Tag: Manga

Posted on in Manga, New Manga First Impressions

New Manga First Impressions: CHAINSAW MAN Revs Again

New Manga First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about the first chapter or so of a newly-available-in-English manga.

This column contains spoilers for Part 1 of Chainsaw Man.

Content Warning: The material covered here contains depictions of extreme violence.

Two weeks ago, I had no working relationship with Chainsaw Man whatsoever. But sometimes, the stars align, and something grips you like it’s trying to choke you out and just doesn’t let go. Sometimes too, that happens just before a long-awaited follow-up is about to start. They say timing is everything because it is, and sometimes that timing works out in your favor. Hence this going up mere hours after the opening chapter of Part 2 drops on MangaPlus.

Suffice it to say we’re bending the rules here, too, since Chainsaw Man Part 2 is only a “new” manga with a fair bit of definitional stretching. (MangaPlus doesn’t even count it as a different series than Part 1.) So if you’re not caught up with the first Chainsaw Man arc, if you’re in the position I was in barely a week ago, I recommend closing this column now and go giving it a read, because I’m about to spoil the hell out of it.

It’s lurid, violent, bleak, coarse, and profane. The medium; a world where humanity’s fears materialize into living beings called devils, and of course, where humans called devil hunters must stop them. A story about bad people dying in worse ways that is not afraid to kill off even major characters sometimes suddenly and without warning, but never feels like it’s doing so for simple wanton shock value. It’s pretty fucking fantastic, easily a best-in-genre for the new decade without much in the way of competition. Part 2 has much to live up to.

The end of Part 1 marked also the end of the so-called “Public Safety Arc.” Denji surviving, nearly totally alone, after a wave of death and disillusionment that saw him shed whatever naivety he may still have had. But he’s come out the other side a better person regardless, even as he was one of just three named characters (four if you count Pochi) to survive the often-brutal first part of the manga.

It’s clear that some amount of time has passed, although perhaps not much. The main point to note here is the continued lionization of Chainsaw Man himself, Denji’s hellish heroic alter ego who now serves as both a source of inspiration to the general public and, going by the Curry Man buns we see in this chapter, marketing revenue. (That’s capitalism, babey.)

But anyone who’s main draw to the manga is Denji himself may be disappointed with the opening of Part 2. Instead, we follow a new character entirely, whose comparative mundanity is almost certainly a deliberate contrast to Denji’s dire circumstances at the start of his own story. Perhaps more importantly, like all of the best Chainsaw Man chapters, the opener for Part 2 begins with some off-the-wall crazy shit.

The logic behind this devil being weak is that no one is really scared of chickens. I feel like enough people have read Fourteen for there to be at least something there? Maybe not. It’s not like I’ve read it.

Our real POV character here is Asa Mitaka. An antisocial, and thus, profoundly normal, high school girl. The only real wrinkle here is that her parents were killed by devils, but that’s not particularly unusual within the context of Chainsaw Man. So the notion of the ordinary high school girl remains.

Don’t worry, she doesn’t stay ordinary for very long.

Mitaka seems to spend most of her days being vaguely annoyed at her classmates and, it’s pretty obvious even before it’s said out loud, jealous of their normal, healthy friendships with each other and, eventually, with Bucky, whose absolutely god-awful chicken puns inevitably endear him to the rest of the class. Meanwhile, the class president tries to get Mitaka to socialize a bit more and open up to the rest of her schoolmates.

Now, anyone familiar with Chainsaw Man would be easily able to tell that something was going to go south here, but I think a lot of people will mistakenly pin the suspicion on Bucky himself. Deliberate misdirection? Maybe. But maybe we’ve just been conditioned to be suspicious of devils over the course of the series’ run so far. Either way, he’s actually a genuinely affable sort by the look of it, and for a brief, split second, you can, if you want to, squint and pretend this is a happy manga where people are allowed to have personal realizations about themselves without an accompanying wallop of massive pain and loss.

