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Behold of my awesomeness~
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But my feels.
Sanji's speech was pretty badass until it the end when it was too "sanji" XD
Brook's new ability was awesome and the reactions of Usopp and Zoro were hilarious...
Otohime's backstory was good but it could drag at times. Last episode didn't have that much going on. I started to feel some slowness. But this episode was so great and full of interesting developments. Since this post is long I'll break it into subsections with spoilers.
First, I'll talk about the Usopp, Sanji, and Brook section. It was hilarious, amazing, and gave us a new look at a power Brook got during the timeskip and a brief look at the life he lived offscreen. Having Zoro be stoic and pissed off and having Usopp and Brook shout at each other and laugh while periodically looking at the water and screaming was hilarious. "How are you so calm?! Do you have a plan!?", "No!", "Don't be so honest!!". Brook's purpose for being in the scene was finally established as him coming along with them not even knowing who Arlong is, then becoming a wet noodle in the water, then not even escaping captivity by playing dead made him being here nearly pointless. But no, he has the ability to leave his body with his soul and fly around as a ghost. While absurd, recall the way he found out his devil fruit power was by dying, his soul leaving his body, and then his soul getting lost for so long that eventually his body skeletonized. Whether it gets explained further why asking the god of music for help "to shake his fans souls" was the time he vomited out his soul or if it’s more of a Sanji's 'Diable Jambe' device(aka he's dead so he can do it) I love it. It led to that hysterical moment where he chased Pappagu as a ghost too. BROOK IS SO GOOD AT BEING SCARY! It reminded me of when the crew first saw him on his ghost ship.
I wonder what his soul can do? Other than forming in the shape of his face and leaving a trail to his body, he can see and talk with it, but perhaps he can even possess people for a certain amount of time. Seeing that he can fly through walls he probably can't interact with the physical world but maybe he can interact with the spirit world, further, if they ever do see real ghosts he can totally show them he's a ghost too and become allies with them. At the very least he could communicate and interact with them. All and all Brook's ghost power and his "dorororororororoorro BONEEEE BANGG!!!" is brilliant and has so many possibilities going forward. I was expecting Brook to take off his head and throw it through the bars and then roll it to Pappagu but this was even better than that.
We now kind of know how Fishman Karate works..
"Fishman Karate is all about manipulating the water around you! The shock wave can travel through water vapor in the air and through to the water in your targets body. Every living thing is made up of water so even a rubber man can't escape the impact!"
I had first thought he used an armament haki wave to hurt Luffy but that doesn't seem to be it. Instead he sent a shockwave through the water vapor in the air which went into Luffy's body and impacted him internally- hence causing him pain. It seems Fishman Karate is as good as haki if everything is made of water! At least in the sense that it could even hurt logia users. I wonder how hard it is to learn and if you must be a fishman to learn it.
Further in the Luffy/Jimbei sequence we had Robin show off her new lotus technique truly showing us she can teleport for a second time but still not paying attention to it narratively, and all three boys punched each other out in slow motion. It was quite great. I really want to understand Robin's teleporting capabilities.. Is she perchance emulating a clone of herself? She has the ability to create eyes, ears, hands, or any body part she wants. However, she has only created singular body parts but with how she can now create giant limbs is it so much of a stretch to suggest she is creating a fake version of her by recreating herself with body parts then removing them right before they are hit? I would be endorsing this theory of mine except for one thing, the first time we saw this she was surrounded unexpectedly and didn't have a chance to move herself, rather that one seemed like she simply teleported away and if it's a teleport it can't be totally broken.. Even Buggy's flying ability is connected to his feet being on the ground and staying close to them. It's interesting stuff.
Sanji had a moment in this episode which I loved so much. I got chills during his speech. He showed his intelligence and emotional understanding, putting everything together he knew Hachi hurt himself like this by standing up for humans and the Straw Hats specifically. He got serious and showed the real dilemma here, the personal drive to fight your own battles to save your allies versus the poor influence it may have on history, but as expected said that Luffy wants to fight so they will too. They have to go save their crew and more than that protect their friends on this island, like Hachi who fought for them. It was so great, Sanji's brutal "cut your stomach" line also roughly goes with this line of reasoning, that sure this may be bad for your cause and your people but this is our place to act and it's our duty to help our crew and our friends, and fight with Luffy. If I recall Sanji was also quite brutal with Franky after the Usopp beating, like he's a protective big brother who doesn't have sympathy for people outside of them if they stand in their way. It was so cool and it really showed the dilemma and how even though not fighting may help the future, they ought to and they don't care the means of who they have to fight through. Then he freaking turned it into screaming about all the beautiful mermaids of the island and, although it's understandable Sanji will protect the land of his dreams with his all, I totally reacted as Nami did with a huge sigh. It'll be darn hard to leave this place for him..
