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follyhodger · 5 years ago

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Been a lot of buzz lately about Raftel LAUGHTALE. As was case with the hidden initial of Gol(D) Roger, the words that shape our understanding of One Piece’s world changed over time, such that their original meaning was lost.

2 related points:

1. The growing awareness that the received language of One Piece may be deceptive (and the subsequent quest for the real words) is analogous to Robin’s critical stance towards the narratives backed by the World Government’s authority, and her quest for the True History inscribed upon the Poneglyphs.

2. One Piece already has given us an example of what purpose might be served by a World Government-endorsed narrative manufacture: Montblanc Noland. The fairy tale depicts a wise king who punishes a despicable liar (Noland), but this account of events is later presented as falsehood. The king is vicious and greedy, while Noland is noble. One can infer that the fairy tale arose from the version of events used to justify Noland’s execution, a version which deliberately ensures that the king comes off as wise and good.

I have begun to suspect that this pattern of narrative applies to One Piece itself. In the same way that Lord of the Rings is diegetically an English translation of Middle Earth’s recorded history, it seems possible that One Piece is diegetically a fairy tale -- with the same potential for language decay that surrounds the Pirate King, the same possibility for agenda-driven misinformation that plagues the story of Noland the Liar, and the same hint of an underlying True History.

Some suppositions to that effect:

What if Dressrosa was NOT a peaceful country prior to Doflamingo, and the claim that Doffy corrupted and manipulated the nation into arms-dealing serves to shield Dressrosa’s royalty from its legacy of violence? The institutional blood-sport of the coliseum long preceded the pirate invasion, after all, though the story attempts to convince us that Doffy corrupted the once noble warrior’s battlefield as well. The battles of the coliseum may very well represent war in general: One Piece liveblogger @grantthethief observed that the after effects of the introductory King Punch are like an explosion, emphasizing the ruler’s literal and metaphorical military might. If the above holds, King Elizabello’s cordial relations with King Riku would imply that Elizabello was a client of Dressrosa’s war dealings, no?

What if the figure of Eneru arose to relieve a historical Gan Fall from his culpability in the near destruction of Skypeia? Eneru’s plan is to strip mine the vearth of all its valuable resources and cast Skypeia into the sea -- but Skypeia was already on such a course, literally mining the clouds beneath their feet! The figure of Enel turns a nation’s poor policy decision (a mode of production that literally undermines their future) into the maniacal scheme of an outside agent.

What if the figure of Crocodile truly evolved from the simple fact of a historic drought? What if Vivi, with her blue hair and dress covered in raindrops, is simply a personification of the rain? (Is Luffy, named after a sail, the wind that carried the rain?) King Cobra is possessive and overprotective of his daughter (and peeps on her in the bath) -- are we to infer that Cobra really did hoard the rain with Dance Powder, and the conspiracy within which he was framed for doing so was a mere fabrication to restore the royalty’s reputation in the aftermath of near revolution?

Or to return to Noland: can we even trust the revised edition of his story, if One Piece itself is a patchwork revision?

Like Robin, the reader of One Piece is an archaeologist. The drama we read can be presumed to have arisen from original circumstances whose outline must be traced from the symbols and conflicting interests present in the transformed copy. You have to interrogate what’s in front of you.

#one piece #ive said most of this already but here's the summary

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pablokm · 5 years ago

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Ultragrant for @grantthethief

#p version #ultraman #kenshiro

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recentanimenews · 6 years ago

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A Two Minute Guide To Starting One Piece

Every One Piece fan hopes that, eventually, everyone in the world will be into One Piece. Then, we can have the blissful utopia of billions of people just refusing to shut up about Monkey D. Luffy. So, as a One Piece devotee, I was delighted when I discovered that Victoria, Crunchyroll employee and Noted Anime Person, has recently set sail:

*deep breath* Here we go... pic.twitter.com/KjqV6zIBLj

— Victoria! (@sailorbee) August 5, 2019

And later today, I'm sure to read another great installment of my ABSOLUTE BOY Grant's analysis of the One Piece manga:

