Shownotes Transcript
peak outdated, Kino overrated, Shonen activated. Welcome to Shonen Showdown, where we are dedicated to making your Shonen brain rot worse. And the wait is finally over. One Piece is back, baby. The hiatus is over. New One Piece is out. And what better way to celebrate than looking back at the old arcs, right, Em? Oh, we finally made it. I finally made it after
Two or three years, maybe five even. I'm finally, finally caught up to the one piece and I'm, I'm ready to talk arcs cause man, I got a hankering now that I, now that I've seen the gambit of what Oda can offer. Yeah. Today we will be doing our own sort of personal tier list of the one piece arcs going through, um,
All of the individual arcs, anime specific is going to be the topic, which may play a role in how we end up ranking these things. So it's not the manga chapters, it's the anime arcs. And we're only covering canon material. So as such, we will not be talking about G8, which is the goaded of all goaded filler arcs or Egghead because that only just resumed and as such has not finished for us to review.
definitively put on this list. Our list, we have a tier list going from S, A, B, C, and D because nothing is rank F in One Piece, let's be real. And our ranking is a One Piece ranking. We're not comparing these to the scale at large. It's within One Piece itself because otherwise everything would be like S's and A's. Come on, it's One Piece.
I think you need to explain, though, these definitions that I'm seeing here. I did throw a little extra spice and flavor. So each of our tiers is going to have a little name associated with it. So our S rank is going to be the King of the Pirates rank. Our A rank is our Yonko rank or Emperor rank.
Our B rank is the Shichibukai or Warlord tier. Our C tier is Supernovas and our D tier is for Buggy tier. He's Buggy D Clown. So obviously this is where you have to put him. Nothing to speak about his quality as a pirate, of course. Whatever you say, whatever you say. I mean, agree to disagree. So real quick, Supernovas, remind me,
Where those fall. Cause I, I was there, I was following you for our C tier supernova. The worst generation, the super rookies, they have a bunch of different names. So depending on which translation is the worst generation. Yes.
So there you go. But yeah, with that, why don't we just jump right into it? And we are going to go in chronological order. So for anyone who has not caught up all the way to the anime or to the manga, as soon as we hit the part that you have not seen anymore, you can just pause, go and immediately watch the rest of One Piece because that's what you should be doing anyway, and then come right back.
Yes, I like that. I like this strategy because we know a lot of people on the discord who are working their way through and we want to honor that and we're going to do our very, very best to keep the spoilers to those arcs.
And why don't we start then with Romance Dawn, the very first arc of One Piece where we get, you know, Luffy's flashback backstory, where we get our introduction to Zoro, our first little peek at Nami, because she does show up initially in Romance Dawn, and just the world writ large, so to speak. Yeah. When I think of this, I mean, this is where it all begins. There are...
without explaining what I'm talking about. There's a lot of Easter eggs in there that you don't realize until much, much later. All the same, I think I still put this at a C tier. What are you thinking? So my thought for this would be B tier because it starts you off on a solid foot. It is a good look into our main character, what he's about. It's a good start with
with Zoro and kind of his character right off the jump. The other thing that puts this a little higher for me is that it is an improvement on the manga.
Right. So in the manga, the order of how we see things is actually mixed up a little bit. So in the manga, you get the backstory into the kind of rest of the story. Whereas in the anime, you start off with him appearing, you know, jumping out of the barrel. It's the first thing you see. That's the eye catch. Right. And that kind of follows into that story. And then you jump back to learn more about where he came from, as well as the fact that Nami is not introduced in the manga until later. Right.
Here you get little pepperings of Nami first appearing. So I think that edges it more towards a B tier or a Warlord tier for me. Okay. Is this where we get the iconic opening as well? Yes. Like the one that we have carried through. I want to put this in B tier then because We Are is...
Yeah.
Oh, I'm going to, you know, so those who know, I love Nami. She's my favorite. And for this particular arc, the scene where Nami says, Luffy, help me. I think you're jumping. Okay, hold on. Let's take, I'm wondering, should we say that was right around minute 11? Yeah. Okay, we'll say 11.
A minute 10 or 11 and we'll pick it back up here. 1145. Yeah. I mean, I can go back and listen to it to be sure at the end, but do you want me to just start back at the beginning with Orangetown? Start back at the beginning. Okay. So at 45, I'll do that.
So that then brings us into Orangetown, where we are properly introduced to Nami and the crew. The crew of two gets to meet her for the first time. We also get to meet the future king of the pirates, Buggy the Clown, as well as his crew and their wacky antics. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm a huge fan of Nami, so I want this to go higher than other...
Maybe the other arcs, but where are you feeling for this then? Well, Buggy's a lot of fun. It's cool seeing another Devil Fruit user. This is kind of a C-tier arc. It's good. It's fun. It's a one-piece arc, but compared to other one-piece arcs, it's not quite as strong. It's also one that's not as good in the anime as it is in the manga. I'm going to make some comparisons just to throw that out there just
to kind of guide me a little bit in my ranking. Cause buggy is initially when you see him in the manga, much more intimidating and posing figure, which when you see him in color is not. No, he's so silly. And I will say the live action also does a great job with making buggy slightly more sinister than the anime does. Yes. I'm feeling a nice supernova for orange town. I can agree with that. I can agree with that. And yeah,
That then brings us into Syrup Village, where we, again, meet another member of the crew. This is where we meet Usopp, the liar Usopp, and their battles against the Black Cat Pirates and Captain Kuro. Usopp, the actual captain of the Straw Hat crew? Yes, that's right.
