#mysterious cities of gold

[theshadowbendersblog]

*Big One Piece Spoiler ahead*

I'm currently watching this show which aired in 1982 and ran for like a year, called "Mysterious Cities of Gold". It's quite an old series and very hard to find. Over the past couple of years many fans tried to upload it on various sites all over the internet but for some reason or the other, the show was taken out only a few weeks or a couple of months after the show was uploaded. Even if you try to google the show, most of the sites will tell you it was only one season but in reality it was 4 seasons. If anyone is up for it, I can provide links if it's still available. I was lucky enough to have been able to download all 4 seasons of it.

The show is interesting because it has so many similarities with one piece and i think Oda took some inspiration from it because

1. Back when the first season aired, Oda was probably just a kid

2. It even aired on Japanese television soon after, with the name "Taiyou no ko Estaban" (son of the sun Estaban)

The show is about the protagonist Estaban who lives in Barcelona, somewhat parallel to Luffy. Estaban can also command the sun and make skies clear even during the strongest of storms or rainfalls.

There are 3 more characters who run parallel with some op characters, Zia, an Incan girl who can read old and rare Incan texts and thus the Spanish govt. was always after her and in several instances they kidnapped her to find out what the incan scripts said about the cities of gold (El Dorado). She's parallel to Robin's character. There's a guy named Tao who's a descendant of an old advanced civilization called Mu who were known as the people of the Sun. They were famous for harvesting and using the power of the sun and they were technologically advanced (again somewhat parallel to the ancient advanced civilization in op). He's just like Usopp, good at fixing things and very crafty. In fact it was him who first provided the team with their first ship called Solaris. It had solar panels instead of sails and it had the power to run the ship 100 times faster than a normal ship running on sails. And just like Going merry, it got destroyed in an event. The second mode of transport they got was not a ship but a plane that looks like a bird.

Estaban was saved by a Spanish govt. navigator when he was just a baby. Ten years before the current timeline, the navigator named Mendoza (somewhat parallel to Shanks, since he uses one handed sword techniques and saved Estaban in the sea just like shanks saved kid Luffy) spotted a wrecked ship on a stormy night and the only survivors were Estaban and his father. The man hands Estaban over to Mendoza and then he was washed away. Ever since, Mendoza had been keeping an eye on Estaban. Estaban's father also handed Estaban a medallion on his neck that turns out to be one of the 2 keys to open 7 cities of gold that is scattered all around the world.

The story goes like this, many years ago there existed 2 advanced civilizations, Mu and Atlantis. They fought a huge war against each other over power resources. Alas they ended up destroying each other. Later some survivors of the Mu empire built 7 cities of gold all around the world where they hid tonnes of gold and several ancient technologies for the betterment of the world, and handed down 2 medallions to 2 generations of families. And as time passed, the medallions kept getting passed on among certain families and one ended up with Estaban and the other ended up with Zia. The high priest of the first city of gold (turns out he was estaban's father) said that the advanced civilization was so powerful and so technologically advanced that the survivors of the Mu empire knew that any adult who gets their hands on these powerful resources and tonnes of gold, would surely get greedy and fall to the bad side. And if the adults started fighting for these powerful technologies, they would end up using these advanced technologies again to destroy the world.

This is where it gets important for guessing what one piece could be. The high priest said the cities of gold and the keys to their doors were wished to have fallen into the hands of kids, because a child's innocence and wonder would never let the advanced technologies be used for bad purposes, like greed for power and war.

We are now aware of how there existed an ancient advanced civilization in one piece too, that created cool robots like the one in Egghead island. And to think the robot is so advanced that even a man like Dr. Vegapunk couldn't get it activated or figure out what fuel does it run on.

What if, one piece is a child's toy? A toy that children of the 800 years old ancient civilization built and played with!! This is something Oda could do, a gag ! And he simply doesn't do gags, he makes things so silly, yet so meaningful. Where, if this theory is taken into account, and we consider that the one piece is indeed a toy that the children of the ancient advanced civilization played with, at the same time it could also turn out that the toy itself was so advanced that it was like a powerful technology for the normal humankind.

To support my theory even further, back when Roger and his crew visited Laugh-tale and figured out what one piece is, Roger laughed and even said something close to "I came at a wrong time, this is not my time to reveal or use the one piece". It's something that people are so serious about that they wanna turn the whole world down. But only someone with the innocence of a child can actually use the one piece, since no adult can value a toy as much as a child can. Which is why if recalled, op has always shown how boys like Luffy, Chopper, Usopp and the boys from Punk hazard are so fascinated with robots and cool mechanical machineries. And the term "man's romance" is always stressed at times like these.

