I see we are continuing the trend of Blackbeard and Shanks only appearing on volume covers together.
Best posts made by black-leg jex
-
RE: Volume 105 Predictions/Discussion
-
RE: Official Egghead Thread
I have a predition around what's going on in Egghead and why one of the Punk's has betrayed the others.
I think that the traitourous Punk is planning to perform some morally corrupt experiment, killing all those captured Cipher Pol agents and harnassing the power of their souls. Maybe the plan is even to capture the Straw Hats as well. That's why those Cipher Pol agents are in some kind of weirdly shaped container, in a secret part of the lab that must not show up on any monitor and that the other punks don't know about (otherwise they should've found them a long time ago). This experiment will obviously result in a lot of death, and so all the other Punks are against it, which is why the traitor is trying to get rid of them as well (it can't get rid of the Stella so he's tied up and outside of the actual machine itself).
As for why this Punk is trying to harnass the agents souls, I think it connects back to the unlimited fuel from the Void Century that Vegapunk has been researching. I think soul power is the fuel needed to power the Iron Giant, and the Iron Giant, being so big, needs a lot of them. We've seen both from Moriah and Big Mom that other people's essence / souls contain power and can be placed into both objects to give them life, and people to make them stronger. With the recent discussions of souls and devil fruits in the beginning section of this arc, I think it would be fitting it tied back into the ancient fuel.
It's possible that the reason the Iron Giant was active 200 years ago is because a previous Soul-Soul fruit user used their powers to give it life. And as for why this Punk let slip to the government about the Poneglyph research, it may have been to lure agents over to use as fuel. Plucking any of the lab assistants (who may all be robots as far as we know) would arouse suspicion, but using outside people and then covering up their disappearance would be simpler.
-
RE: Notions That Don't Deserve Their Own Threads
Something I was thinking about last night, but isn't it weird how we've not seen anything of Smoker yet? Not even just there at G-14 in the background like we did with Tashigi. Even with all the cutaways to the Marines getting ready, Smoker is oddly absent. I at first thought it was because he was actually on Egghead but that seems unlikely now.
So I wonder if he's actually somewhere else entirely and only Tashigi stayed behind to help take care of the kids? Fujitora is also notably absent right now, as we know what Kizaru and Green Bull were last doing, but not Fujitora. Could the two of them be together? Last we saw Smoker was him reacting to what Fujitora did at Dressrosa afterall, so maybe he sought him out?
-
RE: Volume 106 Predictions/Discussion
I think the manga made it pretty clear. When Koby saw Tashigi at Fullalead he said that even non-Sword members came to save him.
-
RE: Volume 106 Predictions/Discussion
Post-TS One Piece has caused me to have such a visceral reaction to seeing the colour pink on female designs that I think Atlas and Lilith's colours make their design worse. Pink has just been so overused and I would be fine if just one of them had it, but both? Each of the other Punks has a different core colour so having pink twice is lame (although I think Lilith's jacket is purple which is probably meant to be her colour, but it's not really in focus here).
-
RE: Official Egghead Thread
@Deicide said in Official Egghead Thread:
@black-leg-jex I find this comparison totally unwarranted. The "Raid will fail" theories were bad because:
- Wano was already overly long at that point, reaching more than 100 chapters
- The crew had already gone throught the cycle of defeat/setbacks/powerups in Act 1 and 2.
- Onigashima was when the big match-ups were already happening
This is totally unlike Egghead, in which:
These are only some of the reasons that the raid failing was a bad theory though, and I want to point out that some of the big 'evidence' for why people thought the raid would feel is BECAUSE the Straw Hats needed a defeat/setback because that was the usual arc way. Many who believed in this theory also didn't believe that what we had in act 1/2 really counted or was enough to fill this goal. People also didn't believe that the match-ups were decided because they felt the Tobiroppo, and anyone else on Kaido's side other than Jack and Queen, needed more build-up before they could be justified as the 'match-ups'. But all of this ended up not being the case at all and it can easily be the same here.
