Posts made by Law-ya

People can still strongly dislike something that others might like even if it is harmless.

I think I stopped watching One Piece YT videos after one of them spread the "fact" that Corazon was manipulating Law to become the harbinger of doom for the celestials and that he didn't care about Law as a person at all. All because they only read the mangastream? mangapanda? translation, which was very obviously badly translated. Of course he did not accept my corrections with the official translations.

I like absurd and over the top theories but I do draw the line at false details.

@kirei_lanford:

Its not gonna be it.
But lets face it, there are many manga with girls look much much more similar one another.
With one piece theres perona with her eyes, robin with her nose (and eyes), nami with her cheerful look, hancock with a hair that doesnt change unlike robin, vivi too has same style of hair each passing time, i think etc. If you line them one by one, you could see the differences.

Just because other manga might have the same issue doesn't excuse that One Piece has this issue and it has become such a problem to the storyline when it should not ever register. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the reason people are annoyed with Oda's repetitive women is the fact that he can damn well draw women with different faces and physiques and he just doesn't. Take a look at Perona or Praline or heck, the gender-bent anythings that Oda draws. The women there look sooo diverse!! (I really wish he'd drawn Apoo as a woman, such a design). That's what annoys people (or me at least), he can but he won't and this was the last straw. People went wild on the theories because they couldn't tell from a glance who's who and took up (is still taking) so much discussion over such a thing.

The stuttering bit where Hiyoarasaki back pedals and calls Zoro noble…. I'm kinda stuck there because I feel it was Toko that stuttered and then Hiyoarasaki switched the attention from Toko to herself. As for her motivations, I feel like she's not being entirely forthcoming and is being just a tad sweeter than necessary. I don't think she is lying about being Hiyori though. Zoro's strength seems to have impressed her and I think she feels the need to 'trick' him into fighting for her but soon will learn that her usual tricks don't work and we will have an emotional scene filled with tears where she discards her komuarasaki persona and begs for help; either that or she stands tall as a samurais daughter and demands to be fought for.

Speaking of Zoro, it's really interesting that he views fighting differently from Luffy. Luffy says there's no cheating in pirates fighting (Kata+Flampe) but Zoro prefers 'honourable' and fair fights.The different creeds make it more organic.

The "Kapapa" of Kawamatsu gave me a whiplash flashback of CP9's Fukuro (Chapapa)

I have quietly been reading the manga again without going on any discussion pages but thought I'd come back to see what's piquing everyone's interest in the latest chapters aaaaaaaand most I see is the rehash of the argument old as time itself: Zoro vs Sanji. Love it!

I don't want to stick hard to this but what Marco has to say to Luffy is moooooost likely about Blackbeard's "peculiar" physicality that allows him to wield two DFs.

Now putting that aside, I'm also wondering what Oda will do with the Marco-Weevil side-story…. It'll have to happen with both Luffy and Marco (and/or other Whitebeards) present; and according to Marco then Weevil will target the peaceful village. But when will it be set? Pre-Wano or Post. I cannot see another side-trip with swirly-hats before they go to Wano and it'll feel slightly anti-climatic to have Weevil as a foe after seeing someone like Kaido get defeated. Unless the plot merges....but Wano is so thickly laid as it is....Of course there's the whole Big Mom issue as well...

So the sword-hats are trying to infiltrate the palace (or at least Robin is using her geisha costume to d so) but alas nothing ever really goes to plan with the strawhats.

Maybe its now Zoro's turn to be captured XD will be hilarious if so

Sanji's fighting capabilities will have to stay in the back-burner, I'll be pleasantly surprised if he does fight but otherwise I'm keeping my expectations low.

@RigaCrypto:

I can even suspect that IM (crazy eye midget) induced Roger his illness and made Zunisha walk the New World seas. Nevertheless, she can somehow manipulate the fate of others if my theory is correct.

I really liked the factual layout of your conclusions and this is the one that struck me the most (mainly because I had the exact same line of thought but didn't elaborate on it in the chapter discussion thread).

I also thought that IM might have given Roger his illness and it raised a few questions for me:

1. At what point did Roger actually get sick? We know that his last 3 years he was travelling with crocus so he was sick then but what actually got IM's attention to 'cleanse' him

2. If inducing a sickness is IM's way of cleansing then he/she is not really omnipotent because Roger took years to die after getting sick and it wasn't the sickness that killed him in the end; it was an execution.

