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)