#and I tried reading his space pirates manga but it wasn’t hitting where I wanted

[fic-dumpster]

Everybody moved on. Help, I’m still at the restaurant. Still sitting in a corner I hunt.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with Maffew

  I love One Piece and I love talking to people who love One Piece. And with the series going on 23 years now, there is a whole lot to talk about. As the series is about to publish its 1000th chapter, a true feat in and of itself, we thought we should reflect upon the high-seas adventure and sit down with some notable names in the One Piece fan community and chat about the arcs they found to be especially important, or just ones they really, really liked.

  Welcome to the next article in the series "My Favorite One Piece Arc!"

  My next guest in this series is Maffew, creator of the popular pro wrestling web series Botchamania. For my chat with him, he chose the Alabasta Arc, in which Luffy and his crew not only have to save a desert kingdom but also topple Baroque Works and its powerful leader Crocodile.

  A note on spoilers: If you haven't seen the Alabasta arc yet, this interview does contain major plot points. Watch the Alabasta arc starting RIGHT HERE if you'd like to catch up or rewatch!

    Dan Dockery: So I guess my first basic question is, let’s say for some reason, I got to the end of Drum Island and I said “Well, One Piece ends here for me. This seems like a good finale.” What would you tell me to keep me going into the Alabasta Arc in one sentence?

  Maffew: Well, after Chopper has made all the kids cry, you’ll need pickin’ up.

  That’s pretty good! What was the impetus for you getting into One Piece? What made you want to jump into an anime that’s nearly one thousand episodes long at this point?

  I think I tried watching it on YouTube back in 2009, and I just couldn’t get into it. At that point in my life, I wasn’t ready for a character like Luffy and his adventures, and I couldn’t wait for the villains he fought to kill him. So I dropped it. A year later, I’m in Germany and this wrestler ACH was doing a Q&A panel for this German wrestling organization called WXW. And ACH is a REALLY big One Piece fan, and even dresses up as Luffy in New Japan and Ring of Honor. And I was like “Hey, you watching JoJo?” because that was my thing at the time, and he was like “No, no. Just One Piece.” I said, “What else are you watching?” “Just One Piece.” And I’m like “Wait, what? Just the one?” But he was sellin’ it to me like he was a One Piece ad on QVC. And guys like Steve Yurko are so passionate about it, and if one person tells ya to watch something, you’re like “Eh, whatever,” but if five people tell you, you start to pay attention. So I’m gonna blame ACH and my good friend Steve Yurko for this.

    What do you like about this arc in particular?

  You get so much wonderful worldbuilding. They go to Alabasta, meet up with Mr. 2, and it’s one of those cool interactions where they’re meeting, but they don’t know who they are meeting exactly, like when they meet Blackbeard in Jaya. So later on, they’re like “Oh, it’s THEM!” There’s a real sense of everything not being really pre-determined at this point. It’s building everything through a bunch of pirates just doing stuff. Ace shows up, knocks out some assassins so he can get his royalty checks.

  That’s such a funny way to put it.

  Then we get Kung-Fu Dugongs, and they’re a pretty pure expression of One Piece. They’re all synchronized, they’re adorable, they play their part amid all the serious stuff, and they’re completely ridiculous, but they work anyway. And it’s with Alabasta that Eiichiro Oda starts to perfect the tropes that he puts into place throughout, with the new islands, the new leader who everyone loves but is actually a bad person, the crew having to deal with him and the Navy, them having to help put someone back in their position, etc. And even though, on paper, it reads like “Well, he’s gotta beat this dude and this dude and this dude,” it’s so much more chaotic and less formulaic than you’d expect. It keeps things interesting. 

  I agree. I like how he takes all of these pieces and he’s consistent with them, but Oda always plays around with how he sets them up.

    But it’s all a foot massage before the real reason to watch Alabasta: Sir Croc. 

  Are you a big fan of him? That dude is so cool, conniving and powerful. He’s kinda the perfect villain. 

  Back when I was being miserable and first watching One Piece, I really liked him. I like the design, the sand powers that could actually pose a threat. I always appreciate it when a villain provides actual tension. It’s like why I think Goldeneye is still the best James Bond film. Because Alec Trevelyan is constantly reminding Bond “Remember, I could kill you. I’m from the same place as you. I can take your exploding watch and just, eh, I’ll stop that then. Thank you.” And Luffy loses twice to him in the three-match structure that really works here as it did for wrestling in the 70s.

