Black Clover Page 128 Discussion!!

[ben0119]

Justice Boy looks like one of the most basic bitch bland Fairy Tail characters Mashima would draw.  Gaja looks like one of the super cool characters he would have drawn for Rave Master, or one of the few more detailed Fairy Tail characters, like Gray's father.

[DangerMouse]

3 minutes ago, mochi said:

I'mma go now cause Ain't nobody wanna watch Ballbusters

The only good thing for a few seconds

[ben0119]

So is this the start of that filler arc to fill in a time skip that the manga glossed over that the mangaka is involved with?  It seems pretty damn good so far.  Nice world building and battles.

Need to re-watch this and the past few eps, though.

[ben0119]

Wow, that Queen is POWERFUL.  Her mana zone covers the whole kingdom?

Undine, the Water Spirit!

[HardcoreHunter]

1 minute ago, DangerMouse said:

The only good thing for a few seconds

 

Hey remember that thing that came out in the 80s. Man we are sure with it on anime trends! 
 

I swear every anime they try to parody was from the fucking 80s. Jojo, Sailor Moon, Vampire Hunter D, Voltron 

[HardcoreHunter]

4 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

So is this the start of that filler arc to fill in a time skip that the manga glossed over that the mangaka is involved with?  It seems pretty damn good so far.  Nice world building and battles.

Need to re-watch this and the past few eps, though.

it was in the manga

[CountFrylock]

3 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Hey remember that thing that came out in the 80s. Man we are sure with it on anime trends! 
 

I swear every anime they try to parody was from the fucking 80s. Jojo, Sailor Moon, Vampire Hunter D, Voltron 

 

[HardcoreHunter]

[DangerMouse]

Thanks

[ben0119]

10 minutes ago, mochi said:

it's a shonen anime, every new person they meet is evil at first then becomes nice after being beaten

At least in this show they made those Midnight Sun mages do hard labor while being watched over by that psycho Jack the Ripper.  I was afraid they would just be able to join the nakama LOL.  I was afraid Sally was just going to join the Black Bulls just like that.

Other shows do this too much.  Fairy Tail is bad about this.  They had that evil bitch Minerva from Sabretooth become a nice girl when she had shown no hints of having a good side.  Only that she had an abusive childhood, which wouldn't justify her behavior as an adult, plus most victims of abuse don't grow up to act like that anyway, even if it can be a factor.  There was literally no reason for Erza to forgive her or even think she is redeemable.  And that drunk guy Bacchus who made creepy comments about Lisanna and Mirajane was befriended with no issues, with his previous asshole behavior never addressed.

[rpgamer]

12 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Hey remember that thing that came out in the 80s. Man we are sure with it on anime trends! 
 

I swear every anime they try to parody was from the fucking 80s. Jojo, Sailor Moon, Vampire Hunter D, Voltron 

Worked for Robot Chicken.

[ben0119]

10 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

it was in the manga

The whole Heart Kingdom Arc was, or just this part?  I thought it was skipped and this filler arc was done to fill in that gap.

[ben0119]

14 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Hey remember that thing that came out in the 80s. Man we are sure with it on anime trends! 
 

I swear every anime they try to parody was from the fucking 80s. Jojo, Sailor Moon, Vampire Hunter D, Voltron 

They are about as up to date with their tastes as Demarco.  80s anime was awesome but there were shows made after that, Demarco!

[ben0119]

28 minutes ago, mochi said:

the Clover Kingdom

I mean, the anti-racism and anti-classism message the series has would be just as relevant to Japan, and that is the mangaka's chief audience.  To drill his point home, he even made Yami the only Japanese guy in the kingdom, who is treated with disdain for being a foreigner.  Showing that Japanese people wouldn't want to be treated that way, so they shouldn't treat others that way, either.

[HardcoreHunter]

5 minutes ago, rpgamer said:

Worked for Robot Chicken.

Kinda what I have said about RC and Family Guy was that they were doing it back when being a nerd or liking nerd shows were just starting to be mainstream. Those kind of nods were neat in the 00s. Now there needs to actually be a joke rather than just showing that a thing existed. Like just having a character look like sailor moon isn't a good joke. You're just referencing a thing that existed. There needs to be a setup and punchline. 

