Shonen Showdown Episode 10: Arcs for Days Part 2
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peak outdated keno overrated shonen activated welcome to shonen showdown where we are dedicated to making your shonen brain rot worse and now that our off-screen training arcs have been completed we're ready for more one piece that's right i am done with my montage moment i'm ready to get back into this

Yeah, because today we will be continuing our ranking of the One Piece arcs with the post-time skip arc at this point. If you missed our last episode, then what the hell's the matter with you? Where have you been? Go back and listen to the other one. But we've ranked the first half of the story. A reminder, we are, with a good little asterisk, we are doing the anime only for the arcs. We will...

make a little adjustment to that when we get to the most recent arc because it is half being animated but someone has some news as far as I do yeah as far as your well you do as far as your progress that's right everyone I am officially all the way confident

caught up. I am all the way caught up with the anime and now we are we are one piece dubbers here. I'm sorry. I know you all want to talk sub and but what about the Japanese voice act? No, I have been in the dub. These are my beloved people. And so that's what I'm sticking with. But because I got caught up to the dub, Raggedy luckily sherpaed me forward onto the manga. So I am been digesting that. I

going through all kinds of emotions that I was not expecting. It's been a delight. Yeah. So for, for the last one, we will touch on the manga a bit. Uh, so again, we'll be going in order. Keep that in mind for spoilers for wherever you're at. And with that, I think spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. We have to remind you, we will be talking about spoilers within those arcs when we get there.

Yeah, exactly. So I think we can then jump into our first one, our return to one of your favorite islands. Return to Sabaody. Yeah. Yeah. This was this was good for me. I like this arc in that we get to see our crew again, except for they look a little different. They look Luffy looked a little out of shape.

And Nami? Yeah. It was, I don't know. You change art styles after a break. You know, people have weird looking heads. You know, they, instead of a raccoon, you know, now Chopper is like this fox looking thing. I don't get it. Yeah. What a choice. Yeah.

That was a fun little Oda tease in there for those. I mean, obviously you're here, right? You know, we're talking about the fake crew before we get back to our real boys and girls and everyone in between. But yeah, this is a fun little arc. It's a nice kind of return to...

of the last big defeat that they had, right? It's a nice, you know, the crew's coming back together. It looks... It's like a taste of their powers. I feel like it's not the full scale, but you get to know that they're different and that we're scaling up now. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, this is the first, you know, we joke a bit about the art style, but there is an art style shift that happens. This is your first taste of that.

Um, it's solid, but it doesn't, it doesn't really blow you away. I think a lot of people, if they didn't know this was its own separate arc, wouldn't even register it that way.

Um, that's fair. I, I mean, I love it because when we get to see Zorro returns, he's both one lost, of course, goes to the wrong ship and you see his powers, but I feel like that's obviously such a tiny snippet. Yeah. There's a lot of fun here. Um, you know, watching them beat the pacifistas easily, you know, was, was, was fun. Um,

Um, you know, the little jokes with the meeting up is, you know, when Usopp saves Nami from the guys that are hitting on him, her at the bar, like that's fun. But I would probably keep this in the lower. Yeah. I was thinking C probably below Logtown and above Little Garden for me.

I agree. I think it's a good place for it. You know, the best thing in this arc is One Piece fan letter, which isn't part of it. You know, I wouldn't include that in this per se. That's the best thing that happens from this, which I do think transitions us nicely into our Fishman Island because while One Piece has been on the break it's been on, which is, you know, the...

anime at this point of release has started back up again has been redoing fishman island and have you watched any of it at all i have not i didn't know that they were redoing fishman island is it that they're redrawing reanimating pieces of it or they're giving it the one pace treatment so they like cut out a lot of uh stuff to fix the pacing they they added some animation flourishes it

I haven't watched it episode by episode. I've seen some side-by-side comparison clips. The pacing is clearly better. It's like half the length of the original. It does look a little bit better, but some of it's a little superficial. You see the hockey lightning and stuff like that. It's just almost telling that there's a reason why they decided to pick this one to make a little better because this one had probably the biggest room to make better.

Yeah, I think that was my problem with this one. So knowing that that exists is wonderful. If I'd watched it, I would bump up the arc a little bit higher. But for me, that's the biggest issue is pacing. Some of the characters just aren't hitting for me, even though they're important. You have this is where we're introduced to our mermaids and our mermaid princess specifically. And she is just such a key, important figure. But yeah,

she's such a cry baby and it bothers me. And I get, I get why, but she just gets under my skin, which takes away from that arc actually, because there's so much of her in it. Yeah. And like the villains are not super impressive, right? Like this is, Hody Jones is no, is no Arlong, right? No. And it's, there is this weird kind of thing that does, that I do like in this arc where, you know, Arlong has, um,

like fish man racism because he lived it right. He lived that experience. So you understand now he gives you context for why Arlong is such a dick. Hody Jones did not live that at all, but it gives you that generation, like how that generational hate can kind of seep through, which is a cool thing, a cool theme to, to bring into a show. Um, but probably just needed a stronger character. Yeah.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think if you had an Arlong-like character, the only thing I do give some extra credit for this for is you get more Jinbei. And I love getting more information about him. I think this is the arc where we get his backstory. We get the Fisher-Tiger story. That's what I was thinking. It's like the Fisher-Tiger story where some of the...

divergence went is what I'll call it between the fishermen where people either are okay with people above land or people are racist because they're racist to them first sort of thing. So I think that's, that was good. Yeah, that was good. Um, Luffy, uh, taking the piss out of big mom was great. Um, that was, that's always a, that's always fun. Um,

The other thing that was nice from this was it's the first look at the Red Hawk move. It's the homage to Ace where he punches so fast, his fist lights on fire.

That's true. And the only other good thing I will give credit to Fishman Island is it is the first chance where we, you know, we see them flex for the first time and we, now we actually get to see what they can do. You know, we get to see Chopper has control of his monster form. We get to see how strong Luffy's conquerors hockey, uh, has become. You know, we get to see some of the inventions that Frankie has. We get to see, um, Robin's

Big thighs. I think what's interesting, and you correct me if I'm wrong about this, I remember distinctly...

