Episode 863, “All Firefighters! All Sports!" (with Dr. Raylene Gomez)

Summary

The One Piece Podcast – Episode 863

Title: “All Firefighters! All Sports!”
Release Date: April 7, 2025
Hosts: Zach, Ed
Guests: Stephen Paul (Translator), Dr. Raylene Gomez ("Doctor of One Piece"), Steve Yurko, Kirsten Carey, Sam

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Episode Overview

This lively episode marks the triumphant return of the One Piece anime from its six-month hiatus, deep-diving into both the latest manga chapter (1145) and the new developments in the anime. The team unpacks the new opening and ending themes, muses about the evolving landscape of fandom, and delivers classic, heartfelt banter sprinkled with humor and personal anecdotes. Special guest Dr. Raylene Gomez brings academic insight and fan energy, while the crew looks at the many faces of Elbaf—giants, sports, firefighters, and card games. The manga recap covers a chapter brimming with comedy, teamwork, and essential lore, as Elbaf’s flames ignite action and set the stage for a possible deep-dive into Rocks’ mysterious past.

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Main Discussion & Key Points

1. Catch-Up with Dr. Raylene Gomez

--[02:09]

• Dr. Gomez updates everyone on personal and professional projects: conventions (C2E2, Anime Expo), teaching manga in higher education, and encouraging students to get into One Piece (“I got 25 students up to date in six months… their grades may be slipping, but they’re caught up!”).

  “All my students love One Piece. This is a very proud accomplishment of mine…” – Dr. Gomez [03:24]

• Reflection on balancing various anime/manga interests and how One Piece sets the benchmark.

  “I keep comparing stuff to One Piece standards, and that is, I think, what’s making it hard.” – Dr. Gomez [04:27]

2. Anime News: The Return!

--[07:02]

• The anime is back after a long hiatus, debuting new opening (“Angel and Devil” by Green Boys) and ending themes (“The One” by Muke).
• The new opening is praised for its visuals—heavy focus on Kuma & Bonney’s story, foreboding visuals of Saturn, and slick animation.

  “It is very clearly foretelling the story of Kuma and Bonney… just throwing a lot of visual images and metaphors at you.” – Stephen Paul [07:21; 09:56]
  “There’s one where Bonney is standing and… Saturn’s eye is just looming over her, and it’s beautiful.” – Dr. Gomez [09:40]

• Day-and-date English lyrics now posted on YouTube; lyrics praised for their emotional resonance.
• Subjects shift to “dad rock” and musical styles:

  “They’re very Mr. Children-esque, in my opinion.” – Zach [09:06]

• Structure change: Anime now airs at 11:15pm, no longer on Dream 9 block.

3. Jump Cover & Endings Talk

--[12:16]

• Luffy headlines the new Jump cover on an old-school TV (“Radiation King”) with wood paneling—a nod to nostalgia and anime’s new slot.

  “It feels almost Toriyama-esque, that TV.” – Zach [12:00]

• Discussion on the new ending theme: first episode aired it over black/credits, thematic alignment with Bonney, possible foreshadowing for more character-centric endings.

4. Anime Spin-Off & Canon Conversation

--[16:14]

• "One Piece in Love: Koizuru" gets a web anime—four vertical shorts on YouTube/TikTok/Instagram.
• Oda provides a doodle assuring fans it’s an official spin-off, but the hosts clarify “official” ≠ “canon,” referencing the many layers of what constitutes “canon” in One Piece lore.

5. Card Game Phenomenon & Merch

--[20:14]

• One Piece card game’s popularity explodes: card promos announced, major displays in Japanese grocery stores in the US.

  “The fact that they're able to have that kind of stuff is so cool… Any time I see One Piece in that kind of ubiquity, it blows my mind.” – Zach [22:12]

• Dr. Gomez offers expertise, hinting at a future deep dive episode on the card game.

6. Manga Recap: Chapter 1145 — ‘Wildfire in Forest Sector 2 Branch Route 8’

--[23:31]

a. Color Spread & Cover Story

• Celebratory cover spread by animator Midori Matsuda; straw hats depicted as a family around the TV, gently ribbing each other about late-night anime watching.

  “This is actually teaching the children how to have a good time with their friends…” – Dr. Gomez [26:56]
  “Drinking what has to be alcohol.” – Zach [27:10]; “That’s definitely apple juice!” – Dr. Gomez [27:14]

• Yamato's Golden Harvest pilgrimage continues (Vol. 30): hints at cover story links with prior week.

b. On Elbaf: Giant Teamwork & Classic Gags

• Zoro & Sanji reprise their classic ‘Arme de L’Air’ tag team move to slay a massive Strong World Grogisaurus, leading to comedy about eating giant dino meat.

  “This looks like good eating!” – Zoro/Sanji [37:38]
  “I've never seen such a graceful, soaring broccoli!” – Sanji [43:32]

• Goldberg’s talking shield “Nash” turns out to be a homie, created during Elbaf’s expedition to battle Big Mom. Differences between One Piece’s “homies” (Big Mom’s soul-infused objects) and others like Sugar’s toys debated.

c. Lore Drop: Rocks & Loki’s Past

• Loki recounts his childhood dream of joining the pirates, leading to a flashback confrontation with heavily shaded “Rocks” (almost certainly Rocks D. Xebec).

  “I didn’t come here to meet a whelp like you.” – [52:27]

  • Speculation abounds about a future Rocks flashback, his role in One Piece history (“He's fine stabbing some kid…” – Zach [90:44]).

d. River of Comedy: Feeding Loki

• Luffy’s attempted “care” for Loki leads to classic slapstick: burning meat, spilling scalding soup, roasting the giant’s face.

  “You’re burning me! Are you trying to kill me?” – Loki [45:08–46:51]
  “Jeez, so fussy. I could eat in any position, anytime…” – Luffy [46:51]

e. Elbaf Under Threat: Fire, Children, & Firefighters

• Wildfire rages in Forest Sector 2; Straw Hats, Giants, and Elbaf’s firefighter team try to save sleepwalking kids lured by the villains (Holy Nights’ Summers & Gunko).
• Jimbei’s heroism with “sea clouds” extinguishing the fire wins the admiration of all—Chopper, Robin, and especially Colin, who learns a lesson about true friendship.

f. On Upcoming Battles

• Chapter ends on the arrival of Gunko (villainess), setting up a potential Nami vs. Gunko confrontation and a running gag about “panties,” referencing Brook’s famous jokes.

  “Girl, put on some pants.” – Ed [72:37]

7. Anime Recap: Episodes 1123–1124

--[94:12]

• Sam and Steve Yurko unpack the new anime episodes’ structure: new cold opens with minimalist logo, recap via News Coos, and scenes tying all corners of the world to Egghead.
• Immediate reactions to:
  • New opening: praised for Bonnie/Kuma focus, music, visual storytelling.
  • Ending: “Elevated shonen” vibes, serious art style, rich symbolism.
• Controversy over Sanji's “heart eyes” for Bonnie in the anime, dissected and ultimately dismissed.

  “In the context of this scene, it’s Sanji being chivalrous to a lady. How is it any different than what Sanji’s ever done?” – Steve Yurko [115:29]

8. Piece Together: Q&A, Theories, and Games

--[137:28]

• Hopes for a Nami vs. Gunko fight, excitement for further Brooke–Gunko interactions.
• Homie hierarchy (who is the “most exalted homie”); more “mehmeh/meh” jokes (“most exalted homie”).
• Trivia game: episode-closing rapid-fire round based on ages, heights, and introduction volumes of obscure One Piece characters.

  “Go Jimbei! Shlomo Elbaf Incorporated.” – Zach [83:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On One Piece’s everlasting appeal:

  “I just finished Solo Leveling… but I was like, it’s not One Piece level.” – Dr. Gomez [04:27]

• On the new opening:

  “If I had my eyes closed and no context, I’d have thought it was Mr. Children.” – Zach [09:12]

• On feeding Loki:

  “Started burning his skin… Are you trying to kill me?” – Loki [45:08]
  “You sound good to me already.” – Luffy [45:59]
  “Jeez, so fussy. I could eat in any position, anytime you name it!” – Luffy [46:51]

• On lore speculation:

  “Who else could it be?” (re: Rocks) – Dr. Gomez [54:09]
  “I want to see a reveal of the face… the whole look.” – Dr. Gomez [78:54]
  “He’s fine stabbing some kid or doing whatever with a knife to do this to Loki.” – Zach [90:44]

• On fandom & the card game:

  “Anytime I see One Piece in that kind of ubiquity, it blows my mind.” – Zach [22:12]

• On fan drama:

  “What a weird thing, why do we got to get so defensive about fandom?” – Steve Yurko [114:39]

• On Jimbei’s impact:

  “It’s good that the children are safe… Jimbei is cool, and everybody recognizes this. You love to see that.” – Ed [73:44]

• On Gunko:

  “Girl, put on some pants.” – Ed [72:37]

• On Elbaf, Giants, and Sports:

  “All firefighters, all sports!” – The episode’s running joke/title, riffing on Elbaf’s themes and hosts’ interests [70:16; 70:22]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:09 – Dr. Gomez intro & life update
• 07:02 – Anime returns, recap of new opening/ending
• 12:16 – Jump cover & endings discussion
• 16:14 – “One Piece in Love” anime spin-off; canon discourse
• 20:14 – Card game news, merchandise chat
• 23:31 – Manga recap: Chapter 1145
  • 26:02 – Color spread analysis
  • 37:38 – Action: Zoro/Sanji teamwork
  • 52:27 – Loki/rocks lore flashback
  • 45:08 – Luffy tortures Loki with food/comedy
  • 59:00 – Sports references, Elbaf culture
  • 65:30 – Jimbei saves the children
• 72:37 – Gunko appears, setup for next fight
• 94:12 – Anime recap: Episodes 1123/24
• 137:28 – Piece Together: Q&A, trivia game
• 155:12 – Steve’s trivia/lore fun
• 196:55 – Wrap-up, plugs, and next episode preview

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Final Thoughts

The episode characteristically blends deep lore speculation with good-humored friendship, nostalgia for One Piece’s history, and infectious excitement for its present and future. With a new anime era, tantalizing hints at Rocks’ backstory, and classic community games, episode 863 keeps the One Piece fandom this side of the Red Line—always eager, never jaded.

Tune in next week for either manga break banter or possibly a deep dive into One Piece’s recent volume.

Transcript

[Dr. Gomez]

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[Zach]

Is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Sam Foreign this is the One Piece podcast episode 863 for the week of Monday, April 7th, 2025. My name is Zach.

[Ed]

And my name is Ed.

[Zach]

And on today's episode we have very special guest translator for One Piece in weekly Shonen, Jump and Manga. Plus we have Stephen Paul with us. How's it going, Stephen?

[Stephen Paul]

Going pretty good today. Good to be here.

[Zach]

Yeah. We also have. You may know her from being the doctor of One Piece. I don't know if that's the official title. We have Dr. Gomez with us joining us once again. How's it going, Doctor?

[Dr. Gomez]

Going amazing. Thank you for having me here again. I love being in the podcast every single time.

[Zach]

So do we. How was it? Well, how have most things been on your side?

[Dr. Gomez]

You know, I. Everything has been really interesting recently. I guess I can say that. Fortunately my most recent One Piece research project had to be put on standby because right now there's a little bit of a crisis. We research funds all over the country but I am working on other things in the meantime. I am starting as a freelance editor for multiple blocks in span about anime. So that's what's keeping my time right now. And of course just enjoying one piece and going to conventions. I'm going to the C2E to convention in Chicago this Friday and Anime Expo in July or June I think. Yeah. So in la. So yeah, just keeping myself happy and busy.

[Ed]

Well, it's usually around July 4th weekend.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, yeah, I remember June or July and I'm excited to go so it'd be very fun.

[Zach]

Yeah, super exciting. Are you still teaching One Piece or is the teaching also.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, I teach comic books, history and analysis of pop culture media through like the medium of manga and anime. Yeah that's still going. I've been working with a couple webinars coming up for Higher Education that we can put out so people, like new faculty members know how to include manga into their classroom, which is like a newer thing. So, yeah, just little projects here and there. Just trying to keep myself busy. All of my students love One Piece. I think this is a very proud accomplishment of mine, but I got it. 25 students to get to up to date one piece in a matter of six months. I just kept telling they needed to watch it, and they've been obsessing over it. I think their grades were slipping, but we're not going to talk about that. The point is, they got to this point.

[Zach]

You should give them a little, like at least a half a letter grade up for that. Absolutely.

[Dr. Gomez]

The extra credit.

[Zach]

Extra credit? It is extra credit. It's a big assignment.

[Dr. Gomez]

Absolutely.

[Zach]

That's. That's so cool. If I knew you did other stuff besides One Piece. It's just through my brain. It only filtered in the One Piece part of it.

[Dr. Gomez]

You know what? Some days I feel the same way. I. There's so many other manga and anime that I like, but One Piece is always like, top priority. I keep comparing stuff to One Piece standards, and that is, I think, what's making it hard. Like, I just finished a solo leveling, watching it on Crunchyroll, and it's been really good, but I was like, it's not One Piece level.

[Zach]

Well, what has hit One Piece level for you recently? That. Actually, that's what I should be asking.

[Dr. Gomez]

Oh, that's a hard one. I. I don't think anything has come closer. There's one show called the Apothecary Diaries that a lot of people are liking it online.

[Zach]

Is that the one Josh was just watching and talking about, or am I thinking of something else?

[Stephen Paul]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. And season two just came out, and I think the storytelling is very close to. To the levels that ODA has created. But I don't know. I feel like One Piece just is such a long trajectory. And I love it. I mean, I'm not going to justify how much I love it. I just love it.

[Zach]

No, you don't have to here anywhere else. We have to here.

[Dr. Gomez]

We can just love it.

[Zach]

Yeah, this is a safe space for liking One Piece too much. Speaking of, there's lots of One Piece news that we're going to go through in a moment. We're also going to go through chapter 1145 a little bit later. Before we do, though, please subscribe to us on [e-mail] One Piece podcast, you get alternate images, alternate titles, and a lot more, including the full force to watch 4Kids ad free episodes of our podcast every week. If you hate advertisements, like I personally do, don't tell our advertisers that. But I mean. And, yeah, and a lot more. So please check us out there. But this has been a very exciting week. Sam, I believe, will be joining us for the return of our anime recap after six months or so. So that's a big deal. There's a new opening and ending theme watched yet, which Ed still hasn't watched yet, but I. Do I. Ed, I was thinking of you while watching the opening because. More so. Well, first of all, the YouTube channel is posting the English subtitles, you know, day and date release with the. With the new opening. I don't know if they always did that with Crunchyroll, but like, lyrics translation. Yeah. And I thought the lyrics were especially like, more than I could remember. Very apropos to like, literally the visuals happening on the screen at that time.

[Ed]

I always talked about the lyrics during our open when we did, like, opening rankings.

[Zach]

I'm hoping to do one of those again soonish because I want to throw us up all the way toward the top since I love that thing. But. Stephen, did you get a chance to watch them? Okay.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, we. We. My wife and I watched the, the new episodes this morning and yeah, the. The opening, if you haven't seen it, is very clearly, you know, kind of foretelling the. The story of Kuma and Bonnie because there's a lot of that in the, in the animation. And so therefore, you know, I didn't look too closely at the lyrics. I was more like watching the, the animation. But I'm sure that there's a lot of resonance there with, you know, Bonnie's viewpoint and stuff. So it's definitely.

[Ed]

Well, theoretically, you would be able to understand what's being sung without needing some titles.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, but it's still, it's. It's still, you know, like J Pop lyrics, which means they're. They're very kind of abstract and use a lot of funny English and stuff like that.

[Steve Yurko]

So of course you don't know.

[Dr. Gomez]

There's some beautiful scenes on it.

[Zach]

There are. Yeah. By the way.

[Ed]

Random English rapping.

[Stephen Paul]

No, I don't think so.

[Zach]

No, no, I love like in a.

[Ed]

Like in junk jungle key, I think.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing like that.

[Dr. Gomez]

It's not for kids.

[Zach]

No, it. You can't. No, no one can be by the way this is opening 47, apparently. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

[Stephen Paul]

It's also not for kids because now it's on at 11:15pm I believe is the.

[Zach]

On Saturday night time.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

They even have the time at the end.

[Ed]

It's not Dream 9 anymore. That was many years ago.

[Zach]

That was many years ago. It's called angel and Devil. It is by. Let me see if I'm pronouncing this right. Green Boys. I'm so curious how Edwards feel that.

[Ed]

I feel like. I feel like. That sounds familiar, actually. I feel like the.

[Zach]

They're very Mr. Children esque, in my opinion.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, it is very Mr. Yeah, it's a very Mr. Children.

[Zach]

I'll put it this way. If I had my eyes closed and had no context to this, I would have thought it was Mr. Children.

[Stephen Paul]

Sure.

[Zach]

They're so. So that, you know, in that genre. I forgot what. Yeah, Greg called it that one time.

[Ed]

Dad rock.

[Zach]

Yeah, dad rock. Well, I'm a dad.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, maybe I. And before. Before we started recording, Dr. Gomez was saying that, like, the animation is. Is really beautiful, and I would agree on that part. I think it's. It's very nicely animated.

[Dr. Gomez]

There's a lot of really pretty scenes. There's one where Bonnie standing and the eye, I think. Well, spoilers. But it might be one of the Gorosei, I think Saturn, his eyes just, like, looming over her. And it's just. It's a beautiful shot.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, yeah, it's that it is still.

[Stephen Paul]

It is reminiscent of the way that they animated us. I don't think it's quite as, you know, overwhelming as. As us is when you. When you watch it. But, you know, it's definitely using a lot of variation and just kind of throwing a lot of, you know, visual images and metaphors and things at you in a pretty rapid succession. So, you know, it. If you know the material that's coming, it is very much like setting off all of your synapses at once when you watch it.

[Dr. Gomez]

But it is preparing us for the river of tears that's going to come out of the backstory.

[Zach]

Yeah, it definitely choked me up a little. I mean, it doesn't. It doesn't take much with that backstory, but.

[Steve Yurko]

There'S.

[Zach]

There's a lot of very good visuals. I think the. The. I thought you were going to mention the Nika pose in Bonnie's eye at the beginning.

[Dr. Gomez]

Oh, yeah, yeah, that one too.

[Zach]

Yeah. Which was. It was very. It was very well done. I don't know if Ishitani did work on This. I know. She did the recent opening for the new Witch Watch series, which is also a Shonen Jump property, right?

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. I did see her name associated with that, although I didn't see it yet.

[Zach]

I think she did storyboard something with the opening for that. It looks. It looks very Ishitani.

[Stephen Paul]

Check it out.

[Ed]

Oh, and Luffy's on the COVID of Jump this week. I know it's not the manga recap yet, but I just wanted to ask about that.

[Stephen Paul]

What. What. What should we say about it? It's that he's on there.

[Ed]

I think it's just sort of leaning on a TV there. I'm not sure what this. What it says on the tv.

[Zach]

Well, it is related. It is related.

[Stephen Paul]

I mean, it's. Yeah, it's. It's anime. It's promoting the return of the anime. Of course.

[Steve Yurko]

There you go.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Ed]

Gear five. Luffy telling you to watch tv.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes.

[Dr. Gomez]

An old tv, by the way.

[Stephen Paul]

That's where the cartoons are.

[Zach]

I was gonna say he should be popping out of the TV in fashion.

[Ed]

Yeah, Luffy and the old. The old Radiation King straight out of like 1965 here.

[Zach]

No, I do like that.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

It feels almost Toriyama esque, that tv.

[Ed]

The wood paneling.

[Zach]

Yeah, the wood paneling with the knob. Was there a dial?

[Stephen Paul]

Dial on the side?

[Zach]

Okay, perfect. I did have one of those growing up, but it was old. Even at that point with like the remotes that are hooked up to it where, like. Anyway.

[Dr. Gomez]

I think my parents had one of those when they were little.

[Zach]

Yeah, it was. It was definitely antiquated even by the time we had it. I think there's also a new ending theme called the one, even though it's the 21st of the endings. Did you. Steven, what were your thoughts?