This one's a C tier for me. I like Usopp. Some of his later developments are more my speed, but this one was fine. Like it's fun, but I'd put it at C, maybe even D for this one. I would argue that this is a full on D tier arc. It's one of my least favorites of all of the arcs. It's for what it is, it's a little too long, complex.
Kuro is not a good villain. He's such a bad villain that Oda literally put two turds on his jacket. Oh my God. I didn't even notice that. He had two little poops on his jacket. I don't know if that was on purpose or not, but he's a shitty villain. So it's not quite as good. And I think a lot of people who started One Piece and fell off
fell off because of Syrup Village. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. And you are right, the length for that one, I do remember it being uncomfortably long. Again, still a one-piece arc. I still enjoyed it, but just not nearly as much as the others. But we've had this little downward trend of B and C and D. I think we're going to now crank it back up to Baratie, the
restaurant on the sea where we get to meet, uh, the next crew member, the chef Sanji. Oh, and Sanji's backstory, like just Oda loves to make more tragic backstories as he goes. And this one is one that nearly takes the cake for me. It's pretty tragic. Um, what he has to deal with and go through to get where he is now. So, um,
I like this arc. I like that you get some villains in here. You get a good villain, but you also get some villains who you understand why they're working for the villains. Yeah.
Yeah. So the villain thing is interesting, right? Because you're talking about Gein, right? The second in command for Don Krieg. He is an interesting villain. Don Krieg sucks. There's a reason why they basically completely wrote him out of the live action. They gave him one part. They showed him for like a second. There's a reason for that.
He is easily the albatross around the neck of this arc because everything else about it is, like you said, stellar. The backstory with Sanji and Zeph is touching. The arrival of Mihawk. You get Mihawk. What a daddy. Ooh, Mihawk. You see, you learn about a bigger piece of the world. You hear, oh, best swordsman, king of the pirates. And you have that
shonen thing in your head of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, best of the best. But now you have like a reference of what that means. The fight with Zoro is great. The pledge to never lose again, just total tear jerking,
The only thing keeping it out of the King of the Pirates tier and putting it still in a very strong tier with Yonko or A tier for me is Don Creek. The rest of it is stellar. Okay. I would agree with that, especially because I think too, we get to see a more serious side of Luffy. He's shown his serious side, but when Zoro actually gets injured, I think he realizes what it truly means to be a captain and some of the weight that he'll need to carry through his journey. Yeah.
Speaking of weight to carry through his journey, why don't we talk about our long part? Why don't we? I'm just going to preload it into the King of the Pirates tier, and then we can talk about why that is there. Because I cried? Is that? This is the moment, right? This is my Nami moment. This is the Nami moment, yes. Okay. So Nami being my favorite character. Yeah.
The scene we are referencing is when she turns to look at Luffy after going through her, you know, we get her tragic backstory. Of course, of course we have to naturally. Yep. And we get, um,
all of this buildup with the town and you find out that even though you've been building to Nami, maybe not being such a good person, maybe being a villain, you learn that it's not true. And she's just bearing the weight of the town on her shoulders and she needs help. So she turns to Luffy with tears in her eyes after stabbing herself in the arm to get rid of a tattoo and says, help me, Luffy. Oh,
And he does, man. He does. It's so good. This is one of like the first real like captain moments because he knows not to just jump in and do. He waits for her to ask for help because that's – if he just went in and did it, he knows it would be rejected. He waited. And then it – oh, God. It's like –
I know we say Kino overrated at the beginning of the intro for this every time, but man, Kino is her stabbing herself to crying to asking for help to him slowly walking out to screaming that Arlong is going to pay with then the instant zoom out to the rest of the boys just waiting. And then the walk to Arlong Park with the music.
That alone puts this in S tier. But on top of that, right, you have everyone gets a chance to shine. Everyone gets their fight. You have the reveal of Nami's new tattoo and what that means at the end of this arc. Chef's kiss. Yes. Just such a good arc. I'm so glad that we agreed to throw that in the top because so good. So, so good. And I think from there we can then move on to Logtown. Yeah.
And Logitown's an interesting one. This is kind of the last stop before the grand line. We get introduced to Smoker, who's a pretty cool character. We get the return of Buggy and Alveda, which is nice to see that they are bringing back characters. And it makes the world feel a little bigger when they do that. There is some extra edit content from the manga that's weaved throughout the story, like Yusup and Daddy, the...
uh, uh, daddy, the bounty hunter, which, which was great Sanji and the cooking cook-off is kind of, eh. Um, and then, you know, there's also a Luffy smiling on the tower where Roger was killed and the introduction of a mysterious character that we'll probably talk about in several, uh, arcs from now. Um, you know, lots of cool stuff, but for me, shorter arc,
Little fillery-ish stuff kind of mixed throughout that's some good, some eh. It's solid. It's fun. It's kind of back to Romance Dawn and a Warlord tier, B tier for me. Really? See, I was going to put it in C tier. Not because there aren't good elements in it. It's just not as memorable. But I think it's because it's in setup mode, which is the problem. You do get Smoker. You do get a lot of interesting characters. The most memorable moment for me is Luffy being...
in the spot where Rogers was, but nothing else really is sticking out. - I could drop it to C tier, but I'd put it above Orange Town then. - Yes. - At least. And I think another one that kind of fits in that C tier for a similar reason is gonna be Reverse Mountain. Reverse Mountain is where, again, we start our journey into the Grand Line. Cool things, right? The actual traversing over the Red Line and the giant whale, Laboon.
