Top Gun

Arlong Park is a bit of an oddity in that it really starts in the middle of the previous arc, Baratie. You're right that I did have to look up a bit as a refresher (again, it's been a long time), but the arc kicks off when Nami steals the Going Merry and sails to her home. Zoro and Usopp chase after her right away, and after Luffy finishes off the Baratie antagonist he and Sanji follow them too. So in that regard they all wind up on Nami's home island due directly to her actions. After that there are really only a handful of episodes before the big final fight starts. Nami interacts with the rest of the crew a couple of times in an attempt to drive them away (including a faked killing of Usopp to save him from the Arlong Pirates), and then the key part is Nami's sister showing up to tell her whole backstory. You do have a point in that Luffy doesn't really care about this part and checks out, but that's more down to his character: he's a single-minded and direct kind of guy, and if he's already decided that he trusts someone, then he doesn't need to hear anything else. Then after that Nami gets screwed over one last time and begs Luffy for help and you have the iconic scenes of him putting his hat on her and marching on Arlong Park and the big fights begin. The characters don't have much time to do any wandering before the crucial flashback and subsequent fight, and what they do on the island is either related to finding Nami or interacting with her directly. I think I have a better understanding of what you mean now, but I don't think that Arlong Park is the best example of it. If there are story elements that I think fit what you're describing, then they occur fairly early on in the series ("early" being a relative term for something this gargantuan), and as I said I think it largely moves past them. Maybe it didn't move past them quickly enough for you, and that's fair enough. I said it before, but I also think there's a need to differentiate between the story that Oda wrote, and the way in which Toei has adapted that story into anime. Like every long-running shounen adaptation ever created, there's a need to stretch the material out to fill a weekly anime slot, and in One Piece's case that's usually done by slowing down the pacing in-episode, rather than inserting gargantuan filler arcs like Naruto or Bleach. I don't read the manga myself, but I've spent enough time with the anime to have a good nose for when Toei's pulling some stalling tactics. Without any other specific examples to go on, I'd wager that at least some of the "comedy relief side plots" you're talking about are anime-original material. There are still some traditional filler episodes and arcs too. During the Loguetown arc there are a few random filler episodes (I think one of them is actually based on a published side story), and after it the whole Apis arc with the dragons and the girl with the dumb pope hat is filler as well. There are a handful of filler episodes scattered throughout Alabasta too. Not to say that any and all comic relief is filler, far from it, but I have to think that at least some of your complaints fall under it. I guess the last bit is that the characters that Oda reintroduces and gives expanded roles much later on tend to be those involved in the main plot of an arc, even if in an ancillary fashion. Just as one example, one of the Fishmen from the Arlong Park arc plays a significant role in an arc much later on (and got a cover arc story in the manga before that). It's not a character I don't think most people were clamoring to see again, but it's fun when those sorts of characters pop up and get a chance to do more the second time around. The more significant a character was the first time they appeared, the more impact they'll have later on. Vivi was the driving force behind the entire Baroque Works saga, and let's just say she's been involved in a huge way in the manga/anime's recent past. Probably the most noteworthy example of this are the Supernovas, a group of pirates with unique designs and powers vaguely on-par with Luffy that Oda infamously banged out in a week or so because I guess he wanted to draw some cool characters. Nearly all of them have been major players in the second half of the series, and some of them have spent dozens or even hundreds of episodes involved with the Straw Hats and received massive character development themselves. Again, I get it if you're not interested in waiting around for that long, but maybe the best thing about One Piece for those of us who are fans is that pretty much everything gets a great payoff in the long run.

Not just that, but Doflamingo was a notorious underworld broker. We know he was working directly for Kaido, hence Law's original plan (read: excuse) to target him, but let's just say that wasn't his only client.

No, it does worse than that, because it's basically saying "no, carbon dioxide doesn't do anything, and a bunch of computer programmers made the rest up." It's willful disinformation.

You know an article is legit when it starts with a shitty AI image at the top. But yeah, this is dumb and wrong on just about every level. Read things that cite actual peer-reviewed research please.