Moments after this, she trips and falls, crushing the weak little devil to smithereens. It’s all rather nasty.

The fallout is immediate and predictable, and Mitaka takes this about as well as you’d expect.

The class president, as well as the two’s teacher, Mr. Tanaka, get the idea to visit the poor little hell-chicken’s grave. Tanaka is perhaps under the notion that this will make Mitaka feel better, but the class president quite quickly reveals herself to have a rather different motive, and things promptly get all sorts of gnarly.

In the fractions of a second Mitaka has before this monster—the Justice Devil, per the class president’s own admission—slashes her head in half, she feels relieved, because the president brags that she tripped Mitaka, so Bucky’s death wasn’t really her fault. Implicitly, she’s also relieved that she won’t be hurt anymore. That’s the kind of weapons-grade depressing you can expect from Chainsaw Man.

But it also wouldn’t be Chainsaw Man without some bolt-from-the-blue insane twist, and wouldn’t you know it, even with her head doing its best impression of a rotting pumpkin, Mitaka has just enough presence of mind to witness—and hear—a devilish owl perching on a nearby stoplight.

We don’t hear Mitaka think ‘yes’, but what happens next implies that either she did or the owl even asking was a formality. Not a page later, Mitaka—or at least, something in Mitaka’s body—rises back to her feet, only a truly wicked scar where her head was previously carved in half.

The natural questions follow; “Didn’t you just die?” “What the hell are you?” etc.

Reborn, “Mitaka” replies by doing this.

And introduces herself as The War Devil. What follows is, of course, an absolute show-stopper. Hyperviolence on a level that is hard to even describe with words; somewhere in there between the spinal cord longsword and the hand grenade reconstituted from the Justice Devil’s own actual arm, is the kind of bloody poetry that you really just can’t get outside of comic books. It all ends in an explosion and a shower of gore, because obviously it does, this is Chainsaw Man, remember? This kind of casual “I’m back, bitch” flexing is, if anything, hugely welcome in a medium that is only very rarely kind to even its superstars. This is mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto in a braggart mode he’s earned every right to be in.

Bring your own Black Sabbath.

The chapter’s last page establishes that everything we’ve just seen, if it weren’t already obvious, is an origin story. It’s never a safe bet to call any character’s longevity in Chainsaw Man, but Mitaka (or the War Devil? Or both? It’s a bit hard to say) seems like she’ll stick around for a long while. In the very closing moments here, she makes a comment about nuclear weapons that should be tossing up all kinds of red flags for any long-time Chainsaw Man readers; it’s been established before that those were among the concepts “removed” from reality by Makima’s makimachinations. (On that note; Makima is probably my favorite character in the whole manga, and I think about the only thing this chapter was missing was an appearance by her reincarnated self in the form of Nayuta. But! That will come in time.)

Trying to forecast almost anything about Chainsaw Man is a fool’s game, so I won’t pretend I’ve got anything sussed out. For me, the wait between the old and new Chainsaw Man was only a few days, and even I’m mostly just super happy to have it back. I find it difficult to imagine enduring the whole year-ish hiatus, so I know for sure I’m far from the only person who’s glad to see it again.

Chainsaw Man may well appear here on Magic Planet Anime again in the, ultimately, not-too-distant future, but until then, manga fans.

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 36

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 marks the start of a new chapter. Another instance where the placement feels kind of random, since it seems more like this arc is ending than beginning. Still, this is a pretty explosive way to kick things off, and the chapter does use the extra couple pages afforded to it here well. Lots of action in this one; so if you’re into that sort of thing (and hey, who isn’t?) you could do a lot worse than this.

If you’ve somehow lost track of things though, don’t worry, One Piece will happily get you up to speed with this character cheat sheet. (Honestly, these things are a godsend for critics like myself, too. I won’t pretend otherwise.)

