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[moveyourdeadfros]

We open up with a new chapter cover arc! Who is excited? I know I am excited! The theme here seems to be that news coos are spreading the word that the Strawhats are back in business, and who, I wonder, could the recipients of these news be? We will just have to wait and see…

Things are not well, back at the fearsome pirate Vanderbecken/Van Derbecken/Vander Becken/whatevers hideout. He asks the large fellow tugging his boat, who apparently turns out to be a Giant Tigerblowfishman named Oonyuudou Wadatsumi, if he can see any replies… to which we find out that not only has the princess not sent a reply to his marriage proposal, they have also been waiting for one for over ten years!

Vander Becken suspects that that DASTARDLY Neptune wants to keep Shirahoshi locked in to arrange her off in some political marriage, and the pure power of love will not stand for that! In fact, Vander Becken, who chucks a huge freaking AXE (with a red rose painted on it) that boomerangs back and cuts the mast for an unexplained reason (for now) lets us know that Shirahoshi doesn’t need to worry about a thing- if her father carries out his wicked plans, HE’LL SIMPLY KILL HER! :D
In other words- dude has way more legs than he has sense.

Speaking of things making marginally more sense, guards rush towards the crying Shirahoshi as she bawls her eyes out while our brave and clever captain tries to assuage her fears that he totally didn’t mean to take her food! Fortunately action happens that allows Luffy to make a better impression- namely that that same huge axe suddenly hurtles through the open door and heads right for Shirahoshi! Only through Luffy’s quick actions can he pull the axe away and save the day, prompting Shirahoshi to hide Luffy when the guards finally arrive.

Thereby, Luffy is informed by the guards of the situation regarding the mermaid kidnappings, and that a decision has been made to imprison the Strawhats, Zoro having already been captured. The mermen seem to express regret that things turned out the way they have, but leave as there seems to be some strange rule in place that no guard can stay longer than five minutes in Shirahoshis presence.

When the guards leave Shirahoshi and Luffy gets to chatting, Luffy assuring her that he’s not worried about his crew because they’re awesome and can take care of themselves. The discussion reveals that not only is Vander Becken a crazy stalker, he’s a crazy stalker who has eaten the ’Target’ Devil Fruit, allowing him to fire a projectile towards a chosen target from ANY PLACE AT ANY TIME. Understandably, this lead to the king locking her up in the safest damn tower they could build for ten years. Girl is like a mermaid Rapunzel, even has an adorable animal sidekick and everything.

Luffy decides that enough time has gone by where he has not ingested sustenance, and starts eating Shirahoshis food. The princess is only too happy to have such interesting company and starts asking the usual questions. What is up there? What are thingamabobs? Are there bright young women sick of swimming, and what is a fire and how does it burn? Luffy, who was apparently never a fan of the Disney-princesses simply tells the princess to GTFO after she pushes his hampster-like cheeks in and let him have his dinner in peace, prompting her to start blubbering and carping like there’s no tomorrow.

I now want to have Luffy meet Disney Princesses and be incredibly rude to them, because I am mean-spirited like that. At any rate, Luffy reveals that he apparently DID like Mulan (and possibly Tangled) because after he’s had his fill his response to a tearful Shirahoshi telling him to leave is simple: lets blow this popsicle stand! If any axes come flying, he’ll simply deflect them away!

There is pretty much no way this can end well. Something that is already not going so well are matters over at the castle entrance and godDAMMIT WHY DO I NOT HAVE ANOTHER SCANLATION GROUP? Because we see this absolutely stone-cold badass group shot of Nami, Brook and Usopp standing amidst a crowd of beaten soldiers, having resisted arrest as they do because hell no they’re not gonna give up meekly because of some ”premonition” of what may happen in the future.

Pappugg is totally seastarstruck over Usopps newfound groove, whereas the mermen are less enamored by the Strawhats resistance. The minister asks Neptune to intervene, who decides that the best option for now would be to simply capture the Strawhats and decide what to do later on… but before he can do that, someone swings in to steal the show away from our beloved trio- a certain one-eyed swordsman who smelled a fight brewing, and as such simply decided to let himself out of prison.

Oh yes. It’s Zoro everybody, and he just stopped Neptunes trident with TWO of his swords. Awesome? Oh yeah. A situation that cooler heads could have easily solved in a calm manner? Oh yeah.

But there is hardly any time for calm heads in this chapter, as we then cut to the Fishman district Noah, and FINALLY I make the connection that the huge ship is an ark. Man I feel stupid. For gathering there are none other than the infamous Vander Becken, delayed by a pesky volcano to the meeting with the infamous Hodi Jones! For what they plan is nothing less than the complete and utter destruction of the Neptune dynasty!

Other things of note- Vander Decken is forced to use a bubble due to his ability, and his hat? Not a Strawhat. There goes the ”the person Shirley might have seen in the vision was Vander Becken” theory…

So. A chapter mostly full of talking heads setting the stage for another rousing round of battles- this arc really just keeps on moving from plot point to plot point without a single goshdarn stop, and while I liked this chapter I do wish the plot could stop for just five seconds without making it almost all exposition.
As for all the possible threads going on here I can’t see Luffy and Shirahoshi going out on a walk without there being some kind of conflict there, that hopefully Shirahoshi can solve… while I admit that seeing the Fishmen be rash COULD be kind of sort of excused seeing as they do not know the Strawhats and as such act on a very possible threat, it still feels as if this is a situation where someone keeping a cool head could have easily solved everything with some choice words and calm conduct. In other words, still not a big fan of this development. We shall have to wait and see how things go.

Also- we have just been introduced to Hodi and Vander, and they’re already teaming up. Either Oda is really rushing things with these guys because they will turn out to be completely tangential to the plot and just warm-ups to the real bad guys, or he will develop them later as the web of intrigue tightens, OR this will be a really short arc. I’m hoping for the middle option, myself.

Comments

[moveurdeadfros.livejournal.com]

oh master zoro u so big and strong

almost as big and strong as captain is a marvel of graceful charm and wit

[sutureourfuture.livejournal.com]

/spits on your afro