I'd like to know what you think about this.

@dropper:

I bet we'll see whose light was erased in the past during a flashback, just so the audience knows the extent of this danger.

It could very possibly have been JoyBoy

@Greg:

Currently I'm of the belief that Im has been alive this entire time and might even be Uranus; that Im is what the Elders are so afraid of.

My current thoughts are:

The Celestial Dragons' ancestors won a great war but that victory meant sacrificing the will of the world to Im.

They might not all have been AHole families, but they saw the futility in going against Im and submitted….except for Nefertaris.

This irked Im because Im was infatuated with (who I'm going to call) Ancient Vivi. We know that mother-daughter share a strong resemblance. It could be that Vivi bears a strong resemblance to an ancestor that Im wanted for itself (to love? to kill?) but was robbed of when they left.

The CD now act as avatars of Im. They cover Im's existence and are themselves considered the highest being when in fact its Im who is working mostly everything.

Why is Im hiding its existence? Perhaps because it fears the return of whatever threatened its power/influence long ago.

I'm a tad suspicious on this part of your explanation. Maybe it's just me but adding love, infatuation, obsession into this feels slightly off to me. I do find it possible as a reason but also slightly…not? Maybe because Vivi looks like her mother, who probably looks like her grandmother and so on. If his infatuation was that central to him killing Vivi here then there were plenty other look-alike beforehand to eliminate.

Of course, this can be explained by Cobra off-handedly stating that all previous Nefertatri females were mysteriously offed. At the same time, such an infatuation could be the reason she was chosen as the light to be erased (if she really is the chosen one) because I cannot see a reason why she would be chosen and not Cobra if it was solely about Alabasta.

This was truly a twisting chapter!

As for Im's existence….to be honest I'm very excited for their role in the story. If it truly turns out that he/she has been alive since the void century and can order "cleansing" on the fly then he/she must view the emperors as non-threats to his/her rule. This would explain why he/she's never gotten rid of the emperors and he/she's been right so far; none of the emperors have made world-changing waves as much as Luffy and Blackbeard (I do wonder why Dragon wasn't there though, given that his life mission is to change the world).

Now as for Shanks....he's an enigma wrapped in more enigma. I'm leaning on Shanks actually knowing about the existence of Im and the reason he wants Luffy to be PK and is not actively looking for Raftel (as far as we know) is because he cannot see himself changing the world. Thus he settled for keeping the world in order by becoming a force of 'good' as a powerful emperor. Shanks knowing the existence of Im (or just the very hush hush relation between him and the Elders) makes one thing make sense if true. Even as an emperor Shanks can move between the seas without much uproar (aka the theory that Shanks went to East Blue during the timeskip can make sense)

Finally, the matter regarding BB or Im as final boss. This will mainly depend on the order; If One Piece as a manga will end straight after Raftel then I can only see BB as the main villain but I'm of the opinion that post-raftel will be the main act of the collapse of the CD and WG as we know. I previously used to think that Akainu+5elders would be the obstacles for such an arc but we might have Im in the mix. Im is very thin and spindly looking (and I'm definitely judging the 1-chapter character based on looks) but they don't look 'strong' in the sense that he/she doesn't look like a 'brawling' type that we can see Luffy go up against. And if Im turns out to be a woman...well....then she is not likely to brawl with Luffy.

My mind's all over the place right now so sorry in advance if my statements don't make sense or I'm jumping through many loops.

Ishou and other strong individuals could have also resided in countries unaffiliated with the WG and hence nobody knew them. I doubt that Wano and Elbaf are the only two non-WG countries.

Oo thanks for the pic of the band. I see why Koala would be leading even if Betty is there. At the very least Dragon had chosen her in the past to set up a gathering. She's like his democratic assistant while Sabo is his fighting hand. Would make sense why these two are usually paired for missions. The chief of staff and the background chief of staff I guess?

I'll wait a few more chapters before I jump the wagon of hype and disappointment with whatever route Oda takes.

@Maju:

there's also the thing that he has no means to infiltrate (the commanders are using their devil fruit powers,while sabo is posing as a guard,something that the smallkoala can't do)..but ithink the main reason s that someone has to stay behind and keep managing the revo army while dragon is not there..that's probably the meaning of the armband that koala had last chapter..she is basically in charge of the army in dragon's absence.

