A 20,000 Year Reunion Amongst A Dragon Horde Encounter!! Edens Zero Chapter 257 BREAKDOWN

I kind of struggled with that title there. I knew I had to reference the flashback at the end of this chapter, as well as the Dark Star/ Shining Star encounters we have this time around, but…….. I was struggling with how to word this one. I was gonna say “2 20,000 Year Reunions,” but…….. that just looked kinda ugly to me. And I also had to reference Acnoella’s return in some manor, so…….. that’s what I came up with. Gets the point across perfectly! Not my favorite review title BY ANY MEANS, but effective. Ah……… Oh, yeah; Acnoella is back- for better or worse. One of the Weaker parts of Kaede war; basically just bought the Fodder to be fought in the skies above while the battle were going on down below- didn’t even really show us any reason for her to be a Galactica on her own. Do not care that she’s hear, and hope Mashima has an actual plan for her this time. And Cure. Don’t know who’s gonna take her out this time; I just get the feeling this is where she dies ultimately. Let’s get to it. Edens Zero Chapter 257: “Leondard.” Guess who? 

Overview

Picking up from the last chapter: Pino- having seen the memories that she had Pr Weisz remove- finds herself overwhelmed by it and ultimately shuts off. Shiki and Rebecca bring her to Sister, but she cannot find anything specifically wrong with her. To make matters worse; Witch alerts them that a huge amount of Huge Heat Signatures are coming their way. And when they look out the window, they find something they so did not need right now: Acnoella And Her Horde Of Dragons. Hermit had put up a number of security measures to prevent anyone from following them to the Mother Cosmos. Clearly that didn’t stop THIS from happening, so it’s time for the Edens Zero to make its GRAND ESCAPE. Unfortunately, they never got around to making some Anti Dragon Ether they learned about from Holy in the previous world. So Hermit gets to work on that while the rest of the crew………. tries to buy time. Good luck with THAT, kids.

As the Starfighters mobilize, a Dragon crashes into the side of the ship. It’s not looking good. But Valkyrie chimes in, thinking that defeating Acnoella will make the horde stop. And she flies off to fight her. But before she ever reaches her; she encounters Brigadine Mark 3 of the Demon King’s Four Dark Stars. And she finds herself on the backfoot against her Dark Star counterpart. With the rest of the crew realizing that this means that the Edens One isn’t that far behind. Basically: They just got JUMPED. And the onslaught isn’t over quite yet; the Zero gets hacked again- bulkheads start shutting all over the place, trapping whoever is left on the ship in their current locations. Is that all? NAH- Wizard’s here, too!! Big trouble. 

Flashback: 20,000 Years Ago- Human Brigadine asks Yuna if she just got finished talking with Regret. She says yes, and that Regret is going to visit Ivry in the Hospital. She pulls up a photo of herself, Ivry, Regret, and Regrets Fiance, Leonard. Human Wizard. Edens Zero Chapter 257 END!! So while they’re out here getting blitzed left and right; we the audience are about to learn the story of these characters. Who will live? Who will die? What’s going on with Pino? These are the questions. 

REVIEW

So I’m picking this back up Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023, at 6:14 pm- after a full day of a migraine and………… getting ready for my f*ckin’ job. I decided to see how much of this part I could get through before I have to go in because- for WHATEVER REASON- I have a lot to say about this chapter. And my OCD will not let me work on the NEXT chapter that’s due in a few hours. All during Dead Rock week. I decided to do this, the next chapter of this, and maybe a Short Review for One Piece depending on when the chapter comes out. Them LEAKS, bro. But in whatever case; the dialogue in this chapter implies that- as I speculated- Void and his minions are here in the Mother Cosmos. That or that Hermit got hacked back at again, which is entirely possible. We’ve seen multiple times that her coding isn’t per say unbreakable– Killer is at least on her level. So it’s not like it would be a surprise if Team One was just waiting in the wings and followed them into the Mother Cosmos. 

Something else I put in my notes is that Wizard and Brigadine have gotten their Shining Star counterparts isolated; their the only 2 of the Dark Star’s that haven’t gotten the chance to fight their assigned Stars. My Guess: Void filled them in about the previous Universes in which Valkyrie and Witch had died by the time Kaede War kicked off. And since “History Corrects Itself” in Universe 0, their mentality might be that the Universe itself will have them die here. I mean, they’re kind of putting them in the Exact Same Positions. A Horde of monster’s that need to fended off; the ship getting hacked and her being isolated to try and defend it. Different Circumstance- Same Scenario. And in their mind- Same Outcome. But Witch was already ordered to live, and Valkyrie promised in this very chapter that she’d continue living. They’re gonna fight with everything they have to defy Fate itself. That, and this likely isn’t “The Final Battle.” 

