One Piece Review - Alabasta

Today has been frustrating. I sat down, wrote like 750 words and just got to landing in Alabasta, only for my power to shut off for just long enough for all that work to be deleted forever. Then my wi-fi went in and out for the next 20 minutes, leaving this the 10th time I’ve written this introduction because I’m too stubborn to just write this in a word doc with auto-save. But internet has been consistent for a bit, so hopefully 12th time’s the charm. Because of that original setback, I am going to speedrun my review of the arcs before actually landing in Alabasta because I don’t want to write those all again. I’ll return to the longer review with the main meat of Alabasta.

Reverse Mountain- Good whale, good start. Log Poses are a very clever story element.

Whisky Peak- Entertaining overall, really starting the story of this saga. Nico Robin, the best Strawhat, is introduced.

Little Garden- I like Dorry and Brogy, Don’t care for the Baroque Works fight, ends very good though.

Drum Island- Didn’t care about Wapol, arc is carried by Chopper and Kureha carry my interest, which is enough to see it positively overall.

Finally we reach Alabasta proper. We get a short time with Ace, which is always welcome before we get some, as always, fantastic world building as the Strawhats travel deeper into the desert kingdom. Crocodile is a great villain, playing groups against each other and is notably different from Arlong, the last big villain. He obviously plans and schemes, wanting more than just physical power. This leads to our main fighters getting captured, rescued when Sanji continues being helpful in this arc but its not enough to make me like him. The fight with Luffy and Crocodile is pretty good, crocodile’s ability to not only become sand and attack with it, but also dehydrating people is pretty unique. As usual, our MC fails in their first fight, but he’s saved by the GOAT Nico Robin. With the war starting and the rebels and Baroque Works attacking, we get some good fights (except for Sanji) Zoro destroying some personal mental blocks through his. We get more of Crocodile’s style of business with one of his guys instigating the war even after a white flag as been raised. This leads into Luffy using some tactics to try and fight Crocodile again, soaking him with water to solidify his form before hitting him. Luffy doesn’t win here, which helps make the story feel that much more pressing, but finding Crocodile’s weakness makes victory seem possible. After some time-critical drama and a friend’s sacrifice, we get to the final battle between Luffy and Crocodile. Luffy goes full metal and uses his own blood to solidify Crocodile to hit him. Its a good battle, some give and take with the suspense of Luffy being poisoned. Eventually Luffy beats Crocodile with a grand set piece. The battle finally ends with the rain falling with Crocodile, symbolizing the end of trouble and a new age for Alabasta. While we say a heartfelt goodbye (for now) to Vivi, we also have an exciting introduction, having Luffy save her life when she wanted to die, the GOAT Nico Robin joins the strawhats. Our crew gets some growth and acheivments of their own, Nami’s new staff, Zoro’s first bounty, and Luffy knocked Crocodile out of his warlord seat.

Lets see where the story goes from here, as its only gotten better so far!

One Piece Review – East Blue

Jumping right into the story we find ourselves in the first major saga of one piece. A lot of this saga is spent growing the crew. We first meet Luffy and learn a bit of his backstory before he sets off and meets Koby, who will later become one of my favorite characters, but now is underwhelming. Though we aren’t left with underwhelming new characters for long, meeting Roronoa Zoro, or Zolo if you’re feeling like making a select group of people very mad. The overall story of this arc is fine, its nothing crazy, though the introduction to not only Koby, but Helmeppo who will become recurring characters lays the work for some surprises later on. Even if the story isn’t nearly as crazy as later arcs, it does serve an important purpose of introducing the audience to the concept of the Navy being corrupt to help endear us to the pirates, many of which are pretty bad people otherwise.

We leave Romance Dawn with Zoro onto Orange Town, where we meet and recruit Nami. They fight Buggy, we leave. Other than the new crew member, the biggest part of this part is the introduction of more devil-fruit users. Something that still has its novelty this early on in the story, but, unfortunately, will lose its luster in the future, but, fortunately, the future doesn’t bring the present down. We also first hear the term “Grand line” here, but its not important until later so lets move onto Syrup village.

To be completely honest, I am not Usopp’s biggest fan, especially early on. I appreciate the “Boy who cried wolf” story, and gaining the Going Merry is very important, its basically the mascot of the series. However, lets move on to Baratie and meet my least favorite Straw Hat, Sanji.

God I hate Sanji. He’s better pre-time skip, but I just hate the pervert-simp archetype in anime/manga, and Sanji has 3 modes, pervert, fighter, cook, and pervert seeps into the other two. Its also tragic because I really like his backstory and his traits beyond perversion, like his almost rabid aversion to wasting food, but for every moment like that we get, we get 10 of him with heart eyes annoying every woman he sees. Luckily, we also get some moments for other Straw Hats in this arc, Zoro gets humbled by the immensely powerful Mihawk, introducing the depth of power already present on the seas. This is something I actually really like, the world feels lived in and more “real” for lack of a better term when things are already super strong and present, all the new powerful threats aren’t being revealed or coming from far away lands, they are already sailing the same waters as our main characters. Mayhaps this positive’s reverse will show up if I ever do a Naruto review, mayhaps. This part of the story ends with Nami taking the Going Merry and we get into the best bit of this arc, and easily the most memorable, Arlong Park.

