Oh c'mon… I can't help but get annoyed at the people screaming 'I don't care about the kids'.
I get that it is kind of a flaw of One Piece that its pacing doesn't quite fit a weekly format. Oda likes to expand upon things, and slowly develop connections between the reader and the characters. And that get's kind off lost if you only get a chapter per week. For example, it has been like 9 or 10 weeks (didn't count) since we saw the scene with the parents of the children. And we are only now reaching the begining of the climax of that plot point.
That works well with mystery, but with emotion it kind of loses mommentum with all the waiting.
About this chapter, I just thought the flashback was unnecessary. I mean, I enjoyed the flashback, I just think it didn't need to be a flashback. She could say all that lying in the ground coughing blood, instead of holding the door... it would make it even more powerful, IMHO. Even so, that's more personal preference than anything. And Oda does love his flashbacks, and there was some stuff in there that could only work in a flashback, and adds some flavor to the story. Either way it was powerful. And I'm not that sure she'll leave. Oda did a great job this arc to show he's not that forgiving anymore. We saw people getting eaten alive. Kids on crack beating on their rescuers.
Maybe she'll get handicapped, or Chopper we'll manage to heal her, but it will be hinted that she won't live much longer.
Or maybe not. I don't know, but I do have a feeling it won't be a happily ever after.
And who the hell thinks we didn't need this character development. Until now we knew the kids knew each other and were frendly between themselves, not nearly enough for Mocha to sacrifice herself. Now we know they promised to meet in the sea when they are adults... And they would never grow to become adults. That's more like it. It just sucks that not everybody can capture all the emotion from this chapter reading the manga weekly. Fishman Island was the same, absolutely perfect read all at once. Pretty average reading weekly.
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@Urouge:
Dude, you're talking about an English scanlation, not a Spanish one. Reading it as English is a given.
There are many english words where the ch reads like the CH in Chocolate. Like Machinegun, for instances.
So yeah, if we're suposed to read it like 'Moka', it should be written 'Moka' unless that's the official spelling.
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BTW, reading the CCC version, I couldn't help but shed a tear when chopper thinks 'this is all my fault'.