Armband? I don't see one.

As for the revo girls, I noticed that the black haired woman has a mechanical arm so that might be interesting. Is she Luffy's mother!!! (Joking). Also, I don't see why Koala would lead in place of Dragon when Betty (who is a top 4 commander) is there. She seemed very well-versed in leading people as opposed to Koala who is more used to infiltration. Particularly intelligence gathering while Sabo distracts the enemies.

This will become more clear once we see what Dragon actually has for his plans. If it was infiltration for the sake of gathering information then Koala really should have been there and not someone like Sabo who sticks to plans and subtlety as much as Luffy does. However, if it was a quick sneak attack to declare war then yeah someone like Koala and betty probably are not suited (from what we've seen of them so far, which admittedly is not much). I can imagine Sabo shooting out a huge fire flame at the middle of reverie to declare war and then he retreats with Morley and others. (Dragon has to be there for extra effect on CD and WG because he's the head)

A bit doubtful that Kaido will get 2 dedicated arcs because the goal of the upcoming arc is to specifically take him down and the goal of WCI arc was to save Sanji, which was achieved.

The most might be that Reverie and Wano will fuse due to Shirahoshi.

@guess:

Is Morley based on Hank von Helvete from Turbonegro?

Just googled him and there's some resemblance but I don't think so….unless, does he have a bit of female mannerism?

I don't see the contradiction? We talk about Sanji a lot because sexism is a hot topic sure, but that's not the only reason. You said that he's uncompromising towards a problematic flaw unlike other strawhats and I'm saying that that plays a big part as to why Sanji ends up as the topic of choice.

The fact that he's uncompromising is the problem and I'm saying this as someone who actually likes how stubborn he is….barring certain aggravating times.

@theackwardstation:

In the end of the day, all the Strawhats have fixed flaws that are played for the laughs or other convenient uses, but we demand that Sanji in particular develops asap only because of our own personal agenda.

I agree with this statement. All the strawhats have flaws but Sanji's is the one we're most fixated upon. E.g: Nami's greed is never a topic of heated debates as much as Sanji's chivalry. However, this is not only because sexism is a current hot topic so Sanji's flaws come up more as means to a personal agenda. It's more that out of all the strawhats Sanji is the only one whose flaw is never sacrificed to show 'change' and 'growth'. Nami was wiling to pay for Camie's freedom and even gave Lola a lot of their loot, Ussop constantly tries to overcome his cowardice…

@Razh:

Law was in love with Corazon. Dofla could never get over that. Vergo was in love with Dofla, even though his feelings weren't reciprocated. But he hated Corazon for hurting Dofla. And he was also jealous of Law, which is why he kept going at him so hard on PH.

But Dofla never got over Law. Which is why he kept missing his vitals while trying to kill him. And his crotch.

Did I mention Vergo is gay too?

Truly thank you for the good laugh XD

For joke purposes I can concede to Dofla and I can see bellamy but what made you add Law (I'm pretty curious)? He might have some weird daddy issues i guess…. XD

@HeartOfDarkness:

A character doesn't have to be either gay, or straight.

The logic is the same regardless of whether you put "straight", or "gay".

You guys are looking at the character's action and trying to put them into this closed-box where Oda must be conveying that either Nami is straight, or gay when it could be that Nami just acts differently around different characters.

This is like a shipping discussion lol.

It's not that I "want" Nami to be gay or straight because as you said it's most likely just wishful thinking/reading too much.

Oda is not really interested in giving his main characters any form of romance or concrete sexuality for the time being but it is a fairly fun discussion point. I'm finding it pretty relevant after the WCI arc because for the first time it seems that Sanji (a main character) had somewhat of a romantic endeavour with probably a future pay-off.

Making Nami gay or straight will make close to no impact on the story. It won't magically get them closer to Raftel or defeating BB. It's simply a nice topic to have a discussion about and gives fans some fun topics to bounce around with.

