is a Japanese

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...

series written and illustrated by Yoshinobu Yamada. It follows a group of teenage survivors of a plane crash who find themselves in a mysterious island inhabited by extinct prehistoric creatures and plants. It was serialized in Kodansha's ''

Weekly Shōnen Magazine is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published on Wednesdays in Japan by Kodansha, first published on March 17, 1959. The magazine is mainly read by an older audience, with a significant portion of its readership falling under the male hig ...

'' from November 2008 to January 2013, with its chapters collected in 21 ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or m ...

'' volumes. It has been licensed for English language release in North America by

Kodansha USA Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC is a publishing company based in New York, USA, and a subsidiary of Japan's largest publishing company Kodansha. Established in July 2008, Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and manga ...

Plot

Middle schooler Akira Sengoku and his class are flying back to Japan from their school trip to

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic ce ...

, along with other classes from their school and various passengers. But their trip takes an unexpected turn when their plane hits turbulence and crashes on a Pacific island. After recovering from being unconscious, Akira learns from his friends that they are on a mysterious island filled with extinct prehistoric creatures and plants. With nowhere to go, Akira leads a small group of survivors to find others like them. They search for a way to get home, fighting off the island's savage creatures and encountering other survivors who have gone mad. Along the way, they will discover the mysteries of the island. Was their crash really an accident? What secrets lie buried underground... and will they survive long enough to find out?

Publication

Written and illustrated by Yoshinobu Yamada, the manga ''Cage of Eden'' was serialized in Kodansha's ''

'' from November 26, 2008 to January 23, 2013. Kodansha collected its chapters in twenty-three ''

'' volumes, released from February 17, 2009 to February 15, 2013. On December 12, 2010, Kodansha USA announced that they had licensed the manga for English language release in North America.

Volume list

Reception

Katherine Dacey of ''The Manga Critic'' reviewed the first manga volume saying while she disliked the characters for "doing and saying things that defy common sense", she praised the author for "populating the island with scary-looking monsters and staging thrilling action sequences that temporarily erase the memory of the clumsy dialogue and panty shots". Brigid Alverson of

MTV Geek MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a d ...

reviewed the first manga volume concluding "The story has been told before, and ''Cage of Eden'' is no literary or philosophical masterpiece, but taken on its own terms as an action-suspense story, it delivers the goods and leaves the reader wanting more''. Rebecca Silverman of '' Anime News Network'' enjoyed the first manga volume and gave it a B, saying, "Despite its slow start, ''Cage of Eden'' becomes deeply engrossing, so that once a certain point is reached, it is nearly impossible to put down."

References

External links