One Piece, Vol. 59

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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.

First of all, a warning: this review talks about that spoiler. You know the one. The one One Piece fans have been patiently waiting TWO YEARS to be able to talk about. It’s been out for months via the Shonen Jump magazine, but that’s still not good enough. And so now, Vol. 59 is out, and we can discuss it. I’ll put the spoilers after the image, just so you don’t see them by accident.

And so. The title of this volume, as well as the first chapter, is The Death Of Portgaz D. Ace. And for once – finally, in fact – Oda’s not messing with us. Yes, folks have died before in flashbacks, but for the most part, like Bleach, One Piece was well-known for having characters almost but not quite die. The classic example of this is Pell during the Alabasta arc, who flew into the air carrying a bomb, which then exploded in the air, and still managed to survive. One wondered what a person had to do to get killed in Oda’s universe. Well, here we have a one-two punch of death. First, Ace dies. This was implied at the end of Vol. 58, and it’s heartbreaking, though at least it gives Ace time to bid his brother farewell. Then, two chapters later, Whitebeard falls, having taken so many mortal wounds it boggles the mind. Oda knows how significant these two deaths are, and the weight they get is entirely appropriate.

Unfortunately, their deaths do not end the battle. Akainu is quite happy to keep killing until he runs out of things to kill, and the marines and pirates are almost all filled with bloodlust. (The ones who aren’t are notably the ‘good’ marine characters: Smoker, Tashigi, and Koby.) And for those who’ve been complaining that we’ve only had Luffy from our main cast for the last few volumes… now we don’t even have him. He’s so far gone after his brother’s death that his straw hat falls off and gets left behind. It’s shattering seeing Luffy simply frozen in catatonia. Instead, we get 4-5 chapters of pure chaos, not helped by the arrival of Blackbeard and his crew, who are there to gloat and declare a war of their own.

Honestly a lot of the first half of this book reads almost incoherently at times. I’m not entirely sure if this is deliberate. It’s hard to tell what’s going on, but it certainly gives the feel of being in the midst of a battle like this, where it would indeed be chaotic and incoherent and most soldiers or pirates would be just staring blankly at one event after another while trying not to die. It becomes less of a battle and more of a “rumble”, just with superpowers and a lot more death. To everyone’s surprise, putting a brief stop to it… is Koby! Yes, somehow Koby has found his inner volume control (or is this related to the Haki we saw Luffy use earlier?), and points out how they’ve achieved their objective and are only adding to the pile of bodies. It’s a great moment.

And if you’re going to have one legend go down in defeat, it makes sense to have the fight ended by another legend. Red-Haired Shanks arrives and not only stops a rabid Akainu from killing Koby, but declares the war over, and says anyone who wants to keep going can take on him. Shanks finishes what Koby started – everyone pauses, realizes what they’re doing, and the battle finally stops. As I said in my review of the last volume, it’s a battle that read better in weekly installments than it does in a big volume chunk, but either way it’s hard not to feel relief – this was exhausting.

Lastly, we finally get a flashback telling us the story of Luffy’s past – the one crewmember who had never had one. Needless to say, it’s not a happy and fun one, especially as his “new brother” Ace is acting like a complete asshole towards him. But Luffy is nothing but not stubborn, and we see him starting to win over Ace and his friend Sabo, who hasn’t been mentioned till this point and who screams “dead meat” to me. Of course, no doubt Oda knows this as well. In any case, the flashback will end in Volume 60, and perhaps we’ll finally see the rest of the crew again? They’re doing another speedup, so you can either find it online now for $4.99, or wait a month and get it in January. Still great stuff no matter what you choose, though.

The Drops of God, Vol. 2

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By Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto. Released in Japan as “Kami no Shizuku” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Morning. Released in North America by Vertical.

The second volume of The Drops of God continues our story where we left off, with Shizuku and Miyabi trying to find dazzling yet inexpensive French wines to satisfy a bet with their colleague who boasts that Italian wine is the best. Of course, each bottle they find brings another story, be it a family torn apart by both death and the inability to match wine with food; two brothers who cannot agree on anything about wine; and Tomine’s lover Saionji, who’s intrigued by Shizuku yet also wants to show him up in a wine-tasting competition. And of course there’s the will of Shizuku’s late father, which finally gives us the main plot of this whole series.

Really, there are so many things working against me with this manga, which I should not love nearly as much as I do. I don’t drink wine, which means that I’m usually smiling and nodding at all of the wine backstory and exposition about as much as I would be were I to read a really deep mahjong manga. The broad strokes of the plot rely on cliches that we have seen in a million other Japanese seinen mangas, food or otherwise, and this applies to some of the one-offs as well. (Father and daughter torn apart by an argument over the mother’s death? Two brothers, one a delinquent and one cool and intelligent? Did they get this from the Big Book of Manga Plots, Vol. 3?) And Miyabi, one of the main characters, is still rather undeveloped: she’s there to be the sounding board, provide mild fanservice, and be a cute female who the hero might eventually hook up with, but it’s not happening anytime soon.

All of this is true. So then why is Drops of God so good? Because the writers are fantastic at what they do. This is a manga written by two pepole who know exactly what needs to be done to sell a plot – which includes using tired cliches, which can easily work in your favor when handled correctly. The pacing is phenomenal, with every 4-5 chapters feeling like an episode of a TV drama (which I believe the show was later adapted to). These chapters were written for reading as a serialized weekly manga, and the start of each chapter recaps the cliffhanger from the last, just like old-school Doctor Who. The goal is to get you to be unable to ever put it down or stop – you have to find out what happens next week.

