#Elbaf arc is looking to be so completely hyped for me

[1000sunnygo]

Random thoughts (collection) #3

(10/6) Law's birthday tag didn't trend in Japan this year.. but👆 was a new sight for me.

fun thing about Law's birthday is that he's one of the very few characters whose real "birth" date can be traced back. Oda came up with his concept (along with every other supernova) the same week he worked on chapter 498, which was published in late April. So we can assume Law was created some time between late March to early/mid April of 2008.

Speaking of Law's birthday, this comic got me teary eyed 🥺

(10/11) ch. 1129 (kinda?) spoiler: So chapter title and cover art having connection is a legitimate possibility. (x) This might apply to Bepo and Law cover too? HM

There's approximately 5/6 more chapters to release in 2024... I think. Not many, at all. Too early to make a comment about Elbaf arc but. I loved the latest chapter a lot.

(10/13) :re anime long break: Got a slap on the face after hyping up myself about Ginny in flashback lol it's okay I can wait a couple more months 🙊

If toei reanimates punk hazard and Dressrosa after anime egghead completes, I would have literally no reason to look forward to WIT remake LMAO

HUH so apparently "call Kamiya to voice the mob character we'd refer to as character A" trend happened in film red too! One piece under three different anime directors has been maintaining this subtle inside joke for two decades. I'm pretty sure Kamiya will be there to do the same for the WIT remake lol

And TIL kaji yuki voiced in film red, a background character? This means One Piece's cast includes the voices of nearly all of its long term rival anime series's protagonists. Goku = Dr. Kureha, Naruto = young Sabo, Ichigo = Marco, Shinichi (Detective Conan) = Usopp, Gon = Tama, Gintoki = Katakuri, Eren (AoT was originally a wsj series) = film Red's shepherd kid. Maybe Toei did it intentionally as an act of respect. Mayumi san (Luffy) on the other hand has only voiced in DragonBall among the mentioned series. Toei owns both DBZ and One Piece so there's that.

amv that's stuck in my head rn

[l-in-the-light]

Chapter 1129 commentary

Oh boy, I can't believe we're already leaving the Lego Land. Let's start from the end this time, shall we?

He looks so happy! Is he seeing a fairytale-like world? Many people speculate Elbaf will feel like a fairytale world because it spells backwards Fable :D I don't personally picture that myself, but I definitely wouldn't be opposed to it!

Japanese native speakers noticed the "ah" reaction from Luffy there, which usually means Luffy saw something or someone he recognized. I don't think Luffy ever saw Elbaf before. But he might have seen Kid Pirates (if they're trapped in this prison as well, after their defeat) or Hajrudin (why Hajrudin? Because of our sun god person, ofc :D). Or Law. Because why the fuck not and it's his birth month ffs, it's the time for him to reappear finally!!

In comparison this is how Luffy usually looks like when he visits new places (those are from Water 7 and Skypiea mostly). It's more a :O than :D

Meanwhile slight blush and big smile is how Luffy often reacts, feeling all happy, when seeing someone he knows and likes! That expression looks the closest to the one from the end of the chapter 1129, which might mean something or it might mean nothing, but I thought I would share my thoughts anyway.

The more they say it's gonna be Elbaf, the less I believe them. But the hype for Elbaf is unreal, if it ends up not being Elbaf I'm not sure how fandom will take it at this point lol. I will be still fine. I don't want another long arc without Law.

Seems someone is slipping off his character. Now we can fully see how all of this is just a roleplaying bit.

Which puts the comments of all those tiny giants into completely new perspective. They're all in on this, the sun god is the game master, and they're the challengers (well, sorta).

Despite playing along they clearly want to get out of there, so perhaps they're not willing participants in this D&D roleplaying ;) they probably had no choice.

He's reeeeally into that. He would make a great (if slightly too immersed) game master.

Someone has a slight god syndrome here... which makes me wonder... we know in One Piece world there were beings even more gigantic than the Giants - the Ancient Giants like Oars. To them, the world must have felt the same way it does to our sun god here: like a doll house. I always wondered how they might have felt about other races in the world. Normal humans probably looked like polly pocket sized toys. Were the Ancient Giants once the enemies of humankind? If that's the case, how did humankind win against them and set itself free, I wonder?

Careful there, we're almost breaking the 4th wall again, haha.

