Episode 862, “Saul’s Pizzas are Ready”

Summary

Podcast Summary: The One Piece Podcast

Episode 862: “Saul’s Pizzas are Ready”
Date: March 31, 2025
Host: Zach (Maji Media)
Main Guests:

• Stephen Paul (One Piece translator)
• Sam Leach (Anime Recap Host)
• Ken O’Connor (“Internet Presence,” Yamato fan)

---

Overview

This episode dives into One Piece manga Chapter 1144: “A Time for Warriors”, discusses the imminent return of the One Piece anime after a hiatus, examines character dynamics and lore around Elbaf, and explores fan theories and questions. There’s an especially rich focus on the chapter’s new revelations about ancient Elbaf technology, dream monsters causing chaos, and ongoing subplots with both villains and heroes stepping forward. The cast’s signature banter and humor rounds out the analysis alongside a detailed Piece Together Q&A section.

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Episode Structure & Discussion Points

1. Introductions & Banter (01:31–05:28)

• The crew welcomes Stephen Paul, Sam Leach, and Ken O’Connor.
• Light jabs at Sam’s "catchphrase" and Ken’s multitude of on-show epithets.
• Running jokes about recurring guests and future appearances.
• Zach teases the show’s “ASMR” vibes for the episode.

2. Anime Hiatus & Return (05:14–10:45)

• The One Piece anime returns after a six-month break.
  • The team reminisces about previous hiatuses.
  • Sam jokes about “forgetting how to podcast anime recaps.”
  • Visual gags: Sam’s “Robin Williams in Jumanji” beard.
  • The anime is expected to resume at the Egghead material (after the Kuzan vs. Garp battle).
• Speculation about animation quality and possible changes.
  • Jokes about remastered vs. original Fishman Island animation.
  • Zach and others lament the persistence of bad art in certain scenes (“that Luffy”).

3. Manga Volume 111 & SBS Antics (10:45–11:17)

• Zach receives Volume 111, teases an upcoming SBS recap.
• Praise for the current SBS batch, with mock relief at its comparative lack of “horny” questions.
• Sanji’s heart-eyes panel gets a playful mention:
  Stephen (11:01): "Now you’re going to make me. You can make me—"
  Zach (11:03): "I’m going to make you a liar is what I’m saying."

4. Manga Recap: Chapter 1144 “A Time for Warriors” (12:36–64:11)

a. Cover Story & Card Game Tidbit (12:36–17:24)

• Oda’s note about actor MacKenYu haunting his office to play the One Piece card game, sparking jokes about his enthusiasm.
• Discussion of the cover story: Yamato’s adventure liberates kidnapped girls with help from Tama and Minatomo.
  • Jokes about Minatomo (the carpenter) connections and nose-hair trivia.

b. Ancient Giant Technology Revealed (21:03–29:06)

• Frankie, Lilith, Bonnie, and Ripley discover an ancient technological structure deep in Elbaf.
  • Comparisons to Laputa, Star Wars, “Promised Neverland.”
  • Lilith’s estimate: the facility is 3,000 years old, predating the Void Century by ~2,000 years.
• Speculation on timelines, lost civilizations, cycles of ancient kingdoms, and Elbaf’s unique records.

c. Dream Monsters Attack Elbaf (29:33–60:32)

• The village is menaced by “Sleep Tid” monsters, conjured from children’s worst fears (visually marked with child-drawn motif boxes).
  • Notable panels: The living lightning cloud; the Draugr; a Fenrir wolf.
  • Memorable moment: Brooke jokes about a giant skeleton being “an enormous me” (33:46).
• The giants scramble to protect the village, barring the Straw Hat crew from fighting (noble cultural tradition).
  • Nami is emotionally stirred, wants to help save the abducted children.
• Saul tries to corral the sleepwalking kids, but they’re “thorned” with Summers’ powers; chaos ensues.
  • “If you stop one, the others damage each other with their spikes.” (48:17)
• The monsters’ designs and threat level become focal points.
• Dorry and Brogy finally make a triumphant entrance with their dual attack, Hakoku Sovereignty, to save the day (58:28).
  • “Sorry for taking so long. We had to puke up all we drank.” (59:59)
• Scopper Gabon makes a cameo, prompting multiple theories about his role.

d. Holy Knights Antics & Theories (41:47–45:54, 96:21)

• Gunko (Holy Knight) is highlighted:
  • Listening to “New World,” a Straw Hats song, on her tone-dial headphones (43:41).
  • Her greatest fear is Nika, but she’s a Soul King/Brook fan—sparking speculation about her motives and affiliations.
  • Summer and Killingham’s dynamics are played for laughs and villainous contrast.

5. Piece Together Segment (90:26–113:34)

a. Community Q&A Highlights

• Various listener-fueled questions about:
  • Straw Hats’ hypothetical Tinder bios
  • Gunko’s potential as an undercover Revolutionary Army mole (96:21, theorized based on design, behavior, lack of "Saint" title, and goggle motif)
  • The “realness” of dream monsters—are they corporeal? (101:46)
  • Gunko’s pantsless design (again!), and in-universe reactions
  • Elbaf’s hierarchical structure and the possible presence of traitors (e.g., King Harald)

b. Notable Quotes (with timestamps)

• Stephen on Elbaf’s tradition (100:24):

  “It goes to the classic European, northern European trope of guest rights... If you’re a guest in someone’s house, it’s like a sacred gesture.”

• Sam on recent chapters (69:29):

  “I kind of loved this chapter, like, a lot... The 3,000 years bit is great intrigue since we’ve been so focused on the 800 years ago Void Century for so long.”

• Ken, theorizing about villain plans (110:17):

  “Harald was trying to make the entire country pacifist and not want to fight. If you take out that superpower by pacifying them all... I think Harald is bad personally.”

• Zach on the monsters’ design (78:27):

  “Love all of the kids’ creations. They’re so fun to just see causing havoc... the lettering really added another level of fun to it.”

c. Funniest Moments

• Repeated jokes about Sam’s literally horizontal podcasting position (120:44).
• The Straw Hat crew being “babysitters” to young giants, especially “adorable” Colin and cultural guest-rights.
• Endless jokes about Gunko’s missing pants, and which character (mom, Nika, Obahan) will show up as a dream monster.

---

Flow & Tone

• Friendly banter: The hosts regularly riff on each other’s catchphrases and running gags, skewering both the manga/anime and themselves.
• Insightful but irreverent: In-depth analysis is often punctuated by quick-witted asides, such as analyzing kids’ handwriting in monster boxes, or mocking anime remasters.
• Engaged with audience: Listener theories (“Blue Skypiea” and “Dis Piece” segments) are mined for speculation, and chatty, conversational responses dominate.

---

Key Timestamps

• 01:31 – Main episode opens, host/guest introductions
• 05:14 – Anime returns from hiatus: reactions, expectations
• 12:36 – Manga Recap (start): card games, cover story explained
• 21:03 – Discovery of ancient Elbaf technology
• 29:33 – Weird dream monsters, child-fear boxes, battle chaos
• 33:46 – Brook’s "enormous me" joke, character reactions
• 41:47 – Holy Knights segment (Gunko’s music taste, villain dynamics)
• 58:28 – Dorry & Brogy’s Hakoku Sovereignty double attack
• 69:29 – Overall chapter reflections and meta-analysis
• 90:26 – Piece Together (fan Q&A) begins
• 96:21 – Gunko = Revolutionary Army mole? Theory highlight
• 110:17 – Potential traitors/hidden agendas in Elbaf arc
• 120:44 – Sam’s couch pose and host outro bits

---

Notable Quotes (MM:SS)

• (11:01) Stephen: “Now you’re going to make me—You can make me—"
• (33:46) Brook (as read by Sam): “Is it an enormous me?”
• (43:41) Summers: “It’s Gunko’s post meal ritual.” [Discussing Gunko’s headphones and music habits]
• (69:29) Sam: “I kind of loved this chapter, like, a lot... the science lab at the beginning was super interesting.”
• (100:24) Stephen: “It definitely goes to the classic European, northern European trope of guest rights... being welcomed means that... the host is sworn before all honor that they are not going to just kill you in your sleep.”

---

Takeaways & Final Thoughts

• Elbaf Lore Deepens: The reveal of 3,000-year-old giant tech will likely have major endgame implications.
• Dream Monsters as Commentary: Clever use of children’s fears (with manga-unique font/art) gives visual and thematic depth.
• Villains with Quirks: The Holy Knights—particularly Gunko—are both menacing and comic, highlighted by odd fixations (music, pants).
• Team Dynamics: The Straw Hats’ exclusion from battle highlights Elbaf’s traditions, Usopp’s yearning to participate, and Nami’s compassion.
• Speculation Abounds: Theories about moles (Gunko or Harald), dream monster mechanics, and future plot twists fill the fan segment.
• Strong Character Moments: Saul gets a heroic spotlight, Brooke’s fame becomes briefly plot-relevant, and Colin charms as an aspiring kid captain.

---

If you missed the episode:
Expect a mix of deep manga analysis, ongoing fandom gags, and a lively Q&A that twists One Piece lore in community-driven directions—all seasoned with the hosts’ signature warmth and quick wit.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is the One Piece podcast episode 862 for March 31, 2025. My name is Zach and on today's show we have very special guest. He's the translator for One Piece in weekly Shonen Jump in manga. Plus we have Stephen Paul with us. How's it going, Stephen?

[C]

Hey, I'm impressed that you got through that whole intro without giving up on it.

[B]

I'll give up on it all.

[C]

10 seconds.

[B]

I commit to the bit, Steven. We also have here on a nice chill, calm episode of the One Piece Podcast, Anime recap host Sam Leach. How's it going, Sam?

[A]

Hello, anime.

[B]

That is your catchphrase. And last but not least, we have.

[A]

Ken o', Connor, my hello nurse.

[B]

Yeah, Ken o'. Connor, Yamato fan. Other epithets, I'm sure. How's it going, Ken?

[D]

I have many titles. I am friend of the show. I do many things. And thank you Zach for having me on today, this very chill March 31st. Opp.

[B]

It's an ASMR episode that we're doing this week.

[C]

Was it Ken that we called Internet presence?

[B]

Yes, yes.

[D]

I have so many titles from the show now that I can't keep track of it.

[B]

Well, you did make it this March, just in time. You made it on the podcast.

[D]

The very last day of this March.

[B]

The very last day of this March. But we also hope to have you on next March whenever the hell that.

[D]

Is a year from now.

[B]

So it's not 2027 like this coming March is going to.

[C]

So here's the we're gonna have him next April though.

[D]

On April 1st it'll be is that next April?

[B]

Is next April. Okay?

[D]

We are not tormenting the People listening to this again.

[B]

How old is this joke now? Several years old.

[D]

Three years old now, I think. Yeah.

[B]

Is that.

[A]

On Opposite Day?

[B]

Thank you, Sam. On today's show, we're going through. I'm still in my calm mode. We're coming through chapter 1144. We also have some piece together, all sorts of it. I will also remind people that as long as Skype is available, you could also leave us a voicemail. 347497 Maji. That's 347-497-6254. Call anytime with the questions, comments and theories and I'll do a funnier version of that at the end of the show. Please also subscribe to us at [e-mail] One Piece podcast. We have exclusive shows like Forced to Watch 4 Kids. We have alternate title and titles and images, including from the great Joey Weiser, whose book is out now, the Littlest Fighter. That is his newest book. Please pick it up if you have. Not big thanks to Joey, who's not here, but we will deliver him onto him episode titles this week once we come up with them. And I'm sure you already know what it is. We don't, but you do. So you could check out those alternate titles and alternate images. They're all available on Patreon. Just $5 a month and you get all that and a lot more. Before we get into all that though, Sam, it is about to be your time for your famous catchphrase. And what is that, Sam?

[A]

He's blinking.

[B]

I just said it.

[A]

I'm scrambling. I'm scrambling. What's the bit?

[B]

Five minutes ago.

[A]

I can't use the same catchphrase twice in a row.

[B]

Yeah, that's what a catchphrase is. A catchphrase is something you repeat.

[A]

Simply. Still trying to come up.

[B]

Oh my God. Okay, the anime is coming back, everyone. The anime is coming back. It's been since October.

[D]

October, yeah.

[B]

So six months. Because I know that's my half birthday. So October, when you used to keep track of these things as a five year old. So, Sam, how do you feel about finally diving back into the One Piece anime?

[A]

It feels very similar to when the anime went on hiatus. I think during COVID I had a decent sized break. And then when it finally came back, my main feeling is like, I don't know if I'm ready. I don't know if. I don't know if I have it in me anymore. I don't know if I'm that person anymore. What if. What if I Don't know how to talk anymore. What if I've lost that?

[B]

Well, this is the practice for that. So this is you warming up.

[A]

Yeah, but it's like learning a bike. You, like, forget it once and you never get it back.

[B]

That sounds right.

