Manga Diaries – One Piece Volumes 58 to 60

If you don’t know what my Diaries are, please go here. Spoilers ahoy!

Otherwise, let’s go!

Volume 58:

Everyone does stories with Blackbeard and Bluebeard, so of course Oda goes with Whitebeard!

I’ve always wondered what Ohtani is like when she’s drunk. Does she hang out after work with Matsumoto (Satoshi) and have conversations where Ohtani just keeps answering with, “Pikachu… pi…” And how do the recording sessions go? “Ohtani-san, we loved the ‘Pikachu pika-pika’ line, but please put more emphasis on ‘ka’ in the next line of ‘Kachu pika’.” Or maybe Ohtani pumps herself up with “Ike Ike Go Go Jump!” before recording.

… What? Am I the only one who wonders these things? Anybody? No? Okay…

Also, +10 awesome points for anybody who gets the “ike ike go go jump” line. Oda gets +10 points for mentioning Candy Candy.

Sanji as a sheriff? Good deal for female criminals, as they never would be arrested. Until they all start stealing from and messing with each other and the town descends into chaos.

Luffy easily KO’s Koby. Someone needs to level up.

If Iva calls Crocodile “Crock Boy”, I’m calling him “Crock Pot”.

The Seven Warlords all have animals in their names (or, in Jimbei’s case, is kind of one), right? So what is Teech? Marshall is his first name, right? I mean, Boa, Gecko, Bear, Crocodile, Flamingo… and Teech. Odd man animal out?

Ace is rescued by Luffy (thanks to a boost from Iva), Whitebeard is willing to throw away his life to save his family, and there’s a whole buncha fighting. And bonds, lots of bonds: brother-brother bonds, father-son bonds, grandfather-grandson bonds, etc. The end.

Volume 59:

Not gonna lie: I didn’t think Oda would follow through and pull an Aerith. Dude was amazing for 72 years old.

So while this volume’s song should be somber, all I could hear was “Nou Aru Rival wa Tsume wo Kakusu” for Blackbeard:

Sou   watashi no   kore kara ha   jidai !
That’s right. From here on, it’s my era!

Marco says Blackbeard’s body is “odd”. Well, thank you for that illuminating and detailed report.

Tashigi alert! I should have made Tashigi alerts a thing and counted them. More importantly, I wish we could see her do something. The real shock is Shanks making his return in this volume.

Brownbeard makes his entrance. How long until Purplebeard, Pinkbeard, Indigobeard, etc. appear?

Poor Mr. Bear wants to meet Mrs. Bear, but Amazon Lily is not the place to find her.

Luffy’s backstory with Ace is very heartwarming so far. But Luffy lying looks like Bossan from Sket Dance. If Nami’s backstory hadn’t convinced me, Luffy’s is showing why the world of One Piece needs a foster care system.

Volume 60:

Pretty good volume considering it’s mostly a setup volume. First half is a flashback, second half is everyone preparing to reunite. But after the hyperness of the previous volumes, this was a nice change of pace. We also learned quite a bit about the characters as well as Oda himself. (He doesn’t reuse drawings?! Is he insane?!) Sabo’s role in the story was very good. The part about which was the older brother was very moving.

Lots of personnel shuffles going on, and I expect to see some more crash mashups like Mihawk and Perona.

Demon Lord Brook sounds like it would be one hilarious spinoff. I wonder how much people pay to seem him at the carnival. If Chopper was in a carnival, I wonder which one would bring in the most money: the super rare taking skeleton who plays music or the reindeer that can heal you and be ridden like a horse?

Final Comments:

By now, One Piece often feels more like a detailed script for the anime rather than a manga. I can understand why this is happening (*coughmoneycough*), but parts feel like an abridged version. I mean, Whitebeard has 16 commanders? Heck, even the Shinsengumi didn’t have that many divisions. I know Oda puts a lot of thought into designing these characters. The anime can add filler and explanations, but when only reading the manga, there just seems to be a lot of random characters. Many seem interesting (like the Japanese pistol woman), but they get lost in the shuffle. I like the manga better when it focuses on a small group with world politics, not huuuuuuuuge groups with global politics.