Omg omg luffy is so funny and happy and stuff

One Piece is a story that struggles to get western audiences at first from the light-hearted beginnings you will see in this volume. But once you commit you will not quit.

The story is about a young man named Luffy who wants to become king of the pirates, to do this he must travel to the end of the Grand Line, with a lot of competition and resistance from the shady world government along the way. Particular people in the world have managed to eat devil fruits which give them powers, but they basically drown if they enter sea water, some you have seen before, some you have definitely never seen before.

All the pirates seeking to be the pirate king after the execution of Roger must conquer the Grand Line, but even getting there can be a problem. Firstly the world is kind of complicated, there are four seas(north, east, etc), these are separated by the Red Line(that is impossible to traverse), and the Calm Belt(that few dare cross). All kinds of craziness awaits at the Grand Line, if the crew can make it.

On top of that the inhabitants are quite complicated too. First are the pirates, traditionally bad guys, but in this story are also the heroes, then there are marines who are traditionally heroes but also ride the grey moral line. As you go you will find these groups, and others, continue to deny a strict black and white morality and it only carries as far as each individual among the ranks. Hell even actual villains may hit you in the heart at some point, and the nice guys may not be so nice after all.

With large(really though) assortment of quirky and interesting characters, silly gags, crazy fights, a large inviting fanbase, tragic drama, many mysteries(so many STILL yet to be solved), coupled with the mangakas use of foreshadowing always makes you look very carefully at every panel and cover, references all over the place from real pirates to Dragon Ball Z to world architecture to Che Guevara to Guns N Roses to Christianity to Japanese folklore. Themes from friendship to xenophobia to work ethic to slavery to drug addiction to genocide to classism to bullying, a wide range of things going on that you really wont expect from the first piece of the puzzle.

You will become hooked by your curiosity of what the ‘D’ really means, what are the warlords capable of, who has the highest bounty, the unraveling dark history of the world, watching the unique dreams of each crew member slowly bloom, and of course what the One Piece is, or if it even exists.

There are sooo many other things but to even mention I feel would spoil the journey. You really don't know how packed in this story is until you get to the obsessive re-reading stage, noticing the tiniest details hidden by the creator, or the reading up on many of the references being made and seeing how they relate to the story, how otherwise unnoticeable Japanese puns give depth to a particular .

As a western reader, like most manga, this may challenge your traditional idea of entertainment form time to time. There were times when it felt a bit ‘out there’ but eventually you will be craving more moments like that and your traditional entertainment begins to looks really lame in comparison, this series really opened my mind like that in retrospect.

It's not a typical ‘I will fight you’ manga, it's not a gentle kids story, it's not a gritty ‘I am a real man’ adult graphic novel, it's not a super fan service(you know what I mean) money grab, it's not a typical one arc at a time story, it can be funny, brutal, exciting, tense, heartbreaking, bizarre, cute, depressing, triumphant, creepy, dark, jovial, it's a deep bag of carefully selected tricks.

I'm up to date with all 800+ chapters of One Piece, but I had to buy this to pay them back for the years of enjoyment, and commitment that we reciprocated.

And this Vol. 1 far exceeded my expectations. I will keep reading and flipping through the pages for a long time, with fondness.

Start here, start now. One Piece is the greatest manga ever written that is for all ages. The other being ‘Berserk’, which is very mature. This franchise gives everyone their own dreams of becomingKing/Queen of the Pirates!