12 Days of Christmas – Day 3 – Praise from Caesar

People like to knock shonen and call it much simpler than other genres, but the truly great ones can create interesting drama and characterization as good as anyone else. Just this year I got to see Yoshikage Kira, the Phantom Troupe, and possibly the board chairman from Assassination Classroom. The character I wanted to discuss for this post, though, is the most recent One Piece villain, Caesar Clown. Through a combination of deception and a special brand of insanity, he manages to set himself apart from his predecessors and show how entertaining a mad scientist can be.

One Piece – Smiley Sounds Like a Real Nuclear Weapon Name

Even when a biological weapon is turning people into statues, this series can still be funny.

I’m constantly being impressed by the real-world themes that can be inserted into this series. Not long ago we saw a villain using drugs on children to keep them under control, and now we get to see a bio-weapon being put to use. It still managed to show the impact such a weapon would have even when it came from a goofy looking creature like Smiley the Slime Lizard. Of course I doubt any real weapon would have the effect of instantly petrifying all those caught in it, which may be one of the big reasons why this kind of attack could be shown in a shonen magazine. As long as there’s that small bit of disbelief, the level of terror is manageable.

One Piece – Behind The Black

This better not turn out to be part of Xehanort again.

I’m just gonna get right to the point this time: who is this mysterious fellow introduced on the last page of this chapter? I’ve seen characters hidden in the shadows like this before, so there are a few things we can guess from this. The first is that this is obviously someone we know from before, or else there would be no point in hiding their face. We can also assume that this character has a clearly defined position higher than Law, or else someone as composed as him would never have been this shocked. Considering Law’s current position as a Shichibukai and the high power level he’s shown off so far, we can rule out anyone except those few people. Initially, I also thought that keeping the face of the man hidden meant that he was someone we’ve seen the appearance of before. However, the two most likely characters are those we haven’t met face-to-face, so that doesn’t hold up as well.

One Piece – Breaking The Law

“No, I will NOT form Big Emperor with you people!”

I’ve been doing a little thinking about the distant future of One Piece. Most of what I’ve realized is that there’s very little about the end of the manga that can be guessed at this point. Everyone has their own little theory about what the titular treasure will turn out to be, but I’m still pretty sure we won’t be able to guess it until five minutes before the treasure is found. It’ll be the sort of thing that won’t make any sense until then. The main point of my thinking, then, is that I have a rough theory as to how the overall story will progress. We’re all sure the series will end with Luffy becoming Pirate King, right? Well for that to happen, he has to reach the level of one of the Yonkou first. How is he going to do that?

This Week in Manga – Cutting The Knot

I’ve thought about it, and decided to make the multi-chapter posts from before into a recurring type of update. The way I see it, there are certain series not many people who visit this site read, and some others where the chapter may not contain enough information for a full post. For instance, Law’s current plan from One Piece or the subject of Food Honour in Toriko could easily receive their own posts, but the most recent chapters don’t have quite enough information to write about yet. At the same time, there were other topics in those chapters and many others which I can analyze, but not at great length. Plus there’s the occasional time where I’ll miss a chapter just because I’m like that sometimes.

So my solution is “This Week in Manga”, a series I hope to come out each week where I quickly go over several chapters I couldn’t write a full post about. The ideal number is seven in one update, but it’ll most likely change depending on what comes out. For this week, we have Toriko, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, Kimi ni Todoke, Natsume Yuujinchou and Nisekoi.

Toriko – All’s Fair In Friendship And Cooking

Chefs in the Toriko-verse can be dicks sometimes.

The relationship between Komatsu and Take seems to have gone down a direction I didn’t expect. Even though I understood how he was being portrayed as a corrupt chef, I still thought he was going to end up a victim of the Bishokukai. With all the criminal acts they have committed so far, slavery doesn’t seem all that out of character for them. But in the case of Take, and most likely the other kidnapped chefs as well, it appears that they had some sort of brainwashing applied to them as well.

From this chapter, I think I can make a prediction or two. First is that Komatsu will get healed, most likely by Chin Chinchin and/or the Bubble Fruit. Nobody is expecting him to die right now, so it’s just a question of how he’ll get better. The second prediction, and the one far less likely to happen, is that Take will become a recurring enemy for Komatsu. He isn’t strong enough to just get beaten by Toriko, especially with this new powerup, and an act like stabbing Komatsu can’t just be forgiven in a few chapters, so turning him back into a good guy now is unlikely. With those two out of the way, the most likely option is for him to leave and return in a later arc, at which point it’s hard to say what he’ll be like. I hope that’s the case, because Komatsu could use a good enemy that is only his and not Toriko’s.