@BattleFranky69:

I don't know, even the users of DFs modeled after very small creatures remain large, like Onigumo, so I wouldn't consider a swarm to be normal, but a feature of something mythical; multiplying one's form or splitting into multiple smaller copies of the full-sized one certainly would both not be ordinary features of any Zoan, even, seemingly, an Awakened one as far as we've seen. It would be a stretch to call it Logia since a crow isn't exactly an elemental. Unless it's just taking the form of a crow and the power is based on something else. Maybe it's the Logia version of Moria's, and he prefers crows over bats when he projects his shadow-self as something.

Was Dracula able to become a swarm or just an individual wolf/bat/vole? I know vampires have always had that shapeshifting thing to their identity but I don't recall a particular one that became a group of any type of things specifically.

I believe that Dracula was able to 'spread' himself by turning into a swarm of crows in some media and into a singular crow in other media. I think that Karasu's DF is most likely a special zoan. He really doesn't have the characteristics of a regular zoan much less an awakened one.

@HeartOfDarkness:

Why would Nami be gay?.

I hadn't given "Gay Nami" any thought until my re-read. I realised that out of the many female characters Nami is very consistently biased in favour of women. She takes care of them, fights for them and tries to protect them. There's a stark difference between how Robin approaches other women/girls and how Nami approaches them and her overt protectiveness can seem to come from a romantic/sexual point if you look hard enough. You could chalk it up to being platonic if you want to too.

Other minor "clues":

• Nami is confident in her sexual appeal and is unashamed to use it against other guys –--> she doesn't care because she has no sexual frustrations with them

• Nami's bro-like relationship with Ussop and Zoro but her games with Sanji and keeping her distance from him ----> comfortable with male crew mates so long as they're not trying to get sexual with her because it's uncomfortable

These 'clues' could 100% be me and others "reading too much into some silly frames".

Pandering would be Oda making Sanji gay because "he has repressed his true desires and prefers dick but is afraid due to toxic masculinity". Or making a Zoro/Sanji relationship because all their arguments were actually "sexual tensions".

Making Nami gay, a character whose sexuality is definitely not stated therefore anyone can speculate, is not really pandering.

On another note, I am in the group who would absolutely hate it if Luffy ends up in a relationship at the end of all this. I'm very very confident of his asexuality AND that he's aromantic. However, I know that I only have myself to blame for my disappointment if it does happen.

@Melker:

Quite late to the thread and quite many pages already, so I'm grateful if someone could fill me in:

I noticed in the spoiler thread that it apparently did not show any preview (or something else…) about One Piece for next week, yet the chapter made no mention of a break. Has this been cleared up? Has either been confirmed; no chapter or will there be one?

• One Piece is most likely on break next week

• Girl in skirt is Moda (Milk girl) from Ace's BB hunting days

• Bello is a very sexy woman

• Major discussion about how Oda doesn't have women fight

• A few petty fights and name calling (mainly over how weak/strong the new characters are)

• Fans are split in whether they like the RA designs

• One minor speculation that Karasu is a Kaido spy

Is Karasau's "quirky" tick similar to gedatsu's? The whole 'unaware mum that needs to be reminded to speak'?

Very interesting designs all around. I see that goggles are RA uniform staple but I can't say I don't like it.

Betty's fruit is pretty…...well i don't know what to think of it. Guess I'll wait till she battles with it. If she ever does.

The revo I most anticipated was Karasu because his crows were shown a few times previously. It'll be interesting to see if it's a special loan or something unique to him. He didn't turn into a crow himself, he was commanding a murder of them.

@AlphaMale:

Summary of sanji in WCI island https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/external/za-0KERFvy5VEA0lSAsh008f_McX1w-7ys8Tar2rFdc/https/i.imgur.com/ptfdkMt.png

@wolfwood:

Would've been better if you used the mcbain gif for it.

Man what happend to this thread. Not even a smidge of terrible theories or bickering going on.

This is not what i expect out of a chapter thread.

Since AlphaMale started it off so nicely for us, I'll do you this bickering chapter thread service:

You don't get it AlphaM, it's not that Sanji is weak. He's actually plenty strong. It's just that Oda has a raging hard-on for zoro so automatically he's super limp on Sanji.

Also. you've been completely blind to all of Sanji's actions this arc haven't you!

I hope that was satisfactory bickering!

@Silence:

Sanji has some of the firmest (some might say "inflexible") principles in the crew. To the point that, there's this popular notion that for Sanji to progress as a character, he must forfeit them or abandon them!

