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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This is the One Piece podcast, episode 907 for the week of February 23rd, 2026. My name is Zach and on today's show I want to thank first of all everyone for coming on super last minute. Really had everything, everything that you listened to, meticulously planned ahead of time. Don't worry. We have very special guest translator for One Piece and weekly shown in Jump, Stephen Paul. How's it going, Stephen?
- [00:52]
B
Very good. Just. Just a normal dude. Impossible to impersonate, as we found out last week.
- [01:00]
A
Oh, you listened? Yes. What do you think of Alex's impression of you?
- [01:05]
B
It was good. It was good. Although I don't know what his like the tick that he was doing or I was like. Like he was doing like a Mad Max thing. Like thing. And I'm not sure what that was about. I. I didn't think so, but I guess I'm learning things.
- [01:23]
A
I want to hear a perfect impression of Stephen Paul one of these days. That's a tough. You just have such a completely. Like I say this. Yeah, you have a completely. Yeah, I. There's no way I could have said that. I feel like that would have blended anywhere. Yeah, you can. Yeah, you're. You're a voice chameleon. We also have. Joining us once again, Golfer Gare. How's it going, Golfer?
- [01:47]
C
Howdy.
- [01:48]
A
Welcome back. Our anime Recap host, Sam Leach.
- [01:55]
B
Ola.
- [01:57]
A
That's what they say over there in Minnesota. Ola. Yeah. Anyway,
- [02:06]
B
I wasn't prepared to meet you there.
- [02:10]
A
And last but not least, joining me in this Blizzard Bound episode, Ken, to date us here, even though I said the date at the top, Ken o', Connor, our archivist. How's it going, Ken?
- [02:24]
D
It is a cold one out there, Zach. It is a cold one. You nailed it on the head there.
- [02:28]
A
Thank you. Now you sound like a jazz DJ or something.
- [02:32]
D
Coming up next, Zach Logan with the Blizzard.
- [02:35]
A
Ken, no. You're turning it a little into like.
- [02:41]
D
Go on.
- [02:41]
A
Okay. No, I don't know. I'm done. That's the whole episode. That's all I had. Steven, what are we going to do today?
- [02:47]
B
Well, yes, you may have assumed going into this week that we would be doing the sgs since this would be our normal, normally scheduled time, but Greg is. It turns out Greg is busy in the. The translation minds. The minds of manga and he.
- [03:08]
A
That would have been the episode title.
- [03:09]
B
Yeah, I'm keeping you. Yeah, I'm keeping you guys on your toes. Again, impossible to impersonate, but yeah. So we had to come up with an idea of. Of what to do. And we remembered we do have the rest of this volume 20 of the 1 Piece magazine. A couple weeks back, I did the. The interview with Oda, and I made very clear at the time that we were just doing this, like, front section and there's a bunch more to go through, which is also fairly interesting. And so I. I did about an hour's worth of, like, flipping through it before we started, but that's about it. So this is gonna be like the polar opposite of the last time where I was completely. I had a whole script that I just read from. But this time it will be a little more of the usual kind of just commenting on stuff and. And we'll go through the rest of this magazine issue.
- [04:05]
A
You don't have to listen to this episode before, but please listen to episode 901. Manga is something you create by yourself. With that interview. Again, it's not. I don't think it's essential for the rest of this, but it's essential just generally. So, yeah, give that a listen. I also have another surprise thing that I'm not gonna tell people about, just in case it really falls flat, but we'll see. I'm planning it.
- [04:29]
D
I'm so curious. You were teasing this before the episode.
- [04:32]
A
No, it's really predictable. It's really predictable.
- [04:35]
D
Is it Triv? If you're building up trivia for all this, you'll see.
- [04:40]
B
Pick second chapter number.
- [04:42]
A
The thing is, everyone listening already knows the answer because they would just look in the description for the episode. But, you know, before we get started, a few things. Golfer, you and I and Dr. Bent Lin and Kirsten Carey did an interview with Kat Abu Ghazali, who's running in Illinois's 9th congressional district. Can I throw that to you? Like, the thoughts now that it's been a few weeks and why people should listen?
- [05:12]
C
Well, for one, it was just super cool in general. Two, I didn't realize that the shape of the district when I initially. She was like, it goes from here to here. And I was like, well, let me go look up. Because I kept hearing that she was kind of neck and neck with some of the top folks. It's a pretty stacked primary at this point. There's like at least eight names in there, and it's. It's like. It spans almost looks like the entirety of Chicago, going from one skinny side all the way to the other. And I've grown up my entire life in Texas seeing gerrymandered districts. I didn't realize they did that everywhere in the exact same way. But it was a really cool insight to get. A lot of the comments on the video from the interview were really cool and really insightful and it was fun to see how many folks truly believe that one piece is not political. It was great to see that responded from the audience that it was this apolitical show that we're all enjoying.
- [06:10]
A
And I hate to put this out there because I'm going to jinx it, but I don't think we've gotten like any negative, at least any hostile comments. I haven't seen any. So now's your time. No, please don't. Please, for the love of God. Yeah, I know she uses as a microphone like, I know you use the card mentioned like a, like a card game. She uses a like foam cutout of her district. I know as a microphone in some videos it really does look like, like gerrymander is named after like a creature that, for those who care about the etymology of that term, it's like it's this. It's so misshapen that it looks like this creature from, you know, beyond. And it does look kind of like that. I could, I could anthropomorphize. Anthropomorphize that district, I think if I wanted to. Please, on that note, please listen to that interview. It was a lot of fun. And really we just need more leftist one piece fans in Congress. I know that's very specific, but that's really, that's really all I could say. I mean, what else is there to say there?
- [07:19]
C
The day we get a straw hat on the steps from a congressional member, that's when we know we've made it.
- [07:24]
A
We've already gotten whatever those horn things were like from six years ago, from whatever. How many years ago? Five years ago? Anyway, I'm sure we can. I'm sure it'll happen. Someone should ask AOC if she's a one piece fan now. Now that I've put that out there, I'm trying to think of like how many other like of our generation is. Or even, you know, that that would even be a possibility for. Anyway, check that out. Also, please subscribe to us on Patreon if you haven't. Patreon.com One Piece podcast. The Sticker of the Month club is back. It's back every month. Ken, do you remember offhand what Steve? I think I remember.
- [08:05]
D
Which one, one of the two.
- [08:07]
A
Did it win or is the poll closed?
- [08:10]
D
I'll check right now. Keep vamping.
- [08:12]
A
I'll check okay, the two. This was the two Luffys. It was the Luffy with the Pokemon ish cards or Yu Gi O ish cards. It predated, I think the card game. And also Luffy eating the entire earth. Allah. The Simpsons, the Brazil episode.
- [08:32]
D
I think Zach, the poll has ended and Luffy's rare cards has won with 62%.
- [08:38]
A
There you go. Well, that's this month. So if you want a sticker of Luffy with his rare cards, subscribe to us now. You have until the end of the month to get in on that. Otherwise next month there'll be another poll, another sticker, $12 a month. That's it. And a lot more alternate episode titles. Images from our amazing artists who have like cy's image from last week blew me away. I feel like that is a better image than that episode was great, don't get me wrong. But that was like, wow.
- [09:15]
D
I love that the podcast art can be sometimes the weirdest, silliest reference. Like the most out there thing. And then we have some beautiful, beautiful pieces by some of our artists. It's a real nice like dichotomy.
- [09:26]
A
Like I remember Steve, the bonnie one is the one that's popping into my mind right now, is like a really nice artistic piece. But yeah, check those all out. And also add free episodes, early episodes, all that fun stuff. I think that's it for our plugs. But we have some news on the one piece and from the minds of manga, Stephen. First, I guess we'll do Viz where I. As we discussed before we were getting on the air. I'm sure they keep you in the loop with all this, but volume 91. And they should also be giving Steven free copies of everything he works on. And it's really criminal that they don't. And we all said that and we all agree and we're not trying to pressure Viz. We're trying to really pressure viz. Volume 91 through 111. The. Was it the fourth box set?
- [10:21]
B
The fifth one.
- [10:21]
D
Fifth one.
- [10:22]
A
The fifth. You know, I have it right here. I should have probably just read the fifth box set covering 91 through 111. That's Wano through Egghead is coming out this fall. You're never going to be able to get it because it's coming with an exclusive one piece card game, Playmat, and we'll talk more about that. Oh dear.
- [10:40]
D
Oh, is it really? I didn't see that part.
- [10:42]
A
It is. And a double sided poster which is usual that that's usually included.
- [10:46]
B
Yeah.
- [10:47]
A
So if you want one of these, you better be quick or do what we do for the magazines. And so this is relevant to today's episode. If you want to get your hands on one piece magazine volume 20 or probably this box set, wait until someone steals the card or card game related item and then buy the rest of it that they don't care about on a third party, I guess, ebay or whatever. It's a shame, but the card game community really enjoys having things, which makes sense. I get that. But it's crazy stuff too. Yeah, I. To be fair, very smart marketing from Viz. Not great for us, the non card game One Piece fan. But yeah, the two of us I think. Steven, you and me.
- [11:36]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [11:39]
A
And the second big thing is that the volume 114 cover came out featuring Steven. Do you want to. I'll let you.
- [11:48]
B
Yeah. Well, I think what we foretold has come to pass. Right? It is indeed a non Luffy volume cover. Because this. This volume will be entirely flashback. It'll be entirely the Loki slash God Valley flashback. In fact, it will be titled the God Valley Incident for whichever. Yeah. Whichever chapter that was. And so yeah, it's basically just the rocks pirates rocks front and center and then you know, arranged like family reunion photo style. Smaller members in front, bigger ones in back.
- [12:28]
A
As you do a top down too. I think that's how a lot of family reunion photos are for big families, you know.
- [12:35]
B
Yeah. And there's kind of like. There's kind of like a spotlight scene slash like path. Like a golden, you know, yellow brick road sort of thing that they're like family reunion photos. Yeah, yeah, like that They're. They're sort of walking on that kind of guides your. Your eye up the. The. The COVID And so yeah, it's, you know, I, I would say it is. It's. It's neat. It's interesting like noteworthy in a historical sense that it's like, oh, this is the first time we've not had a Luffy on a cover. Or at least not a. A. A. What is it like a. Like a. Like an extra, you know, two or three part cover. You know, sort of theme cover. Like. Like the Baro Works one or the Trust.
- [13:21]
A
Yeah.
- [13:22]
D
The Onigashima 100.
- [13:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. The 99111. Yeah. This one is just a single cover. But I will say it is like the. The layout. It is kind of just like. Oh yeah, that just looks exactly like if you had told me. Imagine if. If Oda just drew all the. All the. The rocks pirates characters like in. In One blob That's. This is kind of what I would imagine. It doesn't. It didn't really surprise me at all. And it is a very yellowish. Like, just the. All the blonde characters plus Prometheus and all of the skin tones are very yellow as well. So the logo. Yeah, and the logo. So it is. It seems like it's like, sort of channeled down into a very select group of colors, which makes it feel a bit limited to me, but I. I did.
- [14:13]
A
I'd be remiss. I think we've talked about this a few times with volume covers, but I'll start with someone on Blue sky mentioned. Where is Rox's melanin? And that is a fantastic question. I think Oda has just one we've talked about. I feel like, just like, the same skin tone for all of his characters recently or very similar. I'm the colorblind person, so it's actually difficult for me to see. But. Yeah.
- [14:40]
B
Yeah, he's never really differentiated the. The skin tones.
- [14:45]
C
Was King differentiated at all? I feel like he's the only one
- [14:48]
E
we could point to on the COVID It's. He has the same skin tone as everyone else on the.
- [14:54]
B
Yeah, that's. That's maybe like, the most obvious. Like. Yeah, they probably should have changed because that is different in the black and white manga.
- [15:02]
A
It's. It's bizarre. Like, I don't. I have a feeling Oda doesn't even, like, isn't even thinking about it. Like, he probably. Maybe he is.
- [15:11]
B
No, I don't think he. I don't think he does.
- [15:13]
E
I remember there was a little bit of a. Because, like, he did, like, a drawing of. For the season two recent announcements, and he did a little doodle of, like, Luffy and Vivi. And like, clearly it's like. Like, Luffy's supposed to look a little bit like, in yaki.
- [15:29]
B
Like, he does, right?
- [15:30]
E
Sometimes.
- [15:30]
B
Right?
- [15:30]
E
And like, Vivi. Like, I did notice that it's like, it's like, one shade darker for Vivi because the. The actress is. But, like, people were still, like, pointing out, you know, we're still making fun of that because it's, like, still barely any different.
- [15:47]
B
Right?
- [15:48]
A
Yeah.
- [15:48]
E
But I, Like, I did get the impression, like, he did. He did, like, move the. The shade, like, one notch darker. Yeah, like, it did feel intentional, but
- [15:57]
A
still, like, I have a feeling. And not. Not that it's an exponent, not that it's an excuse, but maybe it's an explanation. I feel like he just does not even, like, it doesn't even enter his brain.
- [16:10]
E
Like, I use that example because, like, I feel like that's the example where he must have been thinking about it.
- [16:16]
B
Right.
- [16:17]
A
And still. And still it's nothing. I mean, like, King is like, literally as. As Golfer mentioned. Like, that's literally like a plot point. You would think that that would. That we can't get worse than that. So I can't, like, complain more than we did when that volume came out, but it is something that's, like, kind of soured. I feel like it's gotten worse more recently too. Like, this does feel like.
- [16:45]
E
Well, it does. It doesn't help. Like, the. The colorism of, like, the anime has been like. Really?
- [16:49]
A
Yeah. They also whitewashed it a lot more versus, like, the early, like, Robin, for
- [16:54]
E
example, like, walls, a snake, like, always being, like, way lighter than the others. The other Seraphim.
- [17:02]
B
Yeah, well, and also, I mean, I know we've mentioned this before, but the. The entire reason Robin was darker in the anime to begin with was because she started off as a villain.
- [17:11]
A
So I forgot about that.
- [17:12]
B
There is. There is that angle as well.
- [17:14]
A
I completely forgot about that. Yeah. But.
- [17:16]
E
Yeah, well, I thought that was just like.
- [17:18]
A
Because.
- [17:18]
E
Because the. The early anime designs had way more variety, and they did. That's what a lot of people are using as, like, the reference point for what they wish.
- [17:25]
B
Right?
- [17:25]
E
The characters look like now, right?
- [17:28]
A
Yeah. I'm sorry to take us down a rabbit hole, but that's. That was.
- [17:32]
B
Well, I mean, I thought.
- [17:32]
A
I'm like. It's true, though.
- [17:34]
B
That's a more interesting discussion than whatever else you can say about this cover. It's just.
- [17:39]
A
Well, I was going to say it
- [17:40]
B
just kind of is.
- [17:40]
A
The second thing, there's. The box is still gone. Where is the box? Why is no one asking, where's the box? Yeah, so I don't box. I think ODA has just a ban. For those who don't know, this is my stupid thing that I complete. I've been complaining about recently that all the volumes have a box. Even if everyone busts out of the box, you could still usually see a little of it. Sometimes they're all covered. But here he's just not even put the box in recently. He doesn't care about the box. Yeah. That's twice in a row, I think.
- [18:14]
C
Oh, I see what you mean.
- [18:16]
E
We might be done with the box then. Maybe that's a choice.
- [18:18]
B
Well, he is fitting. He is trying to fit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
- [18:26]
A
But on the bottom there. The box would have been on the bottom there. Like a line. Yeah.
- [18:32]
E
Like, the box is always there, no matter how crowded.
- [18:35]
A
I think what annoys me about it is, like, now I'm just being OCD that every single volume has had it, and then all of a sudden that start at 14 or 114 or whatever it is. 112. Like, you know, I don't feel like doing it now. Are you, like, what? I don't know. It just baffles me.
- [18:56]
D
Did he forget Stussy?
- [18:58]
A
Yes, he did forget her. Is it Stussy or Stussy? I always thought Stussy, probably. Yeah. No, no. I mispronounced things, so I want to make sure. But I don't love this one. Also, what's. His face is completely covered a la Robin and most of the Viz volumes by the title. I forgot his name.
- [19:20]
B
Barbell.