Outrunning Navy patrols, getting lost at every opportunity, and giving Straw Hat fans the typo-ridden analysis no one asked for. It’s another One Piece reaction thread! #OPGrant pic.twitter.com/MhCkjtMuQ3

— Punderbolt Grantasy (@grantthethief) May 17, 2019

That said, if you haven't jumped into reading the One Piece manga or watching the anime, I get it. There's A LOT of it, with no end date in sight, and that can be kind of intimidating. When I first started it, it had only been going for about nine years. Now, there's twenty years to catch up with, and those numbers can easily make someone go "Nah, I'll just rewatch Bebop." But NO LONGER, as I'm here to provide a handy two minute guide to getting into One Piece that will address all of your most pressing questions.

WHAT IS ONE PIECE?

One Piece is an epic adventure story about a group of outcasts that, through their journey together on the sea, find their place in the world. Also, punching. There's a ton of that, too.

READ THE MANGA OR WATCH THE ANIME?

Both, and I'm serious about that. The anime has a perfect voice cast and an incredible score, so I can't imagine reading the manga without having those musical cues and voices in mind. And the manga is so wonderfully paced and beautifully drawn that I believe every manga reader should at least give it a try. And if you don't have time for both, read the manga and watch specific anime arcs, or vice versa. With One Piece, it's less of an Anime VS Manga thing as much as one serves as a companion piece to the other.

WHAT IF I JUST WANT TO TEST IT OUT?

Watch one of the movies or the specials like "Episode of East Blue." Because One Piece has such a grand, interconnected narrative, it's hard to pick an actual arc to jump into that wouldn't be a more satisfying experience if you hadn't been reading/watching all along. But if you're pressed to, for some reason, just watch one arc, check out Drum Island, which features the introduction of beloved reindeer dude Tony Tony Chopper and is a perfect blend of tragedy, love, and redemption, or Skypiea, which is one of the greatest adventure stories in all of fiction.

WHAT CAN I SKIP?

None of it. Don't you dare skip any of that story. Skip the filler if you want if you're watching the anime (with the exception of the G-8 arc which is one of the best stories in One Piece, canon or otherwise), but skipping any single arc means that you will miss a lot. There are constant callbacks and motifs and themes that are only really rewarding if you see their genesis.

WHERE DO I READ OR WATCH THIS?

Well, the entirety of the anime is on Crunchyroll, which, unless I've made a terrible mistake, is the website that you're reading this article on now. And you can read the manga at Manga Plus, where the first three chapters and the three most recent chapters are for free, so you can get a taste for it. Or you can get a subscription to the Shonen Jump app where thousands and thousands of manga chapters are available for just two dollars a month.

SHOULD I BINGE IT OR TAKE MY TIME?

There's so much One Piece that it's super easy to just knock out dozens of chapters in a day, or watch ten episodes at a time without even really thinking about it. That said, I recommend going at it at a leisurely, yet focused pace. One Piece is a huge story that's full of many little emotional and character moments that make it even more worthwhile. And these are really easy to miss or flip by if your main concern is just running through huge chunks of it so that you can get to making hot takes on Twitter faster.

No matter how you approach it, One Piece has gone on so long that jumping into it now is going to require some kind of commitment. There's no real way to get around it and no cheat code to help you skip to the end while still getting the full experience. But it's worth it, and if you're down for an excellent adventure, please, by all means, read the manga or watch the anime, which you can view in its entirety on Crunchyroll.

Have you taken the plunge and gotten into One Piece? What is your favorite aspect of it? Let us know in the comments!

----------------------------

Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll. You should follow him on Twitter!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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misslydian · 2 years ago

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grantthethief followed me?? omg hi??

#welcome to tumblr!

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opbackgrounds · 4 years ago

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do you follow any liveblogs?

Off and on. Its always interesting to see new people get into the series, and youtube videos of familiar material make excellent background noise when I don’t have anything better to listen to.

Grantthethief’s twitter thread was really fun to follow when he was going through a few chapters at a time, and his analysis influenced how I look at the manga from a technical standpoint. A booktuber I listen to occasionally just got through Skypiea, and it’s been kind of hilarious listening to the perspective of someone who doesn’t follow manga hardly at all jump into a different medium.

