#east blue saga

[chosisbox]

I was watching the making-of video of the one piece remake and it reminded me how much I love the east blue saga

[oxygenisachoice]

East Blue Crew

[ghostsofharrenhal]

East Blue Crew

[tinukis]

east blue !!

[ripped1taliano]

Branded🩸

[namisweatheria]

I feel like we don't discuss Nami's relationship with gender enough. Her entire character is so deeply informed by being a girl in a male-dominated pirate world and it's so interesting and so worth talking about.

The background creepiness of Bad pirate crews, which are most of them, how they tend to not have any female crew members at all, how they beckon any pretty young woman around to come play with them and join them. It's real bad. It's also like, a totally 2 dimensional portrayal of evil that is reserved for the most background of background characters.

However I think their ubiquity says a lot about how piracy is meant to be perceived by the public in One Piece, and is one of the strongest indicators of how prevalent misogyny is in-world.

It's very normal in One Piece for regular island inhabitants to have never met a Different class of pirate in their life. There's no reason for them to withhold judgement that maybe these pirates won't be like every crew that attacked before, and to wait and judge them by their actions. I mean frankly that would be irrationally weak self-preservation.

There are people who live peacefully under the flags of Yonkos who protect them, and feel loyalty and gratitude to them for it, but that seems to only be thing with very big name pirates. The East Blue, being the weakest and least populated, has no such plethora of powerful people and resulting turf wars.

So. Nami. Is very clearly implied to have never met any Different pirates before. I'm thinking about what that means. About how every group of pirates she stole from were creepy, dangerous men. How she started going out stealing when she was still a young child. How she didn't have a mother anymore to guide her or comfort her. How Arlong would grab her chin inappropriately, talk about her as a "human female", as property, and god knows what else.

How all the men in Arlong's crew treated her patronizingly, pretending they're all friends, teasing her and playing at respect when really not a single one of them ever stuck up for her or hesitated to accuse her of betrayal. Who were always ready to kill her if she refused to cooperate. Who grabbed her and intimidated her when they felt like it.

That's what she had to come back to after a close call with stealing from other predatory men, instead of the relief of home there was a dark, cramped room filled with endless hours of misery and isolation and blood. Where any one of her captors could barge in and demand new maps, work faster, where did you go, you took too long again this time. Endless threats and incursions.

I'm thinking about that her fight scene in Alabasta, where she tumbles and rips off her cape and uses it to catch her enemy's spikes, before leaping to her feet and running out the back door, all in one moment. How it makes her enemy reconsider her and think, "so the girl's not a total novice at fighting after all." What that implies about her experiences as a young thief. The times she wasn't fast or clever enough and had to fight and claw her way out. Why she always carried a staff and a knife. Why she was the only one before Chopper who had any medical knowledge or experience.

You know she was stitching herself up. And the weapons, how do you think she learned to use those? If any of the Arlong Pirates helped her it wasn't out of kindness and it wasn't gentle.

Then I think about Nojiko, and Bellemere's memory, and the only softness in a hard life. How easily Nami connects to every young woman experiencing hardship that she meets. How completely she dismisses the struggles of men unless they mean something to her and are going through something terrible. The way that Nami only has sympathy for women and children is easily noticeable in-text, but it's also something confirmed in those words by the author. And it's clearly because of the life she lived, the men who had all the power and only abused it, who saw her as nothing but a girl to take advantage of, without anyone aside from her sister clearly knowing and caring about any of it.

Nami clearly isn't bitter, she doesn't think the world owes her recompense, on the contrary she knows she is far from the only person in the world to suffer the things she has suffered. She is endlessly reaching out and kind, but only to those that she isn't sure would get help without her. Certainly, before Luffy, Usopp, and Zoro, no man ever reached out a hand to her without an ulterior motive.

I think when she sees a girl in trouble, a girl biting her lip to hold in a scream of grief, a girl running in the woods away from a monster, a girl captured by pirates, she sees someone who no one is coming for. Who no one will stick up for. A person without allies in a world against her. Whether it's actually true in this case or not, she runs straight for that girl anyways every single time.