@Blissed:

The way I see it, his whole beef with his family simply isn't on the same tier as his stance regarding cooking, not using his hands to fight, and his inability to hurt women. Those are iron-clad rules that we know Sanji would never, ever break, that we've associated with his character for over a decade.

The way I see it is that Oda wanted to show off some aspects of Sanji and to have him go under "character growth" either because he felt it was time/ was influenced by his audience pestering him about Sanji's lack of presence/ his editors getting on his case regarding Sanji/ or a mixture of all.

The wall he faced regarding giving Sanji a good character moment is specifically about his very inflexible principles so maybe Oda felt that giving Sanji a 'new' principle (I hate my biological family) and have him sort of break it (comically get saddled with their name on his poster and receive a gift from them) would showcase Sanji.

Or he simply thought: Raid suits are cool. I want to make Sanji look cool. Give Sanji a raid suit!

@Kdom:

I remember some initial thoughts I had on the arc. With the Vinsmoke and Big Mum crew, I thought Oda would emphasize the familly bonds against the friendship ones. This could have been great especially the fact that some of the familly bonds were base on force and terror. But in the end ut didn’t really happened. That is a missed opportunity

At this point that theme has been a missed opportunity with a few other pirate groups (Doflamingo's and Crocodile's being the main ones) but I agree that it would have been amazing in this arc as blood-bonds and 'family' were very central to BM's crew as opposed to trust in Luffy's crew. Would have been a nice angle.

One of my concerns for the reverie regarding the fishmen is the following:

• Otohime obtained a signed paper from a Celestial Dragon to relocate Fishman island but exactly how much can we trust the words of someone who does not even acknowledge others as humans?

My guess is that the fishmen are too trusting and chipper about the whole thing and it will blow up royally in their face (which will also result in Shirahoshi being in absolute trouble cuz she's poseidon)

I'm thinking that the reverie will kickstart the divide of the marines and will bring the 3 weapons into major play. Particularly a lot of things will go wrong on the 'good' side while Luffy is opening up Wano and he will only know of the after-math.

@Count:

I'm still trying to process what Whitebeard's intentions were with Ace. I favor that interpretation as well, but he also never actually denies it and shows disinterest in finding One Piece for himself.

I've re-read that part many times and came to the conclusion that Sengoku wanted to scare the masses to create credible justification in executing Ace. Ace was one of many many pirates that was imprisoned so his death had to be 'justified' because marines are 'good' and the best way to make the public agree that Ace requires immediate death as opposed to imprisonment is the threat of a second Pirate King.

Roger was feared greatly by the public and even brought on the great pirate era so it was an easy tactic to scare everyone. As for Whitebeard, I took his lack of denial to be meaning that it's redundant to disagree. Whitebeard would not treat one of his sons more specially than the others (particularly without their knowledge) and he believed his sons not to believe the story Sengoku was spinning.

At least that's how I interpreted it. It never made sense to me why WB would favour Ace for his lineage.

I've given the chapter some more thought instead of my initial knee-jerk reaction and came to the conclusion that Oda might have been trying to make Sanji put aside or break a self-given rule or his pride for the sake of his crew as a show of "character growth/change". However, Sanji is not Sanji if he hits a woman and Oda was never likely to break that so he chose the next best thing.

Sanji will have to cast away his pride of not being a Vinsmoke for the sake of his crew's safety in the future by using the raid suit made by the family he despises. This is similar in vein to Zoro casting his pride aside and begging Mihawk to train him I guess.

@ITaeyeon:

It will be a super flame-proofed suit capable of withstand even the might of the great Fleet Admiral Sakazuki's magma fist.

How does the WG view the Germa Army? Still an allied nation that "plotted" to assasinate a Pirate Emperor via their third son?

Considering the fact that both Bege's crew and Gema 66 were advertised as "allies of the new fifth emperor during a plotted assassination" then I'm leaning toward the WG no longer supporting Germa and views it as their enemy. Especially since one of their biological sons, Sanji, (who the WG has little to no idea actually dislikes Germa) is a power member of the Strawhat crew.

Of all the epithets to get discarded, it is "Black Leg" that is selected?! Hopefully, the epithet is still used and not completely scrapped. I loved how Sanji's title was a match-up to Zeff's previous title. It felt like a family name of sorts between the two of them so I am a bit bitter about the name change to Vinsmoke. It almost feels like against all that was said and done that the Vinsmoke are family to Sanji (whether he likes it or not).

