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Happy September! I can sorta feel that this is gonna cut it close to the end of the month, even though I’m starting this on the 16th (I finished it on the 26th, so not too bad).
Back Update/Small lesson
Small lesson I got reminded of these past few weeks: If you know you should do something and it takes literally 20 minutes to do, go ahead and get it done.
I hadn’t done my MB3 exercises for a few weeks. I’ve been sort of busy and my friend has been really busy so we haven’t gotten together to do them. He goes to the gym pretty regularly, and he’ll do some sets of them between his other sets of exercises, so he’s a lot better about doing them than I am. I, on the other hand, am relatively lazy and don’t do much outside of what I have planned for a day, and that unfortunately includes my exercises (I’ve been trying to go back to the gym regularly though, but haven’t succeeded yet). I started feeling some sciatica pain this past weekend and was like “here we go”. Thank goodness it hasn’t progressed to anything major. I did a quick half workout on Sunday and probably will do another half today. There’s no good reason for me to skip them. They’re easy enough to do, you don’t need much space, you don’t need equipment (except for a pillow or a soft surface), and I feel great after doing them. Don’t be like me, just do the thing you know you should do.
Reading
I’ve been trying to read more this year, and I think I’ve honestly read more this year than the 6 years since I left high school. It’s fun, it’s a good hobby.
This month I finished “At the Mountains of Madness” by H.P. Lovecraft. I’ve had this books for years but have never read it or tried to read it. It’s tiny, my copy is only 84 pages long. But I’m pretty sure it’s his longest work, so that’s why it’s its own book (at least the copy I have is its own book). I read this so that way I could read the manga version by Gou Tanabe, since I bought the deluxe version. I really should’ve waited to buy the deluxe edition instead of pre-ordering it, because as soon as it came out it dropped like $10. I also realized I’m not the biggest fan of the story. I’m horrible with having scenes described to me, especially when they’re as intricate as some of Lovecraft’s. I wish I liked cosmic horror too, but I guess I just don’t get it. I’ll still read the manga version, but I may sell it or give it to my friend. It’s about as thick as a Berserk deluxe edition, so it might just be taking up space.
I’m also starting to read some Kafka, I bought a book of a compilation of his stories that I plan to read that include ones like “Description of a Struggle”, “The Metamorphosis” and “The Judgment”. I’ve only read the first 2 introductory parables in the book called “Before the Law” and “An Imperial Message”. Kafka is kind of known as a sad man, and a lot of absurdist/existentialist authors (Camus) have read and enjoyed. So I figured I’d pick it up and try it. I’d like to read “The Trial” as well, that one sounds very interesting and reminds me of “The Stranger” by Camus which is one of my favorite books. I’m kind of all over the place when I read though, I’m technically in the middle of like 5 books, but I don’t recommend that.
Grave of the Fireflies
I’ve been on a little bit of a Studio Ghibli kick the past few months. I’ve always heard they were super good, but until this year I had only seen “Spirited Away”, “Ponyo”, and “My Neighbor Totoro”. I’ve been really enjoying watching them all though, they’re so much fun. So far I’ve watched:
- Spirited Away
- Ponyo
- My Neighbor Totoro
- Howl’s Moving Castle
- Princess Mononoke
- The Boy and the Heron
- Kiki’s Delivery Service
I’d heard that “Grave of the Fireflies” was really good, and really sad, so I’d been kinda pushing it off. I was actually planning on watching it towards the end of the list, but it recently came out on Netflix and I decided that it was time. I was going to watch it with someone, but Netflix didn’t have the English dubbing and they won’t watch stuff where they have to read subtitles so they didn’t watch it. I had already mentally committed, so I watched it by myself. Which I think was probably a good thing, I’m not normally picky about subbed vs dubbed except for a very few select movies/shows, but I don’t know if the English version would’ve hit as hard as the Japanese one did.
With a lot of confidence, I can say this is the saddest movie I’ve ever seen. It beats “Boy in the Striped Pajamas”, “The Cure”, “Christmas Shoes”, and “Marley and Me” in my opinion. From the start to the end I was on the edge of crying my eyes out. The story follows a boy named Seita and his little sister Setsuko in Japan in the 1940’s during WWII. Their home is bombed and they have to move around to be able to eat and survive. This movie shows off the effects of war in a way I’ve never really seen before in a movie (though I haven’t watched many war, or war-adjacent, movies). Please, set aside some time to watch this movie and some time afterwards to cry.
