one piece: alabasta saga

2024-9-12

(archival, 2023-9-26—>9-28)

i binged this saga in like, 3 days and thus didn't end up writing much about the arcs "little garden" and "drum island", so i apologize for those missing chunks.

reverse mountain (+1 chapter)

ch. 101–106

Learning the mechanics of navigating the Grand Line is so cool! I like that the way the log pose works forces the crew to stop at so many islands along the way, as well as giving them strong motivation to stick around until the magnetic field's been recorded, and I also like that there are multiple routes through it, which has the implication of there being so, so many islands as well as pirate crews going along them completely parallel to the journey we're seeing. This ALSO leaves room for so many things to happen throughout the story, some way for them to end up on an island off route and dealing with that, perhaps losing the log pose altogether, etc.

Anyways, I've been having a lot of fun reading and I'm so excited to read more!!
I don't trust this "welcoming town of Whisky Peak" stuff

AA: Yey

whisky peak

ch. 107–114

Yeah there was no way that town was what they appeared at first. Baroque Works seems very interesting and I'm honestly excited to see them more! I'm enjoying seeing all of these devil fruit powers too, every one I've seen so far has been really cool and kind-of out of left field for me (other than maybe Mr. 5's bomb one). I especially enjoyed Miss Valentine being able to just change her weight at will, like how cool is that! Miss All-Sunday also is an enigma I'm excited to eventually learn more about, I don't understand what her motivations are. Offering the eternal pose was a suspicious gesture and I suppose we won't know for a while if that would have been a trap or not. Little Garden sounds pretty cool though, so I'm excited to continue reading! Just wanted to leave an update!

AA: Sicknasty

interlude: diary of koby-meppo

ch. 83–119 (covers)

(includes spoilers for the first four-ish episodes of the live-action One Piece)

Also, I'm really invested in the cover page stories with Koby and Helmeppo. In the live-action Garp comes and takes them under his wing, and immediately goes after Luffy, but obviously that last part was an addition. Where I'm at in the manga, Garp has just taken them under his wing and they've gone to the Marine HQ, which I believe is the place I saw earlier that issued Luffy's bounty. I'm really curious to see how that develops further!

alabasta

ch. 155–217

(One Piece Chapter 162)
Oh my gosh Luffy is tripping balls! I love that name "Mescal Cactus" since in real life the hallucinogen in peyote and san pedro cacti is called "mescaline"

AA: Lol nice

163
I'm actually crying over seeing a king that isn't so corrupt that he doesn't care about his villagers. Seeing Princess Vivi playing with other kids in the past and the king being like "make sure the villagers affected get provisions even if it's taken out of the royal personal spending" or whatever it was just asagsadg

I already knew Baroque Works was causing conflict in this kingdom, and they are super interesting villains so I've wanted them to go down, but now Oda is making me attached to the kingdom so now I also just want good things for the people here, and even the monarchy strangely enough. I'm generally very anti-monarchy but for the sake of this story I'm totally invested and excited to see how this plays out, and I'm super hopeful this kingdom will get a happy ending!

Cover Page for 164
Gosh I've been absolutely LOVING the cover page stories, and I can't believe I'm saying this but "Jango's Dance Paradise" might be my favorite one so far??? I thought Jango was pretty cool in Syrup Village, but he wasn't like, a favorite character or anything. But seeing his adventures with the dance contest and bonding with the marine guy and then escaping but CHOOSING TO RETURN TO HELP FIGHT THE TULIP PIRATES EVEN THOUGH IT LED TO HIS ARREST! And now he's been sentenced to hanging and I do wonder if he'll get saved by the marine guy or something. In any case it has made me absolutely LOVE Jango without a word spoken.

If it isn't obvious I've been really loving One Piece haha

AA: Sweet

It can be pretty slow, especially during the battles, but there's always something to like in each scene and it's always worth it. I do prefer the non-battle stuff though

JY: For me it goes by way faster during fights when I read

I've gotta like look at the panels and figure out what happened (who hit who, with what attack, where, how bad the hit was) which isn't always trivial
Sometimes when I'm a little bit bored I'll put less effort into that and just be like "and a fight is happening, I'll read the dialog and notice the highlights but I won't care about the specific beats
Fight scenes in general have always been something I haven't enjoyed as much as others seem to, so it checks out
I do like the creativity Oda usually puts into the One Piece fight scenes though
There's a lot of character in them, which I really appreciate

JY: Yeah, I'm very susceptible to media and what emotion it's just trying to convey so with fights and stuff I'll get into them, I always read at whatever page it seems like the story is going I've noticed. Like with fight scenes they like fly by but like regular scenes it slows. Not like to a grinding halt just to where I feel is more natural for like character moments and stuff.

I just care more about character interactions than anything else, so regardless of pacing they are the least likely to bore me

JY: Yeah for sure, I don't mean it slows down in an it bores me kinda way more that it takes me more time to process that sort of thing and thus it slows a bit

Oh my gosh guess what
The chapter I'm currently reading (I took a break) is Chapter 165
And it's the chapter that came out literally the day after I was born

AA: Wowza

It came out December 18th, 2000
I was born December 17th, 2000

AA: Cool

And it's the one I currently have pulled up, by complete coincidence
I was curious so I went to find out which came out closest to my birthday during my break and it just so happened to be the one I was reading
That's kinda nuts

AG: the cover stories is what makes one piece feel trully alive to me
and yeah even tho one piece is a pretty pro anarchist story is kind of a pattern that monarchy is not shown as inherently oppressive but something that facilitates oppression
pretty cool

It definitely is
I really like the themes and morals One Piece seems to promote

AG: hell yea

EN and I are watching the 4kids dub of One Piece now lmao

AD: oh god

AG: peak fiction tbh

I think the Alabasta (Arabasta?) Arc is my favorite so far btw
(I'm on like chapter 182)

AG: im an alabasta guy but i think theres no hard confirmation either way?

I've done this a few times where I've googled a name like that just to see the version they used on the wiki in the search results (without clicking the link)
And the wiki page is "Arabasta Kingdom"
But apparently Oda spelled it Alabasta according to someone?

AG: it was spelled both ways in the manga

aparently the most recent appearence in manga is of the arabasta spelling?
makes sense
it would be a play off arabia

hmm interesting
The translation I'm reading calls it Alabasta so that is the one I shall use I suppose

AG: well yeah
canon translation names mean very little imo
like you wont catch me dead calling zoro zolo

AD: ew zolo

JY: Zolo isn't real

(One Piece Chapter 184)
What??? Excuse me???

AA: Lmao

I have no more words, but reading this did make me say that outloud

AA: Makes sense

AG: being a dog with a gun fruit would have been too simple

(One Piece Chapter 211)
Wow that was amazing, I fucking loved this arc. Baroque Works made for such interesting and powerful villains, and every member of the straw hat crew really proved themselves. I loved the ways each and every member took down their opponents, and the final Luffy vs. Crocodile fight was so, so satisfying. Princess Vivi is also a badass and I love her. I don't really have many words I just flew through the last part of this arc and it's hands down my favorite one so far. It was long and there were so many moving parts, so many players and obstacles and it all came together so climactically and just asasfgsadgasgd it's so good!!!!!!

(basically I'm just gushing)

(One Piece Chapter 217)
So Nico Robin may be joining the crew? That kind of came out of nowhere, this should be interesting! I really like her devil fruit power

this post discusses 'One Piece', which is intellectual property of Eiichiro Oda.

the screenshots used in this post are not mine, but are used under fair use for the purpose of commentary and review.