Hello and welcome to our weave variant, an exploration and Education in anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm Brendan D. mccullough, your anime seabound criminal. Not to be admired or glorified by anime or Disney.

What does the deed stand for?

It's a reference to one piece. I mean, we get like what the fucking biggest series of all time? I think it actually is the biggest ongoing series.

Like it's I've never heard of it.

Really? Interesting.

I'm sure it's anime.

I'm like 60% sure. But I don't I won't put all of my money into this investment. But I'm like pretty confident it's anime.

Pretty sure this one's an anime. chalk this one up to an anime, boys.

It may be a foreign film, like a neo.

How to do it? sundance.

It was received a little rough because to watch all of it, it would have taken four years.

Yeah, but don't trust the initial reaction. They're there for that art shit. It's about what real Americans think.

This is what america's want. This is the most American show there is.

Just like with the Lion King remake, you got to wait until the audience reviews come out.

Oh, boy. But yeah, it's one piece time.

It's the one piece.

It's the anniversary of the manga. So I figured it'd be a special enough episode that we can cover that. It also fell on my fever. Copyright. Copyright.

Now I'm so used to being Michael jackson's. Dead.

What?

No.

He wrote Happy birthday.

No, he owned the rights to it.

No, I thought it was two sisters.

No, it was Michael Jackson. I had a friend I had a friend in the mormon church who they had like Happy Birthday video to the head of the mormon church. And they got sued by Michael Jackson.

Oh, wow.

Because they did not own the rights.

God justice.

So this intro is all over the place.

Just like one piece.

Yeah.

This is our special 18 hours episode in honor of One Piece.

Rabbin. You're going to listen to this every day on the commute to work.

So yeah. What are your experiences with One Piece?

Nothing. Paul turning it on and me falling asleep.

Love. I caught it early on in like the Four Kids block of like, Saturday Morning television. And that's where we got the fantastic. And I highly recommend it. The Four Kids one piece wrap, which is just so good. And I required both of these two to watch it before we started this episode.

Yayo. yayo.

Choppers doctor.

I'm going to be the pirate king. I'll be king.

I'll be king. So I got a hint of it. Then I think it went on to tsunami after that where I followed it a bit. And then when I found manga online, I just dove into the manga entirely because I mentioned it before. The manga is like all canonical. But then the anime does a lot of filler just to keep it running. So I do not recommend watching all of the manga because there's all the anime because there's a lot of bullshit.

In there and it's very I recommend that too, but with all anime wow, so rude.

All anime is just filler in a.

Way, until we good stuff. Yeah. One Piece is a very long running series, and I'm not the biggest I'm not a diehard fan of it, but I kept up with it to this point, so I got to find some enjoyment in it somewhere.

You muscle through it.

I did that with bleach. I gripped my teeth and just bored through it. And I swear to God I'll never do that again.

We'll see about that.

No.

So, yeah, this is something I have seen a little bit of. And in One Piece terms, I've probably seen like half a percent of this show.

Probably even less.

It might be less than that. I think it's up to like 930 some episodes. Yeah.

I was living in Boston and I was curious about this whole anime thing. So I heard One Piece was a big, fun, popular show. So I watched the first few episodes and I really liked it. But the only issue was hulu at the time, only had certain episodes dubbed. And since I wasn't fully invested yet, I was like, let me just throw this on while I do other stuff. I can do homework. I was in college, so I was doing things and it stopped very early on. I only saw through Usopp joining the crew. That's where the dubs on hulu stopped and that's where I stopped.

Yeah, that's pretty early on.

I think that was like episode like 15 or something.

Yeah. With the original sub, there's like 900 some and then the dub is pretty far back into the 500s right now, so yeah, there's definitely a lot to catch up on. And I think hulu may just have the stubs now. So yeah, the dub and sub are there's quite a bit discrepancy between the dub takes longer and I think there's like a four kids dub and then there's like a funimation dub and then there's like another dub.

So there's a bunch of different like with sailor Moon.

Yeah, exactly. Because it was definitely one of the earlier animes brought over in like the 90s or so in that wave. And yeah, there's a lot going on, so if you were interested, there's plenty to catch up on.

But that seems like an understatement.

Yeah.

Instead of going through all that, I just picked out some of the best episodes that all the fans would consider. Some of the peak episodes that really hit the strongest notes of One Piece and what makes One Piece good. So we're watching episodes 236, 278, and 405.

Cool.

You know, hearing those numbers out loud, oh, boy.

When the story really picks up, really starts getting momentum as episode four months. That's halfway through.

Brendan, the tree shirt is starting to pick up. Halfway through. This is a good show. If it doesn't get good until 40%.

Through, my man, that's not even halfway. It's 900 hours. It's less than halfway. No, it definitely picks up. Like you said you were interested in the first 15 or so episodes, but we just see how much that world expands beyond just these characters. It's definitely a big world building series.

Which I am always all in for.

Yeah. Get ready for those info dumps. Oh, and we should we discuss my rule? So it's not just a my hero academia episode again, of me rambling for 40 minutes at a time.

So, yeah, what we're going to do, because Brendan likes to give back story, which is fine when it's filling in maybe one or two episodes we missed, but we aren't going to sit here for a half hour while Brendan rambles about episodes 152 through 368.

I like that. You think I could censor myself to half an hour? It's very out of there.

So, yeah, we are going to whenever we're confused, we are going to lightning round info dump for Brendan, where we will give him 10 seconds to give us backstory and dana will be keeping time.

Yes, I will. You get no leniency.

Yes.

No mercy. This is a genocide run.

It's for the best. It's for everyone's best interest that you stop me from talking.

So, finally, I can say with full impunity, shut the fuck up, brittany.

I've been waiting to say this for 50 episodes.

You know, I was worried about this episode, but I actually think it might be good.

Already. We have so many positives.

Brandon has to stop talking at some point and that's it. All right, let's get into this.

Let's get started with this.