  How so?

  So you’d have somebody like champion Bruno Sammartino and someone like Ivan Koloff or one of the Wild Samoans or Stan Stasiak. They’d have one match where the hero would beat Bruno by disqualification. Bruno’s still around to fight, but he’s lost. Luffy survives being thrown in the sand, but he’s been beaten. Then they have the second match, where Bruno would win because the villain would just give up and leave and get counted out. Luffy attacks Crocodile with water, but it’s not enough, and Crocodile just kinda leaves Luffy thinking it’s all done. And then Bruno would be like “Oh no ya don’t. Next time, you won’t be able to escape, because we’re gonna be in a cage match.” And then Bruno wins, just like Luffy wins by punching Crocodile up through that giant enclosed space. He escapes the cage.

      It’s just so satisfying and that’s a great way to describe it. So, villains in the series have had extensive crew members before, but they haven’t been as recognizable and colorful as Croc’s crew, Baroque Works. Do you have a favorite member?

  They’re all good in their own way, but at this point, I’m gonna go with Mr. 2. Eh, that’s probably too obvious an answer…

  Mr. 2 is a lot of people’s favorite member. 

  Oh, who cares. I’ll go with Mr. 2. I like how Mr. 2 interacts with everyone, having fun with the boys and fighting Sanji with kicks but respecting him. 

  So, in this arc, there’s a lot of government intrigue and a revolution is about to happen, and everyone’s dissatisfied with their perception of the monarchy. How did you react to all of this political drama in One Piece? 

  Well, it’s great because you have Vivi, and you get to learn her motivations and because she’s on the crew, it gives you a reason to care for the crew and how all of the political intrigue affects them. Without her, you’d just hear about a war and say “Oh, sorry about that. Hope it goes well.” And with all this lore being thrown at you because you have Vivi and that connection, it’s adding to the main conflict, rather than distracting.

  Yeah, Vivi really grounds it all with a personal attachment. Because otherwise it’s just savin’ the kingdom, which is cool and they’re good for it, but it doesn’t have the same impact. So, they did this back in the Arlong Park arc, but what returns here is the kind of 1 vs 1 match structure, where a member or members of the enemy crew are matched up against a Straw Hat or Hats. Mr. 1 has knife body parts, so he’s obviously gonna fight Zoro. Mr. 2 kicks and Sanji kicks, etc. What do you think about that kind of matchmaking, because it’s also a little wrestling-esque.

    Yeah, right, like if you have D-Generation X fighting the Nation of Domination, you can’t just have The Rock fighting Triple H. Ya gotta have D’Lo Brown vs X-Pac and The Godfather vs Billy Gunn. I like it because the characters feel like they have to prove themselves, like Zoro’s a swordsman, and he’s gotta test himself against another swordsman. And Usopp does it when he fights Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas with Chopper, because they have a weird dynamic and they’re fighting two people and they have no clue what they’re up against. 

  So, at the end of the arc, they do the iconic “We can’t let Vivi become associated with pirates so we’ll hold up the X symbols on our arms in solidarity” pose. What did you think about that? Because it’s one of the most famous images in One Piece, and it’s hard to avoid it, even if you’ve never watched the series. Was that your first time seeing it?

  It actually was. And I’m glad you brought this up because I was watching it and I thought “Wait, they’re just going? They’re not even keeping the duck?” And then they do that with the X and the original opening starts playing and I get goosebumps just remembering it. That really hit me. Because it finally got me really emotionally invested in the series. Made me feel a bit cheeky. 

      ONE PIECE LIGHTNING ROUND!

  So, considering you’re such a huge pro wrestling fan, your lightning round is gonna be a bit different. I’m gonna say a Straw Hat that’s in the crew at this point and you tell me which wrestler they’re the most like. You can also tell me what time period they’d fit the most in, since wrestler personalities tend to change. So, Luffy?

  Gotta be Cena. Specifically? With Luffy’s attitude? Probably 2015 defending-the-United States-Championship John Cena.

  Zoro?

  He’s all business, he likes to fight. So I gotta go with Cesaro.

  Sanji?

