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kaizokuou-ni-naru · 3 years

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The Voyage So Far: Wano (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

okay so the wano flashback is possibly my favorite in the whole series for a whole bunch of different reasons, and oden as a character is a big part of why. honestly, i think he’s great. he’s wildly entertaining and ridiculously likable, just like a folk hero should be.

i care about oden and the akazaya nine a lot. they have one of my favorite found family dynamics in the whole series, up there with the strawhats themselves- a bunch of thugs and castoffs who wound up gathering around this one wildly charismatic moron and deciding to be stronger and better for him.

i think they really feel like a family, in these little moments we get of them just interacting and messing around, and it only makes later events- oden’s death, the twenty-year separation, kanjurou’s betrayal- hurt all the worse.

on god it is the funniest thing on earth to me that this is how oden and izou wound up on whitebeard’s ship.

the roger pirates!! i really really like the roger pirates!! i love that there’s this entire predecessor crew who are both absolutely fucking fascinating from a lore perspective and who are just all individually really good characters with really fun relationships. the dynamics we get to see just in this brief part of the flashback are absolutely delightful. i think the fact that i would read a whole series just about the roger pirates is a testament to oda’s character writing.

there’s a specific sort of tragedy to the roger pirates, and i think it really hits home in their last few pages in this flashback. by all appearances, they were a crew just as close-knit as the strawhats are. they cared about each other a lot- that ship was their home.

and then their captain died, and they just- fell apart.

awhile back, in my sabaody post, i talked about how we get to know roger first as a story and then as a character by getting to meet characters who knew him personally. to the rest of the world, roger is a story, a name to curse or a height to aspire to. but for shanks and rayleigh and crocus and buggy and all the rest of the roger pirates, he was their captain.

the whole wano flashback, possibly more than any of the others in the series, really feels to me like a story being told, a folk tale being passed down, which makes sense, since it’s canonically framed as oden’s diary entries. and i think that framing device just adds so much to the atmosphere of this entire section of story, the feeling of myth and legend to it.

i honestly really like how oden’s death is handled. i have trouble articulating it, but it’s so much, so over the top, so heavily set up and foreshadowed- a legendary death for a legendary man, if that makes sense.

toki’s prophecy is one of my favorite motifs in this whole arc. wano is all about a country that’s been trapped and dying for years and years, holding out desperate hope for salvation. toki is the one who gave them that hope. she doesn’t try to tell them that everything will be okay, she says it will be dark and the darkness will be long, but the dawn will come, and even though she gave her life to do that, she did it smiling.

without toki, the wano arc never would have happened, because there would be no future to fight for.

this panel is the header on my favorite op discord server and sometimes i just scroll up and stare at it. it’s so good.

this entire sequence, starting from luffy law and kidd’s entrance, is probably my favorite in wano arc. it’s the turning of the sides, the daybreak after the darkest hour- these three show up, and then jinbe, and denjirou reveals his true colors and it’s revealed all the rest of the samurai left before orochi blew the bridges, and it turns out they haven’t lost a single step to kanjurou’s treachery. it just feels so good to read, after the prior hopelessness of the akazaya and the tragedy of the flashback.

i really like how the akazaya nine are absolutely ready to roast each other at any and all times. that’s how you know they’re best friends.

i think i mentioned it back in fishman island, but one of my favorite things is the strawhats just being absolutely cheerfully, chaotically destructive. every time we get to see them wreck havoc while nonchalantly bickering with each other it puts a huge smile on my face.

i think ulti and page one are very very funny and i like their dynamic a lot, it’s a laugh riot. i also like that oda lets luffy seriously fight a woman here!! i’m serious, we don’t see enough no-holds-barred fights between men and women (conventionally attractive women, specifically) in this series, so i’m pleasantly surprised when it does happen.

i do appreciate wano’s ability to continuously raise the “holy shit!” quotient without it ever really feeling like a twist just for the sake of the audience. like, i don’t know that anybody saw kaidou killing orochi coming, but at the same time, it feels like it does make sense, given what we know about kaidou, for him to do this.

my heart goes out to momo, honestly. he’s only eight, and in that time he’s lost his home and family and his whole world when he was thrown twenty years into the future, and he has the weight of his whole country resting on his shoulders. he’s borne up admirably under that stress, starting from zou and building up to this point.

i LOVE kin’emon’s speech to kaidou about luffy SO much. kin’emon’s come a long way from being a mostly comedy relief character in punk hazard to here, where he’s shouting down an emperor. i really like this progression- kin’emon doesn’t change, exactly, but the side of his character that is revealed in wano is very likable and admirable. it goes back to something i’ve mentioned before, about how one piece’s characters are very rarely one-dimensional.

kaidou’s dragon form is extremely cool, and so are most of the panels where it appears- it’s extremely striking, especially in panels like this, where he’s silhouetted against the moon.

i love... the ripple effects of luffy just being himself that spread throughout the world of one piece, and i think this is one of the best examples. luffy befriended coby all the way back in chapter two, mostly by accident, and now, nine hundred and some chapters later, that’s what leads to drake joining the strawhats’ side. because drake is friends with coby who says luffy is trustworthy, so when drake is stuck with nobody else to turn to, he turns to luffy.

moments like this really reinforce just how much the world and story of one piece is built on relationships between people, and i really like that. i like that instead of necessarily being built around abstract ideals or morals, characters’ actions are, more often than not, motivated by either specific personal goals or by their relationships with other characters. it feels much more true to life.

i like the loss of kiku’s arm, because it showcases exactly how serious the fight is on both sides. it both shows that kaidou is fighting to maim and kill and do whatever it takes to win, and that the akazaya are fully prepared to take whatever he throws at them. kiku gets back up smiling after losing her arm. neither side in this fight is even close to backing down, now or ever.

i genuinely can’t believe how long it took me to talk about yamato, so let me just say: i love him so much. part of this, i’m sure, is my personal bias towards any and all kickass queer characters, but part of it is just- he’s so cool. he’s ten feet tall and carries a club about as big as he is and tanks explosions like they’re nothing while also bickering with luffy and falling out of ceilings and generally being like... stupidly lovable.

i just like yamato a lot.

a thousand chapters in, and every strawhat but robin has had a moment where they declare luffy is going to be the king of the pirates, but honestly, i think nami’s might be my favorite yet. nami has always been a person who acts at a distance, not one inclined to direct confrontation and putting herself in danger-

and yet, when it comes down to it, when faced with a choice between death and disavowing her captain’s dream, even when assured by usopp that she would be fully justified in lying for her life, nami chooses luffy. even in the most dire of circumstances, all of the strawhats know luffy is going to be the king of the pirates, and none of them would ever deny it.

i kind of alluded to this back in my dressrosa post, but i really like the development of law’s new dream being discovering the meaning of the will of d. it just feels like a very good and natural progression for his character, given he’s the only holder of the will of d who we’ve been shown is consciously aware of it and what it might mean. and in general, i like seeing him having something else to work towards after doflamingo’s defeat.

i’ll end this by just saying i am so desperately curious to know what is in that book, and what yamato knows about the will of d, about the dawn of the world, about laugh tale.

guess we’ll find out, huh?

thanks for reading through to the end!! i had a lot of fun putting these posts together, and writing them up was a really cool way to be able to compile my thoughts headed into chapter 1000 and beyond. i can’t wait to see where oda takes us next.

