You know? This sh!t leaks like Saturday I keep hearing. But I don’t always find the link that early; I have to ask around on Twitter. And as I told in the recent Dump Post(from YOUR perspective- I’m writing this part Sunday, April 23rd, 2023, 7:22 pm before that post comes out): They don’t always answer. So I have to go looking around. And EVERY SINGLE TIME, I forget the site where I started reading manga- the first site where I read “Edens Zero:” Manga Freak. I always forget to check mangafreak when chapters leak early!! He says like he’ll even remember come next week. Then again, knowing my unluck; they probably won’t have the chapter when I go to start the review, either. That being said, next week is Golden Week in Japan, so I won’t have the regularly scheduled stuff next week. Maybe I’ll be able to put out “The Owl House” review then……. Don’t………. Don’t Get Your Hopes Up For That. For some reason that one’s getting……. oddly personal. You’ll see what I mean when it’s time. 

I’m writing this in the middle of the Four Knights review, so my attention might be a little bit “split.” Bear with me, folks. SUCKS I couldn’t review the last 2 chapters, but I’ll make up for them here. This is gonna be a long one, isn’t it? In which case- Let’s Get This Part Started. Edens Zero Chapter 237: “The Vanished Planet.” This one is good but not the BOOMPH the last 2 were……

Overview

Picking up from where the last chapter left us: Laguna shoots a woman in the head in front of her child, Aruna. The crew is floored by what they just saw, and Shiki speaks up immediately, demanding an answer from Laguna. Only for it to be revealed that this is all part of a Movie Laguna’s filming. Oasis members from the previous world are the crew behind the scenes. And the Edens Crew just blew the scene. Also this doesn’t seem to be Aruna’s actual mother, but she still has Miimi with her, so she seems to be alright. Laguna decides to cancel the shooting for today, as he now has some Important Guests to deal with. Yeah, he’s got his memories back already. 

Back on the ship; we see the Shining Stars proper discussing One Void- the Edens One’s physical body made via the Perpetual Mecha-Soldier Birthing Machine Mobius. Valkyrie- having only recently learned of One’s existence- finds the whole concept headache inducing. They inform her that One took over Ziggy’s body in the previous world, but it seems as though One has made a completely new body from scratch. Or so One probably wants them to think, as Valkyrie speculates that there was an original model used as a template. While over in Oasis’ hideout; Shiki and Kleene are very happy to see Laguna. Laguna looks indifferently. 

Laguna explains that his memory came back a few days ago, and by then- he was the leader of Oasis. So he decided to resolves a problem they’ll have later. Kris and Weisz think he’s talking about Shura, and he admits that’s one thing. But the Oasis of Universe 0 is far in a way stronger than Universe 2’s; they can take the fight to the Empire whenever. They have to kill Shura now before he snaps again. But Shiki says that the plan is to Befriend Shura this time. Laguna tells him he’s CRACKED in the head, but Shiki thinks that they’ll be able to do it; Drakken, Nero, and Kureani were able to change in this Universe, so he thinks Shura will be the same. Laguna looks flabbergasted at what he’s hearing. Though, seeing Aruna here, Rebecca asks the question of why. And that is where we learn of Problem #2 in Aoi Cosmos 0: “Gravity King” Xenolith.

According to Laguna, the Emoire has been mostly tamed up til now; getting rid of Shura is simply a precaution in case he snaps again. The REAL problem came from Foresta; the Robot uprising from previously started, and this time- it didn’t stop. It got so bad that the civilians had to evacuate before everything went from bad to worse. Which it did, as we’ll learn in a second. But first, we learn that Xenolith was the one leading the Uprising from none other than Goodwin!! DIFFERENCE: Regular Size Excede- no larger than Happy. Laguna explains that he took some weird proteins in the previous world to become the “Large, Imposing” leader Oasis needed. Still a fan of Rebecca, though. But Shiki’s too stuck on what he heard about Xenolith to get wrapped up in it; he wants to go to Foresta and knock some sense back into Xenolith. Sadly, though; there’s no longer a “Foresta” to go to: 

Xenolith Crushed It Into “Gravity.