 

12 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

The whole Heart Kingdom Arc was, or just this part?  I thought it was skipped and this filler arc was done to fill in that gap.

I think it's a mix of filler and stuff that happened. 

[ben0119]

57 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Wonder if we'll ever get more development of her than just being lusted after by the portal bros 

That's not Finnes, it's Lily.  Wait no, that picture was of the snow girl this whole time?  I thought it was Lily!

Fragil Tormenta sounds like the name of a Harry Potter character lol.

[HardcoreHunter]

4 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

I mean, the anti-racism and anti-classism message the series has would be just as relevant to Japan, and that is the mangaka's chief audience.  To drill his point home, he even made Yami the only Japanese guy in the kingdom, who is treated with disdain for being a foreigner.  Showing that Japanese people wouldn't want to be treated that way, so they shouldn't treat others that way, either.

Yeah there's no real world politics in this show. It's all a feudal hierarchy. If someone wants to they can find some forced parallels. College brainwashing does that to a lot of people. A lot of Beetles songs got written just to spite a college professor who was trying to use beetles songs to teach kids about political messages. They told him that it's just songs, and he tells them that even though that's what they think on a subconscious level they're really saying what he's teaching his students. So then they wrote I am the walrus, yellow submarine, and come together with some of the most nonsense words that mean nothing that they could think of, just to spite this dick college professor that was telling them what their songs meant.  Also the Author of "If you give a mouse a cookie", had his book being taught by colleges as an anti socialist message. The author was like, no it's about not giving a mouse a cookie. 

[ben0119]

3 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Yeah there's no real world politics in this show. It's all a feudal hierarchy. If someone wants to they can find some forced parallels. College brainwashing does that to a lot of people. A lot of Beetles songs got written just to spite a college professor who was trying to use beetles songs to teach kids about political messages. They told him that it's just songs, and he tells them that even though that's what they think on a subconscious level they're really saying what he's teaching his students. So then they wrote I am the walrus, yellow submarine, and come together with some of the most nonsense words that mean nothing that they could think of, just to spite this dick college professor that was telling them what their songs meant.  Also the Author of "If you give a mouse a cookie", had his book being taught by colleges as an anti socialist message. The author was like, no it's about not giving a mouse a cookie. 

Really, dude?  You don't think the show is trying to impart any life lessons at all?  Especially since it is shonen and written for young people as the demographic.  Wizard King wants to create a society of equality.  Yeah not a moral lesson or political message at all. 

The feudal setting is for allegory and to set an example.  It's saying this is not the way we should treat people.

This is you apparently -

[saito34]

1 hour ago, AnimationFan14 said:

Akwafina

[HardcoreHunter]

So you're saying that when the creator directly says they didn't intend there to be a message, that the message still exists. Like when that guy read the catcher in the rye which "brainwashed" him into killing John Lennon (don't know why this keeps going back to the beetles). By your logic that message was 100% intentional by the author and in no way could have been misinterpreted as media is subjective to the reader and never in control of the authors original intent. 

Series can have conflict without it needing to be a message. Also the only gundam series I liked was G-Gundam and will say the others sucked horribly. They'll always be some of the worst boring anime I've ever seen.  As for one piece Luffy's crew are garbage pirates. They don't steal, they don't rape, they don't murder other people for their loot. Why even make them fucking pirates. Also most of the govt run islands are run far better than the places being raided by mid and low tier pirates. The only times we see that turn to shit are the parts involving the slave trade. I guess enslaving humans is a big issue in Japan that kids should learn is bad...unless it's not a huge issue; but still good moral. Glad they spent 10 years of arcs explaining that. 

[HardcoreHunter]

Seriously though in OP if it weren't for the slave trade the world nobles would have posed as much of a threat as that fat guy on Shank's crew that shot that one guy in the face. If it wasn't for slavery then the world nobles would be bottom tier in evil act. 99% of the evil shit they do is related towards slaves. Remove that and they probably get bumped up to one of the actually best groups of people in the series judging that nearly every large organization in this show is run by garbage humans.  Then the series would just be luffy being a marine without actually being a marine. As all he'd do is beat up pirates for not following his ninja/pirate way; of what he thinks being a pirate means.

