APP - Fleuret Melvin

y, ni everybody.
That's my APP Topic where I will post my One Piece summary of the week.


Edit: Finally I think that's better if I present one manga a week instead of make a One Piece's summary.
First because it is more interesing for me, then for the reason that if you don't know this manga and take it on the way without be acquainted of the beginning I consider that's really lost his interest.

So, each week I will present to you a new manga. You had to know that I buy every manga I read, so these manga I'll speak about are in my collection.

For the first week, I'll not speak about my week's reading because I think it's necessary to present what is One Piece first.

So, One Piece is manga writting and drawing by Eiichiro Oda. A manga is a japanese comic, and they are divised in differents kind; Shojo ( descripting as mangas for " young women ", often there are love story ), Seinen ( for an audience who are like 15/30 years ), Hentai ( I let you write this one in your navigator researcher ) etc..
One piece is a Shonen one ( for " young guy ". The most popular mangas are generaly Shonen ( Dragon Ball, Bleach, One Piece... )). As a good shonen, we will follow the story of the main character who will have to fight and become stronger to achieve his dream.

The publication is on the " weekly shonen jump ", a weekly magazine about Shonen Manga. Each week, a chapter ( about 16 pages) is published. Every 10 chapters ( not always exactly 10 but around ) a bound tome is put up for sale. Actually, One Piece is a story with 95 tomes ( in France ) and more than 950 chapters.

Main character's name is Luffy. His dream: become the new Pirate's King. To win this title, he have to travel all the world to get to the last island, Laugh Tell, and find the "One Piece".

During the travel Luffy will meet lot of people who will for his crew, but also many enemies of any kind: pirates, marines ( Marines are the " great guys ", they represent Mondial Government )or again sea monsters.
The richness of this work is also through island where our crew will be stop: celestial island, hivernal island with cherry tree or " Whole Cake Island ", an isle made entirely of sweets!

I'm actually at the tome 79, in Dressrosa Island. They'll leave soon to go at Zoo Island, but you will discover this next week!

For the second week, I chose to speak about " Saint Seiya " ( that is the original name. In England, this manga is know as " Knights of the Zodiac " ).

As a good shonen ( majority of manga I'll present to you are shonen ), he was published in the weekly shonen jump between 1986 and 1990. The first publication counting 28 tomes, and the second one 22.

In this manga, the main characters are " Saints " ( = knights ). Each Saint as an armor corresponding to a constellation. So we have a Gemini Saint, Swan Saint or Pegasus Saint.
The author Masami Kurumada was inspired a lot by Greek mythologie to create his universe and saints' armor. There are also references to Nordic mythology or Buddhism.

The Pegasus Saint is the main character and he is named " Seiya " ( so the original title want litteraly to say " The Knight Seiya " ). His goal is to protect goddess Athena to other gods and there kind of Saints ( " Saint " are the name of Athena's knights; each god as a different name for his army. For exemple, Hades is protected by his " Specters ", and Poseidon by his " Mariners " ).

There are 3 ranks among the Saints ( Athena's knight so ); bronze, silver and gold. Gold Saint are the strongest. Seiya and his 4 mate, Dragon/ Swan/ Andromeda and Phoenix Saints are Bronze. During the manga they have to grow their " Cosmos " ( energy source in this fiction ) to beat ennemies always stronger, and finally be able to defeat Gods.

In addition to the original series, Saint Seiya know lot of " Spin-Off " that keep the series going. For me, the best Saint Seiya spin-off is " Lost Canvas ", who telled us the previous Holy War ( when Athena and Hades fight ), before the original series so.


To conclude, I want to say that Saint Seiya is one of the first manga I ever read ( and seen du to anime) because my father is a great fan too, and initied me to since my childhood.

Hi!
This time, I'll present to you Bleach.

Bleach is a shonen who was published in the Weekly Shonen Jump ( first time I missed to specify that the " Weekly Shonen Jump " is only Japanese. If you go in a French or English bookstore, you'll never find one " ) between 2001 and 2016. His autor is Tite Kubo, who just finished a new manga " Burn the Witch ".

The main character is Ichigo, a lambda 15 years school student, except on one thing; he can see spirit since his childhood. But every spirits he saw before where only death people who don't already went to heaven ( or hell ).
But one day, instead of random spirit, a girl enter in his room. This girl has a blade and a kimono; as much to tell you that Ichigo don't meet a spirit like this every day.
She introduces herself as Rukia ( her name ), a " shinigami " ( gods of death ).

I skip the details, but Rukia will finally give her Shinigami's power to Ichigo. Henceforth, he has to act as a Substitute Shinigami, and fight bad spirits, the " Hollows ".