Someone got so immersed his first thought was "wait, I didn't make this" haha. I wonder if it means he could have made a thunder clouds himself as well, even if just some fake ones :D

Now it's time to reveal who our sun god is. Apparently it's Rodo, a giant who is part of Hajrudin's pirate crew of giants, which joined the grand fleet of our Strawhats. Rodo seems to have been against the idea and doesn't like to serve "tiny humans". But this is curious, because Hajrudin and his crew used to work under Buggy for his delivery business. Perhaps Rodo isn't the smartest and fell for Buggy's visual trick to appear bigger than he actually is ;)

And this is our culprit. Tekking already figured it out before this chapter even came out and I'm amused to no end that the high heels turned out to be the key evidence :D

Another mystery sort of solved. They got carried by a crow pet of Rodo here (wherever "here" is) and apparently they went through sleeping mist belt, whatever that is (there are other belts besides the calm belts?!). I know it sounds like an ass-pull and it sort of is, but I guess it wouldn't be called a "belt" for no reason, right? So this is a new puzzle piece for the worldbuilding, even if it sounds like a poor excuse instead lol.

Rodo's reaction to "but the giant warrior pirates were guiding them" sounds a bit like "so they shouldn't arrive here". It really doesn't sound like they're on Elbaf, but they're probably at least somewhat close to it? Rodo did know what Dorry and Broggy were up to, at the very least.

Despite not agreeing with Hajrudin's decision, he knows all of Strawhats names and calls them with a cutesy honorific, which kinda proves he is a fan of them and heard quite a lot about them as well, lol. Rodo is kinda a funny guy, ngl. Btw the "taso" honorific is apparently one of otaku lingo trends in Japan nowadays. Old guys call young characters by "tan" instead of "chan" (those of you who read Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles are probably well acquainted with the "tan", thanks to "Kuro-tan". I had no idea though that Fye used old guy's way of addressing him lol).

It's based on a silly thing really, "n" and "so" look almost the same in hiragana and sometimes Japanese mispronounce things on purpose because they think it's funny. That's how "tan" became "taso". There's nothing more to it, just a nerdy linguistic joke. That reminds me that no matter how internationally popular One Piece has became, it always stays Japanese at heart and is mainly targeted at Japanese audience.

There's also the fact that Rodo apparently also speaks like a samurai, but kinda clumsily, like he forgets about doing it sometimes. He seems to like samurai culture, he also carries a katana sword. So Rodo is not only a D&D nerd, he's apparently also an otaku. And this gets dangerously close to representing Japanese fandom of One Piece. Rodo might as well be a representation of an otaku kidnapping Strawhats and playing with them like figurines heh. A fake sun god, definitely :D

I gotta say I'm amused that his sorcerer's staff is just a wired net, meant to help him catch those that run away lol. We also learn that this place is a detention center for the giants! So the people in the Lego diorama are indeed giants despite being small. My bet is still on them having been shrinked somehow to fit in there!

"That way is another dead end", says Rodo curiously enough, so maybe Strawhats didn't manage to break out to freedom by destroying that wall, after all?

We saw that the corridor before had many other doors arranged alongside it. If it's a detention center, then it's possible there are other "prisons" behind each door, maybe each with different theme? One is a Lego fantasy castle, maybe there are some sci-fi realms as well, for example?

And this is how the whole room looks like. Makes me again think back to the Ancient Giants and the huge gates leading to Enies Lobby, Impel Down and Marineford. Could that place have been the ancient detention center, if we go by this analogy? Or perhaps an ancient temple, if we go by how Rodo called this room?

It somehow reminds me of the picture from Enel's side story. Especially that snake that looks like it's folded up like a paper fan. In Enel's story that picture below the three moon people looks like a bunch of folded up snakes as well. Btw do you know that it's speculated to be the appearance of Pluton? :D a bunch of huge snakes that will fill up a battle ship of some kind.

The creatures on the right on the wall represents Poseidon (Neptunians), and the sun like object on the top of the wall is Uranus, with 16 swirly beams coming out of it (we see only half of them, more or less), and is powered up by Mother Flame or something akin to that (the flame-like thing in the centre).

