#.1082 (roguetown flashback)

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

shanks & buggy, and giving up on your dreams

before my latest reread/catch-up on one piece i had not given the history between buggy and shanks much thought, except to wonder a little how they went from this:

(in the chapter 19 flashback, set a day or so before buggy gets his devil fruit powers; they're at most 12 here.)

to this:

(a single panel flashback in chapter 434 to the day roger was executed; they're 15 here.)

like. what happened in the intervening (three?) years to make shanks think he might get a positive response to this request? and why is he making the request in the first place? he's the one who said they should go their own ways, originally.

six hundred fifty chapters later, we get a… partial answer. but not to shanks' side of the story.

(from the chapter 1082 flashback, of course; this panel is from an unspecified time, but it's beanie buggy so probably closer to 12 than 15)

young buggy (the littlest bug, omg ;~;) sees shanks' potential and gives up on his own dreams (of becoming the pirate king, i assume).

now, is it just that he gave up on his own dreams, or did he make a new dream out of shanks becoming pirate king? that isn't clear… but I think that must be what happened.

(more of the chapter 1082 flashback, a more detailed version of the flashback from 434; they're 15)

because after roger is executed, and shanks tells buggy he's changed his mind about going to laugh tale, buggy's shocked response and rejection feel deeply personal. but he digs up some ancient baggage between them to use as his excuse for leaving, rather than state his true feelings…

which suggests shanks didn't know buggy was so invested in shanks becoming the pirate king.

so. it seems to me. that somehow shanks became aware that buggy's goals had changed. but he did not know why, or what they'd changed to. just that they were now (supposedly) compatible with his own.

at which news I imagine he thought: this is great! now buggy can be part my crew and travel with me while we both go after our goals!

🙃

this is just enough of an answer to make me obsessed. i have not been able to stop thinking about 1082 and its implications for weeks.

h e l p

#i NEED to know what shanks was thinking in all of these scenes #but especially the roguetown one #*shakes oda until someone makes shanks talk about buggy again* #P L S i need exact details about how this relationship fell apart... where did the miscommunication start... #one piece #do i dare? ...lmao yeah #shuggy #shanks #buggy #my meta #.19 (devil fruit flashback) #.434 (shanks & whitebeard chat) #.1082 (roguetown flashback) #*the shuggy roguetown breakup #*shanks hides his feelings #*shuggy miscommunication #*abandoned dreams #*putting people up on pedestals

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

“Being a pirate is all about going your own way.” // “Come with me, Buggy!!”

is this post totally redundant after the similar post i made last week? idk. i guess the main difference is that this time i’m looking at the same topic in an unambiguously romantic light? the shipper goggles, as they say, are on, and i want to talk about these scenes in that context. so, if you’ll forgive me for repeating myself a bit, let’s talk about this again:

as much as i enjoy the heartbreak of “they always thought they’d be together but miscommunication tore them apart” takes on shanks/buggy, the very first flashback we get about them—the first things we learn about them at all, really—tells us this isn’t true.

and i think what we get is more romantic.

Chapter 19, Pages 12-13. i know last time i said they’re at most 12 here, but looking at these lanky-ass teenaged designs that’s nuts. i fully believe oda hadn’t thought through their ages/the timeline at this point, and they were originally supposed to be about luffy’s age when buggy got his devil fruit. which is not relevant to this post in any way, but it’s my post so i get to go off-topic if i want.

Shanks and Buggy have their own goals as pirates, and at this time they understand them to be mutually incompatible. Buggy thinks Shanks’ travel-and-adventure-oriented take on piracy is soft and foolish; Shanks doesn’t care for Buggy’s exclusively treasure-focused take. They’re sometimes friendly, sometimes not, they’ve fought side by side, but they know this time as allies and crewmates is temporary. (Buggy plans on taking his treasure map and the Devil Fruit and leaving the crew immediately.) Maybe they’ll become friendly rivals, ‘fighting to the finish’ when they run into each other like Roger and Whitebeard do, or maybe the next time they see each other they’ll literally fight to the finish. Who knows?

“That’s also what being a pirate is all about.” It’s very sensible behavior. Smart planning for the future.

