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One Piece Book Club - [Part 3, Skypeia]
Added 2023-07-15 21:07:07 +0000 UTCToday at 3pm PST, Jello, Aloha, and maybe Bo (he's up in the air atm) talk about Skypeia.
Haha.
Hahaha.
I don't think we liked Skypeia very much.
If you're into us roasting stuff, this might be the one to listen in on.
Comments
Late to the conversation on this, but I'll defend Zoro v. Wyper Pistol guy jsut a little. It's an opponent for Zoro that isn't another swordsman, and I like his skillset of making clouds to grind on and shooting light flashes. The fight is also another Daz Bones scenario where Zoro has to learn a new skill, namely ranged combat, which does come up later for other flying enemies. There's a *little* bit of set-up for Zoro realizing he sucks at fighting ranged opponents, but not as much as him learning to cut steel. That all said, the dude could have been combined with the other priest dude Zoro fights, and Zoro developing he air slashes doesn't mean much because he just does it after deciding he can. It falls into the issue of swordsmen in One Piece slowly becoming a weird wizard class that can do anything so long as a sword is involved. It would have been far more interesting if Zoro had to be more tactical with the fight and develop speed to close the distance or trap his opponent by paying attention to the environment, rather than saying "I can do ranged slashes now." Maybe they could have taken him out of the arc for a bit by having the light flashes literally blind him and that's scary as fuck because he's alone in a land he doesn't know where one wrong step could literally send him falling back to earth and he needs Chopper to fix his eyes. It also would have set up good precedent of Zoro not always needing to fight a swordsman.
Murph04
2023-08-14 15:52:32 +0000 UTCAs long as you're not one of those people who think this arc can be skipped we are good.
Cragl3yman343
2023-07-22 23:58:08 +0000 UTCBit late but now that I've caught up here's my 2 cents I guess. I've always liked Skypiea but never knew why until going back to reread it and it really was just Eneru existing. I just love the hedonistic bastard and I'm really glad he was the only one I remembered and really sad that I had to see Whyper? again. As far as what the theme for the arc being the only answer that comes to mind is I guess is too much greed causes pain. There was the king from Noland's country wanting the city of gold, the Skypieans taking the upper yard from the Shandians and of course the personification of greed himself Eneru who takes what he wants not for evil but to satisfy his own ego. Which ends with Eneru finally being denied what he wanted for once and being unable to punish Luffy the offender as he is hit with a giant ball of gold for the finishing blow before flying away like a sore loser. But the fact that he does go to the moon is very funny. As for Chopper losing immediately after his win is I think chopper suffers from the worf effect. Chopper just cannot win any fight of consequence. While yes he did beat someone on Drum island and the 2 agents in Alabasta , but the first one was his intro arc and the second was a tag team with Usopp. Just Chopper alone too my memory does not win any fights of consequence, and I say this because of the next arc, in his right mind. As for the foxy arc Luffy accepting to me feels 100% in character. Luffy puts his crew in danger all the time wanting to go to the most dangerous places because it'd be fun. And immediately after accepting he gets hit by Usopp and at least in my translation Luffy's reply is 'it's fine we just gotta win' which he believe his crew will do without question. I also am a believer even now that we are getting into the final arc that the davy back fight will get some sort of call back. It feels like such a specific creation that Oda will either forget about or has been pulling our leg for hundreds of chapters because he just does that.
the skwaa
2023-07-19 01:12:10 +0000 UTCTBH I don't remember what Garp does in the grand scheme of the series and why he's a character, other than being Koby's mentor? I'll keep an eye on this too
JelloApocalypse
2023-07-16 20:46:44 +0000 UTCEh, I think this is another example of Oda believing in a romanticized vision of something that works a lot better in principal than it does in practice. On Drum Island it was the idea of "curing a disease through hope" (yikes) and here it's masculinity. If Chopper had blubbered about being in danger in, say, early Skypeia, and Zoro yelled at him in response to that (maybe he was insisting on keeping the whistle), I think that would've been completely fair. It also would've been a great impetus for him to be so determined to protect the ship, and later to prove himself against one of the priests. In the context of the Davy Back Fight, I don't think it works even a little bit. This wasn't some unknown factor of the sea ruining him. This wasn't his choice of lifestyle messing him up. This was his captain and his friends gambling with his future for no discernable reason and completely failing him on all accounts. Zoro yelling at Chopper here is like a manager at a retail job fucking over an employee and then getting mad at them for complaining about the unwarranted treatment. "You're the one who chose to work at this job! It's your fault we're being awful to you!" That would be a bullshit response in that position, and it's a bullshit response here. I don't think this is necessarily *inconsistent* with Zoro's writing as a character, but I still think it sucks and makes me like him less. Again, this kind of interaction would've been much better at the start of Skypeia rather than after Skypeia where we saw Chopper lay down his life for his crew *twice*. [VERY MILD WATER 7 SPOILERS] What's more, even Oda doesn't stick to this mentality. After the inter-crew battle we see both Sanji and Zoro yell at Chopper for showing sympathy to their fallen comrade and wanting to heal the injured person. As PRIDEFUL MEN and SCARY PIRATES I understand why this would be the case, but in the end, even Oda depicts Chopper ignoring orders and running off ship to leave medical supplies and food for his fallen friend, because that's what a good person would do. And that's what basically anyone reading would've done. Even Oda knew that this would've seemed extremely callous to leave someone behind because of their impulsive decisions when you care about them. Also, for what it's worth, the whole PIRATE'S HONOR thing in the Davy Back Fight is stupid and I already talked about why the Straw Hats not wanting to cheat ruins the whole arc. The whole point of BEING a pirate is that you have your own code of honor and are allowed to skirt the laws and rules as you damn well please. Ignoring orders and honor and personal bullshit to do what you think is right in the face of authority is literally the theme of the entire series. That's why you see Sanji and Chopper """accidentally""" letting Usopp hear about the Aqua Laguna. Because they want to protect him and skirt the rules. Anyways I still think Zoro's a piece of shit for yelling at Chopper over this lmao.
JelloApocalypse
2023-07-16 20:39:47 +0000 UTCthe talk about Aokiji stuck with me, because to a certain extent the criticism for him can one hundred percent apply to Garp further down the line. And when we get there I'll be back to complain about him just sitting there and letting events happen even as he clearly would disagree with said events
BreadBunny
2023-07-16 14:17:04 +0000 UTCHey Jello this take on the Zoro and Chopper scene from the Foxy arc has always stuck with me (its a great tumblr blog btw) so im curious of your thoughts since you disliked it so much. https://www.tumblr.com/opbackgrounds/666194398729633792/i-talked-a-little-about-odas-philosophy-on
DragonRageLee
2023-07-16 12:44:25 +0000 UTCCan't wait for the next one. Also really interested to get to impel down\marineford; Jello has been pretty clear that he wasn't a fan of the arcs, and as someone who has agreed in the past I'm interested to see if he can put my thoughts into word better
Zane Zoller
2023-07-16 01:00:39 +0000 UTCMore like Skypeea. Ill take my Oscar in my car
Daniel
2023-07-15 21:19:18 +0000 UTC