Shall we raise up the sales? Shall we hit the high? Brendan, I told you, I left up with you, so maybe this is how you start.

Hey, myrna character, you know, he's gone, we're done, he's over, he's canceled. Boy, big emotional peaks and bounds and valleys.

I'm sure they were for some people.

Who were invested in these characters for us, who were just jumping in.

Yeah. At the top, I'll say picking these episodes for newcomers was bad.

Would you have rather all the filler episodes where it's just one off characters doing dumb puns with their names for 30 minutes?

It's the only because the two extremes.

Like, kind of yeah, I would prefer that because it's not relying on the emotional attachment you have to these characters. We are now just being introduced.

Taylor if I'm being honest, it takes probably about seven to 15 episodes to fully introduce a character when they're introduced. So even if I picked all three episodes for one character, we still wouldn't have gotten a full introduction to them. So that's just not happening. That's just not possible.

Yeah, like the USOP introduction is its own arc. So I fully get that.

Every character gets five episodes. Yeah. And then more characters join the crew much later in the series. Like the first two episodes we watch, there's like, I think the 8th or 9th party crewmate isn't even in it yet. He's not even been introduced yet, but he'll join the third episode. That's a long series.

I can see why these are popular with fans, but for non fans, they don't do much.

You can see why it appeals to a bunch of action hungry 14 year olds with a lot of free time. And that's the main demographic.

Well, let's hop right into episode 236.

Say it like that.

So I watched it subbed because that's what hulu had available, and I was a fan of this opening.

Up.

The cool part about this is because you gave us three episodes that take place in three different seasons, I got to see three different openings and endings.

Yeah.

Which they were all pretty hype. Like, I was into them.

Yeah, they're all fun.

Yeah, but so in this episode, we got asap Rocky, and he's about to fight gumby. You know what, Brendan? This is you. This is what you sound like.

That's why I'm not disputing it.

I can't argue I won't keep doing that. I just wanted to do it for the last the other name I thought of was for zoro was to call and puss in Boots.

That's fair.

Yeah.

That was about all I thought of our boy Antonio.

Okay, so, yeah, in this episode, pretty much all that happens is that utop is mad because Luffy wants to give up the Mary, which is their ship. Why they want to give it up, I don't know.

So that this is where can we throw it to brenda?

I'm going to set the timer.

Okay.

Ready?

Go.

Mary is the ship they got when USOP joined the crew. USOP had, like, an on and off the game rich girlfriend who gave them the ship as a ship so they can sail the seas with so he's attached to it emotionally because he reminds of his first girlfriend.

Stop. You know what? That was pretty good.

Hell, yeah.

I mean, my question was, why are they getting rid of it? But it didn't answer.

I'm not allowed to speak anymore.

That's true. I guess there'll be a mystery. Anyway, moving on. Yeah.

So my assumption is that something happened to it and now they want to get rid of it.

It's just beaten up and broken.

Okay.

Do you see it in the episode? It's not backstory. It's part of the episode.

I see it's landlocked, but then it gets knocked out to CNN. Fine. Anyway, continue.

To stop this fight. They decide to have a duel, and USOP will come back to fight Luffy at 10:00 p.m.. And if Usopp wins, he gets to do whatever he wants with the Mary. Pretty much. And then we get the first of this flashback. This flashback happens about four times.

Yeah.

Which was.

You really got to remember episode 15 when they first met.

Do you remember when Luffy said that USOP was his friend? No. Well, here it is. Four times.

Do you have early onset dementia? Don't worry, we got you. fam.

Like, they don't do chunks of those scenes. Like, literally frame for frame, the same flashbacks at four different points.

Yeah. And you know what's weird is I feel like they've almost done this for someone who is just watching episode 236.

Yeah, say someone who last saw the episode in this flashback.

Brendan, it's the reason I picked it. There's a reason I picked this episode.

I trusted you.

Those your first do me like this.

But so Usopp was some kind of captain at his old village, and.

Allow me. I don't have a time restraint.

Yeah, go ahead.

Basically, he was just this goofy kid on the island that called himself the protector. His dad was, like, a captain and wanted to be a brave warrior like him, but he was a goofy kid. He pretended to have, like, hidden warriors throughout the island, but he was the town outcast.

Got you. Well, he joins the crew. yay.

Yay.

And then it's fight time. And chopper, who I know about, is.

A good little boy.

He's doctoring.

He's a dear, dear boy.

He's very worried. He's not excited about this fight because essentially USOP is ready. USOP is like, I'm not worried about fighting you, loofie, because I know all of your weaknesses and I know all of your abilities. So this is going to be an easy fight. But they all know that there's no way that USOP is going to win, because loofie is just Op.

He's the main character. He's got that flat armor.

Exactly.

Also, that devil fruit that makes him all stretchy.

That gum gum fruit gum. I know some things.

Do we need a gum gum?

Start the fight. I mean, I'll take it, but I think you eat it and you get gumpy.

Yeah. Different fruits have, like, different abilities, but his is stretchy. But the downside is he can't swim.

Oh, that's the drawback to all double fruit. Every double fruit user can't swim, but he wants to be virus, so, like, 80% of the world is ocean, so it's a real big drawback. Start that timer.

Oh, God.

No, I'm done.

Okay, I'll give you 10 seconds. Give us the gumgum fruits.

Okay, ready? Go.

We kind of already discussed it. He gets searching powers, but now I can't swim. That's kind of it.

Okay. I was going to have you set up, like, the whole concept of all the multiple things. All right, cool.

It's not worth to get really into the double fruit right now. It's not worth it for anybody.

Great.

Oh, yeah. 10 seconds. That would have just ruined it. That would have been your longest rant ever.

You want to go into it?

Dugan?

You want me to go into it?

I wanted to get into it for 10 seconds anyway, dana. Sorry. Moving on.

Okay, so to distract make Luffy soft, us throws up blood. usaf throws up blood, but it's not blood. It's ketchup. And he was like, ha ha. You sympathized with me. You dumped it.