Which means the contradictory ways they act later—Buggy secretly deciding to follow Shanks, Shanks bluntly asking Buggy to come with him—are not about these characters thoughtlessly clinging to the status quo. They are not in a “we were always together and I never thought that would change” situation. Deciding to stick together is a considered, emotional decision: “I know we don’t make sense together but I don’t care, I want us together anyway.”

Chapter 1082, Pages 8-9. i was cursed the moment i saw these pages with Unable To Stop Thinking About It disease; only time will tell if seeing it animated makes it worse or cures me.

This argument is a codependent breaking point. Buggy’s pinned all his dreams on Shanks, hoisted that poor boy up on a pedestal, and it all falls apart when Shanks reveals thoughts and plans that don’t match Buggy’s perception of him. He can’t bear to be around him now that the false image has been revealed. (Shanks, poor thing, seems to have had no idea any of this was happening.)

But if Shanks hadn’t said no to Laugh Tale in this moment—or maybe if he’d offered a soft no of, idk, “okay, sure, once we’ve got a strong enough crew”—Buggy would have gone with him, still projecting wildly onto Shanks. He’d convinced himself that being a member of the Pirate King’s crew was enough for him, that he didn’t need to be Pirate King himself if Shanks got the title and he was with Shanks.

…but would he have actually liked being a member of that crew?

Like, looking at the things the Red-Haired Pirates do, would Buggy have enjoyed being one of them? Wandering East Blue, hanging out in friendly port towns, collecting treasure here and there but spending a lot of time getting drunk and making friends with the locals? Eventually becoming famous for having a large, weak fleet of subordinate pirate crews Shanks has to sometimes physically step in and protect?

God, no, he’d’ve been miserable. Just seething with thwarted ambition, furious at the perceived disrespect. A real power hungry first officer stereotype, the kind of character that makes you think, Why’s he working for this guy if he hates him so much?

And Buggy must have suspected it would go something like that. But if Shanks hadn’t rejected Laugh Tale, he would’ve gone with him anyway.

(Better to be miserable with you than a loser on my own.)

Or say Buggy agreed to come with Shanks. Obviously his presence wouldn’t change the crew makeup significantly enough to skew the Red-Haired Pirates towards his way of thinking, but for the sake of argument: if he had convinced Shanks to do things his way, would Shanks have enjoyed the kind of piracy Buggy engages in? Taking over and destroying East Blue port towns, ordering your crew killed on a furious whim, single-mindedly hunting down treasure maps and single-mindedly hunting down treasure chests and paying no attention to anything along the journey? Eventually becoming the boss and administrator for a bunch of bounty hunters and mercenaries?

No way; most of that behavior is totally repellant to Shanks. If he let Buggy do that kind of thing under his banner, you’d be left wondering What happened to his morals? Why does he let this guy walk all over him?

And Shanks knew the kind of pirate Buggy was and wanted to be. But he asked Buggy to come with him anyway.

(Better to be miserable with you than have fun apart.)

It’s hard to see a way to make these very different styles of pirating work together. It’s probably doable… with a lot of compromise and honest conversation. The younger Shanks and Buggy had a point, when they said each going their own way was the obvious choice! It was certainly the easier one. Was it the happier one? Who can say.

#i also keep thinking of that year after the roger pirates disbanded. did everybody REALLY go their own way? #or did the two youngest maybe stick together. for safety in numbers! not bc they’re afraid to be alone or apart or anything!! #they’re just. SO codependent after roger’s execution… #i really don’t think that was the first time they’d seen each other in a year. #shuggy #one piece #i’m sorry i can’t stop thinking & writing about them #eventually i’ll be able to have thoughtful opinions about other things again #maybe even about non-one piece things!! anything’s possible! #shanks #buggy #my meta #*the shuggy roguetown breakup #*shuggy miscommunication #.19 (devil fruit flashback) #.1082 (roguetown flashback) #*shuggy ironies #*buggy’s bad choices

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

you got me curious about the original japanese dialogue for 1082 so naturally i had to look up the raw and buggy does say something to the effect of "like hell i'll ever be one of your subordinates, you idiot!!" so there u go 😔

oh wow, thank you!! (i mentioned wanting to see the raws in the tags of this post)

yeah, it looks like the translation i read was very much in line with the original—shanks saying ore-to issho-ni koi-yo is very straightforwardly "come with me," and buggy's the one who takes that to mean omee-no buka nanza (mappira da), "(i refuse to) be your subordinate"

so while idk if i buy co-captains as what shanks was aiming for canonically, as things stand it's a valid interpretation.

