Board 8 > One Piece (spoilers)

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I've read until they reached Skypeia. They just got charged with a bunch of crimes. Mostly enjoying it.

Alabasta was pretty good. I got a kick out of reading about Zoro turning down B.W. previously which was shown in the live action.

Zoro beating all those guys at Whiskey Peak was cool. I hope in the LA they do that justice. I'm imagining a big, Daredevil-style one-take sequence for at least some of it.

Watched a couple of anime episodes but I generally don't have the patience for it. Especially when I know it's going to be done in a medium I enjoy more in a year or two. That said, I like the vocal performances and some of the comedy (the scene where Robin joins the crew and ingratiates herself with each of them in turn is very well-realised and funny in the anime).

Spoiler providers have issued a warning that this week's chapter is huge. Tomorrow would be a good time to get off the internet if you want to avoid spoilers.

I'm reading that the moment it gets dropped.

Eh, they do that a lot.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I think every chapter is always huge nowadays so maybe it doesn't apply to me as I always read the spoilers ASAP, but I feel like people who read spoilers, are gonna read them regardless, and the ones that don't aren't going to.

I've been reading spoilers since forever. Some of my fondest memories were when the spoilers were dropped for all of the big 3 back in the day.

Yeah we're in a really important flashback now so every chapter until it ends will probably be huge. Well, even after it ends given the situation the SHs were in when the flashback started

I think this one might be on par with a certain fruit reveal so it's not just weekly scheduled hype

*every chapter since the start of this arc* wow stay off the internet this one is crazy everyone!!

The hype did not live up to the preliminary reveal lmao

Unless they show Rocks looking like Luffy or something

GANON1025 posted...

*every chapter since the start of this arc* wow stay off the internet this one is crazy everyone!!

I'm not the one hyping it though. It's redon and whoever else hyping yesterday before they revealed the outline. I think the only real big moment so far this arc is Saturn reveal.

This arc has been ridiculously good imo.

But I agree spoiler providers overhype individual chapters. The reason for the hype is often a plot hint that doesn't get fully explained, or some top tier character appearing on a single page and saying a one liner.

GranzonEx posted...

The hype did not live up to the preliminary reveal lmao

It's why I don't trust them when they say this shit.

The chapter is cool, but it's technically stuff we already knew about. It's just face reveals.

Sorozone posted...

It's why I don't trust them when they say this shit.

I remember last time redon hyped the fruit reveal, that was insane.

I am kinda disappointed that Kuma's flashback ends with him skipping the God Valley incident. Wonder who will be the PoV that will show the whole thing. Maybe a dying Garp flashback later on.

Oda is such a tease. But yeah I didn't see anything in this chapter worth hyping it up any more than usual

Is that Shiki? I never saw the movies.

Rocks Jolly Roger, the O part looks like Nika hair. If Xebec had the fruit then Kaido would've commented on it when fighting Luffy. I don't see a reason why they would show up to GV since the fruits aren't all that appetizing. Maybe there is a Poneglyph?

It definitely didnt live up to the leakers hype, but i skipped the spoilers and was pleasantly surprised!

still hoping that Rocks is a Buggy-like figure, i think it would be a funny twist.

but so much juicy stuff shown! The former Kuja Empress, Captain John, Kaido and Big Mom, Chadbeard with Stussy

kuma is about to have the saddest shit happen next week though, poor guy :(

GranzonEx posted...

I'm not the one hyping it though. It's redon and whoever else hyping yesterday before they revealed the outline. I think the only real big moment so far this arc is Saturn reveal.

Nah the biggest was waiting 600 chapters to finally meet vegapunk

Finished Skypiea

Jesus, that flashback towards the climax felt interminably long. Not without merit because it explained the Nolan stuff, but christ. Largely enjoyed the rest of it

XIII_Rocks posted...

Also Zoro got sidelined for a huge part of it, and that was a shame

He got two fights!

I think Skypiea is fascinating for a variety of reasons. I think its biggest weakness honestly is that its by far the most egregious and annoying sidelining of Luffy the story ever does. It's a fun gag at first and then it keeps going...and going...and going...

And while I do like pretty much everything in it, it probably does go on for a bit too long. Pretty much every part of it could probably have been trimmed down just a little bit at least.

