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 What Park's Looking At: Early February 2010
Written by Park Cooper
Whistle! v24
Viz
This was the last volume of Whistle! Awww! Well, it was a fun ride. We learn, American-Graffiti-style, what became of the Whistle! gang... most of them go on to become pro soccer players. But what of our hero?! He learns that aiming to be a pro sports player means the risk of pro-level sports injuries! What will be his ultimate fate?!? Oh, and everyone’s forgotten all about the fact that this volume is the one that determines the ultimate fate of Blondie—uh, hello, remember that in volume 23, we started playing this game against Dear Old Gang because Blondie bet his dad that if he lost, he’d have to become a businessman instead of a soccer player? The author seems to kind of forget about this bet, but we find out later what Blondie’s eventual fate is, so you can figure out for yourself if he won his bet with his dad or not. Indeed, feel free to go and find out in volume 24, the final volume of Whistle!
One Piece v25-28
Viz
Well, I’ve gotten more One Piece. Good heavens.
I say "Good Heavens" because One Piece is that sort of thing. It’s over the top. Way over the top. What Eyeshield 21 is for (American style) football, One Piece is for pirate yarns. But I ALSO say "Good Heavens" because we are now entering the storyline known as "SKYPIEA," which is the name of the land in which the storyline takes place. Skypiea is up in the clouds… somehow, the clouds are sort of solid on this one super-super-super-super-thunderhead, with water-feeling clouds that you can sail on, and landish-clouds you can walk on. The weird environment makes plants grow super-well, too.
Anyway, the point is, it’s sort of… a wacky land inspired by heaven. Since, as we all know, Christianity is, for Japan, the weirdest, wackiest, most bizarre and exotic mythology EVAR. So the people have little wings on their backs (they can’t fly though), and there’s a god, called the Kami, who has a lot of power… but the OLD Kami was the nice old godlike-power being, and the NEW one, who interestingly enough resembles the Buddha, is a lot more ruthless and hardcore and scary-to-live-under-the-regime-of. And it’s more than one person who sees that the arrival of Monkey D. Luffy and pals could be the perfect time for a regime change.
Still, it’s wacky. Very wacky. The cover of volume twenty-five has, along with Red Shanks, Monkey D. Luffy, and Buggy the Clown, an incredibly cute goat.
Barb: “Is he the latest member of the crew? He ate the devil’s fruit and got…”
Me, delighted: “He ate the Goat-Goat fruit!”
Barb: “Yes and now he has Goat-Goat Fruit eat-anything powers.”
It’s not true, but it probably would be if the author had thought of it and if there wasn’t already a reindeer-guy on board. That’s just the rules that the world of One Piece follows.
Volume 25: Favorite moment: Local pirates mess with a new friend of Luffy’s, and Luffy comes to get back the stuff they stole. They start out scoffing and bragging about how Luffy’ll never show his face again around them… and then they find out how much the price on Luffy’s head is and they get increasingly scared. And then Luffy shows up and shows them just how unimpressive they are compared to the crap he’s pulled his butt out of for the last 24 volumes.
Barb’s favorite moment: Zolo, the swordsman, is asked why he didn’t go with Luffy. The reply (from memory, not word for word): “Those guys weren’t worth it. It’s heartbreaking when all you’re left with after a fight is pity.”
Favorite non-story moment: Actually not a part of the story, but from the author’s Question and Answer corner:
Question: Hey, Creator! If these guys are traveling all around and meeting all kinds of people from all kinds of lands… how come everyone speaks the same language?
Creator: …Because manga is about man's dreams.
THIS FLOORED US. Suddenly we have a brand new respect for the insane craziness of the creator of One Piece.
Volume 26: Favorite moment: Luffy finds out there’s a place in Skypiea where no one’s allowed to go. His crew nearly cries, because it means that they’ll have to end up going there.
Luffy: “But if it’s the home of a god, he’ll forgive us, right? Gods are forgiving, right?”
Local: “I’m sorry, but the kami would certainly destroy you.”
Luffy: “Oh. Okay, well, it doesn’t matter.”
Thoughts of the crew: “That’s because he’s going to go there no matter what anyway!!!”
Volume 27: Favorite moment (highly paraphrased):
Nico: “Luffy, you can’t light a fire — we’re trying to lay low, remember?”
Luffy: “That’s ridiculous.”
Usopp: “Oh, come on, Luffy, she’s a city girl. She doesn’t know how it is.”
Nico: “How what is?”
Luffy and Usopp: “WHEN YOU’RE CAMPING, YOU GOTTA HAVE A CAMPFIRE! EVEN IF IT MEANS YOU’RE ABOUT TO DIE, THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS!!!”
Barb’s midly-bemused moment:
Zolo: “Hey, Luffy! …How’s this for a bonfire?”
