#skypiea has always been one of my favorite arcs

[symbologic]

Recently saw a discussion on Twitter about why Skypiea gets more hate in the West than in the East

The easy answer is: Blame dudebros and powerscalers who care more about fights than about story (to which they will argue arcs like Impel Down and Marineford were FULL of story), or privileged people feeling uncomfy about the anti-colonialist themes (even though, let's be real, those themes are probably lost on the average Western reader :/)

But Skypiea hate in the West wasn't always a thing. At the time it was being released, most English-speaking fans who were keeping up with OP scanlations and K-F fansubs genuinely enjoyed it.

I honestly think part of the Skypiea hate has to do with a trend we've seen over the past decade, where Western audiences are so, so quick to label certain story elements as "filler" without considering their thematic importance and how it ties into the story the author wants to tell.

Basically, Western audiences have become obsessed with hyper-optimized, fast-paced storytelling that leaves little room to breathe

If the people and politics of an arc are beyond the scope or interest of the story's main antagonists, it's suddenly dismissed as filler that detracts from "more important" things

This attitude is not limited to One Piece alone.

[beanghostprincess]

Something I adore when it comes to Sanuso is that their relationship canonically has a type of development we don't pay much attention to. We do talk about their remarkable scenes together but not the differences between them and the time they take place.

When they meet they do not get along. Like. At all. They start yelling at each other and arguing and honestly? It makes so much sense keeping in mind their personalities and differences. They just don't click.

Then Alabasta comes and Sanji returns Usopp his goggles. It's not a grand gesture, but it's intimate and nice and they are crewmates, after all, so of course he would do it. Sanji is just kind like that and he cares so much for each of them, so he gives. And I don't think Usopp is used to being taken care of like this, so he takes. Also, we already see them interact as friends, so we can say they are a family.

Now this is when the huge development starts taking place. Because even if their dynamic of constantly arguing and personalities clashing, Sanji sacrifices himself for Usopp (and Nami <3) when the fight against Enel happens. In fact, Sanji and Usopp spend all of Skypiea together, basically, and despite the comedic banter, Sanji seems to be keeping an eye on Usopp constantly. Worrying. And it's not only from Sanji's POV, because Usopp also keeps clinging onto Sanji and looking after him so he doesn't do anything stupid (like almost killing himself getting electrocuted, thank you).

So we've established not only a friendship, but a bond strong enough for Sanji to protect him in instinct. Although it's not like Sanji cares much about his own well-being for self-sacrifice to be considered a privilege, he would do it for anyone, but!! The way in which they show it on screen and portray their relationship and how Usopp is actively worried about him too makes it seem like they want you to focus on them.

We see a bit of them throughout the show but my favorite thing is how they go from not being able to stand each other to Sanji kicking their captain so he doesn't tell Usopp to leave the crew. He doesn't take any sides because the fight isn't his anyway and he is aware of what they need to do in the end, but Sanji also understands Usopp better than anybody else and his favoritism at this point is so damn obvious it hurts. He doesn't only hit Luffy but is obviously more affected than the rest of them by Usopp leaving. He stays with him during all of Enies Lobby and supports him constantly. He gives him what he needs, space, but being close enough to watch how he's doing. He offers him some type of alliance. It's not only "I'll do what you can't and you'll do what I can't" but "You trust me and I trust you". And we know he means it in a way for Usopp to trust in his abilities and to also trust the crew in general, but it feels so... Intimate that it's more of an "I get you. I understand" than anything else.

Then it becomes even more painful but horribly obvious how close they are, because Sanji loses Usopp during Sabaody and the scene is just so damn focused on them only (ft Brook at first. I love him). Sanji's desperation to protect Usopp and sacrifice himself for him and Usopp refusing to let him do it because he won't escape without him...

It's the little things that make their relationship so well-written. It's not only the constant parallels but also the subtle development they have. Their relationship goes through so much.

And then they barely have any scenes together post-timeskip but at least we got a picture of them stargazing together during the Marineford arc so that's something--

Although we can never forget how Usopp still trusts Sanji to protect him because during Punk Hazard he is always relieved when he sees Sanji's face (even though it's Nami) and because during Wano Usopp just assumes Sanji is going to be the one protecting him. So we might not have much of them now, but their development hasn't been for nothing.

[sanjisboyfie]

❔[NAME] WIKI - ALABASTA ARC ENDS

realized i left it out of my a/n last update but, after every major arc in one piece, there will be a "[name] wiki" that will just highlight information that might have been missed/not so obviously stated about [name] as well as bonus infomration on relationships, fun facts, etc!!! anyway, enjoy this little filler update before skypiea <333

link to original fanfic where thsi wiki is based from :D

full name: [REDACTED] D. [NAME]

age: 20, departed from foosha village at 17 — it’s been three years since then

affiliations:

— [REDACTED] Pirates ERROR LOADING

— [REDACTED] ERROR LOADING

— connection with Shanks/Red Hair Pirates in some way

— [REDACTED] Pirates, temporary member, mutual gain

— Straw Hat Pirates

epithet: [REDACTED]

The Cursed Orphan

birthday: [xx/xx] ← this is your own birthday LOL

height: 6’5

there is a reason he is so tall, please trust me he is not insanely tall for no reason. like there are plot reasons as to why he built like a beanstock.

- related: i forgot that his height was lowkey a plot point (a teensy teensy tiny bit) so i forgot to mention his height until very very very very very recently in the chaptesr LMFAOOA

bounty:

— 200,000,000

— 250,000,000

japanese va: junichi suwabe … or … yuki kaji … or more like kenjiro tsuda (i cant decide unfortunately lmk in comments bc i like all of these vas a lot) 

appearance:

— has a giant tattoo expanding over his shoulders/back. they look like wings (minus the figure in the middle). they don’t look like the typical tattooed angel wings going downwards, they more-so stretch across his back and the tips end at his deltoids.

— keeps a black cloth wrapped around one of his wrists, at all times. this cloth was torn from shanks’ cloak and [name] keeps it as a safe keeping

— always is wearing a silver necklace. it’s a simple, thin chain that is almost unnoticeable, but he is never seen without it.

— has scars all over his body. they’re not battle scars. they start from his face and go all the way down to his feet. if you were to see his entire body, you would see that most of the scars are single lines that do NOT disconnect from their starting point. they run almost continuously. for example, the scarred line that starts at his face goes all the way down to his feet, without being “interrupted.” origins are unknown.

weapon: a sword that was passed down from shanks and given to him as a gift. he doesn’t know the proper name of it, but it looks like a regular katana. he has never drawn his sword in the series yet, seeing as he only reveals the blade when he is out to very seriously maim, torture, or kill his enemies. the katana radiates an intimidating aura and anyone around [name] can feel it.

standard outfit: just jeans and a t-shirt, nothing crazy goes on here LMFAO or whatever you wanna envision him to be wearing.

abilities: have not been completely revealed, but it does have something to do with water. this explains his ability to control people’s bodies, seeing as their blood and overall body mass has a high percentage of water.

— he has some control over sea water, but only for short bursts of time.

— he is not completely immune to the effects of sea water, though. if he is submerged in it for a long enough period of time <a couple of minutes>, then he will begin drowning and sinking just like a devil fruit eater would.

— did not eat a devil fruit. the origins of his powers are unknown at this time.

— skilled swordsman, source: trust me bro. but seriously, he doesn’t just swing around the sword, even though we’ve never seen him use it, he’s generally very good with weapons of all kinds — but has a specialty in blades.

— has been seen using geppo, soru, and shigan. 

favorite food: COFFEE BEANS + SEAFOOD :) cheese

fun facts:

likes: all the strawhats, animals, bitter flavors

dislikes: the world gov + navy, anyone that isn't a strawhat, anything sweet flavored

— the name the government gave him was due to how they could not find any family lineage tied to him

— considers dadan and makino as his mother figures!

— the song he is always humming is for fruits basket <333

— its not that he only drinks coffee and not anything else — like booze, its just he doesnt like the taste of booze. he can drink it, but he wont like it.

— if he were to live in the real world, he would have a job in child protective services. he cares a lot for children. plus he feels the natural instinct to be protective of those around him.

— he can tell if there is anybody nearby due to how he is able to see water concentration to a certain extent. that is why whenever he squints in the distance or at the water, he is looking for something to pop out and is expecting to see someone/something.

— is really offstandish when it comes to strangers. it takes a lot to get trust out of him, but if it’s someone that luffy or the others trust, then he’s quick to lower his guard.

— finds it really amusing whenever chopper, nami, or usopp run to hide behind him when they see any enemies. he doesn’t mind it, but still thinks its really funny whenever it happens.

— he enjoys pissing off zoro, but never brings up their past fight. to him, it was a silly thing that happened in the past so he doesn’t hold it over zoro’s head, plus he saw how much it affected the swordsman.

— hates manspreaders → has a chronic, worst case of manspreading anyone has ever seen

— has the highest debt to nami in the entire crew (somewhere in the 300-400,000)

— the tattoo over ace’s heart are words that he and ace shared with each other (”together in chaos”) when they were children (LOOOREEEE)

— wants to start working out with zoro, but due to their recent adventures hasn’t had the chance to :(

— unlike luffy, he has no qualms in killing his enemies. he wishes he were like luffy in this sense, but he is paranoid that these people will come back for him, or worse — the crew, so he eliminates them when he can.

— [name] really, really wanted vivi to come along. but he didn't verbalize it so as to not pressure her or manipulate the decision of what she herself wanted.

— whenever he wakes up from sleep, he’s in one of three odd positions: 1. luffy and him somehow end up cuddling, 2. he’s on the floor, or 3. he’s (not maliciously aka they're not actually dying.) choking either zoro or sanji with his arm.

— feels particularly protective of nami — not because she is a woman, but because he saw how sick she had gotten and was scared she would die. addtionally, he trusts her and her ability to fight, but if she requests for his help in a battle, he wouldn’t hesitate to go and help her.

— if him and sanji can't sleep at night, they go out on the deck and smoke together until one of them gets tired and they go back to bed.

— rather prideful in being strong. at the same time, he doesn’t really enjoy the nature of his abilities

— [name] had a bad history with the people on whiskey peak, which explains his hostility to them in the beginning chapters (they fooled him by giving him a lot of food, then they tried attacking him while he was sleeping, and he had to fight them.) doesn't like being lied to.

— vivi wishes she could have knighted [name] into holding a formal title as a guardian in the kingdom of alabasta, but igaram rejected the idea. her father and pell were close to agreeing, but ultimately decided that they couldn't and shouldn't seeing as [name] was too infamous for being a lethal pirate. vivi sulked about this for a while.

love language : acts of service and physical touch

— the more comfortable he is with someone, the more likely he is to crack jokes around them. it means hes relaxed and can feel comfortable being himself rather than being on edge and guarded.

— vivi often times hums the song that [name] always hummed, smiling whenever she remembers the amount of memories she had made with the crew. that song has now become her favorite despite her not knowing where it was from or if there were even words that went along with it.

