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Title: The Legend Begins
Series:
One Piece #12
Arc:
East Blue #12 &
Baroque Works #1
Author: Eiichiro Oda
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages:
191
Words: 8K
From
Wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_One_Piece_chapters_(1_186)
"The
Legend Begins"
"Reverse
Mountain"
"And
Now, the Grand Line"
"The
Whale"
"Cape
Promise"
"Log
Pose"
"The
Town of Welcome"
"Moonlight
and Tombstones"
"100
Bounty Hunters"
As
the Straw Hats try to flee the island, Smoker gets in their way.
Luffy fights him, but is quickly pinned to the ground. With the help
of a man named Dragon, he escapes. The Straw Hats enter the Grand
Line by crossing Reverse Mountain, where they are swallowed by the
giant whale Laboon. In its stomach they meet Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday
(who try to kill the whale to feed their village) and Crocus,
Laboon's caretaker. Crocus shows them the way out, telling the
whale's story, and introduces the Straw Hats to navigating the Grand
Line. Luffy impulsively gives Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 a ride to
Whiskey Peak, their home village. Their arrival is celebrated by the
townspeople, who are bounty hunters for Baroque Works. With his
comrades fast asleep after the party, Zoro must fight the roughly 100
bounty hunters himself.
When I started originally reading this series back in '07, it wasn't
obvious that there were different story arcs going. Thankfully, with
this re-read and new editions, it is stated right on the front cover,
or inside cover, when an arc ends and a new one begins. I am finding
it extremely helpful in terms of what to expect.
This volume ends the East Blue arc, where Luffy and Crew sailed
around preparing to enter the Grand Line. It also begins the Baroque
Works arc, which appears to have the Crew going up against an
Organization known as Baroque Works. When I was reading way back
when, this change kind of caught me by surprise because the storyline
also changes. Knowing there are going to be changes sets me in the
right frame of mind to accept those changes.
The end of the East Blue arc sees the Crew escaping Captain Smoker
(who has eaten of some sort of fruit that gives him powers as well)
as well as Alvida and Buggy. But it looks like all three of them will
be chasing after Luffy so it seems Luffy will have old enemies as
well as new once he reaches the Grand Line.
Then the crew makes it onto the Grand Line and come to a Cactus
Island, where they are feted and pass out from food and drink. Only
Zoro stays sober and ends up fighing against the whole town, who are
bounty hunters who take down pirates before they get too big on the
Grand Line. With Luffy's 30 million berry reward, he's worth the
effort. Zoro tests out his new swords and shows why he was the best
swordsman on East Blue. He defeats all the ordinary bounty hunters so
some of the bigger honchos have to get involved, namely Mister 8,
Miss Monday and maybe some others. Obviously Baroque Works was
running short on ideas when it came to secret names BUT it makes it
super easy on me as a reader to figure out just who is where on the
Power Ladder and who needs to be defeated in what order.
This volume ends with Zoro getting ready to go head to head. I
suspect he'll beat a couple then get whipped by somebody higher up on
the food chain and then Luffy will get involved, blah blah blah.
Should be fun :-)
Oh, on a complete side note, anyone have any ideas how I can make the
titles for these a bit cleaner? I'm stuffing in manga monday, the
title and the series and then the rating and it just looks super
messy to me. But I don't know how to convey all that info in the
title without it being messy. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
★★★★☆
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