We finally know how the Ear God rabbit looked like! RIP XD

Luffy seems to like this little diorama. Apparently Japanese readers think that Luffy is a bit of a nerd himself, he likes robots, he went really bonkers over Sanji's germa suit (on their way to Wano), in One Piece Red we see him build a tower mound with stones so he likes to "build stuff". He also doesn't like to destroy other people's things, especially those that look cool. In Egghead he informed Shaka that he wasn't the one who broke the headphones, kinda expecting to be accused to be the reason why they're malfunctioning. Luffy might seem like he doesn't care if he destroys things, but if he thinks something is cool, he would want it to stay intact :) I'm sure Rodo will appreciate the fact that Luffy finds his Lego city so cool :D

Someone wanted the adventure to last a bit longer. Can't blame you Luffy, I also wouldn't want to leave the Lego city!

One mystery solved! Apparently Luffy can now control Gear 4 to such an extent that it doesn't exhaust him and that it only extends to his hand or leg, instead of covering his full body like before. He learned from his mistakes, so now it doesn't eat up his whole haki! Law would be proud of him :)

Back to Uncanny Valley. Nami tossing away a map? I know it's not much of a treasure, but I don't remember Nami ever throwing anything she found like that before. It's kinda confusing to me.

Something I might have missed from previous chapter. Someone pointed out that Zoro's sense of direction is so bad that even if he followed a noise he would still not arrive at correct destination. They might have a point, lol. We should never underestimate how bad Zoro's sense of direction is.

Seeing how we're already three chapters in and there's no progress on the mystery behind some oddities in Strawhats behaviours, I have to revise my theory a little. I think trolls impersonating them seems to be less likely now, but the inconsistencies remain a fact. Which is interesting, what might have caused them?

Zoro's case is particularly curious, because his lack of sense of direction is a real life disorder. It's called developmental topographical disorientation and it can affect people even in environment they're familiar with, like around their home or neighborhood. They can get lost despite walking the same path every day! Some studies even point out it can be genetically passed down in families, which might explain why Zoro has it; it got passed down in his family ever since Ryuuma, who was infamous for getting lost easily too.

If Zoro suddenly gained some resemblance of a sense of direction then whatever caused the inconsistencies in Strawhats behaviour must work on genetical level. Maybe it's also a consequence of drinking the Green Fairy. It has "green" in it's name, and so far all sus green substances we saw in One Piece have one thing in common: lineage factors! Think of SAD liquid that was green, the liquid in which the clones in Germa's lab were kept in, and the green blood of Seraphims which Vegapunk explained to us contained DNA of current devil fruit users. It's not impossible that Green Fairy somehow also has "lineage factors" that temporarily affect behaviour of anyone who drinks it. It might not have to be only about hallucinations. I have no idea why that would be included in the alcohol, but I already speculated it might be some equivalement of "gift from gods". It could also explain why Giants shared it with the Strawhats, I doubt they drink hallucinatory drinks on a daily basis, without any special occasion. But since they saw Luffy in the form of Sun God Nika, that could potentially call for a celebraton in their eyes.

Rodo calls himself Taiyoushin which means sun god (as opposed to taiyou no kami, Nika's title). Amaterasu is also called taiyoushin in Japanese. One of her attributes was yata no kagami mirror (later became one of three sacred regalia of shinto), and Rodo's shield in the picture above kinda resembles it visually. Interesting!

We also have to finally adress the animal skull Rodo is wearing. We saw it actually quite a number of times before! In Drum Island's castle and in Long Arms Tribe's place on the walls, on top of the houses and ships of Elbaf, and on the head of one of the God Knights. We still don't have any sort of answer for it, but it's worth noting that this theme is ongoing for quite some time now. I guess it's not the time yet to give us any answers. For now all I can tell is this: in One Piece's universe there was once a sun god that looked like a demon wearing an animal skull. Was it a true sun god or yet another fake, who knows?

Last but not least, seems some people are disappointed with the identity of the sun god (Rodo from Giants Pirates). I can't say I can relate to that. Yes, I also wanted it to be something bigger than this, a proper threat, a true horror Strawhats would have to face. But also like, it was only three chapters long, I would lie if I said it was super hyped in that direction. On the contrary, the chapters constantly played with our expectiations and used twists at every corner, so the answer to the mystery being something not really that sinister is quite fitting in that context. I also think the ride was entertaining, I don't remember when was the last time I had so much fun just trying to figure out things and paying extra attention to smallest details! Also, Rodo is kinda easy to like, even though feeding humans to beasts is definitely still, well, quite sinister.