My boy, Laboon, my poor boy. So sad. Such a good boy, though. He's a poor boy, but such a good boy. The introduction of the log poses and how that works is pretty cool. It's the first time, if I remember, I'm pretty certain about this. It's the first time that we hear mention of, oh, I don't want to mess this up because we were trying to be spoiler safe here.
I'm going to look something up. You add your piece. Yeah. I think it can be in our C tier. I'm thinking it'll still go above orange, but that's because I love Laboon. I love Laboon so much. He's such a good boy. Yeah. And some of the, I think this might be where you get a little bit of the background for Laboon.
For him, but like it's just – it's preparing you to go into the new world. Like it's just – I don't want to say like a holding pattern, but that is what it is. It's reverse mountain. You're learning how you get onto the Grand Line. Yes. Okay. This is – I like to be safe. This is the first time you hear mention of the last island in the Grand Line. Yes.
Crocus does say it. So that's again, little tidbits towards the end of the world. I think above Orangetown is a good place for this. And then, let me fix this over here. So after that, then we go right into Whiskey Peak. This is another one of those arcs that's maybe not as memorable, but when you think back on it and you hear about it, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that one. It's when they first get introduced to Baroque works. It's the town of bounty hunters and
It's the big cactuses on the island. And when you zoom in on the cactuses, the pins are all grazed, which I thought was a nice little touch. We learn about how Baroque Works works. We get introduced to Vivi and Proper, because before this, she was a Baroque Works agent. And Vivi,
It's, again, fun. We get a really cool fight with Zoro. This is Zoro versus the 100 bounty hunters. Not a ton of crazy stuff, but I think it is, again, kind of that B to C tier. I lean a little more B just because it is a big Zoro moment and it's the first time we get to really see him do much differently.
You know, throughout East Blue, he is nerfed severely. He's constantly injured or taken out of battles. This is the first time we actually get to see him, like, do. And you're not just picking it because your waifu is in the speed. Listen, we don't have to talk about that. We can move on. I'll accept it because I can't put everything in C tier. I do need to spread this out a little bit. But this one, I remember those fights being fun.
And some of these people are important. Exactly. I mean, we get the introduction of Miss All Sunday. Yes. Yes. Good stuff. So I'll accept that. I can do a low B. So I like where you have it on our list. And then that brings us nicely into Little Garden. Yeah.
Little Garden is, again, another one where it's a lot of these setup arcs, right? Where you have little things and sometimes you feel like they do a little too much. Little Garden is where we meet the giants, which is super cool. It's where we get a little more of Baroque works with Mr. Three and Miss Golden Week. We get...
Sanji kind of like futzing off on his own and he does, you know, his whole thing with the unluckies and that's where we first get Mr. Prince name dropped. We also get in this arc one of the funniest jokes in the series when Zoro is getting turned into wax and tells Dami that she should have picked a cooler pose to become a wax statue. Yeah.
I thought you were making reference to the inside joke that Zorro has no sense of direction and is constantly getting lost. Oh, no, yes. Well, this is one that's specific to this arc. Yes, yes. I remember that particular joke. It was pretty great. And nice little touches, too, from this arc. Like, something happens for the next arc to Nami that actually we get a little hint for at the end of this arc. So a little attention to detail stuff. I...
I put it either low B, high C is where I'm thinking. I think it'll end up in high C then because I was going to put this in a D. Not because it's not nice. I love my giants and whatnot. I just know I'm looking at some of these other cards we have coming up and I just, I'm trying to play smart. So I could put it in a high C and eventually it could graduate to a low B. We can...
We'll put it right there between between Logtown and Reverse Mountain, I think in the Supernova C tier. All right. Next up, we have Drum Island, which I would argue is is a true B tier and probably the top of B tier. Not good enough for A tier. We get some really good stuff here, right? We get we get Chopper. We get introduced to Zoan Fruits for the first time. We get Chopper's tragic ass backstory.
We get Dr. Kureha, who is a lot of fun. We get a few names dropped for the first time, too. We get Blackbeard name dropped. We get your boy. My husband. Ace gets his name dropped here and makes his first little sneaky appearance.
we also, for the first time here, not gold Roger, but goal D Roger. So lots of lorish stuff here, but again, just to the arc itself, the villain wobbles, not great, right? He's a sub par villain and the worst part of this, but again, he's,
You have some of the social commentary with the 20 doctors, which is pretty nice to see. And something that Oda does come back to a lot is these social commentary points. You have the climb up the mountain that Luffy does to save Nami and Sanji, which is a great episode. And Dr. Kureha is just a lot of fun too. I just, I love Dr. Kureha. I think...
just such a great character but you're right the villain is what mostly lets down this story so I think B tier is a perfectly fine place for it um I think there's just a lot of stuff cooking in this particular area and another thing that you'll hear me start to reference as we get into the next arc is I think I'm very excited to see what they do with the drum arc most of all
the live action, depending on how far they decide season two, we'll get into the one piece lore and things. So I at least know they're going to make it to drum Island. So we get it. We get a cute little reindeer boy. So culmination of, of a saga, Alabasta, Alabasta is, um,
The first arc that is the true culmination of the previous saga. So even though we had East Blue, but there was no... The build was to get to the Grand Line, but that was kind of it, which is great, but not the same as the build to Alabasta, the build of Baroque works and Crocodile and adding the new characters and all the things that come with it. And it is probably...