I just find it fun seeing how different people react to the material. There was a blind reaction youtuber who would get super into the emotional side of things and would really try to dissect the characters feelings. There was another who was more into the plot stuff and how everything fits together. As someone who is so familiar with the series, it’s helpful to go back and see how fresh eyes impact a viewing or reading experience.

#sarc talks

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forgottenbones · 4 years ago

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Writing is just inventing a guy to get sad at send tweet

— Grant - 199X Edition (@grantthethief) May 12, 2021

#twitter

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onepiecepodcast · 6 years ago

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Episode 576, "Manga Muppets" (with @GrantTheThief)

Episode 576, “Manga Muppets” (with @GrantTheThief)

On this week’s episode of The One Piece Podcast we have hosts Zach, Ed, Steve & Alex on with special guests Stephen Paul (translator for One Piece in Shonen Jump and Manga Plus), Grant (podcast host of Blade Licking Thieves and the Super Senpai Podcast) and our Anime Recap writer/Anime News Network reviewer Sam Leach as we discuss One Piece Chapter 947, “Queen’s Gamble” as well as a classic Manga…

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follyhodger · 5 years ago

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The Tree of Omniscience on Ohara is shaped liked a mushroom cloud... so the ability for Robin & the researcher’s forbidden knowledge to lead them to ‘Pluton’ would seem to be a reference to plutonium, in addition to its mythic connotations. Even more so since the 原 (hara) of Ohara is the first character in 原子 (genshi), which means atom. The Buster Call that annihilates the island then seems like a twisted fulfillment of explosion symbolized/prophesized by the tree. Thus Crocodile’s pursuit of the Pluton’s vaguely defined military power is grounded partly in the idea that he wants nukes?

Kaizokuou-ni-naru also pointed out that Sakazuki referred to the decimation of Ohara as an ‘uprooting/weeding’, as though in tearing down the tree and its scholars they have preemptively prevented the rise of a nuclear power. The phrase ‘flower of evil’ also comes to mind, insofar as Robin’s own conviction that her existence is sin is rooted in the uprooting of the mushroom tree of knowledge...

Since hara also means field (again, as k-n-n said), I wonder if Dressrosa’s flower field also conceals some manner of war metaphor... I’ve suspected that the KING PUNCH was some code for heavy munitions ever since @grantthethief noted the way the panels are composed -- made all the more potent by Dressrosa’s status as a black market arms port. (And that particular King’s love of Dressrosa probably implies that he’s a client who buys their weapons?) So the flower field represented a battlefield, covered in the many explosions produced by Dressrosa’s munition exports...?

The fairytale peels back, it does. My conviction that One Piece villains are the ulterior sides of an island’s ‘true kings’ continues to be bolstered

#robin #dressrosa

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lazodiac · 2 years ago

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@grantthethief

wip from last night 👀👀👀

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mangamavericks · 5 years ago

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I wanted to make sure that the next time I made one of these posts that we’d have all our plans for the near future down-pat first, and I’m pretty confident about our November schedule!

MANGA MAVERICKS

As you can see, the first two of four podcasts we plan to release this month are already out on on our Patreon as early access for all Patrons! First up is our New York Comic Con report, in which VLordGTZ and I go over all the exciting events and announcements made at this year’s show, and give our overall thoughts on the con experience itself! Next up is our long-awaited Saint Seiya retrospective with special guests Shaenon Garrity and Dr. Mari Morimoto, who edited and translated the series for Viz Media! They are huge Seiya fans and share a ton of awesome insights into the series, including fascinating anecdotes on some of the challenges and choices made in the adaptation! This podcast will be released to the public on Sunday, November 10th, but you Patrons get to listen to it over a week ahead in advance! Rad-tastic!!

After that, we’ll be releasing another news catch-up pod to discuss all the post-NYCC October and early November news, plus reviews of a bunch of new series! We’ll be discussing two new Manga Plus additions - ‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess and East, Into the Night! We may discuss even more series than those if more simulpubs keep showing up out of nowhere!