Like I don't think oda meant for the message of slavery is bad to be the driving force for his villains, but that's pretty much what it's become. Without them being slave owners they're just very weakly implemented villains. I think oda had like several ideas of what he wanted this series to be and just never developed them fully leaving a lot of weak points. Pretty much he just had to have a universally accepted as evil thing for the bad guys to do, to make the bad actions of the straw hats and other pirates seem justified. Early one piece all we had to go on for the marines was a couple of corrupt captains, but they were still dealing with criminals at the end of the day. There really was no reason for us to be rooting for luffy other than for the sake of adventure. He was the villain. Oda had to introduce more things to balance this. 
 

[ben0119]

I wasn't talking about your Beetles example which has nothing to do with anything.  Just because the Beetles were making "just songs" doesn't mean everyone was.  Many artists are definitely trying to send a message or teach a lesson of some sort.  How do you know Yuki Tabata isn't, especially with what is shown in the series?

The other way you could interpret Yami being the only Japanese guy in the kingdom is it is meant like showing the audience falling into this world.  Except Yami isn't the main character and isn't the typical fish out of water character at all, not a character most authors would create for the audience to identify with.  He is a grungy musclehead with some pretty gross habits and he spends most of the time making fun of the other characters and the world, almost fourth wall level, part of the shows parody aspect.  Like that time be spent a whole episode making fun of the other captains and flat out asked Vangeance if he uses Light Magic.  You'd never see that in other shonen.  But despite all this, Yami isn't just a dumb, gross brute, he is a pretty good guy and agrees with the Wizard King's ideals.

Haha we actually agree on this.  Over the top G Gundam is the only good one.  Others have annoying characters and the anti-war message is way too preachy and pretentious.

The show is literally saying that racism and discrimination is bad, as is classism.  Yami is the only Japanese guy in the kingdom and treated shitty for being a foreigner - reversing the positions to put the audience in the foreigners' position.  Japan is well known for being racist, ignorant, xenophobic, and hostile to foreigners.  I'm sure this is just a coincidence and the show was really just meant to be mindless magical entertainment the whole time!

While unknown if it's meant to be a message, the women are pretty strong and competent in this series, which is commendable given how other shonens and anime in general treat women, and how Japan treats women in general.

One Piece has a corrupt evil government, and yes, lets those nobles do whatever they want, including owning slaves.  The show uses Fishmen as an example to say racism is bad.  The show never says evil pirates are good so not sure why you mention that.  The government also has their own sanctioned pirates they let do whatever they want, which has historical precedent.  Bleach also has a corrupt, evil government as do many other animes.  There is even inequality in the afterlife.  Yeah I am pretty sure we were all taught in school what slavery was and that it was bad?  Same age group One Piece is geared for.  Straw Hats are like your classic happy go lucky friendly pirates that love adventure, kind of like the Blue Rogues from Skies of Arcadia, actually.  I think the Blue Rogues also had a Robin Hood thing going on too.  And they fight against an evil Monarchy.  At least Blue Rogues steal shit (from bad people.)  Straw Hats don't even do that and really should just call themselves adventurers or explorers or something.  But they want to play pretend pirste too much I guess.

But I'm sure these are all just coincidences.  There's no reason an author would ever have an issue with government or feel the need to criticize it in their story.  There's no reason to show racism or say it's bad.  It's all just mindless entertainment!  Nothing to deeper to see here!

[ben0119]

27 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Seriously though in OP if it weren't for the slave trade the world nobles would have posed as much of a threat as that fat guy on Shank's crew that shot that one guy in the face. If it wasn't for slavery then the world nobles would be bottom tier in evil act. 99% of the evil shit they do is related towards slaves. Remove that and they probably get bumped up to one of the actually best groups of people in the series judging that nearly every large organization in this show is run by garbage humans.  Then the series would just be luffy being a marine without actually being a marine. As all he'd do is beat up pirates for not following his ninja/pirate way; of what he thinks being a pirate means.

Like I don't think oda meant for the message of slavery is bad to be the driving force for his villains, but that's pretty much what it's become. Without them being slave owners they're just very weakly implemented villains. I think oda had like several ideas of what he wanted this series to be and just never developed them fully leaving a lot of weak points. Pretty much he just had to have a universally accepted as evil thing for the bad guys to do, to make the bad actions of the straw hats and other pirates seem justified. Early one piece all we had to go on for the marines was a couple of corrupt captains, but they were still dealing with criminals at the end of the day. There really was no reason for us to be rooting for luffy other than for the sake of adventure. He was the villain. Oda had to introduce more things to balance this. 
 

