One Piece, how I love you!

I'm a huge lover of manga and anime, especially the shonen  style stuff (I like others too; Seinen- Chobits, battle royale, Akira, ghost in a shell, Neon genesis evangelion, Monster etc.  And girly Shoujo shit too like: Peach girl, Fruits basket, Paradise kiss, Mars, Nana, Skip beat, Absoloute boyfriend, Vampire knight etc etc. Then there is the other stuff, not sure how to categorise: All the studio Ghibli stuff (I'll have to write a separate post on this), Cowboy bebop, Gintama, all Hayao Miyazaki's stuff and many many more).

Over time my favorites tend to change. The three anime series I have been absolutely obsessed with are Naruto (it played a role in the things that defined my life a few years back), Hunter X hunter (still haven't continued watching from where it suddenly stopped, but totally getting on it very soon) and One Piece . I love all of them wholeheartedly but my all time favorite is  One Piece.
I can't even begin to express how much I love this anime (I read some of the manga but have mostly been watching the Japanese anime series with English subs), it's just plain incredible and superrrrrrrrrr (get it?)!  It's a shonen manga series that was made (and still is) for the super popular Shonen Jump magazine (wish I could subscribe an English version of this in the UK). The man behind the work, is Eichiiro Oda, a genius who won countless awards from the age of 17 for his incredible work.

So what is one piece all about?
About 20 or so years ago, the infamous pirate king, Gol. D Roger, was executed by the world government  but not before he revealed that he'd left his legendary treasure, the 'One piece', behind for anyone who was capable and worthy of finding it. Inevitably the one who finds the treasure will be the new pirate king.
His death marks the advent of the golden age of pirates, where numerous men take to the seas in search of adventure and One piece. Our young protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy, is one of them.

Monkey D. Luffy!

Luffy, sets of from his home town, at the age of 17,  in search of Nakama (comrades) and adventure. His goal is to conquer the dangerous stretch of sea, known as the Grand line (where Roger's treasure is buried) and above all to find One Piece and become the pirate king. We watch as he finds members of his crew, has countless adventures and run-ins with dangerous pirates and the world government. Along the way he and his crew make countless friends and enemies too.

Luffy's character is undoubtedly my favorite. Though he is seemingly naive, super chilled, and pretty much always happy or excited about something (much of the time it's food... :D ), his character has a lot of depth too. What I really love is his unshakable love and loyalty for his friends and family. He will do anything to protect these and in short he becomes a very powerful force to reckon with when someone threatens the safety of his loved ones. But he's not the kind of guy that look goes around looking for fights and is definitely not trying to become notorious or even famous... but along the way he manages to become on of the most wanted pirates to sail the sea.  I think the only one small issue I have with Luffy's character is his seeming lack of intelligence. I feel like his kind nature, his instincts, his honesty and his loyalty are what really guide him in terms of making decisions or taking action. However, at the same time I feel like Luffy just seems that way to onlookers, mostly because he's inattentive and lighthearted. But in reality I like to think that he's pretty smart and is just too humble to show it.

The other members of his crew, from the pirate hunter Ronoroa Zoro, to Ussop the long nosed sniper, all have detailed pasts full of hardship and struggles that they have experienced prior to joining Luffy's crew. The character development is natural and happens over time. Different arcs reveal new details and important factors contributing to the development of the general plot. 

 The straw hat pirates 

Though they have joined Luffy's crew and are supporting him in realising his dream of becoming the pirate king,  each character has their own goal too. For instance Zoro wants to become the greatest swordsman in the world, but to do this he'll have to defeat 'Hawke-eye' Dracule Mihawke, a Shichibukai,  (one of several powerful pirates who have allied themselves with the world government)  who is the current strongest swordsman in the world.  Nami, the crews incredible navigator, wants to create her own map of the world, and she also has a seemingly insatiable lust for treasure and money. Then there's the aspiring sea warrior Ussop, whose tall tales depicting himself as an incredible pirate captain, make you realise why he sports Pinocchio's nose. Also, there is the French-spouting, woman-loving, world-class chef, Sanji, who dreams of finding the 'all blue' a fabled part of the ocean (in the grand line) where all the great seas merge, making it home to all fish of the world and a dream for all chefs.  There are other characters too, but for those who haven't seen this I'll refrain from giving away too much detail.