Arlong park gives us some of early One Piece’s best stuff, particularly Luffy seeing and going out of his way to destory the room of maps Nami had made. I love characters that seem simple or even dumb, but are actually pretty perceptive of people and how they feel/what they can do beyond their insecurities, a trait that connects Luffy and Goku. We also get the iconic scene of Luffy giving his hat to the crying Nami in this arc. This arc is pretty much the gate to the rest of the series, if you don’t like Arlong park, you won’t like One Piece, its really that simple. Great character moments, a good, lengthy, varied fight, and the introduction of major recurring themes like the wanted posters really give you a good idea of what One Piece is going to be like. Of course, One Piece isn’t for everyone, and not everyone is going to vibe with the particular formula that makes this series, but I think everyone should give it a shot to this point.

Loguetown I honestly didn’t consider when I was first laying this review structure out, Arlong seems like the final boss, and he is in a way, with this arc acting as more the falling action out of East Blue and into the next saga. Were introduced to Smoker, and with him Logia devil fruits, and his subordinate Tashigi. These are concepts that will return later, and luckily Devil fruits haven’t ran their course just yet. Zoro gets some new swords, like upgrading your gear in a video game before moving to the next area. Overall other than introducing recurring characters, not much is very memorable about this part of the story and so the Straw Hats move on.

Overall East Blue is a very good start to this series, It has its problems, One of which being the early repetition that bored me from reading on during my first attempt years ago. Most of the other issues I have come from characters I don’t care for or outright don’t like, Sanji in particular. Its lucky these issues are surrounded by a sea of One Piece, a genuinely good series with a lot of heart, which takes a series far. Readers can very easily tell when a series doesn’t have a genuine soul, but you never get that feeling with One Piece which can make you forgive a lot while reading, I genuinely hate whenever Sanji gets his heart eyes, but then something cool or funny happens and I all but forget about it and read on. East Blue is the heart of One Piece, if reading this saga doesn’t make you want to read on, then the series frankly isn’t for you.

One Piece Review Introduction – Setting SailBlog Post Title One

What seems like an awful long time ago, while I was still in middle school, I used to scarf down all the manga on totally legal websites I could so I wouldn’t be in the middle of a series in case they got shut down. After one of these binges, Probably my 5th read through of Soul Eater, which I may write up a review for sometime, I saw One Piece sitting on the front page. Of course I had heard of One Piece, I had grown up during the prime of the “Big 3” discussion after all, but it was never a series where while I stood there looking at the disjointed volumes sitting on the school library shelves, that I decided to pick up. So in that moment, I click it and start reading. I admittedly, didn’t read much. I read around 20 chapters, didn’t click with it and put the series down. For years I always told people I tried it, but it wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t Dragon Ball, people took what I said and understood. I would keep that opinion for years.

I am now out of college as I am writing this, and as of this moment, I have emphatically reached chapter 800. Nowadays I have less sketchy ways of reading manga, the Shonen Jump app offers a pretty good deal of a subscription service, especially with how fast I read. I’ve reread Dragon Ball countless times, found new series like Black Torch, rediscovered strories I never finished like Claymore, introduced myself to older classics like the Yu-Gi-Oh mangas, and kept up with favorites like Blue Exorcist and the newer Dandadan. In between all these series, I’ve found myself to be more experimental than I was in my youth, trying different types of series that I’ve come to love, like Hikaru no Go and Blue Box, but last year I decided that, instead of trying new series, I should revisit some I didn’t like, This started with a full read of Naruto, which I may make a whole series review later on, I don’t think I care enough about it for a series of reviews. After slogging through Naruto, I decided, after a little break, they are both long series after all, I would tackle One Piece again.

I really didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, I expected to like it more, probably finish it, and keep with it, but there must’ve been a reason I didn’t like it. Right? It was after I got past Skypeia, I had read more than 300 chapters at that point, that I thought about that question. Why didn’t I like it, and why do I like it so much now? I was leaving for a trip at this point so I took a break from reading and pondered in my free time away from family and events. I eventually landed on it must be that I’m more patient, or perhaps I know more about where its going which causes me to be more patient, perhaps both. When I tried to read it in middle school, it was face value, I couldn’t see where it was going and it bored me, I just read “go to island, find person, fight bad guy, recruit person, go to next island” and didn’t stop to consider that that was merely act one, it was set up and I never realized. Now, a more experienced reader, with more patience, I breezed though that beginning portion, not hitting the wall that I hit as a kid. I just wasn’t ready for One Piece. But now I am, and I’m loving it. I’m going to break the review down between the “Sagas” since I don’t have a lot to say about some of the smaller arcs, but don’t want a giant wall of text that a review for the whole series would become. I am writing this introduction in the night of May 24th, and I’m going to start the East Blue review the next day, hoping to get a review posted at least once a week, but these first few may come faster as I want to get everything down before I start forgetting. I truly hope you come sailing with me to find out about the One Piece and the journey that takes us there!