[Stephen Paul]

Well, I did watch those episodes. I do not remember a single thing about the ending.

[Zach]

Well, I think they didn't play it on the 1st. I think they posted it after.

[Stephen Paul]

That's right. That's right.

[Ed]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

You get it on the second one.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, the. The first episode had a cold open, and then they only played the opening. The new opening song at the very end of that episode.

[Dr. Gomez]

And then that was a little confusing to begin with.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Yeah. When it. When it started playing, I was like, wait, is this the end? No, this is the opening. And then. And then the next episode was the normal way. But yeah, I just remember it sounded nice. You know, it was like, oh, this is pleasant enough.

[Dr. Gomez]

But yeah, also I. And I might be wrong here. But I think this is the first ending that when it first played, it didn't have any. Like on the episode. I have the animation. It came on the second episode that it played. Out of all the endings of One.

[Zach]

Piece, I'm not sure. I mean, that's something they'll probably go back and fix if. Because they just played it over black. Right? Isn't that.

[Dr. Gomez]

They were like credits coming down on the screen, weren't they?

[Zach]

Oh, maybe they were going for a more thing and.

[Dr. Gomez]

But when I did watch the ending on the second episode, it was very. Bonnie focused.

[Zach]

Yes. It reminded me of the Yamato one from recently, which is great ending. It felt. I'm like, okay, you guys are doing an opening and an ending. It's both Bonnie focused. Yeah, I mean, I get it. It is a very emotional, impactful and big backstory. When you get to it in the anime, I'm sure it will be even more so. But I feel like is it almost heavy handed at that point? It's just like they're not the main character of the show. But I. It was. It was a perfectly good ending, I thought. I. It was much more ending e than I'd say either of the last two that we got, which are the only ones we've had recently.

[Ed]

But the last one was, I think was supposed to evoke the first ending memories.

[Zach]

Yes, it did.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

But I mean, when I. I guess what I mean is it felt like there were those like lazier kind of moments, you know, like the still frames. A lot more in this ending than there were in either of the previous two. I mean there were still ish frames in the last one. But not to like the point. I'm used to an anime endings. I guess that's all I have to say about that. Any other thoughts on the ending? Dr. Gomez, did you mention or did you get a chance to see it? You'd mentioned I know, the weird place.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. I mean the ending was for me was one of those. It's okay. You know, I think we have had better endings. I think the opening was really good. Set up for everything that's going to come in this arc. Well, the second part of the arc of Egghead, I wonder if the ending would change eventually. Like once we get past the flashback of Kuma and we get like a different character. Focus on it. Like the animation of it, not the song. But yeah, I think it's just an okay one for me. I like the opening more than the ending.

[Zach]

Same. I mean that's almost always the case. Just about. We mentioned the jump cover. Thank you. There's also, believe it or not.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. That is not the only anime news that we have.

[Zach]

Yeah. Stephen, do you want to. Do you want to.

[Stephen Paul]

Sure. I'll talk about this thing. I have not seen a single second of.

[Zach]

I saw a second.

[Stephen Paul]

Okay. Yes. The One Piece in Love Koizuru One Piece spinoff got its own anime, as it were. Although that may be a little bit misleading to hear because it is actually four, I think, four shorts, probably the first episode. And it is on YouTube, tick tock and Instagram. So it is a web anime, I guess, as they call it.

[Ed]

Oh, N A.

[Zach]

It's vertical, though.

[Stephen Paul]

Original.

[Zach]

Original network animation is that one.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I guess. Animation. Yeah. But there. There is a funny. Like, just because. Just because I'm looking at it here, this is the only thing I can tell you is that Oda did a funny little, you know, news picture doodle thing where he says they're starting a new anime called One Piece in Love. So watch it. It's super crazy entertaining, and it's super crazy. Uh, and then. And then he includes. It is an official spin off. I'm serious. So just in case you didn't believe him. And then he drew the characters in it.

[Dr. Gomez]

So if it's official, do we consider canon?

[Zach]

No, official does not mean canon. Official just means it was sanctioned, I think.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes, right. Sanctioned. Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

But what about all the fans who want a love story so hard with Luffy?

[Zach]

Well, that's canon.

[Stephen Paul]

Is that what they're gonna get it?

[Zach]

Yeah, yeah. Mean, that's what AO3 is also for. But like, canon. I think we discussed this years ago. There are different canons. But I agree with Greg, I think who said if it's in the manga, that's. That is the canon. Anything else is whatever other, you know, is the canon of whatever thing that it's. It's in. So, like, anime has filler in its canon, or movies, you know, are not part of the manga canon, but the parts of the movies that are referenced in the manga are manga canon, like Shiki. So it's nice and confusing.

[Dr. Gomez]

I mean, who knows? Maybe the love story picks up. They'll be adding it to the manga later.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's true. We're going to get some weird dimension jumping or something. The last thing I want to mention, I forgot to mention this before. Green Boys also have to say it. Like, that also came out with, like, a retrospective video that Steve correctly, I think, described as like a Tokyo Tower retrospective video. It's really cool. I really enjoyed it. It's using. Is it Kaiseki, the name of the song or. Yeah, Kaiseki. And check it out. It's on. It's on the official One Piece YouTube. It's manga. What do you. What would you call them? Like, manga animation? They've used. They've done this a lot before.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, like taking panels and animating them.

[Zach]

Yeah. It's exactly as Steven just described. I don't know better way to say that.

[Stephen Paul]

I mean, that was kind of how the. The animation at the Tokyo Tower worked, wasn't it?

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Isn't that what I said? What did I say?

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Oh, I just didn't know if. If it was, you know, running the.

[Ed]

Camera over manga art.

[Stephen Paul]

Like.

[Ed]

Like this is a Ken Burns documentary.

[Zach]

Yeah. A little more dynamic, this one. Yeah, a little more dynamic. And I can. Ken Burns documentaries are exciting, but there's. They're minimalistic. This is not that. I don't mean to besmirch the good name of Ken Burns so early in this episode, at least. Okay, so anything else that. That you all want to touch on? I. That was. We had a lot of news and I think that might be it.

[Dr. Gomez]

Just one quick note. I think on the Shannon cover, they are announcing three more cards for the One piece card game that come as promos. That excites me. I play the game. So.

[Zach]

Yeah. I don't know if I mentioned I went to the New Jersey. I think I did mention.

[Stephen Paul]

That's right. Well, you told us. I don't think you told the world that you were.

[Zach]

What's the name of the Japanese grocery store again, Ed?

[Ed]

Oh, Mitsuha.

[Zach]

Mitsuha. Thank you. I went to the one in New Jersey and they had like a permanent one piece card game installment, which I thought was nuts. Like, just like in the Mitsuha. Like, that's really cool.

[Ed]

Well, because they also. That's where Kino is.

[Zach]

Yeah, but it was in Kino's. In a separate building there. But it's like a complex. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was. It's like right in the front, like right when you enter. It's a big One piece card game installment. It's really cool. So if anyone's in New Jersey for any reason, check that out.

[Stephen Paul]

That's interesting because. Yeah, I. We have a Mitsuwa too. That's where they. They used to have a bookstore, but, you know, it's a. It's a large grocery store where they just partition out little spots for like sub vendors to take the space over.

[Ed]

And they Got a food court there too.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's exactly how ours is. And. And they. They have had like a. What they call like a trendy store or something that like sells little, you know, mascot things and anime merch and stuff. So I'll have to go and look and see if. Yeah. See if they've turned that into a one piece card, you know, exhibition like that.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. Because I know all the car ships in the mid area of Illinois, which is where I'm from, they are playing the one piece car game and it's been really fun. People are really liking it. I think they're referring to it as a more fun magic, the gathering, more accessible. Yu Gi.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, okay.

[Zach]

Okay. Both of those are not accessible.

[Stephen Paul]

Hopefully easier to get than Pokemon cards.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Those are crazy.

[Zach]

They are. I. I have to say, the one piece card game, we don't talk about it enough because I don't have the expertise to do that. But it is extremely popular. And the fact that they're able to have that kind of stuff is so cool and really surreal. Anytime I see one piece in like that kind of ubiquity, it blows my mind. Because we all remember what it used to be like in 2009 and 10.

[Dr. Gomez]

I mean, if we want to do an episode, I'm all in for it. I've been playing it every Wednesday and also during the weekend. So I'm like obsessed with it. It's a really fun card game.

[Zach]

Sam isn't here with us at this moment, but I hear him yelling yes immediately. So you've got a deal there, I'm sure. Yeah, we'll devote more time to it in the future because I know it is very popular. I just don't have the expertise to talk about it. So we're gonna go through chapter 1145 right after these messages. Olivia loves a challenge. It's why she lifts heavy weights and likes complicated recipes. But for booking during her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way. With Expedia, she bundled her flight with a hotel to save more. Of course, she still climbed all 674.

[Steve Yurko]

Steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

[Zach]

You were made to take the easy route. We were made to easily package your trip. Expedia Made to travel Flight inclusive packages are atoll protected Foreign. This is the manga recap for Chapter 1145. Wildfire in Forest Sector 2 Branch Route 8. If you want to get to the scene, you can read this chapter as soon as it comes out for free, legally and worldwide at Shonen Jump viz.com or MangaPlus Shueisha Co JP before we get into the COVID story, we have a little something special here on the front edge.

[Ed]

Yes, this is a color spread, but it's not by Oda. It's by Midori Matsuda, who is a animator who I think has been an episode animation director for the One Piece anime and various other. Various other Toei animations.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I looked her up because they do they. One thing that the. The One Piece wiki is very good at is like keeping track of like the. The principal, you know, contributors to anime episodes. So she has like, you know, you can click on like the category of episodes that she was involved with. And I believe her first like work as a chief animation director was in like Dressrosa. And then she's. She's taken part in, I don't know, probably 10 to 20 episodes over the the years since on One Piece, as well as doing key animation and stuff on some of the movies, some of the films, I should say in the more recent years.

[Dr. Gomez]

He's also working a lot of Pokemon movies.

[Zach]

Yeah, I. That's. I saw Pokemon Inazuma 11, which again, not qualified to speak personally. The. The Luffy Law anime original episode. I'm trying to remember which one that is because that could be any episode.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And. And more. But as you said, a lot of Pokemon. Oh, Yokai Watch movie. The Yokai Watch movie. Yeah. No, I think what a cool honor also to be able to do this for the return of the anime. Yeah.

[Ed]

If you want to talk about what's in the. The COVID here.

[Zach]

Cover page the Sanchi is holding. Because that's what I want to talk about.

[Ed]

Well, it's the straw hats setting a bad example for the children staying up to 11:15pm to watch the anime.

[Zach]

It's not just bad in the video story. In the video story. It's not just a bad example for the children. It's also a bad example for the parents who want to go to sleep before 11:15.

[Ed]

They also have the big Radiation King TV with the what looks like wood paneling and knobs on the front.

[Zach]

I love all these TVs. This is like that episode of Cowboy Bebop I'm trying to remember. Do you know which one I'm talking about though, with all the old TVs.

[Ed]

So the one where they go down. Go down to earth and look for a vcr.

[Zach]

Yeah. In the subterranean earth they look for beta vcr. Yeah. I love that episode.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

But yeah, this is, this is fun.

[Dr. Gomez]

I think this is actually teaching the children how to have a good time with their friends. I'm going to be at the positive side of it.

[Zach]

Gets as late as he wants at night.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yes. I'd rather them do that than be out there making trouble.

[Zach]

But they're also drinking what is. What has to be alcohol.

[Dr. Gomez]

That's definitely apple juice. Come on.

[Ed]

It looks like tea. It's steaming.

[Stephen Paul]

You can't prove anything. You know what?

[Zach]

It's.

[Dr. Gomez]

It's tangerine juice from Nami's tree.

[Zach]

Does. Wait, does Jinbe have a tiki drink? Is that what's happening there? Or. Wait, is he eating something? I can't tell what he's holding.

[Dr. Gomez]

He's eating pizza.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, he's eating.

[Zach]

Oh, that's pizza.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, yeah, it's pizza.

[Zach]

Oh, I forgot to mention. The new opening also has goopy pizza in it.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Ed]

Oh, the pizza.

[Dr. Gomez]

Who doesn't love pizza?

[Zach]

No, pizza's great. Goopy pizza is not a thing that should exist. Yeah, but this is a really cute. I love Luffy saying, that's me on the television.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, that is funny.

[Zach]

And the. It's. It's a very cute color. If you want to call it color spread. But at the very least, bonus.

[Dr. Gomez]

I also love how sorrow is, like, so uninterested. He's just looking the other way.

[Zach]

Yeah, well, he's drunk on Applebee.

[Stephen Paul]

He's supporting Luffy so that he can sit back and be comfortable.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

I think Sora is drinking water. You can see the clear liquid coming down from his face.

[Zach]

Yeah, I always drink my water like that.

[Dr. Gomez]

Stay hydrated. More good messages for children. There we go.

[Zach]

Hey, everybody. I'm just drinking some water here.

[Stephen Paul]

There are no. There are no clear alcohols. It's definitely water.

[Zach]

It's diet water.

[Dr. Gomez]

You know what? It could be cola. Frankie could be sharing cola with everyone.

[Zach]

From his chest cavity?

[Dr. Gomez]

No, from a fridge.

[Ed]

Well, Frankie's eating a burger as you do.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes. Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

I want to see him use the tiny hands to hold a burger, though.

[Zach]

No, that's a big burger.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Yeah. Why is he squishing it with his big gorilla fingers?

[Zach]

Because it's a big gorilla burger. Yeah.

[Ed]

I mean, look how big the one Sanji has. It's. It's very big.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Frankie looks much smaller probably than he actually is in this color spread, I'm realizing. Okay, cool.

[Ed]

And Brooke is past his bedtime, too. He's old.

[Zach]

Yeah, but he's also dead.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yo.

[Stephen Paul]

This is a. Another side tangent, but I was just reminded of this because of you Know, this being illustrated by one of the. The chief animators, which is that I was very surprised to see my. My wife was playing the. The new Ranma 1 Half anime recently, which I believe that the core is finished now. So I don't. I don't think it is currently running. But I was. My. My eye was caught by a familiar name, which was Konosuke uda, which, if.

[Ed]

You don't was the original chief chief animation director of the One Piece anime from, like the beginning.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes, he was. Yeah. Oda called him out in an sbs, very early SBS where he was talking about how, you know, the. The Konosuke UDA was like, you know, the superstar who made sure the anime, you know, felt like One Piece and so on and so forth. So I was like, oh, wow, he's still. He's still active. So, yes, there's a lot of One Piece animators getting good work now.

[Zach]

I'm trying to.

[Ed]

He was like the series supervisor. He's kind of like the showrunner, I think.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Zach]

I'm sure this has been mentioned. What the still specifically what episode or if it's from the new opening or what specifically Luffy on the tv. But I am positive the Internet has figured this out.

[Dr. Gomez]

I would put my guess that this is from the fight with Lucci.

[Zach]

Chances are high because it does look like it's over the city in Egghead. Yeah, I just. I mean, that could have been in an opening or something. I don't know specifically. Or if it's just a random still from an older episode. Okay, I think that's. We're good talking about the anime for a little bit. Let's go into the COVID story. Steven, did you want to do that?

[Stephen Paul]

Sure. Yes. As Zach mentioned before, this is chapter 1145 wildfire in forest sector 2 branch route 8. Which is. It's odd because I don't think they actually mentioned Forest Sector 2 at any point in the chapter. So I don't know if that was like. If Oda was like, you know, playing off of some. Some kind of phrase in Japanese or, you know, some like, way that they talk about it.

[Ed]

Sounds like the conclusion of one of the fights in Alabaster. Like winner of the battle in.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Ed]

East Block.

[Stephen Paul]

So, yeah. Such and such street in Alabama and stuff.

[Ed]

Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

But yeah, obviously we're going to. We're going to hear about that Wildfire. But instead, first we have Ogre Child Yamato's golden harvest surrogate pilgrimage, volume 30. Already at 30. Pepe still alive. And you could Tell how much everyone else cares about this, by the way, that Yamato is conspicuously facing away from Ulti and page one.

[Ed]

And Yamato's got the sword that was stolen by page one with the circles on it.

[Zach]

Yeah. So I think this is literally the flip side of the previous cover page.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, you think so? Okay.

[Zach]

Yeah, that makes sense. He's looking at the. You know, he's probably looking at. I forgot all the people who were just knocked out and in the back. This might be what's going on. That's. I assumed that's what was going on here. It also explained. Because he was also holding the sword in that one.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, that's true.

[Zach]

Any. And he's.

[Ed]

He's got his club tucked into his knot thing back there.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, it's. It's a weird perspective because it's like going. It is to the right, but also to the left and. Yeah, I guess it's a. Yeah.

[Zach]

I'm gonna look at the other one just to make sure if I make sense.

[Dr. Gomez]

I'm happy to see more Yamato action. I. I want him to come back to, like, the main story.

[Zach]

Yeah, I think it is, because. So in the front. So in 1144, it started with Mina Tomo crying in the front with. With Tama and those three. The three women who were very happy to see giant Yamato. So this might be right after that, because right after. Yeah, Yama Girls, but holding everything in the same but inverse way from the other angle. So that makes sense.

[Stephen Paul]

This is just a very random question, but does anyone remember what the number episode of the anime was that they just aired?

[Zach]

1129. They're very close still.

[Stephen Paul]

All right, so it's not. I was like, what is this? 18 on the. The num. The number on the side here. I don't know what that is.

[Dr. Gomez]

It's 1124.

[Zach]

That was close.

[Stephen Paul]

So it's not. Yeah, so he's not doing an anime reference there. But there's.

[Zach]

Oh, no, but that was. There was a big dartboard in the background, remember? Or something.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, it's the dartboard. Okay. It's just the points in the dartboard. Okay.

[Zach]

Yeah. Nothing's. Nothing.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, it looked like a. Like a, you know, Battle Frankie number or something. It's very conspicuous over there, but. Okay.

[Zach]

I mean, it might be one. One thing doesn't negate the other. Stephen, I'll let you keep going.

[Stephen Paul]

All right. Yeah. We get some action here on the first page of this. Of the chapter as we see a large kind of shaggy maned dinosaur lift its head a la Jurassic Park. Play the recorder song. And it's going grr. And in the foreground we have Goldberg with his big club and he's holding up his shield, which we have noticed before seemed to have a rather homie like expressive face. And this time he actually talks to it and says, here it comes, Nash. And the shield goes.

[Sam]

Huh?

[Stephen Paul]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So now we definitely know that this is a homie. As he, he seems to grow in size, which is rather, rather strange. I don't think we've seen homies do that before.

[Steve Yurko]

Yes, he grows with a. Yeah, he's.

[Stephen Paul]

He's stretching out of the. The panel. The. The borders of the panel. And the dinosaur learn, lunges down and attempts to take a bite of Goldberg. And instead all he sinks his teeth in. Yeah, yeah, he just kind of breaks his teeth on Nash, who has a very funny face as, as anyone does when they get hit directly in the face with something. And I don't think I would look that good even. Yeah. And then someone, a voice says or sorry, no, this is Goldberg says now. And then Sanji and Zorro jump into motion. We get a classic, a return to the classic combo attacks. The Arme Delair assault. And this is the attack that we previously saw in the Davy back fight.

[Ed]

With where Sanji flings Zoro with his leg.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes. Up at Big Pond. Right? Big bun.

[Zach]

Yeah, Big Pan.

[Ed]

A giant mudfish.

[Stephen Paul]

And previously. So it's, it's funny because they, they are different attacks. And this is just kind of a weird oddity of I guess the way that the previous translators handled this. But the first time we saw the Arme Delair was on Drum island when Sanji throws Luffy. And in that one it was translated as Arme de Laer Air Assault. And then when they got to Davey back fight, it was a different. It was like power shoot or shoot. And then the other one was power shoot. And then that was the Sanji and Zorro one. So any rate, Sanji hurls Zorro up in the air, goggles and all. And Zoro does a cool, you know, a cool samurai follow through pose and just slices off the dinosaur's neck in a very cool action pose. Action panel.

