Post — Aaron Ngo

Major Spoilers are included in this manga review. Please read with caution.

One-sentence summary: Written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, the series follows Monkey D. Luffy traveling to the Grand Line—with his pirate crew—in search of the world’s ultimate treasure called “One Piece” in order to become the King of Pirates.

On October 29, 2020, I started reading One Piece’s “Syrup Village Arc”—the third story arc in the East Blue Saga—and finished on October 30, 2020. For those who don’t know, this is my first time experiencing Big Daddy One Piece, and it has been a wild first experience so far. I enjoyed the first two story arcs, and while this third story arc had a lot of emotions written into it regarding Usopp’s past, I found the arc falling short in a lot of areas.

Picking up where we left off in the previous arc and after a confusing opening chapter, Luffy, Zoro, and Nami arrive at Syrup Village looking for a pirate ship and meet Usopp—the village liar. After conversing with him and learning about his past in addition to Captain Kuro—the villain—making his move against Usopp’s friend Kaya, they decide to intervene and help.

Let’s talk about that confusing opening chapter first. Luffy, Zoro, and Nami actually ended up traveling to an island first and met with a guy stuck in a treasure chest named Gaimon. This chapter functioned more like a one-shot chapter, as it didn’t add anything to the rest of the arc—like we could’ve skipped chapter 22 and started with the following chapter. Unless that Gaimon character plans on making a comeback down the line later…

Usopp is the village liar who plays pranks on the villagers and has his own “pirate crew”, telling tall stories for entertainment purposes—not to hurt people. This character reminds me of Naruto Uzumaki. Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if Masashi Kishimoto actually drew inspiration for Naruto’s character from Usopp. I mean, Usopp plays pranks to get villagers’ attention, the villagers hate him—but he loves the village and is willing to die for them, and his kid crew is basically Konohamaru and friends with their own dreams. There are way too many similarities going on.

I am excited that Usopp ended up joining Luffy’s crew though—following the pirate’s dream—as their fourth member, and they have a ship now! Luffy is making progress, baby! Usopp will likely add more comedic moments into the group’s dynamic.

The fight scenes were pretty solid between Luffy, Captain Kuro, Zoro, and Janga. However, I felt this arc wasn’t as strong as the “Orange Town” Arc despite having a strong villain in Captain Kuro. I think the convenience of the whole situation—how Luffy and friends happen to show up when Captain Kuro was about to put his three-year plan into motion—was hard to get onboard with. The emotional moments were top-notched though, so that aspect of the arc pushed me through during the reading experience.

Overall, I’m going to keep it reading toward the “One Piece” alongside Luffy and his growing pirate crew. While this arc wasn’t as strong as the first two story arcs, I’m trusting the almost 1,000-chapter manga to “wow” me at some point.

Thanks for reading this manga review, everyone! I appreciate y’all support. Let’s keep it sailing for that “wow” factor!

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