One Piece Chapter 548 Discussion

Drunk_Samurai said:
He is not dead. You have to be pretty damn stupid not to realize Oda does not kill off named characters unless it is in a flashback.

mulderman said:
Does it really matter?
Oda does not have to kill characters to give them meaning.
I also think Bon Clay doesn't die. But here he is. Leaving his friends behind, facing all kinds of terrible punishment and pain from a pissed off Magellan, and why? To help a friend. No other reason. That is just amazing. Him being ready to die/endure all that, is just as powerful as him actually dying. At least in my opinion.

Drunk_Samurai said:
He is not dead. You have to be pretty damn stupid not to realize Oda does not kill off named characters unless it is in a flashback.

fisher_88 said:


Going Merry. And please don't say it wasn't alive.

I really think this chapter has a lot in common with chapter 430, when Merry was put to rest. While I still believe that Bon Clay has a chance, this is as good a death scene as any. I really hope Oda makes an exception for him, or at least never show us his face again. He can kill him in a flashback scene later for all I care.

Also, think about the circumstances. If Bon Clay doesn't resist arrest and doesn't get poisoned that's one thing, but if Magellan poisons him (and he will), what are his chances of survival? Iva's not there, and Blackbeard doesn't even know him, so the chance he can be saved is pretty bleak.

Drunk_Samurai said:
It wasn't alive. It had a boat spirit. Which even if it was "alive" it wouldn't count since it wasn't human. Oda has NEVER killed a named character unless it was a flashback.

fisher_88 said:


Who cares if it wasn't human. Anyway spirit = life. This is a manga, remember, we don't need stringent requirements for life. And Oda has stated that he was going to kill a character when W7/EL was happening - that was going merry. And if Oda considers it alive (enough to kill), and the characters consider it alive, then I will believe them. The rest of my points still stand.

Anything else?

Drunk_Samurai said:

Logic cares. Also no it doesn't. It was a spirit of a boat which means it was not alive. Where exactly did he say that? Oda has never killed off a named character. I'm 100% right about this.

mulderman said:


I'm still pretty sure Bellamy is dead.
http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/303/09/
We haven't seen anything of him since so...
But still The fact that Bon Clay might survive, has little impact on the power of this scene.

Drunk_Samurai said:


Bellamy isn't dead. It was never stated by Oda or shown.

Drunk_Samurai said:


Bellamy isn't dead. It was never stated by Oda or shown.

ichikiba said:
I feel like I'm the only One Piece fan that felt like this was kind of a "meh" story arc. I wasn't that impressed with most of the chapters.

GanonBR said:


It was never stated otherwise either... so Bellamy is Schrödinger's cat :P

Drunk_Samurai said:


Doesn't matter. It has to be shown and confirmed by Oda for it to be true.

vindemon64 said:
I don't understand why people are so distraught in arguing over whether or not Bon Clay is dead. Regardless, I think its safe to assume that at this point, Bon Clay was not able to escape ID and sacrificed his possible freedom to ensure the escape of his friends. That alone is praiseworthy.

Personally speaking, yes, Oda has not killed of any of his character besides in flashbacks. In one of the older SBS, Oda himself has stated many times before that he believes that crushing the enemy's dream and thus taking away everything they live for is a much harsher defeat than a simple death.

Though Oda has set himself up perfectly. I mean, if you think about it, the first death he does introduce in the story could be of someone pretty significant, that it could shake the entire plot (Ace, Whitebeard, who knows...)



Not impressed? The unpredictability of this entire arc was amazing in itself. *Shrugs* To each his own, I guess. Though with Bleach on your top 5 favorite manga, I just hope you do realize how much better One Piece is than Bleach.

ichikiba said:


Well, that was kind of back-handed. To say "to each his own," and then outwardly state that one of my favorite manga is inferior to your favorite. But, yea, Bleach has been terrible for the past...couple hundred chapters, and I completely forgot that I had it listed as one of my favorite manga. That'll likely be changed soon.