[D]

Wait, that's not how the expression goes.

[B]

I think that's exactly how the expression goes. That's why his catchphrase is anime. Or a different word that he phrase.

[A]

Japanimation.

[B]

Japanimation. Is that your new one? You've already changed it.

[C]

I will say, you know, listeners, you can't see this, but Sam is sporting the Robin Williams in Jumanji look right now. He's got the beard going. He's ready to ask what year it is. You know, he's. He's.

[B]

He won't be happy when he hears the answer.

[C]

Yeah. When he. When he steps back into the anime role.

[B]

I've always wanted my very own Robin Williams from Jumanji, so I'm glad we have Sam Leach with us. It's going to be episode 1123, Sam from memory. Do you remember where we left off in the anime that I. I think I know the answer to this.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We were just finishing up the Kuzan vs Garp on full Lead Island.

[B]

I think we're returning to the egghead material.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, the proper egghead material. Like, actually on egghead. I saw the episode preview came out, I was, like, expecting, looks good. It does. But I was for some reason expecting now it looks completely different. But, I mean, that doesn't make sense.

[A]

Yeah, I know. I know what you mean. Yeah.

[B]

Because it's just like, oh, we did this thing for the first time. It's gonna look completely different.

[A]

Yeah. They spent that whole six months just getting, you know, 20 episodes ready, and they all look amazing. And, you know, they completely different show.

[B]

They could be ahead of the game now, but they most definitely.

[A]

Probably they're a little bit ahead of the game.

[B]

Yeah. I bet you, though, they get back to that normal.

[C]

Like, what if it just looks like. Like Fishman island again. Like, they just go back.

[A]

Like, not even.

[C]

Not even.

[A]

Yeah, not even remastered Fishman Island. They're like, all right, everyone. Everyone said the. Everyone said the remaster was mid. So we're.

[B]

We're going back doing it.

[A]

We're going back.

[B]

Speaking of, I saw someone screen cap that. That really terrible Robin pose where her proportions make no sense was not changed in the fish. I know this is what people want to hear. Was not changed in the special edition of the Fishman island.

[D]

Apparently they changed her face but not the rest of. Like they re animated her face, but the rest of her body.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, no, the problem was leaving anime directors in charge of that who are male.

[A]

Apparently. They cut out the Luffy. The. The infamous Luffy. They just like.

[B]

Thank God. Thank God. And I know that that Luffy is getting around. I see on our discord people posting about that Luffy all the time just to make me angry. I assume.

[A]

Does the wick. Is that still the wiki's picture?

[B]

I hope not. I hate. Have I mentioned on this podcast before?

[D]

Oh yeah, several times. You hate that Luffy.

[B]

It's the one you see there.

[A]

It is like old friend on the wiki.

[D]

Like. Like an old friend.

[B]

Like an old horror movie that you used to watch when you were a child and is kind of imprinted on the back of your brain. So the anime is coming back. There's also gonna be, I think a 40 something minute special the day before. So Saturday in the US and Sunday in the US is. Or when those. The retrospective and the new episode come out respectively. The day before. I'm sorry, the day. And now I'm getting all confused. Wait, it's in the future in Japan, so. Oh, does that mean comes out Saturday morning or Sunday morning Here it's gonna.

[A]

Be our Sunday mornings now.

[D]

When will then be now?

[B]

When will March be next? Anyway, the one other little piece of one piece news. I got my volume 111. We're gonna probably do that during the next break, I assume. Although I'm sure they'll. I'm sure you and Greg will also be champing.

[C]

Yeah, I guess it probably depends. Yeah.

[A]

What.

[C]

What we end up doing.

[B]

I finally did listen to the SGS from the previous week and once again, fantastic. That story. I. I don't know if I quite had the same reaction as Greg, the episode, the. The titular story from the sgs, but definitely listen to it. I don't want to spoil any of that. Yeah. So I look Forward to the 111. I. I. The 111 recap. I'm looking forward to that.

[C]

It's a good. Yeah, it's a good SBS batch that we get in this volume.

[B]

I've really not.

[C]

I don't. I don't think there was. I don't think there was a single horny question in it, which was kind of shocking.

[B]

But I see Sanji with heart eyes. That's like the first thing that I opened up to.

[C]

Now. You're gonna make me. You can make me.

[B]

I'm gonna make You a liar is what I'm saying.

[C]

Let's just start doing the segment, right.

[B]

No, no. Gotta close the. I'll close the book after I'm done reading. I think we could get into the manga. You all ready?

[D]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Okay.

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[B]

This is the manga recap for chapter 1144, a time for warriors. I think there was a song in the 70s about this. You could read this. That's for the boomers listening. You can read this chapter and all chapters as soon as they come out at Shonen Jump, Viz.com and MangaPlus Shueisha Co JP before we get started, I think Adil brought this to my attention. He posted on Our Blue sky, which by the way, if you haven't, please follow us@one piece podcast.com over there. The comment this week, McKenu comes by the studio every now and then and plays the One Piece card game with my staff. He sure likes it. The way that's written makes me think, like, why won't he leave my damn office? Yeah, that's the resonance. Like, oh God, he's here again. Playing the card game. I'm trying to write a chapter.

[C]

Boy, he sure does love that game. God damn it.

[B]

I was telling Ken yesterday I was at the Japanese shopping store complex in New Jersey, right near New York, right near the city. And they had a, like, permanent installment for the One Piece card game. People doing tournaments and stuff, which for me, having not gotten out of the house enough is. Was like super. Just generally was like, whoa. Every time I see One Piece in like, such a ubiquitous way like that I like, flashback to myself 15 years ago and like, how is this possible? It's really cool. And McKenu is apparently also doing that, so. Good for him. Any other comments on McKenu bothering Oda while he's trying to work?

[C]

Not particularly.

[B]

I have no proof about that, but I'm almost positive.

[A]

Well, that's a story he shared once, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah, that Makenyu bothers him or that.

[A]

They played one piece cards. And.

[B]

Yeah, he shared that before. And I think he's also shared that his studio is near his house or in his house, so that I just assume he's like, I'm gonna stay for dinner too, and, you know, just laugh.

[C]

I mean, I'm sure he thinks it's cool that, you know, there's a, there's a card game that you can play and stuff. But I am really curious, like, what does Oda like when he sees the cards? Does he. Is he like, man, I wish I had drawn the illustration for these cards. Or is he like, wow, it's so cool that people are doing all these different styles? Like, I'm just really curious as to what he feels about the, the look of the cards and everything, because no.

[D]

Oda takes one look at the cards, like, wow, Sam Leach can do so much better. I wish he was doing it on a side project for me.

[B]

I.

[A]

That is an inside.

[B]

Yeah. I'm not even addressing it because I don't understand it. I, I'm a little torn. And he could. I feel like it could be either way because Oda is very competitive, as I know Greg has mentioned many a.

[A]

Time, he's drawn at least one card.

[B]

Yeah, no, he definitely for the card. But I also, I'm sure, like, there is a, there is a sort of flattery when someone draws something from something.

[A]

I mean, like, it's, it's, it's like, you know, I'm sure he gets, he loves seeing all the pictures that come in for, like, Usopp Gallery. And.

[B]

Yeah, he definitely does. And I'm sure it's kind of that feeling that you would get. It's not like they're trying to compete with him there. If anything, they're prop. I think his competitiveness is about one piece as a whole. So I feel like as long as one piece is rocking it, he is like, he's like, I'm showing you one piece.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You're watching or reading it.

[C]

Yeah. I think I do get the feeling that if he, if he has any of that kind of like internalized anxiety about One Piece. It is in terms of the success and not so much of like they're taking it away from me. Like I need to reassert my control over this series or whatever because I feel like he's pretty.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

You know, he's, he's very comfortably in control as far as square one.

[B]

Well, they also have the spin off series like One Piece In Love and the other one and whatever the girl called. Yeah, the high school one. Yeah. And. And he's fine with that going on. It doesn't affect him. If anything, I think those things he. I'm sure he's thinking this helps build my audience in some way or build off of my audience or keep them engaged, which I know that's like all of Greg's 80 page treatise, which. Please check out the end of one piece@one piece podcast.com. but we have to talk about the only thing Ken is able to talk about, the COVID page this week.

[D]

I'm only here for the COVID page. This is Ogre Child Yamato's golden harvest surrogate pilgrimage, volume 29, Minatomo the carpenter. And the girls are freed and we have basically that. We have Yamato standing above all the different girls we heard kidnapped earlier on. We have Tama freeing Minatomo. All the other of the, I guess the ex Beast pirates or the who's who pirates now are just on the ground defeated. And that wrapped up pretty quickly, honestly, after just a beating in the last story.

[B]

That's all you need. Punch racists. Isn't that the.

[D]

Oh, exactly.

[B]

Yeah. Speaking of. Well, first of all, Yamato once again, big boy.

[D]

Gigantic.

[B]

Gigantic. Yeah. Towering over everyone. Also, where's who's whose corpse or body that's passed out in a corner. Suspicious fight again. It's always. I. I just get a kick out of the fact that Minatomo, who I know is not technically the Minatomo from volume one, fixing the door from the sbs.

[A]

Well, it's like his like cousin from one.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. That bothers me a little. But the rest of it is funny that this car, this character, this guy character has like, he's still in the story.

[C]

And so I, I don't remember seeing this before. This might have been a constant detail that I just completely glossed over. But just looking at this image here, I realized that like, you know, it sort of looks like he's wearing little ribbons on his kimono, like on the, the breast and the, the shoulders. But that is actually the kanji Dai, which is like big. And that is the word in the word for daiku, which is carpenter. So that's, you know, it's sort of like his little, you know, work uniform. I guess he's got to get those.

[B]

Nails out of his nose. That does not seem safe.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What if they're nose hairs? Like, like, you know what?

[B]

They probably are like, yeah, like. Like old Roger, you know, I kind of wish that was still canon. It would take all the power scalers down a little notch, I think. Although probably wouldn't.

[C]

I mean, I think he still considers it canon.

[B]

I bet you he does.

[C]

Even if he's drawn. Yeah, even if he's drawn Roger differently, he'll probably still say, like, oh, no, they still go in his nose.

[B]

He gets sexier and sexier, but that's still nose hair coming out of his nose.

[A]

Some of the. Some of the mustache is nose hair. It just. It's like, kind of weaves into the. The rest of it.

[B]

This just makes me think of Wanze, though, with the noodles coming out of his nose.

[D]

Yeah, I like the. The one girl in the background there is, like, kissing Yamato's hand. Like, kiss the ring. Like, I don't know which. I don't know what she's doing there, but she's, like, holding out. Holding Yamato's hand.

[B]

And, like, I think it's like, whoa, you're so big. Let me look at your hand and knuckles. Whoa. Your knuckles the size of my entire face. I have no idea what's going on.

[D]

And Yamato also has the sword back, too, the one that the whole pilgrimage is wore.

[B]

So at least Yamato is in his cover story now, a thing that has not really been the case. Anyway, is one of these the one. The Chuji women?

[C]

How can you tell?

[B]

Fair. Yeah, I thought the one in the middle might have been. But you know what? It's. Everyone has the same hairstyle in Wano. Anyway, let's start the chapter.

[D]

All righty. Starting off here, we have Frankie exclaiming.

[B]

Whoa, what is this?

[D]

And then Ripley. Well, what do you think it is, idiot?

[B]

And we are Believe it or Not.

[D]

Oh, my God. Ripley's Believe it or Not.

[B]

Yeah, I made that joke, like, six times already, so it's not okay. I wasn't expecting a real reaction. I was expecting a groan.

[D]

You know what, Zach? Anyway, we are presented with a panel here of a giant. I took this originally as it looked like a giant robot. Like the. Like almost like a giant robot that's been, like, hollowed out and carved.

[A]

It makes me think about like Nier Automata.

[C]

Yeah. I was gonna say it's very Laputa esque.

[D]

That's what I was saying.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I love this panel.

[B]

It's a really. So this, so this is another rare occasion. I think we had one kind of recently actually where the first page is like, you know, it gets released on Friday and I looked at him like, oh my God, this chapter is going to be amazing if this is what it looks like. Cuz this is just, this is just my jam. I didn't know what the hell was happening, but I'm like, yes, this actually. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

[C]

Even the, the, that little like roll the, the rounded structure in the front looks very Star wars esque to me too. Like just kind of the, the, the way that the details are hidden in the, you know, in the rounded part is very Star wars esque.

[B]

It's, I mean I think I've mentioned before, I mean it's almost like a CM repeat. Like for those who don't know the Cambodian. I was just looking at pictures of this today as far as my head, but like the trees growing out of temples. If I think if you've watched on I'm sorry played Uncharted, it's, it's that kind of vibe. It's referencing things. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

[A]

Makes me think about just like the, the, the stark kind of background quality that the art had in like Punk Hazard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where there was like, like they were really playing with like the really harsh shadows a lot in, in this very kind of like detailed, beautiful way.