And another issue the raid failing didn't make sense as a theory is that it relied on there being some downtime where the crew and the alliance would regroup, train more, get power-ups and then try again. Some even thought there would be a timeskip in order for this to happe. But logically, even at the start of act 3, this didn't make sense because they had establishd that this was their last chance. Egghead has this same problem, it doesn't make sense for the marines to fall back and regroup or for the Straw Hats to regroup and come up with a new plan. If that happened it really would feel like a reset of the stakes because we'll basically be back in the same position as we were a few chapters ago. This is the Marine Raid now and it's all just going to be hieghtned action and pay-off to plot points established in these first 20 chapters (which also, chapter number doesn't matter. This arc was never going to be a super long one and it ending in the next volume would only be a surprise because it would mean the Kuma flashback is very short).
-
RE: Official Egghead Thread
@Deicide said in Official Egghead Thread:
Which, again, is pretty much what I said.
So... what's your point, really? Because mine was, first, that the escape plan would fail, and it did, and now, that we haven't reached the highest tension moment yet, but we are nearing it.
So... I fail to see what you are trying to argue against.
You're the one who jumped to defend yourself, even though my first comment in this argument wasn't aimed at anyone in particular.
But what I will argue against is the same thing King Cannon just argued against. I don't think we are early in Egghead at all, in fact I would say we're pretty late into it and it will wrap up within the next volume or 2. Once Saturn appears we will be in the final act of this arc.
I don't think the Straw Hats are going to go through a cycle of defeat/regroup/power-up either. Whilr Kizaru and Lucci might not be the final villains for Luffy and Zoro in this arc, that's only so that Luffy can fight Saturn and Zoro S-Hawk instead. Either way I don't think Luffy or Zoro will lose their current fights, they'll just get interrupted instead.
And I very much doubt everyone in this arc will get a fight. I know there's the admirals but Doll is the only one who doesn't feel like fodder (and only barely). Franky and Sanji will probably fight all of the vice admirals + Saturn until someone (Kuma or Blackbeard pirates) appears and saves them. Luffy aand Zoro are fighting right now but those two are also the best candidates to 'fight' S-Snake and S-Hawk, while Jinbei and Bonney are the best candidates to 'fight' S-Shark and S-Bear. That's it. I very much doubt anyone else is getting a fight in this arc and I imagine most of them will be waiting at the ship for the other groups to come back (while Kaku and York will be responsible for free the CP agents and Seraphim and then not do much else).
-
RE: Official Egghead Thread
@The-Light-of-Shandora said in Official Egghead Thread:
I would love S-shark vs Jinbei, not a real fight, but maybe he can short circuit him like Luffy did with S-snake. Finding a way to overwrite their command. Maybe this will be explored elsewhere but since he's the only one currently available to fight his own clone on Egghead. I would like to see a confrontation between them. It doesn't need to end bloody and with a defeat of S-shark, but maybe he can free him?
Same goes for S-bear maybe Kuma can do something to him or Bonney?
I still hope that the memories Bonney experienced either end up in the original Kuma or S-bear and they will tag along with the crew.It's exactly this. Oda has reitirated the authority hierarchy to us several times so that Saturn can come in and turn the tables by taking control of the Seraphim and Pacifista, and make it seem like all hope is lost.
