One Piece 51

[sara_tanaquil]

Shabondy, yay! This is one of those arcs (kind of like Jaya, vols 24-25) that can be overwhelming at first and is probably better on a re-read, but even on a first read, it is still made of multiple layers of awesome.

Comments

[lego_joker]

Oh dear lord this arc. My feelings on it are very conflicted.

The Duval/Flying Fish Riders stuff was an okay intro - give us some easy-to-beat punks so the newest crew member can show his stuff. The Duval/Sanji gag was truly hilarious, too.

My favorite moment was actually when Nami forgave Hachi - I've just been rereading the Arlong arc today, and Hachi was actually the one who dragged Nami away from Bellemere's body. That can't have built a decent first impression (though now I'm kinda sad that we never got to see Hachi interact with Nami in present-day Arlong Park).

But quite frankly, I feel like this is the moment where One Piece went a little too over-the-top with how evil its villains are (something that would reach an even more ridiculous zenith when we see *spoiler*'s past expanded on). I feel like the World Nobles are a bit too transparently set up as guys that exist solely for us to hate (even the likes of Don Krieg had more agency and depth than these dickweeds), so when Luffy punched Saint Charloss... yeah, I cheered, but I also felt kind of manipulated.

I liked the Eleven Supernovas well enough, but this was the moment I felt that One Piece slid irreversibly into way-too-many-important(?)-characters syndrome. Most of them barely get three pages of screentime, even though they're all apparently as interesting/powerful as Luffy in their own right. The syndrome's only gotten worse in the latest arc - I had to go back to the wiki a dozen times to remember who all the guys participating in *spoiler* were.

[wednesday_10_00]

I had to go back to the wiki a dozen times to remember who all the guys participating in *spoiler* were.

I admire your dedication in checking the wiki. I pretty much just skim past characters I don't care about, and that part was a lot of skimming for me. I just got to a part of the story where some of them come back, and I'm like: ugh, I STILL don't care about you.

I disagree that the character overload started with Shabondy, though. That's something I've struggled with throughout the whole series. And you never know when someone is going to come back and be really important (and really awesome!), so you sort of feel like you want to pay attention to everyone, but there are just wayyyy too many characters unless you're a super-dedicated reader. I think that's why, in a lot of ways, One Piece is better on re-read. Once you've already met someone and KNOW they're awesome, you can appreciate their subtle introduction. (Same with random, tiny details that become important later.)

But I do agree with the Nobles being ridiculously over-the-top evil. I'm just hoping that's a setup for meeting somebody not evil in the future.

[sara_tanaquil]

I also hope that the evilness of the Tenryuubito is a foil of some kind for future developments, because it's certainly not characteristic of Oda's normal way of setting up villains.

Although, to be fair, Oda has always had SOME villains that are just despicable - Spandam, for instance. However, what's weird about the Tenryuubito is how invariably awful they are. It will be interesting to see where he goes with it eventually.

It is interesting what you say about character overload. It could be argued that Oda is in the habit of introducing more unique, compelling, potentially interesting characters than he can fully develop (although I agree with w_10_00 that I don't think this is new - it was already evident on Jaya).

But I tend to think of it as more setting up a stable of potential future characters. Some of them already have been, or will get singled out for full development, and will be awesome (awesomely good, or awesomely evil). Some, I think, are still being held in reserve for specific future developments that Oda has planned (I am thinking particularly of Drake and Bonney here). And some may never get further development, but the fact that they were introduced at all has the effect of suggesting that the epic world is richer than the author has time to show us. (Homer and Vergil do this all the time. Heck, Aeneas had to wait 800 years for his spin-off.)

Yeah, the character overload in the recent arc was tiresome, but I've now re-read it just enough times to begin seeing the difference between the ones that haven't been further developed and the ones that are getting more dimension added. And also in the current arc, we had the reappearance of *spoiler* who until recently I would have said was a minor character we were never going to see again, and now he's suddenly way more interesting than before. Fifty volumes later!

I guess I still have faith in Oda's ability to play the long game.

[mangaroo]

And some may never get further development, but the fact that they were introduced at all has the effect of suggesting that the epic world is richer than the author has time to show us.

This was my reading. (Ignoring the fact that y'all have spoiled me re: characters that merit more particular focus right now.) The way they were introduced -- as pirates of strength/merit equal to Luffy, all convening on the entrance to the New World -- just made sense to me. Well...except for the coincidence of them all convening at the same time. The point is: Luffy isn't the sole contender for the crown. And previous generations (Whitebeard, Shanks, the other shichibukai) show that there's nothing uncommon about a plethora of superpowered pirates. Or superpowered navy men.

I even like the fact that only 2 strawhats qualify for this list. (Poor Sanji.)