One Piece: Romance Dawn Vol. 1
by Eiichiro Oda
Viz, b&w, 207 pages, $7.95
Rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
One Piece is my favorite of the new-to-me stories from the American version of Shonen Jump (everything except Dragonball Z and YuYu Hakusho), probably 'cause pirates are way better than ninjas. Ha! One Piece is the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a boy who wants to be a pirate. His qualifications: an indomitable spirit, and the ability to stretch (a la Mr. Fantastic) accidentally acquired from eating the fruit of the mysterious GumGum tree. It's not actually clear that Luffy understands what it is that pirates do, and during the course of his adventures he ends up fighting just as many pirates as cruel pirate hunters...
One Piece is goofy comedy all the way, in a style that is to mainstream manga what "Big Foot" is to American cartooning. In some panels, everybody seems to be made of rubber, not just Luffy. It's very loose and cartoony, without going for the "super-deformed" 3-heads high look; Rave Master by Hiro Mashima has a very similar style.
Lots of fun, and even touching at times.