During confinement, I read back the 74 tomes and I realized that Bleach is one of my favorite manga. One of the multiple things I like is the difference between Ichigo and other shonen main character. All of them have a clairly identify goal; become the strongest guy ever, Pirate's King etc.. But at the beginning of the manga, Ichigo do not cry something like this. He justs want to protect.
And this, it is badass.

The manga I'll present you this week is " The Promised Neverland ".

This is a shonen ( what a surprise! ), publied in the Weekly shonen jump ( an other suprise ). In contrary to other shonen I had present here, this one is not based on fight, power up after a long training or mysterious strenght. That's more a manga based on thinking and strategies.

The beginning of the manga presents us a reception house for children without parents. A great paradise for these kids due to their " Mother " ( that's how kids call her ) Isabella, the nurse.
However, this reception house have some strange things; at the playground's extremity ( who inclued a forest ), there is a big wall that children are not allowed to climb, or again they have to do each day lots of scholary tests. But in trade, they are sur that they will be adopted before their 12 years old birthday.

But one day when one of them leave the house because she was adopted, 2 kids ( Emma, the main character and Norman ) go on an prohibited area to give the forgotten cuddy toy of the little girl. But what they saw is absolutely not an adoption family. Conny ( the adopted little girl ) is dead, in a tube full of water, and some monsters ( named Demons ) are near to, and they want to eat her. They realize they are not living in a little paradise house, but in a farm. They litteraly are cattle, destined to be eaten by these Demons.

At this point, they will do all they can to escape of the farm and have a chance to live a real human life. Some wall will stand in front of them, like Demons who will try to catch them, in a devasted world behind the farm's borders.


Promised Neverland is a recent manga ( start in 2016 ) and it was really a fresh wind in my reading because of the break he mades with other Shonen. The manga has ended in June, but I don't know yet all of the story because I follow the french publication: we are at Tome 15 ( maybe 16, I need to check this in supermarket ) and the last Tome is the 20.
I really recommend this one to people who think manga is based on fight, or simply to people who have never read manga before. Fun fact, that's the first japanese comics who made me cry ( at least in my remember ). The death of one of character was really, really hard, but so well written.

Hi!
This post will be longer than other because that's my favorite Manga, and I consider there is loooooooots of things to speak about, and can't simply resume it like I did with other.
This manga is Dragon Ball

As if you don't know and are not interresting about japanese comics, I'll consider you as a liar if you say me you have never hear this name. Dragon Ball is the most know manga in the world, and the second best-selling ( first is One Piece ) with something like 300 millions copies selling around the world.
I skip the fact that he was released in the Weekly Shonen Jump because I think you already know it if you had read posts above.

Akira Toriyama ( there is a chance like 99% you already know this name ) is the mangaka ( word that mean the autor for manga ), and he is considerate as the " lord " in manga community.
This guy is really special. If you search " Eiichiro Oda " or " Tite Kubo " ( One Piece and Bleach autor ) on google, normally you find lots of pictures and interviews. But for Mr. Toriyama, I guess there is only one ( maybe two? ) picture of him. That's really complicated to meet him, he doesn't communicate on social media, he lives in the Japanese's countryside, etc.. He is really like an hermit.

So, let's speak about the story now!
The story begin with the encounter between Son Goku ( main character ), a 14 years boy who doesn't know anything of the world because he had only live in mountain with his grandpa ( he is death at the start of story ) and Bulma, a 16 years old girl who is looking for the " Dragon Ball ".
From the start we saw that Goku is a really strong boy; Bulma rush at him with his car and shoot him with a gun at many times, but the only thing that Goku reply is " Oh, that's hurt! ". We also notice that he have a monkey tail.
After this altercation Goku asks to the " girl " ( remember: Goku never saw anyone except of his grand father ) go to his house.
The first thing that Bulma notices is the 4 stars Dragon Ball! So what are the Dragon Ball? That's 7 orange balls with little stars in ( 1 to 7 ). An old legend says that if the seven are reunited, the giant dragon Shenron will appeared and grant one wish.
This explanation past, Goku decided to join Bulma in her travel for the Dragon Ball!

During this adventure, we can see lots of references of the popular " Journey to the West ".

But if Dragon Ball began to be know in 1984, there is also for his spectacular fights. This manga was even one of the precursor of futur shonen " codes ".
The first is fighting tournament; in DB ( abbrevation of " Dragon Ball " ), there is a thing named " Tenkaichi Budokai " that we will see at multiple times. This is literally a Martial Arts Tournament. We find fighting tournament in lots of shonen realised after DB, for exemple Naruto, Hunter x Hunter, Seven Deadly Sins ( the next Manga I'll speak here ) etc..
The second one is the transformation to show the power up of characters. In 90% of shonen Nekketsu kind ( I realize I'd never explain what is " Nekketsu ". I promise that I'll say this in next post ), we have some physical transformation to showing us that the characters are stronger.