[B]

I, I, it also kind of reminded me of the promised Neverland manga. I don't know if, if like this stuck like it. That's like one of the first things that occurred to me that I think they, I think there's a leader arc where everyone's in a tree for some reason and I, I think that I don't know the, the artist for that. I'm, I'm a big fan of and I know is active I think on social media. Even though I know people have opinions and that's fine. I think it's mostly a pretty good manga anyway. I could talk about this for a while.

[D]

Yeah. Let me continue. So before we dive too deep. Ripley continues it's been here for ages and Frankie, it looks like pure science to me. Thank you Frankie for that excellent observation. Ripley laughs and says, see, I figured a mechanical man like you would enjoy it more than anyone else. And then Frankie exclaims again, what's a facility like this doing in Kingdom of Warriors. And then next page, we have Lilith and Bonnie. Hey, up here. Frankie. I'm glad you found this place. I was gonna tell you about it later. And then Bonnie chimes in. It's really cool inside, Frankie. And Frankie responds.

[C]

Lilith.

[D]

Bonnie? What are you two doing there? We got lost. Thank you for having us.

[B]

You were doing the Fred Flintstones?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Bonnie.

[B]

Bonnie.

[C]

Bonnie.

[D]

My pebbles. Lilith says, we got lost. And Bonnie says, thank you for finding us. And then even a genius me bad directions, I guess. Ripley continues I'm glad we ran across you then. I've been hearing alarms in the distance, so there's probably danger in the woods. And Lilith says, anyway, listen to this. I can hardly believe this place. By my estimation, this building stood here for at least three millennia.

[B]

So she could do carbon dating, but she can't find her way in the woods. I just want to.

[C]

Does this mean, like, is. Did Lilith get Vegapunk's, like, ADHD or something? Is that what we're.

[B]

That's what I think, yeah.

[A]

I mean, that's what makes her so evil.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

To be fair, geographic memory is kind of a separate thing. I get that, but it. But also, hasn't he invented gps? I feel like at this point, or something like it.

[C]

Whatever. Yeah.

[A]

I would defeat Nami's dream if he had beaten her to the punch.

[B]

Oh, that'd be a twist.

[D]

Nami. Here you go. Here's a map of the entire world. Harry did it for you and you.

[B]

Just see, like, the Disappointed anime face.

[C]

Yeah, that's Nami's like, generative AI art.

[B]

Wow, that's.

[D]

You're Nami. You can color it in. Just stay inside the lines. You can finish it up. Frankie continues. What? Don't lie to me. Do you realize how ancient that makes it? And then Ripley says, I can't say she's wrong, though. Even in Elbaf, we have no record of what this building is. So it's been around for over, if not more than 3,000 years.

[B]

Yeah. So the more we get into Elbaf, the more I want, like, I know Greg did many years ago, like a timeline of the series on for his website. I. This. The. The more we get into this arc, the more I'm like, okay, now I want things like, actually written down, and if I had time, I would do it. Yeah. So this is definitely predates by two millennia, the Void Century, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And are we like, you know, a very clean way for Oda to do it is that it's Like a millennia per era.

[C]

Right. Something like that. It definitely makes you think. Right? It definitely is, I think, intended to make you think, like, okay, this is from. This is from like whatever that first industrial, you know, civilization is that we see in the mural. In the mural? Yeah, with the. The big buildings and smokestacks and.

[B]

Actually, I didn't even look at the mural. If anything that looks vaguely like this is in there, and I probably should, and I will.

[C]

I don't think. I mean, I don't think anything specific that you would be able to point to and say this is the same motif as this.

[B]

But was that 107?

[D]

We know the ancient kingdom was a highly advanced kingdom. So if this is 3,000 years ago and there's nothing before that in the greater one piece timeline, it would make sense that, okay, this giant either. Either this was a building or this is a robot that they turned into a building or whatever. Like, this seems to be a remnant of the ancient. The original ancient kingdom before it.

[A]

Makes me wonder if there's like multiple generations of ancient kingdoms. Like there was an ancient kingdom that was a legend in our ancient kingdom's time.

[C]

Right?

[B]

It totally.

[A]

Because they're like a cycle of, you know, kingdoms coming and going and new ones.

[B]

I mean, that's how this world standing.

[A]

On top of it.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, the real world's like that with civilizations. I mean.

[A]

Yeah. Like, how many. How many. How many lost eras are just like under the ocean right now, right?

[C]

Yeah. That's why I tried. I avoided saying ancient kingdom because I think that specifically refers to, you know, the void century stuff. But I think this is probably, well, probably not directly related to that. This is probably just a completely different slice of time.

[B]

I mean, I'm just like. If you wanted to do, I guess you could say like one of those cogs or those machines at the bottom of the thing because they have that similar window. But like, yeah, I don't think there's enough here, obviously, but I know there's people out there who will examine that in detail. And usually that's me, but not. Not now.

[A]

Sam and Lilith is saying, well, then. Then that just makes it all the more worth studying. I think I'll settle down and live here. And then Frankie's like, are you sure you won't get lost? Anyway, let me check out the inside too. And then Bonnie's got a big shocked tongue, waggy face. And I'm not used to Frankie just like looking small next to somebody else. Right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

He's like, oh, what's the matter, Bonnie? And coming up behind them is a big lightning cloud. A big children's dream drawing thing. I like the. The. The info boxes are written as, like.

[B]

I like these paper I really like. And the father shows. If this was you. Yeah, Vanessa did a great. Vanessa.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. She did a great job with the. The making it look like the. That kids wrote the. The thing that they're afraid of.

[A]

Yeah. It's like if. If the school asked children to draw the thing they're afraid of and they give them a little, like, template with what I'm afraid of that you feel.

[B]

It's great. Yeah, I love all of that. Yeah.

[A]

And they feel like they feel like big Mom's homies a lot too.

[D]

Well, definitely this one does.

[B]

This one is very specifically like Big Mom's homie. Except less high. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess I didn't say more sober. I just said less high.

[A]

So it depends on. On what you're taking.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Behind you there's something creepy. And it's a big drawing of a living drawing of a lightning cloud with the nice little. The. The. This kind of splotchy gray. Gray tone, which is unusual for one piece. And it's. You know what? I'm afraid of lightning. And Frankie is like, you know, in shock. He's like, oh, Elbaf, the land of mystery and wonder. Huh? And then Ripley's like, nope, this is not normal, even to us. Let's go.

[C]

I don't know.

[D]

I don't know why Frankie. I don't like. Frankie is so shocked. Like, Nami carries around Zeus with her at all times. I don't know why a giant, like, yeah. Cloud is so, like.

[B]

Well, you could say that about anything.

[A]

But with the. With the children's drawing stylization, like, you. You can imagine that even to the characters this feels like it's coming from. It looks completely different reality.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I would like to imagine just. I'm just thinking of this because of the way it's drawn. But, like, when they animate this, I would love for them to use those lightning bolts as like, legs.

[A]

Like solid. Like solid objects.

[C]

Yeah, that would be a really cool way to do that.

[B]

I think that's kind of what. That's what I assumed was happening. Maybe that's just me.

[A]

It'd be cool if in the anime it was like, like stop motion or like, like, like an Eric Carlson kind of.

[B]

Or like an outside the lines drawing. Kind of like, you know, like, literally drawn outside the line. Like I.

[C]

Right. Like, it's from Two different programs, basically.

[B]

Right. And ODA also draws like, well, I mean, I guess a nine year old could draw pretty well.

[D]

What's that? That squiggle vision technique called.

[B]

Oh, squiggle vision.

[D]

Okay, never mind. There is do that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. An episode of home movies. Enter the Fray. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Dr. Katz.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, no, it's Dr. Katz. What I'm afraid of, that's what I'm afraid of.

[A]

And in the west, in the western village, some child was once afraid of something called a draugr. And the giants are, you know, telling orders to each other, sober up and grab your weapons. The fire fighting Savar is down. Looks like a draugr to me. And then very conveniently, they explain that that means it is a damn zombie and it's a big skeleton knight looking thing. Little, Little Dragon Quest monster looking dude.

[C]

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[B]

Yeah, great design we mentioned last time, but I do really like it.

[A]

And this, this, I assume this is a lady who's like, is this related to the children's daydream somehow? What's going on? Where are the captains? Someone needs to take command. They drank too much and they had to rush to the bathroom. What? And Brook is saying, this looks awfully familiar. Is it an enormous me?

[B]

I'm so happy to see that. I was so happy to see that. No, it's. It's amazing. But I. Because when I first saw it, I'm like, oh, it just looks so much like Brooke. But I bet you he won't react to it because Oda's been ignoring Brooke. But this chapter is such a good Brook chapter. This is. This is the first of the things I'm very happy about.

[A]

And as one of the giants is like, quick telling me, Usopp and company quick take the visitors away from the village. Ready? I'm gonna move the whole desk. And then Usopp saying, well, hold on, hold on. Don't treat us like with. With kid gloves. We want to fight too. We want.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

In the small bubble he says, we want to fight too. And then Jim Bag comments. You said that. Awfully quiet. Whatever this is, it doesn't seem like our like, business as usual for Elbaf. And Nami's got an ellipses. She's. She's got thoughts. And then somebody showing, no, Colin, you can't.

[C]

And on the next page, we do see Colin and he is beseeching someone as a child does like, hand. Hands on like the. The. The trousers of this other giant. He's tugging at beseeching. Yeah, why not? I'm a warrior too. I want to fight. And this adult giant says, of course you can't, but I'm the son of Gabon. He says, exactly. You're not Gabon. Almost Gabon means you weren't Gabon. That's. That's a joke for Steve, all right? And he. He just kind of tosses Colin aside. He just says, go find safety with the rest of the children and stay put. Got it. And Colin falls back. And meanwhile, Nami has realized something. She. You know what she was thinking about? And she says, hey, Jarl. And he turns around. What is it, girl? She says, there's something we need to tell you about. I'm sorry we didn't bring it up earlier. So some of the. The details that have not been shared, we realize, yeah, this is kind of an emergency, so we should probably make sure everyone is on the same page. And so a few moments later, we see Jarl is at the side of. You know, it's hard to tell, but you can tell from context. These are the two guards from the castle who are all bandaged up, who got messed up by Gunko. And he says, an intruder who looks like Red Hair in the castle. And the guards are saying, yes, sir. The pair were incredibly strong. One of them used strange powers. And Jim Bay, who does read the manga, says, the quickest answer to most mysteries in this world is a devil fruit of some kind, which is really, it's. It's almost fourth wall breaking for Oda to have him, you know, acknowledge that. But he continues, if these phenomena are unfamiliar to you, then there's a good chance that those folks are behind it all. So he basically, in short, yeah, Elbaf is mysterious. And there are some things that I think even we, the reader, don't quite understand yet about how all this seemingly magical stuff works on Elbaf. So we do have to kind of delineate that, yes, there is a line between what is just Elbaf and what is, you know, one piece in general, magical powers. And so Jarl points his finger. He says, inform the entire country that two humans unrelated to the Straw Hat crew have infiltrated. Tell me as soon as they're found. And this one guy runs off.

[D]

You got it, chief.

[C]

And then Brook sagely points out, because of course, there were. It was only Gunko and Shamrock who were in the castle, but now we know that there are two other people involved. And so Brooke is just kind of helping the story along by reducing confusion and pointing out, do you really think there are just two of them causing all of these strange phenomena? Perhaps we should expect more. And so Jarl revises at least two and they same guy. Okay, you got it.

[B]

You got Chief.

[C]

And meanwhile, Nami is, you know, she. She is all in a tizzy. She says, I don't know who these people are, but if they're abducting children in broad day, like they're despicable, we have to stop them. Very much in character for Nami to, you know, to want to protect, murder them. Yes. And Usopp is wondering, what are they going to demand from Elbaf once they've got the kids held hostage? I've never heard of an abduction like this. And Jarl says, it will not come to pass. They shall not pass.

[B]

So definitely has heard of an abduction like this because they were in punk hazard and. But whatever, you're right.

[C]

And so Jim Bay says, we'll help too. Just give us a ship and someone to move us around. But Yarrow refuses. He says, nonsense. You are our guests. Stay in hiding where it's safe. And like, probably Usopp here is going, but, but, but wait. And he's. And Jarl's wondering now, where are Dory and Brogy? And someone reports they're still in the bathroom, Chief. Bunch of lightweights.

[A]

We turn the page, Jim Bay is saying, well, if the. If the targets are human sized, we'll have an easier time looking for them. And Usopp says, yeah, exactly. Let the big guys fight the big guys. We'll search for the intruders. And then Brooke says, the problem is that Elbaf is too huge for us to cover. And Nami, just being the. The observant one, notices Cullen is pulling a big bag of weapons towards a. A little rowboat. And he's like, ugh.

[C]

And then he's making a childhood link from Ocarina of Time Sounds.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Dragging the. The puzzle blocks around.

