One Piece 25

Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 56+ volumes

It looks like volumes of One Piece will now be labeled with their corresponding story arc.  The next four volumes are all labeled “Skypeia” on the spine, and I also got the 3-in-1 volume containing the first three volumes, and that’s labeled “East Blue.”  I like it.  So much goes on that it’ll make it easier to find specific parts of the story if I just want to pick up a volume and read.

I skipped volume 24 for right now.  I can’t remember exactly what goes on there other than the Straw Hats seem to have picked up Nico Robin, find themselves in Jaya, make a Shanks-like stand in a bar, and later tangle with monkeys, but I was surprised it didn’t have more bearing on the story in this volume.  Whatever.  Feel free to skip that volume, but the in-between parts of One Piece are always some of the most fun.

The next story arc is Skypeia, and is introduced as a fantasy world that rests in the clouds.  The Straw Hats know it’s up there since their log pose indicates they should head for the sky, but mixed with this is the legend of Norland the Liar, who took a kingdom to the island of Jaya 400 years ago claiming there was treasure and a lost city, things that were simply missing when they got there.  There is some evidence that the lost city may have existed, and the Straw Hats meet one of Norland’s descendants, who gives them help on how to propel the Merry Go straight into the sky from the sea.  It’s pretty spectacular.

We also get to play catch-up with some of the characters.  We are introduced to two more of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, the five heads of the World Government, Admiral Sengoku and his goat, and we also catch up briefly with Buggy, Shanks, Whitebeard, Ace, and we are introduced to Blackbeard.  I completely forgot about Blackbeard here, and it’s interesting to see his entrance into the story after the recent developments concerning him.  Hmm.  Also, his name was altered to Marshall D. Teech, which is kind of a strange change given his name and character are based on Edward Teach, the real Blackbeard.  But I suppose Teech is okay, since history disagrees about whether Blackbeard’s name being Teach or Thatch.  And maybe there’s a Zolo/Zoro conflict again.  Whatever.  I assume there’s a good reason for it.  Also, he mostly goes by Blackbeard, so that’s okay.

There’s lots of weird and funny stuff happening to pass the time.  While the characters are hearing the story of Norland the Liar, Luffy et al keep turning to Usopp, who becomes increasingly more indignant.  The looks Luffy has on his face while doing this are priceless.  There’s also a brief scuffle with a pirate named Bellamy, who says that pirates can’t have dreams.  Luffy disagrees, and also wants his friend’s gold back.

There are several great speeches about dreams in this volume, too.  Dreams are a common theme in Shounen Jump series, but it’s a theme I like a whole lot more on One Piece terms.  Usually the dream is to be the very best at something, like baseball or fighting some guy, and when the victory happens, it happens because a new move was mastered or because perserverance paid off.  There is a lot of that in One Piece, of course, though the characters generally don’t “level up” during fights, and they don’t find themselves in fights they can’t win the way other shounen heroes do.  But the dreams in One Piece are also more abstract and dream-like.  For instance, here the dream is to fly their pirate ship into the sky.  That’s something that I can relate to as a dream.  It’s something any little kid dreams of doing, and watching the characters acting so sure of themselves while they go about making it a reality is just great.  They also don’t take crap from anyone who says there are no islands in the sky.

But yes.  Already I’m very fired up about the story again.  There are some very Dragonball-ish parts coming up that I’ve always been quite fond of, and I believe the story stays pretty consistently entertaining until the very end.  Hooray for that.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.