Zoro, I think, only pulls out two of his swords for this arc. I think. I would need to go back and look, but I like that because that's how much stronger Zoro has gotten. And you realize that when you're like, why is he only using one or two swords? He has three. We've always known him for three, and he just doesn't need it, you know? Yeah, I think...

I want to say he maybe goes to pull out his third sword when he's fighting Hody Jones because he realizes he's completely outclassed underwater and that's why he loses because that's just not a fair fight that he wasn't ready for. But that's the only time I can even maybe think of. Beyond that, yeah, he doesn't. You don't get to see their full strength, right? It's just a taste of it. I would...

I'm still... I'm feeling C tier and probably a low C tier out of Fishman Island. That's good, because I was going to put it in D, so I can agree to a low C. Yeah, I think very bottom of C tier is where it belongs. There's enough there to keep it out of the buggy tier. Yes, yep. Speaking of buggy-like characters, we have Punk Hazard next, and... Caesar Clown. Probably, if I...

I think he's worse than Del Flamingo. I, and that maybe that's what makes him a good villain. I hate Caesar. I hate Caesar so much. Just, uh, he's, he just, he, he's just funny is that that is the problem. It's like, he's so much of a clown that I almost can't take him seriously as a villain. Um,

But then he does seriously villainous stuff. So you're like disgusted by him. Oh yeah. No, no, no. But then he is funny. So you're like, he kind of exists on this plane of, I don't know, uncomfortableness. Like he makes me uncomfortable. Yeah. And I'll touch on this later. There is something that, that we kind of come back to with Caesar clown later in the story that I do like, but this is,

This is a setup arc, right? And one of the things with setup arcs is there's a lot that they can do, but there's a lot that requires the payoff to really... It's like kind of the Water 7 Ennis Lobby effect, so to speak. Yes. So while there's really cool stuff here, like everything with Law is great. Yeah. The body swap is amazing. I love the body swap scenes. Yeah.

the only thing I wish they did in the body swap scenes is they changed the voices in the anime where it's like, they have Frankie's voice coming out of, uh, chopper's body. I would have much rather than have the voice actors try to pretend to be the other people kind of, kind of like face off, right? Where it's Nicholas cage pretending to be John Travolta, who's pretending to be like, I wish they did that. It would have been so much better.

If anyone has seen what we do in the shadows, there is an episode where one of the characters does this, where they have to pretend to be each of the other vampires. And it's chef's kiss amazing, because it just allows the actors to also have fun. I agree with you. I think they should have let the voice that let them have fun.

Just embrace it. Try and see what you can do. Try to do a Frankie super. But the actual, it was still very funny. The setting of Punk Hazard is great. It's fun.

It's creative. It predicted the future. It predicted what the United States was at the end of 2024 between the fires and freezing over. So fair. He's so good at foreshadowing. He can foreshadow reality. We have one of my favorite moments that I had to actually go to Raggedy to ask, is Oda okay or is this unhinged? It's a specific scene at the end of Punk Hazard where

They're having a very tearful moment saying goodbye to the children. It's supposed to be heart-wrenching. And for some reason, Nami holds out a piece of meat and it just drifts into shot. Luffy eats it out of nowhere. And like, it just, it feels unhinged. And I still to this day don't know why it's in there, but I secretly love it. And Sanji just looks like appalled at both of them. But I just...

What is this unhinged moment where you're supposed to be like, they're saying goodbye. It's really heartbreaking. And like, they're going to get better. And thank you for everything, Luffy. We believe in pirates. And he's just eating meat. He could give two shits about these kids. Yeah, it sounds about right. And speaking of the kids, the kids were, they were important to the plot, but so annoying if we want to talk about another thing. But that's just because it felt like they were,

Oda loves to split up the party. He does not follow D&D rules. He loves splitting up the party and putting them places every time. And I felt like he didn't know what to do with Nami and Chopper. And I think Chopper had an important role, but like Nami's just babysitting the whole time. Nami's role is your role to just be disgusted at Caesar Cloud. Yeah, I guess that's true.

And, you know, we do get, this is the first time we also see the SAD production, the S-A-D production. Which is pardoned. Which we'll come back to. You know, again, hints drop that stuff for later. It's a, there's some, there's a lot of fun stuff here. But again, this is the problem. The biggest problem with a lot of the post time skip arcs is they do tend to slog a bit.

especially if it's an arc that's not firing on all cylinders, that's a setup type arc like this, you feel it more. This, to me, feels like an upper C tier. Really? Yeah. Oh, man, I didn't like this one at all. I actually would put this under Return to Sabaody if I had to put it anywhere. See, I'm a biased law fanboy.

Law is great. And I do love that he, okay, I'm willing to secede on this because the moments Law has where he is like trying to get Luffy to follow the plan and can't.

if you go online, you're going to see memes everywhere if you haven't already. But just how unhinged Luffy is when he doesn't follow Law's very well and constructive plan. I think the best part about that too is like when he, they come to their alliance and, you know, the entire Straw Hats are like, you have no idea what you just agreed to. And he's like, nope. But I also think that it's cute that Law also has like

sort of a a love of chopper whether it's out of the doctoring but when he's bringing chopper along it looks like a little chopper keychain onto the back of his sword and the fact that uh law's first mate um it just makes me so happy that we have like this cute animal continuation for him

All right. And speaking of continuations, Punk Hazard, they pick up, you know, the Wano boys, Momonosuke and Kinemon. That's right. And they do bring them to their next destination, which is Dressrosa. Oof. Okay. This one is, this is the one that I feel like breaks people or you make it or break it sometimes. This is very, this might be the most divisive arc ever.

