I talk about Hiro Mashima’s work a lot. Yet I’m also one of the people who is quick to call out problems with his work. It’s often aimless, repeats a lot, uses too much fanservice that doesn’t get anywhere and it’s far too clean when it comes to the stakes it tends to have. Despite all of this, I have a ton of respect for the author. In an industry where the average manga author is overworked due to the inhuman schedule, Mashima doubles and triples up on the normal workload while still exploring other outlets for his creativity. I finished volume 26 of Eden’s Zero today. It was really good. I highly recommend you read the series. The anime adaptation felt a bit slow to me, but as a story I believe Eden’s Zero to be much better than its predecessors.
So what do I mean when I say his workload is extreme? He’s currently writing Eden’s Zero, providing storyboards for Fairy Tail: 100 year quest and writing a monthly manga called Dead Rock which I am unfamiliar with as of yet. In the afterword of Eden’s Zero he also talks about working on a video game and the script for an anime project. You can also sense his love for video games a lot in this latest volume of Eden’s Zero. His characters play video games and they talk about video games, even likening some recent events in the story to video game mechanics.
So why am I talking about Mashima again? I don’t really know. I have a fascination with his work. I think my problem is with the inconsistency. When Fairy Tail, Rave Master or Eden’s Zero are at their best, they’re the absolute kings of “dumb shonen fun.” That’s not meant in a negative way by any means, it just refers to the lack of stakes, consistent power levels and clearly defined power systems. It doesn’t hold a candle to the complexity of the Jujutsu world, the creativity of the Devil Fruits or the incredible originality of the Nen system from Hunter x Hunter. But Hiro Mashima’s work never fails to make me smile. His characters are fun, the power of friendship that fills his works comes from a place of love for his craft and the fights are often great. He is also very good at including unbalanced fights every so often where we can watch the main cast go to town. These are great moments to show off growth. And because rarely anyone ever dies in Mashima’s work it’s easy to get attached to characters because you don’t risk getting hurt by their death. That’s a far cry from a lot of the more modern, edgier shonen that have been popping up lately. Those are great too, but in a different way. Instead we have a more sanitized story that just feels nice to read.
And I do want to acknowledge that I believe Eden’s Zero to be much better than his previous works. For starters, it feels like Mashima had an actual plan when he started this series. How much of it was planned I don’t know, but it feels like the story threads were laid out from the very beginning and he only followed them to where the story is now. Especially with Fairy Tail it felt a lot like he ran out of content about seven volumes in and then wrote another 60 just by throwing stuff at the wall. That’s why a lot of the later story feels so hit or miss to me, it doesn’t feel like a natural progression of what came before, it feels much more like separate arcs with a few planned moments and some flavorless stuffing to fill up the rest. Again, I’m not trying to be mean, it’s still a good series and a very impressive run, I just wonder how much better it could have been. I think Eden’s Zero gives us a peek at those possibilities. It’s not over yet, and I know that historically shonen manga have struggled to stick the landing but with how clear of a path this one has been following up until now, I think Mashima can do it. I for one am going to stick with this series until the very end and I’m incredibly excited for the upcoming few volumes. If you’re looking for a good fun shonen, I think Eden’s Zero is better than manga like My Hero Academia and Black Clover, and it has great character designs too. They’re so good, Mashima keeps using them over and over again. (I’m sorry, I understand why, but it’s still jarring at times). Thanks for reading, if you have any burning opinions about Mashima’s work that clash with mine or just haven’t been mentioned in this post, please feel free to leave them down below, comments are always appreciated!
Opal Kaharis 