[Zach]

Dr. Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

So coming from the Sora versus Fate Queen panel, because I feel like that's what it would look like if so were to fight Queen. We now get into the dinosaurs in the ground. And then I believe it's either Sanji or Sora saying, this looks like good Eating. I mean, it's huge, even compared to giants. And then we see a comparison with the giant standing next to it. Grogisorosish. Consider a delicacy, as they're doing the little accent. It takes a while to carve all the fat, but it's great when stewed in alcohol.

[Ed]

So does Goldberg have, like, a lisp or something?

[Stephen Paul]

He does, yeah. Like in. In Japanese, Basically, whenever he says desu, he says deshu or. Or, like, anything that ends with the su sound is a shuffle. So that's kind of how I. How I represented.

[Zach]

It's not quite a list, because the list was th.

[Stephen Paul]

Right, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, if you want to get really technical about it, I'm sure there. There are certain definitions that this does not fall under. I will point out that I thought, like, that's a really weird name to call it a Grogisaurus. And I was like, that's also really weird. Coming just after I was looking up the attack name from the groggy ring. But it turns out this is actually one of the animals from Strong World, the Grogisaurus, which I did not know.

[Zach]

Yeah, yeah, I. I assumed. I just looked it up. But, yeah, the Grogisaurus is. Yeah, we've. We've had almost exclusively the Strong World animals in Elbaf, which is interesting, fun. Cool. I'm glad Oda is using those really great designs that. That he put together a decade and a half ago. So that's. That's. It's good to see. Yeah. There.

[Ed]

There was an art book of character designs from Strong World that I think I have over here on my shelf still available.

[Zach]

Oh, I see it.

[Stephen Paul]

Very cool.

[Zach]

It's. I. I think I've seen them at, like, Kino and stuff for.

[Ed]

It's in with my color walks.

[Zach]

Yeah, go ahead, Doc.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, so then we have a panel with Sanji. He says, yeah, but you don't. You didn't bring any of that with us. Right. And then responding to that, there is a whole shed of cooking tools in the hunting shed. Let's look for some aromatic hearse on the way back. Then Sora says, hey, what's the deal with that guy? Is it a devil fruit asking about the shield? And just like we were inquiring before about looking like a homie, this actually confirms it, as it said that shield came to life like that way back years ago when my dad went on the expedition to vanquish Big Mom. They're like, big Mom. Oh, so. So he's like, sue stands so they're comparing the SHIELD to Sue, so we can see that. That it is an actual homie. And then Giant saying what? You guys know.

[Zach]

Oh, no, this is Nash.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, yeah. Nash is saying what? You guys know Mr. Seuss. He's, like, one of the most exalted homies. And now he's a man servant to our navigator. So it's pretty cool that we see another homie.

[Zach]

I like the mythology amongst homies being completely and utterly.

[Ed]

There's a hierarchy, of course.

[Dr. Gomez]

Prometheus being the highest.

[Zach]

Yeah. We knew Zeus, Prometheus and Napoleon.

[Stephen Paul]

And now Hera.

[Zach]

Yeah, and now Hera were at the top of the. Of the food chain. But it is funny how it's immediately been.

[Stephen Paul]

I. I was. I was very taken with the phrase most exalted homies or most exalted homie. Like, go. Goated is. Goated is mid. Now, like, we have a new. We have a new term. It's meh m E h. Most exalted homie.

[Dr. Gomez]

Instead of go.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

Then we change now to the underworld, where Lucky is, like, laying down. But first, the first panel is like, Holy nights. That's right. They showed up here.

[Zach]

Holy Nights. Sorry.

[Dr. Gomez]

So then we see, like, you know, Guard is helping Loki. Then Harrier then is, like, looking at him. Loki's still looking bigger than everyone else. And the hammer in the back. But then we start with the dialogue. Humans from the world government. You're saying, dads who beat you this badly. That is what I'm saying. You must have given reason to seek revenge when you were rampaging beyond the sea. Don't be stupid. And then we go to Luffy. If I had gotten far enough to run into them when I was out there, I'd be king of the world by now. I think that's. Yeah. And then Luffy responds to that. Knights from the world government. And then we hear from another bubble. Hey, you guys. And Luffy's just, like, kind of surprised about hearing about it.

[Zach]

I think we made the joke last week that looked like he was trying to keep his legs elevated, but it's his whole body, so it's not on the cold snow, which makes sense.

[Ed]

We hear a hey, you guys. Like, this is the Goonies.

[Zach]

Exactly. It basically is.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. And the head goony Goldberg here returns. That's a different kids movie.

[Ed]

Goldberg's the goalie.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, Goalie from Mighty Ducks. Look what we caught. And he's. He's just holding the body of the dinosaur over his head. And the louvie's like, whoa. That's huge. It's a Groggy Shore. Ish. Tasty and nutritious. And Zorro is giving them a thumbs up and is just, you know, letting them know I delivered the killing blow. And Sanji, this is such a funny. He's like, oh, you should have been there. I've never seen such a graceful, soaring broccoli. And then in the next panel, they're like. They're bickering.

[Zach]

Rude. It's really probably one of Sanji's best jabs.

[Stephen Paul]

It was fun to make that work, to try to like, okay, how do I. I need to write this in such a way that you're reading it and you're like, this is weird. Why is Sanji being so complimentary to. Oh, he called him a broccoli. Like, once you get to the end of the sentence, then the joke hits, and so that's. That's fun stuff. And Goldberg says to Stanson in the background, did you collect enough fallen trees? And Stanson says, yep, got a nice pile going. Thanks for the hunt. And so now they are cooking up the. The dead Grogisaurus, and they're making a.

[Ed]

Big bonfire on Loki's chest.

[Stephen Paul]

Not. Not quite. Although it probably feels that way. So they. They get it all nice and cooked. We get some. Some time has passed, and Luffy is like, yummy. And they're like, it's not just for you. He's like, oh, right, right, right. They're supposed to be feeding Loki, and Luffy very helpfully has. I'm like, where did he get this stick? It's a very, very long, thin stick that is somehow supporting an absolutely monstrous hunk of meat. Yeah, it looks like bamboo is first.

[Ed]

It's about to tip over Fred Flintstone's car.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Zach]

Rib, right? No, go ahead.

[Ed]

Yeah, those were ribs.

[Stephen Paul]

The bronto ribs.

[Zach]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

And yeah, so Luffy is trying to, like, hold it up for Loki to take a bite, because of course, he's, like, splayed like, you know, open eagle on the ground. And he's like, eat up, Loki. And he just, like, flops the sizzling, you know, seared meat directly on Loki's face and just cooking his skin. He's like, yeah, you're burning me. And Gerd is like, be careful of his wounds, Luffy. And then they've moved the meat, and Loki is like, are you trying to kill me? And screen. You know, just screaming at Luffy.

[Ed]

It's a good thing he's got bandages on his face.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, that probably helps a little. And. And Luffy's like, hey, you're. Yeah, you sound. You sound good to me already. You sound pretty lively.

[Zach]

This is the same technique Zorro had to see if he was alive like two chapters ago. Yeah, he kicked him in the chest. I just want to mention I really like the sound effect lettering, I guess, above the. Than burning his face, I guess.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, that little, like, sizzly looking border to it. I'm hungry. And Luffy is. Is giving Loki tips. Like, okay, you need to eat if you want to recover. And so Loki is chomping away, but he is still lying on his back, which, as you can imagine, is very difficult to. To eat and to swallow. So he says, it's hard to swallow lying on my back. You can't sit me up first. And he's coughing and hacking. Jeez, so fussy. And so he.

[Zach]

Luffy's like, I could eat in any position anytime. You name it. You put food in my mouth, I'm there.

[Ed]

Asleep or awake. We know this.

[Zach]

Yes, that's true.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. He's like, those NASA pens, they can work even in no gravity.

[Zach]

Upside down.

[Ed]

NASA used a pencil where? The Soviet pencil.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. I thought they didn't. I thought NASA didn't do that because the graphite would catch fire or something.

[Zach]

Wow.

[Stephen Paul]

Anyways, that is neither here nor there. Loki is sitting up now, and he's still coughing. And Luffy's like, oh, you got something stuck in your throat. Hang on a sec. I got something for that. And he's like, I'm gonna bring soup. And so he runs off, and then he's coming back with a giant mug that is like literally burning. You can see it's burning his hands and. And bubbling. And he's going out as he runs back with this very unsteady cup. And Loki is like, no, no. I can see a bubbling from here. Stay away from me. As. Yeah. Luffy approaches with the impending disaster.

[Zach]

This page is probably one of the funniest pages of One Piece in a while. I just want to point out, from the broccoli to the all the fantastic.

[Ed]

I don't know why I had the idea that they had built the bonfire to cook the meat on Loki's chest.

[Zach]

It.

[Stephen Paul]

I mean, it's probably because. It's because of all the other, you know, slapstick hijinks.

[Zach]

Yeah, they are absolutely torturing Loki.

[Ed]

Accidentally getting slapped in the face with meat.

[Zach]

Like you said it. They're like, again, AO3.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Ed]

It just reminds me of this. If anyone's ever seen the Producers where the Musical? No, the. The Movie Where. Where 0Mostell is about to like, jump on top of Gene Wilder, and he's like, don't jump. Don't jump on me. Loki's about to be wet and hysterical.

[Zach]

Yeah, to be fair, I could totally see them building a bonfire on him just because they don't like him very much. As we find on the next page, as he splashes the boiling hot water. Right. It was water.

[Stephen Paul]

The soup.

[Zach]

Soup. Sorry, it's in a mug, which confused me slightly. Okay, so splashes all over him. Not fun. So this might be as. Look. Oops.

[Dr. Gomez]

Splash.

[Zach]

I love the. I love the addition of that font for Luffy. Just innocently.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Kirsten Carey]

Oops.

[Zach]

Scalding him. And we see Loki recovering. Gerd notes that he has more burns than before.

[Ed]

Gee, I wonder why.

[Zach]

And Loki's like, get him away from me and Luffy. I love this look. This is an excellent look of. Oh, sorry. I messed up. I didn't mean to. And Gerd, meanwhile, thrilled that they're doing this to Loki. I guess that's what I'm supposed to get from that, right? Yeah. I'm just making sure.

[Ed]

Sanji smirking the thumbs up here.

[Zach]

Sanji does not get heart eyes for this. This opinion. But I believe the bing. Yeah, I believe the heart from the Bing is from Gerd, who's just very happy to see Loki hurt. Sanji, meanwhile, has his soup or his portion of the soup. And like, why are you guys. What did this guy do to you to make all the giants hate him so much? I mean, he's not like this asshole next to me. Zoro is referring to, I assume is his inner monologue there. And Zoro says, I'm guessing he was lying when he made that promise to Luffy. And we finally find out what the promise is as Loki tries to get up. Or I guess he is sitting up with logs supporting him here. Also, I love Goldberg's little grill going on. This little barbecue going on here on the left on this panel. Roto Roto deserves none of this meat. As Loki says, oh, where to find Red hair Now, I wasn't lying about that. And Zorro, I believe, saying, we'll be the judge of that. Go and tell us. Loki's like, why should I have to tell you when you haven't upheld your end of the bargain and unlocked my last chain? You really want to meet Red hair that badly? Well, I suppose I understand how it feels to idolize a pirate you met when you were just a lad. And with this, you have hen Staring blankly at Loki here. And we have Luffy now munching as politely as possible, still sitting atop a very injured Loki here, saying, ah, you make it sound.

[Ed]

He's got the big overbite, like he's Iami or something from Osamatsukun.

[Zach]

Yeah. And. Sorry, you have Luffy chewing. Yeah. His hunk of meat, saying, you make it. I could. I should do this properly. And Loki responds, yes, I did. And it pains me that I was only a boy at the time. And in the background, you have Loki walk in and saying, take me with you.

[Ed]

As.

[Zach]

We find out, the silhouette. We only have so many fully silhouetted characters in the series, and so this one's probably Rocks, I think it's fair to say. I think we all immediately thought that.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, that was my first impression too.

[Zach]

I think it was also my second and third impression anyway.

[Ed]

But the hair. Yeah. Kind of looks like previous silhouettes of Rocks.

[Zach]

Yeah, he was in that one opening. For some reason. I. He says, I didn't. How do. How does rock sound? I didn't come here to meet a welf like you. Stop making me repeat myself. These are the voices I've been doing for Noah for reading time. So that's. That's pretty bad, Steven.

[Stephen Paul]

Okay. And. Yeah. So then Loki challenges our mysterious figure and says, fight me, then. And he turns with his eye, you know, with one eye visible here, and says, what? And then we see smash cut to Loki beaten and bloodied on the ground. And we see a somewhat familiar mustache silhouette there as a another figure says, you don't have to use a blade on a kid. And the.

[Ed]

Shut up, Newgate.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, the fighter says, shut up, Newgate. So there. There's your hint, number two, that this is Rock, since he was on a crew with white beard.

[Zach]

Hint is such a strong. It's. I mean, it's such a weak word for what this is. Very, very telegraphed.

[Dr. Gomez]

Who else could it be?

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, but he's notably about half the size of Whitebeard, so that's kind of interesting. I'm not sure. Based on the Whitebeard Big. Yeah, Whitebeard is very big. And based on the perspective in the. That first panel of this little mini flashback, he looks like he's probably about the same size as the other people.

[Ed]

The other Whitebeard's not the size of a giant. He's like. But like 40ft tall or something like that.

[Stephen Paul]

I don't think he's that tall. I thought the Whitebeard 40ft was like the giant, like a small Giant. But.

[Zach]

Well, he might be as tall as a small giant. That's not so ridiculous.

[Stephen Paul]

No, he's not that tall.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Stephen Paul]

He's like. He's like 12 or 13ft tall, if.

[Zach]

I had to guess. 12 or 13ft is like a normal guy in one piece. Right.

[Kirsten Carey]

To be fair, I kind of thought that this.

[Zach]

Oh, here comes Kirsten. Probably I should have introduced. Kirsten's joining us.

[Kirsten Carey]

Hi.

[Zach]

Hi. Hello.

[Kirsten Carey]

Hello. My. My read on this panel was that Rocks just kicked Loki's ass and immediately stormed out and Whitebeard stayed by.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, yeah, that could be. That could be true.

[Zach]

By the way. So what was your guess, Steven? You said 12ft. Ed.

[Ed]

What did you say 40ft, maybe?

[Dr. Gomez]

Okay, I'm saying 20.

[Kirsten Carey]

Can I say 15?

[Zach]

Yeah. Dr. Gomez, there's a reason you have the PhD. 21ft, 10 inches. So there you go.

[Ed]

How tall are giants, Zach?

[Zach]

Give me a giant and I'll look it up. Should I look up? Saul is a smaller one. Dorian Pokey, I think are larger giants, right?

[Stephen Paul]

Yes.

[Zach]

Saul is 64ft. So.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Still. Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

Like three white beards.

[Zach]

Yeah. If you stack three whitebeards on top of each other, that's really the measurements we should be using for things. Yeah. Three white beards in a trench coat. Yeah, there it is.

[Stephen Paul]

Three white beards in a trench coats. Would not be anywhere near as tall as Loki is. However, he is the. The biggest boy of them all. And as he eats, he is saying, I was born in the wrong era. Which I feel like every. This is a very Chuny Bo. Like.

[Ed]

Yeah. Loki listens to classic rock.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. His music was better before I was born. And. Yeah. So meanwhile, we switch to a. A larger set of panels over on the left side of the page as Dory and Brogy are in the midst of a melee with all of the sleep duds. And they're like. The draggers are like soldiers. So many ghosts too. Just the thing kids would be afraid of. And then we get the. The great Eric on its little cloud ores. And they're like running over one of the. The draugrs just like completely flattening it. And we see the weird bird thing and the Loki, the dream Loki is trying to smash the ship with his hammer. And we see of course, the bear with the helmet ready to fight, which is very adorable.

[Zach]

Is his name Da Bear?

[Stephen Paul]

Da Bear.

[Zach]

Yeah. We have at least three Illinois based people on this. On this episode.

[Kirsten Carey]

Bear.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. Sports.

[Ed]

Yes.

[Kirsten Carey]

To be fair, I think that's also an SNL skit. Right.

[Zach]

That's really what.

[Ed]

The super fans.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes, that's right. Yeah. Although it's Norse, so it could be more like Durgenbergen or something like that.

[Zach]

Yeah, well, Drgenbergen is its official type of. But Dr. Gomez, maybe this is your fear realized sports. It's Dubair.

[Dr. Gomez]

You know what? I. Yeah, I. When I was in college, I was a cheerleader and I was a dancer for Illinois State and I never learned anything about football. So I called the Bears the Big Cuffs because I feel like they're just like adult ones. Like you know, from the baseball to the football. But that's all I know.

[Ed]

It's more of a basketball school anyway.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we do. And yes. And we have the Minnesota Viking Loki on the left with his helmet.

[Zach]

Can we do one episode where we don't make sports references?

[Dr. Gomez]

Well, weren't there like a new collaboration with the Lakers or with.

[Zach]

Yeah. Seattle Mariners? The Red Sox.

[Stephen Paul]

The Red Sox, Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

So when is the one with the big cups coming?

[Kirsten Carey]

Oh my God, if they did that, I would lose my mind.

[Dr. Gomez]

I would still get into sports for that one.

[Zach]

Get into sports?

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah.

[Zach]

I would go to a game and collect the merch.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yes, exactly.

[Kirsten Carey]

You can't make me care about sports. Unless it's the Cubs and then I care.

[Dr. Gomez]

I mean, I like the performance that the players put together in their costumes. I think that's actually very cool to look at. But that's like.

[Zach]

No, this is not really related. But Steven, that clip that you sent me from the. Was that the Yankees?

[Stephen Paul]

Oh yeah, we didn't. Yeah, we didn't talk about that.

[Zach]

We forgot to talk about that.

[Stephen Paul]

The Yankees announcer talking about Monkey D. Luffy.

[Zach]

And it was the greatest. It was the greatest two minute clip I've ever seen.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And it was someone so ill. Poorly informed.

[Stephen Paul]

He was. He was reading that one sheet like a champ.

[Zach]

Yeah, he's like, I'm going to read the start of this Wikipedia page. I'm gonna get through it. I don't give a shit.

[Ed]

Pronouncing Luffy like the old Viz Shonen jump ad that they used to have on the DVDs.

[Zach]

Yeah, I'm sure he was referencing. Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Anyways, back to the combat scene here, which is as previously mentioned, very cool. And the. The Loki, the dream Loki attacking the ship is met by. By none other than Gabon who leaps off the side with his axes twirling. And he says, I'll handle him. And they're like Mr. Yah. And then we get a cool just snapshot of him with a triumphant grin on his face, which is kind of funny. And then he slices through the. The. The magical phantom Loki. And we see right through.

[Zach]

I just got what that it was. I did not understand what we were looking at.

[Stephen Paul]

We were looking at. Yeah. For some reason, it's very dark. I don't know why. I guess it's because he's wearing furs on his back.

[Zach]

No, no. It could just be we're seeing the center of it, and it's like the JoJo censoring, you know, like it's just black.

[Stephen Paul]

Sure.

[Zach]

Yeah. Ed. All right.

[Ed]

And he says, good thing these are based on a child's imagination. Would they be stronger if the kids knew the real thing? I'd rather not find out. And here there are more of them now. 3. A trio of abnormal voices. They can try to hide, but I still feel them. Is that Gabon saying that?

[Zach]

Yes.

[Stephen Paul]

So he's referring to Summers and Gunko and killing him.

[Zach]

Yeah. Right.

[Ed]

So back at the firefighting team, we hear, open the sea cloud hoses. And they do. And water starts to flow out onto.

[Zach]

The fire.

[Ed]

At a. It's very, very forceful. And that's Saul, who says, firefighters, I'm so glad y' all made it. Could you pick it up a little? One of the firefighter says, the valves are all the way open. It's the strongest stream we've got. And then the children are still walking. We hear the firefighter who says, put out the fire.

[Zach]

You can do it. That's all. Yeah, yeah, you can do it.

[Ed]

Get them flames out. I'm begging you. I guess this is. Maybe this is Summer is speaking. He says, yeah, look at that, Gunko. The kids are about to burn to death. What happens? Will they wake up?