[A]

And then like, he, like he's waiting for a reaction from the crew. He's like, huh? You're not gonna stop me. You want to come with me? This is the.

[B]

This is the most Vicki the Viking, Colin, right here in that panel. It's great. It's just very Vicky the Viking and.

[A]

With stars in his eyes. He's like, all right, then I'm the captain. And Nami is whispering to herself, like, oh, it's so adorable. She's just charmed by the child being a child.

[B]

Nami, he's 20 years old.

[A]

They are the same age.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, my God, they are. Yeah. He has been on this earth as long as you. That's the thing I don't understand about the aging thing. Like, are they learning slower? Like what's.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, look, I'm a kid. I'm a kid for 20 years.

[C]

Arrested development.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And we're off. Man the oars, call in pirates. And every time I read this bubble, I think we're talking about or is the giant and somebody's saying, but you're, you're the biggest one here. You do the rowing onward. He's not listening elsewhere. With our. Our Holy nights friends, we got the Gunko with. With some. With tone dial headphones, eyes closed, inner thoughts. Message to all the Sun World humans unrelated to the Straw Hat crew have been spotted at. At Alrust Castle. They have demonstrated overt hostility and are considered.

[B]

I thought you were singing that first.

[C]

Yeah, I, I.

[A]

For a moment there, I was like, wait a second. Is this, Is this, Are these the.

[B]

Lyrics of New World?

[A]

No, no, this is. They're listening in on the.

[B]

It's two different things happening here.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

On the Giants, although. Yeah, but not Google. Gucco is. She's listening to her music.

[D]

Gunka listens to Smell Yoho, that musical news outlet where they took like the news stories, made songs out of them.

[B]

Oh, that sounds awful.

[D]

You don't remember that from like years ago? Yeah, Backing up, backing up, backing up, backing up. Like those songs? No. Okay, Just me.

[C]

I was gonna say she's. She's listening to mtv, Jacka Jacka Jams.

[A]

And Summers, I think is, is the, the one saying, yeehah. It's Gunko's post meal ritual. And Gunko says, no, it's not a ritual. I just like doing it.

[B]

So we know it's not noise canceling headphones.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, dude, tds, huh? I prefer listening to live musical performance and whoever flubs the first note. Bang.

[B]

Yeah, it's a round of applause.

[A]

But it's nice to have a hobby you can carry around with you. What's. What's that song you like so much? And she answers, new World in big bold letters. And then Summer says, what, you got a problem with the one we already live in?

[C]

Don't.

[A]

And then why am I blanking on his name? Killingham. It's like, don't make fun of whether people like Summers let people enjoy things. And then Summers is like, oh, yeah. Oh, sorry about that. But hey, look, the adults are trying their hardest to save the kids.

[C]

He really is just, he's like the really annoying uncle who just won't shut up. Like, you know, you go to Thanksgiving and he's just constantly ribbing you about, like, oh, yeah, what's that song you like? Yeah, sounds gay. You know, like, just. He's so annoying.

[B]

Uncle Summers. Oh, my God, you're so embarrassing. What's the last record you listen? Well, no one says that. I do. I do want to. I do want to know. Since I don't know if we're going to talk about. Well, I'm sure we will. The new world thing. But it's funny that her greatest fear is on the straw hats. And probably her greatest idol is also of the straw hats.

[A]

What was her greatest fear?

[B]

Nika.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's very funny because we could see either and. Or both reactions from her. There are a lot of Achilles heels walking around the Highland for her, though. I'll say. Either way, super interesting.

[D]

Do you think this is telegraphing the eventual Gunko Brooke either, like, matchup or meet up? Like, what happened public.

[B]

Wait, are you shipping.

[D]

No, no, I'm not. I'm not shipping Gunko and Brooke. But, like, what happens when.

[B]

Oh, you're the AO3 get on it. The.

[A]

The public knows that Brooke is a straw hat, right?

[B]

Well, that's the question.

[D]

The Soul King poster is.

[B]

Oh, yeah, the poster. The poster.

[C]

They should. But whether Oda writes it that way or not.

[B]

Look, a good song's a good song. Well, she.

[A]

She's able to separate the art from the artist.

[D]

Gunko's gonna run into Brooke and, like, who are you? He's gonna put on the. The. The feather boa.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[D]

Soul King, like, No, I have no idea.

[B]

A skeleton with. To be fair, it could be anything.

[D]

It's the Clark Kent thing where he takes off the glasses like, oh, my God, Superman.

[B]

There is another giant brook walking around, so.

[D]

Exactly.

[C]

Yeah. I. I have seen people point out that this also potentially, you know, it's like, oh, well, why isn't she wearing pants? It's. You know, because Brooke is. You know, he's gonna be like, oh, can I see your. Oh, I already can see your. Your panties.

[A]

Oh, my God. It's.

[B]

They are a perfect match.

[D]

It's faded.

[B]

They are. You know what Kunko deserves. It deserves the horizon. She's pretty awful. She's in the midst of kidnapping children. I'll add though, that Summer's face is really captures what you mentioned, Stephen. That is like, on the bottom left, like, Chef's kiss awful. Yeah, like, God, I have met this Person, and I hate them. But also really good characterization, just generally. I think that's really great, Ken.

[D]

All right, our next page. Here we have Saul with two shields on his hands, like me with two oven mitts from taking a pizza out of the oven.

[B]

Oh, my God, it is. It's Ken. He's getting a pizza.

[D]

Exactly. And so I was like, there. This should keep me safe. Now I'm gonna stop him cold.

[B]

This is also what I say when I take pizza out of the oven.

[D]

We have Chopper and Robin, like, good luck, Saul. And then we have a panel here. This just reminds me of. Do you guys remember the video game Lemmings?

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[D]

So with all the children marching and they're all following the arrow, it's like he's trying to stop the lemmings from falling.

[B]

Are you just referring to lemmings, the creature? You don't have to refer to a video game about them when they're literally doing the thing that lemmings.

[A]

I mean, like, because he's got the profile. The far profile view.

[D]

Yeah, that's what I was more referring to.

[B]

I mean, it does look like a side scroller, to be fair.

[C]

Yeah, and the lemmings in the game are like little humanoids. They're not.

[D]

They're not.

[B]

Fine. You know, I'll leave, because I was being an asshole there for no reason. Go ahead.

[D]

Play more video games, Zach.

[B]

I am.

[D]

You're displaying Zelda. You need to expand your horizons. Animal crossing. New horizons.

[B]

I did play that. A lot of that.

[D]

All right, Saul continues. I can tell y' all are just following this stationary cloth thingy, and the cloth is heading right for the fire. You're gonna die if you keep going forward, so I'm gonna stop ya. And Saul gets in front of. Who's the first one here is Ylva, I think. And he puts the shields out in front, and the thorns appear around Ylva. And Sol goes, there. She stopped. But then as she stopped, the thorns are poking into her. And the children behind her are then poking into her thorns. And it's all kind of like a traffic jam, like, all kind of colliding.

[B]

Together and like an accordion of thorns.

[D]

And the children are screaming, ah. Eeek. And Saul's like. And on the next page. No, I'm sorry. Ilva scold you okay.

[C]

Back there, Olaf.

[D]

What a disaster. If you stop one, the others damage each other with their spikes. And so he gets out of the way and lets them keep marching. Robin jumps in. This is awful. It's sadistic. Saul, I think Our only option is to search for whoever's powers these are. Do we even know if they're nearby? And Saul's like, I don't have time for that. So he whips out the chain, Indiana Jones style and tosses it. But the kids are gonna throw themselves into the fire while we search. I gotta try everything I can. If we can't stop him from the front, I'll start with Bjorn in the back. And so he throws the chain to the kid in the very end, who's Bjorn, and is managing to pull him back. And it seems to work because Bjorn's still asleep. The spikes are going off, but he's no longer moving forward. And Saul goes, there, I got him loose from the line. Now if we just peel him off one at a time. But then suddenly, without warning.

[C]

Suddenly from the side of the branch, I guess that they are walking on a giant lupine shape. What I'm afraid of Fenrir. It is. The dream monster wolf is just looming up over the side. He's doing like a Kilroy was here sort of thing with his fingers. He's like, huh? And then he. He. Saul wonders, are they working together somehow? Who's controlling this thing and from where? So, yeah, it's like the timing is so colossally bad that it's. It has to be coordinated somehow to. To, you know, to stop him. Just what he thought. He figured out how to, you know, separate the kids and get them safe. And. Chopper screams. And then we go to the school where Anze and Principal Tusk are talking, and she says, Mr. Principal, it's not just the western village. Other villages are reporting back about similar monsters. And he says, this is happening all over Elbaf. It seems clear these are devil fruit powers at work. We must identify the culprits. And she says, agreed, which does kind of raise the question of like, like, wait, so if they're monsters, like, are these just more monsters from the same class that they just sent them elsewhere around El? Or were all of the villages all. Did they all have the same homework assignment of. Of dream monsters that, you know, that they. The Holy Nights are taking advantage of?

[B]

Well, how many villages are there?

[C]

And I don't know.

[B]

I think there's only the one school. I didn't think there was another school. They. I think they have a centralized school district, and I don't think there'd be enough for.

[C]

He. He's been very vague. He's been. He has. Oda has declined to offer any kind of like, like, solid boundaries as to, like, how big Elbaf is, how many villages, how many different groups of people there are, you know, like, we don't. There isn't even a name for. They just call it the Western Village. So, okay, are there four villages? Is it western, north, east, south, Like. We don't know. So that's all kind of up in.

[D]

The air, considering that we haven't seen, like, the. The Nightmare. Nika. The Nightmare. Loki. The Nightmare. Mom. Yeah, I'm sure it's just.

[C]

Maybe it's those.

[D]

Yeah, I'm sure it's more of those monsters elsewhere.

[B]

I mean, I would.

[A]

Also there's north, south, east and west. And then obviously, the grand and who he answers to the Supreme. And then.

[B]

I was just gonna say.

[A]

Of which there are four.

[B]

And then whatever the hell happens next. No, what? I was gonna say angels. Oh, my God. I don't care anymore. I don't watch anymore. It's fine. I know what I was gonna say, Stephen, is that. And maybe like, Norse. Like actual Norse countries. That's a sparsely populated place. I mean, also, they're just. There are giants do seem like a rare species in the world, so it is possible there are less generally of them. I mean, they're also bigger, so they take up more space per capita. So I don't know. I'm just spitballing.

[D]

I think Steven makes a valid point that Oda is keeping the hierarchy and how this all works very vague. We've only seen two levels of Elbaf. Have you seen the top level? And I assume the celestial level is like, oh, there's gotta be a castle or a king or a leader up there. There's no.

[B]

There isn't a leader anymore. It's a. It's a. Yeah, you know, that's weird also that the. Because so King Hagar, that was his.

[D]

Harold.

[B]

Harold. What am I thinking of? Hagar the Turtle.

[C]

Hagar the Horrible.

[B]

Forget that. Anyway, whatever his name was, he was on the middle level, even though he was the king, seemingly, because that was the king's throne on that middle level.

[C]

Right.

[D]

And it's that castle.

[B]

Very odd.

[D]

That castle was just over that village too. So it's like, yeah, was he the king of that village? And like.

[C]

Right, right.

[B]

Like, I have two things to posit here before I forget. This makes me think of one of the discussions you had in the sgs, the older woman thing. Like, maybe we'll see someone who actually is older. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if the astral plane or whatever it was called are like, much Older like the, the Guardians of the. You know, I, I don't know enough Norse mythology, but like basically like the.

[C]

Very long lived their version of the Aesir, sort of.

[D]

Or like Valhalla.

[B]

I know that reference. Yeah, yeah, the ac.

[C]

The guy that's like Thor and Odin and.

[B]

Right, right, right. That's. Yeah. I need to read more about Greek mythology at some point, especially with this arc.

[C]

Norse.

[B]

Norse. Oh my God. Losing it. My brain is gone. I don't know. I say that every week and it's true. The other thing I was going to add to that is we also know there is no king of Elbaf right now.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So like it. It does make me wonder if that astral world maybe just is not even treaded upon by the regular giants here in the, in the lower two realms. It's. It's very interesting, I think. Steve. Stephen, I think that's very on purpose on Oda's part that.

[A]

How.

[C]

Yeah, vague.

[B]

It's been like sometimes I don't think that's on purpose from Oda, but he's also very good at being too hyper detailed about where things are. Point in fact, like Egghead, this is floor B2 in building northwest Central. Yeah, like.

[C]

Right, right.

[B]

Why are we being told this?

[C]

Or, or to put it another way, like it is on purpose. But is the purpose, like to buy himself more time to write more of the story to figure it out, or is it on purpose because he has a, you know, a big plan for how it's going to get revealed?

[B]

Why not?

