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our first glimpse of Elbaph in the anime! and Big Mom's (or Big... Kid?) first hunger pang rampage! this was a great episode with a lot of great information, and some old Giant friends from the past!
things are just going to get even more crazy from here!
Dissapointed at first when I realized it was a backstory episode, but pleasantly surprised! Good pacing, and I love the way they referenced the past of several characters and how they have engaged with the Straw Hats.
I wonder if she is being possessed by something because those fluctuations in personalities aren’t normal for a child and if she was in control then she truly is a monster…
Well this made one thing apparent; how strong of a alliance Luffy has made. I love it when OP does this, and shows us how all past stories are connected.
well kinda interesting to see people of the present in the past.... damn Linlin was as much a freak as a child as she is now.. I still don't get why was she so big as a human even her parents were normal sized
Finally a good ep 4.5/5
Welp big mama wasn't evil to be honest she was just ignorant(she was 5 and until now she still has the mebtaluty of a 5 years old kid cause of the way her life went ,there was no one who taugh her in the right way to act normally) and she couldn't control her big strengh and she was a kind of a control freak (which she still is) and that behavior became worst because of the way mother caramel treated her (she didn't know how to discipline her):she never gave her any punishments or tried to talk with her about her behavior (probably cause she was scared of big mama) .i actually felt sorry for her(linlin).
And i liked the way they showcased many of the alliances that luffy made threw time.
How did her mum give birth to her in the first place?
I strongly believe that all abnormalities, including the giant people, in the One Piece universe are made by secret or old technology. In on one of the past arcs, we learned that new born children can turn into giants by scientific manipulation. There may be something that irreversibly changed genes of some children in the past, which lead to the today's giant people. May be leakage of a chemical by an accident, may be a biological weapon.
Nice with some history for once. We got to see Elbaph for the first time and how the giants are involved. Now the question is what happens to Elbaph and Linlin? And does Carmel leave her?
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We got the first part of the Elbaf flashback. I liked the references of older characters since it was a bit difficult to remember everyone after so long in the manga. Also, I liked they showed Gerth a lot but it's sad that the anime doesn't show the side-stories from the manga's cover pages.
Anyway, back to the story Mother Carmel owned an orphanage with many abandoned problematic children and one of them was Linlin. Linlin while innocent at the beginning she ends up having her first known rampage once she became addicted with semla. Personally, I don't feel bad for her at all. She was already troublesome and uncontrollable to the point of killing people and this is the reason why her biological parents were forced to abandon her in the first place and even felt bad for doing so. So with Carmel's guidance or not, Linlin was already beyond salvation at this point and most likely she was still going to be a person who could wreck havoc in her path in one way or another.
Was this one of those episodes that is supposed to make the viewer feel said for a bad guy because he/she had a bad childhood? Because all this episode showed to me that Linlin was an insane fvcked monster right from the beginning that later a became psychotic dictator killings thousands of enemies. Can't wait for the end of this arc in like 50 episodes when she is defeated but won't be killed because OP never kills off main evil guys because surely this time she'll have calmed down and actually become peaceful.
Oh damn, I was scared by that last picture!
Carmel was too good, someone had to teach Linlin what's good and what's bad.
But wtf, she didn't even have a devil fruit power then, she was OP from the start.
Ulquiorra said: Oh damn, I was scared by that last picture!
Carmel was too good, someone had to teach Linlin what's good and what's bad.
But wtf, she didn't even have a devil fruit power then, she was OP from the start.
I'm also still amazed what a monster she was.
One Piece episode 914 & 915 & 1027 were a mistake and 957 brought the salvation - FMmatron
Dammnn felt so nostalgic when I saw the various characters we met on our journey.
I think it was like 5 years ago when I saw the scene of the two warriors fighting, with Mister 3 and Zoro almost cutting of his leg because of the wax (5years ago…I wasn't even in my 20'ies).