[Stephen Paul]

The perspective, I guess, should have been obvious, but I. I still felt like, whoa, that's a really big wolf. When you see Saul, like, little tiny Saul standing on top of the. The Fenrir.

[Zach]

What a. What a cute little big boy.

[Kirsten Carey]

I like that. He has a little bump on his head.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

No, that is. Yeah. Anyway, we go to the next page as this says. Gunko says they'll wake up from the heat, wail and cry for their parents, and be consumed by flames and burned into bones, I assume. And you see the kids continue, oh.

[Ed]

That would be convenient for me, wouldn't it?

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

And the kids, Aren't you supposed to.

[Ed]

Be taking them as hostages?

[Zach]

The last chapter, they said, oh, we'll get others if they like something, like, true. But, yeah, you're right, Ed. It's not an efficient way to get hostages. At the very least, don't really kill the hostages.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So, yeah, Summer's definitely the one responding here. How about that? Now that's emotion. And someone from underneath the sea cloud says sea cloud as he. In a familiar way, like bed sheets around him, snuggles deep into the sea cloud.

[Stephen Paul]

It's the little bear from the Downey commercials.

[Zach]

Yes.

[Dr. Gomez]

Trying to get cozy.

[Ed]

The little bear with teepee on his ass.

[Zach]

We don't have to draw that.

[Stephen Paul]

I was painting such a nice, adorable picture, Ed.

[Zach]

It should be teddy bear. And then you just throw some TP on him. It would be stuck on his foot if anything anyway. And dory and broke. You're like, hey, what's wrong? Firefighters. It's not going out. And sorry. All I thought about was my son through this whole chapter because it's firefighters. And that's literally the only thing he knows how to talk about. And when he hears this in 10 years, that's all you talked about in the year 2025 and 4 and 3. And we see, yeah, we're at max output. There's nothing we could do. And Saul runs. Stop. Won't somebody stop the children? And Sommers is doing his super evil laugh. I do really like that panel. In particular, bringing home how much of a dick he is. And whose leg in particular is it supposed to be, Saul?

[Stephen Paul]

That's the kids.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Oh, those are the kids. They're walking into the fire.

[Dr. Gomez]

They're about to be burned.

[Zach]

And we see a shoulder throw. And it's the beautiful Jinbe with his comfy, comfy towels trying to smother the fire up. But no, they're actually sea clouds. And he says that should do it. Was that in time? Did I time that? Well, are they dead? And we see Colin ship saying, Colin from Colin's ship, I assume saying, over here, hop on. And so Jim BAE does a hop and goes back onto the ship as everyone's like, yeah, way to go, Jimbe. And Brooke takes his guitar out. I got the chills even though I don't have weight. Now I don't know if he starts.

[Ed]

Playing the guitar like wheedly, wheedly, wheedly.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

[Kirsten Carey]

As a professional guitarist, I can say that's exactly what guitar sounds like.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yep.

[Zach]

Yeah, thank you.

[Kirsten Carey]

Take my non existent job.

[Zach]

Oh, perfect. I need some non existent jobs. I don't. I already have this one. So anyway, Connor on his far.

[Stephen Paul]

Colin.

[Zach]

Colin. Forget that. Colin colon. I know that's what Stephen wanted us column. They back away as the explosion of water hits the fire. Steam presumably coming out of Kabloosh.

[Stephen Paul]

I guess this is a very strange sequencing of panels because he. It's like Jim BAE does the action move. You know, he throws the big stream of clouds and then there's a, you know, the little sequence of like reaction panels from him and the straw hats, like, all celebrating. But then you see like, wait, no, he didn't even actually land it yet. It's not until, like, he gets on the ship and then they do the, you know, walking away from the explosion.

[Zach]

They need to flip the top and the bottom, I think.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, that would have made it a lot better, I think. Yeah.

[Ed]

There. That should do it. After it hits.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

It's. It's like when you walk away and you think you've done the thing that you're supposed to. There we go. All finished.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, he. He threw up the ball at half court and then he turned around and he does the like. Yeah, there's.

[Ed]

There's the. The gif of the. I think he's a Lakers player.

[Stephen Paul]

I think it's Nick Young who exactly.

[Ed]

Shoots the three pointer and like, does a thing. The dick does like a little dance and it bounce. It like rims out.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. On the back.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah.

[Zach]

My podcast. Yay.

[Dr. Gomez]

More sports.

[Zach]

You're welcome. Kirsten, why aren't you around us off here?

[Kirsten Carey]

Well, more reactions. We get some giants going with their eyes and tongues sticking out. Saul's crying, Robin and Chopper are looking like fangirls up at Jim Bae's incredible work. And Shonen Jump just locked me out of the chapter.

[Zach]

Oh, no.

[Stephen Paul]

Well, too good.

[Zach]

If you had more non existent jobs, I'm sure they're free. So that doesn't. That doesn't explain it either.

[Kirsten Carey]

What just happened to my app? It's never done this before.

[Zach]

Well, it knew.

[Ed]

You're reading too much.

[Stephen Paul]

You gotta.

[Kirsten Carey]

You gotta because I've been catching up on Shoha Shoten.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, that's good.

[Zach]

Hey. Yeah, there's a plug.

[Kirsten Carey]

Another plug. Great work, Steven.

[Zach]

Should we talk about Akane Banashi while we wait for Kristen?

[Kirsten Carey]

Okay, I got it.

[Dr. Gomez]

I got it.

[Kirsten Carey]

I got it.

[Zach]

Oh, damn it. We.

[Kirsten Carey]

We can though.

[Zach]

No. Hey, go ahead.

[Kirsten Carey]

Such disappointment. Probably one of the firefighters saying, the wildfire in Forest Sector 2 Branch 8 has been put out. And victory. Yeah, Indeed it has. We see kind of the smoke evaporating as everything looks hunky dory. The kids are walking above the kind of like water vapor, as people say. The kids are all safe. The children weren't harmed by the flames, but they're still marching onward and dory and brogy. And them saying, that was a close one. We believed in you. Well done, firefighters. And then the firefighters saying, it wasn't us, as they're calling the guardian deities of Elbaf.

[Ed]

But at least there's Elbaf's bravest, right, Zach.

[Dr. Gomez]

Guest mess.

[Zach]

Can I take a break from firefighters for one night? That's all I'm asking for.

[Stephen Paul]

No fair. All firefighters, all Sports.

[Zach]

Yeah, it's perfect. Perfect. That's what we're going to name this one. All Firefighters Sports. This one's made for five year old boys. Exclusively. All firefighters, all Sports. Kirsten, go ahead.

[Kirsten Carey]

At least they're all safe. No kidding. And then chopper saying, did you see that, Robin? And Robin saying, Jim BAE must be nearby. And he sure was. I didn't name my cat after Jim BAE for nothing. And indeed we go back to Colin's spar saying. With Colin saying, that was so cool, Jim Bae. So cool. Someone else sang, thank you, Jim Bae and Jim Bae. Just being. It's nothing.

[Zach]

Just remember Colin is 20 20. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, yeah.

[Zach]

Through all of this for the rest of the series, just remember that.

[Kirsten Carey]

Colin then saying, the kids at school all hate me, but I still think of them as my friends. Just what a. What a guy. Nami saying, that's so sweet, Colin. We're gonna save them together. And Colin with a tear in his eye saying, yeah, but not so funny.

[Ed]

They don't have to be. Then they'll have to be my friends.

[Zach]

Thank you. Because I was thinking around the same thing. I'm like, is that really a sweet thing to say? I mean, that seems more of like a codependency thing. Yeah, yeah. But go for it.

[Kirsten Carey]

Maybe if he saves them, then they'll realize that fighting and being heroes is cool. And he was.

[Zach]

I think that's probably what he's thinking. Yeah.

[Kirsten Carey]

But oh no, somebody's on the ship. And it's Gunko. And she says, so I suppose the school isn't the only place. And Colin goes. And everyone on the straw hat's like. And Gunko finishes to find a perky child.

[Ed]

Like, girl, put on some pants.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

I've been saying this since the business.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. But the combination of line of talking about finding perky children and being in a state of undress is very disconcerting.

[Zach]

It is. But with Brook there, we finally get to see how much of a what's, what's his stage name again. Fan. Yes. That she really is. That I really do look forward to.

[Kirsten Carey]

I assumed you were going to the panties.

[Zach]

Yes, yes, but that's our theory last time was that that's the reason she doesn't wear pants. She's such a fan. I don't know if it's so he could see, but it's.

[Ed]

Yeah, she got the inside dirt. She reads the dirt sheets.

[Zach]

Yeah. Well, no, it's in one of the songs someone pointed out. I forget which one. That he makes that joke. Yeah. Pretty funny stuff, if true. But we'll get more to that in a second. Ed, can I start with you? What do you think of the chapter?

[Ed]

Well, it's good that the. The children are safe and seeing. Everyone's sort of. Everyone's reaction to. To Jinbe is very. Jimbe is cool, and everyone recognizes this. You love to see that. I don't know what to think about Loki, but overall, good chapter, I thought. But I mean, Loki taking abuse is funny, but not really sure what. Where he's. What he's going to be doing going forward. I don't have much else to say.

[Zach]

Well, he's going to be the place where you make your bonfires, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Steven.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Interesting. Interesting chapter. Pretty. Pretty jam packed. There's a lot of stuff that. That happens here. We get a little bit of everything. Some cool action stuff. You know, Sanji and Zorro teaming up and then fighting about it is always fun. It was a little. Maybe a little lower effort than. Than usual for. For them in. In terms of how. How Oda depicted it, but it was still cool to see and, you know, getting. Getting little answers for things like. Like, is. Is that S.H.I.E.L.D. really a homie? And then finding out that. That it was. Which is really cool because it just. It just strengthens the. The narrative.

[Ed]

So I guess. So I guess there was an expedition to go after Big mom that Goldberg's father was a part of, presumably after she killed Yoro.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, it could have been that or. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's more likely that than anything to do with Loki and Pudding.

[Zach]

Interestingly, though, because it would have been. I'm just.

[Stephen Paul]

It would have been years ago.

[Zach]

I'm just thinking, though, we saw Vox was there with Whitebeard. That also means Big mom must have been, because Big mom was part of the Vox pirates, at least at some point. So maybe it's. Maybe there is some relation to that event and the rocks pirates specifically.

[Stephen Paul]

And maybe maybe she wasn't there because she was like, yeah, I Got trouble with the Giants or something?

[Zach]

I don't think Big mom would be one to. I don't think she has that kind of introspection. I don't think she would have figured that out. I. I also just was gonna say I. I feel like we're setting up now with that maybe for a Rock's flashback because of that specific fact that dad. Goldberg, when you start mentioning the parents of the people in the. That are in the present time, I feel like that's a very like.

[Ed]

Yes, Mr. Goldberg.

[Zach]

Yes. Yeah, my father. Please call him Mr. Goldberg. He's. He was a lawyer. Giant lawyer, but it's still a lawyer. Yeah, go ahead, Stephen.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, and you know, obviously anytime you have someone drawing comparisons to Luffy in some way, especially something as kind of elemental to Luffy's personality as his childhood fascination and admiration of Shanks, you know, that that's. That's going to be a sign that that's his, you know, his face turn thing. That's. That's in the works where we're gonna find out that, you know, Loki's admiration of.

[Ed]

Oh, he's just like me for real.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, totally. But that. That will be an interesting kind of contrast to. To Luffy's and so that.

[Ed]

I mean, I wonder what the perspective of people of Rocks was in his own time.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I. I don't know. And like, it. It definitely reminded me of like. Okay, you know, you have to be careful. Otherwise we're going to be setting up for another 15 chapter flashback from. To explain what a badass Rocks was. The same way that we had to do that for Odin when he was, you know, really puffed up in the. In the present day story. And it really required quite a hefty, you know, commitment to. To fully depict that in the past. So yeah, we'll see where that. Where that goes.

[Zach]

Yeah, I think I could guarantee at this point.

[Stephen Paul]

But yeah, not too surprising with the saving of the.

[Dr. Gomez]

The.

[Stephen Paul]

The children. But at least it puts us in a position where, you know, because. Because Summers and. And Gunko are watching the children and of course the straw hats are rushing to save the children, it puts them in a direct, you know, crash course here on the. On the little ship so we could finally get to.

[Ed]

And Luffy is still looking for Shanks.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, Luffy is. Is lost. But. But the straw hats at least have found the bad guys. And so hopefully we will start to get some resolution on this.

[Ed]

And won't somebody please think of the children?

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, they should. They should cover her up. That's that's what they should do for the children. But, yeah, that's all. That's all I have to say.

[Zach]

Dr. Gomez, your thoughts?

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, I'm along the same lines with everyone for this chapter. If we do go into, like, a rocks flashback, I would want to see a reveal, finally, of the face and the whole, you know, look. That'd be something cool to look forward. I am actually very intrigued by Nash because before Namikatsu, I kept thinking, if big mom gets knocked out or if she falls into the sea, does the power wears off and it didn't happen. But then if there's a homie from way before, that's still with the giants. Why is her devil fruit so different than Sugar's? Because when Sugar got knocked out by Usopp, then all the toys went back to normal. I don't know. That just intrigues me as, like, as an academic, I want to get the right answer and story convenience. Yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's my guess.

[Dr. Gomez]

I'm going to believe that there's something more intricate.

[Zach]

You should send that as an sbs. I mean, you are like Quadrilingual Quint.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yes. Polyglot. After three.

[Zach]

After three, it's just Polyglot. Okay.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, I mean, I. I would love to do that because I just would. I want to know why her mom's big mom's devil fruit is so different. Or maybe it was something to do with because she ate mother caramel. That. That made it different. I don't know. Now I'm just diverging. I like the chapter a lot in the sense that, you know, the kids are safe. I always feel very tense when kids are in danger and I will jump into the screen and save them. I am going to jump on this theory that Gunko is an actual spy from the Revolutionary army because they all wear goggles on their heads. And I saw this online and now I believe that's what it is. And I. I'm going to die on the hill. That she is a spy and she's not evil or she was just brainwashed. That's all I have for this.

[Zach]

Kirsten.

[Kirsten Carey]

I. I like that theory a lot. Yeah. I mean, I feel like for me, like, and I wrote this for my. My column for the blog last week. But, like, I've kind of liked Gunko from the start and I've had weird feelings about that because, like, celestial dragons are the worst and evil. And I feel like this is kind of the first chapter. I mean, when she says, like, they'll wake up from the heat and Wail and cry for their parents and be consumed by the flames. Like, that was sort of how, like. Okay. No, she's. She's. I remembered that she's evil and my. Sort of like, oh, she listens to music after she eats. She's just like me, though. Went away for a bit. So if Goon code turns out at least to be like, a spire. A good guy, I would be elated. Yeah. I mean, it's just like these last. All of these last chapters have just been, like, good times. Like, they. They just feel like fun romps. They go down pretty easy. I love. I love Luffy rushing over with that hot cup of soup. So funny. Just trying. Trying and failing to help. Yeah. Like, it. It's. It's just a good time. I. Yeah. My main thoughts has been, like, as someone who's been sort of finding a lot to like about certain aspects of the holy nights.

[Ed]

So Luffy is the Schlemiel and Loki is the Schlamazel.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Is that. Is that accurate, Zach?

[Ed]

Well, no, I mean, because that's the. That isn't the joke. That Schlemiel is the guy who spills a bowl of soup at a fancy party, and Schlemmaz was the guy he spills it on.

[Stephen Paul]

It was about soup, wasn't it?

[Zach]

It was, yeah. I don't know.

[Ed]

I don't remember what TV show I heard that on.

[Zach]

Perks and Perks and recognize. It's. It was. I think that was a Ron Swanson. Yeah. Which is weird. Why would he know Yiddish? But.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Zach]

Yeah, I try. I'm gonna. I'm gonna defer to Ed on that.

[Ed]

It might be. Yeah, I do. I did like Parks and Rec.

[Zach]

Sorry, go ahead.

[Kirsten Carey]

I mean, yeah, that was basically done. Yeah. Great chapter. Good time. Go, Jim bae.

[Zach]

Shlomo Elbaf Incorporated. Sorry, I'm trying to think. Anyway. Yeah, no, I. I really enjoyed this. This chapter is a really funny one. I think I mentioned, Stephen, the page you read earlier, it, like, not only was it, like, good classic one piece, which I think we've been saying about Elbaf generally, that it was. Feels very. From a different era of Oda's writing, which is, for me, complimentary, but it also just was genuinely very funny. And. And one piece is. I think one piece always struck me as special because it actually does make me laugh. Not a lot of fiction does that generally, like, in that aren't, like, you know, comedic stories front and center. Like, as a secondary thing. Like, a good example is like, fma she tried a lot of humor and some of it doesn't land. Some of it does. But I think Oda is maybe first and foremost in his mind a humorous. And this chapter, I think really reinforces that. It was very, very entertaining on that level. This also, I've been thinking about it since all the egghead anime stuff has been coming out this past week. But I think we had discussed the egghead arc is an arc with characters and the straw hats are secondary characters. And in that story, for good and for bad. But Elbaf is a story about the straw hats in a much more tangible way. And getting to see Jim Bay in action being like, how is this character going? And Shanks and Luffy. Luffy's, you know, like Zoro and Sanji's little back and forth. Like the highlights of this chapter and the last few have all been about the straw hats and not secondary new.

[Ed]

The straw hats are in character and being funny.

[Zach]

Right? Which they are usually.

[Ed]

But even Jim. Jim Bay is like, yeah, don't mention it. Yeah, I'm cool.

[Zach]

Jim Bay is probably humble to be fair to him, because he is that he does have that kind of personality. But we all know he's cool. Jim pays cool. Um, but yeah, no, that's. That's what I really enjoyed about this chapter is like, it really represents the strengths of all the straw hats. Like, I think everyone except for maybe Usopp get like some sort of moment to shine.

[Ed]

Elbaf is not Usopp's arc after all.

[Zach]

Well, this chapter wasn't Usopp's chapter after all.

[Kirsten Carey]

I mean, you know, he got wasted. He's. He's been having a great time in Elbaf.

[Zach]

No, no. Usopp generally in Elbaf has been doing good. Great. I just meant this specific chapter he's not in. Yeah, yeah. I think every other straw hat has some sort of role. I wanna. So there were a few things that stuck out that we just haven't been through too much. I did really like all the stuff with Nash and the homies. And I'm glad that was addressed. I think that had moved from like, strong possibility to almost certain already on.

[Steve Yurko]

On.

[Zach]

On the theorizing chart. So we would get a confirmation there. The conversation with Scopper. And by conversation, I mean monologue that he has with himself really strikes me because everything that Scopper has been saying feels extra ominous when he says if this island still is standing at the end. You know, I look forward to talking or whatever that was when. When he said Goodbye to the straw hats. And here, if even Elbaf isn't safe anymore, then that's truly the end of days. And like, you know, this guy's been around for a while. I feel like this is kind of more Oda's voice coming in here. Like, this is like, as a reader to, you know, put a pin in this specifically because we're. We're. We might be getting into a really dark place soon in the main story. And. And he's right. Like, the fact that the government is willing to do this in Elbaf and probably had been planning something for quite some time, but the fact they destroy the Lucia, well, I don't think Scopper knows that, to be fair. I don't know if he reads the paper or not, but. And I don't know if he knew Vegapunk's speech. Like, apparently Saul and folks listen to that. But I don't know if it's him putting two and two together with, like, contextual stuff. But at the very least, he's like, elbaf is a safe place. The fact that the government is here and they bringing such heavy hitters is concerning. So I found that very interesting. I. This. I. I do love the clouds, generally playing such a fun role in Elbaf. We talked, I think, Steven, did we talk last week? We were talking about how, like, the astral plane is still something we have not seen and how odd that is and. And the idea that basically Elbaf serves as several islands and the middle one is a sky island at the very least. And we don't know what's going on on the top yet, but it definitely. It brings like an extra.

[Ed]

Yeah, bring back Enro. We want Enroo.

[Zach]

Yes, I think we've been saying that. Yeah.

[Ed]

Been saying that for. Since the beginning of the show.

[Zach]

Yeah, 16 years.

[Ed]

Yeah, we could. We could bring Tatum back on the show.