- [19:20]
A
Barbell. Yeah.
- [19:22]
D
You got the Michael.
- [19:23]
B
Yeah. He's getting Wazowski.
- [19:24]
A
Yeah, he is getting Wazowski.
- [19:26]
E
How could Oda forget what's his name?
- [19:30]
A
Look, it's not that. It's not that I need to see his face. It's that. Why even put it there if it's gonna get covered like that? Like, Oda does know in his. You know, when he sketches it, where the logo goes? I mean, obviously, like, Whitebeard's scabbard or whatever you call it.
- [19:49]
D
Why make the logo gold if you're gonna put the character with blonde hair, like, right where the logo is bizarre. Like, why give the guy gold armor? This. There's way too much yellow and gold in this cover.
- [20:01]
E
I don't know if we've talked about.
- [20:02]
A
I love.
- [20:02]
E
I've. I love the. I love the colors that Viz is using for Elbaf. Like the green and pink.
- [20:07]
A
I have to look at those. Do we. Do we have a volume out already from Elbaf?
- [20:12]
E
They did show, like, the Viz version of.
- [20:15]
A
I have to look at that.
- [20:16]
E
At least the first one. I haven't looked like Luffy and the group huddle.
- [20:23]
A
Yeah, I. I like. It's not. I don't want it to make it. I know everyone thinks we have a lot of God Valley hate on this podcast. It's not that. I just feel like the execution of this one was kind of not crazy. It's.
- [20:37]
E
It's perfectly serviceable. Like, I understand why it's a big rocks cover.
- [20:44]
B
Do it like. I. I don't know.
- [20:46]
E
Like, it. Like. I think. I think it's fine that it's just kind of serving a role Here.
- [20:53]
D
I don't like how you did the scaling per se, because, like, you can see, like, the characters in front. They're full body, then, like, Kaido, Big mom and.
- [21:02]
E
Yeah, they're like, through the floor.
- [21:03]
D
Yeah, like, through the floor. Like, it looks like he only did, like, their. He didn't draw their full bodies, obviously, but looks like it's only like their bust up kind of thing. And they don't really line up where they would be.
- [21:14]
B
It's like. No.
- [21:16]
E
As a tall guy in group shots.
- [21:18]
A
Sam is a tall guy. He's as tall as Steve, by the way, for those who don't know. So when I took a picture with the two of them, I look like a tiny, tiny, tiny person. Like this.
- [21:28]
E
Sometimes you have to, like, stand. You have to, like, kneel on a chair to like, not look weird in the back row.
- [21:34]
D
Yeah, no, I get that it looks awkward here.
- [21:41]
A
Yeah. I feel like this is like, kind of a missed opportunity. Kind of. Like, there's a lot of good stuff here that's just very chaotically put together. Like, I don't think this is gonna be one of the ones I look back at more fondly. Like, I personally more in a composition sort of way than any, you know, particular artistic issue. Or like, I really like the Big Mom, Whitebeard kind of dynamic happening there. Like, Big mom leaning on him and him being like, get the hell off of my shoulder. That I really enjoy. And usually I do the one. The covers I like the most are the ones with personality and, like, a thing happening or if it's just all the straw hats being happy. Those are like, my two top design choices. But I'll say for Greg, having. Was it Streisand in the front? Strusen, I think. Doesn't Craig say Streisand?
- [22:45]
D
Yes.
- [22:45]
A
I don't know. Okay, so he's just. He's the wrong one. That's what Ken's saying. I didn't say it. I didn't say Greg.
- [22:54]
D
All right, Greg.
- [22:56]
A
That so strews in, like, having a more formidable role kind of feels more possible with the fact that for some reason he is in the front of this. But I can't imagine the person who has no context to this and what they're thinking with, like, Shiki and seeing Kaido and Big mom and Whitebeard on the COVID of a volume in the year 2026. Must be really confusing if you have no context.
- [23:22]
E
Didn't we have a young Whitebeard in a flashback volume cover, like, 10 volumes ago?
- [23:26]
A
That was more than 10.
- [23:28]
D
The Odin flashback. So, yeah, that's been a while ago.
- [23:30]
A
That was like, almost 20, I think. Believe it or not, I think that was, like, 90.
- [23:34]
E
Whitebeard's always a central character.
- [23:37]
A
To be fair, he is. Look at that beautiful hair. Look at it, Sam.
- [23:43]
E
I'm seeing it.
- [23:44]
A
You have very similar hair. So I think I could say that when it. When it's long and, you know. Sorry, Sam, I didn't mean to make it about your hair. Any other comments on the COVID that we talked about? Too long.
- [23:57]
E
That sexual harassment, Zach?
- [23:59]
B
I think. I think Whitebeard wears the hats to hide his bald spot.
- [24:04]
C
Oh, male pattern baldness.
- [24:07]
B
Yeah.
- [24:07]
C
Just has the ring on the top.
- [24:10]
B
Yeah. Even when he takes the hat off, it's like, oh, there's a bandana on under there. Oh, yeah. I don't know.
- [24:16]
A
Which volume is it, Ken?
- [24:18]
D
96 has young Whitebeard on it.
- [24:20]
A
See, I like that one a lot more. That's the. That one's also not, like a great one. I also was really expecting Luffy to somehow force his way into this. I'm shocked that he wasn't. Okay.
- [24:34]
B
Couldn't do it. That's why he was the missing ingredient.
- [24:39]
A
By the way, it covers 1155 through 1166. 1166 is the one where he pulls the horns off. 1155 is the one. Wow. It is all flashback time. It's where Loki and Baby. I'm sorry, baby. Loki and Rocks, baby. Rocks and Loki are talking. Anyway, that's it. About that. We'll have our SBS coverage on it, and we'll talk about for another 20 minutes. The COVID in a few weeks. It comes out March 4th.
- [25:16]
B
Yeah, that's right. They usually put it where it's, like, just a week or two away from release, so.
- [25:22]
A
And I think Steve's in Japan right now, so if he could stay there until March 4th to pick up that volume, that would be great for everyone. Bring enough for the whole crew. Anyway, on that note, let's talk about volume 20 of the magazine. Or the rest of it. It's tax season, and at Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now, here's another big 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. This is the manga recap for the second half of volume 20 weekly Shonen Jump and One Piece. You could get this volume of One Piece magazine number 20 if you have $500 or are willing to purchase it elsewhere without the trading card. And then it's only a couple of bucks. So. But we're going to do our best to paint word pictures and that is Steven's not just his forte, his profession, a word painter. So Stephen, why don't you do a little bit of last time on the One Piece podcast and then we'll.
- [27:00]
B
Yes, if you did listen to that episode, which once again you really should, you may recall that I was very clear. We said multiple times we were just going over this like front section of the magazine and that there was a bunch more that was pretty cool. And so we are literally going to start with the very next thing after the interview with Oda, which is this quite thick booklet that is appears in the middle of the magazine. And it is the One Piece magazine special booklet 20 and the COVID describes it as uncollected in the volumes and it is the extra stories Jump Double issues manga collection. And so this is all sorts of like little four panel manga and bonus illustrations and things that ODA would have done for specifically the seasonal because you know the, the, the four double issues as we call them that happen throughout the year, you know, in order to like kind of make them more special for people since they're going to be waiting, you know, an extra week to get the next issue, they will get you know, sort of seasonal little bonus material from a lot of the artists. So you know, there will be springtime stuff in the Golden Week issue, there will be summertime stuff in the Obon, like sort of late summer, early fall issue. And then there's two at the end of the year. So that's New Year's. And so there's a lot of, you know, celebrate celebratory stuff for the, the New Year's holiday. And so that stuff doesn't really get collected. I don't even know if I've seen these. There might be some of these in like either the, the Color Walks or some random, you know, data book of some kind. You know, there are a lot of sort of bonus one piece books that have been published throughout the years, but some of these are actually quite funny. I mean if you've ever read like any of oda's four panel manga, you know that he, he really does have quite a skill for it. And not only are they funny, but they're also adorable to boot because he always draws them in those little Chibi versions. I think everybody's seen the something something time, like the Obahan Time and all of those. I know those are favorites of Zach's and the, and the rest of the
- [29:38]
A
crew,
- [29:40]
B
but I, I thought I would, you know, pick out a couple of these to, to describe to you as an example. So like the very first one here, and these are just, you know, they're all attributed. So this one would have been from 2009. It is a New Year's four panel thing. And it, it has Nami and uh, she is with Luffy, Chopper and Brooke. And, and they're all decked out in their adorable kimonos. And she's like, oh, Happy New Year, everybody. Here are your Otoshi Dama. That's like your, your New Year's allowance, where they put the cash in a little envelope and they give it to the kids. And the other three are like, oh, yay. And Nami is like, oh, but you know, this is very important. You don't want to lose it. So I'll just hold on to these for you. Okay. And then she like takes the envelopes and just tucks them right into her kimono. And Luffy's like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Thanks. Thanks for doing that for me. And then they proceed to have a big New Year's feast. And they're like, yeah, they're celebrating. It's just a big shot of the sunny. Oh yeah, we're going to get Osetchi. We're going to have Mochi. We're going to have all the New Year stuff. And then the last panel is like in March, and Luffy, Chopper and Brooke are all fishing at the side of the boat. And Luffy's like, I feel like I'm forgetting something. And you know, Brooke is like harassing. He's like, what. What color panties are you wearing, Robin? So they've completely forgotten that Nami just pocketed all of the money that she was supposedly giving them. And so it's a little New Year's, you know, New Year's gag. There's another one with where they're playing the sort of. It's kind of like pin the tail on the donkey, but it's like the make the face with you when you're blindfolded and they take all the. The facial features. And so they're supposed to be making Chopper's face and everybody's laughing it up. You know, Luffy's blindfolded. He's trying to put down the eyes and the nose and the mouth and everything. And they're all laughing, but you can't actually see what he's putting down. And then finally, in the last panel, like, Chopper's like, let me see, let me see. And Chopper's laughing because he thinks it's hilarious. He's like, oh, the eyes look so funny. But like, you. If you actually see it, like, all the features make it very clear that it is actually a tanuki. It is not a reindeer. And so you. You would expect Chopper to, like, flip out about that. But, like, Chopper doesn't even realize that it's. It's a tanuki, so he sort of misses the. The joke opportunity. So lots of little fun. Fun things like that. Let's see, were there any other good ones I like? Oh, yeah, I liked this one, which is. What was this for? This would have been the. The probably the Golden Week for 2017 as a special little bonus manga where Luffy, he's now wearing a samurai helmet, which is a, you know, a Kabuto. And he's like, I'm gonna quit being straw Hat Luffy. And now I'm going to be Kabuto Luffy. I'm going to be Helmet Luffy. And you see, like, Frankie, Robin, and Nami are just giving them, like, the most disappointed looks. Like, Frankie is just giving him, like, the dead, like, like, sunglasses, like, frowning look, like. And Robin is like, that doesn't sound good. And Nami says, don't do that. It sounds. It sounds like an insect. Because, you know, Kabuto. Kabuto mushi is like the rhinoceros beetles. And then Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp are all, like, tilting their heads. They're like, huh? Like, what? What are you talking about? Luffy's like, don't do it because it sounds like an insect. What am I supposed to take away from that? And Usopp's like, you're saying, like, don't do it because it's cool. So. So, yeah, they don't get it at all. What else do we have the Peter Parker meme, though?
- [33:50]
E
Like, you don't need to sell me on it.
- [33:51]
B
Yeah, yeah. On the next page, there is a beach. There's a beach episode thing where they're. They're gonna do the watermelon splitting. And you know where they. They put the watermelon on the beach and then they put the blindfold on. They spin you around and you Have a bat. And then like, you have to stop and try to smash the. The watermelon, but you can't see it and you're dizzy, so you don't know which way you're pointing. And so like, oh yeah, we're gonna do that. But the watermelon is gone. And there's a suspiciously large and round Luffy sitting on the beach and burping. And he's like, ah, yeah, that. That was a really good watermelon. And then in the third panel, they have buried him up to his neck, so just his head is sticking out of the sand. And. And then like, all the rest of the crew is like, all right, who's going to go first? And Luffy's like, well, you're going to split my head to. To. You know, you're going to. You're going to play the watermelon splitting with my head. Like, that's fine. It's not going to hurt me. Because of course, you know, you hit it with a rounded, rounded bat. It's just going to bounce off of him. And then he turns his head around to look in the last panel and like, all of them have like gigantic knives or like spiked bats. And Zorro has his three swords and Luffy's like, ah, so I'm being executed.
- [35:13]
A
Chopper with the gigantic mace. Like, yeah, that is the funniest fucking thing I like. It's like completely out of character. Now they all have. Who's the one with the scythe? Is that. Is that Usopp?
- [35:27]
B
There's like, yeah, yeah.
- [35:30]
A
Oh my God. Hilarious.
- [35:32]
B
Yeah, that one's pretty good.
- [35:34]
D
They're just going to leave Luffy there for high tide and let him drown.
- [35:37]
A
Wow.
- [35:38]
E
Right?
- [35:39]
A
They're not waiting for it.
- [35:42]
B
Yeah, let's see. I don't want to go through everyone. They're here. Go to the next page where we have some Christmas themed ones.
- [35:50]
A
That's old chopper. I missed 2004 chopper. That's.
- [35:54]
B
Yeah, that. That one's. That one's funny. Although there isn't really a, like a gag to it. It's just Luffy, Santa Luffy and. And Chopper.
- [36:04]
A
Yeah. As the resident Grinch, though, it's nice to see that error.
- [36:07]
B
Yeah. But the. The very next one after that is from 2010, where you see the. The Nine. The crew of nine with Brooke, but not Jim Bayette. And this one is titled Mary. And they're all in their like, Christmas outfits and they're sharing a big toast. They're like, merry Christmas. And then Usopp is like, he's taken off, like, the. The weird, like, Groucho Marx glasses, and he's, like, looking down. He's like, Mary. And they're like, oh, no. And then they're all flashing back to, like, Mary burning up and being like, thank you for taking care. And they're. And they're all, like, depressed, going, merry Christmas. And then Zorro. Of course, the only pragmatic, pragmatic one is like, God, you're so sad. Like, why are you so sad and yelling at them? And I guess one last one, since this one obviously needs to be described, is the. The buggy, the Santa buggy one, titled Buggy Christmas. That's pretty good. Merry Christmas, Buggy Christmas. And he says, so he's dressed up like Santa and he's got Moji and Kabaji dressed up in, like, reindeer kigus, basically. And he's saying, okay, let's. We're gonna. We're gonna do our ingenious plane here. We're gonna go to all the houses after Santa's been there, and we're gonna help ourselves to all the presents. And they're like, oh, yeah, way to go, Captain. And so Buggy Buggy is now inside. He's got. He's got his sack, and he's just helping himself to the presence in the little kids bunk beds, like, just taking them right out of their stockings. He's like, hey, I got some more. And then someone screams like, thief. Thief. Give back the chicken and the cake. Which, if you are familiar with Japanese Christmas, you know, fried chicken and like, a strawberry cake is like their traditional Christmas meals.
- [38:12]
D
Oh, like the KFC thing, right? Yeah, right, right.
- [38:15]
B
Yeah. It's their version of, like, you know, Hallmark Valentine's Day, basically, where the. The company just basically invented the tradition for them and everybody loves it now. And Buggy's like, wait a second, I didn't eat any food. Like, I didn't take anybody's food. And then you see the. The real Santa, which is Luffy, of course, and he and Chopper are both munching on some chicken and cake as they. They fly through the air on their sled. So it's a cute one, but. Yeah, there's a. There's a bunch more. Oh, actually, I lied. There's one more that's really. That's really funny almost at the end here. I don't know if. Yeah, Zach, you'll be able to find it. It's like the second to last grouping of pages on the.
- [39:04]
A
Right, the 2001, right?
