May 30
(SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 1184)
Couples who fuck up marines together stay together <3
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(SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 1184)
Couples who fuck up marines together stay together <3
One Piece; Chapter 1184
Still freaking out over the teaser for the Knights in the Elbaf anime, but we lock in regardless!
Spoilers below, as always!
(SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 1184)
(chapters 1184 and 1146)
The last time we saw Brook get electrocuted (with a thumbs up, even) is when Gunko was making her speech about people warning the world about danger and how there's a war coming and it's unstoppable. I wonder if it's deliberate then that Brook is being electrocuted in this cover story by jellyfish with Imu eyes. It still feels right now that this flashback is following the Shakky in God Valley/Helen of Troy route, but maybe there's another reason the kingdom was destroyed and Shuri was taken
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I have a very curated online experience, so I mostly don't see Discourse on my dash unless someone I'm following is commenting on it, but I can pretty much guess what the Shuri and Brook one is about, so here's my two cents on it
It's not unusual for teenage girls, both in Japanese and Western media, to be fixated on their chest size. Think of those teen movies where girls stuff their bras so their boobs seem bigger in order to look "more mature". I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying it happens. It's also normal for teens to have crushes on older people and to want to be treated like adults, I don't think I have to explain that it only becomes a problem when the adults in question indulge in and encourage that behavior. All of this to say that this interaction by itself is fine. She wants him to see her as a grown up woman, and he shuts it down immediately. As far as One Piece pervert characters go, this was all pretty tame
My only grievance is that, frankly speaking, I don't trust Oda much. He has a track record of making couples where the female character is unnecessarily young. There was no reason, for example, why Rebecca's mom or Pudding had to be 16 years old, was there? The story would have been exactly the same if they were 18 or 20, so their age was a conscious, deliberate choice on Oda's part. Sadly, it's also not an uncommon thing in manga, both shounen and shoujo, for teenage girls to end up in relationships with adult men (if someone tries to use the damn age of consent argument I will hunt you down and stab you in the face). Not only that, but "older woman in a younger body" is also, sadly, something that you see a lot in shounen. Which is to say that, while we don't know at what age she was frozen in time, I could see the "her body is 14-16 but her mind is 77 so it's fine" argument used in the future
I'm happy that Brook seems completely uninterested in her, and so far it doesn't look like it's gonna go that way, but if it ever does, let's just say that I'll be disappointed but not surprised
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Brook calls the king 大恩人 (daionjin), which means great benefactor, someone to whom you owe a great debt. This kind of debt is mentioned a lot in One Piece, and it's usually an interaction that saved a character's life and has a great influence on them, like Luffy saying he owes Law a life debt, or Sanji saying he owes Zeff a debt, etc.
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There's a visual metaphor here about Brook being on the outside looking in, but framing him as being the one behind bars. His circumstances are quite literally keeping him locked away from having a chance at doing the thing he loves
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Sharing of meals is one of the key themes in One Piece, a sign of friendship and goodwill that Luffy especially but also the Straw Hats in general think very highly of. Like Luffy has said, a hero is someone who shares their food, and scenes with lots of people having a meal together always lend a sense of community and bonding, like the typical feast at the end of a story arc. I think it's interesting that the things that came to mind for Reuven when Brook offered him food as a sign of friendship was not only the difference in the quality of the food, but also that other scene of being presented with a woman of "good pedigree". She's being described exactly like the food, her accomplishments being presented by someone else without even mentioning her name. It's the flashiness and exuberance that hides an emptiness, something that will never match the sheer kindness and warmth of a child who has only frogs and bugs to eat and still chooses to share it with someone else, without any expectation of repayment other than friendship
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(chapters 1184 and 584)
I don't think it's a coincidence at this point that Brook is being so heavily mirrored with Luffy. Both coming from rough backgrounds, spending time in junkyards, making friends with an older person who changes their lives, plus the Nika shot at the beginning of the flashback. But especially with these panels, both of them being beat up by adults, with the higher point of view lending even more of an impression of a grown man looking down on a child
As a bonus, the Marines also end up being paralleled with Porchemy and his gang, which only becomes more obvious when it turns out they were buying drugs from a gang and were more than willing to kill a kid for what he's seen and heard
As an aside, "we're all bones when we die" is a more literal translation of what Brook says, but I like the TCB's poetic license in turning it into "of the dead you'll find, only bones get left behind"
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(chapters 1184 and 584)
This is another shot that seemed very similar to Luffy's flashback. I assume that this was all done to really emphasize how important Reuven (and Candelle) were to Brook, and exactly how horrible it must have been to lose them. Though by this logic, it's not impossible that Candelle didn't die during the flashback, like Sabo didn't. The implications of what might have happened to her if she survived are... not great, so I'm not sure if I prefer that scenario
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It's important that Reuven calls Brook a musician here, because so far all he's seen is Brook playing on a violin made with a glass bottle and some wire. The sound effects when he's playing also imply that it must sound pretty bad, but Reuven saw beyond that, he saw Brook's potential and his love of music. Brook knows that Reuven is a prince now, and must have heard the best of the best musicians out there, and he still calls Brook his favorite. He also not only wants him to be able to learn music, be he also offers him a place to stay and even an education. It really contrasts with the beginning of the flashback within a flashback, where Brook is hated and chased away just for existing
<- chapter 1183 analysis
(SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 1184)
I already love this guy
I'm also 99% sure he's gonna die :(