Oda makes many of the villains over the top evil like that.  At least he doesn't make them rapists like Reki lol.  But he will also hit with a sledgehammer like that to drive the message home.  And as cartoonishly evil as the World Nobles are, their behavior had real world historical precedent.  Columbus would make the natives carry his men around on their backs or he would have their hands cut off.  That shit for some reason was not taught to us in school at all.  I have even see a documentary that made Columbus out to be this sympathetic guy who Spain mistreated and it was all sad about how he has a shitty pauper's grave and was considered a failure by Spain.  Spain actually removed him as governor from his colony for tyranny.  Even Spain thought he was too much of a tyrant! 

I don't think Luffy ever thought there was a pirate way.  He just beats up people for being assholes.  In fact him saying he is a pirate causes him all kinds of problems, since the other pirates in the series are like real historical pirates and not good people at all, and that is how everyone assumes Luffy and his crew are like.  But the Straw Hats are like the fictional romanticized idea of pirates as charming mischievous adventurers just out to have fun exploring the world and finding treasure.  So it is a weird thing going on in the series.

Yeah, some early marine characters were corrupt but you didn't get the idea they were a wholly bad organization, and even though it was called the World Government I took it as more a benevolent one and not evil despite being the government of the entire world, which is usually considered a bad thing in fiction and real life.  It came off as benevolent and there was just the World Government and "the Navy" because Oda didn't want to complicate it by making all these governments and navies and just have your general government and navy, and pirates scenario.  It fit with the simple cartoony world.

There is also that rebellion that has apparently been going on this entire time but there is no sense of it at all for most of the series up until then and barely affects most of what is going on in the main story.  The World Government is fighting this huge war with rebels (somewhere ELSE we never saw apparently LOL,) but will waste resources chasing Luffy around.  Or the fact they can even spare the resources.  Even the biggest empires can be stretched thin or run low on resources!

I dunno to hear some fans it is a meticulously planned and plotted and masterful storytelling.  Though to me it seems the story got longer as Oda came up with more ideas and added and expanded to the story and world. 

But people I think give Oda way too much credit.  I don't consider some guy showing up again after a hundred episodes to be epic writing ability.  If anything, some characters are fine to leave a story permanently once their main original arc and role is done.  Or have the dozens of people that "died" actually DIE!  It's also annoying to me at times when something is left hanging for that long.  I wonder if it was ever said why that Navy girl looks just like Zoro's childhood friend lol.  I was curious about her but then her and Smoke stopped chasing Luffy and were written out of the story mostly.  And having something set up or referenced, or foreshadowed, then followed up later, is basic writing and storytelling stuff. 

I don't know if people are more impressed because sometimes it takes hundreds of episodes for things to come to fruition from initial setups, references, or foreshadowing, or they are too used to other series that can't even manage to follow up on the stuff they set up.  But it just shows that One Piece is fairly competently made, but they act like it is shonen Shakespeare!

[HardcoreHunter]

5 hours ago, ben0119 said:

I wasn't talking about your Beetles example which has nothing to do with anything.  Just because the Beetles were making "just songs" doesn't mean everyone was.  Many artists are definitely trying to send a message or teach a lesson of some sort.  How do you know Yuki Tabata isn't, especially with what is shown in the series?

The other way you could interpret Yami being the only Japanese guy in the kingdom is it is meant like showing the audience falling into this world.  Except Yami isn't the main character and isn't the typical fish out of water character at all, not a character most authors would create for the audience to identify with.  He is a grungy musclehead with some pretty gross habits and he spends most of the time making fun of the other characters and the world, almost fourth wall level, part of the shows parody aspect.  Like that time be spent a whole episode making fun of the other captains and flat out asked Vangeance if he uses Light Magic.  You'd never see that in other shonen.  But despite all this, Yami isn't just a dumb, gross brute, he is a pretty good guy and agrees with the Wizard King's ideals.

Haha we actually agree on this.  Over the top G Gundam is the only good one.  Others have annoying characters and the anti-war message is way too preachy and pretentious.