You ruined.

And then he starts hurling rotten eggs at Lucy, and he's like, oh, they smell. Oh, gross.

It was stinky.

Stinky. And then while that's happening, Usopp throws a hot pepper in his mouth, and he's like, tabasco attack. And then Lucy falls on some spy.

You're really selling he's just clowning around with him right now.

You're really selling this big epic battle between crewmates against Nicama.

Well, because I was just realizing that all I'm going to have to do if I continue is just describe this fight. Listen, so this goes on for a while. What really got me is when they showed NAMI's full body for the first time.

Yeah.

Why she look like that?

Am I going to have to explain this artist's terrible drawing of women in 10 seconds? Is that going to draw?

Okay, we'll give you some more time because this is important because it's bad.

Okay.

All right. So more than 10 seconds. So the author, oda, he knows his demographic is young teenage boys, so he's like, I'm catering to them and I'm going to draw sexy women. And he figured out a formula of how to draw them quickly. And it is by far one of, if not the most biggest complaint among fans and non fans alike. And the whole series is just how he draws women because it's it's the same for any attract. You know, traditionally attractive woman is the same identical body, and it's just insanely proportioned. And it gets only worse throughout the series.

You know how all attractive women, their waists are about as thick as their arm, negative waste.

Even for an hourglass, they would say, this is a bit much. Like, an hourglass would be like, whoa.

Dude, sam could not squeeze through that hourglass, my dude, that is too small.

It's very obvious when you see just pictures of nami throughout the series of, like, when she's first introduced to roughly about this part of the series. There's a timescape much later in the series to when you see that, and it's just almost comical. Like, if it was a parody, it'd be an insane parody, but it's legitimate, so it's even worse. So it's definitely the biggest flaw with the series. And it's borderline distracting because nami ends a bunch of other characters later on, a bunch of other women. They are great characters, and they have great personalities and stories and stuff. And it's really distracting how badly he just proportions them out so no one can defend that.

Nasty.

Yeah.

Looks awful. The fight rages on. There's some smoke effects, but the smoke is actually gas. And then USOP makes the beach explode, and then the Mary gets pushed out to sea, and the rest of the crew is like, oh, God, I can't see anything.

But the gas was covered up by the smell of the rotten eggs he shot earlier. So it was all part of his plan.

It's all part of the plan. Luffy looks pretty pissed that he's, like, losing, but I also think he knows that he's not losing because there's no way he can lose.

It's weird how intense this at this point, a prank war is going.

Just punch him and it'll be over.

That shows you how intense the battles get. It's all about emotion.

And then they show the same flashbacks as before, when they were buds and when they became buds. And then they zoom in on the Mary's face thingy, and it's like crying in the rain.

Yeah, because it's like a sheep head touch. The mast head is like a sheep or a ram with horns, and it's crying.

He just wants everyone to be friends.

And be happy. And then Luffy comes at USOP with, like, flying fists everywhere. And then Usopp just throws a cactus at him, and it's like, yeah, that'll do it.

You got it. You won the battle.

And then there's more explosives and more fighting, and then the same fucking flashback. And then there's, like, a flashback of them, like, setting up the ship, which is, like, refreshing because it's different.

Literally anything different.

I have another note here that just says, NAMI's body is disgusting. And then after all that, Luffy goes up to usap, punches him. I might have been writing something down when this happened because I don't remember this, but I was like, Well, Luffy won.

Luffy standing usops on the ground. I guess he won.

And Luffy just walks away. And then, even though Usopp loses, luffy still offers the Mary to him because, I mean, he didn't want it anyway. That was kind of the whole thing. And then they show, like, more buddy flashbacks as Luffy walks away just to really get you to try and make you be like, oh, they were friends, and now they're not.

Feeling how much you're underselling the scene is a personal attack on me and my beliefs.

Let me tell you, my dude, we have no emotional attachment to those episodes. You just introduced us to.

The end of this episode, I was like, okay, I get it.

See what you're trying to sell.

Yeah, I see how this could make people emotional, and I'm like, I guess feeling something, but I don't care that.

Much.

On someone who has the emotional attachment that I do not have.

You got more than dana does.

Yeah, but even I was like, okay, cool. I saw when they became friends. I didn't see their actual friendship.

You can see the 200 episodes of it.

Yeah. You know, the bonding that makes friendship. Not saying, hey, we're hanging out now.

We're going to be friends. So chopra wants to go off the boat and help USOP because he's a doctor and he wants to make him feel better. And then sanji, I think. Yeah. He's like, chopper, don't do it. The worst thing about losing a fight is being pitied. And I'm like, bruh, he out there dying.

He's bleeding out of every orifice of his body.

Let chopper help him. So chopper does. So he hops off the boat and he just leaves some medical supplies for USOP.

They made it a strong point of, like, he's not in the crew anymore, so don't treat him as a crewmate anymore.

Yeah. And then I forget Luffy. They show Luffy, like, crying a lot. Like, he's really upset about this. And then I forget what zoro says leading up to this. But I wrote this down because I thought this was pretty raw. He said, that's the life of a captain. If you waver, who can we trust? And I was like, that's something.

Yeah. zora is vice captain or second in command or whatever.

First meet.

That's it. I'm not a good vice captain.

Well, we get vice admirals later, I'll give you that.

That's the gist. It was a fight and some flashbacks.

It's a show all about bonding with your teammates and your crew and your nakama. And then we get a big fight between them and one of them has to leave.

Yes.

A show all about friendship. Let's summarize it with three episodes of destroying friendships just to build up.

I'm showing you the ebb and flow of the story.

I don't know, all three of these episodes were pretty high up on that rollercoaster. I feel like we went up a lift hill and then we just plateaued.

For me, it feels like we started at the top and then just immediately dropped, being like, what? Where did this come from?

This is a roller coaster. This is a drop tower.

It is tower of terror, but they.

