One Piece

Huh...

Part of me felt they were hiding Raizou, but they took so much torture and abuse that it was hard to imagine how important this guy was.

Well, this arc is starting to feel pretty small scale all things considered, we're pretty clearly on the way toward taking on either Big Mom or Kaidou now.

I have been thinking since almost the start that the Minks would not be nearly as hostile to the samurai as the Straw Hats feared. But holy hell I did not see THIS coming.

Now I'm wondering if it counts as being Right for the Wrong Reasons

edited 10th Feb '16 6:57:22 AM by sgamer82

Holy shit! They went through a lot of trouble for this dude. This actually makes Jack look less Stupid Evil. He was right the whole damned time. The efforts they went to just to keep that secret...Those Minks are crazy loyal.

Man, this arc is going to be really short isn't it? I mean, this was the one avenue for conflict, stupid as it would be, and now it's resolved. Not that I'm complaining but it is a bit surprising.

Just like animals.

I don't mind really; I'd rather we get the focus back on the Emperors and the story surrounding Sanji. While I don't mind the minks and find them plenty of interesting in their own right, there are much more pressing things to focus on and giving them an entire arc would have just felt like padding.

It's official. The Minks are the best thing to happen in One Piece since the time skip.

So, I guess this is just going to be a quick conjunction arc, tying up loose ends from the Doflamingo saga and leading into Wano. Hopefully at least some of the Minks stay on a bit longer, ala the Franky Family/Galley La alliance during CP 9.

A short setup arc is good after Punk Hazard ran so long for so little payoff. Oda could have set up Vergo, Monet, Law, and Caesar without an 18-month arc, i think.

I need to read this arc from the start again because I'm really not following what's going on.

Not that it's hard to understand, but I feel either I've missed something or Oda is plotting this in an incredibly disjointed way.

What are you referring to?

Not really understanding the important/significance of everyone's actions

Well, we don't really know who Raizo is yet or why he is so important to point where an entire species would literally sacrifice their bodies to protect him.

For the Minks, what we had been led to believe was them being made to suffer despite legitimately not being able to give Jack what he wants has been revealed to be refusing to break and tell Jack what they knew no matter the torture.

In reply to an earlier post, I don't think Jack is any less Stupid Evil then before. He still refused a reasonable and valid option to settle his affair for the sake of wanton destruction.

Granted we now can suspect the Minks' cooperation would've been a ruse but as far as we know Jack had no reason to suspect that. Had he gone along and then rampaged because he thought he was being deceived, that would've been less Stupid Evil.

edited 11th Feb '16 6:55:16 AM by sgamer82

I think when you're that powerful you can afford to be as Stupid Evil as you want. Unless you're attacking an admiral-guarded prison convoy, apparently.

The thing is that he wasn't even powerful enough to get away with it- he got dragged into a prolonged and totally needless stalemate.

Though he was winning near the end there. In fact, if they hadn't been forced to leave due to Doffy's capture, they might have either forced it out of them or just found him eventually.

Yeah but they used the poison gas to get that win. Otherwise the two could have continued fighting since they took turns fighting every day and night, and its mentioned they would have won if they fought together.

Yeah. I pointed out that constantly tagging in and out let them stay fresh.

Though it seems Jack never took a rest at all, so he must be a beast to continually fight two guys as strong as the Dog and Cat lords (or whatever their names are) when they were always more rested then him.

I do agree, no matter what way you look at it, he made a lot of trouble for himself when it really wasn't necessary. Guy must be either crazy, insane, ridiculously blood thirsty, or all three.

All three most likely.

For reference sake, the English manga refers to them as Dogstorm and Cat Viper. Their Japanese names are Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, respectively. The English names are just literal translations of the Japanese in this case.

edited 11th Feb '16 2:22:58 PM by sgamer82

Ok.

I'll probably forget those again, but the effort is appreciated.

Those two are pretty impressive for side characters; I wouldn't be surprised if they were stronger than Zoro and Sanji.

Rob I also recall them mentioning Jack kept getting reinforcements during all that as well, which is why the fight continued for so long.

I hope they're stronger than Zoro and Sanji, because if they aren't, that means the Straw Hats can already fight evenly with an emperor's top brass. I'd prefer if it took them another one ort two arcs to reach that level just so that we might actually get to see some evenly matched fights from them sometime soon; so far, the Straw Hats have been curbstomping everything since the timeskip.

Yeah, the most even non-Luffy Straw Hat fight so far was Franky vs. Pink - and remember Franky was coming off a four-way beating previously and was down to one cola, so even that wasn't as even as it appeared.

There was the inconclusive Sanji vs. Vergo, though.