An easy King of the Pirates tier for me. Absolutely. Absolutely. It is a fantastic arc. Yes. Do we have some rosy colored glasses on because both Vivi and Ace are in this? Absolutely. But besides that, what a fantastic villain. I adore Crocodile as a villain. Crocodile is an amazing villain. We get Mr. Two, Bon Clay. Yes.
Ban Chan. Miss Sunday. Miss Sunday was just so great. Although I think this is our arc where we learn her real name. That's right. The last episode of this arc, she does in fact also join the crew. We see her bounty, which is quite high and surprisingly high. Like I said, Crocodile is a outstanding villain, very interesting villain, very...
Machiavellian, you know, he's not just coming in taking over, he's inciting this revolution and playing this weird hero game. He's a warlord, so we learn more about the warlord system and kind of what they can do. We learn about pony glyphs for the first time. We learn about the ancient weapons for the first time.
And probably my favorite part from this arc is Luffy loses. Yes. And it's a tragic loss. I know we keep throwing that word around, but you feel the loss in your gut. I can still remember the silhouette of Crocodile with just the hook through him. Just horrifying loss. Yeah. This is, I think, of all the ones we've gotten to, I would argue this is the best arc so far.
Yep, I would agree. This is just such a good one. And to think of a little bit more of a rosier moment when Vivi is struggling to figure out what her role is with her island, with her status, but also with the pirates.
They have a moment and everyone knows it. It's this like iconic moment where she just wants to know if they can be friends and they can't turn around and say, of course we can. They just simply all raise like a hand in the air with the X that they've marked on their hands throughout this journey. Um,
Amazing. I cried. I cried so hard. I mean, we were – Vivi was a part of the One Piece story at this point for longer than the previous part of the story, right? So it's like two – however many episodes. It's like 200 episodes or something. Yeah.
Like that. I can't remember the exact number. She's in it for more than half of it. So her loss from the story, it's unexpected. You think she's going to join the crew, the crew. You think we're, you know, our good boy crew joining too, but we don't. And it's a good thing. It is, despite my wishes is still a good thing for the story.
Agreed. And it's the same thing what I will say with Ace. Ace folds into this crew so nicely. He is honestly a breath of fresh air in regards to his bandos because he's just got a very good heart. We learn that he is brother to Luffy. He loves his brother. He loves his brother and is dedicated to him in such a way that's not overbearing. He trusts Luffy and Luffy
I forgot, this is where we get introduced to the piece of paper, the like magical pieces of paper. The zebra cards, yes. Thank you. Which are important to these stories. So just very good moments and very good fights. Love all of the fights here. And I do love Ace's introduction as Luffy's brother because it's so Luffy where they're like,
Wait a minute, you have a brother? He's like, yeah, of course I have a brother. And they go, why didn't you tell us? He's like, well, no one ever asked, which is like such a perfect Luffy like, oh, duh. It's such a Luffyism and I love it. Some of those character traits that you'll see coming back time and time again, it's that, his, just his candor. And honestly, I have Luffyisms when it comes to names. So I love that he can never remember anyone's names and just gives them nicknames along the way.
All right, so speaking of transitions that I can't think of, we're going to move on to Jaya, the first half, the setup arc for the saga, where we want to go to the island in the sky, but this is the first stop they make. We meet Bellamy, and we get the one-punch knockout, which is an excellent moment. We meet the descendant of Mont Blanc,
of Nolan, right? The, the adventurer. It's a, it's a, the first time we see Luffy's bounty at a hundred, a hundred million berries, some cool stuff, fun. Is this where we also see teach for this first time? This is also where we actually get to meet Blackbeard. We get the speech of, you know, a pirate's dreams will never end. And,
It's a perfect introduction to the character of how opposite they are, but how similar they are. It's a great introduction to his character. It's a quick arc, too, so it doesn't overstay its welcome, which is a little bit of a problem with the next one. But we'll get to that. Yeah, and this one teases an interesting villain, if I'm not mistaken, at the very end. So that's a nice little tasty treat. I'd put this towards the top of B tier. I think so, too.
You wouldn't think I would like it because it is a lot of setup, but because Oda has now done so much world building, we get more character setup, which I like. Yes. And speaking of world building, let's talk about Skypiea, our island in the...
Yeah, let's talk about that island in the sky. Which is just a cool concept. It's such a cool concept. I think it was at this moment that I had messaged Raggedy and said, when are they going to be on the ocean? Because they were in the desert and now they're going to the sky. Where is the ocean? They're on the white, white sea. It counts. It's fine. It's great.
This is definitely one of Otis' more creative chapters, I feel. He's very, very creative, but I think his use of indigenous people as Skypians was fascinating. Some of the technology that he came up with, the little shell. Yeah, the dials. Dials, that's it. Which do stay in the series forever.
long term. So like Nami gets her weapon for in Alabasta. This is when it actually gets upgraded to become a useful weapon after this arc with the dial. So that's some cool stuff that does continue. The, the villain Eminem is the, is great. Yeah.
Marshall Mathers. You did have to point that out to me. You also get the hintings of some interesting power structures coming up. Yes. The mantra that the Skypeans have access to makes them very formidable, something we haven't seen before. The fights in this arc are very good.
