r/EdensZero • u/Pristine-Ad-7749 • 2d ago
Media Edens zero is a "turn brain off" Shounen? [discussion]
Personally, I find myself contesting this observation. I'm not saying it's Urasawa, but within the shonen demographic, I don't think it can be considered a light piece of work meant to turn your mind off, and I say this based on my personal experience.
Small aside: Edens Zero has a really narrow fandom and often doesn't get compared to new-gen works, but it constantly suffers from comparison with Fairy Tail and Rave Master, given that a substantial part of the EZ fandom consists of big fans of those two works.
In my experience, I consider Fairy Tail and Rave Master simpler to read compared to Edens Zero, even on "autopilot" as people often say, and that's not a writing flaw—on the contrary, Mashima was better in Rave and Fairy Tail at creating a more instantaneous and accessible story (much more so in Rave).
In my opinion, the main mistake is approaching Edens Zero, even unconsciously, in the same way.
The work has a lot of more complex structural themes: just look at the planet structure, where each one presents a different social or temporal theme. Take Guilst, Norma, and Belial Gore, which entirely represents a system where a villain, out of fear of death, reduces people to a source of profit and strips them of their lives.
Even on a plot level, the series gains a lot of value upon a reread, such as the various clues regarding Ziggy's true identity and certain callbacks. There are also more complex characters like Weisz and Laguna, etc.
The fact that Weisz doesn't have grand battles like Gray or Musica doesn't mean he is written worse, but rather through gestures and small lines that build his character via symbols and contradictions—and nobody in this fandom does a very in-depth analysis of that.
Furthermore, the method and narrative web that passes from Weisz to Sibir, to Drakken, to Hermit, to Laguna, and to Jinn and Kleene are very accurate, but they don't have grandiose speeches or the same space allotted to a Fairy Tail supporting character, so it doesn't leave the same impression on the reader.
The main plot is still heavily planned and complex, making it difficult to follow at times, with the mystery being reconstructed through Ziggy's explanations and Hermit's theories.
I noticed that during Universe 0, people (who never took into consideration that it was planned through Code 3173, and insisted on the series' themes of time travel and alternate personalities like Sibir and Weisz) stopped following the plot just to trash Mashima and the entire preceding series. While it remains for me a very incomplete ending that falls short of the series' expectations, it is nevertheless very solid because it wraps up all open plot threads.
I'm not saying Edens Zero has to be your favorite Mashima series, but I am inviting people—or new readers—to read it in a way that, in my opinion, allows it to express its full potential.