— animal representation: crow

— who would he be if the strawhats were a family? the one younger cousin that keeps running around shouting about how he wants to fight/do something that requires a lot of energy from everyone else (or, cool uncle)

— he actually naturally has a very sweet scent, but since he is always brewing coffee/eating coffee beans, he masks that scent with coffee since he hates it :)

personality type : ENFP

→ characters that are ENFP: jinx (arcane/league of legends), hu tao (genshin impact), harley quinn (dc universe), and ellie (the last of us)

how would [name] describe his relationships:

with luffy: captain, dearest person in his life, partner in crime in annoying the rest of the crew, personal backpack since luffy is always climbing him

with zoro: most reliable crewmate, best first mate to luffy, good friendly competitor 1/2 strongest swordsman in the world

with nami: smartest crewmate!! admires her navigation abilities, enjoys her company when she isn't yelling bloody murder at him </3 1/3 of his priority people to protect

with usopp: fun to tease and joke around with, enjoys the way usopp lies even though he hates liars, 2/3 of his priority people to protect

with sanji: the best chef in the world, genuinely a very kind man, sees eye to eye with him more often than not, thinks his rude persona is just a front LOL good friendly competitor 2/2

with chopper: cutest mascot, thinks he is genuinely very strong, admires his mental strength and his story, 3/3 of his priority people to protect

with vivi: worrisome princess, braver than she gives herself credit for, very close friend he hopes to reunite with in the future! a crewmate in his mind even if she is not sailing with them

with ace: idiot, but also a very cute idiot <3 freckles, sees a lot of their childhood in ace’s eyes which makes him slightly emotional, reckless, misses him a lot right now

EXTRA BONUS:

playlist !

his theme songs are: chemtrails over the country club by lana del rey, i know ? by travis scott, here comes your man by the pixies ← will add more songs in each wiki !!!

— cotcc : “it’s beautiful, how this deep normality settles down over me. i’m not bored or unhappy, i’m still so strange and wild. you’re in the wind, i’m in the water. nobody’s son, nobody’s daughte,”

— i know ?: “tell me, is you still up. it’s 5 a.m. and i’m drunk right now. tell me, can we still fuck. // i know, mami, i know, it’s 2 a.m., don’t stress. at 3, that bullshit kick in, in thirty, you’ll feel your best”

— here comes your man, “take me away to nowhere plains. there is a wait so long (so long, so long). you'll never wait so long. here comes your man, here comes your man, here comes your man, here comes your man”

luffy & [name]: video games, “it’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you. everything i do — i tell you all the time. heaven is a place on earth with you. // it’s better than i ever even knew. they say that the world was built for two. only worth living if somebody is loving you.”

zoro & [name]: married with children, “i hate the way that you are so sarcastic and you’re not very bright. you think that everything you’ve done’s fantastic. your music’s shit, it keeps me up all night, up all night // and it will be nice to be alone, for a week or two. but i knew then i will be right, right back here with you, with you, with you, with you, with you, with you”

sanji & [name]: right side of my neck, “the right side of my neck still smells like you. the right side of my neck still smells like you”

nami & [name]: LOYALTY, “tell me when your loyalty is comin’ from the heart. tell me who you loyal to. do it start with your women or your man? do it end with your family and friends? or you’re loyal to yourself in advance?”

usopp & [name]: my way, “for what is a man, what has he got? if not himself, then he has naught. to say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels. the record shows i took the blows. and did it my way”

vivi & [name]: happiness is a butterfly, “if he’s a serial killer, then what’s the worst thing that could happen to a girl who’s already hurt? i’m already hurt. if he’s as bad as they say, then i guess i’m cursed. looking into his eyes, i think he’s already hurt. he’s already hurt.”

chopper & [name]: live and let die, “when you were young and your heart was an open book, you used to say live and let live. but if this ever changing world in which we’re living, makes you give in and cry — say live and let die”

ace & [name]: my love mine all mine, “nothing in the world belongs to me, but my love, mine, all mine, all mine. // nothing in the world is mine for free, but my love mine, all mine, all mine”

taglist (lmk if u want to be tagged ! <3 :

@skullr0se , @strawberrii-tea, @triangulartriangles, @anotherlovefool, @haratatsu, @sinmp, @3v37773, @taru-nami, @disc0dild0s, @boredwithlifeatthispoint, @kaulitzer, @notplutos, @cheetosins

[ .ᐟ ] PSA ! DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT READ THIS  (older version of this) STORY ON WATTPAD I REPEATTTTT DO NOTTT BECAUSE ! MY OLD VERSION OF THIS STORY IS STILL PUBLISHED bc i dont rlly want to take it down tbh bc a lot of ppl still read it AND IT IS SPOILLLERRRSS FOR WHAT I PLAN ON DOING WITH THIS STORY !!! because this is re-written and a much much much much much improved version of that oldddd story + it is still following that original plot line i had all those years ago just like 10000x better bc idk what drugs i was on when i was writing that ff all those years ago bc that shit is crazy LMFOAOAOA i beg, i BEG, of you to not read it i want this experience to be so fun with all the plotwists and motives of characters like pleaseeee do not read it (also ??? its jus so cringe worthy jus dont read it LFMAO) 

[kacievvbbbb]

Hello again...Do you mind if I ask your top 5 (or top 10) favorite moments from any anime (can be series or movies) or manga or if you want, from any media that you love? Thanks if you want to answer.....(Hope you don't mind to get an same from the same person)

Hello again!

Of course I don't mind keep the questions coming. :D

As for my top 5-10 anime moments this was honestly a little easy cause if something clicks for me it tends to stick with me for a long time but here are some just off the dome.

One piece: I actually read this is the manga but in the Skypiea arc during the fight with Enel when Luffy rings the bell and Noland's ancestor hears it, confirming that his ancestor wasn't a liar and then you see the giant silhouette of luffy in the sky that was and still is definitely one of my all time favorite one piece moments. I don't like the whole of Skypiea I feel like it went on for a little too long but the emotional arc of that arc is definitely my favorite. Runner ups;

Raising their X arms for Vivi

Burning down the WG flag for robin

Luffy putting his hat on Nami's head

Bellamy seeing Luffy again in Dressrosa and saying he believes now

Obviously when ace gets free in a cloud of fire

saying goodbye to the going merry

On the sea train whenLuffy tells Zoro to cut it and Zoro just smiles like a maniac and cuts it

Luffy stopping Doffy from stepping on Law

That one shot from the anime where gear 5 luffy looks like a demon coming towards lucci

Any time a sword comes down and zoro is right there to block it

I really like the phrase drums of liberation I don't know what to say One piece has been going on for a long time and Oda is very good at drawing moments.

FMAB: Obvious one and a little basic but the moment where greed just before he fades away looks out at the crowd of people and goes "yeah this is enough" jesus christ.

Mob Psycho: This one actually has like 3.

The first is at the end of season 1 when reigen gets mob's powers and tells him he doesn't have to fight that he is a child and it's not his responsibility to make up for the faults of adults and then immediately goes on to just shame the adults of the evil organization because like y'all are kidnapping and torturing kids because of some childhood trauma? grow up and get a real job. Hilarious.

In season three after dimple brainwashes Mob to leave as he goes on fighting the fake mob in the broccoli and that just a beautiful sequence that I dont relaly want to spoil but when Mob gets home and it really just clicks that dimple was his first friend god it was beautiful

And finally obviously I would be remise to not include Reigen running after a ramapaging ???? as the world literally falls away and is destroyed around him.

Weathering with you: If you haven't watched this I genuinely recommend it was made by the same studio and directer that did Your Name. But yeah the scene where they are falling out of the sky holding hands it would be impossible if it did not make this list.

How do I put down the whole of My Neighbor Totoro?

Boy and the Heron: I don't want to spoil the movie but the scene at the end when Mahito has to get out of the tower as it implodes and his last talk with the girl saying I'll see you in the future god this doesn't make sense but watch the movie its a beautiful sequence.

Demon Slayer: Of course the set your heart ablaze scene has to make the list. But the line that really stuck with me is when he told Tanjiro to always keep his head up no matter what people think about his journey to save Nezuko. He hadn't even gotten a chance to properly talk with either of them before shit went down but he saw the good she did he saw how hard they fight and he is the first person to say out loud that I believe you I think what you are doing is good and kind and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. God when he sees his mother. Please just kill me.

MHA: Every single sequence between Eri and Mirio especially the first fight scene where He gives Eri his cape and when they are at the concert and you see the darkness be lifted from her shoulders. Its such a shame we didnt get more of them.

Fireforce: God I hate the fanservice in this show and I hate that exceot for Maki everytime a woman gets in a fight she somehow winds up almost naked and posed very sexually submissive and it's so weird cause it feels like sexual violence and I could go on and on about how this show does a disservice to itself and it's female characters but I can't deny that the scene where Shinra bursts through the roof as Tamaki is literally taking a serious beating from the dude she looked up too and yeah beautiful moment. Also its a really fucked up dynamic but its also really interesting and poignant but Kurono being the only one to understand what Takkun needs in the moment to stop his rampage was just like wow. A Place Further than the Universe: The girls finding Shirase's mom's laptop and them watching the emails come in and its proof that her mom was loved I mean come on. The whole show is great. Erased: The entire opening sequence. The twist and the fact that I learned that the actual english translation of the Japanese name is : The place where only I am missing. Which is a banger ass name. I honesly could go on and on things tend to stick with me for whatever reason but yeah I'd recommend watching anything on this list. But thank you for the ask this was fun!

[zonaenthusiast]

do robin x zoro have more significant interactions than nami x zoro in manga and anime?

i'm new to this fandom since i have only seen the live action and i noticed that a lot of people call nami x zoro siblings while shipping robin x zoro, so what's this about?

i'm loving nami x zoro in opla so far and am excited for robin's future appearance but i dread other shippers hating on zoro/nami!

Uh, well, hello and welcome to the fandom!

Disclaimer: this will have my personal and subjective interpretations of some ships but you are free to think what you like, of course! No ship is bad! (unless it's problematic, then it's bad).

I will try to be a little bit vague because I don't want to give you many spoilers, but the thing about Zoro and Robin is that they had a very peculiar relationship when she first joined the crew. Let's just say that Zoro didn't trust her at all and that lasted for a while but, despite that, he was always willing to protect her if necessary like she was any other of his nakamas (and she was). Besides, she made a few efforts to get close to him and even teased him sometimes.

I think people really digged that dynamic of I don't trust you but I guess we have to work together. This is actually funny because it's actually very similar to Zoro's dynamic with Nami at the beginning, it's just that with Robin he was much more obvious because he had legitimate reasons to distrust her.

That lasted for a couple of sagas and they had a handful of moments together that are pretty interesting (one of my favorite parts of the Skypiea arc is a scene of them) but then, after she managed to gain his trust, they didn't have much more moments together (they have one ocasionally but they are rare). The thing about Zoro and Robin is that they are the most introverted of the crew, so they barely talk to each other because they aren't usually the first ones to start a conversation. You will see them together and they will be confortable with each other, but most of the time they don't talk to each other.

I get the appeal of this ship, but I don't really enjoy it because Robin has... peculiar tastes, to say the least, and Zoro doesn't fit in them. I don't know if you know who the other main ship for Robin is but in the last few years I would say they have become more popular than Zoro/Robin, especially after Dressrosa.