[C]

No. Unclear. What. What is not unclear, however, is that outside of the western village, the Draugr is down. The. The command combined force of the giant warriors has seemingly felled this sleep tid. And it's. It's not come without a cost, though. There's one. One of them at least is on the ground. They're like, there we go. Joggers aren't actually supposed to exist though. And look. Look how much trouble it was just to stop one of these things. So, you know, just one of many monsters here. They're going to get the wounded to the village and meanwhile we see the, the big dragon that roars and unleashes a lightning bolt on some of the giants. And this one is. This is the. The Hogger of Nids. Nid. Hogger. And then we get the. I was going to say the Oda boxes, but the, the child boxes. Is that. That doesn't sound good.

[B]

No, wait, no, that's also.

[D]

No, no, no, no, that's worse.

[C]

Delaney, cut that worse. Yeah.

[B]

No, Delaney, do what you want.

[C]

Zach wants the footage isolated. So now we have Nidhogger, which is the big dragon. I thought I saw the Joy. Joy was very relieved because we weren't actually sure which monster was true.

[B]

We weren't positive. We were educated guests, I think was.

[C]

And when he drew that. That cover image of the Hogger of Nids, it was correct. It is the big. The big dragon.

[B]

Thank you, Abby, specifically for also asking us the question whether he hogged all the Neds. Yeah.

[C]

And then there is also the. The ghost, who has a very dapper top hat with horns.

[B]

Very good design. Very good design. Yeah.

[C]

Very funny. And, yeah, the people are realizing, you know, despite the great cost to beat one of these things, and now there's, like, more. They're ganging up on them. It's no use. There's just too many monsters. We can't protect the village. Flee for your lives. So they're turning. But then we see one particular ax and one particular sword and some very familiar capes and helmets, as they say. It's our turn, Dory. Indeed. Brogy.

[B]

By the way, this is the only technique they do together. The third time we're seeing it, they only have one. It's their catchphrase, so to speak. Sam, here's anime. They should change it, really.

[C]

Hello.

[B]

Anime is what they yell when they. Hakoku Sovereignty. And from. Oh, what a. I love this panel. I love both of the panels here. I'm almost upset that they overlap each other because they're both very good. You see the great Eric floating in the sky using SVAR technology as the one technique that Dory and Brogy do together. Together seem to pierce through the Ghost, the Nidhoggar, and at the very least, take out a bearded Loki on the bottom there, who had not been child. Oda. Boxed. Lacking another term for that. Do I write that down? No, I don't. And everyone's like, yeah, the captains. I mean, the giant pirate crew. Yeah. This is, I assume, then evaporating the. The. The apparitions. Here it is.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's not. I assume, it not the most clear of the, like, reaction panels there. I think that's what it is. And then posing after their Hakoku Sovereignty catchphrase, they say, sorry for taking so long. We had a puke up. I'll be drank. So. Such a shame.

[C]

This is their triumphant return to the party.

[B]

Sorry, we had a puke.

[D]

It sounds like you keep saying hot cocoa sovereignty, so I just imagine puking it Out. And then, like rallying with hot cocoa.

[B]

Here we go. Let's get some hot cocoa. That'll get us. Oh, wait. This was a terrible idea, Brogy. Why do you suggest the little marshmallows running? We'll exterminate all these monsters. Isn't that a catchphrase from something?

[D]

Sam's catchphrase.

[B]

You folks help the children. Actually, to be fair, they've exterminated monsters in the previous arc as well. Or tried at least. And we get another shot of the great Eric on the other side of the page here. I love this ship. Love it, love it, love it. Floating in the air, too. Excellent. Here's the person announcing the merchandise as it comes out. It's the great Eric Svar edition. You're gonna get it. Now, all you random monsters and someone here is saying, why do you bother to even sober up? And again, by sober up, we mean puke. I want to make that clear. Underlined. That's not sobering up. Although it does help the process. Anyway, randomly, here's Scopper Gabon, which, to be fair, that's how he always comes into the scene. Randomly and unexpectedly.

[C]

Well, if you. If you look in the.

[B]

I was going to say.

[C]

Yeah, you can see that he is actually the one asking them why they bothered to sober. Because he's sitting on top of the shield there.

[B]

Yeah, I. I'm going to be honest. I did not even upon read like it. Very hard to see because he's just a little dot. But I assumed it was him. But also, why is he here? Yeah. Anyway, he's got his sake, I assume, saying with the. What do you call those jugs? Gourds. Just. They're just called gourds. I feel like there's got to be a more fancy term for that. Anyway, saying What? Look, it's Mr. Yah, the mountain Eater, eatin up. Oh, no, he's just having sake. This ship is unstoppable. And mist. Mr. Yas, Copper Caban. Just laughing. To be continued next week. That'll do it for 11:44. Ken is Mountain.

[A]

Is. Is mountain a slang term.

[B]

For what?

[D]

No, we've talked about this already.

[B]

No, I don't think we did talk about this, but it definitely crossed my point.

[D]

He's called Mountaineer because when he was defending Roger, he cut off the entire top of that mountain, like, clean.

[B]

I think Sam's getting at something.

[D]

Yes, I know we joked about the other.

[A]

He's not called Mountain Cutter.

[B]

That's true. That's true. Or Mountain Searer. Whatever the hell he did mountain.

[C]

No, I gotta. I got a better one. It's. It's perfectly. There's no double entendre. Mountain climber. That's. That's a good one.

[B]

Yeah. You know what? That's much better. Steven, did that cross your mind, or is that just.

[D]

Sam, we definitely made that joke in the Discord. I feel like.

[B]

Oh, in the Discord. We probably did.

[D]

Yeah. I know.

[B]

I had this. Definitely. I mean, just given his profession.

[C]

Yeah, the professor of love.

[B]

Yeah, professor of love. That. I mean, he's, like, asking for it there, especially if he created it. Does that work in Japanese, though? I own. I don't know. Double entendre.

[C]

I don't know. Yeah, it's a little trick. A little trickier maybe, but.

[B]

Yeah. Because Oda would do a pun like that. Absolutely. I feel like he would try and sneak that in.

[A]

He would make lingus jokes.

[B]

You don't think so? I feel like Oda's just has no shame.

[A]

I feel like there's a type of crass that you expect in one piece that.

[B]

Yeah, but, like, if it were really subtle, I don't know. This is not important. Sam, thank you for derailing us. What did you think?

[A]

I was trying to do that.

[B]

I know, and you did a great job. I was. I was being sincere at how great you were at derailing us. Ken.

[D]

Fun chapter. I actually like this one. I know people kind of label it as, like, a setup chapter, like, just a lot of characters getting moved around to place and whatnot, but I liked it. There's a lot of stuff going on in Elbaf right now that I'm finding really exciting. I'm really curious about the. What'd you call them, Steven? The Sleep Tids. That's the name.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I'm really curious about what they, like, what their power level is. Because we had that thing last chapter with the salt. We're like, oh, yeah, the salt's zero calories and provides zero energy. That's. Gets me out of dreams. So originally, when I saw the sleepdids, I thought, okay, these are just gonna be big, terrifying creatures that are gonna be more of, like, psychological warfare. And like, oh, we better not touch that. That's a dragor. Or, like, oh, it's the nidhogg. Don't go near that. So I'm surprised that these things seem to be corporeal and actually fighting and doing damage to the towns. Because I figured, like, okay, if the salt is no energy, no calories, what does that mean for, like, Is, like, the stronger The Nightmare the more powerful they are. So I'm just. I want to learn more about Killingham's power and how these things actually work more than anything else. I love the stuff in the. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

[C]

I was gonna say it. It does seem a little strange that, like, we've had a bunch of sort of fights with them and like, you. You would think if. If there was going to be sort of like a surprise, like, oh, yeah, these are the zero calorie versions of these things where they're actually just kind of pushovers, like Usopp illusion style. We would have seen that by now. So it is kind of strange that ODA hasn't specified that A little more in these fights.

[D]

Yeah. Because the only. If you go back to the chapter, most of them are just kind of standing there scary and imposing in most of the panels. But the Nidhogg actually fires some kind of blast from its mouth and it seems to do damage. Like, all right, is it. Is it actually doing damage? Are these giants, like, really hurt or is that like, ow. Like, somebody just like, flick me? Like, what?

[C]

Like, right.

[D]

I can't. I can't tell. And then the fact that Dori and Brogy are able to take them out in one hit the end, I don't want to like, say like, oh, Dorian Brogy, that's not a strong attack. But like, all right, they were taken. They were taken out with a hit.

[A]

So I think it was notable how like, the giants we're talking about, like, how hard it was to take down that Draugr. So like, you imagine, like, they're pretty strong by.

[B]

Yeah, Dorian Brogy or I think, I mean, remember they decimated kids.

[A]

Yeah, like, like, like, like, like the. The reminds me of like, one of my favorite things about the. The ORS fight is, is. Is like the. All this effort to like, take him down and then obviously just like gets back up again. And like, you know, each. Each phase of the fight is manageable, but it's like the onslaught of like, one after another.

[D]

Yeah, absolutely. Again, I'm just being a little nitpicky because I just want to know more about killing him's power and the extent of how the. Because even, like, I think a couple chapters ago with the giant snake, Saul and the principal took that out in one hit. Like, well, I guess two hits. But I just want to know how powerful these things are because I took them more as they were supposed to be psychological and to like, kind of bring fear to the children or bring fear to the parents. Or whatnot.

[B]

But it was more to distract, I feel like. Right. It's supposed to be a distraction so people don't. Aren't able to stop the children from being kidnapped. Right?

[D]

Yeah, I guess.

[B]

It's not supposed to destroy Elbaf, I assume. Like, that's not the immediate goal, at least.

[D]

I think it just goes back to what Shamrock was saying. Like, make a game using your powers.

[B]

Right.

[D]

Cause as much chaos and fear and, like, like, the. The Knights are. They're dickheads, from what we can tell. So, like, sure, go. Go scare a bunch of children. Cause a bunch of damage. Like, do all this. Like, it's. It's all. It's awful. It's like the word. The worst human beings are using their powers for these reasons right now without any.

[B]

Yeah, maybe don't give the worst human beings any sort of power would be a way to go.

[D]

Um, just one last thing. I'm surprised Scopper Gabban is back already. After he walked away, I'm like, all right, we'll see him at the end of the arc. Because he said, come find me again if Elbaf is still standing at the end. Yeah, but the fact that he's back already, like, all right. I didn't expect him to be back so soon, so I'm excited to see what he does. I'm assuming he's gonna run into his son at some point and then have a confrontation there. And I love the great Eric being able to fly. At first I was wondering, why didn't they use the flying mode originally when they got to elb, they had to.

[B]

Take the rainbow up, but you can, I think, until.

[D]

Yeah, the clouds don't work on the lower levels, and they work on the middle levels and above, so. But, yeah, good chap. Good fun chapter. A lot of things moving. Moving around, but I'm excited to see it all kind of come together.

[B]

That just made me think, though, I guess Elbaf is kind of also a sky island in a way, because it's at that level in the sky. Maybe I don't quite like. I don't know the height specifically, but it kind of fits. Sam.

[A]

I. I kind of loved this chapter, like, a lot. I thought the. The. The science lab at the beginning was super interesting. Like, the 3,000 years bit is. Is like, great intrigue since we've been, like, so focused on the. The 800 years ago void century for so long and. And like, the. The, you know, like, we're always talking about, like, why. Why doesn't it feel Like, Frankie did much on. On Egghead. Right. Like, why wasn't that his arc? And you know, and the. The possibly naive hope that maybe that they'll still somehow turn that around in. In Elbaf. And now it's like, like, oh, like instantly, directly. Oh. Just spelling it out to our face. Oh, here's the. Here's an opportunity where I can do exactly that. And I loved the. I just kind of like the. I love the sort of like the, the logic of getting, like, Lilith and Bonnie there too. They just got lost and ended up in the same place. Like, I love that sort of, you know, just. Just kind of like stretching the. The contrivance of. Of.

[B]

Of manga storytelling but also pointing it out very specifically.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I think. I think it's funny and I think it's like, like it's, It's. It's a fun kind of convenience for the author where, where you can, you know, like, it's like, it's almost like. I almost feel like part of the goal of Shonen Jump manga is you. You should be trying to see how much of that stuff you can get away with when possible. And the. Another thing I've been thinking about lately, I've been thinking a lot about bink sake, and I'm like, just kind of mulling over what. What. What the secret of that song could be. Like, what. What's. Are we going to eventually learn what the origin of that song is? Is there going to be like a Binks in, like, in the ancient century flashback, is there gonna be a character named Binks? And so like, when I see this scene with Gunko and the. In the. The tone dial, I'm like, okay, so what chances are there for a similar parallel to happen with Brooks music.

[C]

Where.

[A]

There'S like a kind of. We were witnessing the origin of. Of a sea shanty in the future. And, and at the same time, also, we're getting this very fascinating dynamic where even within this, this group of.

[D]

You.

