Full Ahead! Coco!

Pirate manga. Once one piece came along, this subgenre became a veritable white whale. Nobody wants to seriously step on those shoes, and for good reason. Coming before that, then, I bring you this manga. One that i believe is on par with one piece in the pirate themes.

Full ahead coco is all about pirates. Every theme, character, setting, battle, and anything you could imagine has something to do with pirates. The characters in particular are something I really want to focus on. Pirates are villains. In turn, the protagonist of our story is also a villain by definition. Crazy Barts or John Barts is the captain of the ship, the Sweet Madonna. He is a pirate through and through and will constantly be reminding you of this fact. He takes what needs when he needs it by the means he deems necessary. From pillaging trader ships for rations and water to stepping on world leaders to get his point across. He's not called crazy for nothing. Barts is no scoundrel, however. I mean, he is, but there's honor among thieves. Barts believes that anybody for any reason with the right conviction can be a pirate. That anybody with a dream to chase and something to protect is capable. So, while Barts and his crew are villains, they aren't necessarily the worst of people. Proving that even villains are capable of providing a family and home for those who don't have one.

Barts' crew consists of quite a few characters. I want to focus on 2 in particular. Milka Rayner is a 9 year old girl with no parents and no hometown. For reasons I won't go into detail about, she joins the Sweet Madonna. Milka, for the longest time on the sweet madonna, feels like she is out of place. For one, she's the only girl on board. She's not the only kid, but the other one seems to already have his place. Yet as she continues on adventures with the crew, she opens up more. She smiles more, she fights more, and she talks more. It's clear that, as naturally as she joined, she became a real part of the crew and part of its family. Milka is the rule of this manga. A slow burn interspersed with high octane action. Everything has its purpose, and eventually, it will all be revealed.

The second protagonist and focus of this manga is the guy in the title. Coco Falkeena. An 8 year old boy. Coco, like most kids his age, admires pirates. He's also an orphan, like Milka. He also gets picked up by Barts in the very beginning of the manga. Unlike Milka, Coco takes to a pirate's life pretty quickly. He was already stealing food to survive before. Now he's doing it with impunity. There's a lot I could say about Coco. He's a kid, and that fact is lost on nobody. Even when on all of the dangerous and crazy adventures, he's usually the first to get excited. The only person on board the Sweet Madonna crazier than Barts might just be Coco. Coco has relations with other pirate crews, too. It seems as if Coco was always meant to head out to sea one day. His dream of being a pirate and having a family coming true in one fell swoop. There's a lot he has to learn about the world and about being a pirate. He's a kid, naive, and willing to learn. Proving that he, too, can make a mark on history.

You'll notice that I talked a lot about family. Usually, in these pirate manga (with all of 2 examples), the word used in Japanese is “nakama.” This word means something closer to “comrade” than anything else. Full Ahead Coco doesn't use crew, comrades, or even friends when describing the characters' relationships. It's always family. A villainous group of people, even with their different stories, can still be a family. A family that defies all logic. A family that can break the chains of destiny and oppose all before them. A family found on the high seas through adventure and danger. Come hell or high water, they'll be together under the leadership of a man called crazy by all, calling them forward to new horizons befitting a profession of pirates. “Come ya scurvy dogs, and full ahead to new treasures!”