I think in, in one piece amongst the fans, because again, there's a lot of really good stuff in here, but this is probably the worst paced. The worst paced arc is coming up and I will, I will get into that when we get to it, but this is the second, then worst paced arc in all of one piece. Okay. You're going to have to convince me because this is, this one was really,

Oh, yeah. No, no. Oh, it's bad. We'll get to the worst when we get to it. This is a slog for me. And people consider this the worst, which I get, but I will have my arguments. We'll get to it. Specifically the tournament. We can't go without talking about the tournament. That was the biggest slog. Did it have the best payoff? No.

Probably because I get Sabo back in that reunion. My brother! That brought tears to my eyes. It was a really, really... Luffy needed a win after the loss of Ace. And I feel like that just... It was really well executed. Yeah. You also have him gaining Ace's fruit, which it just feels...

Kismet would be maybe it. I don't know. It just feels right. It feels like home. Yeah. No, exactly. So the tournament, we, when we talked about this, when we did the tournament, uh, breakdowns, right? This is, uh,

The most important piece of the tournament is introducing characters that are going to be relevant later in the arc, right? That's where we get Cavendish and Bartolomeo. I love Bartolomeo. He is so fucking funny. We get Harjuin, the giant. We get all these people that are going to make up the Straw Hat Grand Fleet at the end of the story, which is, again, a very important moment in the story. Mm-hmm.

Doe Flamingo is a great villain. Yes. Maybe not my favorite villain, but a great villain.

Dressrosa is what would have happened if Crocodile won in Alabasta. Yes. Yes. You explained this to me and I 100% agree. And then we got all the stuff with the Celestial Dragons. We get Gear 4, which is a super cool reveal, which we knew was coming, right? At some point, it's like there's Gear 2 and 3 coming.

There's going to be another one, right? Like it's going to happen at some point. The noise of gear four, by the way, still is just remarkable. It wasn't what I expected, but it is exactly what it needed to be. It's my text ringtone, actually. When I get text messages, that's the noise it makes. Exactly.

So for those who, for some reason, don't remember, don't listen, it basically sounds like to me a kickball getting bounced on a, it reminds me of childhood, like a kickball getting bounced on like a four square or like out. Oh yeah. I can't even, I couldn't even possibly do the noise with my mouth hole. Um, the other thing that we get with, um, pacing issue aside, um, in the Doflamingo fight is you get Law versus Doflamingo and Luffy, um,

And I think this is when we first hear about awakening, right? Isn't this when Doflamingo awakens? And like, it's kind of this S tier superpower. I feel like it's like beyond like Lufia's gears. Don't get me wrong, but like awakening is greater than that. Yeah. Oh, significantly greater than that. It's, you know,

I think the only thing with Doflamingo that I didn't really like was the birdcage, because that was, again, pacing issue stuff. But him as a villain, the awakening, what he stands for, what he was driven to, his kind of weird insanity and his god complex makes for a fascinating villain. I think the other thing to touch on, too, is this arc has a lot of really funny moments. It has some of the funniest moments, obviously.

that I can remember, you know, it has the, um, it has mostly with Usopp, like it has him scaring, uh, uh, sugar with his like stupid face once on accident. And then once intentionally, which is great. Yeah.

And then I love the God Usopp reveal is probably my favorite joke in all of One Piece. Five stars. They spend an entire episode. They dedicate a whole episode to the lead up to the punchline of...

of like, we, I have now created the birdcage. You're going to all have to kill each other to survive. And like, it's ranking all of the different people and saying, who's the most dangerous. And like, I can't remember how many stars everyone gets, but it, you know, this guy gets one star and like, uh, um, you know, Luffy's got three stars and blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, and then the number one greatest threat, the number five star threat, God, Usopp. And it's, I, I,

It's one of those things where it's like they spent the whole episode to build that punchline and it just makes it so funny.

It was great. This is also our arc, right? And you'll keep me honest. This is Law's backstory arc. Oh, yes. This is. And I will say for as much as I do not like Dressrosa, probably one of my least favorite arcs because of the tournament, because the Del Flamingo fight takes forever. One of its biggest redeeming qualities is that Law backstory is

is so beautiful and it just explains not just about his character, but why he leads the heart pirates. Oh, it's everything. It's the heart pirates. It, it, it fills in the name stuff that it's one of those beautiful things, right? Where you don't explain it, you just show it. Right. So the heart pirates. Yeah, it makes sense. But then you like start to remember to the, uh,

the other leaders for the Doflamingo pirates. It's Diamante, it's Treble, it's Pika, who's got like a spade. Oh, it's like a card theme thing. And then you remember that Doflamingo's underground name is Joker. Like there's all the, like it's stuff like that, that like isn't explained, but just makes perfect sense when you think about it. I think this arc gets more hate than it deserves because

Okay. I do agree with the criticisms. This is not an S tier arc by any means. I think it should level somewhere in B tier is where I think it should end up. Really? Okay.

Okay, do you like it better? Because I genuinely think it's an A-tier arc that has pacing issues. And I know I'm validating your criticisms. I am. So I do think it belongs in B-tier, but I am very willing to concede where in B-tier we put it. Can we put it near the bottom? We can certainly put it near the bottom. I think...

I mean, I obviously like, is that Arlong Park that's in? Yeah, right there. I think either- Whiskey, between Whiskey Peak and Romance Dawn. Yeah, that's it. Yep, let's do that. I think that's a good spot for it. I think that's, that feels satisfying to me. I can agree solely because again, La's backstory is- It's so good. Oof. It's-

I think I cried as one final thing to touch on. Yes. Do we get laws full name? Oh, you mean Trafalgar D water law? Yes, we do. I, I want to be careful. Yeah. Power of D is, it is a mystery and it is, it is coming in now and you're starting to see more and more characters have this middle initial of just D. Yeah.