Drop you into a dark pit where you can't see what's going on.

That's one piece. I'm still in that pit. I ain't getting out of there anytime soon.

All right, so jumping forward. Not too too far. Just about 50 episodes. We are at episode 278. So this is backstory on a character we don't know.

Technically, she's part of the crew in that last episode, but she was taken away.

Yeah. I'll admit, of the three episodes, this is the best one that works as an introduction because we are introduced to a character with information we had not received before.

Yeah. The whole episode doesn't take place in one scene, like, one location.

Yeah.

It takes place in two.

Yeah.

So yeah. This is the introduction of the crew member, Robin. So I will give you 10 seconds. It looks like they are going to rescue her. What is the straw hats crew affiliation with Robin.

Ready? Go.

Robin was a villain. They fought in an earlier arc, and she later joined the crew. She's an archaeologist. And this is the backstory he's given of why she's being hunted down and why she was arrested by the Marines and the world government.

Wow.

Nice.

I know my shit.

Okay, cool. So we are immediately dropped into a battle, and my first thought was, what is going on? And two, the first line so perfectly answered it for me. I'm giving you the direct quote. The first line. It's Vice admiral Soul. He ran away with nico amoya and is now attacking us. He's lost his mind. Cool. So, yeah, there's just this big giant guy attacking the Marines, which are sort of like the world government. So they are burning down this island. This is where Robin lived, and it's all scholars. The Marines say that they have, like, a plot to end the world and they're trying to destroy all their information. They have, like, a grand library with thousands of years of information and knowledge there that they're trying to protect that the world government wants to destroy. Brendan, does that sound about right?

Yeah. Do you want more information? But it's a good amount of it.

Dana, would you mind setting a timer a little bit more backstory?

Ready?

Yes.

Go.

The Harris archaeologists in society that Robin and her mom is a part of are some of the only people on the planet that understand the ponyglyphs, which are said to be an ancient description of how to attain a giant power plant.

Okay, cool. They know stuff about some writing on rocks. Cool.

Great.

So they're trying to burn down this island and kill all these people. And Vice admiral Soul is protecting Robin and trying to fight off the Marine attack.

He's also a literal giant.

Yeah, he's a big man.

Very big man.

Yeah. Another thing I love about this show is just the vast aesthetic differences between people. Like, there are literal, like, 15 foot tall people that are just humans that hang out with, like, two foot tall people.

You say people. It's men.

That's what I was going to say. The vast array of different aesthetics and styles of the bodies. There's a group of people called, like, the Long Lake Tribe, and they're proportionally normal and fine, except their legs are, like, 10ft tall.

But yet.

All it does is further reinforce how bad they are at drawing women or specifically over to the creator. It just further reinforces, like, look at this dynamic group of characters and, like, strange people, and every, quote, attractive woman is almost identical, and it's just like, oh, come on.

It's like, overwatch.

Yeah.

Minus zarya.

I will also say it's jarring because there are giants in this world like saul, and then there are some people who are just human but are 15ft tall. Like, height does not make sense in this world.

At all, but yeah. So he's fighting off the Marines, telling Robin to run and evacuate. The scholars in the library are trying to throw their books into the lake, so they'll get wet, but at least they won't be burned, and the knowledge will still be there. Robin gets to one of the evacuation boats, and everyone on board is like, oh, it's that monster girl. We can't let her on board. She's a criminal. She's a scholar. The government wants to kill her, so let's not save her. So they leave her for dead.

But I have a question. Who are then those people on the boat?

Not everyone on the island was a scholar. This is just where the organization was based on or based in.

So they don't like the scholars at all?

They do, until the Marines told them that they're a terrorist organization plotting to take over the world with this aged.

Weapon, like the real government. Okay.

So, yeah, saul, being that the evac ship left Robin behind, is like, hey, fuck all y'all. And destroys the boat.

And she's my friend.

And we see an iceman. Kuzad.

Real quick, though, the evacuation ship was destroyed by the Marines, not by saul.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's further in my notes. He goes to attack the ship and is intercepted by Kuzad. Thank you. I will give you two extra seconds on your next explanation for that.

Thank you. The marines destroyed the evacuation. They destroyed the ship because they couldn't take any chances that an archaeologist or scholar was actually hidden on the ship. So they blew up everyone on it anyway.

Yeah, they killed their own people. monsters. This ice powered dude appears with sunglasses, a real cool guy.

Cool.

And saul is pleading for the island to back off the attack and not kill everyone. And Kuzad says that he must punish the scholars and the attack will continue. So now the evac ship is destroyed by Vice admiral Zakuzi, who, yeah, can't take the chance of any scholar surviving. So saul picks up Robin and tries to run because he has a rowboat or raft on the other side of the island and wants to at least get Robin away. But he's trapped by ice, and Kuzad freezes his leg.

He got full feet.

Those 2 seconds away.

From the clock.

Okay, in typical anime fashion, even though he's trapped by ice and Kuzad is right behind him, they have about 45 minutes to talk before interception happens. So saul says, hey, go take my raft. I need you to go out into the water and restart your life. Don't worry. You may be lonely at first, but you'll soon find the friends of a lifetime really reinforcing that even though your whole family and everyone you love is about to die, you will find true friendship out on the scenes.

Yeah. There's always hope.

And keep laughing.

So, yeah, Kuzad fully freezes him as he's weirdly laughing, and the tree. Of knowledge that had. The library falls over. All them folks are dead, including robin's mom. I couldn't impart any wisdom on you as a scholar or your mother. So Robin runs. Kuzag catches up, but is like, hey, I'm going to let you live. I'm going to let you run. I made an ice path. Just follow it. You'll live. I can't kill you for whatever plot reasons. Sweet, sweet plot armor, but I swear to God, I will hunt you down. I will find you. If you do anything else illegal, I'll be the first one to kill you. So never cross my path. Just go. Run and live. So, yeah, she starts forcibly laughing because saul said, laugh when you're sad. So she's laughing rowing this boat. It was a little bit comedic because they had, like, the ghost of saul laughing over her shoulder, too. It's just so goofy, the art style. That's what I honestly like about the show. No matter how tense it got, everything looks so ridiculous. It's hard to just treat it like a straight up drama.

