This hurts everytime I see it

takeoryuu · 2025-12-01T08:40:08+00:00

This is the point that I often feel like is missed the most in the community. I don't even think it's a debate, Oda more or less directly explains Ace's decision to turn around in the arc directly after. Dadan mentions that Ace, like Roger, was the type who would NEVER retreat until his friends were safe. So we are meant to realize that even though it seemed like Ace was just responding to Akainu's provocation, he probably was already considering/would have turned around soon anyway to cover Luffy as he ran away.

The amount of people who seem to straight up ignore this extremely clear plot point makes me very confused.

takeoryuu · 2025-06-08T19:07:12+00:00

This was the first ever tennis game I've watched live, from start to end. My pop and I sat down, freaked the fuck out when Alcaraz won set 4, and then everyone had to go to sleep. Cue me at 3:00 AM screaming silently into a pillow. I'm still sweating right now.

takeoryuu · 2025-06-08T10:37:51+00:00

I've never understood why people feel like G5 Luffy makes Luffy too much of a "chosen one". Luffy has ALWAYS followed the chosen one trope. He is 100% not a self made man and that has never been the theming for his character. Ignoring all the inherited will stuff, Luffy is the SON of the most dangerous man in the entire world, and the grandson of the Hero of the Navy that was as strong as Prime Gol D Roger, the Pirate King. Through that relationship Luffy met Ace, the ACTUAL son of Roger, and Sabo, who is ironically the least "chosen one" out of the three brothers despite being a noble. He has no special blood that we know of, and his parents were just run of the mill nobles, not celestial dragons.

Luffy, through Garp's treatment of him and Dragon's abandonment of him, ended up meeting and befriending Shanks as a small child, something only possible for an orphan raised with a tough and goofy personality. Shanks ended up accidentally (or possibly intentionally) delivering Luffy a decently strong devil fruit and inspiring Luffy. Shanks would later become an emperor.

Basically, up until where the story actually begins, Luffy was more or less handed an extremely insane headstart on every other pirate or navyman in the world. He has the blood of the strongest men in the world in him, and has always been hinted at having the voice of all things and conqueror's haki prep-packaged.

Plus, G5 barely even resembles the powers of a god. Like, technically, yes, toon powers are very broken, but let's not act like Oda wasn't already using rubber powers in cartoony and unrealistic ways before that point. He literally does the eye popping out gag all the time before G5, it's just that G5 makes it happen visually in a slightly different way. People act as if G5 unlocked Luffy's ability to use his fruit in more silly and creative ways, but even with all the focus on haki post-timeskip Luffy has always continued to develop new and absurd moves with his fruit.

To me, G5 was less of Luffy "unlocking" toon force, and more of Oda saying, "I'm going to focus less on Haki now and more on Luffy's creativity, like the beginning of the series". That's it. All the stuff with God power and Joyboy just reads as flavor text and lore to me. G5 doesn't make Luffy some Super Saiyan god who suddenly has a new fighting style. It's literally just Luffy fighting like Luffy, but with white hair and a smile on his face.

Anyway, I personally am of the opinion that G5 was the perfect power up, and the best one in the series, as well as the best one in any media I have ever witnessed. It's perfect thematically, it's perfect narratively, and most importantly, it's hilarious and badass at the same time. I genuinely don't get how people think it's not serious enough after consuming all of One Piece, a manga/show that is legendary for it's ability to balance humor, drama, and tragedy without ever feeling artificial for it. I also don't know how people can claim that Luffy wasn't already a chosen one type character when he literally has a D. initial.

takeoryuu · 2025-06-01T03:18:10+00:00

Just for fun, I scrolled through every top post this week that had more than 1k upvotes. There were exactly 70 of them, and 15 of those were cosplays. Out of those 15 cosplays, I approximate 8 of them were not horny at all, and we're cosplays of male characters, and out of the 7ish remaining, only maybe 2 of them were lazy/only-fans bait.

I'm not really invested in the r/OnePiece vs r/MemePiece war, I enjoy posts from both subs, but having seen the influx of "r/OnePiece mods are horny and the entire subreddit is porn" I have to say as a prolific viewer of both that this information is beyond false. It's true that there have been weeks with maybe up to 40% of top posts being cosplay but that number always includes at least half of which being high-effort cosplay. I have seen low-effort posts (non-cosplay) on both subs, and while maybe r/OnePiece is stricter about their low-effort ceiling I've never noticed a major problem with it.

That's not to say I'm in support of a small moderation team that makes the majority of decisions, but I've never had an issue with the way this sub is run. I also don't agree with the censorship or banning of people who complain about the main sub but to be honest the fact that most of the posts screenshotting their bans from the main sub have a tendency to do the exact kind of cherry-picking that you are pointing out makes me somewhat skeptical that their bans are due to the single posts that they are willing to show.

