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I still think the 2 boys are unreliable narrators and that Nami spoke & acted differently than they present, but the classic Straw Hat confidence is apparent as the crew calmly discusses chasing Nami while Hawkeye chops the opposing ship into pieces. We see some contrast between Sanji & the general crew attitude when Zoro is fighting Hawkeye and Sanji advises him to “give up your ambition and live!” The Straw Hats are almost always confident in battle, no matter the odds, especially if there is an emotional tie such as Zoro wanting to be the greatest swordsman in the world. Additionally, we have seen Sanji express this same attitude when engaging in his own conflicts. Even Usopp tends to have a very supportive outlook despite being personally terrified of almost everything they encounter. This paradigm is directly contradicted by Sanji’s advice to Zoro, but it is relatable as Sanji is new to the Straw Hats, underestimates them, and doesn’t want them to die, hence speaking & acting out of character.

We heard another reference to the East Blue, in the context of 4 great seas, which I assume are the North, East, South, & West Blues. It seems apparent that the show creators had a long-term vision from the start. Hawkeye’s comment that “you don’t know how big the world is” feels directed at the viewing audience who is only just beginning to witness the enormity of this television setting, and his large cross that doubles as a small sword seems to lead to this understanding, as well. I interpreted it as a bit of a romanticization of a foreign mystic symbol to an Eastern audience, similar to how the yinyang is often represented in Western media, ultimately symbolizing a culture distant from this one in both kilometers & tradition.

Last note, Usopp is such a bard with his quick supply & knowledge of first aid supplies, in addition to his other miscellaneous scattered skills.

Don Krieg calmly threatening to murder everyone on the restaurant ship while casually walking out with the giant bag of food they just gave him is a terrifying evil. In cold blood, with clean calculation, he is determined to get his results without seeming enraged or boisterous. There is a true psychopathic vibe here beyond just a desperate pirate, but a truly dark soul committed to mayhem & harm.

We see yet another new look at reputation in this episode with the history of Zeff. He was a famous pirate and so there is a sense of respect for him, but he has lost the leg that made him fearsome, which affected his reputation via rumours. Word of mouth communication is much more important in this setting without easy digital or radio communications across long distances. The way people speak about you is less controllable, thus making it more valuable in a certain sense as it is less likely to be propaganda, but it can also be wildly inaccurate and just colloquial mambo jumbo.

I have noticed that characters often act in shock & surprise at wild & unbelievable stories without any sense of proof; there is a general trust between individuals that they simply won’t lie. Even when Usopp was telling very bold lies, people often believed it at first simply because of how much people trust each other. This is not blatant stupidity; there is a certain amount of survivability that relies on being able to trust information gathered from strangers when there isn’t a major news media or similar method of dissemination.

Sanji “helping them live and then threatening to kill them” is a great dichotomy that applies to a lot of stoic thinking. Sanji understands he can only control himself and his actions & wants them to be true to his ideals and values. Part of his value system is feeding anyone who needs to be fed, so it is understandable that he would even feed someone who could be a threat to his fellow crewmates. However, he also loves his ship & fellow crewmates, so he is still willing to use violence to protect them, even from the very same people whom he was willing to feed. We cannot control the actions of others and must react to them using our own values. Reacting to a hungry person by feeding them, as well as reacting to a threat with defensive violence, are both consistent with Sanji’s ideals.

I am genuinely surprised Nami “stole” the ship and can only assume the 2 boys are unreliable narrators who misunderstood what she told them. I am guessing she plans to come back shortly, and only left because she knew Luffy was going to stay a while to work for Zeff. Last note, I really want three dangly earrings like Zoro, super cool vibe.

The whole plotline of the evil pirate with no money asking to be fed, & Sanji feeding him when the restaurant kicks him out, and then that guy bringing back his captain to attack the whole restaurant and Sanji still offering to feed them both is a great example of Sanji holding true to similar morals as the rest of the Straw Hats, regardless of the consequences. I think this is also shown in Sanji constantly smoking, almost always shown with a cigarette in his hands or lips, a commitment to doing something repeatedly. Sanji seems to always have a calm and cool demeanor except when flirting with Nami, and I think there is something romantic to be said there.