But Oda has also given us a hint at how the Straw Hats will get around this. The Seraphim are programmed to be able to make decisions on their own, as shown when they originally disobeyed Lucci's orders and went up to the Labophase during act 1. And then later on, we found out that Luffy was able to bypass York's orders with S-Snake, purely because she has a crush on him (caused by leftover feelings from Hancock). So from this we can figure out that strong emotions can cause the Seraphim to ignore orders, regardless of who gave them, and they can act on their own - even changing sides. And I don't think it's a coincidence that of the seven seraphim, the four that are here are the four who weren't pure antagonists to the Straw Hats but mostly allies to them. And each one has some kind of connection to someone on Egghead right now:
- S-Snake -> Loves Luffy thanks to Hancock loving Luffy and will put his authority above everyone elses
- S-Bear -> Kuma is Bonney's daughter and protecting her is almost certainly his primary motivation for a lot of his action. So it stands to reason that S-Bear should feel that same affection to Bonney,
- S-Shark -> Jinbei is literally here and so if anyone is getting through to him, Jinbei can. Maybe through reminding him about Fisher Tiger and what the WG did to him, or maybe by reminding him about why they follow Luffy.
- S-Hawk -> this is the most nebulous one but Mihawk did train Zoro and has a bit of a competetive streak, fighting his way to being the World's Greatest Swordsman. I could see Zoro easily taunting S-Hawk into only fighting him and maybe even pulling a reversal of the original Mihawk vs Zoro fight, where Zoro beats S-Hawk and challenges him to get better at being a swordsman. This all basically leads to S-Hawk ignoring all other orders and putting all his attention on Zoro instead.
This is why I labeled them as 'fights' and not fights because the first two won't be a fight at all really, and S-Shark could go either way. Only S-Hawk vs Zoro will be a fight.
-
RE: Volume 107 Prediction/Discussion
Seems like we also get the name of Bonney's Devil Fruit.
-
RE: Official Egghead Thread
Yeah, I agree with Deicide on this. While the Supernova's weren't planned, I imagine that a lot of them took the roles that Oda had planned for future arcs. Bonney, Kid and Law all have roles that feel neccessary for plot points Oda was setting up before their reveal and Urogue could also fall into this category depending on where his story goes (he's a way for Eneru and the Sky Island lore to reenter the picture).
-
RE: Official Egghead Thread
I think Elbaf kind of has to be next. There are a lot of signs pointing towards it like Saul seemingly being there with all the Ohara books, it being close by according to Vegapunk. It's connection with Shanks (and Kid presumably being there) and we can't have that many arcs left in the story and Elbaf is one of the only arcs we absolutely have to get before the series end (the other being Laugh Tale itself).
Also, if you believe in the parallel stories theory, Egghead is the post-timeskip parallel to Saboady (dealing with Kizaru and Kuma and potentially having Luffy punch another Celestial Dragon, this time a more important one) which means the next arc has to be a parallel to Amazon Lilly, an arc focused on a unique tribe of warrior people unaffiliated with the World Government that end up as allies of the Straw Hats by the end of it. That sounds like Elbaf to me.
-
RE: Jump Festa 2024
@Deicide he should also know there's one on Whole Cake Island as well. That's the advantage Buggy and Shanks have, they saw where all 4 road poneglyphs were. Blackbeard got lucky that Law had been to Zou already because otherwise he probably would've struggled finding them. The only one that no one knows the location of is the last one, which is why Oda might be setting up for all the emperors to clash at its location.
-
RE: Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead)
Yamato probably would've shifted focus away from Jinbei. If we think of how the structure of Egghead has been so far, Yamato would've been stuck with the Robin, Sanji, Nami, Franky group and end up spending most of their time in the lab, where as I feel like Oda would want Yamato's first thing to be to run off in excitement. It could happen but then we'd just have this random section of Yamato running around on their own, not really doing anything until the Seraphom attacked and that feels a little pointless.
-
RE: Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead)
@Zin-Magala said in Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead):
Will Yamato join at that point? No idea, but Oda better have something new to say about Yamato if that is the case otherwise what was the point of delaying.
The same reason Jinbei joining got delayed. Oda just doesn't have anything for Yamato to do on Egghead. And I think this is fair for this arc because I imagine Yamato would immediately run off and explore on the first new island he lands on, and it doesn't make much sense for him to do that on the government controlled Egghhead. It would be more fitting on Elbaf.
