So those older versions of Ace and Luffy are pretty dope but like this is the best part of that SBS:
“Q: Nami told Ceasar, he is “trash” and he should “kill himself”. Did she learn that toxic attitude from Robin’s wicked tongue? Oda: Please reread Punk Hazard. Ceasar experimented on children and drugged them. He used his subordinates like experiment mice as well. He made weapons to kill innocent people. A man like Ceasar should be dead. Nami is only truly gentle to two types of people. Lovely children and lovely women. Her disgust for Ceasar comes from the bottom of her heart
“
Both for Oda’s complete annihilation of Caesar Clown and Nami being confirmed as a huge lesbian.
i was 11 when I read op and zoro, tied to a post for a week because he saved a little girl from a bunch of dogs, made luffy pick up two (incorrectly made) onigiri that had been stamped into the ground and feed them to him so the girl wouldn’t be sad about him not eating the onigiri she’d made for him. first character that ever made me go ‘this dumb motherfucker, i love him’ but he was definitely not the last
Tama: gives Luffy a bowl of rice when he needs it instead of eating herself Luffy: showers her starving town in literal mountains of fresh food and water in repayment me: Monkey D. Luffy operates like a fucking fey and for everyone he meets is the random supernatural encounter in a parable about karma starring them. In this essay I will—
strong weirdly rote devotion to wild feasts w/ dancing
follows rigid but alien blue and orange morality
rebalances the scales wherever he goes so most people get exactly what’s coming to them beyond the bounds of reason (when Luffy is not nearby, the One Piece universe very much does not operate like this); most major exceptions: both his sworn brothers, who might be of similar stock and obviously don’t count somehow
on rare occasions spirits people away from their lives on whims
does not always give them back
avoids calling people not among this number their real names
What the actual fuck is One Piece.
if you’re interested in more context, oda based luffy significantly on sun wukong, a monkey god who attained the same power as the daoist pantheon and wreaked havoc in heaven. journey to the west was loosely based on a historical journey to obtain a forbidden set of Buddhist scripture, and sun wukong was in turn based on hanuman, a hindu deity who I think predates the concept of the fae by a couple centuries. incidentally, dbz was based more directly on jttw and oda was absolutely obsessed with dragonball as a kid
but in that sense, sun wukong & many other characters in journey to the west are supernaturally powerful figures whose actions affect those around them in major unexpected and unpredictable ways, a lot like an encounter with the fae might. a lot of wukong’s adventures take him to places where a demon or deity has normal, vulnerable people under his control and he’s strong-armed into helping them or he feels compelled to help because they’ve been kind to him. his first instinct when something or someone pisses him off is usually to beat it up.
that doesn’t seem a lot like luffy, except he does like to say that he’s a pirate, not a hero, and he doesn’t wanna be a hero cause a hero has to share his food. one piece is pretty much exactly what you’d get if you were pitching a concept like ‘journey to the west but pirates, and the main character is the monkey instead of the whiny monk’
Recently while reading the latest chapter of One Piece, chapter 914, the character Tsuru mentioned something twice to Luffy and Zoro while explaining the current state of Wano. Now, Oda has a tendency to bury important information on offhand remarks, and repeats the statement or fact several times leading up to the reveal. So when he mentions something not once,
but twice in the same chapter,
I start to listen carefully… and wonder if Wano kingdom’s isolation isn’t only a physical isolation, but one in time as well. For the sake of people’s dashes, I’ll go over all of this below the cut.
So why on earth is this something to even think about? It’s just a statement of time. Usually, I’d also chalk it up to a random fact thrown out by Oda to enrich the world and history. Authors and writers like to spew out random dates and times to create a history of their world. Except in this case, this date is tied to an actual timeline, an important one at that – the timeline of current events.
You see way back in Punk Hazard, the audience is introduced to Kin’emon and Momonosuke. Over time we are introduced to aspects of their story.
Ok so this obviously establishes intent of where they were going and how it lines up with the main storyline. We know the order of events over multiple chapters and episodes: Kin’emon and Momo made it to Dressrosa, Momo was separated and sent to Punk Hazard, Kin’emon headed there eventually as well and met up with the Straw Hats. Raizo was the only one to make it to Zou.
We also know in chapter 818 and 819 that Oden sacrificed himself in order for Momo and his retainers to escape from Kaido and his interrogation. They then leave for Zou to seek allies in the Minks.
But now we’re told the Kozuki clan was defeated and their rule overturned 20 years ago.
So what gives? Did Momo and them stay in Wano for that long until departing to Zou? Were they adrift at sea for years like Brook?
Then there’s the added complication of Momo himself. He’s described several times as being only 8 years old, including by Kin’emon.
How could Oden have been defeated, killed, and Kin’emon and them set adrift for twenty years if Momo is only 8? And we know it’s not some sort of Rogue circumstance given Momo’s mother was killed before him by Kaido.
Icing on the cake is Momo’s remark in Zou about having met Roger himself when he visited Wano Kingdom 20+ years ago.
All of this leads me to believe that Wano kingdom is separate from the rest of the world not only in location but also in time. From what I can gather, time seems to move slower there… or something to that effect. Even though only a week and a few days have gone by during the events of Whole Cake Island, the remaining Straw Hat crew on Wano managed to establish themselves in jobs and community. Zoro even managed to get himself in trouble for murders that, at minimum, happened over the course of a month.
There’s also the reveal in chapter 909 that Shusui and Ryuma’s corpse were robbed 23 years ago.
However, Hogback didn’t work for Moriah at that point.
Given the timeskip, Hogback began work on zombies 12 years ago. Did Moriah collect potential zombies as far back as 11 years prior to that? We know Moriah didn’t begin his zombie army until after his defeat by Kaido.
Thematically, Oda has lovingly crafted Wano Kingdom as a feudal era Japan. Now this time period was renowned for it’s isolationism. It kept to itself and its own ways as the rest of the world moved forward at a more global pace.
All in all I’m curious to see if this is just an odd discrepancy, I’m a moron who missed some basic detail and tin-foil hat-ed a conspiracy, or if there is actually something to the flow of time being different in Wano. Perhaps it’ll explain why everyone there is so huge, aging like elves where a 20-year-old is more like 8 in terms of both size and maturity.
Cheloneuniverse 