On a certain level I think most of us enjoy the idea of being an early adopter when it comes to any form of entertainment. You want to be the person who learns of a title first so you can show all your friends what is cool. It also lets you present them with a title that is free from a good deal of preconceptions that fandom can attach to a property while making sure a title does not have a backlog to get through to be caught up on. The biggest barrier to hooking anyone on One Piece is the 745+ chapter/643+ episode Mount Everest sized wall to climb to gain entry alongside all the fan baggage that comes with that. It can be a hard sell.

Now recommending a new title that is still in production has its own flaws. We have all been burned by a concept that starts off with seemingly unlimited possibility that degrades into an utter mess. That is a risk with putting forth any bleeding edge ongoing title. No one wants to champion the series that dies in a horrible death spiral.

But when everything works out in that wonderful high risk/high reward formula you seem like a hero. So I’m giving you the chance to be a hero in your little section of fandom by telling you about Yurikuma Arashi before it hopefully explodes. There is only one chapter out so you can be right on the ground level for this series. Continue reading →