We also get a particularly nasty glower from the Bad Butler as our chapter art. It makes him right mean looking, I’ll say that much.

The chapter itself opens with Usopp’s pirates running Kaya through the woods to the North of the slope on which Luffy, Zolo, and Kuro are still fighting. They keep a good pace, but Django is in hot pursuit the entire time, and as we eventually see at the end of the chapter, he does catch up to them. Partly by doing a bit of ad-hoc forestry with his chakrams as he pursues them.

There’s also some character building for Kuro. Do remember; developing a character does not necessarily imply developing them to be a better person. Sometimes, it means just revealing what an utter heel they’ve been the entire time.

Usopp gets more of the good kind, straining and determined even through the Black Cat Pirates’ insults and his own serious injuries as Zolo takes down Butchie for good.

(It helps that Usopp has Luffy on his side here. Not someone who takes disrespect toward his friends lightly.)

Kuro ultimately confronts Luffy head on once Zolo gets his past him, asking why, exactly, he’s standing up for a village that isn’t his and that he has no connection to. Cryptically, Luffy replies there’s someone there he doesn’t want to die. I imagine he means Kaya, given his newfound respect for Usopp. But he might also just mean the butcher in town, knowing the gum-gum pirate.

In any case, the chapter ends with the two of them about to face off, and with Django catching up to Kaya and Usopp’s little pirate friends.

Tomorrow: the fight continues.

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 35

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!

Hello folks! You’ll have to forgive the late upload today, I thought I had one in the tin for this morning already only to wake up and realize I did not. Hence; this one coming to you a bit late. (Don’t worry, I’m going to be penning a couple this afternoon, so this shouldn’t happen again. At least not for a while.)

Something I like about One Piece, and I’m not sure if I’ve outright said this, is the amount of weight it gives its battles. In modern shonen, even the very best fight scenes can sometimes feel over too quickly owing to the rather brisk pace of most modern TV anime and the manga they’re adapted from. (A particularly bad offender here, because I never miss a chance to take a shot at it, is the anime version of God of High School.) This isn’t to say the opposite is inherently a good thing, as someone who grew up watching a lot of Dragonball Z with my stepfather I am well aware that a single fight being doled out across weeks or potentially even months can be on the draining side, but still, I think so far, One Piece strikes a nice balance. (How this goes in the show I couldn’t tell you, given that I’m not watching said show.)

Not a ton actually happens in this chapter from a “narrative perspective.” Basically it boils down to “Luffy and Zolo cover for Usopp’s little ‘crew’ of kids as he orders them to flee the battlefield with Kaya.” But everything has a nice sense of solid urgency. That it manages to convey that in the still rather economical space of just 20 or so pages is pretty impressive. (Get used to that observation, I don’t think it’s the first time I’ve made it here and it will almost certainly not be the last.)

Take for example, the mostly-comical Butchie getting a chance to slam into the ground with enough force to do that “rocks and terrain explode everywhere” thing that people (including myself) are so fond of.

“What happened to the ground?!” “My parents took it down because I’m grounded :/”

Or even this on-its-face silly scene where the pirate kids wail on a still-laid-flat Captain Kuro with sticks. Sure, it’s funny, but he could straight-up disembowel those children if he wanted to. That’s a scary notion!

Especially since Kuro is only wounded to the extent of feeling the need to remark that Luffy slugging him in the face “smarted.” (What is he, a British schoolboy?)

Usopp certainly knows the score, as he spends several pages trying to get the kids (and Kaya) to run away.

Eventually, he convinces them to by framing it as an order from their ‘captain,’ which is pretty clever. I don’t know if I’ve properly conveyed this but I really have come around on Usopp since his introduction, it’s clear he cares a lot for these people and (spoiler alert here) I know from prior knowledge that he joins the main cast eventually, so I’m interested to see what he adds to their dynamic when he does. (He also gets an amusing and very literal cheap shot at Django, here, which is mostly worth noting because it literally makes the big bad hypno-pirate say “owie.”)