(Got beat to this reply but I'm too lazy to go back and change what I had.) I wish you had some specific examples of what you meant, because I've been following this series continuously for nearly 20 years but nothing immediately comes to mind. Granted it's been a hot minute since I've gone back and watched Romance Dawn. What I do know is that those early arcs were very simplistic in structure. You'd have one main villain that Luffy needed to fight, maybe a couple of subordinates for one or two of the other crew members to take on, and not a whole lot else. As the arcs start getting more complex and there are multiple concurrent plot threads going on, that's when you see the crew split up to complete important tasks or fights on their own. The Alabasta arc is probably the first time it happens on a larger scale. By the time you get to the Dressrosa arc that's just finishing up on the Toonami broadcast, the amount of "MEANWHILE..." cut-aways to all of the different conflicts going on at once got to meme level. The Devil Fruit thing makes some sense if you think about how the One Piece world is set up. The Grand Line is the place where almost everything big happens: the Marines are mostly based there, the most dangerous pirates are either all there or want to be there, the most powerful kingdoms all seem to be there, and the very seat of the World Government is located there. This is where most pirates and Marines with Devil Fruits are going to wind up. In contrast, the four regular oceans are relatively quiet, and East Blue in particular is described as the most backwater and inconsequential part of the world. To add to that, sea travel is still relatively dangerous unless you're strong yourself, so most normal people presumably spend their whole lives on the same island they were born on. If you're a regular citizen somewhere in the East Blue, you're almost certainly never going to encounter someone with Devil Fruit powers yourself (at least not until Luffy shows up), so the best you might have is a distant rumor. I doubt the Marines are that eager to see their soldiers' powers revealed in the papers either. The best chance most of these people would have to see Devil Fruit powers in action was in a massive series-changing war that was essentially livestreamed to most of the world, but that comes much later. And true, it's also that the series expanded a great deal from its earliest days, so what was a rare power at the start became ubiquitous later. But when I mentioned world-building I was thinking about elements that you almost certainly didn't see yet in your time with the series. One Piece is a narrative that operates on a few different levels. The first is the basic moment-to-moment story that's limited to the island on which the Straw Hats currently find themselves. For the most part that's all that's going on in the Romance Dawn saga. It's not until the Straw Hats enter the Grand Line and the Baroque Works saga starts that we get the first example of the second level, an overarching goal that connects multiple islands together (in this case helping Vivi return to her kingdom to expose Crocodile and prevent a civil war). And it's not really until the climax of the Alabasta arc that we get the first real glimpse of the higher-level narrative: the mystery of this world's past, how its current rulers seized power and suppressed that knowledge, of hidden ancient weapons and the "Will of D." That's the level that most One Piece fans enjoy the most, that has us hanging on every new reveal over years or even decades. There's been some huge stuff happening in the anime recently (and I'd imagine even more in the manga, which I'm not current on), and it's been immensely satisfying seeing these payoffs after so long. It's definitely a series you need to be in for the long haul though.

Yeah, I'm not really interested in watching Fixed even as a curiosity, but to claim it "contributed to the decline of animation" is just stupid. Genndy's created some of the most acclaimed American animated series of the past 25 years. He's more than earned the right to cut loose on a batshit insane personal project about dog balls.

I was responding to your one-liners in turn for lulz, but sure, we can talk about this for real. The trouble is that I'm...not really sure where your complaints are coming from. Like for starters, there aren't "dozens of plots where someone runs off to find food." That is not a thing that happens on the regular, at all. The only thing from the early going that might qualify off the top of my head is the Baratie arc, but that's wholly dedicated to a seagoing restaurant and a search for a ship's cook so that's kind of a given. I don't really get what you mean about "sectioning off" crew members and cutting to them "doing nothing." Yeah, the crew splits up at times, but that's usually to tackle some intermediate goals or to fight various subordinate arc villains while Luffy goes to take on the big bad. The only time they're usually standing around is when everything else has been taken care of and Luffy's engage in the arc's climactic fight. I also have no idea if you're differentiating between the story that Oda actually wrote himself, and the usual sort of shounen anime fluff that Toei adds in to stall for time. A lot of the points you're making make it sound like you're relatively unfamiliar with the series as a whole. And if you've seen 100-odd episodes you may think that's crazy talk, but trust me, that's just scratching the surface. I don't even blame you for that, because even if you were enjoying yourself you're looking at dozens of hours worth of reading or hundreds of watching to catch up to the current material, and I'd never expect anyone to do that. Suffice it to say that by that point in the series, the "main plot" has just barely been introduced, and even then only in tiny hints. The reason so many of us love this series is because of how ambitious its storytelling is, in a way that very few other manga series have ever tried. It's the sort of long-form work one might only otherwise encounter in epic fantasy novels, like ASOIAF if Martin actually got off his fat ass and wrote once in a while. As the series has recently started to enter its endgame I've watched almost 20-year-old plot points pay off in spectacular fashion. It's the greatest long-form shounen series ever created, and it's not being close. The catch is that you have to stick with it for the long term to see that big picture being formed. As for the live-action series, I've heard a lot of praise for it but know very little about it myself. I'm an animation nerd at heart, live-action adaptations don't really do anything for me. What I do know is that while Oda undoubtedly has to sign off on whatever it does, he's not the one writing the adaptation, so any changes there are strictly on its own writers. It's certainly not intended to be an upgrade or replacement for the original story.