[Zach]

You just want to talk to Tatum, but yeah. And the stuff with rocks. Oh, the only other thing I want to mention with rocks is that I don't like. I think he is an important character in the history of One Piece and probably will be in a flashback prominently featured. However, it's pretty clear from this that he's also an asshole, that he's fine stabbing some kid or doing whatever with a knife to. To do this to Loki, who was what, six? Or did they say how old? No, just a boy. So I found that very interesting because again, we talk about, like, hurting kids and rocks clearly show that he doesn't give a shit. Kobe doesn't count. Luffy's allowed to hit Kobe because Kobe. But that's the one. That's the one hall pass you get for. For that. Luffy. No more of that. Oh, Momonosuke too. I guess maybe Luffy's is more evil than I thought. Anyway. Yeah, this is. This is a interesting development. And I think. And the stuff we talked about with Big mom and the homies. Like, I think we are probably in for a very interesting Loki flashback that will also have a lot of stuff with Rocks and I think so we've been silhouetting Rocks for quite some time, including when he was more of a Loki flashback.

[Ed]

We could do the Loki pokey.

[Zach]

Gonna ignore that. Turn this about and say that's what it's all about. Yeah. When you really think about is. And it's because Loki here brings. I think this like Shanks Luffy thing with Loki and Rocks is a good reason to un silhouette him, in my opinion. Like, I'm thinking, like, why has Oda waited if he waits until here. Why is this the moment we see Rocks? Why did it sound like Rocks was.

[Ed]

Around during the Void Century? So he wouldn't be involved in that.

[Zach]

No, no, I meant in the past. So he was in the God Valley stuff, but we didn't see him. He was in some of the stuff with Big mom, but we didn't see him. And Kaido. But we didn't see him. Like, there have been a lot of.

[Ed]

Very strong insinuation and Miss Bucking and. And Granny Young.

[Zach]

Yes.

[Ed]

All members of the Rocks Pirates.

[Zach]

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, story wise, it's been interesting that we haven't seen him yet. And. And we don't know if he's dead or not either. Like we don't know if he still exists in the world. Which is something I often forget. So I'm reminding myself. Anyway, that's really. That's really it. Curse and go ahead.

[Kirsten Carey]

I feel like. Yeah, there. There's definitely. They're setting up Loki as like the yin to Luffy's yang in a lot of ways. And like that also seems to be extending now to like Shanks and Rocks. And I. Yeah, I'm very excited to see where that all goes. I meant to mention that in my re. My own recap.

[Zach]

But yeah, and I. I think Loki's like, We talk about the end game stuff a bunch. But like Loki is clearly having his about faces. Heel turn. I believe is the proper term.

[Ed]

Face turn.

[Zach]

He's Face Turn. Sorry. Yeah. So I was just completely Wrong. But seeing him in battle at the end of the series behind Luffy can be very cool. And that's a very, very cool image. And especially given his douchiness generally, and how people have seen him as someone who is generally awful adds another twinge of potential news that Big Morgan's could exploit incorrectly. So we'll see. Any other thoughts on the chapter? Okay. No, thanks.

[Stephen Paul]

I'm good.

[Zach]

All right, why don't we follow this mysterious arrow and head toward the next segment of the podcast?

[Sam]

This is the double anime recap for episodes 1123 and 1124. I'm your host, Sam, and today with me we have the President of the United States, Steve Yurko.

[Steve Yurko]

Boy here I thought, like, you couldn't get any worse than me, but yeah.

[Sam]

I think I have. I have questions about the economy for you, but we can save that for.

[Steve Yurko]

Don't ask me how the economy works.

[Sam]

Isn't that your job? Aren't you President of the United States, Steve?

[Steve Yurko]

Oh, I'm just quoting the Simpsons at this point.

[Zach]

All right.

[Sam]

Anyway, episode 1123, the World Shakes the Straw hats hostage situation. And we return after a long hiatus. We are back to the doing the anime recap. Last, Last we. We gathered here we are watching Garp and Kuzan duke it out on full island. Now we're returning in media res to the events of the. The egghead incident.

[Steve Yurko]

It feels so long ago, yet at the same time, it doesn't.

[Zach]

So.

[Sam]

We open on a very classy and very still overcast image. A wide shot of Egghead with the very like very minimalistic one piece logo, sans serif, sort of like rotating in very, very calmly. Felt like. Felt like something like, like a movie would do. Not the. The show.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, it makes me think of the water. Seven days. We had a lot of cold opens back then, but yeah, even so with that title card. Yeah, it feels very. It feels. It feels like a TV show. This happens a lot. Yeah, I think it just happened like with Severance where the runtime is long. So they're like, oh, we're not going to play the intro. We're just going to have like a title card here. Very much that. Which is funny because there. There's a little bit of a clip show. And this one.

[Sam]

Yes. First the sun begins to rise and we see a flock of news coups flying around the world. Key locations that we see here are Logtown and Windmill Village. And we also see a. What's a. What's a group of whales called again the School of Whales of island whale. And we get. The narrator walks us through a pretty quick recap of the Egghead arc, which feels a little redundant because there was like a whole dedicated recap episode that aired shortly before this one. But we arrive at Parties Bar, and everybody in town is reacting to the news of Garp's defeat. And Whoopslap speaks up saying, oh, he's not dead. The news doesn't confirm that he's. He's dead, so let's believe in him. And Makino's baby starts to cry. And she cheers him up and brings him over to the newspaper so that the baby can see Luffy's picture. Because the baby is starting to recognize Luffy's face and it calms him down. Up in the mountains, I'm sure Whoops.

[Steve Yurko]

Slap is pissed.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Up in the mountains, Dadon and her bandits are also reacting to the news. Dedon is angry and crying and very torn up by the. The situation. And they're. They're constantly talking about the news regarding Garp and Luffy. So in the same paper that they're announcing Garp's defeat at Full of Lead is presumably the. The news of. Of Luffy holding himself up in. In. In Egghead. And then. But then earthquakes begin. And this is hitting the whole world. The north, the south, the east, the west, tsunamis, earthquakes. The narrator. The simple black and white title card. The narrator explaining, you know, the earthquake on that day was unprecedented in recorded history. And a fleet of 100 Navy ships that far outclasses the Buster Call surrounds Egghead. And they are led by nine vice admirals and Admiral Kizaru. And we.

[Stephen Paul]

They're.

[Sam]

They're trying to fend off the. The. The cyber beasts, the sea beasts that guard Egghead Island. We got the giraffe taking a big bite out of one of the ships until Kizaru laser blasts it to death and it sinks. Then that brings us to the. Our new eye catches for this stretch of Egghead. One with Gear five, Luffy and his crew, and then one with Vegapunk and his satellites. And they're very, very like sketchy watercolory. They're going for like a low frame rate thing that. That I don't. I don't think it quite works. Like, it just feels like. Missing frame. There are frames missing.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, these ones didn't quite land for me as much. I noted the. The watercolor aesthetic, but yeah, there was something a little bit off about the animation to me, but maybe that was intentional, but I don't know. They just. They were just okay for me.

[Sam]

And we see the, we come back and the Navy is taking a ramen break with Kizaru's slurp and some noodles and talking things out with Sentomaru on the phone. And you know, they're, they're clearly at opposite sides of the conflict here and they're sharing this memory of, of their younger days when a quote unquote young Vegapunk and Kizaru and Sentomaru were all together on, on, on Egghead. And this is when Vegapunk was. Was doing research on Kizaru's devil fruit powers which would then turn into the lasers that the Pacifistas use. So it's interesting to see that the, the. This, this trio definitely they go way back. They are. Are more friends than, than you might think. At first.

[Steve Yurko]

I jump to the next scene. I kind of like wanted to go back and look at the eye catches again and like they're definitely going for the illustrated aesthetic of like the color spreads, you know, from the manga. Yeah, the. In noting the, the low frame rate, I'm also noticing like when it shows the one piece logo, it kind of like it's, it's like the pixels are kind of like delayed. Like there's like pixels make up the logo. I don't know if you know about that because I think also with the one with the Vega punks when they're in the, the vehicle and it makes like the, the, the one piece out of the clouds that just looks very much like a color spread. I think was maybe in a previous one, but I don't know. I think there was definitely some effort in there. I don't want to say they were low effort, but.

[Sam]

Yes. So we have a Vice Admiral Doberman filling Jay Garcia Saturn in on the situation. And the problem is that they cannot get through the frontier dome of Egghead. Nobody can enter, nobody can leave. There's just a big force field blocking everything. And Saturn is wanting to know about the, the various workers and like the contractors and whatnot who were previously working on Egghead. And Doberman says, well, they evacuated, but we have identified their, their ships. We know where they are. And then Saturn gives the order to sink them because they, they can't risk anybody on the, on those ships knowing too much. But then, but then when Doberman brings up Bonnie, Saturn's very quick to be like, ah, who cares? We don't worry about her anymore.

[Steve Yurko]

I'll have to bite my tongue.

[Zach]

There.

[Sam]

We have the other, the, the remaining, the four other Elders hanging out Back in, Mary Geo are picking up a phone call from York and she. She's kind of boasting and sort of implying that she's defeated the Straw Hats, because how else could she be talking to them on the phone right now? And. And. And there's this cool visual of, you know, while she's talking herself up, she's like, well, we've got the Seraphim. I've got the. The Mother flame. Got this great. This great sequence of animation of the Seraphim, like, flying in and doing these, like, action poses while York does like a. Like a catwalk strut towards the camera.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, it's really cool, but it's so quick.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. And. Yeah. So then they start negotiating over the. The Mother Flame, which York says that they have The. The power plant that can generate it is on Egghead.

[Stephen Paul]

And.

[Sam]

And so that's there. That's her bargaining chip to. To ensure her own safety. But. But, like, pretty quickly she can't keep Kayfabe, so she. She's like, please come save me. And the camera pulls out and we realize that this whole time she's been on the ground chained and being held hostage by the Straw Hats. And then that. That is the. The end of that. This first episode, which connects us to the new opening song, angel and Devil by Green Boys. And it's very Bonnie and Kuma focused. It's very.

[Steve Yurko]

It's.

[Sam]

It's revealing quite a lot of what we're going to be seeing in their flashback coming up.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, a little bit, I think I would say. I was, you know, us being manga readers, I was expecting so much more. Yeah. Revealing what's happening in the second half of this arc. I'm amazed by the restraint. I like it. I think. I like that it's really, you know. Yeah, it's focused. Like, it bounces around. You know, there's like the action on Egghead and there's like, cutting around to some other supporting characters that aren't there. But I'm kind of glad this one was specifically Bonnie and Kuma. And even the lyrics are very one to one with a lot of the themes for that flashback, you know, long, you know, to, you know, keep it. Keep it brief. I don't need to keep brief. But to say it bluntly, I think this one is a triumph. I think this opening is really great.

[Sam]

I think it's. I think the focus is a weakness for me. The. The almost sort of like tunnel vision it has on very. On this specific relationship and like, how everything that whenever they're cutting to, like, the straw hats is just kind of very generic, kind of just walking around.

[Steve Yurko]

I think the weirdest thing is seeing them in their egghead outfits on the sunny at the end. Yeah, I thought that was odd. I'm like, why didn't you just, like, put them in, like, maybe like, the outfits they were in prior to the outfit change? But I. I don't know. I still really like this one. And yeah, it is kind of very like, of its, like, you know, like. Yeah, this is very Egghead. You know, this one doesn't feel like it would represent the series as a whole as much, but I don't know. I. I still kind of like it. And who knows if it'll even last all of Egghead. I. I don't. I. I can foresee it, like, if.

[Sam]

We got like, another, what, four?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

I wouldn't put it.

[Sam]

Give or take.

[Steve Yurko]

I wouldn't put it past them. But I also wouldn't mind seeing this just carry the rest of Egghead. It just.

[Sam]

Oh, you mean, like, once. Once we're getting to the more actiony stuff, they might trade it out for something else.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. Which I don't. You know, I don't need. I. I don't know. I'm old school. I'm not the biggest fan of constantly changing the openings. I like one staying long enough to kind of.

[Zach]

I just.

[Steve Yurko]

I'm used to kind of like. I don't know. It's. It's one arc. Keep it, you know. You know, keep one opening.

[Sam]

Two openings for one arc is. Is sounds fair to me, but we.

[Steve Yurko]

Are talking about one piece where the arcs are very long at this point, so. But I don't know. I don't want to talk spoilers too much, but as Egghead is not, you know, Egghead's not a wano here, so.

[Sam]

Yeah, the bit from this opening that did, like, cut a little for me was like, like, Bonnie doing the transitions from being like a baby to, like, like, getting older. And then like, juxtaposing that with, like, the. The close up on Kuma's, like, snotty crying face as he's, like, watching his. His little girl grow up.

[Zach]

That.

[Sam]

That. That was effective.

[Steve Yurko]

Just really paying attention to, like, the lyrics. And I think what gets. I think what got me was him writing to Bonnie. I was like. And with the lyrics or something along the lines of, like, you know, it's like this camp. Yeah. Filled with love, you know, that, like, can't. That can't be written down in a letter. And I'm like, oh, knowing. Knowing what's coming.

[Zach]

I don't know.

[Steve Yurko]

It's. It's a really good one and you know, us was like a tough one to follow for me, but I think still great stuff. And even like the stuff with the straw hats in the beginning looks great and that's. I don't necessarily know who's doing animation here. Like Midoriya Mazda does a lot of the design stuff. Do they animate as well? I forget.

[Sam]

I don't know. I know. I think they're a designer mostly.

[Steve Yurko]

Okay.

[Sam]

I think they do some scenes now and there.

[Steve Yurko]

Okay. Because it feels very much her in those opening bits with the straw hats kind of just interacting with each other. It's great.

[Stephen Paul]

She's gonna be doing a lot of.

[Sam]

The upcoming card arts.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. I mean I, I, her stuff that she does for the, the Japanese Blu Ray releases are, are fantastic.

[Sam]

But there, there's a, I guess a post credit scene, you could call it after this as well, where, where we're now. Now that the reveal that the straw hats were holding is, is revealed.

[Stephen Paul]

We.

[Sam]

We get to kind of like have a little scene of them all kind of interacting and, and discussing their, their situation. This is our first time getting to hear the new Frankie's new voice, Subaru Kimura, which is in this, in this episode, it's one line. In the next episode, there's a, there's a few more lines and it's definitely not a voice match, which, which I don't know if I'm surprised by, but it's still just like, wow, I can't, I can't. It's. We really have a new voice for, for a straw hat.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

It's such a. Yeah, I, I was surprised too. That and I, and it's one line. I mean, not to. I guess we might as well talk about it because yeah, Frankie has a few more lines in the second episode, but it's, it's a performance. I don't want to say it's bad, but it's just, I don't know, it doesn't have that, that, that gravitas that I think I'm so used to the, the gravel in Yao's voice over the years, but even so, like when Frankie first was introduced back in Water seven, I'm like, it's like, it's a, it's definitely like a voice that stands out and, but this one, I don't know and I'm worried too is because you know, what Frankie gets to do in this arc, you know, there's not, you know, there's not always like a whole lot of opportunities for him to have long bits of dialogue or some other big scenes. So I'm. Yeah. I don't know what to think of this one. It's just kind of, to me it's almost like wrong sounding Muppets.

[Sam]

Yeah. Yep. I, I see the vision a lot more in the second episode. But yeah, it's, it's just, it's a new voice and, and like I think I will be able to get used to it. But right now it's, it's just sort of just an uncanny feeling like that's not Frankie, you know.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And I don't know how much you've seen of this like mini controversy happening on Twitter where everyone's throwing a fit over Sanji having heart eyes for Bonnie.

[Steve Yurko]

Not I, I, I was in interested when I was watching episode myself. I was like, I don't recall him doing that at this point, but I think maybe, maybe because at this point in the story we're still a little unaware.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And like I figure like the, the TOEI staff, they don't really have a reason to care.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. Well, Sam, so your problem is also assuming that I'm checking Twitter.

[Sam]

I am still checking Twitter way too much and I'm somewhere, somewhere like this. I guess this, this topic got fed to my algorithm as like a thing I, I wanted to see all the time. And it's, it's just like very strange how, how emotional people are about like perceived agendas on the, on the animators part.

[Steve Yurko]

It's just. That's so.

[Sam]

And everyone's just kind of like feeling these conspiracy theories about this being like some intentional thing to, to, to mark the character poorly.

[Steve Yurko]

Is it just me or does that sound like the stupidest thing?

[Sam]

It is. No, it's stupid. And it's just like completely like, oh, how. How are the people making my, my product not as invested in fandom drama as I am.

[Steve Yurko]

I.

[Sam]

What are people gonna say about my goat if. If the animators keep thinking it's okay to make them look not as cool all the time.

[Steve Yurko]

I just, you know, I'm, I'm not really posting on Twitter much and I think a lot of, you know, fortunately, that's unfortunately where a lot of the conversations still are. But then what's conversations like this and I'm like, you know, it does like.

[Sam]

It does tread on like a genuine like misinformation, like conspiracy. Conspiracy theory mindset that like what grounds.

[Steve Yurko]

Is there to talk?

[Sam]

Well, like another like Another thing I saw, like, speaking of Midori Matsuda, like there was a one piece magazine about Zorro and Sanji. I saw like the, the same kind of people like really getting riled up over the fact that, that Matsuda was more interested in like her interviews, in talking about Zorro than talking about Sanji. And they were like, oh my God, it's so unprofessional that they don't give both characters equal amount of attention in all situations.

[Zach]

I don't know.

[Steve Yurko]

I think it's just it. What a weird thing to just think it's. So why do we got to get so defensive about fandom? I guess. I don't know. Yeah, it takes me back to when I was younger and when just like I felt like we had chips on our shoulders because we were like one piece of shit. So good. And it's so popular in Japan, but no one likes it here. It's like they don't know. I don't know. That's just. Yeah, I think it's a really, I think it's really kind of just twisting the narrative due to your frustrations. You know, staff members are going to have like, you know, favorite characters and stuff. But I, I, I, but I don't see how the hard eyes thing, which, and when I look in the context of this scene, it's Sanji being chivalrous to a, to a lady.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

I don't know how, how is it any different than what Sanji's ever done? Oh, I remember. Well, there's the doggy scene.

[Sam]

Well, don't you know. But don't you know, Steve, that Oda intentionally never had him draw heart eyes for Sanji for Bonnie. And this is an intentional choice that we can definitely say that Toei is failing to appreciate.

[Steve Yurko]

You know. Sorry. In the, in the matter. In the span of these five minutes, I have not gone back to check.

[Sam]

I'm sorry, we've spent too long on this topic already.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, it's dumb. That's as much energy as I want to give to it.

[Sam]

So Luffy answers the. He takes the phone for himself and he's like, oh, is this the five Elders? And you know, he's getting ready to introduce himself before the to be continued card happened hits us. And it's very. Just reminds me of the good old days when Luffy took the phone from Baron Tamago to talk to big mom. Episode 1124 completely surrounded the operation to escape Egghead. And so Luffy is proudly announcing himself over the phone to the five Elders. My name is Monkey D. Luffy, the man who will be king of the pirates. And we get a cutaway shot of not just the Elders being surprised by this, but Morgan's and company. They're listening in too. They've got their wires tapped. And you know, VIVI is responding. WAPOL is like, oh my God, this Torp is still fighting against authority. When will he ever change? And then Robin swiftly shuts Luffy up. But the Elders hear her voice over the phone. They deduce who she is, and they sort of look. They look sullen over this information. They're thinking about what they want out of Ms. Nico Robin. And Robin is telling Luffy, information is a weapon. You must not give it to your enemy. And at first, Luffy was annoyed that. That she was interrupting him, but he's. He's pretty quick to see her logic. And then back to Saturn and Doberman. Saturn is telling Doberman there are three things we must protect. York safety, punk records, and the power plant that makes the mother Flame. Everything else is expendable. And Doberman is starting to sweat. He doesn't. He doesn't like the implication there. He's asking, well, what about CP0? You know, we don't know about their safety. We don't know about their condition. And then Saturn's like, well, I'm just talking worst case scenario. Think of anything else. Think of other human lives as insects. And Doberman is just clearly conflicted about the position he's being put in. And York is boasting about this upcoming attack from the Navy ships being just like what happened to o'. Hara. And then. And then, on Robin's behalf, Nami starts whacking York with her. Her baton. And Vegapunk's like, well, I'm ready to go. I got my backpack. I got my. My PB and J. Okay, let's head out. And Lilith is crying about Edison, who's like, in her arms. His little. His little electrical plug pin is broken off. Lilith is crying as if Edison is dead. But Edison is speaking up like, hey, I am. I am alive. Just so you know. But Lilith does not. Doesn't seem to respond to that information. And then Vegapunk and the has the Seraphim trapped in these little. In these like, basically sea prism bubbles effectively. And Frankie over the. The. The video call is thanking S Snake specifically for undoing the petrification that she had trapped him in earlier, which she did at Luffy's request. And there's a little flashback of Esnik getting all flustered by Luffy and that is something that seems to have been passed along from.

