DO NOT discuss the source material beyond this episode. If you want to discuss future events or theories, please use separate threads. DO NOT ask where to watch/download this episode or give links to copyrighted, non-fair use material. DO NOT troll/bait/harass/abuse other users for liking or disliking the series/characters. DO read the Anime Discussion Rules and Site & Forum Guidelines.
will go straight into the main battle where luffy will use his haki and make the 10000 men faint and leave the main crew vs the straw hat pirates. most probably the drunk swordsman tako with zoro chopper with hamerhead nami with the teeth guy ussop with the chameleon and brook with squid. luffy with hody
man episode 553 seems so dragged out. I just want to see luffy and his crew beat stuff up. I don't care about all this stupid fish drama, get on with it!
this episode was so freaking awesome! i cant waitt till the next episode! ill cry if its not epic lmao
i was seriously going crazy about how slow things have been, but the last few minutes of this episode made it all worth it :3
Shinobinomi said: When One Piece is slow, its really slow. But when its awesome...
Nuff' said.
Kurini said: I came back after 3 weeks of pause and all I get to see is only that! ><
I really wishthere would a be filler after this arc. It's way too slow!
I can't wait to see Luffy kickass next episode! :D
Finally! After a long and dragging weeks, Luffy is back! Now, I am so pumped up for the next episode. I was already expecting a badass entrance and the Luffy really did not failed me. Totally kickass punch!!! [haha, but i was really not expecting that he was inside Megalo's stomach]
Byun said: I am wondering where I can watch OP in HD because it is kind of unacceptable in 2012 to have to watch in 360p -_- There was a bunch of episodes that were in HD(Just one example of many many ones in HD) but now 150 episodes later it is all in 360p? -_-
Switch over to downloading and dl 720p torrents every week by CCS or Yibis or Yonkou.
That's one hell of an entrance by Luffy. Silly yet epic. I can't wait to see the thought process that led to him hiding in the fish. The rest of the Straw Hats showing up was great, I loved Franky recklessly firing the cannon.
The episode dragged early on, but it was certainly worth it.
I might have missed some stuff in prior episodes. When did zoro and friends get released? Last time I saw was the starfish guy freaking out over brook's ghost. What happened after robin stopped jimbei from fighting luffy? Did they actually resolve whether or not Luffy would be allowed to fight hordy? Did jimbei know luffy was in megalo's stomach and let imself be captured? Feeling like I missed an episode somewhere.
I had to laugh at the ridiculous increase of animation quality when Luffy made his entrance. I thought they could have had a better OST selection during this episode but it was good enough. The song they played when Luffy kicked Hody sounded more like superman than One Piece.
waited SOOOOO LONG for someone to just smack Hordy and it finally comes at the last possible moment. SO much dramatic build up before they finally exposed themselves...i'm glad they skipped the zoro/brook/usopp rescue scene! I really hope they speed it up and we see more action now :D
It feels as if those last words are his new catch phrase, or people just ask the same question
Behold of my awesomeness~
controversial and/or sensitive topics likely devolve into the same repetitive, derogatory, abusive, and harassing comments can no longer be posted.
But my feels.
I didn't really like the fact that it extended the time it took for Luffy to get out of Megalo... if that had happened in the manga I would've been severely disappointed. It didn't make sense whatsoever that Hody stopped because he heard a loud noise... in fact if anything it'd startle him enough to make him miss or something. Should've been like in the manga where Megalo just straight up spits him out, and Hody doesn't even glance over until Luffy's a few feet away.
Also, not really as big a deal, but Hody didn't need a sword in the manga either. Aside from all that, was still an epic entrance for the crew.
Rasco said: It feels as if those last words are his new catch phrase, or people just ask the same question
Perhaps I'm just retarded and missing something... but when did he ever say that besides that scene? 'Cause I thought that was one of his greatest quotes.
"Friend or foe? That's something... you decide!!!"
Since this post ended up big I'll break it up with spoilers.
I was speaking to my friend about why this arc feels so slow at times. Otohime's backstory felt slow to both of us but I can't necessarily say definitively why. However, after that backstory which dragged a little, we have an entire episode showing the officer's fighting styles and a little bit of their personalities which felt okay but like nothing special. Then we have two episodes featuring almost only the plaza situation which I felt disconnected from. The characters involved just don't have me caring about them yet, the brothers feel like caricatures of the resolved princes for their kingdom and family, the princess is a crybaby with potential, the king has some standout moments but comes off as simply a good king who cares for his people and is unable to fight here. Then Hordy despite being so conceptually amazing ends up playing this part of a cruel, racist angry guy who's eating a bunch of drugs and outside of fascination of his drugs or his motivations, he's not much more than the 'bad guy' in execution, in my eyes at least. Then all the officers say a line or two showing off the one note personality that we've been shown and it creates this scenario where I just don't care about the parties involved past a casual liking which makes it boring relative to what One Piece is normally like.
