I'm unfathomably sad over this. I've had a silly fangirl crush on Ace for eight years and while I always hoped he'd come back into the story, I definitely never expected Oda to kill him off. I actually texted more money to the Red Cross this morning because I felt guilty for being so tattered over something as bourgeois as the death of a fictional character. I'm going to mope for days. Poor Ace.

Wasn't Bellamy killed by Doflamingo, along with Sarquiss? He made them stab one another if I recall.

I'm gonna guess it's Morgan; since he didn't name Luffy specifically, and Morgan blames Zoro for his downfall more than Luffy. Luffy was a nobody to him. Also, the iron mask could be a good way to hide his broken jaw, and we haven't seen both of his hands. So it makes sense.

Kreig's a possibility, but I'm gonna go with Morgan as most likely. We KNOW he's loose in the Grandline and bearing a serious grudge against Zoro and Luffy, and what with the wanted posters and news about the Strawhats floating around, he'd know more about them now than the last time they clashed. Oda is always one for dropping hints, and he's been leading up to a second Morgan meeting for awhile.

@Zephos:

Nausicaa…

Eep! So offtopic! I was referring more to the fact that everyone seems to omfgWORSHIP her for no reason, and that she never experiences any real consequences for her often-rash actions. She's also loaded with special powers and abilities that no one else posesses. She never seems to have to WORK for anything. ARGH that bugs me. She's not a perfect sue but she's sue-ish enough to make me dislike her intensely. Again, though, just my opinion, and in general I do still enjoy the story. Miyazaki is love.

@Kaze:

I love you.

Aww! Seriously, thanks. I'm glad I'm not the only person who feels that One Piece is all-around awesome for those reasons. I could honestly write 50-page-essays about how much I love it and why, but I think that'd be going even further down the dark, scary fangirl path that I'm already clearly on.

@Mr.:

I just remembered another big reason why I enjoy this series so much: There's no forced, cheesy romance between any of the lead characters. Sure, Sanji swoons for Nami (and every other good looking woman), but its strictly for laughs.

I know I said I was done but OH GOD YES. I love that OP avoids so much of the pat romantic drama that plagues other series. Coughnarutocoughinuyashacough. That shit drives me crazy. Nothing's more boring than relationship angst.

The relationships that matter in One Piece are relationships built on friendship and loyalty and honor, and I love that. I feel like the love that Luffy has for his crew would be cheapened by romance. Their bonds are much stronger than that.

@Ms.:

On a different note, are there any manga out there with intelligent and likable female characters (the Nausicaa rec is duly noted)? Nami and Robin are fantastic. But I can't come up with a single manga off the top of my head that has a female character who isn't bubbly, creepy, unrealistically perfect, and/or a dominatrix.

Nausicaa is a really good read, but if you're looking for a heroine who isn't unrealistically perfect, you won't find it in there. Nausicaa is Mary-Sue 2theEXTREEME, IMO. Everyone LOVES her and talks about how WONDERFUL she is, and she's just so GOSHDARN SPESHUL, and if you don't like her you're evil or crazy, or both. Anything bad or dangerous that she does is automatically OK cos it's NAUSICAA and we love Nausicaa. I am immediately suspicious of any heroine who has a supposedly wild animal companion that she tames in five seconds just cos she's ohsoNICE!!zomg.

I still love it but oh man. Perfect "savior" characters are a pet peeve of mine. (She even has a prophecy! Argh! It burnnnns us! Prophecies are the worst of the deus ex machina repitoire; unless utilized VERY CAREFULLY, they destroy all story tension and make your character into an absolutist caricature.)/offtopic

…But again, this is a really, really subjective topic since it utterly depends on what your tastes are. One Piece appeals to me personally for several reasons (and these are just a few):

1. It's funny, but not too funny. Conversely, it takes itself seriously, but not too seriously. I like that the characters aren't afraid to joke during serious moments, but everything they do still feels real and consequential. The humor doesn't take away from the direness of the situations the heroes often find themselves in. Even "silly" villains can pose a real threat (i.e. Wanze or Kaku, to name a couple). Every single member of the Strawhats has a traumatic, angst-ridden history, but do they sit around whining about it? Hell no! They go out to seize their dreams! But at the same time their goals and actions are profoundly affected by their pasts. It's a masterful balance and one of the many, many examples of Oda's excellent command of his characters.

