Eden: It's An Endless World!, Vol. 1 (v. 1) (Paperback)

~ Hiroki Endo (Author, Artist)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A gay man, near death from the paralysis that has killed billions already, and two teenagers--one his best friend's son--live in a huge experimental facility, now dilapidated, that was built to foster plague-resistant individuals. The teens are its only success stories. Now the boy's father, his brain joined to a mechanical body, returns with soldiers and UN personnel. Amid revelations of friendship betrayed, a fight breaks out. With the help of an AI the boy has reanimated, the teens prevail. Twenty years later, the boy's son, accompanied by the same AI, explores a deserted city, and three men and a seeming girl capture him. Endo mutes manga distinctives for realism's sake (e.g., eyes look normal, not the size of saucers), keeps the violence short and sharp, inserts a few low-key satiric jibes at late-twentieth-century sociopolitics, and paces the narrative to facilitate milieu and character development. He conjures a postapocalyptic aura of near-palpable mystery. Why did what happened occur? Fortunately, this is just volume 1. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description

Eden Volume One is both a brilliant love song to the post-apocalyptic survival genre and the beginning of a deep exploration on man's role in the natural order. In the near future, a large portion of humanity is wiped out by a brutal, new virus that hardens the skin while dissolving internal organs. Those who aren't immune are either severely crippled or allowed to live with cybernetically enhanced bodies. Taking advantage of a world in chaos, a paramilitary force known as the Propater topples the United Nations and seeks world domination. Elia, a young survivor searching for his mother, travels towards the Andes Mountains with an artificially intelligent combat robot. When he encounters a group of anti-Propater freedom fighters, a maelstrom of unique characters unfolds. Graphic, cyberpunk, and philosophical, Eden is a place where endearing heroes face a constant struggle for survival and violent surprises wait around every corner!

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (November 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593074069
• ISBN-13: 978-1593074067
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #619,208 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent beginning to the series, January 1, 2006

By	hak42 (Dover NH USA) - See all my reviews

This is in the post-apocalyptic survival genre and is rated 18+ due to violent content. A new virus has spread through humanity, hardening the skin and dissolving internal organs. Those who are still alive are crippled, cybernetic or immune. Meanwhile, the human desire for power continues and there is a new organization looking to rule the world. It's an interesting look at man and nature.

This first volume is very good. The art is excellent. The story is introduced well and in an interesting way. I'm looking forward to finding out not only what will happen to the characters, but filling in what has happened in the past.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars epic page turning saga, October 27, 2005

By	D. Godfrey "Monkey" (Poultney, VT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Finding out that Dark Horse has picked up this amazing manga is one of the most exciting events of the year. It is one of the best series I have ever read, and I am surprised it took so long to be picked up.
It takes place in what could be considered a post apocalyptic age of man, but it is nothing like any other post apocalyptic manga out. It is filled with political intrigue, personal drama, and mind blowing plot arcs. The apocalyps is just the beginning and the canvas on which this story is painted.
It follows the life of a boy, Elijah, and his travels through the unique anarchic landscape of a world ravaged by a plague known as the Closer virus. With an ensamble of friends of happenstance, vicious enemies, and mosters, Elijah's world is far from the biblical paradise of Eden.
The author builds an array of interesting complicated characters, giving time to them as much as any main character, no matter how brief their life in the comic is. They are people for the most part real, aside from some who have been modified cybernetically.
As far as the artistry of the graphic novel is concerned, it is precisely that, graphic. It is not a novel for children, and often attacks adult issues head on. Aside from that, the action scenes are dynamic representations of the climax, either emotional or physical, of that scene. No shortage of blood, and guts, but not so splattered across the page as to be considered obscene.
These pictures are only there to support the myriad of plots, sub-plots, serializations and cliffhangers that are throughout the manga, as it heads toward an uncertain conclusion. There are twists turns and, growth, actual full fledged growth of the situations present, which become continually profound.
Read this manga for its drama, its violence and its imagination, whose vision of a post apocalyptical world can only be described as human.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Apocolypse Tale As Smart As Akira, May 27, 2006

By	Antonio D. Paolucci "Collector of Entertainment" (Beaver Falls, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Eden is an awesome manga. If any manga has achieved a literary state it has to be this one. For example, it doesn't exactly present characters the way other manga do, by showing what they look like, and having them act out in a way that would be characteristic. What Eden did in this volume was present the setting first, and have the characters interact with that setting. Being a post-apocalyptic tale, the setting is key, and having certain people react a certain way to the setting will reveal a lot about that character. Personally, I thought this was brilliantly done, and I felt that I knew Elijah, the main character, well enough to like him, even though he was only in three short chapters of this volume.

The story in Eden--in this volume at least--begins with two teenagers, Enoah and Hannah, as they care for their guardian Layne, who's dying of a disease that hardens the skin and turns the insides of a human to mush. While caring for Layne, these kids learn of their responsibility to human-kind, as well as the tragic past that aided in bringing about the apocalypse in which they are living in. Later, the story moves to young Elijah, a boy whose only companion is a robot named Cherubim, as he goes about the everyday job of survival, including scavenging and hunting, as well as dreaming of girls.

Though admittedly the story is slow, and very little is given away as to what direction Eden is heading in, I can't knock it for the simple brilliance in which it is unfolding. Hiroki Endo put an emphasis on presenting the stark setting and conditions of living in the volume, and also made it clear that it is an intelligent plot no matter how slow it is. The back cover states that Eden is "a brilliant love song to post-apocalyptic survival genre" and I would have to agree on that. Eden is a smart story rivaling even Akira, and one I highly recommend for fans of darker, smarter manga.