Explore EDEN

Occasionally interesting comic stories emerge from creators who aren’t fantastic visual artists but diligently self-produce their comic stories nonetheless. Often times the results of such efforts remain little seen. Sometimes, such as the case with the early work of animator Makoto Shinkai, the strength of the story demands attention in spite of the limitations of the visual design. The epic fantasy story Eden by amateur Japanese mangaka “BASH” clearly seems to fall within this category of one-man self-produced comic art. However, after three lengthy chapters, EDEN, serialized in English by GEN Manga, is still an intriguing enigma.

EDEN appears to be a complex medieval fantasy incorporating Christian doctrine, Japanese mysticism, science-fiction, and horror. The story revolves around Toru, a mysterious cursed young man of indistinct age who maintains a tense stalemated antagonism with Angels. In the story’s first three chapters, Toru wanders into then escapes a mysterious wooded village separated from the rest of the world by bizarre time manipulation, all without Toru ever realizing that he may have a personal connection to the village hidden in his own amnesiac past. The story employs a familiar “enemy of angels” trope and seems to coincidentally borrow Berserk’s concept of a wandering protagonist perpetually followed and tormented by minions of his enemy. But the implementation of the story concepts doesn’t feel directly indebted to particular other works. In fact, the inclusion of a multitude of additional concepts, including Toru’s mysterious and forgotten past, uncertainty about Toru’s physical nature, a shape-shifting female crow companion, the village of wolf gods, and the suggestion that the familiar Christian story of Eden is an inaccurate facade all contribute making Eden feel unique.

But nearly 150 pages of story and far more questions than answers or plot development leave the reader feeling intrigued but also confused. The manga story’s tendency to introduce so many mysteries, including several not even mentioned so far in this review, inspire the reader to wonder if EDEN is actually tremendously epic or if it’s merely floundering with an excess of anchorless ideas, ambition without a road map to success. Foreground art design is atmospheric and evocative, amply creating a sense of deep, dark, and dangerous forests and caves. Background art, however, is frequently missing, especially in conversation and dialogue shots. Extended action scenes, particularly a lengthy one in the second chapter, are difficult to discern due to the limitations of the art design. Likewise, dialogue is sometimes difficult to attribute to the speaking character. Visual sound effects are kept in Japanese and left untranslated.

Despite some weaknesses inherent in the amateur visual art, EDEN is off to an intriguing start with a complex, fantastical story that poses many provocative, engrossing questions but provides no answers. No on besides author BASH yet knows whether EDEN will fulfill its tremendous promise of rich, complex epic fantasy or turn out to be a lot of pretentious suggestion with no satisfying follow-through. But these first three chapters are strong and interesting enough to merit recommendation to fans of deep fantasy manga. Readers who have enjoyed action/fantasy titles like Berserk, Claymore, Trinity Blood, Spriggan, Shingeki no Kyojin, and fans of doujin manga with great potential should definitely check out EDEN.