2. It's simple but also complex at the same time. This goes back to what I said earlier about the world–it's well-thought out and seems to function beyond the boundaries of the story Oda tells. So while the plot of One Piece is very simple (I daresay even cliché?) on the face of it, the details, the twists that Oda throws at us always amaze me. The bad guys and good guys, for instance, are not always cut-and-dry. Vivi started out as an enemy and became a loyal crewmate. Lucci turned out to be a complete sociopath, but Kaku showed regret at the neccessity of betraying Galley-La. Smoker is most definitely an enemy of the Strawhats, and yet even Luffy acknowledges that he is "a good man." And Coby--nerdy little pink-haired COBY--comes back strong enough to be the Garp to Luffy's Roger. That's the kind of stuff I read for!

And even the deceptively simple plot--Luffy's search for the One Piece--has branched out into a multi-layered construct of Government corruption, intrigue, and power struggles that's thus far tied together beautifully. Luffy isn't just treasure-hunting; he's saved entired civilizations, helped stop bloody revolutions, and declared war on the government itself. There are struggles happening on every level. Pirates vs. Marines! Pirates vs. Pirates! Marines vs. Marines! Marines vs. the WG! The WG vs. the Revolutionaries! and so on! You can't tell me that One Piece is "too simple."

The Devil's Fruit themselves are a great twist on normal superpowers–Oda immediately impressed me by not just giving the DF Users great power but ALSO a great weakness (the sea, on a world dominated by water? AWESOME). And the individual DFs come with their own strengths and weaknesses. Luffy's impervious to bullets, but not blades, for instance. Even the Logia powers have limits--look at the fight between Luffy and Eneru, or Ace and Blackbeard. And Oda comes up with brilliant and unexpected variations on the powers and their uses! Who could have thought of the Doa-doa fruit the way Blueno uses it? or the Sube-sube fruit? the Kilo-kilo fruit? What about the DF-combined "objects" like Funkfreed or Lassoo?

And you don't have to have a DF to be a strong fighter! Zoro and Sanji are badass enough in their own right that they don't need no magical fruity powers to totally WRECK their opponents. And you don't have to be a strong fighter to win! Nami and Usopp win their battles with tools and clever strategy. How many shonen fight mangas can say that? Not many--most rely on the conceit that you must have "A" to do "B." (In Naruto, you must be a ninja and fight with Jutsu or some variation thereof. In Shaman King, you must be a Shaman and fight with your spirit. In Jojo, you have the Stands. In Pokemon, you have... well, the Pokemon. ETC.) "Normal" people usually don't have a chance--you have to have something first, usually something out of your control, a "natural" ability or something. I hate that sort of "you must be THIS special to ride the awesome train" plotting, and I love that One Piece doesn't do that. Even the cowards have a chance to shine.

3. I am a NERD for history, especially nautical history, and most especially pirates. I knew who Francis Drake and Grace O'Malley were when I was FIVE. I EFFING LOVE PIRATES, 'kay? And Oda shares that love. He's constantly slipping in historical references. The Giants are an explicit homage to the Vikings, the Shichibukai are a take on privateers, and we all know where Blackbeard came from. But Roronoa Zoro = François l'Ollonais! Bellamy = Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy! Bartholomew Kuma = Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts! I'm a spaz, but I LOVE seeing how Oda works in the references and historical parallels. Oh the joys of geekery!

Just when I think I'm done explaining why I deeply love this series, I get sucked back in. I am such a nerd.

I'm going to stop now, I swear.

@Robin:

ru-debega, damn, are you sure that you isn't me? All of your opinions is things I been thinking about since I first started to read OP.

It's a complete other world, and it rocks harder than life itself.

Sweet! I made sense.

This is a really subjective topic but personally? Yeah. Of all the comics I read (and I mean all; western, Japanese, whatever) it's my favorite.

I could go on about how much I love Oda's art, his pacing, his characterization, but the thing I adore most about OP isn't any of that. It's that I trust Oda. I think he knows what he's doing. I've never once gotten the feeling that something was half-assed, or that he's making it up as he goes along.

Crazy as the world of One Piece is, it's also fully realized. It's well-defined, it has rules, it functions. It's complete. I get the sense of a world that WORKS outside of Luffy and Co.'s adventures. Many times in stories, it feels as if the world was created just as a background for the heroes–a town doesn't exist until they get there, and ceases to exist after they leave. With One Piece I never get that feeling. Everyone that Luffy and Co. meet has a history, their own concerns, their own goals and motivations. I don't get the impression that the world exists to serve the story. (Does that make sense?)