So Big Mom is 68 years old? And still no pirate "king"
Big Mom was a little devil but yeah what did we expect
Znote said: Dissapointed at first when I realized it was a backstory episode, but pleasantly surprised! Good pacing, and I love the way they referenced the past of several characters and how they have engaged with the Straw Hats.
Well, the most backstory episodes are great in One Piece, no? Think off Senor Pink, Law, Doflamingo, etc. So I know that if it is a backstory it will be good ;) But yeah it kills the suspense of previous episodes a little bit, true.
I'm very curious as to how they're going to handle the next episode. I mean, "that" scene will obviously be vague just like the manga, but the music/narration can make all the difference.
I think they're going to play it safe, shit's too fucked up for a Sunday morning cartoon, but would love to see them try to push it as far as possible.
Dahaka_ said: I'm very curious as to how they're going to handle the next episode. I mean, "that" scene will obviously be vague just like the manga, but the music/narration can make all the difference.
I think they're going to play it safe, shit's too fucked up for a Sunday morning cartoon, but would love to see them try to push it as far as possible.
I did report you but then again you might wanna try not to fuck the experience for only anime watchers reading the forum.
Mother Carmel looked very pretty when she was younger. She definitely was something special. I mean to be the bridge between humans and giants isn't something everyone could do.
Sad to see how Big Moms parents left her because she was to dangerous. But just to see that she killed a bear with one hit as an 5 years old kid is crazy.
Was cool to see a lot of familiar faces in Elbaph. Especially Harjudin.
I had a feeling something would happen at the Lent. I think the candy Big Mom ate before made it even worse.
The preview looked interesting. I wonder about the aura or what ever it was which came out of Mother Carmels hands. Did she also ate from an devil fruit?
I love how all giants the Strawhats has encountered are connected to these events lol even Brogy and Dorry those two are from idk 600 episodes ago? Damn Oda is a fucking genius. Also Carmel might be an angel for her kindness but it's too much she failed to notice the Linlin is a ticking time bomb. Anyway, Linlin is freakishly strong that fatty are you telling me it's all natural? Did she not eat a devil fruit?
Mother Carmel was so kind! On the other hand Linlin was clearly a pretty psychopatic child, I mean she didn’t even realise she was hurting other kids – I know she was big, but somebody should teach her a lesson, instead of just forgiving everything…
It's cool to finally learn a little bit more about Elbaph, like 18 years since it was first introduced lol
“I love heroes, but I don't want to be one. Do you even know what a hero is!? For example, you have some meat. Pirates will feast on the meat, but the hero will distribute it among the people! I want to eat the meat!” - Monkey D. Luffy
If I had to describe the Child version Of Big Mom it would be an innocent monster. She was pure, especially when it came to her eerie curiosity. Sadly, no one disciplined her or told her what she was doing was bad and unfavorable. Carmel really went too easy on her. She saw Big Mom's strength and childish peculiarities. You would think you'd teach her a thing or two. Leaving her be like that certainly won't help any.
Regardless, I think this is the first time Elbaf has been explored to some extent. It was nice to see what kind of people lived there and what sort of customs the giants adapted. It was especially interesting to witness a few of the giants that have met with Luffy and the others in some way.
I will be splitting this post into two parts. My observations on the changes in villain writing from pre to post time skip, and my reaction to this episode.
My friend reminded me of a pattern I noticed during Dressrosa. That of seeing villains' backstories through their own eyes. To put it simply, having flashbacks for them. Although not entirely new, I do think we see a pretty distinct difference in the writing of the villains between pre and post time skip. I would call this distinction that of implicit rumors/word of mouth and explicit firsthand flashbacks. Both methods come with strengths and weaknesses.
