Cross Epoch

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So I hunted this down after hearing it was a crossover between One Piece and Dragonball, because who wouldn't want to read something like that? You have two wonderful artists combining their already loved characters together in what should be an awesome story, right?

Wrong.

The story is completely and totally random, and had I not read One Piece or Dragonball I would have been at a total loss. It makes slight references to minor plot points of the other two stories, but it does not have the "pirates" or "z-fighters" themes at all. It's just these really random characters going around doing their (what we can ... assume) daily routines. It's totally plotless.

The art is wonderful. It's well drawn, the characters fit together seamlessly, and there's a lot of action in the background. Very common of the OP and DB series. In fact, the art is probably the best thing about this manga, because you can see (with official art!) what the characters look like together.

The characters, again, are wonderful. However, they are also using the same personalities from their mother series, so if you haven't read OP or DB before you would be at a total loss as to what is happening, or why they are doing certain things within the manga.

Enjoyment value was okay; again, it's OP and DB, and even if it is a totally crack story, it was amusing to see some characters together. Props out to Sanji and Roshi hanging out together. That was awesome.

Overall, if you have read Dragonball and One Piece, you should probably read Cross Epoch just to say you did. It's not a great story, but it's still fun to look at the art and see what characters Toriyama and Oda decided should work together, based on their personalities and/or gender. It's not any sort of monumental story that you'll dig out a great plot from, but I would say that it is worth reading.

A cross over devised by One Piece author, Eiichiro Oda, and Dragon Ball Z author, Akira Toriyama.

The cross over is one chapter long and displays the characters living in a world together.
One character from each series is teamed up with their 'counterpart' from the other.

Luffy and Goku (the strongest/lead)
Zoro and Piccilo (the badasses)
Nami and Bulma (the 'babes')
Sanji and Roshi (the perverts)
then Vegeta is a lord with Robin, Usopp, and Trunks as his loyal crew
...
It's quite amusing and very fun

Ah, let's see here. The characters are nothing like themselves from their respective manga. The saving grace is the art. The story is...what? Look, this was the most unenjoyable read since Medaka Box. Just save yourself the awfulness and keep your eyes away from this one-shot.

Oh, and I couldn't even tell if Vegeta was a villain in this, and where was Gohan?? Wasting of the dragon ball, why does Piccolo need a train when he can fly? Why is Krillin a conductor? Master Roshi choosing sex over saving people? Though a good jab at his personality, it is in no way how he would've ... acted in Dragon Ball.

Cross Epoch is a crossover that completely changes all of the Dragon Ball characters and just shoehorns them into the world of One Piece. They are nothing like the characters we know and love and their roles in the story don't even make any sense and aren't explained. There is no set up and there is no goal. Hell, it's difficult to actually tell what the fuck is going on. It just cuts from one character interaction to the next with no structure whatsoever. The chapter is so dull and has so little effort and thought put into it that not even a fight scene ... can be worth reading (if there was one)

So... Cross Epoch is a thing...

This might be one of the shortest manga review I may end up doing, since Cross Epoch is basically Dragon Ball Minus with One Piece characters... Or rather, a One Piece scenario with Dragon Ball characters shoehorned in it.

The most lackluster aspect of the One-Shot is the story (or for better terms, a lack of one). You see, nothing really happens in Cross Epoch, it´s just a compilation of scenarios of What-If´s that uses both Dragon Ball and One Piece characters (e.g: Vegeta is the lord of a pirate tripulation made up of Ussop, Trunks, etc. but we don´t know ... how or why this pirate tripulation was formed) and on top of all that, it´s really short! (While One-Shots usually strives for 55-60 pages length, Cross Epoch strives for... 19 pages).

The art is really good, combining both the artistic strengths of Toriyama and Oda. What I found surprising, and overall the best thing of this One-Shot, is that Toriyama draws the Dragon Ball characters, while Eiichiro Oda draws the One Piece characters, and it feels nice not having both blend into a single style.

Overall, if you have the curiosity of finding out what is Cross Epoch, go ahead, the One-Shot isn´t long and it has some good art. But if what you´re looking for is a compelling story that unites both Dragon Ball and One Piece... well this isn´t the way to go. At all.