About Zoro and Nami... it's a hated ship internationally, yes, and we are constantly in the trenches for liking them as a couple, but the funny thing is that it's a pretty well loved ship in Japan. Internationally, people tend to see them as siblings but it never happened to me (examples of a sibling relationship for me are Nami and Usopp or Zoro and Chopper, but not them). Besides, the headcanon of a huge part of the international fandom is that Zoro is gay (Zoro's main ship is Sanji) and Nami is lesbian (my headcanon is that both of them are bisexuals).

It doesn't help that interactions between Zoro and Nami have also decreased in recent years, to be honest, but we've been on a roll recently and not just because of the live action. In my humble opinion, Zoro and Nami's interactions are more significant that Zoro and Robin's, if only because they've been together from the very beginning.

Some people think that the scenes between Zoro and Nami were weird in the live action but I promise you, and this doesn't have to do anything with them a a ship, just as a duo: if you've really paid attention to the dynamic that Zoro and Nami have maintained since the beginning of the manga (something I've been doing since I was twelve), you know the only thing the live action has done is make it more explicit. Oda is much more subtle when it comes to establishing relationships between characters but the live action doesn't have the time for that, so they've had to make everything much more obvious, more in your face. But the essence of everything is there and I assure you, the essence of Zoro and Nami is there. If someone wants to ship them or not, it's up to them and their own interpretations.

[jakkenpoy]

URGRHEHAHH I LOVE YOUR ART SO MUCH!!!! Water 7 is such a dear arc to me, the side characters are just so nicely developed and I'm glad that you're giving them a lot of love :)!!!! Not only that but you always have such nice clean compositions with really pleasing colour palettes, amazing work :D

No pressure to answer but I thought it'd be fun to hear some of your one piece opinions :3 Feel free to answer only the ones u find interesting haha

Who are your top 3 strawhats in no order?

What were your first impressions on franky/iceburg/etc?

How did you get into one piece?

How long have you been into one piece?

Do you remember the first time one piece made you cry :0?

Do you have any particular one piece outfits that ur fond of :3?

Is there a character that you didn't really care for initially, but have warmed up to/like a lot now?

uhh FUCK/MARRY/KILL -> Perona, Pudding, Rebecca

Who would you add onto the crew as a strawhat member :3?

(i love asking this question LOL) favourite end of arc celebration?

Thanks again for providing such lovely water 7 artworks to the world, I love love love love iceburg and franky so much and I really am so glad that there are artists like you carrying the water 7 side of the fandom :DDD

���🥹 thank you so much!!

my top 3 strawhats are Sanji, Brook, and Franky!

i don't remember my actual first impressions of many OP characters all that well since i sped through the entire manga in under three weeks haha -- i don't think i even remembered Iceburg from my first read TT and as for Franky i just thought he was super cool from the start! i don't have many standout thoughts about him in water 7 the first time reading but i think i came to really like him in Thriller Bark (that docking gag fdsnfsndfs)

i got into One Piece by reading ZoSan doujinshi on a whim LOL and like. it wasn't even the setting nor the characters that intrigued me into reading it but rather the humor (that this one artist portrayed really well). my exact thoughts were: "are these the kinds of jokes that One Piece does? i gotta check it out!"

i've been into One Piece since november 2021!

the first time i cried was Drum Island arc... Chopper my beloved

oooff hard question since there's just so many! for the Strawhats i think my standout favorites are Franky's dressrosa outfit with the cannon-shaped hair and every Brook outfit to ever exist. outside of the strawhats it would have to be Iceburg and Paulie's entire wardrobes

MAYOR ICEBURG... i only came to know him after drawing him as a gift for a friend haha -- i enjoyed drawing him so much that he entered my regular roster of OP characters that i draw, but i did not really get to know the character until several months later when i came upon someone on twitter who rambled about him endlessly (we became friends after so thank u Mayor for making this connection possible). i love you Mayor Iceburg even if it took like 50 left turns to get to know you

i'd like to marry Mayor Iceburg if possible

Pedro....

it has to be Skypiea! the bonfire celebration is forever engraved in my memory TTTT

[henrioo]

Good moring henrioo!!! Hope your having a good day!!!!.

Yep it is gonna be nice to move away from my family can't tell you how much famliy drama their has been over the years their always somthing going on. Too add to that almost everyone is so fucking toxic and jugdemental!!! Urghhhh!!!!!! No wonder my older brother and sister in law moved away !!! But it is gonna be hard to leave my younger siblings and my some friends behind in the us. But iam mostly happy that my cousin gets all the support he needs !! We are gonna live a comfortble live my brother is a lawyer.😚🤩 this is for the best.

Question of today ⭐: whats a thing you noticed toei does different than oda ? Yamato(my fav character) I noticed how toei draws Yamatos horns different his horns look more strignt but when oda draws Yamato the horns look more wide smilar to ulti. And also the nio-dasuki in the anime Yamatos nio-dasuki are alot bigger than the manga...hmm 🤔 but who does it better toei or oda? What ate some differents you noticed toei make with yamato and whats dies toei do different with a another character? Rhan oda?

Another question of today ⭐: whats your fav arc of One piece? Any character you dislike? That you find to be overated in your opinion.

Mine:almost all of the world govment, Boa

Ooooh cool, it's good to see you gonna have a more safe place to live with your loved ones

I know it's kinda hard leaving people behind but you don't need to do this permanently, think that you can always keep contact and visit everyone

Boobs

Literally every fem in one piece has boobs bigger than the sun, and that is ugly as fuck

Some examples

I'm sus to talk about it but for me the manga will always be better than the anime, Toei did things dirty and the anime is mid as fuck

I'm hoping that WIT will make it better in the remake

My favorite arc is Skypiea :))))

This is kinda hard actually, I dislike a lot of chars but find one that is overrated is more hard

Probably will be Doffy I guess

He is really hyped for everyone and I genuinely don't like him anymore, I had a time where I thought he was at least hot, but now I really I despise his existence

[monkeydluffy19920]

Review: One Piece tv special 3

That cursed corona stroke on May so decided to spend time watching  old One Piece specials and movies for the nostalgia whenever there was energy for that and did scribble a few reviews for fun (i.e: here is quick review for Movie 6) and then left them to the draft pile to wait the queue and here we are, me babbling randomness :D  Might contain spoilers and probably will end up being a long post by the way:p

It was written in OP fan Wiki that Oda-sensei was not involved in these older tv- specials or films (he has been active part of production since Movie 10, Strong World). According to this, these specials and Movies until 7 are considered as non-canon since these have individual plots and these happenings haven’t been mentioned in manga (except Movie 9 and 8 which were adaptations of Drum Island and Alabasta) although some of the movies could be placed in the canon timeline, basically.  

One of the main reasons why this is one of my favorite from older specials is the humor. One Piece has always had good sense of humor and silly running gags but it felt like there was a bit more of that in pre-timeskip era. Well of course there is lots of going on constantly and I understand that Oda-sensei can’t put everything in these panes so something must be decreased and now it’s the humor part.

Of course there are still classical jokes but somehow it feels that there are not as many old shenanigans like in old days and things have become more serious after Time skip but anyway, back to the humor part. What I really love especially in this tv special is that everyone gets their share of it (instead of focusing on joking with one person only). First we have this part where Chopper gets frustrated when no one replies him what “theater play” means and he goes to his human form and then Zoro needs to calm him down like a old brother.

Then just a few moments later the dork trio casually rushes into the theater and of course pick the “forbidden door” (which is even more amusing that Usopp is actually leading them there instead of Luffy who usually is the “head dork”) and then there are Nami and Sanji who try to keep on track like they were parents or supervisors of those 3 kid hearted bois  *laughs*

Nami negotiates with the local staff so that each Straw Hats who wants gets a role in the play (Zoro wants to stay out and is the one who rotates the thingy that rotates the stage) and as expected, things don’t go as expected. Maybe the most memorable part of the special is the actual act and it’s because it’s hilarious.

First there is Usopp who did get one line in the beginning but wanted more so he kept hopping on that stage with various roles. Who knows he might feel home on stage by the way because he has been a storyteller ever since his youth and he delivers them full hearted so the sniper could indeed excel at that work if he only got the chance.

What I find cute is that even a character that is supposed to be serious and stuff like Robin is also thrown into the pit of comedy.  Robin is known for her dark humor but this running gag has become more popular after Time Skip and this special aired somewhere around Skypiea arc so her comedic side wasn’t revealed much in earlier arcs if I remember correctly.

So, out of the blue she threw a musical performance in stage and Nami’s comment summed up it well since everyone went like "wtf” (because honestly, I don’t think anyone expected to see her doing that).

One small detail I also liked in this tv special was Sanji’s entrance to the stage. Hard to describe but it was just cute to see such a confident appearing guy having a stage fright. They got those roles literally in a short time so no one would expect they’d do professional performances so his reaction was very human too and therefore relatable (because let’s face it, not many people enjoy speaking in front of a huge audience).

Despite the cheat note he couldn’t stay in his role (a pirate attacking the princess that was played by Nami) aand after that the rest of the play (or should we say remains of it) is history.

So, everyone goes solo (princess gets suddenly shot, Usopp bouncing around, Sanji being mad about Nami getting shot although he was supposed to be the bad guy, Robin keeps singing and leaves when she realizes it’s not a musical etc).

What makes this whole ruckus even funnier is that on of that Luffy comes around with a random monkey costume (which fits him incredible well xD) and when he is asked what is he doing Luffy simply replies “oh I just found it lying around so...” and keeps going which pisses Nami off who was prepared to go according to the script instead of all this chaos their improvising caused.

I think their dialogue they went summed up nicely the comedic side of Luffy’s nakamaships: Everyone knows that Luffy can be the most random dude ever but he still manages to surprise his crew mates with new shenanigans and his crew can’t stop or help his randomness.  This is one reason to love Luffy’s character and his chemistry towards his crew in general.

So, Luffy monkeys around, manages to accidentally make a little crash on stage which Zoro (the stage master) misreads as a signal to turn the thingy around and the chaos keeps going but the audience is having loads of fun (meanwhile the Marines are arriving).

Later the Strawhats learn that Rudolph, one of the actors is a retired Marine and having a sad past with pirates which causes him to go face to face with Luffy once he finds out who these new theatre “assistants” are.

Btw, must say that another reason I like the old specials is the animation because it looks hand-drawn instead of animating everything with fancy 3D stuff and don’t get me wrong, I like animation too but there is just something more nostalgic feeling in these non 3D-frames.

So the play is now on the pause and their little battle is interrupted because the actual bad guy is arriving. He is Randolph’s old Navy underling, nowadays a commander (named Governor) who is extremely salty for their shared past and wants to ruin ex Navy’s farewell performance and gets him arrested like he was arrested back then.

Luffy somehow randomly pops up to this Governor’s ship and wants to help Randolph (and for everyone’s suprise, he is not carrying him like a sack of potatoes like he does most of the time) and this makes this bad Navy guy angry.

Luffy orders Randolph to keep on playing the play while Luffy and his crew protects them which is a nice gesture and hereby teaches traumatized Randolph that there are good pirates too (just like Nami mentioned before that she could relate on Randolph disliking the pirates back in the days).

This battle was again one good example of their teamwork. Sanji and Zoro in separate boats battling the canon balls then Robin, Luffy and Chopper helping with the rest and Nami being in the watch tower and helping Usopp to aim with the right canons but they also fight individually at times.

