I’ve really been enjoying Hiroki Endo’s Eden: It’s an Endless World! (Dark Horse), though I don’t think the most recent volume is one of the strongest in the series. It detours from the larger narrative into worthy but very familiar territory. (It seems that prostitution can be a dangerous profession, especially when drug addiction is thrown into the mix.) It’s executed well, and by the end, things seem to be moving back into the story’s larger context, so I can’t complain all that much.
Still, it was nice to have the first volume of Endo’s Tanpenshu (also from Dark Horse) lying around to provide some examples of the creator at his best. It also provided fodder for half of this week’s Flipped. The other half is spent in probably pointless meditation on the ICv2 Guide #39 which, it must be noted, is created for comics retailers and not nerdy pseudo-pundits with laminated membership cards in Team Manga.
Anyway, back to Tanpenshu. I’m not the only one contemplating its many wonders. Greg McElhatton at Read About Comics and Dave Ferraro at Comics-and-More have reviewed it as well.