Month: June 2022

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 8

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

We open today on a familiar scene; Luffy and a single companion aimlessly adrift at sea. Zolo complains that they really need to get a navigator. He’s got a point, I’d say.

It’s not long before shenanigans ensue; Luffy tries to turn a passing giant bird into dinner. Instead, it ends up carrying him away, separating him from Zolo. Not that the former pirate-hunter has much time to ruminate on loneliness or anything of the sort. As he’s trying to catch up to Luffy, he runs into a trio of pirates adrift at sea. He rescues them. Or maybe it’s more correct to say that he….doesn’t stop them from rescuing themselves?

Of course, the rescued pirates are far from grateful, and we hear for the first time a name that I suspect we’re going to become pretty familiar with.

Of course, Zolo is not one to just roll over because he’s outnumbered.

Subdued, the pirates explain how they got stranded in the middle of the ocean in the first place. Their story, told here through a few flashback pages, introduces us to a new character. This one I know we’ll be seeing a lot of. And if you’re vaguely familiar with One Piece at all, you probably recognize her.

Yes, that’s Nami, one of the handful of other One Piece characters I knew by name before starting this project. I didn’t really know anything about her, though. I certainly didn’t know she was introduced to the comic by swindling a trio of pirates out of their ship with a fake treasure chest.

I think I have a favorite character.

Back in the present, Zolo muses that being able to predict the weather that well would make her one hell of a navigator. I suspect we’ll be circling back around on that notion before too long.

The pirate trio say they work for one Buggy the Clown, who apparently “ate the fruit of the devil” and is the fiercest pirate in the area. (The mention of devil fruit all but confirms my thoughts from a few columns ago. Although, like I said there, it’s kind of obvious when one thinks about it.) They need to get back the map of the Grand Line that Nami stole, or their vicious captain will have their heads. We don’t meet Buggy himself, here, but (small spoiler for the next column, here), the volume that begins with the chapter after this one is named after him. So I’m quite sure we’ll meet him soon.

We do see his ship here, in a bit of very blunt foreshadowing.

Sometimes as a critic you see things that induce a loss for words. “Pirate ship that’s also a circus tent” is one of those things.

Naturally, we link back up with Nami basically immediately.

Her escape from, presumably, more of Buggy’s crew is interrupted when Luffy falls out of the sky, causing a huge commotion.

Nami, in her second defining character moment in the span of 20 pages, immediately takes advantage of the situation by pretending Luffy is her “boss” who’s come to rescue her. (Sidenote: I really love how Oda’s panels tumble in to a jumble of diagonals on this page, it really emphasizes the frantic pace of the scene.)

Fans of 18th century German folk theater may recognize the term “Hanswurst.”

They don’t actually “have” Luffy “right there”, of course. One of them makes the mistake of swatting his hat, and gets laid flat for his troubles.

Nami, perhaps sensing opportunity, introduces herself shortly after, in the chapter’s last page. Although she can’t know it, she may have not picked the best opening line.

Does that make her some kind of meta-pirate? A double pirate? A pirate pirate? A piratesite? A buccane’er-do-well? A thief of the thieves of the sea?

All in all, I really quite like Nami’s first chapter! Roguish characters who live and die by their wits are always great fun in a story like this, and it gives her a nice contrast with Luffy, whose main approach to problem solving is “punch first, ask questions later.” I wonder how long it’ll take before she joins the main crew?

Regardless, this actually marks the end of the first volume! I was a little surprised by that to be honest, since it seems a bit brief to me, but with 8 chapters each, one of them double length, under our belt, we are already over 200 pages into this story. There are many more to go, of course, many of which will also involve Nami. Personally, I can’t wait.

But what about you? I’m particularly interested in asking my other first-timers here. What do you think of Nami’s introduction?