but oh man, shanks! you gotta choose your words more carefully with this guy! he mishears random shit as commentary on his nose all the time, of course he takes this request in the most insulting way possible ;~;

#i know buggy's inferiority complex causing problems for him is like... a major theme for the character #but WOW the self-sabotage truly started so young #anyway no insult meant to translators but... i been in manga fandoms too long to trust like that lmao #i always gotta check the original text when an interpretation relies on a specific turn of phrase #libertatias #asked and answered #one piece #shuggy #translation nitty gritty #shanks #buggy #.1082 (roguetown flashback) #*buggy’s insecurities #*shuggy miscommunication #*the shuggy roguetown breakup

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

But didn’t shanks said they’re gonna go to laugh take together on “OUR own ship” when buggy was sick?

so, two things about this.

the first is a request for someone to please send me the raws to look at so i can make my own judgement on how literally to take this translation, because i read too many bad, official translations of manga in the early aughts to trust blindly. (eta: someone did!)

the second thing, assuming the translation is accurate: was buggy awake and aware enough to hear that? you can see a little gyaaaa sound effect that i assume is buggy screaming in the background, but idk what setting the anime provides for shanks in that scene. the manga panel has no background; shanks could be sitting next to buggy’s bed or he could be standing outside crocus’ office, for all i know. and even if he’s right next to buggy, with a high enough fever buggy might not retain any memories of events going on around him.

which is to say: just because shanks intended for the two of them to go to laugh tale together doesn’t mean buggy knew about it.

even during their roguetown conversation about laugh tale, when shanks says he changed his mind about going there he uses the phrase ima no tokoro (at present/for the time being). it sounds to me like a “not yet” sentiment (which seems very reasonable tbh, the two of them are fifteen, a two-man crew of teenagers is gonna have trouble getting to the new world, let alone laugh tale), but that is still enough of a shock to buggy that he rejects shanks for saying it.

okay, dialogue/translation nitpicking talk under the cut:

this is another situation where i really want to review the original japanese dialogue before i make a judgement!

because yes, the sj translation does have shanks saying that:

Chapter 967, Page 16

but then during the roguetown fight buggy says “that you’d take your own ship to laugh tale one day!!” (emphasis mine):

Chapter 1082, Page 8

so i am dying to know whether these two panels are using the same turn of phrase—or near enough to it, given buggy’s kinda rude, slangy way of speaking—because whether they are or not tells us a lot about how much buggy knew.

#aand a third thing: the roguetown argument happens because shanks *changed his mind*. that’s why buggy’s mad at him. #it’s not in question that he wanted to go to laugh tale (with buggy). but he doesn’t want to *anymore*. #why? who knows!! #i feel certain the private conversation shanks and roger have post-laugh tale that left shanks in tears is part of it #but oden didn’t know what they talked about and buggy doesn’t know what they talked about so WE don’t know 🙃 #shuggy #one piece #asked and answered #shanks #buggy #*the shuggy roguetown breakup #.1082 (roguetown flashback) #.960s (oden’s flashback) #*shuggy & laugh tale #*shuggy miscommunication

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

ask and u shall receive 🫡 it seems like shanks does specifically say "we" while buggy doesn't rip (also ftr mangareader.to has the raws up to ch 1098 now!)

(these raws originally requested here)

bless you, ma’am o7

(i feel positively ancient every time i realize i have no idea where to find this stuff anymore. i used to be one of the cool kids who knew which sites were legit! look at me now, paying money to read things legally. ridiculous. thank you so much for letting me know where to look should i need to dig into translation nitty-gritty again in the future!!)

and this is… interesting.

you’re right, shanks does specifically say ore-tachi (we; literally “me + plural”), while buggy doesn’t use any pronouns. but japanese speakers often omit pronouns, resulting in ambiguous turns of phrase that are hard to replicate in english, so that’s not too unusual or unexpected.

but they both say itsuka jibun no fune de iku (someday go by my own boat), with the only difference being a syllable tacked on after iku. shanks says iku-yo, which just adds a little excitement, like a verbal exclamation point. buggy says iku-tte for sentence structure reasons—his first speech bubble basically says “you said, shanks!!” and -tte tells us that the preceding phrase is the thing that shanks had said.