The flashback to kind of how Skypiea became what it is, is a very touching arc, which is a good thing Oda does a lot is make you care about people that you should not have any, you shouldn't care about at all. They're long dead characters that you've never, like you've heard of their name once kind of thing. But he makes a good connections with it. He does a good story with them.
The biggest letdown in this arc is the length. It's a little bloated. Yes.
Oh, that's exactly where I was going to go with it is for all of the good pieces, it takes a really long time to get to those good pieces. Specifically thinking about Eminem mouth to the floor moment. Oh, that joke is so funny. The Pokemon logic is amazing. Of course, rubber beats lightning. It's so good.
It's so good and delightful, but it took so long to get there. So I put this at B only because of the length. If it wasn't so long, it'd be an easy A. I think I can agree with it being the top of B tier. Another thing I do like from this arc, comedy-wise, is – because everyone always remembers the Anel face –
the Sanji moment where he gets struck by lightning and he's just like, thanks for lighting my cigarette. And before he like falls over, it's just so good. It's so good. But I think we can move on from so good to, um, a, a buggy, a buggy tear. Yeah. You see the face I'm making you. I, I,
You should announce the arc before I talk. Long ring, long land. And again, we are talking about the anime version. The manga version I maintain is actually pretty good. It is kind of fun and funny. We do get introduced to Aokiji, so there are some things here. But it is probably one of the worst arcs in the series. Yeah.
It's another, I felt, really long one. I messed up the first part of watching it and did not go in the right order because I just miscounted my episodes. And my God, it takes forever when you miscount episodes and don't go in the Raggedy Doctor order. There is an approved order to make it as painless as possible, to make it as close to the manga as possible.
It's still great. And part of it too, it's sandwiched between Skypiea, which is a pretty solid arc, and the next ones we're going to talk about, which are really freaking good. And the arc before this, if you watch the filler, is G8, the best filler ever. It's so good that people forget that G8 is not filler and think that Long Ring Longland is the filler. I believe that. Easy.
Easy buggy D tier. Yep. So let's go, let's talk about good things again. Water seven. Delightful. Yes. Let's. Water seven is, it's chef's kiss. Water seven. The, where we start to learn about Robin's backstory, where we're introduced to CP nine, a very powerful group within the world. We get, um,
to Frankie. We get one of the better fights in the series and a true testing moment of the Straw Hat crew is Luffy versus...
Usopp fighting over the fate of the Merry, who has been battered and bruised and beaten. And that's the whole reason they're even at Water 7. And also just Water 7 itself, the design of the city is so cool. Yes. And the technology, you get more insight into the forbidden weapon, if I'm not mistaken, or the warship, I think, is it?
it's briefly mentioned here. Yes. One. Yeah. You get another little taste of a blueprint of some sort, like, but that's all you really get. And you know that Frankie might be able to build it, but like, again, it's just a little taste. That's all you're going to get. And so smart of just sprinkling in these little moments of lore that you, you kind of pause for a second. Cause you're like, I think that's important. Yeah.
Yeah, it's so good. I would put it at top of Yonko art tier. It's still a setup arc, so it's not quite enough to really push it over the edge. And you can't really have Water 7 without the next arc, which is Eni's Lobby. Oof. Goddamn. The lobby is life-changing, folks. Life-changing. A lot of people who have...
By the time I was into One Piece, I was into it by this point. But a lot of people, if they aren't into it by Enies Lobby, what are you doing? Do you not have a heart? Because you don't have a heart then. Yeah, you're a monster. Most people, this is where it hooks them. I feel like this is where you're off to the races. Yeah, I think the order kind of goes like Arlong Park and Baratie is what gets the hook in.
So you're like, okay, this is, I'm in this for the long haul. And these lobby is like, this is, this is what these people have been talking about. So this, this is our, our big Robin moment, right? Yes. This is the, I want to live moment. This is her full backstory. This is all the fights. The crew gets, everyone gets to fight.
CP9, tons of great fights across the board. Robin's backstory, the flashback to Ohara introduced to Jaguar D, Saul, another D name that will keep popping up every once in a while. The shooting down of the flag. Which fight is your... Oh, my God. We have to mention that. Yes. It's a little sad. The biggest problem with this arc is that Usopp's really...
you know, he's not here. We get sniper King, which is great. Sniper King. So like, yeah, got to give him some love. Um, what I will say about any sloppy real quick is this is the moment where I feel like my husband Esquire really got pulled in specifically because she, you know, Nico Robin is down and trodden and it's like, I just want to die. Just let me die. And Luffy and my husband word for word with Luffy just says, that's,
That's stupid. Just come die on my ship then, which is what Luffy says. And he was like, I'm in. This guy gets me. This is what I've been looking for in a shounen hero.
So good. What is your favorite fight? Because everyone gets their fight. Even Robin. It's not as glorious, but she does get to beat the shit out of Spandam, which is great. But what's your fight? It's got to be the Luffy fight. It's got to be. I think this is gear, isn't this? When we get some movement there. But specifically gear two. Gear two and gear three were introduced to, which is awesome. It's so cool. So good.
It's one of the best power-ups in Shonen. It's creative. It's taking a fruit power, like just being elastic and being way creative with how to make it more powerful. Because they got, you know, CP9 crushed them at Water 7. And Luffy had to get stronger. And this is kind of that moment. We also get Zoro doing the Asura thing.
