Well, Toei has been handling the flashback very well so far. The pacing has been pretty damn good.

Takeuchi fits perfectly as Sabo. Brilliant casting decision on their part.

Shirahoshi rejecting Decken was great. The Sea Forest should be interesting with so many characters heading in that direction. I hope we see them arriving soon.

It's quite obvious now that the real villains of the arc have yet to be revealed.

So, Aokiji helps the Straw Hats cause massive devastation to the world? That makes perfect sense.

Glad to know that according to this theory, Chopper completely fails in his dreams, too. Also, that everyone who mocked Sanji and told him the All Blue wasn't real were actually right. That would be quite like Oda to do.

Enel's is the best in my mind. I would go with Arlong second.

I don't see what the problem with the flashbacks is. They made sense in the context of what was going on. I think this episode was handled really well. I also thought the bit where they showed all of the characters at the end of the war was really well done.

Now, the trick will be what Toei is going to do from here.

It would certainly be nice to get One Piece back on TV, wherever it was. From what I've heard, it sounds like Nicktoons edits are a lot better than those on Toonzai, so that would also be a plus.

@paranoik0s:

im pretty dissapointed that FI story is so swallow
its just like Arabasta with less storyline with those wanting to overthrow the king

or like in thriller with absalom being dekken

tch tch tch oda oda oda
give us some more juice!

i bet there is some yonkou coming or some supernova under one

The arc is still pretty early on, though. I also don't think it's really that similar to those other story arcs. The only similarity with Arabasta is that you have a group of rebels, but that's not really much of a similarity at all.

There's been a fair amount happening in the past few chapters, and I think things will start to become clearly over the next few months.

With a poneglyph being in the area, things are definitely picking up, and it seems like this arc is still just in its infancy. I'm sure that the real antagonists of the arc haven't even been introduced yet.

This was definitely a pretty good chapter, with revelations into a lot of different characters. This arc is really starting to shape up into something special.

@Sonic:

Another thing I've been wondering about is:

The pirates who attacked Brooks former pirate clan "The Rumba Pirates", was it maybe Van Der Decken!?

I mean, arrows, amarite? And Brook seemed very scared everytime Van Der Deckens name was mentioned in these latest chapters.

That would be an interesting twist. Not to mention, it would actually give Brook reason to be something other than a walking punchline for once, which would be nice.

@RobinotX:

Shirahoshi? Joining? Atm no, yes she has contact with Luffy. Yes, she feels like having adventure, true what Aohige said that both Female Straw Hats had something horrible happening with their mother.

But as far as I know of Shira hasn't said anything about seeing her mother die. I will wait next chapter to see what happens, but Shira seems, well not likely. For once cause she can't walk. And she is the size of a giant. So yes I hope most Shirahoshi fanboys are just trolling >:

I wouldn't consider myself a Shirahoshi fan, but I consider her the most likely to join right now just because of those reasons. There's at least some evidence there, but that could easily be a red herring on Oda's part. I'm not sure why people feel the need to treat that speculation as ridiculous, though. Perona speculation was stupid. Shirahoshi speculation seems perfectly logical based on the last 2-3 chapters.