…………………. I’m, like, twisted up right now. I FINALLY nutted up and got myself a Netflix account, so my brothers and I can FINALLY F*CKING WATCH THE ANIME. I’ve FINALLY finished “My Hero Academia” Volume 5, so I can move on to the “Edens Zero” volumes that have been building up on me; I have volumes 19, 20, and 21 arrived yesterday from when I’m writing this(Wednesday, March 1st, 2023, 2:25pm). And the chapter we’re gonna be discussing today? Pretty Good. But all of the good things happening right now– finally getting to see this series animated and watching it with my brothers; getting to read my volumes of this story; getting to talk about a good chapter- is undercut by the knowledge that I have the f*cking nightshift Saturday. But I already have another matter of business to attend to Saturday- and “Adult” thing. And one fo the rare Adult things that I actually WANT to get to. So unless I can get someone to swap shifts, then…….. I’ll be working with my LEAST favorite person. Oy vey………..
In whatever case; this week sees Hermit Mio backing up her man!! Yeah, I ship it……… kinda. Mashima was a little more “direct” with shipping Fairy Tail characters- and Rave characters, to be honest. This series has Shiki and Rebecca as the obvious End-Goal, but the rest………. a bunch of “Cute” moments. Moreso with Hermit and Weisz than any other “ship” in this series. Though seeing her like this…….. raises some questions. We’ll get to that later. For now; Edens Zero Chapter 229: “Sniper.” Let’s begin…………
REVIEW
After Rebecca’s victory over the Element of Earth Daichi; we cut over to another area in the Belial Goer, where the citizens are fleeing the scene. Hearing gunshots go off like crazy, they flee for fear of their lives. We see Weisz trying to catch his breath in an ally, wondering how Rebecca’s fight went- and how he’s going to win this fight if he can’t find his opponent. Speaking of: Fie starts shooting again, pushing Weisz into a theater where he continues to shoot from multiple directions. The situation looks dire, but salvation come in the form of The Mind Of Edens- Hermit Mio!! And she has memories back already!
Witch didn’t have the time to go and retrieve her actual body, so she dived into Digitalis and went looking for her(finding the Shinobi Troll along the way). Upon seeing Witch again, Hermit regained her memories from the previous world- just as overwhelmed to see her friend alive again as everyone else. No time to bask in it, though; they gotta take out Fie!! But she can’t upgrade Arsenal remotely, so she has to offer her help in another fashion: By Finding His Location Based On Where the Shots are Coming from.
Hermit finds that every time that Fie shoots at him, he uses his Ether Gear to turn into smoke and moving through the airducts between buildings- making him next to impossible to track. As for the shot from earlier that hit him at multiple angles; that was a Bullet Shaped Miniature Drone that Fie was making move at top speed, making it seem like more than one bullet coming at him from different angles. But they can track him because his heat signature is higher than the average person. Now that they have a lock on his location- they have a plan to go on…………
Weisz leaves his suit on auto pilot, sending it at Fie as a diversion. Without knowing; Fie moves to another building through the ducts to avoid being caught. But awaiting him in the next building is a Hologram of Bunny Girl Witch!!! In Hermit’s own words: “One Part Trolling Fie- One Part For the Service.” He wipes away the hologram and fires the shot, destroying the Arsenal Armor. and realizing that it was empty. Weisz comes up behind, and– using the SAME ARM Fie cut off in World 29– crushes him in a Giant Robot fist. The plan worked!!- but Witch is concerned that Hermit used her likeness in such a way. Edens Zero Chapter 229 END!!! To Be Continued In Chapter 230: “The Form Of Ether.” This is all feeling familiar……..
Analysis
There’s…………. so many things that I want to say in this chapter. And I mean that in the Best Way Possible. This chapter incapsulates everything that I’ve been saying about how Mashima’s chosen to depict “Friendship” this time around; it further continues the idea of the connections that the main 4 Humans have to the Shining Stars; it has Witch Service!!! That ALONE is enough for me to call this a 10/10 chapter. But for everyone who isn’t in to that sort of thing; I’ll start with the “Friendship” idea.