Shhhh. It's okay. You're allowed to be wrong. It's fine.

I'm sorry you have to live with the constant shame of being so wrong. It must be hard for you.

Nah, he's just being polite and removing all of that broken rubble so they can start to rebuild.

You can not like or be interested in this particular movie of his and still agree with his points. The two are entirely separate things. Genndy's more than earned the right to make statements like this given his entire body of work.

When I needed a cheap-ish phone in a hurry a few years ago I went with a Google Pixel 6a and I've been mostly satisfied. I specifically wanted an unfucked-around-with relatively stock Android experience, because I hated dealing with all the UI bullshit Samsung adds to their stuff whenever I had to help my parents with their phones. Personal mileage may vary though.

Well I'm an emotional wreck.

You're right, there was a scene I'd forgotten about during the Dressrosa fight where Law admitted his primary target was always Doflamingo to get revenge for Corazon. And yes, the plan was never for them to defeat Doflamingo directly, bujt rather to coerce him into giving up his warlord status and destroy the SMILE factory so that Kaido would move against him. Law also said he was willing to die during his confrontation with Doflamingo on Green Bit if it meant the plan would succeed and Doflamingo would be taken out too. Of course everything went pear-shaped when Doflamingo pulled an end-around on the alliance and faked his resignation to bait them into a trap, and so Luffy wound up having to fight him anyway. Now having said all of that, there was truth to what Law said in that initial conversation with Luffy proposing the alliance: the only ways to survive as a pirate in the New World are by becoming a subordinate to one of the Four Emperors, or challenging them directly. Now that Law made it through Dressrosa alive, that still holds true, so it remains to be seen which way he'll go now.

A few things: Dressrosa is vaguely based on Spain, hence the flamenco dancing and food and Spanish accents and such (or hell, the name "Donquixote" itself). No, this isn't a new arc. Nearly every significant arc in One Piece features at least a few episodes' worth of denouement after the arc villain is defeated before the Straw Hats move on to their next destination. Dressrosa is a heftier arc than most, and there were a lot of subplots in play, so it's taking a bit more time than usual to wrap things up. Yes, Kyros planning to leave was in the manga. He was ashamed of his sordid and bloodstained past, and he didn't want his association with Rebecca to get out and tarnish her name too. So he invented the story about Rebecca's actual father being some foreign prince and decided to leave the kingdom so that the truth would never come out. He's only doing all of this now because before then, the entire kingdom had forgotten about his very existence thanks to Sugar's Devil Fruit power. It may seem silly when looking in from the outside, but Kyros genuinely believes this is what's best for Rebecca's future safety and happiness. Remember, he wouldn't even let himself so much as hold her without wearing gloves first, because he didn't want her to be "tainted" by his bloodstained hands. That's how strong his sense of honor is. Yes, every Devil Fruit user is equally vulnerable to sea water, because for reasons we don't fully understand yet the "curse" that makes Devil Fruits do what they do leads to the user being "rejected" by the sea. This is common knowledge among the Marines, hence their use of Sea Prism Stone-laced nets and handcuffs to capture Devil Fruit users. Rebecca never showed any signs of wanting to travel with the Straw Hats when they left Dressrosa. She certainly wasn't a Vivi who spent several arcs journeying with them and got named an honorary Straw Hat. Her primary concern was trying to claim the Flame-Flame Fruit so that she could defeat Doflamingo. And yes, it's a common opinion that Rebecca's character took a real nosedive over the course of the arc, going from a semi-competent fighter to a crying damsel in distress. Mansherry is the far superior mandatory arc princess. Remember that Law didn't just partner with the Straw Hats for the sake of taking out Doflamingo, though it was certainly a welcome side benefit. The alliance's primary goal was taking on the Emperor Kaido. As of this moment we don't know if Law is going to follow through with that, but he hasn't said anything yet to contradict it.

