Customer Reviews

One Piece, Vol. 20: Showdown at Alubarna

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The Criminally under appreciated, in America at least, One Piece returns for its 20th volume. If you are a fan of any manga or any comic book for that matter you really have to at least check out Eiichiro Oda's masterpiece. Some people may not like the juvenile humor or the unique art style but the story is so strong and the characters all have wonderful quirks. Don't start here at Vol:20 but you should end up here.
I own all 20 volumes and the only thing that I dont like about them is that Viz media seems to think that only three volumes a year is plenty, while that may seem like a generous pace we Americans are 31 volumes behind Japan and every year we fall further behind.
Bottom line this is one of if not the best Manga OF ALL TIME. If you check it out and dont like it fine but at least give it a fair shot.

The twentieth volume of the pirate adventure epic One Piece covers Luffy's first battle with the big bad of the arc, Sir Crocodile, and his crew's struggle to cross Alabasta's vast desert, and the moment when the rebel army finally reaches Alabasta's capitol to seize control, ending with Usopp and Chopper completing their fight with Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas.

Artistically, this is one of the sharpest looking volumes, with the added effects of Crocodile's sand powers and the slick design of Mr. 4's baseball bat still standing in my mind.

Unfortunately, I find myself once again disappointed in Viz Media's continued reference to the woefully terrible 4kids dub. In this volume, they continue to call certain Devil Fruits by the 4kids name. Mogu Mogu Fruit[short for Mole-Mole Fruit] identified as the Diggy Diggy Fruit, and the Inu Inu Fruit: Model Dachshund[Dog Dog Fruit] is known as Mutt Mutt Fruit, Dachshund Type.

And there is one point in this volume where Mr. 2 refers to his fighting style as "Crazy Karate", like the 4kids dub. However, all subsequent times he refers to his fighting style is "Oh Come My Way" Karate, so my guess it was just a small homage, not meant to replace the more literal translation.

Fortunately, Crocodile's attacks retain their Italian-based names, and like the previous Alabasta arc volumes, the dialog is quite efficient.

I hope Viz soon abandons the 4kids references, but I don't think they will until the Skypeia arc when 4kids dropped the license.

Still, these quibbles do not detract from an epic volume with a great fight at the end. Like all One Piece media(excluding 4kids) I recommend picking it up.

This volume has a lot going for it. Luffy Vs Crocodile is one of the all time great fights of the series and a powerful tension is everywhere and you can really feel the very high stakes being played for. Luffy, Zolo, Sanji, Chopper and Usopp and get a moment to shine and Vivi has a scene that's sure to break your heart.

On the downside it's still more of piece being moved around and the required routine of the heroes splitting up for their duels with the bad guys. Standard shonen stuff to be sure. But after all this time I'm kinda ready for things to come to a climax already but that's simply not in the cards.

So while the story is good the pacing is getting to be a drag and that really hurts this volume.

Eiichiro Oda, One Piece: Showdown at Alubarna (ViZ, 1997)

The final showdown between the rebels and the Palace Guard is here... or is it? This is the first time in One Piece that it's seemed to me that Oda's just drawing out the storyline, and pieces of this volume are close to incomprehensible. When Oda's on his game, this is is good as any One Piece volume so far, but that doesn't happen 100% of the time here. Hopefully it'll get back on track soon. ***