- [39:06]
B
Yes. Yeah. This is from this was actually not even from a Jump thing. It was something called E Jump. It was a. It was an. It was at the end of 1999. They put out a magazine plus a set of two CD ROMs. And it was a year 2000 themed extra special bonus thing. And so Oda drew this thing very, very early. One piece, as you can definitely tell from looking at the art. And they're like, oh, here I can see it. It's the year 2000 island. And NAMI is like, it's a legendary island. They say that there's over. There's actually 2,000 treasure chests stuffed with gold that are, you know, glinting out of the darkness. And so Luffy's like, oh cool, let's go search for treasure. And then you see, you know, a very typical treasure chest looking thing with a big shining effect over it. And they're like, oh, there it is. It's the. It's the gold in the darkness. And then is revealed to actually be Gaimon in the chest. And he's like pulling on his lip because he's like, hey, I haven't seen you guys in a while. Check it out. I got a gold tooth put in. And he has. He has a gold tooth. And then there's a big arrow that says like Fool's Gold on it. And they're like, it was you. And apparently this was right around the time that the One Piece anime was starting. Because there's even a comment from Oda there in the, you know, his 1999 where he's like, wow. You know the. They. They say that 1999 was going to be this big year. It's at the end of the millennium, something crazy is going to happen. And well, it turns out I got an anime. So check out the, you know, the End of the Millennium anime, please. As you read my series,
- [40:51]
D
the glint in Gaimon's hair looks like the Smash Bros logo for a second.
- [40:57]
B
Yeah, there's a guy. Yeah, that would be a good one. But anyways, we'll. We'll leave that there for the. The booklet. Even though there's. There's more goodies in there and. And very rare illustrations and stuff. But the. The next we have some actual full, full sized manga. The first one I'll just very briefly glance over because it did. I actually translated this for Jump because I think this was back. Yeah, this was 2017 and so I think this was pre like the current evolution of Shonen Jump. Is that right?
- [41:40]
A
Still in the magazines.
- [41:41]
B
Yeah.
- [41:42]
A
I do kind of remember this one,
- [41:43]
B
I think it was in the digital magazine before they had like the Vault and the, and the, you know, all the chapters are sort of loose on. You know, you read them all separately. This was back when Viz's version was, you know, an actual, like everything is all in one magazine magazine, digital.
- [42:01]
A
But.
- [42:02]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But this was, this was like a. Memories of Oda done by Shimabukuro, the, the author of Toriko and, And you know, other. Other series. I won't really go through it since, you know, I don't know, history lesson, if you, if you didn't know. Shimabukuro, his first series, which is a big hit prior to Toriko, got canceled because he was caught engaging in or. Or patronizing, I should say, the practice of Enjo Kosai, which is when like high school teenage girls engage in prostitution with older men who have money. And he was found partaking in that. So they canceled his series and then brought him back later and, you know, gave him a chance to. To be a star again. And so it's kind of a, you know, don't. Don't know how to feel about that guy really. But he has, he has a long history with Oda as, as friends and such. And so there, there is a lot of that. Like I said, I, I had to translate this for Shonen Jump when that came out. And so if you, if you were a subscriber, you probably still have access to that. I don't know where it is, but it's in there somewhere. More interesting, however, we have another artist manga and this one is by Takamasa Moe, the artist for Akane Banashi, who I did not realize before this he was an assistant for Oda on One Piece. And so that was. That was news to me. That was very exciting little, you know, worlds colliding, so to speak. Not that that would be that rare since I'm sure half the people in Jump at this point probably have some kind of assistant ties to Oda if they've been around long enough. But yeah, this one, this one is. Is really cool. And of course, as. As always, he draws Oda with the fish head, which is the only way that he should be depicted as is. Right? And so Moai says, you know, okay, all of you beloved readers won't be. So I'll just go through this whole, this whole thing because it's not, it's not too long. What sort of an impression do you have of the author, Ichiro Oda Sensei? You know, there's a I'm sure you've seen through his many media interviews and such that, you know, he seems to be a very funny guy with the, the heart of a young boy. But in my case, I have seen him from three different perspectives. That of a fan, that of an assistant, and that of technically speaking, a. A serialized author alongside him. And so I am going to talk about these, you know, these topics. I'm going to talk about the true terror of Eichiro Oda as a mangaka. Now when I say terror, and I'll keep using this because this is a, this is a theme throughout this thing. The nuance is slightly different in Japanese. It's kind of like terror as in like the, the awe inspiring, you know, nature of him. So it's frightening in the sense of like, oh my God, how can anyone do this sort of a sense? So that's what, what Moe will be talking about. And so he says yes, I was like many other. As a, an elementary school boy, I was a One Piece fan. Like any other where I would go to the pool and I would practice my shark on darts, which is the, you know, the attack where Arlong shoots up out of the water and tries to impale Luffy. And so a number of years later the, the winds of fate just happened to blow me into the position of being an assistant on One Piece. And now once again, very luckily, I am a fellow artist in Jump Drawing. The manga Akane Banashi, which, you know that that's a two man team. There's a, a writer and he does the art for it. He says, I, I of course have many fond and fun memories of Odasan when I was his assistant. So he draws a bunch of little pictures here. There's a picture of them playing futsal, which is like, I guess it's like indoor soccer. Basically. There's a. They were doing a rakugaki contest or like a doodling contest. So they're all just kind of sitting at a table hunched over like doodling some pictures or something. They had a Christmas party and they're all, you know, doing cheers and holding up their, their drinks and then having a barbecue. And Oda's like hunched over the grill with his like skewers, like very excited having yakiniku. And they're all sitting around the table with the grill laughing and eating a gigantic piece of meat. And there's like an enormous like it looks like a lamb shank, but it's probably like an ox shank or something like that. It's just this huge Huge limb of meat. And they all look shocked. So lots of memories involving meat, he says. But this time the editor came to me and said, please draw something about what you. How you feel about Oda as a fellow artist. So somewhat in the same magazine as him. So he's going to talk about the true terror of Eichiro Oda as a mangaka as seen by another mangaka. And so he starts off with this memory of being an assistant. He says, for some reason it. The terror is that he's somehow bizarrely energetic. And so there's all the assistants. They're all. They're like, ah, we finished the chapter. And they're all slumped over their desks and they all look, look exhausted. They're sweaty. At the end of a chapter, all the assistants are completely wiped out. At the time I was in my early 20s. Even I was totally exhausted. And then there's a little arrow pointing to him that says, like, didn't actually do that much work. But he's like, whoo. And. And then Oda here, like, raises a fist. He's like, we're done with the chapter. We're done with the chapter. Hey, what do you guys want to eat? You want sushi? You want meat? Should we get hamburgers? If we, if we can't decide, you want to get all three. So he's like rushing around. He's, he's like super excited. And Moe's like, what? How is the guy who has the hardest job of all, like the most lively? He's. He's the most hyper of all of us. And he's. He. He's devouring a yakiniku bento on an all nighter. So he's like, yeah, delicious. So yeah, he's super energetic. The. The first, that was the first instance when I felt that Otasan was truly terrifying. On the next page, his schedule is terrifying. And so he points out, the schedule for a weekly author is very tough. You have storyboards, then you have the chapter, then you have color pages and you have the tankobone work. So all the volume extras and whatever else you have to do. He's like, yeah, this, this is enough. Everybody is like completely jam packed with their schedules. But if you're an even more popular mangaka, then dawn, you have the storyboards, you have the chapter, you have the color, you have the volume extras, you have the anime check, you have the merchandising check. And in Oda's case, you have the storyboards, you have the chapters, you have the color pages, you have the volume work which is includes the SBS and the Usopp Gallery Pirates, all that stuff. You have the anime check, you have the merchandising check, you have the movies, you have the live action series. And then in parentheses, this schedule for 28 years. He says, I asked him once, you know, now that I've had a series, you know, I've done a series of my own for a little bit. I can actually imagine these sort of things. But like, isn't the one piece schedule kind of crazy? And Oda is sort of like smack. He's kind of laughing, he's like slapping his head and he's like, yeah, I know, but if all of a sudden I started having more time on my hands, I would realize, wow, one piece really fell off. Like people aren't as interested in it anymore. So it, you know, that's a real nerve wracking thought to have. So, you know, he just keeps the pedal to the metal all the time. And Moe says, what does that even mean? It's terrifying. He continues his, his curiosity and his drive to succeed are terrifying. He says, I, when I imagine, I imagine like, oh, if I could draw a manga that was a super hit, like one piece and was super duper good, I would just be completely full of myself. And he's like, he's picking his nose. He's got this fantasy where he's like doing like the, the Buddha sit and he's like levitating above the crowd and they're all like, moe, Moe, Moe. And you know, he's just on top of the world. And he says, but in Oda's case. And so Oda's drawing, he's hunched over, he's scribbling something. He's like, yeah, I was testing out some new like color combinations of stuff. And yeah, I found, I found this really nice shade that I really like. I'm gon use it now. And the next panel, he's, he's sitting there with a, with a cup of coffee and there's like bags under his eyes and he's like, I wanted to get some new ideas and, and some good reference material for Germa's transformation scene. So I was watching all these anime with all the, the transforming scenes and checking them out, you know, one after the other. And then even on the toilet. And yes, it does picture the infamous shark toilet. The toilet with the shark head over it on the wall.
- [52:31]
D
That's such good detail.
- [52:33]
B
Yeah. And Moe's like, what? Whoa, There's a stack of books in here. And he's like, he. Oda reads books on the toilet.
- [52:41]
A
Wait, there's a stack of books in the shark toilet?
- [52:45]
B
Yeah, that's the thing. He notices. And yeah. Then he drew Oda sitting on a toilet.
- [52:50]
A
Just.
- [52:50]
B
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Interesting. As he reads his. His books and.
- [52:57]
D
Yeah.
- [52:58]
B
So 28 years of drawing this incredible manga and yet he's not full of himself. He's not coasting on his success. It's terrifying. Then the last set of pages here, he says, it is also terrifying and heartening that he, you know, takes the time to think about us. And so all the assistants are hanging out. It's like one day, oh yeah, I heard, you know, blah, blah, blah manga. When the, when the series was over, the sensei took all the assistants out on a vacation and they're like, what? And then they're all like, rushing up to Oda, like, oda, odasana take us on vacation too. And he has little like, parentheses like, sorry for being such, you know, ingrateful assistance or like a greedy assistance. And Oda's like, oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, let's.
- [53:53]
A
We'll.
- [53:53]
B
We'll all go on a vacation. And they're like, yeah.
- [53:56]
C
Woo.
- [53:56]
B
Yeah.
- [53:57]
A
Awesome.
- [53:58]
B
Yeah. But he's just kind of standing. He's like, he's clearly not on the same level as the rest of them. And Moe's like, huh, Was that like, did we. Do we cross the line? Did we go a little overboard there? And Oda's like, yeah, it's just, you know, by the time one piece is over, I was hoping you guys would all be saying, we're too busy with our own series to go on vacation with you. So, you know, he wants them to be successful. And, and Moe continues, you know, this was, this was after my own. So Moe, you know, before he drew Akane Banashi, he did a series. We talked about this before Ole Golazo was the name of the series. It was like a one and done, you know, finished in like 10 or 12 chapters or something like that. It was a soccer manga. And that was. When did we find out that was. I was like 2015 or 16 or something like that.
- [54:50]
A
Yeah, we looked it up last time, I think.
- [54:52]
B
Yeah, it was, it was a while ago. And so apparently he went back to, to work with Oda in between getting to work on that and, and Akane Menashi. And so he had already experienced, you know, getting his series canceled. But he's like, man, that just made me realize, man, I got to get back out there. I got to get in there again. And he says, the most terrifying thing of all is wondering by the time one piece is over, will I be able to. Will I be ready to have my own series? And then his little gag is like, even if I am drawing my own series, I'll go with you. He's like, what? And so, yeah, that's his. His little manga. There's also some commentary in the back, which had a few interesting nuggets from Moe where he explains that, like, the. The way that he got to become an assistant for Oda is that his editor was having a meal with the One Piece editor at the time, you know, whatever year that would have been. And then they needed an extra person. So apparently Oda was just like, hey, can you come tomorrow? Can you send me anyone tomorrow? And so he just got this, you know, offer right out of the blue, and he worked. He says he worked the period that he was working minus the parts where he actually left to. To try that. That series that he had that didn't last very long was from the end of the Kurita Coliseum in Dressrosa through the Katakuri fight in Whole Cake.
- [56:33]
A
And.
- [56:34]
B
Which is really interesting detail because I know we've heard about, like, oh, this artist has been, you know, this. Their artist was an assistant on one piece. This artist was an assistant on one piece. But I don't think I've ever heard, like, oh, it was specifically from this point in the story to this point in the story.
- [56:47]
A
Yeah, that's new.
- [56:49]
B
So that's. That's kind of neat to learn that level of detail.
- [56:52]
A
Yeah. I think we talked about last time how. How rarely we even hear about, like, the. What the assistants do. The fact that they don't really get credited, you know, at least in the same way that we would think they should. I then. Except that they might be in the back of a volume, maybe as, like, a thank you. Right. I think that's. You said something like that.
- [57:14]
B
Some. Yeah. I mean, some artists will do that. One piece does not do that Shaquille o' Neal thing.
- [57:19]
A
We know.
- [57:20]
B
Yeah. Yes, that did happen. But I would say it's not necessarily standard. Probably the majority of series don't have, like, a special credit. It just kind of depends on.
- [57:33]
C
The only time I remember seeing it was what was Fujimoto's work before Chainsaw Man?
- [57:40]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [57:40]
B
I think Fire Punch.
- [57:42]
C
At the end of Fire Punch, he has a couple of them on the last, like, credit page of a volume.
- [57:48]
A
Yeah, they do a ton of work. And we always talk about, like, how amazing the assistants work is because it's anything that isn't moving or like. Yeah, anything that's not a character, basically. Yeah. For one piece, like background, which. Yeah, one piece. Background work is like, universally incredible for at least for as long as I can remember.
- [58:12]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's. It is pretty rare. I know that something like, like, obviously Greg has known some of the assistants and like, you know, been in contact with them at various points. I, you know, that probably fluctuates throughout the years, but I met one in.
- [58:29]
A
In the 2013 when we did the documentary, and I know it was like. I don't know if it was like, secret at the time, but it was like, you know, I don't think he. I don't think it's something that was talked about like a ton. It's not. I don't think it's. It's like classified information, but it's not like something you go and you're like, yeah, right.
- [58:53]
B
And I was gonna say like, that. That Greg has like, known some of these things, but then it's like, oh, well, I can't like publicly acknowledge that because it's not really been like an open secret or anything like that.
- [59:06]
A
It feels very. I mean, I guess it's up to the artist as to whether they. That's something they want to promote, but I feel like that should be something.
- [59:13]
B
Yeah, I think it's a credit.
- [59:14]
A
It's something you work on. You know,
- [59:17]
B
you tend to only hear it. I think when the artist, when the, the assistant becomes a successful artist on their own and they'll, they'll talk about it and they'll say, like, oh, I have this history with this, this artist. But I, I think I, I would imagine that maybe, like, if you're not at that stage, it would be sort of seen as like, like a bit of like, careerism. Sort of a thing of like, oh, you're, you know, you're using or, or someone is. Is trying to build you up into something bigger, like, oh, this was a protege of. Of this artist. When, you know, it's really more of a personal relationship sort of a deal. So I would imagine that's probably a factor. As for why we don't hear about it more, he has a funny story about after he's like, they asked him like, you know, how. What kind of conversations have you had with Oda since Akane Banashi started? And he says, when I just started as an assistant. So back in the day he. And then he had his short series, you know, he he managed to see Oda and he was like, they made a promise.
- [60:24]
A
He.
- [60:24]
B
They made an agreement, like, oh, yeah, I, you know, I have to come back and get a. A signature from you. Get a little illustration, a sign board and all that stuff. And after the first year of Akane Banash, he said, I've been about, you know, 50 chapters or so. He went to Oda to get that, and, And Oda was like, you know, work on it for another year. You know, if. If you, if you try hard for another year, then, then I'll give you one. And so he's like. I realized he was just, you know, he was giving me motivation. He was spurring me onward for, you know, another year. He says, yes, but the next year's party, I did get it from him. So, you know, a little bit of gamesmanship there. And he says what one piece means to him. He's like, oh, I was. I feel like I was extremely blessed to have been in my late years of elementary school. So probably like fourth, fifth, sixth grade from the Arlang arc through the Alabasta Arc. You know, it was just. I. I was, I was blessed. I was, you know, I can still vividly remember how completely obsessed I was with everything that was happening in the manga at the time. And here I am, I'm a mangaka now. So, you know, you can tell what an influence it had on him. And he said, he says, but it was also very bad luck and very bad timing that the Paramount War was happening when I was trying to take entrance exams for college. So I'm not. I'm not sure if that was just, like, depressing or if that was just. He couldn't concentrate on studying.