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 7

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Hello once again, pirates! Let’s start with a bit of meta talk today. This is the first column written after I started actually publishing these, and I’d like to take a moment to sincerely thank each and every one of you who’s supported this project so far. Reading One Piece every day is a hell of an undertaking even with you guys also on-board. Without you, it would be nearly impossible. So yes, sincere thanks all around and I do mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Some points of contention have arisen, though! I’m eventually going to put up a small Frequently Asked Questions page that I can direct folks to for stuff like this, but just to very quickly explain the two things I’ve gotten the most question marks over:

  • “What are you calling him Zolo and not Zoro?” – The official translation uses “Zolo.” It’s worth noting that both are rendered the same in Japanese (and I do tag the articles with both names), but Viz says it’s Zolo, so “Zolo” is what I’ll be using, in much the same way that the guy from Spy x Family is “Loid” instead of “Lloyd.”
  • “Why are you reading the black and white version? There are full-color versions that cover most of the manga.” – I prefer to read the manga as close to originally written and inked as I can, and the black and white is better for that.

And that’s the reasoning behind both of those decisions.

But hey, you may well not care about any of that and just want me to get on with it already. Fair enough! Let’s get back to the story. (Though, if you do have any other questions, feel free to sound off in the comments below.)

So! Captain Morgan is dead! We see his damn body slumped on his back on the ground, so that’s pretty final, and I suppose I was wrong yesterday, because his son seems to be out of commission, too. This chapter, then, deals with the fallout of his death. Mostly, people are pretty grateful.

Koby is relieved to learn that Morgan ruled by fear and that the navy isn’t really like that. (Hmm.) Luffy, Zolo, and Koby are rewarded with a hearty meal from the mother of that little girl Zolo befriended. Luffy also impressively manages to scarf down more food than Zolo despite the fact that a bit earlier in the chapter the latter literally passes out from starvation. As they eat, Luffy boldly lays out his plan to travel to the Grand Line to find the One Piece. (A treasure whose name I constantly have to remember not to italicize, despite every bone in my body screaming at me to do so.)

Koby will not be accompanying them, given that he’s still determined to join the navy. But, as Luffy puts it, even if they go their separate ways, they’ll always be friends. That’s a nice thought; that even if the people we meet in life eventually leave us, the real value is that we met at all. And he thanks Luffy and Zolo for teaching him how to stick up for himself.

All this makes for a cute interstitial, but it doesn’t last. The navy boys inform Luffy that, despite his and Zolo’s heroics, they’re pirates, so they can’t be allowed to just lounge about in a navy town. To their limited credit; they do at least let Luffy and Zolo go without reporting them, but this is still a pretty rough thing to do, and it’s called out as such by a few background characters.

Koby, meanwhile, has his future employment with the navy put into jeopardy by this whole event, since the officer he pleads to let him join up thinks he might be a pirate spy. Luffy has a solution to this, of course; violence. Or rather, provoking someone else to violence. He pretends that he’s going to tell the officer about Koby’s past with Alvida, threatening Koby’s career with the navy. This spurs the former cabin boy to fight back (although, obviously, he’s not a match for Luffy, despite getting a solid hit in).

“Disturbing the peace” in this fashion gives Luffy and Zolo plenty of reason to leave, and they make their way to do so.

But it doesn’t take Koby long to figure out that Luffy was deliberately trying to push him away for his own benefit. Accordingly, he runs out to say goodbye to them as they leave anyway, and the sailors prove themselves good sports in their own way by doing this.

With their friend behind them, Luffy and Zolo set out toward the Grand Line, departing with Koby on amicable terms. But, the seas ahead aren’t quite crystal clear.

A single post-chapter page informs us that this is the Great Age of Piracy! An age where “pirates beyond number raise their flags to battle for fame and fortune.” Perhaps it could be said, then, that the true start of Luffy’s journey—and ours—is here.

That’s the first week of One Piece down, friends. Many more lie ahead of us.

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 10

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

This week; festival stuff, beginning with the haunted house that was teased at the end of last week’s episode. Even in just this opening scene, we get a lot of interesting xx. Kaguya and her cousin Maki alike prove to be cowardly within the haunted house proper, and when we flash back to how all the spooky 3D sound (yes, 3D sound) was recorded in the first place—by subjecting Miko to it—and we get maybe the only Love is War! segment that might cause untoward awakenings in certain viewers. Seriously, if you showed some of these stills to someone out of context they would very much get the wrong idea.

Thankfully I’d never do that to my loyal readers.

More to the point, back in the present, Miko catches a couple making out in the haunted house and as a result the attraction gets separated into two lines; one for boys, one for girls. By coincidence, this also ruins Ishigami’s initial plan for getting an ideal opening to confess his feelings to Tsubame, so he has to do something else instead.