Finally, we’ll be releasing our highly anticipated BEASTARS podcast this month, which features the folks from Manga Machinations on as our special guests! We’re joined by dakazu, Darfox8, & returning guest Morgana Santili to dissect the world-building, characters, and themes in Paru Itagaki’s metaphorical commentary on race, class, gender, and more! The folks at Manga Machinations have been Beastars’ biggest fans ever since they first started talking about the series on their show over two years ago, and it was a pleasure to have a comprehensive, spoiler-free conversation about the series with them!

MANGA MAVERICKS @ MOVIES

But that’s not the end of all the new podcasts coming out this month! Manga Mavericks @ Movies is also returning for the fall movie season, with reviews planned of upcoming theatrical anime releases like Konosuba - The Legend of Crimson and another deep dive into the twisted GHIBLI CONSPIRACY as evidenced in Princess Mononoke! We’ll also be releasing our overdue review of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, Studio VOLN’s anime adaptation of the novel of the same name, which we saw in theaters back in February! We discuss how the animated film differs from its live-action counterpart, whether it’s perspective on life is sophisticated or sophomoric, and whether the film stacks up to the likes of recent anime movie masterpieces like Your Name and A Silent Voice! Then the week after we’ll be releasing our review of One Piece: Stampede, the franchise’s latest theatrical feature celebrating the anime’s 20th anniversary! Like our Film: Gold review from way back when, Colton will be joining VLord and I to discuss the film. If you want a preview of Colton’s thoughts on the film, then you can also subscribe to the SSAA network Patreon to hear him talk about it with Doctor!

#LUM SQUAD

This month should also hopefully see the long-awaited return of #LumSquad, with episode 2 finally coming out and episode 3 hopefully maybe recorded! Nothing definite, but I really want the show to continue, and now that my podcast editing slate is clear a bit I can hopefully resume working on it! Depending on how things go this month, I may even venture into doing podcasts for Rumiko Takahashi series outside of Urusei Yatsura…

MANGA MAVERICKS BOOK CLUB

Oh, and of course, this month’s Patron Bonus Pod will be the last installment of Colton and Grant’s coverage of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood as part of the Manga Mavericks Book Club! As someone not apart of these episodes, I’ve really been enjoying listening to their analysis of the manga, and looking forward to seeing their final impressions of the arc at the conclusion of volume 3. The next few Bonus Pods will see a short break from the Book Club format, but rest assured there are plans for even more volume-by-volume deep-dives on classic manga coming to our network in the future!

UPCOMING RECORDINGS

We’ll have to keep mum about some of the podcasts we’re planning to record this month until the dates have been finalized.However, we CAN reveal that on this upcoming Sunday we’ll be recording with special guests Jason Thompson and Brandon Bovia to discuss a series filled with ancient artifacts, absurd hairstyles, and children’s card games taken deadly seriously! That’s right, it’s finally time for us to DU-DU-DU-DU DU-DU-DU-DUEL and discuss Kazuki Takahashi’s original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. What began as a story about a games-loving kid with a sadistic and vindictive dark side soon evolved into the multi-media merchandising phenomenon with half-a-dozen spinoffs that we now know today. The series has lived on in our hearts through memories and memes, but is there more depth to the original story than ridiculous holographic monsters and broken game mechanics? We’re going to revisit the series with two of its biggest fans (and in Jason’s case - the editor of the manga for Viz Media!), and see if Yu-Gi-Oh! is a puzzle we can figure out, or if we’re a millennium years too early to truly appreciate the depths of Takahashi’s genius!

That should just about get everyone up to speed on our November plans! With so much of the prep work done in advance, I imagine this will be smooth sailing for us this month, which is good because it’s gonna be hella busy! VLord and I will be at Anime NYC again this year as Press, and if you see us around definitely say hi to us! We definitely hope to meet and hang out with a lot of awesome people while we’re there, and since last year’s ANYC was one of our favorite con experiences ever we’re similarly excited for this year’s!