[A]

Know, fascist cops, basically even among them, there's a spectrum. There's a. There's a. There's a liberal teen versus the conservative uncle dynamic, which is fascinating.

[B]

And, And I'm just imagining cops listening to very leftist music. And I could totally see that too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Without realizing the, you know, hell yeah.

[C]

Bulls on parade. It's such a sick song. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, I'm positive. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good example. Yeah.

[A]

And yeah, so I'm, I'm just, I'm. I'm thrilled to find out where the, the Gunko Brooks real. You know, what, what the, what the developing storyline there is going to be is something I'm super excited about. And, and I'm, I'm fascinating. Fascinated by where like Summers is going to go. I wasn't here the last couple chapters.

[C]

But like the whole.

[A]

Love Thorns, Hedgehog's Dilemma power is like, I'm like, how, how emotional is that going to be? Is this completely like just a aesthetic thing where it's, it's, it's. Or is there ever going to be like a actual, like an emotional, painful reality to it?

[C]

Right.

[A]

For, for our heroes. So yeah, like, I'm like every page and I love the, the final spread. I kind of love the doubling up of the, you know, we, we have. Yeah. We see the great Eric twice, but like once far away for the action panel and once like close up for the, for the establishing shot. I think that's a. Just a cool kind of visual rhythm. Anything else then that mostly does it. I think there's probably some other thoughts.

[B]

I'm going to be having, but we have time.

[A]

It's a lot of little things that added up to just a great chapter.

[C]

Yeah, it's some. It's a. I guess I would say it's a, It's a chapter that's well executed, but I think because of its placement, like it. There's only so much it can do to move the story forward. Like obviously the, the, the very ancient sort of precursor, civilization building, if you will, is very exciting, but we don't actually learn anything about it in this chapter. And there, there is a little bit of stuff in this chapter and I feel like I, I sort of, kind of, sort of joked about it a little bit. Like, stuff like, like Brooke just sort of offhandedly mentioning that. Well, you know, it seems like this is pretty chaotic, so maybe we should look for more than, than two people. Which strikes me as very much like Oda kind of trying to sweep away like should they really understand who they're looking for and, and, and just kind of kind of wiping away the possibility that like the giants misunderstand and they're looking for the wrong number of people or something. Like just a little bit of like, whoops, we have some loose ends here. Let me just adjust them, you know, in plain sight so that we know everyone is, you know, that the, the people are caught up on the situation as far as the readers know it too. And so that, that is maybe not the most elegant way to handle things, but it does feel like the, the Chapter as a whole was kind of streamlining things and trying to make sure that the characters are focused on the right details as the, the readers should be as well. And like, I, you know, it's kind of fun, I guess, to see, like, Saul, you know, sort of trial and error, like, you know, doing what he can to, to try to, to stop the kids. But it does feel like, like it's not really. Like this isn't supposed to be the solution. This. We're not watching him figure out and solve the situation. It's more like, okay, well, you know, let's, let's put our characters into a difficult situation and show them struggling against what, you know, Summer's powers can do and therefore, you know, kind of heighten his, his menace indirectly and also, you know, kind of heighten the, the stakes, the emotional stakes for the characters trying to protect the kids and only having, you know, middling success before inevitably, you know, the solution is going to end up being, well, we have to just beat, you know, we have to find these guys and beat them in order to stop these powers. But obviously this is, we're not there yet. Which is why this chapter can feel a little frustrating or a little unsatisfying in certain ways. But, you know, it, there's a lot of, there's some fun action, there's, you know, some fun conversations. So I think overall it was a fairly entertaining chapter, even if it was a bit on the shorter side. But what about you, Zach? What did you think?

[B]

Yeah, I, I agree with Sam. I mean, I agree with everyone. I think, I think this was a really fun one. I'm actually, I, I, look, I think every chapter of one piece is not supposed to be self contained. I mean, we do it every week because that's when they come out and they're supposed to have their own value week to week. But I mean, we're in a bigger story here and I, I think this one does a very good job of what it's trying to do. And I think it, you know, this is not going to be like the chapter I remember, but it will have a lot of scenes, I think, in it that are going to prove very important to, to what's to come. I noticed as we were, as you were talking, Stephen, that the, the, the things children are afraid of. These sound effects even have that, like, same kind of design Oda did. Like the rumbling like the, you know, like the outside. Yeah, yeah. Which I noticed with Fenrir in particular, the, the glare, the only look, I think Vanessa did a really phenomenal job with this. I would just say it needs a few more accidental lowercase letters, but I understand that that's a manga lettering thing. That is not sure.

[D]

Backwards are in there every now.

[B]

Yeah, that's what it needs. A back. That's. You know what? That's what it needs. A backwards letter. Yeah. Which is actually a phenomenon. I don't remember what it is that kids do like. I think all children.

[D]

Oh, really?

[B]

For some reason. Yeah, there's. There's. There's a. It's a brain processing thing. I don't know. Yeah, I love, love all of the. The kids creations are so fun to just see causing havoc. Yes. For Peter. I don't want them to cause havoc, obviously, but they're really fun designs and the. I don't know what it looked like in the Japanese, the lettering, but I like it really like added a whole other level of fun to it here for someone who's like a fan of that sort of thing here. So. Yeah, again, my compliments to Vanessa on that. I think the thing. The very first page and kind of what comes out of that is something that's going to be very important. And I've been, you know, I think since Egghead, I've been talking about how kind of Elbaf could hold all of the answers to what we're looking for just because it's been around for so long. Which also explains why ODA's probably going to incinerate it in the story, or at least in part because it probably should hold, you know, the answers in some regard. And, you know, pondering the astral level of this, really, the less we hear about that as the story goes on, the more curious I am as to what that's supposed to be. I think we talked about the Tree of Mike kind of tree that you see from. From outside the surface. Look, I don't think that's like scientifically going to make sense, but I could see that being possible in one piece. It's. It's not completely unreasonable here that it goes into space. You know, I'm going to talk about space and the moon here. This is my job. So. Yeah, I. The. That mural really like sparked something, I think in me that had, you know, I think we got some of that during Egghead, but like endgame stuff is so much fun and this just adds a little. A little grain of salt on top of that or whatever. Just sugar. Frankie is very funny throughout this too, because he's just the reader pointing out how this all, you know, like you getting lost doesn't really make any sense in the story and there's a lot of fourth wall stuff there. Yeah, I, I think trying to think of what else that hasn't been discussed. Oh yeah. Brooke generally this was a really shining moment for him. Even though he wasn't really in it. He got his really lame joke in love it. He the, the stuff with his music actually, you know, getting through to someone who is his enemy and a shitty person is really fun story wise. And it's actually I think so Alex who you know, I'll mention it now I want to congratulate him because he had the baby in the time between. Yay. Sorry, I'm doing this unceremoniously. I was going to say later but also very well timed. He was on the podcast last week and it happened in this time. But huge congratulations to him and his family for, for that. Which I'm sure we'll talk more about at the end. But this is like such a, an Alex thing because I think he's been waiting for like the one thing we haven't seen about Brooke is his fame and people recognizing him. And like why isn't he more of a presence in the world? And we're finally getting a little of that. It took like 10, 15 years, but here we go. A little bit. A little morsel of a famous brook. And I, I want to see more of it. But yeah, I, I, I, I think this is the first little bit of that. I want to see more of it. Colin is adorable. I actually do agree with Nami's reaction. Even though then she should have probably been like, maybe don't take a wooden sword into battle right now. This is probably not going to work the way you, you know what, whatever. We're there. I guess we'll be the babysitters as we head into a ferocious battle. But yeah, I, I think the, I mean like we, we talked about a little. The tea party is these, these that, that I'm just gonna say CP0 that the Holy Knights are having is very funny. They are very funny, distinct characters, but they are awful, awful, awful people. And I think Oda is doing a really good job doing both of those things. Gunko is the only one where I'm like, you're humanizing her too much. She really shouldn't. Like, I know Oda loves making his villains turn into good guys, but like celestial dragons, I feel like you can't. And I know we had Don Quixote, what's his Face, Yo's guard. But like that one, I think is more earned. I get it. Like, and he died, which is. So he suffered for what he did in the past. But, like, you can't. It's. When you humanize these people, I mean, ironically, they don't think of themselves as human, but in the other direction, it's a really dangerous place to go, I think, at times. Like, these guys in particular. Particular so. And also, Gunko just looks so anime. Once again, Sam's catchphrase that, you know, that just scares me. Like, don't get figures of. Although on the other hand, I would totally get five elders figures, but only because they're so. It sounds so lame to get about five old men as figures. That's. That's why I would do that. But I'm getting really off topic on my own podcast about. Anyway, I do also love the last panel. I. I think the stuff that he does with the drawing, the. The. The creatures that. That the kids are afraid of is really cool. The markers he's using, I'm wondering if he's doing it in color or not, because it's the same kind of thing he did with the mural. It's that same kind of art. This is not my forte, but the texture work. Yeah, texture work. Thank you. Yeah. I. So, like, I wonder if he did draw a color version of that mural or if he just used black and white markers for it, which is more likely.

[A]

But because normally, normally manga works the way it does because it only captures like solid whites and solid blacks. And so they use the dots as the. As the gray.

[B]

True.

[A]

So if it's something that's supposed to have this splotchy look like this. Like, where. Where is that? I mean, that could be. That's very easy to do. Digital.

[B]

If I was gonna say, this might.

[A]

Add a digital element on top or. Or they scanned it differently or. Or if these. These really are just stealthily still screen tones.

[B]

Well, it does look like when you zoom in that there is screen tone there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes, I think. I think so. I think. I think they are just like layered screen tones on top the. Of each other.

[B]

But I don't know. I don't know, like the process as to where screen tones come in into the.

[A]

Like it's like a.

[C]

Traditionally. Yeah, traditionally they are like physical. Like they're sticky sheets that they cut and then they peel the back off and they stick them onto the paper. I don't think that's what is happening here. It's some other method because it's too. It's way Too complicated to do that.

[A]

Yeah, I guess. Like. Like. Because I can't. I could imagine if, like, on one, like, if it's like layered, like you. You do one pass where it's, you know, and you do it in like, kind of the circles. You get the shape you like, and then you do another pass for the darker layer and they're kind of like overlapping and doubling up and making it look darker.

[B]

I mean, is it possible that he's like, fully drawing it and then they put the screen tone over it? I guess is the question I have.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, that's. Normally he usually is his. He like inks it and then when they're doing like, filling in the blacks and stuff, that's also where they're putting in screen tones.

[B]

Yeah. Which makes me wonder, like, if he's inking it, why not just ink it with color marker, like, I assume.

[C]

Yeah. That's the other thing is, like, back in the day, they used to do a lot of four color, which is just black and white and red, basically. Like, if you've ever seen some old, like, manga from the 80s or before. Dragon Ball. Yeah, Dragon Ball. The first chapter or so is like that. It used to be a very prevalent thing in. In manga. Instead of doing like. Like one or two full color pages, they would. They would have like, you know, half the chapter would be in red as their accent color. And. And that. That's what. It would just look like this when it got turned into the book because they would, you know, revert to monochrome back. Black and white. Yeah.

[B]

Also, kids draw in color. I mean, like, obviously these will be in color.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

In the anime in whatever year that it comes out. But yeah, I'm. I'm just interested in what's actually happening. And I think someone asked on the SGS a question, like, what, you know, do you think ODA is going to release all of the secrets when the series is over? I just want to see the sketches and the process stuff and his notebooks, like that kind of stuff. And this reminds me again how I want to see the.

[D]

That.

[B]

That's it. I talked too long about this chapter. Any other thoughts? We got pieced together, so why don't we get into that right after these messages.

[D]

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[B]

After an initial dosing phase, about four.

[A]

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[C]

This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee.

[B]

This is the Piece Together segment where we take your questions, comments, theories, and then put a little pizza in the oven for all of us, I think. But you have to put both mitts on before you anyway, Sam. Yeah, Sam, what's our first segment?

[A]

Our first segment is pretend I'm saying this in Ed's voice.

[B]

Dis piece, by the way, it has to be mentioned every time Sam's on the show. He is currently reclining so far that he's technically on video, but no one sees him. So, Sam, with that visual in mind, what's our DIS piece this week?

[A]

Our first DIS piece this week comes from Big Mike, who says, what would Troy McClure do do if he went on vacation to Fishman Island? You may remember from such classic Simpsons episodes as A Fish Called Selma and the Simpsons 138th episode spectacular.

[B]

Yeah, that's funny that you may remember him from. You should have done much more obscure episodes of the Simpsons, though. I think that no one would know that.

[A]

Well, I mean, you got the Fish?

[B]

No, no, no. Yeah, he. Like. He has some sort of thing for Fish.

[C]

Yeah, he's. He's doing. It's the same storyline as the. As the episode of 30 Rock With.

[B]

Yes, it is. The.

[C]

The body Franco. Yeah, the body pillow.

[A]

Oh, see, this is a reference I got.