To expand, when I think of pre time skip villain backstories, the foundation of why they are the people they are, I do recall some notions of explicit backstory with Lucci and Buggy for instance. But the most pressing and powerful villain writing for me comes in the forms of Arlong and Crocodile. We never hear or see Arlong’s past and motivation from his perspective, it is only hundreds of episodes later in which we learn he had a slave branding. This does so much for his character alone and it makes us think about him and read him in a new context. Keep in mind, it is only in post time skip we see his past through explicit flashbacks. Crocodile is another example of this, an extreme one at that. From his character flaws and ideals we can already paint a distinct picture of him with some digging, and then in Marineford we hear rumors of his loss to Whitebeard, see him mourning, and hear rumors of his past. Other more explicit word of mouth characterization comes from people like Kuro, Eneru, and Moria, all of them not showing us their past from my recollection, rather having themselves or others reflect on what they know about them. This is why I call the pre-time skip villains predominantly implicit and rumor/word of mouth based.
Looking at post time skip with the more explicit and holistic approach of villainy, we have Hordy’s first hand experience growing from child to man, and being indoctrinated with hatred. In Dressrosa we get a whole tragic flashback for Doflamingo as if he was a main character, and further, his subordinates like Baby 5 and Senor Pink also get those explicit flashbacks. All of these cases are writing choices which explain and show why someone became who they are today through formative experiences, quite a clash from leaving that to our imaginations. Now the next major villain is getting the same treatment, an explicitly shown tragic backstory, making me think this is a constant in the new era of One Piece.
As mentioned I don't think one method is superior to the other. They both accomplish different things. For instance, while watching Doflamingo’s backstory I felt jaded, thinking as though I would have preferred Doflamingo as a character if his backstory was left implicit. This is because characters like Arlong and Crocodile which forced me to put in my own thought and interpretation in extrapolating everything I could to paint an empathetic picture of them, as well as, to a degree, being hard to understand made them feel human. It made them some of my favourite villains ever! I'm sure the fact that I thought so much about them and had the satisfaction of feeling as though it was my interpretation of the characters also helped mark them in my memory and heart. This is the obvious strength of the implicit rumor/word of mouth style, it makes the villains feel like humans that have a presence and reasons and motivations and traumas, and like humans, they are hard to understand if they don't personally open up.
But, Doflamingo ended up showing me the strength of the holistic and explicit approach involving flashbacks. Through his past, among tragic and wonderful moments, we not only got to see his formative experiences and get to understand the intensity of his trauma and emotions, but importantly we got to see the formation of his family. We got to see the insidious nature of Trebol and Diamante and help flesh out the organization which in turn ended up making them one of my favourite villain groups ever! In my eyes, although maybe obvious, while taking away the personal stake that you have in understanding a character’s foundation, and while limiting the amount of interpretation that you can pursue in trying to understand these people, it can offer an experience that would be impossible if it was kept implicit and up to interpretation. Perhaps Arlong is the best example of this because he was blessed with both approaches. In the pre time skip we were able to understand a new side to him, place him into the tangible world, and sympathize with him; interpreting him in a new light, and then in the post time skip we are able to see the tragic spiral of hatred he fell into, seeing the great man he could have been slip into a monster. He is certainly the best case at showing both styles imbued into one character!
Recognizing this pattern of changing from predominant implicit behavioral and rumors/word of mouth character building to predominant explicit flashbacks and holistic character building made me want to voice this distinction in clear words before going into the next flashback. If you are curious about the kind of analysis that is possible due to the implicit style and why I favour it, check out my Crocodile analysis on my blog in the ‘about me’ section of my page(yeah i just plugged my blog). Now that the plug is out of the way, onto this episode!
