#ch577

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If I had to pick a fundamental theme for One Piece on which all others are built, it is this idea of living. Oda doesn't shy away from how heinous the world can be. This entire saga has had Luffy taking one L after another and capped off with the death of one of the people he cares for most in the world. And yet...the message is still to live. The answer is always to keep living.

I feel like this entire philosophy is captured in its most concise form during Arlong Park, but it's something that stays steady throughout the entire manga

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Twenty years later and we are maybe just starting to figure out what the hell Marco meant by this

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This is a very silly Zoro shirt, and I love it very, very much

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Be careful, Jinbe. That's your future captain you're talking about

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As always, I like how Oda pulls back to show the significance of the moment for the rest of the world, but this focus on Rayleigh is particularly moving. It's a hard thing to see the people of your generation die off one by one, and I like how he's by himself without Shakky showing his growing isolation

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I don't think I've ever brought it up, but the real life Blackbeard's name was Edward Teach or Thatch. One Piece splits this one name into three characters--Edward Newgate, Marshal D Teach, and Thatch--who are then reconnected through Teach's habit of murdering people for their Devil Fruits.

It's a popular theory that Blackbeard is somehow three people in one which is how he's able to handle multiple Devil Fruits, and if this turns out to be true this tripartite identity goes as far down as his very name.

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Don't know how accurate this is to the original Japanese, but I do like how the translator phrases this little sendoff. We don't know who the narrator is (my vote is still Usopp) but there's a reverence in how Whitebeard is addressed. It was an epic struggle. He didn't die, he breathed his last. It's just a nice note to end on for such a monumental character.

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I very much like that we don't get Akainu's eyes here, the eyes being the window of the soul and all that, but how it's framed makes it look like he's crying tears of blood and that's amazing