Manga Review: One Piece Vol 1 by Eiichiro Oda

Hey all, Sam here.

I finally took the plunge into One Piece. David talks about it all the time (much like he does with Dragon Ball Z and Naruto), and I had originally decided that reading the manga would be the faster and easier way for me to catch up with the series…but with the announcement of the live action adaptation coming, I also got talked into watching the anime….so now I’m both reading and watching it.

Over the next couple of months worth of Manga Mondays, this delightful blog series where I review volumes of manga I’ve read on Mondays, the plan is to review the volumes that will be covered with the live-action season. After that, I’ll probably switch off to some other manga for a little while, but I’ll throw some One Piece reviews into the rotation as I work my way through the whole series.

Anyway, I read this first volume back in October 2022, when I was finally starting to break out of my reading slump a bit. I think when I read this volume (and a couple others), I read something like 12 books in a week’s span of time, and it was the best I had felt in a very long time.

So, yes, again, it has been a bit since I’ve read this, but I just watched the first episodes of the anime a couple weeks ago, so that refreshed the events in my mind a little.

Let’s get started.

Join Monkey D. Luffy and his swashbuckling crew in their search for the ultimate treasure, One Piece!

As a child, Monkey D. Luffy dreamed of becoming King of the Pirates. But his life changed when he accidentally gained the power to stretch like rubber…at the cost of never being able to swim again! Years, later, Luffy sets off in search of the “One Piece,” said to be the greatest treasure in the world…

As a child, Monkey D. Luffy was inspired to become a pirate by listening to the tales of the buccaneer “Red-Haired” Shanks. But his life changed when Luffy accidentally ate the Gum-Gum Devil Fruit and gained the power to stretch like rubber…at the cost of never being able to swim again! Years later, still vowing to become the king of the pirates, Luffy sets out on his adventure…one guy alone in a rowboat, in search of the legendary “One Piece,” said to be the greatest treasure in the world…

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

What an interesting start to a series. Yes, some of the Devil Fruit powers seem a bit ridiculous…but you know what, at least it seems like there was some world-building/lore/thought put into the abilities and side-effects and such.

And okay, fine, I guess I’m kind of a sucker for a series that features a main character who believes that they are going to do something seemingly impossible…Luffy becoming the King of the Pirates by finding the One Piece, Asta in Black Clover becoming the Wizard King…especially when the main group of characters come together and become the sort of found family that doesn’t give up on each other.

Honestly, there are signs of that in this first volume, the determination to follow your dreams and protect what’s important to you, and that becomes even more clear in the next handful of volumes. Whether they are part of his crew or not, Luffy understands the importance of having a goal, a dream, a treasure, and he tries to help where he can.

This volume is also where I declared Roronoa Zoro to be my favorite…which my husband (AKA David) expected to be the case (although he says later that Nico Robin will become my favorite; we’ll see). I don’t know. I guess I just like a badass sword fighter. (And okay, it doesn’t hurt that I also really like the English voice actor for Zoro–he also voices Yami in the English dub of Black Clover, so, you know, another badass swordsman.

But yeah, solid first volume. It has a decent introduction to a few characters, as well as giving a bit of detail about the world and the magic and the history. It certainly had enough in character development and action and everything to make me want to keep reading, which is what I’m looking for. In a first volume there has to be the hint of something with the characters that makes me want to get to know them better. I don’t need a world deep-dive to get started, and it’s totally fine to spread the world-building out—actually it’s definitely better to spread all of that out.

So yeah, Luffy is pretty cool. I love Zoro already. Nami’s okay so far, I guess. I’m excited to get deeper into the series.

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All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.