The show is literally saying that racism and discrimination is bad, as is classism.  Yami is the only Japanese guy in the kingdom and treated shitty for being a foreigner - reversing the positions to put the audience in the foreigners' position.  Japan is well known for being racist, ignorant, xenophobic, and hostile to foreigners.  I'm sure this is just a coincidence and the show was really just meant to be mindless magical entertainment the whole time!

While unknown if it's meant to be a message, the women are pretty strong and competent in this series, which is commendable given how other shonens and anime in general treat women, and how Japan treats women in general.

One Piece has a corrupt evil government, and yes, lets those nobles do whatever they want, including owning slaves.  The show uses Fishmen as an example to say racism is bad.  The show never says evil pirates are good so not sure why you mention that.  The government also has their own sanctioned pirates they let do whatever they want, which has historical precedent.  Bleach also has a corrupt, evil government as do many other animes.  There is even inequality in the afterlife.  Yeah I am pretty sure we were all taught in school what slavery was and that it was bad?  Same age group One Piece is geared for.  Straw Hats are like your classic happy go lucky friendly pirates that love adventure, kind of like the Blue Rogues from Skies of Arcadia, actually.  I think the Blue Rogues also had a Robin Hood thing going on too.  And they fight against an evil Monarchy.  At least Blue Rogues steal shit (from bad people.)  Straw Hats don't even do that and really should just call themselves adventurers or explorers or something.  But they want to play pretend pirste too much I guess.

But I'm sure these are all just coincidences.  There's no reason an author would ever have an issue with government or feel the need to criticize it in their story.  There's no reason to show racism or say it's bad.  It's all just mindless entertainment!  Nothing to deeper to see here!

Yami is the roy mustang of the series. He's  pretty much meant to be the op cool japanese insert character.  If you want to believe that this whole story is nothing but a direct 1 for 1 representation of current american or japanese political systems then that'll be up to you. As far as I see it, it's a story that's already been done with a teen wanting to be the worlds strongest pirate king of hokage's.  There are no current real world politics going on.  It's a historically fictional setting. I don't know what you mean by "especially what's shown in the series". Nothing has been shown! You're like those people who said that if you give a mouse a cookie is directly referencing socialism. You're building parallels because it's what you're conditioned yourself to see. 

G-Gundam reminds me of 80s wrestling which is probably why I liked it. Just these fun over the top cheesy storylines that can only make sense if you  suspend all disbelief. As if the world is going to have this epic battle every 8 years to replace war and have one country rule over all of the world. Not only that but have the most meme as fuck robots to represent their country. Neo-Hollands gundam is a fucking windmill!!!XD   The early gundam anime though I feel were a product of their time. It was deep story telling for an anime in the 80s. I didn't watch it till over 20 years later when it aired on adult swim. Had I watched that in the 80s that might have blown my mind like GIJoe and TMNT did as a kid. Looking back though it's like watching GI Joe as an adult. Like this overly forced message and merchandising is all you can really see in it.  Then the later series that came out always get overly hyped with stories that get even worse. The worst part is that it's nearly always the same message, for almost 40 years! It's like when you watch a friday the 13th marathon and by the 7th movie you realized that you just watched a film with the same exact plot 7x in a row. 

I'd agree that this series does somewhat better in making women competent assets to teams. However it does also faultier by making every single strong woman so far aside from the witch queen fall for a strong guy. Just straight thirsty putty when the guy gets close and wanting to get noticed by him type of girls.  I think it's cute, but at the same time far from progressive. It think some of this comes down to a lack of being able to write a subtle character. All characters emotions and personalities in BC are pretty much worn on their sleeves. There aren't really deeper layers to anyone. Like in most other series we might get a girl blushing or get flustered around a guy that they like saying something to them. That can even be on the nose. In BC we'll get then then instantly follow it up with an inner monologue about how damn thirsty they are. 

It's possible that Japan needs more of a lesson about racism. I could see that being more of an issue, as even what Japanese would consider being normal or polite way to treat Gaijin would still be viewed as someone being very ignorant and racist in America if we acted like that we seeing someone different.  Slavery though is more done by the Yakuza and Oda is pro Yakuza organizations at least publicly. Many times in manga/anime the mangaka is more writing against the bureaucracy in the japanese corporate world. From a western standpoint it looks though like it's directly referencing the govt. In the working world in Japan especially in animation and manga the workers are slaves and the studio's are these celestial dragons that can't be questioned or your work life is done. In Japan you'd have better luck getting a better job if you moved to another country than trying in Japan for what it's worth when you get fired. Japanese are taught to be thankful to nearly any job they begin and treat it with better loyalty than you'd give your own family. It's why quitting a shit job even is always a big presentation as well. 