One reason this Tv special’s Navy boss is extremely annoying is that he is basically just a zero with big talks. Usually bad guys (navy leaders and pirate leaders) are known of having some sort of notorious skills (like devil’s fruits or battling like mad) or they are badass just in general.

However, as said earlier, Governor is just a salty guy who keeps on repeating himself but on top of that his army credits are questionable. Seriously being a navy leader and he didn’t even bother to check out whether Luffy was considered a a threat or not (and by that time Luffy already had a bounty).

Frankly spoken, how he did even manage to rise in such a high rank?.  It was just a good thing the rest of this Navy group finally realized what was going on and had the bravery to dump their commander. If someone, that guy deserved it.

That bad guy was so actually bad neither the hand writers or the animation crew wanted to waste time or frames on a grand finale (a 1 vs 1 boss fight)  so Luffy simply sends him flying once and so the day is saved and Rudolph’s ending speech makes his retirement even more epic.

So all in all, the plot of this Tv special isn’t superior and the main villain is definitely one of the worst ones in OP history but despite that, this Tv special has a place in my heart because it’s one of the funniest specials and reminds of the good old humor most of us fans miss ever since Time Skip :)

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: East Blue (Part One)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby  || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

so!! hey folks. as i’ve mentioned before, to mark the upcoming chapter 1000 (holy shit!!) as well as my blog’s first anniversary this december, i decided it would be a good time to go back and put together some highlight reel posts of my favorite panels/moments/scenes from each saga and some commentary about what i think the best parts of each arc and the series as a whole are and why, as a celebration of just how far one piece has come and how many fantastic moments we've had so far! 

this will be quite a series of rather long posts- they’ll all be tagged #the voyage so far, if you’d like to avoid this messy retrospective. i'll be posting one saga a day each day until chapter 1000's official release on january 3rd!

honestly, i’m opening with this panel because it has a special place in my heart: i’m pretty sure it was the first time that one piece ever made me laugh. 

the entire prologue does a really good job of setting up the tone for the entire rest of the story. i think i haven’t really written much about it before, but i really love romance dawn. it hits the exact mix of humorous and serious that’s practically one piece’s trademark tone, and introduces us to some of the main themes of the series: inherited will especially, and the theme of freedom, and the idea of betting your life for what you love. 

technically this isn’t the first time we see luffy as an adult- he punches out the sea king before this- but it is his formal introduction, as well as (in the chapter title) the first time he’s referred to as strawhat luffy/mugiwara no luffy. 

i really like a lot of these very early panels of luffy, really. i’m a writing person, not an art person, so i can’t really explain why, but there’s something about how he’s drawn that i think is just delightful for some reason. i like the earlier one piece art a whole lot in general, even though it’s often much less intricate and more simple than the current artstyle (which is not by any means bad either!! it’s just different). i think it fits the atmosphere of the start of the story very well- a journey just starting out. 

he’s going to be pirate king!!

i’ve complained before about how zoro’s backstory doesn’t really hit the way a lot of the others do, mostly because it goes so fast, and kuina’s death is unfortunately the closest the series comes to fridging, but- that said, i do really like the core of it. i really like zoro being motivated by a promise to the one friend and rival he could never beat, and i love how this moment is what he cites later on while facing mihawk: a promise to a friend. 

i love all the strawhats and their dynamics, and seeing the crew grow and develop and become a family over the course of hundreds of chapters is one of the great joys of one piece, but i think i’ll always have a soft spot for luffy and zoro’s relationship. there’s never really any conflict between them after their very first meeting; there’s loyalty and dedication and understanding there that starts from this moment and never really wavers.

it makes me grin to see the two of them, here at the start of it all. they don’t have a flag or a ship or a destination, yet, but this is the start of the strawhat pirates.

this series will probably reveal that i have a great weakness for group shots, and i think oda is particularly good at them- especially in these earlier arcs, you can usually see every character’s personality and feelings coming through in how they’re placed and what they’re doing. 

i had actually forgotten that usopp did this, and while i know kuro was egging him on on purpose, i feel like he doesn’t get enough credit for being a reckless idiot sometimes. there’s a reason he fits in as a strawhat, after all, even if he himself isn’t always aware of it. 

this is a lovely panel just on its own, but i think it (and all the other appearances of sunrise and dawn in the story) hits different now, with all the 'coming dawn’ theming that’s been established in recent arcs. 

oda often absolutely nails his use of negative space to emphasize heavy little moments like this, and i for one absolutely love it. this one in particular gets me in the heart. 

i like how you can reread some of these early arcs and see nami’s affection for the crew growing in little moments like these, and it’s very sweet, but there’s also a quiet kind of sadness in knowing she’s spending the whole time knowing she’s going to have to betray and leave them eventually. 

i LOVE the new crewmate toasts. they all always look so happy.

also, in my opinion, this is the first time the strawhat pirates feel like a proper crew. they have a SHIP now! and just after this, they get their jolly roger to seal the deal. 

it is my opinion that sanji has one of the best character introductions i’ve ever seen. in just a few chapters we know just about everything we need to know about him: he's not to be fucked with, he has extremely high respect for food and absolutely none for morons, and the first genuine smile we see from him is when he gives a free meal to a starving man. 

i think about this moment a lot, really. luffy knows almost nothing about sanji at this point. he hasn’t tasted his food- he doesn’t even know his name. but he’s seen sanji give free food to gin for no other reason than that he’s hungry and it’s right, and that’s all it takes for luffy to decide that sanji is gonna be his cook. 

baratie is mostly a serious arc (and leads into the even more serious arlong park), but it has some really good funny moments towards the start and this is one of them. you know they’re friends because they all just start roasting luffy without sympathy or hesitation. 

i’ve mentioned before that the zoro and mihawk fight was one of the big things that hooked me on one piece (the other being sanji’s backstory), but the way it ends, especially, is one of my favorite moments in the whole series. i love,, strawhat loyalty moments. carve “any complaints, pirate king?” on my fucking grave. 

sanji has a lot of really great action panels in this arc, but this is one of my favorites mostly because his combat abilities are being revealed to the audience at the same time they’re revealed to a lot of the characters watching. i can’t remember who pointed it out but sanji’s character design (especially pre-timeskip) just really looks like he’s designed for kicking- shiny black shoes, about 70% leg- and it really shows in panels like this. 

sanji and zeff’s chronic inability to communicate is kind of the emotional core of baratie, and i think sanji calling the restaurant zeff’s treasure sums up the entire conflict between them very neatly. of course zeff values sanji way more than the restaurant, but zeff will never tell that to his face and sanji has negative zero self-worth so he’s never going to figure it out on his own. so they’re basically in a stalemate. 

sanji’s backstory is absolutely brutal. we spend a truly agonizing amount of time literally just watching him slowly starve to death. it’s no secret that oda is really amazing at backstories, but i think sanji’s is probably one of the most effective at driving home exactly where his very specific mindset as an adult comes from. it’s hard to even read this section and not come away with at least a little more appreciation for food. 

(to be continued in east blue part two!)

[opbackgrounds]

So there’s a couple of things from last night’s Sanji post that I want to clear up a bit, and I don’t want to clog up the blog by individually responding to all the asks, comments, etc.  This got quite a bit longer than I originally intended, so sorry about that, but I hope it ends up clarifying where I’m coming from going forward. And if you think I’m wrong, that’s fine! Just please be civil about it; Sanji Discourse(tm) is polarizing enough as it is, and after being in the One Piece fandom for as long as I have, it can be very tiring. Please remember Sanji isn’t real, and I’m not personally attacking anyone who disagrees with me, nor anyone who ends up liking him more than I do.

1. Firstly, thank you to everyone who sent in/responded with a more accurate translation, or who even mentioned the translations from other languages (I saw French and Norwegian, if there are others I’m sorry I missed them). It’s really helpful making what seemed like an out of character moment for Luffy seem much less out of character. 

2. As I’ve said before, Sanji is by no means my favorite character. There is a chance I’m misremembering things about his arc or simply choose to interpret his actions differently than other people to make him more palatable to me. He’s a guy who is open to a lot of interpretation, and I look at him through the lens I find most interesting. I may need to reevaluate my opinion as we get to other more Sanji-centric scenes. We will get there when we get there, and until then I don’t feel like arguing about it

3. That being said, yes, I am very much aware that Sanji also boasted about his future amazingness to Kuma, but he only did so after Zoro did it first. He saw what direction the conversation was going, didn’t like it, and tried to stop Zoro from getting himself killed. More important, I think, is the scene afterword with Brook where Sanji is very self-deprecating about his own resolve to die for the crew.

4. Sanji was very much willing to die on the Baratie for a boat. He considered the physical planks and sails to be more important than his life, never once considering that a boat could be replaced. He literally had no idea how much me meant to Zeff, and there are other parts of the series where he’s very quick to jump on the self-sacrifice train (hello Skypiea!) when a character like Zoro is more likely to try to fight himself out of a similar situation. He was also an active participant in Nami and Robin’s rescue arcs, and still thought he could get away with the stunt he pulled on WCI. The difference, to him, was that Nami and Robin were important, and he was not

5. I don’t think Sanji could have managed the pep talk he gave Usopp during Enies Lobby unless he had a deeper understanding of Usopp’s feelings and has had to try to dig himself out of the same hole. 

This is where my preconceived interpretation muddies things a bit, but as far as circumstantial evidence goes I think it fits pretty well. Sanji has always been a character you have to read between the lines with because very rarely is he going to be emotionally honest with himself and others in the same way, say, Luffy is. I made entire posts on this point back during the Baratie arc and hold by tham today. Even his way of dealing with problems — with sneakiness, going behind the scenes, using guile — points to a very different mindset from some of the more literal-minded characters in the crew. What is more difficult is deciding which words and actions are him being honest, and deciding when he’s putting up a front for others. Hence multiple character interpretations that I think can equally be supported by canon. 

Further complicating matters is that Sanji doesn’t really have a confidant within the crew to express himself to. Nami, who also puts on a brave front, goes to Usopp for a weapon because she knows he’ll understand her feelings of weakness and help her get stronger. Sanji doesn’t have that, partly because his manly pride doesn’t  allow him to be vulnerable. But just because he has his idea of chivalry and a picture of what an ideal man should be doesn’t mean he thinks he meets those ideals. 

So that leaves us with a man who thinks very little himself following a moral code that encourages self-sacrifice. Sanji sacrifices his emotional vulnerability for appearing tough. He sacrifices his time to feed a crew that includes Luffy as his captain. He sacrifices effort that could have gone toward training or personal pleasure for making the people he loves happy. Because making other people happy — especially through cooking — is what gives Sanji the most joy, even if he doesn’t get a lot of credit for it. 

And if those people he loves are in danger, you bet your ass he’s 100% ready to throw down his life to save them. Because he’s just the cook. Luffy can always recruit someone else in his place. 

[redrocx]

For the one piece ask: all of them? 😅 (I honestly can't decide which to ask for soooo...) Alternatively, only the ones you want to answer the most 👍🏻

Challenge accepted 🌚🌚

No but honestly, this was so much fun and I was bored at work

⛵️ - Fave pirate ship? (like boat ship)

It's a tie between the Thousand Sunny and Going Merry. Thriller Bark is epic though lol

🔫 - Fave canon arc?

