Eden no Ori

This is my first review; I made my account specifically to review this manga after reading some of the others. I'll try to keep this review fairly brief.

I want to say right off the bat, if your main enjoyment of a series comes from a satisfying conclusion, you may be disappointed by Eden no Ori. I've not looked into the production of the series, but I've seen others allude to the author not being able to keep consistent funding towards the end of the series, and thus was forced to try to wrap it up as quickly as possible. *In my opinion*, I think the ending was handled very well considering the circumstances but it would have massively benefited from an additional volume or so of material to flesh out certain reveals and tie up loose ends. On to the review.

Story:

Eden no Ori is, at the outset and throughout most of the series, a very solid survival manga. The main cast have to deal with a number of obstacles and threats, including the "native" inhabitants of the island (the animals), other survivors, and even the environment (treacherous locations and flora alike). Many plot twists become very obvious in hindsight, but I was pleasantly surprised on numerous occasions by unpredictable events.
The biggest issue here is the ending; a wild ride for 170+ chapters ends very abruptly, leaving many loose ends untied and plot lines unexplored. The main appeal for me with the ending is the big twist (sounds like I'm spoiling it right? I promise you will never anticipate what actually happens.)

Characters:

The main cast consists of about 10 characters that are truly essential to the story, and a fair number of "extras"- characters that are needed just to fill out the "drone" or "fodder" archetype. The main characters are basically all charismatic and likeable in their own ways, though some may get on your nerves with seemingly stupid or illogical decisions (keep in mind, the vast majority of the cast is 14-15 years old, so youthful stupidity has its place here.) Most of the remainder of the cast occupy a comfortable position of tolerability. The MC, Sengoku Akira, has a certain spunk and charm to him that draws not only his fellow survivors, but also the reader firmly to his side. (I would also add that one of my favorite characters is the MC's best friend, Arita Kohei, whose side story was tragically axed in the end due to the lack of time to give the series the satisfying conclusion I so desperately wanted.)

Art:

The art is very enjoyable. If you are, ironically, not a fan of fanservice, there are a plentitude of scenes you won't like. If you do like fanservice, be prepared for a flood of it; nothing graphic as is standard in the genre, but very, very many gratuitous panty shots and bath scenes.
Drawn in typical shounen style, you could call it generic but charming. I would add that, with the exception of a sizeable number of the extras, most characters are instantly recognizable, which I consider to be a great accomplishment considering the vast majority of the cast are wearing the same school uniform.

In conclusion, Eden no Ori could be compared to being interrupted after hours of foreplay. The ending is sorely lacking, but at least everything leading up to it was fun.

(Additionally, this series tugged at my heartstrings with a few character deaths. Much of the main cast seems to wear a full suit of plot armor, but there are times when a beloved character meets a truly tragic fate unexpectedly. One in particular really broke my heart; if you read this series, you'll likely know which I'm talking about.)

Let me just say this before you continue reading my review. Cage of Eden, was one of the best thrills i've ever experienced in manga. I was totally compramised by it and im writing this review based on my fresh memory of marathoning 185 chapters of Cage of Eden in less than 20 hours.

Before proceeding to my review, I will be demonstraiting, pouring out my all my hates on this series. I will not be introducing who the fcking protagonist, antagnonist or characters are in this review. There is a highly reliable source of information provided at the description of the manga so stop being a lazy shit and read the fcking synopsis.

Pardon my informal language used in the introduction, however that is also part of my review. By my use of language, you can already tell how much of a let down Cage of Eden was. The review starts here:

Synopsis: Akira and his friends are on plane and suddenly without a goddamn reason, the plane starts to face heavy turbulance and everyone started panicing. Everyone was shitting their pants out. Akira and his friends were unseated during this event and therefore they were thrown around like some babies toy. A few moments later, Akira sees his childhood friend Rion being dragged into some super-space time vortex, he chances her and guess what? They TELIPORTED, HO MY GOD SO DAMN AMUSING RIGHT? Suddently out of goddamn nowhere, they teliported into some stupid unknown jungle, seperated and there were all fcking extinct animals chasing them like rats.

While in search for their classmates, they stumble accross many dangers, battling pre-historical animals in a FIST FIGHT. This is just going nowhere... it's just so goddamn stupid. Although it is, there was an magnetic factor in this manga that surprisingly, intrigued me in a few short chapters.

The tables turned, I was totally engulfed in reading this manga. There is NO ENDS to each arc. The action scene, (humans vs pre-historical monsters) was indeed admirable in an action manga, and the author himself took no second thoughts to kill of a side character eerie/gorily. You must be thinking, stupid reviewer (me), why should we feel affection for the side characters? TRUST ME YOU'LL GET SO DAMN ATTACHED TO THEM WHEN THEY DIE YOU'LL GOOGLE WHY THEY DIED yada yada blah blah blah no point continuing.

