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Friday, March 27, 2009

One Piece - 300+ manga chapters so far and lovin’ it!

To be honest, at first, I was hesitant on checking out One Piece for the longest time. Knowing that the series had 300+ anime episodes and around 500+ manga chapters was quite intimidating. It didn’t help the fact that the pictures that I saw of it didn’t appeal to me, and lead me to misbelieve that it was just some dumb, goofy overrated series. Like the kind of series that just wouldn’t appeal to my tastes. Then within the past year I was pestered by my friend Natti for the longest time to check this series out (although it was no where near the level that she kept bugging me to check out D.Gray-man). She kept going on about how good it was and kept saying something like “Don’t let the artwork fool you!”, but even after what she said, I was still hesitant on checking it out. Few months later, I had read all the copies that my local library had to offer for InuYasha. While I was standing there trying to figure out what series I should tackle next, I gave in and checked out their copies of One Piece. I did this mostly so I could get my friend to stop bugging me about it, plus, when it comes to a series like this, I’m much more willing to sit down and read its manga counterpart than watch the anime. So what do I think of the series? Well, the fact that I have now completed over 300 chapters in a short time (roughly 3 months) obviously means something, and I’m still going! I read all 19 volumes my library had, and I’m now reading the scans. This has got to be one of the most enjoyable series I have ever read!

I’m having a lot more fun reading this series than I ever did watching/reading InuYasha. One of the reasons why I’m enjoying this is the shear amount of thought and creativity put into this series, its unbelievable! Just how does Eichiro Oda do it?! Here I have been admiring Kubo Title for a while now for the same similar thing. I was impressed at how he came up with an endless amount of characters, a unique look for each one, abilities, weapons, and even a back story for each character in both Bleach and Zombie Powder. Not to mention, I love the fight scenes and how they where executed from both series. Yet Echiro here, good lord, its like Kubo Title’s creativity x5! You never know what this guy is going to think of next. From the enemies our heroes will encounter, to the places they visit, the new friends they meet, even something like what kind of crazy stunt Luffy will try and pull next. What I also find interesting is that many of the islands/groups of people/pirates they meet all seam to have some kind of theme going on. Then there's also the characters, I really like the characters from One Piece (especially Luffy and the rest of his crew). Heck, I even find the bad guys amusing to watch. They all have their own unique character designs and personalities. So its all one fun unpredictable thrill ride. (Ah well, I still like Kubo Title’s style, and it appears we both have the same views when it comes to music. Perhaps I shall comment on this in a future post?)

Overall, I’m enjoying this series A LOT more than I thought I ever would. I even feel tempted to check out the anime, although I’m going to continue the manga first, seeing how I’m already on a roll with that. Maybe i'll comment again later once I reach the 600 chapter mark or start the anime....

1 comments:

Yumeka said...

Yay! I'm so glad you're enjoying One Piece ^_^ I personally like it better than Naruto and Bleach, but as you probably know, Naruto and Bleach are more popular in the US while One Piece is more popular in Japan. I guess the unusual artwork, the really long story arcs, and the pirate theme are just not as appealing to Americans. But at least there are still plenty of English-speaking OP fans, and it's always nice to have one more ^^