Tag: Hawkeye

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 52

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!

Zolo isn’t really dead. You’re probably not shocked! I know I’m not, because he’s one of the franchise’s main characters. How is he still alive? Well, Hawkeye just….uh, cut him in a way so he won’t die. Look, just roll with it.

More than that, most of this chapter is about Zolo redoubling his oath to become the world’s greatest swordsman (it’s even called “The Oath”). Hawkeye—who gives us his improbably cool real name here—finds Zolo too strong in spirit to kill, and that’s why he’s spared him. He gives Zolo a pretty awesome speech here, actually. I really like this guy!

Zolo vows not just to eventually defeat Hawkeye, but to never lose again. Not just for himself, or for his late friend, but for Luffy’s sake, too.

All told, this is a pretty excellent scene, and Hawkeye caps it off by leaving as dramatically and mysteriously as he came. Or at least, he goes to do that, but there’s one person who still has other ideas.

Yes, Krieg makes the astounding decision to try to kill Hawkeye, despite the man single-handedly wrecking his entire fleet before, and despite what he just did to Zolo. It goes about as well as you’d expect, and our story here splinters in to as Hawkeye once again unleashes his sword techniques to completely mulch a boat Krieg is on.

And Luffy, in the final piece of this particular puzzle of timber and saltwater, vows to drive off Krieg’s pirates, who are now swarming the oceanbound restaurant en masse, in exchange for being able to ditch his choreboy obligations.

Tomorrow: one sea, two ships.

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, Uncategorized

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 51

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!

Before we even start talking about today’s actual chapter, turn your eyes up to that cover.

I’ve been basically just letting the whole Chibi Buggy Saga play out without much commentary in the headers of these articles (always cropped, to make them not look absolutely awful on desktop) but this one actually introduces a new character! A mysterious lady-pirate rocking a cowboy hat who seems to have taken in Buggy as her pet short king. Good for him, I guess?

As for the chapter itself, this is the first one in a while to basically be pure action. An honorable duel between the villainous Hawkeye and the heroic Zolo (eh, more or less, on both counts). I also want to highlight Zolo’s quip here off the top, because, yeah, I am also surprised that we’ve gotten to actually meet Hawkeye this early.

Part of me wonders; was One Piece being allowed to publish basically indefinitely not a sure thing yet this early on? That would make sense, we’re 50 chapters in, but given that as far as I know One Piece has always been a weekly, that only represents around 2 1/2 months of publishing time. Maybe it was not yet the utterly massive hit that it would later become, and Oda wanted to start bringing some plot threads to a close, or at least moving them closer to a conclusion, just in case? This is all speculation, if I’m wrong and 1P was a total smash basically right away feel free to correct me in the comments.

In any case, much of this duel is devoted to showing how much better at Sword Hawkeye is than Zolo. Zolo hasn’t really had a proper challenge in this series yet, and Hawkeye less gives him one and more completely wipes the floor with him.

Did I mention, he doesn’t use that big fancy cross-shaped sword across his back with the black blade to do it? No, he uses a little dagger. Like a really little dagger.

I bet people ship these two really hard.

Spoiler alert; he does not need anything bigger than the dagger.

This sends Zolo into a bit of a spiral, with Oda again deploying his technique of “fading” memory panels in and out to create a flashback that’s actively weaved with the manga’s present-tense. (It’s worth noting that alongside all the memories of his late friend to whom he promised to become the world’s greatest swordsman is a memory of Luffy recruiting him to his crew.) Zolo refuses to believe that they could possibly be this mismatched, but they are, and Hawkeye cuts his belly open to prove it.

Hawkeye is, at the very least, impressed by Zolo’s bravery as he manages to spit out that to him, death would be better than defeat. Hawkeye, out of a sense of honor, makes him stick to that, and the second slash he delivers to Zolo’s frame is a lot more lethal.

Tomorrow: How will the swordsman survive?!

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 50

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!

The water around the ocean restaurant is a wooden graveyard as chapter 50 opens, with the splintered tatters of Don Krieg’s flagship littering the ocean.

This chapter is mainly about two things; for one, we see that yes, Nami really did make off with the Merry-Go and all the treasure on it. Most of Luffy’s meager remaining crew are willing to write her off, but not the captain.

To that, he sends Zolo and Usopp after Nami while he stays to help the ocean restaurant fend off the attack from Krieg’s pirates. But, before that can even be acted upon, the other person this chapter is about shows up. Someone I’m very surprised to see so early, given the nature of the foreshadowing just a few chapters ago.

I’d introduce the man, but that’s kind of the sum of it right there, isn’t it? “World’s Greatest Swordsman” is not a title that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. This is, in fact, the man Zolo’s been looking for, and it doesn’t take long for the two of them to start doing the whole “circling each other menacingly while talking shit” routine. The fight doesn’t actually happen here—that’s next chapter, presumably—but the tension is palpable. (And marginally homo-erotic. Par for the course for this sort of thing.)

As for Nami and her floating trove of stolen treasure, well, that’s a bit of a mystery for the time being as well. The chapter closes on this page, and this particular note. Much is in the air, just waiting to fall down.

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 49

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!

Gonna just warn you ahead of time here, folks. Today’s chapter and tomorrow’s are going to be covered by a decidedly tired Tired Jane. What is the main distinction between regular and Tired Jane? Well, mostly, the tiredness. But a general laxness of grammar, tendency to fixate on minor details instead of actual plot developments, and an increase in profanity are some of the common symptoms. Just a heads’ up if the next two columns are a little looser than usual.

The main thing we learn in chapter 49 is that the guy who wrecked Krieg’s fleet is not just some random background character. No, he’s a specific background character.

This Hawkeye fellow seems pretty darn important. He’s both the man who wrecked Krieg’s armada and the guy that Zolo’s been after. (Or at least, Zolo seems pretty sure that he is.) There’s a fairly lengthy scene after this about the various dangers of the Grand Line that mostly rehashes things we already know or could easily infer.

Meanwhile, back on Krieg’s ship, his pirates return themselves to health, and he announces his plan to hijack the oceangoing restaurant and then return to the Grand Line. One of his crew objects to this plan, and is promptly dealt with in, ah, pirate-y fashion.

But before Krieg’s men can actually launch their attack….well, something happens. To be honest, the art gets a little difficult for me to parse here? It seems to be that Krieg’s flagship is suddenly rocked by an explosion or similar force, and promptly sinks like a stone, leaving the pirates to distribute themselves between the restaurant ship and Luffy’s ship. Except that’s not quite right either, because Nami seemingly takes the ship and runs as the chapter comes to a close!

What just happened? Questions for tomorrow, one supposes.

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.