I'll try to hold my judgement about the raid suit until we get more information but my current stance is: I really really do not like it.

Besides that, I truly loved how Nami lived up to her own epithet "Car Burglar". She literally stole a piece of Big Mom's soul XD Just. Perfect.

Sanji remains hyper to women despite the kiss (unsurprising because he does not remember it) and it will become an interesting point if they ever reunite (I'm looking at you Elbaf)

Princess Komane is the daughter of that one king we were shown in the first reverie discussing Dragon and said something along the lines that Dragon needs to be eliminated and considering that Komane might be escorted on the Dressrosa+Prodence ship and her -apparently- snobbish/brattish attitude then we might see some conflict between them during the reverie.

The Good:

• I was happily surprised that Big Mom and Luffy did not end up on happy terms (I was part of the few who were predicting 'amicable' terms for multiple reasons).

• Katakuri and Brulee's relation (or generally the camaraderie between some of the siblings despite BM's influence)

• The strawhat team fight was truly a highlight for me

• Luffy's assertiveness as a captain

The Bad:

• Everything tied with Sanji was just so underwhelming and unfinished. He had absolutely no agency in an arc that he was heavily tied to. The cake was underwhelming and the vinsmokes lacked resolution. I'm not even asking for an epic 1v1 Sanji fight but for him to have done something more concrete than creating a sauce for a cake that stalled her for an hour or so. The whole thing wasn't even his idea.

These are the stuff off the top of my head. I'm sure i can think of more if I sit at it but here it is I guess.

I get the distinct impression that this is not ending at chapter 900. We have to see what the cake does to Mom. I'm saying this purely because it was majorly hyped as Sanji's big moment…. Then again, Oda can keep the effect of the cake a mystery until later but that leaves this arc sort of unfinished for me.

There's also how this chapter was very "everything is working out perfectly for the strawhats" so there will likely be an obstacle next chapter or so.

Not to mention the other loose ends:

• Pedro's 'death' and Sanji knowing
• Pound
• Pudding's request
• Pekoms' fate

I cannot see everything being neatly tied up in only two chapters.

@Bond:

coughjojoreferencecough

Never watched mojo so the reference went over my head and I still cannot see it

@imperioonepiece:

Well, many of Law's attacks were in german. That's something, I guess?

I guess….but then Robin would have to be french/spanish....I'm nitpicking but German seriously does not suit Law...

--- Update From New Post Merge ---

@Bond:

Might also be because German medical science is NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD!

That's something but something so tiny….. Also a quick Google search states Luxembourg as the number one in healthcare along with Sweden. As for medical science, it's the US along with UK and Sweden. Only one source stated Germany and that source works on public anonymous voting. I literally went to the site and randomly up-voted and down-voted countries. Not exactly reliable and the pool of voters are just random people.

This is a beaten horse but Law? German???

I'm finding that so absurd. The guy's hometown was practically snobbish english gentlemen with the industrial revolution going on and church schools….

I always thought he'd be english (with maybe some indian ancestry due to his darker colouring).

It's like if he said that Bege was Persian... Dude screams Italian mafioso.... I mean sure, he likes wine, probably shirazi wine too, but his design is Italian through and through.

@Sirxxx:

Meanwhile, I'm just here hoping for NO "redemption" for Big Mom. She's fine just the way she is; heck, it's the only reason she's a Yonkou. And her being her is what has made her such a great foil this arc.

Also, I've had quite enough of the "evil woman wasn't evil she actually just needed saving" trope in One Piece, thank you very much.

Yeah, that trope will probably never die. Didn't you know? There's no such thing as an evil woman, only a woman hurt by her circumstances and in need of help. I hate it too but Oda is hellbent on it.

Which is why a lot of long-terms fans or just fans who keep up with Oda's story habits are already anticipating a redemption. Not that people want a redemption to occur but that given Big Mom's status as a female and the way her past has been shown is a very good sign that a redemption will occur.

I guess Greg is just trying to ease the pain for fans who will be in denial and hate the redemption development early on (like with Sanji's cake-baking).

