One Piece 29
Posted: December 23, 2009 Filed under: One Piece 4 Comments »Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 56+ volumes
I don’t have a lot to say about this volume. We see more of the fighting between Eneru’s army, the Straw Hat Pirates. and the Shandians. We also learn just how insane Eneru is. The title “kami” is used pretty seriously throughout the arc (there are several jokes about praying to kami/god in certain instances), but Ganfor confirms that the title holder isn’t really “kami” and is just the ruler of Skypiea. Eneru thinks differently, however, and does consider himself God. Everyone pretty much agrees with him, since his devil fruit power is allegedly invincible. The numbers are whittled away until we get closer and closer to Eneru’s prediction from the beginning of the fight. None of the fights are that notable, save for the fact that all the contestants have to dodge a gigantic snake that is rampaging because Luffy is beating it up from the inside. Later, he insists on escaping by letting it poop him out. He insists on this several times. None of the other characters like him very much for it.
I like Eneru a lot. He’s cruel, but he’s also far less dark and depressing than the other villains we’ve seen so far. He laughs a lot, and although his eventual goal seems to involve killing everyone on Skypiea, it’s eventual outcome is interesting, especially considering all the valid points he makes and the fact he’s lived in the sky all his life. Not that I’m condoning the methods, or all the murder, but he’s interesting all the same. If it turns out to be world domination in the end, I’ll be disappointed, though.
The scene in the last pages of this volume is still one of the most extreme and hilarious I’ve ever seen in a shounen manga. It also involves Eneru, which is another reason to like him.
Once again though, part of the fun I had reading through this part was anticipating how he was going to be brought low. As soon as they unveiled what his power was, I saw where it was going, and seeing everyone talking him up as invincible only made me more impatient for the inevitable. We don’t get satisfaction this time around, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be put off for another full volume.
One of those small, creative, One Piece touches I enjoy is that Eneru’s throne is on top of a giant beanstalk, for no reason, and everyone calls it a Giant Jack. I’m not sure why I take such pleasure from that, but it made me smile every time it came up.
Also in this volume, the new title page short story starts, this time starring poor Ace. Given the current storyline, it’s a shame I’m reading this now. I hope the poor fella’s okay in the end.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
So you’re up to date on this series, huh? What do you think about Viz’s quality in these books? Are they the same as before or did they change anything about them?
It’s about the same as before, the only difference I’ve noticed is that they’ve started labeling them with the story arc (all the ones from volume 25 on have been labeled Skypiea on the spine and front cover, on the spot in the logo where the katakana was originally but usually has “One Piece” written again in the English volumes). I haven’t noticed any serious deviations from what I remember in the fan translations as far as romanization of names and stuff goes, either, though the ongoing Navy/Marines name conflict still irks me a little bit. I can’t think of anything I would change about them other than the Navy/Marines and the whole Zolo thing.
It’s interesting that they added the story arc to the cover, but perhaps it’s a good thing so you can keep track of the events in the volumes a little easier.
What’s funny in the fans-vs.-Viz-translation issue is that the fans always want to name something the opposite of what Viz does. In the fan trans. volume 11-12, they call it Loguetown when clearly Roguetown sounds fitting. The fans call it Arabasta as opposed to Alabasta which sounds correct.
It’s like whenever one uses an “L”, the other has to use an “R”, but is there any reason behind this? Who do I trust: the big manga company or the faithful fans? Are the fans always right?
I had to plug my ears in regard to the fan translations after the fits I saw people throw when the Klahadore/Kurahadol change came up early in the series. It’s a ridiculous name to begin with, and even then, Klahadore strikes me as more correct, somehow, than Kurahadol. I was wondering which way they would go for Enel/Eneru, since neither sounds like a real name, but I wonder if it’s got something to do with Buddhist terminology. I tend to go with Viz, since some of the names are quite obscure and probably still have meaning, something that they’d be privy to that a fan would not. For instance, I think Wapol was romanized differently by fans, but I think it’s also a place name, so romanizing it as Waporu would be wrong.