It all sounds like a professional kitchen. You have the chef that is responsible for everything, and the cooks that do all the prepping and cleaning up. As soon as the cooks level up their mad skillz enough, they go out to start their own dynasty. Their professional ability is founded upon the skills they learned from other masters. That could be called plagiarism, but I'd call it the natural course of action.

I remember ordering Shounen Jumps for chapters in Skypiea. Must've been sometime during the survival game.

@Zephos:

The One Piece is..

The Rio Poneglyph.

I've seen this claim sometimes, and it became more popular since the Ohara flashback. What none of the theories have explained is WHY a stone block is One Piece. It has some history written on it – So did the Skypiea block. What exactly is it that makes this particular piece of history so important? Civilizations are born and lost all the time. Whatever this Lombax culture invented back in the lost history is all mere speculation at the current point in the timeline. They could have been a culture of banana farmers with no military power whatsoever, just as easily. If we take Clover's explanation at face value, we also have to accept that the Gorousei knows everything that Clover did and more. Doesn't your theory imply that Gorousei is aware what the One Piece is and means? Though with everything WB said before dying, there is a certain degree of merit in this line of thought.

In the OP world, the One Piece has been painted as a treasure beyond imagination. Chances are it's something highly symbolic, which doesn't make sense on its own. Like if it was an item, the One Piece could be a copper fork, or a fossilized parrot, or a ripped off page from a book, providing there's enough explanation why it's so important. Even if we could use ESP to figure out what the One Piece is, that doesn't necessarily tell us anything useful right now.

Same goes with One Piece being a piece of history or some other abstract treasure, it means nothing without the correct context.

(Though I have to note that this is basically what Rayleigh said to the Strawhats.)

I wouldn't put it past Oda to do something like that when it's least expected, but the explanation is very convenient and easy. I could see that happening in some manga with a much less developed plotline.

@$abZ:

Buggy or Shanks haven't mentioned it, so they either haven't been there, forgotten about it or know there's a special way to get in and they can't do it at the present time.

HAKI !

(16 letters of doom)

もう二度と会う事はない

That is certainly ambiguous. Literal: "There will not be a second time for a meeting to occur."

Whether he means a meeting between Luffy & Strawhats or Luffy & Kuma, there's no way to tell without context.

This thread is already all but off-topic, so more derailing shouldn't be a problem.

@igetownd:

Gomu Gomu sounds just as lame in Japanese as Gum Gum sounds in English.

The fruit names are pretty good little language tricks in Japanese. It ties the complex sound effect meanings with the word-doubling idea from regular Japanese grammar. Like "hito" = person, "hitobito" = persons. "Hane" = wing, "hanebane" = wings. Those examples have a dakyon for emphasis, but you could for example look at the three kanji of 木 (wood), 林 (grove), and 森 (forest), which has 1, 2, 3 times the kanji of wood depending on the size of the tree-infested area. Oda of course customized the original ideas like he does with all of his OP stuff.

That kind of meanings are impossible to convey using the English language. Everyone has to remember that fan translators are amateur enthusiasts - They aren't tied with (or benefit from) the professional translating etiquette (or translating pride) that drives the really creative translations. Figuring out good English terms for all these things is a really difficult job.

I like to keep my fan translations half-Japanese, and my professional translations fully English. Coolest part about fan translations is that anyone who is not happy with what they've got can just translate on their own and get exactly what they wished for.

Why is this discussion about nouns and quotes? You're analyzing linguistics from an author who has resorted to language puns throughout One Piece. Most of the questions should receive an answer just by waiting for future chapters. In the meanwhile, nothing useful is getting added to the discussion.

The thing about the most exploitable Haki bursts we've seen so far is that they only target cannon fodder that was going to get kicked in the butt anyways.

About powering up punches and weapons - Well, it's a shounen manga…

When Rayleigh mentioned that he will not use whatever he used to help them escape the slave auction, his untranslated bubble read 「力」 as if it was some extraordinary power or skill.

I can see why people hate this kind of development happening in OP, but I've started to trust in Oda somewhere along the way. I believe that this is his way of twisting the overdone DBZ Ki cliche into something interesting, yet believable and dynamic in storytelling terms.

I highly doubt that the next arc will introduce flying space monkeys with Haki detecting visors. (Other than as a joke)