None of this is to say our other heroes don’t get a minute to shine here, though, because they do. Specifically, Luffy and Zolo pull off a pretty badass “you shall not pass” sort of moment when intercepting Django, who’s been ordered to pursue Kaya and the kids.

And the chapter ends there, leaving what will become of the heiress and Usopp’s little buddies a question for tomorrow. See you then, pirates.

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 34

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’s chapter is a terrific little tornado of tough-talk, tussling, and takedowns. First of all; if you were worried about Nami yesterday, well, don’t be. Luffy happens to (quite accidentally) get between Django’s chakram and Nami’s very vulnerable body. Unlike Nami, Luffy can take a blade to the head just fine.

Average Abdullah the Butcher match aftermath.

Not that he won’t complain. In fact, the speech bubble for his yell is so loud that it’s larger than the panel!

The real development of this chapter though is Kaya arriving on the scene. She calls out to her former butler to stop all this, but, predictably, it does not help.

She even just tries to buy Captain Kuro and his crew off, but because Kuro is a villain in a shonen manga, that doesn’t work either.

Kaya pulls out a gun in response to that little comment, but Kuro successfully rattles her by listeing off all the things he’s done for her, and making it clear that he hated every minute of it. Then he goes on the defensive, and Usopp tries to cut in to prevent him from hurting Kaya, despite his being rather unsuited to the task.

But then, well, someone else gets the drop on him.

He’s gonna feel that in the morning.

The chapter ends with that explosive pop from Luffy. I imagine Kuro will have something to say about that tomorrow.

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 33

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, Captain Kuro joins the fray directly. He is not happy about the dillydallying his former crew have been engaging in. That is to say; he really thinks they should’ve killed Luffy and friends by now.

Some of the Black Cat Pirates, namely the catboy brothers (whose actual name I have decided is irrelevant), don’t take kindly to this, and wonder if perhaps their former captain is only being so commandeering because he’s gone too soft in the past three years to finish his foes off himself. In the process, they make some fun faces.

But as it turns out, Kuro really is the monster heel the arc has hyped him up to be, and he’s not to be taken lightly. He instantly outmaneuvers the brothers, and threatens them pretty plainly.

What is the name of this masterful piece of footwork?

You will never guess.

No seriously, guess.

Yeah.

We also get an explanation for his weird habit of pushing up his glasses with the palm of his hand. Little details, people, they make the world go ’round.

Feeling at least a bit merciful, he gives the catboy brothers five minutes to finish off Zolo. Instead, Nami tosses Zolo his swords, and he takes the two of them out with a single slash, in one of Oda’s full-page action panels. I quite like these.

But he really has no time to bask in the victory. Nami tries to wake Luffy up as well, only for Django to grow tired of her interference. He attacks her, and the chapter ends here, on that particular cliffhanger.

A cliffhanger to be resolved tomorrow, certainly.

I quite liked this chapter, although I’m not sure how well it showed. (I’m in a bit of a sour mood for unrelated reasons.) Interested to see what exactly Kuro brings to the table, fight scene-wise, with those big kitty claws of his.

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 32

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’s chapter continues basically directly on from yesterday’s, forming a clean continuation of the battle between Zolo and the Meowban Brothers, one of whom, Siam, has stolen two of Zolo’s three swords, as Nami so helpfully recaps for us with a zippy one-liner.

I kind of love this line, and to be honest there’s quite a bit of fun dialogue scattered (cattered?) throughout the chapter. I’m not sure how much of it is a faithful conveyance of Oda’s original dialogue and how much of it is the translator having a spot of fun. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

A “pirate-flavored pancake.” That’s poetry, right there.