which makes me think buggy did hear shanks make that promise when they were younger, and is explicitly attempting to remind him of it. in the context of my last post, that should make me pretty excited—buggy knew about shanks’ plans! his laugh tale expectations were (kind of) based in reality!

however.

i wouldn’t usually translate jibun no as “our,” even in the context of that ore-tachi shanks used. jibun can be used to mean myself, yourself, her/himself, depending on the context… but it’s not really a pronoun with plural use. if you wanted to say “our (shared) boat,” i’d expect ore-tachi or another [first person pronoun]-tachi, waga, maybe uchi if you’re being formal, followed by no fune (possessive particle + boat).

…but if you wanted to say something like “we will both go to laugh tale, each in our own boat,” jibun could work for that use.

#tl;dr i think ‘our own boat’ is a misleading translation >>; #sorry folks #sometimes the original context does not make it shippier #libertatias #asked and answered #mm… dunno if i want to put this one in the tag #ah whatever #one piece #shuggy #translation nitty gritty #shanks #buggy #.1082 (roguetown flashback) #.960s (oden’s flashback) #*the shuggy roguetown breakup #*shuggy & laugh tale

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

yeah, let’s not call out that specific tweet or the twitter user who tweeted it, since as you say it’s a common enough comment.

…probably because it’s true?

but i think you might be assuming malice or a “(derogatory)” sentiment that doesn’t have to be there. retcons aren’t evil. they aren’t inherently bad writing! any time in serialized fiction where you think X happened, and in a later story learn that secretly Y also happened, or that actually Z is what really happened? that’s a retcon!

and what we were originally told about shanks and buggy’s history is thus:

they were apprentices on a pirate ship

they fought all the time, over silly things and over philosophical differences (re: what being a pirate is all about)

buggy found a map and pretended to eat a devil fruit in order to steal away with both items for personal gain

shanks accidentally cost him both

despite their differences, shanks dove without hesitation into the ocean to save him

that’s it. no roger, no laugh tale, not even their split at roguetown, let alone the reason for that split. now, whether you consider all of these elements retcons or just gradually revealed backstory is a personal preference thing. (some folks get real strict about their definitions.) but one of them is definitely, unambiguously a retcon.

look at shanks’ conversation with whitebeard in chapter 434. shanks’ flashback in that chapter is just one panel, showing two lines of dialogue from the day they went separate ways.

it’s pretty straightforward. shanks asks, buggy refuses, insulting him at the same time. about what you’d expect, given what we already knew about their history.

but then, 650 chapters later…

…that moment is revisited from buggy’s point of view, and it turns out things were not as they seemed. buggy wasn’t just butting heads with shanks, he furiously rejected shanks because shanks changed his mind about his (their) dream!

chapter 1082’s flashback is a textbook retcon of the chapter 434 flashback. it provides us with new details that totally recontextualize that moment for us.

(whether this twist was Intended All Along is, imo, irrelevant. a story element revealed at a much later date that changes how we see the original scene(s) is the essence of a retcon.)

#asked and answered #one piece #shuggy #.434 (shanks & whitebeard chat) #.1082 (roguetown flashback) #ppl do often complain about retcons—and i sympathize! writers who don’t care about the already established characters & story frustrate me #but plenty of retcons are good. both on a character level and on a story level. #sure a secret sibling your protagonist never mentioned before can be hard to believe! *or* it can reveal hidden depths to the character! #(depths which are believable because you already established them as someone who keeps secrets/doesn’t talk about their past) #there’s lazy back-from-the-dead stories just to resurrect your fave & there’s stories like ‘under the red hood’ which have something to SAY

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Do you think buggy actually wants to be pk or would he rather see shanks in crown but is unaware

of course he wants it. he’s wanted it for as long as he’s known the title even exists, but he didn’t believe he could get it. he thought it was impossible for someone like him.

he resigned himself to shanks getting the title, telling himself it was better to back a winning horse—if it can’t be me, at least it’ll be a roger pirate, at least i can be there when it happens this time—and then flipped his lid when shanks revealed that he didn’t want it. and then… well, it was even more impossible after that day, wasn’t it? so he kept his dream bottled up, talked around it, pretended like all he ever wanted was treasure.

and then one day it didn’t seem quite so impossible anymore.

yeah, tl;dr, i just can’t read this panel as anything other than 100% sincere.