I just didn't like it. As cheesy as the series always is, I felt like it was layed on extra thick with all of the ridiculous ways of torture present, the "climbing the tower" cliche, and Luffy being randomly saved by a bunch of transgenders...okay, that part was pretty funny. It wasn't bad, but I felt like past story arcs were better.

GanonBR said:


I know... that's what I said...

keo1239 said:

I agree that Bleach has suck for the past hundred chapters...

And, also. I agree about the Impel Down arc. I told my friend as soon as Luffy arrived in Impel Down that I wouldn't like the chapter, and I was right. It was pretty much meh, and like I expected it all, and nothing awed me like it normally did. It just seemed so...trivial to be as long as it was. Personally, I would've liked if it was condensed to a much smaller amount of chapters.

ichikiba said:

As for ID, as I said, the "climbing the tower" theme, or descending, in this case, has been done a lot. Then there was being constantly reminded of how ID was impenetrable, and how the tortures were so horrible, and how the Gaolers were so strong, and blah blah blah...Okay, I get it, it's a freakin' badass tower. It got on my nerves.

ichikiba said:

Luffy giving up part of his life bothered me for the fact that the claim was already made that Gear Second is supposed to take a huge toll on him, and should be shortening his life as it is. I feel like they're trying to force me to think that Luffy is badass. It doesn't help that it's hard to take death seriously in this series, either.

ichikiba said:

I would've liked to have seen the other SH members. I think Luffy is too simple of a character to carry the entire series on his back, even for just 25 chapters.

ichikiba said:

But, then again, I greatly enjoyed the short story arc revolving around Hancock's island. It was interesting. There was the whole mystery of what was on the sisters' back, and the laid-back, passionate Luffy having to deal with the strict, cold-hearted Hancock (at least as we first saw her). She was a very intersting antagonist, as opposed to the Warden and the Gaolers, who seemed to be motivated by the thought of "We are awesome. Luffy violates our awesomeness. He must pay."

ichikiba said:

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. I think a large part of it was that, despite being really strong, Magellon and the others were kind of lame villians. Enel was a megalomaniac. Spandam was a corrupt Marine official, Buggy had a connection to Shanks, Don Krieg and Kuro were both an antithesis to Luffy, Arlong was racist, and Crocodile was almost pure evil. By comparison, Magellon, who's just a normal Marine, not even that corrupt, was boring.

Henna said:
Oda won't kill etc etc. Yeah, he even stated that, but that was years ago.

I think that Oda's stories are changing a little bit darker than they were at the beginning of the series. Triller Bark was quite normal One Piece arc, finding a new nakama and beating the bad guys. And still even there were stuff about overhelming enemy and self sacrifice. When Crocodile managed to half kill Luffy three times, they were never same desperate situations as Magellan vs. Luffy fights.

And even Oda's comic is different now. Remember mushrooms, newkama land and Brook and Franky's pantsy practise. There's more hentai stuff compared to past, when paranoid Buggy and his big red nose was the main comedy source.

I think it's possible that characters can die. Before Luffy just stubbornly kept fighting until he won (Krieg, Crocodile, Enel), but now he can admit that somebody is stronger than him, he orders his crew to run away, he loses a fight, he cries (Luffy did cry as a child, but after that I never saw him crying until recently). These facts about main character and the whole atmosphere of One piece gives me a feeling that there's major changes happening. At the moment you can't say that something is impossible.

And altough Oda said he don't like killing characters, it doesn't mean he won't do it.

Ciara said:
I would say he is not even an inch evil.

