Manga: No New Chapter This Week

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Smile because Viz loves you! Buy One Piece manga because it makes you happy!

So if you haven't notice, there will be no new chapter for One Piece this week. This is the first break since Golden Week and we are still in this flashback. I don't know why there is a break but a good Summer break is nice. I am betting that Oda is on the beach somewhere with his kids and (hot) wife right now. He could be licking on an Popsicle with his kids while his (hot) wife is having an ice cream cone and then closing out the day with fireworks. That sounds like the life.

Then again maybe Oda is just busy at work coming up with the next big epic storyline for the manga with a pile of papers around him as he cries to himself. Well he is a family man so most likely his (hot) wife and kids would pay him a visit and maybe camp out in his office. That sounds nice too. haha

So quick rundown of what happen since the last break: Currently we are still in a flashback of Ace and Luffy's past when they first met and were with Sabo. I don't want to go into details and such since most people reading this knows what is going on. Instead I am going to go over what I think of the arc so far since my predictions sucks like a blind man trying to hit a small target with a dart.

So far I think this little flashback arc isn't that bad. It is giving us a chance to look back at Ace and Luffy's past. It is something that we haven't gotten much of in the story. We have gotten hints about how Luffy's past has affected him with the moment where Bellamy was beating up on him on Jaya but nothing to what we are seeing right now.

CLICK ON KUMA! CLICK ON KUMA! PLEASE!

Though I do admit that some of the past chapters haven't been the most exciting things that we have gotten and really the moments with Dragon in them has really been saving these chapters from being average. Dragon is a very mysterious character in the One Piece world and even though we got a bit of information and the possibility that Luffy could be of Noble descent. We still don't know much about Dragon and the group known as the Revolutionaries. I am very interested that Dragon had Ivankov and Kuma going back to at least ten years ago before the present storyline. It makes me wonder what did Dragon  do or say to convince Ivankov to leave Kamabakka Queendom to join his cause that far back. The question is always raise for Kuma since we have been told that the guy was a 'tyrant' during his pirating days. The Kuma in this flashback also happens to be a pre-Pacifista Kuma. So now the question that is being asked is when was Kuma this cruel and tyrannical pirate that has been rumored. Still it is these small little details that make me interested in this flashback a bit more then anything else.

Overall I think this flashback is just what the doctor order after all that we got during Marineford. Been hearing that not many people are happy with these flashbacks but I am kind of thinking that those people have been spoiled by all the epicness that we got during Marineford. The point of this flashback is to help bring us back down to a normalcy that is healthy and should be expected from One Piece. I know there were a few moments during the Marineford arc where I had my hopes up for one chapter to be great and then getting disappointed because the chapter wasn't what I expected. I know these chapters aren't as great as the ones that we got during Marineford but they are still good in my opinion. Each one has something to add to the story and build upon that makes them shine a little bit.

Can you tell that is Marineford? Well it suppose to be. (Blame Opening 12)

Marineford to me was unstable based on the epic-meter that I am making up. It went up and down and in my opinion lasted too long. Now with this current arc, we are getting back to normal and slowly building something. I am not sure what we are building but it is something that could come back to be important later. This is good since it will be harder to pull of something epic if everything else before that epic moment is already too epic to begin with. Oda raised the epic bar during Marineford and now he is bring it back down during this flashback so he can blow us away later on without working too hard. haha

That is all I have for this week concerning the manga. Next week One Piece will be back in ink and it seems like we will keep going with this flashback. Till then I suggest you take a look at the Sora's recap of Episode 455 if you haven't done that and/or take a look at my recap coverage of Akon in Part II. Till next week true believers!