[Steve Yurko]

I guess.

[Sam]

Yeah, I guess it's just genetics from Hancock's Genetics. And Vegapunk is like, oh, I gotta take notes of this. This is very interesting. Isn't DNA fascinating? The bloodline elements.

[Steve Yurko]

Oh, yes. Bloodline elements. Yeah. We're both Metal Gear fans. We realize how everything just comes down to genetics.

[Sam]

Mm. York is bragging about the passcode she set on the Frontier Dome. On the Frontier Dome. And since her brain is not currently synced to the other satellites or to Vegapunk, nobody has a way of knowing what. What the code is. And Lilith tries attacking her and she's like swinging her fists, but Edison is like, with his jetpack, he's like pulling her back so she's kind of like swinging barely inches away from. From York's face. And Lucci just kind of like sits quietly and is whispering to himself, taking a headcount of all the injured fighters in present company. You know, the number of injured of satellites or deceased satellites and the number of straw ha hats. And Kaku is like, what are you. What are you mumbling about, Lucci? And Lucci just says nothing. Just. Just talking to myself. And that brings us to the eye catch for this episode. Were you going to say something, C?

[Steve Yurko]

No, just me being suspicious towards Lucci.

[Sam]

We come back and Stussy is strutting through the halls. She's giving us a headcount of the number of ships and soldiers arriving. Like a hundred ships, 30,000 soldiers. Vegapunk is, you know, helping Nami determine where her. Her log pose is pointing towards. He's like, oh, that's Elbaf. And then Luffy and Usopp get very excited by this news. We're heading to Elbaf. We're going to the Giant's place. We get a little. We get the. We get a. A billboard of. Of Dorian Brogy. And so they're the. The crew is. Is now devising a plan for getting off of Egghead. Vegapunk and Frankie are sharing ideas that involve using the. The Vega. The Vega Force One to fly. But the Vega Force One has like a limit. It can only go. It can only fly away from Egghead so far before it loses its flight ability. And then that's when Frankie speaks up and says, well, that's when we could use the coup de burst. And then Vegapunk is stunned that their ship has such technology in it. And he asks Frankie, how does it work? And then Frankie tells him it's powered by cola. And Vegapunk stars in his eyes. He's very charmed by this knowledge.

[Steve Yurko]

Like how you see all like the equations as like seem to be in an ocean of cola. It was a nice little touch here.

[Sam]

And so the Vegapunks, they get to. They get a fire in their eyes. Vegapunk, Lilith and Edison, they get to work trying to crack York's code because that's. That's the first barrier they'll need to lower in order for their plan to work. And then we get a cool shot of Luffy, Frankie and Lilith and Bonnie just sort of jumping off the cliff and fruit falling because they're gonna head towards the sunny and the vegaforce one and get into position, basically. And Lilith is excited to leave the island for the first time because she's. She's basically created here and born here and hasn't had a reason to really go anywhere else. Bonnie and Luffy are talking about the food ingredients that they're taking along with them. And Sanji's or Luffy's like, well, Sanji can just whip up a pizza out of this, so. So we're all good. And Bonnie is excited by that information. She likes pizza. She's impressed that Sanji is strong and a good cook because she's a. She's a glutton. And Luffy is taking note of the fact that she's in such a good mood now, since previously she was. She was crying. She was crying the full night before. So she was sad because she clearly just experienced something from her father's memories. And now she's. There's a. A silver lining on the horizon. And she's in a good mood. And she's even starting to feel somewhat forgiving towards Vegapunk. And then we have the Marines at the crack of dawn. They're all sending each other hand signs, hand salutes to prepare for battle with the Sea Beasts coming up. And just when you think that's going to be the Marines versus the Sea Beasts, Kizaru is already on the island. He's bouncing off of the glass walls of the city in that sort of like light beam zigzag pattern. And he's launching himself directly at Sentomaru, head on. Sentomaru is bracing himself, doing the sumo pose like, my defense is the greatest in the world. And they clash. Huge explosion. Luffy and company, they all react to this. This huge burst of light and wind. And Luffy has kind of a concerned look on his face. He's like, oh, someone's here. Someone's strong to Be continued. And then we get our proper, full first look at the new ending credit sequence. The one by Muk. Muke. Muke. I don't know how to pronounce this band's name, but yeah, I don't know.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, Muku.

[Sam]

Yes. And this. This ending definitely feels like a spiritual continuation of the. Of the opening. Very Bonnie focused, Very Kuma focused.

[Stephen Paul]

Very.

[Sam]

Just like.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. And also kind of breaks away from like the. The house style of one piece, if we even have one at this point. Very unique. But yeah, it's focused on like, adult Bonnie looking at kid Bonnie and flashbacks. We get a little bit of Vegapunk here, you know, but it's.

[Sam]

What was that, like, children's toy? That was like a. It was like a drawing pad where, like this. The surface is black and then you draw into it in like the. The rainbow pattern underneath. What was the name of that?

[Steve Yurko]

I'm thinking of, like, I. Oh, I know, because it's not a. Not an Etch A Sketch. I know exactly what you're talking about.

[Sam]

Yeah, you see like the. The. The infomercials for it a lot, but I don't. I don't remember what that was called, but you know what I mean.

[Steve Yurko]

Are you talking about, like, the. The drawings of like, young Bonnie and like, Kuma?

[Sam]

Yeah, like a lot of the. A lot of the ending is in this. Like the. The background is black and then there's just these kind of colored stylized drawings of. Of each of them alternating.

[Steve Yurko]

And also like the most, like.

[Zach]

The.

[Steve Yurko]

The most not like, out there for one piece. In terms of visuals. This. This ending is when we get like these quick shots of animals. Like there's one of like a hawk or a falcon there. There's one of us spider trapping a butterfly in a web. And then like there's this big, wide shot of this giant canyon. And it just feels so tied to the real world. I'm like, oh, this. This is not how the one piece world looks. Especially with the animals too. I'm guessing there's symbolism here with like the. The bird and perhaps the spider. Wink, wink. Keeping a. A blue butterfly, you know, caught in a web and about to be devoured. There's definitely a hidden meaning there, but it just feels so like it's one thing to like, draw these characters slightly different. Okay.

[Zach]

It's like.

[Steve Yurko]

It's kind of like the. The first ending we got back with in Wano. I forgot the name of it. With the Yamato. Yeah, the Yamato for this one, I think. Race. Yes. And that one had like a unique kind of like art direction there. So I. I like. I. Maybe that's more of like a mod. Like that's like a current thing with other anime. You could tell, geez, I watched too much One Piece and nothing else. Because I know other animes kind of do that.

[Sam]

So the words coming to my mind is Elevated Shonen. Like, like how they use the term like elevated horror, which is like some. Some people would use as. Is a kind of a derogatory term. Just as like, you know, something that feels more. I guess something is directed in a way that feels more important over something that feels kind of schlocky. Which I don't know if that's a super appropriate description, but like, you know, like. Like something. Something that's going for like a more self serious style.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, this one does feel very serious. But I like the song and I like the visuals. I think it's great. These beams of light hit Bonnie. I really like the color design here. Lots of pinks and blues. That's cool.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Sam]

General thoughts on these two episodes, Steve.

[Steve Yurko]

You know, as episodes themselves, they're fine. I don't think there's a whole lot of standout sequences because it's a lot of kind of moving the pieces on the board. I mean, that's what these chapters and that's what the chapters they're based off of are. I don't know. It's nice to see. It's nice to have new episodes again, even though I'm not caught up with the dub or did I finish watching special edition of Fishman Island? But it's nice to see one piece back. I think it. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's missed a beat. I like that it's trying new things. I like that like cold open of the first episode. It kind of felt. It felt like I won't even like compare it to another anime because obviously I'm not watching enough. It felt like I was watching like almost like prestige television with that kind of direction. Like maybe it is like a little self serious.

[Sam]

I think that's. I think that's another equivalent to the. To the elevated blank, what you were saying.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, it felt very like, oh, this is. Oh, this is a big deal here.

[Zach]

I know.

[Sam]

Which is like. Honestly, like that's always like what I wanted to see more of out of One Piece when it was in the. In the jank days.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, for sure. I like the. I like the coal opens. I would like to see those used more often. It's you got to think though, like, they wouldn't have even done this if one piece was on hiatus. I guess it's kind of like you gotta do this because one piece on hiatus. But I thought, well, that's what the whole the that recap was for and all that. But yeah, I'm not gonna complain. I think it's cool. But I just realized like, the, the whole reason for it even happening is just because there was a hiatus. Otherwise, it's a point in the story where this isn't even like a huge, that huge of a turning point for this arc.

[Sam]

Yeah, I, I, I'm very curious to see how much we're gonna feel any sense of like, renewed direction for the anime starting from this point forward. Because, like, I mean, like, obviously Egghead's been beautiful, but I know that there's a lot of, there is some changing hands. They clearly spent a lot of time on hiatus, like, kind of building to this, this return. I wonder, I wonder how much we're going to feel that even after that cold open.

[Steve Yurko]

I'm not sure.

[Sam]

If there's any artistic statement of intent happening here.

[Steve Yurko]

I think you like, we're getting that with 1123, but I think as we go on, it's kind of gonna be back to, you know, back to the usual, which is not a bad thing, I think. Egghead has been handled, you know, tremendously well in the anime as I've been going back and checking out the dub episodes. I just think this hiatus was just so to give the manga some breathing room. Maybe also give the animation staff, you know, a little bit of, you know, time to, you know, relax, recover. I mean, financially, I don't know how that, that works because they're, I don't know when they would have started working on episodes again, but I, I just take it as, eh, it's just a break. We'll be back and you know, it'll, you know, it'll be as it was and you're gonna get some really great stuff down the line. You're gonna get some, you know, your, your standard episodes. So I not disappointed. I'm not disappointed at all. I enjoyed these. I think I'm just, I think I've just been so in the mindset that Egghead has still been going on. I kind of forgot there was a hiatus, to be honest with you.

[Sam]

Yeah, I thought, I thought overall these episodes felt pretty returned to form, which is like a good thing, considering.

[Steve Yurko]

I think that's, yeah, that's a, that's a great way of Saying it, I. I'm.

[Sam]

I'm still.

[Stephen Paul]

My.

[Sam]

My eyes and ears are still open for like, what's. What's going to feel different between Egghead Part one and Egghead Part two? Because I just feel like more. More than we. We can see right now is. Is going to unfold.

[Steve Yurko]

But.

[Sam]

But that's, that's purely a. A gut feeling.

[Steve Yurko]

And I wonder, I mean, you know, thinking ahead, like, for arcs after this, like, it. How the anime is going to differ if it's going to feel the same? Because it seems like with the. The direction I went with Egghead was a similar approach to how they handled Dragon Ball Daima, you know, with I think the same kind of post animation effects compositing and all that. So I wonder if this is just the new toy, like, eh, we're doing this now. Or this is just like, yeah, this is gonna be the Egghead aesthetic, but then we're gonna change it up again.

[Sam]

After we're done because the arcs go so long that the just like, artistic taste is going to change by the time that the arc changes over. So it's almost inevitable, even if it's not on purpose.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. It's hard for me to kind of realize because I still think like, yeah, Dragon Ball super broly. That was a recent movie. No, it was eight years ago.

[Sam]

Does feel recent.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. I hope I didn't, you know, I hope I didn't mess with anyone's heads too much. Yeah. I think it came out in 2018 in Japan. Right. And then it was early 2019 for us.

[Sam]

I don't want to think about it.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

Time is a cruel mistress.

[Sam]

All right, thank you very much, Steve. I look forward to returning to these anime recaps.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. Really happy to be back talking about the anime with you, Sam.

[Sam]

All right, thank you very much, Steve.

[Steve Yurko]

Thank you.

[Sam]

Let's go.

[Zach]

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off terms apply. This is the Piece Together segment where we take your questions, comments, theories, and then hide them behind a trench coat and then with Whitebeard in it. That doesn't really work. Before we get into The Piece Together segment. We still have Dr. Gomez with us. How's it going, Doc? Pretty good. We have translator for one piece and weekly shonen jumping manga. Plus Stephen Paul with us. How's it going, Stephen? Present I have to say the whole thing. Otherwise. We have writer for our website, many other sites, musician, including for our podcast music. We have Kirsten Carrey joining us. She joined in the middle of the manga so I could give a real introduction now.

[Kirsten Carey]

Kirsten, thank you. I feel so special to cause a full reintroduction of everyone.

[Zach]

Wasn't just you. We also have from Prozd plays games. Literally. Here comes Steve Yurko, co host in this timeline. How's it going, Steve?

[Steve Yurko]

What's up, gamers? It's time to play Piece Together. Hopefully not a long play, you know.

[Stephen Paul]

All right, Zach, you can go now. This is the podcast of Theseus. I'm going to take off another 15 minutes. Someone else will take my place. We'll have a completely different cast by the end.

[Zach]

Okay, I totally get this reference.

[Steve Yurko]

I get it. He's making a WandaVision reference.

[Zach]

So let's start with Steve. What do we call this segment? Douchebag.

[Steve Yurko]

I always do the.

[Zach]

I'm talking like Goldberg, you are Dish, dish, peach, dish. We should just do everything like Goldberg from now on.

[Steve Yurko]

Dr. Wowee.

[Zach]

You could be guaranteed your question answered if you're a patron on our Discord. You could join our discord at discord. GG One Piece podcast. I think is the URL anyway. Or join us on [e-mail] One Piece podcast. Anyway, first question sailor Karna asks. Hey, OPP. It's been a week. This chapter was hilarious. And I can't wait for NAMI vs. Gunko. It was more of a comment.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I was gonna say it was very funny that you said asks because there was no question.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's on me. Zach. Next question.

[Kirsten Carey]

I'm so excited for Nami versus Gunko.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, it could be a question, but.

[Zach]

There was a period at the end, so it wasn't. So we have to move on to the next one, which is a question from Kramoon who says ahoy Opp. Banger chapter as always. And hilarious to boot. Looks like Loki. Low key. I get it. Wanted to join rocks because he thought rocks rocks and wanted to play rock music in a low key. Speaking of music, I'm super excited for the Brooke and Gunko interactions we're hopefully about to get. Do you think he'll be happy to see panties? He already is. It's A present tense thing that doesn't need to be future tense. Have a good week. It's more of a rhetorical question, I feel like, because I think know the answer to that.

[Stephen Paul]

I. I feel like he will not. Cuz with him, it's more of like, a harassment thing. Like, if someone actually shows it to him, like, it's like, oh, you just ruined it.

[Zach]

Gross. Yeah, I want to see that. I just want to go to jail.

[Stephen Paul]

He's just. He's just chasing the car. He doesn't want to catch it.

[Zach]

Yeah, that's. He's like a dog. Yes. Although he is the bone.

[Dr. Gomez]

He's a dog and the bone.

[Zach]

He's the dog and the bone. We all remember how that went on, so. So Hopkins hat 15 says, hey, opp. How it be? Hey, Sanji used arme de la air. That's how I choose to pronounce that assault. Just like a Drum island accent. Just like a Drum Island. And I think Thriller bark. It was Drum Island. And you mentioned already.

[Stephen Paul]

And Davy back fight. Yeah.

[Zach]

Davey back fight. What's a combo move you want to see again? I mean, obviously, we talk about Thriller bark. It's the docking.

[Steve Yurko]

Docking. Okay.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Steve Yurko]

With all 10 now we're all friends here.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

What was it?

[Stephen Paul]

I'd rather die.

[Zach]

Is that what she says?

[Steve Yurko]

Speaking of Thor, bark 2 was the combined bounty. What was it?

[Zach]

Jackpot. Yes. There was the jackpot punch thing.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. They have an actual move. Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

I was like, this is gonna be our thing now. Not that it was guaranteed, but that was a cool little thing. The straw hats are never together anymore. They're always separated.

[Stephen Paul]

So.

[Zach]

No, they've been. This arc has been.

[Steve Yurko]

They were separated at that point in Silver Park.

[Zach]

So they're always. I mean, in an arc, they always get separated at some point. They're not together the entire time in an arc that I don't think that has ever, ever happened.

[Steve Yurko]

Some could say even the best arcs of one piece of the straw hats separate.

[Zach]

Yeah. I mean, even our long. They weren't all together the whole time, you know, and there were only a couple. If you could even say that. Final dispiece. Hey, quiet disputes this week. Re VHS broccoli patch. I get it. On both accounts says opp, Given that Sanji was able to shoot broccoli at a grogasaur Grogisaurus, what other vegetables would he shoot for each straw hat? Also in that groggy source made an oblique reference to the groggy ring. Hey, Steven, you mentioned that too. We're good this week. We got all these ahead of time.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes. And then we. So what.

[Zach]

What vegetables are the straw hats? I believe is the question here.

[Stephen Paul]

Only vegetables.

[Zach]

Five walk. Yeah, I think vegetables, maybe.

[Stephen Paul]

So I was gonna say, like. Yeah. If fruit was okay, like chopper could be a kiwi.

[Dr. Gomez]

Can brook be celery?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. I'm trying to think of what, though.

[Kirsten Carey]

Is Jimbe like a turnip or a radish of some kind.

[Zach]

Yes. But like. Like a hearty turnip.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, like a. They can be hardy.

[Zach]

Oh, no, that's a hearty truffle I'm thinking of. I'm having issues. Yeah. I don't know. I'm trying to think of who else. Nami is obviously a tangerine, but that's not.

[Kirsten Carey]

That's not a vegetable.

[Zach]

I said fruit also is fine. Because then I want to get into the argument as is blank. A fruit.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Vegetable.

[Stephen Paul]

We can't say tomatoes. Yeah.

[Zach]

Blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

Purple's a fruit.

[Zach]

Ketchup's a fruit. That's a different thing. Yeah. I don't know if I have any. Any other. We did broccoli.

[Dr. Gomez]

I think Robin would be a blueberry or a raspberry.

[Zach]

Wait, there was this color spread about this.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, the fruit.

[Zach]

The fruit. Superheroes.

[Stephen Paul]

Fruit power.

[Zach]

But Sanji, if he were kicking himself, would be a banana. Now that's a good episode image. Sanji kicking himself dressed as a banana.

[Steve Yurko]

What is it? Peanut butter jelly time?

[Zach]

I just ate a peanut butter jelly sandwich. So.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes.

[Zach]

I eat like a child. They're good. I forgot how good they were. It's been. It was a really long time. Okay, so that's it for this piece. I think. Let's move on to. We don't have anything in the subreddit archipelago, right? No, it's empty. It is. There's a tumbleweed or a bubble. Tumbleweed just floating. Tumbleweed in a bubble. Floating by. Anyway, we're gonna go to Blue skypiea, which is really where we all want to go anyway. You could ask questions to our. I was gonna say to our Skypie account. Tower Blue sky account@one piece podcast.com. first one comes. There's two. Two messages here from Ice Fisher Tenacity, who says, now that Zabek has dialogue, do you think the anime will disguise his voice like they did for Emus? Just get a menacing sounding voice actor to voice him or pray that ODA fully reveals his personality before the anime gets to Elbaf? Personally, I think the last one so. So that. Me personally, Zach. So they don't have. So they don't have to take chances. I don't think that's the reason they would do it, but. Yeah. What do you think?

