Eden: It's an Endless World! Volume 2

by Hiroki Endo

Graphic, cyberpunk and philosophical, Eden is a place where endearing heroes face a constant struggle for survival and violent surprises wait around every corner After a large portion of humanity is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593074549
• ISBN13: 9781593074548
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: Dark Horse Manga
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

If you have an open mind, take a trip to EDEN...

Eden is a really good series so far. Do yourself a favor and check it out. By vol. 2 here I was hooked. Smart storytelling and great action. Recommended.

TAKE NO PRISONERS

The first volume of Eden was a little ambiguous in terms of setting and the reasons why Elijah was in the middle of nowhere with the human-like security robot Cherubim. He was taken captive by a group of fighters led by Colonel Kahn who wanted to use his vehicle to get out of Propater controlled territory. As it turns out in this second volume, most of South America is a battleground between Propater and the United Nations and various assorted warlords, drug kingpins, and bandits. It's pretty much like the Wild West where the person with the most firepower usually wins an argument. When Colonel Kahn's group wipes out a bandit emplacement, they unwittingly pick up two new members, Kachua and Helena, two women who were going to be sex slaves for the competing armies on the frontlines. The problem is that Kahn and the others don't like loose ends or baggage, so they might end up dead anyway, unless Elijah can save them! And Propater soldiers are hot on their tail! I think Eden is great. The art is perfectly rendered and beautiful, beyond anything Western comic book artists are doing. Hiroki Endo captures the complexity of human beings, especially in their out-loud thinking sililoquies on the state of the world one minute showing gentleness and caring and then the next slicing through an enemies neck with blood bursting all over the place. That's really what Eden is all about, terrible moments of battle and violence and then in the quiet afterwards, the battle between staying human or becoming a mindless killing machine. Cherubim doesn't have a choice at this point, he can simply be programmed to murder, but the humans have a choice! I look forward to great things from this series.

Brilliance Once Again

The first volume of Eden had me hooked almost instantly. I blasted through those pages wanting nothing more than to see more of what our world has become within the pages of Eden, and to meet the people who are forced to live in this world and survive. Though the story unfolded very slowly, it seemed almost literary with the way in which the plot elements were introduced, and no manga I've read has ever achieved this level of excellence (maybe Monster is close). Volume two continues that, only this time it presents most of the major players, as well as the major conflict that the seeming hero, Elijah, must go through. Guerrilla warfare fills a lot of the pages, and Elijah, along with a prostitute named Helena and Kachua, a village girl, are forced to witness the brutal and bloody battles while finding a way to stay alive themselves. This volume also takes a glimpse into Elijah's past, thus linking him to the prologue in volume one, and answering a lot of the earlier questions that arose (like who Elijah is and where he came from, and why he has Cherubim, the fighting robot that was restored early in the prologue in volume one). Though it still doesn't get too deep into it, by the end of this volume it's very clear who the protagonists and antagonists are. The similarities this series has to Akira are astonishing, and one of those similarities happens to be a commitment to story-telling excellence. Eden is for anyone who enjoys post-apocalyptic anime or manga, and I'd even go as far as to recommend this to older people who want to explore what manga has to offer.