Thanks to Viz Media and NetGalley for the ARC.

To start this review, I want to emphasize that I adore the “One Piece” franchise. The story is an epic of, well, epic proportions. Very few could keep a series constantly moving and feeling fresh, but every chapter Oda has published continues to add more layers to this expansive world.

Yet, every moment of the series has felt purposeful. Sure, there have been moments where the saga wasn’t the most engaging, but everything felt like it had a purpose. The world was fleshed out. The characters were explored. The plot was given a natural segue into the next act.

But throughout this book, I couldn’t identify a single reason for telling these stories.

I won’t go into too much depth, to avoid ruining the stories themselves, but I will try to give my general thoughts for each short story.

1. Boa Hancock- It is a shame that this story was the first in the collection, as I believe it is one of the worst. This story is incredibly tedious to read, as it centers around a conversation between two individuals, but instead of reading through this mundane meeting once, we are forced to read the exact same conversation again, in order to hear the internal thoughts of both characters. Not only is the concept tedious, but it is somewhat belittling to the reader. The intent in replaying the conversation seems to be to provide humor by knowing the other participant’s perspective, but as a reader, I could already understand what was happening below the surface. I did not need to be told outright.
2. Captain Tashigi- Slightly better than the previous, if only because we weren’t forced to endure it two separate times. Similarly to the last story, the highlighted character is not developed at all, but thankfully, it doesn’t betray the character either.
3. Vinsmoke Reiju- By my estimation, while this story may not insult the reader as much as Hancock’s, it is instead an insult to Oda’s well crafted characters. While the story is through Reiju’s eyes, much of the plot focuses on all of the Vinsmoke siblings (sans Sanji), and while Reiju seems to act in-character, the siblings seem to be entirely redefined to fit a plot line that would be more suited for a children’s book.
4. Uta- Despite having numerous grievances with the past stories, this one was alright. Uta’s thoughts and dialogue sound far too old for her age in the story, and Shanks is too “sweet” to be believable for his character, but I can suspend my disbelief enough to see this as a charming way to flesh out the relationship between these two characters. From the collection, this is the one story I can truly recommend.
5. Bonus Story- This story is fine. Nothing of note.

Sadly, on top of the pointlessness and mischaracterization, the writing present in this collection is so stiff and bland that it falls victim to breaking the number one rule that every high school teacher has said at least once- “Show, don’t tell.” Likely, some of this is due to the translation between Japanese and English, but I have read numerous works translated from other languages and found beautiful prose provided by meticulous translation. That is not the case with this work.

I wish I could be more positive about this work, as I was truly excited for the opportunity to read it, but outside of the Uta story, I failed to find anything of substance.