Everyone gets their big power-ups here. He gets the Asura style. Sanji gets his Diable Jambe, where he can light his foot on fire. We see Chopper go monster mode, which is super cool. So good stuff all around. Top tier. Top of S rank. All right. You need to refresh my memory, though, for our next arc, which is... For post-Anis Lobby. Yep, thank you. Yes. Okay, refresh me on this one. So post-Anis Lobby...
is considered its own distinct arc technically, but you may kind of have it blocked in your brain as part of any lobby. This is basically all of the fallout. So it's the new bounties. It's the, it's Garp showing up with our, with Kobe and hell Meppo. It's learning who saved Luffy back on log town is his dad, the most dangerous man in the world. Monkey D dragon. It's what else happens? Is this my ace? Yeah.
That's how it ends. It does end with Ace versus Blackbeard. I've never sweated more in my seat watching that fight. Please go watch that fight again if you've seen this arc because it's another so well animated. There are moments where you're just like, Toei, you put all the money into this fight. That was it in that moment.
We get a little taste of Daddy Shanks and Whitebeard. Yeah, that's right. Whitebeard, a man so manly that he called his mustache a beard and no one dared to tell him otherwise. And Shanks, if I'm not mistaken, just walking on the boat and, you know, maybe some crewmates just can't handle his presence. Like, that seems... They can't handle his riz. Yeah, that seems odd, though. Isn't that strange? Yeah.
No, I mean, have you seen the man? He's got Riz for days. And only one arm. What? Just everyone. That's a joke for us one-piecers that everyone constantly likes to talk down about his one arm. It's like, dude, I wouldn't. And then, yeah. So it's a lot of super cool lore stuff. It's the...
The biggest thing, though, in this part is the funeral for the going Mary. Oh, my God. Oda had me crying over a cartoon boat. Like, the man is evil, but it's so beautiful. I think this is an A, then. Would you say? I would say it's A. I'd say it's towards the bottom of A. Okay. I can agree with that. And what do you have next? Next, we have Thriller Bark. Speaking of tragic backstories, goddamn. Always. We go from one...
Oh, geez. We get Brooke, the introduction of Brooke, the musician for the crew. He's, he's, Brooke's a fun character. He, he really is a little bit of a weird spot on the crew because he kind of does the swordsman thing too, but yeah.
Very fun character. Incredibly tragic backstory with our boy Laboon. Laboon! What a great tie-in. Now, Thriller Bark, we all know the reason why this is going to be ranked pretty high for me, because this is also Esquire's, one of his all-time favorite moments, which is Luffy.
walking over to a zombie skeleton and saying, no, no, or they're there and shoving it, depending on if you watch the dub or the sub, which we watched the dub. And I think he's just like, pushes it back down and is like, no, no, don't do that or something along those lines. Amazing. Oh, God. Top tier, top tier humor. I mean, but beyond that, nothing really happens in this arc. I know. And who cares? And the villain is...
but uh i see what you did there nothing really happens yeah yeah nothing really happens nothing really happens nothing really happens no no nothing happens uh which is why i'm gonna put i would put this in b tier it's a very fun arc there is some really good moments you get kuma happens kuma is good introduction but nothing happens with kuma don't worry everyone yeah so i think b um
middle B though. Maybe middle B between drum and Jaya. I think that's a good spot. That's a good spot. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. If the villain was better, I would put it higher, but I just don't like the villain for this one. Yeah. And I think this is also where the first time where we get a, or we say that we get Kuma who for, for those of you out there listening, M doesn't know. I know M's not ready.
Anyway, Sabaody. Sabaody, you're going to have to fight me for this. This is my favorite arc in all of One Piece. Oh, my God. Which is shocking. Okay, fine. I would say after getting caught up, it's my second favorite arc in all of One Piece. But I love, love, love, love this particular arc because you have the introduction of the Celestials.
And specifically, you have a moment. Well, I mean, you get the worst generation this moment, too. So like you get the introduction to a bunch of wonderful characters and things going on. But you get Luffy punching a celestial so hard it goes black and white on the screen. It literally looks like he's punching him back into the comic strip. Like it's so good.
Yes. It's a lot of, it's a creative setting. We get the supernovas, we get Silver's Raleigh, the right-hand man to the King of the Pirates. I love him.
Such a good character. Such a gilf. He's so great. He's, I don't think he has kids, so I don't know if he's, whatever. Not the point. Just being very technical. But the best part of that is when he goes like, oh, I can tell you what the one piece is. And Luffy screams, don't you fucking dare.
Because that is not what this is about. Yes. And I think he does the same thing to Robin. Like, oh, I can tell you about the Void Sentry. Do you want to know? And she's like, that's okay. I don't need to. I'm good. And it's like, ah, because she'll figure it out on her own. She's good. And the end of the arc. Oh, my God. All of the feelings. Some of the best animation of just pure, I don't know how, like, guttural feelings.
upsetting feelings. I mean, look, Kizaru, another admiral shows up with the pacifistas, with these robots, which we don't, which are, look like Kuma, but they're not Kuma. And then Kuma shows up, the Straw Hats lose, they lose hard. And I love it when a show lets the heroes lose. And Luffy takes it very, very hard because the, because Kuma is,
then starts to touch each of the straw hats and they're just disappearing in front of his eyes. And so what is happening? If you're watching this weekly, you're like, oh, is the show just done now? I think it's a very good arc, but it is also a lot of setup. So I don't think it can quite go in S tier, but I think A tier, I think A tier right below water seven is a good spot for it.
