Aboard the Edens Zero, a lonely boy with the ability to control gravity embarks on an adventure to meet the fabled space goddess known as Mother.
Latest episode: S1 E50 PRELUDE TO THE AOI WAR (Oct 1, 2023)
Shiki is a boy who's always dreamed of making new friends from outside the Granbell Kingdom, his amusement park home filled with robots. He gets his wish when two young adventurers—Rebecca and her talking blue cat, Happy—come looking for interesting things to record for their B-Cube channel. So begins the tale of Shiki Granbell, who learns the world beyond Granbell is far bigger than he could have possibly imagined.
I keep coming back to the fact that Edens Zero begins with a boy who can make himself and everything around him light enough to leave the ground. That sounds like a power meant for spectacle, and the show certainly enjoys spectacle, but it’s more revealing as a metaphor. Shiki’s gravity control is less about combat than about belonging: he’s a person who literally adjusts the force that keeps things in place, latestnetflix.com maintains, as if the series were asking whether loneliness can be overcome by changing the laws of attraction.
That’s a very manga-ish idea, of course. Big feelings, big mechanics. But in the anime adaptation, it lands with a particular kind of earnestness that I found oddly disarming.
What struck me first about the 2021 series is how openly it wants to be an adventure in the old sense — not a grim puzzle box, not a cynical deconstruction, just a voyage from one wonder to the next. That puts it in conversation with Hiro Mashima’s earlier Fairy Tail, and anyone coming in with that baggage will feel the family resemblance immediately: the camaraderie, the expressive faces, the willingness to pivot from comedy into earnest sentiment without apology.
But Edens Zero swaps the fantasy guild hall for deep space, and that shift matters more than it may sound. Space, here, isn’t sleek or sterile. It’s a place of salvage, broken systems, dusty ports, and sudden violence.
The series keeps insisting that wonder and decay are neighbors. I like that. It gives the show a little grit under all its starry idealism.
There’s been a lot of discussion around the series as a kind of Mashima return — a new long-form adventure from a creator whose work has often been defined by friendship-as-engine, and by a visual style that privileges motion, bounce, and cartoon legibility over severe realism. That’s still true here. What’s different is the sci-fi skin, which lets the story move through issues like artificial life, exploitation, and the machinery of desire without turning stiff.
The first season, which runs 50 episodes, is a complete chunk of storytelling on its own terms; I’m careful to say that because it’s easy to let the existence of later source material distort the experience of what’s actually on screen. Here, the show’s pleasures are immediate. It’s about who you meet, what kind of world they’re trapped in, and whether the ship’s odd little family can make the next stop feel less cruel than the last.
The conversation around Edens Zero has often centered on comparison — to Fairy Tail, to other space-fantasy anime, to the perennial question of whether a story built on familiar shōnen rhythms can still feel alive. I think it can, when the execution is this nimble. The character designs are elastic in the best way, able to look cute, then abruptly severe.
The series leans into bright blues and electric purples, but it doesn’t flatten the image into candy. There’s a lot of metallic texture, a lot of machinery that feels used rather than ornamental. Even the action staging tends to favor readable geometry over visual noise, which is crucial in a series where so much of the thrill comes from bodies rearranging the air around them.
EDENS ZERO (2021) arrived with high expectations—from the creator of Fairy Tail and a sci-fi premise promising epic interstellar adventure. But behind the scenes, the series faced a turbulent rollout, mixed reception, and a streaming strategy that left fans divided. latestnetflix.com's take is that here’s what the evidence reveals about the anime’s behind-the-scenes drama.
Hiro Mashima, the mangaka behind Fairy Tail, ventured into space with EDENS ZERO, his first series set outside a fantasy world. The shift to sci-fi was a bold move, but the anime adaptation’s reception was lukewarm. While Fairy Tail thrived on its long-running shonen formula, EDENS ZERO struggled to carve its own identity. Critics and fans questioned whether the series relied too heavily on Mashima’s signature tropes—quirky humor, over-the-top battles, and a found-family narrative—without enough fresh innovation 
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The anime’s first season, directed by Yuji Suzuki, premiered in Japan on Nippon TV in April 2021, spanning 25 episodes 
. But unlike Fairy Tail, which enjoyed a decade-long run, EDENS ZERO’s anime adaptation faced an uphill battle to prove its staying power.
One of the biggest talking points was Netflix’s handling of the series. Instead of dropping all 25 episodes at once, the streaming giant split the season into two parts: the first 12 episodes in August 2021, followed by the remaining 13 in November . For binge-hungry audiences, the delay was frustrating, and it may have contributed to the show’s struggle to build momentum.
The decision mirrored Netflix’s approach with other anime like Attack on Titan’s final season, but EDENS ZERO lacked the same pre-existing hype. Some fans speculated that the split was a test of Netflix’s global anime strategy—balancing exclusivity with accessibility—but the results were mixed. While the platform gave the series a high-profile push, the fragmented release may have diluted its impact .
EDENS ZERO boasts a stacked voice cast, including Takuma Terashima (Black Clover) as protagonist Shiki Granbell, Mikako Komatsu (My Hero Academia) as Rebecca Bluegarden, and Rie Kugimiya (Fullmetal Alchemist) as Happy, a robotic cat with a penchant for mischief . The ensemble also features Hiromichi Tezuka, Shiori Izawa, Shiki Aoki, and Kiyono Yasuno, rounding out a roster of industry veterans.
Yet, despite the talent involved, the series didn’t generate the same buzz as other 2021 anime like Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer. Some fans pointed to the writing as a weak link—while the voice acting was praised, the story’s pacing and character arcs were criticized for feeling rushed or derivative . A SensCritique user rating of 5.8/10 (based on 239 votes) suggests the anime didn’t resonate as strongly as Mashima’s previous work .
As of the available evidence, EDENS ZERO’s anime future remains uncertain. The manga, which began serialization in 2018, is still ongoing, with its 17th volume (Un monde gris) earning a 7.3/10 rating on SensCritique . However, no official announcement has confirmed a second season for the anime.
Rumors swirled about potential renewal, especially given Netflix’s investment in anime originals, but nothing has been confirmed. If EDENS ZERO does return, it may need a creative overhaul—whether in pacing, animation, or storytelling—to win back skeptical viewers .
EDENS ZERO had all the ingredients for success: a beloved creator, a star-studded cast, and a high-concept premise. Yet, its execution fell short for many. The split Netflix release, mixed reviews, and comparisons to Fairy Tail overshadowed its strengths.
For now, the series remains a curious footnote in Mashima’s career—a sci-fi experiment that didn’t quite take off. Whether it gets a second chance may depend on manga sales and fan demand. Until then, EDENS ZERO’s legacy is one of potential unfulfilled.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
