#op ch113

[salteytakesonmanga]

It’s interesting to me that Nami specifically says they “saved” East Blue. Certainly none of them, except maybe Usopp, would think of taking down Arlong as saving East Blue. They were helping their friend, that was all.

I'm pretty sure this phrasing can’t be used very often. It’s just so unlike them! Luffy doesn’t want to be a hero, and heroes do things like share their meat save whole countries. This one line feels really out of place in the whole scope of One Piece’s story. But at the same time, this may be how Nami feels about it, regardless of Luffy’s view on the matter. And this was also pretty early in the story, so it could be that Oda was still figuring out himself how he wanted to phrase these ideas.

[salteytakesonmanga]

Super petty dishonorable mention for saying “bring it.” It makes it sound like Zoro is telling Nami to bring to log pose. Of course she would, they need that and she’s the navigator! Why would Zoro be telling Nami her business?

What he actually said was “Grab her and come on, we're setting sail.” Zoro was telling Nami to get Vivi to the ship. Zoro is the one who tends to look out for the whole crew, so this feels like he’s already shifted his thinking to include Vivi in the crew, or at least part of his responsibilities.

[salteytakesonmanga]

This is the first time (of many) that Oda uses crossdressing, drag, or transness in the story. The way Oda has handled it has changed so much over the years - bad and good - that I don’t want to attempt to dig into it now on the basis of just these few panels we've seen so far.

I will say that Igaram dressing up like Vivi feels less like a punchline about gender and more about how intense Igaram is. Every scene of him in this outfit is played perfectly straight, except for Luffy saying he thinks Igaram looks cool. Because Luffy is such a sincere character, I don’t think he has the guile to try to mock someone by saying they look cool when he doesn’t believe it.

[salteytakesonmanga]

Once again Nami is struggling to inject a semblance of reason into the conversation. Oda has a great way of visually handling these jokes. The way Nami is separated from the rest of the characters shows the two totally separate moods, and how out of touch with each other the two sets of characters are.

That 80mil is Crocodile’s old bounty from when he became a warlord so it doesn’t reflect his actual power or the extent of his crimes. Oda has said before that the bounties aren’t a great reflection of the actual strength or power of the bountyhead, so I wonder what the actual difference in strength is between Arlong and Crocodile.

[salteytakesonmanga]

I love when Nami is the gag character, the jokes are always so fun. Her reactions are so realistic and they’re such a fun reminder of how absurd some of these situations are. She doesn’t get a lot of physical comedy, but this heel-turn to come stalking right back is great.

[salteytakesonmanga]

Zoro, considering the way your last encounter with a Shichibukai went I’m not sure “lucky” is the word you’re looking for here.

[salteytakesonmanga]

I love these reactions. The difference between the girls’ shock and Luffy’s totally vacant expression is so funny. Zoro seems almost resigned.

[salteytakesonmanga]

I love this trait of Vivi’s, where she’s just a bit of an airhead. We were introduced to her as the villain Miss Wednesday and came to see her with that affected personality, but now we have to get to know her all over again. Most of the time we’ve seen her as Vivi has been exposition, so this was a fun way to reveal something about her actual character right from the start.

You can see Zoro look up as he realizes what she said as soon as it was out of her mouth.