Okay. Okay. I can agree with that. And let's go next to Amazon Lily. This is where, where we get, where Luffy gets poofed to. We, you know, it's the island of the Amazons. It's one of the last warlords we haven't met yet. It's a Boa Hancock. This is my, my husband's number one waifu. He adores Boa. He adores Boa.
This is also where it's confirmed that Luffy is asexual. Oh my God. Yeah. And I love it. We love representation, right? And he sure shows it. We love our aces and we love our ace, right? Right.
I will say just as a real quick note about Oda that has impressed both me and Reggie the Doctor, he just gradually shows such open-mindedness, not just towards sexuality, but to gender as well. And, you know, it's sort of sprinkled in here, and I know it will get to some of the other stuff later, but at that moment where you're like, oh,
Yeah. No, he's clearly asexual. He could give two shits about like man or woman in front of him. He just wants to like go achieve his dream. Yeah. He – this is – it's a fun arc. It's not super memorable is the problem. Boa is really the big thing from this arc. It's Boa. It's –
Again, a little sprinkling of this, like, huh, how come these people can know what I'm about to do? This feels real familiar, like back on Skypiea. How come they could just weirdly deflect my punches so easily, like that guy on Sabaody was able to do? So there's like a little bit of that stuff. But I'm feeling B-ish to C-ish tier. I'm fine with this being a C tier. I wish it was higher, but you're right. Like, yeah, we get some...
Fun moments here, but nothing outstanding like we've mentioned in some of the other arcs. Speaking of, Impel Down. Oof. Yeah. This is now we're trying to rescue Ace from the prison. Ace is lost, sadly. Yeah.
sadly is lost and I don't like thinking about that, but that's just cause he's, he's my boy. Like, yeah, he's, he set up for execution. Luffy has to go and save him and watch. This is another one of those super cool settings, right? The, the level, like the Dante's Inferno set up going from level one all the way down to level five, all the way down to mysterious level six, uh,
Yeah, so get the introduction to Jinbei. Yes, we get Jinbei. The other warlord, maybe the last one now? Yeah, he would be the last one. Okay. We get the conversation between Garp and his grandson Ace about how much Ace hates his dad and how his real dad is Whitebeard. We get Luffy having to work with all of the old villains, right?
to make this ragtag crew, uh, you know, he's right. It's buggy. That is pretty fun. It's Mr. Three. It's Mr. Two and Mr. Two sacrifice. It's a crocodile. Mr. One. It's mostly the Baroque works people and, and buggy, but still it's cool watching that. Yeah. Um,
The secret hidden level with Ivankov. Ivankov is so much fun. Would we put this in A or S? I'm feeling like A, but that's only because it's leading to something. Yeah, this is an A tier, I think. Solid. I just don't know. Do we put it above Water 7 or below Water 7?
I think above, I think this is a good solid. Also again, starter, some other cool stuff. Luffy losing again. I love it when you let the hero lose, it lets them grow and Blackbeard also showing up. Good stuff. Are you going to be okay? Are you able to talk about the next one? Okay. Uh, right. He's going to mention it. I'm going to take my like 30 seconds of silence.
So the next arc is Marineford. God, goddamn Marineford is holy shit. It is so good. It is so fucking good. It has the best setups for one of the best payoffs of the fact that Oda does not kill off a single character. He saves his first character.
death to really fucking stick it to you as the audience and mostly to Emory. It hurt so bad. I think, what was it? I think, I mean, I cried and I think I like actually mourned this loss for a few days. Like I was pretty upset with it because it, it definitely hurt.
broke me. I think before we get to talk about that though. Yeah. There's a lot of setup before that. So much other stuff that happens. A lot of it is so really cool, right? It's seeing all three admirals and how strong they are. It's seeing white beard and how fucking terrifying white beard is. And you go, Oh, this is why people don't mention that that mustache is a mustache because he will fuck your shit up. He's, uh, and you get to see his whole crew.
This is, I think, the first time you really get to see what a true emperor's crew looks like. So it doesn't just go beyond...
Oh, it's a ship with some people on it. He has multiple ships sailing in for this. He has a full fleet. Yeah. Yeah. And the attention to detail Oda has because a lot of the people you meet, like you've either met them along the way or they may come up later. And he gives attention and builds out their backstories and powers nearly to all of them to a certain extent. I'm thinking particularly of Marco. Yeah.
I mean, there's Marco, there's Vista, who is the guy who does dual wielding swords. There's... The Giant, which was a reference all the way back to Thriller Park. Yes, Orz Jr. Which is a great reference. There's Eno, who looks very Japanese, which will maybe come up later. There's... Oh my God, I'm blanking on his name. The guy who can turn into diamonds. I don't know why I'm blanking on his name.
Josu, Josu, that's his name. Yes, you see a ton of these characters and how they interact, how they all respect Whitebeard. You see the pacifistas show up, which is great. You see then Luffy entering this battlefield. Falling from the sky, man. There's nothing that beats that level of an entrance with like a pirate ship, if I'm not mistaken, like upside down. It's just-
So good. And the warlords fighting. It's a crazy, hectic, action-filled battlefield. It's so awesome. All capped off, or not capped off, started by the fact that we learned that Luffy and Ace are not brothers. Spoilers. Not action spoilers, but this blew my mind when this came up. Oh, yeah. Because Ace's dad is Gold D-fucking-Roger. Yeah, yeah. They are brothers-
in spirit, but not by blood. It's mind boggling. Which also, again, a very Luffy thing to just be like, no, no, he is my brother. Like there's no distinction between who I've chosen to be my brother and who is my like by birth brother. Yeah, it would surprise me if Luffy is a little neurodivergent sometimes with his attitude. A little? Just a little. Just like maybe a little off right. But it's... Oh, I think Garp, even watching Garp
just have to watch. Cause again, Garp fought Gold D. Roger, raised his son as his own grandchild and just watching him fight between his duty as a, as a, a member of the, of the Marines and his own personal sort of, uh, stuff. It's, it's chef's kiss. And back to what I said, it's,
You are tricked. It's shonen. It has tricked you into thinking that no one dies. It's shonen. No, he has brought people back to life. Well, maybe not back to life, but he brought people back who you thought were dead multiple times up to this point. Yeah. Up to this point. And people...