On the spur of the moment, while visiting a class cafe, he wins a gigantic heart-shaped cookie for her, with the intent that doing so would just be a nice gesture. Dramatic irony ahoy, he is unaware of the whole “eternal love” urban legend, singled out by the narrator as one of about 10% of students who doesn’t know about it. This leaves Tsubame a blushing, mess, and, flustered, she runs off screaming that she needs time to think about his inadvertent confession.

And friends, let me tell you, I am someone who is pretty sensitive to second-hand embarrassment. Ishigami accidentally(!!) confessing to his massive crush on Tsubame in front of her own class, a good 20 or 30 people, did not just make my skin crawl, it made my spine shuffle around like a deck of cards. I could feel my teeth conspiratorially whispering “get a load of this guy” to each other. My hair stood on end and metamorphed, Bayonetta style, into that one meme of girls at a college party looking awkwardly at the camera. The cringe is real, and it is inside of Ishigami. I have not felt this bad for the guy in quite some time.

Later in the episode, Shirogane and Chika wonder aloud about Ishigami’s chances. Shirogane is hopeful, admittedly because if Ishigami isn’t successful, it might ruin his ability to pull off his own forthcoming confession. Chika, meanwhile, says Ishigami “doesn’t have a prayer.” Comedic rudeness aside, she does think pretty hard on Ishigami’s chances, despite her initial assessment, including grading him on “points” and trying to put herself in Tsubame’s shoes a bit. This facet of Chika has always been pretty interesting to me. What she’s doing here—treating romance between two people as an object of amusement or for study—is fairly representative of someone with a para-romantic personality. If she’s seriously interested in any crush or anything of the sort of her own, we don’t hear about it here, and I’m pretty confident we never will. (This does have the unfortunate effect of sidelining Chika any time the anime starts focusing more heavily on its dramatic side.)

My armchair psychoanalyzing of Chika aside, she indicates that thinking on it more, she actually does think Ishigami has a chance, and it is always nice to see her being genuine.

Elsewhere, we’re reintroduced to Moeha, who you may or may not remember as Chika’s younger sister. She’s also basically Chika But Sadistic, although that angle of her personality is toned back here, since this segment focuses on her newfound crush on Shirogane.

Yes, Shirogane now has another girl who thinks his dead-eyed sleep deprived stare is the sexiest thing in Japan. There’s even a great moment where Kaguya, who is initially very hostile upon finding out about this, has a “could this be one of my people?” sort of reaction as the two gush about that very feature of his.

Before that, it’s Chika who tries to sabotage the relationship, by demonstrating how terrible Shirogane is at various things. She picks a pretty random task—juggling—and sets him to do it, assuming he’ll be as awful at that as he was at singing, rapping, playing volleyball, and however many other things. Naturally, because of the laws of comedy, he’s actually pretty fantastic at juggling. And the three or four other things Chika tries to have him do.

That particular segment ends with this, a casual reminder that Moeha has a particularly warped personality. But hey, at least she’s funny about it.

Post-credits, we find out that someone’s stolen all the heart-shaped balloons at the festival! Truly, an unprecedented crime! The heist of the century! Who could our culprit be?

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 6

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Today we come to a problem I was pretty sure we’d face eventually.

So; this chapter is really good. The issue is that it’s almost entirely a single action scene. This is something you can do in the serial manga format. If your average chapter is 20 pages, and you’re reasonably confident that you’ll get enough chapters to tell the, you know, story parts of your story, you can stretch your legs a bit. Some chapters are entirely or almost entirely the “blood” part of the ancient “love, blood, and rhetoric” triangle. This is one such chapter. It’s just always a bit of a challenge to write about something so kinetic.

I can give you the actual events of things in a single sentence; Luffy and Zolo fight Axe-Hand Morgan, and Morgan loses. We learn a few more things in here, admittedly. Morgan seems to have some weird sway over his men, as at one point he orders them to shoot themselves for “cowardice” and they almost do it. Mind control? Something Else? Who’s to say? It’s early days. (For me, at least. I’m sure at least some of you have read One Piece before and are smirking right now.)