Ok, I just saw that I'm on this reply since 1h45.. So rather than continu and do a post really longer than habitually, I think that's better If I speak about the following in an other post. Because yes, what I'd tell to you ( the story of researching the 7 Dragon Ball )is only valid for the beginning of manga.

So next time, our subject will be the second part of Dragon Ball, that everybody call " Dragon Ball Z ".

Dragon Ball time!!

As I said in last reply, I continu here the post about Dragon Ball to talk of the second part.

When Goku and Bulme are researching the Dragon Ball, it is considered as the first part of the manga for one reason; that's the childhood of Goku. In the second part, Goku is adult and have a child.

But after talk about this
, I promised I would explain what is a shonen " Nekketsu ". As you know, shonen is a word to say that's the manga is for " young men ". Nekketsu are shonen, but the mains characters will fight and become stronger to achieve their dream and defend values like friendship, self-overtaking..
So you guess one of the bif point of these mangas is fight.
Promised Neverland is not a Nekketsu, but Saint Seiya, Bleach and One Piece are. Obviously Dragon Ball too.

Ok, take back to DB
In last reply, I said that's the second part of Dragon Ball is regulary called " Dragon Ball Z ". The reason is that "DBZ" ( abbrevation once again ) is the name of this part in anime ( anime is the name of cartoon adaptation of manga ".
That is also the more viewed segment of this art, and lots of people know this manga but only since Goku's adult days.

It is really interesting to follow our hero in this way, because there are many revelation. For example, we finally know why Goku has a monkey tail and why he is so strong compared to other human; he is a " Saiyen " ( fictive population of an other planet in DB world ). That's also after this that lots of popular characters will be appeared, like Vegeta ( Goku's rival ), Gohan ( Goku's son ), Freeza ( one of the most famous vilain in all manga ( I really recommend you go to hear some extract of his voice in Japanese. His Seiyū ( voice actor )Ryūsei Nakao is really INSANE ) ) and lots of other..

Dragon Ball is a Manga who formed a big part of manga fan base ( like me, alongside Saint Seiya and Detective Conan ), and at this title he deserves to be the most knowing manga in the world.

He is so popular that now, we have a following of this story! That's named " Dragon Ball Super ", and is still in publication.


Ps: I forgot to give you the information, but Dragon Ball has 42 tomes, and was pusblished between 1984 and 1995.

Let's talk about the last manga in this topic!
Yeah I know you are sad and me too, but that's life and she is cruel.

Today, I choose the manga "Seven Deadly Sins" because I'm actually reading again him. This story was first published in 2012, until 2020. There are in all 41 tomes to the complete serie, but actuaylly only 40 in France, so i'm waiting for the last one to be translate.

As the title explains, the manga speak about characters related to the Seven Deadly Sins.
The start twist is that a young girl named Elisabeth want to stop the sacred knights, warriors who served the 2 army generals who made a revolution 10 years again. The only way she finds is to reformed the legendary group composed of seven persons, each represented a sin, who was wrongly accused for the revolution.
She first met Meliodas, a tavern owner. But not only! He is also the " Dragon of the wrath " and the old leader of the Seven Deadly Sins! The two will go in travel to find the 6 others sins, and to restore order in Britannia!

After this short resume, I would to speak about the universe around this manga. As I said, the main country is named " Britannia ", and is a total reference to Britain. In SDS ( abbreviation you know ), the characters fight with magical power; each of them have a kind of magic they can use. For exemple, one of the strongest sacred knights lead the thunder, an other can make " wall " with his body, one guy can be invisible etc..

Beyond fighting, I really love this manga due to the lots of references he does. The mains characters, Sevend deadly sins, will be opposed to the Ten Commandments ( later in the manga ) and would meet a King named " Arthur . But again beyond, we have the part I prefer. The love story. There are many love in this manga, and finally the last battle is a way for all of our mains characters to fight for their love, and that's beautiful.
In fact, as the beginning, that's a fight for love; Meliodas is a demon old of 3000 years, and Elisabeth is the reincarnation of his promised love, a Goddess ( these 2 clans are at the base enemies ).

Values that the autor, Nakaba Suzuki, tranmits to us are powerful. If a Demon can love a Goddess, how can racism exists? ( of course if you read the manga you'll better understand why a relation between a demon and a goddess is so incredible ).
Love will always win, and that's great. Peace and love guys.