So, to sum up, here’s our PODCAST SCHEDULE FOR NOVEMBER 2019!:

Sunday, 11/03/19: Manga Mavericks EP. 101: “New York Comic Con 2019 Retrospective”

Monday, 11/04/19: Manga Mavericks @ Movies #39: “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas”

Sunday, 11/10/19: Manga Mavericks EP. 102: “Saint Seiya” (w/@shaenongarrity & Dr. Mari Morimoto)

Monday, 11/11/19: Manga Mavericks @ Movies #40: “One Piece Stampede”

Sunday, 11/17/19: Manga Mavericks EP. 103: “‘Tis Time For Torture & East, Into the Night”

Monday, 11/18/19: Manga Mavericks @ Movies #41: “Konosuba - Legend of Crimson”

Tuesday, 11/19/19: #Lum Squad #02

Sunday, 11/24/19: Manga Mavericks EP. 104: “Beastars” (w/@MangaMacPodcast)

Monday, 11/25/19: Manga Mavericks @ Movies #42: “Princess Mononoke”

Saturday, 11/30/19: November Patron Bonus Pod: MM Book Club: JoJo’s Part 1: Phantom Blood Vol. 3 (w/@grantthethief)

It’s a Thanksgiving Feast’s worth of podcasts this month! Lots to look forward to, and I hope you all have your fill!

- LumRanmaYasha

#manga mavericks #beastars #saint seiya #tis time for torture #new york comic con 2019 #i want to eat your pancreas #one piece stampede #konosuba - legend of crimson #princess mononoke #jojo's bizarre adventure #phantom blood

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animenostalgia · 4 years ago

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The Anime Nostalgia Podcast - ep 100: The World of Fist of the North Star with GrantTheThief

This month, to celebrate the big Episode #100, not only have I got a brand new guest to the show, GrantTheThief of The Blade Licking Thieves Podcast, but we’re going to be talking about one of the biggest, most influential shonen series of all time: Fist of the North Star! Not only that, but one lucky listener in the USA will win a copy of volume 1 of the new English manga release out this month, thanks to Viz Media! (Don’t worry, I tell you how you can win at the very beginning of the podcast & it’s super easy! Just be sure to get those entries in by July 5, 2021!) Listen as we give a relatively spoiler-free overview about what exactly Fist of the North Star is, it’s history, why we love it so much, our favorite Fist of the North Star memes, and why we think you might want to check it out, too, in this extra-long 100th episode extravaganza!

Stream the episode above or [Direct Download] Subscribe on apple podcasts | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Spotify

Relevant links:

Buy Fist of the North Star Vol 1 at Rightstuf, Amazon, or Kindle/Comixology!

Stream Fist of the North Star for free in North America on Crunchyroll, on VRV, and the movie on Tubi TV.

Buy the original Fist of the North Star TV series at Rightstuf & Amazon, as well as the movie at Rightstuf & Amazon.

Official site for Viz’s release of Fist of the North Star!

Official site for Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, the game!

Jason Thompson’s House of A Thousand Manga: Fist of the North Star (some great history/behind the scenes of Viz’s first attempts to release the manga)

My theme song music was done by Kerobit! You can find more about them on their Twitter!

Support the work I do on this podcast by leaving me a tip on Ko-fi! Want to have your name read in the special thanks segment on the next episode? All you need to do is buy me 2 or more “coffees” on Ko-fi! As always, feel free to leave me your thoughts on this episode or ideas for future episodes here—or email me directly at [email protected].

Thanks for listening!

#The Anime Nostalgia Podcast #Fist of the North Star #Hokuto no ken #80s manga #80s anime #ep 100 #GrantTheThief #affiliate link

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trendingnewsb · 7 years ago

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People Are Sharing What Everyone Should Accomplish By Age 35, And It’s Too Funny To Read

Sir Francis Chichester was 65 when he sailed solo around the world. Henry Heimlich presented his famous maneuver when he was 54. You’re never too old to achieve greatness but there are some things you just have to complete in time. Twitter users are posting what they think everyone should accomplish before turning 35, and it hilariously describes what today’s average adult is like.

It all started when MarketWatch published an article, saying by that age you should already have saved two times your salary. People instantly called it a stupid milestone and started providing their own alternatives. From properly setting up your kitchen to the contents of your hard drive, want to know how close you are to a proper grown-up? Scroll down and these tweets will help you get there. Oh, and vote for your favorites!