One Piece stars Monkey D. Luffy, a young pirate. It's an era of piracy, and the greatest treasure of all is the fabled One Piece. The world is full of pirates, searching for plunder and adventure, and Luffy is determined to gather a fantastic crew and become the King of the Pirates! His crew so far, Zolo the swordsman and Nami the navigator,  both have their own goals and dreams to shoot for. The series is comical, cartoony and fast paced, filled with wild battles and over the top character designs. Passion, pride, searching out your dreams and treasure, both gold and the things people hold dear, are themes in this whimsical, creative series.

Highlights

One Piece: East Blue 4-5-6 contains the second three volumes of One Piece, the wild and crazy pirate adventures of Luffy's crew, all in one convenient volume. Last volume, Captain Kuro's Black Cat pirates were scheming to kill the young heiress Kaya and steal her fortune. Unless Luffy, Usopp and the others put a stop to it, the small, peaceful town would soon by attacked by merciless raiders..

This is where the stories get longer. The Kuro arc takes up over half of the rest of this volume. Once again, a great part of One Piece is Oda's crazy characters and their powers.  Django the hypnotist can hypnotize people to have super strength; one of the hypnotized minions does a body slam that splits the ground in half! All of the villains in this arc are very distinctive. Django has heart-shaped glasses, the two "Meowban" brothers all have really weird looking catsuits, and Kuro is menacing. Oda likes to draw large panels of him glaring; in fact, lots of people get to pose dramatically. Kuro is possibly the most agile foe Luffy has faced yet, making their battle exciting. Oda does a great job of making the fights clear and interesting as usual.

It's notable that this arc has some of the first longer flashbacks; many shonen manga use them to develop character mid-story. One Piece does this, even in the middle of a fight.  When I was reading the chapters in the monthly Shonen Jump magazine, the flashbacks could be irritating, stopping the forward progression of the plot. However, they fit much better into the triple volume format since there's so much more content in each serving. The flashback with Usopp trying to console his ailing mother is touching, adding a new element into One Piece. Sentiment. Many future flashbacks will be filled with this kind of sweet, sad emotion. It's said that in One Piece, people only die in flashbacks.

In the next arc, Luffy's crew head for the Baratie, a giant oceangoing restaurant (it has a giant fish head on the front of the ship!). One Piece surprises in every arc; you never know quite where they're going to end up next.  Sanji, one of my favorite characters, is introduced in this story.  He's a cool, smoking, womanizing chef. Every comedy adventure manga needs someone to drool over the ladies.

When Luffy accidentally rebounds a cannonball into the Baratie, he's forced to work as a chore boy. His attempts are humorous at best. The Baratie is full of crazy pirate cooks, and it's got to be one of the most amusing places Luffy has been to yet. I'm looking forward to the battle there next volume. Pay careful attention to the guy they meet there with the giant sword this volume; I don't want to say too much, but the fight with this guy is the craziest one yet.

Overall

One Piece continues to entertain with this volume. Luffy by himself is one thing, but now that he has a larger crew the chances to humorusly bounce off one another increases. The villains are also becoming more of a threat now, with bigger and wilder battles. The last few East Blue arcs all have really great fights; One Piece is a shonen in the classic sense, crazy characters, wild fights. The obvious inspiration is Dragon Ball and it's sense of fun adventure. The character motivations are often simple (I'm gonna be the King of the Pirates!), but they're still charming and likable all the same.

Even though the villains are all evil, you don't really worry about the fates of Luffy and his crew. The tone is light, adventurous and everyone gets to pose dramatically. Like I said before, the sadness is mostly contained to flashbacks; the here and now is for adventure on the high seas! Luffy feels a bit invincible this early on, fighting and laughing. I can't say if it will last forever, but it's good to see the bad guys get the swift punch in the face they have coming.

Oda's art is very cartoony, though. I like the exaggerated expressions, the caricatured body types (like the big Popeye arms on one of the chefs) and the casual cartoon violence. Even in the serious battles, boulders are hurled, blood goes flying, but nobody really bites it. It's like a violent Looney Tunes where protagonists can shrug off gunshots and keep fighting. The art might seem a bit strange at first, but it really grows on you, giving Luffy and his world a unique, distinctive look. I can't imagine One Piece looking any way else now.

There are also a lot of funny running gags in the question corners (fan queries), cover illustrations (I like the side stories about old characters, like Buggy's exploits after the battle) and there's even a little cutout Buggy face near the end of the volume. This volume is packed with entertainment. There's a reason One Piece is one of the "Big three" in Japan right now; it's a breezy, action-packed read and at this price (it's like nearly a whole volume free) it's not something I'd suggest passing up for new readers. However, like the previous 3 in 1 volume, it's not as nice as the Vizbigs nor does it contain any new content at all. There's no need to purchase this to replace your old single volumes unless you just need the shelf space, it's a bit more compact.