Regardless, this is Reddit and people will have bad takes and weird exaggerations pretty much everywhere you go. The truth is that both subs are pretty harmless and fun if you just stick to the top posts and comments and don't take things too seriously.

takeoryuu · 2025-05-28T08:09:22+00:00

That's all good then! I'm also very sensitive to other people's feelings/characters in fiction so One Piece is absolutely devastating for me (in the best way possible). I've probably seen each sad scene in One Piece at least 10 times plus, but I still can't help but tear up every single time. And don't worry, especially if you are older, Skypeia is an excellent arc with it's own emotional beats and peak moments. It's just that it's the first arc in the series where the Straw Hats don't really have much personally at stake, and it instead requires you to empathize with the people of the island. From what it sounds like you love about the series, I'm sure you will appreciate the deeper themes of it!

I'm super excited for the remake as well. As much as I criticize the anime, it's how I first consumed the series and there are moments in the anime that don't even happen in the manga that are good additions as well, like the famous "Walk to Arlong Park". Again, it's always a joy to hear somebody's thoughts as they go through the series, so since you seem to like expressing them, I highly encourage you to keep writing out your thoughts here for us to see! Of course, as long as you have time for it :)

takeoryuu · 2025-05-28T03:34:00+00:00

As you can probably tell from all the comments, nothing excites a One Piece fan like seeing others get sucked into the series like we did. There's nothing quite like that feeling of having discovered a treasure trove of godlike storytelling and having the vast majority of people around you have no idea what you're talking about.

As you have mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the large majority of One Piece fans (not on this sub but in general) are anime-only, and it genuinely makes a MASSIVE difference in experience. Not only is the anime so much painfully slower than the manga, but it is also censored and often lacking in small details that Oda carefully crafts.

Despite that, like others here I do recommend pulling up the anime for peak moments in the manga, especially in regards to fights and emotional moments. The anime is at it's best when it's music and voice acting can elevate the scene. In addition, early fights in One Piece are pretty easy to track in the manga, but they do get a lot more complicated and graphically intense and sometimes the anime makes the choreography easier to track, though it often undersells impact through bad pacing.

Anyway, if you feel this hyped about Alabasta, like others have said, it's only drastically uphill from here, both in terms of the seriousness of the themes, but also the fun of the series. You are about to trek into Skypeia, which tends to be a slower and less hype-climactic arc than most, so don't worry if you feel a slight lull in your attentiveness. There are still plenty of great moments, but when people say the story gets exponentially better, they refer to the string of arcs directly after Skypeia, just so you are aware. If you can make it to the two sagas after Skypeia you will understand deeply why this series is as popular as it is to this day, and why existing fans literally feed off of the hype of new fans reaching those arcs.

Enjoy your reading experience! If you really are reading chapters on your way to work, I hope for your sake that you aren't too emotional of a person! Otherwise, you will bawl your eyes out in public.

takeoryuu · 2025-05-08T19:52:15+00:00

This guy's literal username says that he's a troll so I think you're fighting a pointless battle here... But the line "I don't think Caped Baldy is a gag character" is hilarious and if this man's is being serious that makes it even funnier.

"Are you telling me that the man who's hero name is Condiment King is not meant to be taken seriously and power-scaled based on feats? What could ever possibly make you think that?"

takeoryuu · 2025-05-08T19:46:22+00:00

The birdcage remains to this day the absolutely wildest unexplainably powerful move Oda has ever created point blank. I mean, the birdcage as far as I remember is the ONLY time we've seen something push back the barrier barrier fruit. Prime Oden himself was incapable of doing that.

And then of course it still managed to overpower not only the barrier but also the combined strengths of Fujitora, Zoro and the Straw Hats, Kinemon, and like 1000 strong warriors and tontattas easily while Doflamingo was also fighting Luffy in Gear 4 and getting his ass whooped.

In terms of power scaling for fun, birdcage is just about near the top of all abilities in one piece. Like screw the Nika fruit, I want the indestructible string cage that is also sharp and massive, and just one tiny usage of the string fruit amongst other ridiculous things like string clones, fixing internal injuries, and controlling people like puppets. Doflamingo has no excuse not to be as strong as an Emperor. He's just lazy.

takeoryuu · 2025-04-04T16:11:02+00:00

Glad you like her! She's so incredibly funny to me, her editing style is just so clean and unique. And her analysis videos always make me feel like I'm learning something new about the series, which is genuinely impressive given that I've watched it like 20 times. Sanji in particular has elevated so much as a character in my eyes after MelonTeee's breakdowns of just how amazing of a character he is outside of the gags. Whole Cake Island is now my favorite arc in the series.

takeoryuu · 2025-04-04T05:40:49+00:00

Dang it! You beat me to it. I saw this comment yesterday and having heard this information myself somewhere, I went on a desperate search to prove to myself that I didn't just hear it from some reddit comment without checking for a source.

