“As I was watching Evangelion, up until about the fourteenth episode, I remember thinking ‘Ahh! Everything I’ve always wanted to do has been done! I don’t have to do anything any more! Anno and his crew have done it all for me!’” admits Hiroki Endo, in the Afterword to the first volume of Eden: it’s an endless world!, as he shares his thoughts on how certain titles set the standard but at the same time can never capture your own individual emotions and ideas. I know exactly where he’s coming from: had everyone resigned to the notion that there would never be anyone to top Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton might have thrown in the towel and Stevie Ray Vaughan may never have bothered either. How could the evolution of guitar music ever continue?
As in all genres of popular culture, there are classics in the science fiction genre and their shadows loom over everything that follows them, but that should never deter newcomers from offering their own input. The biblical references and ambitious, post-apocalyptic premise suggest that Endo is indeed enamoured by Evangelion and similar iconic series but those ‘overflowing feelings’ he refers to provide a stable launchpad for the concepts behind Eden…. In the eighteen chapters I’ve read so far it encompasses the well-worn themes of eco-fable, philosophy, military thriller and hard sci-fi while still feeling fresh and gripping. It’s Relevant To My Interests on so many levels.
What concerns me though is that, as in Evangelion, the biblical allusions muddy the waters thanks to my Western background and lead me to pin meaning onto things that ought to mean something else. The names for instance are lifted from Gnostic mythology so I’m deliberately steering clear of looking them up and making connections that Endo didn’t intend; the overt anti-religious sentiment, presenting scientific theories to explain the relationship between humanity and nature, tries too hard and comes across as heavy-handed. Discrediting religious scripture with science like this is old news to me so doesn’t hit the spot as it might do with Japanese readers.
Hannah and Enoah are kids living in a former military research base with Layne, an old friend of Enoah’s parents, after a significant proportion of the world’s population had been wiped out by a viral epidemic and the resulting breakdown of the political structure. Layne is dying from the virus’ after-effects but the youngsters are among the lucky minority who are immune and survive as best they can. Their father, once a hero during the UN’s fall to the organisation Propater, has changed sides but is killed by Enoah as Propater attempts to destroy the facility, and Enoah ecapes with Hannah.
I found this to be fascinating: a hero who appears to betray his ideals, kill his best friend then in turn be unintentionally killed by his own son. The science is rock solid too: the technical jargon concerning the virus is convincing (I also felt smug at not needing many of the footnotes exlaining it!), the writing is intelligent and the characters are complex. The prologue chapter presents some musings on sin and morality in regards to humans’ impact on the planet we live on but the next chapter moves on two decades and introduces entirely new characters and issues. Surprisingly Enoah and Hannah are left on the sidelines afterwards: we never get to see their relationship develop because the story skips right on to their son Elijah when he is of the same age. It’s a smooth enough transition, but large enough to surprise me and make me wonder what Endo has in mind here.
What’s also interesting is how Enoah is portrayed as the young hero but in the new present-day he’s the leader of a drugs cartel – I’m glad that the characters are so morally ambiguous because it adds another level of satisfying maturity to the piece as a whole. Elijah is a spitting image of his father however so adds to the over-arcing theme of continuity and the circular nature of life as we see how successive generations follow, or decide not to follow, in their footsteps.
The ecological themes too are sidelined in favour of a political action-orientated story arc with Elijah teaming up with a band of mercenaries who are fighting against Propater. Since Hannah and Mana, one of Elijah’s sisters, were kidnapped by Propator thanks to the conflict against the grown-up Enoah it suggests to me that Elijah’s struggle is more than that of a kid learning how to get by in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The trials and hardships he faces are clearly turning points in his development into a Real Man (how about making him use a weapons control system that relies on his eyes staying open throughout the battle?) but as long as it’s as gritty and realistic as this I’m all for it.
Gritty and realistic are two things that Eden… most definitely does well. It’s also unflinchingly gory and brutal: not in the manga-style superhuman feats and fountains of blood kind of way, but in a way that doesn’t pull its punches in showing how the ugly side of human nature is every bit as likely to resurface in a worldview like this. Bullets and bombs fly; bodies are broken and mutilated; innocent people suffer and then die. But for every pitiless moment of violence there’s a moment of reflection to give it meaning and for the most part prevent it feeling like violence for violence’s sake, which is a big plus.
The blend of philosophy and the fast-paced Shirow-esque action work well together because it’s putting a lot of hard-to-answer questions to the reader but moves things along briskly: I found myself thinking hard about the issues raised yet reading fast enough to get through eight chapters in the space of a lunch break but never felt bored. The way that high technology sits in a society partly pushed back to a less civilised state reminds me a lot of the Nausicaä graphic novel, which incidentally is my personal yardstick for futuristic eco-science fiction. Endo’s aeons, the humanoid weapons deployed by Propater, remind me a bit of Miyazaki’s heedra for instance.
The supporting cast at this point in the story are also universally excellent: tragic Kachua, haunted Wycliffe, sassy Helena and bad-ass Kenji all have tales to tell and stuck in my memory, even when some of them made their abrupt and violent ends. Sophia is the most fascinating for me at this point: she has transferred her consciousness into an adolescent girl’s cybernetic body, but still harbours the world-weary views of a forty-something woman. Her first encounter with Elijah is shortly after he inadvertantly buried one of her recently deceased children; her reaction is remarkably sentimental given Eden…‘s hard-boiled storytelling.
My guess is that her youthful physical form is an attempt to either recapture or hold onto what she lost with the onset of the virus’ symptoms and the loss of her own children, but the physical enhancements make for some rivetting scenes of electronic warfare during a combat arc that stretches across several chapters. Elijah is drafted in to fight along with the others, while Sophia sits back in an armoured truck with numerous cables and wires plugged into her in true cyberpunk style as she attempts to intercept a full-on missile attack. I remember thinking “Damn! That is so fuckin’ hardcore!”
As a matter of fact it’s been a while since I’ve felt so pumped and overwhelmed with a desire to write about a graphic novel: considering how this is Endo’s first lengthy serial the pacing just about manages to hold together and the characterisation bears the weight of the narrative’s numerous Deep And Meaningful themes. Suffice to say my new keyboard is only partly responsible for the word count you’ve just sat through…
