-A bad thief steal from good people, a good thief steals from bad people. It becomes a thief's treasure once it is stolen. (that's dumb.)
-You may fight for your treasure but don't lose your life to it. It is honorable to fight for your treasure, even recklessly, but worry more about your life and wellbeing so you may continue to protect what you have. (Fighting recklessly is Luffy's entire biz. Why protect the village elder?)
-"Lying" (pretending) is good as it offers entertaining stories. Lying is also bad as, after a while, it promotes distrust. Trust, over time, can make a liar seem honest. ( )

Usopp is one of those character stereotypes you think you will hate but before you know it he's no longer a stereotype and he's hilariously awesome. The fearless adventurer has been overdone--but not the persevering coward. Once again Luffy identifies with someone and refuses to let them be on their way. Usopp simple has to join his crew. He has Luffy's playfulness, a tied history by mutual acquaintances, great at telling children stories (Luffy is a child in this case), and of course Luffy romanticizes having a sharpshooter on his team. But once again the person he wants to join him refuses to join. Perhaps helping Usopp save his village? That usually does the trick. But in true One Piece style, it's never that simple. In fiction there's always a plot and thus never that simple, but One Piece takes things to extremes and you aren't sure if you're hooked on the action and the characters' passions or ready to burst laughing again because of something not entirely random but certainly not expected interrupts logical conflict progression. ( )

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Title: Don't Get Fooled Again
Series: One Piece #3
Arc: East Blue Part 3
Author: Eiichiro Oda
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 211
Words: 8K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_One_Piece_chapters_(1_186)

Chapter List:

"The Pirate Buggy the Clown"

"Devil Fruit"

"The Way of the Thief"

"Townies"

"Strange Creatures"

"The Dread Captain Usopp"

"The Lie Rejecter"

"Lies"

"Captain Kuro's Plan

Luffy and Buggy fight in a bizarre show of devil-fruit powers until Nami joins the fight and Buggy is defeated by the two (temporary) allies. Leaving with some of Buggy's treasure, they and Zoro set sail for the hometown of chronic liar Usopp. In search of a large ship, Luffy and his crew visit the mansion of the sickly young Kaya; they are turned away by her overprotective butler, Klahador. Usopp and Luffy later overhear Klahador (who is really the notorious pirate Kuro) and his first mate, Django, plan to kill Kaya so Kuro can inherit her wealth and social status.

My Thoughts:

While this was amusing, it felt extremely “setup'y” for getting another crew member. Nami joins the crew as the navigator but she tells Luffy they need a big ship if they're going to sail the Grand Line in search of the One Piece. This leads them to Usopp and the beginning of another fight with another pirate.

Obviously, it's left open to hook you to read the next volume and I do have the next volume handy. It just annoys me that it's used that way.

What I am rather enjoying is the little bits of art that Oda is including with each chapter heading. It will feature at least one, if not more, of the characters and then some outlandish situation or something just plain ridiculous. I've included the one that made me grin the most for this volume:

There are 9 chapters and almost 200 pages but I got to the end and was like “that's it?” Reading this was as easy as reading one of the 25page Spawn comics. And in One Piece at least the violence is cartoonishly outlandish.

★★★★☆ ( )

I generally don't like "monster of the volume" series, but One Piece is still tickling. ( )

Usopp appears!
Oh, I really enjoyed these back-stories.
They bring more depth to our favourite characters! ( )