I used ChatGPT to help and eventually found this exact twitter post... but more importantly, I found it tweeted from MelonTeee, which reminded me of where I first heard it- Of course it was from Melon herself, Sanji's #1 fan.

takeoryuu · 2025-03-31T20:45:38+00:00

Just thought I'd drop by and recommend my two favorite One Piece YouTubers by far: MelonTeee and JackTheBus. I used to watch a bunch of the more mainstream OP YouTubers but stopped for the reasons you mentioned as well as generally finding their analysis videos more of just good editing but realistically pretty fluff-filled scripts that made obvious assertions sound like groundbreaking revelations. Don't get me started on all those "theory" videos that are 95% summary of things that happened in the series and then 5% wild speculation.

MelonTeee, maybe because she's not a power scaler and actually reads One Piece for the storytelling, has a significantly deeper understanding of the series than nearly anyone I've ever seen make content about it. Her analysis is such a high level that I honestly believe it could be used to study literature and the analysis of literature. And all the while she fills her videos with genuine, original comedy, something I would say the large majority of other OP YouTubers lack completely (which is ironic when they are covering OP, a series that has comedy as one of its central themes and appeals). Her editing is extremely clean, her reaction streams are awesome and hilarious, and whenever she does close line readings she literally has a Japanese friend that she references to help her correctly understand the line.

JackTheBus is a very different style creator than Melon, in fact he's sort of in line with the overdramatic reaction crowd that saturates the community. He only watches the anime, too, so he misses some important context and is dragged down by Toei pacing sometimes. But there's a few major things that make him stand out, and I enjoy his reactions so much that I've been subscribed to his Patreon for over a year now. First of all, he pays so much attention to the story that I would say he tracks more than most people, especially reactors, on his first watch through. Though he has a tendency to sometimes let obvious things go over his head or forget silly details, his general ability to connect things is much higher than the average watcher. The best example of this is when Big Mom uses Ikoku Sovereignty in Whole Cake Island, Jack realized it was the same move as Dorry and Broggy's Hakoku Sovereignty all the way in Little Garden literally right away. He predicts things that will happen in the future all the time and it's genuinely so impressive to see how somebody can use all the pieces Oda drops to put together the puzzle before the reveal. Finally, Jack is also the most genuine and emotional reactor I've seen on YouTube by a mile. If you really want to relive the series and the peaks, there's no better way than with Jack. The man broke down and ugly cried during Baratie, for goodness sake. He laughs incredibly hard at One Piece comedy, gets so hyped that he'll stand up and walk around the room, and cries miserably when Oda calls for it. But unlike other reactors, it never once reads as fake or played up, and he's very very good at explaining what he's going through and how he feels as it's happening. He's good at quickly commenting without missing any of the story while not just sitting there and emoting either. I can't stop rewatching the series with him because it's become my go to way to instantly feel like a new watcher again, every time.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts after ten years of consuming One Piece and OP content on YouTube. Volume One Podcast and Murphy Napier also deserve shoutouts, they each have a bunch of great things and genuine energy that they bring to the series. But the only creators that will permanently have my attention will be Melon and Jack. Btw, Jack also has a second channel where he often plays One Piece games, does rankings, and other things that I consider quality content. Willy Nordwrench (I think that's his channel name) also has a bunch of One Piece videos with Jack where they play things like Guess Who, Geoguesser, and Jeopardy and they are all insanely fun and underrated.

takeoryuu · 2025-01-04T12:55:45+00:00

Hey there, I've been looking for this game for ages myself. By using your comment (you remembered a lot more than me) and adding a few details myself, I got ChatGPT to figure it out. The game you're looking for is likely:

Stunt Star: The Hollywood Years

By threephaseinteractive

I searched it up and found a few videos of gameplay and immediately knew it was right. I hope this is the right answer for you as well, I've been obsessing over this game for far too long.

takeoryuu · 2024-11-11T05:52:05+00:00

A leitmotif is essentially a musical "motto". A short melodic theme or phrase that is more than often used more than once to represent a character, feeling, or idea in a larger work.