Just the D. Of course we, yep. Of course we have to make, make a joke about like, they got the D. It's funny. Um, I'll try the, before we move on to anything, uh, we see the new Admiral, uh, as well. Oh, we do. Oh my God. We do. Fuji Tora is in this arc. He's great. He's great. Uh, we get a little bit of the, um,

the revolutionaries because Sabo is a part of the revolutionaries. Right. Right. So you see Koala who was part back from the flashback from Fisher tie. Like there's some good stuff here. I think, I think I've justified bumping it up a little bit higher than where, where we started. But with that, let's move on, uh, to the kinkiest arc. Maybe this is where we get the furries. Uh, we're going to Zao. Oh, Zao. Oh man. Um,

The most interesting part of Zhao is the island itself. The island being a living island, in my opinion. I thought that was so creative. It's super creative. And I like that. A few other things I do like, because I want to get, I think there's more criticisms to be had than...

than benefits here. Cause again, this is another setup arc. So there's a lot of groundwork being laid. So there's some cool stuff, right? The Poneglyph, learning about the red Poneglyph and, um, getting introduced to the, to Kaido's crew. Um, but those are like, you know, they're, they're, it's world building stuff. It's not like that, uh,

great. I don't want to say it's like a, you're laying groundwork. Sometimes it's not enough to just say like, Oh, that makes it amazing. Cause it laid all this groundwork, you know, they have to do some extra stuff, but there are a few good, really good things that they do here. One is the reveal of the, um, of the minks and like what they are. That's like a cool kind of world building thing. The stuff with Rizo, I really liked.

Not only is he, like, a funny, silly character, but just how, again, it's this buildup of Raizo isn't here, they attacked us, they did all these horrible things to us, and, like, the secret that they keep. And then the second they realize that it's their comrades who are with the Straw Hats, it breaks down. It's like, oh, yeah, Raizo's safe. He's obviously been... It's like that moment is a really good moment. Yeah. Yeah. I...

It's not enough to carry the arc to like, you know, a great grade, but I do think it's worth pointing out the things it does right. I think you're right. Yes. Yes. I think it's just, to your point, there's nothing like that I want to be hypercritical of because it sets everything up well enough that I guess I'm not...

I'm not too mad. It's a workman arc, right? It's kind of like, it's like your romance dawn, your whiskey peak. Like there's some cool stuff that happens. There's like a moment or two you can point out and be like, oh, that was a cool moment from that arc. That's like the thing I remember about that arc. But it's not, like when you think One Piece, like this is not the first arc that jumps to your mind. No, the thing that I remember from this arc, as I said, is Big Elephant Island that is

has some importance because is it Momonosuke during this arc? I think he can hear the elephant. Yes. But also, but also our captain can't, I don't think he can understand it, but he can hear it, which is important. No, he, they, it's. Can they both hear it? They can both hear it, but Momonosuke can talk back to. That's it. Thank you. Yes. And,

And, you know, we didn't mention this from Fishman Island. The first time it comes up is during Fishman Island where Luffy can hear the Sea Kings. So it did come up before. And this is now more of like it's now more of a thing.

And we also learned that two other people could hear the elephant, Zunesha. It was Roger and it was Odin, Momonosuke's father, which is where we get the reveal of the Kozuki clan and all that stuff too. And we learned that Kinemon is not in fact Momonosuke's dad. Which I thought was a nice reveal because I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, again, so there's some solid stuff here. But I think...

This is, do we go C tier or B tier? That's where I'm, I'm not really sure. I feel like, I feel like high C. So like before Punk Hazard, I could. Above Punk Hazard? Yeah, yeah. And I think above. Yeah. I think there's like, if you told me like you have to, you have to pick one of these ones to watch. I might watch the, might watch Zo more. Yeah. All right. Now let's get back to that good shit. Let's get back to that, to that. Hold on. I'm just going to see if I can get this on the, the, uh.

right in my veins. Give me that good shit. We're going to Whole Cake. I love Whole Cake for so many reasons, but I have to talk about the one that's so stupid. The amount of like adorable Nami outfits we get. I love it so much. I love how many Nami outfits we get in this arc. There are quite a number of them. They're all good. Though my favorite outfit was probably the one from Zhao.

That was a nice one. That was classy. That was classy. Though that was the, oh, Oda married a woman whose job it is to cosplay this character. And clearly that was some kind of, yeah, inspiration for the Zalop. But it's...

Very luxurious, we'll say. But yes, no, she gets a lot of, a lot of cool. Again, another great thing about one piece is long journey, long adventure story. They, they get to change outfits, which is kind of cool. And we do see that a lot in whole cake. The big, the big thing for whole cake though, there's a lot of big things, but the one that immediately stands out is the double super secret extra backstory for our boy Sanji.

I can't believe it. I also on the Discord kept saying, man...

They call him Prince. That was his code name all the way back in the beginning. He's got a strange wanted poster. Why is he wanted alive? Like there were things that just weren't adding up. And so I had this tinfoil hat theory. I was like, I think he's secretly the prince of an island somewhere. I don't know what. Did he run away? I don't know. Was he kidnapped by the chef pirate? I think that was my running theories. Maybe he was kidnapped by that pirate.

And it turns out he is a prince. Not of what I thought, but of a... Of the Nazis? Thank you. Okay. I was like, how would you politely explain his family? They are Power Ranger Nazis. And they don't have, if I'm not mistaken, they don't actually have like an island. They just have a fleet of moving ships, but they're still royalty. Yeah.

Yeah, they're kind of like how Wapol is like royalty in exile, so to speak, kind of thing. I mean, their whole country is boats and clones. So, you know.

Science for you guys. Science. I mean, we get Judge. We get Sanji's dad, the biggest asshole probably in all of One Piece. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of would be difficult to beat him. And I'm even thinking of other dads that I know of in the One Piece world. They all suck. Honestly, let's be real. We have Dragon. Dragon sucks. Roger's not great.

Let's be real. No. Judge is terrible. We'll get to another character later who's a terrible dad that's a villain. Just like bad dads. Yasop? Wait, I'm sorry. Yasop? Fuck that guy. Okay.

