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Welcome back, dear readers, to my Edens Zero catch-up series. In this second and final part, I’ll be going over the main characters, their skills, and my thoughts on them. If you haven’t read the manga, spoilers ahead.

Shiki Granbell

This is our main hero, Shiki Granbell. Where he came from or who is birth family is currently unknown, though it might be revealed later in the series. What is known is that he was found by Ziggy, the Demon King who brought him back with him to his home on Granbell and raised him as his grandson. Shiki would live among the robots of the abandoned theme park and taught how to fight by Ziggy. Ziggy would impart many lessons to Shiki, but the biggest was the importance of friends, and that if you were made friends who would cry for you, to never let them go.

First Meeting

Ziggy would eventually go permanently offline, leaving the robots of Granbell Park to raise him. Shiki would spend his childhood maintaining the robots, not knowing that they were self-repairing. Then one fateful day, he met a young girl named Rebecca and her best friend Happy as they were looking for video ideas for their B-Cube channel. Seeing the chance for Shiki to leave for the universe at large before they went permanently offline, the robots pretended to turn on him and his new friends, forcing them to leave. Now free to explore the universe, Shiki has two goals in life: to make 100 new friends in the universe and to meet Mother, who he feels a strange connection to.

In keeping with his tradition of naming the main male protagonists after seasons, Hiro Mashima gave his new hero the name Shiki, meaning “four seasons” in Japanese. Shiki shares some characteristics with the main heroes of Mashima’s previous works. His appearance is similar to Haru Glory and Natsu Dragneel from Rave and Fairy Tail, and he shares the name of his hero from his work Monster Hunter Orage. 

Personality

Personality-wise, though, Shiki seems to be unique. Unlike Haru or Natsu, Shiki is very socially awkward due to growing up around Robots. He doesn’t quite know how to talk to people and didn’t even know if Rebecca was a girl at first due to having never seen one. As a result, he has a childlike curiosity, getting excited by anyone or anything new and exciting, and often asking people he just met to be friends. 

Though Shiki is a generally good person, he does have a dark side to him. If anyone would hurt someone he considers a friend, he will become extremely wrathful towards them. When he acts like this, there is little that anyone can do. He also despises people who mistreat robots due to his beliefs that they are living beings. When he gets like this, there is little that anyone can do to stop him. 

Powers

Like Mashima’s previous protagonists, Shiki has inherited unique abilities. From his adoptive grandfather Ziggy, he learned how to use Gravity Ether Gear, which lets him manipulate gravity itself. He can use this to strengthen his attacks, change the gravitational direction people are headed towards, run up walls, float, and generally kick butt. He is a formidable opponent in battle, living up to his grandfather’s legacy as the new Demon King. I like him.

Rebecca

This is our main heroine, Rebecca. I don’t know where Mashima got her name. 

At the moment, little is known about Rebecca’s past, other than the fact that she was seemingly abandoned by her parents. As a child, she came across an abandoned alien cat known as an Exxid, whom she befriended. Since he did not have a name, Rebecca dubbed him “Happy”, and they became the closest of friends.

As she got older, she and Happy registered as adventurers with the guild Shooting Starlight, starting their own B-Cube channel, the Aoneko Channel (“Blue Cat” in Japanese) with the goal of becoming famous B-Cubers. That process has been slow, with few people having seen their videos. Their lives change, though, the moment they meet Shiki. 

After help Shiki leave Granbell, Rebecca decides to travel with him in order to meet Mother and achieve her dream of having one million subscribers.

Influences

I have seen how some people draw a lot of comparisons between Rebecca and the main heroine of Mashima’s previous series, Lucy from Fairy Tail. Physically, they do appear similar, to the point that some complain of her being a rip-off of Lucy. It should be noted, however, that Mashima likes to reuse the designs of characters from his previous series. And personally, I don’t see the problem with that if they are still separate people.