As for all the wine exposition, despite my lack of knowledge, I was never really bored with it. There is a balance between walls of text explaining a particular region of France and the emotional feelings that go with drinking the wines from that region. The descriptions of what it is like to drink a particular wine are not quite as over the top as the first omnibus, but are just as evocative – my favorite was probably the Parisian flea market. Given how hard it is to convey taste and smell to another person, you can easily imagine that wine critics talk like this all the time. I also enjoyed that the manga tries to be even-handed – the competition with Honma is not as easy as you’d suspect, and the Italian wines featured sound just as good as the French ones.

Lastly, I enjoy the art, which can sometimes be an afterthought in manga like these that are meant to be incredibly wordy. Most folks will love the scenes showing what the wine conveys to the drinker – I’d mentioned the flea market earlier, but the masquerade was just as good, and the description of the First “Apostle” looks gorgeous, and makes you want to figure out what wine it captures just as much as Shizuku. I also like the little ‘goofy bits’ that get thrown in – the manga has a certain sense of humor, though it’s not a comedy, and seeing Shizuku and Miyabi’s occasional frazzled or superdeformed expressions is great fun.

A lot of this reads like a giant mystery, which is not surprising given it’s from the creators of The Kindaichi Case Files. It’s a definite must for anyone who drinks wine. But it’s also fun for those who simply enjoy reading a well-crafted work with good dialogue. Albeit one that revels in some cheesy situatoios.

K-On! Vol. 4

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By Kakifly. Released in Japan by Houbunsha, serialized in the magazine Manga Time Kirara. Released in North America by Yen Press.

It’s finally time for time to catch up with the cast of K-On!. Graduation is around the corner, and this volume deals with everything that comes with it: the senior’s school play, deciding on a future, taking exams so that you can achieve that future, and of course their final concert. But is it really the end for our pop band cuties?

Of course not. This is not the sort of manga where you’re going to get a lot of angst and serious business. It’s a silly 4-koma, and we get what Kakifly does best. In fact, one of the main plot points is that the girls *don’t* want this to be the end – they all decide to join Mugi in applying to the prestigious Japan Womnen’s Univ – pardon me, to heavily disguised “N” Women’s University, because they’ve grown so close they can’t let it end like this. Of course, this isn’t just some convenient escalator school – Yui and Ritsu really have to buckle down, and a lot of the humor in this volume comes from the two of them trying to study while being so easily distracted (Yui) or bored (Ritsu).

Then there’s that class play. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, this is not a yuri series, despite what the fandom would tell you. However, among the situations that aren’t yuri but which fans glom onto anyway, this volume certainly has the most, especially for Mio and Ritsu. The class decides to do Romeo and Juliet, and decide that Mio is perfect for the role of Romeo… which she totally isn’t, but clearly they just want to see her dressed up as a hot Elizabethan boy. Likewise, Ritsu is a horrible choice for Juliet, and was likely chosen because… well, Mio was Romeo, and the two are inseparable. The manga latches onto this dissonance immediately, with some of the best jokes being about Mio’s timidity and Ritsu’s brashness. (Speaking of which, Yen’s translation of Ritsu’s speech patterns is fantastic – in Japanese, aside from ‘watashi’, she always tends to use boyish speech, and that’s conveyed very well here.) The solution to their issues is both funny and very clever, and again relies on them knowing each other inside and out.

And then there’s the chapter where folks think Ritsu has a boyfriend. (Look, Ritsu’s my favorite character, cut me some slack.) This is probably my favorite chapter in the book, as everything is just pitch perfect. Mio’s panic and jealousy, Mugi’s support and joy (Mugi is a yuri fangirl, but really just pushes interaction of any kind – again, it fits with her upbringing), Ritsu of course using this situation as a giant prank, and Yui for once as the voice of reason (great line about how Ritsu being girly makes her feel sick). In the end, of course, Ritsu does NOT have a boyfriend – it was set up so she could watch Mio freak out. Needless to say, Mio’s reaction in general, and particularly the “Ritsu, you can’t do this! Men are barbarians!” line made yuri fans happy. (Half the chapter was leaked online in Japan, and big surprise – otaku who thought Ritsu was ‘impure’ freaked out and made threats to burn merchandise again. And people wonder why so few love stories in Japan resolve anymore.)

And then we get graduation, and more attention is paid to the one band member who isn’t doing so, Azusa. Getting her to admit she’s an emotional bundle of stress, of course, is like pulling teeth – Ui and Jun both note this. However, when the other four have gotten their diplomas and reality is finally sinking in, Azusa just loses it, in what is one of the sweetest scenes in the entire series. Kakifly’s art is usually more what I’d call “satisfactory” than anything else, particularly with his ‘far older than they look’ character designs. But the way Azusa’s expression is drawn when she begs the cast not to graduate is simply excellent.

And so now it’s over… except it’s not. We now have not one, but TWO sequels running in Japan. The first deals with the four graduating girls in college, the second has Azusa, Ui, and Jun trying to keep the light music club going in high school. How this will be collected is unknown at this point, but no doubt we will eventually see more K-On!. Till then, this was a light and fluffy but of fun, and I enjoyed hanging out with these girls.