Didn't even come back to like see his wife and kid. I think like was, I think the running joke is like, he's hanging out with some other little boy, AKA Luffy for like a good long while. We'll even go see his own fricking kid. I mean, Usopp has the, if I go to that Island, I'll die disease. I swear Yasup has, if I see my son, I'll die disease. Oh my God. Yeah. But,

But off topic, back to- Yeah, no. Oda's a big fan of found family. We know this. We know this for everyone. Which, great transition back to the biggest family in One Piece, the Big Mom Pirates, right? We finally get Big Mama. Oh, the laughs. The laughs are so good. Big Mom is, she might be one of the scariest villains in One Piece, honestly, because she

She's just a hurricane. Yeah. She's just a natural disaster. Basically. Like she's her backstory where you find out that she, um, the reason why she's kind of a hurricane is, you know, very tragic backstory. And then you learn she may or may not have eaten people, which is she definitely ate those people. I'm like, I'm not going to be quiet about it. She ate those people.

She is a cannibal and it's, yep. But because in an interesting sort of way, because she ate those people, that's how she gained her devil fruit power. Cause one of the other characters had it. Her super overpowered devil fruit.

Yeah. What? And that's that would be if we want to talk a little little pieces of criticism. That's probably my biggest criticism is her devil fruit doesn't appear to have any checks and balances until, in my opinion, until we get to gym bay. Then we have the biggest, baddest boss moment in a long while. I was.

I think I replayed that moment a few times and Raggedy, you're going to do it justice. Cause I, I know, you know, the line of what he does. Yeah. Oh yeah. She, you know, cause it's the, it's the, uh, life or it's, it depends on if it's like dub sub man, whatever. But like the way she says it, you'd say it's, you know, giving up a piece of your soul or for you, you're risking up a piece of your soul. And if you're afraid of her, uh,

Right. You you lose that piece of your soul. You lose that piece of your life. And she starts this power process. And Jim just like stares at her cold stare. And everyone's like, what? I don't understand. Why isn't it working? Isn't he isn't he afraid of Big Mom? And Jim just just goes wild.

I'm going to be part of the king of the pirates crew. What do I have to fear from a mere emperor? And it's just mic drop, sake cup gets thrown away. It's so cool. And yeah, that it was the socket cup along with it. Like my captain is going to be king of the pirates. What do I have to fear from you? And it's just, just with thrown sake cup just shivers because it's,

He has... And this is where Jim Bay is like... He's on board. He has been trying to figure out a way to get out of this Big Mama contract so he can go beaut the Straw Hats. That's his captain. He knows it. We all know it. He had to take care of this. He might have a few things down the line, but it's just...

Oh, heart racing sake moments like because that's what you do. You share sake to be like, yep, we're part of your crew now. We're part of your line. So to throw it back is essentially like, yeah, you are. You're done. It is so good. I mean, there's that there's the fight with Katakuri. If we want to talk about that. It was a long one. We talk about pacing again. That one was maybe a titch long.

But the ending was worth it. That was a very satisfying ending. It's a very satisfying ending. We do get one of our deaths in one piece, too. Pedro. Pedro dies. Which, again, if we want to talk about the criticism, the fact that I didn't even realize he died until like...

through Wano just being like, oh, like he's definitely not. You didn't? Oh. It's like, it just doesn't. It is. It doesn't hit as much. Yeah.

I mean, you go, what, 400, 500 episodes and your first death is Ace Whitebeard. And then you go another 300 chapters, 300 episodes and your next death is Pedro. And it's like kind of off screen and they don't linger on it. And you're like, ah, typical Shonen. He'll be back. And you're like, when's Pedro coming back? Where's Pedro? That's true. That's true. I'm trying to think what else. So we get the Sulong form, which is pretty cool. It gets a nice moment to shine. Yeah.

Which I think what is nice about that is you then realize, oh, any one of the animals can do that form. You just need the full moon. Yes. The thing that makes it more impressive is whether or not they control it, right? Because you have... You're right. Because she can control it for a little bit. We get...

Oh my goodness. Peckham's can't really control his Sulong form. He just goes kind of like rage mode. So that gives a little more flavor to it. I want to say the other cool power up is obviously the other gear four, the other two gear fours, right? There's Tankman, which is a joke when he gets all fat, but then there's Snakeman.

Which is the other form where he's the skinnier version of Gear 4, which is what he uses to beat Katakuri. Which, again, it's interesting, right? Because you're used to him going Gear 2, Gear 3. You hear Gear 4 Bounce Man, and you just think that's the name for Gear 4, not realizing, oh, there's an alternate Gear 4 form that he has. Yeah.

And this was the fight too, if I remember, because he obviously went through a few iterations of this fight. But this is where he learns to channel the hockey he's not good at, which I thought was good. I think this is where he has to have better observational hockey. Yes, because Katakuri is so good at it, he can even see into the future.

Yes. And so I really liked that for Luffy, because as we said, one of the things Oda does for you is he absolutely will show Luffy winning, but he's not afraid to show Luffy losing or losing.

And I think that's important because he isn't good at it. The one who I always think of who's good at it is, I think Kobe is the one who has like an innate ability is what I should say. Kobe, Kobe has like super observation hockey. The other thing with that too is like, this is the first time you're given a villain for Luffy or a first time in a while of someone that he is basically just Luffy, but better, right? Katakuri is like the mochi mochi fruit is Luffy.

the gum gum fruit, but better. He has the same hockey abilities, but a little bit better. So this is no longer, he can't cheese it, right? He can't just overpower them. He has to actually like grow. So it's a really solid fight. He gets knocked down a few too many times to get back up from my liking. If we're being honest within the same time span, uh, I think some of that's again, some of the pacing issues that first fight with crackers, not as good. Um,

The fight with Sanji is probably the highlight fight, actually. When Sanji is just beating up on him and he's like, I may be beaten and bruised, but you're the one who's hurting and you just see him crying. I think we could put this low A. What do you think? I'm going to say actually high A.