Although, on the note of supernatural abilities, this chapter does make mention of the “Devil Fruit” first alluded to back in Chapter 1. My guess then is that these devil fruits are the manga’s plot tokens; Luffy became a rubber band man upon eating one. I’m quite sure that other varieties of fruits could grant different powers. (Honestly, now that I type it out, it just seems obvious. Is this what the vending machine coins in Gleipnir were riffing on?)

Sir, I would like to venture that you—a man named “Axe-Hand Morgan” who, in fact, does have a hand that is an axe—are not a good judge of what is ordinary or not ordinary.

The only other things of note that occur are that Zolo and Koby both get little moments of solidarity with Luffy. The former’s is depicted in the column banner, and Luffy replies to it in a very Luffyish way.

And Koby is brave in the face of what may well be death as Morgan’s son takes him hostage. He needn’t be scared, of course, since Luffy rescues him as part of the battle that unfolds here.

Beyond that, I’m honestly at a bit of a loss. I will say that Oda’s panel composition and command of visual storytelling are really spot-on even in this early stage of the manga. You could remove the dialogue and still have a solid idea of what’s happening, and all of this stuff is just a genuine treat to look at. But aside from that, there’s only so many ways to rephrase “this is all really badass.” Still, if we’re truly in for the long haul I suppose I should be okay with repeating myself at times. So let me say; this is all really badass.

My absolute favorite pages in this chapter are actually the last two, where we see Morgan attacking, and then the aftermath of his being struck down by Zolo on the following page, but not the strike itself, a lovely little visual trick that gives you a brief “wait, what happened?” jolt before what exactly occurred dawns on you. It’s a neat way of making Zolo’s attack somehow seem even cooler by not depicting it at all. I imagine some kid reading that on their way home from school in ’97 and thinking it was the raddest thing they’d ever seen, and that just puts a smile on my face.

Now, it’s not clear if Morgan is actually dead. Generally, in work like this, if you don’t see someone literally get a head chopped off or something similarly definitively fatal, their return is always a possibility. (And either way they still have Morgan’s annoying son to deal with.) Is more stylish violence to come? I suppose we’ll see.

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 10 – The Great Dodgeball Plan

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

This week on Spy x Family: dodgeball.

Yeah, dodgeball. You know. That horrible game played in elementary and middle school classes the world over where you chuck specially made pain orbs at each other. It will not surprise you, I hope, to learn that yours truly, who grew up to become a professional anime critic, does not have the fondest memories of the sport in any of its many variations. But, hey, kids getting socked in the face with dodgeballs is kinda funny. Thus, this episode, which is seriously like a solid 75% kids getting socked in the face with dodgeballs.

Also this.

The core conflict that makes these particular 22 minutes go are dead simple; someone in Anya’s class starts a rumor that getting MVP in a gym class game can get you a stella star. Anya wants a star, so she’s going to do her best at dodgeball. Damian wants a star too, because it might get daddy to notice him (that’s called building a sympathetic motive, friends). The obvious thing for Spy x Family to do here might be to have Damian and Anya on opposite teams. But instead, they’re on the same team, and the real threat is this fellow.

Yes, Bill Watkins. Age 6. Built like a brick wall and whose father is, as we briefly see in a flashback, apparently M. Bison from Street Fighter. Bill Banner here is an absolute volleyball monster. He’s the Scott Steiner of first grade volleyball, and no one else in class is even playing in the same league. (Obviously! This is Spy x Family, not Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.)

Both Anya and Damian have been training though, in very different ways. Yor tries to teach her daughter some—ahem—killer techniques. With enough enthusiasm that she almost blows her cover.

The “training” scenes are a particular highlight of this episode. Both the goofy shit that Yor puts Anya through and, later on, Damian training with The Boys are absolutely hysterical. In the former, Yor chucks a volleyball so hard that she casually prunes a tree by doing so.

In the latter, Damian and co. imagine themselves on what is very clearly Namek, while in real life they’re just messing around with a tire swing.

None of this actually helps when it comes time to face Bazooka Bill, who downs most of Anya and Damian’s team with comparative ease. (The only thing stopping the carnage from being worse is that they’re playing whistle dodgeball here, which is a slower, basically turn-based variant that, somehow, is even less fun than normal dodgeball.) There are plenty of “dramatic” (comedic) scenes of characters taking the bullet for one another here. Here, for instance, is Emile, one of Damian’s friends, leaping in front of him to block one of Bill’s shots with his face.