Ace's hubris was his lack of self-importance and he DID die because of it. Had he not been goaded by Akainu then there's a good chance he would have survived. Thing is that Akainu was chasing Luffy, Ace and Jimbei and the person most fit to stall Akainu while the other two escape is Ace (in Ace's head) because no matter how you look at it Akainu (who was pretty healthy) had a very good chance at catching up with the three of them.

Was it Ace's fault for dying after everything was said and done? Unfortunately yes. But people miss out on how it is supposed to be tragic that way. To the very end Ace viewed himself to be below or indebted to any single person who ever loved him. How Ace dies wasn't stupid or reckless in my opinion; just plain sad. Of course, all this can only be understood AFTER the flashback.

I feel like Oda could have handled Ace's portrayal pre-death slightly better to give the impact he wanted with his death. Except that Oda has stated that he knew he would kill Ace since his inception (even if did not plan on making him Roger's son) and that is why he didn't go too deep with Ace's character. He even stated how he was surprised about the fandom's reaction to marine ford because it was just a side-quest to him.

The last road poneglyph is where John's treasure is buried and what Buggy has been trying to find all this time.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Puffs Island where Chiffon is a minister of? Could that become important?

@Hajro:

I was high while writing this but listen me out
Luffy said to Zoro he'd at least have 10 crewmembers.

We have 9 members (10 if we count Luffy).

20 years later and we still have 10/15 years of One Piece so we'll have new members, definitely. (in addition to Jinbei)

If we take the latin alphabet and put the letters into pairs we have a name of each crewmember, hard to explain it like that i'll just show you :

AB Brook
CD Chopper
EF Franky
GH ??????
IJ Jimbei
KL Luffy
MN Nami
OP ??????
QR Robin
ST Sanji
UV Usopp
WX ??????
YZ Zoro

so if we take the pairs that don't have a name yet we can guess that the futures crewmembers names will start with a G / H a O / P and a W / X.

What's more : we saw Luffy recruiting 4 members in East Blue (Zoro Nami Usopp Sanji) 4 members in Grand Line (Chopper Robin Franky Brook) and now in the new world we'll have 4 new members (Jinbei, GH, OP, WX)

4 + 4 + 4 + 1 = 13

we always had a female as the second being recruited so we'll have a female crewmember next and it won't be carrot. I think it might be a women on Wano (a ninja ? since Luffy LOVES ninjas)

Then straw hat crew will be like a Yonkou crew having 1 Captain then 3 top captain with members under them. (likely being Zoro / Sanji (lol the jobber) / Jinbei as the top captains under Luffy)

Okay you might say it's fucked up or idk but then there's the related pic where we have Nekomamuchi with THIRTEEN DAMN CATS representing the 13 crewmembers, the cats also fit the characters personality. The black cat on the top would be Nami since she's always sunbathing, the neko with glasses would be Robin, the one sleeping with sake would be Zoro or the one with the kimono being Jinbei.

I swear this theory resurfaces somewhere every 4-5 weeks since that Nekomamushi drawing….. And it's always accompanied by that 4-4-4 theory.....

Luffy not making fun of Kata's mouth finally makes sense to me. Luffy is the same person who made fun of and nicknamed most of his enemies (Mingo, weird-head to Foxy, and others) so it struck me as slightly odd that he refrained from calling Kata's mouth something funny. I guess he sensed that Kata was 'ashamed' of his mouth and decided not to do it.

It also gives some introspection to how he's very in-tune with the true emotions of the people around him (Sanji's fake fight with Luffy comes to mind). A lot of Luffy's actions are given more meaning if Luffy's unconsciously had this power all along (Nami, Robin, Ussop, and even when recruiting members)

Although, this type of emotional sensor reminds me of Coby's by a lot.

Probably not important but Raisin's clothes remind me of Germa's uniforms….

And I'm a huge fan of the crew interactions this arc! Particularly how well Jimbei and Nami work together.

I stand corrected.

@Maju:

yet we saw marine intervention in both alabastaand dressrosa

the fact that they don't have a base on every island doesn't mean they are not interested in protecting the citiziens

I got the impression that they were only there to keep their interests safe and never the country or citizens. Smoker also intervened based on personal issues rather than government issue. Nina was there to clean up Crocodile's mess and not to keep the citizens safe. Dressrosa was blatant 'keep our interests and image safe' signed by the Fleet Admiral Akainu himself.

