One Piece 20

This series is one of the few that tops itself over and over again with awesome ideas.  In this volume alone, there is a Duck Squad, a main batter, some kung-fu dugongs, a gun with a cold, a battle that lasts a proud two seconds, and a game of whack-a-mole in place of a battle.  Plus some awesome lying.

This volume is mostly just exposition to the final rounds of battles for this storyline, which I believe will still take several volumes to play out.  The armies are clashing and the Baroque Works and Straw Hat Pirates are trying to intervene for various reasons, and the Marines are still wandering around somewhere.  There is a fight between Crocodile and Luffy at the beginning of the volume that doesn’t last very long, and we do see some of the fight between the armies at the end of the volume, but… there’s a lot of traveling.  Plus we get to see Miss Merry Christmas and Mr. 4 fight Usopp and Chopper.

Usopp is one of my favorites in a fight.  The other characters have some really creative moves, and they’re all fun to watch in their own ways, but Usopp’s fights are the best because the stuff he does often comes out of left field.  He is the sharpshooter, but since he doesn’t actually use guns, he relies on some truly bizarre strategy.  He fires almost nothing in this fight in favor of things like whack-a-mole setups and stuff like that.

My favorite scene was probably the list of animal helpers that get the Straw Hat Pirates across the desert, with the army of swift ducks being my favorite of the bunch… but not by much, because I’m also a big fan of kung-fu dugongs.  Karoo got to be a hero at the end of the volume, too, which was really sweet.

Next time will probably just be more Baroque Works fights, like Sanji vs. Mr. 2 Bon Clay, Zoro vs. Mr. 1, and Nami vs. Miss Doublefinger.  As much as things slow down when fights are in progress, I’m still really looking forward to them just because the variety of techniques the characters use keep things fresh (the devil fruits are quite good for that, like the Jojo stands).

What can I say?  Every volume is fun and fresh, even after I’ve already read them.  It’s just the best.  There’s nothing else quite like One Piece.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.