Tag: One Piece

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Anime Editorials

Rediscovering Shonen Jump anime

Watching anime, I go through peaks and troughs.
The start of the year was a peak, but throughout February, I’ve been in a bit of a trough trying to find something new to watch and fall in love with.
At some point, I remembered that there’s a whole bunch of Shonen Jump anime that I should get back in to. I mean, I never finished Naruto Shippūden. Naruto is the reason I became an anime fan in the first place, my gateway drug. Apparently I’ve seen 573 episodes of One Piece too. I used to love One Piece and somehow it’s still going, with my last count showing 826 episodes and rising. Bloody hell, that’s a lot.

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Anime Reviews

A family in One Piece

Whitebeard was always a big, strong guy, then he ate the Earthquake fruit and became feared the world over. He could’ve turned the planet upside-down, but didn’t. He was a cool guy, and watching him lead his men in such an era-shifting arc of One Piece was brilliant.

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Manga Reviews

Yankee-kun to Megane-chan and the world of shounen manga apprentices

I’ve always found the idea of an apprentice palatable. The idea of learning directly from a ‘master’ on real-world projects is, to me, a better way of doing things. Over my years in university I can’t count how many lazy students (including the lazy student in the mirror) I’ve met who slack off simply because they can’t feel the real world gravity of  what they’re working on.
Just about every shounen mangaka has spent time as an apprentice: Eiichiro Oda (One Piece) began as Watsuki Noburhiro’s (Rurouni Kenshin, most notably) assistant, alongside Hiroyuki Takei (Shaman King).  In turn, Nobuhiro (among others) were mentored by Takeshi Obata, of Death Note and Hikaru no Go fame. Naruto‘s Masahi Kishimoto claims to have been struck with an inescapable motivation to become a mangaka after seeing an Akira poster (penned by Katsuhiro Otomo), and all of these, including Hiro Mashima of Fairy Tail fame, are spiritual successors to Osamu Tezuka and Akira Toriyama.
And where, you ask, is this lengthy preamble taking us? Towards Yankee-kun to Megane-chan!

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Anime Reviews

Beauty prevails

By most people’s standards, the above image will look a bit… ugly. It was snapped from episode 455 of One Piece, but, the thing is, I thought this episode was beautiful; beautifully animated, that is. The above is merely 1 frame in a sequence of animation depicting an old lady weeping. Her face changes its expression a lot in just this one scene, and while it may not look pretty, it’s the movement of the animation itself that conveys her emotion.

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Anime Reviews

One Piece, or when the anime is better than the manga

Before I start, a preamble: One Piece is a great anime. Ever since our little agreement a month back I’ve been tackling the series, from 229 onwards at a pace of about 3 or so episodes a day. Unlike the other One Piece addict around here, however, I must admit the plot and characters aren’t the focus of the experience for me. Rather, I was interested in how One Piece transitioned from manga to anime, particularly in light of some of the other Shounen Jump adaptations that came out in the neighboring years.

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Anime Reviews

Get back to watching One Piece

One Piece. Oh, man. Where do I start.

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Anime Editorials

In which I contemplate One Piece (and nothing less than the meaning of life)

One Piece begins with the execution of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. His death was intended to symbolize the power of the World Government, but had the opposite effect instead, conceiving the Golden Age of Pirates!
One Piece is full of mythology. What happened in the Void Century, anyway? What about the meaning behind the Poneglyphs? Gol D. Roger plays a massive role in this same mythology and is regarded more as a deity than as the fallible man he actually was. His first mate (Silvers Rayleigh, in episode 400 of the anime) provides us with a differing account of the Pirate King, a perspective not as much concerned with the legend as the man himself.
We learn that Gol D. Roger was dying of an untreatable disease at the time of his execution. He wasn’t caught in the prime of his life, but rather, just wanted to go out with a bang, in the words of Rayleigh, “In the last moment of his life, he (Gol D. Roger) turned his fading “flame of life” into a huge fire that enveloped the world.”

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Anime Reviews

[One Piece] Through hard times, and fun times… Yohohoho…

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Some anime are dark and depressing, others are romantic and heart-wrenching. One Piece is a story of friendship, chasing dreams, and smiling; honestly, it is a joy to behold, to listen as Brook plays his favourite song; the music has a feeling of nostalgia. The Straw-Hats’ celebrations are always moments of sublime happiness, which is something that One Piece has always captured so well, as after such a long, hard journey, it’s only right to reflect on the adventure, and, of course, to smile.

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But Brook cries instead, because his dearest Laboon has waited nearly 50 years to be reunited with him. Meanwhile, just a matter of days before, Zoro and Sanji offered to trade their lives in return for their friends. All of them were unconscious, Zoro nearly dies, and few know why. It’s a secret. Yohohoho.

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Anime Reviews

One Piece and why a man is only as good as his word

Brook: “He may think that we’ve betrayed him, but if he’s waiting even now, how miserable must he be? […] I can’t help but think that he’s believed in us all this time.“

Luffy: “Your nakama may be dead, but from now on I’m your rival!“

I love One Piece. I love how it can make me care, deeply, about such a rag-tag bag of bones and his long lost friend, a giant whale called Laboon. This is a complaint about One Piece that I’m used to reading, that the art-style is too cartoony to take seriously. While I can understand that opinion, isn’t it a tad superficial to rely quite so much on how a character looks in order to feel empathy for their plight? “He’s a man!!” says Franky, because Brook, despite everything that’s happened to him; dying, losing his body, even after having his shadow stolen, he’s a man because he’s still thinking about his dearest friend and the promise he made to him some 50 years ago. All that time has passed and he still cares. I could watch this anime forever. After all, skin or no skin, a man is only as good as his word (or his afro).

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Reviews

Is it the Franky or the beans? One Piece 321

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It sounds superficial, but something as stupid as a smile goes a long way; after a tiring week, it’s just a lot easier to relax in front of anime that’s pleasant and funny with happy characters who cheer and smile — that’s a big reason why I love watching One Piece. It’s just so colourful and fun — even the filler episodes, the so-called scourge of Shonen Jump anime, are good for a laugh or two; mindless fun is still, well, fun!
Today I watched episodes 320 — 321, the viewing made me realise how over the last few weeks I’ve utterly missed watching One Piece. I spent two years diving in and out of the series, losing sleepy weekends to Luffy’s adventures, but now the supply’s dried up and I suddenly have to wait in-line like the rest; my point is"¦ argh! The end of 321 is so frustrating. It’s not that I don’t know what’s going to happen — of course, (naked) cyborg Franky is destined to join the Straw Hats — but it’s the way it happens; the nostalgic goodbye, the embarking on a new adventure, the realisation of a dream"¦, I need to see it all right now, while these feelings are still warm.

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