#asked and answered #one piece #buggy #and whatever happens in the end re: this dream is gonna break my heart i just know it #.1082 (roguetown flashback)

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Your friendly translation nitpicking lover here! Do you have anything to say about how buggy talk about shanks being like the sun (oh my gosh it sounds so romantic) in the original? Is it similar?

oh, translation anon, hi! so nice to hear from you!

i have to admit, at first i had no idea what you were talking about with this request. then, on a hunch, i dug up an unofficial translation for chapter 1082, and found something a bit sun-like in that translation. hopefully this is the line you meant, and i haven’t forgotten about an entirely different piece of sun-imagery dialogue from buggy…

(the rest of the discussion goes behind the cut, to protect the eyes of any anime-onlys out there!)

two different translations of the same panel of chapter 1082 page 8. first, the translation available in the official shonen jump app; second, an unofficial translation i pulled from the site where i get my japanese raws of op, the translator(s) uncredited

pretty different ways of expressing the same sentiments here. now, which one is closer to the original dialogue? let’s try and find out.

おれは… 隣にいたシャンクスがあまりに有望すぎて… / 夢なんて捨てちまってた…‼︎ ore wa… tonari ni ita shankusu ga amari ni yuubou sugite… / yume nante sutechimatteta…!!

“tonari ni ita shankusu” means “the shanks who was next to me.”

i can see why sj didn’t bother to translate that literally, but i like the unofficial translation, it feels more emphatic about this being an opinion buggy had back in the day, when they were kids together.

“ore wa X ga amari ni yuubou sugite…” is more or less “i thought X was too promising, so…”

the unofficial translation is more explicit about buggy feeling like he had less potential in comparison, but “so much promise ahead of him” feels much closer to the original than “shone so brightly with potential.” the latter is more poetic, but buggy isn’t really being poetic here.

and “yume nante sutechimatteta…!!” means “i gave up on my dreams…!!”

once again, the unofficial translation is a bit poetic about their wording, but this is the part of the translation that’s most similar, probably because the phrase is pretty unambiguous in meaning.

in the end i think i have to award the (imho) accuracy points to the official translation. there just isn’t any shining or sun imagery in the original text that i can find, anon. sorry!

#asked and answered #one piece #translation nitty gritty #buggy #shuggy #i’m starting to wonder… no i shan’t say it #*abandoned dreams #*the shuggy roguetown breakup #.1082 (roguetown flashback)

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Just noticed that the arm Shanks extends to Buggy during their breakup fight in Loguetown is his right arm, the arm he didn't lose. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but given his dominant arm was the left arm, the fact he reaches out to Buggy with the right might mean that bridge hasn't been burned? Maybe there is hope for them to reconcile? It would make for fitting symbolism for his left arm to be the one he reaches out with if Oda wanted to make it clear that relationship is done with, but choosing the right....what is this man cooking?

hmm… i do like a symbolic deep read as much as the next litcrit girlie, but i can't fully follow you on this one, i think it's more a page layout thing.

the panel in question and some commentary behind a cut to protect the anime-onlys out there!

visually, i think it's important for us to see the space between them—the literal and symbolic distance forming in this moment—along with the contrast of shanks' outstretched hand next to buggy's raised fist. they're in conflict, they want different things, they're falling apart… the positioning of these characters tells us that as much as any angry expression or dialogue.

if the hands involved were shanks' left and buggy's right, at this angle we wouldn't be able to see the empty space between them. and also we couldn't fit that third word bubble in this panel. and they need to be arranged this way, shanks on the right and buggy on the left, so the flow of visual information on the next page feels natural when buggy runs off—in japanese comics, panel flow is right → left, top → bottom, because that's how the language is read, so motion in still images feels most natural when it moves that same way.

#asked and answered #one piece #shuggy #shanks #buggy #that said i LOVE the association of 'things shanks only touched with his left hand' and 'things from shanks' past that he has lost forever' #that's a-plus symbolism that's gonna fuck me up a little later #*shanks’ lost arm #*the shuggy roguetown breakup #.1082 (roguetown flashback)