I was gonna reply to this a month or two ago but I figured I'd put it off.

As a lifelong gamer the concept of e-sports seems really goddamn silly to me. It still feels like a bunch of nerds trying super hard to act like the popular jock kids. Plus that sort of competition is the polar opposite of what I like about gaming.

The Fateverse was always this inscrutable impenetrable thing to me as an outsider, so I initially started recording this airing without ever really intending to watch it, but then my nerd group picked it as our next discussion show which was convenient. I think a distinction should be made between how AXS handled the series itself and how the overall block was structured, because as you said they did a solid job with the former. Full OP every episode, reasonable commercial breaks, no actual episode content cut that I could see. The sped-up ED is pretty standard, and the only other thing cut were episode previews, which in this case were just a few lines of episode dialog over generic artwork so you weren't missing much. The one caveat is that the block was showing the broadcast version of the series and not the extended BD episodes, but from what I've read that's the same case with the likes of Netflix so I can't fault them for it. I eventually jumped ship to my acquired episodes by the end of season 1, since there seemed to be more content getting added by then. A few of the first season 2 episodes had lengths of 27 and even 29 minutes, as opposed to around 24 for episodes without anything added. There wasn't anything super-critical in the extended content, but there were some additional character interactions that gave more context to what was happening; in particular Caster's backstory had a whole new introductory scene that was pretty interesting. Now as decent as the show presentation was, the block management was hot garbage. The whole time the guide listing has shown only the first episode being aired each night, so there's no good way to tell what's on during the second half-hour, and that wasn't just a cable guide thing but even right on AXS's site schedule. Pity the fool who's been trying to keep up with MHA this whole time. For the first several weeks I had to keep setting the DVR manually because the changing listing name defeated automatic recording; at least one of them wound up under MHA's name. There was one time where I forgot to record on Thursday, so I found the Saturday repeat slot and picked that up...only to wind up with parts of Queen and AC/DC concerts instead. (Wound up watching them anyway because they were awesome.) Things seemed to finally settle down halfway through season 1, so I had it set to automatically record and didn't think much about it, but I guess something else screwed up because it didn't snag the second-to-last episode while I was on vacation. As bad as [as] has been over the decades, this was a whole new level of incompetence.

Heh, I stopped paying attention once it seemed like it had figured itself out and was recording regularly. To be fair stuff on [as] does this all the time, it'll jump back to the basic title of a series instead of a season-specific one, or some nonsense like that. I eventually gave up on the broadcast version anyway, since the BD version included additional scenes.

My DVR didn't even record the penultimate episode of UBW season 2, probably because it was labeled wrong.

Asking in here because it came up on the last page, but is that AXS hour just MHA repeats at this point? Their own schedule and the cable guide have been utterly useless since day 1 since they show the whole hour-long block as whatever episode is airing first.

I hear that many dark secrets can be acquired from the Interwebs.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2025/all-the-news-and-reviews-from-anime-nyc/rooster-fighter-world-premiere/.228061 This sounds...promising? I'm absolutely down for it if it leans hard into the Chicken Boo angle.

Ahahahaha, oh wow. This revival series has already been full of some spectacular ass-pulls, some of which I'd known about beforehand, but this has to be the biggest one in the entire series. Sure, let's toss out everything we knew about Ichigo's powers in favor of something that makes literally no sense. Sounds like a plan! And just to be clear, I have no idea whether Kubo had this reveal planned out long beforehand. He may have known he was going to make Zangetsu a fake from the moment he first introduced him. But it feels for all the world that he rolled out of bed the day before this chapter was due and pulled this idea out of his deepest nether regions. There are plenty of authors who come up with new ideas way into a series run, but are very skilled at connecting them back to dangling plot threads they left much earlier, so the end result feels like it was always intended to be that way. Either Kubo isn't nearly so good at doing that (which I suspect), or he somehow managed to make a planned twist seem like it came out of nowhere with zero context.