One Piece, Vol. 21

Eiichiro Oda, One Piece: Utopia (ViZ, 1997) Coherence has returned, though it still feels like Oda is drawing this battle out longer than necessary. Nami, Zolo, and Sanji's individual battles are depicted in this volume, with Nami's by far being the best. There's a bit of plot advancement as well, but not much. Better than the volume before, but not one of the best. *** ½

In the latest volume of Eiichiro Oda's epic manga, One Piece, three major battles are chronicled, as well as the motives of the big bad of the Alabasta arc, Crocodile. In the first third of the volume, Sanji, the Straw Hat crew's chef and martial artist, battles Mr. 2 Bon Clay, the cross dressing ballet-fighter.(With hilarious facial drawings as Mr.2 transforms into Nami). In the second third, Nami, the Straw Hat's navigator, battles Ms. Doublefinger, a sly woman with the lethal ability to produce spikes all over her body.(With hilarious deadpan as Nami's new weapon isn't all that much of a weapon). And in the final act, Roronoa Zoro(known as Zolo in the Viz Media manga) battles Mr. 1, an assassin who can sprout bladed edges along anywhere on his body. One of the best fights of the entire series.(Not funny, just pure awesome). Oda really thinks up some interesting fights here, with Mr.2's ballet-based fighting style, Nami's weather controlling weapon, the Climatact(called the Climate Baton in Viz's manga), and Mr.1's inventive blade powers. Not a lot can be said about depth, though, seeing as this volume is all attitude and combat, filled with bodily impact and buildings crashing about. However, as per the previous Alabasta-based volumes, Lance Caselman has adapted a respectably tense and exciting script. It still has its blunders of "Darn that creep!" and the like at points, but such moments are far and few between in this volume. As for the character's moves, Viz has kept all of Sanji's French named attacks, and Nami's "Tempo" names(rather than 4Kids' "Tempest"), but for some reason, Viz kept all of Mr.1's attacks as their 4kids monikers. Odd, considering Mr.1's original names are mostly based off English words. Fortunately, none of 4kids' monikers for him were all that lame sounding. Just under-creative.(Such as Mr.1 creating whirling curved blades on his arm. Japanese: Spiral Hollow. 4kids: Buzzsaws.) All in all, this volume if one of the series' style-over-substance entries. Fortunately, the style is very, very entertaining. Recommended. Also, why on Earth has Viz slowed One Piece's release schedule? It used to be four volumes every year, now it's only three! One has more volumes than either Bleach OR Naruto, so why slow the production of the volumes? One Piece has gotten more popular with the new Funimation dub of the anime, so one would think Viz would speed up with releases a bit. EDIT!!! It has come to my attention, and upon further research, confirmed, that Viz Media wisely listened to the wants of One Piece fans, and are going to engage in their most ambitious speed-up release in their entire run. Volumes 22 and 23 will be released in 2009, but from January 2010 until June 2010, volumes 24-53 will be released. FIVE VOLUMES A MONTH. Major props to Viz. I hope they continue the Alabasta arc's more serious dialog than some of their previous volumes.