Okay, I could. I think there's a lot more stuff. Because you also get a little more Poneglyph stuff. Pudding is a great addition. I ship Pudding and Sanji. That's a great- I know you do. It's a great pairing. She grew on me, but still not my favorite. No, not my favorite. But I think it's, I just like, would you put it here? I feel like there. Between Wars 7 and Impel Down? I think that's a good spot for it. Yeah, that's a good one. Okay. Okay.

This is my hill to die on. The revelry arc is the worst paced arc in the anime. I forgot. I forgot all about this because you had me watch it, I think, in a particular order, or I think I even read most of it because it's just better that way. They took six chapters and six of the coolest chapters in one piece.

where it's the craziest reveal of the empty throne followed by, no, no, there is one dude who actually rules the fucking planet. And they stretched that shit out to 20 fucking episodes. Are you kidding me? Who the fuck is that? Yeah.

Yeah, the best part of this is we get to see Vivi again and we get to see a bunch of other characters that we like, a bunch of other royalty that we like because they're all getting together. But you're right, like you finally get some meat. And God, I'm so glad you had me move this around. I am.

I am inventing a new tier on our list as we speak. It's below Buggy D tier. This is the fuck you Toei F tier. Okay, I can agree to this. And I think what's shocking is I was so convinced. I was like, no, no, Dress Rosa is the poorest timing. And then I saw this come up and I was like, I forgot this even existed because I absorbed what you told me to absorb. And I put this out of my mind because it was just so...

It's so bad. And it's, just read the chapters. I can't read. So just do it for me. Go read the chapters. It makes, it warms my soul. Don't watch this. It's so bad. It's so bad. We've got, we've got, uh, we got a chunk, some chunkier arcs, right? Oh yeah. Next. We have, uh, we have Wano. We do have Wano. And Wano.

I'm going to just take a deep breath because Wano is the by far longest arc. It is where a lot of, here's the thing that I think Wano does well for itself that Dressrosa kind of doesn't, is that by giving us Onigashima as the back half, right? And separating the story into the acts, right? Act one, act two, and act three, it,

makes it its own kind of separation that gives you breaks between them. So it doesn't, even though it is very long and has some of the pacing issues that we have been talking about, it breaks it up in a better way. Yeah, I agree. I think this has some pacing issues because it is so long. However, you can go through it. This was the...

One of the biggest glow ups I have seen out of honestly any anime. There is a true love letter to Japan folded into this between the dedication to the cultural touchstones. A lot of the devil fruits have Japanese...

Japanese roots. There's yokai and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I really love this. This has, I think my favorite episode of one piece ever. It is. And I'm laughing cause Riggity's pulling it up right now. I'm pretty sure. And say it with me now. Yeah.

Okay. Well, now I need to make sure I got the episode right. Oh, you already had the right number? Oh, God. I'm pretty sure one, zero. Hold on. Let me just hum this through. Yeah. No, it's the queen, the goat herself. Megumi Ishitani's best episode, One Piece's best episode, it is episode 1015. Okay.

So I cried. I finished this episode and I turned it off because I needed to just fully absorb it. This is cinema in 20-ish minutes. Man, the dedication. Real quick, just to touch on it because it's an important character who's in this. I love Wano for giving me Yamato. I did not think that I would like him. I...

I didn't think I would hate him. I'm sorry, but don't you mean Kozuki Odin? You're right. I'm so sorry. This arc is the new Kozuki Odin. And the old Kozuki Odin. Yeah, both of them. It's amazing. Yamato is such a complicated character and I am just very impressed by Oda. Raggedy and I talked about if you're looking for an anime that does representation well, um,

Yamamoto was born a woman, identifies as Odin, goes by he, him pronouns, and that's it. That's it. I think Yamato's pronouns are Kozuki slash Odin. To be honest, yeah. And I just really loved this character. They are just an absolute delight. I think the funniest part about Yamato's personality

identity is that, uh, it's actually Kaido cause Kaido is a fucking monster. He is like one of the most vile like villains. Favorite villain. Favorite villain probably. Oh, except for Blackbeard. Second favorite villain. So, but yeah, he's like one of the most vile villains in the show. Right. But even Kaido respects his son's gender identity. Yeah.

Yeah, he's just like, yeah, that's my son. That's it. Now, does he then treat his son like absolute crap? Because bad dads, am I right? Am I right, everyone? Yeah, no, he commits physical abuse, not emotional abuse. Come on. Grow up, everyone. Yeah, but going back to this episode, episode 1015, you have Yamato...

And specifically the scene I'm thinking of is he's reading the, I think it's the diary of Odin. And he has this vision that divides and you see the past pirates of like the glorious generation is what I'll call them. And you see obviously Luffy and Sabo and Ace, and you just get this really beautiful dichotomy with colors. And I, I'm going to get emotional just thinking about it, but it's, it's,

The realization Yamato comes to of like, oh my God, Luffy's going to do it. He's going to be king of the pirates is the same we get to feel. Oh yeah. And it's the, we get the dream. Well, we don't get the dream, but we, we, we get that the, we do get the definition that Roger and Luffy have the same dream. Yeah. It doesn't stop there too. Cause the whole episode from start to finish is beautifully animated and

even we get, you know, we got up to the rooftop and we have like Luffy, like walking past big mom and kind of ignoring them to, to see his friend, Kinemon. And Kinemon is just like, it's almost like that Nami moment from Arlong park where it's like, please just, I couldn't do it. I need you to help me. And he just kicks into high gear and just beats the crap out of them. It's such a well animated part of the fight. Um,

It's one of the best episodes. I mean, I know we start, I start this podcast every time saying that Kino is overrated. I'm going to add that. This is Kino. This is the definition of Kino. This is such an, that particular episode is amazing, but I, I gotta say, I love this arc. Like looking back on it, Kaido is a fantastic villain. He's what I'm looking for.

