Eden: It’s an Endless World! volume 1


By Hiroki Endo (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-406-7 (Dark Horse tankōbon PB) 978-1-84576-487-6 (Titan Books Edition)

Here’s an eerily out-of-print but disturbingly topical series from a decade ago that’s worth tracking down, not just because of its sheer depth and entertainment quality, but also because it now qualifies for a growing subgenre of fiction (retroactively seen in prose, film, TV, comics, documentaries and national/international governmental reports and recommendations) that many people are calling “We Bloody Warned You”…

Despite the truly monumental breadth and variety of manga, I suspect that to western eyes Japanese comics are inextricably and inescapably conflated with science fiction in general and cataclysm in particular. That doesn’t mean they aren’t individually good and worthy of merit and acclaim, just saddled with some unfair presuppositions. With that stated and in mind, any fair reader should sit down to Hiroki (Meltdown, Soft Metal Vampire) Endo’s Eden: It’s An Endless World! and be prepared for a treat. The tale was originally serialised in Kodansha’s Monthly Afternoon between 1998-2008, eventually filling 18 tankōbon volumes.

Elijah Ballard is one of a small group of immunes who have survived a global pandemic named the “Closure Virus”. Most of humanity has been eradicated, and those infected who have survived an initial exposure are doomed to a slow deterioration compelling them to augment their failing bodies with cybernetics simply to survive. Thus, they barely qualify as human by most old standards and definitions…

Pockets of survivors immune to the plague are dotted about the planet and as years pass various factions form to take control of the world. Through a series of flashbacks, we see the immediate aftermath of the plague before jumping twenty years to follow this Ballard’s picaresque ramblings through a devastated South America. Accompanied by a robotic bodyguard, he is eking out a precarious existence when captured – or perhaps adopted – by a rag-tag band of soldiers.

When the world died, political society divided into two camps. The fragmented remnants of the United Nations tried to retain some degree of control but found themselves under attack by Propater, a revolutionary paramilitary organisation that had been planning a world coup even before the virus hit. Global war has raged among the survivors ever since…

Now caught up in this conflict, Elijah realises that his long-missing parents are major players in the new world order and day to day survival is no longer his only concern…

Despite the cyberpunk appurtenances and high-octane pace of the narrative, this is in many senses a very English approach to the End of the World. There are echoes of that other Ballard (J. G.: the author, and regrettably never a comic strip scripter), Aldous Huxley, and even Chapman Pincher. The mature themes presented here aren’t simply nudity and violence – although they are here in an abundance that will satisfy any action manga fan – but also a lyrical philosophy and moral questioning of political doctrine that underpins the text in the manner of much Cold War era science fiction and nothing at all like the majority of contemporary investigative journalism…

Subtly engaging, beautifully illustrated and deftly balancing swift action with introspective mystery, this series will appeal to that literate sector that needs their brains tickled as well as their pulse rates raised.
© 2007 Hiroki Endo. All Rights Reserved.