- [61:59]
A
Because I think. I think I was in law school during. I mean, I was doing the podcast, right? I was in law school during that. So. Yeah, no, relate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [62:08]
D
I can't concentrate. My beard shattering the world right now.
- [62:11]
A
Yeah, I know. It's like, come on, what am I supposed to do here?
- [62:14]
B
They just died. Don't you get it? He's dead. We have bigger problems right now.
- [62:21]
A
I wrote that on my lsat and I don't know, they didn't like it for some reason.
- [62:26]
B
Yeah. And then he. He rounds it out with a nice little comment. They ask him, you know, that Oda sensei is starting on his 29th year of one piece. You know, what. What would you say to him as a, like a comrade in jump? And he's like, well, you know, I don't know. You know, to. To Be comrades in that sense. Like, I feel like he's just on a completely different level. If anything, he's the one who's like sort of pulling up the rest of jump along with him. But you know, he says, as far as. For me personally, I just hope to. I hope to do well enough that it doesn't feel like Oda is, you know, on his own island off by himself. You know, I want. I want to be in, in range so that he's not completely alone in terms of quality. So, you know, as a. As an apprentice and as a reader, I hope he stays healthy and everything. I can't imagine what it's like being in the 29th year of telling the same story. That's pretty, pretty phenomenal. So yeah, I wanted to single that one out because that's obviously very nice for me and for Zach. Yeah, that's.
- [63:38]
A
As the Akane Banashi fan. So Akane Banashi, the anime is starting April. In April. I forget the date. This April. Yeah. For Those who haven't 2026. For those who have 2026. For those who have not read it though, it is a very fast read and it's great. They're almost at 200 chapters, right?
- [64:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's been just about four years. We're almost at 200.
- [64:06]
A
I mean, for those who are used to one piece paces, it will take you a quarter of the time that you think it will take you to read. Yeah, it's great. And the art is phenomenal.
- [64:15]
D
You've been translating that since the start, right, Steven?
- [64:18]
B
Yeah.
- [64:19]
D
That's incredible.
- [64:20]
B
You can't believe it's been that long.
- [64:23]
A
Steven, you have to tell this. The artist that you happen to be doing.
- [64:28]
B
Yeah, yeah, we'll have a lot to. If you ever meet him, talk about. Yeah, it is funny. Like, it's funny too to think about, like if. If Akane were to go on like indefinitely because of the pace, it would eventually, like I. The number of chapters that I've translated, it would eventually match the number of one piece chapters.
- [64:48]
A
Oh yeah. Because there's. Because of all the breaks.
- [64:50]
B
Yeah, there's no breaks for Akane.
- [64:51]
A
And in fact, it's really crazy.
- [64:53]
B
It's often. It's often like extra pages. Like usually a typical jump chapter is 19 pages and it's often 21, 22.
- [65:02]
A
And this week I saw you had to translate a haiku in addition to that for the chapter. Yeah,
- [65:09]
B
that's easy.
- [65:10]
A
But yeah, okay. I don't know. I don't know if I'm assuming It involves more localization, but yeah, go ahead a little bit.
- [65:18]
B
But yeah, we also have.
- [65:21]
A
Are these all his old comments?
- [65:22]
B
Yes, there's a selection.
- [65:24]
A
Oh, great.
- [65:25]
B
It's just a selection of. Yes. Of Otis comments in the jump issues that span. Yeah, Pretty much the whole series. It starts in 97.
- [65:36]
A
It's not all of them. It's just absolutely.
- [65:40]
B
Yeah, it's just a certain.
- [65:43]
A
If you want the early years, I will again. What is it? Thegrandline.com one piece HTML. So this gives you an idea and I think you go to. What is it?
- [65:54]
B
TOC or something like that. Table of contents.
- [65:57]
A
Yeah, I think. What does he call it, though? Deep Thoughts. That's why we called that segment that oda's Deep Thoughts. Yes. That's how we found out that he was indeed a Final Fantasy nerd before realizing all the parallels with Elbaf and that. Go ahead. Sorry.
- [66:16]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, they're all fun comments. Obviously, oda's comments are very fun. And the reason that that repository is such a useful place to see things is it really is like a time capsule where he just talks about, oh, here's the latest thing that I saw on TV or whatever from 1999.
- [66:37]
A
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our guest from. Is that last week or two weeks ago. Time is. You know, Isaiah Colbert wrote this amazing article for Aftermath about how. I think he also said something along the lines of like, all social media should be like Shonen Jump author comments. I think that's actually a new article he did because the other one was about. The other one was about the, like the fish identity and all those. But I 100% agree because Shonen Jump comments are always.
- [67:12]
B
I mean, yes.
- [67:13]
A
Entertaining. Very confusing.
- [67:15]
B
Right? They are the original, like the original Twitter, like.
- [67:19]
A
Yes.
- [67:20]
B
Just how. What. What sort of a goofy comment can you fit in the shortest space possible? That's. That's what it was.
- [67:25]
A
That's what the character limit was good for.
- [67:27]
D
Yeah.
- [67:27]
A
And made you like every word.
- [67:30]
D
You have to go back.
- [67:31]
E
What if. What if you could share pictures of your food, but you just had to describe it with words. Words instead.
- [67:35]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [67:37]
A
Bizarre. Which is actually like half of oda's comments are that. Yeah, yeah. Describe this food I ate. Right.
- [67:44]
B
Yeah, I'm just looking at this one. I'm looking at this one right right now. It's crazy how good Krispy Kreme donuts are. What is this miracle that is happening inside my mouth? That's.
- [67:56]
A
But there's nothing that could make me respect you more than that. Yeah, I. Although Mr. Donut is in Japan. I mean, come on. Yeah, you're spoiled for choice there. They got some good stuff.
- [68:09]
B
Yeah. So that's obviously more donut talk later.
- [68:11]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [68:13]
B
There are some, like, celebrity interviews, which obviously they're. They're all Japanese celebrities. So this is really more interesting if you actually know. Know who these. These.
- [68:24]
A
Do you know any of them?
- [68:26]
B
The first one, Kendo Kobayashi. I do know him. He's a very popular comedian, veteran guy. I'm sure he's played, like, one of the movie characters or something in some of the One Piece movies. He's a big manga fan. He's talked about jump manga all the time. And he has done. I forget. I think he may have been, like, the model for Senior Pink or something.
- [68:54]
A
Oh, is that why there's a gigantic Senior?
- [68:56]
B
Yeah, there's a Senior Pink here. And I feel like I did cosplay. I think he cosplayed him too. It's probably somewhere here in this interview.
- [69:04]
A
But you only see his face. But I could see it, like, where's Senior Pink? There. Like, similar face shape.
- [69:14]
B
Yeah. Yeah. He's a very funny Kendo Kobe. She's a very funny guy. Very charming individual. And then. Yeah, I don't even know who these other people are. There's a Toshiki Masuda. I guess he's a Seiyu. I don't know if he. Okay, okay. Here. Down here. Kirishima from My Hero Academia. Oh, yeah, There's a picture of.
- [69:41]
A
Yeah.
- [69:41]
B
Was also a guy in Haikyuu. So, yeah, he's there. And then there is a Yudai Sano from Ini. That's a. I think it's a boy band.
- [69:55]
A
I mean, the picture. I will say the picture.
- [69:57]
B
It's like, if he's not a guy, Pretty guy. Yeah, right. Yeah. Song and dance type of stuff. So you get their. Their views on One Piece. And now we get to, like, some of the really more interesting stuff that isn't specifically related to One Piece. There's this section here. Yeah, there's a. Well, there's a couple different parts. So this is where we get into, like, the historical Shonen Jump stuff, which is like, what. What are some, like, interesting historical artifacts of Jump Before One Piece, for example. So you have, like, the very first Shonen jump issue from 1968. Like, sort of what was jumped, like, right before One piece in the 90s with Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk and stuff. Different versions of the JUMP logo. There's like a selection throughout the years of like the spines of the different JUMP issues and the way that like it has changed through the 70s and the 80s and 90s, which is all, you know, really interesting from a historical standpoint. And there are some, you know, like, comments from. I don't know if this is like a historian, like a JUMP historian, or maybe it's someone at Shueisha who's. Who does like design work for them or something. But yeah, talks about the IT lists. There's a guy, Kazuki Katsumata, who was the designer. He was one or at least one of the designers in Shueisha at the time who designed the one piece logo. Since obviously, you know, you got to have the logo when the series starts. And so it's kind of interesting to think about. Like, yeah, it's. It's such an iconic part of the series. But like when he was doing it, like the series was nothing, right? Like you. You have like one chapter or maybe two chapters in storyboard form that you have to like design this logo that's going to be iconic for the rest of the history of the series. And that's pretty cool.
- [72:05]
A
Which could be for a couple weeks or for 28 years.
- [72:09]
B
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [72:11]
E
So we know whose fault it is.
- [72:13]
B
Yeah. Yes. Sam said it's his fault is the Nepis. You know, the thing that everybody gets confused.
- [72:22]
A
It's Nepo Peace. Nepi piece.
- [72:25]
B
No, we get some like History of Johnny, which is the Jump mascot. The weird like pirate guy without a mouth who appears on all the. The Shonen Jump stuff. And it has had some permutations throughout the years and there are some offshoots. There's Kaizo Kun, which was like the official mascot character that Toriyama designed. You can very clearly tell this little yellow guy down there, very Toriyama esque. And Oda did some of his own mascots on the next page. I remember this lion guy that was for Psycho Jump. This weird little lion with like a crown and some boxing gloves. He is Faraoun. It's a very strange name. And he's got like a starfish guy and a DJ Orca, which is kind of. Kind of cool.
- [73:26]
D
Yo, DJ Orca in the house.
- [73:28]
B
Yeah.
- [73:31]
A
Better than DJ Killer Whale. You can't do that. Or can you?
- [73:37]
B
The next two pages are really. This is the sort of stuff like again, this could be another episode on its own just because there's so much information packed in here. But it's a. It's sort of like a. A flowchart of how the. The COVID of Shonen Jump is designed. And so it. It has like, color coded. Like, the purple steps are from the editor, the orange steps are from the designer, and then the green steps are from the artists. And so it's like, okay, the editor, you know, has they. They decide on the theme of the COVID of this issue of Jump, and then the designer mocks up a rough draft, and then the editor takes that rough draft and they check over it. And then they. Then they go and contract the artists to provide illustrations for it. So the artists get involved, they do their. They're little pieces that get, you know, fit into the COVID And then the designer goes back and like, does a proper design and they check it and, you know, do quality checks and all that stuff. And, you know, we've seen a lot of the, like the, in the, in the color walks. You've seen a lot of like, here's the actual, like, just the raw illustration that Oda provided that is devoid of. Of all the. The COVID graphics around it. It's just the illustration, but you can see, like, they have like some screenshots of. Of like the, you know, InDesign or whatever. Yeah. Adobe InDesign is what they use to put the layers of the COVID together and try different logo treatments and stuff like that. It's all. It's all really interesting stuff, I'm sure, from a graphic, you know, people who work in graphic stuff.
- [75:29]
D
So do they go to each artist and like, hey, here's the concept for this month. It's draw your character holding an ice cream cone. They all submit their piece, and then someone collages them together kind of thing.
- [75:40]
A
Right?
- [75:41]
B
Yeah, that's exactly.
- [75:42]
D
That's so interesting.
- [75:43]
A
I talked about this last time, so apologies for the repetition, but the one thing I got to see when I went to the Shonen Jump the offices is that them putting together one of the covers. I talked about which one it was last time, but it is literally just
- [75:58]
D
them, you know, dragging pieces around and kind of like, huh, that's so cool.
- [76:03]
A
Graphic design. Yeah, Graphic design people could probably. I mean, I'm sure like Vanessa and others who work on one piece kind of wish they had all the individual assets like that for a chapter, but at Shonen Jump, I'm sure they have, you know, everything there.
- [76:22]
D
Yeah, very cool.
- [76:24]
B
Yeah, there's more stuff I'll kind of skip the more quickly stuff about like the, you know, the, the. The page construction, the fact that 85% of a jump issue is recycled paper and like, they have a special name for it and you know, sort of like the, the ways that they design for it. They talk about the beginning and the. The expansion of the digital version of jump, which obviously in Japan has. Has a longer history than. Than the. The English version. And then the expanding to all these things like JUMP plus you know, original series that are only online. And they have Zebra Zeblac, Zebrak which is like Shueisha's official sort of like bookstore online bookstore for. For their stuff in Japan. And there's one piece base as well which is kind of like the Japan specific. Like I don't know if it's a subscription but it's like that's where you can buy like you can get the vault and, and read it for yourself if you're in Japan and stuff like that. Page 98 we have an interesting graph which is very useful to know. There's a pie chart here. 15% and 85%. Guess which one is Shonen. Current Shonen Jump artists who work analog on pen and paper. And which ones work digitally. Which one do you think is the 15%?
- [78:06]
A
Well, I'm looking at the answer.
- [78:07]
B
So I'm like yeah, you can see the answer.
- [78:09]
C
Is it digital?
- [78:10]
D
I'm assuming be mostly digital nowadays.
- [78:12]
B
Yeah, the 85% is digital. So at the time of this that would be me and Roboco Sakamoto Days Elusive Samurai Witch Watch Blue Box Kill Kill Blue or whatever. New age Exorcist Kagurabachi Hima 10 Ichi the Witch Shinobi Goto. Nice prison odor. Yeah, I don't even know all of these. There's. There's so many new series.
- [78:40]
D
That's so many.
- [78:42]
B
Ping Pong Ekkiden, blah blah. Seventeen of them. Yes. Analog on pen and paper. Three and that is one piece. Kyoshi the what is that? The Ultimate Exorcist. Ultimate Exorcist Kyoshi and Akane Banashi.
- [78:59]
D
Wow.
- [79:00]
A
I was gonna say a kind of an.
- [79:01]
E
A really, a really mind blowing thing I learned. Apparently like Naruto like from like as early as like volume like six or something was fully digital.
- [79:10]
B
Wow, that is my cool.
- [79:12]
D
Wait, like the original Naruto?
- [79:13]
A
Yeah, well there was only one. Oh, that was a very early Boruto.
- [79:19]
B
But you wouldn't know it.
- [79:21]
E
You wouldn't like.
- [79:22]
A
No, no.
- [79:23]
E
By looking at it.
- [79:24]
B
Also interesting fun fact here. One piece of course we know is all paper. Akane Banashi and Kyoshi both drawn by assistance of Oda. So there is a direct interesting continuity there in materials.
- [79:44]
D
He's like the Last guard keeping the traditional.
- [79:47]
A
Like, oh, don't worry, Urasawa is out there. He's not gonna let that die.
- [79:51]
B
Oh, yeah, he's got decades to go still. Sure.
- [79:54]
A
No, that might just. Yeah, it's definitely the old guard and it's also dozens of us. Yeah, but it's like, also like the big names do tend to be. I feel like. Yeah, yeah, go on.
- [80:10]
B
Yeah, there's a. There's a really cool picture on page 99, which I think you can show them, Zach, of the. The Elbaf page with Nami here where she's crying up in the corner. And although it's really hard, I'm sure you guys can barely see it. There is a red line, there's a box around it, and it is depicting here the dimensions of the page that he draws on. And then this is the rough dimensions of what the. How the art will be cut in order to fit in the. In the, the magazine and in the volume. And those. Those both have like slightly different dimensions, I believe, or at least they get recut. Like, it is very often the case when I work on stuff where it's like, okay, we have these digital files. This is what is going in the print magazine. And then you look at the volume and it's like some parts that you could see are a little more cut off and some parts you couldn't see are a little more visible on the edges. And sometimes there's even like, oh, there's a little sign here and they come back to me and they're like, hey, we found this sign. Can you translate this? Because it wasn't visible before. Little stuff like that happens. But yeah.