One Piece Chapters 1124-1127
Spoilers: This will have spoilers for chapters 1124-1127 of the One Piece manga
Some crazy stuff has happened the past few chapters. I’ve been incredibly slack with writing about the chapters coming out. I don’t necessarily want to write about every chapter that comes out, but this set has been insane and we’re on our way to the next island.
Chapter 1124
This chapter wasn’t too too crazy in terms of events, but it did give us a glimpse into the thoughts and emotions of Kizaru that we haven’t seen before. We knew that Vegapunk was a good friend of his, and he wasn’t super happy with having to kill him. Most of his time in the arc he seemed hesitant and less enthusiastic about his mission. In Sabaody for example, he was sorta making jokes when he was trying to capture/kill the Straw Hats, but in Egghead he was much more somber.
This chapter also shows some of the relation between Kizaru and Akainu. We don’t have a lot to go off of in terms of how the admirals get along. Akainu and Aokiji obviously went head to head during the time skip to decide who was going to be fleet admiral. But, in my opinion, we have no idea if they were enemies/rivals before that. Obviously they had differing ideas, otherwise there may not have been a need for the battle, but as for how they acted towards each other on a daily basis I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen that. In this chapter, Akainu being fleet admiral and very mission-oriented snapped at Kizaru telling him he better not have screwed up. Kizaru snapped back at him because he’s really hurting in this moment and couldn’t care less about Saturn or anyone else’s well being. And in maybe a moment of empathy or sympathy that I don’t think we’ve ever seen from him, Akainu apologizes. Being that this is in relation to Kizaru having killed a friend, this could be the start of the buildup for Akainu’s backstory. We know that he has a deep hatred for pirates and everyone who helps or sympathizes with them. Exciting little development.
A slightly unexpected bit of dialogue was Zoro complaining about Luffy crying over not having been able to save Vegapunk. He doesn’t think it’s very emperor like. At first, this seems sort of uncharacteristically heartless of Zoro. He has to know that Luffy is very sensitive, right? Yes, but Zoro has always been incredibly careful and aware about how a crew/captain should act. One of the best and most well known examples of this is when Usopp left the crew in Water 7. Zoro wasn’t going to let Usopp back on board if he didn’t apologize for going against what Luffy said. Zoro knows how a crew should act and how letting a crew mate disrespect the captain would look and what it could evolve into. This is just a similar situation. To be an emperor in the New World means that you have to be ruthless to an extent. If Luffy is going to be the Pirate King, he can’t care about “some old scientist”. I don’t think this is Zoro being totally heartless, but he realizes that it could make them look weak. Especially in front of the giants who are close with Shanks. Luffy’s despair doesn’t last for very long before Lilith explains that Vegapunk is actually still alive. At the time this was believed to be some technological trickery, where Vegapunk uploaded his consciousness to a computer or something. This is enough for Luffy to get out of his slump and start partying.
At the end of the chapter we get a small glimpse of a silhouette that’s caused some talk online about who it could be. One theory that I really like is that this silhouette is the same person that Crocus was talking to on the cover of chapter 631. All we know about this person is that they know Crocus, in a decently familiar/friendly way, they drink, and they would also have to have the ability to go up reverse mountain. This doesn’t narrow it down a lot, but it could potentially point to a former member of Roger’s crew. With the way the hair looks, it could be Scopper Gaban who was potentially the 2nd mate on Roger’s crew (given the order of the colors/metal theme that they had going on with Gold Roger, Silvers Rayleigh, Scopper Gaban). For a long time now it’s been theorized that Scopper would be either at the final island (very doubtful though), or Lodestar which was thought to be the final island before Roger found Laugh Tale. However, not knowing how much longer we have in the story, this could be Oda bringing Scopper in earlier than we thought and we just skip Lodestar all together.
Another theory is that this silhouette isn’t the same person from chapter 630 at all, and instead this is Loki the prince of Elbaf. We know that this silhouette is of someone on Elbaf, so it being Loki isn’t totally out of the question. The top of his head could be cut off to hide his crown, because that would definitely give it away. It would make sense if Loki was intentionally waiting for the Straw Hats to come and it’s more of an impatient “Come on”. I’m not totally sure. Hopefully we find out soon. I’d love for it to be Scopper.
Chapter 1125
This chapter had everyone going crazy. This one has one of the biggest events of Egghead for sure, and it’s one that the general world of One Piece don’t know of.