While the ice man is explaining to Robin why he's going to let her live, her, she's just standing there, mouth open like they didn't animate her. She's just standing there with her mouth wide open.

Yeah.

Just like.

Yeah.

As this very dramatic, I will hunt you down and I will kill you if you cross my path.

And she's like, what?

It's one of the appeals, at least for me, one of the appeals of one piece is the show can never, like, jump the shark because it's always so ridiculous, like, 15% of the time. And even if it's a very serious dramatic moment like this, just the animation alone, like you were saying, is like it's always kind of a silly show.

But wait, this show is dangling in a straight jacket above a shark.

It never left a shark. It made sweet love and now has a family with the shark, which there are merpeople. Like, there's a whole village of merpeople.

That happens. We'll get there.

That's a different episode.

But yeah, the first crew member introduced is he has three swords, one of which he holds in his mouth. Yeah, because whatever. That is ridiculous. You can't be that badass while holding a sword in your mouth.

It's basically like a dmd campaign. It's like, what's your character? It's like bongo stray fart knocker. And it's like, that's an absurd name. What are you even talking about? But then, like, 200 sessions in, you would die for that character. So it's just so much depth.

Like Oscar, right? Yeah, Oscar Cloud Boy.

It's less of depth and more of stockholm syndrome. After 900 chapters, you'll love them if you're just around forever.

But yeah. So Robin escapes. Their marines are checking for survivors, and they find all the books in the lake. And we basically see a montage of robin's life out on the road. She has a gigantic bounty on her head because she's this demonic only survival of this, like, death cult and that wants to destroy the world. She's finding these phonoglyphs and being, I guess, other plot stuff we don't see from other episodes or just more backstory. We can't really tell until we get back to the present day when she's giving all this backstory. She has been captured by the world government and the straw hat pirates are there to free her. And she's like, you stupid idiots, I told you not to get me. No matter what, I'm going to be followed by the government and they're going to try to kill me and kill you. I can't actually have friendships or a life. I'm doomed to be cursed with this bounty on my head. So in order to get Robin back, they declare war on the World Government.

Excellent.

So the long remember last episode when stopp was banished from the crew?

Yeah. He's not in the crew anymore. He's completely gone forever.

Yeah, he's gone. Except he's here and he uses his slingshot to set the World Government flag on fire, declaring war because yeah, my dude, you gave us this big emotional thing where you take a character away and put him back the next episode.

No, this is Sogei king. He's different. He's a different character.

Evolved. Yeah, he went from USOP mon to.

Whatever this thing did.

You evolved. I'm sorry.

Thank you.

And Luffy says that before we take you back, you just have to tell me you want to live. Because previously she was like, I just want to die. This is all ridiculous. it'd be better off if I'm dead. So, so moved by finding the actual friends that saul promised so long ago, her comma, she cries and yells, I want to live. And they save her, I guess, presumably.

Yeah.

And that's episode 270.

Great. Which one are you watching next? Like 293?

Maybe like 300 and 105. Hey, I volunteered for this one. You don't have to worry. I assumed you guys just stopped watching after your episodes.

I mean, I had as much info not watching 405 as I did watching it.

It won't matter. There's so much shit going on in.

This one once you get through this plot. I need an explanation.

Here's the thing. You get 10 seconds to explain this whole episode.

Motherfucker.

Change it further. Okay. Episode 405 and this opening is a bit longer than usual episodes because it's such a big episode and it's kind of like this is the season finale, I believe that would then go onto, like, a hiatus, or at least it's a big arc. So they made, like, the entire credit sequence. That would be normally at the end of the episode, they put it in the opening to get it all out front. And we start off with Usab about to be blown away by px. One who's like, this is one of the things where it's like it's a giant, but he's not a giant species. He's just a really tall human, so but he's, like, 1213ft tall, so it's just really towering over USA, and it's this big robot named Kuma, or the robot's name is px one, and he's charging a robot. I mean, do we do you want to give me a timer?

Yes, sure.

Ready? Go.

Bartholome cuma is a warlord who works with the marines, but he's still technically a pirate. And part of the marines built a secret lab that made a bunch of robot clones of him to use against pirates because he's so powerful. So this is one of those robots, and he's about to charge a beam, like, out of his mouth and about to shoot Usab. And everyone else is seeing everyone else sees the real Kuma appear, and it's kind of like, oh, shit. Like, we thought those were the real ones, but then there's multiple of them, so it's like, oh, that's the real one.

I can tell he's real because he's holding a Bible.

He loves Jesus.

I'm a god warrior.

And we see all the straw hats, like, really beaten up. Like, this is after a big fight, so they're already struggling and exhausted and stuff, and they're not prepared to do another fight, let alone against robotic kumas and real kumas. So USA tries to tell Zoro, like, hey, yo, we got to get the fuck out of here, man. We can't handle this. And as he's, like, reaching out for Zoro to try and grab him and pull him away, kuma just, like, teleports in front of Zoro and just bit slaps him out of existence, quite literally. Kuma hits Zoro with the palm of his hand, and Zoro is just gone. Like, he just isn't there anymore. There's no trace of him. And everyone is horrified and confused, trying to figure out what the hell it just happens. So then we get the title card, and we come back to the reaction shot of Usab for, like, a few seconds, just being, like, truly horrified, like his friend, that he's been with them on this journey for so long. He just should have gone and might be dead. He doesn't know. And he starts yelling at Kuma. So Usab is trying to crawl away, but at the same time, it's still aiming his giant slingshot at Kuma, yelling at him, being like, what did you do with Zoro? Where is he?

What's happening?