#the voyage so far #arc: wano kuni #one piece #long post #opmeta #not japanese

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makeste · 4 years

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BnHA Chapter 282: Aizawa Defeeted

Previously on BnHA: Oh my god do we even care about that at this point. Tomura made a speech; Gran Torino died; Deku lost his shit and tried to strangle Tomura to death with his bare hands; Ryuukyuu came back from Wherever She Was and tried to grab Tomura but he punched a hole through her giant hand; and now he’s grabbing his Quirk-Be-Gone bullets and is ready to cause some mayhem okay?? That about sum it up?? Is anyone even reading this?? CAN WE JUST GET ON WITH IT I’VE WAITED AN ENTIRE WEEK.

Today on BnHA: Well I guess let’s start with what doesn’t happen: Bakugou doesn’t lose his quirk. HE LUCKED OUT!!... for now, anyways. Because, thanks to a near-impossible-to-predict series of events (seriously, raise your hands if you had “Aizawa gets shot but goes full World War Z on his own ass” on your bingo card), Tomura has seemingly regained his regeneration powers, which means that his other quirks are probably back online as well! So we’ll see how that all goes. Anyway so in the meantime Shouto’s back, looking very mad that everyone temporarily forgot he was a main character. And Gigantomachia is back as well! Or almost, anyway. Also, you’ll never guess who broke another one of his arms! Go on, guess. But at least he still has the arm, though, which is more than we can say for certain other people’s limbs. Poor Aizawa is literally on his last leg. He and Tomura really got off on the wrong foot. He chopped his leg off, is what I’m saying. It’s that kind of chapter folks.

you guys I’m losing my whole fucking mind. I straight up deleted the tumblr app off my phone for 24 hours so that I wouldn’t be tempted to log in and risk potentially being spoiled. and I’m happy to say that it worked! so here we are now, completely spoiler free, and let me just say that if Horikoshi decides to cut back to Gunga Mountain now, I will either cry for hours or abandon the series forever and go do something more productive with the rest of my quarantine like learning how to play sad songs on the guitar

all right. here goes

so we’re opening with Deku, who is currently comprised of 100% rage and 0% mercy, and is doing that thing where only the whites of his eyes are visible. and basically he’s just thinking “I’VE REALLY GOT TO HOLD ON TO THIS GUY AND MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ELSE HOMICIDAL.” which is a solid game plan, but perhaps not so easily accomplished

-- oh my god this poor kid is still in denial, I can’t. why are you doing this

is there even still a Gran Torino to tend to at this point? after Tomura bulldozed a hole through his torso, and you went and finished the job with your own fucking attack? sob

but I guess the law of Tragic Shounen Mentor Deaths mandates that Gran’s should be at least as drawn-out as Nighteye’s was, though. so he’s probably only Mostly Dead, which is still Slightly Alive if I remember my Princess Bride correctly, and I think I do

so now the rest of these stooges are finally catching up with us here

yes, my friends. a bullet. WELCOME TO MY LIFE FOR THE PAST FUCKING WEEK. anyways I have a LOT of pent-up energy here just fyi. there may be a lot of unnecessary screaming in this recap

FUCKING WYOMING SMASH Y’ALLSSSS

I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT JUST HAPPENED SOB. DID HE JUST HAMMER FIST TOMURA’S HEAD INTO THE GROUND. DID HE SNAP HIS FUCKING NECK AT 100%. IN AN IDEAL WORLD HE WOULD HAVE JUST CHOPPED TOMURA’S ARMS OFF WHILE SOMEHOW MANAGING TO AVOID BREAKING ANY OF HIS OWN BONES IN THE PROCESS, BUT I HAVE A FEELING THIS SITUATION WILL NOT BE RESOLVED IN ANY KIND OF MANNER ONE WOULD CONSIDER “IDEAL”

(ETA: fun fact: this attack did absolutely nothing except make things approximately 100x worse. but you tried Deku. you tried.)

THE FUCK KIND OF PORTENTOUS BULLSHITTING TITLE IS THIS. OH MY GOD, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT EMOTION I’M HAVING RIGHT NOW, IT’S JUST A LOT OF LOUD THOUGHTS

anyway so if you’re just joining us, Tomura just pulled two bullets out of his pocket, the good guys finally noticed, and then Deku did a smash and everything exploded. the radius of this attack actually looks wide enough to have potentially involved Aizawa, who probably does NOT want to get any debris in his eyes right now, and also Gran, who probably doesn’t particularly want to be hit by another deadly attack for the third time in the past ninety seconds. anyway so I guess what I’m trying to say here is WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT YOU LITTLE GREEN LUNATIC

AHHHHHH

he got the one!! the one that was in Tomura’s right hand!! but what about the one in his left ahhhhhhh

(ETA: lmao at Kacchan being the one to blow up the same bullet I was so sure he was going to be shot with. saw the writing on the wall, huh kid? what do we say to the god of foreshadowing?? ‘NOT TODAY.’ ...except that we’re still not actually out of the woods yet so you still better watch yourself lol.)

...

based on the font here, these are Tomura’s thoughts. which he is thinking immediately after getting the lower half of his jaw very painfully cronched by the VERY homicidal sixteen-year-old still clinging to him. anyway so Tomura’s thought processes are as inscrutable to me as ever lulz

and Deku’s arm looks broken again, yaaaaay. but at least it’s his left arm and not his right! so that’s nice. now they can match

[SHRIEKS]

HE YEETED IT. IT HAS BEEN YEETEDED. HE DID A YEET. [sobbing] he DiD a YeEt oH my GOD

DID IT HIT SOMETHING!?!?!?

my reading process here is as follows: 1) scroll down exactly one panel. 2) scream even though absolutely nothing has happened yet. 3) WRITE THAT DOWN 4) REPEAT

DKSFJLKHSDLGKHLI

DID IT HIT HIM!?!? DID IT GET HIM IN THE LEG SOB ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS. JUST LIKE THAT?? BOOM GUN BULLET LEG!!?

YOU GUYS IT REALLY HIT AIZAWA AND NO ONE DID A GODDAMN THING?? it wasn’t even drawn out or anything??? it just HAPPENED, within like four pages??? NO SLOW MO?? NOT EVEN A REACTION PANEL WHAT THE FUCK

son of a bitch I would so dearly like to grab Manual and RockLockRock’s heads right now and just conk them together real hard. YOU STUPID FUCKS sob YOU HAD ONE JOB!!! IT REALLY WAS JUST ONE!! AND YOU WERE SHARING IT!! SO IT’S MORE LIKE HALF A JOB!! AND YOU STILL COCKED IT UP IN ABSOLUTELY NO TIME AT ALL OH MY GOD

(ETA: they should blow this panel up and make it into a t-shirt and make Manual and RLR wear the shirts every day for the rest of their lives. half a job, you guys. please go away I cannot even look at you right now.)

FUCK MY EVERYTHING

(ETA: I still can’t figure out if this horrific angle is due to the earlier damage from the Noumu, or if Tomura really just flung the bullet THAT hard. honestly I’m surprised it didn’t just slice right through him with that kind of velocity. “no thanks because then I wouldn’t get to write a scene where he chops his own leg off” oh okay well when you put it that way, Horikoshi.)

if I recall correctly this is the leg that he said was “twisted”, no? yeesh. might just want to chop it off real quick, then. s’not like it’s doing you any more good. does anyone know if zombie rules apply or not with this sort of thing?? shit

?!?!

“THANKS”?? okay what. did it hit him or not??