And here’s Damian doing some Naruto shit to defend Anya—yes, Anya. Remember, he’s a tsundere—from the same.

Anya’s “killer move” doesn’t do much either. She definitely throws the ball hard, but messes up at the last moment and ends up chucking it at the ground, and she’s promptly eliminated moments later.

None of this even ends up mattering, as Master Hendersson explains, there is no Stella star awarded for something as minor as winning a single game in gym class. Thus, the entire episode is a gigantic, lavishly animated anticlimax that progresses basically nothing. Even any development of Anya and Damian’s ‘relationship’ is pretty muted. They immediately have a fight after the match is over.

But such a stretching of legs suits Spy x Family just fine, especially after last week’s comparative seriousness. Next week marks the penultimate episode of the first cour, I imagine something a bit more dramatic will begin brewing then.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

So OSHI NO KO is Getting an Anime, Let’s Talk About That

“Perhaps the next time you read about Oshi no Ko on this blog, it will be about an upcoming anime adaption.”

I don’t want to say “I called it.” But I’m actually lying, because I totally do want to say that.

To be fair it did not take a genius to know that this day would come eventually. Oshi no Ko is popular, well-liked, written by one of the new greats in his field and drawn by another in hers (Aka Akasaka, also of Kaguya-sama: Love is War! and Mengo Yokoyari, of Scum’s Wish, respectively). Nonetheless, I’m glad that it has. Oshi no Ko is like very little else; a dark, intense examination of the entertainment industry and what it means to be famous from almost every angle on one hand, and a strange, and occasionally even off-putting supernatural mystery on the other. As a kaleidoscope of tones and emotions, Oshi no Ko goes significantly farther, even, than that other manga Akasaka is known for, and Yokoyari’s illustrations really sell the series’ more out-there elements. It’s not flawless—what is?—but I love it a lot.

But of course, we’re not here to talk about the manga, which I will not spoil over the course of this brief article. (I did that pretty thoroughly when I wrote about it last year, so fair warning if you end up reading that article.) We’re here to talk about the upcoming anime. Let’s go over what little we’ve learned over the two days since its announcement. (I’m quick on the draw for this stuff, ain’t I?)

First, the studio; Doga Kobo. Those familiar with DK might think them an odd choice for a series like this, and, honestly, that was my first reaction, too. Doga Kobo are more known for laid-back slice of life series or lightweight romance anime. They are not the first studio that comes to mind when one thinks of intensity or drama, but the pairing makes a sideways sort of sense.

Over the past few years, they’ve begun branching out a bit with somewhat more serious endeavors like Sing “Yesterday” For Me and Selection Project. But interestingly, even some of their “fluff” has gained a visually compelling edge recently. Just last week, an episode of the pleasant but normally unremarkable Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie shaded the show over with rain and intense emotion by focusing on the story of a minor side character, and that show’s opening animation depicts a dimension-hopping adventure that is totally unreflective of the show itself. To me, these are possible signs of restless talent, a notion backed up by the fact that said opening animation’s director—Saori Tachibana—will be the assistant director on the Oshi no Ko anime. I am eager to see if I’m correct about all this or not.

As for who she’s assisting, here it’s worth circling back around to the Selection Project connection. (The Connection Project.) Because that show’s director, Daisuke Hiramaki, is also directing this show. I will admit to not having been terribly taken by what little I saw of Selection Project, but I did appreciate the show’s visual moodiness. Something that, if Hiramaki brings to the Oshi no Ko project, I think will suit the series well. Character design—a broad role despite the simple name—is being handled by Kanna “kappe” Hirayama, who also helped direct the Shikimori OP. I don’t envy her for having to help translate Yokoyari’s art style to motion, but my impression is that she’s up to the task. The only real question mark for me here is Jin Tanaka, mostly known for scripts and whose other series comp credits don’t have much in common with OnK. Still, needless to say, I am optimistic about the staff in general.