It can be hard to write

To be entirely honest I’m mostly writing this piece just to keep myself in the habit of sitting down to write.

It’s been hard recently to make time in front of a word processor, and I don’t really know why. I haven’t undergone the same depression in any other part of my life, but with work, expectations, and other life events, I don’t spend what free time I have writing. I’ve tried, I’ve sat with Libre writer open, just watching the blinking cursor, and every time my hands go to the keyboard, its like I’ve forgotten what words are.

Honestly it can be kinda scary, I love writing, and I recently started a long term commitment to writing, one I hoped to be making progress on, but now I’m failing in that commitment.

I honestly don’t know what to do about it, I think I might take a little break from trying, like a week or two, and spend all that time reading, I’ve got a plenty large backlog of books, hopefully that’ll recharge the ol’ writing batteries.

Absolute DC #1s Review (Originally Posted Nov. 7th, 2024)

So DC, yesterday as I’m writing this (Thur, Nov. 7th), has released all the #1 issues of their new Absolute universe trinity. Absolute Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman are all out and this new universe is firmly launched. I wanted to do a quick review of all 3, but firstly, I want to say this, buy these books. These are good books by some amazing creatives. But lets talk about them in more detail in release order.

**Spoilers Below**

Absolute Batman — While all these books re-imagines these characters, this one seems the most different, this Batman isn’t rich, he works construction and trains in a local gym. He hasn’t lost his parents, only his father, with his mother being very much alive. Also the one thing he had holding him together in the regular continuity, Alfred, is out for his head. This Batman is built like a brick wall, using his physicality just as much as his new and unique gadgets. This batman can walk on sticks in his cape, like a bat has arms in it’s wings, he has an axe in his chest emblem, and knives in the ears. The spirit of wanting to improve the city you belong to is still there, this Bruce Wayne is still incredibly smart and strong, using his almost in-human willpower to change the city for the better, but this Bruce isn’t the type to know the DA, or be able to offer jobs to everyone he beats up like the one we’re used to. Overall, its a great start to a new Gotham with new and old problems, probably my favorite of these #1s.

Absolute Wonder Woman — This book, like Batman, takes everything away from Diana, just for her to find a way to be a hero anyways. You can hide even the word amazon from her, but she knows what she is, and will never hide it. This Diana has a much darker aesthetic, emblematic of growing up in hell, with a giant sword and a badass helmet. This Wonder Woman comes into our world to fight demons, a far cry from her mission of peace many are used to. This book has us watch as Diana grows in hell, slowly molding herself (out of clay??) into the hero and warrior she needs to be, we see her kindness early, a strong foundation for a hero. This Diana may not have the amazons or even human allies like Steve Trevor, but she still manages to make the most of her power, fighting to protect as always, just with a different kit than we’re used to seeing her with. While we don’t get a whole lot of world building like with Batman, we get a lot of Diana and some gorgeous art, so it lands a solid, but close, second place for me.

Absolute Superman — Another great start. If Batman was a balance of character and world building, and Wonder Woman was mostly character, then Superman balances it back out with a lot more world building, and some world destruction as well. Here we get a re-imagining of Krypton, which, while on the surface may appear like the Krypton we know and love, we find a deep seated inequality between classes. Instead of the famous “S” crest meaning hope and/or being specific to the house of El, it is now the symbol of the working class, a “People of Steel”. The hubris of the scientific class and their rampant exploitation of their planet leaves a broken world, cracking under the pressure of its people. Leaving that flashback, we find Clark (sporting my favorite of the redesigns for Absolute btw) fighting for the working class on earth. The book will obviously deal with the real world problems of land exploitation and the ravaging of third-world peoples by first-world nations and corporations. I honestly can’t wait to see where they take this book, and while it may be in third place for me, that’s like bronze in the Olympics, still pretty damn good.

Birthday Blahs (originally posted Aug 16th, 2024)

I recently passed my birthday, Aug 11th for those curious, and I had the same thoughts I always seem to. Its genuinely sort of frustrating not feeling much during a birthday. I’ve never put much thought into mine, if everyone forgot it, I might just enjoy being left alone all day, but then maybe that would get lonely after a while, who knows. I appreciate that people care, I really do, and gifts never hurt, but I never feel any different during or after. Its a strange feeling since I do get excited about other holidays like Halloween, and Christmas (even though I don’t practice any religion). Maybe its the mutuality of it all those other holidays, I know others are feeling the same as me, or maybe its the feeling of celebrating myself that I don’t like for my own birthdays. Who knows. I wouldn’t categorize what I feel as the “Birthday Blues” I never feel sad or depressed, I just get this feeling in my stomach, almost like before you give a presentation. Its a genuinely strange feeling, not happy, not sad, not disappointed, not excited. The best name I can think of is the “Birthday Blahs” a strange feeling somewhere in the middle of it all. I can’t be the only one who feels this way right? Even if I am is that so bad? Who knows. Just wanted to get this feeling out there, perhaps talking, or I suppose writing, my feelings out will be good.