One Piece - Sailing the East Blue (1/?)

Introduction:

This year is the year I finally decided to start reading Eichiro Oda’s One Piece after years upon years of putting it off. I knew it was good, but the art never really drew me in and the character designs were a little wacky and, like most people, the length was a little daunting, to say the least. The whole series is going to wrap up around a cool one hundred and twenty volumes if Oda is to be believed. No small feat of both artistry and reading effort.

I finally got the push to start it from a close friend of mine wanting to start a podcast where we watch shitty battle shonen movies. Which meant a manga readlist that was already miles long without One Piece. Which meant that I would have to catch up to One Piece to some degree. That’s when I found out that One Piece, like a lot of shonen, is split up incredibly cleanly between its larger story “sagas.” One Piece’s average out to around 9 volumes a saga. So a plan formulated in my head.

See, I knew that One Piece would end up being special to me. I made the decision to pace myself. My plan for One Piece became this: I was going to buy the entire series physically, in omnibus format, saga by saga. I would then read each saga as a break between other manga. So, when I finished reading Part 1 of Naruto (pre-timeskip) I put Naruto down and picked up the first One Piece omnibus. I was immediately hooked.

 

I should preface that, at the time of me writing this, I’m actually only 15% through the series or so. I just started volume 16, in the middle of the Drum Island arc, part of the Baroque Works/Alabasta saga, the second story arc. Most of my opinions on One Piece as of now are mostly gut feelings, ones I got whilst reading the first story saga, East Blue.

Gushing:

So Yeah. One Piece is a battle shonen. It has a power system, people fight, there are speeches about friendship, and the bad guys get beaten by the good guys because of said friendship to some degree. It is also incredible. What starts out as a goofy, almost Osamu Tezuka-esque pirate manga very quickly and very subtly shows its hand as infinitely more than that as early as the second arc, Orange Town, and very unsubtly shows its hand in the next arc, Syrup Village. 

 

See, One Piece is about this guy, Monkey D Luffy, an incredibly stupid pirate. He goes around on adventures with his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates. The only thing is, Luffy has no crew at the start. It’s just him and a dinghy versus the world. He has the goal of becoming the “king of the pirates.” You all know that from the 4kids rap. Pretty by-the-numbers shit for a battle shonen. The hard-headed, devil-may-care good boy who wants to be the president of the pirate-wizard-ninjas goes around making friends and beating the bad guys.

 

What sets One Piece apart is that it feels like the culmination, even at the beginning, of one person’s life’s work. See, Eichiro Oda didn’t just make One Piece his life when he signed that Weekly Shonen Jump contract in 1997. One Piece has been part of his life since he was young. And boy it fucking feels like it. He has lived and breathed manga since he was a kid, both reading and drawing it. 

 

One Piece’s world is, to use an annoyingly obvious world, alive. It is textured and real feeling. The entire planet is mapped out with its own ecosystems and hemispheres. Every town feels alive and unique, every island breathes not just life but creativity. Oda has created a world that is equal parts “a believable place where people are born and where they live and die” and “an adventurer’s paradise, where danger lurks around every corner as long as you seek it out.” And it’s all in the brass tacks. Oda has put clear thought into grounding the whimsical, magical feeling of the world. “Yeah there’s an island of dinosaurs, but here’s how the island of dinosaurs came to be, with thought put into how the ecosystem would have developed and how it fits into the larger puzzle of the world and how it came to be during the time that One Piece takes place.”

 

This texture and whimsicality is extended to the characters as well. Take Buggy the Clown. Buggy the Clown is a man who was born with a large red nose. He is sensitive about this large red nose. If you mention it, get gets pissed off. It also just so happens that he decided to theme his entire pirate crew around the circus, with him as its ringleader. There’s lion tamers, acrobats, and his pirate flag has Buggy’s large red nose on it. It’s fucking hysterical, yes, but it’s also grounded in the world. 

 yes, this guy:

 

Wait, Metaphor??:

See, pirates in One Piece are more than just “pirates” in the textual sense, but they also represent, in a metaphorical sense, the concept of “freedom itself.” To be a pirate, to express yourself and to be who you truly are, is freedom. If you are a pirate, you are unequivocally free in the truest sense of the world. But it doesn’t just say that all freedom is good. There is “freedom to” and “freedom from.”

 

A character like Luffy, who runs around beating the bad guy, represents this kind of “freedom from.” Freedom from the chains of society, its expectations, the oppression of an abusive government like the one that holds his first real crewmate, Zoro, in its clutches, etc. To Luffy, hell, to be “king of the pirates”, is to be defined by your “freedom from.” 

 

However, look at Buggy. Buggy is free, yes. But his freedom is twisted. He uses his freedom from authority to become authority. He has become someone who takes people’s “freedom from.” He is exerting his “freedom to” do whatever he wishes, and he is using his “freedom to” hurt people. This is where Luffy steps in.