Enies Lobby & Marineford, also Wano is creeping up there too

🚽 - Least favorite canon arc?

Davy Back Fight

💩 - Least favorite character? (in general)

Blackbeard

🙅 - Least favorite Straw Hat?

.... currently Zoro but only bc of the Zorosexuals lol I love him as a character but people are being so obnoxious that it kinda translates into how I feel about him too

😀 - Most favorite Straw Hat?

Luffy, Chopper and Robin~

😍 - OTP?

Lawlu, Frobin, Saboala

💀 - NOTP?

Hancock x Luffy

ZoSan

Kidd x Law

🙇 - A headcanon about <Luffy>

I like to think that he's asexual~

☠ - Fave pirate symbol?

You mean as in favorite flag? Obviously the Straw Hat and Heart Pirates flags (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`)

Also the ✖️

🏰 - Fave marine?

Garp, Aokiji (if he counts lol), Coby

❌ - Least fave marine?

Akainu 😂 though I like the way he's written

👾 - Fave villain?

Doflamingo

🎾 - Fave battle?

Luffy vs. Lucci, Luffy vs. Katakuri

😭 - Saddest scene?

Merry's death & Law's backstory

😆 - Funniest scene?

Too many lol but probably Luffy getting swallowed by Nora/Nola rofl

😜 - Funniest character?

Luffy

😳 - Any crushes?

Law, Shanks, Robin, Nami, Reiju, Kiku, Black Maria and I'm probably forgetting someone

👌 - Fave character design?

Hmmm.... I love Crocodile's design, simple mafia boss. Franky pre time skip was really neat too, so is Katakuri

🃏 - Who has the Best Hat? (the true question)

Law post time skip (sorry Luffy lol)

🖍 - Fave filler arc?

Lol obviously the navy base one XD

🗡 - Least fave filler arc?

The bounty hunters on ice

🆚 - Sub or dub?

Both, German dub is just so nostalgic. But mostly sub

☯️ - Anime or manga?

Both

⏰ - How long have you been into One Piece?

Since elementary school so about 18 years lol

🍎 - Fave Devil Fruit power?

Hana hana no mi & ope ope no mi

🍏 - Would you eat a Devil Fruit if you had the chance to?

If it's a cool one, definitely. Though I am gonna miss swimming lol

🐼 - Fave side character?

Sabo, Reiju, Kiku, Carrot

☔️ - Scene that made you cry the most? (not necessarily the saddest scene)

Merry's death, Law's backstory, Luffy dealing with Aces's loss

🌧 - Saddest backstory?

Law & Robin

😎 - Funniest joke?

Zoro will kill Kaido the one where Luffy tries to lecture Zoro on where South is on Skypiea

😱 - Most attractive character?

Shanks, Law, Robin, Reiju

😐 - Most annoying character?

Blackbeard, Spandam, Orochi

😕 - Scariest character?

Shanks honestly lol he's so badass and ominous it's scary af XD (but in a hot way lol)

👍 - Most powerful Devil Fruit power?

Good question. Probably Blackbeard's. Though others are not to be taken lightly too, like Law's, Big Mom's or even Kaido's.

🗣 - Got any theories for how it’s all gonna end?

Hopefully with a happy ending lol I'm terrified of the prospect of Luffy following in Roger's footsteps.

👏 - Fave techniques of <Luffy>

Haoushoku, Red Hawk, Gear 2

🙏 - Favorite episode?

Don't have just one

😏 - Favorite scene?

Again, don't have just one. But for example Luffy & Co ganging up to beat someone's ass; Sogeking shooting through the WG flag; Luffy decimating the Pacifista after his training; Jimbei donating blood to Luffy; Luffy stopping Doflamingo from crushing Law's skull, Sanji's "I'm the hunter" scene,...

👂 - Favorite quote?

"Pirates are evil? The Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!"

"Compared to the "righteous" greed of the rulers, the criminals of the world seem much more honorable. When scum rules the world, only more scum is born. At least we're honest about being bad people."

🙌 - Are you up to date?

Yess! Well kinda lol I don't check spoilers and I don't read the leaks, so I'm "behind" on new chapters until they come out on Sundays lol

❓ - What unanswered questions do you have related to One Piece?

So many XD

- who is Shanks?

- What happened to Sabo and Vivi?

- What's with the hat (both Luffy's and the giant one)

- Who's that ominous dude (forgot the name) sitting on the throne?

- What happened during the void century?

- What does the D stand for?

Just to name the ones at the top of my head

▶️ - Fave opening?

- kokoro no chizu

- Over the top

- Hard knock days

- We are

- Share the world

- Hikari he

-

🔙 Least fave opening?

We Can or whatever it's called lol

👀 - Fave eyecatcher?

The old ones, especially Robin's with that alluring melody

🏝 - Fave country/island visited?

Skypiea, Water 7, Fishman Island

🎆 - Something you can’t wait for??!!

To get to know what's the deal with Shanks. Also to see the Straw Hats fulfill their dreams ofc... but first of all ofc the war in Wano *gets goosebumps*

🔝 - “One Piece is better than <insert something else you also like>”

I don't do these types of things bc I don't like the sentiment of statements like that. One should never try and lift one's fave /something/ up by tearing another thing down.

🔍 - What do you think the One Piece is?

The truth of the void century

🔪 - A character who fills you with frustration?

Usopp, especially during Water 7

💓 - Which character do you relate to the most?

Law and Robin probably lol Law for his level of annoyance and being done with everything and Robin for her dark humor, as well as her love for reading books~

™️ - How has One Piece changed you?

I'm not even sure how to put it into words. It's just always been there for me ever since I was little. It made me find so many friends and meet so many awesome people. It's my home, my safe haven, the place I can always return to. It got me out of one of my darkest places last year (when I finally found back to it after having strayed from it for a few years). It's my anchor, and a way to connect with other people. Most of all, it's the most amazing story I have ever experienced, and has given me so many role models and things & words to live by.

[the-bejeesus]

I’m Gonna Say It...

Stop fucking telling people to skip Skypiea and/or Thriller Bark!!!

         “But I didn’t like it” “But it’s not important” I don’t want to hear it. For one, people have very mixed feelings about those arcs, so just because you didn’t like it doesn’t mean they won’t. You’re setting up the person to dislike those arcs. But also if you think those arcs aren’t “important”, you’re right in the sense that not a lot of things in them come up again in later parts, but you have a very fundamental misunderstanding of what things in a series is “important to know”.

      What most people consider important is the events that occur in One Piece that you need to know to be a part of the conversation. Like right now, Kaido, Kin’emon, Doflamingo in a sense, Law, the Supernovas, Whitebeard, and the minks are all important. So you need to know some of the things that happen in Zou, Dressrosa, Sabaody, Marineford, and of course the backstories on the Straw Hats (So East Blue, Alabasta, Water 7, and Thriller Bark would all be somewhat important in this sense). So right now you could skip Skypiea, Long Ring Long Land, hell Fishman Island, and even Whole Cake Island to be a part of the conversation. But back in Whole Cake Island, Skypiea was important, and it was in Dressrosa too. Dressrosa wasn’t as important, and neither was Sabaody or Marineford. And since Robin wasn’t in it, Alabasta wasn’t important, but you’d still need the Drum Island part kind of.

      Now my point isn’t that “Oh even if it’s not important now, you should still read it because it’ll be important later,” my point is that the current conversation is ever-changing and ultimately irrelevant. Eiichiro Oda doesn’t make an arc for the sake of the arcs it’ll be important in later, he makes the arc for the audience of the here and now. He didn’t make Water 7 saying “I need to foreshadow Marineford and also include a new Straw Hat” he said “I want to make a good story that also demonstrates some good characterization in the Straw Hats.”

     Like again, Skypiea isn’t important in the sense that it expands on the lore or brings up stuff that will be important later. It is important, however, through the tone and ways it characterizes the Straw Hats, and how it’s placement in the story is impactful. For example, from a point of view, Skypiea acts as a calm before the storm. The Straw Hats have a lot of fun, and we get to see how Robin interacts with some of the Straw Hats. She gets along with but someone disagrees with Zoro, she’s practically Chopper’s mom, and she often stays in the sidelines during many gags, not often engaging in the silliness. Not even in an attempt to counter the silliness like how Nami does (You know, hitting people in the head and saying “knock it off you two!”). Sanji’s always thinking ahead, trying to mess around with things in a way that’ll help in the long run. Usopp really values the Merry. He was so afraid that something bad might happen to it. But he also doesn’t fault anyone for the damage it has been accumulating. At one point Chopper feels guilty because the he couldn’t stop Shura from making a lot of damage. But Usopp tells him not to worry about it and that he did his best.

      These things, while not “important”, are especially impactful for the next arc, when we see those characters clash and struggle, and it makes emotionally sad to see them this way. But it’s also very impactful for the remainder of the series. A lot of these characterizations are the backbone of how the Straw Hats will be, even if they change later (For example in Skypiea, Robin had nicknames for everyone (Navigator, Captain, Swordsman, Nose, etc.) But after Water 7 she refers to everyone by name (Nami, Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, etc.). And if you skip these parts so that you can know about the “important” parts sooner, sure you can be a part of the conversation, but you’ll ultimately like the story less. One Piece isn’t about a bunch of characters you love in a world you love anymore, it’s just a series of events you need to memorize so that you can talk to your friends about those events. It’s practically a chore.

      The same goes for Thriller Bark and any other arc that “you should skip.” And I mean, you can skip filler or even just dragged out parts of fights. Those truly are in that sense “not important” and you don’t not actually like One Piece because you skipped them. And if it helps you, hell, you can even watch One Pace or read the manga. Also, because I was simply talking about why Skypiea isn’t as not important as you may think, there were certain aspects I didn’t talk. So if it’s still not a particular favorite of yours. I would recommend watching this. It can really change your perspective on the arc.

      Also, while Episode of Skypiea is worth a watch, I wouldn’t really consider it a suitable substitute for watching/reading the actual arc. It skips just about all the cool character interactions I mentioned.

[sanjiafsincedayone]

My top 25 favorite SaNami moments – Part 2

This post only includes manga moments, and though it was supposed to only be a top 10 I ended up having many more moments. This is the second part which is the actual top 10, so if you haven’t read the first one you can go HERE to read about number 11-25.

Also I’m not saying all of these are romantic, or proof for SaNa, but simply even as nakama these are some of the moments I’ve really liked between them. Some might be big, some might be small, it’s simply my own preference after all.

I’ve put my favorite ones in this post, but I am not completely sure of the order, and I might have forgotten some. It’s up until chapter 892, so spoilers for Whole Cake Island.

Long post following under the cut.

10. Nami’s concern and I’m coming with you

Nami’s constant worrying in Zou and Whole Cake Island as she pushes the others to go after Sanji. It’s not really one particular moment, so I’m just mentioning it in general. Particularly I also really like that she went with Luffy to learn about Sanji’s family and that she cries thinking of Sanji’s situation. When Nami demands to go with Luffy to WCI and says she feels responsible for Sanji leaving her worry is obvious, and Oda’s insistent use of Nami in this type of moments always make me love her more.