Now putting my hates aside, i'll now explain how this series is so captivating. Firstly, Yamada-sensei (Author) brilliantly integrated the best selling novel series; "The Lord of the Flies", and all time respectable animation series "Jurrassic Park". He compliled those two series into his manga brilliantly. Adding a little charm into it by crafting catchy female characters as well as enhancing it with a light ecchi slides.

Yes, the infamous Lord of the Flies.. majority of you would have heard of it from a teacher or seen it in bookstores. And yes, the novel series is just that good, the play stimulates the possible outcomes when KIDS start having their own COUNTRY, They kill each other, rape each other, betray each other bla bla bla go to an elementry school to find out yourself. (vulgar words ahead)

Basically, it was a masterpiece... UNTIL THE LAST CHAPTER, CHAPTER 185 CAME, IT WAS FINALLY THE END! EVERYHING WAS GOING TO BE REVIEWED! WHY WAS THERE A ISLAND FILLED WITH EXTINCED ANIMALS? HOW DID THEY GET THERE, WHY? WHEN? HOW? WHO? WHAT? WHATTT?!?!?!. I WAS BLOWN OFF, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? NONE OF THEM WERE ANSWERED.

Seriously I have no fucking idea of what happened next. The last 23 pages of the manga was just so fucking bad, it's even worst than getting played into the hands of my friends into watching boku no pico. I HAD EXTREMELY HIGH EXPECTATIONS, all those suspense, all those feels, tears, boners, laughs, salvation, hope all those perfect SCRIPTS, THE PERFECT AND CRAFTY CHARACTERS, THEY WERE ALL, FOR 4 YEARS OF SERIALIZATION PUT TO WASTE.

SUCH A LETDOWN, I COULD DIE ANY MOMENT. HURRRRRRRRRR, the author must've went brain dead towards the end. How in the fuck can he end an awesome series into oblivion with just 23 pages.

Nevertheless, this was one of the best manga's with one of the best plots i've ever seen and it did certainly revived my dead motivation to read manga. However... that ending... was just so unbearable that I had to let out all the feels in this so-called review. I'm not doing this to gain publicity or anything, im just expressing my crushed will to live.

This Manga had a lot of promise to it right from the start,The thing that gets you hooked on this Manga is the mystery behind the island, Everything thing in this show just makes you ask WHY?

The use of characters on this Manga was really fantastic, It had every type of loveable guy to every-type of hated character.

The only thing that let this manga down was the ending as it was asked to finished the show in 3 chapters , when there were more than a handful of questions not answered, the author tried his best but did not get to all lose ends leaving this manga with a questionable ending , hopefully one day this manga will get the justice is desired.

What a great travel it was ! This manga was very refreshing for me.

STORY : It was a very good story filled with good mysteries. The quality was totally constant (even if the end felt a little bit rushed but that's not very problematic it doesnt remove the greatness of the story or of the ending). The plot was really interesting, enought to give you the envy to read it without getting bored by it. It was like a travel, as a reader, you were with the characters during the read, when good times, you were happy, when bad times, you were hoping the best for them. I felt really immersed into this world. The setting is very interesting, you will find some creatures that are extincted and characters will try to cope with that, they will do their best. This manga uses our curiosity, as a kid, I have always been curious with the extincted species, some were giant like the giganthopithecus, i was saying to myself "it should be incredible to be in front of one of those !" and this manga use this and it is very well done. In this story, you will also find a mature story, it's not a beautiful fairy tale, characters are in danger and can possibly die, they can be injuried and on this island, there is not a big hospital to cure everyone. It's not overused obviously, it's not a story where 95% of main characters will die and it's a good thing to keep the ending happy.

CHARACTERS : Obviously, they were a bunch of characters in this story but i'm gonna only focus on the main characters that have the most incidence for the story. They were great and mostly not too cliche. It was really great to see how they could be useful to make the story progress. They were working together with a good bond and their reactions were logical and mature. I had a feeling of accomplishment by seeing this team working together, I was happy. Even the side characters had an incidence, I liked them for the most part, I didnt want them to die if something were to happen. Of course I didnt make an analysis case by case because there was just too much characters for that. The MC is not your classical shounen MC even if he has some similarities. He's the leader of the group, many lives are in the palm of his hands and he's not a KGB member. But he will be forced to grow up if he wants to protect everyone, he will be forced to take big risks because in that kind of situation, as a leader, you prefer to die than losing 5 great friends. Not only the island is his ennemy, some humans will be too, some humans who are very strong physically, who konw how to survive and more. The MC starts with a big penalty on him. In the end if he wants his friends to live, he has to win so he will count on his bravour, on his leading skills and on the intelligence of his team. He won't protect his team by doing 90% of the work (unlike an another person in this manga who is very smart and strong). He will count on his teammates to help him by maximizing what everyone can do the best. Teamwork is probably the most important word in this story.