I’m honestly not super much of a production hound in this way most of the time. (I usually prefer going into an anime with as few preconceived notions as possible, but for an adaption of a manga I’ve read a good chunk of that’s already impossible.) But I will take anything as an excuse to get excited. There is a lot wrong with the anime industry, but when things align just so, there is a lot of fascinating, compelling art that comes from it as well. I am hoping the Oshi no Ko adaption can contribute to that tradition.

We don’t know a ton else about the series yet. Trailers, release dates, etc. are all things of future concern. For now, all we have is our hopes, our dreams, and the single picture of Ai that graces this article’s banner, where she stands alone under a smoldering spotlight, one finger pointing to the sky, singing her heart out to an audience of anonymous faces who lift cherry red glow sticks like antennas to heaven.

This is not the last time I will write about Oshi no Ko on this site. I intend to cover the anime weekly once it starts airing, at the very least, and I may well make another “hype” article like this when the proper trailers start dropping. I have one character in particular I’m eager to see adapted to the silver screen (those of you who’ve read my previous article on the manga already know who I’m talking about, most likely). But mostly, I am just happy that an excellent manga seems like it’s going to get a worthy adaption that lives up to—perhaps even elevates?—the source material. It’s the least Oshi no Ko deserves.

See you then.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 5

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

An odd thing about covering anime and manga, at least for me, is that over the years I’ve run into a lot of things that I really love certain parts of but really dislike certain other parts of. It’s way too early to tell if One Piece will eventually enter that particular box, but it’s certainly true of this chapter, which is probably both the best of these first few we’ve read so far and the first one I’ve had any serious qualms with.

Both of these stem from a flashback that takes up the bulk of the chapter. This, basically, is Zolo’s backstory. These kind of one-chapter “here’s this guy’s Whole Deal” narrative shotgun blasts have been common in anime and manga for a long time, but this is a pretty solid one, and I do like what it does for Zolo’s character.

The gist here is simple; Zolo was, as a child, a sword-fighting student at a dojo, and was constantly beaten in training exercises by his rival, Kuina. He gets so frustrated by his constant losses that he challenges said rival to a real duel with real swords, only to lose that too and walk away unscathed only because Kuina spares him any actual harm. The two talk; Kuina and Zolo both have their frustrations, and the two eventually vow that one day, one of the two will become the world’s greatest swordsman. But, not long after they make that solemn oath, Kuina dies in a freak accident. Zolo must now keep the promise himself, and become the world’s greatest swordsman on his own. He even learns how to fight with three swords, solely so he can use Kuina’s as well.

As a piece of stylistic work and economical storytelling, this is great stuff. Stories like this have very old roots, so it’s not exactly innovative, but there’s a lot to be said for technique. The trick of widening the blackspace between manga panels to indicate a flashback is utilized really well here, and it adds a palpable weight to the reminiscence. The drawings within the panels themselves are stylish, too. I’m particularly fond of this one, where Zolo and Kuina clash against a full moon.

But here’s what bothers me, okay? Kuina, Zolo’s late childhood rival, was a girl. A girl who laments that she’s a girl, because AFAB people1 tend to lose muscle mass and get a bit weaker as they get older, and she thinks it’ll stop her from reaching her true potential. To both the character of Zolo’s credit and that of the manga on the whole; this idea is pretty sternly rebuked as unimportant by Zolo himself. In fact, that refutation is what leads to their promise to begin with.

But, of course, Kuina dies. Off-panel, even. By falling down the stairs, even. Now, there’s only so much I can hold all this against One Piece, considering that it was still finding its footing this early on, and that it is hardly the first or last piece of literature to do something like this, but it’s not exactly a terrific sign when the first female character in the whole thing with some actual motive and characterization gets killed off almost immediately, is it?

So, that’s not a storytelling decision I’m fond of, certainly. But the flashback in general is at least a strong foundation on which Zolo’s character can be built. Zolo is one of just a couple One Piece characters I was at all aware of before starting this project (it’s hard to miss a guy with a sword between his teeth), and it’s cool to know the Watsonian explanation for that iconic design element. (I think the Doylistic one probably boils down to Oda asking himself “wouldn’t it be badass if a guy had a sword between his teeth?” Feel free to correct me in the comments if I’m wrong and he’s actually explained this in an interview or something.)