And at this time, Luffy is kind of far off into the distance a bit and finally sees that Zoro is missing, and it just starts freaking out, yelling like, that his first mate is just gone now and hit the first person he had joined his crew. So he's freaking out, and as he's freaking out, we see just this giant monster behind him, like, take a swing at him, and Robin pulls Luffy out of the way, and we find out that giant monster is actually chopper, who's freaking out, trying to okay, give me a timer.

Yeah.

Okay.

I would like to know what's up with him, because sometimes he's small and cute, and sometimes he's a buff deer.

He's a buff boy.

Ready? Go.

Trevor made this medicine called a rumble ball, which is allows him to change his forms. That's why he's like a human. He's a regular deer. He's a small child deer. And at this point, he has this, like, secret weapon where it allows him to be a monster. So, that's why chopper is freaking out and losing control, because he can't control this monster form yet. And he's attacking everyone now. And Robin is able to barely save luffy when the big Paul comes down. So everyone's, like, more worried about chopper because he's clearly the biggest target right now. So that's why most of the marines are fighting him. And at this time, we see admiral kisaru, which is another admiral, like the ice guy. But this guy's power is just light. He like he's able to just generate light. So he's much stronger than a lot of people.

He just owns a lot of lamps.

Yeah. One cool fact is all the admirals are based off of very famous old British act or British Japanese actors. So that's why a lot of them have a lot more detail in the face because they're based off real people. So, the admiral is surprised to see that the real kuma is there because he's a warlord and works with the marines, but no one called him in. So it's like, why are you here? Like, you shouldn't be here. But at that time, the emerald is also fighting raleigh, who is part of all right, backstory, give me a timer.

Oh, my god. Ready?

Go.

Raleigh is part of goldie Rogers old pirate crew. Goldie Rogers the one that created one piece and started the new pirate era that launched the whole series.

Okay, stop.

Pretty good.

That's why he's able to take on the admiral and fight him, and he's kind of stalling him to keep the admiral out of the fight. And around this time, nami tells Frankie that she saw kuma make a girl disappear before, back in a previous arc. And when he did that to the girl, she just was never seen again.

We should mention we have some new crew members now because it's 130 episodes, so yeah, frankie has these metal arms and a metal nose, and he's this buff, cool dude.

He's a cyborg.

And then the love of my life.

The absolute most perfect character I've ever seen in any media.

Everyone's favorite character of all time, brooke.

Brooke the skeleton man.

Skeleton man. Big, curly haired, plays piano. Apparently, we see in a flashback.

He's a great violin. Everyone in the crew plays a role, like choppers the doctor. Sanchez the chef. nami's the navigator. Brooks straight up, just the musician. All he does is play music what he deserves. It's so good. He's easily one of my favorite characters of all time in any way.

I love him.

So good.

So, yeah, this is a good episode to introduce him, and then he's such a great character.

Yeah. Get real attached with this character for four minutes. Nothing bad happens. Don't worry about it. And so, yeah, nami's telling Frankie, like, that girl disappeared, and we don't know what happened to her, and he just did the same thing to sorrow, so, like, shit going down and really explaining the stakes of what's happening. And around the time Luffy starts yelling at one of the Marine captains, asking him, like, what the hell just happened? You know who Kuma is? You know what he does? What the fuck is this? And the Marine captain is kind of this big sumo guy with this big axe called cento maru. And he has this dumb character trait where he's like, I'll never tell you. I'm the most guarded man. I don't spill my secrets ever. And it spills his secrets. So then he says that and then explains exactly what Kuma just did, and he says, the rumor is that Kuma, when he hits people, can send them flying for three days and three nights, and that, as far as he knows, zoro could be on the other side of the world right now. He could be anywhere on the planet, but he's certainly not here anymore.

Wow.

Yeah. Devil fruit. It's fucking wacky. And the straw hats start realizing how completely outmatched they are and that they are already beaten down from previous fights and they are not ready to take on these enemies even if they're at their full power. And Kuma starts slowly approaching USOP and, like, walking towards them. And as USOP starts aiming at him, like, saying, like, Back up. Don't stop coming towards me, we see the robot Kuma behind him, charging him another blast to try and shoot us from behind. And right as he's about to attack, we see the real Kuma, like, almost telford in front of the robot one. And he says, don't interfere, and makes that robot Kuma disappear. And everyone's kind of like, what the he just attacked an ally. What the fuck's happened?

He killed his own son.

Dad, no.

Dad.

Dad.

Could you kill a robot version of yourself? I could and must.

I could.

Kill us both.

Bible.

It'D kill us both. It's fine.

It's a win win. Either one is good. And this is the first time that as far as I can tell, and I think in the entire series that Luffy says, like, no, we can't win this battle, and tells everyone to run. It's, like, the first time he's ever said, like, Retreat. We're not winning this. Get the fucking 405 episodes in, he's a shonen protagonist. He's strong headed and can beat anybody with the sheer power of will and friendship.

Believe and have your friends by your side.

Maybe if we all clap, we can beat Scary Man.

This isn't godzilla.

Everyone start a slow clap. He'll have to join and then he'll stop punching us.

And then he'll hit his own hand.

And send himself walking.

The ultimate tries of his body gets.

Sent into opposite direction.

Brutal shit. I'd love to see it, though. So Kuma starts walking towards after he sends the robot one flying, he starts walking towards everyone slowly and very intimidatingly because he knows he can't be stopped. And that's who stops trying to drag Sanji away. Because Sanji is more injured than him. And he's like, come on, I can help you out. Like, let's get the hell out of here. And brooke slides in, he's like, don't worry guys, I'll hold him off. I'll let you escape. I'll do it even if I have to risk my life. Wait. Even though I'm dead? And then he gets disappeared. So brooke also has a long running joke of like, I see things with my own eyes. Wait a minute, I don't have eyes. Like making jokes that he's a skeleton and it's just so fucking endearing. And he's just such the gooddest character.

I wish you could have seen some of that.