 

Like, all battle shonen are about, on multiple textual levels, clashes of ideology. Bleach is full of it, Naruto is full of it, but most of all, One Piece is full of it. Luffy, the ultimate avatar of “freedom from,” goes around tearing down systems of oppression. He shows the world that they can overthrow their masters and live their dreams if they only take that scary first step towards true freedom. All while he himself reaches towards the freest freedom of all. 

 

Back to the Characters:

To wrap back around to the characters, there is also care in how they affect the world. See, Luffy has this idol, Red Haired Shanks. Luffy grew up in a town that Shanks called home for a few years and it is in Luffy’s relationship with Shanks that Luffy’s wish to become a pirate formed. This is emboldened when Shanks saves the village from bandits, and Luffy from a sea monster, sacrificing his left arm for Luffy’s life. For Luffy, to be a pirate is to be like Shanks. To fight the forces that would make you cower in fear.

 

 

 

But Shanks isn’t just a figure in Luffy’s life. One Piece isn’t that kind of story. See, Buggy the Clown grew up with Shanks. They shared a pirate crew and grew apart because of how Buggy feels Shanks betrayed him. One of Luffy’s crewmates, Usopp, his dad is a part of Shanks’ crew, and you can see Usopp’s dad in chapter one hanging out with Shanks. Stuff like that is ALL OVER One Piece. 

 

And when Luffy is out of someone’s life, let’s use Buggy as an example, their story doesn’t end. People’s lives aren’t defined by one person’s presence. The world moves on without you. And so Oda periodically checks in on characters who aren’t around for the Straw Hats’ adventures at that moment, but who still have things going on. You get to watch Buggy recover from his encounter with Luffy, you get to watch Luffy’s friend Koby the Cabin boy training to be a navy officer, you get to watch Usopp’s friend Kaya train to be a nurse. And these events, these glimpses into places that the story isn’t at, are important. Buggy comes back. A Lot.

Outro:

 

And that’s what makes One Piece special. It’s a goofy, plucky manga about a goofy, plucky pirate going around fighting the bad guy, yeah, but to just sell it as that would be to do it a disservice. One Piece is also a complicated, textured work. One where a dense web of connected characters is overlaid on a world that is living and breathing, each island a character in its own right. It's a journey I find myself wanting to just devour wholesale. But it's one I'm deliberately pacing myself on. I'm also not going to read it weekly. My plan is to catch up to the beginning of Wano Country, the current arc, and wait until it ends. And then I will binge Wano, and wait once more.

So yeah. One Piece is a manga that, to me, feels like a healing salve for the soul. I find myself, even this early in, thinking constantly about the Straw Hats. About how I want my journey with them to last forever. See, the length of One Piece is a turnoff for some, and rightfully so, but if you let yourself get absorbed, you might end up like me. Someone wishing to spend the rest of his life going on periodic adventures with the straw hats. I cannot wait to follow the Straw Hats through their lives, to see Luffy become King of the Pirates, but I find myself secretly wishing that it'll never end. All of this, and I'm not even a quarter of the way through the manga as it is today. So yeah, like Nami says, my cares do just melt away on a ship like Luffy's.

Naruto - To Be A Ninja

I just finished reading Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto and surprise surprise it was good. Great, even. Lovable characters, engaging storylines throughout, really tight theming woven throughout the entire work, etc.

The Bad:

Before I gush about what I loved, I'm gonna get some nitpicks out of the way.
The art by the end of the Great Ninja War arc was really messy at times, which comes with the combat being so literally world-shattering. The character art was consistently good throughout, it just made the battle scenes in this battle manga hard to follow. Thankfully, the last fight was very very very easy to read.

I think that, while still engaging, the Great Ninja War arc got a little bogged down in fanservice and complicated fight scenes, which is the point don't get me wrong. Part of the draw of the series is the power system. It's just not a power system I personally could keep up with. By the end of it, I was treating everyone's jutsu like regular superpowers, ignoring the power system rules entirely. Same goes for the transforms people got, all of which I just mentally referred to as super saiyan forms.

Continuing on about the Ninja War, it definitely has some of the weakest moments in the series as a whole, but it's made up for by having some really genuinely great scenes and character moments. Naruto really rewards investing in EVERY character to some degree, which I like. And there's some really nice fanservice. Maybe I just have trash brain, but getting to see Zabuza and Haku and Sarutobi and all those characters that I loved but aren't around any more, that shit was fun. It had some dream matchups, some dream rematches, it's all just good fun.