Great story with a wonderful plot. Similar to mangas like 7 seeds.

Rather than horror, I think its more a psychological thriller. The artist doesn't rely on very detailed graphics and scary and bloody monsters or scenes to create those horror and scary effects, but rather, they are something that came together with the natural flow of the plot. I had never been a fan of horror or gore, and my natural instinct is to look away when I know its going to get bloody and disgusting. But in my opinion, the gore and horror in this manga seems so natural to be there and instead of pushing me away, it actually got me hooked and wanting to know what is going to happen. However, I do agree that the truth that has currently be revealed was not as mind-blowing as I expected it to be. But the revelations of mysteries are satisfying enough and I would not complain about it too much.

What I liked most about this manga is actually the other aspects of the manga. The way the author develops the characters is good. There are many different age groups present but the main characters are around the age of high school, or teens. Many of the characters have their own unique strengths, but being strong doesn't necessarily mean they will survive. It's hard to tell whether a character is just a disposable character or secondary main character in this story. Except for the few main characters as you would have expected, you can never be too sure that the rest of them will survive or not. Even some of the characters who die in the end get quite a fair bit of character development. In fact, I actually liked some of them and wished they need not have to be disposed of.
Also, the pace of the story was good. Not too rushed nor too slow IMO.
Then there is also the psychological aspects of people, what they are capable of when faced with danger and desperation. Things like teamwork, selfishness, protection, betrayal, trust, doubt, love, hate, sympathy, indifference, friendship, enemies, relationships... etc often show up like nothing throughout the entire story.

Finally, the fanservice. The author tries to do this as normal as possible, making nothing too exaggerated. Unlike some other manga like elfen lied where the girls seem to feel that walking and fighting naked all the time is perfectly fine, this one seems to be more 'realistic' with the 'right things' at the right time, for example, during baths... when they get injured... or when they fall... etc. So it doesn't really get in the way of the plot and is only reserved for calmer moments.

In conclusion, I think that this would be a good read. One of my favourites. If you have time on your hands, why not give this a try?

The entire thing was great until the end when it made no sense. They didn't finish explaining 50% of the stuff like what the whole island was about. I get that Akira's mom made it with itsuragi's help but they did t explain how they were transported to the future or the actual reason for the extinct animals. Up to the last 2 chapters the story was incredible. The artist kept me guessing and added an incredible amount of interesting facts. Other than the end it was an incredible story which showed the good and bad aspects of human beings and the deadly forces of nature. It is a must read manga if you like the mystery/suspense genre.

Have you seen the show Lost? Most people agree that it had a good set up, atmosphere and mystery to it in the early seasons, but good mystery is rendered pointless by shitty conclusions and a lack of character development. Eden no Ori ended up far worse than Lost did, seeing as Lost actually compensated for its poor plot choices by focusing more on characters. (A strategy which got less and less effective as time went on, but I digress.) I mention Lost because this manga seems to have gotten much inspiration from it and failed in the worst way possible. Ultimately, nothing was answered and indisputable plot holes were everywhere. Who is Hades? Who the fuck knows. Who unleashed the bacteria/fungus? Who the fuck knows. How did they leap through time? Who. The. Fuck. Knows.

People were giving this “10” reviews when just a dozen chapters had come out, without considering the fact that it's easy to set up a "mystery island" plot; what matters is the ultimate delivery, and this manga had none to speak of. This manga is actually pretty good at tricking you in early chapters, but the fact that it’s spitting in your face becomes less and less subtle as it progresses. As both of the top reviews were written by people who hadn't even made it a third of the way through the series, their praise should be ignored.

The art was all centered around fanservice. That is the only notable thing about it, which isn't saying much seeing as it is a staple of most modern shounen manga. It's not particularly good or well-placed fanservice either. The girls are not well drawn and many of them look almost exactly the same, although they can sometimes be distinguished form one another by breast size. Also note that no dramatic scene is complete without a panty-shot, making these important scenes impossible to take seriously in any capacity. Basically, the art was generic and bad. The fight scenes got very repetitive, and while this was also due to a lack of creativity in general, it was usually because they were all drawn exactly the same way. I felt like I'd seen the same panel hundreds of times.

