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Prepare for have the smashing pulled out from under ya!
Going into this story I was given high expectations, pretty much from the start. You got an interesting title promising power, authority, drama, politics, war, a Bible Reference that is both a nice name for a person and a possible representation of the idea of eden, as Eden is as much an idea of being in a good place with God as much as it was a literal place at one point, a place where heaven and earth intersect. You got a picture that is beautifully drawn and while I don't mind cute and colorful characters, I find the dark and gritty picture to go great with the title, and then you have an apocalyptical summary at the table of contents page. All of this combines themes to show a story taken seriously and knows what it wants. Some of my friends on the discord told me they knew the author at one point and thought it was good. Then you read the Author's Notes where she lays it out, plain and simple, of what to expect. Action. Stupid fun. Epic scenes. Taking inspiration from not only the most intelligently written and introspective anime's in the 90s, but also some of the stupidest, funniest, most action packed from the same decade and one of my personal favorites: Dragon Ball.
I'm sold. And I haven't even read the first word yet.
It's nice to know what this story expects from itself, and so I plan to set my review accordingly. I half-way expect the narrative and plot to be messy and sacrificed on the altar of sheer stupid epicness and juicy action, and if so, that's fine.
-flash forward a month, Present Day-
The story is structured by volume, then by issues, then by chapter. This is highly structured and I like it. The 'issues' have a slight episodic feel to them with their own arcs and subplots, no doubt having taken inspiration from anime. I do not know how long the story plans to be, as three new chapters were released today, but with how long the story is I felt it fair to read two issues, comprising almost half of the current story. If I had more time, sure I can continue, but I'm a busy person and don't want this taking half a year. I'll probably continue reading on my own, but at this point I think I have seen enough to be able to do a review at the very least.
So lets get to it.
TLDR; Alucard (Hellsing Ultimate Abridged) and Handsome Jack meets Mad Max: Custody Edition.
Overall I'd rate it 4 smashing out of 5! Its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.
Main Character - Smashing! - The MC is right there on the border between a good kind of mary sue and purely absurd stupid fun; and by sheer willpower and mouth-watering and juicy action gives the story easily 90-95% of its value. To explain this: She is overpowered to a level matched only by Alucard. Yet, unlike many stories that take this absurd power and fail to make anything out of it, there is a little bit of tension behind it. The source of her power is in taking an absurd amount of anime steroids where, if she reaches her limit, will turn her into a monster just as powerful, then we all doomed, and her ambition is based on rescueing someone who is delicate. She doesn't know her limit, we don't know her limit, and her ambition doesn't give her room to question when it is. Just go go go! Half of the fun is in her getting impaled with random objects, like chair, and making sass out of it because it doesn't amount to shit at the moment, but yet every scratch and mosquito bite could be the last thing needed to trigger the deadly side effect of the drugs. This tension is made all the more real when you meet someone who does cross that limit and she has to contend with one of the very monsters she could become. Bravo. She also apparently is the smartest person around, leads one of the biggest baddest nations with the most intellectuals and biggest armies, has taken 5-6x more anime steroids than any other warlord, and is like super charismatic. Normally when you have a story where the MC has all of her stats maxed and is the biggest, baddest, smartest, whatever-est around, then its stupid and not in a good way and I hate mary sues. But this story avoids that by embracing the absurdity, making the strengths come from a logical place that has just as big of a side effect weakness and tension, and rather than sitting there and stopping to think about it, just keeps going. Don't think about it! Just punch the robot!