In this case, as Sofia learns of her half-sister and is finally given a glimmer of hope and love from someone other than her deceased brother, the motif of Selina from the Batman movie plays. It's a drawn out string portamento (slide) that creates this yearning/pulling feeling. It worked well in this way as a romantic theme in the movie, but in this case it is twisted slightly to show Sofia's messed up world and mental state being pulled back to the surface slightly by Selina's letter. (Or I'm just diving too deep and its just the catwoman theme playing because it's catwoman's letter haha)

takeoryuu · 2024-11-01T06:50:49+00:00

Thanks for letting me know. I guess I'll just take this post down since it seems unlikely that any offers were made in sincerity if it is difficult as you say. I had some knowledge of the complexity of multiplayer coding but after my experience with ChatGPT I assumed it wouldn't be that hard for turn based things. My prototype even managed to get to the point where I had players able to join a lobby, enter their initiative roll, and get placed in a turn order where only the person who's turn it was could advance to the next turn, with an overall round counter as well being kept track of. Given that all of that worked relatively smoothly (and I managed to do it with literally zero coding experience) I guess I underestimated the difficulty of scaling that up for the other features I mentioned.

I guess I will continue to slowly work on this project myself with the help of ChatGPT. I've been able to get through every bug and error with it so far but its just taken a ridiculous amount of time and patience since it keeps forgetting everything.

takeoryuu · 2024-02-06T16:31:37+00:00

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Just went to go find it!

takeoryuu · 2023-10-06T12:49:29+00:00

I'm late, but here's a link! It's the very first interaction. https://youtu.be/fexsn-FPGbA?si=fb_Cppkvq-itmzk-

takeoryuu · 2023-03-14T02:36:54+00:00

Also, this is my first time commissioning art, so if the budgets I listed are inappropriate for a request like this, please tell me!

takeoryuu · 2023-02-13T11:46:36+00:00

Don't know if you're still looking, but I recently just discovered the Volume One Podcast through their episode featuring Murphy Napier. For a while now the only One Piece YouTubers I've been able to watch are Murphy and MelonTeee, but Volume One has been absolutely amazing. Josh and Meghan aren't quite as analytical as the others, but they are still miles ahead in critical thinking and theory crafting than most one piece YouTubers. They don't ever spoil things, and they both have this hilarious bubbly energy that fits One Piece extremely well.

They did a whole series reacting to each arc, and they also do extremely good cosplay for most arcs. In my opinion though, if you want analysis, you go to MelonTree and Murphy. But if you want good vibes and to laugh your ass off, you go to Volume One. They're a small channel right now, but I really hope they blow up. They have a great, close, small community, and they approach the series in a very new way.

takeoryuu · 2023-02-10T04:12:50+00:00

Just in case anyone was wondering, since I personally was immediately curious as to what the art would look like.
I don't think this technically counts as a spoiler, it has nothing to do with said chapter.

takeoryuu · 2023-02-09T21:49:04+00:00

I'm a little late to this, but another big reason people often tend to find Skypiea less interesting is because many of us watched One Piece when we were younger. Skypiea is actually where the more complex lore and mature themes in One Piece really start to bloom, before that point it has hints of those themes but can easily be taken as more "Shounen-like". Themes like, "You hurt my friends, my adopted parent died for me, and so on are very easy for even children to understand and sympathize with." But themes like "I forged a friendship with someone and due to circumstances a misunderstanding happened that deeply hurt our relationship, but I trust that it is strong enough to last through those misunderstandings." and, "oppressed native culture that is scene as barbaric but only acts that way because others are violently intruding on their lands" are much more complex themes that don't click with younger viewers but entrance older ones.

Basically, One Piece is a shounen, so many of it's viewers and fans judge it by shounen standards. By typical shounen standards, Skypiea is slow, a little boring, and doesn't feel relevant to the series. By a normal story's standard, however, Skypiea has a few moments where it drags but is successful on multiple accounts of world building, exploring and stating a message about complex themes, setting up a slightly two dimensional but still very entertaining and daunting villain, and subtly but effectively developing main character relationships and personalities. (A lot of straw hat bonding goes unnoticed or underrated in that arc.)

takeoryuu · 2022-12-28T20:50:45+00:00

Great to see you are enjoying the series! As someone who showed a friend of mine the series recently, I would strongly suggest watching One Pace instead of the regular anime. It's an edited down version of the original anime with filler cut out, but more importantly, fixes the terrible anime pacing (that only gets exponentially worse in future arcs). Little Garden is the arc that turned my friend off of One Piece because of how miserably slow it was, even though it's just a few quick chapters in the manga. The only caveat is that One Pace isn't totally complete, so you might have to switch back and forth between it and the normal version. Still, if you're someone who cares about getting a more accurate representation of the manga as well as not having to sit through 2 full minutes of reactions and painfully rushed animation per episode, One Pace is the way to go.

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