I love that he drops hints for plots to come dozens, sometimes hundreds of chapters in advance. Dragon, Blackbeard, The Will of D, the Poneglyphs, the "Lost History", the Ancient Weapons--all of it has come to play in the story in a major way, from plots which initially seemed frivolous to Luffy's ultimate goal of the One Piece. I remember thinking in the middle of the Skypeia arc, "This is pointless, how is this getting them closer to Raftel?" But then when the payoff came, it proved the entire arc worth it.

Basically, I trust that Oda is a master of his characters and his world, and that he knows, ultimately, where the whole thing is going. I've never read One Piece and thought, "Luffy would never do that" or "That doesn't make sense" or even "I could have written that better." Whatever choices that Oda makes with the plot, I trust that it works, or that it will make sense to me later.

Best of all, I get the sense that Oda still LOVES it. I feel like even though it's been ten years, he still genuinely cares about these people and this mad little universe he's created, he cares about telling their story. And I guess that's the heart of it; I love that Oda loves it, that he seems to care about it as much as we crazy fans do, and that he wants to do it justice.

So often I've seen creators peak and then decide to stop caring and start coasting, delivering sub-par work because they know people will read/watch/buy it anyway. But Oda hasn't done that; he's as enthusiastic now as he was in the beginning.

(I could be totally wrong, of course--Oda might be completely sick of the story. I know I would be after TEN GODDAMNED YEARS. But if he is, it doesn't show.)

Argh, there are too many things that I love about One Piece to list. It's all opinion anyway, which means this whole post can pretty much be summarized as ONE PIECE LIEK TOTALLY RULZ, YO, I ODA LOLLERSKATES!!11one!

Just my two cents, but I freakin' love Brooke so far. I have a soft spot in my heart for ambulatory skeletons, even pervy ones. And the idea of a fiddle-playing zombie Strawhat is too good for me to pass up.

On his first appearance last chapter, I didn't think he'd be a permanent character. But with this new chapter I think there's a couple of signs of hope for him becoming more than just an Arc character:

• He can't leave the Florian Triangle because of his shadow being stolen; exposure to sunlight kills him. HOWEVER, there's clearly a way to retrieve it and Luffy has already offered to help. It's not inconceivable that the new storyarc is going to involve the retrieval of Brooke's shadow. Brooke MAY join the crew in gratitude.

• Luffy's been looking for a musician for FOREVER. Since what, Chapter 2? Chapter 3? And this is the first musician that Luffy has run into who's got potential as a crewmate.

So yeah. I'm not sure one way or the other yet, but Brooke's got potential. I hope he sticks around.

@Link-kun:

Since Garp said "I sent you and Ace" that means he was adopted, half brothers, or Full Brothers. Which I think.
So I think we can rule out friends.

Also factor in the narcolepsy; Garp, Ace, and (sometimes) Luffy have a tendency to fall asleep at random moments. I'd say that weighs in favor of Ace being a blood relative.

@ladytanaka:

But Ace is a fairly important person, as various people have pointed out, so I'm doubtful that he would pursue Blackbeard over the death of just one crew member. That can hardly be that uncommon or shocking, given that we're dealing with pirates. I really can't see a pirate commander of Ace's level chasing after every guy who happens to kill a fellow pirate over what could very easily be a private quarrel over trivial matters (e.g., money, women, spitting at the wrong time, etc.)

A whole shipful of dead crew members… well, that's a completely different level of crime, one that would understandably call for the attention of one of Whitebeard's division commanders.

Well, that would NORMALLY be true, but remember what Buggy said about Whitebeard? That he will "always, always avenge the death of a crewmember." With that being the captain's attitude, I think it's safe to assume that he'd treat the murder of one crewmate as seriously as the murder of multiple crewmembers.

Also remember that Ace holds Whitebeard in the highest regard; it's likely he shares his captain's philosophies. So whether or not Whitebeard specifically sent him, the number of crew killed is still uncertain.

Further, killing another crewmate over a private matter (money, women) is different than killing a crewmate in the process of betraying your captain, which is what Blackbeard did; that alone would be enough to send Ace after him, I think.

Personally, I think Ace is acting of his own initiative, but with Whitebeard's approval; I doubt he'd just abandon his position unless his Captain okayed it.