An entire planet sucked into the darkest part of Gravity- GONE. Though there’s no time to really take in that knowledge; they’ve got a more immediate problem on the horizon: Shura and the Imperial Army Are Coming To “Play.“ Edens Zero Chapter 237 END!! To Be Continued In Chapter 238: “Chance Meeting On The Sand.” Orc told us in chapter 118 that “Gravity Attracts Gravity,” and that would bring together Shiki, Shura, and Ziggy. Just as before; Shiki and Shura are coming together. Pretty soon, though, ain’t it? 

REVIEW

Okay, there’s like a Hundred different topics running through my head right now; I don’t really know how I’m gonna address it all. I might have to break this one up into pieces…….

One Void: The Final Villain

I haven’t been able to talk about One Void in WEEKS, and it’s been driving me CRAZY because he’s just such an interesting Villain! At least in concept- One Void hasn’t had the screentime for us to say he’s rubbing shoulders with Drakken and Shura in terms of Antagonists. Then again, One Void was possessing Ziggy; the personality that Ziggy displayed was in fact the Edens One wearing the face of a character we loved. So if we treat that as One Void’s personality and mentality, then…….. explain the reasoning behind his mindset, and you’ve got a Good One. I don’t know why Void wants to destroy Humanity, but I think there’s more to it than a “Machine Superiority Complex,” ya know? It’s like…… too late in the game for something so basic as that. No, no- There’s motive behind this things actions. 

Something my friend RJ Writing Ink brought up in his review for the last chapter was a line from One when talking about Mother: “By Finding Mother, All Humans In This World Will Die- For I Will Reduce My Mother To Nothing.” He used the possessive term “My,” as if to say that Mother created him in specific. I only recently got the chance to sit and read RJ’s post, so I don’t have a fully fleshed out theory on the idea yet. But………. Chapter 45: Xiao Mei said Shiki was someone special to Mother- “Mother’s……” SOMETHING. Perhaps One Void is yet another version of Shiki- one from a far worse timeline than Ziggy; a Shiki that doesn’t even have a Body anymore. Perhaps one that comes from a point that our Shiki hasn’t even reached yet. The split in chapter 165 is what created Ziggy, but we haven’t seen Shiki put in a position to choose like that before or since; the next “Divergence” hasn’t happened yet. It may well happen again in the future, and that’s how Void is created, but I don’t think we should hold to that. 

There’s also the other idea of it being the Rebecca that was with Shiki when Ziggy was created. How this would come to be: It might be that Ether carries some of a person’s “consciousness,” and extracting that Rebecca’s Ether to create Etherion brought with it Rebecca’s consciousness. And when Ziggy was building the Edens One as a back up in case something happened to Zero, Rebecca “jumped” into the ship and that became its body. I don’t know why Rebecca would want to erase all organic life in the Universe, but I don’t want to throw the idea out altogether. As for the line Void said about its “Mother” in reference to Mother, you got me on that one. Perhaps Mother is connected to Rebecca’s family in some direct way- perhaps an Ancestor. If Mother is supposed to be this series take on “God,” then an ancestor of Rebecca would be a rendition of “Jesus” who had children and…….. well, that’s why the women in her family have “Cat Leaper.” Possibly something like that. And when One says “Mother,” they mean their Ancestral Mother- like Yusuke’s Ancestral Father in YuYu Hakushou. 

I F*CKING KNEW IT WOULD GO AND GET THE MOBIUS!!! I just didn’t think it would grab it offscreen. I thought the next phase of the story would be going after One directly, trying to stop it from nabbing Mobius and the All Link system. I still think that One wants the All Link Device; it would allow him to share his AI with the grunt bodies- just like Ultron did in Age of Ultron. But considering how it’s elected to skip Aoi and leave it to Xenolith, I don’t think it’ll come for All Link……… just yet. When it’s time for Shiki and Shura’s conflict, though; One will probably come and swipe All Link out from under them………….. WAIT A GODD@MN MINUTE. What if…….. What if One had Ziggy collect the blueprints on All Link and Mobius? What if inciting Aoi War and allying with Acnoella was a way for Ziggy to gather blueprints for 2 important pieces of technology for making a Machine Army? THAT’S why he didn’t need Nero’s empire anymore- he already had what he needed. And all that scanning and calculating was………. leading to the creation of Void. 