To start with, I'll talk about the world-building aspect. I admit it hurts a little bit to visit Elbaph, not through the eyes of our legendary Usoland, but rather Big Mom. Nonetheless it's pretty awesome to see everything tied together like this. Throughout the journey we met many giants and this is their origin, it makes sense that we'd see them all. Plus, because it was scattered through hundreds and hundreds of episodes, it was nice to summarize it all. Dorry and Broggy ruled one of the most fearsome pirate crews in the world, due to the co-captains suggesting Mother’s notion of trade rather than robbery and the description of burning down cities, I could imagine they were the more typical pirates of reality. But the two captains got into a fight as we know, fighting for a very long time and putting a break on their crew. Numerous giants were caught to be executed, but rather than creating a new Arlong and Hordy situation through revenge, Mother stopped the executions and took them under her wing. Going back to Elbaph, Kashi and Oimo would later go to find their captains and be lied to, manipulated to become guards at Enies Lobby, and we even met a young Hajrudin training to be the man we saw in Dressrosa. This was suggested to us throughout the series but to literally see it makes all of those appearances of said giants all the cooler.
The other aspect, and the major one to speak about is Big Mom. In seconds I was crying for her, one of the saddest things for me is children, put in tragic situations, yet lacking the experience to realize what is going on. This could be children who have been orphaned without understanding death, or cases like this, where we see Lin Lin blissfully happy, waving goodbye to her parents with no knowledge that this is the last time she will probably ever see them. It tears at my heart. I want to be there for her… To make her such an adorable big baby is a pretty strong decision as well. It makes her all the easier to care about. At first I was frustrated with the parents, if Lin Lin had to be deported, why would they not go with her?! But as it went on, her size, strength, and cravings, along with potential obligations the parents had, at least gave me understanding of that kind of decision. Despite that it still felt really bad that they left her there rather than staying with her.
From there it was sweet to see her adopted by a loving parental figure and surrounded by giants, who compared to her, made her feel normal for once. As if she belonged! This situation immediately set up some huge questions that would have to be answered presumably through the flashback. Primarily:
1. What happened to Lin Lin which made her treat her children so poorly if she was treated with love?
2. What went wrong for Big Mom to adopt Carmel’s ideal, to dream of a future where all races lived in harmony, and corrupt it like Hordy or Arlong did for Fisher Tiger’s ideal?
Carmel pursued her dream by taking in children who had no home and teaching them to love and accept each other no matter the circumstance or race, she also helped understand the giants and kept friendly relations with them, this is a peaceful way to reach her dream. Now, seeing that Big Mom holds that same dream but pursues it through an iron fist, forcing everybody to be subordinates, is a corruption of her ideals. Somewhere she went from hating violence so much that she would stop animals from conflict to decapitating people's loved ones to get what she wants. There is a clear and dramatic shift that happened to this girl that is not yet understood.
To delve into her character, she comes off as truly innocent, naive, and appreciative, but she has another horrifying side to her. Her freakish strength gives for the ability to murder people without even realizing it, and she is so young that she would be difficult to teach to control her strength. This makes her represent a form of innocent evil, harm without intent. The horrifying nature of this is because, the second she killed the bear, I feared that she may have accidentally killed Mother Carmel too. The fact she describes Carmel as disappearing means maybe, if she did, she may have never even realized it or worse, refused to acknowledge it because it would break her. Then there is the food cravings, another aspect to her which she should likely hold no blame for. Even in the present day it is sympathetic as it’s like a painful withdrawal, hurting her own goals and family as she rampages. But she had this ever since she was a child, and if she does forget what happened when she awakens, that could be how she may have killed Carmel and forgotten if my worst fears are realized.
This is the crux why she is so tragic, as somebody else stated, a victim of circumstance. She is so young and she doesn't know how to control her strength, nor has she been taught to, and she's so big and destructive. Those paired with her monsterous cravings mean that she probably couldn't be accepted anywhere she went. Her parents abandoned her, and her friends will grow to despise her seemingly anywhere she goes. Even if she hasn't experienced this numerous times already, the fact that we can see that trajectory in her life makes me care for her deeply. In my mind I had speculated the best way to deal with her would have been to have her raised by the giants, the people she cannot easily kill, and while being raised, taught to control her strength. Taught to be a gentle giant whose intent matches her actions. But even if that was acted upon, the giants would not have known of her cravings and this horrible fate would have still happened. Going even further, if her cravings are in fact volatile and hard to predict, not many people would be willing to support her. :(
So, our first look to Elbaph, can't wait to get there with the Straw Hats someday if that will happen though! We saw so many giants in there that we've seen before.