- [81:23]
E
Do you think the VIZ version and like the Japanese Tonko bonds are the same dimensions? Like, would they cut at the same spots?
- [81:31]
B
They are not the same sizes.
- [81:34]
A
Right.
- [81:35]
B
I don't know if the ratio is. I would imagine they try to get the ratio as identical as possible, but they're definitely slightly larger in VIZ than. Than a Shueisha. But I will say when we get the. Not the. Not the pages with all the text on them that I use to translate from, but the, like the raw. Like the TIFF files that are like full size that don't have the text on them, they're just the art that the letterers use to put the text in and then crunch them down. Those are the full sized assets. So every now and then I feel like once or twice for the podcast I have like where it's like, oh, we can't really see this or like, can you zoom it in as close as possible? I've gone and grabbed those files and like checked to see if I could make out, you know, more details because obviously I can take advantage of that.
- [82:35]
D
That's so cool. I want to see more like uncut pages. I can't imagine what's been.
- [82:40]
A
Versions of one piece. The big.
- [82:43]
B
Yeah, well, the thing. The thing too is a lot of artists, like, that's bleed space where they're just like. Okay, well, the. The effect just kind of trails off and it doesn't look. It not meant to, you know, to be, you know, nice.
- [82:56]
E
And it looks like dead space if you. If you just print the full thing.
- [82:59]
B
Yeah. Or like. Or when they do the like. Oh, we cut the movie but then we have like the extra dimensions that weren't. You weren't supposed to see.
- [83:07]
A
And you know, and there's a guy hanging out.
- [83:12]
B
Right, right, exactly, exactly.
- [83:14]
A
Having a coffee mat. But the open mat, I do want to pause it here. So I don't know if you remember Stephen, but Marineford, like really just Marineford had this thing where all the two page spreads, that big white border.
- [83:30]
B
It was one volume, specifically. I don't know why. I wonder if accident or if it
- [83:38]
E
was unfortunate because it's the same in Japanese, isn't it?
- [83:40]
A
Yes, it is. It was a very. It's noticeable because there's so many two page spreads in Greenford and they're all incredible, but they. It's a very weird. It's a ship. It's like you notice it, I think if you're looking at all, you know. But did they ever fix that?
- [83:58]
E
Is that like still in the news?
- [84:00]
B
That's just still there, I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really fascinating too because it's like on the one hand, you look at it and you're like. And they're like fully boarded. It's like, it's not sloppy. Like, all the panels are full boxes. So it's. It's very clean. But like, it's like you can see all the details but at the same time, like, it doesn't stretch to the edge of the page. And like, you do lose a little bit of like the impact because it's, you know, there's a little. It's bordered, it's. It's like boxed in. And so, yeah, it's. It's just different, that's all.
- [84:37]
A
I think if it were on bigger, like if. If it were like the size of like the compendiums, right. It would still have the same Impact, but because they're. Yeah, that would be cool.
- [84:48]
E
It's like when you watch something that like is like a 4x3 image, but it like has 16 by 9 letterboxing.
- [84:55]
A
Yeah.
- [84:55]
B
And then you watch it on a
- [84:56]
E
16 by 9 TV and now it's like just a small box.
- [85:01]
A
Yeah. Double, double boxed. It is like that. That is. I think it's volume 57 for those wondering.
- [85:09]
B
Yeah, it's one of those Murrayford ones.
- [85:11]
A
It's the first one. I think it's like of the. Yeah. Okay. Ken's. Ken's going again.
- [85:16]
E
It's volume 58.
- [85:17]
B
I remember it. Sam is proving me wrong. Confident. Okay. Yeah. There's. There's some more stuff about like, oh, what's the job of, of the editor? And the going back and forth. And there's also like a, a manga drawn by. I think this might be one of the spin off artists that I, I won't really go, go into it because there's more interesting stuff later. But you know, it needless to say this is covering a lot of different jump related topics and like, you know, behind the scenes, like how, how the sausage is made sort of stuff. But I really. Do we have it, Ken? Do we have a, do we have a answer?
- [86:05]
D
Yes. Yeah, it's exactly as Sam said.
- [86:09]
B
58.
- [86:09]
A
Damn you, Sam. Damn you. But thank you.
- [86:13]
B
All right. But yeah, what I really wanted to go forward to look at Zach for Starting at page 112 we get one of my favorite sections.
- [86:24]
A
How do I know? I have like predicted exactly where you're jumping every day.
- [86:28]
B
We are getting to the font section and this obviously is like super interesting.
- [86:33]
A
I'm excited just because I know we have at least a few letter listeners. I know, I like Brandon. I know his own one piece podcast if he's listening. Yeah, no, I, I know this is for the letter, so.
- [86:46]
B
Yes. Yeah, yeah. They're talking about fonts and this is definitely something that has expanded a lot here. In fact, at the bottom they have the color art for like page one. It's like Roger on the execution stand and then the whole crowd and they are showing that, you know, back in 97, back in the day, you know, the artist would like write with pencil in the, in the word balloons. And then of course an editor, someone involved, you know, behind the scenes would put in the text, the, the printed text and it was not done digitally back then because they didn't really have the, the tech for it. They would print it out. They would have this fancy, you know, high, high def Printer
- [87:40]
A
a little with a long time ago. Jason Thompson. Right. I think I. I hope I'm good.
- [87:44]
B
Yeah, well, yeah.
- [87:45]
A
First translator. Yeah.
- [87:47]
B
And that's. That's. Well, the first editor. That's what.
- [87:49]
A
Sorry.
- [87:50]
B
That's what Viz did for the English sound effects was they, you know, at the very start of Shonen Jump, they actually printed it. And that's why. That's why you can see that a lot of the sound effects actually block the art behind them because, like, they couldn't, you know, they didn't have time or the. The effort to.
- [88:08]
A
Resources.
- [88:10]
B
Yeah. To like, cut out all the blank space. So there are definitely some, especially like volume one era of a lot of those series like Naruto and Shaman King and stuff. But yeah, they used to print it out physically and then stick it on the page and, you know, they had it on like a separate layer. So I don't know if there was like a bit of glass or something like that, a bit of plastic, that clear plastic that they would stick that on and superimpose it over the page. And nowadays, of course, it's all done digitally and you can change all these fonts around and they've really expanded the. The list of fonts and so they. They single out a ton of them here. And you know, this is sort of stuff that, like, it's not going to necessarily mean anything if you don't look at the manga in Japanese a lot and learn to sort of recognize the different effects that they can use in manga nowadays. But there's like a scene of Luffy where he's saying, you know, I'm gonna be the King of the Pirates. And it's clearly a fairly recent, you know, scene of Luffy. And then it's just like, here's all these different fonts, treatments that you could give it.
- [89:22]
A
And like, look at how chapter 1001, I think.
- [89:25]
B
Yeah, yeah, that. That looks right. And. And like, here's all the different ways that it can look where it's like, this one's more loopy and. And thin, and this one's more like calligraphy, like. And this one's blockier. And you know, they can use them for all different types of impact and feel.
- [89:45]
D
It's like when a voice actor is recording the same line over and over again. I'm gonna be King of the Pirates. I'm gonna be King of the Pirates.
- [89:52]
B
Right?
- [89:52]
D
I'm gonna be like, it's over and over again, just, I'm King of the Pirates. Yeah, yeah.
- [89:56]
B
And it's someone's job to sit there and sift through all of them and to be like, no, this one's the right one. And so they're, you know, they're pointing out like, here's like all of the little like heart emojis and things that. That Oda will. Will draw in there. And like the different kind of ways that the, the text gets kind of personified and given character and how they have to make sure that those are represented in, in the printed dialogue as well, make sure that it's all spaced properly and things like that. That's all pretty interesting, but again, pretty, pretty minor, like really getting into the weeds type of detail. And then on page 114 and 115, it's just like two pages of like, here's all these different fonts that we use and the effects that they have on, like the way it looks.
- [90:58]
A
Damn, this is pretty cool. I mean, if I, Yeah, if I read the Japanese version more, I'd be very.
- [91:03]
B
Yeah. And of course, like, I, you know, I look at these things all the time, so I'm like, oh yeah, I recognize that font. I know that font, like the one in the middle here is. Is called Comic Reggae and it is
- [91:14]
A
specifically new Comic Sans right there.
- [91:17]
B
It's specifically the, the one that like Brook uses in like when he's doing his Soul King stuff where he's like yelling through a microphone.
- [91:26]
A
Or like they make these fonts or are they. Were they. Are they existing?
- [91:31]
B
I don't think so. I might say that somewhere in here, but I think that these are just, you know, like commercial fonts that they.
- [91:40]
A
Sorry, sorry to cut you off there. Yep.
- [91:43]
B
Yeah. So like, that's one like whenever Brooke says something in English and it's written in English like, you'll see this kind of weird. And it is sort of a bony looking font. And that one's called Comic Reggae. Apparently there's one called Reygaso W7, which is. Which means like graceful and beautiful. And that is the font that Sanji uses for his Melorine, like fantasy stuff where he's like Nami san and wobbling around. Let's see what else they have.
- [92:18]
A
The chapter title font.
- [92:20]
B
Yeah. The chapter title font is called so GTAI W7 and that is specifically used for the chapter titles in the volumes. There is a. There's a different font that they use in the weekly chapters, but they redo it for the.
- [92:39]
A
And then those editor notes that are totally edited that everyone thinks is.
- [92:43]
B
Yeah, yeah, there's Shingo is like the. It's kind of like their version of like just a classic bold font. So that one is Shingo Shadowed because it has the drop shadow. It's the white with the drop shadow. And that's how it always looks at the end of the chapter when there's a little.
- [93:01]
A
I'm curious about the bottom, which I'm assuming you might talk about like that there have been like the Oda boxes as we call them, changes in that.
- [93:09]
B
So these ones. So they have stuff here like they're singling out like the scene where Tashigi sees Wato Ichimonji for the first time in Logtown. Mr. Two giving him the thumbs up, the teary thumbs up at the end of Alabasta Arlong doing stuff. And then you have some Oda boxes. These are fonts that are no longer used. And so apparently particularly the ones early on in, early on in the series first couple years were produced by a certain company. And it looks like after 2010 when jump switched to a full digital production, they were no longer able to use that. So I don't know if that means
- [94:04]
E
like they had like a no digital clause or.
- [94:07]
B
Yeah, probably something like that. I don't know. You know, you need someone to explain more the, the, the nitty gritty of like the, the font and printing business in Japan to, to explain why they had to stop using them.
- [94:23]
E
But this is remarkable that they just have a page of just like explain explaining all the different fonts.
- [94:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. That's, that's very cool.
- [94:31]
E
That's cool because like I remember like way back in the day, like I tracked down like at least like most of the fonts Viz used.
- [94:38]
B
Yeah.
- [94:38]
E
So I know, I know a lot of those.
- [94:40]
A
Yeah, yeah, I know those.
- [94:41]
B
Yeah. And they don't like Viz doesn't have, they don't have like a one to one policy where it's like okay, this English font is this Japanese font. But I would imagine that a lot of the letters probably have like their guide, their, their own personal guidelines for like yeah, I'm going to use this one for this type of thing. Like you know, you have to establish like your sort of visual language. Right. Of like here's, here's what the italicized ones will look like, here's what bold will look like, here's what you know, this kind of like, you know, crazy effect will look like, etc. Etc.
- [95:16]
A
And I'll say this kind of gives ammunition to people like Ayin who are just incredible one who could do like incredible one piece One to ones. And now they also have the fonts. Like, you would never know.
- [95:31]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So I. I would imagine, like, if. If Vanessa were here to comment on this, she would be able to tell us a bunch of stuff like, oh, yeah, I use this and this for these and. And this one for that, et cetera, et cetera.
- [95:43]
E
So I remembered my white whale that I was really excited to find was the. The. Like, the viz. Scary font, which is like. It's like Arcanum or something like that.
- [95:52]
D
Oh, like that wavy, like.
- [95:55]
E
Yeah, it's like. Like. Like when Blackbeard saying something really intense or something.
- [95:58]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [96:00]
B
Nice.
- [96:01]
A
Yeah.
- [96:02]
B
I don't know. I don't know if they have, like, certain, like, house fonts that they're allowed to use or if it's sort of just like, okay, if. If you. The letter have this font. Like, if you. If you own this font, then you can use it. I really don't know what the. What the rules are for that sort of stuff.
- [96:20]
A
What Sam. That font is basically the Thriller Burk font. I would say. I feel like half of Thriller Burk as that. Like, this is creepy.
- [96:30]
E
Yeah, that's the Blackbeard saying something ominous font right there.
- [96:34]
A
Yeah. Arcanum is. That was a good memory from Sam, too. Yeah.
- [96:37]
D
Wait, so when Oda does. Is because he's not doing the fonts per se, he's just. No, he's putting in what he wants to be in the box. Does he have no say in the font, then, or is he commenting on the font?
- [96:49]
B
That's an interest. That's a good question. I would imagine that might be either a collaborative process or, like, the editor mostly handles that.
- [97:02]
A
And, I mean, probably, though, in the pencil. Like, I have to look here, but, like, I'm sure he underlines stuff. He quotes stuff. Like, I mean, I'm looking at the pencil.
- [97:12]
E
I'm sure you can trust his editors, like, like, to just choose the right font for him.
- [97:17]
D
He's not writing the margin. Like, use the spooky font here.
- [97:21]
B
No, actually, I guess these notes.
- [97:22]
A
Yeah.
- [97:23]
B
Yeah. I think you're looking at the same thing. Zach. There's, like, on page 113. Yeah. There's red marker, like, pen notes, and those are like. Like, l. This. They have lkjrdvm. And those correspond to different fonts to use. Now, they couldn't. That might be the sort of thing where, like, the editor goes through it and then says, like, okay, we'll use this one and this one and this one. When they go over it, like, when when he's like, doing his check and. And maybe, you know, they're sort of like collaborating on the final say for that sort of stuff. Possibly. I don't know, like, it doesn't. Like it says, yes, this is what the stuff is. But I don't know that this is Oda's comment. I think this might be the editor's.
- [98:13]
D
Interesting. I'd be super interested to find that out because that's kind of. It's kind of cool if Oda has fonts in mind when he's writing or he just trusts the team like, that much.
- [98:23]
B
Yeah, I.
- [98:25]
A
Sometimes something in mind.
- [98:27]
B
Yeah. And sometimes they do change, like. Like when the. When the chapter goes to a volume, sometimes they do change the font. So I think there are definitely cases where like, either he or the editor or someone is like, this was the wrong. Like, this sent the wrong, you know, impression of like the. The emotional intent of this line or whatever. So let's switch to a different font. So I think that stuff does happen.
- [98:54]
D
That's so fascinating. That's really cool. It's such a small thing. That's so cool.
- [98:58]
B
Right. But it has. It has a big effect on.
- [99:00]
D
It totally does.
- [99:03]
A
Yeah. We've definitely discussed font sizes and stuff on chapters.
- [99:08]
B
Yeah. And in fact, like, this is. I will admit to you, this is like one of my conspiracy theories, but. And I have no way to prove this and it is kind of ultimately meaningless, but I do feel like there's a significant percentage of the time when. When like, you hear the, like the fan commentary that's like, oh, this, this, like the scanlation line was so much raw or whatever. I often feel like if you switch the font styles of the two, if you do like a blind test, sort of like an AB test thing of like, which one looks cooler. I think sometimes people just like the font more in, like, in a different font. And like, they associate that with being 100 tougher. Yeah.
- [99:52]
D
Do the scan. I can see like Edgelord font or like, or like the size.
- [99:56]
E
They're just different.
- [99:57]
D
Yeah.
- [99:58]
E
Inside the bubble.
- [100:00]
A
Yeah. And all scan leaders have done that differently too.
- [100:03]
B
Yeah, everybody does it differently. But yeah, I think it's one of those things you don't think about, but it has a major effect on how it looks to.
- [100:14]
A
It's like a subconscious sort of thing.