Though as a whole Japanese don't care about the world outside of Japan a whole lot. The bulk of Japanese have no desire to ever leave Japan. A youtube video I watched with a western teacher pretty much had one of the other teachers outright tell him that he was boring the students, when trying to teach them about other countries in a world studies class. Outright says that they all have no interest in ever leaving Japan, and that is the Japanese school system It's geared not to prepare kids for the world, but for the Japanese world. The messages in anime are being written towards this demographic that as americans we really can't relate towards. Like Darling of the Franxx. The whole message of that series was to get Japanese kids to breed. The older generation in japan needs the younger generation to leech off of and the younger generations aren't being born fast enough. Also the older generation is about as insane as our boomers. They even put out an ad telling young people not to vote because they don't care about climate change or fishing regulations, and environmental laws as they will be dead in 20 years. It 100% says that as if it's being pleading and sincere. 

 

[AnimationFan14]

8 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Wow, that Queen is POWERFUL.  Her mana zone covers the whole kingdom?

Undine, the Water Spirit!

Her mana zone brought all the Asta’s to the fight 

damn right they’re better than Clover’s.

[HardcoreHunter]

6 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Oda makes many of the villains over the top evil like that.  At least he doesn't make them rapists like Reki lol.  But he will also hit with a sledgehammer like that to drive the message home.  And as cartoonishly evil as the World Nobles are, their behavior had real world historical precedent.  Columbus would make the natives carry his men around on their backs or he would have their hands cut off.  That shit for some reason was not taught to us in school at all.  I have even see a documentary that made Columbus out to be this sympathetic guy who Spain mistreated and it was all sad about how he has a shitty pauper's grave and was considered a failure by Spain.  Spain actually removed him as governor from his colony for tyranny.  Even Spain thought he was too much of a tyrant! 

I don't think Luffy ever thought there was a pirate way.  He just beats up people for being assholes.  In fact him saying he is a pirate causes him all kinds of problems, since the other pirates in the series are like real historical pirates and not good people at all, and that is how everyone assumes Luffy and his crew are like.  But the Straw Hats are like the fictional romanticized idea of pirates as charming mischievous adventurers just out to have fun exploring the world and finding treasure.  So it is a weird thing going on in the series.

Yeah, some early marine characters were corrupt but you didn't get the idea they were a wholly bad organization, and even though it was called the World Government I took it as more a benevolent one and not evil despite being the government of the entire world, which is usually considered a bad thing in fiction and real life.  It came off as benevolent and there was just the World Government and "the Navy" because Oda didn't want to complicate it by making all these governments and navies and just have your general government and navy, and pirates scenario.  It fit with the simple cartoony world.

There is also that rebellion that has apparently been going on this entire time but there is no sense of it at all for most of the series up until then and barely affects most of what is going on in the main story.  The World Government is fighting this huge war with rebels (somewhere ELSE we never saw apparently LOL,) but will waste resources chasing Luffy around.  Or the fact they can even spare the resources.  Even the biggest empires can be stretched thin or run low on resources!

I dunno to hear some fans it is a meticulously planned and plotted and masterful storytelling.  Though to me it seems the story got longer as Oda came up with more ideas and added and expanded to the story and world. 

But people I think give Oda way too much credit.  I don't consider some guy showing up again after a hundred episodes to be epic writing ability.  If anything, some characters are fine to leave a story permanently once their main original arc and role is done.  Or have the dozens of people that "died" actually DIE!  It's also annoying to me at times when something is left hanging for that long.  I wonder if it was ever said why that Navy girl looks just like Zoro's childhood friend lol.  I was curious about her but then her and Smoke stopped chasing Luffy and were written out of the story mostly.  And having something set up or referenced, or foreshadowed, then followed up later, is basic writing and storytelling stuff. 

