#ch520

[opbackgrounds]

While Hancock was the one who got her sisters in this position in the first place, considering what's at stake here she handles the situation quite well. Her heart's pounding, her whole world is at risk, but she calmly takes control and evacuates her people out of the building. It's only after she's alone with Luffy that she lets her guard down

I give Hancock a lot of flack, but in these crisis points she does feel like someone who is worthy of both her position of authority and her conqueror's haki. Sometimes being a leader is having the ability to push aside your own panic in order to resolve the situation at hand, and breaking down after.

[every-sanji]

[iiloffy]

[opbackgrounds]

This is genuinely quite sweet, but I can't help but laugh at the idea of Oda wrapping up anything anytime soon

[opbackgrounds]

I love how Luffy casually stretches his legs around Sonia's midsection to keep balanced.

Also, there's something about Sonia's face in this panel that reminds me of a muppet.

[opbackgrounds]

I like how Oda handles his power scaling throughout this saga. It's a common shonen trope that every battle must be more difficult than the last, but once Luffy enters Gear 2nd he completely wipes the floor with the Marigold and Sandersonia. This carries over into Impel Down, as the first few floors are completely trivial before things start to go crazy, something I remember Oda actually being criticized for at the time.

Not only does this maintain Luffy as a credible (although not world-shaking) threat, it does amazing things for the pacing of these shorter arcs. In the grand scheme of things, Amazon Lily is an appetizer for the Marineford War; there's no reason to drag these skirmishes out longer than they need to be

[opbackgrounds]

Luffy's a good lad

[opbackgrounds]

Not only did Oda give them snake boobs, poor Sandersonia has to deal with having snake hips too