[C]

Yeah, it was that. It was Selma Marges sister is like. She's like a beard for him, basically. Like, she's his hus. She's his quote, unquote.

[A]

Is he gay?

[C]

No, he.

[A]

He's.

[C]

He wants to fish or a dolphin or something like that.

[B]

It's not clear. They make it very vague.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Hold on. I feel like I've. I've seen at least all the classic Simpsons episodes.

[B]

It's the one. Yeah, it's the one where Selma is. Is dating McClure. It's a very good episode. Yeah, in that. It is. It's the one with chimpan eight. A chimpanzee. Come on. It's the one the zoomers hate for some reason. That's all I hear. That specific gag. Anyway. Yeah, I think he would be the. He'd be the scopper. Gabon of Fishman island is the answer to that question. He'd be the mountain eater. What's the.

[D]

The fish eater?

[B]

The sushi eater. The fish. The fish eater of.

[C]

He'd be playing the field than Fishman island for sure.

[B]

I hate all of what I have said this.

[D]

He's. He's playing the ponds.

[B]

This episode is titled after a mistake I made. The whole episode was a mistake. I have made a huge mistake. What's the next. What's the next question thing, Sam?

[A]

Our next disc piece comes from Misty Quigleys BA AKA Slayer King. Hello, my fellow NID consumers. If y' all would make up some quick lines for what each of the straw hats would put. If they had to be on Tinder, what would they put?

[C]

Have a great week.

[B]

I never use the app, so that was. Yeah, that was after my time. So I'll throw it to the two of you. I assume. I'm assuming.

[D]

Wait, what's it asking exactly?

[B]

Yeah, Sam. Satan.

[C]

What would the straw hats put on Tinder for their like, profile line or something?

[A]

Brooke. Brooke would just be like, I'm nine foot zero.

[D]

That's. That's a nine and a half on Tinder, though.

[B]

So say. Is that.

[A]

Somebody. Somebody would. Would message Zorro like you up and he'd say, no.

[D]

I have ideas, but I feel like they're too. Like.

[B]

Yeah, they probably.

[D]

I can't. Yeah, I can't Say them. No, they're not.

[B]

I mean, he's asking. Why don't you do a different app then? Like a more. Well, I'm trying to think of a.

[C]

Like, Christian date or something.

[A]

Td.

[B]

They're the farmers. Only one.

[D]

All right. Choppers on Bumble Rob.

[B]

Coffee meets bagel.

[D]

Oh, that's more of a Robin one.

[A]

TDs and chill.

[B]

That's the name of an app. Video transponder sale that really rolls off the tongue. You see, I think creating the version of the app is a more fun game here than the actual profile for me. Like, what would the version of Tinder be? Elbaf is a gigantic tinder box.

[C]

Yeah, it's snail. So they all say. Oh, slime right, slime left.

[D]

Oh, my God. Shut up.

[B]

Gross. That is. That joke also belongs to 2015 where it came from.

[A]

Yeah, and Caribou's like, finally a nap for me.

[B]

Get out of here. Sat W. Caribou. Am I swiping the right way?

[D]

You are not.

[B]

It's mirrored. It's the video.

[D]

All right. Right.

[B]

I tell myself. What's the next question, Sam?

[A]

The next disc piece comes from snp, who says, hey, obp, it's nice to see Yamato got all the ladies attention. But about Gunko, what are the odds she is the Revolutionary Army's mole in the Holy Nights? The goggles is a huge part of the. The RA's design now. She's Brooks fan too. Is that why she didn't wear pants? Because she hears all the painting jokes from Brooke? I. That's. That's another. I mean, the. Her being the Revolutionary army having a mole in the Holy Nights would be interesting.

[C]

That would be really interesting.

[B]

That is interesting. And possible.

[C]

I somehow doubt that telling panty jokes was part of Soul King's shtick. Maybe it was, but.

[A]

Oh, do you. Do you think he would resist?

[B]

There's a 50. 50 chance there.

[A]

Do you think this isn't. Sorry, this isn't on brand. I'm going to reign it in.

[D]

No, at the end of. At the end of New World. Like the extended version of New World. Brook sings about panties at the end.

[C]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Seriously.

[D]

Oh, yeah. That's an actual.

[B]

But you know, to be fair, that would be a really good reason for that awful design choice.

[D]

Yes.

[B]

Like, that would be very funny. It's ridiculous.

[D]

I still want to know why. Because when we got introduced to Summers and Killing Hand, they were given the saint moniker. Gunko was not. And like. So I'm like, okay, is she a celestial dragon?

[B]

She could be redeemable in that situation. She could be redeemable.

[A]

This is not a ridiculous.

[B]

No, it's a good theory.

[C]

There's definitely something a little weird with the way that she was introduced compared to the others.

[B]

So there's. She's. Yeah, she's very. Her. Her whole thing is very odd, comparatively. So I like that. I'm a subscriber of that theory. You've convinced me all parts of that theory. Including the. The part about the pants. Next question.

[D]

Especially the part about the pants.

[B]

Especially the pants.

[A]

The fifth sibling Kramato in Terra Bang says Ahoy Opp. Banger chapter. As always, love being reminded how big Yamato is. I want him to cradle my. I want him to cradle my tiny 6 foot body in his huge arm. So dreamy. Whoops. Killingham took my dreams and put them into this piece again. Dang it. Anyway, my question this week is where's mom? The greatest fear of all? Why is she not in this chapter? If it weren't for Big Yamato, I'd feel like Oda is a hack.

[C]

Have a great week.

[B]

You see, I think the mom is actually Oda's fear, judging from his previous comments. Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

That would be really fun though. Yeah. If, if we get to see the mom. Like yes, Wrecking house somewhere else in the. In Elbaf.

[B]

I want to see like true Obahan mom though. Like, yeah, Acting Obaan.

[A]

Ripley is Mom.

[B]

Ripley is a mom.

[C]

Yeah, that's mother. But mom is. Is a different.

[D]

I actually have a podcast episode.

[A]

Is this, is this specifically referring to Big Mom? Because it just says mom.

[C]

No, no, it's, it's, it's the sleep did mom. It's the Obahan with the. With the perm hair.

[A]

Oh, was that one of the. Was that one of the drums?

[B]

It was also one of the comments they made.

[C]

What I'm most afraid of is my mom. And then there was a mom in the. In the.

[B]

And yet my dad spread.

[D]

I've got chapter 1142 open and like we still haven't seen like the Bear with the Helmet.

[B]

The oh my favorite.

[D]

The. The darker Nika one. There's a different ghost. There's the mom. So there's still tons of these sleep tits we have not seen and possibly others. Correct. Yeah.

[B]

Like Oda didn't say this was exhaustive.

[A]

Stick in my mind apparently.

[B]

I really like this though. I'll say. Yeah, go ahead.

[A]

Next dispute comes From Straw Hat Pirate 9 who says I'm laughing so much at the giants wanting to keep Luffy's crew out of the fight and safe. It's sweet. Completely misguided and unnecessary, but sweet. Absolutely love that they have teamed up with Colin who's going to get so adorable. Lastly, Gunko's Soul King. Gunko is a Soul King fan, huh? At least she has great taste in music. I hope the Straw Hats are able to use this to their advantage. And if not, I hope Brooke is the one to take her down in some way.

[B]

Now I'm the Revolutionary Army Mole fan. Sorry, Stephen.

[C]

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good theory too. Yeah, we didn't mention it. But the thing about the, the giants like trying to be so protective. It definitely goes to like the sort of the, the classic like European northern European trope of like guest guest rights and stuff like that where like if you're a guest in someone's house, it's like, it's, it's a. It's like a sacred gesture basically. And being welcomed in means that like, you know, you like the. The host is. Is sworn before all honor that they are not going to just like kill you in your sleep or whatever. You know, it's a. It's a very custom based thing that that happens. So I think that's Oda, you know, definitely picking up on that. And he even like. I want to say the, the author comment on like volume two of the manga or something like that is like a Viking poem about, you know, come on in, come, you have to sit by the fire to warm your backside. You know, you can't stand, you can't sit next to the door or something like that. So like he's, he's known about that for as long as, you know, the manga has been going. So I thought that was a nice kind of way to demonstrate that influence within the giant culture. So that was a cool thing.

[A]

Next. This piece is from Sailor Karna who says. Hey Opp, I just have one question. How real are the monsters? Are they made of ink like Conjuro or light like the illusions from Egghead? I feel like water could defeat the monsters. Yeah, yeah, I forgot about the Conjuro's drawings. They. They. They feel like they, they have a similar vibe.

[C]

Yeah, I, I mean I think just based on the evidence, we have to assume that these are tougher than either of those. But you would imagine there has to be some sort of drawback. Like they can't just be literally the exact same as if there were, you know, giant Jurassic park monsters all over the place.

[B]

Yeah, the Zero calorie thing is still. That's like a really interesting way to weave in an explanation on his power. Like that's a good show, don't tell kind of thing.

[D]

Oda does a lot of weird things like that. Like when we had what was a big mom's first husband's name. The. The chef.

[B]

The first one. £strewson. Oh yeah. That wasn't her husband.

[D]

Well, people think that he is. People think. Anyways, I think that's a little.

[B]

I thought.

[A]

Yeah. I thought he was like Paris Barrow's dad or something.

[D]

That's what everyone assumes.

[B]

I think that's a theory. Yeah.

[D]

But anyway, Strusen's whole thing was he can make food out of anything. But the food didn't taste good.

[C]

Right.

[D]

So he had to make.

[C]

Right.

[D]

He had to make the food himself. So it's like. It's like one of those weird drawbacks to the powers that Oda likes baking in sometimes. Whether it mounts to anything or not, we'll see.

[B]

But yeah. Good question. I. I don't know but I'm sure it has some. But that they're also. It's a strong. They're stronger characters presumably. So they're presumably much more capable than.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

I would assume the other examples. Yeah.

[A]

And our final disc piece comes from what I'm reverse I Freight of Opp. It's a real shelter in place from a severe storm warning chapter. Anyway, Jinbe seems to have done a vague little. Those people about the gods knights. Do you think he somehow knows about them being here from reading one piece or is he just pretending to know what's going on?

[B]

I think he was.

[A]

Just seemed to be the. The lamp shader this week.

[C]

Yeah, I think I used to.

[D]

That.

[C]

I mean I know this. This. This comment is. Is probably kind of poking fun at the. The. The wording there but the. The. Those folks there was just kind of specifically to make it clear that he's referring to the characters mentioned previously since it's kind of removed by a couple dialog bubbles. So sometimes, you know, you. You. You kind of have to use a little bolding to make the point that like it's not just a regular. You know, you're. You're referring to something from a previous part of the conversation. But imagine the.

[A]

The celestial dragons pulling like. What do you mean you people?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, you know what? You guys deserve it. They're barely people. They're dragons. So that's it for dispiece.

[A]

That is our dis piece.

[B]

Let's travel up into the skies with Ken Blue Sky Pia. Yeah, actually trying that.

[C]

Right.

[D]

All right. Our first Blue Sky Pia is from Cameron. Hi. I can't really verify this, aside from the fact that Kirians appear to have strong links to fertility and prosperity, but I found at least one person describing a myth in which it made a dream come true. And then Cameron links an article about various Kirin folklore, but one story of a Kirin. A man had a dream of a Kirin and a baby boy. Wife couldn't get pregnant, had the dream, saw the Kirin, wife got pregnant. So that's the one tie to Kirin's in dreams because apparently a lot of people had questions about Killingham's power because Kierans really aren't associated with dreams that often. But there's an article here that links it. So.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

Yeah, which it's curious because again, I wasn't questioning it when I read it. I don't know too much about Kieran's myself. Like, all right, it's a dream power, just kind of like face value.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[D]

Next up, we got Joey Cobalt. I have not seen it pointed out anywhere, but I have thoughts of Gunko possibly being related to Imu between a lot of her face being covered. The one eye similar in design, her arrow power being similar to the arrow that attacks Sabo in the throne room. But wait, her outfit being very similar in design to the female egghead designs, and the legs looking mechanical, making me think she might be a clone of Imu, specifically made for combat. Her name possibly also meaning army child kind of confirms it for me too. As such, it kind of feels like we might be getting a preview of Emu with Gunko fearing Nika and seeing some of her quirks, especially her enjoying Brooks music. This chapter.

[C]

That would be very interesting. I mean, it would definitely be like, oh, this is the. This is the one character from this rogues gallery that is going to be like the important one in the future. You know, as sometimes happens in. In anime when, you know, it just seems like a relatively unremarkable character. And then Lucy. Oh, actually right there, there. And then they have some, you know, super important link to something else that they become, you know, super crucial. It is interesting. I mean, I didn't really think that much about it, but I do remember when we first saw her using the arrow power like that. It was that sort of like that voice in the back of my head that was like that does. You know, wasn't. Didn't. Wasn't that Emu's thing in that in that one scene. And I kind of forgotten about that because of all of the other stuff with the five elder demonic powers. But it is, it does. There's a couple, you know, familiar aspects to her design for sure.