- [100:16]
B
Right, right. That all aside, very fascinating rabbit hole on. On fonts. We have some like, sort of like, interesting errata on the road to becoming a manga castle. There's a lot of like, here's the hop step JUMP Awards and the Tezuka Awards and all the stuff that, like, amateur artists do to submit their material. So we have like, ODA's like, form submission for one of the. One of the awards and where, you know, you can see him filling in, like, his favorite artists and stuff like that, which is kind of, you know, interesting, I guess, just talking about, like, how. How artists kind of move up within the. The JUMP ecosystem and all of that. And it also includes a bunch of his selections. Now, these are comments that you wouldn't have seen because they're not. Or it would be much less likely to have seen because they're not his weekly comments. They're his comments for the Tezuka Awards where, like, the judge panels, they will, you know, provide. Like, we were talking about that, Zach, remember in. In the. The first half of this magazine where it was like Legi Matsumoto's comments to oda and he was like, who's this El Matsumoto at Jackass? And he didn't realize who it was. And so there's a bunch of Oda's comments to other artists, basically. So this is sort of like stuff he says, and it's not specified as to, like, who he's about or what they're about. And some of them are more general, but it's just kind of interesting. More like sort of motivational commentary from. From oda, which is. Is kind of cool. Give me just a second. Simba is kind of going crazy here.
- [102:20]
C
I'll let him out with that break. I gotta head out, folks.
- [102:23]
A
Okay. Thank you, Golf.
- [102:26]
C
No, no worries. It was fun to listen to that.
- [102:28]
A
Wait, before. Before you go, do you want to tell people where they can find you?
- [102:32]
C
Yes, YouTube. And tick tock as golfer.
- [102:35]
A
Gareth, I know you're. And you have videos on YouTube. You just started posting on YouTube. I know.
- [102:41]
C
I did, I did. We got a big one on Satoshi Con coming up. That's the big next one.
- [102:46]
A
Nice. Thanks, golfer, for coming.
- [102:48]
C
Adios. You have a good night, dude.
- [102:50]
A
Okay, okay, we lost. Okay, now we know we could continue.
- [102:56]
B
Okay.
- [102:56]
A
I like golfer to his plug. So perfect. I've let.
- [103:05]
B
So magnanimous.
- [103:07]
D
You know me, the terror of Zack Logan.
- [103:13]
B
Okay, we're almost. Yeah, we're pretty close to finishing.
- [103:16]
A
Who are we having draw Me and Aw.
- [103:18]
D
I want to talk about fonts more. The fonts has been so interesting.
- [103:22]
A
No, I do like it too, but I'm aware our audience might not.
- [103:26]
B
Yeah,
- [103:29]
A
well, I stand corrected.
- [103:31]
D
Actually, Paul, today's FontCast calls for snow.
- [103:36]
A
What?
- [103:37]
D
Like forecast FontCast that's okay. I'm just riffing. Just. Let's continue.
- [103:44]
B
Okay.
- [103:45]
A
Yeah, there's a lot of other stuff. No, no, keep going. But I don't think we're stopping.
- [103:50]
B
Okay. Should I just.
- [103:51]
A
People know it's Simba's fault. No, we're just going.
- [103:54]
B
Oh. Oh, okay.
- [103:56]
A
Get.
- [103:57]
B
Get a peek behind the curtain.
- [103:58]
A
Yeah, Simba's curtain. It's really. I mean, Simba is a part of the crew, so I think it's appropriate.
- [104:05]
D
Yeah, Simba the great and powerful.
- [104:07]
B
Yeah. 50 berry bounty for Simba. So, yeah, next, there's. There's actually a selection. This is like excerpts from the. The different interviews that Oda did with the artists that he assisted, you know, that he apprenticed under, that were all in various Color Walk volumes. So this is all stuff that has been published before. You can get them in the Color Walk compendium. And so it's just kind of like, oh, well, here's for context. You know, we're talking about assistant work and what are the things that you do? What's the stuff that goes into producing this manga for jump? And so they just pulled out some of the, you know, the commentary between Oda and his. His former mentors, which, you know, is interesting in. In terms of context, but it also is. Is older. Older stuff. They also include. Oh, I didn't even see that. This was here on page 127. They have pictures of some of the various things that Oda.
- [105:31]
A
I think this was discussing in the interview. Yeah, the shack.
- [105:34]
B
Yeah. Yes. And there is a picture of the Shaquille o' Neal story. Once again, Shaquille o' Neal Monogatari Dream Team Retsuden oh, my God. Amazing. Legendary stuff. And the. The folks that were close to Oda and then they include, you know, here's assistants, you know, former assistants of Oda that you might recognize from jump, including of course, Moe from Akane Banashi, Shoichi usui, who does Kyoshi the Exorcist, and Masa. Was it Masaoki Shindo of Ruri Dragon? Which is.
- [106:20]
A
Yeah, go ahead.
- [106:21]
B
Yeah, that was news to me as well. And it is funny because I. I have like a secret. A secret rivalry with Ruri Dragon because that started in the same round as Akane. And people definitely, like, that was the one that people remembered the most. Like, it was a big splash was Ruri Dragon. And. And I was always like, man. But I don't know. You know, Connie's really good. Like, you guys don't know.
- [106:46]
A
Is Ruri Dragon still Going.
- [106:48]
B
It is. It's on Jump plus because I guess the. The artist, like, it started in within like six or seven chapters. They had to take a, like a health break. And it was. It was basically. It was one of those things where it like immediately got derailed. But it was also so instantly popular that they were like, we can't let this just. Just go to the wayside. So they, you know, they kept him around. They were helping him rehabilitate or whatever it was that he needed. And so they eventually moved Ruri Dragon to a, you know, a digital format where it can kind of come out whenever. Whenever it needs to. But yeah, apparently that artist also was an assistant for one piece.
- [107:32]
A
Interesting. You can't stay tucked.
- [107:37]
B
Yeah. And then we kind of. We're straying a little bit further from the actual Jump part of it. But yes, we get to Jump Festa and the ways that the series interface with Jump Festa and the merch that they make and
- [107:55]
A
appear there. Because I feel like that's not really even discussed.
- [108:01]
B
That's a good question for those who don't know. Yeah.
- [108:05]
A
He used to listen to our old episodes where Greg would go through life and limb to try and get into Jump Festa stage shows to see Oda.
- [108:16]
B
Yeah, no, he had. Because he hasn't done that in a long time. And I feel like that's not. I feel like that's not really a thing that they would like, be like, hey, check it out. You know, Oda used to go on stage.
- [108:26]
A
No, I don't think they would.
- [108:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, not so much.
- [108:30]
A
The reason he did it is because it was like pre. Things like leaking online.
- [108:35]
B
Yeah. And like phones that can stream live and, you know, just.
- [108:40]
D
Yeah, it was a good time.
- [108:42]
B
Yeah.
- [108:43]
A
But we should really talk about what's on 132. Right.
- [108:47]
B
Okay. Yeah, we'll skip. We'll skip past the Jump shop and the.
- [108:51]
A
If that's okay. Top.
- [108:52]
B
Top three merchandise sales. Yeah. 132. We get into the sort of international versions of Jump. And so they're. They are explaining and describing Manga plus by Shueisha as the. You know, the thing for everybody but Japan to.
- [109:13]
A
This is what you can't see.
- [109:15]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [109:16]
A
And if only we could do something about that.
- [109:18]
B
It is kind of interesting. It's another one of those, like, little tiny things where, like, they show. Oh, here's what it looks like when you scroll through the chapter list for one piece. And so you can see, you know, chapter 1145 wildfire and forest, sector 2 of branch route 8 and all this stuff down to chapter 1150, dummy, reverse. So you have all of the, you know, my English translated chapters listed in. In this little magazine, which is always funny to see, kind of in the wild, so to speak. And they talk about the history of Shonen Jump, the. The English magazine. So they have, you know, what is this? Is this Ennis Lobby Era cover? This illustration of Luffy doing the gum gun?
- [110:07]
A
Yeah, it was the Buccaneer Blitzkrag. Blitzkra. The Buccaneer Tongue twister.
- [110:17]
B
Blitzkrieg.
- [110:18]
A
Blitzkrieg Escalade. For those who don't know, that is the subtitle for the old English Shonen Jump magazine was very corny. Yeah, I could. I have that on my. I have this issue on my shelf. I could go find and let you know.
- [110:31]
B
Yeah, it says, oh, my God, this is volume eight of. Or July 2010, I should say.
- [110:38]
A
I have a handful. And I'm almost positive because it was when. I think it's when one piece went very quote unquote here simultaneous with Japan in that they skipped from Alabaster to Impel Down, I think.
- [110:53]
D
Oh, what?
- [110:54]
A
Yeah, like, this is when we first started the podcast. You said it was 2008 or 9.
- [111:01]
B
This is 2010.
- [111:03]
A
2010. Okay. So, yeah, it's right after we started.
- [111:05]
D
You guys start with chapter 540.
- [111:07]
A
We did 544.
- [111:09]
D
544. Okay.
- [111:10]
A
For those who want to know how long we've been doing this.
- [111:12]
D
That's crazy.
- [111:13]
A
Yes. But also I think it was the. If you. If it's crazy, if you read the first few Impel down chapters in English. I don't even know if Steven's even done this because why would he? They are still kind of pirate speaky. So there's like this middle portion where they did the catch up, like between Alabasta and Impel down, where like, like, you know, kind of normal. Ish. There's, you know, there's issues I have that I've talked about. But then it goes kind of back to the earlier stuff in Impel down. And that's the reason, because it was in the print magazine at the time that it was this big skip ahead. It was a big deal. Big deal at the time. I'm gonna go look and see if I have it, but go ahead, Stephen.
- [112:00]
B
Yeah, Although I do spot a. A little bit of. Of a. Of an error here because it does point out. Okay, so they're talking about the. The monthly print magazine started in 2002, but then it, you know, it was published monthly and then it went to weekly Shonen Jump Alpha and they say in January of 2011, but that is not accurate. It was January of 2012 was when it. It started. Because I began working on the chapters like to lead up to that near in late 2011.
- [112:45]
A
So.
- [112:46]
B
Yeah. And then 2013 was when.
- [112:48]
A
Guys, guys, I love simultaneous. I have half of 2010, but not that specific one. Yeah, I have all the naruto ones and bleach issues and that's really what's important. I just remember at the time being so annoyed at how little push One Piece had from the Shonen Jump magazine. Look at where we are today. Yeah, well, look, it's been 16 years since then, so you'd hope it's a
- [113:21]
D
war of attrition at this point.
- [113:23]
A
It is not much left. That's really what it was. Viz was just like, ugh, do we have to. And then here we are 16 years
- [113:31]
D
later, he's still doing that. Okay, fine.
- [113:34]
A
That guest will promote it.
- [113:38]
B
Yeah, go ahead. They include. They have an example of one of the omnibus volume covers 103.
- [113:44]
A
I thought that was interesting.
- [113:46]
D
Yeah.
- [113:47]
A
This is the last page thing. When you open it the wrong way.
- [113:50]
B
I have to point out. Yeah. That you need to learn the direction to read the manga, since that would obviously be interesting.
- [113:58]
A
I don't think that actually turns off anyone at this point. I feel like, like that is just so ubiquitous at this point.
- [114:03]
B
But yeah, as a kid I thought,
- [114:06]
D
oh, wow, this is so unique.
- [114:08]
A
It's foreign and different.
- [114:10]
B
You have to learn how to read it. Yeah.
- [114:13]
A
They point out now I read everything in that direction. And when it's a comic and it's a real issue,
- [114:20]
B
they point out that there are foreign language versions of the One piece magazines. They show Korean, Chinese, French, and I don't know, that might also be French or another European language. Not English.
- [114:37]
A
I hope you're on that. And by on that, I mean pressuring them. I don't know what Steven really do.
- [114:43]
B
Yeah, I don't know what I'd have to charge to work on. I do things.
- [114:47]
A
I know a lot. At least a free volume. Stephen, I was gonna ask. So back in the day before, you know, when we were talking about like 2010, you know, when one piece was a little less popular and we were like, okay, if you want to see this, go out and get it. You know, get the volumes or whatever so we could get the color walks. And we did, we did. Like at this point, what could fans do to get, you know, let's say the magazines or, or is there like really anything? Because like I am sure personally sitting here, I feel like they would probably sell pretty well.
- [115:30]
D
You're talking, you're talking about magazines that we're doing like looking at right now
- [115:34]
A
magazines or I think, I think definitive editions like we keep talking about.
- [115:39]
B
I think it ultimately comes down to. To just print sales in general. Like of the volumes of the novels, of all the spin offs material. Like that's what's. That's what they're going to look at and they're going to be like, well, if we sold this many. Of the Law novel and of the. The Ace novel and Samuel's cookbook.
- [116:01]
A
But like I don't care about the Law novel. But at the same time.
- [116:05]
D
But that's the way by showing them, hey, there's demand for more.
- [116:09]
B
That's how you demonstrate.
- [116:09]
A
I bought them. Did I try reading them? Yes. Did I finish reading them? Absolutely not. Speaking of which, I just don't care Enough. Enough. Yeah, perfect.
- [116:19]
B
Great transition. Yeah. There's. There's like two other pages of some of the. The editors with some little illustrations of some of some of Oda's editors throughout time. But then we get to of course the thing everyone wants to find out about chapter, Chapter two of the next Law novel finally, which has.
- [116:40]
A
I mean if you're a Law fan and I know there are many. Do you know, I heard recently how many years has it been since Law has shown up in the story? It's been many, I think.
- [116:50]
B
Yeah.
- [116:50]
D
Well, which is pretty crazy.
- [116:52]
B
Since it. Well no, no, since his. Since he got destroyed by. It wasn't Shanks, was it? Who? It was a Blackbeard.
- [117:04]
A
Yeah, but boy did he get beat. He is. He's never come back. He's dead.
- [117:11]
B
It does have illustrations from Loser Island.
- [117:14]
A
I forgot that's the one we did for that one.
- [117:16]
B
It does have illustrations from Kinu Nishimura, who I believe. Yeah. I think this might be the artist who worked in Capcom on like Street Fighter illustrations. If I'm not mistaken, Kinu is a very distinctive name.
- [117:30]
A
So Steven, before you did that very good segue just to completely ruin it and go back. It would be easy to. You could definitely sell out anything. Just put an exclusive card in there and then it's gone. It's off the shelf. You never have to worry about it. Yeah, but they have to print bank for the translation.
- [117:51]
B
Yeah, they have to print like a hundred thousand of them though anyways. So. Yeah. Skipping past the Law and it seems like the Law novel will continue there Will be more after that. This, this definitely looks like it's more like modern day. At least the illustrations are. I haven't read the. The stuff but you know, the, the novel itself was more of like, like childhood law.
- [118:17]
A
This looks like his pre time skip outfit. Yeah. Because it's not the cap, it's the one with the.
- [118:22]
B
Right. It's his. Yeah, his fuzzy beanie. There's a little page commemorating heroines. Anime. We have some design sketches always of Egghead specifically. So we get Sam. Yeah, we get Dr. Vegapunk. Unfortunately, this seems like he already knew exactly what he was doing with Vegapunk. So there aren't like a bunch of crazy variations. It's just sort of like once, clearly once he was already into writing Egghead and so he knew exactly what the design was going to be and was just kind of fleshing out the different looks that he was going to use. But yep, we get all the.
- [119:05]
A
His head was different though. It looked like he had like a white bulb head. That is actually exactly what that. I think that is.
- [119:11]
B
That is a different thing. Yeah, not the apple.
- [119:14]
A
It says on and off off with
- [119:16]
B
one F but with a one on of. Yeah, that would have been a good design too. I would have liked that as well.
- [119:23]
A
Yeah. You know what? I would have. I do really enjoy the apple though. That's a fun. It is a very fun design.
- [119:28]
D
That's how they kill Vic Megapunk. They turn the switch off on his head. Oh no.
- [119:34]
A
Okay. That would have been great.
- [119:35]
B
That's a good.
- [119:36]
A
Pizarro just goes over very, very fast. He gets over there. Although he's electricity, I feel like he could mess that up for just that, you know, Let me just blow that fuse, you know?
- [119:48]
B
Yeah. The, the one, the one character who has interesting alternate. Or the two characters who have interesting alternate designs are Pythagoras and York. Because Pythagoras, he had a version instead of being like sort of a big like, sort of dopey looking cute robot, he had a guy. This guy looks like a, like a, like a film gold character or something. Like it's very cronk coded. Just like huge guy with an enormous chin and. And longer hair.