9. Sanji’s sacrifice at Drum Island

This is where Sanji’s love for Nami steps up its game from casual flirting and differentiates her from other women. He’s ready to die for her and puts her above everything else. He reminds Luffy of how he has to be careful and protects her with all means he has. It’s also quite cute how Nami worries about him later and even lets him rest his head on her lap.

8. Sanji talking about Nami’s past with Jinbei

A moment that marks how involved and strongly Sanji feels about Nami. It shows how he remembers details about her past and how he is affected by the pain Nami has been through. Nami also steps in and shares her own thoughts, making them both closer due to their shared experience. It’s a moment that logically perhaps should revolve only around Nami, but Oda still decided to include Sanji.

7. When Nami gets a fever

I know the sacrifice in Drum Island is a pretty big deal, but if I have to choose I personally love the scenes when they’re all still on Merry and Nami gets sick just a little bit more. We get focus on Sanji worrying about Nami and Oda lets us see his reaction before anyone else’s. I also really like his reactions when Nami comes out to talk about the fastest way of getting to Alabasta. It’s a small moment, but I think it truly show’s how well Sanji knows Nami by this point. It also gave us a SaNa piggyback, which was really sweet.

6. Nami fighting with Zoro

Nami is almost desperate to have the crew go after Sanji and her fight with Zoro where she actively defends him is just a really great moment. It shows how much Nami worries and cares about Sanji and is in the end the trigger for the crew going to get him back. It’s not a gag moment like many of Nami’s “fights” with the crew, but rather a serious feeling coming from her because of the things Zoro says about Sanji.

5. Sanji’s sacrifice in Skypiea

I think what I like the most about this moment is the fact that Nami was actually there to see it. We got a reaction from her that finally proved how much she also cared about Sanji. People have always tried to downplay the relationship between Sanji and Nami by saying that Nami is annoyed by him, and that she doesn’t like him but rather simply tolerates him. This moment definitely proves otherwise.

4. The hug in Whole Cake Island

When I started this list this moment didn’t exist yet, but how could I not include it? It’s the first hug they share since in Baratie, and it’s initiated by Nami. It shows how happy she is to have him back and her gratefulness to be saved. It’s a grouphug with all the Guru-wara so it’s a really nice moment between nakama. But I like that Oda focused on Nami and also added Sanji’s comment about “I love you too Nami-san!” This feels to me like Oda is adding more to SaNami that might point to them actually becoming canon some day.

3. Bridal carry at Thriller Bark

This is the most romantically thematic moment between any of the strawhats in my opinion, and I remember the almost shock when I read it for the first time. What truly makes this one of my favorite moments is also the buildup to it. How Sanji consistently strived to find Nami and worried about her throughout the whole arc. The scene in itself also once again proves what Sanji is ready to sacrifice for Nami as he takes a knife in the back for her. It has Albsalom taunting Sanji with Nami and the whole arc had interesting romantic undertones.

2. The slap

Another scene that is a lot about the buildup to it. Nami has by that point been worried sick about Sanji since he left them on Zou, and she is so happy when she finally gets to see him again. Only to have the rug get pulled out from under her feet, as Sanji acts cold towards her for the first time ever. It marks a shift in the way she views Sanji as it’s the first time he isn’t kind and loving towards her. Not to mention his behavior towards their captain. It’s a shock and hurt that Nami wasn’t at all prepared for and it added a tension in their relationship that is interesting.

1. Nami compliments Sanji’s chivalry

She finds it stupid that he won’t fight women, but in the end still gives him credit for it, even though she acts very tsundere about it later. It’s just something really quiet and nice about the understanding Nami shows for Sanji in this scene. And when she also steps in to take over his fight for him that’s another bonus. “I won’t let you get away with this” has a rather nice ring to it. I still think this is a really important scene that in a simple way shows that the bond Nami and Sanji shares is more than just two people on the same ship. It also shows that Nami has no problem with Sanji being soft towards women, but is still frustrated that he would get hurt or even die because of it.

And those were my favorite SaNami moments from the manga so far. It wasn’t easy trying to pick and rank these moments, and since it’s been a while since I read the whole manga I know I have missed quite a few that maybe deserves their own place on this list. What did you think, do you agree? 

I hope you had fun reading and that we will get plenty of more good Sanji x Nami moments as the story continues. <3

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with Greg Werner

  I love One Piece and I love talking to people who love One Piece. And with the series going on 23 years now, there is a whole lot to talk about. As the series is about to publish its 1000th chapter, a true feat in and of itself, we thought we should reflect upon the high-seas adventure and sit down with some notable names in the One Piece fan community and chat about the arcs they found to be especially important, or just ones they really, really liked.

  Welcome to the next article in the series "My Favorite One Piece Arc!"

  My next guest in this series is Greg Werner, the official One Piece columnist for Shueshia and Toei. For my chat with him, he chose the Arlong Park, in which Luffy and his crew take on Arlong and Nami officially joins Team Straw Hat.

  A note on spoilers: If you haven't seen the Arlong Park arc yet, this interview does contain major plot points. Watch the Arlong Park arc starting RIGHT HERE if you'd like to catch up or rewatch!

    Dan Dockery: Sell me on Arlong Park, in one sentence. Let's say that I'd gotten to the end of the Baratie Arc, and I decided "You know what? I don't think this is for me." What would you say to convince me to keep going?

  Greg Werner: I don’t know if I could sell a bottle to a milkman, but I’ll give it a shot ... Can it be in the form of a question?

  Yes.

  Do you want to know Nami’s backstory? And that seems so facile, but you’re coming off Baratie with the knowledge that Nami has betrayed the crew, she has left the crew, and she has stolen the ship. But it seems like she’s not acting freely, and she mentions the name “Bellemere.” So if you’ve gone through One Piece and you’ve come to that point, that’s simple enough. 

    So, you have Luffy who wants to go get her, an injured Zoro, Usopp, who's gotta be in a weird state, and Sanji who finds her extremely attractive and cool. It's a fun dynamic.

  Zoro and Usopp are an interesting combination, they always are. Usopp always feels like Zoro’s little brother and Zoro kind of has to take a back seat due to injuries here. But I always find their interactions to be very sweet, and you get to see a kind side of Zoro, which is the antithesis of how he interacts with Sanji. And you’re getting hints of the rivalry between Zoro and Sanji here, one that ramps up to the hunting contest in Little Garden, at which point they cease to call each other by their names and just insult one another. And between Luffy and Sanji, you get these kindred spirits due to their dreams. Usopp and Zoro are a little more straight-faced about their dreams, but both Sanji and Luffy utter their dreams with these big smiles. So even though Oda has his pieces all over the map, it’s nice to see the freshness of all of them working together, which is something you won’t find in anything but the best shonen action series.

  When you meet Arlong, he's kind of a jerk. He doesn't seem very nice. But he's one of the first One Piece villains who seems like a complete character. He's mighty but underhanded and deceitful. What does his introduction do for One Piece?

  So I bought the first ten volumes for a co-worker because he’d seemed interested in it, and I said “There, you’ve got the first ten volumes. Now you have no excuse not to get into it.” And we’ve been talking about it recently, especially the little details, and we found something very interesting about Arlong. There’s one aspect of Arlong that is completely different from every villain up to this point and it’s how he treats his crew. Buggy starts off beating up one of his crew members. Part of Kuro’s plan is to kill his crew. Krieg only sees his crew as numbers and will gas them. Arlong, though, to members of his crew, he’s extraordinarily loyal. When he finds out that Zoro has beaten up his crew, Arlong is pissed. In some ways, he’s very similar to Luffy, but he’s despicable and terrifying and he’s one of my favorite villains. 

    That's a great point; Arlong is the first bad guy to have pride in his crew. Speaking of Arlong's crew, this is the first time we get the classic 1v1 where a Straw Hat member matches up against an antagonist crew member. When you first read this, because it's electric every time I watch it, how did you feel to watch it go full-on battle manga?

  Zoro’s a beast. Sanji’s a beast. But Usopp? Facing down this insurmountable force? How is he gonna do this? And I think that’s the moment that got me. The others are awesome, and I love them, and they’re great, funny battles. But with Usopp fighting Chew, it showed Oda’s ability to shine in a certain way. Like Toriyama and Dragon Ball, Oda’s been very influenced by Jackie Chan, because Jackie Chan fights are awesome, visually stunning fights, but they’re funny. And that’s what Oda strives for sometimes. When you combine the action with the gags, you get something very special. You’re not just excited, but you’re laughing, too. And I think Usopp’s battles represent the pinnacle of that. It clicked for me there and it became a page-turner. It feels like what a shonen action series should be. And I enjoy Oda’s different takes on it, but he does it so well here.

    I’m glad you bring up Toriyama and Dragon Ball because if you read any interview with any Shonen Jump author, they praise Toriyama. And it’s deserved. The man’s battle scenes and pacing have never been beaten and probably never will be. He’s the master. But one of the things I like about Oda is that he doesn’t try to copy them. Rather, he takes bits and pieces and spins it off into his own thing. Do you remember the Oda interview with Toriyama where he was like “I really liked Tao Pai Pai …”

  From Color Walk 1.

  And Toriyama was like “I ... drew that?” It’s the funniest thing in the world to me. 

  I think his exact words were “Now you’re getting into the minor characters.” And Oda’s like “MINOR CHARACTERS?”

  He nearly killed Goku! But I dig that kind of reverence and inspiration. So Nami’s backstory — it’s heart-wrenching. Bellemere’s awesome. Makes you wish she was still around in the series.

  Isn’t that perfect? That’s exactly what he goes for. 

  In the end, she refuses to say that she doesn’t have children, even after a bad spat with Nami. This flashback is one of my favorite ones. What did you get out of it and how did it take the story to another level? Because to match it, every flashback to come had to do some heavy lifting.

  Every detail in this flashback builds on itself. There’s no excess. And maybe outside of the Chopper backstory, I can’t think of another backstory that is so full of necessary information that weaves into a single narrative. Every event evokes an emotion in the reader and pushes the story forward. Bellemere has the fight with Nami, makes dinner to reconcile with her, a Fishman crew member sees the cooking smoke from her house, the Fishmen find her, she refuses to discount Nami as her family, and she’s killed. It all comes together so neatly in three chapters, I think. Oda sets a reeeeeally high bar for himself, but to be able to match that through nearly a hundred volumes of story takes a special kind of manga genius. It’s also the very first time I cried while reading manga. 

  Next, we run through basically a Greatist Hits collection of One Piece moments: Nami asks for help, Luffy gives Nami the hat, the march to Arlong Park, Luffy slugs Arlong, the fights happen, Luffy brings down the Gum Gum Battle Axe, Arlong’s spine gets turned into clam chowder, etc. So much of what we think about One Piece is distilled into the final chapters of Arlong Park. So do you have a favorite moment from this climax? I honestly can’t pick.