We haven't mentioned it, but I think, I think to make sure we have time to talk about it, we finally get it. I do hear that. Do you hear the drums? There, there are drums, the drums of liberation and the rhythm. It feels so good that Luffy goes to gear five and Oh, mind blown. Sorry. No words. Mind blown. Just, I wasn't, I had been spoiled that there was another gear and

Didn't know what it was. Didn't know when we'd get it. When we got it. Just, again, no notes. It was wonderful. It was a fantastic episode. They brought over a Looney Tunes animator to help with the animation for Gear 5 because it is just pure Looney Tunes. It's done so well. And even explains... And again, one of the things Oda does best is where he gives you a new reveal and it explains something that you kind of just...

put in the back of your head and didn't really register, right? Like how Luffy gets magically healed by eating meat because he just does like, ah, whatever. Ha ha funny shonen cartoon. But it's like, oh no, it's because his power this entire time has not been that he's a rubber boy, but it's been that he essentially has the power of freedom to do whatever the fuck he thinks he wants. Right. It's such an amazing devil fruit reveal to your point that he gets to do whatever he wants and,

And then you think that was supposed to be Shanks' fruit. He was holding it so it makes you rethink and almost...

It's a brilliant moment of like, this is his actual devil fruit power. And you want to go back and reread and be like, wait, wait, what did I miss? How did I miss all of this? And it's always been there. Yep. It's always been there. What tops it too is that you still have the point where Kaido says, it doesn't matter how strong your fruit is. You still have to be the strongest, right? So it doesn't, it's a way to make, give us this cool power moment without cheapening the work that

Luffy puts in. Right? So it gives you both. The Onigashima stands above the rest of Wano as the best parts of it, the best animated parts of it. The Sanji-Queen fight where Sanji gets his DNA activated. When we finally see Zoro really finally get tested and pushed for the first time since the first half of the series against King and we learn about the Lunarians and

I mean, there's just so much good stuff that happens. Don't forget about Nico Robin. That was another bone chilling moment. Our little demon that is willing to essentially take on the evil and be the sin for her captain. Oh, it's great. There's, you know, the Odin backstory. The Odin flashback is so good.

His backstory, getting to learn more about the Roger pirates, watching Roger and Whitebeard fight was like an internet breaking moment for a while. I'll never forget when Odin's in his journal, it's like, and on that day when we said goodbye, not a single tear was shed because we were manly pirates and they're all just like bawling like babies. So good. It's such a silly thing because we all know Nami is my favorite pirate.

I will say Nami's moment for her, her fight, just when she's being told, I'm going to, I'm going to headbutt you until you like, you are unconscious. You know, I'm going to kill you unless you like renounce your captain and you have her kind of coming to this moment of like, no, this is my captain. And like, I'll always stand like by my captain and he's going to be king of the pirates. It's, it's amazing. The worst part about this arc is that we don't get Yamato joining the crew.

You know, I understood it. I think the second worst part of this is Momonosuke needing to come into his own took a long time. Yep, that's the pacing problems. But hey, he got there. He got there. He's now a 12-year-old in a 20-year-old body. Something like that. And he's a big pink dragon. Big, big, pink dragon. He's a big pink dragon. Yeah. Oh, I almost even forgot. Lawn kid, too. Yeah.

We're also great. There's just so much going on. They took down Big Mama. Like, come on. Like, that's... Luffy didn't do that last arc. I mean, Luffy takes down Kaido, which is just so good. So good. Okay. All right. The question becomes...

Where does it belong? Okay, for those who don't know, we are fighting over does it belong before or after Rainfort? Is this our number one or our number two? Honestly.

Oh, man. I think it's our number one, but that's because I have recency bias. I just watched it. It has my favorite episode in it. I don't know. I think Marineford's a little too tight of a narrative. Okay. I will give it. It's a little too bloated, but this is still S tier. But just know if we could clip out.

without that episode to you, Reagan and I, like, Oh yeah. You talked about the one piece fan letter straight to the top, straight. I mean, listen, straight to the top. Ishitani don't miss. If, if she could give us more, I think all three, all three of her episodes are in Wano, man. She, her episodes are like crack to me. Just so good. Okay. I think we have time. I want to, I will,

I want to get to this. Just a little touch. Good. I want to get to it because you're caught up. We have to do it. It's egghead. Okay. And are we talking only anime dubbed episodes? No. We're going to spoil it all because there is... I know there's a lot, but it's just... This is for the manga readers. Please, if you've seen the anime, just...

You're good. You know, you're good. Go away for a little bit or, you know, come, come back to another episode. So we'll get into it. I think once this gets animated, this will be number one. You think? I think. It is. It does have some hype moments. Yeah.

I think once the, it's not there, it's not animated yet. Once it's animated, I, I would argue this is going to be number one. We get so much in this arc. We get Vegapunk revealed. We get the rematch of, uh, Luffy versus Luchi, which was awesome. Um,

We get the galaxy impact from Garp, which was again, an internet breaking moment. Even Shanks versus, um, Shanks versus, uh, kid and Blackbeard versus law were such good episodes. And that's just like the little, like the little tasty tidbits to start the arc. There's so much more coming to be animated. Oh my God. You get your funny moments. Like,

When Zoro and Luffy have to free the CP0 folks from their cuffs and they just have the most disgusted faces ever. So like Oda still has humor in there. Galaxy Impact. I had not seen this, but you did send me over because it has already been animated. And that had such a heavier meaning, not just because it was just hype. It's just an amazing shonen moment. Yeah.

But it is Garp saying, "Kobe is the future of the Navy." And you feel it. And I still don't know. And you can hear my voice shaking. I don't know if Garp's alive at the end of this.

I don't know. Garp is too important of a character to be killed off screen. I'm going to definitively say he's not dead. That being said, this is definitely our setup for Ace 2.0 and that is scary.

Yeah. He currently has a, he's got his own donut shaped hole in his chest currently going, rocking. Aokiji matching what, or Kuzan now, because he's no longer an Admiral, matching what Sakazuki did. Yeah.