Siam continues to make me slightly uncomfortable, but Butchie is a decently fun character, “cat-a-pault” shouts and all. Zolo gets some good moments here too, including one where he deliberately takes one of Usopp’s slingshot bullets to the back so that way the cat brothers don’t turn their attention on him and Nami.

Of course, there’s really only so much the guy can do. Django steps in when Nami tries to return Zolo’s swords to him, injuring her what looks to be rather badly.

And not long after that, Captain Kuro arrives, and he’s more than a little angry that the Black Cats have been dragging their feet.

The chapter ends there. Tomorrow, we learn what becomes of Luffy and friends.

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 31

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!

Right at the top of today’s chapter, Kaya awakes from a nightmare, only to discover another in her living room; her butler, the sheep-man Merry, lying half-dead on the floor. That he’s still alive at all is a bit of a surprise to me, when we saw Kuro fuck him up I really thought he was done done, but I guess the guy’s a survivor.

A man of character—and of being beaten within an inch of his life by a traitorous jerk—he sets Kaya straight pretty quick, informing her of “Klahadore”‘s betrayal and of the impending pirate invasion.

With Merry wounded and the rest of her staff on holiday, Kaya, in spite of her grave (but vague) illness, sets off into town to try warn the townsfolk of the pirate attack that must surely, if Usopp was telling the truth after all, be coming. Who should she run into along the way but Usopp’s “crew”?

Back at the beach, Django calls in the Black Cat Pirates’ ringer; a pair of the most absolutely vile-lookin’, ragged, fucked up catboys you’ve ever seen.

the catboys i signed for my all-catboy pirate crew dont know what piracy is and theyre actively loudly sobbing whenever they miss a swing of their cutlass and whenever they try to load a cannonball they drop it and it bonks them on the head and they go “uweh” and our first mate closes his eyes whenever he fires his flintlock because hes scared and we’re beating every other crew on the Blue Line

The two initially seem to really live up to that horrible caption I just put under the above image, flailing about and crying as they confront Zolo. Only for them to reveal that—gasp!—it’s all a ruse! In the confusion, Siam there is able to jack two of Zolo’s swords.

That’s where the chapter ends, so how Zolo gets his swords back, what happens to Kaya and Usopp’s little buddies, etc., are all tomorrow’s questions.

To raise a question though; do the designs of these two cat-men make anyone else vaguely uncomfortable? Mostly Siam’s? He looks like a grandmother cosplaying Cure Black. There’s something vaguely not-quite-transphobic-but-definitely-in-that-same-general-area about it, to me. Maybe I’m reaching, feel free to tell me if you think so in the comments.

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 30

Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.

The big three-oh. Hello, folks. I’m writing to you mere hours (at most) before this column will go live, because I’ve completely burned through my meager back-catalogue and didn’t have time to get this written yesterday. Life! It’s complicated sometimes. Also, hey, let’s talk about this chapter art for a second, because it has to be some of the weirdest I’ve yet come across while reading this manga. Robot versions of the Straw Hat Pirates? Although I’ll admit my inner Transformers fan is delighted by Zolotron up there.

In any case, the actual chapter makes something super important very clear; if the Black Cat pirates were an MMO party, One-Two Django would be the guy handling buffs and heals. In theory, that’s all well and good. Luffy and Zolo pulverize the entire Black Cat landing force, but Django is able to heal them back up and make them stronger with nothing more than his hypnotism. (How exactly that works is left as an exercise to the reader but hey, it’s a shonen manga, don’t overthink it.)

And that would be fine, were it not for the fact that Django is apparently a bit subpar at directing his hypnotic powers. (Or maybe Luffy is just that easy to hypnotize.)

Since Luffy is also healed and strengthened, this turns the entire battle against the Black Cat landing force into a typhoon of rubber fists and “yarr” noises. They really don’t stand a chance. Doubly so when Luffy actually rips the bow off of their ship, which leads to this amusing bit here.

I cannot think of anything I could say that could possibly make this funnier than “shiver me timbers!” already is.