-- oh my god WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT

I WAS -- I WAS JOKING I -- FFFFFFFFKJK

jesus fucking christ. when I said “might just want to chop it off real quick” literally FOUR PARAGRAPHS AGO, I can tell you that the one thing I did NOT expect was for Aizawa to be all, “you know what, that’s a good idea”, and then YOINK OUT HIS TRUSTY HERO SHANK AND GO FULL 127 HOURS ON THIS BITCH. "LALALA WE’RE GONNA DO IT RATIONALLY TEEHEE” like excuse me, the fuck

anyways. I don’t even know what to say. thank you Aizawa’s leg for your sacrifice, and for always supporting him. literally. oh my god I came here ready for my son to enter a new phase of character development, and for the manga as a whole to enter a new phase of glorious, glorious angst. no one told me I’d be sitting here making puns instead. what a fine, confusing day

anyway though let’s just fucking hope it worked. and side note, if Aizawa Shouta really did chop off his own fucking leg just now and somehow STILL managed not to fucking blink, I think we might as well just go ahead and hand him the Biggest Badass In The Series award right now because no one is ever going to top that. nope. not happening

it is truly a testament to Shigaraki Tomura’s unfathomably mysterious sexy villain energy that he still somehow manages to look hot with only half a face

also no one in this manga actually feels pain, do they. not Deku, not Aizawa, not Tomura, no one. no wonder none of them have any self-preservation instincts to speak of

did someone just randomly explode just now. at this point it might as well happen, right

oh it’s the shockwave from Deku’s Wyoming attack, apparently. how nice of it to have a delayed reaction for absolutely no reason

anyway so Deku’s being flung back, but he’s grabbing onto Tomura again with Blackwhip. but oh shit you guys, if Tomura escapes Deku and Ryuukyuu’s clutches and still has any bullets left in his pocket, we may still be able to salvage this Bakugou quirk situation after all. would be nice to be able to actually do something with all of these “happy quirk losing day” balloons that I ordered

(ETA: actually, believe it or not I honestly like this better. Tomura using AFO was always the more dramatic option anyway. and now that we’ve done the bullet thing everyone has presumably let their guard down again, which, good.)

I love how Tomura apparently hasn’t noticed that Aizawa’s just amputated his own leg? to be fair he’s probably distracted by all the explosions and such

also gotta love how Deku’s arm-breaking attack seemingly just made everything worse for no reason. and also how Manual and RockLockRock are once again just standing there doing absolutely nothing

SO NOW GUESS WHAT’S HAPPENING

I MEAN IT! GUESS. BECAUSE YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE LOL

OH WELL OKAY THEN

just like we all saw coming!! ...

so is this Endeavor’s attack?? Bakugou’s?? either way, hot damn. fortunately for Tomura he is apparently operating under the same guidelines as the U.S. Federal Reserve, in which mutilated bills may still be exchanged at face value if more than 50% of a note identifiable as United States currency is present. basically as long as roughly half of him is still vaguely Tomura-shaped I assume he’ll be fine

(ETA: in hindsight I should have immediately been able to identify this as a Shouto attack based solely on how murdery it was lol.)

OH MY GODDDD

KRANCH?!?

OH MY GOD LOL WHAT. LOL. REMEMBER EVERYONE’S THEORIES FROM LIKE TWENTY YEARS AGO LOL. SHOUTO WHAT THE FUCK. DID YOU STOP FOR DRIVE THRU

AND MEANWHILE DEKU’S BACK ON THE SCENE GIVING ARGUABLY EVEN LESS FUCKS THAN BEFORE, IF SUCH A THING IS EVEN POSSIBLE. SO FAR THIS CHAPTER HAS PRECISELY ZERO THINGS THAT I ACTUALLY EXPECTED IN IT, WHICH IS VERY IMPRESSIVE

IT ALSO HAS A LOT OF SMASHING

a LOT. of smashing, guys. feels like... 60% smashing, 20% severed legs, 20% Kranch

-- oh no oh SHIT oh shit oh shit

(ETA: um so I really can’t tell how far that wound extends and whether or not Aizawa still has his right eye, shit.)

first of all how did Deku get here next to Aizawa when he was just over there with Tomura, what. and second, I think Aizawa just blinked, oh shit. probably on the verge of passing out after CHOPPING HIS OWN LEG OFF which STILL hasn’t been acknowledged yet?? did I just completely misinterpret all of that back there or what

(ETA: there was seriously so little attention called to this that I scrolled back up to confirm it probably like half a dozen times. apparently Horikoshi thinks that THE MOST BADASS THING TO EVER HAPPEN IN THE MANGA should be completely downplayed. whereas if it were me, there’d be an entire two page spread of JUST THE LEG. WITH MUSIC PLAYING. EVEN THOUGH IT’S A MANGA.)

YEPPPPPPP. fuck

look at him though. he’s so happy. this is why I can’t stay mad at you no matter how deranged you get you little maniac

so is quirk-stealing back on the menu then or what. don’t think I’ve been lulled into any kind of false sense of security by any of this lol

-- ARE WE SERIOUSLY CUTTING AWAY

so Todoroki really went after them ALONE. the better to put his dad right back up at the top of the Lose Your Quirk Sweepstakes finalists. well... second-to-top, maybe. like I said I will not be lulled

yuh-oh

why do I feel like the odds of Gigantomachia arriving to herald the end of this chapter just shot up DRAMATICALLY

so the next page is almost entirely just a list of cities that the news anchor is telling people to evacuate because they’re in Machia’s path. along with a bunch of dead heroes lying around everywhere, and Ochako being all ominous

(: weren’t they, though? heh. this is going to be so, so bad (: (: (:

-- fuuuuuuuuuuu

aaaaaand that’s it. hahahaha. okay then let’s summarize

Bakugou defied all expectations and kept his quirk (FOR NOW)!

Aizawa cut his own fucking leg off and it WASN’T EVEN REMOTELY ACKNOWLEDGED FOR REASONS I CAN’T UNDERSTAND (R.I.P. AIZAWA’S PRECIOUS LEG. YOU ALWAYS PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD)

Kranch showed up after 157 years and is probably wondering why the heck I keep calling him “Kranch” now. THINGS CHANGE WHEN YOU’RE MIA FOR A WHILE MY LITTLE STARBUCKS CHRISTMAS CUP

Deku broke his arm for the 78th time

Tomura regenerated but seems to think Aizawa’s quirk is actually gone for good, which I’m pretty sure it’s not. so if they can keep him from destroying everything long enough for Aizawa to turn it back on again, we might possibly still survive this

and lastly, Machia is about to kill all of these stupid people frolicking around outside of this fitness club who are probably so proud of themselves for not being glued to their phones 24/7 because they prefer to LIVE LIFE IN THE MOMENT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. well that’s on you my friends. at least it’ll be a quick death. ffff

#bnha 282 #aizawa shouta #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #todoroki shouto #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #sorry for all the leg puns #it's in my nature #I can't help it if I find this kind of situation humerus #...oh no wait that's arms #dammit

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hyperbali · 5 years

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- the final two battles, if they *had* to deal with the night king before cersei, should have occupied a season each. big ol' action ramp-up with its various parts in season 8, a culmination of a decade of political intrigue in season 9

- this actually allows for even higher stakes; depending on how much bigger the battle for winterfell was, they could have had even less manpower to take on king's landing

- the "mad queen dany" ending could happen, but god, actually show us the descent over time rather than giving her a heel-face turn in two episodes. idc how many of the ~seeds were planted~ in earlier seasons, it means nothing when every action she did in-between defied that narrative

- as if jaime would have returned to cersei after all that character development, lmao. if anything, he would have returned one last time to reason with her - and, failing that, seen he must once more slay a ruler. he should have killed her himself or died trying, maybe dying *as a result* of doing it

- speaking of which, i'm sorry, the woman BLEW UP A SEPT WITH EVERYONE IN IT and died holding her twu wuv, crying while rocks fall on her? she was a cunning and cruel villain and deserved a death befitting that, not...that pitiful display

