One Piece Volume 57 cover image is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.

Rated “T” for Teen

Monkey D. Luffy has dreamed of becoming King of the Pirates since he was a boy.  He ate the enchanted “Devil Fruit,” and it gave him the ability to stretch like rubber, but took away his ability to swim.  Luffy was undeterred and set out to sea, gradually enlisting a motley crew, known as the “Straw Hats” (as Luffy is often called “Straw Hat” because he wears a straw hat).  Luffy and his crew sail the oceans, searching for the legendary treasure known as “One Piece.”

After breaking in and escaping the great prison, Impel Down, Luffy could not rescue his brother, Portgaz D. Ace.  As One Piece, Vol. 57 (entitled Paramount War) opens, Luffy and Edward Newgate and his Whitebeard Pirates launch an all-out assault on Navy Headquarters, where Ace is shortly to be executed.  However, they face the Navy Admirals and the remaining Warlords of the Sea – and they’re no joke.  Can Luffy reach his brother in time to save him?

THE LOWDOWN:  As usual, One Piece is outrageous and imaginative, filled with inventively designed and conceived characters.  In fact, some characters defy imagination, but since they exist, someone clearly imagined them.  That would be One Piece mastermind and creator Eiichiro Oda, one of the most skilled comic book cartoonist on the planet.

This “Paramount War” storyline is like cramming 100 superhero battles and duels into one comic book.  The art is drawn in such detail that you might go cross-eyed trying to unravel this symphonic kaleidoscope of shonen manga, fight comic madness.  With so much going on inside this volume, you’re bound to find many reasons to come back when the next volume arrives in October.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Young readers looking for wild, woolly, and rip-roaring shonen manga will like One Piece.

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