Finally completed the live-action. I can't fault it too much, because it accomplished what it (I think) set out to do; draw more people to the franchise. It is the worst way to experience the story though, in my opinion. I understand they had to make cuts, but it's a shame so much of the nuance and the storytelling got lost because of it, especially in the villains. All the East Blue villains are reversals of one part of Luffy's idea of a pirate, and that really doesn't come out enough, and it feels they could've structured the stories better to showcase that (even though the cutting of Don Krieg would've always made this a little bit difficult).

There's also an unfortunate case of tell don't show in Arlong's part; he believes in fishman superiority because of their physical superiority; breathing underwater, being able to swim much faster and better and, in Arlong's case, having the saw-nose and the teeth-as-weapon. I can imagine these things being cut for budget reasons, but it's still a bit of a shame.

RyoCaliente posted...

It is the worst way to experience the story though, in my opinion.

I find myself wishing the whole thing was already out in live action because I've found it to be the best way to experience this story

Manga > Live Action > Anime (for the parts the LA covers)

Vehemently disagree. The LA really doesn't do justice to the stories of Usopp and Sanji and what pushes them to follow Luffy and what Luffy sees in them. It doesn't show what being a pirate means to Luffy by contrasting his idea of that vs the villains (and in doing so sells short some other characters like Koby, Zoro, and Nami).

It's an entertaining time, sure, but if the LA continues like it did in East Blue, it will not have the impact on people that the manga and the anime have had. People loooove shitting on the anime but for the majority of people who're into One Piece, it's that form of media that got them into it.

Yeah but on the other hand the Live Action toned down all of Sanji's worst traits making him far more likeable.

My sister watched the show without any prior knowledge and Sanji is her favorite character. Which is the main thing stopping me from recommending she try the anime because I know she will not like him as much in that.

I can agree with that statement, but I think Sanji's thing also only gets really bad post-timeskip.

RyoCaliente posted...

I can agree with that statement, but I think Sanji's thing also only gets really bad post-timeskip.

Starts at thriller bark imo but yeah. At least Whole Cake and Wano were good to Sanji.

Only if you ignore the horrible Wano scene where Sanji makes good on his Thriller Bark promise and uses his invisibility to sneak into the women's bath and perv on naked women, including his crewmates.

1097 spoilers:

heres what im thinking: if ginny was captured before she and kuma hooked up, that would mean bonney is only like 13 and just keeps changing her age. which would explain why vegapunk keeps calling her a little girl, and would also make all that fan service very creepy

but if ginny moved on and hooked up with dragon, bonney could be a much less creepy age... and also ginny could be luffy's mom

Crack theory: Bonney is Ginny. Someone forced her to use her DF to turn into a child permanently, and lose her memories.

But didn't she say her powers aren't permanent when used on living beings?

Because it ended the Bonnie can fix Momonosuke theory.

1097: I had a feeling Kuma was absorbing all the pain into himself. I'm starting to believe a theory I heard that he will defeat Saturn by extracting all of this built up pain from himself and others from these past 3 decades and pushing it into Saturn

That would be pretty awesome.

I would absolutely love that

next chapter is up on TCB
RIP Ginny

This flashback has been so good. I'm really looking forward to seeing how high Kuma and Bonney jump in the next popularity poll

1098:

so i guess bonneys 12

TomNook7 posted...

1098:

so i guess bonneys 12

Yoko Littner ain't got shit.

Oda leave Kuma alone man
https://youtu.be/UcZzlPGnKdU?feature=shared

I legit couldn't tell if the rough quality of most of this chapter was all an intentional aesthetic choice, or if the chapter wasn't finished in time.

I feel like it's the former, but there were a couple of panels that seems like they were just oddly rough in a way that wasn't on purpose.

Oda says on the title page the manuscript is not finished in time

So uhhhh has Sanji been contacted by the FBI yet?

GranzonEx posted...

So uhhhh has Sanji been contacted by the FBI yet?

Does he need to be? The only interactions I can remember him having with Bonney are sensing she's in trouble at the start of the arc, and saving her from Bluegrass. He wasn't acting pervy either time. Maybe he could just tell.

I switched to the anime for Water 7/Ennies Lobby. Basically done with it, just got past the episodes with Garp/Coby/Helmeppo. I did a mix of dub and sub - dub early on, then I reached my limit of tolerance for the dub voices so I switched over to sub

I thought it largely ruled. It got off to a bad start because I was getting sick of the fucking Davy Back fight and then Luffy said he wanted a REMATCH and I was like "no, just absolutely fucking not" and then looked it up - and realised that the anime had added way more to it to pad it out. I then researched and found that didn't happen again for the rest of the saga so I just skipped past the rematch. Otherwise I'd have gone back to the manga.

