Thoughts on one piece (ch150 - ch269)

Heya!

So, it’s been a while. After kind of slacking off on this stuff, I’ve resumed reading onepiece, and made some pretty nice progress!

Since we last left off, I’ve finished off both the Arabasta and Jayava Arc, and am currently somewhere in the middle of Skypiea, i think?

I really loved Bon Kurei, and in general all of the members of Baroque works were very fun. It’s really fun to have all the weird villain designs and powers. I also really loved Bon Kurei. I forgot if this is the arc they were introduced in, but they did definitely play a major role here. Their just such a fun character. I love their enthusiasm, and seeing “villains” that end up siding with the heroes is always such a fun trope when done well, in my opinion. Also, I wish I had their shapeshifting powers. For very cis reasons, i assure you. The one thing that did bother me a bit about this arc was how many dang death fakeouts there were. Like. C’mon Oda, we both know you won’t kill Luffy, there’s like 1000 chapters left to go. While the Arabasta arc was pretty good and I enjoyed reading it, I don’t really think it did much that the previous arcs didn’t already do better or just as good. Maybe that’s just because it’s now been a while since I’ve read it though.

…Anyways! Moving on to the Jaya arc, I finally got to see the world-renownend Jaya Cherry Pie scene, which was fun. 10/10 experience, like the aforementioned Cherry Pie (I will not stand for Luffies slander)

Mont Blanc Cricket is a really fun character, and a nice sort of play on the recurring trope of chasing your dreams that one piece has. I like that he has a sort of “adversarial” relationship with Liar Noland, who is the reason he’s chasing after the dream of El Shandora. (though we do later find out that he does also admire him). We also get a brief glimpse of Donquixote Doflamingo, who has a banger name and a really awesome design, though that’s about all we learn of him. As always, the marine designs are also fittingly unhinged, which I always love.

Moving onto Skypiea!
This probably has to be my favorite overall arc so far. We get this really grand sense of adventure with some absolutely stunning panels, and I love that there’s not really some big overarching goal for this one. I mean, there is, sort of, they gotta beat up Enel, find Shandora and make peace, but I feel like it’s not really as focused on as in the previous arcs. For the most part (especially in the first few chapters) Luffy and the crew are just sort of vibing. And, I love that! I honestly wish we had another arc in a similiar vein between Arabasta and Drum Kingdom. I really like the sort of more ""slow burn"" seafaring parts of one-piece, and this is basically just a whole arc of that. It’s a ton of fun, and the setting is so refreshingly different from all the stuff we’ve had before. I love that Skypiea basically has two entire self-contained power systems in Mantra and the dials, it really does a lot in making it feel like an entirely seperate world from the rest of onepiece that we’ve seen so far. Also, Enel just has a really cool design, and I’m always a big fan of going to beat up god, no matter the medium. (Enel doesn’t seem to literally be a god and moreso just a really strong devil fruit user, but it’s close enough. He calls himself god and looks cool, that’s all i really care about.)

Enels lightning powers are also just really cool, and Oda does a great job at building up hype for the final confrontation. As of yet, I don’t know what happens when Luffy confronts him, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how the fight goes. I wonder if Luffy will be immune against his powers, being made of Rubber and all. We’ll see when the time comes, i suppose!