One Piece at a Time Episode 151: Chapters 691-695 (Podcast)

Welcome to the One Piece at a Time Podcast where I'm joined by Brandon Bovia to read and discuss 5 chapters of the One Piece manga every week. And surprisingly, this is a set where other characters still get more to do and new ones are shown to have amazing gimmicks. But more intriguing than them all are the tidbits of Doflamingo's character. There's a lot to discuss as we give our thoughts on Chapters 691-695 of One Piece!
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[@spamoman]

Franky vs. Baby5 and Buffalo somehow became my favorite fight of this arc. I forgot how awesome it was.

[@TheSquire_]

One Piece truly is gas. I’ll be here every week!

[@Klaxynd]

You know, I think my opinion improved a _bit_ for Punk Hazard. I think binging around 10-15 chapters a day (like I tried to do when initially reading One Piece) oddly enough has a similar feeling of "c'mon let's pick up the pace!" as reading week to week. Especially when someone is looking forward to getting to the arc they've heard so much about (Dressrossa). I remember after I read Punk Hazard initially, I took a break for a few months since I was just so worn out even though I was looking forward to Dressrossa. This set was good in that a lot of things that were set up now came full circle. Especially seeing Caesar's idiocy and pettiness cause him to accidentally save the island and kill Monet. Though it's clear that Monet wasn't loyal to Caesar now. 😂 Punk Hazard still isn't my favorite New World arc, but knowing what's coming up I don't think it's the worst anymore. It doesn't have any part that drags on too too long (Aside from maybe the body swap, but even then it's not like all the action paused when they were body swapped). I do remember there being some spells of time where a lot felt dry in later arcs or where things were much worse paced, so unless the last few chapters in Punk Hazard change things I don't think it's as weak as I remembered in comparison to future arcs. Still probably in the lower tiers of New World arcs, but not the absolute bottom. Which to be fair, I never thought Punk Hazard was a terrible arc, I just remembered it being weaker than some other arcs (including Fishman Island) and very confusing for me to wrap my head around the lab's layout even with the maps and diagrams. I wonder if the location of everyone and everything is easier to keep track of in the anime...

[@Rubberman202]