- [120:24]
A
Yeah, that looks too kuma ish for me.
- [120:28]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do think that the, the final Pythagoras design was a better one. But that, that one's interesting.
- [120:36]
A
This looks so much like every other Oda design of big necked, you know, big. It's.
- [120:42]
B
That's what I mean. But yeah, look, it looks like A like when he would toss off for a movie York. These York alternate ones talk about this where it's like a weird frog. It's so weird. Yeah.
- [120:59]
D
I feel like he changed it.
- [121:00]
E
Like.
- [121:00]
D
Huh. People are gonna guess who the evil one is really easily. If I keep her. A frog person.
- [121:06]
B
Who do I. Not talking about frogs.
- [121:09]
A
You're anti frog mobile robots.
- [121:12]
D
And this weird frog creature who eats for me. Don't trust them.
- [121:18]
B
Oh, God.
- [121:19]
A
I. I both like and hate this design because I. I like it because it's not as generic, but I hate it because it kind of reminds me of Wansai.
- [121:30]
B
Yeah.
- [121:31]
A
Don't say. Don't ask me why.
- [121:33]
B
Yeah. Was the big mouth. Yeah. Kind of freaky. It looks like one of the. The one where he. Where she's sleeping on her side just looks like Kinemon's frog disguise from Dressrosa,
- [121:47]
A
which was one of my favorite designs, to be fair. That's good. Those outfits are one of the funniest things in the series.
- [121:56]
B
But he has some good sketches of York of like the actual York as well. That are cute. Yes. We have Seraphim and Bonnie as well. I mean, the Seraphim designs just look like he was drawing kid versions of Hancock. That's about.
- [122:19]
D
Is that astronaut suit?
- [122:22]
B
Yeah, I guess that's an egghead suit. Right? Kind of the jumpsuit thing.
- [122:28]
D
Interesting looks.
- [122:30]
B
Okay. And Bonnie. Now he did draw. Let's see. Bonnie. So Bonnie would technically be a princess if Kuma was the king of Sorbet Kingdom. And so he drew this like princess version of grown up Bonnie where she's wearing a fancy gown and is all made up and stuff. But. But she still has like her. Her weird little kid version of makeup, which is kind of. Kind of funny. But then again, I'm happy. This is too many processes.
- [123:07]
A
So.
- [123:08]
B
Yeah, I was gonna say this is Oda's design. So if you remove like her wacky weight, her wacky makeup, you know, you would not be able to identify her as. As Bonnie.
- [123:16]
A
Yeah. It just looks like. I think these other Bonnie ones are from pre summer. It could be older or they're. I think I. Because I've definitely seen the one with her in the bigger hat here. Oh. Devil fruit time.
- [123:32]
B
Devil fruit time. Yes.
- [123:33]
A
Okay, wait, let's play the game. Ken, you have to guess who the devil fruit is for.
- [123:39]
D
Okay.
- [123:40]
A
It's gonna be so hard because the devil fruits don't look at all like their powers. Oh, who could it be?
- [123:47]
B
Well, I mean, the characters faces are right there next to it.
- [123:51]
A
Oh, no.
- [123:52]
D
I Didn't see whose characters. But that's good.
- [123:55]
A
Perfect.
- [123:56]
D
That's Earthquake, right? That's Wetbeards.
- [123:59]
A
Wow. You really didn't see it. That's great. It's a pineapple with phoenix tails coming out of it.
- [124:08]
B
Yeah.
- [124:08]
A
And the other one looks like a shattered. Yeah. And the other one looks like. Yeah.
- [124:13]
E
Was I supposed to guess? Ken just swoop on?
- [124:15]
A
I don't care. I guess Ken just swooped on you, Sam. It wasn't a real game because it's super obvious.
- [124:21]
B
This is what happens when you lie down on the couch when we're recording.
- [124:26]
A
Get off the couch, Sam. Or not. I don't care.
- [124:31]
E
My whole seat is a couch.
- [124:33]
A
Then there's advertisements for the USJ restaurant that I've been to, where I think. I think Sanji might have hit on Greg someone. I think this is really.
- [124:45]
B
Yeah, this is just the whole USJ section. Promotional section.
- [124:49]
A
I'll say. The only thing I'm angry that we missed out on when, when Greg and I went there 12 years ago is there was no Jamiroquai Kaku there. Which there is now, which is fantastic. Yeah. And I hope Steve. I hope Steve is there right now. Although I think it's only during the summer. Right. I don't think it's actually during the winter. Maybe it is. I don't know.
- [125:14]
B
Who knows?
- [125:15]
A
Okay, what else? That looks like most of it.
- [125:19]
B
Yeah.
- [125:19]
A
Card game stuff.
- [125:23]
D
Jesus Christ.
- [125:23]
B
It is. Yeah.
- [125:24]
A
This one is a big one. Almost the Lego stuff.
- [125:26]
B
Yeah. It's over 200 pages.
- [125:28]
D
Wow.
- [125:30]
B
Yeah, there's lots of stills, Promotional stills from season two of the.
- [125:36]
A
And then the Zorro novel.
- [125:40]
B
And then the Zorro novel. And yeah, this one was kind of interesting because it was like, oh, wait, they're putting two novels in the magazine now. But this one, although it is described as. What is it? Part two of chapter one, when you get to the very end, there's a little note that says, thanks for reading. You can find the rest of the story in the collected novel when it comes out in spring of 2026. So they're just like, okay, that's enough of you.
- [126:12]
A
Preview.
- [126:13]
B
Yeah, the Zorro story.
- [126:15]
D
You can have it. I left it all 1.
- [126:17]
B
One volume found in bookstores nationwide.
- [126:22]
D
Exactly.
- [126:22]
A
You could find it in bookstores nationwide. And then the SSBs after that, which is the. Yeah, what is it?
- [126:30]
B
User submitted. Jokes and stuff like that. But that'll do it.
- [126:37]
A
Yeah.
- [126:39]
D
Thank you, Steve.
- [126:40]
A
I do like that. They do. I'll say. The last thing is they do a weekly shonen jump style Table of contents in the back, which I thought was fun. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. This volume is an all timer. I gotta say. The one piece magazines like in general all really worth it if you have a chance. Like Steven has been nice enough to like really do the closest thing you could get to an actual translation. So. And we have. And we've done it for all of them, I think. Yeah. I mean I forget when they started, but I think we did all of them.
- [127:13]
B
Yeah. I don't know if we did. Did we do one for like the Fan Letter magazine? I don't remember.
- [127:19]
A
If we didn't. If we didn't. It's like that one. You don't even really need the translation. I feel like it's. It is worth it. It. But it's like an art book.
- [127:28]
D
That mini one that didn't have an actual volume number you're talking about, right?
- [127:31]
B
Yeah.
- [127:32]
A
I don't recall if we did that or not. Well, no, we did a Fan Letter episode. I don't remember if we did the magazine too though. But we did most.
- [127:40]
B
Yeah, I think not all. I think that because when they started doing this they had a real head of steam and it was like, oh, it's going to be quarterly. Like every three months we're going to have a new one of these. And they started with the ODA interviews and I think think they very wisely switched to like a slower pace.
- [127:58]
A
Twice a year.
- [127:59]
B
Yeah, maybe two a year. But it gives them time to like actually like put a great theme together and, and really like delve into stuff that makes that interesting.
- [128:10]
A
And this one might be one of my favorites, if not my favorite. There's. I mean there's been some great ones, but this one's really outstanding. So if you could find it anywhere, please pick it up. But Steven, thank you again for going through this with us. It's always such a pleasure.
- [128:30]
B
You are welcome.
- [128:32]
A
Now I'm not going to really be able to do my surprise thing that I had planned though because I don't really have a lot of time. Unless you want to do it in 10 seconds. I hope we'll never know what it is.
- [128:44]
D
It'll be very anticlimactic at this point if you bring it up and don't reveal it.
- [128:48]
A
Okay, well, you know what I'll do is we'll round off and then after the round off we'll do like a lightning version of it and I'll tell you. Okay, I'm you is not trivia.
- [128:58]
D
Okay.
- [128:58]
A
Is not trivia. But I'LL do a full version of this in the future. Okay, let's take a break. Then we'll round off. And trivia. No, it's not. This has been episode 907 of the One Piece podcast for February 23rd, 2026. Huge thanks for golfer for joining us in the first part of the show. As he mentioned, you can check him out on TikTok and YouTube golfer Garbear. Please check us out at patreon@patreon.com One Piece podcast. You get all the stuff. Just. Just subscribe. What are you waiting for? I'll wait. You know what? I'm not actually waiting. Sam, where could could people find you?
- [129:53]
E
They can find me on Blue sky at lc Sam.
- [129:57]
D
Ken, you can find me anywhere on the Internet at kind king01. Would that be blue sky, Instagram, tick tock, YouTube, twitch. I am all over the place. And please make sure to check out the One Piece Art Collaboration. You can find that on bluesky. Pcollab.bsky.com we have two volumes up, one from 10 years ago, one from last year. We got hundreds of artists to draw hundreds of One Piece characters. It's some really amazing art. It's totally free. Go check it out.
- [130:26]
A
You're not charging enough.
- [130:28]
D
Nope.
- [130:31]
A
Steven, where could people find you?
- [130:35]
B
All the good people can find me on Blue sky at Beast, at StephenPaul, the B Sky Social. And yeah, if we didn't talk enough about Akane Banashi, you can read that as well in Shonen Jump. It is very cool. The anime is coming out and I do think that they have planned like we're getting into another big arc coming up soon. And I do. I feel like they have very carefully timed it out so that when the anime hits, it's going to be going real crazy in the manga as well. So. So that's fun to look forward to. Coming up on chapter 200 in a couple weeks. So yeah, it's exciting times to get on board the boat, as it will. That's where we're going. We're going on a boat rocket. Go boat.
- [131:24]
A
Oh yeah, I forgot. That is actually what's happening. You and you can find me Zach logan.com on Blue Sky One Piece podcast.com on Blue Sky One Piece Podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts or wherever you get your social media. Yeah, Fuck ice. I can't forget to say that.
- [131:44]
B
Fuck ice.
- [131:45]
A
Very important. It is, I feel as an ice.
- [131:49]
B
Multiple meanings of the word for you guys.
- [131:52]
D
Multiple fonts.
- [131:55]
A
Okay. Oh, right, right. That. Yeah, that too. Yeah. No Fuck. Fuck that. I used to. So what I had planned is our arc madness. Or as Steven brilliantly made the joke, you take March Madness and then you take out the M and the H and it works perfectly. It's a visual joke that I tried to use my word painting. I just. I just don't have the same ability as Steven, let's be honest. So we could just do lightning rounds. I even followed.
- [132:30]
D
So you want to get it in entire bracket into a lightning round?
- [132:35]
A
Yep. Yep. Well. So this is why I feel comfortable doing this. First of all, there's no such thing as definitive arc rankings. Second of all, tournament makes it even less definitive. Third, my opinions on these things usually change every five seconds. Fourth, I'm not even going to take part in it. I'm going to make you guys all do it.
- [132:53]
B
Wow.
- [132:54]
A
So I don't have to talk about it for them.
- [132:56]
B
It's because there's three of us. So it's an odd number.
- [132:59]
A
It's perfect. Yeah. So you will. Exactly.
- [133:02]
D
The three of us vote.
- [133:04]
A
And if one of you have two opinions, I could be the tiebreaker.
- [133:07]
D
So no discussion. No discussion. Just give our answer.
- [133:10]
A
This has to. I will be timing you, basically. So yeah, we can't go on for hours after this.
- [133:16]
B
I'm already.
- [133:17]
E
I'm already sick.
- [133:19]
A
As you should be. Now, before we get started, because I could hear our co host Alex Kazanis being extremely angry about all of the decisions made. So Ken and I put. This is not the same order, but I'll explain in a second. But to define an arc, we had so much frickin debate about this and I don't care. I don't care. But since everyone else cares and we spent like hours talking about what constitutes an arc, this is what. These were the categories that we determined fit in the way.
- [133:53]
D
That's what you determined. I had my own bracket. I got raped for it.
- [133:58]
A
This is the terror of Zack Logan.
- [134:00]
D
Yeah.
- [134:01]
E
Why did we let Ken live after
- [134:04]
A
we didn't let Ken live?
- [134:05]
D
We haven't done brackets in a while.
- [134:07]
A
It's the resurrection of Ken. Okay, so these are the things that needs to be a distinct story, a distinct location, a distinct protagonist, distinct antagonist, and some resolution. Not all of these fit these all 100%. But. But you'll see there's some. Sometimes though, when it's like four out of five rules.
- [134:34]
D
Some of these don't follow.
- [134:37]
A
I don't remember. Look, I put this together. I put that specific part together whenever we did those rankings. That was more than a month ago. No no, no, the one that we did for the charity stream. Yes, I also did that before. Anyway, here we go. Arcs. Oh, also, last. Last caveat thanks to Alex Kazanis. Also, I seeded these, so based upon our arcs of consequence seeds. So with the new ones that we hadn't done randomly put in there. So here you go. Our extremely non definitive ARC Ranking Tournament. First in the 1 seed, Water7. NES lobby versus our 26th seed, which is the bottom. Syrup Village fight.
- [135:28]
D
Water7.
- [135:30]
A
Okay, why did I even wait for that one? Water7. Ennius lobby, which is 1 ARC. Ken.
- [135:38]
E
Thank you.
- [135:40]
D
Two distinct locations.
- [135:41]
B
Appreciate this.
- [135:42]
A
Yes.
- [135:43]
B
But, yeah, me and Sam said yes, so we override you.
- [135:47]
A
Yeah, it's. You do override us.
- [135:48]
D
That's how it works.
- [135:49]
A
Wow. Ken is just rolling over here.
- [135:54]
D
Okay, all right, next one. Come on.
- [135:57]
A
Now he's mad. Okay, next one. Arlong park in number two. Amazon Lily 25. For the seated thing. And the fact that's not random. Blame Alex. I'm just saying. Blame Alex.
- [136:18]
D
Asking the blame to everyone else off this episode.
- [136:20]
A
That's how we do it. That's the one piece podcast way. That's why we have a big crew. So we could blame the people who aren't here that week for all of my. I mean, other people's bad decisions. The terror of Zach Logan. Alabasta or Orange Town?
- [136:40]
B
Alabaster.
- [136:41]
D
Alabaster.
- [136:42]
A
See, but this makes it quick. Look how quick we are.
- [136:44]
E
Are you pairing, like, the. The most popular ones against the least popular?
- [136:48]
A
Yes.
- [136:49]
E
Why?
- [136:50]
A
Because isn't that how it works in tournaments?
- [136:53]
D
That's why I did random. I thought random worked better. Because
- [136:58]
E
it just, like, filters. Like. Okay, why not just skip to, like, the entire round two now?
- [137:02]
A
Well, we're going fast. That's what we're doing. We're trying to do this fast.
- [137:08]
E
There could be an upside set.
- [137:09]
A
Yeah, yeah. And I hate arguing about structure when it's.
- [137:14]
B
Oh, I love it. Oh, I love arguing.
- [137:16]
A
I know you love arguing. Skypiea or Twin Capes. Whiskey Peak. Those are each individual ones.
- [137:24]
D
Skypiea.
- [137:25]
E
Skypiea.
- [137:25]
A
Were you thinking about that one? I don't know.
- [137:28]
D
I love Whiskey Peak. I love that entire part of the.
- [137:30]
A
I do love Whiskey Peak. I like not to say any of these suck. I mean, it's one piece, and we all got one piece.
- [137:37]
D
Jaya and Skypiea. If it had just been Jaya, I would have been picked the Whiskey Pee part of that.
- [137:41]
E
What the fuck is wrong with you?
- [137:43]
D
Over Jaya Bell. He bounces around a little bit. Great. Wow.
- [137:49]
A
You're wrong, though. That's wrong.
- [137:51]
B
Wow.
- [137:52]
A
Paramount War slash Post War versus Little Garden. I won't tell you which was first.
- [138:00]
B
Marineford.