[potatopassenger]

Something hilarious about Mihawk in both the anime and OPLA is them alluding to him deciding to fuck up a fleet of ships because they woke him up. In OPLA he's sarcastic but no other explanation is offered and in the anime Zeff suggests it and they all believe him and then Mihawk leaves to sleep when he gets bored saying Zoro was the only interesting part

They really said screw motivations or backstory, one thing you WILL know about Mihawk is he's Petty as Fuck

[forged-in-kaoss]

[oodearest]

Going back to early One Piece is always interesting because now that you have a framework for how wild things get, you start appreciating little moments.

For example, Zoro is a famous dude.

It’s so easy to forget because as a whole the Strawhats are infamous currently in the story. Luffy in particular is basically a household name and VERY recognisable.

In the East Blue Saga no one knows who Luffy is. He hasn’t made a name for himself yet. Whereas Zoro is FAMOUS. To the point that Koby casually mentions him and Luffy gets curious enough to check him out.

Zoro’s famous enough that THE Baroque works scouts him pre-canon.

He so famous that he’s got a branding. People see those 3 swords and his ratty bandana and they RUN for the hills.

Zoro is objectively more renown and considered a bigger threat comparative to Luffy in the beginning.

It’s kinda mind blowing when you think about it. Unlike the other Strawhats, Zoro really didn’t need Luffy to kickstart his dreams. He was already pursuing his goals and more or less succeeding on his own.

It makes Zoro becoming Luffy’s first mate so funny to me. Like he really took a chance. It’s the equivalent of having a solid 2 years of work experience and someone that’s never worked a day in their life invites you to join their startup.

And I love Luffy but he’s a shambolic captain (wonderful friend though) up until Water 7. Zoro really said VIBES and GUT INSTINCT, it’ll pay off eventually. Love that duo fr.

[charlesoberonn]

One Piece is 1100+ chapters and counting but its first saga is only 100 chapters and is in itself a self-contained story (with an open ending). So if you're intimidated by the length think about that instead.

[dailyzolu]

[stormboundstars]

what if in OPLA season 2, Zoro reveals he has also named his fighting moves (because all great fighters name their moves and he's going to be the greatest swordsman!) imagine he yells out “ONI. GIRI!!” for the first time as he slices up an enemy, and the Straw Hats Crew turn to him going “🤨🤨🤨 rice ball???” and he huffs and acts all cool and says “no, it means 'demon slash'” but of course, Nami and Usopp and especially Sanji continue to tease him for the ridiculous pun (after all this is the guy who lightly scoffed at Luffy and Sanji for gum-gum whip and mouton shot so really it's just payback), until Luffy walks up to them and declares, “OH. I LOVE RICE BALLS” with his big, goofy smile. Zoro does the kicky-feet thing he always seems to do when he's flustered and from then on decides to unabashedly name every fighting move he has after rice balls

[sofiialyt]

the future greatest swordsman in the world

[ghostsofharrenhal]

being beautiful at the baratie (insp.)

[sammygems]

Straw Hat Outfits - East Blue Saga

I decided to start a new little series of posts of the Straw Hats outfits from each arc. I will be including the filler arcs as well and I'm gonna be dividing this by the Story Sagas, so first up is East Blue!

This post includes Romance Dawn, Orange Town, Syrup Village, Baratie, Arlong Park, & Loguetown. Warship Island is apart of the East Blue saga, but will be in the post for the Alabasta Saga, because the outfits in Warship Island are the same as the ones in Reverse Mountain.

Romance Dawn Arc

Orange Town Arc

Syrup Village Arc

Baratie Arc

Arlong Park Arc

Loguetown Arc

Later Posts in this series:

Alabasta Saga, Sky Island Saga, Water 7 Saga

[oxygenisachoice]

One Piece Manga Redraw