I really like that color spread tying into One Piece Film: Z, in particular for how many Marine characters they fit into it. It's also cool that they're explicitly younger versions of the Marines, so there's kind of a "Guess Who" element to figuring out who's who. Also, you can spot Pandaman inbetween Franky's left arm and leg! :P The third colorspread is cool, too, because it's the first time we've seen Shanks, Blackbeard, and Sakazuki/Akainu, after the timeskip. Bepo is there, too, as well as Shachi, and Penguin, those two members of the Heart Pirates who we see alongside Bepo and Law. We also catch glimpses of certain other characters before they're properly revealed too... Boy, it sure feels surreal to looking back on all this, knowing what they look like now. I feel like it says more about how much they feel they owe Caesar Clown, and how much their lives have improved thanks to what they believed was Caesar's kindness that they don't believe the truth even when it's yelling down at them. Denial is strong when you've been fed a lie and bought into a false truth for so long, which means it's all the more important that Caesar needed to be stopped. Fortunately, combining with the "Land of the Dead" gas doesn't do much to help Caesar, if anything it just makes him a bigger target for Luffy. It kind of reminds me of Gecko Moria's desperation attack before taken down by Luffy, only Luffy doesn't need to push himself nearly as hard here, even IF he does suffer some mild effects of "Land of the Dead." I completely forgot Jack was first mentioned here. Yeah, he'll be... somewhat important later on. Also, Kaido's design is interesting in that it looks absolutely nothing like the teased design back in Water 7. At least Big Mom's teased image *kind of* looks like what she ends up being, sort of. Can't really tell if that's Kaido in chapter 692, though. I think the funniest thing about Law getting mad at Luffy for knocking away Caesar was the fact that... well, DOES Luffy know what Law's planning? Does he know why they need Caesar? Even if he did, I don't think it'd matter because Luffy has reached a point where he hates Caesar so much that he doesn't even want to look at or think about him anymore; just blow him away and forget about him, like every other villain he doesn't like. It's also funny how Luffy still doesn't fully understand this alliance thing, and that he can't just make decisions like this without thinking about the bigger plan, but of course, it's Law who needs to learn that it doesn't matter what plan you tell Luffy, he'll immediately throw it out and do whatever the Hell he feels like after that. Once again, Law is immensely regretting what he signed up for with this, which is just so funny for an otherwise serious character. Speaking of funny things, Baby 5, the woman who attacked Doflamingo is not only his subordinate, but apparently her "fiance" was one of many fiances who proposed to her, and she only accepted because she has a chronic desire to help others and feel needed, regardless of who they are or what they do. Doflamingo simply retaliated against guys who tried to take advantage of this, which is interesting because it almost seems like Doflamingo is actually protecting her... This and how he talks to and reacts to what's happened to Vergo and Monet seems to suggest he actually cares about them, a far cry for most villainous pirate crew captains... I'll get into that more in a moment, but for now I think it's funny how she almost immediately forgets about her grudge with Doflamingo the moment Buffalo (REALLY bizarre design, BTW) joking asks Baby 5 to loan him 2 million berries only for her to go "GASP, he needs me!" ...Of course, there's a reason for this behavior, but for now, let's laugh at how silly this is. Really insane Devil Fruit power, too. Pretty sure it's a Paramecia time, though. "It puts Crocodile and his whole operation to shame" It's too soon to go into this, but in many ways, Doflamingo feels like a more fleshed out version of what Oda attempted with Crocodile, but with one key difference as we see in this set of chapters. Either way, I know you're going to love it! I also like what Brandon pointed out, that Doflamingo was clearly very upset with Law's shenanigans, but he regains his composure quickly and realizes he's still got things under control, at least as far as his connections go. This is a trait I almost admire about Doflamingo, how even when he loses it, he's still able to keep things in perspective and stay in control of things... which sounds like a dangerous combination for a future villain, that's for sure. I appreciate the fight between Franky and Baby 5/Buffalo, it feels like Franky tends to get sidelined a bit post-timeskip, and unlike on Fishman Island where General Franky is presented mostly as a joke, here he gets to be legit cool while using it to take the duo down. Same goes for Usopp and Nami as they help out later on. See, again, I REALLY want to deep dive into what kind of a person Doflamingo is when it comes to his conversation with Monet, but there will be plenty of time for that in the next arc. Still, Derrick's not wrong with it comes to how manipulative Doflamingo is when conversing with Monet as well as Vergo, who even says has been with him the longest. Maybe he does care about his crew on some level, but it's also clear that he's prioritizing his own desires over their well-being, since he's basically asking Monet to sacrifice herself to wipe out Law and everyone else. Strangely enough, though, Monet goes along with it. She's genuinely, seriously devoted to Doflamingo, to the point of being willing to give up her life for him. It's almost a twisted version of Luffy's relationship with his crew, in that they're willing to give their lives for him, but he'll more-than-likely sacrifice himself before they even consider doing anything like that. But again, we'll have more time to talk about this in the next arc. Also... Yeah. Monet dies. And unlike most death scenes in One Piece, I'm FAIRLY CERTAIN she's not coming back. I mean, I'll call shenanigans if Oda somehow does an asspull where he tries to explain how Money somehow survived being *STABBED IN THE HEART* of all things. Still, this really shocked me when first reading it, because yeah, definitely not something I'm used to out of One Piece. (I completely forgot that Caesar just assumed the heart Law gave him was Smoker's, like I though Law tricked him, but no, apparently he just gave him a heart and Caesar figured it was Smoker's... yeah, the guy's a dumbass when it comes to anything other than science) 53:22-53:40 I know Derrick likes this running gag of the guys going nuts over robot stuff while all the girls are stone-faced, but I still don't care for it, sorry. I DO agree with Derrick and Brandon's sentiments Franky getting his old hairstyle back, though; biggest mistake Oda ever made was removing it, even if it meant we'd get different hairstyles. (why mess with perfection, after all?) The fact that there were three back-to-back colorspreads meant there wasn't much time to dedicate to Caribou's cover story this time. All we get is him robbing the old lady while she sleeps, then the old lady being oddly nice to him when she wakes up, giving him meat pie and telling him where the harbor is. Again, I know where this is going, though for now, aside from the mild intrigue from the old lady, there's not much to say about it.

[@TheNamekianClown]

Glad you guys liked Punk Hazard! I left a comment at the beginning that on my last reread I really didn't like it, but it's always nice to see people enjoying something. Oh, and welcome to the beginning of MVP Franky.

[@JoeGoldfish]

Punk Hazard manga is way better paced. The anime does a good job with the fight scenes but a lot of the running around trying to get from point a to point b tends to drag making it feel very slow which is why a lot of people tend to dislike punk hazard