Yeah. People like that. You were like that guy, like Pell. Remember Pell from Alabaster? It's like, oh no, he's actually, but he's not. It's like, yeah, whatever. It's Shonen. No, this was Wade. They even save him. That's the other thing. They even save Ace. They get to the moment. They save him. They're fighting. Ace and Luffy are fighting together. You're like, oh, it's so cool. This is great. This is why I love Shonen. Wait, who's that? Oh God, that does not look great. And then
He's just dead. It was all to save his brother. It was all because he needed to save Luffy. And that's what he does. He sacrifices himself. Some other like real quick like moments is you get Kobe. You get the return of Luffy and Kobe. You get to like meet up and have interactions. And Kobe has a strange power happening to him now. You get Law. Oh, my God. Law and his submarine. And of course, I got to mention Shanks.
shank's coming in and the man with so much riz he can stop a war by just yeah he is all of the riz well and um we have of course what has now become my villain who i could just if i could reach into the manga and fight and like kill off a character you have blackbeard coming in coming in hot with uh
Ooh, an ability that just makes me so angry. I just need him to be taken down a peg. Oh, yeah. Again, you've been conditioned and basically told you can only have one devil fruit. Only one. Only one. Why does he have two then, Raggedy? Why does he have two? Because he does. Because...
Because that was his secret plan all along. You get the culmination of not all of his plan, obviously, but a big part of it, of why he wanted the Dark, Dark Fru, why he wanted to capture Ace, to become a warlord, to get into Impel Down, to release his, to get people for his new crew, to then also lead to Whitebeard's death. That's right. Not just one death, two. Two.
Two big deaths and he steals his devil fruit. It's crazy. It's so good. It is best arc in one piece. Ooh. Yep. Okay. For now. For now. For now. I think for that we can get, we can do post-war quickly because post-war is, is really just a large flashback. I think, I think that's a good point. And I think, uh, in the spirit of, uh,
Maybe we'll make a part two and we'll have a two-year gap. I think we can do that, which is perfect to do after this one because that leads right to the two-year gap. So that's actually perfect timing. So we will finish up with this one and then we'll continue this another day. But-
To end on this note, the post-war is a... It's mostly a flashback. It's learning about how Luffy and Ace became brothers. It's the learning that they have a... What's this secret third brother? What? Who died in the flashback, which is the only place Oda has killed off anyone before now is in flashbacks. But yeah, you get the sake cup, you get their...
their relationship. You get a little bit of the social commentary. It's nice to, it's a nice cap on the Marine Ford, but in and of itself, there's not a ton here. No, I think while the flashback is a nice to have, I got a lot of this even during Marine Ford, I felt. And the only thing that really
did anything for me for this post-war is Jinbei. Jinbei stepping up and just being the support system that Luffy needed. Does that make sense? Like, yeah. Oh, definitely. Like trying to shake him from his catatonic and just grieving state to say, this is not what Ace would have wanted. And just, no, it's huge. Jinbei is a bro, man. Jinbei is such a bro. Yeah.
Jimbae's great. The two big things I got from this arc were one, Riley just swimming through the comm belt because he's just that cool. He just is. The other thing is we finally get some answers. We learn about there's not one power system in one beast. There's a second one and it's called hockey. And suddenly a lot of those things that we've been hearing about sprinkled in are starting to make sense now.
Yeah. So we learned that there's armament hockey, which lets you buff up your strength. It's how you can touch the Logia users, how Riley was able to do that, how you're able to deflect, you know, Luffy's punches. You learn that there is observation hockey, which kind of lets you...
understand what other people are able to like what they're doing, which is how people were able to kind of read Luffy's mind. It's mantra all the way back in Skype. Yeah. And I bet you thought that arc wasn't going to come back. Haters who watched it the first time and thought it was filler. How dare you? And then even further back conquerors hockey, which is, which is Shanks's Riz power basically, which he uses all the way back in like the first few episodes. Yeah.
Yeah, it's just, to your point, that was a nice coming together. And also, you get more time with Silver, which is awesome. I think this is a B-tier arc because it's kind of perfect middle One Piece territory. I agree. The only question is, where in B-tier do we put it? I think it's above Drum Island. Yep, but below Thriller, maybe? Yeah, I think below Thriller. I like that.
I think with that, we will, uh, we have to go on, uh, a little bit of a, of a training arc and we'll be, we'll be back. Not in, uh, not in three days, but two years, not actually two years. We'll be back soon. We'll be back soon. We will be, uh, this is very fun. So I hope, uh, I hope you all like it and yeah, join us for part two where we're going to dive into, uh,
dive into the remaining arcs going on. So remember, the glory of Shonen can be yours for the taking if you just believe it. So set sail and join us for the next episode of Shonen Showdown. See you next time.