The characters were either "good" or "bad" and either "expendable" or "important." Did you get eaten by a three headed saber tooth lizard tiger? Don't worry, you're an important character. You'll be fine somehow. (No joke. It's that bad.) The main character is a Mary Sue who remains calm and brave in the face of any danger and becomes athletic and smart overnight, despite the fact that he's just a slacker. He has a love interest that has no personality other than "tits." He has a friendly rivalry with a delinquent with a heart of gold who, despite being a middle schooler, can crush professional boxers and overpower wild animals bare handed. The delinquent has a relationship with a woman who only exists for him to protect her and look cool while doing it. The main character also has a friend who is a plot device nerd and has a laptop with infinite battery plus an encyclopedia of extinct animals and other programs that are useless in day to day life, for god knows what purpose. How does he always find the animals just by their appearance anyways? There are a lot of extinct animals to sort through. Point is this: the characters are one dimensional and simply poorly written. Some of them had half-assed backstories thrown in, but these seemed, well, half-assed. There is also a big titted flight attendant and a trap-loli. Why? Because tits, traps, and lolis. Also more damsels in distress. Another thing: this series loves damsels in distress. A whole lot of them. There are a lot of damsels, and they are all frequently in distress.

All of the dialogue between the characters is clunky and unrealistic. It is never entertaining or compelling. Not even once did I crack a smile or think about what deep things they had to say.

The juvenile ideas and general factual errors were a minor issue in comparison to everything else, but still worth mention, in my opinion. The author made up historical, physiological, and scientific facts whenever it was convenient and decided that logic in general was a crock of shit. It also featured some very unintelligent (read: incorrect) psychological ideas mixed in with a bit of political commentary with a depth that I would expect from my 9 year old cousin. It threw in the supernatural out of nowhere and quickly broke those rules as well. Why do the predictions sometimes come true and sometimes not? Because the eternal power of friendship can overpower fate?

So what was the point of Edon no Ori? What can you get from it? It failed as a mystery, an action, and as a romance. It ultimately had no positive points or redeeming qualities to speak of.

The creator should learn to plan ahead in his next work. This manga seemed very thrown together and generally all over the place. It showed not a modicum of originality or intelligence and I would recommend it to nobody. Even those with poor taste must admit that the conclusion was no conclusion at all. This manga should only be read as an example of what not to do when telling a story.

Story: 0/10
Art: 3/10
Character: 1/10
Enjoyment: 0/10
Bonus: 0/10
Overall: 4/50 or 8% (.8/10)

Attention! This review may contain Spoilers!

Pros:

The manga manages to involve the viewer until the end.

The beginning is interesting. I like to see the reactions of the people who were trapped on the Island.

Beautiful art.



Cons:

Lousy characters: I can barely remember a scene in which I was not in the mood to kill the characters in this manga.
But what is the reason for all this hatred? The answer is very simple: MC is practically useless, it has almost no intelligence. In my opinion, it is nothing more than a human shield, it only serves to take punches in place of your friends. But that doesn't stop the characters around him from forcing the bar on him, and trusting that he is the only one who can get them off that island.
But what about the main heroine? Is she even interesting? The answer to that is a tremendous NO !!! Another useless one. Most of the time, she is being captured or is jealous of the interactions that other girls have with the protagonist. I don't think there's any interesting point about this character, honestly.
But what about the secondary characters? Are there any that stand out? The answer is another NO! Idiotic teacher, a Kuudere without charisma and a villain who is described as a mean and heartless being, but in reality does not hurt any fly.
If I were to list all the bad characters contained in this manga, I would be even more extended, and that is not my intention.

Mysteries: I spent a lot of time waiting for a solution to the mysteries that unfolded on that island, and when it is finally revealed to us, it is something completely traveled and meaningless. Laboratory animals? Seriously? What the fuck? Were the characters dead? Was it the mother of the protagonist who created that island, after the supposed death of the students? But how is this possible ???
Nothing has a clear logic in this story.

Protagonism: The greatest power of protagonism that I have seen in my entire life. The MC only had to save a few people, so everyone could start saying: With your help, we can all leave this island. "But how did they come to this conclusion? For saving a flight attendant in the beginning? For serving as a human shield several times? What is the reason for this thinking? The answer is very simple: It is only the power of protagonism.


Characters forgive unforgivable acts: A character is almost raping the girl you like, but he didn't succeed because you showed up, so you're going to be upset and you're not going to forgive him for anything, right? Wrong again, the MC idiot simply forgives the person.


A guy went crazy on the island and killed many of his colleagues, you expect people to repudiate him and make him pay for his actions, right? NOT! They forgive! Yes, they forgive something as serious as someone killing several of their colleagues !!!
There are several scenes as it is in this manga, but the characters simply forget everything, as if it were something insignificant.


Conclusion: As you can see, my hatred is only great because of the damn characters that exist in this manga.

The manga may have instigated me a little, but it's not worth it. It's definitely not worth it, not with those damn revelations that were taken from the ass. Not with these SHIT characters !!
High points completely erase positive points that may (or may not) exist.

Well, I guess I don't even have to say whether or not I recommend this crap.


Score 3.