- killing off the only remaining woc as a captive for the sake of narrowing dany's madness was a mistaaaake. either let missandei die playing a bigger role (she WAS dany's confidante) or, better yet, if mad queen dany remains a thing, let her return to essos with grey worm - struggling to juxtapose the fair queen's legacy with the tyrant she became

- arya should have stayed in westeros, the pack is stronger together than apart, etc. give me Strong Sisters of the North Taking No Shit. jon absolutely should not have quietly shanked dany, THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE OF A STRUGGLE AT THE LEAST. let bran live his three eyed seer life in peace, he'd work better as a consultant *at best*

- nobody deserves the damn iron throne and the nobility would be in shambles post double battles. either the proletariat should have finally had enough of being yanked around by the game of thrones (naha) and risen in defiance, leaving the ending at a tense and questionable outcome, as the chaos never truly ends....or, if it absolutely must end all nicely wrapped up, go with samwell's idea: a democracy. or, at least, a *council*. this would have the bonus of certain people playing lip service while still secretly plotting to take over and "return things as they were"

- know what would have been cool? finally actually bringing more of house martell into play, they would have been a serious gamechanger

i tried to keep this to a few key points, but...yes, lmao. i can see where d&d got to a few conclusions, but it didn't feel like they put in the scenes to make the payoffs worth it. others just completely went off the rails 💀

#long post #wissykit #reply #game of thrones #opinions #🤷‍♂️

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creative-type · 7 years

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Worth A Thousand Words III: Oda and Stealth Character Development

So...what’s the point of the Skypiea arc? It’s a question One Piece fans and detractors alike ask. I don’t know the answer, but it was probably because Oda thought it would be cool. By its very nature One Piece is not a tightly woven story. Rather, it’s a sprawling adventure epic, and it does sprawl epically.

Skypiea is, however, an excellent arc when it comes to Straw Hat development, and today I want to focus on one scene in particular with regards to my favorite Nico Robin.

No, not that one.

While there is a certain significance to the fact that a survivalist like Robin would choose to side with the Straw Hats over the hugely powerful Enel, the moment Zoro catches Robin is more important to Zoro than Robin. He was the most openly against her, the one who trusted her the least for the longest amount of time. Here Oda is showing us in big flashing lights that, yeah, Zoro has accepted Robin as part of the crew.

But I don’t want to talk about big, flashy character moments. I want to talk about this

Robin actually gets a pretty decent chunk of screen time during the Sky Island Saga as a whole. It was easier back then because Oda was juggling six main characters instead of nine, but it’s pretty easy to tell he was giving Robin special focus.

This makes sense. Firstly, Robin was a former enemy, so there’s a need to separate Nico Robin from her Miss All Sunday persona. Secondly, as important as Robin’s dreams are to the narrative as a whole, her position on the ship is the only one that isn’t strictly necessary. Any pirate crew requires fighters, cooks, navigators and the like, but very few would deem “archaeologist” as a position needing to be filled. So immediately after adding her to the crew Oda makes up a situation where Robin’s skills are helpful and necessary

In this scene Robin also establishes she’s the only one in the crew who’s even heard of the sky islands, while giving some much-needed wisdom to Nami. This, along with what we’ve seen in chapter 218 and the end of 217 gives us what we need to know about Robin’s personality and position in the Straw Hat’s crew. Then shortly after stealing Jaya’s eternal pose from Masira (showing off yet another skill usually relegated to Nami) Robin almost disappears from the narrative entirely and is largely absent from the Jaya sub-arc.

To be fair, up until this point she had been wearing Nami’s clothes, and Robin is, like, almost a foot taller than she is. Some shopping is justifiable here, but it brings me to one of the most important things to keep in mind when analyzing Robin as a character:

Isolation and Distance

One of the best ways to visually convey that a character is emotionally distant is to physically separate them from other people. When Robin first showed up as Miss All Sunday she was sailing the ocean alone. During her confrontation with the Straw Hats about their route she sat far above them where she couldn’t be touched. She left that argument with only her rad turtle ship for company, and spent a surprisingly large amount of the Baroque Works Saga apart from Crocodile despite ostensibly being his partner in crime.

Robin continues to be less than engaged after joining the crew. Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp fool off with one another constantly. Sanji and Zoro fight. Even Nami is known to smack the rest upside the head when they’re being stupid. Robin alone sits above all their antics, not showing her first face fault in a series lousy with them until well after the timeskip.

It’s pretty easy to pick up in the dialogue that Robin never calls any of the Straw Hats by their actual names, preferring to refer to them by their occupation (or their nose, in Usopp’s case). But the use of impersonal nicknames can’t be the reader’s only clue to Robin’s personality. Both Vivi and Robin have a habit of calling Zoro “Mr. Bushido”, but while the desert princess is kind, personable, and if anything cares a little too much, Robin is distant, standoffish, and at times even cold towards others around her.

You can even glean some insight from her fighting style. Robin doesn’t have to be in the same room with someone to kill them. She attacks from a distance, relying on stealth and surprise to snap necks and dislocate limbs. It’s brutally efficient and deeply impersonal, perfect for an assassin - or, perhaps, a young girl who was forced to learn on the fly how to fight against much larger opponents who showed no restraint or mercy.

This is something that was emphasized more in the anime where they had the benefit of knowing Robin’s backstory ahead of time and working little clues into the post-Alabasta filler. They’re a little on the nose at times, but episode 131 is a good example of what I’m talking about here, especially when emphasizing the fact that during the early chapters after joining the crew Robin often doesn’t speak unless directly addressed. To quote Oda in the Volume 71 SBS:

Reader: Robin always talks about creepy things in front of the crew. But her own thoughts, she often thinks of fun stuff like “cats” or “Dress Rosa”. Why doesn’t Robin talk about these things with the crew to make them laugh?

Oda: Even though Robin likes cute things, she’s a bit dark/creepy herself, so if she tries to put these cut thoughts into words there is a chance it may come out as scary/ominous. That’s the kind of woman Robin is.

Robin censers herself to avoid sounding weird. There’s enough evidence of her macabre sense of humor (spoke aloud) to assume that she has embraced her morbid self...most of the time. But Robin has been an outcast her entire life. Even before the Buster Call the citizens of Ohara were calling her demon/monster/creep/insert appropriate insult here.

(For those who don’t remember, the bruise on her cheek is from the other kids who were throwing rocks at her )

Robin spends large stretches of the Skypiea arc by herself, which further emphasizes the importance of what group interaction we do see. Robin has been hiding behind a well-crafted facade for nigh on twenty years because she needed to be a demon in order to survive the cutthroat world in which she lived.

Which takes us to point number two

Survival

Robin is all about living to see another day. Or she was until Crocodile shanked her (more on this below) Because of her past, she views the world through the lens of a survivor. It shapes how she thinks and how she acts, and Robin at this point doesn’t know any other way to live.

Robin has been miserably lonely for a long, long time, but believes if she allows herself to get close to others they’ll betray her. She learned the hard way not to trust anyone and that to let your guard down is to die. We see in Alabasta that Robin isn’t afraid to use deadly force against those who get in her way.

She’s got a bit of a mean streak, too. Though Robin didn’t kill Tagashi, she almost crippled her. That leg injury could have ended Tashigi’s career as a swordsman, which is almost crueler than killing her outright.

When Robin’s backstory is revealed in full the audience is always shown as Robin being the one betrayed, and never the betrayer. I think this helps garner sympathy, but her interaction with Crocodile shows that she’s not above a little backstabbing herself. Aokiji says that every organization she’s ever been a part of no longer exists, and I think that’s only possible if her reputation is at least somewhat deserved. When it comes to finding out the truth of the Void Century, Robin has literally the worst tunnel vision ever.