I think the depth of the characters, the incredible detail and the sheer length of the series means that you grow to know them as if they were actually real.    
I've became so involved with these characters that I can't help but cry or feel anguish during some episodes. Even now, the death of one of the characters has left me heart broken. I surprised my self by finding it hard to get over it. I hadn't even realised the character meant that much to me. But I think it was the bond that was broken and the impact of the characters death on our protagonist that really got to me. :(
I believe I mentioned before, that when something makes a significant impact on me, I'll start dreaming about it and yes, I've had the odd dream or two about One Piece. Is that lame? Maybe. Do I give shit though? No! That's just the way my mind works :)

The shit!

I love everything about this anime, from the art to the actual detailed story lines. I've read on some forums/ blogs that people have found it difficult to adjust to/ like the animation. But honestly speaking, I didn't even think twice about it. I was sucked in from the word go!
It really is an amazingly sumptuous mixture of everything you could want in a great story; adventure, love, drama, comedy, action, all done with more than a touch of originality.  I've laughed out loud, sobbed my heart out and felt exhilarated through my One piece journey. Seriously I'm a freaking 26 year old onna and would do some drastic things to wake up and find myself on Luffy's ship. The whole  adventuring on the sea and  the pirate way of life is brilliantly portrayed by this series. Sure you get the typical pirate, rum-drinking and  peg-legged, with a hook for a hand and crooked personality. But then you also get some incredibly unique characters (e.g. Captian Buggy and Foxy!), with crazy powers (like the ability to fire a Noro Noro beam, which slows down anything that it hits) that you may grow fond of despite them being villains, but conversely some are so wicked you'll hate them with a passion.

I seriously wish I could live in this anime, live that life, those adventures, the nakama and the freedom to realise your dreams and goals without letting anything on the sea, land or even the sky hinder you. Oda's imagination is unbelievable. to create a world where things like the 'devil's fruit' (a class of fruits that give the person that consumes it special abilities, e.g. Luffy's ability to stretch like rubber. No two fruits have the same power, each is unique) exist, is just too incredible! I think once you love one piece, the one piece world becomes a reality for you in its own way. So much so that you may start doing silly things like questioning how it is physically possible for one man to possess more than one devils fruit ability. You think, it's not possible, it defies logic, but then you realise that the entire concept is fantastical. :D

I absolutely love it wholeheartedly! If it weren't for the fact that I have some very important exams to sit, I think I'd start re-watching it from the beginning.  No seriously I would. I can't wait to see what's going to happen in the upcoming episodes and eagerly anticipate the long journey ahead!

For the any One piece fans out there who love it as much as I do: Respect! ;)
And those who haven't watched/ read it yet: Get on it!

Just a note: I watched the English subbed version, as I do with all Japanese/ foreign animes/ films etc. I really believe that the Japanese expressions, tones and just the language itself, are an integral part to understanding the story and truly appreciating the characters.


   

Dark, rainy days.

The cold has come. It's found its way into the house and though the radiator is on high, it's seeped into my bones. I feel slightly ill, a little feverish and quite a bit lethargic. It's still September but the rain is relentlessly pounding on the window. How I love you England.  I wish I had a real wood-burning fire. I'd sit so close my eyes would start stinging and my face would glow as the flames of the fire cast dancing shadows around the room. On days like this I think of writers like Orhan Pamuk. His novels undoubtedly have an underlying melancholy theme. Something like  'The black book'. The feeling I got when reading that is exactly how i'm feeling now. Drowsy and achy and little sad too. But my favourites of his books has got be 'My name is red', I loved it so much I wished I could be a part of it, somehow mold myself into the pages. That book cast shadows in my dreams too. That's what happens to me sometimes. I'll read something that ingrains itself so deeply within me that I'll start dreaming about the book. Usually I'm just an observer and scenes that I imagined will play themselves in my dreams. Other times, I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's like i'm an inanimate object in the book, something that is a part of the novel, like a pen for instance, but something that has no clearly defined character or role. Not like all the 'inanimate' objects in My name is red. I put that inanimate in speech marks because some of them, in Pamuk's books, are quite real and animated. For example a tree in a painting will have a narrative, something that is crucial to the story. You'll have to read it to know what I mean.

