#op ch105

[salteytakesonmanga]

Someone on this site (EDIT: it was this post! Thanks for helping me find it again!) pointed out that this must be TERRIFYING for pirates entering the Grand Line now. You’re about to start your adventure and the first thing you see, before you’ve even touched the waters of the world’s greatest ocean, is the mark of an Emperor. The sort of thing other Emperors put up at the entrance to islands in their territory, but Luffy has put it on the entrance to the Grand Line itself. It’s almost like he’s claiming the entire Grand Line as his.

You look up at this and a list of all of his crimes/accomplishments runs through your head. He put his mark on a fucking island whale! The thing’s covered in horrifying scars! Did he fight this thing? Did he tame it? Is this Emperor Straw Hat Luffy’s fucking PET?! You’re gonna challenge THIS GUY for the One Piece?

I love it

[salteytakesonmanga]

“We’ll just sail around again” is the most incredible statement, considering only one other crew has ever managed it even once. But I love the idea of Luffy just looping the Grand Line over and over again, as many times as he wants, because there’s always something new to see and a new adventure to be had.

[salteytakesonmanga]

In another story, finding a new Log Pose would become a huge side plot that consumed months of time with a super formulaic quest, but Oda was like “lol nah.”

He wanted to show this little slice of the crew’s personalities, make readers freak out over potential disaster, get the laugh, and then carry on with the plot.

Also this is one of the few and final times we actually see Nami’s scar from where she carved Arlong’s mark off.

[salteytakesonmanga]

I love Oda’s simultaneous embarrassment at being caught making a stupid joke and his delight at readers finding them.

[salteytakesonmanga]

I COMPLETELY FORGOT HE SAID THIS!? Damn… DAMN!

This is kind of blowing my mind.

Has Crocus been looking for signs of Joy Boy in every crew that passes through the Twin Capes? Luffy barely used his gomu-gomu powers in front of Crocus, he mostly just looked weirdly durable. Would Crocus have recognized him by the powers if he’d seen them? What “strange air” did he get from Luffy? Did he recognize the hat? Did he think Luffy and Roger were similar?

Sometimes this sort of foreshadowing seems like a bit of a stretch, like it’s Oda just being cryptic for the hell of it, or fans grasping at straws. But then I also recall that Oda has always had the ending for the series very clearly in mind, and he’s told every editor he’s worked with what that ending is. So I’m guessing stuff like this, that connects directly to Laugh Tale and the truth behind the One Piece, has changed very little as the story has evolved.

[salteytakesonmanga]

We’re only seeing the Grand Line from the perspective of a pirate crew, but I’m so curious about the way the world works for normal people who live here. Are there Log Poses that can guide you west rather than east? Aside from an Eternal Pose, is there any way to jump into a different route? What’s the relationship between islands that are next to each other in the Grand Line like? Can people who live on islands that are close to each other but in different routes just sail between them using a log pose as reference but without following it? Is there trade between islands in different routes? Is there a sort of shared culture or awareness among islands in the same route, or is the Grand Line so difficult to traverse that all the different island countries are basically isolated? Are there islands that aren’t on any of the seven routes?

Oda’s explanations raise a lot of questions about how a world like this would actually work, but because our point of view is basically locked to pirates who live outside normal society we never really get a clear picture of how the average person lives.

Apropos of nothing, here’s how to actually use a real compass. And this is how declinations work, which is more or less the same mechanic that makes a log pose work. As usual, Oda slipped in a semi-plausible real world explanation for how things work in the world of One Piece.

[salteytakesonmanga]

ＲＡＦＴＥＬ 💀 In the translator’s defense, this makes perfect sense. “Tale” is usually written with a longer vowel. The manga “Fairy Tail” writes it “teiru” and the standard spelling for romanizing “fairy tale” is “te-ru.”

I am SO CURIOUS if other people know the name Laugh Tale, or if Roger’s old crew kept it secret. We don’t see the name mentioned much until the New World, so it’s hard to tell if it’s general knowledge. Roger was the one to name the island when he was there, so only people who were there with him or who were told by someone who was there would know. The existence of the island itself seems like a mix of fact and legend, which is enough for everyone to act on. On Zou it’s pointed out that Laugh Tale is not the end of the Grand Line, but the island at the end sends you to search for Laugh Tale, so Crocus telling them this is actually a huge clue, and simultaneously kind of misleading.

…or maybe Oda wrote this, changed his mind about how he wanted it to go, and then retconned it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[salteytakesonmanga]

This is the first time Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday do NOT have their pinkies up.

[salteytakesonmanga]

For years - DECADES! - I accepted this explanation without question.

And then one day when I was on a walk it dawned on me, literally. YOU CAN NAVIGATE PERFECTLY WELL WITH THE SUN AND STARS.

In the world of One Piece, which lacks good maps, it would obviously be more challenging to get to a specific place, but it would be insanely easy to just head East until you hit something.

The whole shtick of the Grand Line - the calm belts, the weird magnetic fields, the set route - are all basically a narrative gimmick to trap the cast in a limited setting. Once they’re in this limited setting a lot of the contrived encounters feel less contrived and more of a natural consequence of how the world works. It’s totally arbitrary, but it’s the consistency, and even the consistency of the unpredictability, that makes it work.

If all you needed to do to find the One Piece was just climb the Red Line at Reverse Mountain and see what’s on the other side it wouldn’t be able to stay hidden for 800 years, and this would have been a much shorter - and more boring - story.

[salteytakesonmanga]

I love this stupid pair so much. Just the whole idea of them.

Why an otter? Why a vulture? Why were they paired together? Were they recruited for being random bloodthirsty animals, or were they trained for this by someone within Baroque Works? And then the outfits!

This makes no sense and it brings me joy

[salteytakesonmanga]

Crocus is being tricky here. Is the One Piece on Laugh Tale? Yes. Is One Piece on the island at the end of the Grand Line? No, because the island at the end isn’t Laugh Tale. But he also just said that Laugh Tale was the island at the end of the Grand Line. But could he have meant the island known as the “last island” isn’t the TRUE last island?

This is like a riddle.

[salteytakesonmanga]

Go awayyyyy nobody likes yooouuuu

Okay but seriously, this suggests that Morgan may actually be having a thought. His son just told him to go to hell, and who knows what else. He’s lost all possibility of returning to the Marines after devoting so many years of his life to chase those goals. Recall that the symbol of the Marines is a seagull, which Morgan also has written on his jaw (in German.) Now, without anyone else to bully or order around, looking up at the seagulls, what sort of person does Morgan find himself to be?

Not that I care, because fuck this guy. But it’s an interesting moment of potential introspection that Oda gave to this character.

[salteytakesonmanga]

Running list of damages to the Going Merry

Johnny busted up the deck, and then Luffy made it worse fighting him

Whipstaff broken trying to enter the Grand Line

Luffy breaking through the deck when Zoro pulled him back on board

Figurehead broken

Luffy ripped the main mast off