I don't know if people are more impressed because sometimes it takes hundreds of episodes for things to come to fruition from initial setups, references, or foreshadowing, or they are too used to other series that can't even manage to follow up on the stuff they set up.  But it just shows that One Piece is fairly competently made, but they act like it is shonen Shakespeare!

The thing is that he had to go over the top with them, because the good guys like Shank's men were just shooting people in the face. When you have your heroes acting insane, you need to have your villains being even more insane. "
 

 As for what was taught to us in school. My class 100% learned about Columbus doing all that fucked up shit in 8th grade. That would have been in like 2003.  I honestly doubt though that 90% of japanese even know who Columbus is. Columbus was only celebrated in america because Italian immigrants needed a "hero" to stand behind and say that there wouldn't even be a USA if not for Italians. Truth is he never stepped foot onto mainland america and was more than likely in Cuba and the Bahamas. His holiday wasn't even recognized in Italy until 2004. This was more to try and capitalize on Italian Americans. They wanted to try and see if Italian Americans were as dumb as Irish Americans and flock to the country to spend money and drink. Speaking of which the Irish did the same exact thing with St Patrick. The guy wasn't Irish, his color was blue not green, and he did a "peaceful" crusade in Ireland to introduce Catholicism to the pagan celts. In Ireland St Patrick's day was just another recognized saints day. You'd go to church for it and show reverence. Irish Americans made it into this big party like the Italians do for the Feast of San Gennaro. Irish Americans later going to ireland were like wtf when seeing that the country didn't have these huge celebrations like we do in america. That is until they were like oh we can make money off of these idiots. It's pretty much like that episode of Venture Bros where Rusty goes to Greece every year to celebrate a made up holiday and they just go with it so they can fleece him. 

Luffy used to preach to other pirates in early op about what really being a pirate was. To him it was pretty much just adventure and live free not everything else that goes with being a pirate. After they leave east blue the word pirate is used about as much as ninja in Naruto that it stops being something that luffy has to explain. It's weird to think that in pt 1 he would even introduce himself as a pirate then explain that he's not like others. Zorro being a pirate hunter even asked luffy what being a pirate is and luffy explains his pirate way as freedom, treasure, and adventure and "stuff". Luffy couldn't even understand the concept of pirates being mean. He treated the marines with more hostility than he did Alvida and Buggy. 

The corruption of the Marines early on could have been done better I believe. The saving grace for the marines not being complete garbage in the first arcs of op was Smoker. Nami's foster mother quit the marines over the corruption, and we don't see Garp for a long time, and even then it's never explained why he does nothing to change the marines, but is fine with his grandsons fighting against the govt, but also wanted them to become marines. His character is such a mess and I feel that he'd have had better popularity if Oda had actually given him proper focus. The more though he seems to try and develop him the more confusing the character becomes. Like he dropped ace and luffy off to live with mountain bandits on an island that Shanks would hang out on...Yet he was surprised that they became pirates. 

The revolutionary Army is the worst implemented faction of One Piece. They had done nothing the whole series. They're this hyped up faction that has been at war with the world govt since before the start of the series. The only hint we ever had of them pre-time skip was Dragon helping luffy one time in the first arc, and Ivankov saving prisoners in impel down. Even post time skip they haven't done much. Sabo gets introduced as an expy for Ace which makes his death kinda pointless. Oda should have just had whitebeard die in the war saving Ace, then Ace joins the RA to avenge him. We didn't need Sabo. 

I'd say I began to lose a lot of my patience with OP around the fishman island arc. The painfully slow pacing and predictability of the post time skip arcs were painful for me and I'm someone who has a good deal of patience. Like the current arc Wano. I don't even remember why the hell they're there. In the manga I remember 2018 they were running from big mom and ever since they've been in Wano. They were doing undercover shit for a full damn year and I don't even remember why. It's stuff like this where I just wish the anime would condense the manga instead of having 1 chapter = 1 episode. They could fit 3-5 chapters into an episode but they wont, because studios now have a fear of long filler arcs. I think the death of bleach and bad ratings for later shippuden put the fear of god into them or something. 

[HardcoreHunter]

9 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Wow, that Queen is POWERFUL.  Her mana zone covers the whole kingdom?

Undine, the Water Spirit!

Yuno got fucked over when it came to spirits. So far we have the fairy, that fire salamander that Fana had but now Fuegoleon has, and Giant water ara ara.