One of the thugs recognizes Ace as the one who robbed them and warns Porchemi. Porchemi says that this will make things easy for them and manages to lift Ace into the air, but Sabo frees his friend by bashing Porchemi in the head with his pipe. Ace tells Sabo to help Luffy while he holds Porchemi off. While Ace exchanges blows with Porchemi's saber, Sabo manages to cut Luffy free from his bonds and says that they have to get out of here, but Ace says that he won't run from an opponent despite he friend's urgings to escape. Porchemi slices Ace's pipe into two and laughs, saying that if he loses to some kids he'll quit being a pirate.
...so of course when the dust settles he's the one on the ground. He tries to apologize to Bluejam, who is standing over him, but Bluejam says that he doesn't want to hear it and summarily executes him.
Elsewhere in the forest are the three bandaged children. Sabo chides Ace for his bad habit of stubbornly refusing to back down and says that Bluejam's crew will be after them now, while Ace is more concerned with fixing his pipe, before snapping at a blubbering Luffy to shut up. Luffy manages to get out a teary thank you, and Ace demands to know why he didn't just tell the pirates where the money was hidden, and Luffy admits that if he did, he didn't think Ace would want to be friends with him. Ace then asks why being his friend is so important, and Luffy shouts that it's because he has no one else, he can't go back to his village, and he hates the bandits. Being all alone is much worse than being hurt. Ace asks him about his parents, and Luffy says that there's only his grandfather. Ace then asks if he wants him to live, and Luffy says of course he does.
The two then get into an argument over who's stronger which Sabo breaks up and says that he's got some problems of his own. Where he lives in the forest is close to where Bluejam's ship is docked, thus he's no longer safe here, so he's got a favor to ask.
The next day Dadan's bandits find Luffy and Ace fast asleep, as well as Sabo. Dadan demands to know who this is so Sabo introduces himself and, much to the bandits' chagrin, says that he'll be living here too.
Eyecatches: Chopper and Usopp
Afterwards the first thing the three kids do is run out on Dadan, as usual, but not before Sabo warns the bandits to be wary of Bluejam. Later Sabo learns from Luffy that he ate the Gum Gum Fruit. Ace thinks it's a stupid power, but Sabo admits that being able to stretch could come in handy during a fight. Luffy decides to show off his Fuusen (Balloon) technique, giving Ace the idea to kick him around like a beachball until he gets knocked into a river and eaten by a crocodile.
After saving Luffy and killing the reptile, the three go to check on their old hiding place to find the pirates still looking for the money. Same deal with the Grey Terminal. Despite being chased out of their old stomping grounds, the three's reputation had even reached the city.
RIP Porchemi's voice. You will be missed.
The second half of this episode was mostly filler. There are a number of time montages in these chapters, and it looks like Toei is going to use them to wringe as much material as they can, as three of the upcoming episodes seem to be mostly filler set into this period. While I suppose that's good in avoiding overtaking the manga, it admittedly makes me a little impatient and want them to get on with it so that we can get to the Straw Hats' reunion. This is how I felt when these chapters were originally coming out as well, incidently, only multiplied since I didn't know where things were going at the time.
While the canon parts of the episode were handled pretty well, the filler was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some good jokes, like the bandits learning from the Luffy school of playing dumb and the crocodile spitting out Luffy's hat (by the way, it seems that Oda was under the impression that Luffy's hat had it's magic cord back then, when it truth he didn't get it until towards the end of the Alabasta arc) that made me laugh, but some of the other stuff was dragged out a bit much, like Dadan trying to figure out who Sabo was being a noteable offender.
Luffy's line about having no one makes me wonder; when will Oda ever answer the question of what happened to Luffy's mother? I mean, if you have a Parental Abandonment plot, and one such parent is really important to the Myth Arc, it's only fair to cover what happened to the other one, even if to only reveal that they get Stuffed into the Fridge. Maybe when Luffy eventually meets Dragon.
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