To close off this little retrospective, there was no other choice, given the recent passing of Akira Toriyama, the author of Doctor Slump & Arale (and nothing else), may he rest in peace.
We’re also going back in time more than with the previous spin-offs (Monsters aside), as Cross Epoch was a 20 pages one-shot manga done by both Oda and Toriyama in 2006, apparently because they wanted to… actually yeah, that’s about the extent on the “why” this came to be.
Kinda funny and refreshing as pretty much any of these collaborative spin-off works were made to tie-in some anniversary or part of an elaborate celebrative marketing plan for the series involved, but nope, Cross Epoch was done for funsies, basically.
Hard to shake that feeling when the plot is basically a gag manga story in pure Toriyama style (though apparently Oda did most of the work), starting with the dragon Shenron holding a tea party for its friends after granting a wish of some guy that wanted to be king (Mr. Satan), the friends being the various characters from both series reimagined and paired accordingly, with Zoro and Piccolo being both directionless swordmen, Krillin and Chopper being train masters, or Sanji and Master Roshi being lazy lawmen that prefer chasing skirts rather than catching criminals.
The only characters that remain the usual selves are Goku and Luffy, as they travel to the tea party and have a little adventure and a quick joke fight along the way, which i’m not gonna spoil since it’s a short one-shot and then i migh as well recount the entire thing, not the purpose of a review.
It is short, but honestly i think it’s perfect, it’s short and sweet, it treats itself as the joke/gag fest it is and wants to be, it’s pretty funny, the characters interaction fit like a glove, the characters revised roles in this context make perfect sense too, it’s just so obvious both authors did it for fun and enjoyed themselves while doing it.
It’s also easy to find as it can be read on the official Mangaplus app and site to this day.
I really don’t have much to say as there’s not even much to complain about, but i am surprised they never did a short anime version of this one shot, it’s a crossover but then again Toei has the rights for both animated series, so i guess everyone had been content with this being just a little fun manga one shot crossover of One Piece and Dragon Ball, which is fine.
But who knows, given Toriyama passing and Toei’s constant need to pump out Dragon Ball related content (so much that the new DB Daima series is launching this October, because Goku has to be de-aged like Harrison Ford again and again, apparently), the nostalgia and need to make a in memoriam special might make it happen.. We’ll see, as usual.
Thanks for reading through this little One Piece spin-off retrospective, the blog’s gonna go on holiday, and we’ll back by September.
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