Linlin sure is terrifying, damn she even beat the giants.
This shows that Big Mom still has the same behavior of a 5 year old she used to be. She has not changed at all decades later. She got ditched because it's a difficult task to hold on to patience while disciplining her as she wreaks havoc.
But why haven't she even laid a finger on other types of food that aren't sweet for once? I can't imagine myself eating sweets for the rest of my life, but I guess thats how she is.
August 6th 2023: Biggest upset ever, deception, selfishness, or scammed, manipulated. Heavy damage costs, and more. Days since: 15 Last updated: 8/21/2023
One Piece Episode 1041 & 1042 & 1047 & 1048 & 95.75%/1049 & 1053 were a mistake and Uta brought the salvation -AhriTheS3xyFox
While she wasn't outright malicious back then, it's pretty surprising that Big Mom's barely changed in terms of her personality even after many decades. It was rather ominous to see that even the giants aren't strong enough to control her whenever she gets way too excited.
It was really satisfying to see some familiar faces in Elbaf, that's for sure!
Okay this is my first time posting here but, confession, I just come here to read gfsdfgsdgsdfgs' comments every time. As always they said everything I was thinking and more about this episode, but there's one other thing I thought about while watching that made me really want to comment.
I was thinking about what someone said, that Mother Carmel had good intentions and offered Linlin her first experience of genuine parental love, but messed up by not disciplinging her properly. It made me think about how her intentions were good (having all races get along), but precisely because of how she went about achieving that goal, she f****d up. By trying to insist that everyone is the "same" and treating them all exactly the same, she was unable to comfort Linlin whilst also teaching her to be more careful of her own strength - she raised her like a human child when she really should've been raising her as a giant(? not sure) child who was incredibly powerful beyond her own control.
It got me thinking about how in dealings of sociocultural groups in our society, sometimes not equality, but equity is required for a fair outcome (you know that cartoon where the short and tall person are given a stool to see above a fence or something and the short person is still too short while the tall person is way too tall representing equality, and when the short person is given two stools and the tall person not given any they can both see fine, representing equity). Kind of reminds me of the ignorance of people who have (usually) good intentions when they say "I don't see race" and claim to treat everyone equally, but fail to understand that minority groups require often more help/support to achieve what majority/privileged groups can without help. Maybe it's a huge reach but I feel like it's relevant bc if Carmel had raised Linlin with love but also acknowledging her undeniably obvious differences, she might have been better able to teach her that she is *is" different due to being uniquely powerful and must be responsible in controlling her strength because of that, while still being kind and forgiving her mistakes. It might also have meant that she'd have the sense to think "hmmm maybe *not* making the giant gluttonous child with more power than any of us can handle do a 12-day fast is a better idea", but she did exactly what she did with Linlin as she did with the others and it,, ended up this way (I also believe she was probably killed by Big Mum in a psychotic rage trance and that's why she doesn't remember, just a guess though). Having said that it might have been that being as strong as she was, there was just no way to control her long enough to teach her to grow up well because there was hardly any way to discipline her (no one stronger than her to stop her accidentally committing violent acts) or punish her in a way she'd respond to (e.g. taking away dessert or something to teach her a lesson, cus that.....well we see what happened with that), so maybe I'm just talking out of my arse on something I really don't have the experience to chat about. But yeah those are my thoughts a lot more of a thought-provoking backstory than I expected even being quite simple, so pretty skillful writing on Oda's part imo
Oh god, now I'm feeling bad for Big Mom. I always sensed a bit of childish innocence mixed in with her abnormally sadistic cruelty. It's like she's been perpetually trapped at 5 years old, only growing in size & power. I imagine the fatal flaw is in how Carmel would constantly praise Linlin, either out of fear or a desire to show grace.