All that said, even if Sanji appears to be quite brutal when he feels he should be- as he definitely is one of the most emotionally driven characters in the anime with his rage literally enflaming him, at the end of the day he will still feed his enemies. He may act cruel with actions and words but I believe he still has some level of basic human dignity for everyone, he has empathy for suffering- especially about starvation of course.
I also want to briefly say that Sanji left Nami with Franky to go help Zoro during the Sabaody incident, and he tried to kill himself for Zoro against Kuma. Sanji may not show his love of men in the same way he shows his love of women, for women it’s romantic but for men its brotherly, so some people seem to think Sanji only loves women but I assure you he loves everyone on the crew a lot. The gestures he does for the respect of Usopp by not letting Chopper tend him after he lost the duel with Luffy or when he kicked Luffy in the face for kicking Usopp off the crew, or to comfort Chopper when Usopp was gone, or to refuse the goons in Thriller Bark from telling Luffy about Zoro taking on his pain, these things go a long way. His love of women may be far more visible on the surface, but his love of his brothers feels so deep to me, possibly even deeper than that. No one in this thread is saying such things but I did see some people on Crunchyroll say he was only mad because Nami was hurt by Arlong and I simply don't think that's true.
On top of all of this good stuff we also had a good scene for the princes and a good scene for Hordy. The princes defended a town handily taking down Dosun and showing off something I wasn't sure if they'd be able to, their mothers wishes- putting them into prison rather than killing them. The guards that got away and were on the ground anyways are going to defend the other towns and the princes are heading to the plaza to fight for their father directly. After seeing their strength in the past and seeing their resolve for their family and their people they grew on me and this was a nice showcasing of them and their actions.
Hordy on the other hand clarified the impregnable palace fear that had struck over me before this episode. If the Straw Hats are drowning and the only way to get in was through Vander Decken tossing them over there then it'll be hard as Shirahoshi is no longer even in the palace. It seemed impossible, but now it seems the palace will be mostly empty and the hostage Straw Hats will simply open up the gate themselves and leave. This is some great content from them in general, Usopp showing his new bravery and his new tactics, Brook's soul, and Zoro's underwater fight with Hordy. Speaking of that fight, Hordy showed that he has a huge scar akin to the one Mihawk gave Zoro now! It appears Zoro showed Hordy "the vastness of the world" this time. So cool.. The fact that Hordy is downing drugs to deal with the pain, drugs that take years off his life, and the fact he downed them when scaring some runaway pirates who he could have beaten and scared without going that far show he is super crazy though.. He's willing to die for this cause, he's not looking for a long life.
Idk what is gonna happen but isn't Zoro already beat the main villain of this arc while fighting underwater while having a huge disadvantage? Man that was awesome.
Love when Hardy felt that pain no drug will help him for long.
Robin walking into the middle of the fight and having Sanji interrupt Jimbei and Luffy's supposedly serious fight was a hilarious surprise. I'm pretty surprised that they'll still be fighting with each other after this.
Brook's out-of-body ability was hilarious.
He'll be a splendid scout for later voyages, that's for sure.
Been enjoying the steady pace so far this arc. Even if some are finding it too slow I at least like that notable progress happens in each episode. This one though...they ended up right back at the start effectively with Jinbei being unable to see that his stubbornness is going to be just as bad as his narrow-minded view that having a human defeating Hordy can only be seen as bad and missing the potential of having a human rescuing the beloved King. As strong as he is, he won't be able to stop Luffy and then be in any condition to take on Hordy himself, so Jinbei's going to end up in a lose-lose scenario.
Was cool to see Robin being able to create a complete clone of herself with her training now, although the lack of talk about it afterwards was underwhelming. Nice to see Brook actually being able to do something unique thanks to his Devil Fruit other than the water-running that is more because of how light his body is. Don't see how much use his soul-leaving is going to be helpful in other ways in future though since it can't interact with the physical world and his body is completely immobile while he's doing it. Comes off as a one-trick pony that's only there to help them out of the current situation and then never again.
The biggest crime this arc is Robin getting the least amount of screen time. And she can teleport now? I did chuckle when Sanji got hit when she did that.
And Sanji speech was 100% accurate. I just don’t know why they don’t go together. I feel like they over thinking this little. But we shall see