a) Only if Vanna White wears a bikini thong

q) Would he settle for Nami, though?

a) The Waver would kill the skis in a jealous rage.

q) If I ate Luffy, could I gomu gomu too?

One Piece politics is interesting…but ONLY for the shounen manga it is. As you say Greg, there isn't any real world type politiking going on in the manga at all eg. the WG doesn't implement sanctions on say, Wapol's country for his brutal tyranny etc etc. There is no real relation shown between islands such as we have heard nothing of trade between Drum and Alabasta. Both islands (all islands for that matter) seem completely idependent of each other. The WG seems to exist for the sole sake of being an anti-piracy body, and to allow 5 old sods to pop up at the end of an arc and say, "ZOMG Luffy is uber! INCREASE BOUNTY!!" (the Gorousei have never mentioned Dragon and his group even once). They are interesting in the sense that they are not wholly evil, which is different for a shounen manga because anyone aligned against the hero is usually billed as a villain.

With that said, there is the issue of good ol' Croc. He was probably the only person in the whole of OP to use politics as a weapon to any degree. And that's part of what makes him so interesting. He didn't just go around kicking people's ass with his mastered DF abilities. He used his DF to get people to love him and masterminded events so deliciously he sent the country into a brutal civil war. I have yet to see any other shounen character (OP ones included) do something like that. Compared to him, the WG is like a high school student government.

So, no, there is no 'amazing' politics being played in OP (minus Croc, but he was limited to his own ambitions so it doesn't really count). Good thread topic though.

Another thing you could add to cement Lust as representing lust is

! the punishment given to those who are sent to hell for it…they are thrown around by powerful winds and therefore can never control their direction. Which is similar to Lust, in that she seemed (IMO) to want to be free of control and live her own life. She basically died while still remaining Father's puppet (Dante's in the anime). That point was more emphasized in the anime rather than in the manga, as far as I can recall (I don't remember much of the FMA manga, haven't read the older chapters in such a while). But, just wanted to chip in my two cents, you know, to show how bitching awsome and smart I am ;)

On Topic: I highly doubt the SB represent a sin. The sins are meant to reflect day to day immorality in everyday living, and are commited by normal people. The SB are/were/are criminals anyways, so their representing any sin is pointless, because as criminals, they individually probably have commited all seven of them already. Look it…Croc has greed, murder, and pride (maybe lust as well) already, DonFlamingo has murder, pride, maybe wrath, Mihawk has pride and murder (sloth to an extant), heck, all the SB most likely have pride, murder, and greed attached to them.

It works in FMA because the Homunculies' characters are setup somewhat to represent each sin, and follow a defining sin characteristically (that didn't come out right sorry).

About me saying Nami has near non-existant skills, let me add something…"compared to the Strawhat Big Three." THAT should set the record straight :)!

A lot of people have already brought this up (curse them), but I'm going on and saying it meself...Nami, in the end, doesn't need to be able to have a fight with someone compareable to a completely serious Calipha. Her fights need never be serious. Her main function on the Strawhat crew is to make sure they stay alive at sea. Without her, the Strawhats would never have been able to get to Skypeia, or navigate to Whiskey Peak, or have been smashed up against Reverse Mountain. Make her a very capable fighter, even as good as Chopper, would unbalance her.

She just needs to be able to take care of herself in an extremely hostile environment. That's where her Climatact comes into play. Fata Morgana was a nifty technique, and with her knowledge of weather, Nami has as much fighting prowess as she needs.

@onemoment:

I have a theory, what if a really strong guy joins the crew? I mean, one guy who could concievably beat any of the SHs, like Robin and maybe Franky seemed at first. Probably an old, wise and experience fighter. Of course, he stays the same while the crew gets stronger, and still fights weaker opponents then the others just cause of chance.

Something like that. Like Kurama in Yuyu hakusho. He need gets stronger (outside of that demon thing) but stays deadly regardless.

Funny you brought up Kurama, 'cause I was thinking about the same thing right after posting that !!

The drawback to that is, like I said, character development. Unlike YYH, OP is not a fight based series, but a story and character based series. Look it, all the fights in OP always take place at the end of every arc. You have the odd scuffle in the middle, but everything is minor. The entire arc is always devoted to the plot and the characters. After each SH absorbs their needed lesson from the events around them, they go and fight their fights. So in such a case, Jimbei will most likely (but not necessarily, mind you) be a fully developed character…character...wise . He would relegated to sitting around waiting for his fight to come up at the end of each arc, and giving out his perals of wisdom on and off. Plus, which SH would actually listen to his wisdom anyways ^^?

But if Oda DOES make Jimbei join, he would turn out to be one of the most interesting character to ever show up in One Piece. I mean, the twist and depth required to pull something like that off and make it work would be astounding!

Well, of course he isn't. I still say Yosaku was talking in terms of physical strength, NOT overall fighting ability. He probably heard of a lot of strength feats. And like someone said, Arlong was quite the beast himself, but his actual combat skills sucked ass. Imagine if he could use Kiribachi with some acutal skill (he seemed to be slightly better than Luffy with swords :p). Jimbei might turn out to be Arlong with kickass fighting ability. Although, considering we just got over an arc involving physical fighters, I'm hoping Jimbei is more than just a brawler…if he actually fights, of course.

The problem with Jimbei joining would be that how can he get any stronger? I mean, all the Strawhats keeping going up, and up, and up. Jimbei, theoretically, ought to be at peak performance to be a Shichibukai. Plus, he will probably have almost complete character development. Adding Jimbei to the crew would not add anything other than more muscle, and by the looks of things, Franky's joining so…

Plus, we've yet to even see something apart from his name in print. God only knows if he has what it takes to be a SH.

Yeah, the Calipha battle was really weird (I keep thinking on how her thorn whip was made into a shigan whip). But how else could you write a fight with Nami beating a CP9 member? I mean, Calipha was the weakest bar Nero, but Franky had already taken care of that guy. Nami's opponents henceforth will have to be dumbed down if she wins a fight. The Perfect Climatact is a godly wepon, for sure, but when an opponent can reach you in an instant, or slash at you from a distance, anyone without similar physical capabilities would not be able to get the Climatact setup for attacking.

That said, she took, I think, 2 shigans and even blocked a rankyaku with the 'tact. Wasn't that bad a showing considering her fighting skills are nearly non-existant.

I'd rather believe that Oda is keeping Ussop in reserve, probably pulling out something in the next arc. Anyways, what would have beating Jyabura have done to resolve the whole Ussop problem anyways? Nothing really. We would have seen some fancy new moves ala Kabuto, said, "Wow that's cool!" and then have had to deal with Sanji fans whining that their character didn't get any fights in two arcs.

Ussop is not meant to be a fighter like Zoro, Sanji, Luffy, or even Chopper. You can't point towards Nami and say, "But hey, SHE got a fight and won, why not Ussop?" because honestly, that fight was not a real one. All Calipha did was act as an airhead, shigan Nami like 2-3 times (nowhere fatal, mind you), and forgot about soru, kami-e, geppou, and tekkai (her rankyaku hit the Climatact and Chopper). Also, what happened to her thorn whip? It became Shigan whip or something…lame. If Ussop fought Jabs under the same siutation, would you say he could take out a CP9? Obviously not.

There is such a thing known as building up suspense. We didn't get an Ussop fight this time. There is still plenty of OP left to go through, the idea that Ussop's character has become worthless, and will be denied any combat development hence forth is retarded. One arc, which was meant to develop Ussop as a character, NOT a fighter, doesn't mean his usefulness is at an end.