REVIEW: One Piece

One Piece (manga)

By Eiichiro Oda

One Piece

Began monthly publications in Shonen Jump starting 1997 to today

·         As per Shonen manga series premiers for contemporary manga, One Piece opens up with a two page spread of all the important characters initially since the beginning of the series (Luffy, Nami, Zorro, Shanks and Shanks’ pirate crew). It is to note that Shanks’ cast does not show up as much since the pilot first volume. (Page 5)

·         The story in fact starts with a prologue of sorts where Luffy gains his powers though this makes the manga go REALLY slow in terms of pacing. As a One Piece fan, I admit that the pacing of One Piece since the beginning first arcs is extremely slow and hard to take in.

·         Zorro as a character and first mate doesn’t show up until Page 91. Nami doesn’t show up until the end of Volume 1 too.

·         It is to note that the first volume’s villains are defeated relatively easily and quickly, taking no more than a few chapters at most. This is a common trend in Shonen manga first volumes so as to establish protagonists being relatively strong in their introductions and to introduce character motivations and possible recurring characters.

·         Luffy is like a baby faced Western character (ie Tintin) where he looks like a young adult (eighteen years old when the series started) and yet he manages to do things that even trained adults cannot do.  Unlike tintin however, Luffy is noted to actually be aged by the author as with Tintin it is ambiguous to how old Tintin actually is.

·         One Piece is a noted example of a “three group friend” Shonen manga where there is a happy-go-lucky protagonist, a more practical male friend and a headstrong female friend. This is noted in series like Naruto (Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura), Rave Master (Haru, Hamiro, and Elie), Magi (Aladdin, Alibaba, and Morgiana) Yu Yu Hakusho (Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Boton), and other Shonen manga.

·         It is to note that besides the barkeep in the beginning and Shanks, Luffy’s parents are never addressed and neither his relationship with the others that live in his island town. While this is addressed MUCH, MUCH later in the series, it could be seen that Luffy was like Doctor Who in that he did amazing things and yet we knew nothing about him, allowing us to mask ourselves into his situations and the like.

·         As this is a manga, the pages are printed black and white save for Page 5 where a bit more detail towards grey scales are given to the print. This may be as the original serializing of One Piece in the Shonen Jump monthly publication was originally in color and yet the reprint into a serial for One Piece by itself had it so the inking was noted instead of coloring.

·         One Piece admittedly is not a great series when it first came out; as it carried many of the troupes that contemporary manga has today. However, unlike its contemporary Shonen Jump titles like Bleach and Naruto, it seems to me that One Piece keeps getting better and better with each new arc. Naruto and Bleach are notable as series that started off really strong yet eventually reached a tournament story arc that drew readers away or lasted much longer than need be due to the goading of editors. One Piece is noted to be only half way done since 1997 so if the series was to continue on in the vision that Oda planned it we would not see the end of One Piece until 2028.

Bibliography:

Oda, Eiichiro, and Lance Caselman. One Piece. Romance Dawn. San Francisco, CA: Viz, LLC, 1997. Print.

REVIEW: Astro Boy Volume 1

Astro Boy Volume 1

By Osamu Tezuka

Published September 2002 by Dark Horse, first published 1952.

·         The origins of Astro Boy ironically do not show up in the first publications of Tezuka, instead jumping directly to the high fantasy sci-fi that is prominent for most of the story. Given that context, Astro Boy’s origins plays similarly to Batman’s in Detective Comics in that we know nothing about him in his original publication until much later.

·         Most of the first arc is dedicated to the “Hotdog Corps” arc where a loyal dog to a side character in Astro Boy’s mythos is turned into a cyborg man soldier to take over the moon with an entire corps of other cyborgs. This plays with 44, the dog once known as Pedro, always having an issue with loyalty given his stance against working with Astro Boy yet wanting loyalty for his former mater.

·         It is gruesome yet iconic for the dog cyborg 44 to be holding Pedro’s body in a non-horrified manner, giving a sense of macabre to the scene as Pedro is being intimate towards his fallen body.

·         The high fantasy end of this series stems from technology allowing robotics to allow people to the moon and other marvelous feats that is even today not in our grasp.

·         The plant people note that there are indeed aliens in this universe.

·         For some odd reason Tezuka notes that Astro himself is not allowed clothes in his origins.

·         The rushed part of Astro being discovered by the professor in a circus act mirrors that of Peter Parker’s introduction as a hero with him being a wrestler in his depute instead of a hero.

·         As one of the first manga series published, a lot of the narrative flows take its inspiration from the Golden and Silver Age style of high-end narrative and dynamic punches and poses to convey narrative as opposed to modern subtle methods that comics have adapted.

·         Though drawing heavily from Golden and Silver Age comics of America, the narrative of Astro Boy comics are not necessarily self contained and thus shows the prototype of story arcs which are commonly used in manga today.

·         Given the sci-fi nature of Astro Boy and other comics published in Japan around the same time, it can be seen why people labeled manga as sci-fi originally in its genesis.

·         It is noted that Astro Boy is the prototype for what would be called the “Shonen” genre of manga, which would have a demographics of adolescent to young adults much similar to how comics of the Golden Age were aimed towards the demographics of young boys.

·         It is to note that manga was originally printed on much cheaper and disposable paper than even its American counterparts, mirroring the fast-paced market of consumerism that Japan was emulating from the West.

·         Tezuka himself introduces story arcs in what is presented in the first volume’s tales, going as far as to critique with the characters troupes of narrative common in other media.

·         Overall, for one of the first manga ever published in a definition close to what we call “manga” today, Astro Boy stands the test of time as a great story enjoyable for all ages.

Bibliography:

Tezuka, Osamu, and Frederik L. Schodt. Astro Boy. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Manga, 2002. Print.