One Piece

I suppose Wano's a good a place as any for more references to the story of Momotarou.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Sep 20th 2018 at 8:18:16 AM

That image of the family almost committing suicide/murder as you said is going down as one of the darkest images in One Piece. It just hits home how the Beast Pirates are pieces of shits that need to die, especially having the nerve to talk about stealing food when they have no right to it because they caused the crisis in the first place.

Yeah, that image was really unexpected in One Piece, and it was really impactful

Speaking of images impactful, going to an happy one, how wonderful is Tama's face in the first page? This is one thing I like in Oda's trait: the great ability in conveying the character emotion. In Tama's case, she's looks happy, surprised and partially scared too (ala: crap, I'm falling to death), I just love that single panel, and I love how it's slightly darker than the two at its side, to highlight how in that panel the time was stopped to show Tama's face.

Another one is where Tama says that Luffy's red-hawk remember her Ace's fire fist (which, yeah, if I recall Red Hawk is an homage to Ace). I like her happy (even if slightly too doll-like) expression and the image next to her, which are likely her memories, built in a way that the reaer's eyes follow Tama's thoughts, I think it's a n example of a great use of the comic book medium.

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

...so the Wano people traveling with the Straw Hats were Dead All Along?

That or they're using aliases. Though that seems to not make sense given Momonosuke seems to believe he is who he says he is. If there's an act, I bet he's not in on it.

It did make me wonder, though, could Tama possibly be the lost heir and not know it? I don't recall the exact timeline for when Oden was killed/Orochi took power but could Tama be an unknown child or grandchild of Oden? Would add an element to the Momotaro references if Momonosuke was a red herring and it's actually Momoko, so to speak.

That said, the simplest explanation is that Team Samurai faked there deaths in Wano. Anything else would get far more metaphysical than One Piece has actually gotten before now. It's actually pretty uncommon for strange events to not have some rational explanation in-universe. The only things to never get such an explanation that I can think of right offhand are the Voice of All Things, Haki (unless 'willpower' is good enough), Devil Fruits origins/nature (Devil Fruits usually are the explanation), and the Klabautermann.

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 21st 2018 at 1:46:14 PM

I don't know about them actually being Dead All Along, but I feel like this at least won't be a total read herring.

Zoro apparently already knows what's up, and considers it a big deal.

Actually, Devil Fruits will be explained with Vegapunk's appearance... which means in a thousand years or so.

About the tombstones, I though they have faked their deaths (which I guess it failed, given how Kaido's henchmen are looking for them) or Kaido simply wants everyone to believe the Kozuki clan and allies is dead. Or a mixture or two.

However, an expert said that Momonosuke claimed to have met Gol D. Roger (I'll have the confirm today in a report), which could imply that Momonosuke and the others are really dead all along (The Sixth sense-style?) and are... tangible ghosts with devil fruit powers? I don't know, if the latter is true, either there's a really good explanation, or it's just stupid

Edited by fishysaur on Sep 22nd 2018 at 4:25:33 AM

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

I've found a lot of theories in the last One Piece report.

Aside of having faked their deaths, other theories are:

Momonosuke e.Co are "Onrios" (I've probably written it wrong): in Japanese folklore, they are spectres who looks for revenge against who has killed them.

Another theory is that they've been in a place where time flew slower, so, while for them it has been a few months, for the rest of the world have passed 20+ years.

Also, there's Hitetsu's (tengu guy) tombstone too, I've missed it.

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

True, but until we actually get that explanation my specific point that we don't actually know what they are still stands and it doesn't take away from my main point that supernatural elements usually get an explanation, which makes ghosts or spirits unlikely compared to something else.

Seeing how Brook literally came back to life by reanimating his decomposed body, I don't think spirits are really that outlandish to have in this series, though I'm not sure that this is some sort of force ghost thing happening.

Edited by Kakuzan on Sep 22nd 2018 at 10:27:27 AM

Don't catch you slippin' now.

Honestly there's only two things I expect to never receive a rational (well, rational for this series anyway) answer for: ship spirits and the creature in the Florian Triangle.

Wano is actually a giant ship, and Kinemon & co. are all Klabautermann.

Ah, ok

Mmmmh, I think the creatures in the forlan triangle enigma would be solved in the future, it's just too random to not solve it

Best theory so far

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

Would actually make for an interesting tie-in to Moria and Thriller Bark. Hell, maybe even where Moria got the idea.

Honestly I think the Florian Triangle monster will go unresolved precisely because it was so random. It's mostly there as the explanation of why ships were disappearing long before Moria.

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 22nd 2018 at 10:33:36 AM

I've been assuming that they just faked their deaths because it'd be politically dangerous for them to be alive right now.

Edited by Gilphon on Sep 22nd 2018 at 12:51:42 PM

That's my thought as well. Though one thing I'm unclear on is the particular timeline. I've always assumed it was recent, given Momonouske's age and the fact he has memories of his father, but I went back to 914 and Otsuru says that Oden Castle burned down 20 years ago.

Damn, the last panel surely raised a lot of questions, I wonder if next chapter will explain everything, or if a flashback is necessary (I'd say the latter).

Speaking of, I remember Catarina Devon was supposed to be a beautyful girl from Wano before Oda changed her desing (he wanted all the Blackbeard pirates to be ugly). Do you thin she could still be from Wano? Maybe this mean she could play a role in the arc too

Speaking of Blackbeard Pirates, I wonder if Avalo Pizarro would play a role too

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

With a name like Caterina Devon, I'm thinking not. Wano's people all have specifically Japanese names.

D'oh! You're right

I'm thinking, could it be Oda is trolling us and instead of showing us Momonosuke e.co story we go to see what the rest of the crew is doing?

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

It can go either way, I feel. I wouldn't necessarily call it a troll move for the plot to shift away from the current plot thread, though.

Yes, but still, changing place right after a wham-panel, and when it seems it's about to be explained, looks like a troll move (even if the Reverie troll was bigger)

changing topic, I've noticed Charlotte Basskarte (this guy: http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Charlotte_Basskarte) too has a mouth full of fangs, yet why doesn't anyone ridicule him for this like Katakuri? I mean, it's been revealed in an anime filler, and he normally hides it, but seems still strange

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

Maybe he's half Fishman.

Yeah, is possible, I've also noticed that there hasn't been any half-fishman among Big Mom's children (save for a possible young kid). He also has fire powers, but definetely hasn't eaten the Flame-Flame fruit.

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

Maybe he's protected from ridicule thanks to Katakuri. Also while we may not have half fishmen, we do have Praline, a mermaid. As far as Fishman Island is concerned, that's functionally the same thing.

Dunno if anyone posted this already, but the v90 SBS gave us Mont d'Or and Opera's fruits. Mont d'Or has the Book-Book Fruit, enabling him to control books, project illusions based on books, and even physically trap people in them. As you might imagine this is a very broken ability; Oda implies he's actually as strong as some previous arc Big Bads, though he doesn't specify who.

Opera has the Cream-Cream Fruit. It's basically the Wax Fruit but with whipped cream. Whoopee.