But while Luffy and co. have definitely made a dent in the Black Cat Pirates, they haven’t actually won. Django conks Luffy out with his hypnotism shortly after this, and we get an allusion to two apparently particularly-vicious pirates who are still onboard the ship (perhaps along with some other contingent of crew).

And meanwhile, one of Usopp’s young friends notices the “butler” of the town’s mansion heading to the beach rather early, and decides to trail him. I hope the little buddy stays safe! We’ll learn of his fate tomorrow, one must assume.

As a minor PS for today’s column: I just wanted to note, I know I’ve been a little quiet with replying to comments and such over the past week or two. Hoping to start doing that again this coming week, since I’m finally out of having an absolute ton to do every day for life reasons.

Actually, let me field you a question, Straw Hat Pirates. Have you been reading any manga lately? (Other than One Piece, presumably.) I picked up Chainsaw Man a few days ago, I quite like it.

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 29

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, One Piece returns to its usual forte. Basically, a whole chapter that’s a long action sequence. (In fact, this and the next chapter seem to form a contiguous single action sequence. That in mind, it’s really more like half of one.)

We open on an unenviable situation; Usopp and Nami, easily the least combat-capable of our protagonists, are forced to stand alone against the Black Cat Pirates, who, after some banter, promptly charge.

Surprisingly though, they manage to fend the pirates off, at least for a little while, with a combination of caltrops(!) and Usopp’s slingshot(?!?!). Also, hijinks continue to occur.

“My work here is done.” “But you didn’t do anything!”

And I’d be remiss to not at least briefly touch on Luffy being lost for about half the chapter.

The real centerpiece of the chapter though comes when Usopp gets his head knocked in. He’s clearly hurt pretty bad, but he still doesn’t just let Captain Kuro’s crew walk all over him. It’s a bit of the old burning justice that keeps him hanging on, and it’s nice to see him trying an honest stab at being genuinely heroic.

But, of course, the real capable hands arrive just as Django’s lot push their way past Usopp and Nami. Meaning that the conclusion of this particular fight is a concern for tomorrow.

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 28

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’s One Piece is a comedy of errors.

Something I suppose I should’ve picked up on by now is that there’s usually a little more time before the Big Climactic Battle in a given One Piece arc than you might expect. So today’s chapter is almost entirely setup, but it’s at least decently fun setup.

We open with a bit of half-character development for Usopp (PS: thank you guys for pointing out all the interesting literary references baked in to the character in the comments. To be honest, I’d never have picked up on those on my own).

It’s a start.

Our heroes prepare an ingenious trap wherein they coat the only passage leading from the island’s southern beach to the village with an oil slick. We’ll get back to the flaws in this plan momentarily.

Meanwhile, Captain Kuro lays his cards on the table, or at least he does for the other butler in Kaya’s employ (who I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a name for).

I absolutely love this; he has zero reason to do any of it and it ends with him killing the guy. Was the whole point of the long con here not specifically that he could do all this without having to commit any violence other than killing Kaya? What is the point of the pirate raid itself, actually, now that I think of it and on that note? Is it to create plausible confusion that Kaya might die in?

Whatever the case, that marks the end of Kuro’s nice guy act. Good riddance. In the sort of thing that seems counterintuitive only if you don’t know how stories work, he’s actually more likable as an out-and-out bad guy.

When we cut to the next day, Luffy and co. realize they’ve made a minor mistake. Namely; they’re on the wrong beach.

As the chapter ends, Luffy, Zolo, and Nami are two-for-three on being somehow unable to confront the pirates. Luffy runs off in the wrong direction, and Zolo gets caught in the crew’s own oil trap. (Which Nami accidentally pushes him into.)

Is this girlboss behavior? Vote now in the comments below.

Tomorrow: Can our heroes overcome this comedic series of obstacles to stop the Black Cat Pirates, or will Usopp truly have to fend them off alone?

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