[B]

The Cyborg 009 vest, it's 11:36, by the way, is when we get the box for her. And it does just say. Her first box just says. Says Holy Night. Yeah, but she had no family. Yeah, well, Shamrock. Oh, no, Shamrock had a family, but yeah, I guess the rest did.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. Gunko's just Gunko right now. Which is.

[B]

It says Gunko arrow, woman arrow, arrow fruit. Yep. With that ridiculous outfit. Yeah. I don't know.

[D]

You hate that outfit, Zach.

[B]

No, I think it's just. I think the. No, I don't. I just think it's ridiculous that she's not wearing pants. But the. The Brook thing, actually, also it's the. Yeah, go ahead.

[A]

Zach thinks women should cover up.

[B]

Yeah. No one needs to see those ankles.

[D]

Is that what you fear the most, Zack? No pants.

[B]

Just a pair of no pants.

[D]

No pants.

[B]

Just the absence of pants walking around that. Yeah, that's my fear.

[D]

All right, next up on Blue skypiea, we have Alex. Hey, all got an observation into a question here. A big thread with a lot of New world arcs. And the last four ARCs overall have been one side having a traitor in the mist. So my question involving that is, do you think we have one currently, such as Gunko or even Harold back. Back to the Gunko as the mole or.

[C]

Yeah, we've. We've got. We've got candidates on multiple sides here for. For that.

[D]

I guess I'm fully in the Harold is bad camp. I think there's a reason why.

[C]

Oh, you think so?

[D]

I think there's a reason why Loki killed him. I think there's a reason. Like again, Harald was trying to make the entire country pacifist and not want to fight. And Elbaf is the strongest nation in the world if you take out that superpower by pacifying them all. And then there was the Summoning Circle in the castle in front of Harold's throne. There's too much there where. I think Harald is bad personally.

[A]

Well, the Summoning Circle, I think the government has orchestrated a conspiracy to frame Harald and Harold has sworn his son to honor his choice to. To participate in the. The whatever. Blackmail.

[B]

Yeah, I could see that too.

[A]

Something like that.

[C]

That's.

[B]

That. That is a very, very ODA method there. I.

[C]

And speaking of. Of like very Oda, like I. I have been Thinking, like, is this going to turn out to be something? Like, when we find out the truth of what happened in the. In the throne room, is it going to be another? Like, Harold was manipulated or controlled by someone else, a la doflamingo, or, you know, like Oda has done that.

[A]

Yeah, like. Like when Odin was doing the dancing and stuff.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Except. Except we're. We're in the dark. The readers are in the dark.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So two things. First of all, it's Harold the Horrible. So, I mean, obviously he's King Hagar.

[D]

Long may he reign.

[B]

King. King. Yeah. No, no, but more importantly. So I. I'm gonna speak out both sides of my mouth here and say, was there any proof on one hand, was there any proof that the. That the summoning circle was there to begin with? Or if it was something that was created because of where they showed up? Like, for example, the ones with Saturn and everyone, like those appeared. They were not previously there. But on the other hand. Yeah, either way, whether or not that's true, you know, that they were there before or not, why the throne room? Why in that specific spot? I am with Ken. I either think that he was blackmailed into doing something for the government, but either way, he was working on behalf of the government, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Voluntarily. I am more than convinced. I think it has been laid out very clearly.

[D]

There was even that throwaway line where I think one of the holy knights said like a chapter or two ago, like, oh, you here visiting Harold's grave? Or like they're on a first name basis with the guy, like there's something.

[B]

Well, does he have a last name?

[D]

The Horrible.

[B]

Oh, right, right, right, right. You know what?

[D]

But no, I think there's much more to him. I'm just waiting for the eventual Loki flashback where you find out what happened in that throne room where all the other giants died. Jarl got the sword in his head. Like, there's more to that story that we're obviously in the dark about.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Sorry. Back at Gunko, why is she most afraid of Nika though, if she's on the side of the revolutionaries? Although I guess that is possible.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Two things can be true.

[B]

Yeah, two things can be true.

[D]

Gunko really preferred Pre Gear five One Piece, where it was just the gumbo.

[B]

You know what? I get it. Jinbe is not the only one who reads the manga.

[D]

She really hates the story. Now she thinks Gear five is okay.

[B]

Well, that's a little. I really love Gear five. I just hate the extra explanation. Of the fruit. It pisses me off.

[D]

But okay, I'm, I'm fine with it. And I think that it's going to be a further. I think there's more to it still later on.

[A]

I, I, I need, I need. I, I need. I need there to be another element, other layer I balance back out.

[B]

I'm almost convinced not to get too off topic. I am almost fully convinced that Oda really did not plan the Nika thing until, you know, maybe you would have.

[A]

Dropped that a lot sooner.

[B]

Yeah, like, it's very odd. He did not. It's. That's, that's like. It doesn't feel Oda. It doesn't. I don't know. I feel like that's a little bit of a missed opportunity. But here we are. What's next, Ken?

[D]

And our last Blue Sky Pia is from Chicod. I have a question for my nephew who's a One Piece fan. What do you think the Holy Knights are? He knows they're servants of Emu, but what are they? What are their place amongst the Celestial Dragon Order? Love your show. Oh, thank you, Chico De Mar. So where do the, the Holy Knights rank in terms of like the hierarchy?

[A]

I mean like, like, like the CP0 or CP9 or. No, he was able to execute, specifically the Celestial Dragons.

[B]

He was able to execute Don Quixote Mio's guard, not to mention.

[A]

Yeah, so. So, so they are, they are Celestial Dragons.

[B]

Yes, Yes. I think they're the cops of the, you know, like the security force of the Celestial Dragons. I mean, I saw his ages. Well, Cipher Pole is an intelligence agency. So like.

[A]

But they've got, you know, they've got the, the James Bond license to kill.

[B]

That was CP9.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, CP02. I think they really.

[A]

So, so, so Celestial Dragon Agent. A Celestial Dragon cop is, is allowed to kill other Celestial Dragons if they do. If they deem it necessary for the, for the, for, you know, their justice or whatever.

[C]

I mean this, this is, it's, it's a manga. So like when, when fleshing out your world with a bunch of different groups, when there is. When they all exist within the same system, they tend to be a just a directly vertical hierarchy. Like you don't get a lot of complex. Like this side can override this one. You know, it's not like balance powers or anything like that. So I do feel like, you know, okay, we have the, we have Emu, we have the Five Elders, and then we have the rest of the Celestial Dragons. These guys clearly go in between the Five Elders and the normal Celestial Dragons.

[D]

The fact. The fact that Garling got promoted from head of the Holy Knights to five Elder. It seems like a direct translation.

[B]

Yeah, I. At the very least, it's a prominent group within the Celestial Dragons. I mean, they're like.

[A]

They're like the Supreme Court.

[D]

So.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

The elders are the president.

[B]

I think it's more. I'm trying to think of.

[A]

And Emu is the secret.

[C]

The.

[A]

The patriots.

[D]

Oh, the jokes.

[B]

As the president. Okay. I'm like, I'm trying to. It's hard to think of an analogy. The. I mean, I think you gotta think of this like in a monarchical way, because that's what it is. But it's also interesting to think like the Celestial Dragons generally, I assume, don't have any jobs except for like they don't have a role to play. I think it's more what I mean because obviously there's.

[A]

There's benefiting from the fact that their ancestors.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Yeah. There's a British. British nobility.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're inbred, they're awful. The sun will murder them. And by that I mean Nika or, you know, you need a high SPF is what I mean. They're very pale. That's what I'm saying. British nobility. Anyway, Ken is.

[D]

No, that's the last one. Zach.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I like wonder how much ODA thinks about it or has it. Like he must, because he gets way into things. Way too into things like that. He has. He has a special brain that thinks about that. Okay, that'll do it for piece together. Why don't we round off the show. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back.

[A]

So I thought it would be fun.

[C]

If we made $15 bills, but it.

[B]

Turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.

[A]

Give it a try.

[B]

@Mintmobile.Com Switch upfront payment of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for.

[A]

First three months only.

[B]

Speed slow after 35 GB of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra.

[D]

See mintmobile.com.

[B]

This has been the One Piece podcast episode 862 for March 31, 2025. Ken, it was great having you on. We'll see you next March.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

Just have to write out of the gate. Thank you all for coming on the show, including Ken, Sam, Steven, I'll throw you. I'll throw the plugs to you in a minute. But first, please subscribe to us on Patreon patreon.com One Piece podcast. We still have our free trial program open, so you get seven days free of that awesome extra One Piece podcast goodness. And I'll say, great sketches from Joey this week, of course. Really good banter between segments this week. You've really missing out if you're not listening to the full extended cut of every episode of the podcast. The extended cut includes us being stupid and talking about alternative.

[C]

The same.

[B]

It's more of the same.

[D]

That's the whole episode.

[B]

Yeah, but like another half hour of it every week. So. So you could. If, if you need more One Piece podcast, it's. It's good stuff. And most. And let's go through how to contact everyone. Ken, where are you up to? Where could people find you?

[D]

You can find me on bluesky Instagram letterboxd pretty much anywhere under kindking01. That's my handle. Literally everywhere. It's very good for searching. Not much going on nowadays. Last year I worked on the One Piece Art Collab Volume 2. That wrapped up back in October. And we're about ready to put out the final product in the next week or so. So keep out a look out on the old site. Everyone uses PCollab for that. When that comes out, I'll post it on my bluesky as well, so you'll see it everywhere.

[B]

Okay, thank you, Ken. Sorry, just reminded me of something. Sam, where can people find you?

[A]

They can find me on bluesky csam and they can find me on the other site that isn't bluesky. Like a chainsaw.

[C]

Steven on the floor too.

[B]

Yeah, I think he's sunk.

[A]

I am on a. I'm on a couch. This is a couch.

[D]

You are completely horizontal.

[B]

No, I. I don't see anything. There's nothing.

[A]

My legs are stretched out.

[B]

I've seen your feet a few times during this.

[A]

Yes, I can show my feet.

[B]

Okay. I don't.

[A]

Let the listeners be titillated by their imagination.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Stephen.

[C]

All right.

[A]

You sounded incredulous.

[B]

I was.

[C]

If you. If you happen to use the Shonen Jump or Manga plus apps or their websites, every week you can read Akane Banashi. Most weeks you can read One Piece. Every other week you can read Trillion Game. And every month you can read Shoha Shoten. Those are the simulpubs that I work on in addition to all the other, you know, volume only series of manga that I work on. And light novels and. Yeah. So check, check all those out if you like those series.

[B]

Steven only gets assigned to great series. And it's true these days.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, I've been lucky.

[B]

Yeah. I. Vinland Saga I have on my shelf. And maybe this is the time to do it, to read it because it would be, you know, relevant. It's not like, yeah, you know me. It's really. Once I get into it, I'm really into it, but it's really hard for me to get into something like I need to get really, like, just shoved into it. Like Zelda. You could. What was I gonna say? You could follow us at the One Piece Podcast at One Piece Podcast. Really? Anywhere on social media. That's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, if you still use that. We're at bluesky@one piece podcast.com Tumblr, which we haven't updated, but we have it. And I don't know the other places we're on Skype until it goes away, which is, I think already happened in a lot of places. You could call us at our phone number there and we will be doing a special voicemail episode or segment in the. In the near, near ish future. I am saving them all. Do not worry. Try not to make them too time sensitive. Like, don't make them necessarily super time sensitive, though, because we might be playing them in a week or two or three. But you could call us at our phone number, 347497. Maji. That phone number again. This 347-497-6254. Call anytime with your questions, comments, theories, or why it was ESPN's Jockajaka Jams. I call Stephen out on that one. I didn't find that myself, but Stephen did. And please keep listening. We have some really great guests coming up in the next few weeks, including Dr. Gomez, Salt, Salty, DK, Dan is returning and more. More. I could. I could promise you that we will continue podcasting until One piece ends in 2076. Until then, though, my name is Zach. Oh, wait, it's just me. Oh, actually, that reminds me, I should do this at the end. Oh, we. I mean, we already said it, but I want to give a big congratulations to Alex and his new expanded family. I mentioned it during the manga, but he had the baby over the week between episodes. So please give him all of your congratulations and we will miss him, but he is going. He is in a better place, changing diapers.

[C]

It will be a grand adventure.

[B]

No, it is. It is a grand adventure. I'm super happy for him. But until next week, everyone. My name is Zach. We'll see you next week, everyone. Goodbye. No one could hear you waving, Ken.

[D]

See you next March.

[B]

That's the episode. Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other. When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a 4 liter jug. When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

[C]

Oh, come on.

[B]

They called it truce for their holiday and used Expedia trip planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip. Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool. Whatever. You were made to outdo your holidays. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel.