One Piece, Vol. 68

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By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

It’s worth noting, when reading this volume of One Piece, how much fun Oda is clearly having writing every single chapter. His simple joy in drawing all this crazy stuff comes out from the page and just overflows into your brain. Be it giant slime monsters clearly based off of video games in his youth, the bodyswap continuing to humiliate Nami and Sanji (and ending at just about the right time so it doesn’t get old), or even our heroes happily commenting on how Luffy and Smoker are locked up in another seastone cage again, just like Alabasta! (Bonus points for it being Robin commenting, who was a villain at that point.) This manga is what happy feels like.

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Of course, it’s not all fun and games – or rather, the fun and games continues to be contrasted with the atrocities that Caesar Clown is committing. Drug addict giant toddlers, poison gas corpses that look like something out of Edvard Munch, and Luffy getting completely punked in his first fight with Caesar, despite his supposed poison immunity… this is not simply a walk in the park the way other arcs have felt. We even have yet another mole for the bad guy who’s a Vice-Admiral with the Marines (and, Oda-style, has a hamburger affixed to his cheek. As he forgot it was there.)

We also see Kidd and some of the other Supernovas meeting to discuss Caesar Clown’s offer, and it reminds me of something that Oda has been showing us again and again: anyone with power in this world is highly likely to be evil or insane. Luffy and company are one of the few non-evil pirate crews, and, fittingly, Smoker and Tashigi’s group are one of the few non-evil Marine crews. When you live in a world like One Piece’s, with so much raw power out there to abuse, you run into people who will do all they can to hold onto it.

Luckily, our heroes are strong, and can’t be kept down for long. Everyone has their own bodies again, and Kin’emon, the samurai, has his full body back (and is really quite tall now). What’s more, Luffy and Law have formed an alliance! I suspect that Law will rapidly come to regret allying himself with Luffy and company, which to a certain degree involves throwing your self-image out the window and giving in to the goofy. I am amused that once again Luffy says, when being informed of a plan, “Yeah, OK, I got it”, and then merrily go off to punch things again. It’s not something anyone can stop at this point.

If there’s something that feels slightly dissatisfying here, it’s that Caesar Clown doesn’t feel like a big bad. He’s pretty scummy, and I’ll enjoy seeing him defeated, but the revelation that there’s someone behind him who’s the real mastermind makes a lot more sense, and as a reader, I’d really like to leap ahead to that battle. Till then, though, One Piece continues to go where it wants to with unlimited joy.

Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 22

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By Kenjiro Hata. Released in Japan as “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

This volume, and the two that follow it, are for me the high point of the entire run of Hayate the Combat Butler. Hata has a tendency to get sidetracked and lost in comedy asides, to the point where he’s started to parody his tendency to do so. Also, it’s becoming quite clear that someone is telling him that he has to keep the series going and can’t wrap things up. But that’s in Japan. Here, we’re finally getting to the good stuff. All the slow character development, glacial plot points, and G*ndam references lead to this confrontation in Greece.

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For all that Hayate is a wacky harem comedy, it has some dark tones at its core. Mostly it’s been about the horrible parents of Hayate, Wataru and Hina, and the absent/dead parents of Nagi and Athena. But there’s also been a sense of aiming for your dream and failing that’s come up several times with Hina’s alcoholic sister Yukiji. She’s in Italy because the teacher (and old high-school friend) who has a crush on her is trying to make grand gestures so that he doesn’t have to actually confess. After a chapter of misunderstandings and beatings, the now drunken teacher wonders out loud how the cool, guitar-playing Yukiji turned into the lazy, shiftless, aimless young woman we all know. And the answer is that life happens. It’s why people make wishes, and dream of fairy stories. And create magical luck stones, for that matter.

Speaking of which, we finally get the confrontation we’ve waited 10 years for… well OK, four volumes. Hayate sees Athena, and calls out to her. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know who he is. Or at least pretends she doesn’t know – as a very cute aftershot tells us, she is quite aware of Hayate but has some longer game, which involves that stone. The last volume gave us a few minor villains trying to get their hands on the stone, but now we move on to the more dangerous players. 16-year-old Athena looks like a dark queen, what with her black dress and princess curls (and healthy bust – clearly larger than any of the other girls in Hayate’s wannabe harem). We can only hope that she sides with her feelings over her need for that stone.

And so, having started the volume with Yukiji noting that sometimes things don’t work out, and dreams don’t come true, we end with the dinner date between Hayate and Hinagiku, who is determined to confess. Of course, Hina is mistakenly thinking that Hayate hates her because of her tsundere antics. And Hayate has worked out that Athena was lying, and is wondering what to do now and why meeting Athena is affecting him so much. So the dinner date is a masterpiece of distraction. Tragically, the two characters have revelations exactly at the WRONG time. Hina finally mans up her courage and starts to confess. And Hayate finally puts two and two together and realizes why he’s so devastated by Athena’s disfavor, and why he wants desperately to apologize: he loves her.

It’s an epic cliffhanger, to be sure. Hata certainly thought so, as Vols. 23 and 24 came out in Japan the same day. Sadly, that won’t happen here, where Hayate simply doesn’t have the sales. So we’ll have to check back in another six months to see how Hayate’s admission affects Hina, and whether it spurs him to return to Athena. The tension only gets higher from here.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Short Stories, Vol. 1

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By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan as “Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon” by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Run Run. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

There’s an important thing to keep in mind when reading this first of two collections of short stories that were interspersed throughout the series’ run: they didn’t run in Nakayoshi. They ran in a sister magazine, run Run, which was also home to Sailor V. Run Run no longer exists today, but I seem to recall when it was around that its core audience was girls about 2-3 years younger than the usual Nakayoshi audience. And that’s not even getting into the fact that these are quick side-stories Naoko dashed off in between chapters, so are naturally going to be a bit more comedic and fluffy than the core plotline.

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If all of this sounds a bit defensive, well, let’s just say that ‘light and frothy’ doesn’t begin to describe this volume of Sailor Moon extras, most of which are very silly and not exactly lending themselves to deeper analysis. Four of the stories star Chibi-Usa and her friends (with occasional rescues from Sailors Moon and V), while three others detail the struggles of the Inners to pass high school exams. The first one is around the R continuity (Chibi-Usa has just arrived, and is meeting her very busty friend Momo… Ranma fans will immediately be reminded of Shampoo), but most of the stories take place around the SuperS continuity – indeed, a few of them were adapted into the SuperS anime – with the final one seeming to be around Stars, given it has Hotaru.

This is not to say I did not 100% enjoy these stories, as I did. I like Naoko’s style of blatant humor, and she has a knack for amusing caricature faces. The Chibi-Usa stories at the beginning are pure fun for kids, with the kids getting into danger and having to transform to get themselves out of it. The story at the end is slightly longer and attempts to have more depth, but there’s only so far you can go when you find out that Naru’s sister is not only a kogal but is also named Naruru. It’s good to know that Japan has horrible naming sense as well. (Also, kudos to Mari Morimoto for the translation of this chapter, which was filled with topical Japanese slang that Chibi-Usa and Hotaru pointed out and lampshaded throughout, thus making it virtually unadaptable. A very nice job.)

My favorite part of the book, I will admit, are the three stories focusing on the Inners. Makoto’s is probably the weakest, but we do get some amusing scenes of her procrastination through cooking and housework, and also hear about her late parents for what may be the only time in the manga OR anime canon. (They’re killed in a plane crash when Makoto was a little girl, which is used here as both an amusing gag and to have Mako gain sympathy points from her friends.) Ami’s First Love is probably the best written of the three, and it’s no surprise that the anime adapted this into a short film for theaters. Ami can be very tightly wound, so seeing her coming unglued at finding a student who’s just as perfect in studying as she is is hilarious, particularly when she gets so upset by this she seems to make herself ill.

And then there’s Rei and Minako. I’ve discussed how much I love this chapter before, silly as it is, and that hasn’t changed. The manga version of Rei – cool, collection, a bit ‘ice queen’ – is in such contrast to Minako’s extrovert that it makes sense that she’d want to see what Rei’s life at school is like – and yes, she’d want to ask if Rei farted. I think that Minako regards Rei as a bit too perfect, and this is just her own tactless way of trying to reassure herself that Rei is human after all. Of course, all that her visit to Rei’s perfect Catholic school ends up doing is tweaking Minako’s own insecurities – and that leads to Rei seeming genuinely upset at Minako getting angry, showing she *isn’t* the perfect ice princess. Rei is likely very lonely at that school where she only has admirers, and just can’t express her friendships in the way that Minako wants her to. Still, they manage to bond by… well, Rei being possessed and trying to kiss Minako. And afterwards being crankier than ever. But Minako’s feeling good again, and that’s what’s important. Bless these children.

So if the Sailor Moon series was a full-course meal, then this is dessert. Don’t go into it expecting anything more than delicious sweets that are easy on the eyes but not all that good for you, and you should be fine. Also, Rei has never farted. She is better than all of us.