2 days ago
please talk to me about monkey d dragon
@sableu
Jinny | she/her | 20's | USA | Sabo enjoyer and Dragon defender since 2013. This blog is 90% One Piece, 10% other anime and manga. I frequently post about new OP manga chapters but only after the official VIZ release. Theme art is by Maridoodles & Sharksnout, header by Bulichh!
Text
OPLA s3 ep 4 thoughts!!
[[MORE]]god i love robin. i have so many feelings about robin. that’s not really got anything to do with OPLA, seeing her interact with the crew just reminded me of how far she’s come and how beautiful her story is. my biggest wish is that even if it doesn’t go further, the live action at least gets to enies lobby, which is my favorite arc of the series.
little garden has never been in a favorite arc of mine, but i feel a lot more emotional seeing dorry & brogy now that we’ve met them again and are in elbaf. loved the little nods to aspects of elbaf culture that weren’t introduced until way later in the manga (the giant tree, semla, the sun god). also: nika mention #2!
they’re really going out of their way to show vivi reacting to/mourning igaram’s death. i wonder if it’s possible that he (and next season, pell) will end up staying dead, unlike in canon. oda’s tendency towards fake out deaths is one of the most common criticisms of his work, and in a series like OPLA that has much less time and space for a vast cast, it might actually make sense to turn some of the fakeouts into real deaths, especially for characters who don’t have a super important role in the story moving forward (unlike say brogy or sabo).
miss goldenweek’s powers are utilized way more creepily here and i am a-okay with that. zoro fighting to stop laughing gave me flash forwards to SMILE…
david dastmalchian was inspired casting for mr. 3 and i can already tell he’s going to be a highlight of this season. his line delivery on even just the few lines he had this ep were hilarious.
Text
just belatedly realized. why did they take bartolomeo’s eyebrows but not dragon’s…..someone get out a razor and shave those bad boys off
Text
OPLA s2 ep 3 thoughts below :)
[[MORE]]i love seeing the crew have fun & interact in low stakes moments, it’s one of my favorite parts of early OP in general and i’d missed it a lot!
not all of the “well, THAT happened” type quippy humor that tends to rear its head in OPLA is to my taste, but i must confess i laughed out loud at usopp’s reaction to vivi & mr 9 jumping off the boat lmaoo jacob gibson is so effortlessly charming.
i was worried that miss monday wouldn’t appear and i am SO HAPPY TO BE WRONG!!! MY SHAYLA
i’m starting to think that maybe the most OOC thing in all of OPLA is how much rizz sanji has. y'all that is the most rizz-less man alive. also………….were usopp and sanji going to. to have a foursome???? with those twins????? together??
i’m intrigued but not totally surprised to see the luffy & zoro fight ommitted. when i read through OP for the second time, that was one of the only moments that felt pretty OOC and like “early installment weirdness.” i’m sure if oda had fought for it they would’ve kept it, and the fact that he didn’t makes me think maybe he feels the same way.
zoro getting a little mini storyline with hallucination!mihawk worked well instead, imo. i’m sure the writers were clambering for a reason to get mihawk back on screen because his actor is so excellent lol. i lost it when they actually included the nun spraying zoro with the cross. that being said, it is funny to watch OPLA try to make mr. 5 and miss valentine actually intimidating when in canon they’re just completely bullied lol
i’m not sure how i feel about igaram being “killed” by mr. 5 instead of by miss all sunday, though. that scene hit like a punch to the gut in the manga because it seemed like things were okay and them WHAM igaram is murdered in front of them. it made robin feel like a real threat and caused me to genuinely resent her, which then made her eventual heel turn that much more meaningful. (but yay, they kept the namivivi hug!!)
Text
OPLA s2 ep 2 thoughts and reactions below ~
[[MORE]]DADAN MENTION !!
crocus is such a bitch i love him <3 absolutely cackling at the idea that horoscopes exist in the OP world. like i don’t actually believe it/think it makes sense in canon but it’s funny enough that i’m not mad at it.
“wasting my time would be sitting on my ass doing nothing” TELL HIM SMOKER!!!! is that not what garp is doing through like 90% of the series. for real.
as critical as i am of garp, and as much as i am sometimes frustrated by the amount of screentime he’s granted in OPLA that could’ve gone to the straw hats, there’s also something fascinating about every single scene he’s in because there’s always like ten levels of emotional obfuscation going on - like in the scene where he talks to smoker about dragon. the moment where smoker says dragon protected the straw hats and garp just goes quiet with a funny look on his face….that’s your fucking kid, man :( that’s your fucking kid just trying to look out for his own kid.
i think seeing garp in OPLA is all the more interesting because 1) the writers have a level of understanding and context about his character that oda himself did not have yet at the time of writing these arcs, and 2) stripping away a lot of the more overtly goofy/anime-y aspects of garp’s character makes it more obvious what a complicated and morally murky person he is. every time he speaks i’m like oh there are Layers here. really good stuff.
