#ch522

[opbackgrounds]

The fact that Oda went through and made this actually be the case, while still making Luffy have an impact on the rescue effort, is an insane tightrope to walk as a writer

[every-sanji]

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hi! During Amazon Lily (ch522 and ch523) Gloriosa talks about the two other Empresses. In the translation it says "the previous empress died of this illness, as did the empress before her" and "(they) ruined themselves by suppressing those feelings". Since Shakky is very much alive, are there any nuances in the original Japanese text that didn't come through with the translation that suggests those two empresses didn't die for real? Thank you!

oooh, good question! i'd forgotten about this line!

so, if i'm reading it right, there is a small but important distinction here between the japanese and the english. gloriosa says 先代皇帝もこの病で死んだ/sendai koutei mo kono yamai de shinda, "the previous empress also died of this disease."

however, when talking about the empress two generations in the past (so, shakky) she says 先々代も同じだったそうじゃ/sensendai mo onaji datta sou ja. the important word here is sou, which is a pretty versatile word in japanese that can have several meanings- in contexts like this, it usually means 'seems'/confers a sort of uncertainty on the statement. so her statement about shakky is something like "it the empress before her seems to have been the same" or "it seems the same befell the empress before her." there's a few ways you could translate it.

given she seems (from the one panel we get) unsurprised that shakky is alive when we get the reveal in chapter 1059, my guess is that shakky faked her death or otherwise chose to suddenly disappear when she quit pirating, and that gloriosa was aware and may have helped her cover for it.

[naruto1to700]

Chapter 522

[opbackgrounds]

This is a good and iconic panel, but I just realized Luffy is barefoot, and going back and looking at it, he has been the entire chapter

[opbackgrounds]

Luffy deservedly has the reputation of being impulsive, but when it comes to the people he cares about there's no denying he understands what he's getting himself into and how they're going to react. He knows Ace is going to be mad, but he doesn't care, because he has to live his own life without regrets

[opbackgrounds]

Oda never forgets

[opbackgrounds]

that is a hilarious bed to blanket ratio

[opbackgrounds]

Not gonna lie, this is 100% the shirt to have when suddenly and dramatically falling ill. 10/10, would catch the vapors while wearing.

[opbackgrounds]

One of the more fascinating things about the Marineford War is how much the marines invited the fight with Whitebeard. They didn't have to publicly announce anything, and one wonders if Whitebeard were in his prime if they would have dared

[opbackgrounds]

Oda is prone to animal theming, but he takes it to its most extreme with the CP9 crew. Just look at this silhouette work even for the characters who don't have zoan fruits

[opbackgrounds]

A lot of this info we already knew from Enies Lobby, but Oda takes advantage of the fact that Luffy himself wasn't present from the initial exposition to repeat the information, while also deepening the reader's understanding of how these currents work

[opbackgrounds]

The timeline of Hancock's rise to fame is kind of insane. She was 16 when she escaped from Mariejois and was implied by Nyon's speech last chapter it took her awhile to make it back to Amazon Lily. Then, when she was only 18, she became Empress and captain of the Kuja pirates, and became a Warlord after one campaign.

[opbackgrounds]

I'd forgotten that Luffy made it this far into the arc without realizing Hancock was a Warlord

[opbackgrounds]

It's a very cool detail that Amazon Lily has its own currency

[opbackgrounds]

Imagine being a future historian studying the culture of Amazon Lily, and coming across this text describing men and trying to figure out how in the hell they came to this conclusion