Which brings me to my last point

Openness to Change

Throughout the Sky Island Saga Robin is a woman who has lost her reason to live. Her only lead to the Rio Poneglyph was a dead end, and she doesn’t find Roger’s message until the end of the arc. That leaves a big chunk of time where she’s staying with the Straw Hats just because she can.

I think if she were as truly as fiercely pragmatic as she (and others) claim then she has no business on the Going Merry. Half of what the Straw Hats do is idiotic and should get them killed, and it’s amazing that they’ve survived this long as it is. Since Robin had resigned herself to death during the tail end of the Alabasta arc, we can assume that the idea of dying doesn’t bother her. Yes, Luffy made her go on, but she’s still stuck in this directionless limbo.

This is important because it gives Robin something other to focus on than the Void Century. Her desire to find the True History consumed her to the point where she was willing to work with Crocodile for four years and bring a “good” country to the brink of ruin. Without this obsession driving every decision Robin makes, she can take a step back and see the Straw Hat Pirates for what they really are.

The Stealth Character Development

Robin is not the focus of chapter 253. It’s a transition chapter situated between the first and second halves of the Skypea arc. The Straw Hats have reunited had their obligatory split the party moment that happen with frighteningly regularity. The crew are setting up camp as night approaches, comparing notes of what they’ve discovered so far.

Until this point, Robin has been with Zoro and Nami. These two make up 2/3 of the Straw Hats who showed initial distrust to Robin, and at this point Zoro stil hasn’t accepted her as one of their own. Yet they treat her with respect, and Nami especially seems to look up to her as an older sister figure.

Then Nami finds the other half of Cricket’s house, and without hesitation Zoro follows the comparatively weaker crew mate through the incredibly dangerous forest, which displays a trust for one another that would be very appealing to someone like Robin.

When the Straw Hats finally reunite, everyone is on good terms with one another. Remember, at this they’ve have stumbled into the middle of a civil war, made enemies with an unknown entity with a god complex, branded themselves as criminals, and almost gotten their ship destroyed. Some of their misfortune is just that - misfortune. But bad decision making plays at least a part of their current circumstance. It would be easy to turn on one another, and I think most pirates would. Just see how Usopp reacts when he sees what’s happened to the Merry

Anyone who has read the Water 7 arc knows how much Usopp loves this ship, but his first concern is Chopper. Compare to how any one of the Baroque Works agents reacted when someone failed a mission. Instead of falling apart during a time of crisis, the Straw Hats come closer together.

Chapter 253 begins with the crew setting up camp. Once again Robin goes off and does her own thing, this time finding a hunk of rock salt to use for cooking. Sanji predictably praises her, but he also reveals that he’s got a brain in his head by saying how important salt is to survival. Tick another box in the Straw Hat’s favor.

Every one of the Straw Hats helps set up camp, even the captain (useless as he may be). More than that, they each reveal a little of their talents. It’s sort of a reverse of what happens earlier in the arc when Robin showed off for the rest of the Straw Hat’s benefit. Through this Robin sees that the Straw Hats aren’t just good fighters, but smart and skilled as well.

After establishing the location of the gold and making plans for the next day, Robin makes a practical suggestion

This sequence marks the beginning of Robin’s stealth character development. She’s speaking here as a pragmatist and a survivor. Her point is valid, and any sensible person would have agreed with her.

The Straw Hat Pirates are many things, but sensible isn’t one of them. Luffy turns to Usopp in complete disbelief, while Usopp basically says “Go easy on her, Cap, there’s no way she could have known.”

Until this point, Robin has not been questioned by the Straw Hats. She’s not seen this sort of reaction directed at her, especially by Luffy. Her face says it all

Robin’s expression is pretty neutral here, but you can’t hide that sweat drop XD. She’s genuinely concerned that she’s made some sort of mistake. Remember, in Robin’s dog-eat-dog world a making a mistake is tantamount to death. She’s spent twenty years allying with people who at the very least distrust her, and more often than not try to kill her. And now, stuck up in in such a precarious position 10.000 meters above ground she has to be especially careful.

It’s okay, Robin, you’ve not done anything wrong. Luffy is just a dork

Note that Nami - the other survivalist in the crew - immediately jumps to her defense. They’re outnumbered by Zoro and Sanji, who have already made a giant bonfire.

Before we know it, the Straw Hats are partying with a bunch of wild wolves (Oda, plz...). They’re stuck deep in enemy territory on the night before a planned raid on the city of gold...and the Straw Hat Pirates are having a blast. Usopp’s playing the drums, Nami’s getting plastered, the rest are dancing their little hearts away, and Robin...Robin is smiling. This has got to be one of the most surreal, bizarre situations she’s ever seen.

Which brings us back to the image I started with

This says a lot about where Robin is at this point in the story. We can’t see her face clearly, but it’s established on the other half of the spread that she’s enjoying herself. Yet she remains distant, both physically and emotionally. The only thing that’s keeping Robin from joining in is Robin herself.

The Skypiea arc is important to Robin’s development because it rekindles her dream, but more than that it gives us moments like this where Robin is exposed to something she’s desired for twenty years, something we see later she’s always wanted but never believed that she would have.

The Straw Hat Pirates accept Robin unconditionally and show her a side of life that she’s never seen before. Even without knowing her entire backstory, by the time the Water 7 arc rolls around the audience genuinely believes that Robin would sacrifice her life, and the lives of every one else in the world, just to save the Straw Hat Pirates, and that wouldn’t be possible if Oda hadn’t given us this scene and others like it.

To put it another way, I fully believe that Robin would still make the same decisions during Water 7/Enies Lobby regardless of whether she found Roger’s message or not. The Skypiean Poneglyph furthers Robin’s part of the plot, but chapter 253 furthers her character arc.

What makes this all the more impressive is that Oda trusts his readers enough to figure it out for themselves. Unlike the anime, he never calls attention to Robin’s isolation and her gradual warming to the crew. Gan Fall wakes up on the very next page, and the focus shifts to more exposition, ending with the big reveal of what vearth is and why in the it’s so important. The development is stealthy.

Oda never makes a big deal of when Robin starts calling the crew by their real names during Thriller Bark. He doesn’t shove it in our face when she feels comfortable enough to tell Franky off for being stupid in Chopper’s body during Punk Hazard. He’s constantly using small moments all throughout the series to show how the crew has changed and grown, which is partially why people don’t think the characters have much depth.

It’s there, but without reading carefully it can be lost with everything else that’s going on. Just compare the Skypiean party to the end of Enies Lobby and tell me that Robin hasn’t changed. I dare you.

#One Piece #Nico Robin #Writing #Manga #Analysis #Character Development #Skypiea #Eiichiro Oda #creative-type analyzes

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ladyloveandjustice · 7 years

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Summer 2017 Anime Overview: Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul and The Reflection

My classic anime overview posts are making a comeback! I watched 7 different anime in the Summer 2017, so we’ve got a lot to talk about- so much so that I’ll do a couple anime each post rather than just doing one giant post.

I fully believe in saving the best for last, so we’ll rank and review these anime in order from worst to best. Which means we’ll be starting with the anime I found the weakest out of what I watched this season. Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul and The Reflection. Are both of them bad anime? Or are they just not quite as a good as the other fare? Let’s dive in and find out!

Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul

Yep, this was easily the worst anime I watched this season. Not animation-wise, the art was very nice (though not quite as good as its prequel). But story-wise? WOW. It’s been a while since I’ve seen an anime- or a story period- end that badly.

