Care for a spot of tea? A bit of Earl Grey goes well with a spoonful of Viz's One Piece.
Which is available here
Before I start this review, allow me to introduce myself. My name is superneku, I'll be covering this week's manga chapter as a guest blogger for Mikey-san is recovering from having so much fun at this year's Akon. But don't worry. I won't change the format at all so you can still get the same enjoyable content that Mikey-san normally provides. Anyway enough about that, lets move on.
As you've seen for the opening picture, this week we got another colorspread. The straw hats are all dressed in top class attire like suits, hats, and cravats all settling down for the awesomeness that is....A TEA PARTY. Of course it isn't as epic as the Cross Epoch tea party but this is still cool. Only Nami seems to be missing out on the tea and donuts as she seems to be seeing if theres any berries in this big briefcase which may have been stolen since the animals around her are all shifty and curious). Of course I'm not forgetting that GIANT ORANGE FROG right next to Luffy but...thats all it is....a giant....orange...frog........ANYWAY!
Where we last left off, Ace and Dadan are nowhere to be found after a massive fire was caused by the Bluejam Pirates in the Gray Terminal, Dragon and the Revolutionaries helped out the most innocent civilians who lived in the now burned land of trash, Luffy is stuck at Dadan's house recovering his burn injuries and Sabo is about to set out to sea to become a pirate.
The chapter begins with civilians spotting Sabo in his small fishing...I mean pirate vessel. When they try to get him to come back (since a World Government ship carrying Celestial Dragons is coming any minute now) but Sabo responds with this:
"The thing I'm most scared of...is getting swallowed up in this country,
and becoming a completely different human being...!!!
I'm not turning around!!"
Its cool seeing the fact that Sabo is really taking this to heart and going through with this. But then again since Luffy and Ace do this sort of thing as well, it makes sense. Sure enough, the World Government ship shows up and....IT'S FRIGGIN MASSIVE. But even despite this Sabo is just like "...huh." and smartly tries to steer away from it to avoid getting swallowed up in possible currents that it could cause. As he tries to get away, he gets spotted by a Celestial Dragon and his croney.
Everyone at the harbour waves to them, wrongfully so for obvious reasons (which by the way, makes me grind my teeth since I HATE THE CELESTIAL DRAGONS). One bystander even proclaims:
"Such an exalted existence, which some people wait their whole
lives just to get a single glance of...!!"
Yes I was clearly waiting all my life to see a bunch of egotistical, heartless bastards get a warm welcome. Why even Sabo admires the ship hoping to one day become the Captain of a ship that huge. However when we cut back to the Celestial Dragon, he loads a bazooka, takes aim at Sabo's ship through the scope and.......BOOM!!!
OH MY GOD!!! What the hell just happened?! He tried to kill Sabo! Well unfortunetly you'll have to wait and see what happened in a little bit as we cut back to Dadan's house where Luffy tries to convince the Dadan family that Ace isn't dead despite the fact that he and Dadan couldn't have survived in that massive fire. They believe that the 2 are still alive as well which really shows the group's trust in not only Ace but in the will and strength of their own leader. Now THATS loyalty. But even so, Trash Mountain is currently filled with soldiers so its great seeing the Dadan gang being the responsible adults they should've been before.
We go back to where the 2 ships are, everyone is in shock seeing this catastrophe. One bystander said that it was probably due to the fact that Sabo somehow irritated the Celestial Dragon. This is backed up a couple panels later. Sabo's ship is ablaze and tries to put out the fire with his coat, confused as to why they would fire on him. Even the World Government agents are confused by this with this exchange of coversation between the Celestial Dragon Saint Jalmack and a random agent.
Random Agent: "Saint Jalmack, there was a child on the ship!!!"
Saint Jalmack: "If they have a pirate flag up, then they're a pirate, plain and simple!
More importantly...
A COMMONER CUT IN FRONT OF MY SHIP!!!"
Ooooooooh! >:( I don't know how you've done it Oda, but you've made me hate these guys even more! Which I guess was intentional so in that case, good job.