Mashima talked on a Twitter space recently about his current mindset; he has ideas to make Dead Rock a longer series(which is “A-OK” from me, let me tell you), but juggling these 2, along with his work on Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest(which he recently said was around 50 or so percent done, and has recently been announced to be animated by JC Staff, who also handles the “Edens Zero” anime), working on that “Original Anime,” working on Gaming, and all that other sh!t we always mention when talking about his work load. So he’s now in a position where- to make it easier on himself- he either ends “Edens Zero” sooner rather than later, or leave Dead Rock as a “Short Term Serialization.” Honestly, this series kind of fell off for me at some point during Aoi War- around when Weisz got his Overdrive. Kaede War didn’t do it any favors. And this Universe 0 stuff has been “Hit And Miss” at best. I don’t want him to “Rush” or anything, but I’d rather have a little more of Dead Rock over 2 more years of this. 

I’M NOT SAYING THIS IS WHERE THE FINAL BATTLE STARTS; that’d be awful and completely out of left field. But I WILL say that “Edens Zero” will likely be ending next year- around the series 6th Anniversary in June. If not by then, this it’ll at least be in the “Home Stretch” part. THIS battle- more than anything- is the Prelude to the Final Battle; the fight that establishes who’s gonna be there- whose gonna be fighting who- teasing the answers to some of the Final Mysteries in the story- setting up the proper character motivations- that sort of thing. SPEAKING OF: That FLASHBACK. It’s telling us the Shining Stars/Dark Stars connections, and how the Shining Stars themselves are connected. So far, we’re seeing that Witch(whose real name is “Regret,” which leads me to think that the correct translation of her name might actually be “Legret”), Valkyrie, and Sister were all friends in the past- “Girlfriends” if you would. But Hermit is seemingly disconnected from them. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to make of it yet. 

I like how Mashima is revealing this Backstory; it reminds me of the Ziggy reveal- the Best part of Kaede War. It’s being told to us over the course of a number of chapters, at the very end. Come the time of the reveal, we should have been able to put the pieces together. And even if we don’t, that’s what makes rereading the series all the more rewarding- you get to pick up on these little details you missed. What is it that we’re meant to realize? Well, by the time you’re seeing this; chapter 258 is already out there in the world. And that pretty much seals what we’re supposed to figure out. Or so Mashima wants us to believe. You never know where author will go with these kinds of things…………

The Wermit Thing. People have been shipping Weisz and Hermit since Sun Jewel when they were building the Arsenal suit. And all I have to say is: Congratulations to you Shippers, and to the lucky B@stard Weisz Steiner. You should see some of the Twitter posts about Hermit- see some of the art that Mashima makes for her. Like…….. recently, I saw this one post “Call Me William Afton the way about to put a child in these machines.” Stuff of that nature. And look, she’s not a kid- she’s older than she looks. And based on this flashback, FAR older than anyone had thought. But on a more serious and less lewd note; what caused this to happen? Out of all the Human/Shining Star relationships, they’d always been the most overt aside from Homura and Valkyrie. Shiki was kind of just “given” Witch to explain why he was fighting Wizard, and Sister is more into Rebecca than Rebecca is to her. 

Like………… Homura and Valkyrie were Teacher-Student; Rebecca and Sister were…………. Attractive Maiden-Dominatrix; Shiki and Witch were Leader-Subordinate to Almost 2nd-In-Command; and then you have these 2. One idea that I’ve seen is that Weisz- having seen how happy his older counterpart was with Bernadette- he kind of wondered what a life like that was like. And the only person who he thought of in Bernadette’s position- was Hermit. They spent a lot of time together. And thinking about, her help with the Arsenal Armor is the only reason he’s able to fight. He owes a lot to her. Not to mention- She’s rather attractive when all is said and done.  Another thing I saw on twitter: Someone had made a post about how Rukia and Hermit aren’t like other “Petite” characters; they aren’t worried about the size of their breast or anything in relation to the women around them- they’re comfortable in their own skin. Not hard to see why, either. 

LAST THING: Why did the Shining Star’s and Dark Star’s have their memories repressed? For Void, it was likely something he doesn’t want them to know, as well as keeping his control over them “absolute.” For Ziggy, it might have been something………… Tragic- something that the Shining Star’s themselves didn’t want to know. Just like with Pino; she had her memories erased for a specific reason– be it because they were too much for her to bare, or because she knew something and wanted to save that knowledge for later. Or perhaps she wanted to know what choice she would make. One of the core components of an Amnesia plot is that the person you are without your memories and the person you were prior to memory loss are 2 different people who will make 2 different choices when put in the same situation. Maybe Pino wanted to lose her memory and “rediscover them” after going around with that memory loss; to see what kind of person she would be and see if there’s another way to stop Void. And– for better or worse- we all know what Shiki will choose to do when it comes to Void……………

Conclusion

FINAL-FRE@KIN’-LY!!! I didn’t mean for this one to take so long, but by the time I would have had to scrap this one; I was in FAR too deep to really see the point in deleting it. But I did it. And hey; I’m feeling WAY BETTER now than compared to the recent Dump Post. So hopefully I’ll be able to get through all the other posts that I’m gonna be doing this week. Barring the idea that my headaches are stress related. In which case, be forewarned: I might get sick again. I hope not, but it’s the truth. In whatever case; enjoy this drawing of Hermit Mio. ‘Til the next post, duckies; Catch ya later!!