Y'know, I understand that sand powers should probably function in relatively similar ways, and I'm usually one who isn't bothered by elements that are similar from one manga to the other, but this reeked of the same strategy of the Crocodile fight. Water hardening sand? Check. Sandstorm? Check. Draining moisture from the body with his touch? Check. Holding Erza EXACTLY like Croc held Luffy after round two? Check. Not to mention his personality being one to want to put FT in their place as "below him"? Jeez. Add to that what we've seen from this guy already, and it's hard not to just see him as a Croc knock off… (A Crocoff?)

That being said, I liked how Erza needed someone else to help her win this. I thought that was actually a nice payoff. Otherwise, I feel like I just reread Alabasta in a single chapter.

I've loved this series forever, and although I do like the original soundtrack and even the original voice actors, there's too much nostalgia for me not to like the dub version better. I know that sounds weird, but the DBZ dub is the one dub I still watch every now and then. Yes some of the lines were cheesy and there were plenty of times they could've worded the script more accurately to the actual translation, but quite honestly, they did a pretty darn good job with packaging this material to us as kids considering how heavy some of the the series is. Granted it's the butt of every anime joke made nowadays and it does have flaws. Some scenes for me just flow better in the dub than the original. Goku's Instant Transmission Kamehameha to me is the perfect example - I can watch the sub and still think its cool, but the dub adds so much more tension and just explosion to that scene. Sean Schemmel was perfect in that one moment. Cell's reaction was perfect. The music was perfect. I get chills every time I watch it. On the other hand, I found some of the serious discussions and comedic moments more enjoyable in the original version. There's a genuine flow to conversations that is missing in the dub. Maybe what I disliked about the sub was more about the shortness of some battle cries or phrases. I wanted the emphasis to last. I enjoyed the pageantry of it, and that's part of the reason why I go back to the dubs. Now if only I could splice the two aspects together…....

Obviously this is all personal opinion, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes about this. Just thought I'd add my views on this stuff.

I appreciate the number of people who also ship ZoroxRobin, but the spam is definitely annoying. I also ship SanjixNami, but I've never understood why people ship Luffy with anybody. He just comes across as too aloof or asexual for a serious pairing. Idk, maybe it's just me.

Fucking epic. Just wow. I'm so happy I picked this manga up 2 years ago.

Just gonna throw my two cents in, not sure if people care, but whatever.

Animation fluidity is really important to me because stilted movements annoy me more than anything else. It slows down fights in general because the characters don't seem to have a natural flow about their actions. That being said, when the art is THAT bad, then I take offense to it slightly. There are some instances though where I think the face faults look better than the original drawings….. okay just kidding but still. I appreciate animation, but in this case, I'll side with the majority when judging the Pain fight.

What I love about One Piece is that it isn't strict power levels. Some abilities do better against others, and some overpowered abilities are given to people who don't abuse them. Mr. 3 stood a better change against Magellan than Luffy because of his fruit. Was he stronger than Luffy or Magellan? No, however his ability gave him a better shot at survival.

On the topic of Kizaru, remember during the war when he sniped the key to Ace's cuffs? That could have been Luffy or Ace's head. Kizaru is "gray-area justice". If it was Akainu, he would have sniped both of them in the head. If it was Aokiji, probably a shot at the platform to simply knock Luffy off of it. However Kizaru took that middle chance, he shot at the key, leaving Ace still stuck, Luffy still having a chance, and Sengoku having the opportunity to kill them.

Does Kizaru have an overpowered ability? Hell yes. Is he at the very top tier as far as characters go? Not at the very top because it's not in his personality.

Can I just say that I love this explanation? Seriously, this is how I felt about that situation too!

1. Zoro
2. Luffy
3. Franky
4. Robin
5. Sanji
6. Nami
7. Chopper
8. Brook
9. Usopp

Ussop is growing on me again tho, so things are on the up and up with his character. Really want Jinbei in the crew though, but we'll see eventually.

Awesome fight, awesome chapter. Seriously, this series gets better every week. Idk why, but I actually like Luffy's new bounty poster - makes him look more like a young Roger to me.

Oh you mean the poneglyphs he read, but being the dumb pirate he is and not an oharan archeologist he was unable to understand them and came to whatever conclusion they did.

Dumb pirate or not, Roger used the language - Skypeia? - he had to have some way of deciphering them. I think you're undermining Roger a bit here, but that's just my opinion. He was the KING for a reason. He was capable of many feats, otherwise he wouldn't have conquered the Grand Line.

Oh and what did they do with their conclusion? They retired from pirating and did NOTHING. They didn't tell anyone else about what they discovered, they didn't fight any war to do whatever.

You're completely right, and I believe this is where Luffy surpasses Roger in his whole theme. Luffy is all about being free and helping people, unlike Roger who was hellbent on conquering the sea. Either way, this denotes a personality difference and does not in one way or another make it more or less plausible that Roger was able to read/comprehend a voice from the poneglyphs. Has it ever occurred to you that Roger's illness may have been a cause for the lack of action? Or maybe there were extenuating circumstances that prevented them from acting? Either way, we don't know the whole story. But we do know Roger could comprehend poneglyphs. Somehow. And the closest connection we have is Rayleigh's personal statement that they could hear the "voice of all things." This seems to be what Luffy has "inherited" so to speak.

Regardless of how much this whole inheritance thing seems to suck for y'all, ultimately Luffy's actions have drawn a direct contrast to those of Roger's. Just because he's following the same path, it doesn't mean he's doing the EXACT same things. It seems to me, he's inheriting the same things as Roger, and for better or worse, helps people and lives freely along the way instead of conquering the sea like Roger did. He's almost reversing the damage Roger may or may not have done to the world with this whole Era of Pirating thing. And he's doing it along the same path as Roger, showing not only a parallel, but also a better method of reaching the same goal - The End of the Grand Line.

WHY DID ROGER HAVE TO HAVE IT ALSO?

Because Roger didn't have a way to read poneglyphs besides this method. Raleigh basically said under no uncertain terms that the only reason they know the history of the void century was because they could here the "voice of all things" - thus Roger needed to have it as well. It was a necessity.

Not saying for sure that the void century/rio poneglyph is One Piece, but it seems to me the two are definitely connected somehow.