And unlike a lot of people, I didn’t really come into this anime expecting much. Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, the first season, was a beautifully animated but incredibly shallow adventure romp with a messy ending that managed to be both cliche and nonsensical in how it fridged the main female character. It was fun for the most part, but also eyerollingly trope-y and sloppy storytelling wise, with fairly 2D characters. I came into this season expecting much the same. And for the first half-ish of the anime that was what I got. It certainly wasn’t well written, it was sexist, it was cliched, but it worked okay for what it was, which was a silly swords and sorcery story where you could just turn your brain off and enjoy the eye candy.

There wasn’t much to the characters, but they were pleasant and likable enough. Nina, the lead of the story, was just kinda dragged along by the plot and didn’t have much going on (her main conflict is that when she gets turned on by a dude she turns into a dragon yes i’m serious), but her gung-ho attitude made her fun to watch. There was also an wacky all-lady prison break midway through the show that was kinda awesome.

(I should note though, one of the characters is a very fantastical take on Jeanne D’Arc. And she’s portrayed as someone who sucks at fighting if she doesn’t have the gods on her side because women are weak or whatever I guess! She finds some fulfillment only when a god pulls a Virgin Mary on her and forcibly impregnates her with an angel son. After this, her whole character revolves around her son. I had a lot of problems with that for obvious reasons).

But then. OH BUT THEN. I thought the first season’s denouement and end was messy, but I HADN’T SEEN NOTHIN’. Not only was this ending horrendous, it managed to damage all the characters involved (except for the zombie girl, Rita, who is too cool to be ruined by anything) and even basically damage the first season. If I cared enough to go back and watch that season, this ending would make it a sour experience, basically, just from how thoroughly the plot and characters from that season were mangled by this follow-up. Nothing redeemable was left in its wake.

Basically the whole story was overtaken by one of the most poorly conceived love interests I’ve ever seen. Nina’s beloved, Charioce, was a super sexy dude who had a few tiny flaws, like how he’d, y’know, massacred an entire race and also slaughtered, enslaved and tortured yet ANOTHER race (even putting them in gladiator style death matches for entertainment) and unjustly imprisoned a literal saint of a woman and told her he was only keeping her alive so he could murder her small child in front of her.

But you see guys, he danced with Nina a couple times and is super hot and his mom’s dead which is sad so it’s okay that he did a little genocide, tried to kill all Nina’s friends (one of whom was ten) and threw her in jail. I’m serious. That was the shows logic. Turns out the reason for all this was it was some plan to unseal the dragon a character had been sacrificed to seal for the next hundred years in Genesis. (So he effectively rendered her death totally meaningless). He unsealed it just so he could kill it for good . The only explanation we get for his double dose of genocide was that ONE of the races has a superweapon he needed to kill a dragon. Yep, no explanation given as to why he needed to do kill all those beings or enslave them or put them in death matches or personally torment a woman who did nothing to him, but the show sure treated it like it explained everything and meant we were totally supposed to forgive AND feel sorry for this sexy, sexy tyrant.

(In the end, the genocide and slavery ends up being a footnote: everyone loves Charioce because he killed a dragon, the demons are being payed low wages instead of being enslaved so everything’s fine now, no justice for those who were slaughtered, no consequences for the oppressors, no reparations made, no word on whether the death camps and many other atrocities even stopped happening, nothing.)

Nina being in love with him damaged her irreparably as a character too, even though she was perfectly okay before that- it was just so infuriating that she could set aside all the people he killed and the fact he’d tormented her friends because he was a smexy dancer. I get what they were going for-a kind of starcrossed Disney ~love isn’t rational~ type thing. And “love isn’t rational” is just the laziest writing copout ever, I’m so sick of it.

You can sell a romance where one party has done horrible things and the other one loves them anyway if you have the writing skill. But in order to sell that romance as understandable, you need to make the audience like that character too. The character needs to be actually endearing and interesting in some way.That way when so-and-so is tormented about how she loves him despite the things he’s done, the audience is tormented for the same reason. But there was no reason for Nina to be hopelessly in love with Charioce. Dude had the personality of a wet paper towel- I don’t think he emoted once the entire anime, even when he was on the verge of death. He didn’t offer her any invaluable support or guidance to Nina either. Yet she at one point said she’d choose the ENTIRE WORLD over him if it came down to it. A guy she danced with like twice!

The worst thing about the Nina/Charioce romance is how a bunch of characters were literally sacrificed for it. One of the main characters of the show got himself killed shielding Charioce from those he had wronged, despite the fact Charioce had done absolutely nothing to warrant such devotion and said character didn’t even have a meaningful relationship with him. It was a comically anticlimatic death too, it was out of nowhere, the other characters barely emoted about it with even his supposed best friend basically shrugging it off.

The other person sacrificed solely to add drama to Nina and Charioce’s lurve was Nina’s ten year old friend, who was unceremoniously shanked from behind after being a major character for most of the season. It was so cruel and pointless, I felt sure a magic resurrection was coming for the kid, but nope- he was killed off solely to cause some drama between the good guys and Charioce because the genocide apparently wasn’t enough to make our heroes mad at him. Nina does finally get mad at him, but only for ten minutes, then she and almost everyone else instantly forgave him upon learning he didn’t TECHNICALLY directly kill this one kid.

Even though he HAD been trying to kill the kid ALL SEASON and the bounty he put on this kids head was still pretty much the direct cause of his death. But nah,he didn’t like, specifically tell the killer “hey go murder this small child” , he just heavily implied anyone who did it would get a reward from him, so it’s all fine. Even the kid’s grieving mother and father figure eventually forgave Charioce about this for no apparent reason.

Speaking of pointlessness, the cherry on top of the shit sundae was that the dragon all these characters were sacrificed to kill? The one whose death was supposedly the payoff worth all this genocide and melodrama? It was revealed in the last minute of the story that Charioce DIDN’T EVEN MANAGE TO KILL IT. Rendering the entire mess of a narrative COMPLETELY MOOT.

Seriously, if you want to see how overfocusing on badly written heterosexual romances can destroy an entire narrative, this series is a prime example. If you want to see an example or writers thinking a male character can be forgiven for any atrocity and win the female lead’s heart as long as he’s stoic and sexy and manly about it, this series will show you. This show demonstrates the worst pitfalls of romance narratives- writers seem to think as long as it’s an attractive man and woman getting together, they don’t have to bother with characterization or logic to sell their connection.

it’s a real shame- poor Nina could have been a compelling lead. There was stuff there that could have been developed into something cool had the writers cared at all- she could turn into a dragon, it was mentioned she was looked down on for not being fully dragon, she came from a rural village and was fairly innocent and didn’t know much about the world, her father died tragically- but rather than explore any of that, it was decided because she was a woman, her entire arc should be about her swooning and crying over Bishie McKillsaLot, never mind anything else.

Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul could have been a shallow but entertaining show like its predecessor. In the end though, the only thing entertaining about it by the end was how hard it crashed and burned.

The Reflection

The Reflection isn’t quite as bad as it’s reputation in the anime community right now suggests. Which is not to say it’s a good show. It’s not good. But it’s definitely far from the worst anime I’ve see and has a few interesting aspects.

This show is a collaboration between an anime studio and Stan Lee, (who I guess really likes being involved in anime- he’s done this before with Heroman) and it follows a group of superheroes. The basic premise is that three years ago, a strange light and smoke hit people around the world. Some were killed, some gained superpowers. Those who gained powers were called ‘The Reflected”. The world hates and fears them, in true Marvel style. Now a villain named Wraith is kidnapping people for mysterious reasons.

The Reflection is a messy show, which is apparent just from the animation. The colors are very flat and the lines are very thick, which seems to be an attempt to capture the classic comic book feel. But the thing is, old comics chose to have a bright color palette, or at least a highly contrasting one, for good reason. if you do that kind of style with a dark color palette, it ends up looking very muddy. Unfortunately, that’s what The Reflection chose to do. This was especially egregious in the last episode, where having the darkly colored characters against a dark sky made it very hard to tell what was happening. On top of that, the animation was very limited in general.