To start with, Lucci tells the government that he has killed Stussy. Whether or not this is true is to be determined. It could be that Kaku has lied to Lucci and said she succumbed to some injuries. Or that Lucci lied himself to protect Stussy. Or it could be that during some unseen scene, he actually did kill her. Everything is to be determined at this point. The Stussy stuff is something I haven’t paid enough attention to this arc. I have been needing to do a big re-read of Egghead because there’s a lot of details I personally missed because I was so concerned with trying to catch up. There isn’t much I can say on this point, but there’s a lot this could mean for Cipher Pol.
Here’s where stuff starts picking up a ton of speed very quickly. During a status check of what’s happened and how the navy is meant to proceed, in a flash back it’s confirmed that Saturn was alive 200 years ago and told the scientists then NOT to trash Emeth and to instead research him. This is a huge drop because we’ve been wondering about the life cycle of elders forever. Especially since the information regarding the God Valley incident was revealed during this arc. Saturn looked identical 38 years ago, so we assumed they had a longer life span. It wasn’t clear (and still isn’t 100% clear) if the elders were normal humans and would be replaced when they died, or if they were immortal or near-immortal beings who have been around since the void century, or maybe something in between. This at least confirms that Saturn had an extended life and was around since 200 years ago. It heavily leans into the idea that they’ve always been by Imu’s side.
Saturn tells the vice admirals not to chase the Straw Hats for now, and instead clean up the resulting chaos from Vegapunk’s message. After this status check, Doberman asks Saturn “Since this was considered a failure, does that mean Vegapunk was telling the truth?”. Saturn then uses his death ray vision (unknown ability) to incapacitate and maybe even kill Doberman.
The Vegapunk satellites who were killed during this arc are then shown to orchestrate an effort to move Vegapunk’s brain, aka Punk Records. Lilith was telling the truth and Vegapunk is still alive at least inside the computer systems in Punk Records, and they are able to then rebuild themselves into a frankensteined version of themselves using spare parts on the piece of Punk Records they stole. York will still have access, but not physical access. This is very vague in what it means, but I think this gives York a reason to at least stay alive for a while longer. Punk Records then heads to Weatheria which is where Nami trained during the time skip. Weatheria is also the first instance of us seeing that knots could be used for more than just tying things, right before the time skip the wizards show Nami a rope that stored wind and would be useful for navigating. This could be where we learn how Joy Boy was able to store all that haki in the rope inside of Emeth.
Now for the huge reveal. We cut to Marijoa and see Figarland Garling, former leader of the Holy Knights, take a seat with the rest of the elders who were transported back after Joy Boy’s haki was released (an ability we aren’t sure is central to Imu or if it’s something to do with the elders). The rest of the elders are confused and shocked that Garling would have the gall to approach them like this. He then reveals he’s been promoted to be the head of science and defense. The title that Saturn held. We cut back to Egghead shows Saturn in pain and rapidly aging while the vice admirals freak out and call for medics. Saturn asks for mercy from Imu, but it’s too late and he falls over as only bones.
This bit was WILD. To see Saturn perish after having done all the evil things he did to Kuma and Vegapunk was very cathartic in a way. I’m a little sad it wasn’t at the hands of Luffy, Kuma, or Bonney. But it’s not surprising that Imu would want to kill him after what happened. Garling replacing Saturn was sort of out of left field, I was super surprised about that. This shows off a little more about the hierarchy of celestial dragons and Marijoa. It also gives us an idea of how strong Garling potentially is, to be next in line to the elders means that he’s either very well respected or he’s super strong. Could it be that Saturn was the head of the Holy Knights before? Were all the elders some higher up in their class system before they became elders? All very interesting questions. This means that the spot of Supreme Commander of the Holy Knights is open, so who will take over that position? Could this be the setup for another Garling son reveal (meaning that Shanks has a brother, potentially a twin)?
Lastly, we see the Revolutionaries reaction to the message and their resolve to finally make their move. Finally, Dragon is gonna do something besides looking to the east and saying “…”. Seeing that the world is about to go nuts and many more people are going to be looking for the One Piece with malicious intent, they presumably decide to go after it themselves. It’s not 100% clear that they’re going to go after it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they only had a small task force attempt to go after it. Or maybe even only try to stop people from going after it. There’s a lot they could do in this situation. I think the surefire way to keep the weapons out of other hands would be to get it themselves. But, we’ll see.