Karin is just the worst character and I genuinely dislike her. Sakura's writing goes REALLY off the rails around the time of the Gokage summit. My favorite characters all ended up taking somewhat of a back seat, which is completely fine because they still got their cool moments. The Sakura thing is just so egregious because Naruto is a series where everyone feels very consistently written and each character is really easy to understand, and her fake confession to Naruto feels so out of place and mishandled because it just is not informed at all by her character up to that point and is a huge sore thumb in her arc.

Kishimoto's women are not great in general. Even Tsunade and Temari, who I love, are still like, not the best. Especially with how good his male cast is.

Killer Bee didn't need to be rapping with ebonics in the localization. It's a little cringe.

I wish the manga wrapped up Orochimaru's plotline a little neater.

Ok that's the bad

The Good:

The good is that it's good. It's really good. Naruto, like Bleach, feels so misunderstood by anime fans at large. The characters are lovable, their designs are appealing, the art is good, the fights are cool, the story is engaging, and it pays off well. It never truly loses the scrappy charm of part 1, it just grows up and matures alongside Naruto himself.

I think my favorite part is the Sasuke Retrieval arc of part 1, but the Pain arc is also really good and beloved for a reason. I guess my thing is like, when an arc isn't as good as the one that came before it, that doesn't make the arc BAD. I LOVE the Fake Town arc in Bleach, it's my favorite arc! It doesn't make Thousand Year Blood War bad. 

Naruto's ending is incredible. That final fight is great, and Sasuke and Naruto are really compelling characters the entire series, so the final encounter pays off super hard in that regard.

And like, I dunno, I just love battle manga. All I really need in my life right now is good characters in a fun world with cool powers and a strong grasp on weaving a theme consistently throughout. Naruto's thesis is basically just Evangelion's thesis but with ninja wizards. "Human interaction is painful and you will be hurt and maybe even will want to hurt others, but human interaction can also be beautiful and healing and life-changing in a good way."

Conclusion:

There's this monologue that Sasuke gives at the end of the series. One that starts out with "We started out as lonely brats... starved for love and fostering hate." He then goes on to thank Naruto, saying "You never cut me off, in fact you never stopped trying to get close to me. You could have justifiably come charging at me with hatred, but you never stopped calling me your friend."

That shit is why Naruto owns. That shit is why I read fiction in general. Humanity kinda sucks, but people themselves can be incredible. Naruto owns because Naruto could be anyone, really. Naruto may be the reincarnation of some sage's kid, but that isn't what makes him special. What makes Naruto special is that he cares. He cares about others, he wants to see them grow and succeed and become better people. 

THAT is why I read battle manga. Because at their best, they're life-affirming, positive works. Works that bring out the good of humanity even in the most dire of situations. They're like injecting pure, unfiltered serotonin into my eyeballs.

So yeah, Naruto is great. I get why it's one of the best selling comic series of all time. It's compelling and cool and has universal themes and relatable characters. It's not in my top 3 battle manga, but it's one that is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.

Trigun Retrospective

 

Intro:

 

            Yasuhiro Nighthow’s Trigun was one of my first ever manga, one I read ten years ago now. I read it because it was in my middle school library. I found the two hardcover volumes comprising the initial series tucked away at the bottom of a bookshelf in the corner of the library. “Why is it backwards?” I thought to myself, flipping through it, enamored by the art.

 

I read those volumes so many times, upset that my library didn’t have Trigun Maximum, the sequel series. Fortunately the regular library a short walk away from the school had it, all fourteen volumes. I devoured it. And then I found out there was an anime. Needless to say, I was in love at the time. But as time passed, it kinda left my brain. I was young, and I knew Trigun was good, but I didn’t actually understand why it was good. So, it got shelved in the back of my brain as “a thing that is good.” 

 

A few years ago now, however, I rewatched the anime with my fiancé. I loved it, if you couldn’t tell. I had resolved to reread the 16 volumes that make up both manga series. I didn’t get around to it until this year. I’m really glad I did.

 

Trigun is probably one of my favorite series of all time now. As a child I liked it because it looked cool and I thought it was neat that Vash didn’t kill people. As an adult I like it for those reasons, but also because of how, for lack of a word, philosophical the series is.

 

Now, of course Trigun is just a compelling work of fiction. All of the characters are engaging and incredibly complex, the setting is fun, the designs are cool, and the story is really gripping once it gets its teeth into you. But as I was reading the manga for Trigun Maximum it occurred to me what reading it felt like to me. It felt more like reading a dialogue of philosophy over reading a quote-un-quote “normal” manga.

 

Characters and Their Philosophies:

 

The four principle characters, Vash the Stampede, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Legato Bluesummers, and Millions Knives are all complicated, textured characters, but they also feel like mouthpieces for philosophical arguments. Every conversation, both spoken and through action, feels like an explicit clashing of ideologies. This is normal for fiction, but it is in this clashing where Trigun plays its true hand. The story and the setting fall completely to the wayside when not just these four principal characters, but all of the characters, talk to each other. It’s reminiscent of dialogues written by philosophers like Kierkegaard or Hume.