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I mean, the, the reason why they had to do the crazy filter on Emu is because we like, we literally don't even know Emu's gender, which is part of the, you know, the, the tricky part in dubbing an actor like that. I. I don't see why they couldn't have someone picked out for. For Zabek. I mean, he's going to be like a rough and tumble pirate. So.

[Zach]

Has he really never had dialogue? I for some reason thought he may.

[Steve Yurko]

No, no, no.

[Zach]

Okay, this person continues on. I'm very curious about the astral world. It could be 20-30 km above sea level since island clouds are stable at 10 km and the sun worlds only halfway up the tree. At that height, I. It could make an awesome spread of Luffy seeing distant islands below like Wano or even Lodestar.

[Steve Yurko]

I don't know.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Well, Steven doesn't know.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I mean, I really don't know what to. What, you know, what to add to this. It's. It. It is interesting. I am very curious too, but yeah, I don't know anything else about it.

[Zach]

I'm looking 30km above sea level is what's the atmosphere? I'm just like curious what that would even be here. It's still very. Well, it's in the stratosphere, so there's that. It's above the ozone layer, I think.

[Stephen Paul]

Okay, so you get fried.

[Zach]

You get. You get fried. Yeah, if you're. Yeah, if you have the. Even with melatonin, I don't think you'd make it through.

[Stephen Paul]

Slather up.

[Zach]

What a way to put that. Why did I close out of Blue sky to read? Okay, next one comes from Nick, who says. First, I just want to say that discovering your podcast was a breath of fresh air. I find large Shonen fandoms frustrating and sometimes scary. So it's nice to have a cozy and wholesome corner that I could tune into when I want to hear people talk about one piece. Thank you.

[Stephen Paul]

I'm glad you enjoy it.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, I empathize with this. With this listener for sure.

[Zach]

The key is it was a tiny Shonen fandom when we started.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah.

[Zach]

That's why it still has that vibe here. Because we don't change.

[Stephen Paul]

That's true.

[Steve Yurko]

We refuse.

[Zach]

Yeah, we will. We are just very boring. Anyway, speak for myself, I guess. Nick continues. It says second. I think it's interesting that. Oh, there's. This is long. Okay. Sorry, I just saw it was one of four. I think it's interesting that while Rocks obviously brutalized Loki, he didn't kill him, which feels like something he would have no problem doing. It felt less like he was genuinely angry and more like he was just very annoyed. The way that he apparently easily gave in when Loki challenged him and let out a huff when Whitebeard chastised him for attacking a kid. Seemed very childish to me. Basically the opposite of how Shanks was introduced. The scene reminded me of a little brother begging a short, temple tempered older brother to let him hang out with him and his friends. Loki also doesn't appear to hate or resent Rox for what he did, instead sounding rather wistful. While I do think Rox D Xabek was definitely a bad guy, I feel like we're going to see more depth or at least another side to him than how Sengoku had described him, which I don't remember. Be honest.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I thought I just remembered that he was like, you know, the big bad pirate of his day.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah. I mean, I feel like my idea of Rocks is mainly just formed that like his he was a big enough like quote unquote baddie that Roger thought necessary to team up with Garp against him. Oh, Sengoku assumed he was bad.

[Zach]

It was during that Bounty chapter, I think it was when he was explaining everything. It was the exposition chapter. Right.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Sorry. Go ahead. Any other thoughts on Rocks?

[Dr. Gomez]

I just want to see his hair. The silhouette is always crazy.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Watches. That's not his hair. It's like the opposite of the Odin thing. It's like he has a million horns or something. Ridiculous.

[Dr. Gomez]

Or it's just a crown or a hat.

[Zach]

Yes.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, he's. He's wearing the Hawaiian Fresh guys straw hat or. Yeah. Punch. Yeah, Punchy. That's right.

[Zach]

Oh, yeah, we've discussed that, I think before. Next one comes from Pluvio, who says, I'm glad Jimpe was able to put the fire out. But it also would have been a nice touch if Nami helped her and Zeus True could have worked together to create an enhanced rainstorm of some kind. I would love for Oda to do anything with Nami and the climate attack that isn't lightning summoning. I knew where this sentence was going before I finished reading. Yeah, I think so. True. We've discussed this many times here. It's absolutely possibly true.

[Dr. Gomez]

When's the last time she used like the Mirage, like the Phantom Organic Thing.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh yeah.

[Kirsten Carey]

I missed that attack.

[Dr. Gomez]

Didn't she used it in like Punk Hazard, like briefly.

[Zach]

Yes, she did. I think you're right.

[Dr. Gomez]

Like when they were trying to protect the kids and all that.

[Zach]

Well now I looked this up, but I don't know if I'm gonna find it.

[Dr. Gomez]

But anyway, it's still a long time since she's done anything more than just lightning.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. I was trying to think too. I was like maybe, maybe she hasn't been using Zeus because like Oda wants to avoid like opening up the storyline of. Of you know, Big Mom's homies being in Elbaf and getting ticking the giants off in some way. But. But that she did use him to shock the. The. What was the thing in the castle? It was the hedgehog. Right. Didn't she use that? She. She electrocuted the hedgehog thing.

[Zach]

Yeah. She loves electrocuting things.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

I wonder if this is gonna be like a waiting for like a Susan Nash reunion and then they can talk.

[Zach]

So I'm looking. She used the Heat Egg against Monet and that's some time ago. Oh yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

To burn her wing.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

She also made like a bridge of clouds, didn't she?

[Zach]

She did. I think it's like she really has just not. I think they're all lightning related since the. The newest model, which I guess is the one with Zeus.

[Dr. Gomez]

She could have done more in the fight against lt, but that's okay.

[Zach]

Yeah. Because I just see thunderclouds. Thunder Clowns. Thunder. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

[Steve Yurko]

I would love to see more than just lightning Spam, you know, I feel like God. Was it. Maybe it was. I guess maybe versus Kalifa was the last time we saw like a little variety there.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. Because she made like clouds and then she made like a thunder cloud that would like travel. Like that was a little more interesting.

[Steve Yurko]

I forget who I was talking about this with. It might have been Alex, but it was just like NAMI versus Ms. Doublefinger was such like a tease. Thinking like, cool, this is what Nami's fights could be. It's just this whole like just barrage of like these different. Just tricks and attempts and I don't know. Now she just. She just is lightning.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

That was a fighter ain't too.

[Zach]

Cause I remember that was like a good. It's memorable. Like I still very. It's a visceral fight.

[Dr. Gomez]

But I feel like he's the same.

[Steve Yurko]

With the weather eggs.

[Zach]

Right?

[Steve Yurko]

Like the weather eggs are from Witheria.

[Zach]

Yeah. And we haven't gotten a ton of Weather.

[Steve Yurko]

It's just mostly. Yeah. Just keep black thunderclouds in there.

[Zach]

Although we did get a little with area stuff with an egghead. Right. Because they.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. The bigger punks are up there now.

[Zach]

Yeah. That. That's it for Piece together then. Why don't we round off. This has been episode 863 of the One Piece podcast for April 7, 2025. Steve, you had a bunch of tidbits that you want to let us know that you had opinions on about the chapter. Right. Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

So sorry for missing the manga recap this week. Just want to point out some things that maybe only I could contribute with Goldberg's a shield here named Nash. I was curious if this is possibly a reference to Kevin Nash, a prominent professional wrestler in the 90s who actually ended Bill Goldberg's winning streak in WCW in 1998.

[Stephen Paul]

So that sounds like a smoking gun there.

[Steve Yurko]

Possibly. I don't know. It's. I. Because Goldberg wasn't really known for having too many allies and stuff.

[Zach]

So.

[Steve Yurko]

Like what. So what is like kind of in that circle there? So it's possible.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yay. Sports.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Zach]

Fake sports. Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

Only fake sports around here for me. Other than that. I'm trying to think if there's any other observations that I might have missed. I don't think so. I think it was a. It was a really fun chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed talking about it. I think. I guess the biggest thing to chew on here is the stuff about Rocks here. But not surprising that I'm like, oh, I guess Loki's been alive for a while. So I guess when he was a lad, this would be the pirate crew he would have tried to be on. But I really enjoyed that. And I think this was. It's further making Loki a full flesh character and maybe well liked because I really enjoyed the bits with Luffy trying to feed him and just only making it worse. It was really fun though.

[Zach]

Yeah, I agreed. Just the Mio slimazzle thing. Ed pointed out in that Luffy.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Being one and. And Loki being the other is very funny. So before we go, I have a surprise. We're gonna do a little bit of trivia at the end and I assume Steve's gonna win, but we. I also. Well, actually, no, we have. We have someone who is literally like the Doctor of One piece and that's Dr. Gomez. Thanks for coming on. Where could people find you?

[Steve Yurko]

Thank you.

[Dr. Gomez]

So my social media Watermelon Queen 12. I just love watermelons. And that's where I post a lot of My research fund. Also, there's a lot of pressure to put on me here for the trivia. I just want to know what happens if I win.

[Zach]

Well, I used to give away taiyaki. That was.

[Stephen Paul]

You said you give away taiyaki?

[Zach]

I did give away some when we went to Japan.

[Dr. Gomez]

Do I at least get bragging rights?

[Zach]

Yeah, I think it's funny.

[Steve Yurko]

Like, willing to give those away. I'm the most recent trivia champion.

[Zach]

You could say that.

[Dr. Gomez]

It could be like the next new thing, you know?

[Zach]

Yeah, could be.

[Dr. Gomez]

I'm gonna go cry in the corner now.

[Zach]

Oh, oh.

[Steve Yurko]

Don't cry till you win.

[Zach]

You have to cry after you win.

[Dr. Gomez]

Not crying in baseball, not crying in trivia.

[Zach]

Yeah. Okay, let's cut it out with the Sports this week. Dr. Gomez, I thought we were safe. Okay. Kirsten, where could people find you?

[Kirsten Carey]

They can find me on Blue Sky. I'm K I R C A R E Y. And on Instagram you can just add GTR to that and you can find me if you live in the New York City area, you can also find me in person. I'm going to be playing a short set of traditional Tsuguru shamisen music at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens hanami Nights on April 23rd. Very excited for that. I also have a new album out called Washing Machine Incident that is on my personal Bandcamp. Kirsten-carrie.bandcamp.com if you like eerie drones, check it out. It's with this really great bass player from Japan. I don't know. I will briefly mention because my Mercury is perpetually in retrograde. Apparently there is a label who also release this album without our permission. Don't buy it from them, buy it from us. If you buy it. Otherwise, just enjoy it. I won't blame Enjoy your time for that.

[Zach]

Thanks. Thanks, Kirsten. Stephen, what about you? Where can people find you when Mercury's in retrograde?

[Stephen Paul]

Whether retrograde or what's the inverse of that?

[Zach]

Pro grade, what would it be? Pro grade like retro and prospective like.

[Stephen Paul]

Anyway, I don't know. I'm over on blue sky at StevenPaul, BSky Social. And yeah, you can check out all of the wonderful series that I work on that are simulpubbed on viz.com and shonen.com shonen jump.com mangaplus, shueisha, co JP all the good stuff. One Piece, Akane, Menashi, Shoha Shoten and Trillion Game now joining.

[Kirsten Carey]

I didn't know you were doing Trillion Game. Fun fact, there's a new Trillion Game live action movie in Japan. I'm in it.

[Stephen Paul]

Really.

[Kirsten Carey]

I have a cameo and apparently a short story speaking line that made it into the movie.

[Stephen Paul]

Wow.

[Zach]

I should really be introducing you with that. First and foremost.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Actor.

[Kirsten Carey]

My one and only acting role. They needed. They needed like a hundred foreigners to play foreign celebrities in Montenegro.

[Stephen Paul]

Wow.

[Dr. Gomez]

It's just a start.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah.

[Zach]

So I got my even north Macedonia.

[Kirsten Carey]

I know, right? Come on.

[Zach]

Okay. Thank you, Steven. Steve, where could people find you?

[Steve Yurko]

SteveYerko.com Social media. Steve Yeriko is the username most spots. Listen to Me on 4Kids flashback with Tara Sands. Listen to me on Prozd. Plays games with Prozd over on YouTube. And yeah, that's about it, I think. What's it called? Yeah, I guess I'll be around at Castle Point Anime, which is a New Jersey con in late April. I'll just be helping out Seungwon there. But if you go to that con, you're local and you see me and.

[Zach]

Say, hey, where in New Jersey is that? Should I come by?

[Steve Yurko]

I think Secaucus.

[Zach]

Oh, that's not super far. Secaucus, New Jersey, you're on the air.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

I had to. It's like a. I can't help it. You could find us@one piece podcast.com youm could find me at Zach Logan.com on Blue Sky. You can find us at one piece podcast.com on Blue Sky. One piece podcast. Anywhere you get your social media, your podcasts, just search One piece Podcast. If it's filled with, you know, Zoomers exclusively, you probably got the wrong one. If there's a mixture, maybe you're listening to us. You could. I don't know why I'm putting myself down here at the end. Please, Please subscribe. We have review. We also have our phone number open until Skype sunsets in May. That phone number is 347497. Maggie, that phone number again. 347497, 6254. Colony time with your questions, comments, theories, or your favorite type of Jim Bay teddy bear, which now I kind of want. So for the first time in a long time, we're gonna do some trivia. We used to do this at the end of every show for a very long period of time. Time, I think. But it's been, except for with the exception of Yaoi Thunderdome, it has been a little while. So I'm going to. I have the game One Piece v Rush, which, yes, is somewhat in Japanese, but I think I could parse what's happening. I'm going to try my best. I. I want to Give you guys the option. Do you want to do teams or do you want to do, like, one on one versus me? No, I was gonna say I was gonna give. I was gonna do, like, the artists and the academics. I was gonna do Stephen and Dr. Gomez versus Steve and Kirsten. Do you want to do that?

[Stephen Paul]

Wow, that's interesting.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, I. I'll be on Steve's team. Yeah, I'll be on Steven.

[Dr. Gomez]

I'm excited.

[Zach]

So, okay.

[Dr. Gomez]

Academics for the winter.

[Zach]

Okay, I have an idea. First, just to see who starts first. I am holding Shirahoshi and Leo, who is older. Steve, who's older, Shirahoshi or Leia.

[Steve Yurko]

Leia.

[Zach]

Correct. Okay. Do you want to go first or last?

[Steve Yurko]

What are the ages 25 and 16.

[Zach]

I was just to see who goes first.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Do you want to go first or you want to go last?

[Steve Yurko]

Do we have a chance to answer the question of the opposite team if they get it wrong?

[Zach]

Yes. You always do. Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

That's like a steal.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

Okay, then we'll go second.

[Zach]

Okay. So Steven and Dr. Gomez will go first. Usually we play first one of five points, but let's see how we're doing here. I don't know. So Vivre Rush basically takes some of the very basic info from the Vivre card, and I think you're supposed to be able to guess who the character is. I don't know exactly how to play, but I'm gonna play the way I play. So I'm gonna give you three facts about the person. You have to just guess who they are. Given those three facts. Maybe four if you need. So, Stephen, Dr. Gomez, your first. This character first appeared in volume 53. They. Oh, wait. I have my height calculator out here, so I could do this quick. They're 191cm, which is 6 foot 3 or so 31 years old. Who is this.

[Stephen Paul]

53, average human height?

[Zach]

Well, Steve, it's a little short, if anything, for.

[Stephen Paul]

For one piece. Okay. So 53 would put it. Oh, man.

[Dr. Gomez]

It's like.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, yeah, it's. I think at the. Is. It is the end of 52 when Kuma sends everyone flying. So would. It wouldn't necessarily be Sabaody. That might be Amazon Lily. But then that could be anybody.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. And all the Amazon is. Have different Heights.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Was Boa 31? Was she that old?

[Zach]

To be fair, I think these ages are probably all post time skip, if I had a guess.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Because these came out. So keep that in mind.

[Dr. Gomez]

And out of the three Sandersonian sisters, Boa Would be the one closest to the average height.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Yeah. The other ones would be much taller. Should we just guess that? Because it could be any one of the Amazons.

[Steve Yurko]

Let's.

[Stephen Paul]

Let's just say Boa Hancock.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, I was gonna say Boa.

[Zach]

And the answer is Boa Hancock.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes.

[Zach]

Yes.

[Stephen Paul]

Right.

[Steve Yurko]

Good guess.

[Zach]

Yeah, good guess. All right, Steve, I'm just being encouraging. This character first appeared in volume 15. They are 6 foot 2. They are 141.

[Dr. Gomez]

What?

[Steve Yurko]

6, 2 and 141.

[Zach]

Yeah. Sorry. I don't know why I nodded on an audio.

[Kirsten Carey]

Oh, is this Kureha?

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Is that your guess?

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah. But there are 141 in the time skip.

[Zach]

Yeah. I said we're post time skip here because the answer is Kureha. Good job. One on. Everyone has one on the board. I'm doing these randomly. I'm not like, I'm trying not to make it easier or harder for people. Okay. Stephen and Dr. Gomez. I heard that. Don't worry. The next one Steve gets is going to be harder because I see what the next card is anyway. This person appeared first in volume 12. They are 169cm, which is five foot six, six and a half. Five foot seven. And they are 18 post time skip, I assume, because I think these are all post times.

[Stephen Paul]

Volume 12 is.

[Dr. Gomez]

Isn't that like varatier?

[Sam]

No.

[Stephen Paul]

Volume 12 is like. That's like Whiskey Peak between capes. Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

Is it maybe bv.

[Stephen Paul]

Vivi. I think Vivi. Yeah.

[Zach]

That your final answer?

[Stephen Paul]

I think so.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. I'm comfortable with that.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Vivi is the correct answer.

[Steve Yurko]

Oh, yes.

[Zach]

And she is asking for you to stop the fighting. And on the car.

[Stephen Paul]

No, that. That was the. No, that. That's the. Will you call me your. Your friend again?

[Zach]

Your career. Oh, you're right. I guess she does Two very emotional pleas during that arc.

[Stephen Paul]

Two flavors of Evie.

[Zach]

The will you still think of me as your friend and please stop the fighting sometimes. Both. Okay, Steve, Kirsten, here is yours. This character first appears in volume eight. They are 2, 220 centimeters. I should really have these loaded up. Which is 7 foot 2 and a half. They are 38 years old.

[Steve Yurko]

What is their height again?

[Zach]

7 and 3. 7 foot 3. Ish. 7273.

[Steve Yurko]

Okay, Kirsten, I. I don't think that many new characters are introduced in volume 8.

[Kirsten Carey]

What arc are we in?

[Steve Yurko]

This is Baratie.

[Stephen Paul]

Or.

[Steve Yurko]

No, but this is also the start of Fishman island and there's a lot of tall boys there. What are Some of the other facts about.

[Zach]

I'm just gonna come in and correct you that it's definitely not the start of Fishman Island. You meant Arlong.

[Steve Yurko]

Sorry. Yeah. Thank you.

[Zach]

Thank you. No, I know what you were thinking. I'm not like, trying to help, but.

[Steve Yurko]

No. Yeah, sorry. I got special edition on the brain.

[Zach]

I know you do. Volume 8, 7 foot 2 and a half and 38 years old. Remember again, these are all post times.

[Kirsten Carey]

I just have no idea how it feels like a fish man to me, but I have no idea how tall they are compared to each other.

[Steve Yurko]

They're. Well, yeah. Compared to the others, they're.

[Kirsten Carey]

Like.

[Steve Yurko]

I'm trying to think if I could do bad math, because arlong.

[Zach]

Is there any other type?

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, for me. Well, there's good math. There's doing math the right way. Arlong was 25 in the Fishman island flashback. I'm trying to think how many years. I'm gonna say I. I think it's Arlong.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, I think that's. I think that's a good guess. It would be like, Arlong, or maybe Hachi, but.

[Steve Yurko]

It could be.

[Kirsten Carey]

But they're all around the same age too. But yeah, I think.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Final answer. Yes, the answer is Hachi. What's he saying here? Steven, I don't know if you can.

[Stephen Paul]

Taco or takoyaki punch.

[Zach]

Yeah, sorry, guys.

[Stephen Paul]

I don't remember who he was punching, though, in that.

[Zach]

Oh, I should have let. I should have let Stephen and Dr. Gomez steal.