Chapter 1126
Again, this is a chapter filled with a ton of stuff that’s very important to the story and how it will move forward. This is potentially the catalyst for what leads to a Davy-back fight between Luffy and Shanks. Something about this chapter had a different feel to it. I’m not sure what it is, but out of my friends I’ve been the only one to feel this way. I’m not sure, I’m probably just being weird. I really enjoyed this chapter though, this isn’t a bad feeling. It felt new, but old at the same time.
It starts out on the Giants’ ship where everyone is still partying and catching up. Dorry and Brogy’s battle never finished, their weapons just broke and they didn’t want to keep fighting each other with their fists. So, eventually they will return to Little Garden to continue the fight. I personally think it’ll be after the story is concluded, but it could very well be in the next few chapters and we just don’t see them again.
Everyone is having a great time right now, they’re drinking, they’re dancing, they’re singing. Robin is smiling (my bby girl), Franky and Chopper are dancing to Brook playing music, and Bonney and Kuma are catching up a little bit. Kuma is still smiling which is wonderful. With Vegapunk still being around in a sense, I wonder if the satellites will be able to reverse his cyborg surgery. I can’t remember the specifics about it, if Vegapunk said it was irreversible or not. Really, Vegapunk could have put a reverse switch in without Saturn’s knowledge and just not told Kuma or anyone. That might be too wishful of thinking. In any case, right now they’re chilling and they’re happy.
One of the giants mentions that they’re drinking absinthe. I don’t know much about alcohol, but I’ve heard that absinthe is pretty crazy stuff and will make you hallucinate, which is mentioned in this chapter. This is 100% an example of Chekhov’s gun. It wouldn’t be mentioned that it was a hallucinogenic unless someone will hallucinate from it. I think this may come in to play later on in the chapter, so I’ll explain that in a bit.
Now for the precursor to the Davy-back fight that I mentioned. A hundred chapters ago or so in a cover story, we saw Bartolomeo burn down a Red-hair pirates flag in one of Shanks’ territories and replace it with a Straw Hat flag. This was obviously going to cause some issues because emperors can’t let other emperors stroll in and steal their territory, so Shanks was forced to retaliate. He did this by beating up the Barto club and giving them the task of poisoning Luffy. Barto was to give Luffy this bottle of poison within 1 month and that would be considered the payback. But, this wasn’t really poison, it was a test to see what Bartolomeo would do and test Luffy’s allies. Bartolomeo, being the absolute chad that he is, drinks it without a second thought. Feeling a huge sense of responsibility for what happened he drank the poison, but then feels despair over never being able to see Luffy become the Pirate King. But, it turns out it was fake and they’re sent on their way…except not really.
Bartolomeo is a huge Straw Hat pirates and Luffy fan, and with him being a part of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet (SHGF) he’s gonna be proud of Luffy. For him to go and “claim” one of Shanks’ territories, I honestly don’t think he realized what he was doing. Bartolomeo is a HUGE fan, so he’s just a giddy guy and wanted to show off his loyalty. He’s a pirate, so he knows the significance of the jolly roger, but I think he was seeing it more like a poster of his favorite captain. Like Shanks’ said in the chapter though, he can’t just let that kind of behavior slide. It puts his friends in danger. Shanks and Luffy are very similar in that regard, they don’t put up with people hurting their friends. Literally in the very first chapter of One Piece, Shanks had beer spilled on him and was made fun of, but he didn’t bat an eye. But as soon as Higuma and his men started messing with Luffy, it was on. Even though what Bartolomeo did wasn’t a direct attack on Shanks’ friends, it could easily lead to one. I doubt it would come to it, but it technically could lead to a lot worse. Some pirate could just start destroying all of Shanks’ territories. Bartolomeo realized what he had done was wrong, but was immediately ready to face the consequences.
Once he was given the task to poison Luffy, his idol, his hero, he immediately decided to take the poison himself. I don’t think many people in universe know that Luffy’s immune to most poisons after what Magellan did to him in Impel Down. Since it wasn’t actually poison, it didn’t matter, but I figured I’d bring that up. After Bartolomeo is set “free”, Shanks and Beckman have this short conversations where Shanks reveals he’s thrilled that Luffy has people who care for him that much. We see moments like this every now and again where Shanks is super proud of Luffy and how far he’s come and how he’s on his way to becoming a great pirate. It always makes me smile. Then the biggest bum of a father has to come and ruin it.