After getting to know her more, though, I feel like her appearance and personality are a mixture of Mashima’s previous heroines, Lucy from Fairy Tail and Elie from Rave Master. Like the other two, Rebecca has large eyes and fair skin. Her measurements are also probably the same or similar to Lucy and Elie.

Whereas Lucy Heartfilia played the straight man to the antics of the Fairy Tail guild, Rebecca is more of an airhead like Elie, along with being a little impulsive. She likes to think of herself as a famous B-Cuber despite having few subscribers at the start of the manga; she even wears a disguise in public despite not needing to, something Happy often points out.

Ms. Fan Service Status

Like Lucy and Elie, Rebecca has also taken up the role of being her series’ “Ms. Fan Service” Observe:

See what I mean? Fanservice is one of Mashima’s trademarks (along with teasing fans about couples..). Rebecca is aware that a lot of guys find her attractive, and attempts to use that to her advantage. She is more than willing to use her sex appeal to attract viewers to her channel and wears clothing that shows off her legs and chest when possible. She’s even willing to use footage of her struggling in restraints to attract viewers, hinting at a possible perverted side.

She still draws the line, though. She can’t stand perverted people and will get very angry at anyone who tries to ogle her. 

Powers

In battle, Rebecca shares a lot of her personality with Elie. Using her twin ether-blasters to fight, Rebecca turns into a trigger happy maniac and has a very crass personality, shouting at her enemies to “die”. She’s also a very good shot, and can hold her own in a fight.

Recently, Rebecca has discovered that she may have the latent ability to manipulate ether gear, able to fire energy blasts from her hands. Time will tell what her abilities are, though. 

Personality

The one defining character trait that she shares with Lucy and Elie is her kind and selfless nature. She has demonstrated time and again the willingness to stand up for those who are being harmed even if she barely knows them, to the point where she shed tears for Shiki when the Granbell robots seemingly betrayed them.

Speaking of Shiki, while initially off put by him, she was quick to befriend Shiki. This extends to many other people she meets; and like Shiki, she shares the belief that robot’s are living beings as well. When Happy was turned into a cyborg to save his life following an accident, Rebecca accepted him no matter what his appearance was.

Happy

Taken directly from Fairy Tail, it’s Happy the cat! This version of Happy is from the planet Exceed, the name of Happy’s species in Fairy Tail and Edens Zero. Mashima likes reusing old characters, doesn’t he.

In this version, Happy was left abandoned until he was found by Rebecca, as previously mentioned. One day, however, he was tragically killed after being hit by a drunk driver, leaving Rebecca grief-stricken. Fortunately, thanks to the aid of a friend of their’s, Happy was rebuilt into a cyborg body and continues to serve as Rebecca’s best friend and co-star on the Aoneko Channel.

This version of Happy is a little different from his Fairy Tail counterpart. Whereas the original Happy was mischievous and liked to tease other people, this version serves as the straight man to Rebecca, keeping her level and grounded whenever she starts to act air-headed. 

Powers

Also, Happy can’t seem to fly in this manga. He can do something cooler, though. When Rebecca needs to go into battle, he can go all Targetmaster from the Transformers franchise and turn into a pair of dual Ether Blasters, dubbed the Happy Blasters!

 Weisz Steiner

Like I said in Part 1, there are two versions of Weisz Steiner: the original one, and the one created when Norma’s timeline got eaten by the Chronophage. Here’s the original one, who takes his looks from another Fairy Tail character as well.

Weisz seems like he’s going to be the Han Solo of Edens Zero, serving as the rogue of the main characters. He had just betrayed his former gang right before Shiki, Rebecca, and Happy first met him in the past, after all. Both versions of Weisz also like to consider themselves ladies men, though the Professor version seems to have better luck with women. The younger version shoots with a bunch of pretty girls but has yet to make the mark, to comedic effect.

Personality

Young Weisz also does not seem to hesitate to try and take advantage of a situation, asking Shiki for the results of every sports event for the next fifty years, asking for Rebecca’s ship in exchange for helping them escape Norma, and ditching them as soon as they get back to Blue Garden.