  Going with Eddie Guerrero.

  Usopp?

  That character is all over wrestling - the underdog who isn’t very good and uses every trick in the book to win. Gonna go with MJF. He had one of my favorite matches of this year against Cody Rhodes and he just had to use EVERYTHING to beat him - brass knuckles, distraction, chairs, everything he could to get that win. But he could be MJF, could be The Miz, could be Mikey Whipwreck from ECW, take your pick.

  Nami?

  Hmmm. Becky Lynch. 

  Chopper?

  KeMonito 

  Robin?

  Oh, she shows up after being booed for ages and you’re supposed to like her, so 2019 Charlotte Flair.

      Stay tuned for the next installment of "My Favorite One Piece Arc" as we speak with One Piece's official English manga translator Stephen Paul on his favorite One Piece arc: Skypiea!!

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Daniel Dockery

[tigerlover16-uk]

Well, just read up to the end of the Champa saga in the Dragon Ball Super manga...

I’ll give it this much credit. The artwork is nice and expressive, it was cool to see an actual fight between Beerus and Champa in the past, Majin Buu simply failing the entry test instead of falling asleep works a bit better than the anime, especially in hindsight with the universe survival arc since it means Buu’s sleeping won’t be quite as overplayed here, Goku’s fight with Botamo was better than in the anime and even his fight with Frost was a bit better in places, at least in it’s choreography...

but literally EVERYTHING ELSE was a downgrade from the anime.

Remember how the anime gave Piccolo a short but pretty good fight with Frost that showed off his wide range of techniques and expert battle strategy, and how Piccolo would have won if Frost hadn’t cheated... well here, they just exchange a couple of punches and whatever before Frost used his poison on him, it lasts 3 or 4 pages at most with nothing particularly impressive happening and there’s no implication that Frost even NEEDED to use the needle to beat Piccolo.

And you know why? Well, remember how the anime set up Frost as this great hero celebrated throughout universe 6 as it’s greatest hero who lead an army to defend the universe from evil forces and end wars, but then it turned out that he was actually leading space pirates in conquering and selling planets he pretended to save for high profits, all the while making himself look like a hero to the rest of the universe? And how that made him kinda just like Frieza, but smarter and gave him enough unique qualities to still be his own character even if he was a bit of a knockoff?

Well screw that actually interesting idea that had potential to be further expanded upon. Because in the manga, he’s just some rando who happens to just be a dirty cheater, and just wanted to get the tournament over with quickly because he didn’t want to fight in it since he wasn’t being paid. And that’s it.

And the whole thing makes Piccolo’s shafting far more egregious and pointless than in the anime, and Vegeta’s beating him a LOT less satisfying or cool. It all just made Frost feel pointless and flat, whereas the anime at least gave him some character and managed to successfully leave the audience equally disappointed and disgusted with Frost as the characters were. We don’t even get that cool bit of foreshadowing with Hit taking Frost out afterwards.

Magetta and Cabba both get much weaker showings too in their fights, both barely having time to show their stuff with Cabba not even getting to land any good hits on Vegeta after ascending to super saiyan.

They also completely alter the rules for super saiyan God and super saiyan blue, to the detriment of the story. here the super saiyan God form is used again for Goku’s fight with Hit, despite that the form was supposed to be absorbed into Goku’s body after use with SSB effectively being it’s replacement, making it basically bargain sale SS4 instead of it’s own thing. And instead of being about perfect ki control and peace of mind, here super saiyan blue is taken in the exact opposite direction and given an even WORSE power drain than super saiyan 3 where using it more than once means that after the first usage, the user loses 90% of the strength they had when they first used the form that day.

Which Toyotaro tried to use to make Vegeta losing to Hit seem less anti-climactic for Vegeta as if Toyotaro felt he needed to protect Vegeta’s image by making it look like he only lost because he was exhausted. But all it actually does is make Vegeta look like a big idiot for using SSB against Cabba earlier, and along with some other stuff makes Hit himself seem a lot less cool and impressive than he was in the anime.

Speaking of which, you know what an awesome character Hit was in the anime, how great his interactions with Goku were, how he really pushed Goku to the edge, and how AMAZING the moment Goku went Kaio-ken as a super saiyan blue was? Remember how everyone lost their minds over that and how it made the Goku vs Hit fight into one of the most beloved moments in all of Super, if not one of the best fights in the franchise?

