The EDENS ZERO manga’s ending is coming up on the horizon. It’s been confirmed that EDENS ZERO’s final arc has begun in Weekly Shounen Magazine with the Universe Zero Saga.
The EDENS ZERO manga is being drawn and written by creator Hiro Mashima, who also created Fairy Tail and Rave Master. Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine has been serializing the manga since June 2018.
It’ll be up to EDENS ZERO Volume 25 as of February 17, 2023. Several years ago in 2019, the manga artist once predicted that EDENS ZERO Volume 30 would be the final volume.
“For now, I would say it is around 20 to 30 volumes. Well, even if that is how I feel now, it will continue longer if it’s meant to continue longer, and it will end if it is meant to end. At first, I thought I would finish Fairy Tail after 10 volumes or so, but it ended up continuing as long as it did because it became more popular than I had expected it to.”
But the story surpasses even his expectations. Back in January 2021, Mashima said in an interview that he thought EDENS ZERO would last around 30 volumes at first, but even then he knew it might not end there because ideas keep coming to him one after the other.
“But it may not end there,” the EDENS ZERO author said at the time. “The more I draw, the more fun it becomes. I have ideas one after another.”
In December 2022, it was announced that EDENS ZERO would start its final arc in the next magazine issue. The EDENS ZERO Chapter 221 release date was on December 28, 2022, and EDENS ZERO Chapter 222 continued the story in the new year on January 11, 2023.
When will EDENS ZERO’s final chapter come out?
Apparently, Mashima wants to make the EDENS ZERO manga longer than Rave Master, which had 295 chapters in 35 volumes, but much shorter than Fairy Tail, which ended in Chapter 545 with Volume 63.
As for the climax or how he wants to end the final chapter, Mashima has an idea for a EDENS ZERO ending in mind but it’s apparently morphing over time.
“It depends on the manga,” Mashima explained. “For Rave Master, I had a clear idea of how I wanted it to go all the way until the end. On the other hand, I had nothing decided at all for Fairy Tail. EDENS ZERO lies somewhere between them, as I do have certain aspects decided, but I want to keep the weekly ‘sense of live action’ important.”
So, if we were forced to make an estimate, the EDENS ZERO manga’s ending will be coming out sooner than later. The manga chapters are divided up into story arcs and Sagas.
The first saga, the Sakura Cosmos Saga, had 9 story arcs. Chapter 105 was the start of the second saga, the Aoi Cosmos Saga, which only had 4 story arcs. Chapter 170 began the 3rd saga, the Kaede Cosmos Saga, which had only 2 story arcs.
Warning: There are major spoilers for the latest chapters from hereon.
Finally, the fourth and final saga, the Universe Zero Saga, began with Chapter 217. The 2nd story arc will apparently pick up with EDENS ZERO Chapter 222 as time rewinds and Shiki and Rebecca must do their best to save the world.
Presumably, Mashima won’t be fast-forwarding their final adventures. Thus, the final story arc could be quite long depending on how the plot events in the timeline are depicted. After all, things will only get interesting once there are major deviations from the original timeline.
But it’s probably safe to predict that there will be less than 300 chapters altogether and between 30 to 40 volumes in total. As such, the final chapter will come out in either 2023 or 2024 since the new manga chapters come out weekly.
EDENS ZERO Universe Zero saga hits the reset button
The final saga began with the revelation that the world will end in the not-so-distant future since the world ends with Mother because Mother flows through all humans. But there is still hope since a ship will allow them to escape to Universe Zero.
Universe Zero is the only world where Mother’s death can be changed. But this chance at saving the world comes at risk since they can’t rewind time in Universe 0. There’s also a huge cost since the characters essentially revert back to the beginning of the story, lose their memories, and must meet each other again!
Thus, EDENS ZERO Chapter 221 begins with Rebecca and Happy traveling to the old theme park planet Granbell. When Shiki meets the duo things replay exactly as before until Shiki asks Rebecca to be friends… and that’s when all of his former memories come pouring back.
Now that Shiki and Rebecca have found each other again in Zero Universe, EDENS ZERO Chapter 222 will start their quest to rewrite history very carefully… To a start extent, this story is ending similarly to Tokyo Revengers or Re:ZERO except that they only get one rewind and thus one more chance to make things right.
Let’s just hope the EDENS ZERO manga’s ending is epic. Stay tuned!