Kalhadore mentioned the crescent moon, so I guess that answers that. I really should have guessed he was some sort of cat or had a cat ability or weapon or whatever those sword claws are, based on the name of his crew, and I guess I will continue to watch out for that type of nomenclature. I find it very strange that he is so focused on inheriting Kaya’s fortune in a legal manner versus just killing her and the staff & looting anything of value to set sail on the East Blue sea. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, where does this wealth & power draw from? Who was Kaya’s father? Is there some sort of deed or noble rite involved that would grant Captain Kuro more than just money by legally inheriting the estate? I imagine we will explore this topic in future episodes.
We do learn that the other staff of the house are not in on Kalhadore’s secret identity & plans. The servant that shot Usopp in the back is not a pirate or villain in any particular manner, just an employee who really hates Usopp & takes his own job very seriously.
I like that Usopp seems to have a firm grasp on the theories of The Art of War, a favorite book of mine. His ideas to use oil & caltrops to ”cheat” on the battlefield are exactly the type of thing Sun Tzu would say about controlling the field & imposing his own will on his enemies. At one point, Usopp makes a joke about hiding during the battle, something Sun Tzu would suggest if the day called for it, and we see the otherwise jolly & lighthearted straw hat crew become irate & furious at even the suggestion. While Luffy is a very fun, silly, & optimistic captain, this scene makes it clear that part of the reason he is so adept in battle is because it is something he in fact takes very seriously.
Something Luffy does not seem to take seriously is navigation skills. He was previously very excited & impressed that Koby could navigate the water so well, and then pretty desperate to get Nami to join his crew as a full-time navigator, because he is self-aware enough to recognize his own lack of navigational ability. He is very easily lost when left to his own devices, Luffy can’t even find North on his own, but this is also why he is so focused on assembling a highly qualified crew of individuals that can each specialize in their own roles, making the entire crew stronger than the sum of their parts.
Last note, I thought this was just a Nami idiosyncrasy, but apparently a ”berry” is a commonly recognized unit of value or currency. This is an interesting fact because they still have gold & treasure in this society, and there is plenty of commerce & business happening, but there has not been any real currency shown or mentioned, in my memory at least. It is not unusual to use a consumable resource with intrinsic value as a form of currency, real world examples include eggs, tulips, bread, & fish, but the One Piece universe’s fascination with berries extends from currency to also the Devil Fruits themselves, and I am left wondering if the impact of the Devil Fruit, either contemporaneously or historically, is why the modern culture puts such a specific value on the more common varietals of the same fruit.