One Piece (current arc)

[sara_tanaquil]

The current arc is KILLING me. (It's Wednesday! Chapter 673 just appeared, and is full of plotfulness and hilarity.) It's so awesome, but I feel like no one else on my flist is caught up to the current raws/scanlations, so I can't squee about it here. Sure, I could go to one_piece or Arlong Park Forums and talk about it there, but... strangers!

If anyone is actually following the latest, take pity on me and comment here?

For the record, in case anyone's wondering: I subscribe to SJ Alpha and download all the latest chapters to my iPad, but SJ Alpha is two weeks behind the latest chapter in Japan (latest out: 671), and dork that I am, I can't bring myself to wait that long. The scanlations which come out as soon as the chapter appears in Japanese are mostly kind of horrible (badly scanned, often badly translated), but I'll do anything for my fix.

Lately I discovered that a site called Mangahead puts up the raws of the latest chapter for a very brief period (currently they're displaying 671-673), which makes me super happy, since I can at least try to read them in Japanese. (Badly scanned and annoyingly watermarked, but viz. fix, above.) It was driving me insane trying to guess what the Japanese was behind the English chapters I was reading.

I'm a bit behind on ordering from Amazon.jp -- Volumes 65 and 66 are out already in Japanese, 67 coming out on 8/3. I should wait until August to order... right?

All right, jeez, I have better things I should be doing.

ETA: the commentary on the current one_piece chapter 673 discussion post just keeps getting funnier.


Typical of Robin to bring up awkward subjects like 'HEY, SMOKEY, REMEMBER WHEN I LOCKED YOU IN A CAGE WITH YOUR NEMESIS BEFORE?' (pamplemose)

Is any one else amused by Sanji!Nami's face in that final panel? With the tears, the angle and the expression she reminds me of all of those terrible uke!Sanji shots from doujins. x3 (xarciel)

OH MY GOD IT WAS A HAMBURGER. Everything makes sense now. [...] Hah, oh Oda, only you would think it's a good idea to introduce a villain with his lunch still affixed to the side of his face. (xarciel)

I love the look Law's giving Luffy in the panel when we first see them in the cage. This is your life now, Law. (kala_aira)

I now ship Law with everyone, inside and outside of that cage. (nopejustme)


(And that's not even covering all of the interesting-actual-plot speculation going on.)

Comments

[manga-crow.livejournal.com]

I'm caught up as well. The current arc is... interesting, to say the least^^

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

The scene in the cage with Robin reminiscing about Alabasta made me laugh SO HARD.

"Remember when Crocodile and I had you guys all locked up together before? Good times!"

ROBIN ILU <3

Also, Doflamingo, wow.

It's probably too much to hope for that this will force Smoker and Tashigi to leave the marines for good. I'm sure they'll manage to expose Vergo somehow.

[manga-crow.livejournal.com]

I'm not spoiler tagging this (although I did figure that out finally, thanks!) but yeah - the cage was hilarious.

As much as I really want Smoker and Tashigi to leave the Marines, I don't see it happening though - too much potential for dramatic tension there (plus, at The End, Smoker needs to be around to be the new Commander in Chief of the new government led by Iceburg, Vivi, and Dalton :p)

But more seriously, for me, Smoker and Tashigi (and Coby) are pretty much the symbols of the things that are right about the Marines. The balance and tension between "the Marines do really good things most of the time" and "the Marines' bosses are seriously fucking evil" is one of my favorite things in the series. Heck, even in Impel Down, which was basically a torture chamber run by demons in Nazi uniforms, you caught glimpses that the overriding concern was the peace of the people.

That's why I was a little sad to see Aokiji go - for me, he and Kizaru were basically mirror-images of the middle ground between Smoker's "follow your own Justice" and Akainu's "I'm an evil bastard, hahaha" "the Law is Justice". Aokiji saw both the good and the bad and it always felt to me like he was conflicted about it. Whereas Kizaru just strikes me as completely amoral.

I think Aokiji's departure does herald a shift in the Marines - the center is gone, there is no more room for questions. I suspect that the shift will continue until there isn't room for those who's view of Justice doesn't match with the top, but I think it will be more gradual that this. In the end, I have no real doubt that Smoker and Co will be fighting by Luffy's side in one form or another, but I don't think it will happen until things have completely fallen apart. Smoker has seen the evil of the Marines as well, but unlike Aokiji, he's not conflicted. He still believes that he can do more good as a Marine than he can as anything else. (especially if he ignores his superiors) Until that changes, and i don't see one more corrupt Marine doing that, he stay in.

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't imagine him leaving the Marines of his own accord (at this point), though I could imagine him being unjustly forced out. At which point, though, he'd probably still be a vigilante Marine in his own head. ^__^

(And Tashigi would never leave his side. Best team ever! I was super happy to see her referred to as "Smoker's right hand", even if the guy saying it was a jerk.)

the new Commander in Chief of the new government led by Iceburg, Vivi, and Dalton :p)

OMG yes! (And Shirahoshi!)

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

(I actually read 68 a couple weeks ago, but I forgot to ever post here, oops.)

I love the look Law's giving Luffy in the panel when we first see them in the cage. This is your life now, Law.

All the quotes are hilarious, but this is my favorite, because Law's reactions were totally the best thing about this volume. (+ Usopp explaining to Law what it's going to be like to have an alliance with Luffy, haha, oh god.) This is going to be like when we had Vivi around to remind us how crazy the Strawhats all are, right? YESSSSS

Do you have the volume yet? Did you look at the SBS corners?

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

Law's reactions were totally the best thing about this volume

Ahaha, so true. (His face when someone ties a mostly inert Chopper on his head!) I know he has his own crew that he'll have to be reunited with eventually, but I'm hoping he sticks around for a while.

Thank you for the reminder that the volume is now out! I don't have it yet, but am planning to go to NYC this weekend, so I should be able to pick it up then.

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

Hee, icon!

His face when someone ties a mostly inert Chopper on his head!

YES!

Please come back and let me know once you've read the SBS corners. (And then you can tell me if you heard about X elsewhere.)

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

Do you have the volume yet? Did you look at the SBS corners?

Oh, holy crap, a million years late. I meant to answer this before, but forgot until I just now came back to read some old One Piece posts.


I finally figured out why you asked me about this when I got caught up on volumes and chapters on the plane. I had bought vol. 68 a while ago, but I foolishly hadn't gotten around to reading it in Japanese, so I hadn't seen either the un-obscured cover arc picture corner or the SBS corner about it.

Oda must have had a FIT when the magazine came out with the ad text in the worst possible place. Or do you think it was all part of his evil master plan to torture the fans? The SBS corner kind of made it sound like he wasn't expecting it to get covered up in the magazine.

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine that he would have planned for the text to be there. I agree with you that he probably had a fit. I'm surprised he doesn't have to approve the placement of any extra text on title pages, haha.

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

The irony is that I scoured that picture when it first came out for clues. Scoured it! But then when the volume came out, I didn't think to go over it with a fine-tooth comb again. I wonder if I would have got the clue if I had seen it before I read the SBS.

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

Aww, I'm kind of sad for your wasted(?) souring for clues. I, on the other hand, never notice stuff like that, so without the SBS, I would have no idea.