Despite this, Weisz still has a moral compass. He showed disgust at his former partner Sibir’s treatment of robots, and was willing to kill him as a result. When Rebecca was captured by Rogue Out, he immediately rejoined the group to help rescue her.

One thing both Weisz’s share is their ability: the ether gear Machina Maker. With it, they can completely remodel machines from the inside out, making stronger and more powerful. We haven’t even seen the full extent of it, either.

E.M. Pino

This is E.M. Pino, or Pino for short. She’s an android introduced in the Norma Arc. 

According to what is eventually revealed, Pino was originally built by Ziggy the Demon King, but somehow ended up on Norma. She was trapped there when its time was eaten, leaving her fifty years in the past. She then ended up in the hands of Sibir, who forced to serve him. When she refused, he cruelly tore off one of her legs and then wiped her memory to make him her new master. He then proceeded to use her powers to make his gang into the strongest force on Norma, until an infuriated Shiki, Rebecca, Happy, and Weisz beat him. 

After that, Pino accompanied them as they escaped to the present, where she learned that she was built by the Demon King. She then declared Shiki to be her new master upon him be dubbed the new Demon King, traveling in order to learn more about her origins on the Edens Zero.

Pino is unique amongst the machines introduced so far, as she has the ability to create an EMP field that can temporarily shut down all machines. Outside of battle, she is very laid back and friendly, especially towards Weisz and Shiki for having save her.

Elsie Crimson

No arguments, here. Elsie Crimson is the twin of Fairy Tail’s Erza Scarlet. See?

Her personality is not at serious as Erza’s is, though. She seems to be more of a troll who likes to mess with people, jokingly telling the group she planned to sell them at Guilst. She seems to at least be on their side, though, as she gave Shiki the Edens Zero, and helped them escape. Whether she returns as a friend or foe is anyone’s guess.

Homura Kogetsu

This is a new addition to the cast, and likely going to join the main group, Homura Kogetsu. All that is know about her right now is that she was trained by an unknown master who told her about the Demon King and the Edens Zero. As a result, she want’s to fight him. But since Ziggy is dead, she now wishes to fight Shiki instead, and joins the group to rescue Rebecca on Guilst in exchange for a match with him.

Like Shiki and Weisz, Homura also has a kind of ether gear: Soul Blade. This let’s her create weapons out of pure energy that she uses to devastating effect, able to take on dozens of enemies at once. I can’t wait to learn more about her backstory. She could be a valuable part of the Edens Zero crew.

And Lastly, we have…

Labilia Christy

Physically, she looks like what Wendy Marvell from Fairy Tail if she were grown up. Unlike Wendy, Labilia is… well, she’s a jerk.

Personality

She’s in the Shooting Starlight guild and is a super-famous B-Cuber, but she’s extremely stuck up about it. She even ridiculous amounts of money from her fans just to pose with her, get her autograph, or even shake her hand! She also loves to belittle Rebecca for being a small fry, even saying she watches her videos just to make fun of them. Mean.

Ironically, despite looking down on Rebecca, she is obsessed with Shiki. After Shiki lifted her into the air with his ether gear for humiliating Rebecca, Labilia became determined to get him in her next video. But Shiki hates her for being mean to his friends, so not gonna happen. 

She’s not, all, bad, though (I write hesitantly). When all the B-Cubers were being kidnapped, she was genuinely grateful to Shiki for protecting her. And she was horrified when she learned all the other B-Cubers were kidnapped. Hopefully, she will change for the better. Until then, I hate her.

Well, that’s everyone. Hope that convinces you to check out the manga! 

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I have wanted to do this since I started my blog, but I couldn’t find the time. I’ve wanted to do a review/recap of Hiro Mashima’s latest manga, Edens Zero. I think that it would be a good idea to go back and explain some of the main characters and what’s happened so far to prevent confusion. There’s only 22 chapters so far, so I don’t have to go far.