    I didn’t realize this when I first read it, and it took me several years to understand the importance of the giving of the hat. It’s one of only two times in the series that Oda uses five exclamation points in a row. The other one is when Luffy comes swooping in to save Vivi from Crocodile. Even the famous “dreams of mankind will never end” doesn’t get five. Luffy’s pissed and the best part about this is that he doesn’t have a single reason to be. He knows nothing about Nami’s history and actively refuses to listen to it. He takes a nap instead. He’s just ready to be a tool for her, so when she asks him to help her? YOU GOT IT. And then, the next thing he tells her, after the fight with Arlong, he tells her that she’s his crewmate. Nami has held this by herself for so long, she’s so strong, and she finally opens up to accept help from someone else. And it tells us that Luffy knows what kind of person you are, even if he doesn’t know that much about you. He might be dumb and reckless and strong, but there’s a spark there. He can read you. 

  One thing I like in the anime is that Nami is the first Straw Hat introduced in the story. She’s at the boat party that gets attacked by Alvida, and her showing up there and then being the main focus of Arlong Park bookends East Blue and kind of turns it into her saga. But as they leave this arc and head to Loguetown, what is new about One Piece? What's there that wasn't around before?

  That’s a good question.

  Because I hear many people say “Arlong Park is what made me a One Piece fan.”

  You get to see their daily routines onboard their full ship. You have the established East Blue crew in one location and we get a slice of life. In just a few scenes or panels, you finally get to watch the crew relax. You get a window on their lives and there’s a sense of completeness. It’s a warm, fuzzy feeling. 

    ONE PIECE LIGHTNING ROUND!

  Favorite character?

  Luffy, Franky, and Zoro.

  Favorite villain?

  Arlong.

  Favorite fight scene?

  Luffy vs Bellamy. It’s so satisfying.

  One Piece island that you’d want to live on?

  Skypiea.

  What Devil Fruit would you eat?

  Flower-Flower fruit that Nico Robin uses. I’d get so much work done.

  One Piece moment that made you cry the most?

  Bellemere’s death.

  One Piece moment that made you cheer the loudest?

  The defeat of Lucci. That was remarkable.

      Stay tuned for the next installment of "My Favorite One Piece Arc" as we speak with Aggretsuko and The Black Mage writer Daniel Barnes about his favorite One Piece arc: Marineford!!

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daniel Dockery

[creative-type]

Worth A Thousand Words III: Oda and Stealth Character Development

So...what’s the point of the Skypiea arc? It’s a question One Piece fans and detractors alike ask. I don’t know the answer, but it was probably because Oda thought it would be cool. By its very nature One Piece is not a tightly woven story. Rather, it’s  a sprawling adventure epic, and it does sprawl epically.

Skypiea is, however, an excellent arc when it comes to Straw Hat development, and today I want to focus on one scene in particular with regards to my favorite Nico Robin. 

No, not that one. 

While there is a certain significance to the fact that a survivalist like Robin would choose to side with the Straw Hats over the hugely powerful Enel, the moment Zoro catches Robin is more important to Zoro than Robin. He was the most openly against her, the one who trusted her the least for the longest amount of time. Here Oda is showing us in big flashing lights that, yeah, Zoro has accepted Robin as part of the crew. 

But I don’t want to talk about big, flashy character moments. I want to talk about this

Robin actually gets a pretty decent chunk of screen time during the Sky Island Saga as a whole. It was easier back then because Oda was juggling six main characters instead of nine, but it’s pretty easy to tell he was giving Robin special focus. 

This makes sense. Firstly, Robin was a former enemy, so there’s a need to separate Nico Robin from her Miss All Sunday persona. Secondly, as important as Robin’s dreams are to the narrative as a whole, her position on the ship is the only one that isn’t strictly necessary. Any pirate crew requires fighters, cooks, navigators and the like, but very few would deem  “archaeologist” as a position needing to be filled. So immediately after adding her to the crew Oda makes up a situation where Robin’s skills are helpful and necessary

In this scene Robin also establishes she’s the only one in the crew who’s even heard of the sky islands, while giving some much-needed wisdom to Nami. This, along with what we’ve seen in chapter 218 and the end of 217 gives us what we need to know about Robin’s personality and position in the Straw Hat’s crew. Then shortly after stealing Jaya’s eternal pose from Masira (showing off yet another skill usually relegated to Nami) Robin almost disappears from the narrative entirely and is largely absent from the Jaya sub-arc.

To be fair, up until this point she had been wearing Nami’s clothes, and Robin is, like, almost a foot taller than she is. Some shopping is justifiable here, but it brings me to one of the most important things to keep in mind when analyzing Robin as a character:

Isolation and Distance

One of the best ways to visually convey that a character is emotionally distant is to physically separate them from other people. When Robin first showed up as Miss All Sunday she was sailing the ocean alone. During her confrontation with the Straw Hats about their route she sat far above them where she couldn’t be touched. She left that argument with only her rad turtle ship for company, and spent a surprisingly large amount of the Baroque Works Saga apart from Crocodile despite ostensibly being his partner in crime.

Robin continues to be less than engaged after joining the crew. Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp  fool off with one another constantly. Sanji and Zoro fight. Even Nami is known to smack the rest upside the head when they’re being stupid. Robin alone sits above all their antics, not showing her first face fault in a series lousy with them until well after the timeskip.

It’s pretty easy to pick up in the dialogue that Robin never calls any of the Straw Hats by their actual names, preferring to refer to them by their occupation (or their nose, in Usopp’s case). But the use of impersonal nicknames can’t be the reader’s only clue to Robin’s personality. Both Vivi and Robin have a habit of calling Zoro “Mr. Bushido”, but while the desert princess is kind, personable, and if anything cares a little too much, Robin is distant, standoffish, and at times even cold towards others around her. 

You can even glean some insight from her fighting style. Robin doesn’t have to be in the same room with someone to kill them. She attacks from a distance, relying on stealth and surprise to snap necks and dislocate limbs. It’s brutally efficient and deeply impersonal, perfect for an assassin - or, perhaps, a young girl who was forced to learn on the fly how to fight against much larger opponents who showed no restraint or mercy.  

This is something that was emphasized more in the anime where they had the benefit of knowing Robin’s backstory ahead of time and working little clues into the post-Alabasta filler. They’re a little on the nose at times, but episode 131 is a good example of what I’m talking about here, especially when emphasizing the fact that during the early chapters after joining the crew Robin often doesn’t speak unless directly addressed. To quote Oda in the Volume 71 SBS:

Reader: Robin always talks about creepy things in front of the crew. But her own thoughts, she often thinks of fun stuff like “cats” or “Dress Rosa”. Why doesn’t Robin talk about these things with the crew to make them laugh?

Oda: Even though Robin likes cute things, she’s a bit dark/creepy herself, so if she tries to put these cut thoughts into words there is a chance it may come out as scary/ominous. That’s the kind of woman Robin is.

Robin censers herself to avoid sounding weird. There’s enough evidence of her macabre sense of humor (spoke aloud) to assume that she has embraced her morbid self...most of the time. But Robin has been an outcast her entire life. Even before the Buster Call the citizens of Ohara were calling her demon/monster/creep/insert appropriate insult here.

(For those who don’t remember, the bruise on her cheek is from the other kids who were throwing rocks at her )

Robin spends large stretches of the Skypiea arc by herself, which further emphasizes the importance of what group interaction we do see. Robin has been hiding behind a well-crafted facade for nigh on twenty years because she needed to be a demon in order to survive the cutthroat world in which she lived. 

Which takes us to point number two

Survival

Robin is all about living to see another day. Or she was until Crocodile shanked her (more on this below) Because of her past, she views the world through the lens of a survivor. It shapes how she thinks and how she acts, and Robin at this point doesn’t know any other way to live. 

Robin has been miserably lonely for a long, long time, but believes if she allows herself to get close to others they’ll betray her. She learned the hard way not to trust anyone and that to let your guard down is to die. We see in Alabasta that Robin isn’t afraid to use deadly force against those who get in her way. 

She’s got a bit of a mean streak, too. Though Robin didn’t kill Tagashi, she almost crippled her. That leg injury could have ended Tashigi’s career as a swordsman, which is almost crueler than killing her outright.

When Robin’s backstory is revealed in full the audience is always shown as Robin being the one betrayed, and never the betrayer. I think this helps garner sympathy, but her interaction with Crocodile shows that she’s not above a little backstabbing herself. Aokiji says that every organization she’s ever been a part of no longer exists, and I think that’s only possible if her reputation is at least somewhat deserved. When it comes to finding out the truth of the Void Century, Robin has literally the worst tunnel vision ever.

Which brings me to my last point

Openness to Change

Throughout the Sky Island Saga Robin is a woman who has lost her reason to live. Her only lead to the Rio Poneglyph was a dead end, and she doesn’t find Roger’s message until the end of the arc. That leaves a big chunk of time where she’s staying with the Straw Hats just because she can.

I think if she were as truly as fiercely pragmatic as she (and others) claim then she has no business on the Going Merry. Half of what the Straw Hats do is idiotic and should get them killed, and it’s amazing that they’ve survived this long as it is. Since Robin had resigned herself to death during the tail end of the Alabasta arc, we can assume that the idea of dying doesn’t bother her. Yes, Luffy made her go on, but she’s still stuck in this directionless limbo.   

This is important because it gives Robin something other to focus on than the Void Century. Her desire to find the True History consumed her to the point where she was willing to work with Crocodile for four years and bring a “good” country to the brink of ruin. Without this obsession driving every decision Robin makes, she can take a step back and see the Straw Hat Pirates for what they really are.

The Stealth Character Development

Robin is not the focus of chapter 253. It’s a transition chapter situated between the first and second halves of the Skypea arc. The Straw Hats have reunited had their obligatory split the party moment that happen with frighteningly regularity. The crew are setting up camp as night approaches, comparing notes of what they’ve discovered so far.

Until this point, Robin has been with Zoro and Nami. These two make up 2/3 of the Straw Hats who showed initial distrust to Robin, and at this point Zoro stil hasn’t accepted her as one of their own. Yet they treat her with respect, and Nami especially seems to look up to her as an older sister figure.

Then Nami finds the other half of Cricket’s house, and without hesitation Zoro follows the comparatively weaker crew mate through the incredibly dangerous forest, which displays a trust for one another that would be very appealing to someone like Robin.

When the Straw Hats finally reunite, everyone is on good terms with one another. Remember, at this they’ve have stumbled into the middle of a civil war, made enemies with an unknown entity with a god complex, branded themselves as criminals, and almost gotten their ship destroyed. Some of their misfortune is just that - misfortune. But bad decision making plays at least a part of their current circumstance. It would be easy to turn on one another, and I think most pirates would. Just see how Usopp reacts when he sees what’s happened to the Merry

Anyone who has read the Water 7 arc knows how much Usopp loves this ship, but his first concern is Chopper. Compare to how any one of the Baroque Works agents reacted when someone failed a mission. Instead of falling apart during a time of crisis, the Straw Hats come closer together. 

Chapter 253 begins with the crew setting up camp. Once again Robin goes off and does her own thing, this time finding a hunk of rock salt to use for cooking. Sanji predictably praises her, but he also reveals that he’s got a brain in his head by saying how important salt is to survival. Tick another box in the Straw Hat’s favor.

Every one of the Straw Hats helps set up camp, even the captain (useless as he may be). More than that, they each reveal a little of their talents. It’s sort of a reverse of what happens earlier in the arc when Robin showed off for the rest of the Straw Hat’s benefit. Through this Robin sees that the Straw Hats aren’t just good fighters, but smart and skilled as well. 

