Hiro Mashima (Jap: 真島ヒロ) is a Japanese manga artist.
He gained success with his first serial Rave, published in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1999 to 2005. His best-selling work, Fairy Tail, published in the same magazine from 2006 to 2017, became one of the best-selling manga series with over 72 million copies in print. Mashima began the currently ongoing Edens Zero in 2018.
Fairy Tail won the Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen manga in 2009, and Mashima was given the Harvey Awards International Spotlight award in 2017 and the Fauve Special Award at the 2018 Angoulême International Comics Festival.
I wanted to give this FIVE STARS *just* for !! But, it's not really that funny except in the sense of role-reversal or whatever and gets old fast. At least Happy got to be useful!
Otherwise, there are a VERY LOT of hints being dropped that this is very close to the end of the series that Mashima said would end in about 10 volumes—specifically, a VERY LOT of flashbacks to "20,000 years ago" showing some familiar faces and names.
Also, the very obvious oddity of the cover being landscape vs. portrait, which Mashima talks about in the author's note, besides being slightly washed-out looking (which Mashima does NOT talk about in the author's note). I don't know if I like it—I was getting used to the standardisation of the white border framing a background with a character or characters popping out of the frame, as it were.
Whoops, "spoiled" myself by seeing there's at least one more volume than what I physically have on my "to read" shelf. Guess this will be another case of drawing out the final battle longer than desirable. I mean, logically it makes sense to do that, since once it's the end, what's the point of continuing beyond that?
Well, if the story ISN'T centered around action, plenty! But this isn't one of those stories.
On the whole, mostly forgettable... heck, I've forgotten almost every major event in this series, even though I've seen the anime (or, a Season 1 "summary" episode and Season 2). There's just so much going on that seems very Monster of the Week and unimportant in the long run that I guess my mind just discards it. *Probably* important for later plot points if you can remember them, though (not that I will).
A pretty good set up as we slowly learn more about the origins of Edens Zero, One, Void, the Stars and Ziggy. I am a little disappointed in the Witch vs Clown fight as it feels like just an excuse for more jokes and again I really do not like that Rebecca still has the power to rewind time as it cheapens some moments since you just remember that oh no Rebecca can just play the rewind button and try again. But still some nice fights and nice build up to the final battle and one weird reveal and a nice twist.
3.5/5 We are quickly winding down the series with 3 volumes to go. The 4 Shining Stars and Crew are duking it out with the 4 Dark Stars. We also start to get to see some 2,000 year old flashbacks that mention Shiki but they’re not quite explained yet. Now starts the confrontation with Void and the arrival at Mother.
A very nice and colorful landscape cover featuring the crew of the Edens Zero on the cover of volume 30.
Reaching the end of Edens Zero now, getting some more mysterious but also getting some amazing fights. Hiro Mashima truly knows how to draw fights. Excellent volume.
Gawd the amount of anxiety building getting closer to the end! Everything I want to put in this review is heavy spoilers at best and I don't want to spoil anything.