God damn, I love this little sea train mini-arc. I even love the initial landing on Enies Lobby, where the Strawhats' 50-odd allies all go out and kick some serious ass. Seeing *spoiler* turn *spoiler* and *spoiler* around by referencing something that happened hundreds of chapters ago was great, too.
Admittedly, things do lose a bit of steam from that point on, and it just turns into a big string of one-on-one fights. I usually like the fights in One Piece because of how the characters make such creative use of their environments, but there's little environment to be found on Enies Lobby. Just stone and concrete.
Also: I'd forgotten the whole "It's never a sin to merely exist!" line from Franky! I've always been pretty cold to him because I thought he was too one-dimensional of a character (big, loud, and violent but ultimately good-natured dude) compared to the Original Seven Strawhats, but little moments of depth like those go a long way toward redeeming him for me.
Sadly, the same can't be said of the *other* new member of the Strawhats. Maybe things will change once we get to the recap of his introduction arc, but while his backstory was pretty freaking brutal, I still can't find much of a personality underneath all his running gags, and who knows how long it'll be before Oda really has him shine?
On a vaguely relate note: I've decided to take your advice, and go ahead with the Detective Conan recaps. Now, I have to make do with the ViZ translated versions, since I don't have your manga-buying budget. I have a general idea of what edits they made, and I always have the online scanlated versions to compare to, but I do hope you'll be reading along with your Japanese editions of the manga, and possibly point out gags/puns that I've missed (there are a LOT of them).
In any case, get the old deerstalker ready and prepare to stroll up to 221B Baker... er, BEIKA Street, because it's gonna be a bloody ride.
True, the fights are dull (then again, I almost always find fights dull), but volume 41 is amazing (and heartbreaking and amazing).
[Thriller Bark (just in case)] I know what you mean about both Franky and Brook. I mean, I love Franky, but mostly as comic relief; despite his tragic backstory, he's not yet a fully developed character to me. And Brook just kind of baffles me, although I love him for Laboon's sake.
I do suspect that Brook, at least, is likely to get more development (we know almost nothing about his life as a human, whereas we have childhood stories for every other character). And I'm expecting to see Franky get more character development, too, maybe along the lines of what Usopp got during Water 7. We still know so little about his background before Tom adopted him.
I look forward to the Detective Conan recaps! Hopefully I can keep up. My Japanese isn't the greatest when it comes to puns, but I will do my best to weigh in with Japanese comments. (I forget, do you read Japanese?)
I can't really read Japanese, but I do recognize a lot of kanji because I'm Chinese. Sometimes, I really wonder if I should volunteer for the online Detective Conan translations - most of the time, the Chinese fanbase will have the latest chapter translated into Chinese within a day.
I'm fairly good at reading Chinese - even if there are characters I can't recognize, I can generally figure it out from the context. Katakana leaves me totally lost, though, which is rather unfortunate, since Conan puts a lot of emphasis on codes, alternate pronunciations, and foreign languages.
Ah, well. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I do hope that you'll enjoy the ride.
Admittedly, things do lose a bit of steam from that point on, and it just turns into a big string of one-on-one fights. I usually like the fights in One Piece because of how the characters make such creative use of their environments, but there's little environment to be found on Enies Lobby. Just stone and concrete.
Also: I'd forgotten the whole "It's never a sin to merely exist!" line from Franky! I've always been pretty cold to him because I thought he was too one-dimensional of a character (big, loud, and violent but ultimately good-natured dude) compared to the Original Seven Strawhats, but little moments of depth like those go a long way toward redeeming him for me.
Sadly, the same can't be said of the *other* new member of the Strawhats. Maybe things will change once we get to the recap of his introduction arc, but while his backstory was pretty freaking brutal, I still can't find much of a personality underneath all his running gags, and who knows how long it'll be before Oda really has him shine?
On a vaguely relate note: I've decided to take your advice, and go ahead with the Detective Conan recaps. Now, I have to make do with the ViZ translated versions, since I don't have your manga-buying budget. I have a general idea of what edits they made, and I always have the online scanlated versions to compare to, but I do hope you'll be reading along with your Japanese editions of the manga, and possibly point out gags/puns that I've missed (there are a LOT of them).
In any case, get the old deerstalker ready and prepare to stroll up to 221B Baker... er, BEIKA Street, because it's gonna be a bloody ride.
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[Thriller Bark (just in case)]
I know what you mean about both Franky and Brook. I mean, I love Franky, but mostly as comic relief; despite his tragic backstory, he's not yet a fully developed character to me. And Brook just kind of baffles me, although I love him for Laboon's sake.
I do suspect that Brook, at least, is likely to get more development (we know almost nothing about his life as a human, whereas we have childhood stories for every other character). And I'm expecting to see Franky get more character development, too, maybe along the lines of what Usopp got during Water 7. We still know so little about his background before Tom adopted him.
I look forward to the Detective Conan recaps! Hopefully I can keep up. My Japanese isn't the greatest when it comes to puns, but I will do my best to weigh in with Japanese comments. (I forget, do you read Japanese?)
Reply
I'm fairly good at reading Chinese - even if there are characters I can't recognize, I can generally figure it out from the context. Katakana leaves me totally lost, though, which is rather unfortunate, since Conan puts a lot of emphasis on codes, alternate pronunciations, and foreign languages.
Ah, well. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I do hope that you'll enjoy the ride.
Reply
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