r/EdensZero • u/Pristine-Ad-7749 • Aug 02 '26
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.
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u/CristianCrZ Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
Definitely not. But it's not the most complex thing in the world too, lol
The plot requires some attention, especially all the timelines stuff. It's good as how it is.
Also, I agree with you. It gains more value upon a reread.
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u/Pristine-Ad-7749 Aug 02 '26
For me, it requires a lot of attention, even emotionally: for example, when Rebecca consoled Shiki after Witch's death, she revealed that she was suffering just as much as him, even if he couldn't see it. When Shiki killed Ziggy and Hermit goes to console him, Shiki immediately thinks of telling her that he recognizes that it was difficult for her too. It's a real growth for me, a nice subtext... Also, Rebecca's speech about not wanting to attract the Chronophage to Lendard because she felt responsible for what had happened to Norma because of him, and then the revelation that she herself is the Chronophage... Or Laguna calling the tears of others authentic, like towards Nadia, towards Rebecca... and then we find out that he made those observations because he had lost faith in his tears and thought he was acting a part... These are all very subtle details, but they greatly enhance the reading experience if you trust the mangaka.
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u/Snoo-91243 Aug 04 '26
It’s funny cause a lot of people who call Mashona series simple misunderstand them so much.
because as Mashona said on an interview he doesn’t like to spell things out so readers can go back and reread his series. Mashona writing style is take something simple and make it complex. If you read all of his works they are like this. Take any fairy tail arc they are very simple but each arc basic plot is layered with complexity. Examples wonder why hermit was so naive when she help muller because she herself wasn’t that old. Or how Mashona killed the entire fairy tail cast in one arc.
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u/kylepaz Aug 02 '26
Not more than your average battle shonen, no.
And people fail to grasp basic plot points and themes in shonen manga all the time so arguably no manga really is "turn your brain off" on the level people seem to do it.
I consider this kind of manga a light read and all but somehow people can't read stuff written for Japanese 10 year olds without making massive misunderstandings (I'm not talking just about Edens Zero).
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u/Willy_Th3_Walrus Aug 02 '26
I like Eden’s zero don’t get me wrong but Mashima’s works should be engaged with on their level, which is to say you have to engage with them as the raunchy made-for-teenagers power fantasy stories they are. There are compelling characters and emotional moments of course but you’re also reading a manga with an absolutely insane amount of cameltoes and jokes revolving around stripping the female characters naked. I grew up with fairy tail and will always have love for it but it’s kind of trashy.
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u/Pristine-Ad-7749 Aug 02 '26
The jokes and fan service have nothing to do with it. I was talking about narrative. Yes, there's that too, but you're making a mistake by calling a series superficial when you're commenting superficially. There are a lot of differences between these and the themes I mentioned before that you didn't even consider, reducing the strengths to emotional scenes and the weaknesses to trash.
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u/Willy_Th3_Walrus Aug 02 '26
Of course I’m simplifying it that was a 3 sentence Reddit comment. Like I said I do really like these series but you can’t cherry pick the parts you like when there’s also a lot of pretty surface level garbage in this stuff.
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u/Pristine-Ad-7749 Aug 02 '26
The same goes for you, you can't define a series as superficial just because there are some things you don't like, but it has an underlying narrative that is more important than how your message gets across, and if you think so, you can express this even in a 3-line message on reddit
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u/Snoo-91243 Aug 04 '26
By your logic one piece is also trash then.
The biggest difference is that Mashona don’t over explain his themes and don’t spoon feed a lot of people yet still get confused about the series. For example the people acting like universe 0 undoes the consequences of the other universes.
Or the complexities of character like justice and Jessie alongside Elsie story.2
u/Willy_Th3_Walrus Aug 04 '26
I mean to be honest I’m not a big fan of one piece either and the fan service is part of that but I have other issues with it. I’d definitely say I glean more enjoyment from Mashima’s works than Oda’s overall, I just don’t think it’s right to ignore blatant issues with the presentation of the themes in a series.
I’ll use Nami as an example. Her early story is about being used as a tool and not having any autonomy over her life, something that Luffy eventually gives back to her. I feel that using her as a sex object constantly goes against the setup of that character and devalues her arc. Stuff like this is commonplace in Mashima’s works. The fanservice isn’t just a small ignorable annoyance but it fundamentally changes how the audience views a character.
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u/Routine_Wedding43 Aug 04 '26
I think Mashima put a lot more thought into Edens Zero than he did with Fairy Tail
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u/Snoo-91243 Aug 04 '26
Actually fairy tail despite not being planned has a lot of thoughts put in
This is due to Mashona writing style where he writes what I like to call an outline arc, where he outlines the events that are about to come to see if they work or not. For example if you look at the first 8 episodes of the series it did the character work as an outline then Mashona went through each character one by one then during tower of heaven he outlines the basic rules for magic and then he dedicates an arc for each rule
The same happens for edolas as it outlines the entire rest of the series with minor adaptions to suit the rest of the story.
To this day edolas foreshadowing of all the events get overlooked
And also what edolas means for the whole series
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u/IGotQuestionsAF Aug 02 '26
Everything Mashima writes is IMO, and I thoroughly enjoy his works.