I really appreciate how we are being served with the variations on the Jolly Roger. We know from real history that pirate flags were very varied and unique to indicate specific crews & notoriety, and there were real examples of pirates flying under false flags, as well as Privateers & the like blurring these lines from the get-go. Seeing Don Krieg use a Marine flag to attack unsuspecting victims reeks of realism & anchors the plot with reasonable tactics. We have seen a clown nose Jolly Roger, a cat Jolly Roger, and more, and people do seem to always recognize the specific crew, including in this episode with the double hourglass Jolly Roger and the people at the restaurant identify that it means their time is up. The pirate with the captain has yet a different jolly roger on his clothes with a snake instead of a skull. This is the first episode in which we see Sanji’s wanted poster, which features him blowing smoke into a Jolly Roger symbol. I wonder if the pirate in the title animation, Gold Roger, is also tied to the Jolly Roger as a semi-fictional mythological character of legend.

This is the first episode (I think) that mentions the name of this story arc, the East Blue, in reference to Don Krieg being a threat to this region. It is fantastic foreshadowing the way we were given reference to sailors getting scurvy on long adventures and now we see a pirate crew without proper stores & rations that is dying of starvation & dehydration. This whole episode’s plot was pretty novel & surprising; I was genuinely unsure of how much of the narrative was going to go.

We see that Luffy is still dedicated to fulfilling his punishment to work at the restaurant for a week even if the rest of the Straw Hats want to leave. It makes me wonder what the motivation for the rest of the kitchen & restaurant crew is to work on this ship. We see that they use oversized flatware as weapons & the head chef has a bazooka cannon shaped like some sort of shellfish, so perhaps they just identify as cooks and that’s what they do. Kaya & Merry mentioned going to shop in some city a few episodes back, so maybe there is some exchange of currency (or berries?) that the owner uses to pay his crew so they continue to work. Maybe they are just pirates or sailors who don’t know any life other than to serve a captain and this captain wants them to work in a restaurant.

Last note, it seems that “Don” is not just his name, but a title of sorts, based on a comment that he is the only one who deserves to be called Don. Again leading towards a post-apocalyptic setting, this is likely a holdover from contemporary Mafia leaders who are called Don, & namely popular movies & other media that use this term has possibly influenced the cultural zeitgeist over the centuries so that this serious character uses that title due to ancient references to Hollywood films. I think something similar could be true of the concept of the pirate flags, as well, with both historical and fictional pirate flags contributing to the One Piece world’s usage of them.

Sanji is pretty obviously shown as Straw Hat protagonist material by his very nature. He is passionate, has a sense of personal honor, and is shown as an outcast from the rest of the kitchen staff. Even though the cooks have a reputation of violence, they judge Sanji as a problem for being violent. From Sanji’s perspective, he is just standing up for the kitchen staff and the integrity of the food, and that attachment to success is what attracts Luffy to invite him to the crew.

Sanji has some sort of emotional ties to working on the restaurant ship, and it makes sense that it would take something “emotional” such as falling “in love” with Nami to break his obsession with working for the old man, but I hope they don’t play this up a creepy angle. While there is some value, narratively & comedicaly, in the unrequited love cliche, it is quickly overdone.

Last note, Luffy appears to be taking the attitude of doing a task so poorly, he is not asked to do it again. I learned this technique from Calvin & Hobbes and it is true. People much prefer important actions to be done by people with an attention to detail and an interest in positive results. Hiring Luffy under duress ensures that the tasks will not be done perfectly. A workforce needs to feel valued & appreciated if they are going to work to the best of their abilities.

I really enjoyed the previous 2 episodes being one-off self-contained adventures with deep philosophical meanings but we are back on a multi-episode arc to gain a new crew member. Again, I am just assuming that because this new character, Sanji, is featured in the opening song animation so I assume he is going to be a crew member. I suppose we will see. I actually thought it was Luffy in disguise during his first scene.

We are again shown the Marines to be cruel liars, and the captain character is especially rude & selfish. However, as the show progresses, it seems that most sailors are more or less villains. All we ever really see are Marines & pirates, and they are all, more or less, evil. This emphasizes what a revolutionary act it is for Luffy to be so filled with kindness & compassion.

Last note, I appreciate that they addressed scurvy & nutrition while spending long periods of time at sea. It is an interesting note in human history that the cure for scurvy has been lost & forgotten multiple times over generations passed. If we are thinking the One Piece world is a post-apocalyptic earth, this is just another time where some people have forgotten the knowledge of how to survive at sea.

I want to start this post by just mentioning that I totally called it that they would keep just lucking into bigger & better new ships to sail on. When they find the cannon, we again see that Luffy has no experience, much less expertise, in any pirating or boating skills, and he is still ultimately just the kid that Shanks knew way back when. I like that Usopp is good at aiming the cannon because of his slingshot skills, and it continues to show how much value he adds to the Straw Hats even if we, at least me, continue to underestimate him. As we see at the start of the flashback, Zoro was also once just a dumb kid doing everything his own way, endlessly determined to succeed regardless of the adversity he faces.