There’s also a lot a standard superhero stories here that are not given a fresh spin- we have the angsty product of a lab experiment, the shallow, show-offhero who learns superheroing is SRS BUSINESS after his loved ones are killed due to his negligence and most disappointingly, a main villain whose only motivation is that he wants to plunge the world into a vague, generic sort of darkness.

Some stuff is just straight up not explained, which made the finale confusing- we see a flashback that is supposed to make us forgive a character for his actions, but it’s so incoherent and quick it reveals nothing. Nor is the villain really explored in a way that makes sense (save for an extremely on the nose message about “darkness”, which was repeated so often in the episode I got sick of hearing it), his actions are unclear and the whole thing is just generally clunky. It seems like they chose not to explain a lot of stuff (and end on a cliffhanger) in hopes of getting a sequel, but you can leave mysteries and openings for a possible season 2 without being opaque and hard to follow. In fact, a final episode like The Reflection’s is way more likely to turn fans off than leave them wanting more.

However, The Reflection does have a few interesting ideas and good moments. One of the main heroes, Lisa, has a wheelchair that transforms into a giant robot, which is rad as hell and should be included in every superhero narrative from now on. Her personality is also endearing- she’s a determined, fiery, geeky girl who loves comics. Her whole storyline where her father is all protective of her due to her disability and she tells him doesn’t consider her condition tragic and proves she’s actually the one who can protect him is fairly heavy handed , but it’s a very positive narrative, and I’m especially glad to see it in an anime after being burned HARD by the ableism in Yuki Yuna is a Hero. She’s sadly sidelined after her introductory episode (it’s especially strange that her comic book fandom never comes up again), but still remains a good character.

There’s also a character who was blind, except he can see the silhouettes of people who have superpowers and thus pick out when when people are superpowered that way- that’s another good concept and I liked that his wife was the physically strong and imposing one of their partnership, though she didn’t get as much characterization as I’d like (in fact, she pretty much had none outside her relationship with her husband). The episodes revolving around Lisa and this pair were definitely the strongest of the series.

The lead of the story, Eleanor, also had a lot of potential. She had the heart of a hero, but she was desperate for validation and because of that desperation she ended up having an identity crisis where she developed an alternate personality. If her psychology had been explored more, that could have been a really interesting concept- but it wasn’t really explored at all beyond generic “this personality is the darkness within me” so it ended up being more on-the-nose and boring than anything. Still, I appreciated Eleanor’s scrappiness and in the hands of a more competent show, she could have been really great.

The other characters were duds though, unfortunately- the villains were generic and kinda just there. The hero X-On drove a lot of the plot, yet we learned pretty much nothing about him and he had no personality other than being kind of a dick. The magical girl squad was a fun touch and I loved seeing them kick ass and save the day, but they didn’t have distinct personalities from each other or much thematic significance to the story.

Basically, there’s nothing offensive or repellent about The Reflection. I have to give it points for trying something different stylistically from the usual anime fare. It’s a show that could have been good if it had been executed a little better and given more room to breathe. However, it wasn’t, so it ended up being a very clunky, forgettable anime.

#anime overview #summer 2017 anime #shingeki no bahamut: virgin soul for ts #the reflection #rage of bahamut: virgin soul for ts #rage of bahamut

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inexchangeforyoursoul · 6 years

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oh boi idk where you guys find the stuff but it seems like Oda wants to off some heads and/or limbs let’s see my personal hit list (that is to say the “characters most likely to die by the end of One Piece” list), Kaidou/Wano related edition:

Hot-Red Tier aka OMAE WA MOU SHINDEIRU:

none atm, though I expect Moira to pop already if he does enter the fray. There’s only so many times you can cheat death. Also, Kaidou kind of needs to die, that’s p much all his character is about from what we’ve seen, anyway.

Middle gound:

Jack... keeping him alive does not seem to be of benefit in any way. Would make one hella zombie. (Speaking of which, Lil’ Oars Jr. should drop a mixtape if Moria is around. Would tie into the Ace miniarc or w/e that’s coming, too.)

Caribou; he either dies or lives to pass the info on Shirahoshi to another dangerous player

Kid or Killer will likely have to go. What I’m saying is, these two will need to have character development, and likely at the expense of the other.

Inuarashi and Nekomamushi ride and die together. Or survive together. It just seems so... reasonable.

Low tier:

Killer again, if there is nothing happening with him and Kid. This time it’s either him or Hawkins... sorry I don’t write the rules. My instincts do. Too much beautiful long blonde hair on-screen. We need to cut some of it, sooner or later.

X Drake. He’ll have to be explored as a person first, though, like many others mentioned previously.

Like Apoo; either him or Kid will become Luffy’s foil here, if not both of them in a way (Apoo has his daredevilness, childlike wonder and cheerful attitude, but has plenty of brains and will backstab people; Kid is basically Luffy without Shanks’ lesson about not fucking killing everyone who looks at you funnily: same endgoal and comparable morals otherwise).

Kin’emon sounds about right; has yet to teach Zoro his secrets, however

The “may lose some bits but will survive” club:

Law missed his best chace to die or get maimed, second best stop is endgame. Latter can be still done, tho. Get him a Battle Franky model already.

His crew are kind of an extension of his status; killing anyone wouldn’t be of much benefit here.

Zoro; he kinda needs to either kick Mihawk’s ass first or entrust the business to Tashigi to die. Latter smells like the arc after material, though. (we NEED to get to Vegapunk eventually, you feel me?)

I believe Kaidou will get hella interested in Chopper (zoan with those pills? c’mon) and we’ll have another (attempted) kidnapping from the crew; it would be traumatic for the lil fella, but I don’t see him getting seriously injured

Any other Strawhat, including

Jinbe, who is is set up to be a permanent helmsman. He’ll stay for sure. For now.

Carrot just lost her mentor, at least it’s very, very likely. She’s in the middle of character development, too, in a “rite of passage” way. Will survive till the end of the story as an ally imho.

I’d be surprised if Momonosuke gets seriously hurt; his flying dragonness *cough* will def be important, sooner or later

+1 category: Luffy will eventually die tbh, but this arc is nowhere near endgame in any way whatsoever, despite having obvious consequences. Also Shanks, duh. I’d be surprised if that happened rn. And Blackbeard ofc (though Sakazuki is just as likely to die, honestly.) Plus Crocodile; and with that, I also have my top 5 to die in the extras lmao

I probably forgot a noteworthy player or two here, but oh well

#opspoilers #Kate talks #one piece

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creative-type · 7 years

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Building up to Arlong Part I

“Just wait ‘till the Arlong arc.”

I think anyone who’s been in the One Piece fandom for any length of time has read some variation of the above sentence. It’s almost universally agreed that the Arlong arc is the tipping point from the series, elevating One Piece from okay to great. Detractors, newcomers, and the generally curious are all told to hold off their judgment until seventy chapters into the series, which seems like an absurd amount of time for a reader to get hooked.

In an interview with several of Oda’s former editors (English summary here, about three-quarters down the page) it’s stated that One Piece met some initial resistance in Japan among the staff at Shonen Jump, with some of the editors not seeing the appeal and others having to convince them of its “awesomeness”.

It’s hard to imagine the manga garnering such a reaction today, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that One Piece is Oda’s first serialized work. He had been an assistant and written several one shots, but he’d never had to put together a long-form story before. He was learning and growing as an author and artist as he went along.