Meanwhile, back in the present, a bunch of navy boys line their guns up to execute Zolo. (In fact, the whole flashback happens because he despairs about how he can’t die yet because he’s still got a promise to fulfill. You know how it goes.) Not to worry, though; our favorite stretchy pirate boy comes to his rescue.

It’s a classic bit of shonen badassery, and Zolo is so impressed—or perhaps just grateful that he can still fulfill his promise—that he pledges to join Luffy’s crew right then and there. And just like that, Straw Hat Luffy gains his first crewman. And hey, a guy with three swords isn’t a bad place to start!

1: Obviously the manga does not put it quite in those terms, being a comic for young boys written in the late 90s, but you get what I mean.

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 4

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

I really like the opening panel of chapter 4.

Mostly the guy on the right. Look at him! He’s so scandalized! It’s almost adorable.

I’m not sure how true this remains going forward, but assuming that Luffy continues to act in a generally similar fashion throughout most of the manga, I think the fact that he’s just so blunt may be a factor as to its popularity. Kids love the idea of being able to just tell someone off, especially if they’re someone older than them. Luffy does that all the time, and if people continue giving him issues, he socks them in the face. (Except here he doesn’t, this is the first chapter where Luffy doesn’t punch somebody in the kisser. I’m a little sad, to be honest.) There are several examples of this attitude here, and they’re all charmingly kiddy. I’m particularly fond of Luffy totally blowing off Koby’s concern here.

And his not taking “no” for an answer when he tries to press-gang Zolo, here.

The newest target of Luffy’s attitude is Captain “Axe-Hand” Morgan. He combines his son Helmeppo’s massive self-regard with an obsession with status (literally! he goes on and on about his “rank” in the navy here) and the fact that, well, he has an axe for a hand. He’s not a nice man! Over the course of this chapter’s brief 20 pages he kills two subordinates, one just for scuffing the massive statue of himself he’s having erected, and on top of that orders his men to kill the little girl we met last chapter. (One of the two henchmen Morgan kills in this chapter meets his end because he refuses to even consider carrying out the order. Poor guy, imagine dying in chapter four of one of the longest-running manga of all time.) For “defying” him by talking to Zolo. Famously, small children are normally obedient and deferential.

Luffy doesn’t know or care about any of this of course, and literally rockets into a confrontation with Morgan. Again, the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, so we don’t see them actually properly fight here.

I do also want to mention that Koby gets a solid moment here, too, when he unties Zolo’s binds in the yard. Luffy doesn’t do this because he wants to make Zolo one of his crew members. His “plan” for doing so is to steal Zolo’s swords back from the tower they’re being kept in and only return them if Zolo joins his crew. This would be antiheroic if it were at all a competent plan. For his part, Zolo seems more in awe of how “dumb” Luffy is, and a little shocked about the whole “aspiring king of pirates” thing. Who wouldn’t be, I suppose?

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 3

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

In today’s chapter, Koby successfully navigates Luffy’s ship to a navy town, a feat that astonishes the young pirate. The fact that Luffy apparently expected to become King of the Pirates by just aimlessly drifting from place to place is pretty great.

More importantly, we meet a couple people here. Chiefly there’s Roronoa Zolo, the tough-as-nails bounty hunter mentioned who was mentioned in the last issue and is currently taking up the banner image for the first but probably not last time. Luffy ponders trying to get him to join his crew, while Koby reveals that he has extremely simplistic views on rehabilitative justice.

Like everyone else we’ve met in One Piece so far, he’s a classic archetype; the bounty hunter with a heart of gold. Everyone in town is terrified of him, to the point that Luffy just mentioning him causes a ruckus at a local tavern. (The same happens when he mentions the “Captain Morgan” who apparently runs the whole place, but we don’t meet him yet here.)

But when we actually meet him a bit later, it becomes obvious that he has a soft center. He has an old school “tough guy / cute little kid” friendship with a local girl, who comes to bring him food and talk to him while he’s serving his sentence of being tied to a post in the prison yard. That friendship arouses the displeasure of one of the local bigshots; the other character we meet in this chapter.

Honestly, “mean, privileged rich guy” is almost cheating when it comes to creating antagonistic characters. Doubly so when their privilege is inherited and they threaten to “tell daddy” when something goes wrong, both of which are true of Helmeppo. Triply so when they’re also such a vile motherfucker that they’re mean to kids, which Helmeppo also is. (Not content with making a guard escort the little girl out of the prison, he smashes her rice balls into the ground! What a dick!)