All we’ve seen Yasopp do up until now in the story is be a horrible father to Usopp, a great uncle/father figure to Luffy, and be worried to see Usopp because he knows how crappy of a human he is. I didn’t really believe/feed into the whole Yasopp being a horrible dad thing, because there could be a bunch of reasons he didn’t go back to get or see Usopp. Him being on a emperor’s crew means that he’s a high profile target for both the navy and potentially other pirates, and he may not have wanted to put Usopp into danger by taking him on the ship with him or frequently visiting the home town. These are very similar reasons for Dragon not being a very good father to Luffy. Given these legitimate arguments for Yasopp not being a good father out of necessity, I hate him and want him to bite the curb.
Kidd had already challenged Shanks and lost before for very similar reasons. Kidd has always been hard-headed and has tried on 3 separate occasions to try to take Shanks down. The first time he lost an arm, the 2nd time he formed an alliance with Hawkins and Apoo and they got thwarted by Kaido. The last time his ship was destroyed with 1 attack by Shanks after directing an attack at Shanks and his friends, the 2nd time he directly attacked. Now he may not be alive, he probably is but there’s a chance he is gone for good, but it took him 3 times to get injured that seriously. 3 distinct attacks against Shanks. Bartolomeo on the other hand, got a little careless and too gung-ho and made a mistake. One which he was immediately apologizing for and ready to take responsibility for. I don’t think the 2 cases are very equal. Out of the 2 I think that Bartolomeo should’ve been given the leeway that Kidd was given. Not saying that I want Bartolomeo to lose an arm, but I think that’s a much more fitting punishment compared to his ship being sunk.
Now, if Shanks were to have given the order to take down the Barto club ship, I’d probably be mad at him, but it would make sense being a message for Luffy and all the other worst generation pirates to stop screwing around with an emperor’s territories and friends. Yasopp could’ve also acted in this way because it was coming from an emperor, and not just any one of the worst generation. Since Yasopp did it though, seemingly because he wanted to (or at the very least because he thought he had to), I’m not sure what to think.
Chapter 1127
When I first read this chapter I thought to myself “ok, this is a pretty easy intro to Elbaf chapter, I won’t write about this for the September blog”. But then people started noticing some inconsistencies in the chapter and it could be super interesting in what it means for the direction of Elbaf. There ere so many issues it’s made people start to question Oda and his editors. So many inconsistencies that it has to be intentional, or the One Piece team is being held up at gunpoint and are trying to send a message.
If it weren’t for the weirdness of the chapter, this would be pretty standard introduction to an arc. A slightly boring/slow chapter that’s getting us acclimated to the island, and splitting up the Straw Hats. The callbacks to Alabasta were cool. A pretty simple chapter with a little bit of what’s going on in Elbaf being shown off as well. The Yggdrasil, or the World Tree, is shown to be very important to the people of Elbaf and may be on fire currently (due to the Straw Hats or not). Lots of people in Elbaf live in what actually seem to be Lego houses. At the end of the last chapter it kinda looked like Nami was in a Lego house, and people were extrapolating that this was a reference to the country of origin of Lego, Denmark. Denmark has some ties to vikings, so it makes sense that there would be some ties to it, but Lego is a bit of an odd choice.
People started noticing that there were a few inconsistencies with what the characters were wearing, and how they acted. A few times someone would be wearing a sword on their back and in the next panel it was an axe, or it was totally gone. Nami’s tattoo was missing, thought it could be that it was supposed to be covered up by her clothing. Luffy isn’t wearing his straw hat that we can see, he called Gear 3 Gear 4, and HE TURNED DOWN FOOD. Now, all of these in isolation are minor things that could have been overlooked. Oda has made mistakes in the past. But, the fact that they all happened in the same chapter after having landed on a new island and after having mentioned the potential hallucinogenic effects of the booze they were drinking seems very intentional and some mind trickery Oda would try to pull. If this is intentional, a lot of people are wondering if it is the absinthe or if it’s potentially Loki, the prince of Elbaf. Loki in Norse mythology is known to be a half giant as well as a trickster, so it would be fitting that the prince of Elbaf (the land of giants) was a trickster. I personally like the idea of it being Loki more than it being absinthe, though I do think absinthe would have to come into play at some point later on during the story. Or at least some hallucinogenic situations.
Lot’s of cool implications for it.