularly made me wonder how it even manages to exist. By all means, it shouldn‘t. It’s antithetical to commercial storytelling and almost manga in general. Eden is one of the most ambitious undertakings in media in general.

You also will see a lot of science. And what I presume to be pseudo science. Physics, biology, chemistry, space, all the while dropping names of real scientists, organizations, the WHO and so forth. It certainly goes a lot more in-depth about its scientific approach to what‘s happening in its world. You will get in-depth estimations from several fields of science to attempt to explain the seemingly unexplainable and these scientists are portrayed as competent people – and thank goodness the exposition is kept to a very agreeable length and doesn‘t veer into technobabble. There are also several addenda for all the special vocabulary Eden uses, including the above-mentioned but also a technology- or military-themed register of words. There‘s enough to release a glossary I‘d say.

That is part of why Eden feels so encompassing. You could look at the first volume, then the last volume and these feel like completely different stories written about completely different people. This is not surprising since that is how life just goes. It‘s a constant process of culling and recreating. Elijah from the start and Elijah from the end feel like completely different people as he gains and loses people by his side. It really feels like you‘re watching over someone‘s life. As such, the length of 18 volumes is utilized ridiculously well in Eden.

It‘s a long journey because it needs to be. It‘s a trip all across the globe, featuring so many countries and people, spanning across decades.

Eden is not without its flaws however. I don‘t think it‘s art is particularly stunning and it certainly never improves much – although that lends it a certain consistency that‘s rare with manga I suppose. Furthermore, there are some tonal whiplashes with Elijah‘s flimsy nature in comedic fashion that break the mood occasionally and make him feel like a manga character in a story that‘s decidedly not that. And I do believe that, even though the length and countless paths Eden undertakes are its greatest strengths, every now and then, it does fall a bit into the pitfalls of serial storytelling of “generating more“, as vague as that might sound. It is easy to lose overview of all the character backstories and parts that might be relevant 10 years later and as such, I recommend marathoning this one. I couldn’t begin to imagine what following Eden in a monthly magazine must have been like. Well, while it does share that part of building upon more and more elements with, say, 20th Century Boys, unlike that one, at least it doesn‘t collapse under the weight of its constant cliffhanger-baiting and reinventing itself until becoming a mess of a story.

Regardless, sounds pretty great so far, eh? So what prevents me from putting this right into my favorites then?

Simply put, the last arc doing quite some harm to the overall series. Lots of characters simply stop acting, character subplots receive no or unsatisfying conclusions, some plot elements in retrospect ended up mattering decidedly little, technobabble exposition starts rearing its head and some good old manga pathos and cliches worm themselves into a story that was previously bereft of any. There still are enough consequences in the final stretch and it never quite gets “power of friendship“ levels of bad but you can tell this one was probably rushed within its last few volumes, which, while building upon the overall themes and concluding what I suppose was the author‘s vision from the get go, don‘t always stick the landing.

At the same time, there‘s also this Kado-esque feeling of the author having had this very grand idea of how to end the manga in mind from the very get go except after all these volumes, that ending no longer fit the story that was being told all that much and when you suddenly go for the “mankind in the universe – what‘s its role in there?“ question to pop up in this story that started with a survival premise and drug gangs and massacring cyborgs, you can‘t help but feel that the change of directions would have worked better if the last two volumes had been five volumes long to work out the details and characters for this departure on a new journey.

Which is a massive shame. Eden is still a very good manga. But you can no longer just look at what‘s in there without seeing what‘s not in there and had the overall quality of the story been kept up, it easily would have made it into my top 5.

Well, as Eden would point out, life doesn‘t always go the way you want it to.

Finally, there is one question to ask: Is Eden pessimistic? That‘s tough to answer. I believe its message comes from a place of hope but that doesn‘t contradict the pessimism of reality inherently, does it? After all, Texhnolyze is a rather dark and depressing story as well yet is about the beauty of life and the human struggle within. I just feel like Eden believes in mankind‘s chance to do better while very fact-of-the-matter portraying that it‘s not. It‘s not cynical. But its humanism stems from the most inhuman places.

To fix a problem, we must first recognize that there is one in the first place. And that kind of responsibility is placed upon the reader as well.

Eden truly makes your shoulders feel a bit heavier after reading it.

Final Verdict: Very Good.