If anyone has seen Ben 10 alien force and recalls that one episode where a mysterious cube shaped alien technology was mimicking anyone who attacked it, like Gwen, Kevin, their powers, and even transformed into every one of Ben's aliens and it seemed like a totally destructive and advanced weapon. But it turns out, it was just a child's toy from some higher dimension and the child's mother later came to earth and picked up the toy, saying that her kid had dropped the toy somewhere back when they came to the lower dimension on the earth, for a family picnic. Or to hang out or something like that.

I feel this little Ben 10 alien force scene is a coincidental yet strong correspondence with the theory i have proposed above. In short what I'm guessing is, there's a huge chance that in a story like one piece where Oda likes to just mess around like what children would like the most, with cartoonish art style and funny gags, where he not only shows us serious stuff, but never fails to make us laugh with his cartoonish composition of manga panels and the over all story, the one piece could very well be just a toy, like a robot or some sort of weapon or a machinery, which to normal humankind, would look like a powerful weapon and the adults will surely try to obtain it for their selfish desires. Whereas, only a child's innocence could make the utmost use of it.

[serialadoptersbracket]

Round 2, Match 55: Mendoza vs. Soundwave

Submitted kids:

Mendoza: Esteban, Zia and Tao

Soundwave: Rumble, Frenzy, Laserbeak, Ravage, Ratbat, Garboil, Enemy, Wingthing, Beastbox, Squalktalk, Glit, Howlback, Slugfest, Overkill, Sundor, and Autoscout but there's bound to be more I'm forgetting.

Propaganda under the cut!

Mendoza:

1. “Mendoza did not exactly *begin* as father material, what with him being a character with a very grey morality at first and both a help to the children and someone they couldn't trust fully, but his entire arc in the first season is him becoming a better person. None of the kids are biologically his but he just went and unofficially adopted all three of them. Their story is inextricably bound up with the show's story.

He first met Esteban when Esteban was a baby and was handed to him in the middle of a storm at sea (then Esteban's father seemingly died in said storm), but because Mendoza was young and interested in gold he let a local (?) church raise the child. He then met Esteban again twelve years later, on the same day he would be kidnapping Zia (for money, because Zia knows how to read quipus that the Spanish hope will tell the way to the Inca's gold) (the show takes place in the early 16th century). So he begins by kidnapping a child and manipulating another to hide in a ship and cross an ocean. They all meet Tao later, and this one is wary of him too at first, but he ends up winning their trust while bettering himself.

He's the only parental figure these kids have: Esteban's father was lost at sea after his mother was killed, Zia spends most of the first season looking for her father only for him to get killed an episode or two after their reunion, and Tao lost both his parents years ago. In the beginning of the show he's completely using them to find a legendary city of gold, and even admits it, but as the story goes he's caring more and more for them and puts himself in mortal danger just to help them, when just running away would have been much more beneficial to him. In later seasons this pattern keeps up and he's not even a grey character anymore, he's just their dad who's scheming and plotting sometimes. With the cities of gold having been revealed to be monetarily worthless he wouldn't have any reason to still accompany them, but he loves them so he stays with them. He's much more of a dad than Esteban's birth father (who miraculously reappears but keeps getting pushed out of the way by the plot), he's teaching them stuff and protecting them and cheering them on and worrying about them and helping them every step of the way. He makes dad jokes. When random people ask if Zia is his daughter he says yes, and he would say the same for Tao (and for Esteban too but he's hung up about Esteban's "real" father being alive and a nice guy).”

2. “He took Esteban on his journey because he needed his medallion, Zia because his commander requested it, and Tao because he was useful. But then he fought so much at their side that he pretty much betrayed the Spanish army and everything else to protect those kids. They didn't like him much at first, but eventually grew to love him in return, especially in later seasons.”

3. “Sly Spaniard looking for some gold in the New World accidentally adopts the three children he more or less uses to find the Mysterious Cities of Gold, but he also cares about them and accidentally starts caring about them so much that by the end of the first season he realises how much he would miss them if they weren't there.”

Soundwave:

1. “This is a dude who stores smaller dudes in his boob and he usually launches them out at high speeds to commit crimes. Fandom loves to headcanon them as a dad and his horde of kids and pets.”

2. “Forgot buzzsaw (yellow bird) lol

Bro really do be adopting”

3. “#he literally is a single mother of like 18 and they all live inside of his chest #and the only time he gets close to showing emotion is when something happens to one of them”

[love-me-some-mcog]

Mysterious Cities of Gold S01E25

He flourished his cape, there's no going back

[fictional-library-tournament]

Prelims round 1, poll 8:

Propaganda

The Library, The Medoran Chronicles by Lynette Noni:

Sentient building! Is literally a place of learning, both through read knowledge and real life experiences; has various doors to different locations and worlds, as well as specific areas inside the library for physical learning. The Library can manipulate space-time within itself, and paintings can easily become doorways to pocket dimensions.

Badalom, The Mysterious Cities of Gold:

Badalom is the second City of Gold of the series. It has an archive of blueprints of different machines made by the ancient Kingdom of Mu/Hiva. It also has a factory that builds flying golden condors.

