Cage of Eden

Title:  Cage of Eden
Japanese Title:  Eden no Ori
Mangaka:  Yoshinobu Yamada
Length:  15 Volumes (Ongoing)
English Translation?  Yes, 4 volumes so far by Kodansha USA.
Demo/Genre:  Shounen/Horror/Action/Comedy

How did I find out about it?  It was on mangareader's Most Popular list for a while.  I think it has since dropped off...

A group of third-year middle school students took a class trip to Guam.  While flying back to Japan, their plane crashes, landing them on a strange island.  As the passengers explore the island, they learn that it is home to many large and dangerous extinct animal species.  Charismatic Akira Sengoku becomes the unofficial leader of a group of survivors as they struggle to find a way back home.

I chose this manga because it had several awesome words in its genre description on mangareader: horror, fantasy, action, psychological, romance, comedy, ecchi...ok, so "ecchi" wasn't one of the words that made me say "SWEET," but the other words (especially in combo) sounded pretty nice.  PLUS, the fact that I had only just recently finished watching all of Lost for the first time, I thought that this would be a great read.  Yeah, I was kinda wrong about that.

First, the art wasn't anything spectacular.  Not to mention that most of the art is spent on panty shots and cleavage.  I'm no prude, but the ecchi here was pretty distracting.  There were often frames that made me think, "Wow.  He REALLY wanted to draw that camel toe."

The story and characters are both lacking.  While the premise is interesting, it plays out in a very repetitive manner.  Sengoku's group encounters a new animal species and nearly die.  They escape.  They encounter a new animal species.  They nearly die.  They escape.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  This isn't helped by the fact that the characters are cookie-cutter characters that aren't interesting to read about at all.  Charismatic leader?  Check.  Nerdy megane?  Check.  Optimistic love interest? Check.  Strong, silent rebel?  Check.  And the list goes on.  I've said before that I don't mind cliches in manga, just do them well.  This manga failed that.  These characters might have worked if they were given unique histories and personalities, but they weren't.  We know very little about the characters' lives before landing on the island, and their personalities do not deviate from their given roles.

I was very disappointed by Cage of Eden.  I still read the new chapters, mostly because the plot is finally starting to leave the aforementioned cycle and unravel a bit.  I am a little curious about what's up with the island, but I'm not giddy with excitement when a new chapter is released, and I don't have any plans to collect this manga.  I highly doubt I will ever have the urge to reread it even once.