Oh, I just thought of what else it is that reminds me of days like this; Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' series. Dark, almost gothic, graphic novels that create vivid images, ones that reach the furthest recesses of a readers mind. That series, the Sandman one, really go to me. I was only in year seven or eight, and the dark themes those graphic novels explored made me a little afraid... just a little. But still I loved them. It was like exploring a land that you've never even imagined could exist. The dream maker or rather dream himself is the main character in these novels, he seeps his way into peoples lives, through their dreams. sometimes it's hard to distinguish whether a character is dreaming, the events are so intertwines with real life (i.e. the comics real life). Dreams other name is Morpheus. I love that name. I don't remember the events exactly, but I know there was a lot of ancient Greek/ Asyrian/ other mythology mixed up in it. I really have to get a hold of those novels to re-read them again. it's been too long, much too long.   Gaiman's Stardust, is another of my favorites. I read it around the same time as the Sandman series and remember being surprised by how one man could create so strikingly different ( yet the same) stories. I think I read too much fantasy. Sometimes, for instance when I read Stardust, I wish that real life could be like these novels. That magic and myths etc were all real. I wish stars could converse with men and tell tales of world as it were thousands of years ago.

The Stardust film wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, in actual fact I quite liked it. But nothing compares to the imagination. The way you see things in your minds eye is something that can never be translated to a screen, it's near impossible. I mean, people like Gaiman and Hayao Miyazake are probably the type of individuals who get close enough to do something like that. They really do translate their imagination to paper or screen, but I bet what they see in their mind is much more incredible than their real life works.

Morpheus aka Dream 

http://www.arschkrebs.de/sandman/sandman.jpg

(not my image, it's from the above url)

          

The devil comes to Moscow

Image from: Manuscripts Bon't Burn

What if the devil did come to Moscow (or any other city) disguised as a magician? What if he and his minions played tricks and games with the elite and powerful inhabitants of the city, only to depart just as abruptly as they'd arrived and leave a chaotic and dumbfounded city in their wake?  What if the consequence were to shock a group of sceptics into thinking about their mortality and the existence of something beyond here and now?

Not exactly a summation of Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita", but nonetheless a gist of part of the story.

Bulgakov paints a fantastically surreal picture of Moscow, as we follow the seemingly eccentric Woland (Satan disguised as a professor) and his devilish sidekicks (who are at once fascinating and quite funny too), fittingly named Behemoth, Azazello, Hella and Abadonna (there’s one other called Koroviev, not sure how he fits into that list).  They execute dangerous but humorous tricks on the inhabitants, revealing their deepest natures; either good or bad.   

Intertwined with this is an account of Pontius Pilate’s life, his thoughts, actions and moral deliberations during the trial of Christ and the devils role in all of this. The piece is penned by the ‘Master’, who has devoted his entire life to its creation. However censorship means that he is forced to burn his manuscript and is locked into an institution for the insane (a very powerful metaphor for the censorships that existed in Stalin’s Russia). His lover, Margarita, is distraught when he disappears, to the point that she requests Woland’s help in finding her lost lover. At this point ensues more craziness and we find ourselves following Margarita to a sensational ball for the damned hosted by Woland. More craziness ensues, as the devilish tricks get nastier and nastier, literally setting Moscow ablaze with fire!

I’ll leave it at that, not wanting to spoil too much for all of you haven’t read it yet (what the hell are you waiting for?  (Hehe is that a little pun I sense there?)).  The entire book is a bit of a whirlwind read, making it almost baffling at times. However the magical realism, the absurdly brilliant characters, the moral and existential explorations and just the narrative itself , make this an incredible book that almost makes your mind explode (I immediately had to take pen to paper for the out pour of literary genius (seriously!) that the book inspired).

Though my religious inclinations, do leave me feeling somewhat guilty (only slightly) for greatly loving a novel that explores the evil,  power, ingenuity and dare I say, allure (?!) of the devil, the guilt isn't enough to prevent me from thinking that this is probably one of the best pieces of literature I have ever got my hands on. I was hooked from the start. And after I finished it I kept taking it off the shelf to re-read certain chapters or excerpts of the novel, just because of the sheer brilliance of Bulgakov's writing style. 

I had to read on Bulgakov’s life straight after finishing the novel and he’s become a hero of sorts in my eyes. It’s evident from the book that it was written in a Moscow that was governed by a Stalinist regime and upon reading about Bulgakov I realised he was a victim of the harsh consequences of censorship. However, what really got to me was the fact that Mikhail had trained as physician, but after falling sick he turned to writing. Being a medic (and totally loving it), who has an incredible love for literature and writing, I aspire to, one day, write a novel that will deeply influence or entertain at least a handful of people. So upon reading about Bulgakov’s experiences my heart started pounding as I saw a vision of myself being a physician who also wrote epic novels on the side.     

It’s been glued to my shelf of legendary books and has a space beside it to accommodate Bulgakov’s other stuff.  Any who loves literary classics/ surrealism/ fantasy/ Goethe/ Dostoevsky, or just anyone who wants to read some think brilliant, please get yourself a copy.

