Title: One Piece Vol.3

Story and Art by: Eiichiro Oda

Chapters 18 – 26

Volume 3 opens up with Luffy squaring up against Buggy and both are showing what they are capable of.  Honestly, this is one of those fights where I can say that Oda did a great job with the concept of their abilities, especially Buggy who utilizes bladed weapons with his attacks.  Buggy does show he’s a capable opponent as his abilities make him very versatile and unpredictable.  Despite all of Buggy’s evil deeds, he pisses Luffy off by attacking his hat that Shanks gave him, showing a pretty deep side to Luffy and one of his motivators.  Luffy stretching Buggy’s face is hilarious.  I like the focus that both of the characters are enemies but they have some in common: their relationship to Shanks.

The townsfolk decide to search for Mayor Boodle (who was knocked unconscious by Luffy in attempt to save his life).  Buggy gives some backstory of when he and Shanks were younger and shipmates.  Shanks unintentionally makes Buggy swallow a Devil Fruit and lose a map he stole, thus making him lose his ability to swim and the treasure he planed to find.  Buggy then launches an attack at Nami who’s stealing his treasure but is incapacitated when Luffy kicks him in the balls.  Buggy attempts his Chop Chop Festival attack but comically is hindered by Luffy who’s tickling his foot.  With Nami’s help, Luffy is able to incapacitate Buggy by tying up several parts of his body, thus keeping him from reforming completely, and takes the full force of Luffy’s Gum Gum Bazooka attack.

After the battle is done, the townsfolk show up and chase Luffy, Nami, and Zolo out of town after Luffy admits to knocking out Boodle and being a pirate.  Nami joins the two on their journey.  Some time later they dock at an unnamed island, and while exploring Nami and Luffy encounter a bunch of animal hybrids.  They also meet Gaimon, a man who’s stuck in a treasure chest (interesting design) and on the island for twenty years.  We get a map of the world and how the world is basically a large strip of land circling the planet splitting the two oceans.  Gaimon shares his backstory and it’s pretty messed up.  Soon after, the Straw Hat crew depart the island in good spirits.

The story shifts gears, picking up from the perspective of a young man named Usopp (interesting character design), who is revealed to be the village prankster who terrorizes his village.  He’s also revealed to be a pathological liar. He runs his own little crew consisting of three kids named Carrot, Onion, and Pepper (who the hell names their kids this).  They discover Luffy and crew have docked and Usopp waste no time lying.  However, for all his bravado, we see Usopp has a softer side to him, which manifest with a sickly girl named Kaya.  We’re introduced to her butler Klahadore who doesn’t like Usopp (though its quite understandable). Loved this tick where he’s constantly readjusting his glasses.  The butler talks enough trash to get under Usopp’s skin leading to Kaya and Usopp’s falling out.

Luffy reveals that he knows Usopp’s father and that he’s apart of Red Haired Shanks’ crew.  The two overhear a conversation between Klahadore and a traveling hypnotist named Django, revealing Klahadore is actually a pirate and that they plan to take Kaya’s fortune and kill her.  Luffy confronts the two but is hypnotized and incapacitated by Django.  Usopp attempts to warn the villagers but since he’s lied so much they don’t believe him.  Volume 3 ends with the pirate crew preparing to attack the village.

The Verdict: In the end, One Piece Vol.3 is just awesome.  We get a great conclusion to the battle with Buggy the Clown (which is hilarious because of his facial expressions). I can’t wait to see how Luffy and company deal with this new pirate threat and what is the deal with Klahadore/Kuro.  Will Usopp be able to save his fellow villages? One Piece Vol.3 gets 3 out of 5.