Edens Zero is the new manga that is being written by Hiro Mashima. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he previously created two other successful manga, Rave Master and Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail will probably be the one you know. It’s got pretty popular in the West thanks to Funimation’s dub of it with some of their best voice actors. Rave Master did have an anime, but it sucked, so it got axed.

Anyway, back to Edens Zero. Now, the story takes place in deep space and has a lot of sci-fi elements mixed with fantasy. It starts off when a young girl named Rebecca and her best friend Happy visit this abandoned theme park planet called Granbell Park. Even though it’s supposed to be populated by robots, there is one human living there, a boy named Shiki. 

Our hero, Shiki

As a kid, Shiki was brought to Granbell by the robot’s leader, known as the Demon King (not as scary as he sounds) and raised as his adopted grandson. He’s been offline for years, but he left Shiki behind a powerful gift: his ether gear.

Ether gear is this type of power that lets a person use their bodies natural energy, or ether (AKA Ki, Chakra, Magic, Spiral Energy, and any other source of power from manga) to give them crazy abilities. In Shiki’s case, he can manipulate gravity. 

Since he died, Shiki’s been staying in Granbell and taking care of the other robots, but before he went offline, Grandpa Demon King told them to find a way to get Shiki off Granbell. Their batteries were slowly dying, and they would all go offline within a few years, leaving Shiki alone. 

When Rebecca and Happy show up, the Granbell robot’s see their chance: they pretend to act all evil to force Shiki to leave, and thanks to Rebecca and Happy, it works. What nice friends. So Shiki decides to stick with Rebecca and Happy and travel the universe to make new friends.

Things Get Weird

Rebecca and Happy take Shiki back to their home planet of Blue Garden and register him as an adventurer with their guild, Shooting Starlight. Unlike Fairy Tail, though, everyone in Shooting Starlight doesn’t really get along like a family. That’s where Shiki also sees Mother, this giant, cosmic entity that’s called the goddess of space. 

People have been trying to sail beyond their region of space, the Sakura Cosmos, to meet her, but no one has ever done it. Shiki gets the weird feeling that he’s met before, though, and decides to go on a quest to meet her. Rebecca and Happy come along because they think it would get them tons of views for their B-Cube Channel (the stories version of YouTube).

To help them, they decide to upgrade their ship and go to visit an old friend of Rebecca and Happy, Professor Weisz. When they get to his home on Planet Norma, something’s not right. The entire planet is covered in clouds, and they end up crashing their ship. On top of that, everything and everyone in the world seems like 50 years in the past. Because it is. They literally traveled to the Norma of 50 years ago.

See, I told you it was gonna get weird. Well, you better get used to it, as the story’s narrator explains that time has little meaning in this story. Meaning this is going to be a regular thing, probably. 

Time-Travel 101

Back in the past, they end meeting with the younger version of Weisz, who was a thief at that point in his life. He also just betrayed his former boss, Sibir, and stole a briefcase containing a tiny robot named E.M. Pino. Like the three, Pino is from the future but got stuck in the past. She has this ability to shut down machines using EMP’s, and Sibir is a jerk, he tortures her and forces her to work for him. He even erased her memories of her creator.  Total jerk.

Shiki and the others get super mad at Sibir when they hear of his cruelty, so they do what heroes do: kick his ass. They then leave Norma with Pino in tow, only to find that younger Weisz stowed away. He then uses his own ether gear (he has it, it’s called Machina Maker) to remodel their ship and let them escape.

Don’t worry about any paradoxes. As soon as they leave the planet, they’re back in the present (or future, in Weisz’s case). They get a video call from the older version of Weisz who explains that a space monster had eaten Norma’s timeline, leaving it permanently stuck 50 years in the past. This also makes younger Weisz an alternate timeline version of Professor Weisz, free to do what he wants. Boom, paradox solved.

The New Demon King

Soon as they escape Norma, though, the group gets caught in a tractor beam from this massive ship called the Skull Fairy. It’s run by a group of space pirates led by a woman named Elsie Crimson, who is the spitting image of Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail. 

