Japan Agrees With Me That It’s All Right to Cry at One Piece

I’m a total sucker for shonen manga and anime series, which for those of you not in the know, means series aimed at young boys, circa 10-14, where the heroes fight and learn about friendship and get beaten and persevere. DBZ is a shonen series, as is Naruto. My favorite, tho’, is One Piece, which I find the most elaborately crafted and well-told of all the anime/manga series aimed at boys two decades younger than me. (Eiichiro Oda, One Piece’s creator, has been making the series for 10 years and it’s only half over; I genuinely stay awake some nights, worrying that he might die before One Piece is finished.)

Anyways, the fact that One Piece can make me sob like a little girl when Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates rescue their team members is no longer quite as embarrassing, as Japan has voted it the most moving manga in Japan, according to this poll. Interestingly, both boys and girls voted it #1, and the poll included a number of guys and gals in their 20s, 30s and 40s. I’d like to point out that neither Naruto nor DBZ have ever made me cry, which stands both as a testament to One Piece‘s storytelling and the fact that I’m a slightly discriminating if huge femme.