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Geez, hope ya can get up to read my stuff!
First of all, a huge thanks to Fnuckale for cleaning all of the images that you see here! Due to his efforts, for the very first time, we have some darn nice lookin' HQ images for an OP Ten Comments! Aren't you happy, OP fans?
Also thanks to our resident crazy German, des aka rigor mortis, for typesetting all the images, as well! <3I've always thought that One Piece was the toughest to clean these days out of the three manga that I review. Eiichiro Oda tries to include a lot of blacks, greys, and whites in almost every illustration that he does, and there are *still* a lot of panels per page in OP, unlike Naruto and Bleach these days. I don't envy any Manga Editor or group that has to clean OP, but you know what? Rush and Null does a truly fantastic job. They both totally deserve all the kudos they get for their work, so be sure to thank them for their releases. They do it all for you guys, after all.
Anyway, here you go & hope you enjoy. Feel free to comment as always!
* * * Gold Knight's Ten Comments on One Piece Chapter 428: Let's Go Home! * * *
Up, up, and away we go...!
1. Moonstruck. This is the cover I've been waiting for ever since Oda started his Skypiea "one-shots." Anyone with a good memory and a fondness for that arc will remember how we left one of Luffy's greatest enemies, Enel, who had mistakedly believed that the surface was that of the moon and had headed straight for it! I was always pretty curious to find out how he was doing.
I almost felt sorry for Enel, because in his ignorance, I thought that he would leave the atmosphere at some point by accident and potentially die by asphyxiation or something ugly like that.
But I suppose the One Piece universe doesn't quite go by the same laws of physics that we do. Enel might even successfully land on the moon - one small step, one big leap for godkind? - and he possibly even find some green-skinned alien races to dominate. Or maybe the moon's denizens would coincedentally be all made of rubber and prove to be invulnerable to anything Enel might do to them as well. That'd be rather funny!
Careful... you might get stabbed!
2. What a Happy Loudmouth...! Well, looks like Usopp has definitely forgiven Luffy and accepted him as a Captain, 'cause he sure was pretty loud about it here! Well, I suppose he knew that the others were worried about Luffy and that letting them know about his victory would be good for morale, but that wasn't a very good time to be bringin' attention to himself what with all the bloodthristy captains around!
But that's more than okay, I do understand his elation. When Luffy finally defeated Lucci after 20-some chapters of fruitless punching back and forth, I felt like rejoicing myself, too. ^^
...I mean, uh, LUCCI'S DOWN!?? Yeah, that's it! >.>
3. The Gig's Up. Found this scene somewhat comedic here when I thought at first the yell of praise for Luffy was coming from one of the ships, as almost as if one of the ships were glad that they wouldn't have to deal with CP9 or Lucci anymore.
Actually, then I thought it was Sanji who had boarded one of the ships, single-handedly taken all the navy soldiers out (boy, that'd be quite an accomplishment, even for him). Of course, now we all know it was actually a Denden Mushi call from what was left of the North Gate of Enies Lobby...
Now... how the hell will we pull the giants up!??
4. Giant Heroes! Boy, sure was a stroke of good luck for the Franky Family and Galley-la that Oimo and Kaashii became such mighty allies, huh? But I'm not at all surprised that they turned out to be alive, though - after all, this is a shonen series! Kids would've been sad if they had all died. If you don't believe that I predicted that they'd be alive, I called it a few weeks ago in a previous Comments.
That was quite brave of the giants to have taken the cannonballs full on to save the others. But not surprisingly since the giant race in OP seems to be quite valiant and courageous, especially if Dorry and Broggy were typical representatives. Remember 'em? The two big giants from the Litten Garden arc. Guess these giants really do have giant hearts.
As for Paulie's "unbreakable" rope - that'd come in handy on a ship, for sure! But how the dickens did he manage to wrap such a huge part of the cliff's face with the ropes? Must've had some kind of crazy throwing ability...
Sidenote: I had initially thought that Oda had even gone as far as having Fukurou (the zipper-mouthed guy) escape along with them, as one of the figures climbing on the ropes looked suspiciously like him. But then Fnuck pointed out to me that there were several other guys wearing the same uniform, so he was just another one of Franky's family, it looks like.
Let 'em tears flow down your metal cheeks, Franky...!
5. A Cyborg's Tears...! Heh, well, despite being half cybernetic, here Franky is proved to be only as human as the rest of Luffy's crew. But I can't say I cared much about his Family, nor the Galley-la (with the exception of Paulie), so I couldn't really share his relief. I still think it would have been better if Oda had left them all dead - just for dramatic purposes. But perhaps Franky would have been more of a dark character if that had happened, so maybe just as well they survived.
