Chapter 28 — Crescent Moon
Original serialization: Weekly Shounen Jump 1998, #12
Color pages: 1-4 (pages 2-3 were the title page)
Luffy and Zoro say they’re going to help Usopp. He’s outnumbered, and pretty scared. Usopp denies that he’s scared until his legs start shaking, but then admits that he’s scared, as anyone would be when going up against Captain Kuro’s pirates. Luffy and Zoro say they’re not laughing; they’re impressed. That’s why they’re going to help. After all, who’d risk their life out of pity? They begin to come up with a plan… If they can defend this one path, the village will be all right, since every other beach on the island is just sheer cliffs.
Back at the mansion, Kuro discovers the glasses Kaya bought for him, and Merry explains for what occasion they are. However, Kuro smashes them under his foot and says his real present from her will be her entire mansion! These actions begin to reveal his true self to Merry, who yells to Kaya to run away, but Kuro slashes him… and later it’s revealed that Kaya is still asleep — she heard nothing…
On Kuro’s ship, the Black Cat, a bit before dawn, the crew wakes up Jango, acting captain, (even though he wanted to be woken up when the sun was out). Regardless, he tells them good morning and to set sail!!
At the beach, Usopp came up with a plan to cover the path in oil, so the pirates won’t be able to climb up it, and so Usopp and company can attack from above. Nami cautions to not slip in it themselves…
Usopp says that when it comes to his daring ideas and his slingshot, he has absolute confidence!
Dawn arrives.
The Black Cat makes landfall!!
But… where Luffy and company are, nothing’s going on. Nami says she hears something to the north of them… And Usopp reveals that there’s another landing just like this one on the north beach; they’re on the wrong beach! He just assumed the pirates would land here because this is where Kuro and Jango had their secret meeting!
Luffy begins to head north, and Usopp heads out too. Nami begins to slip on the oil, though, and grabs Zoro to save herself, sending him all the way down the hill. She says sorry, but she’s got to protect their treasure, which is at the north landing!
At the north landing, the pirates start heading up the pass, only to be stopped by Usopp’s slingshot! Meanwhile, Zoro is struggling to get up the oily hill, and Luffy is… lost, since “north” to him meant “the direction that seemed coldest”……….
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All right, so they had a good plan and everything, but messed up where the pirates would be coming. Ah man, Usopp… But since Luffy and crew’s boats were on the north shore, I wonder why they didn’t question why Usopp was so sure they’d be landing on the south shore. He said he has absolute confidence in his ideas, though, so maybe that convinced everyone.
In any case, now they’re starting this fight with some disadvantages. There’s no oil on the north path, and right now, only Usopp is at the top of it, ready to defend it. Luffy is lost, Nami is still on her way (to protect the treasure, which is obviously the only important thing here -_-), and Zoro is stuck at the bottom of the south beach. This is going to be a lot tougher than it needed to be.
And wow, Kuro killed Merry. That’s insane… the first casualty of this battle. But now he’s going to really have to make sure that Kaya doesn’t discover Merry’s body when she wakes up. It was probably too early to kill him, but I guess he couldn’t hold back any longer after three long years… Crazy…
So, here we go. The battle has begun. We’ll find out how it continues in tomorrow’s chapter…
Oh, and the color in this chapter was very good looking. Beautiful two-page title spread.
Ah, yes, one of the first desperate situations in OP. Usopp, alone, against the entirety of the Black Cat crew, with Luffy and Zoro nowhere to be found.
Heh, I really love it when the main characters act that chaotic^^ And I had to laugh out loud when Nami send Zoro sliding down that hill. They are sometimes so mean to eachother.
Also, Kuro is probably the first serious enemy of the story. Alvida and Morgan were mostly fodder characters and Buggy was rather funny himself, but Kuro demonstrates in this chapter that he is really cold-hearted and evil. Damn him! And how ironic that the two strongest fighters can`t reach the fight scene and Usopp is on his own after all.
Yeah, Zoro said he’s going to kill her someday, haha.
But seriously, uh… Usopp is so dead. There’s no way he can survive against the entire Black Cat crew. Sure, Nami’s on her way, but she can only do so much. Luffy is lost, and Zoro is stuck on the other side of the island, so without either of them around, Usopp’s gonna die. That’s it, no exceptions, no hope. He’s dead.