Oh man, Void is sounding Ridiculously Cool. But, yeah; One might have already gotten his hands on All Link and Mobius’ blueprints, and had the Dark Stars build them from the ground up. As for how all those calculations and tech came to Universe 0- how One knows what’s going on currently- You have got me there. It could be that One had nabbed the blueprints for All Link while Nero was still reigning. And the failure of letting someone get information to a system that powerful is what made Nero decide to role the Empire dice and decide to step down as Emperor. And allying with Noella this time around would let him build and exact copy of Mobius. Oh, this could go deep. But……… I feel like we should have seen Void’s birth, you know what I mean? I feel like we should have seen One preparing to create it’s body; how it interacts with everyone as the ship and THEN give us an actual body to hit. Is it just me? I don’t know; I just feel like that story potential is now gone to waste………

Galactica REVAMPED 

That would have been the title if I had gone through with reviewing 236. The Oracion Seis as a concept has been present in all 3 of Mashima’s main series, with this series being the only one so far to have 2. And- if I’m being honest- it doesn’t feel like they’ve been all that important to the story; a reference in name alone. Though I’ll admit Galactica being something more akin to “One Piece’s” Yonkou was pretty cool. But I feel like we should have had a little more time to take in the fact that Shiki- of Mashima’s 3 main characters- is the first to join the Oracion Seis! It never felt like it mattered as much as it should have. Like; HE’S A WANTED SUPER CRIMINAL now- you’re telling me we couldn’t have gotten more of the general public reacting to the fact that a Galactica is just casually walking around? Would have like to see more of that. Though this Universe presents a VERY Interesting Possibility. You know the one. 

I speculated once upon a time that Shiki would eventually join the Oracion Seis Interstelar; that they would come to him and offer him Jaguar’s vacant position because they recognize his power, and he would accept if for nothing more than to keep them off his @$$. But THIS TIME- perhaps the situation could take a different turn. As in Shiki- realizing the threat of Void just as he did with Ziggy– will take the active approach in gathering allies to contend with One. He’s manage to at least pull Drakken around to being a good guy; befriending Shura on any capacity will bring the Empire to their backs for when it’s time to face One’s Army; but they still need help dealing with Acnoella and her Dragons, Cure/ Crow, Law, Freya, and Xenolith. Space Government needs help. I don’t know what Interstelar is looking like, but considering how strong Shiki is at this point, he’d probably be an invaluable asset to them. Besides; if he can befriend Drakken and Shura after everything they put him and Rebecca through- he can truly be friends with anyone he puts his mind to. As for an Epithet- how about: “Magimech King.” 

But 2 newbs in this Galactica Roster I wanted to talk about: Lightning Law and Lady Freya. According to Hermit in 235; there was No Lendard Civil War. But Acnoella and the Mobius are still things in this Universe. Meanign something happened to Elsie and Justice in this Universe- something that was never revealed to the Universe. What I’m getting at is the idea that Elsie is Lady Freya- a rendition of Elsie that took after her Mother and scarpped her humanity to become a Machine; one with Swordsmanship skills and combat abilities that shake even Valkyrie. “Lightning Law.“ Justice’s alignment- based on what I’m reading- is Lawful Evil- “methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts,” like how he justified attacking Shiki and Homura by calling out the legal status of the Edens Zero. I don’t know what happened to him this time, but whatever happened set him on the path of becoming a Galactica who’s working with One. 

We know what Acnoella is bringing to the table, but the fact that Hermit calls out Cure instead of Crow implies that Cure’s malice is on full display. But then we get to Xenolith. We learn in chapter 129 that even he would have been susceptible to Muller’s programming, so he transferred his personality data to cloud storage just in case. But this means that even he can be infected with a virus. And as I speculated earlier; it’s entirely likely that One already has All Link- a stronger server. It might be that Xenolith is perhaps infected with the same virus that made the Foresta robots rebel in the first place. But Shiki and co weren’t there to stop it this time, so……… This is what ended up happening. As for how to bring Xenolith back, well……… Pino was able to bring back Ziggy from One’s possession; maybe they could find a code that’ll help bring Xenolith back? I don’t the same code would work on Xenolith- I don’t even think Pino has that code in this Universe. She has the Destruction code for One, but……… they’d probably have to gather information on Xenolith before they’re ever able to bring him back. 