But who knows, maybe the Uncanny Valley adventure isn't over yet, there might be still few more chapters of that :D though Redon's hints for this week's chapter suggest otherwise. But I'm aware they're also often just pure crap.

But he did hint about bounties going up. Newspapers hitting the press finally? Strawhats posters hanging around somewhere?? Ugh I'm having way too many thoughts about this! I hate those teasers, why do I even check them up?!

If you're curious where I got some of the ideas and inspirations for things I wrote in this post, I leave you with a link to a youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Lpu0q1W4g It's a good channel btw, it's always helpful to get a Japanese native speaker's perspective on things :)

[tae-rambles]

since this is the end of the Egghead arc and we're heading to Elbaf, here are some of my predictions, hopes, expectations and just general thoughts and feelings i have for the next arc:

firstly, i'm not sure what exactly to expect for Usopp during the Elbaf arc but i have very high hopes for it

next, something that is pretty much guaranteed is Robin's reunion with Saul and her seeing the books from Ohara. i'm so hyped for it and i expect it to hit me in the feels. i also wonder if Robin chooses to read some of the books. on one hand, her reading them would be like paying respect to the scholars' efforts to save them. on the other, however, Robin wants to discover the truth by sailing with the Strawhats ( - she rejected Rayleigh's offer to tell her in Sabaody). yes, the scholars' research isn't complete and so she would still have to reach Laugh Tale to learn the whole truth, but we also know that perspective matters ( - Rayleigh said she might arrive at a different conclusion than the Roger Pirates did) and learning incomplete truths might affect it. so what i think she's going to do is only look into the legends about Nika since she heard Vegapunk declare that Luffy's new form resembles the Sun God and she wants to help her captain. which leads me to my other prediction:

Luffy will learn about Nika and the truth about his devil fruit. he will be opposed to it at first because he's Monkey D Luffy, the man who will become the King of the Pirates, he's not a god nor a hero, dammit! but will relent in favor of learning more about his abilities to become stronger. he may also undergo a mini training arc similar to his time in the Udon prison in Wano.

next, what i hope to see is the dumbass captain trio reunion. i loved their dynamic in Wano, it was so fun! but this time, the atmosphere will be much different. (yes, i believe Kid is alive, this is One Piece we're talking about.) i have some thoughts about that:

the answer to how Bepo and Law would end up on Elbaf is simple - it's the closest location to Winner Island that the log pose points to. (my other theory is Bepo took them to Zou since Zunesha was last seen at Wano and i wouldn't be surprised if they left in the direction to Laugh Tale to prepare for the final war or something idk) they would be welcomed and taken care of at Elbaf since Law was said to be one of the two who defeated Big Mom, the Elbafians' sworn enemy. when he sees Luffy again, Law can ask him to team up against Blackbeard and to get his crew back if they were captured. i'm hoping he simply asks for help instead of forming a formal alliance because it would imply that Law officially accepts Luffy as his friend ( - which Luffy realizes because he's observant like that). but it would also make sense for Law to not demand they call it an alliance since, from Law's perspective, as Blackbeard put it, he can't call himself a pirate captain without a ship and a crew so he's not in a position to form alliances. Luffy will of course agree because they're friends and he will do anything for his friends.

there are two options for how Kid gets onto the island. either Dive turns out to be a half-fishman (a theory i believe) and it's her who saves the crew but it would be hard for her to do it alone, especially with her small stature. the second option, is that a/some giant(s) take pity on the Kid Pirates and save them in secret as a thank you for defeating Big Mom. however, i'm not sure how the interaction with Luffy would go. Kid will be even more pissed at Shanks and surely desire revenge (on Dorry and Broggy, too). and although Luffy did express his desire to fight Shanks, there are no bad feelings between them - quite the opposite. so yeah, i'm nervous to see how that's gonna go

other than that, i'm hoping for all the Strawhats to do some battling since Elbaf is the land of warriors which is a great opportunity to train

i'm also hoping we get a flashback to the night on Egghead so we get to know what happened and how Robin got so injured (my guess is she fought a seraphim but i want to know the details!)

i also want to know where's Stussy but i hope that will be covered in ch 1124

and just to cover all my bases: Bonney will join the Straw Hat Pirates (trust me, Oda told me so)

that's all that comes to mind right now. sorry if it's too incoherent and rambly but that's the nature of this blog (tae-rambles) so... eh?