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So, Shiki being Shiki decides that he’s gonna take over her ship and runs off. After battling it out with Elsie (who was seemingly a robot), they end up taking over the entire ship. Turns out, though, what they beat were just these weird parasites that had copied Elsie and her crew. They’re on another ship in their fleet.

But get this, the Skull Fairy used to belong to Shiki’s grandpa. The Demon King (real name was Ziggy) had helped Elsie out once and asked him to give his ship to Elsie before he died. It also isn’t called the Skull Fairy: its real name is Edens Zero. Even crazier, though, is that Ziggy was once known and feared as the ruler of the Sakura Cosmos! Crazy!

Elsie gives the Edens Zero to Shiki and then leaves as the space police arrive. Everyone gets settled in, and they find this female robot called Witch. She used to work for the Demon King, and proclaims that as the ship’s new captain and Ziggy’s grandson, Shiki is the new Demon King.

Current Arc of Edens Zero

The android, called Witch, reveals she was one of four robots than maintained and protected the Edens Zero, known as the Four Shining Stars. They brought the ship to its full power. Ziggy had tried to take the ship to meet Mother himself, but he couldn’t get past a nest of space dragons that blocks the path out of Sakura Cosmos. After that, the Four Shining Stars split up, Ziggy went back to Granbell, and Witch stayed on the ship in stasis.

To have a chance to make it to Mother, Witch explains that they need to find and recruit the other three Shining Stars, whose whereabouts are unknown. One of them, though, Sister, was reported to be headed to Blue Garden after they split up.

So everyone heads back to Blue Garden. Rebecca and Happy go off to meet the guildmaster of Shooting Starlight, Weisz ditches everyone to explore the future, and Shiki and Pino go explore the place. But it doesn’t last long.

Taken: In Space!

Shiki ends up fighting this cyborg ninja called Jinn, who has Wind Ether Gear, and they end up fighting to a draw. Jinn leaves after being ordered by his boss but tells Shiki to come to find him on the planet Guilst for a rematch.

Things get worse, though. Happy comes up to them half-dead and collapses, telling them that Rebecca just got kidnapped! The group of mercenaries that Jinn is a part of had captured her and a bunch of other B-Cubers across Blue Garden, and was gonna take them the planet Guilst, which is lawless central in the Sakura Cosmos. They plan to sell them all as slaves to this slimy piece of garbage called Illega, who likes to kidnap pretty girls, strip them, and turn them into naked statues and pieces of furniture. Why? Probably because it’s his fetish or something, I don’t know. I just want to punch him.

When Shiki hears about this, he goes absolutely ballistic. Liam Neeson’s Taken level ballistic. Yeah, that fat frog made the worst decision of his life pissing off the new Demon King. So they grab their stuff and chase after them all to Guilst. Weisz also comes back after hearing what happened, and he brought a new friend: this girl named Homura who has this Ether Gear that lets her make this cool sword thing. They head to Guilst where they learn that Rogue Out works for Sister, but even though she has the same model number, she’s not the Sister Witch remembers. 

Rebecca’s Escape

Meanwhile, Rebecca takes stock of her situation but manages to prove more than capable of taking care of herself. She rallies all the other B-Cubers to come up with an escape plan that actually works! She uses this bubble foam that dissolves inorganic matter to destroy the window inside their cell and gets out. But then she’s caught by Illega, who decides “screw it. It’ll be more fun to make her my toy.” Pretty sure this is an innuendo. But don’t worry: Shiki busts and gives Illega a well-deserved face kick

Caught Up to Speed on Edens Zero

And that’s where we left off. No telling what happens next, but I’m really looking forward to it. I like Mashima’s work for the plot. And so far, this story is turning out to be very interesting. 

That’s it so far. I was gonna explain more about some of the characters, but this blog has already run pretty long. I’ll upload part two in a couple of days before the next chapter is up. If you want to learn more, check out the Edens Zero Wiki. They’re always looking for more people to help them improve. Until next time, J out!

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