TL;DR: As long as you go into this series wiping clean all your reservations about Fairy Tail, you'll have a positive experience. Edens Zero shapes up to be your average shonen packed full with well-done moments.

L;DR:
By all means Edens Zero is not my typical preferred reading material, nor is it a series I would take the time out of my day to review. But I definitely feel that it’s getting a lot of undeserved slander in the other reviews that have barely read past the first ten chapters. This manga is actually… pretty good, and I’ll express why that is now.

As of right now (that is, 108 chapters in), I’ve gotten a good feel over Edens Zero, its plot, and characters. When I first picked up the series, I thought I would only read a few chapters before an inevitable drop—Hiro Mashima is, after all, the author of Fairy Tail, which is a series I could never really get into. My assumption, like many others, was that it would just be another Fairy Tail clone that harps on about friendship every thirty seconds.

I suppose that analysis is not entirely incorrect. Shiki, our male protagonist, takes the word “nakama” and runs with it—like many other shonen, Edens Zero runs on the power of friendship. And the character designs, while still rather pretty, often seem like rehashes of the few Fairy Tail characters I can remember (And I suppose from Rave Master even before that). Then again, it’s not like I’m against this sort of character recycling, and Mashima is certainly not the only one to employ such a technique.

So what exactly is the story of Edens Zero? The easiest way I can explain it is as One Piece but in space. Perhaps not as complex as One Piece, but it has the same, general set up. Boy who values friendship goes on a grand journey to find the One Piece—or in Edens Zero, an elusive figure known as “Mother.” Being set in outer space or something of the sort, Mashima has lots of fun world building to play around with, similar to One Piece. Each cosmos is filled with unique planets that are used to set up new plot points, characters, villains, etc. Really, it’s quite clever—put a group of friends on a ship and send them out into the world, and boom, perfect shonen material. I’ll eat that stuff up any day.

What I’m trying to say here is that Edens Zero is technically quite average. Plot, while having some interesting tidbits (ie. The power system of ether gear which I find unique) is not something totally brand new and revolutionary. The characters, while mostly developed, aren’t too crazy special (especially if you’re one of those Fairy Tail fans who can only see Fairy Tail characters in their spots). But… it’s very, very entertaining.

No, really. I had a lot of fun reading this series, and I’m going to keep up with it weekly from now on. There’s always the possibility that something major happens in the series later on to skew my opinion, but as of right now, I’m genuinely excited to see where this series goes. Some of the fight scenes and moments I’ve read will be absolutely awesome when the series gets its anime adaptation, and I think if people would just remove the Fairy Tail predecessor from their minds Edens Zero would be pretty highly received.

It’s a manga that’s quite easy to get invested in. Several moments have genuinely made me tear up with how heartfelt they were, and I found that flashbacks were worked in pretty well to accommodate the pacing. Even if Shiki yammers on about how much he loves his nakama every five or ten seconds, it’s not really that big of a deal—it makes sense. The story wouldn’t exist without the friendship-power, and you can tell that they’re really, well, friends.

A few other things of note, though. For one, if you’re a fan of ecchi, you can start slobbering at the mouth, because Mashima is too. If there’s a female in this series, you can guarantee Mashima’s got some highly detailed, curvaceous art of that character, in practically every other panel. Female characters are often underdressed, and there’s a few too many tentacle monsters referenced in the manga for my personal taste. But even if I’m not a fan of all the fan service, the female (and male) characters actually seem to be really well-thought out. Each have their own motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. And the girls are pretty badass, Rebecca holds her own in a fight easily, Homura claps literally everyone, and so on. Mashima’s done a great job of making everyone likeable, at the very least.

I’ll be eagerly awaiting the Edens Zero anime adaptation, and I’d definitely encourage reading if you’re in the mood for some solid shonen.