 

I want to define the four principal voices in the manga quickly, the ones that do the philosophical heavy lifting. Of course there are other voices that are also important, but they exist as extensions of the principal characters’ philosophies. The principals are:

 

            The un-aging Vash the Stampede is a hardline pacifist. Killing is a no-no, and when he is forced to engage in violence, he intentionally avoids killing blows and helps his adversary make it out alive as much as possible. He seeks the ideal moral outcome, one where everyone lives and changes for the better, above all.

 

 

Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Vash’s on-again off-again companion, is a trained assassin masquerading as a preacher. To Wolfwood, killing is a necessity, something that needs to happen some times. To him, killing is the moral thing to do if it’s to achieve an outcome that, at the time, seems moral, but isn’t ideal.

 

 

Millions Knives, Vash’s brother, is the exact opposite of Vash himself. To Knives, humanity is a stain on the galaxy. The ideal moral outcome to Knives is one where humanity is wiped out so they stop abusing the life-giving Plant organisms and so they stop consuming and consuming and consuming, as humans are want to do. To Knives, killing is an absolute rule. Humans must die.

 

 

Legato Bluesummers is much like his master, Knives. Unlike Vash and Knives, however, Legato is a mortal, a human being who has seen firsthand the horrors caused by humans on their fellow man. He is a victim of a society that failed him, and in his detached rage, he wishes to see the human race exterminated, as they only exist to hurt. Much like Knives, Legato sees killing as a must. Humans must be exterminated.

 

Alongside these principals, there is a side cast. Vash has Rem - his guardian as a child, Meryl Strife - his love interest, a and an adopted family. Wolfwood has the orphanage he is from and his colleagues in the assassin group he is from. Knives and Legato have the Gung-Ho guns, a group of killers hired to challenge Vash’s ideals directly.

 

 

(Livio the Double Fang is one of my favorites, one who is absent from the anime)

 

Vash and Wolfwood spend the majority of the manga going back and forth about the morality of killing. For example, there is a scene incredibly early on where Vash defeats the minor antagonist of the chapter. Vash, being Vash, leaves the character alive. As Vash turns to leave, however, Wolfwood executes the antagonist. 

 

Wolfwood justifies the execution as both a mercy – Legato would simply kill them anyway when they leave for failing – and a necessity – if we didn’t kill him, he would simply kill you when you turned your back. Vash replies in anger – by killing them, he says, you take away their choice to not fire back. You take away their choice to change. Scenes like this are Trigun’s bread and butter, bringing up an argument for and an argument against violence.

 

 

 

It’s very similar to a manga from the early 2000’s, my favorite manga actually, Vinland Saga. Much like Vinland Saga, Trigun is a story that doesn’t just engage with violence for an aesthetic hook, but it engages with violence as the core of the story. It’s not a story with violence, but a story about violence. Violence in every aspect, physical, mental, emotional, etc.

 

i just love this shit a lot:

 

I want to avoid spoiling much of the story, as it’s a story worth experiencing. The manga series are the preferred way to go through Trigun, but the art is muddy at times and it is a story that demands a more literary mind. It’s incredibly engaging, but not as in-the-moment exciting as other series in the same genre. If you want a series that instantly hooks you, one that has your blood pumping the whole time, look to other series perhaps. However, if you are patient and wish to grapple with your own personal philosophies on violence, I implore you to read all of the manga. It is well worth your time and patience, for even if you aren't wowed by the story, you will be better off for going through a work so unique in its medium. 

 

The anime, on the other hand, is another, albeit similar, beast.

 

Its 26 episode run aired before Maximum even started publication and adapts almost none of the manga, being basically entirely anime original. It exists as mostly a thematic overview, a trailer of sorts for the concepts that the manga discusses deeply. However, it’s just as engaging philosophically in its own right. It's also, to be honest, more instantly engaging as a story, sharing an episodic structure with works like Cowboy Bebop. The plot stakes backseat to character-driven short stories that all tie into the greater overarching themes of the story.

 

The characters are the same and the core situations, though in completely different contexts story-wise, are still there. It’s just not as meaty as the manga. If Trigun’s anime is like a nice dinner, Trigun Maximum is a thematic buffet that you want to keep eating at. It's one that I am going to be eating at for the rest of my life, that's for certain.

TL;DR:

 

All this to say that, in my re-examination of this franchise that helped define my tastes in fiction and my own personal philosophies, I love Trigun a lot. I don’t think it’s a spoiler that Trigun takes Vash’s side. No one has the right to take the life of another. However, if you do commit that sin, you are not marked for hell forever. Your ticket to the future is always blank, and with a blank ticket, you can go anywhere, do anything. Trigun states that the song of humanity is a never-ending song of change, of growth, of, well, life.