I have so many clips I can show you that are so heart wrenching and emotional. If nothing else, I recommend watching brooke's arc when he joins the crew. It's so good. So when brooke disappears, Sanji is now pissed off and he's all hot headed, and he's like, fuck this, I'm fighting him. I'm laying into kuma. And as he goes to kick Kuma, because he's all about legs, sanji is a very kicky guy. Kuma just holds up his hand and we see just like a big puffy paw, like a bear cat paw on his hand. And when Sanji goes to kick it, sanjay just gets deflected and shot off into a building nearby. And we see smoke coming out of kuma's hand, but otherwise he's unscathed entirely. So Sanji just bounces right off. And that's when Kuma starts walking towards Usab. And Usab starts firing a slingshot, and nothing seems to be working, like explosions and fire and clouds and all smith and whatnot, and nothing. And he raises his hand and boom, usab is gone. And we see Sanji get back up and pissed off again. And he lost another crewmate. So he goes running at Kuma again. And when he goes to run at Kuma again, kuma just turned around and boom. Now sanji is gone. kuma's not fighting him anymore.

Yeah, at this point, I think we can truncate a little bit because it's going to get very repetitive because they all get got.

Yeah, they all, as I've said, get thanos.

Yeah.

If you want to see the recap, just watch the end of infinity War. It's almost the same. Just a string of people in a.

Row getting disappeared that way to suck all the emotional tension out of it.

We were introducing several characters that in this episode now want to painstakingly reinforce art there. Brooks literally had, like, two lines of dialogue I heard, and what a shame.

That is dangle this fresh piece of delicious skeleton meat in front of my face and then take him away.

Skeleton meat.

I'm so sorry. I just love him.

Yeah.

Any other it combines beyond people getting disappeared, is there any other plot stuff you want to add to this? Because this is just repetitive, and I.

Let you get past this. Yeah, let me see. So the Admiral and Ralph are fighting, and in the middle of their fight, kuma just appears in front of them and whispers into ralph's ear. And he's like we just hear him, like, whispering and narratives like, you expect me to trust you? And he's he's like, no, but this is what I'm doing, so you can either play along or just get out of the way. And it's weird because Admiral is kind of like, what the hell are you talking to a pirate for? You're a warlord. You're supposed to be with the Marines. So it's kind of like it's kind of weird seeing him trying to play both sides. And Kuma just says, this doesn't matter to the world government. You have no business with what I have to tell him, so stay out of it. So that's kind of an interesting dynamic they're revealing there. And then yeah, the straw hats get picked off one by one. Frankie Nami lufy. Sorry, I'm just going through my notes because, yeah, this is most of the episode. So he sends off chopper, even though he's a big monster. And then, yeah, it ends with, like, Luffy on the ground, pounding the ground, like, freaking out, like, crying, because he lost his entire crew. And we see flashbacks of them celebrating and when everyone was first introduced and then when they joined the crew. So we get a lot of flashbacks of those. And I'll be real. I'm invested in this series. I got a little joked up, but I don't expect anyone else to, this.

Being the only contract I felt about these flashbacks. Because what was so wild to me is that two of them I had just seen the USOP. Leaving. And Robin joining. I just saw those. But what is so wild to me is that those didn't take place, like, five episodes ago. Those took place 200 somewhat over 100 episodes ago. And I'm sure as an avid viewer, you're like, yeah, I'd remember that. But me thinking of I don't know, I would just be like, I'm supposed to remember that shit from 100 episodes 120 episodes ago?

I mean, it stopped, joined, then left, then joined again.

I mean, they're very big moments of the characters, like, when they're introduced and when they join the crew. Like, I don't think they're too hard to remember because you don't need to remember, like, 150 of those episodes in between, a lot of that could be forgotten.

So wild to me that instead of being like, I guess I would say, like, 20 episodes apart, they're 120 episodes apart.

I mean, Game of Thrones had a huge cast, but you remember when a lot of those characters get introduced, especially if you remember no, I don't.

That's still, like, under 100 episodes.

I know.

I'm just saying, you remember because of the character, not because of the number. Like, you don't remember. You don't think of it in terms of episodes. It's just one long story. So, yeah, everyone's loopy's, all choked up and, like, pounding on the ground, and the Admiral comes up and being like, yo, Kuma, the fuck's happening? Like, you're supposed to be a Marine ally. What's going on here? And that's when Kuma just walks in front of Luffy and says, you and I will never meet again. Farewell, shawl Hat. And just launches luffy. And then we get camera zooms out on the area, and we hear the narrator come in and say, it's the day the straw hats were eliminated one by one, and that's it.

If only that were true, because there's that's it. So many episodes out there.

Series ends there. That's the series finale of one piece. That's the story.

Wow.

Yeah.

And hey, Show, you can't have an episode all about eliminating all these people and then go, Next episode. What floofy getting into now?

Here's a wacky side adventure, because that's what the anime is. It's a lot of filler. It's a lot of non economical bullshit. So I recommend the manga. Or at this point, if you're not into one Piece, don't just don't don't bother. Don't even try. There's just way too much. I fully admit that.

So, yeah, now that we finished this, which, I'll be honest, I skipped about the second half, I was just scrolling through it because it was just repeating. He can disappear. You all fight him. What? He got disappeared. Hey, I'll fight him.

What?

He got disappeared. I'll fight him. Literally, the entire crew. It was just the same sequence over and over for this episode because, again, my dude, we did not have the emotional attachment.

Yeah, now I get that.

Paying attention.

I had it on. But I was looking forward to the ad break because I was like, I guess I have to read the subtitles.

No, this was a bad episode to show us. I'm calling you out right now.

This is really just shitting on Brendan, the episode that's the podcast not always.

I mean, granted, a lot of time I deserve it. I'll say for this. What did you want? What would make a good episode for you? Because I will say there are no episodes with self containing stories.

I never wanted to watch this.