I don't expect them to have a base in each and every island but if they want to give the impression that they care about protecting the citizens then we'd have touched upon some form of routine or plan to ensure the safety of allied islands. An on-sea rotation, a backup plan, something… Neither Cobra nor Vivi ever contacted or even thought of contacting the marines and WG for help because they are aware that the WG is not interested in keeping them safe. Dalton too.

Marines from the WG do not protect any of their allies though. All the countries we've visited so far have had their own method of dealing with pirates independently from any WG help. WG is interested in keeping countries like Alabasta, Drum and Dressrosa as allies but have no sense to protect them hence they would not be inclined to help FI either.

Alabasta had Crocodile (who had a personal investment there and not on cop-duty by the WG. Drum had its own personal army which failed fantastically in the face of BB and the WG was never inclined to help them. Dressrosa's own king was a well-known pirate so they, too, were safe.

Bottom line is that neither marines nor WG are interested in protecting islands to keep them safe.

Really liked the read but I have one point I disagree on.

You stated that Sanji's code about not hitting women is not about being approved by Zeff but in this arc we have had a clear flashback detailing that it is. Sanji had no problems with the idea of harming girls but Zeff expressed that he'd take his own life if Sanji ever hit a woman. I think Sanji idolised Zeff a tad too much and has religiously stuck to his 'rules', maybe not to get approval, but definitely not to disappoint Zeff.

Now, the aspect of perving over women is his own doing but not laying a hand on them is straight from Zeff. Back in EL when Sanji refused to hit Kalifa I assume fans were angry with him, but even back then Oda wrote in an SBS something to the extent of "Sanji doesn't have a rule about not hitting women; it's that he cannot". The 'cannot' coming from Sanji's wish in not disappointing Zeff.

The standard of what the BMP find weird is what's weird. This is a family made up of the most interracial creatures with the weirdest facia/body structures. Is everyone getting made fun of at this point? Or is it just a few people like Kata and Pudding who look extra weird (at least by BMP standards)?

I actually don't hate that Kata has an appearance-related insecurity like Pudding. It just cements that under all that bubbly family love is a den of bullies and that Pudding's heel turn at Sanji's comment is not out of the blue (in-story). I would have been annoyed if Kata's insecurity was not looks-related and only Pudding's was because it would just prove (at least to me) that Oda wanted to reform Pudding but had not real idea how to and stuck to her looks. I agree that it's not the best method but it is more credible now.

As for the "pirates don't fight a fair fight" thing, I believe that that wasn't from Alabasta but it was from Shanks (first chapter with the bandits).

I know the fandom really liked the Franky vs Señor Pink fight but I wasn't into it. Hard-boiled characters and fights are not my thing. I'll stake my hopes on Luffy not being a hard-boiled character so the fight doesn't devolve into the Dressrosa one.

@K.:

I always took the first mate to be defined literally as the first member to join the respective crew. That is besides the fact that Zoro took the role when Luffy was unconscious in Thriller Bark. It was a pretty clear distinction when Sanji tried to intervene. The reason why I say literal is because of the nature of the show, meant for a younger crowd. If we took what it really means to be a first mate/chief officer then Nami would be more likely to fit the role. If we really started to take each role as their real world counter part, I don't see how anyone could argue that a helmsman wasn't needed once the ship was replaced. It is customary of vessel's to have an appointed specialist helmsman once they reach a certain size. When the ship is small (Merry) the helmsman position can overlap with others as it was shown during the show.

But because this isn't meant to adhere to real world standards, I take first mate literally. The first member to join. Which was the case with Rayleigh, the one to be confirmed with the role.

I think the term used in Japanese (correct me if I'm wrong) is vice-captain and not first mate. Shanks' first member seemed to be Yassop but his first mate/vice-captain is Benn Beckman. Also, Nami is the real-world counter of a quartermaster. They usually held more captaincy over the actual captain when on ship.

Maybe this is just me but I view Zoro to be the most suited right-hand of Luffy but would make a not-so-great vice-captain. he's a great aid to Luffy himself but not that suited in leading the group when Luffy is not around. And Sanji makes a perfect left-hand. He's not great at helping Luffy and steering him but he's much better suited at taking command when Luffy is not around. These two together make the whole vice-captain position. That's just my take on it though.