The earlier more relaxed stuff in Water 7 was good. Nice to have low-stakes character interactions and the characters enjoying life and getting a bunch of money, and a good sense of tension as it all got built up. The reveal about the Merry hurt. I knew about Lucci already, but I didn't know about the others all being CP9, including the secretary, so that was a twist I appreciated. It then felt like they were in that fuckin building with Iceberg for ages but whatever.

Then they got on the train and that was cool (apart from the weird Ramen/Sanji fight). Obviously Sogeking was perfection and I'm glad I watched the anime just for his ridiculous theme song and the way he quietly sang it to himself at times for the rest of it. I am so glad everyone just knew it was Usopp (except Luffy and Chopper). Much funnier that way.

I think they did a good job of making Spandam look like the biggest piece of shit in the world, and essentially a nepo baby, given Lucci was obviously stronger. Very satisfying when Robin eventually snapped his spine in two, I didn't think they'd go that hard but he felt like he deserved it more than any other character so far.

The incredible momentum once they reached Ennies Lobby and Luffy just went on a tear for a few episodes was fantastic. I could have watched another episode or two of Luffy just decimating the Marines. Very fun to watch. Robin's flashback more than earned the multiple episodes it got; I knew about "I want to live" already but it still hit pretty hard, really well done. The fact that she repeatedly turned them down and told them to stop trying to rescue her - at Water7, in Iceberg's building, on the train, before the flashback - strengthened the whole thing so much. Took a lot to tear down those walls.

A bunch of the stuff before Robin got out of the cuffs but after they got into the building was just...jesus. The pacing fell completely off a cliff and I really had to look for the good stuff. I skipped forward 10 seconds more often than ever as I tried to get through it. The episode where Spandam triggers the buster call and the rest of the episode is basically just people reacting to it was borderline criminal (though Robin's trauma about Buster Calls was well handled throughout the arc). Zoro and Usopp getting cuffed together was a funny gag and led to some funny stuff like Zoro using Usopp as a sword and Zoro again suggesting amputation, but then they were cuffed together for something like 285 episodes so it massively overstayed its welcome. In the meantime (I think) Franky, the character I care about least (I actively dislike his design) was fighting the most annoying member of CP9 or something and Nami was having (what felt like) a very long and silly fight, and I just wanted it to be over. Once it sorted itself out and Zoro fought Kaku and Sanji fought wolf guy, it felt better and more substantial.

Luffy's fight with Lucci seemed...almost inconsequential? Like everyone else beat the rest of CP9 and got Robin out of the cuffs, and was fighting off the Marines, so it felt like it was more about Luffy himself. Which I suppose is fine, but there was a sense of urgency in the other fights that didn't quite exist in that one until the very end. Also it went on for fuckin ages. Tiny Luffy after Gear 3 was funny though.

So yeah a lot of stuff in the tower felt like a 5/10 or worse (just spread way too thin and horribly paced) but the stuff before and after was mostly terrific good, somewhere between a 7 and a 10.

I'll probably switch back to the manga for the next arc, but I'll come back to the anime at some point I imagine.

Yeah the anime really did Long Ring Long Land dirty.

Post Ennis Lobby is when the One Piece anime starts to degrade quite a bit. I would recommend sticking with the manga until Wano.

Personally I still can't deal with it even in Wano because the pacing is still awful, sometimes less than 1 chapter an episode for the worst of it, but at least the quality jumps quite a bit on average.

I've always felt the Day Back Fight hate to be exaggerated. There are some pretty good stuff in it. Namely Luffy's fight against Foxy. Zoro/Sanji's game against the giant dudes is also a good character development point for the duo.

Enies Lobby is where the pacing starts to fall off in the anime, yeah. Probably a good time to move to the manga. Though the next arc has a certain song that absolutely needs to be listened to, so maybe watch the anime for it too.

Also the point of Lucci fight is that the guy is strong enough to kill anyone in the SH crew, and considering how tired they are, probably the whole crew combined. If Luffy doesn't beat him, they are dead.

Ugh I hope Bonnie just goes back to being a kid then. Join the straw hats as a 12 year old that never transforms again.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Also the point of Lucci fight is that the guy is strong enough to kill anyone in the SH crew, and considering how tired they are, probably the whole crew combined. If Luffy doesn't beat him, they are dead.

Nah, didn't you hear him, Usopp could've taken him with his little finger.