Just compare the art in these two pages

Both are establishing shots of new locations, one of Usopp’s hometown and the other the Marines setting Luffy’s first bounty. The amount of detail outside the marine base blows the idyllic hills of Syrup village out of the water. It can be jarring to see how sparse early One Piece panels are when you’re more used to the cluttered, chaotic pages of later chapters.

But I think it would be impossible for Oda to make the jump from “meh” to “this is amazing” without some proper buildup. Early One Piece arcs contain bits and pieces of what makes the series so beloved, and as each arc progresses Oda takes what he’s learned and adds it into an ever-improving whole. So let’s take a look at these early chapters and find the diamonds scattered among the rough.

Romance Dawn

Chapter 1 is arguably the best crafted stand-alone story in these early chapters. That makes sense. As a pilot chapter for the series I’m sure it was written and rewritten dozens of times for maximum effectiveness, and I think it gets across everything it needs to without belaboring the point.

Romance Dawn is a glimpse of the quality that Oda would later produce on a more consistent basis. The characters are fun and have hidden depths, the art is simple but dynamic, and the bait-and-switch where Shanks doesn’t initially beat the crap out of the mountain bandits is a surprise considering the genre. And if haki was indeed planned from the beginning it’s also the first instance of Oda’s famous foreshadowing ability.

Considering future backstories it’s a little surprising that no one important to Luffy dies, but the familiar themes of inherited will, dreams, and sacrifice are present. The lack of uber-tragedy sets Luffy apart from a lot of protagonists and fits with his lighthearted, carefree characterization and the more whimsical nature of the series, while still hinting at the darkness that exists within the world.

Alvida

Chapter 2 is also a stand-alone story, but it’s much more generic. Following a common trend during these early chapters, it’s more focused on establishing Luffy as a character than any of the antagonists, and world building is minimal. Alvida is so boring that Oda completely repurposed her design and personality when she was reintroduce in Louge Town, and at this point Coby is a walking, talking foil to Luffy with little to no personality of his own.

There are a couple of things to note, though. One, Luffy’s characterization is remarkably consistent to what we see later in the series. Here we see him smile as he faces death, while later in the chapter Luffy insults Coby and calls him a wimp in a scene that’s reminiscent of his interaction with Shirohoshi during the Fishman Island arc. He also doesn’t help Coby until Coby stands up for himself, subtly enforcing the idea that Luffy is not a hero.

Second, we can see the embryonic form of Oda’s later paneling and page layouts. The above scene reminded me of a picture I pulled for my analysis of Chapter 218.

You can’t see it here, but in Chapter 218 Oda tilts his panels to match the rocking of the Going Merry, using an unconventional panel format to convey the chaos the Straw Hats are experiencing while also giving the eye an easy path to follow.

Chapter 2 has the “fade to black” Oda commonly uses when transitioning scenes, but the format is the traditional three lines of (mostly) rectangular panels. Despite the huge whirlpool you don’t get a sense that the situation is dangerous.

Also note the sheer amount of information conveyed in the sequence from Chapter 218 compared to the Chapter 2 despite them sharing basically the same layout. There are four separate panels of the same whirlpool - adequate enough in showing the passage of time, but visually kind of boring, which sums up the art in general during these early chapters.

Shells Town

The Shells Town arc shares a lot of the same flaws as the Alvida encounter, but has the benefit of a longer page count, which is helpful in fleshing out the story. Coby starts to grow into his own, and Zoro is introduced. The focus is still on establishing Luffy’s ideals as a pirate and Morgan is a one-note villain, but the world is starting to grow, namely with the complex morality of the marines.

We also get our first taste of Oda’s specific brand of Tragic Backstory (tm). Zoro’s flashback is arguably the weakest of all the Straw Hat’s. The pacing is rushed and I personally find the segue in and out of the present day to be a little jarring, but the bones of it is sound even if the execution is iffy.

The fight against Morgan doesn’t last long, but outclassed as he is, he at least puts up a better showing than Alvida. There are some neat camera angles and perspective tricks that Oda uses that sell Luffy’s flowing, so-long-as-it-works-I’m-going-to-do-it fighting style.

Again, this is but a taste of things to come, and short as it may be the Morgan fight is fun. Oda has said he gave Luffy the gum-gum fruit to help keep things from ever getting too serious, and reading these early chapters I believe it.

Orange Town

I would call the Buggy arc the first “standard” One Piece arc. At fourteen chapters it’s decently long by East Blue standards. It’s is leaps and bounds better than anything we’ve seen thus far, and we have the flashy bastard himself to thank.

Pre-comic relief Buggy manages to straddle the line between menacing and likable. One thing I do appreciate about One Piece villains is that they’re generally not given an excuse for their evilness (a trend that is admittedly starting to reverse post timeskip). We are never told why Buggy, Kuro, or Kreig set out to be pirates, and frankly we don’t need to know. Buggy is given a reason for his animosity towards Shanks, but it’s never used as a justification for his more jerkish behavior.

And he is a jerk. A clever, reasonably powerful, flashy jerk, but a jerk all the same.

With this added characterization, Buggy has the honor of being the first charismatic and memorable villain of the series, and is also the first instance of camaraderie within an enemy organization. In all honesty, I think the only thing separating Orange Town from the Cocoyashi village is emotional stakes. Buggy’s opinion notwithstanding, there is no Tragic Backstory (tm). The little dog comes closest, but the effectiveness of Shu depends entirely how much one cares for sad animal stories (I am immune, and subsequently don’t much care about Laboon either).

More importantly, it’s here that we see the first primitive instances of Straw Hat interaction, and some of the stuff that happens when Oda lets all the different personalities bounce off of one another is pure gold

Also Luffy shoves an old man face-first into a wall for his own good. I feel like that ought to be mentioned every time someone tries to call him a hero.

But the thing that really stands out in Orange Town when placed within the overarching plot is Oda’s burgeoning skill at playing the long game in regards to his storytelling, specifically in regard to Nami.

The Alvida, Morgan, and later Gaimon’s arcs are largely self-contained little stories that serve to flesh out Luffy as a protagonist. When Zoro was recruited the audience was informed of his history and character motivation almost immediately. During Nami’s first conversation with Luffy in chapter 9 we learn that she’s 1) raising 100,000,000 berries to buy a village, 2) loves money and tangerines, and 3) hates pirates. We don’t learn the reason for any of these things until her backstory is revealed in chapter 78.

There are obvious parallels to Robin’s recruitment much later, but really this is Oda something does quite often. Vivi and Law were both around for awhile before the meat of their stories were told. Having someone familiar around for big conflicts helps give a face to the nameless masses. It would have been really hard for Oda to make the reader care about the average Joe in Cocoyashi village without having a pre-established connection in the form of Nami, and it would be really hard to care about Nami if the audience hadn’t been given the time to get to know her first.

By waiting so long to let Nami develop as her own character, the emotional stakes missing from Orange Town are fully present during the much-beloved march to Arlong Park. The latter cannot exist without the former.

I said in the opening that 70 chapters is an absurd amount of time to get hooked into a story, but in some ways I can completely understand why it would take that long. One Piece isn’t built on slick one-liners or “cool” characters. It’s fun and goofy and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Hints of future intrigue and mystery are strewn along like bread crumbs down a path, organically delivered as the world unfurls bit by bit. There’s a methodicalness to it that catches the reader by surprise, yet makes perfect sense as the crew goes from island to island.

Orange Town is just the beginning of this in action, but once again this is getting pretty long. I’ll finish the road to Arlong Park in another post. Thanks for reading :)

#One Piece #Analysis #Manga #World building #Luffy #Nami #Zoro #East Blue Saga #Straw Hat Pirates #creative-type analyzes

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