Eden's Zero Review - The Belial Gore Arc

Written by Shiggins

With Eden's Zero now having finished it's biggest arc yet, it might finally be time for me to begin reviewing the series' chapters as they are released. Before that however, let's fill out my Mashima history checklist and take a look back to see how the entire Belial Gore arc worked from start to finish, and if it holds up as one big package. This review starts from chapter 69 and ends at chapter 100.

Full spoilers ahead.

Arc #8 follows the group of the ship Eden's Zero, now having assembled the four Shining Stars and finally ready to begin their adventure of exploration properly. However, the loose end of Drakken Joe has shown himself and has brought his massive space fortress-city, the Belial Gore, with him. So before they can go off on their quest, the group need to finally finish this foe first. However, it doesn't go as expected... the first time anyway.

No, it's just fantasy. Caught in a landslide...

If you read my previous Eden's Zero review, you'll know I enjoyed it for focusing entirely on my favourite character Homura and her personal journey to become an official member of the crew. This time however, the focus is on the entire group and their quest to take down Drakken Joe and his forces. Also unlike the Sun Jewel, there's little time spent getting to enjoy the world-building due to the immediate threat of the city and what it's capable of. So inevitably, in terms of pacing, this one is a lot faster than before and the smaller fights before the big boss feel like less of a distraction than last time since they all connect to Drakken.

#releasetheMashimaCut

Like I said, every character gets at least a moment thanks to all the foes that come their way. A prime example of this is the total defeat of Drakken's three elites at the hands of Witch, where she gets to show her full personality and ability on display, something we had only seen glimpses of so far. Homura takes a back seat for most of the arc, but that's only fair since she got so much last time. The one who surprised me the most however was Weisz, thanks to the unexpected return of the boring Sibir from Weisz's past, now an old man who has gone through a lifetime of change and is practically causing Weisz to rethink everything he ever believed about morality and circumstance. It's an interesting idea that I really do feel has potential, since I love a good redemption story. If Eden's Zero is going to go the route of allowing characters to change, this is a good way to show what the end result of that process can be.

Drakken might be recieving some copyright issues in the future.

The arc itself is fairly strong during the first half, but it's when chapter 82 happens that everything goes up a notch. Drakken Joe wins. He cuts off Weisz's arm, kills Shiki, captures Rebecca, throws the robots in the bin, and gives Rebecca a nice room until she can use her power "Cat Leaper" and then it's finally revealed that it's time travel, which we all knew it would be! I have to admit that these chapters had me gripped, again showing the surprising lengths Mashima-senpai is willing to go to for his story, at least compared to his previous works of Fairy Tail and Rave Master. It's also a great way to display the cruelty and affective of our mate Drakken, as well as introduce time travel as a necessity that is clearly going to impact the future of this manga. Drakken himself hinted that Rebecca had done this 29 times prior, so get your spreadsheets ready because we know that time travel can get complicated easily.

Is he mad? I think he's mad.

Of course, you can't have an arc without some big dramatic battles and the best of them is provided by our brand new Element 4! Yes, Mashima is bringing that name back too! They're all fairly fun in their own right, and I found the Earth one particularly disturbing. However, the real allure of these fights for me was the massive amount of variety on display. One of the first battles in this arc is a space dogfight with tornadoes mixed in, another set in a strip club, another in Eden's Zero itself with all it's defences on the warpath against a walking slime and a smoking robot. The battles need to be kept as fresh as they can, which makes it a real shame that the final battle against Drakken devolves from a fairly interesting fight against two enemies into a giant tentacle monster. If there's one thing anime doesn't need more of, it's giant tentacle monsters! I've seen what you do with tentacle monsters enough, Mashima-senpai!

Oooh tentacle foreshadowing! I get it now.

While the Belial Gore arc lacks the fun of exploring a unique world and has less thought put into the  than the Sun Jewel city, it makes up for that by introducing new foes and elements to the story that will clearly impact the majority of the cast and plot for the rest of it's run, and keeping the fights exciting for any times the story begins to dip. We even get the return of Kris "Jinn" Ruthorford, which is a plus for a design that pleasing to my eye.

Someone in this panel is so lucky. You decide who.

 So in the end, Drakken Joe is gone for now, the crew are off to further lands, will probably face off against the rest of the Oracion Seis Galactic, and Rebecca finally has time travel which, as chapter 100 implies, has reprecussions and changes that can't be predicted, like an entire character never arriving on the Eden's Zero and instead indicating we'll be meeting an entire fleet of Edens one day! Let's see how well all of that goes.

...E.N.D?