This episode got pretty thick & intense with the gender philosophy right out of the gate. Kuina’s father is directly engaging in performative feminism in which he speaks well of his daughter in public, and to strangers, as well as offering her publicly desirable opportunities to show off her skills, which makes him appear to be a supportive father to other people. However, behind closed doors, discussing serious business topics, he makes it clear that he does not trust her as an equal to a boy, which is indicative of systemic misogyny in which women are unable to earn the success they deserve because of men with power working together in secret to prevent women from growing and developing their lives & goals.

We also explore gender dysphoria, and this was way back in the year 2000, with Kuina wishing she was a man so that she could attain the same level of success as a boy. She has internalized much of the misogyny she has been taught by her father, even subconsciously, and it prevents her from feeling comfortable in her own body or social role. Zoro continues to show his extreme honor and commitment to justice by insisting that Kuina is as good or even better than any boy and that she can still grow up to be the world’s best swordsman, regardless of what her father says. I cried so much while Zoro was crying in the dojo.

Last note, I appreciate that Zoro is apparently inventing the 3 sword technique from scratch, not learning it from a rare master or something. I also think it is worth noting that there must be a psychological effect of battling with real swords versus the wooden training swords, but it did not appear to affect the duel between Kuina & Zoro.

Usopp’s lack of life experience really shows in this episode as he is completely terrified of the stormy weather while the rest of the crew is entirely nonchalant. I think this continues to reinforce the diversity of the crew Luffy is trying to assemble, and even Nami & Zoro wanted Usopp to join them even though they were aware of his immature tendencies.

We see everyone’s lack of experience in the supernatural when they discuss what actually constitutes a god and what qualifications a being has to have to be considered a god, and this is great world building that doesn’t assume a standardized culture of religion but instead a disparate colloquial folk knowledge of things beyond the understanding of normal people. There are clearly remnants of religious culture poking through, but the unclear definition of godhood points at a post-apocalyptic setting in which the echoes of past beliefs are still reverberating in current conversations & emotions.

The character of the Jack in the Box guy is solid commentary on the concept of some people who take their prison with them everywhere they go. He has grown into his uncomfortable situation to such a degree that it would cause him physical pain to leave his box, but being stuck in the box ensures he cannot reach the treasure he so covets. However, he still doesn’t want anyone else to get it, because he considers it his, even though he cannot utilize its value in a way, shape, or form. We then see that after he learns there never was any treasure, he feels free again, even though nothing has changed about his situation, it is only perspective. He is still stuck in the box & has no treasure, but because he has seen the truth & the truth was empty, he is able to move forward with his life and focus on what is actually important to him.

This episode was a bit of a rare glimpse into Luffy confronting that pirates are typically pretty evil. The dissonance between his experienced reality of piracy & the theoretical concept of piracy he holds in his heart causes the eponymous anger within him, but he wins the battle and moves on, as expected. When Luffy states “I’m gunna be King of the Pirates!” and the Black Cat crew is like, “Really?” they seem genuinely to believe him, though, and I think that’s interesting.

This wholeass episode mostly just focused on Usopp leaving the island, which I guess makes sense as this is essentially the conclusion of his origin arc. I feel like the opening credit animation thing is a bit of a spoiler cuz I guessed he was going to be a permanent crew addition based on that, and now I will expect the same in future episodes with other characters in the intro animation. I think an important & clever detail that wasn’t explicitly mentioned was that Usopp is leaving his children pirate crew behind to pursue a life of piracy in a very similar way to how his own father left him behind for a life of piracy.

The giant backpack was clearly a metaphor for Usopp’s baggage in life, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise, and it was an impactful sequence of scenes seeing how leaving his house with all the baggage left the home in shambles, and then propelled him even faster to the ship, but then became possibly dangerous, until his new friends were easily able to help calm him down & keep him safe; more excellent storytelling that utilizes the advantages of animation. 

We do see that Usopp’s “lying” is ultimately shown to “pay off” in a sense, but it makes me wonder, is it better to keep the people in the village ignorant to the facts of the situation? It probably was, all things considered, if they had never been otherwise attacked by pirates before. The people on the island would be much happier and calmer if unaware of the dangers of reality, but is that a morally superior position? Soren Kierkegaard would say something like being ignorant of despair is worse than despair, but is he correct? Again, these answers are much deeper than “yes” or “no” and this episode explores potential results from varied approaches to these dilemmas. This philosophical dichotomy is emphasized by another perspective on the value of reputation by contrasting how most of the village views Usopp with the way his close friends on the island view him: both are true but each one is more useful to each one who holds it in this scenario, and there is no absolute truth to be held.