It wouldn't be that bad if we didn't get so much other stuff like it recently, it all builds up. I adore the world building of this arc, it's my favorite in One Piece. Seeing how Hachi has grown, seeing Jimbei's past and views on the world, seeing Fisher Tiger as one of my favorite backstories and one of my favorite flashback characters, seeing how Arlong influenced the world around him, how he came to be, how his crew could have been made me adore this arc. Outside of Sharley dropping some Arlong information about being his sister, these episodes lacked all of the characters I care about and it even lacked the crew which could make even the most stagnant of episodes amazing.
That said, this episode was so unexpectedly great! Shirahoshi showed something that made me interested in her character, that she does actually have strength deep down. She promised her mom not to hold resentment towards the person who killed her and she lived with knowing it was Hordy for 10 years. It must have been so hard, she's not just a crybaby with potential, she has some strength to do such a thing. Yet, Hordy was very right. Shirahoshi was young and she wanted to keep her word to her mom, but if Hordy went so far to assassinate the queen of a kingdom to stop their human relation goals, then of course that wouldn't be the end of him. As soon as they got close again he'd strike like this. If she simply said something this could have all been stopped, she nearly got many citizens, herself and her family murdered setting up a new hateful fishman era. I don't blame her she was young and she's naive and innocent and this was her way of trying to keep the promise, but in many ways Hordy was right about his words.
The fact that he rubbed it in and started to strike the royal family more makes me think he was just being a big angry man trying to rub fear in the people's faces who insulted him. With how elaborate his plan has been and how clear his fear of Shirahoshi is, I had thought he was truly trying to test her powers. I'm still not fully against that, he's an intelligent guy tactically so he ought to kill Shirahoshi first anyways because if he strikes King Neptune and then sea monsters come and kill him then what's this all been for? That is unless part of his plan involves having her sea monsters destroy the island. All in all he seriously could just not be thinking that far and could have just been trying to crush Shirahoshi's hopes and rubbing in how far he's come, insulting Shirahoshi as a sick pleasure since she is both a human sympathizer and the reason he made it. I just think that's really dumb on his part if that's as far as it goes. It was when she saw her mother get hurt that she was able to use her power and that's when Hordy saw it so of course killing King Neptune would do the same thing, no?
Then the citizens started chanting Mugiwara right in Hordy's face creating such a beautifully sad moment. For they'd rather have the destruction bringer of the island come and destroy everything than let Hordy get his way. It was so satisfying to have him hear those chants all around him and as he started to approach the king I had thought, "Okay, is Noah or Luffy going to strike first". But fantastically it was Luffy, punching out of poor Megalo and disappearing into the spit making it look like Megalo just puked before materializing with a jet whip and sending Hordy spiraling into the distance. What an introduction.
And it didn't stop there! Jimbei had a plan with the Straw Hats. We didn't see Luffy because he was in Megalo and there must have been some agreement, that Jimbei would deal with this the best he could and if they must everyone can come out. What a good time for it to happen too, making it clear they are saving the king and coming to Shirahoshi's aid! The people ought not think the Straw Hats are bad news anymore. The way they appeared here actually reminded me of when Whitebeard attacked Marineford. They seem like such an insanely strong crew now. Every single person on it, to fly into this battlefield from every angle without fear from anyone, and lines like Brooks "yohoho, this should be a little tough", or Zoro's line about taking them all, they came off so scary, strong and organized. "A whale and a lion?" was probably my favorite part!
So, the royal family is mostly safe other than Shirahoshi who could still be used as a hostage of some sort, Megalo could always fly her away but I think she has to be there for Noah to hit them narratively speaking. That said even if she leaves it should be big enough to hit them so maybe not. In all honesty the Straw Hats outnumber the good fighters on Hordy's side by a lot.
They have 10 people: Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, Brook, Nami, Robin, Usopp, Chopper, Franky, and Jimbei.
Hordy has many trash fighters like his outlaws but we all know the only real threat here is: Hordy, Ikaros, Dosun, Daruma, Hyouzou, and Zeo unless his army starts eating drugs too.
With how many players are on the field in sheer number I presume this will get messy but it could definitely use some tactical play to deal with everyone. Overall, it should be so cool, an all out fight with the Straw Hats means we'll finally get to see what everyone is capable of, especially since Hordy's goons will be way drugged up. Then at some point the ship Noah should come to crush everyone, we can't forget about that!
Luffy and his crew always know how to make the coolest entrances even if it did start with him getting thrown up by a shark this time around. It's time to wreak havoc on Hordy's Fishman Island!