Well, screw that apparently, there’s no kaio-ken here. Like I said, Goku just uses Super saiyan god to initially gain the upper hand on Hit, then instead of Hit having the ability to rapidly improve his skills and strength as he’s fighting Goku like he has a fast acting zenkai boost ability, it turns out he was just holding back and Goku has to use Super Saiyan Blue to beat him. It’s... not satisfying at all. And to top it all off, instead of Goku giving up because he realized that he and Hit were basically just being used as pawns for Beerus and Champa’s childish feud and him basically doing so to give Beerus a figurative screw you and teach him a lesson, while still believing Monaka can win for universe 7, in the manga... he just quits because... he feels like it I guess? Hit’s pretending to lose to Monaka makes a lot less sense as a result.

Honest the entire fight felt really anti-climactic and a lot less exciting compared to the anime. And all of the good character building moments and interactions Hit gets throughout the saga in the anime and particularly during this fight are missing, so Hit comes off a lot less flat and interesting whereas even though he wasn’t exactly super fleshed out, he still felt like a rounded character in the anime that you wanted to know more about and put on an amazing show. Here... he’s just kinda meh. And that stinks, because Hit is honestly one of my favourite characters in the franchise so this just left me feeling insulted for him.

Oh, and we also rush through the ending and especially super shenron’s summoning in a montage that takes away most of the spectacle of his summoning from the anime, and the ending with Beerus wishing Universe 6′s earth back for Champa feels less touching because we didn’t get quite as many moments with Champa here compared to the anime or as much interaction, so the build up to the ending was overall weaker.

Honestly, so far this manga feels like a bust. It starts off as basically an abridged version of the Battle of Gods movie (Except not a funny parody like DBZA, just an abridged version of the story that cuts out a lot of the best parts, all of the good character moments that didn’t involve Goku, Beerus and Whis and to a lesser extent Vegeta, and the moments it does show in full usually aren’t handled as well as in the Super anime or in the movie), it skips the Resurrection F arc entirely despite it still happening in this continuity, and the Champa saga just feels... lacking. A lot of the coolest and funniest moments are missing, and a lot of the cool moments replaced with stuff that’s just far less impressive or boring. Character interaction like Vegeta and Cabba aren’t handled as well, all of the supporting cast get virtually no good moments to themselves where even in the anime they all had at least a few good character moments to themselves, if not really being crucial to the story or fights.

Goku comes off as more of a jerk in places, especially when he seems to outright ridicule Gohan for choosing to be a scholar instead of a fighter and being angry he didn’t come to watch the tournament, whereas in the anime he was disappointed Gohan couldn’t take part because of a press conference, but understanding and happy to shrug it off since he knew Gohan’s academic ambitions were also important and still expressing pride and acceptance in Gohan. So, basically the manga removed a good moment that showed off Goku’s maturity and him being a loving and supportive parent... to replace it with him being a smart mouthed jerk annoyed with his son over matters out of his control. Charming. Are we sure it’s the anime that makes Goku into a selfish parody of himself, people?

Honestly, this manga so far feels pretty weak. There’s very little here that improves on the anime and nothing that improves of the Battle of Gods movie, and it just feels like a watered down experience with some worse writing choices so far, and it ends up underselling all of the universe 6 characters except Botamo oddly enough, and all of the supporting cast. Everything feels less fleshed out, more rushed and just not that satisfying or entertaining, with it’s only saving grace really being the artwork. Not to mention it cuts out any breather episodes, so I know it’s not going to include the baby pan story from episode 43 or anything like that.

I’m still going to read the Future Trunks arc of the manga, but only out of morbid curiosity and because I want to be informed about everything that’s going on in regards to Dragon Ball Super. But honestly so far, I’m starting to really scratch my head and wonder why the heck so many people keep trying to insist to me that the Super manga is so great and the anime is trash by comparison. because honestly, it feels like quite the opposite for me so far. But hey, that’s just me, I can’t blame people for enjoying it, that’s perfectly fine and I encourage people to have fun with things. But I’m getting really annoyed at how people bash the anime for certain things and blame them all on Toei, when this version of the story makes me feel like Toei are the ones actually putting in the effort to make the story as good as they can.