I’ve already established that I think Buggy is stupid, but seriously though, this was a great line of thinking. What I enjoy thoroughly in One Piece is seeing how every one of Luffy’s opponents challenge him in a particular way, whether it is pertaining to his devil fruit powers or how he utilizes them, or other power systems introduced later in the manga. Every antagonist serves in pointing out a detail about the inner workings of the Gum Gum Fruit, and whether or not it actually poses as a threat to Luffy’s life, it still creates a strong logic to how this power works. I love discussing these kind of things, and if I’m correct I’ll get to go in depth about this around Alabasta (one of my favorite arcs). Here, we get to understand that (despite this being a comic and therefore not being 100% efficient in depicting movement and pacing, which is especially not that good at the beginning of the series) there is a good speed to Luffy’s attacks and the way he moves. At least, he’s fast enough to not let anyone attack him when he’s stretching.
First Rayleigh apparition! As far as the pirate King’s crew is concerned, I believe he’s one of the best written characters. And here we face a situation that forces us to change our view on how we compare Buggy and Shanks. At first, it was enough to compare them both on the basis that they are pirate captains, but now we have even more reasons to do so. It’s kinda relieving in a way to see that Buggy just has always been this way and that piracy isn’t what turned him into a greedy fool. This flashback shows us that piracy is what you make it to be, which is important for the rest of the series, especially when it comes to antagonists.
First Gaban appearance…love the axe, love the hair. Not much there is to say about these few panels except that he’s got a really cool design going on for himself since the beginning.
Now the way Shanks describes his captaincy, in particular how it’s voiced, is something I find suuuper interesting. Especially keeping in mind where the story is currently heading and Shanks’ role in later chapters. It seems like Shanks’ priority, at least at the time, wasn’t to be a "typical" pirate, and I use the word typical very loosely since I’ve previously mentioned that pirating is what the captains makes it to be. Shanks seems more set on just exploring the world than anything else. But again, the basis for the great era of piracy hasn’t been established yet. It seems extremely fitting that a boy such as Shanks, with this very dreamy idea of being a ship captain, would follow the future pirate king until the end of his journey.