NAMIVIVI MEET UGLY. love that they have homoerotic tension day 1. vivi is so beautiful. enjoying the added foreshadowing about the missing princess going on around her too.
RUMBAR PIRATES!!! i wish they hadn’t spoiled that brook would be appearing before the season dropped bc that would have shook me to my core lol. still did a bit. and yorki too!! hearing bink’s sake made me so emotional.
this is another one of those cases where OPLA being made decades after these arcs were first written adds a lot of depth and texture. the rumbar pirates were barely characters in reverse mountain, and we knew almost nothing about them. + while i don’t expect OPLA to reach brook, for those who go on to read the manga or watch the anime, the end of thriller bark will hit all the harder having already seen brook & yorki and heard bink’s sake.
oh the sanusos are going to have a field day with this one, and godspeed to them!
did luffy. did luffy just do the fuckin nika dance while singing bink’s sake. i’m weeping.
in general so far this season seems to have even more call aheads to things later in the manga than last season, but i really like that tbh. sabo appearing in ep 1 was fanservice/an easter egg (and one i’m fine with, btw) but a lot of this is actually just…fore-shadowing or revealing later events earlier, and i honestly enjoy that.
revealing garp is luffy’s grandpa earlier gave us more reason to care about him. showing barto in loguetown and brook in reverse mountain are things that oda himself would probably have loved to do if he could turn back time and have already created them at the point those arcs were written, and they add more character & flavor to their respective scenes. things like the nika dance or wanted posters for future characters in the bg are nice treats for manganime fans without confusing or taking anything away from the live action only fans. i think they’re striking a good balance so far.
now, on to ep3!
Text
thoughs on OPLA s2 ep 1 below the cut!!
[[MORE]]i absolutely LOVED this. i’ve always enjoyed loguetown and tbh i think this adaptation only improved it. the set design of the town looks great and adds character that was honestly missing from the original manga depiction, where loguetown is super generic.
jeff ward was fantastic as buggy as always, and i enjoyed alvida too though her DF is so goofy in live action lol. the scene in the sword shop was great in canon and is great here, A+. for some reason tashigi wasn’t in most of the promo for a while so i was worried she wouldn’t appear, but she did! i liked how that was adapted. smoker looked great too, LOVED that they included the ice cream scene. such a small moment but so memorable and tells you so much about smoker.
robin is beautiful and i need to kiss her on the mouth. can’t wait to see more. her using her DF to make one marine shoot another in the head was sick as hell. i love that she gets to be ruthless and scary but that there are also hints of something else underneath. also, the foreshadowing from nami about another female crew member :)
the inclusion of bartolomeo is something i did not expect, especially not to this extent (i figured if anything he’d just be a background easter egg) but IMO really works. including him here felt like more than just fanservice: it was the live action’s way of hammering home the parallel between luffy and roger. just like how roger’s speech on the stand inspired thousands to piracy, luffy’s laughter inspired bartolomeo. it demonstrates luffy’s ability to motivate and bring people together.
on the topic of luffy and roger…it is hilarious to me that the live action is 100% trying to make viewers think luffy is roger’s son lol. and why not? that’s a great bait and switch. makes me think ace’s lineage will probably be revealed sooner than in the manga too, since why set that up without paying it off (let’s be real, i doubt OPLA will ever reach marineford…)
speaking of things OPLA will never reach: introducing sabo lol. and i think that’s exactly why they showed him here, so i can’t complain, and i did fully scream. tbh that one WAS just pure fanservice but i don’t mind. it makes sense since sabo is such a beloved/important character, but also one who comes far too late in the story for OPLA to get to, so it’s a nice bone to throw to us fans. while i don’t believe dragon would have told sabo why he was at loguetown, i don’t feel it’s too far out of the realm of possibility that he was on the ship/in the area while dragon was visiting. he is his right hand, after all.
also: DRAGON!!! my beloved <3 obviously he doesn’t do much here besides look and sound vaguely menacing, but i enjoyed his presence. very curious how live action-onlys might react to this. i was also [eyes emoji] about how they portrayed the wind in his confrontation scene. it definitely did not look natural. point in favor of dragon having a wind-related DF in my books.
all and all was absolutely riveted by this and can’t wait to continue. was so impressed by how much they jampacked into this one episode without it ever feeling overloaded or dragging. it’s so obvious that this series was made by genuine fans & i love that even the changes and additions felt canon-compliant and in-character.
Text
you know I think about you all the time
and my deep misunderstanding of your life
and how bad it must have been for you back then
and how hard it was to keep it all inside