[Stephen Paul]

I probably would have guessed wrong because I was thinking of, like, either Kirby or Chu.

[Dr. Gomez]

I was gonna say Hatchie. I feel he was a little bit older than the other ones.

[Zach]

Well, I could give you an advantage at some point in the future.

[Stephen Paul]

Owe us a favor.

[Zach]

I owe you a favor, Steven. And Dr. Gomez, this character was introduced in volume five. They are. Okay, I'm not gonna give a hand here. They are 6 foot 2 and a half and 67 years old. Who is it?

[Stephen Paul]

67.

[Zach]

Okay, so since I owe you a half a point, I will give you a half a point worth of an answer. Be wary of one of these facts. They're all true, but it may slip you up.

[Stephen Paul]

I mean, let's see.

[Dr. Gomez]

And they said volume five, right?

[Zach]

Volume five, volume five, six foot two and a half. Is that 67 years?

[Stephen Paul]

That's the syrup village.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, that's us. 67.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, is that.

[Dr. Gomez]

I mean, was anyone that old introduced?

[Stephen Paul]

That's the thing is.

[Dr. Gomez]

Could it be Kuro?

[Stephen Paul]

I was gonna say maybe. I don't think Kuro's that old. But maybe Sham, because he said, beware of the fact. And I know that Sham was like, actually a lot taller than he looked because he had a hunchback. I don't know. He could be old. It could be a trick. Like, it could be like a. This character doesn't seem. Doesn't look like they're super old, but they actually turned out to be. But I don't.

[Dr. Gomez]

What about Kaya's butler, Mary?

[Stephen Paul]

I didn't think he was old.

[Zach]

Clahador.

[Stephen Paul]

No, I was a joke.

[Zach]

I know I was. I was making a joke about.

[Steve Yurko]

Honestly, that's where my mind went to first.

[Zach]

Yeah, because.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, because I don't. There's no other really old characters in that arc.

[Dr. Gomez]

No, I mean, now, could it be like. Like, does volume five cover all of Syrup Village Arc? Or is it like the ending of one before the one or the beginning of the one after? Because if it's the one after, it could be Seth.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, I was almost wondering too. I was like, we don't see, we don't. We don't get, like, some weird little cameo glimpse of like, Garp in the, like, the flashback of like, the hypnotism or something like that.

[Dr. Gomez]

Oh, wait, wait. What about the.

[Zach]

The.

[Dr. Gomez]

The guy that does the hypnosis?

[Stephen Paul]

Django? He's not that old.

[Dr. Gomez]

The only thing I can think of is maybe the beginning introduction of Seth or.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, that's. That sounds as good as anything to me. So should we just guess?

[Dr. Gomez]

I think we can go with Seth. Yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

All right.

[Zach]

The answer is Zeff.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, good.

[Zach]

From the brink. You made it from the brink of death. That was very impressive. I'm like, you are so just on the wrong path here. Okay, Steve, Kirsten, see if we could get this game back. All right, this character introduced in volume one, they are 6 foot 6 and 39 years old.

[Steve Yurko]

On old men introduced in that volume.

[Zach]

39. Is that old?

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, let's.

[Sam]

Let's.

[Stephen Paul]

Let's watch our words here.

[Zach]

Yeah, I just turned 38.

[Steve Yurko]

That's the thing.

[Zach]

Just turned 38.

[Steve Yurko]

It could be old 39. And the eight.

[Kirsten Carey]

Could it be someone on Shanks's crew? Or Shanks himself?

[Steve Yurko]

Here's the thing. It could be a red hair pirate from chapter one. Or it could be Axe Hand Morgan, because I don't think Morgan was that old.

[Kirsten Carey]

He's got a teenaged son, though. He's older than 39. Right.

[Steve Yurko]

Because what I think, Hell, meppo, he's like an older teen. I think Helmeppo might even be like 20 and like 19 or something. He's actually not that old.

[Sam]

Because.

[Steve Yurko]

What? Because there's like Shanks. Ben Beckman, I think. Is Beck older than that? Because.

[Kirsten Carey]

Oh, God. How old is Shanks? Wait, well, I feel like I should know this.

[Steve Yurko]

Hold on. Because Zach is going by time skip age. So they'd be 39 currently.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

So it can't. Then it could be Shanks.

[Kirsten Carey]

It could be Shanks.

[Steve Yurko]

It could be Shanks. Where they waste paper on making a card for Ax Hand. Morgan. I wonder.

[Kirsten Carey]

I don't think it's Morgan. I feel like. Yeah, like hell. I feel like Shanks or Beckman would be my two guesses.

[Steve Yurko]

Because I'm just going by. It's probably like their age is probably what their age is currently post time skip and Beckman is much older than 39.

[Kirsten Carey]

Okay.

[Steve Yurko]

So I'd say Shanks.

[Zach]

Let's go, Shanks.

[Steve Yurko]

Final answer.

[Zach]

Shanks. Final answer. Shanks. The answer is Shank. Yay. He's come to end this game. Except that we have to keep going. I recognize that panel. Steven and Dr. Gomez. This character also. Volume one, I guarantee you this is Shuffle. Do not worry. They are 6 foot 9 and 50 years old.

[Dr. Gomez]

I mean, the only. The oldest person in Shanks crew, I think at that point was Ben Beckham.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Was he that tall? That's. That's what? I don't know. And was Higama that old? I don't know if Higama was 50. 50.

[Dr. Gomez]

Does Goldie Roger count?

[Stephen Paul]

Was he 50?

[Dr. Gomez]

He wasn't that old by the time he turned himself in.

[Stephen Paul]

And yeah, Whoops. Slap was not Whoops. Up is older and not that tall.

[Zach]

Man.

[Stephen Paul]

Roger is a good guess.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah, I was thinking like, you know who else was introducing that first volume? And yeah, Roger.

[Stephen Paul]

I don't think Morgan is that old. Although he could be that tall.

[Dr. Gomez]

What about the mountain bandit that kidnaps Luffy?

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, that's Higuma. That's what I was talking about.

[Dr. Gomez]

And the mayor of that time was super short, so he doesn't.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Yeah. I wanna. I almost want to say Roger.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. I think it's either Roger Van Becken, but I would go more for Roger.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah, let's. Let's try Roger.

[Zach]

Final answer.

[Stephen Paul]

Yes.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yes.

[Zach]

That is not correct. So, Steve, Kirsten, chance to steal.

[Steve Yurko]

Can I get. Can we get the stats?

[Zach]

Yes, the stats again. Volume 1. 6 foot 9 and 50 years old.

[Steve Yurko]

What was the age again?

[Zach]

50, 50 post times. These are all post times.

[Steve Yurko]

6 foot 9 be Morgan. Could be Morgan. Morgan was a really big. Big guy. Beckman's tall, but I don't think he's.

[Kirsten Carey]

6 foot 9 and I don't think he's 50.

[Steve Yurko]

Lucky. Roo is surprisingly tall though.

[Kirsten Carey]

But is he 50?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

You know what? Let's. Let's go with our gut. Let's say Morgan.

[Zach]

Final answer.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah.

[Zach]

The answer is the paper. Ben Beckman.

[Dr. Gomez]

Really?

[Zach]

Beckman? Yeah. He's old and he's tall.

[Steve Yurko]

I wonder why he's gray as a ghost.

[Zach]

Hey. Okay, 50 isn't far enough away from.

[Steve Yurko]

A lot of ageism on this latter half of the podcast.

[Zach]

I was surprised. I thought you would totally pick up on their second choice as your first. But.

[Dr. Gomez]

Okay, so what are the current standings, Zach?

[Zach]

Current standings are Steven and Dr. Gomez have three and Steve and Kirsten have two. But this is Steven Kirsten's turn. So have a chance to get back here this. Now you could tell that my deck is shuffled because this person was introduced in volume 92. They are also. Oh, no, 5 foot 7 and 26 years old.

[Kirsten Carey]

Steve, what work are we in?

[Steve Yurko]

This is Wano.

[Kirsten Carey]

Okay.

[Steve Yurko]

And there's a shit ton of characters being introduced to this story at this point here.

[Zach]

Since it's Wano and you are right, I'll give you one additional thing that is on this card, but that's the only other additional thing on this card. They are introduced in chapter 928.

[Steve Yurko]

Oh, oh, okay.

[Kirsten Carey]

In that case.

[Zach]

Yeah. Well, no, it does tell you. I mean, like, I don't know what you remember. Steve, you sometimes have a very good orienting yourself with.

[Steve Yurko]

Nah, not with Wano.

[Kirsten Carey]

Is that five, seven.

[Zach]

He's five. They're five seven. No, it's not. It's not a he.

[Steve Yurko]

Oh, so it's a woman.

[Zach]

It's a they or a she.

[Kirsten Carey]

Okay, Yamato.

[Steve Yurko]

Okay, so you said 5, 7, age 29.

[Kirsten Carey]

Actually, I think Yamato is 26.

[Steve Yurko]

But Yamato is much taller.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, that's true.

[Zach]

Shit.

[Steve Yurko]

You gotta think it's Yamato. Okiku are huge.

[Zach]

20.

[Steve Yurko]

It could be because I'm trying to think.

[Kirsten Carey]

Wait, was it. How old are they?

[Steve Yurko]

Sorry, 29.

[Zach]

No, 26.

[Kirsten Carey]

26.

[Zach]

And it's 46.

[Kirsten Carey]

26.

[Steve Yurko]

Maybe you got the. You got the. The Yamato on my brain could be. Got that Yamato on my brain could be page one.

[Kirsten Carey]

Page one. Or Ulti.

[Steve Yurko]

Ulti was not introduced this early. Okay, it could be page one. I'm trying to remember if page one is that tall as a human. I don't think so could it be?

[Zach]

Who else?

[Kirsten Carey]

This isn't really.

[Zach]

Hmm.

[Kirsten Carey]

I'm just trying to figure out where in between wano we are.

[Steve Yurko]

Like, this is still early, because. 92.

[Zach]

Right?

[Steve Yurko]

Volume 92.

[Zach]

Yes.

[Steve Yurko]

Volume 90 is mostly the reverie stuff. So 91 is like this, like, kind of like getting into it. And I think that's probably. I think 91 ends with maybe Kaido, like coming out as a dragon and maybe blowing up the. The gravesite. The former castle. Okay, so 92.

[Zach]

Because.

[Steve Yurko]

Was Luffy arrested? Yeah, because I think Luffy must have been arrested.

[Zach]

Like.

[Steve Yurko]

Like with the. Like. Because I'm thinking like the Soba mask stuff. Did that happen before Luffy got arrested or after? And I'm thinking it happened after. I think page one is a. Is a fair guess.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, I think that's a fair guess.

[Zach]

Final answer.

[Kirsten Carey]

Better ideas.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, I don't have an 80.

[Kirsten Carey]

Oh. Unless it's Hiori or the princess.

[Steve Yurko]

Oh, not Hiori. Oh, no. Hiori.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Steve Yurko]

Because I forgot who's the. The mom. Mom is Toki. Sorry. It doesn't matter. Toki. Yeah.

[Zach]

Oh, who's still very much alive.

[Steve Yurko]

No. Could be Hiori.

[Kirsten Carey]

Could be Hiori.

[Steve Yurko]

I also heard five, because five, seven is not that tall for one piece, dudes.

[Kirsten Carey]

Right?

[Steve Yurko]

Hiori, I think is a good answer. Go for it.

[Kirsten Carey]

Hiori for 100.

[Zach]

You pulled that out of a hat. Because it is Hyori.

[Stephen Paul]

That was like. That was a Columbo moment. I was like, oh, we're in the clear. We're in the clear. They're going to say.

[Steve Yurko]

I know.

[Dr. Gomez]

I was going to say he already too.

[Zach]

Yeah, yeah. Because Steve guessed exactly the right, like, point in time. It's that early Act 2 stuff.

[Steve Yurko]

That'S so much happened.

[Zach]

I'm going to skip the next one because this character's dead. So I feel like it's fair to give the. Give the age. But that one's Pedro, who is very dead. So the next.

[Dr. Gomez]

Allegedly, he can pull a pal.

[Zach]

Okay, we have two more points. It's three. Three. Anyone's game? Steven? Dr. Gomez, this person was first introduced in volume six. They are. See, now I'm using non gendered pronouns. I've learned 6 foot 6 and 43 years old. Again, remember, these are all post timeskip ages and post timeskip heights. No, that doesn't really make sense. Um, yeah.

[Stephen Paul]

Okay, so we did. We already established volume five was when Zeff started. So this is definitely Baratier. And man, six foot six.

[Dr. Gomez]

Would this be Don Krieg?

[Stephen Paul]

I Think he's too tall for that. Don Creek's got to be at least seven feet. I'm thinking like Patty or Carne. What about probably in their 40s?

[Dr. Gomez]

What about mihawk?

[Zach]

Oh.

[Steve Yurko]

That'S.

[Stephen Paul]

Oh, that's good. Yeah. I don't think he was introduced in seven. I think. I think volume six was when Mihawk shows up.

[Dr. Gomez]

He could have injured this at the very end of the six. Just like when he cut the ship. Yeah, like not even the fight with sorrow yet.

[Zach]

Just.

[Dr. Gomez]

He just cuts the ship and shows up. Little cross ship.

[Stephen Paul]

Let's go with Mihawk.

[Zach]

Okay.

[Dr. Gomez]

Yeah. Mihawk. Final answer.

[Zach]

Final answer. So this one would have helped if I gave you the chapter as well, which was chapter 50. And that is when Dracul Mihawk shows up.

[Stephen Paul]

Very nice. Good call, Doctor.

[Zach]

Okay, I shuffled the deck because I was noticing they were starting to get an order after this one. So Steve and Kirsten, just note that I have shuffled. Not that it. I'm. Just for transparency. Okay. This character introduced in volume 17, they are 238cm, which is 7 foot 10. They are 32 years old. Volume 17, 7 foot 10. Just about. And 32. So 29. Free time skip.

[Kirsten Carey]

What? What? This is alabaster. Yeah. No.

[Steve Yurko]

Volume 17. It's either like end of Drum or beginning of alabaster. The height again.

[Zach]

7 foot 10.

[Steve Yurko]

Age 29.

[Zach]

When you first meet them.

[Steve Yurko]

When we first meet them. Give me a second.

[Zach]

I'm doing. Because it's pre time skip. So we know it is.

[Steve Yurko]

Because it's volume. Mental image in my head here of the volumes. Okay. 11, that's end of Arlong, beginning of Logtown. 12 is Logtown.

[Zach]

And Twin Capes.

[Steve Yurko]

13, that's Whiskey Peak. 14, Little Garden. 15 is the end of Little Garden. 16 is the Chopper and Hero.

[Zach]

Look. Cover.

[Steve Yurko]

17, that's one with waffle on it. 29, when you meet them. Who the hell is that tall? My first guess is Bon Clay. Because Bon Clay is very tall.

[Kirsten Carey]

Right. That was gonna be my guess too. But if we're not, we're in the age. Or are we in Drum Island? Or are we in Alabasta?

[Steve Yurko]

This could be. This could be End of Drum Island, Alabasta Camp. No, wait. This isn't a Bon Clay. Because Bon Clay was first introduced. Well, he was shown at between Little Garden Drum. So I. You know, and he didn't speak until the end of Drum. So I don't think that.

[Kirsten Carey]

Okay, wait, wait. But isn't this one they. When Bon Clay gets on their ship.

[Steve Yurko]

It could be because maybe, like, maybe they count. I know. So the Viv cards, they count when they f. They're first giving, like an Oda box with a name.

[Kirsten Carey]

I feel like in that case, this might be Bon.

[Steve Yurko]

I think so. Because there's. I don't think there's anyone else that tall introduced. Because it's not Coza. It's not. I don't even think Koza was introduced early. It's not Ace. It's not Blackbeard. For sure. Because the age. Let's go with Bon Clay.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah.

[Zach]

Final.

[Kirsten Carey]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Zach]

I agree with you about the volume, by the way. It is Bon Clay. Good job.

[Steve Yurko]

What do you mean you agree about that?

[Zach]

No, I agree with you that I think they were technically introduced earlier than that.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, but you only see his back. You don't see his, like. So, you know, you use the right.

[Zach]

Logic that the View Very card isn't gonna. Yeah, I.

[Steve Yurko]

But it's my memory of going through the Vivre cards when I was, like, drawing the characters in order for the time being. I remember certain characters. I'm like, oh, they show up earlier, but, oh, but they're not introduced by name till.

[Zach]

So we're tied at four. It's getting a little late, so we're gonna do a tiebreaker round. Rapid fire. I feel like that's the way. So you're each gonna have a minute.

[Steve Yurko]

Hard to do with teams.

[Zach]

Yeah, well, you'll have a minute so to guess who it is. And you could discuss among yourselves.

[Steve Yurko]

We all answering the same question.

[Zach]

So. I know. So I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go back and forth, and when someone does not get it, and then another does not get it. Yeah. Or, you know.

[Steve Yurko]

Gotcha.

[Zach]

Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right, first one. We're gonna go. Stephen. The. The academic team. The academics. Volume 76. It's. The problem is this 9 foot 7, 26 years old flashback character.

[Stephen Paul]

Because I. I know exactly, literally, when you said 76, I already knew who this was going to be.

[Zach]

Do you.

[Stephen Paul]

Do you know, Doctor?

[Dr. Gomez]

No, I. I might need more time, but if you have it, go for it.

[Stephen Paul]

This is going to be Rosinante chorus, Correct?

[Zach]

Correct. Oh, wow. This is how you do this. This character is introduced in volume 83. They are 10 foot, 11 inches and 50 years old. One minute on the clock.

[Steve Yurko]

Which volume?

[Zach]

83.

[Steve Yurko]

I don't think it's Katakuri. It's too early. God. A lot of characters around the same age. Because it could be Pero Sparrow, could be Cracker. My first thought was Cracker because this is probably.

[Kirsten Carey]

How old are they?

[Zach]

50.

[Kirsten Carey]

But I guess we've learned I don't know how to judge a one piece 50 year old.

[Zach]

So no, half your time has elapsed.

[Kirsten Carey]

Oh, geez.

[Zach]

Not more, actually. So you have a flashback.

[Steve Yurko]

Oh, because Chester still goes on for a freaking while after that. And there's still Zoe.

[Kirsten Carey]

Is it Kaido? No, it's not Kaido.

[Zach]

Okay, no, I need an answer.

[Steve Yurko]

What was the height again? One more time.

[Zach]

It's nine. A ten foot eleven.

[Steve Yurko]

I think it's Kaido. We gotta say Kaido.

[Zach]

No, it is my favorite character.

[Stephen Paul]

Perosperospero.

[Steve Yurko]

Yeah, I was in the ballpark.

[Zach]

There you go. That tall. That's the game. We should have done the time limits the whole time. I know. Now it does add an interesting twist too. I like it. Thank you guys. That was fun. Congratulations, Stephen and Dr. Gomez. You win.

[Steve Yurko]

I got to remember, you know what, like those dress Rosa and whole cake volumes. Those numbers, they're a blind spot for me.

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gomez]

Stephen, we're the champions now.

[Stephen Paul]

Yeah. Zacos. Semla. Yeah.

[Zach]

Oh, right, that was the original one. It was Semla. Well, what's the Elbaf version? I need like a hunk of beef.

[Kirsten Carey]

No, I mean it might just be Semla again.

[Zach]

That was Elba. Big cup of hot soup, hot cocoa, Hot cocoa sovereignty.

[Stephen Paul]

That's hot cocoa sovereignty.

[Zach]

Okay, that'll do it for the one piece podcast. We'll be back next week. There's another chapter, right, Stephen? No, there isn't.

[Steve Yurko]

Nowhere off.

[Zach]

I should have asked you this earlier. There's no chapter next week, so maybe an sgs. And I have all those voicemail saved up, so maybe we'll go through some of those. See you next week, everyone. Oh, and the volume 111. What am I talking The.

[Steve Yurko]

The volume.

[Zach]

Okay, we'll see you with the volume next week. Goodbye, everyone.

[Steve Yurko]

Bye.

[Dr. Gomez]

Bye.

[Stephen Paul]

You guys are my most exalted homies.

[Zach]

Sa.