But as far as what's coming up, the elders, the elders. Oh, my God. That is going to destroy the Internet. Yep. Yep. Okay. So this has not been animated yet. We talked about a little bit of our top moments. We want to see the elders. Yeah.

get animated well. It's going, if it's animated, if it's animated half as well as what's been happening, which it's only, I mean, they have stepped up their game so much for egghead on an animation level. Like even the down moments are better animated than the previous down moments have been.

I want to see Vegapunk's message, which is interesting. You'd think I'd want to see something like fighting shown and animated. The jaw dropping moment for me is when I get the lore drop that the void century was during a time when one of the ancient weapons was used and all of the seas came up and that was back during Joy. But you get

Vegapunk's message to the world. You get information on Joy Boy. You get information on maybe the Wheel of D being super important. But who knows? Because he went to the robot carrying the message, went down to the ocean for a little bit. So you didn't quite get all of that. You get information about the sea and the warning. And I feel like this is such a mess.

Oda moment that he's trying to reach out to the audience and shake them and be like, this isn't just happening in one piece. This is in your own world. Climate change is real. Pay attention. And I just, oh, it was just a very surreal moment. And, you know, regardless of how you feel, like when you read that chapter, you're just like, oh, scary. Yeah.

But I mean, to bring it back to the elders, I don't want to skip over that. No, no. Sorry. I just know. Yeah. Fully, fully warranted. But oh, my God. To see because these guys, you know, you meet them early on the series. Like they're old men. They're old men. Just going to be old men. Old, old, sassy men. I thought they were going to have nothing, nothing to do.

And then, oh no, they are the strongest and they are immortal and what the fuck? They are these weird monsters that...

By the way, we don't even know what their powers are because usually when you get the, oh, you know, such and such person ate the such and such fruit. That doesn't, it's not what the box says. The box doesn't say that. I know I can't read, so I may have missed it, but I'm pretty sure that that box does not say blank, blank fruit. It just says what the monster name is. So what, what are they? What the fuck are they? Please, someone tell me.

And on top of it, this was a moment that I want to see. You have Emu being disappointed in one of the elders. So what does he do? Strips him of that power. Whatever it is, it's something granted by the king of our planet in One Piece World. And gives it to...

someone else who who is it raggedy you're the one who told me about this lineage so i want you to tell our audience it's daddy it's daddy's daddy because this is figgerland garling who uh

is not technically proven yet, but is very clearly Shanks' dad. I mean, you look at the God Valley flashback, which we get the God Valley flashback, and I mean, Big Mom was hot. That was crazy, right? The rest of God Valley was interesting too, but man, Big Mom was hot.

That's what you're focused on? Not the fact that we finally know what happened in God Valley? I have been waiting to figure this shit out. And it feels like when a conspiracy theory comes out and it is not what I expected at all.

Ah, yes. But we do see Figaro and Garland during that flashback. I mean, that man is Shanks. He's just Shanks. But to prove it right, if you have seen one piece film read when the five elders think that Uta is Shanks' daughter, they go, oh, Uta is one of the Fingerlands.

Telling you that Shanks is related to this family. And then when you get Figgerland, Garling reveals it's an obvious connection that they are related somehow, most likely father-son, especially because Shanks was found as a baby in a treasure chest on God Valley.

Oh my God. I totally forgot. Didn't Shinx go and see the elders too at some point? So that would explain like how he was able to see them way, way, way, way, way, way back. Oh, I need to get on my conspiracy board. Oh, for, for the, the true manga readers amongst us, we said M was caught up. M has not started Elbaf yet. So I'm going to keep my mouth shut on that comment. Oh my heart. Oh no.

I don't know if I can take it tonight. But yes, the scene you were referencing does indeed happen. And I'll just leave it at that. But I think the big star of the Egghead arc has to be Kuma. We were talking about some bad dads. Can Kuma be my dad? Yeah. If those have missed it...

Raggedy has a daughter. I also have a daughter. The Kuma and Bonnie chapters, I think we were, I think everyone is a mess who doesn't have a heart. I, because this was so emotional, I told and warned my husband, just like be prepared for the full backstory. You should just, just be prepared for it. That's all I'm saying. Cause like you, it's been sprinkled in the anime, you know, like, Oh, he tragic, you know,

I think, I think they have gotten to like, he's a buccaneer and, and things like that. And oh, so sad, but like his full story and everything around Bonnie. It's, and when, when that is put to screen, I will cry uncontrollably. There's, there's no question. It's just so sad, but it's, it's so well written. It's so well done. It's so good. And I,

I think this is, you know, they're fixing a lot of the pacing issues with how they're doing things. They're taking breaks. They're upping the animation. I think Egghead's going to be it. I think it's going to be number one. I originally was ho-humming this, but I think let's predict it because if that five elder moment where all of them come down to fight...

that's going to be a hype. That's going to break everything. This is Shonen Showdown. We're calling our shot. Egghead will be the number one arc in all of One Piece. Yeah. Until Elbaf gets finished. He's just going to do it again. He's a madman.

I can't wait to start reading that. Um, I had to take a break cause otherwise I was not going to be able to sleep at night cause I was just going to be thinking about it too much, but I'll likely be getting on that. Oh man. That's a, well, this was a, this was fun. This was a grand old time. I think, I think we've, we've, we've waxed beyond poetic. We've skipped, I'm sure a bunch of stuff. Um,

Because there's just way too much to talk about. Instead of listening to us talk about One Piece, just go watch it. What are you doing? Go watch One Piece. And hopefully we can get our tier list screenshotted for you or put onto the Discord for you for later. So that way you can take a look and tell us what we got wrong. If there's any of these arcs you'd like us to revisit or any like catchphrases,

characters you'd like us to talk about, let us know. We do take requests for episodes. Yeah. Specifically in the newly, the freshly minted Shonen Brain Rot corner of the anime channel.

Yeah. Well, I think with that, we're ready to head out. What do you think? Anything more you want to touch on? Oh, I could go on for days, but we got to stop at some point. So please take us home. All right. Well, 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. ♪♪♪

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