Seems like Zoro's the only one on Luffy's crew that doesn't really cry all that much. Well, I suppose he IS manly - the only time he ever cried was when Mihawk had defeated him. Zoro had then sworn to be able to face Mihawk again at some point as an even greater swordsman. Can't wait for the rematch to come, incidentally...! If it ever will.
One question - now that we know Franky's family has survived, how will he leave them in order to join Luffy's crew? Hmmm... maybe as an obligation, I suppose.
My mother always said there'd be days like this...!
6. Gearless and Powerless...! I'm glad to see that there was a side-effect to Luffy's "Gears" - that means there is still a certain sense of vulnerability to him despite having the potential to match anybody's speed and power, even Lucci. Being paralyzed, even temporarily, definitely will be inconvenient in situations like that. That also means Luffy will have to figure out other ways to fight his enemies in the future because he may not always be in a position where he can just lie down safely for a few minutes afterwards.
Of course, not the first time Luffy's been down for the count and had to be rescued from disaster, as he was after his final fight with Crocodile...!
But in any case, yep, Sanji definitely has his work cut out for him in the coming days in order to "restore" Luffy back to 100%. Of course, by cooking food!
Look at the pretty fireworks!
7. Finally...! ABOUT TIME!!! Didn't I tell you guys that it'd make no sense if the Navy didn't fire their cannonballs at Luffy's crew at some point? I'm still kind of taken aback by how long it took them to finally shoot some metal at the bridge, even if it was only aimed at their "escape ship."
But I have to say, the Buster Call isn't THAT much of a threat if they're still ordered to take people alive, like Robin. If that's the only reason they haven't shot at the bridge yet, they really must want Robin taken back alive, which surprises me. Don't they usually just fire at pirates without caring much about their survival? In this world ALL criminals are probably wanted dead more than alive...
EDIT: Thanks to ironthought, I finally understand. According to him, since Franky destroyed the blueprints for Pluton, the Marines/Navy need Robin so that they can force her to tell them the location of Poseidon because of her ability to read the ponegylphs. Thanks, ironthought.
I wish they had mentioned the Pluton/Poseidon a little more because I completely forgot about that little bit.
Sanji's finest moment... or is it?
8. Sanji to the Rescue! Yep, I suppose Sanji would rush to the rescue of any damsels in distress... even one as butt-ugly as a old, fat mermaid! XD Although he sure looked a little flustered here... isn't he supposed to be, well, more dashing? ^^;
Hm, but I don't think that had been the reason he had gone out of sight. He did mention that he had disappeared to take care of something "uncool." At first when he said that, I immediately thought that he may have gone somewhere to take a leak. Yeah, a bad time but when you've gotta go, you've gotta go...!
Okay, okay. He probably did something else. Can't think of what, though, since it was obviously not sneaking on one of the Navy's ships. Hm. We'll probably find out next week, though.
Below, below, below... *splash*... oops.
9. The Mysterious Voice...! Seems like I'm doing a lot of quick comments this time around, but I guess there's really not that much to say. But Khal did suggest to me about this part that Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp may have been able to hear the mysterious voice due to having more "childish" minds as opposed to the more mature Zoro, Robin, and Nami.
He's probably got a good point. It's commonplace in fantasy to have children be more suspectible to "hearing and seeing that adults can't" just because they're more innocent and they believe in so much more.
Long time no see... wait, WTF!?
10. The Return of... Merry? I'll have to admit, I was shocked to the core when Merry appeared here, despite the long distance from Water 7. I initally thought, well, wait a minute! If Merry really has returned and has been repaired, then well, for starters, Usopp would have been right in saving it! And Luffy would have been in the wrong and would have to forfeit being the captain of that particular ship.
But that was when I saw the spoilers. When I saw the RAW, Merry appeared to still be "wounded," so this is probably its last journey... ever. And it came to save its "nakama" one final time. I'll have to admit there's something pretty touching about that. As for how it arrived, perhaps the Klabautermann, the ship spirit that saved it at Skypiea, came again and granted Merry one more wish to save its crew?
Wouldn't be surprised if we met the Klabautermann next chapter, either.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars. Feeling a little like a long epilogue right now, but that's okay. Such a long storyarc deserves a bit of a ending, I guess, like any Final Fantasy game. Merry's appearance was a little weird, so I'm hoping to find out more about that next chapter, though.
Predictions: I still don't know how Luffy's crew is going to escape from the Navy, but we'll definitely find out what's going on with Merry. Hopefully.
Credits: Fnuckale was a superb cleaner for my images and rigor mortis did some fantastic typesetting. Thanks again to pocketmofo for translating the RAW when it came out.
Looking forward to seeing what you think!
Gero Gero! Comment, or I bite! <3