- [138:02]
A
Also, I will say that as the. They'll get closer and closer as it goes down. But also these are Our ranks from 2015, so our opinions are probably different. Sam. Oh, no. Actually, it couldn't have been for this. Must have been 2019. Wano and Fishman Island.
- [138:22]
D
Wano.
- [138:24]
B
Wano.
- [138:25]
E
Fishman.
- [138:26]
A
Yeah. Okay, Sam. Have fun with that one. Drum island versus Logtown.
- [138:33]
D
Drum Drum Island.
- [138:34]
A
I'm just writing it in. Whole Cake island and romance. Dawn.
- [138:40]
D
Whole Cake Island.
- [138:41]
B
Whole Cake Island.
- [138:44]
A
Sabaody Archipelago or Dressrosa?
- [138:48]
B
Ooh, Sabaody. Dressrosa.
- [138:52]
D
Saboti.
- [138:53]
E
Did you use the same Dressrosa?
- [138:55]
B
I said dressrosa.
- [138:56]
A
I'm a little surprised by that one. Okay. Impel down or Davey Back fights.
- [139:02]
D
Impel down.
- [139:03]
B
Davey Back. Davey Back fight.
- [139:06]
A
What?
- [139:08]
D
Okay. I respect it.
- [139:09]
A
It's just two out of three. That's. That's how we're playing this. That's a tough one for me. I don't even know. I have to think about it. The. So we had a whole. Sorry, I'll. I'll make one interjection. We had a conversation with this arc with Kat Abu Ghazali because she did not like the Davy Back Fights. Was trying to explain that the manga is much better for that. The anime sucks because they do.
- [139:34]
E
The anime still good. The roller.
- [139:36]
A
The.
- [139:36]
E
The roller skate one was good.
- [139:40]
D
I don't mind either. It's funny.
- [139:42]
A
I just.
- [139:42]
D
I think Impel down is more highs, like more cool moments.
- [139:46]
A
Okay. All right.
- [139:48]
E
See, I like the. I kind of like the. The local high stakes, you know, like it's. It's relatively. To the rest of the series. It's slow stakes, but in the moment, like the amount of drama that you can pull out of something really minor is cool.
- [140:06]
A
I think it feels like a filler arc if you're an anime only watcher and you know. Anyway. Thriller Bark or Egghead?
- [140:16]
B
Thriller Bark.
- [140:18]
A
Oh, tough one. The new ones I random are randomly seated, so that gives it a little more interest here.
- [140:26]
B
Wow.
- [140:27]
D
What. What's sadder?
- [140:28]
A
The.
- [140:28]
D
The laboon flashback or the Kuma flashback?
- [140:32]
A
Oh, can you just do a flashback for the arc though? Like.
- [140:35]
D
Well, I'm just.
- [140:35]
E
I'm just saying, like, what's like Brooks flashback or's Fight? All the great jokes.
- [140:41]
B
That's really close.
- [140:43]
D
I say egg. I say Eged.
- [140:45]
B
I'm going to say egghead too. That's really tough.
- [140:48]
D
That is a Toughest one.
- [140:50]
B
That's a razor's edge.
- [140:51]
A
Oops. I wrote it in the chat instead of in here. Okay. And I'll tell you, 1314 gets bumped to the next round. So you'll get. We'll get this.
- [141:01]
D
Gotcha.
- [141:03]
A
Baratie and Punk Hazard.
- [141:06]
E
Ooh.
- [141:08]
A
Said these get more interesting.
- [141:10]
E
That is interesting.
- [141:12]
D
That's Baratie.
- [141:13]
B
I'll say Baratie too.
- [141:15]
A
Steven. I think Baradier, so I hope that's
- [141:19]
D
a tough one though, too.
- [141:19]
A
You both said Baratie, so I'm saying it too. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's enough. Should we wait for Steven to come back to finish?
- [141:28]
E
Yeah. Where'd he go?
- [141:29]
A
Is he frozen for you too, or just me?
- [141:31]
E
He's just a black screen.
- [141:34]
D
He's there for me.
- [141:35]
A
He's there, but he's frozen
- [141:39]
D
now he's gone.
- [141:39]
A
Okay, let me. Oh, come back.
- [141:42]
E
There he goes.
- [141:43]
A
Perfect timing. That was weird. I said Baradier versus Punk Hazard, but we already had two there, so.
- [141:50]
B
Yeah, I said Baratie.
- [141:52]
A
Okay. Okay, Here we go. Water 7 or Erlong Park?
- [141:58]
D
Water 7.
- [142:00]
E
Water 7. That's. It's tough.
- [142:02]
A
Order 7 under this lobby, I should
- [142:04]
B
say, but Water 7? Yeah.
- [142:07]
A
Would you choose that on your own, Steven Arlong park over Water seven?
- [142:13]
B
Water seven. Yeah. I think I have to still give it to Water seven.
- [142:18]
A
That's very cool. This is where it gets. I don't know my answers for some of these. Alabaster or Jaya? Skypiea.
- [142:25]
B
Oh, Skypiea.
- [142:26]
A
Easy.
- [142:27]
D
Skypiea.
- [142:29]
B
Skypiea. I should have mixed up. That feels wrong.
- [142:33]
A
I should have mixed up the seeds more. But I did this very quick. So, you know, you blame Alex. Paramount War and wano.
- [142:43]
B
Paramount war.
- [142:44]
A
Wano Tiebreaker, Steven?
- [142:49]
B
I think wano.
- [142:51]
A
Yeah. Wow. That won't surprise me.
- [142:55]
D
This is great with three people. It's fun.
- [142:57]
A
It does. This is how we should have done it. Drum Island. I'm going to mix up the. When we do this more seriously, I'll.
- [143:05]
D
We do this actual march.
- [143:06]
A
Yeah, that's a good.
- [143:08]
B
Not with these weirdos.
- [143:11]
A
Drum island or Whole Cake Island?
- [143:14]
D
Whole Cake.
- [143:16]
B
Oh, I might give it to Drum. Yeah.
- [143:20]
A
I mean, it doesn't win, but I vehemently disagree. I should really. I love Hole Cake Island.
- [143:26]
D
You love the chopper stuff a lot.
- [143:28]
A
Yeah, that Drum Island. And Drum Island's perfect. I think.
- [143:31]
D
Yeah.
- [143:31]
B
It's a Drum island gem.
- [143:34]
A
Yeah, it is just Drum Island's good,
- [143:36]
E
but like, I have so much.
- [143:37]
A
We'll see how the live action does it.
- [143:39]
E
Oh, so much. To Whole Cake.
- [143:40]
D
Yeah. Whole cake is a really special arc to me, too. So.
- [143:46]
A
Okay, we did Sabaody. Oh, Sabaody. And Davey back.
- [143:54]
D
Oh, Davey back.
- [143:58]
A
I like how impel down offended you. And.
- [144:01]
B
Yeah, that's not
- [144:06]
A
how he's so tough, because it, like, ends halfway, like, in the middle.
- [144:11]
B
Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [144:13]
E
Like, that's. That's one that doesn't have, like, a.
- [144:14]
B
It's kind of the cool thing about it, I guess. But. Yeah. So I think.
- [144:19]
E
I think Sabodi. I think I'm going to.
- [144:22]
A
With. Okay, Steven, you're the tiebreaker again. Oh, man.
- [144:27]
B
Yeah, I might say Sabaody.
- [144:29]
A
Okay, There you go.
- [144:31]
D
Okay.
- [144:33]
A
Ken's wrong. Egghead or Baratie?
- [144:39]
D
Egghead.
- [144:41]
B
Baratier.
- [144:42]
A
It is so hard to compare those two. So different in every single way and form.
- [144:48]
B
I. I'll give it to Egghead.
- [144:49]
A
Okay. Damn, Sam, I'm sorry you're wrong that time. Okay. The buy I didn't realize gets two rounds again. I'll work out these kinks. This is why we do these things, right? And it's Alex's fault. As I mentioned, Alex's fault. Yep. The terror of Zack Logan continues. Water 7 or Skypiea?
- [145:10]
B
Skype.
- [145:11]
A
Remember, it's Water 7. Ennis Lobby, and Jaya. Skype be it.
- [145:17]
D
So they each get their lesser halves with them.
- [145:20]
C
What?
- [145:21]
D
I. I'm just rage, baby.
- [145:25]
E
Do you want to, like, organize? Do you want to, like, meet up and fight?
- [145:30]
D
I would say I would love to fight you. Let's do it. Let's do for charity.
- [145:35]
A
Yeah, we'll do a drama.
- [145:38]
B
Ken would rather see Zorro chop up a bunch of randos than black beards. Like, man's dream. Never. People's dreams never Scene from Jaya.
- [145:49]
A
Jaya I love. Like, even separate, I think.
- [145:53]
B
Yeah. Jaya rules.
- [145:55]
A
The scuba diving, the ship falling from the sky all counts in that, like,
- [146:00]
E
seeing the silhouette wrapping up the whole thing. Like, that's so much. And, like, I went into it. I went to Skypiea, like, basically forgetting Jaya. I was like, oh, that's probably not come back up. And then when, like, they reveal all the stuff that was all tied together.
- [146:18]
B
Oh, my God.
- [146:19]
D
No, that's why I. That's why I, like, when it's tied together. That's why. That's why in my mind, those are. Yeah, I get it.
- [146:25]
A
We're not having this discussion about.
- [146:27]
B
Because. Because there's only three of us. Like, me and Sam could literally just like, bond. Like, we could just take skypiea all the way.
- [146:38]
D
Have we voted yet?
- [146:39]
A
No, you haven't voted yet. Water7 or Skype.
- [146:43]
B
But Sam said skypiea and I could say Skypiea as well.
- [146:46]
A
Okay, so there you go.
- [146:49]
D
I think I choose Water seven.
- [146:51]
A
But yeah, that's fine because this proves I think what was it Steve or someone said like, oh wait, I can't wait to see how water7 wins this. And there you go right there.
- [147:02]
D
That's fair.
- [147:03]
B
This is the key.
- [147:05]
A
Wano and Whole Cake Island.
- [147:08]
D
Oh my God.
- [147:09]
E
Whole Cake.
- [147:10]
C
Easy.
- [147:12]
A
I know you, Sam. This does not surprise me.
- [147:14]
B
Man, that's tough.
- [147:16]
A
This is fun to do with just like a small group because it's completely like it throw.
- [147:21]
E
It's very unambiguous.
- [147:23]
A
Yeah. It's the law of averages.
- [147:25]
B
Right, right, right. Yeah. I might give this one to Whole Cake island just because it's. It's short. Compared to Wano, anything is short.
- [147:39]
D
I love Whole Cake. I don't like voting. It's the arc where I lose Yamato.
- [147:43]
A
But yeah, I don't know what I would choose there. I haven't been able to look at those ARCs from a 30,000 foot view. And that's kind of why it's hard because we were so inundated by the
- [147:55]
D
Whole Cake has a lot going with a smaller crew. And Whole Cake, you have the Sanji and Luffy fight them getting back together. The stuff with. With Capone is so good. It made me love and care about Capone. Yes.
- [148:07]
E
I love that the whole like second half is like this. This like built around this like chase
- [148:12]
A
and like these on the scene.
- [148:13]
E
Multi prong. Different kind of like. Like different types of battles.
- [148:16]
B
It's. It's like fight is so good.
- [148:19]
A
Yes.
- [148:19]
E
Yes.
- [148:20]
C
I love that.
- [148:20]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whole cake. Definitely whole cake.
- [148:23]
C
I don't know.
- [148:23]
A
But I also don't love carrot pudding and I do love gear five.
- [148:27]
B
Gear four is. Is good.
- [148:30]
A
I mean, Snake Man, I guess is one of the better of the gear 4 stuff, but okay.
- [148:34]
D
Snake Man's okay just as soon as we have gear five. That's the thing. Once we have gear five now none of the other like Gears.
- [148:40]
A
They don't.
- [148:41]
D
Honestly, they don't matter that much to me.
- [148:43]
A
But they don't have that same.
- [148:45]
D
Yeah, it's like okay. Yeah, exactly.
- [148:47]
A
Okay, we're almost there. Sabodie versus Egghead.
- [148:51]
B
Egghead Saboteur. Egghead.
- [148:57]
A
Egghead. Doing very well here of like the newcomers. But speaking of newcomers, Elbaf or Zo.
- [149:05]
E
See, this is where like, like to me, like, I don't. Zoe is just not an arc to me. But I guess it's like, oh, no.
- [149:13]
A
You know, then it works.
- [149:14]
E
That was tough.
- [149:15]
A
That was Sam. It works perfectly for you then. Because Elbaf is also not an orc. Because it's not completely done.
- [149:20]
E
Yeah, it's not done.
- [149:21]
B
Yeah.
- [149:21]
A
So this is like your incomplete bracket. True.
- [149:24]
E
I guess. That one's.
- [149:26]
B
We're buying Elbaf futures here.
- [149:28]
A
Yeah, that's what we're doing.
- [149:30]
D
I. I'd vote Elbaf in this situation.
- [149:34]
B
I think so too. Yeah. I'll go for Elbaf.
- [149:37]
A
Okay.
- [149:38]
B
That means after last week's chapter, I'll say Elbaf.
- [149:42]
A
Our semifinals. Skypiea or Whole Cake Island. This is Sam's. Like Waterloo. This is.
- [149:51]
E
This is like my. This is like my 1 and 2. I. I think it has to be Skypiea in the end.
- [149:55]
B
Yeah. For me, this is skypiea.
- [149:58]
A
Okay.
- [149:59]
D
Okay.
- [150:00]
A
Versus. Because of the way I made this, for some reason, Egghead and Elbaf.
- [150:09]
D
I don't understand the difference.
- [150:11]
A
Yeah.
- [150:11]
B
How did. How did those last two, like, slip in at the very end?
- [150:14]
A
Too many buys because I did that accidentally. Oh.
- [150:17]
B
Oh. They were part of the. The random buy system. Okay. Okay.
- [150:22]
A
Because it was an odd number.
- [150:23]
D
See, Dori and Brogy were on Egghead, so they carried over to Elbaf. It's actually all one arc when you think about it.
- [150:30]
A
Shut up.
- [150:32]
B
They both start with E. Between those, I'll say Egghead.
- [150:36]
D
Egghead.
- [150:39]
A
We have recency bias and non Recency bias. Skypiea or Egghead. Say it together.
- [150:46]
D
This is the final two.
- [150:47]
A
Yes, this is the final.
- [150:48]
D
Okay, on the count of three, guys. One, two, three.
- [150:52]
A
Water.
- [150:53]
B
Skype. Sack.
- [150:56]
A
Come on. Skypiea. Skypiea.
- [151:00]
B
All right, there we go.
- [151:02]
A
We did that in, like, 10 minutes.
- [151:03]
D
That was great.
- [151:04]
A
That's. That's how we should do that.
- [151:06]
B
Yeah.
- [151:07]
D
From now on, if we ever do brackets like this has to be lightning around three, people.
- [151:10]
B
The white smoke is going up. We've elected. Skypiea is the new Pope Jaya.
- [151:19]
A
Skypiea. 1 arc. 1 arc.
- [151:22]
D
St. Skypiea the winner.
- [151:24]
B
Everyone is very happy. Why can't it be one arc?
- [151:28]
D
I'll praise the commie that I hate.
- [151:31]
A
That's my least favorite localization.
- [151:35]
B
Yeah, that's a bad one. That was a poor choice. Yeah.
- [151:37]
A
That really hurts to this day. In any. I don't know what you could do to get Alexi to reprint those, but
- [151:45]
D
I know he personally buy volumes and refill my shelf if you change everything.
- [151:50]
E
It's funny how, like, the card game uses NL as a spelling but it still uses Kami.
- [151:56]
D
Is it really?
- [151:57]
A
My hands are. Why that choice? That'll do it. It. We'll be back next week with. Was it chapter 1175? I think. Thank you.
- [152:11]
B
It's one of those numbers.
- [152:14]
A
What does that mean? Why did I just Google 1175?
- [152:19]
D
75? Yeah. Next week is 1175.
- [152:22]
A
Oh, so that's what happened in the year 1175. Yeah. No, that's what it was. That'll do it. We'll see you next week everyone. Ice My name is Zach back and goodbye.
- [152:34]
B
Bye bye Bye bye bye.