We started with some Cavendish characterization and his views on the arena. He is clearly prideful of his looks and desires people to see him as beautiful and perfect. His pirates are the “beautiful pirates” for crying out loud and he lacks humility. It’s why he wants to kill Luffy and all of the rookies, they took away his spotlight, he wants Ace’s devil fruit so he can become the star again. Having such an extreme case of narcissism that is offended that a war took away his focus is charming in itself. Plus it leads to hilarious moments like Luffy absolutely ignoring him. We also had Luffy straight up tell them that his name was Luffy but luckily the guys thought he had made a mistake. Cavendish’s words on the reason for the armor weight restriction was that people have pent up anger and frustration and fear and they let it out by seeing the losers blood. Having a prolonged fight with armor would only take away from that.
A side effect of the weight limit making everyone half naked is that is gives justification to the criticized boob armor of Rebecca that even I knew about! I love how crafty Oda is to give such skimpy armor a justification, and let’s be fair, most creators don’t even go that far! Rebecca herself is interesting, we know she’s linked to the one legged toy soldier, and upon having some solidarity with Luffy over admiring Kyros she sheathed her cold demeanor and warmed up to him almost instantly. Seeing how the others mock her and she struggles to push past that, having Luffy treat her so normally would be another good reason for her kindness, a confirmation that he’s a good person beyond the Kyros interest and him even beating up her bully Spartan. She was said to be undefeated by someone and she also suggested that this is her last time competing. She wants the devil fruit to kill Mingo, it seems he has hurt her in some way. To tell Luffy this in Doflamingo’s territory shows she had some real trust in him. And above all else, this mysterious fable of Kyros who went undefeated, only taking one slash, and vanished after 3000 wins gives me Noland vibes. This isn’t a case of people doubting Kyros, they have a fascination with him to build a statue, but with Rebecca seeing Luffy’s interest as a means to speak to him and with her looking at the statue before leaving as if it was her conviction embodied, I take she has a deep connection to this Kyros that Luffy happens to have dressed like.
The next scene showcased Jesus Burgess, one of the emperor Blackbeard’s men; the fighting champion, destroying his competition. When I first saw the paper bag I thought he was not going to be important, that he’d be a throw away design, yet as soon as I realized he would be an important figure I recognized his look. This is a fitting place for a man who loves to fight, and as the Doflamingo family works under a warlord, well, here’s a man that may class higher than them, at least in title. What I love about this is that Blackbeard’s crew has forever been pretty under characterized, they are a weirdo rag tag group that we only know about on the surface level. Having Burgess be characterized is something I am eager for. It led to Franky seeing the threat of this competition and trying to leave with the one legged toy soldier tackling him with some urgency, but with him lacking knowledge on the factory, Franky did some class Franky behavior. He threatened to kick his ass! But I presume when and if the sob story about Rebecca comes out he will loosen up and help him.
It was here that Maynard and the navy were fully exposed to the audience. Firstly with Fujitora casually sitting in the crowd without attracting attention it can be understood that he is not well known by appearance. Perhaps he is new or it may be as simple as people not knowing what he looks like due to his more subdued approach to things. If either are true it would help to show that only in name he is known which would explain why paying the bills drew attention. I adored the scene when Fujitora left the colosseum, there was this shift that occurred where he went from nice old man helping a little girl to hardened navy admiral and it was done with his coat being put on. His undercover intel work was over, it cuts to his navy coat and this intense track starts to play as he lists off everything he found on his groundwork. With knowledge of the dangerous people in play he lists the amount of ships they need, that they should head to the Doflamingo and Law meeting spot- Green Bit, and that they should focus on the number of people here, not enemies. In one clean moment Fujitora expresses that he is the anti-Akainu. Akainu let navy die that could be saved when the war of the best was over as to kill more enemies. Fujitora is not that way, he focuses on protecting the people he can, they are his priority, not his enemies. The other key navy member we saw as implied is Vice Admiral Maynard “the pursuer”. He is undercover in the colosseum and getting information that way, I would assume at this point he wouldn’t get much out of joining the competition though. One thing we know about him is that he is serious and brutal, cutting down Gambia, a flamboyant pirate that works under the notorious rookie Bartolomeo, who I assume is the guy who caught on to his actions at the end.
To end we had Bellamy recognize Luffy and supposedly Luffy recognized him back which, if true, I find quite shocking. I am half expecting Luffy to have misremembered who he is. Anyways, Bellamy introduces something interesting. I had wondered if he would be in the B side of the battle royale and would win, but I think Bartolomeo is the guy who is set up to do that. Things will become clear once we see whose in what group, but for now I think we can be sure that as Burgess won the A side, Luffy will win the C side, and Rebecca who has been shown great importance will win the D side. As there isn’t enough room for everyone notable to win I assume Bellamy will be in C group to get a rematch with Luffy, and Cavendish and Bartolomeo will be in B group to fight each other. If so, seeing Bartolomeo is in the opening, he’ll most definitely win. That said, having a ton of these guys all together would be a huge chaotic mess and that’d be fun too as much as I doubt that would happen.
As for some speculation, Luffy doesn’t want a stranger to get Ace’s devil fruit. He wants a friend to get it. Rebecca has a bit of a sob story with a link to Kyros, a link to killing Mingo, a link to the toy soldier, and is an emotional underdog due to the people mocking her. Her mission seems grandiose and she seems like a warm person. With this being her final competition, I think either Rebecca could win this or Luffy could win this for her sake and give it to her as they become friends. Could it go that smoothly though? The gamble of who gets this devil fruit, keeping in mind that even the winner could get it stolen from them moments before eating it in some big turn of events, and with the navy exploding onto the scene, I don’t know. |