Nami: “NOT YOU GUYS TOO?!?!?”
(Barb likes Zolo.)
Volume 28: Favorite non-story moment: during another Question and Answer corner, the creator clarifies that the storyline is not just about MAN’s dreams, as he’d said on an earlier occasion, but that the term as he used it is specifically about a woman’s dreams as well. However, it’s not that he is using “man’s” as a general term—he specifically means that it’s about the MANLY dreams of a man OR a woman! A “passionate love for adventure” and much more! I quote: “Even the most feminine woman has manly sides to her. In the past, such a woman has been called a ‘true woman.’”
So please, support Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, because he is maturing as a creator. He’s really showing signs of developing as a creator and as a storyteller—the Skypiea storyline seems to be him attempting to not only bring a new importance to the overall plot, but in the background, you can also see him maneuvering Red Shanks and other supporting characters in such a way that you can tell that things are really going to come to a head when Dear Old Gang comes back from Skypiea. It might not be the worst time to pay attention to One Piece again if, like Barbara, you threw up your hands and gave up back when we got the man-reindeer. You’ll find that One-Piece is surprisingly easy to return to.
Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning v9
Yen Press
Still no “what’s happened before now” section. Not inside, not on the back cover. I have no idea what is going on... but don’t really care anymore. Basically, there are some people who are deadly dangerous with a gun/weapons, and there are other people who seek to thwart those people who are much the same way. Dangerous prodigies of action? Killers who’ll stop at almost nothing? Daring split-second-decision-type genius strategists? Sounds cool! Well, no. The action never gets here, and when it does, it doesn’t last but an instant, and everyone’s so good, they get away with just being a bit wounded instead of killed. And seriously, if you flipped through this volume, you’d think it was just a regular high-school dramedy where the school play was based on a Hong Kong action movie and someone must have just accidentally gotten a cut on their arm or something. Talk, talk, talk. All this talk about battle reflexes and guns amounts to a lot of talk. Which can be cool—but there’s no tension, either—even less now than in the previous volume. Too bad.
The Prince of Tennis v35
Viz
This commentary contains important spoilers about this volume, because OMG I had to tell someone, like when you see a guy pick a fight with a couple of cops. You aren’t sure if you feel like it’s more like stupidity or incredible guts, but you can’t keep it to yourself.
The over-the-top samurai adventures of the Prince of Tennis, whom I also sometimes call The Boy Who Cannot Lose, continue. At the start of this volume, Ryoma, The Boy Who Cannot Lose, is actually up against someone so good, they’re winning some matches. But in tennis, you have to win by two, and so they’re stalemated... the stadium lights fall onto the court (why?) and yet the game still doesn’t stop, they just wait until the lights are cleared away with a truck (wouldn’t it harm the court surface?). Finally, both players just collapse. Both of them get up—but while Ryoma can still play, the other guy... is standing there unconscious with his eyes open. OMG he’s such a badass he gets up to play even though he’s not conscious. Of course, this is a bit underwhelming considering the young kid got up and was able to keep playing. Ryoma shaves his opponent’s head while he’s unconscious... I guess it was a part of a bet they had beforehand. Cocky little brat, isn’t he?
But I don’t even feel bad about that spoiler because the real meat of the volume comes at the end, where we return even more to our tennis-players-are-samurai allegory. There’s a Selfless State (which is pretty much zen satori) that players can enter. The captain of the team has used it to attain physical mastery... but a new player announces that there are THREE doors attainable through the Selfless State, and he demonstrates the second one, which is more tactical—the ability to predict how the game will end, with total accuracy. He also announces that the third door is way beyond the other two—“the locked door” –and that its reward is not mere mastery or brilliance, but “Perfection.” Clearly, this will be the goal of Ryoma, The Boy Who Cannot Lose.
Azumanga Daioh Omnibus
Yen Press
Summary: this is the story of some high-school girls. One of them is a girl who looks cool and aloof but actually loves all things cute, like kitties for example. One of them is a total space-case. One is a child prodigy who’s just 11. The rest are also quite lovable, even (sort of) including their total slacker-gal teacher. We follow them through three school years, to graduation. Now that you’ve had the summary: It’s excellent. A+. Buy it. It’s about 675 pages for only 25 bucks. Do the math: if an average manga volume is 10 bucks for 200 pages, YOU ARE COMING OUT AHEAD. It’s solid gold. Get it. I read half of it to Barbara, who had already experienced it before. It was just that great to revisit these old friends. Do it. Believe it. Experience it. The anime is great too... except the anime drags in the middle just a little. Oh, you’ll need to watch every disk of the anime, but the first two and last two are the ones you’ll revisit over and over. I have the first two checked out from the library, downstairs right now. But this omnibus does not drag in the middle. It is just made of win. Again, that grade was: A+.
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