@Robby:
No, I thought you were talking about the characters you completely forgot about that actually were very obviously from the literary source, and who are the characters everyone else was talking about.
I assumed I was getting the name mixed up.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and assumed the mistake was on my end.
Do you perhaps see where the confusion everyone else was having lay?
Then it was simply counter-productive.
When you're discussing something, if you think you or the other partie is mixing something up, you should ask to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Otherwise you're just trowing words around and no one will get anywhere.
You did exactly what this person did. It's the exact same jump in logic, just on a smaller scale. Check some of the replies in there and you might see why it strikes a nerve.
http://www.apforums.net/showthread.php?t=43671
You have a guy who anallyzed a different series entirely, trying to connect all this dots about how OP is remaking or retelling the same story and claims it as a fact.
You have me (hi) coming to a thread about little things, jokes, references, nods OP does to other series and asking "Hey, look at this, happy coincidence or a small nod?"
You think these are the same situations on different scales? You put way to many words on my mouth/fingertips.
This is the closest we have, well I have, to asking something in a SBS or something of the sorts. If you know a better place to ask please do tell, I'm not trying to bother the people around here.
Like I said, sure, there could be a connection. But the fact that you have a personal connection doesn't make it any less a random connection to assume about Oda. I watched Maya the Bee and David the Gnome and those were popular in Japan, but I don't assume that the Tontottas come from there. There's not really much to go on compared to a great number of the much more obvious homages and references Oda has made over the years.
Don't stop looking for such things though, it is cool when people discover something and it fits. This just doesn't so much.
I never got the Maya or Gnome vibe from the Tontattas. They look like assorted fairies to me.
Maybe if one of them had the bee bee fruit. Or if they didn't fly and lived quieter lives.
And since were going on those references, I'll adress the ones you priviously made.
Myazaki's Animal Treasure Island would be an inspiration for why there is a race of animal people, same with Disney's Robin Wood, not why Oda associated them with musketeers which are not present in those films.
The film with Mickey, Donald and Goofy was made 10 years ago. I went and checked when that retelling of the 3 Musketeers with dogs aired, if it hadn't aired around the time Oda was a kid I would have not bother asking.
Taking the guns metaphor again, I know it's a bit of a shot in the dark and never claimed otherwise.
But I'm not walking into that dark room with two fully loaded revolvers and spinning around hoping to hit anything.
I'm walking into that dark room with one bullet in the chamber, walking two paces forward, one to the left, turn 84 degrees to the side and wait to hear if my bullet hit the target.
Edit: Btw, Crocodile was inspired by Tarantino?
I get the Nico Robin. It's the resemblance to Mia, right?
But I'm drawing a blank on what could have been used for Crocodile.