It very briefly looks like Helmeppo might at least have a sense of fair play; he’s been telling Zolo that if he can survive for a month tied to that post, he’ll be free to go. But, shocker, at the end of the chapter we learn that that’s not actually true, and he’s planning to have the bounty hunter executed in three days. Upon learning this, Luffy delivers on his apparently once-per-chapter obligation to sock a bad guy directly in the face.

Helmeppo’s bloody-mouthed quip about “making an enemy of the navy” is where the chapter ends, setting us up with a thrilling cliffhanger for next time.

I haven’t really been mentioning the after-chapter bonus pages up ’til now, because I’m not terribly clear on if they were part of the original print run or were added at a later date in a rerelease. (Allusion to “Luffy’s Flag”, which hasn’t shown up yet, makes me think the latter.) I’m mentioning this one, though, because it’s a cute little drawing exercise—the sort of thing that really drives home just exactly how young One Piece‘s target audience is, or at least initially was—and I thought y’all might potentially be interested.

I gave it a quick go myself. I admit; I’m not much of a visual artist. But I think for doodling it in Paint.NET with my mouse it certainly could’ve come out worse.

Now available on your local NFT marketplace.

If you deign to partake in this particular game and can doodle a more convincing jolly roger, do feel free to drop a link in the comments or to show me on Twitter. I’d be delighted to see such a thing.

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 2

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

“I’ve set myself to become King of the Pirates…and if I die trying…then at least I tried!”

The very first person Luffy D. Monkey tells about his ambition to become King of the Pirates is a dejected, down-on-his-luck cabin boy named Koby. I don’t know what it is, but that’s just absolutely hilarious to me for some reason. He’s the Jimmy Olsen to Luffy’s Superman, except I think if you put Koby and Olsen in a fight, Olsen would probably win.

I said when I began this project that I wouldn’t sugarcoat my opinion if I felt One Piece did something problematic or just straight up bad. We don’t cross into the latter at all here, but the former….eh, yeah, kind of. There’s just something a little weird about this chapter’s villain, a beauty-obsessed overweight woman with a huge mace named Lady Alvida. That said; I’ve definitely seen a lot worse, so I’ll not harp on it too hard, here.

Mostly, she serves as a decent starter villain for Luffy. Her modus operandi seems to be very simple; she asks her crew, under her wood-deck tyranny, who is the fairest of them all. If they don’t say her, she hits them with a giant mace.

When Luffy confronts her, he has an obvious opening; since his body is made of weird magic rubber stuff, he can’t be hurt by the mace, which Alvida doesn’t see coming because, well, why in the living thunder would she? Luffy takes advantage of her confusion, and promptly decks her across the face. I really hope he keeps doing this to every villain, it’s funny as hell.

More important is that we get a little bit of exposition here! Koby balks at the very notion that Luffy could ever be King of the Pirates, which eventually leads him to reply with this article’s lead quote. He incredulously mentions that Luffy will have to go to the Grand Line if he wants to accomplish such a thing. What’s the Grand Line? Who knows! A “graveyard for pirates”, apparently, which sounds suitably dangerous for our hero. Also, I had no idea that One Piece was named after an actual thing within its universe, but apparently Gold Roger’s treasure is called the “One Piece.”

In general this chapter does a lot to establish that, yeah, even ten years after the prologue, Luffy is still kind of amusingly dumb. It’s a likable sort of dumb; he doesn’t really sugarcoat anything and speaks his mind in an extremely straightforward way, even when he maybe shouldn’t.

The beginning of the chapter reestablishes that he can’t swim (who am I to judge? Neither can I), and he almost dies by being sucked into a whirlpool. Only to emerge like this a few pages later.

Luffy is an odd one, and he ends this chapter with a new boat (still just a small dinghy, but hey, it’s a new small dinghy), and a new companion; the aforementioned cabin boy, who wants to eventually join the navy.

A pirates’ graveyard and a mysterious bounty hunter. I wonder what sort of adventure our boys are about to sail themselves into? I suppose we’ll find out tomorrow.

Until then.

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.