-
RE: Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead)
I wasn't here for weekly Thriller Bark discussion but I get the impressions that prior to the Laboon connection @Deicide, you were also saying that Luffy asking Brook to join was a red herring.
And Yamato asking to join clearly isn't a red herring in the grand scheme of things because it's pretty evident that Yamato WILL join the Straw Hats by the end of it, even if we only see it in the epilogue (the same goes for Tama). That's not what most people who advocate for Yamato joining want obviously, because it means very little if we don't get to see him hang out with them, but Yamato still joined just as Oda said he would.
@Zanze said in Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead):
I started reading when Brook was already in, but what really sells him in Thriller Bark, more than Luffy asking him to join, is everything that comes after.
One full chapter of bonding with the crew while some mysteries about his past and motivations still linger. Him saving Franky and Robin and impressing them with his backstory, which at that point is still under wraps. Then the Laboon twist, and the recovery of Brook's shadow becoming one of the main reasons Luffy fought Moria for, with Zoro even commenting that now they have to recover one more shadow. The afro scene! The fact that in the fight against Oars he was already doing team moves with the crew. Then, his flashback which is not only moving but also very unique still 55 volumes later, culminating in a crying scene (THAT is what every single crewmate has actually gotten).
And last but not least, Brook of course has that striking design (not that Yamato's is bad but it's not a gentleman skeleton with an afro and a yohoho). All this from Vol. 45 to 50.
Meanwhile in the same amount of chapters Yamato speaks to Luffy like twice and to Franky for one panel. There's no twists or mysteries to his story, and I wouldn't rank his half-a-chapter long flashback among the best of the series. The emotional center of the arc still lies very clearly in Momo with a side of Kin'emon....and then of course, Brook joined while Yamato didn't.
Well yeah, my point wasn't to compare both of Brook and Yamato's situation, I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of the red herring argument. Yamato suffers from Wano's bloat which is an issue Brook didn't have with Thriller Bark and while both do have an existing connection with a friend of the Straw Hats (Laboon for Brook, Ace for Yamato) the former is far more impactful because of how little focus Laboon actually had and how long it was between his introduction and Thriller Bark.
-
RE: Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead)
The Oden-shtick is basically a non-point imo. We know that Yamato goes by both Yamato and Oden and it's not like anyone really acknowledges the Oden part. Everyone calls him Yamato. It's an unfunny gag really, but Oda does that with his crew (just look at Brook and his panty jokes).
-
RE: Official Egghead Thread
@electricmastro said in Official Egghead Thread:
@The-Franky-Tank said in Official Egghead Thread:
@electricmastro said in Official Egghead Thread:
@The-Franky-Tank said in Official Egghead Thread:
I've been seeing some people in other places being less hyped on Egghead due to how it's showing the WG and Marines to look incompetent. Part of that I feel is now that we are in end game, the threat that high leveled opponents posed such as Admirals are greatly diminished. For a crew with a captain that took down a Yonko 1v1, even accounting for others that briefly fought against Kaido, are going to have a lot less to worry about. That said, I think the bigger issue with some is how easily everything is being turned against the Marines and makes them look like a joke as a force, and personally, I feel like it's intentional.
Looking at the series as a whole, ever since the age of pirates started, the balance has been lofty at best. The WG is able to maintain a facade of control, but we clearly see in various ways that they maintain very little, with the obvious focus of the WG to keep the CD's happy and at the top of the world in terms of controlling the world. Anything outside of that can be easily discarded, and even the Marines outside of those like Koby and Smoker are fine with the system they work in. Egghead feels like the natural fact of everything, that ultimately while a sizable force, the Marines and WG aint'shit. Their one saving grace is that despite so many powerful forces out in the ocean, those forces are scattered and against each other. Now with the new generation, those forces are slowly changing and consolidating. Multiple groups of powerful crews are joining forces, and the WG will be unable to keep their control, as we've seen with Marijoa in shambles after the attack by the Revolutionaries, and now their creations that were to bolster their power being used against them.
