This book review was part of a podcast discussion.
Listen to the episode here.
Fantasy is filled with big giant series with huge scope and complicated worlds filled with multiple magic systems and complex political systems. Now make it a comedy about pirates and you essentially have the world of One Piece.
I’m not going to waste to many words on selling you on One Piece. Chances are if you were ever going to be open to reading the world’s best-selling manga ever, you probably already found it. But I am supposing there might be a few of you that love fantasy but have never given manga or maybe even all of comics a chance.
Though One Piece sells itself as a comedy adventure comic, it is filled with hidden depth and complexity. The main character, Monkey D. Luffy, helps maintain that comedic edge. He is a character that never wants to grow up and experiences the world with the perspective of childlike wonder and awe. Also like a child, he smashes his way into things and declares his simplistic world view much to the gap jawed reaction of the rest of the world.
For example, slavery. Slavery exists in the world of One Piece and it is maintained by an authoritarian ruling class that uses massive military force to enforce its will on the rest of the world. Most of the people that we meet in the world are appalled and refuse to participate in slavery, but they also tolerate it. They live in cities and around the people that have slaves and in many cases torture and mistreat their slaves out in the open. Luffy sees this one time, and immediately starts throwing punches. This is One Piece at it is best. Showing us the complexity of our own world and reminding us that sometime simple solutions are what is needed.
One Piece is a book about resistance and making your own path, often literally, through the world. The crew of the Merry Go are fun people, but each with their own back story and character paths to bring to the story. Over the many decades that the 100 volumes have released in, they have grown and changed and witnessed amazing things, all while trying to achieve an ambiguous goal that rarely stretches beyond the thirst for the next adventure.
It is not without fault. As is often the case in manga, the visual imagery for the many female characters is overly sexualized. You will notice that in most of the covers, so you should not need to read a bunch of volumes to know if it will bother you. I cannot defend it. But I think that there’s enough of a loony toons nature of the story to feel that these exaggerated physical details are in line with the aesthetic of the world, and it doesn’t distract from the story for me (I say as a man).
I hope some of you find the time to give this manga a try. Even if you have never picked up a manga or a comic before One Piece is a great demonstration of how great the genre can be.
One Piece gets a five out five from me.
Chicago, IL
A preacher's kid from the South who went North a long time ago. I'm an Engineer by day trying desperately to enjoy my day job. I love fantasy and sci-fi and I'm always looking for new worlds to explore.
DanielEavenson.com is my author site.
