You know what happens when a blogger’s best laid plans go to waste? Yeah, they lose popularity on their blog, through no fault of my own (then again, I need popularity to begin with in order for this to apply to me >_<). Anyway, I NOW do what was supposed to be done a month ago: the review of One Piece! It’s a great series, especially with what’s happened recently, and it only gets better from there, I know it!
So we start with a kid named Monkey D. Luffy, whose goal is to be the King of the Pirates by finding One Piece the ultimate treasure hidden by the infamous Gold Roger. What separates Luffy from other pirates is that Luffy has eaten the Gum-Gum Fruit, allowing him to stretch his entire body like rubber. Kinda like Mr. Fantastic, except he has a straw hat. And he can’t swim. That would normally be a huge drawback for an aspiring pirate, but then again most Devil Fruit eaters seem to do just fine with being pirates or marines. And it’s a good thing Luffy comes up with a great crew to back him up; he’ll need them to keep his journey going.
His first crew member is Roronoa Zoro, ex-pirate hunter and expert swordsman. His loyalty to Luffy is unrivaled as he hopes to become the greatest swordsman in the world. Nami used to be a simple thief, but ever since she joined Luffy’s crew, she has been invaluable as a navigator and as their financeer (sp?). Sniperking Usopp may lie a lot, but at least he’s a reliable shot. And Sanji , the cook, is a bit of a womanizer, though mainly it’s Nami he pays the most attention to. More people join Luffy’s crew later on, but I’ll let you watch the anime and find out for yourself who these other awesome people are!
Strengths: There’s a good balance between action and comedy overall, and with that come some epic moments and some hilarious moments throughout. Most of the humor comes from Luffy being completely dense and the reactions of crew members or others around him. Again, we find some awesome battle sequences, many of them involving Luffy or one of his crew members slugging it out with the enemy. The artwork gets better with each story arc done, and certain story arcs are very memorable, one of them getting its own movie, even.
Weaknesses: Female attire can be a little scanty at times, and they do reference a few other unnecessary things which could distract the viewer. Also, I don’t really see a point to some of the story arcs, especially the Davy Back arc, where all I got from that was some character building. There are also moments where people exaggerate their reactions to something (mostly involving jaws dropping, at least they’re consistent). I think that’s all you need to watch out for though.
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So anyway, that’s One Piece! Sorry it took me so long to get this up; I’ve been working on my Pokemon games, trying to finish my 3rd gen games once and for all and prepare for Pokemon Black and White (another review to come down the road for me), and it’s just very time-consuming together with schoolwork. My plan is to try to get a review done at least once a month in the future, but I haven’t gotten to that point yet IMO. Up next is a sci-fi movie series that I don’t think has been heard of often, but… yeah, have you ever heard of Star Wars? If you haven’t, I don’t blame you (actually, yes I do, and so do millions of other people out there, but we’ll keep that a secret), and I think this will be interesting to take a look at and see what makes it tick. Well, time to wave out!
--G$park