Drunk_Samurai said:
Anybody who runs a torture institute is evil.

ichikiba said:
I'm not saying that he won't. I'm saying that having characters survive such lethal things, such as Pell surviving the explosion, trivializes death as a whole within the series. It make's Luffy's sacrifices look meaningless. Though, from Luffy's point of view, they probably are meaningless. He's made it clear from the begining that he's not terribly concerned with his own death.

ichikiba said:
One good thing I can say about it: Jimbei's and Ivankov's abilities now have One Piece giving Guren Lagan a run for it's money. We may have a new winner for Most Epically Ridiculous and Ridiculously Epic Series Ever if this keeps up. Which is awesome.

fisher_88 said:


It's not tortute as much as it is punishment. Magellan is just doing his job.

fisher_88 said:
Andthe bullshit about 'lack of death trivializes One Piece' is bullshit because we all know that death can be an awesome plot device or can be completely cheap and trivializing. It's how one uses it.

Drunk_Samurai said:
Doesn't matter. He is still evil for going along with it. The entire Impel Down place is evil.

vindemon64 said:


Evil? On what perspective? Maybe the pirates, sure. But if you take the point of view from the common people or the Marines, Impel Down is anything BUT evil. It houses evil pirates and criminals who have been pegged by the Marines that break the law. Certainly not evil. Sure, there are tortures and what not, but the same thing can be said about any type of prison of its caliber. The government will implement torture techniques to get the information they want. I mean, is that what Former Vice President Dick Cheney did with some of the captured masterminds behind 9/11? Extract information via torture methods.

Drunk_Samurai said:
Yes you're right. Because everybody knows that every single prison has a pool of boiling blood where they dump prisoners in.

Ciara said:



*cough*Naruto*cough*...
Sorry - couldn't resist.

ichikiba said:
I'm not saying that he won't. I'm saying that having characters survive such lethal things, such as Pell surviving the explosion, trivializes death as a whole within the series. It make's Luffy's sacrifices look meaningless. Though, from Luffy's point of view, they probably are meaningless. He's made it clear from the begining that he's not terribly concerned with his own death.

How does Pell surviving trivialize anything? And what are Luffy's 'sacrifices'? Gear 2? The hormones shortening his life? I haven't read everything on this page yet, but those aren't sacrifices - luffy needed Gear 2 to become stronger, Ivankov injected him so he wouldn't die. Andthe bullshit about 'lack of death trivializes One Piece' is bullshit because we all know that death can be an awesome plot device or can be completely cheap and trivializing. It's how one uses it. So rather bemoan how no one dies in One Piece, just point out how each of the events affect the story. Which brings me back to my question: how does Pell's survival trivialize anything?

ichikiba said:
One good thing I can say about it: Jimbei's and Ivankov's abilities now have One Piece giving Guren Lagan a run for it's money. We may have a new winner for Most Epically Ridiculous and Ridiculously Epic Series Ever if this keeps up. Which is awesome.

Please don't compare One Piece and GL - completely different levels. And also, read JBA, Bo-bobo and Kinnikuman.

Lastly, I think that too many people have been hypnotized by Bleach and Naruto and forgot all about plot development. There was never a "luffy v. magellan" matchup like there was a "luffy v. enel/arlong/crocodile/lucchi". This was a 'save ace jailbreak' situation. People should have realized from the beginning that the goal was to save ace, not to defeat and destroy Impel Down. There was never a need to defeat magellan, like there was to defeat lucchi. So stop portraying him as a villain like the others luffy defeated. Magellan is not a boring villain because he was never really a villain, just a guy doing his job like the other gaolers. Read hannyabal's speech - that is the sentiment people should have read into this.

vindemon64 said:


Again, missing the point. ID supposedly houses criminals who've committed crimes considered on par to what our society would consider manslaughter and masterminds behind terrorism...or in One Piece's case, world domination (i.e. Crocodile). Considering the fictional setting of the story, the tortures that one would imagine taking place in ID makes sense.

Well, whatever. Everyone interprets things differently. That's what makes discussion interesting. I'm just presenting you another view.

Jeeppu said:
NO BON-CHAAAAAAAAAN!

Dammit I love that okama TT_____TT ♥

Drunk_Samurai said:


He's not dead.