Tag: Chou-Chou

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 21

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!

One Piece chapter 21 is a comedy of errors. The gist of it all; that Nami joins Luffy’s still-small pirate crew, and that our heroes cast off from the port town that Buggy and his men had invaded, is fairly simple. Scattered throughout, though, are some fun details.

Details like “booty is a funny word and it’s funny how everyone in this manga says it with a straight face.” There, you don’t get analysis like that from AnimeNewsNetwork.

Take, for instance, the townspeople. When they come upon the wreckage near the docks, and see only two people (Nami and Luffy) still conscious, they make the reasonable assumption that it’s Luffy who’s caused all this chaos. A notion Luffy seems to actively contribute to, rather than resolving.

They pose no real threat to Luffy, Nami, and the still half-conscious Zolo. Even if they did, their retreat is covered by the manga’s best character; Chou-Chou the dog.

Our heroes eventually encounter some familiar faces hiding out on Nami’s ship.

Which certainly seems like it could be a chapter all its own. But, harkening back to what happened to them all the way back when Zolo and Luffy were originally separated, the pirates bolt—not even leaving the ship properly, just straight up jumping overboard—as Zolo wakes up.

The Mayor eventually regains consciousness as well, and….well he actually doesn’t clear up the misunderstanding with the townsfolk at all, but he does see Luffy and co. off, thanking them as they depart. This is the second time now that Luffy’s crew has left a town that way, and I imagine it won’t be the last.

So, our heroes are +1 Navigator, +1 Map of the Grand Line, and +1 on Rollicking Adventures. What’s next for them? Well, I’ll let the narration boxes do my job for me.

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.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 13

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!

A theory I’m putting forward to you all; Mohji is the worst character in One Piece so far.

I know! It’s probably controversial, but bear with me here. What kind of heartless motherfucker picks a fight with a dog? Not a big scary threatening dog that is in your way, just a random dog guarding a random building that you have no interest in and your pet lion only kind of does. What kind of person does that? Mohji, apparently. I hate Mohji. Fuck him.

But pick a fight with Chou-Chou is exactly what Mohji does, and as such the first third or so of today’s chapter is a fight sequence where Chou-Chou and Mohji’s lion Richie duke it out. Through sheer moxie, and the loving memory of his owner, Chou-Chou manages to not just survive but to actually hold Richie off for a time. And I know that love for his owner is what’s motivating Chou-Chou here, because of the technique here used where the panels are aligned into strips that seem to “fade in and out” by getting narrower and wider, representative of the memories coursing through Chou-Chou’s mind as he fights.

But even though Chou-Chou is a very good dog, he’s still going to struggle against a lion (much less a jacked anime lion), so at some point, off-panel, Mohji burns the store to the ground.

Worst character in One Piece so far, I rest my case.

Unfortunately, Mohji fails to account for Luffy, who is A) very much still alive and B) very, very upset at Mohji for taking Chou-Chou’s “treasure” from him. In a display of karma so quick it’d give you whiplash, Luffy piledrives Mohji’s lion into the dirt, and doesn’t take much longer to deal with Mohji himself.

You wouldn’t like Luffy when he’s angry.

Mohji joins his pet lion face-down in the dirt soon after.

All of this is small consolation to Chou-Chou, though, who after all, cannot get the building—or his master—back.

Nami, in particular, is not impressed by all this.

But it is worth pointing out her inching toward pirate-acceptance here. Pivoting from the above, and a whole lot of “fight me, bro”-isms flung in Luffy’s direction, to this….

….just a few pages later. Again, I like to call out clever technique like this when I see it. By slipping this bit in here, Oda prevents any “dead pages”—stuffing, essentially. Devoid of meaningful narrative or visual content—just to reach a page count, a thing that many mangaka seem to struggle with.

In general, I think the saga of Chou-Chou the dog—who departs toward the end of the chapter here, possibly toward the refugee shelter Boodle mentioned in the last chapter—is my favorite of the small story arcs we’ve seen so far. I’m sure it will eventually be dethroned, but I’m a sucker for tales of animal loyalty, so it may be a bit before that happens.

Back on his ship, Buggy the Clown learns of Mohji’s demise, and is not pleased.

I DO NOT WANT TO READY THE BUGGY BALLS.

Tomorrow: No more clowning around!

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 12

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!

Today, we’re introduced to three new characters; a villainous lion-tamer, the mayor of the city Buggy and his lackeys have ransacked, and a dog. Working out which of these three has the most impact to the plot is left as an exercise to the reader. But I’ll give you a hint; it somehow isn’t this guy.

That’s not to say that Mohji isn’t important. Nor to say that Boodle—the mayor—isn’t, either. But the real star of this chapter is that dog, Chou-Chou.

This is a bit of an odd thing that I’ve noticed One Piece likes to do, introduce several characters at once, sometimes dropping their backstory on us like a sack of wrenches, and then resuming the current main plot either in the back half of the chapter’s page count or in the next one entirely. It’s not an approach I dislike, but it’s one I don’t see in much else—if this isn’t abundantly clear by now, I don’t read a ton of other shonen—so I’ve had to get a bit used to it. (And who’s to say if it’ll even still apply, a hundred chapters from now?)

You may remember that yesterday ended with Zolo in pretty bad shape, bleeding out as he hauled Luffy off to flee from Buggy’s crew. Luffy himself is still stuck in the cage he’s been imprisoned in as the chapter starts, and Nami seems a bit exasperated with the both of them.

All’s well that ends well, though, because she stole the key to the cage, so Luffy can break out with no issues. Problem solved, right?

Well, no. Remember that dog?

Munch squad.

Boodle shows up not long after, explaining that Chou-Chou has been fighting off Buggy’s crew all on his own. Why? To protect the pet food store owned by his late master, who passed away a few months before the events of this arc of an unspecified illness. I’m super underselling this here, but it’s actually pretty touching, considering how brief it all is. (Or maybe I’m just a sap.)

One Piece also floats an interesting theme here that I suppose it has actually brought up before, but I just haven’t been paying a ton of attention to. The notion of what “treasure” itself actually is. Luffy’s greatest treasure, after all, is the hat given to him by Red-Hair Shanks. Chou-Chou the dog, Mayor Boodle puts forward, sees his late master’s pet food store as a treasure in that it is all that remains of the man. A memento of sorts.

Perhaps I’m just reading too much into it, but I think this is an interesting idea and it’s one I think we should be on the lookout for as we move forward.

In any case, Mohji does eventually make his way to where Luffy and friends are “hiding.” He brags that he can control any animal—a statement initially backed up by the presence of his riding-lion, Richie—but when he tries to take command of Chou-Chou, this happens.

And Luffy continues his unbroken streak of flipping switches on every new villain he meets.

But Mohji doesn’t have much more success against Luffy than he does against Chou-Chou. He orders Richie to maul him, but all the lion succeeds in doing is breaking Luffy out of his cage.

The lion tosses Luffy into a collapsing building, which is enough for Mohji to declare that ‘no one could survive that.’ (He does not have a good command of what manga he’s in, I think.)

When the lion makes a move on the pet food store (presumably hungry for the shelves upon shelves of Meow Mix that lurk within), Chou-Chou growls fearlessly. The chapter ends on this shot of Luffy, ready to bounce back into action, and I’m quite excited to see how all this shakes out tomorrow.

Tomorrow: The Dog, The Monkey, and the Lion!

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.