Manga Review: Eden (Vol. 1)

Author| Bash
Edition| eARC courtesy of Netgalley
Publisher| Diamond Book Distributors
Genre| Paranormal/Mythological
Rating| 2 1/2 Stars
Publication| June 2nd, 2015

I received this as a free ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you.

Let's start with marketing: I had no idea this was a manga jumping into it.  The first several pages I read left to right and was completely lost.  But the art style made me consider the possibility of reading it right to left.  I'll admit, things began to make more sense.  However, I've scrolled few several reviews of this on goodreads and most of the other reviewers had a hard time reading it as well.  I haven't seen anywhere that this book is described as a manga, which can be problematic.

Outside of that, it was still hard to follow.  It begins by throwing you into a story about some kid with no memories.  He's being followed around by the Red Crosses? which are spirits that protect/harm humans, I think.  And he may also be being chased by angels and demons that don't want him to go into this town that he ends up appearing in magically anyways.  His friend may or may not be a shapeshifting crow, and this town may be populated by dead people? and magic wolves.  The story gives no inclination of what was going on.

The art left even more questions.  All of the characters looked the same and there was no clear distinguishing in any part of the story, except for maybe the main character, and even that was iffy.  When I thought I had a grasp on who was who it was shaken up on me.  Outside of this, I enjoyed the art.  I thought it was smart and had clean cut lines.

Every once in a while I would get into the story and begin to understand what was happening.  When these few moments came I found myself truly enjoying it.  But then it was thrown off.  I don't know if there was some issue in translating (I'm assuming it is translating because some of the grammar was off) or some central mythology I just didn't understand for a similar reason.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend this one, and I hate to give a bad review.  But it just didn't click for me.  It is a quick read, so if it does interest you in any way, I'd say pick it up from your library when it's released.