So besides Kuma and Bonney's story being so well done, I've been pretty content with all these developments myself. Still, I can understand that some are justified in being disappointed and wanting more of a showing from the Marines
I get the feeling Oda isn’t trying to top Kaido with Egghead’s villains.
He had Bellamy after Crocodile, Foxy after Enel, etc. So he prob really doesn’t care to worry to make Saturn tons more threatening than Kaido because there’s no real point in doing so.
So Oda is prob treating this more like a glorified version of a transition arc like Jaya or Long Ring Long Land and making every excuse possible to draw cool designs and attack panels even if Saturn isn’t the same as Kaido.
That said, the bigger threats may start coming by the time of Elbaf. We’ll have to see.
Considering where we are in the story, Blackbeard is the only one that will be a huge threat from how I see it. With Big Mom and Kaido out of the picture, he's making moves to grab everything he needs to further his plan and it's only going to get crazier with how his crew functions and their capabilities. Imu will have great story significance, but I have my doubts on being a threat on a physical level. Only other character power wise is Shanks, but I don't see him as a huge threat since he's more a friend than an enemy.
If we have some smaller arcs more for build up with some fights, I have my doubts that anything on the level of Kaido or even Katakuri will be happening anytime soon, and I'm fine with that. I'm very curious just how everything is going to go between now and the Crew finding the One Piece
Oda went from Arlong to Crocodile to Doflamingo to Kaido throughout the span of many years. He knows how to "one-up himself", so any doubts of Oda making a villain more threatening than Kaido will likely be addressed soon enough.
Crocodile to Doflamingo was quite the jump though. That said, we will definitely get a villain stronger than Kaidou. Blackbeard, Imu, Shanks (if he goes that route), Rocks (if he's still alive) and maybe even Garland (given we know so little about him) are all pretty good candidates.
-
RE: Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead)
I still think Bonney's crew status entirely depends on Kuma's outcome. If he dies then I would give it a 90% because she has nowhere to really go after that (unless the Revos show up and she wants to go their way for some reason). If Kuma lives then she has a 0% chance because she'll always pick her father over anyone else, even Nika.
-
RE: Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead)
Morj is where I heard that theory the most, yeah.
-
RE: Volume 108 Predictions/Discussion
@Daz said in Volume 108 Predictions/Discussion:
@black-leg-jex Sadly I don't think current One Piece has time for such frivolities, but I thought the exact same thing
Nah, this feels like the kind of gag that current Oda would waste 2 or 3 pages on in a serious arc just for the goofiness of it.
-
RE: Next Straw Hat Crewmates (Vol. 10 - Egghead)
Just like how the Germa coverstory began during Wano but then by the time of Egghead it bled into the main story, I'm expecting the same thing to happen here. Most of this coverstory will be following Yamato travelling across Wano and giving us updates on all of the regions and people of Wano. I expect we'll find out who all the new Daimyo are and we'll finally see Ryuma's grave. Hopefully we get updates on the beast pirates who weren't captured by Green Bull (so Jack and the Tobi Roppo). But as many suspect, I think by the time we get to the end of this cover story we will have already had a chapter in the main story of Blackbeard learning from Caribou the location of Pluton and so him showing up at the end of this cover story is very likely.
My big question for Oda here is how much of Oden's story does he want to parallel with Yamato? Potentially, this will be a story where Yamato travels around Wano and gets his own retainers made up of randos / ex-beast pirates across Wano before ending up at Kuri (where we will see that a new castle is being built where Oden Castle used to be). But then when Blackbeard arrives, Yamato will leave with him and that's how he'll end up out at sea and eventually end up with Luffy. It's like a twisted take on Oden, where Oden left with Whitebeard and then end up with Roger. Yamato will leave with Blackbeard and end up with Luffy.