After establishing the location of the gold and making plans for the next day, Robin makes a practical suggestion

This sequence marks the beginning of Robin’s stealth character development. She’s speaking here as a pragmatist and a survivor. Her point is valid, and any sensible person would have agreed with her. 

The Straw Hat Pirates are many things, but sensible isn’t one of them. Luffy turns to Usopp in complete disbelief, while Usopp basically says “Go easy on her, Cap, there’s no way she could have known.”

Until this point, Robin has not been questioned by the Straw Hats. She’s not seen this sort of reaction directed at her, especially by Luffy. Her face says it all

Robin’s expression is pretty neutral here, but you can’t hide that sweat drop XD. She’s genuinely concerned that she’s made some sort of mistake. Remember, in Robin’s dog-eat-dog world a making a mistake is tantamount to death. She’s spent twenty years allying with people who at the very least distrust her, and more often than not try to kill her. And now, stuck up in in such a precarious position 10.000 meters above ground she has to be especially careful.

It’s okay, Robin, you’ve not done anything wrong. Luffy is just a dork

Note that Nami - the other survivalist in the crew - immediately jumps to her defense. They’re outnumbered by Zoro and Sanji, who have already made a giant bonfire. 

Before we know it, the Straw Hats are partying with a bunch of wild wolves (Oda, plz...). They’re stuck deep in enemy territory on the night before a planned raid on the city of gold...and the Straw Hat Pirates are having a blast. Usopp’s playing the drums, Nami’s getting plastered, the rest are dancing their little hearts away, and Robin...Robin is smiling. This has got to be one of the most surreal, bizarre situations she’s ever seen.

 Which brings us back to the image I started with

This says a lot about where Robin is at this point in the story. We can’t see her face clearly, but it’s established on the other half of the spread that she’s enjoying herself. Yet she remains distant, both physically and emotionally. The only thing that’s keeping Robin from joining in is Robin herself.

The Skypiea arc is important to Robin’s development because it rekindles her dream, but more than that it gives us moments like this where Robin is exposed to something she’s desired for twenty years, something we see later she’s always wanted but never believed that she would have.

The Straw Hat Pirates accept Robin unconditionally and show her a side of life that she’s never seen before. Even without knowing her entire backstory, by the time the Water 7 arc rolls around the audience genuinely believes that Robin would sacrifice her life, and the lives of every one else in the world, just to save the Straw Hat Pirates, and that wouldn’t be possible if Oda hadn’t given us this scene and others like it. 

To put it another way, I fully believe that Robin would still make the same decisions during Water 7/Enies Lobby regardless of whether she found Roger’s message or not. The Skypiean Poneglyph furthers Robin’s part of the plot, but chapter 253 furthers her character arc.

What makes this all the more impressive is that Oda trusts his readers enough to figure it out for themselves. Unlike the anime, he never calls attention to Robin’s isolation and her gradual warming to the crew. Gan Fall wakes up on the very next page, and the focus shifts to more exposition, ending with the big reveal of what vearth is and why in the it’s so important. The development is stealthy. 

Oda never makes a big deal of when Robin starts calling the crew by their real names during Thriller Bark. He doesn’t shove it in our face when she feels comfortable enough to tell Franky off for being stupid in Chopper’s body during Punk Hazard. He’s constantly using small moments all throughout the series to show how the crew has changed and grown, which is partially why people don’t think the characters have much depth.

It’s there, but without reading carefully it can be lost with everything else that’s going on. Just compare the Skypiean party to the end of Enies Lobby and tell me that Robin hasn’t changed. I dare you.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Paramount War (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

ace’s execution is, in a way, the exception that proves the rule when it comes to one piece’s themes of blood and family. ace is set up to die for the crimes of a father he never knew and never wanted, and he does die here, but in the end he dies for the family he did choose, in the form of luffy, rather than the one he didn’t. 

god do i wish we knew more about ms portgas d. rouge. with ace’s storyline pretty much wrapped it looks unlikely that we’re going to be learning more about her than what we got, which in my opinion is an absolute tragedy, because what little we do know about her is amazing and she’s an absolute badass. oda give us more female ds please.

whitebeard’s power is so cool. it might be one of the visually coolest devil fruits we’ve ever seen, in my opinion. he he causes earthquakes and tsunamis while far past his prime; he pulls the sky apart with his bare hands. this whole arc is world-shaking, and whitebeard’s power is perfectly appropriate for it. 

doflamingo’s speech on justice and rightness is one of the most well-remembered quotes from this whole saga, and rightly so. i’ve always found it fascinating, myself, because he’s right. he dead-on hits how the one piece world works- the world government and the marines rule the world not because of any inherent actual goodness or justice or right, but because they won a war a very long time ago. 

in a way, this reminds me of blackbeard’s line of “people’s dreams never die” from jaya. i like how oda isn’t afraid of letting his villains be right about the themes of the story, sometimes even having better awareness of them than the protagonists. 

man, if i had to pick a single favorite spread out of the whole manga, it might be luffy’s marineford entrance. it’s so epic, and so completely unexpected for everyone else there. absolutely nobody was expecting strawhat luffy to drop out of the sky with a posse including two former warlords. it just makes me grin!! so much!! 

it also gets followed up by a solid two pages of just people’s reactions, from smoker’s “what the HELL is he doing with CROCODILE” to moria’s immediate incoherent rage, and i just love that the world and cast of one piece is so well-established and built up that we know exactly how all of those people know luffy and why they react the way they do. 

going back to what i mentioned in the last post about marineford being luffy’s conflict of interest arc, i’d say it’s also the only time where he isn’t the future king first and foremost. in this arc, before anything else, he’s a little brother.

there are a lot of what-if moments in marineford. moments where you kind of have to ask “what if this specific thing hadn’t happened, had gone differently?” would things have turned out differently? squard’s betrayal is one of them. does this change the outcome? would whitebeard have been able to survive if not for this injury? there’s no way to know. marineford is a lot of little tragedies, and they just pile up and up.

marineford has just so many incredibly striking spreads. all of the momentous moments (and there’s a lot of them, in this arc) are done full justice. this is such an image heavy post just because marineford is such an incredibly visually strong arc. 

conqueror’s haki is so cool and i love the way it’s set up and built up throughout this saga, with luffy’s constant inadvertent uses of it, from duval’s bull to marigold and sandersonia to the wolves in impel down, all leading up to this moment. 

i’ve heard people complain about conqueror’s as kind of a deus ex machina, but i honestly love it, it’s very cool and honestly i think it just seems to fit luffy as a power. if there was ever gonna be a character who turned willpower into a weapon, it would be monkey d. luffy. 

i’m gonna take this chance to talk about garp, because this sequence of panels is heavily implied to be garp’s thoughts just before luffy punches him down, and it hurts. garp is a flawed person who makes some bad choices, and there’s no arguing that, but i think it’s very obvious he really, really cares about his grandsons, even if he never could understand them as people and that they never would have been happy as marines. and that’s just tragic, really. 

the moment ace gets freed and the brief span of time where he and luffy can fight together feel so triumphant, and i think it’s one of the reasons the final tragedy of marineford hits so hard and feels so cruel, because luffy succeeds, here. he saves ace. he gives absolutely everything he had and makes it, and saves ace. the ultimate failure isn’t his. there was nothing more he could have done. 

the first time i was reading one piece, i hit this page (which is also the last in the volume) and had to put the book away, take the bus downtown, wander around for a few hours, and buy myself some candy and some new books before i started feeling okay again.

the thing about ace’s death, i think, is that it’s a tragedy, but it also feels so completely essential to the story going forwards and luffy’s character growth specifically that it’s really, really hard to imagine one piece without it. there are a lot of (really excellent!) fix-fics out there for marineford, and although those are often really good and their authors super talented, i think it’s really hard for them to ever hit the same way canon does with regards to this. 

i always think of this scene specifically in contrast to zoro and mihawk’s fight, back on baratie. zoro and mihawk are both people who believe in honor in battle, true victory or death, and that’s reflected in their fight, in zoro’s refusal to turn and run even in the face of imminent death, and mihawk’s respect for that resolve. whitebeard, too, is an honorable man. he refuses to turn to run, even when facing certain death. 

the blackbeard pirates, however, are not. 

i do enjoy how, just like roger’s, ace’s execution backfires tremendously on the marines. this was entirely a predictable outcome, too! this exact thing happened twenty years ago! the marines don’t learn. they don’t change. they’re so assured of their own rightness and power that they make stupid mistakes like holding a massive public execution after the last one blew up in their faces. 

(this is why they need coby so badly, for the record, and why it’s important that he still decides to become a marine after witnessing their corruption firsthand in shells town. the marines are long overdue for a reformation, one that orients them towards real justice.)

i really, really enjoy crocodile in this saga. mostly because he hasn’t been redeemed at all, he’s still pretty much the exact same kinda awful person he was in alabasta, he’s just on luffy’s side this time, and it lets us see him in a better light, when he gets angry at whitebeard for nearly dying or when he helps luffy and jinbe escape to keep the marines from getting their way. few of one piece’s characters are truly so one-dimensional as they can seem, and i really appreciate that. 

i really really love all the interactions between luffy, ace and sabo as kids. they’re so fun and bounce off of each other so well. even though we only see them together for a brief time, they really feel like siblings. (which of course only makes later events hurt so much more.

i’ve always been a little fascinated by the fact that it takes us this long to get luffy’s full backstory. it’s almost a fakeout, because we get part of his backstory in the very first chapter, and we’re kind of led to believe that’s all there is. it’s not until ace’s introduction nearly two hundred chapters in that we’re given any indication there’s more.

but at the same time, it makes sense. marineford is luffy’s focus arc, as arlong park to nami or thriller bark to brook. he hasn’t had a focal arc that’s really about him before this, while all his other crewmates have. it makes sense that this would be when he finally gets his flashback. 

i think it’s cool that dragon and the revolutionaries show up at the grey terminal fire, because it’s one of the only looks we’ve gotten so far into what their actual regular operations are like. and, of course, they’re saving people. i really like this about the revolutionaries, that helping people in trouble is basically their modus operandi, when pretty much everyone else in one piece’s world mostly does saving on an incidental basis if at all. 

i think a lot about how the last line of sabo’s letter to ace is also both of their last words to the strawhats. 

death in one piece always feels much realer and more impactful to me than in most other series, and i think this is part of the reason why: in one piece, we are always shown the mourning. nami at bellemere’s grave, carrot grieving pedro, ace and whitebeard’s funeral. 

there are fewer deaths, comparatively, than most other series, but they’re given so much room to echo. we’re still feeling the impacts of ace’s life and death in the most recent chapters of wano. it ties into the theme of inherited will and all the way back to hiriluk’s final speech, of men not being dead so long as they’re remembered. 

the picture of luffy at marineford always kind of strikes me. he looks so young and so solemn, and yet much more himself than he did when we last saw him losing his mind on amazon lily. i really like it. 

sometimes i just think about the sheer depth of trust and love the strawhats must have in each other to separate for two years, far longer than they were ever together, to solely dedicate themselves to improving for the sake of crew and captain. none of them even hesitate, and none of them ever doubt that the crew will be reformed at the end of it.

after all, luffy keeps his promises.