Jalmack fires another shot at Sabo and.....BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!....again. But in all seriousness, this time it completely decimates the ship....
As the ship and the flag burns everyone at the harbour is now completely speechless, except for the Noble arseholes as they whine and bitch about them ruining the Celestial Dragons visit. You know what? Screw you! A child just died.
All that is left of Sabo is his slightly charred top hat and goggles...
I think a lot of us who read last week's chapter somehow knew that this was going to happen, but when something like this actually happens...you still remain in awe and shock at what you just witnessed. R.I.P Sabo.
We go back to the Dadan house and discover that Ace and Dadan have survived (which isn't exactly suprising but its still nice to see them both back). Also despite his injuries and being a little kid, Ace is able carry Dadan on his back who must weigh at least 50 times more than him. Even as a child, Ace still finds ways to wow the audience. Luffy is overjoyed (crying even) to see that Ace is alive to which Ace gives us this familiar quote:
"What are you crying for?!
Don't act like people are dead when they're not, dumbass!!"
Ace reveals that he and Dadan managed to beat Bluejam the night of the fire (which is kinda disappointing since we don't see how but whatever) but by the time they had beaten him, there was no way out of the fire. Dadan suffered some serious burns but managed to hide away themselves in the riverbank of the "Middle Forest". Ace managed to steal some medicine from town and stabilised Dadan to keep her alive. This is actually quite touching that Ace would go out of his way to help Dadan considering they didn't exactly get along too much in the first place so seeing some almost family love in this chapter is quite heart warming.
Dadan asks Ace why he didn't run away the night of the fire, Ace explains that he gets scared that if he runs then he may end up losing something important and at that specific moment...
This is the moment that shows Ace truly does care about Luffy even if they don't always get along.
This is backed up by Dadan who recalls a conversation she had with Garp. Garp told her that even if Gold Roger fought a huge army in which he had no chance of winning against, that he would stand up tall and fight. Not only that but behind him were his loved ones, if he ran then there would be a chance that they may also end up getting chased.
Does this sound familiar to you? Destroying enemies to stand up for friends? Acting like a child? Hmmmmm.....
Dadan realises that even if Ace hates his father, he can't fight the blood that flows through himself. Meanwhile Luffy spots Dogura of the Dadan gang (whom by the way was a witness to seeing Sabo getting blown away by the Celestial Dragon) and tells everyone about what had just happens. As soon as he's done, Ace furiously calls him a liar and goes into a rage. Dogura tries to convince everyone that Sabo chose to go out to sea, that living the life he was forced into wasn't what he wanted. Ace rages again and without thinking tries to run off to find Sabo but gets stopped by Dadan. She tries to tell him that if he goes out there, then Ace will get killed too. She is conviced that what killed Sabo was the country and the world he was living in. She even Shouts at him saying that Ace will only be able to live and die as he pleases if he grows up to become a great a man as his father was since his death changed the way the world was working before. Just then Luffy has a BIG cry since one of his "brothers" is gone now. Ace tries to shut him up by saying
"Men aren't supposed to cry and sob like that!!! Luffy!!!"
But despite that Luffy still continues to cry, even through the whole night apparently. The next day Dogura finds a letter to his "brothers". Ace walks along the seaside as he reads the letter which Sabo says that hes going out to seas to become a stronger and a great pirate and hopes they'll meet each other someday. Sabo also asked this:
"Ace, which one of us is the bigger brother? It's a bit weird to have two first born sons and one younger brother, but these bonds are my precious treasures. Luffy is still a little crybaby, but...
take care of him for me. He's our younger brother"
And so this week's chapter ends with Ace crying...lamenting at the loss of one of his brothers.
Even though a lot of One Piece fans saw this coming in this flashback, it still really hits you in the heart...it really does. Although something tells me that this flashback may not be over yet since I think a bit more development between Ace and Luffy as kids needs to occur more to explain their way of interacting with one another when they met up in Alabasta.
Quick note. There is no chapter next week. So you'll have to wait 2 weeks for the next manga review, but in the mean time we shall be pushing out some content regardless. Hope to see you next time!
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