This is something that I first started to notice during the fight against the Black Rock in chapter 56: This series is less “If it’s For My Friends, Then I Can Do Anything” and more “So Long as I’m With My Friends- We can do anything.” That fight against the Black Rock showed us that there are some things that Shiki alone is not strong enough to do; his fist alone could not break the Black Rock’s skin. They didn’t even know about it’s weakness until Pino found the weak spot on its back. Homura needed to fight with a busted Ether Sword; Rebecca couldn’t go high enough if Shiki wasn’t there to give her a boost- They needed each other’s help. And even going into the second fight against Drakken; they needed help from Sibir and Noah and Amira to find out Drakken’s weakness- and come to find out that needed to take out the Element 4 to complete destabilize him!! And that’s not even to mention REBECCA’S role in the whole ordeal.
This series is more about how your friends are there to help you up- to do what you may not be able to do at the moment and what you lack the skills to do. Shiki may not have been able to defeat Drakken if the Shining Star’s hadn’t fought against the Element 4; he was stronger and had more to work with than Shiki, and had Overdrive for WAY longer than Shiki did. And without all the information they got from Rebecca and Noah and Amira, they wouldn’t have known how to capitalize on his weaknesses. World 29 showed them how woefully unrepaired they were for Drakken. And that theme- the idea that they can’t fight Drakken unless everyone does their job- is continued here in THIS chapter.
Hermit has a full grasp of Fie’s abilities because of their fight in World 30; she knows what he’s about, has a grasp on his tech, and knows what his powers are. But she’s not their to win again- she had to help Weisz to get his payback. She gave him the information and direction he needed to win. Without her help, whose to say he wouldn’t have lost his arm again? “Teamwork.” This series is so GREAT.
As for the other thing I said in regards to Shiki and co’s connection to the Shining Stars- that’s something made prevalent in their fight against the Dark Star’s. Homura and Valkyrie is Direct, so her fighting Brigadine was inevitable; Sister’s all over Rebecca, so she ends up fighting Clown; Hermit and Weisz are always portrayed as being close, so he fought Killer; which left Shiki and Witch. That’s how I always felt about Shiki’s battle with Wizard; it never felt like Wtich and Shiki were all that close to me. There weren’t as many moments with them being close; you have the implications in chapter 166, and there was how hard Shiki personally took her death, but………. compared to the other 3, it feels like they have to be close just to complete the set. I loved Witch’s death- one of the saddiest scenes in this story with proper send off to her character and Mashima’s perfect portrayal of how people process the death of someone as important to their family as she was. Seriously Perfect. I’m simply saying that Mashima didn’t do as much as he could have to portray them as close as even Weisz and Hermit.
But back to the main point; Shiki, Rebecca, and Weisz are fighting against the enemies that their Shining Star fought against: Shiki is fighting the Element of Water- though a different person than who he was expecting; Rebecca is fighting Daichi, showing off that she can still use her Ether gear while tied up and thus making her “Bathtub Training” with Sister and Witch have validity; Weisz is fighting Fie using the information Hermit had on him from the previous world. Sister is now fighting Jinn and Kleene in the place of Homura, though she comments she’s kind of their “benefactor.” But you see my point.
Now for the weird part of the chapter. We had been believing since coming to Universe 0 in chapter 221 that the key to awakening the Crews memories of the Previous worlds was Shiki’s gravity- that he would “make them fall” into this Universe as he did with the Dark Stars. But that’s not the case with Hermit here. It could be that the instances that made that theory viable- the interactions with Rebecca and Happy, Weisz and Pino, and Sister- were that. Shiki’s Gravity might just be one way for this to work. Certain things might jog certain people’s memories, and seeing Witch jogged Hermit’s. OR……….. This isn’t Hermit. You probably already gather where I’m gonna take this: The Edens One is possessing Hermit.
It did it to Ziggy, making him act like a Human-Hating Machine- it can definitely do that same thing to Hermit. And it’s putting on the perfect act so as to not draw suspicion until it gets what it wants from the Zero. As for the REAL Hermit Mio……….. she’s somewhere in there, just as Ziggy was. Though this is all just a theory. I don’t think I would mind either way; it’s not like Shiki’s powers are outright stated to be the only way to bring the crew’s memories back- or not even THE way; they could have just remembered him upon seeing him(Sister taking longer than the others).
Conclusion
Huh…….. That’s all!! I don’t have much else to say; I pretty much talk on every point I wanted to. Any further would be forcing discussion. Man, I love this series. I’m in a bit of an “EZ Mood” if you couldn’t tell!! I can’t WAIT to see Season 2; the synergy between the anime and the manga is crazy! We’re back in the Belial Goer around the same time the Initial Battle is being adapted into the anime! This is gonna be a fun few months, folks. Til next time, guys- Later!!