That, or they could find his Personality in the cloud and upload it to a new body. From the wording in 129, it wasn’t just a “back up-” he made it sound like it was HIM. So they’re won’t be problems in uploading his consciousness to a new body like with Valkyrie in Universe 1. But that still leaves his first Robot body(he was originally a Human). Just gotta fight it like you would any other enemy, I guess. Lastly we have Joker Helix; a B-Cuber that Rebecca has conveniently forgotten. So it’s most definitely someone we know. Labilia, Couchpo, Nino, Yocchi from Xiao Mei’s Battle Colosseum, the B-Cubers from the first run of Guilst- NAMED, with Nino even confirmed to be an ally in this Universe. None of them have had that name……… or so that was the case in the previous Universes. Universe 0, b!tch; “It can be everything you want it to be, but also everything you don’t want it to be.” We don’t know what’s going on with Couchpo or Labilia in this one, nor the others. Take you pick, I guess………

Everything Else

One Void had a template to build off of; Mashima wouldn’t have had someone bring up the idea if it wasn’t gonna be important. Perhaps by looking for the template they’ll be able to find a weakness in Void’s armor- one that even all those calculations couldn’t get rid off. Problem is: How would you go about Finding that body? You would need access to Void’s schematics; to cross reference them on the internet and find the manufacturer; try to get the model number; and probably a whole lot of other stuff to go through while One and the Dark Stars are collecting relics. Yeah, THAT’S something that’s gonna come back to bite them; while they’re busy trying to be all “buddy-buddy” with Shura, restore Xenolith, and find Connor- ONE’S GONNA BE COLLECTING RELICS AND MAKING HIS WAY TO MOTHER. And he says he won’t be in Aoi, but…….. where was the first Relic the crew found? Yeah; they might just miss their chance to see Nadia again. 

There’s also Shura coming to Sandra. That’s probably not gonna lead to anything good. Shiki may well be strong enough to take Shura(especially now that he can make his body handle his Ether via Overdrive), but……… don’t count out Shura. Especially since he- like Shiki- is a Gravity User. I heard speculation long ago that Shura will- just as Shiki did with the Dark Stars– will make Shiki’s previous encounter with Universe 2’s Shura fall into himself, and we’ll get a reverse of that scene with Shiki rejecting Shura’s hand. Then they have to fight. But Shiki would win. So how would they EVER resolve this problem without Shura looking like a b!tch? Like, with Drakken; Shiki already knew about Drakken’s past going into their 3rd encounter, and he already made the promise to be Drakken’s friend. Add in the fact that Drakken is only stealing the lives of Animals this time- and is revealed to not even be evil enough to qualify as a Galactica- and at least making an ally of him was possible, even if they’re not friends right off the bat. But then there’s Shura- someone who would be the most personal enemy for Shiki if not for One possessing Ziggy. 

You don’t want this to be a “I’m gonna kick the sh!t out of you with my advanced power and force you to be my friend-” that would make him no different than the Shura he met during Aoi War. But you also don’t want to through off the power scale, you know what I mean? Sure, Daichi talked about how the “difficulty” might have upped to match their………….. wait, that’s right; for history to “repair” itself as Rebecca puts it, the enemies “difficulty level” spikes to make sure that events line up. Meaning for Shiki and Shura to have a fight like they did last time, Shura’s “difficulty level” would have to rise to match Shiki. Huh, I forgot there were constants for a minute. But is that like a “concrete rule” or just a coincidence that’s being taken to literal? Guess we’re gonna find out next chapter. But it’s Golden week in Japan come next week, so…….. it might just be a minute. 

Conclusion

It feels like- of ALL the series I review on a regular basis- this one tends to take the most “elbow grease” to finish. I guess because it’s the one that I’ve easily been reviewing the longest. Heck, it’s what made me start wanting to review in the first place! And I’ve come so far in reviewing, and have reviewed so much of this series that……… I guess I just have a lot more to say about this one than the others. Which means that ending- the Final Post on this series- is probably going to be my Best Post Ever. But I hope that I don’t have to start writing that for a long time. In comparison to Rave Master, in terms of chapter count; we’re on the second chapter of Volume 29. Rave went all the way to 296 chapters; Fairy Tail reached 545 and is still going with 100 Years Quest; in my mind- “Edens Zero” would the happy medium of 325- 350 or so chapters- around 41 or so volumes. That sounds about the right length. Then again, Volume 26 was recently released- containing chapters 222 to 230 vs Rave volume 26‘s 210 to 217 and Fairy Tail’s 214 to 222. Eh, maybe around 45 or so. 

That’s all I got for you guys today. Let me know what you guys are thinking in the comments, and until the next post, all- Have A Magically Wonderful Day. Laters!!