I am posting this after midnight but I watched this episode on my 36th birthday, the 26th anniversary of the first episode of One Piece airing, with my wife & my mom who is visiting, and what a trip of an episode to be my birthday episode to watch with the family by sheer coincidence. So many quick paced scenes and flashbacks and exposition and unattached dialogue bits, I honestly wish more of the show went at this pace more often. I’m curious if anyone has stitched together nothing but 1000+ of the recap scenes at the beginning of each episode into an abridged version of the show, it would likely be over 24 hours long but maybe still more approachable somehow.

Last note, how did Merry survive? I thought for sure that dude died and it was part of the power of that episode but I guess he is alive and maybe that doesn’t take away from the power because the feelings of fear and loss Merry & Kaya were feeling in that episode were still valid even if Merry was ultimately okay. The trauma of the unfortunate events is not invalidated by survivorship.

I really enjoy the slightly subtle fact that the children are more keen to copy Captain Usopp’s actions than they are to listen to his words. They acknowledge that his words are both lies & useful advice, but still choose to just do what they think is the right thing to do because they know their captain would just do what he thought was the right thing to do. This is a great lesson for all of us.

I think there is a lot to be said about Kuro trying to delete his reputation from existence. While other characters are trying to build their reputation, or utilize their reputation to their advantage, or disguise their true reputations temporarily, Kuro is attempting to walk away from his. It is quite fascinating how the show, through multiple episodes, explores the complexity of one’s reputation and how important it is to carefully develop a reputation because of how seriously they stick with a person.

Kuro continues to belittle, insult, & threaten his crew before quickly dispatching them, and mentions how they are pawns, a chess metaphor. Chess lingo has such a romanticized reputation of its own, being somewhat impenetrable to outsiders, but rather simple for people who are familiar with the game to understand. There is sort of a stereotype that chess players are elitist & pretentious, and we also see a lot of ego from Kuro in this episode when he is so enraged by the insults of Luffy, a person he has never even really met before. The idea that anyone would ever insult him as Kuro is outrageous to him, even when he was calmly taking criticism from Usopp as Klahadore only days before. I think it is pretty obvious that Klahadore was a false reputation he was not attached to, but that insult to Kuro, his true reputation, cut something deep inside him, even as he is desperate to rid himself of the Kuro reputation which he has decided does not serve him any longer. These are the deep introspections that I believe many of us, not just villains, must deal with every day.

Last note, we see that Usopp & Zoro are bad navigators when running lost through the woods, struggling to identify directions or follow sounds or tracks, which seems to confirm the usefulness of Nami as a navigator for the Straw Hat Crew. Conversely, Jango does seem surprised by how close behind him Zoro & Usopp are, but that could also be a result of Jango being lost for a while trying to track down the Usopp Pirates.

Alright, well, in the last couple of minutes, more or less all of my previous questions were somewhat addressed, I really do appreciate the detail of detail in this show, which I guess is why people enjoy it so much leading to me watching it today.

Usopp reminds me very much of a Bard from Dungeons & Dragons. Being able to not only lie, but use his wit to entertain Kaya, and what’s more, giving valiant battle speeches that fill his followers with honor & confidence. There are some of the exact mechanical devices the Bard class has in edition 5.5, and I have always appreciated that the Bard is a class most rooted in adding narrative & story value to a campaign while gaining in-game benefits. That is to say, a genuine criticism of D&D is simply that the elements of exploration & narrative do not, strictly speaking, have any codified rules or game mechanisms associated with these pillars of gameplay. In a show in which most of the dialogue is very straightforward and much of the problems are solved with sheer violence, Usopp using language & charisma to handle a situation is a refreshing splash of flavour that, again, really defines this show as engaging & entertaining.

I love that the trio of children goes straight for Klahadore without any fear because they recognize the true source of power & difficulty in this situation & waste no time bothering with anyone but the person in charge. Children have such an insight & wisdom that adults would do better to heed. I also appreciate that Captain Kuro & Jango are so calm and patient as the children & Usopp speak to each other. There is, of course, a certain sense of condescension layered on top of that, but it is still a fun experience as the big bad guy just allows the kids their time to do their little thing.

Last note, I actually kinda missed a lot of this episode cuz I was feeding my daughter a can of raw garbanzo beans. Her name is Speed Racer cuz no matter what, we are on her team.