I thought I’d note how I came across this book, as I found it mildly amusing when I thought over it:

I usually spend five minutes or so scouring the shelves of "cancer research", in my local high street whenever I'm there (which, because of University, isn't very often these days). However on this particular day, I was in a rush to finish my banking and get back to the car (damned HSBC queue meant my dad had been waiting impatiently in the car, for about an hour and a half or so, ringing me every 15 minutes to check if I'd "finished yet".). But as I semi-skipped/ jogged towards the car park, the thought that I might miss out on a really good find suddenly crossed my mind and I retraced my steps (albeit running this time), hoping that any good books on the shelves would be mine (there was only one other youngish guy, with too many piercings and even more aftershave, that I usually found fingering the kind of books I liked to read. The others were all little old ladies, who smiled oddly whilst attempting to be discrete about looking through the Mills and Boons). Luckily Piercings was nowhere to be seen and the shelves were mine alone. I found a favourite of mine that I'd already read (The map of love) and "The Master and Margarita". The cover was pretty plain, but I liked the name Mikhail, so was drawn to the book. I usually have a quick read of the first 1/2 pages of a book to see if I liked the authors style, but in this instance I had to rely on the blurb. I'm so glad I did. I was drawn into the story as soon as I started reading it, which I actually did as I walked/jogged back to the car. This meant a walk that would normally take about 5-7 minutes took me about 20 minutes! Though, when I finally got to the car, I had to hear a long lecture on time-keeping etc. I was so glad and excited to have made that stop and continued reading whilst my dad went on and on about the merits of waking up early and maintaining time etc etc.

Naghuib Mahfouz

He's easily one of my most favorite authors ever and I can read his books again and again and again. Naghuib Mahfouz's impact on the Arab literary world and the Arab world in general is indisputable. What's just as great or even greater, is the impact his work can have on the individual reader. Whenever I read any of his work I can't help but feel a deep sense of longing. I'm not sure what it is or how to describe it fully, but I feel great joy and despair all at once. It's definitely not an unwelcome feeling.

Seriously what does it take to be such a great writer? How do people like Mahfouz, Marquez, Bernieres (etc) all write so passionately, so beautifully so soulfully? It must be something deep within them, something innate and I'm sure it isn't something that can be learnt. It's not just the authors style I'm talking about here, it's the stories they conjure up the tales they tell. Incredible really. I so wish I could write half as well or produce such beautiful and though-provoking stories.

Mahfouz's 'Cairo' trilogy, 'Harafish' and 'Children of the alley' are my favourites.

Why Prufrock?

T.S. Eliot's 'The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock', played in the background of my secondary school life.....The hazy years of rote learning, dodging bullys, bunking and soggy school lunches.  Though I have many memories of different events and happenings, my fondest memories are of sitting at the back of my English class during the winter months, peering at the teacher through the steam that had accumulated due to an overheated radiator and girls soaked to the skin from rolling around in the snow. The slow drone of the teachers voice coupled with the soaring temperatures, transported me to distant parts of my mind.  Though I was young, my mind was able to delve deep into the desolation that exists within the human civilization and thoughts like these made for melancholy days. But by no means were they bad memories, in fact the very opposite was true. The melancholia made for some striking thoughts and memories.  Thoughts of the life ahead in the "real world", thoughts of love and loves hopelessness ( as Hamlet, Othello and Westside story confirmed), sad thoughts of growing old and frail...all whirled around in my head as I tried to stay focused on the teachers words.  The enthusiasm of my teacher, a young beefy man in his 30's, led us to read a whole array of things both on and out of the curriculum.. Sci-fi novels reminiscent of star trek, dark pieces on young people exploring suicide and tales about lonely old ladies waiting to die.. Pretty somber stuff for your early teens, but definitely things that shape more interesting characters.   The first time I heard Prufrock, I thought "wow, that's what life's really like".  So many wishes, so many desires, yet so little courage to act upon any of them. The blur, the sighs, the stifled society, the jumble of the mind, the juxtapositions, the indecisiveness, the want and need for romance and joviality... the optimism quelled only by the sharpness of reality when realization hits that sometimes you have to accept who you are, the society your in and though your one person on the inside, your entirely different to the world outside.  Prufrock is a great summation of the human condition, the loneliness that can exist even when your surrounded by tonnes of people, the regrets we will always carry and our desire for time which we do not have or control. I can't adequately sum up all the feelings I attach to this piece, but whenever I read it or think about it a wave of nostalgia washes over me and I can't help but feel that time is running out and I'm growing old.