The Library of the Unwritten, Hell's Library series by AJ Hackwith:

None

The Palanaeum, The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson:

None

The Stormlight Archive, The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson:

Super cool archive! The information is stored in carved crystals that vibrate in specific patterns when infused with magic to reveal messages. It was meant to preserve information stored for thousands of years after books in the main archive has turned to dust. (The art is by @lamaery on Tumblr who gave permission for me to upload this as long as they get credit.)

Sazed's Copperminds, Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson:

Copper bracers called copperminds that contain many, many forbidden books. They are accessible only to Sazed, a scholar specialising in religion and also a member of the Skaa rebellion.

‼️MAJOR SPOILERS‼️

At the end of the trilogy, the world is literally about the end, and Sazed becomes a god and uses the knowledge in his copperminds to fix/remake the world.

[crazydreamercycle]

Inktober Day 3 - Path

This is a stupidly niche crossover

[indigenous-character-tournament]

Zia is canonically Inca. Thank you @yana125 for the image submission!

Knuckle Thrash/Harley is canonically Indigenous. Her tribe is not specified. Thank you @animation-recaps-by-sean for the image submission!

[frozzrossross]

Oh fuck it, we ball!!

...henlo mcog hivemind @az-is-back @returnofahsoka @yana125

I dunno if y'all actually know me, but I'm one of the mcog server goblins along with Stebs (@perlement but it's not letting me tag them, rude) and have been since s2, but not been that active on Tumblr because I am s t u p i d.

Anyway, I've been cooking up an absolutely insane au since s2 aired that got properly sorted out around s3's airing, and started to make a megadoc about it but lost it :(( but then! I fell back into Mcog Autism (mcogtism, if you will) because I told my new friend @puckywucky that one of our teachers looks like a Twink Mendoza and I'VE FINALLY FINISHED IT (kinda) IT ONLY TOOK HALF A DECADE

It is an Insane au that I've kinda become more obsessed over than actual canon mcog, featuring aliens, radiation poisoning, and at least 602 thousand Geneva Convention violations. Stebs has finally convinced me to release it into the wild and if y'all like it, then let me know! It is,,, a Lot and also So Fucking Stupid. I am John Insane Cringe, your honor!

It's not 100% polished (still missing the character sections) but the google doc for it is here! click on that link for 40k words of Pure Shit but occasionally such incredible lines like:

[goodcartoondadshowdown]

Mendoza vs. Garmadon

[condor-solaris]

Lana

When I drew her (why the hell did it take 4.5 hours?!) I remembered how as a child I tried to make a whistle from the pod of a yellow acacia tree, but I never be succeeded

[miaqc1]

Two Sun Medallions Esteban Zia in Pixel Art by @YunoGasai96 on Twitter. A drawing I ordered. 

[jasminxgalaxy]

Older anime apreciation power hour! My faves are: Tico and Friends (1994), the Mysterious cities of Gold (1983), Nadia- the secret of blue water (1991), Gundam Seed (2002), Saber Rider and the Star Sherrifs (1987), Cat's Eye (1981), Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (1998)

[yana125]

So I reread this post of mine and there I said that Zia's experiences should've radicalized her more to the level of her getting her hands on a knife or a rifle later in the story. And since I'm watching Vinland Saga right now, it would've been fun seeing Zia reaching Vinland Saga season one Thorfinn 'the gremlin child' levels of radical.

[love-me-some-mcog]

Mysterious Cities of Gold S01E30

Yes, what is it?

[fictional-library-tournament]

Prelims round 1, poll 20

Propaganda

Justice Strauss' library, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket:

Library that saved an orphan from an arranged marriage, owned by a kind and well-meaning judge.

Golden City of Tseila, Mysterious Cities of Gold:

The City of Gold (whose proper name is only revealed in season 4) holds a copy of "every text that has been written since the invention of writing". It's difficult to fact-check, but if it's true, then it ought to beat every other library in the world.

Also the City in general is pretty neat and iconic. It can fire sunbeams at flying ships. I say, if the Library of Alexandria could fire sunbeams, maybe it'd still be intact.

Tseila is the first City of Gold of the series. Its library holds a copy of every document since humans could write.

Men of Letters Bunker, Supernatural:

It may not be the most impressive library in this poll, it may not even be considered a library, I'm not really sure. But it is from Supernatural and this is the Supernatural website so it deserves the win anyway. Nepotism

Barnaby B. Busterfield III Memorial Public Library, Between the Lions:

The best library in all of children's media

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NpRmCXTdlE8

[crazydreamercycle]

Pretty happy with the cape

[yourwizardofaus]

Early anime!

The Mysterious Cities Of Gold (1982) was originally released in Japan as Esteban, Child Of The Sun and in France as Les Mystérieuses Cités d’Or.