The shortest story is in, like, five episodes long or so. Like, there's no episodic stories that can be easily summarized in 20 minutes for a show. So I know no one wanted that.

But for an episode to be here's, a fight with a set up we don't see, with characters we don't know. And the only value of this episode is your emotional attachment to them as they are, quote, unquote, killed in kind of a boring way. It's not like they all had like epic fight deaths. They just poof, were gone literally.

Thanos yeah, but I would make the argument that that shows you that these are the main characters at this point. You think they're like, these are the strongest guys. And we see that just the drastic power level difference between them and someone else showing like, there's so much more to this world than just these characters we've known so far.

Yeah, that's fair.

It's like thanos coming in and kicking everyone's shit and being like, oh god, Captain America is not that strong anymore.

I think that it was a good idea to do one piece because it is such like a prolific I don't know. It's a big one. It's a big one that a lot of people like that everybody knows about. And it's the anniversary of the manga. So like fair. Yeah, but it's hard to do in this context, in the context of our podcast.

I also went into episode 405. Not as interested as the others since in the intro we see like lasers and just like your typical nondiscover anime power blasts that weren't really a thing up until there. It was just a lot of cannons and artillery and magic powers. But they aren't just straight up. Here's my anime laser beam. So I feel like that just threw me off at the top.

Yeah, that's what I mean. I went into this show, I told you guys, I'm like, you're not going to be interested in this fucking show. Like, I I don't expect you to. I'm not trying to win you guys over with these episodes. I picked these episodes because they are like fundamental episodes for the series. But I also think they show off some of the better components of the show versus the 17 episodes of them trying to recruit Usab. And it's just little kids playing pranks on some nerdy butler with weird finger swords. Like, that's not going to sell you on anything. That's not going to show you the best animation, the best characters, the best acting. Like nothing. That's that's nothing. So, like, I picked these episodes because they're very big cornerstones of the series and you don't have the context for it. So you're not invested in it. But they still do show off some of the best parts of it. And at least I was hopefully giving you some context of why people would be so invested in these characters and showing, like, up to this point, these guys took down, like, baddie after baddie after baddie and did these phenomenal things. And then some just big ass dude with a Bible and Paul Prince just come in and kicks their shit in. It's kind of like, oh, fuck. There's a much bigger world out there than we realized. That's why I picked it.

The thing for me is I really liked the first two episodes and really disliked the last one because I'll say it, even from what we watched out of context, I liked this show. I know it's a giant, major commitment. I don't know if I will fully commit to it, especially seeing 400 episodes. Apparently it goes off the rails and I don't like it as much anymore. Off the rails real bad. But I like those fingered knife things. I like the weird, goofy, not super serious stuff. I love that stuff.

There's plenty of that. But like I said, these flashbacks, they're definitely heavier for these episodes. But there's a lot of redundancy. It's meant to be a serial show where you're watching it week to week and have a week to forget what happened and then have to get recapped on what you're watching. So if you binge it all, you could probably cut out like a good 40% of the stuff. It's just redundant storytelling of them being like last time and next time. It's like you only get like 10% of real new content in every episode or so. There is plenty of good stuff in there. There's plenty of really fun stuff in there. It's not like Dragon Ball Z where everyone's powers are pretty much just energy blast with the one piece, all the devil proof stuff. They're so drastically different. Like the main character is just rubber. Like, that doesn't sound good. But then you see him utilizing it and doing it in different ways and he wins those fights. Versus the Admiral, who can literally just turn into light and create light objects and just blast people to death with light or freeze them with ice or Kuma who that's a devil fruit power his paws. Those are devil fruit. So they're just so wildly different that every episode is kind of just this wacky adventure that you can't just kind of glaze over and be like, he's just doing this shit again. You're going to have to kind of pay attention. But there is so much of it. So I never expected anyone to be like, listen to this, watch these episodes, or listen to this podcast. Be like, I'm full in. Like, I'm all in on one piece now. No, but it's highlighting some of the best elements of it and kind of showing you where the story goes from here. Because after this, they do a bit more story and then they do a time skip like every story does now these days.

Like one of these newfangled animes.

Yeah, I mean, not even anime. Everything seems to be doing time skips now. But yeah, this is just a very big episode. And like Dragon Ball z, you could. Have a big fight sequence, but it's going to be over the course of four episodes with a C and B plot going along, too. So I'd rather show this big, one self contained episode than try and pick part to three out of a four part saga of a fight.

I will give you that.

Yeah.

It's just hard for a show about introducing people to Anthony to show the conclusion out of context, or so we see up until that point.

Yeah. understandable.

Like, yeah.

Hey, if you're really interested in the Marvel cinematic Universe, let me show you the last they all die minutes of infinity War. That will really get you with that.

But like you guys said, there's 500 more episodes, there's 500 more chapters, so there's much more story. It clearly doesn't end here. So it's kind of like, how did they get back? Where did they all go? What happened? So interest cliffhangers.

Yeah. Nothing about this is my thing.

That's fair.

Yeah. I see the appeal, but it's just not for me.

But now you have some context. When you see one piece out somewhere or someone's talking about one piece, you know what it is now with a little more context.

I've always had context.

But now you got Brooke.

But I guess I know a little more. I could be like, oh, my God, do you remember episode four died, but.

Now you know Brooke.

I do know Brooke.

We almost know brooke I was going.

To say earlier, I like him so much because he's a combination of Danny Sexbang and papyrus from under. And that's stellar.

Really is.

Let's have a Brooke podcast. I love him.

I'd be fine with that. Just watch every episode he's in, or he's a very important part of spin off. I will say he is kind of shitty early on because they make him really where he's just like, Can I see?

I like that.

He's like any woman he interacts with. He's like, Can I see your panties? But that's it. It doesn't go further than that.

That's terrible. Why are women treated so poorly? Terrible.

Luckily, they stopped doing that. It's a running joke early on with him and then it slowly fades out. So that's good, at least.

God bless. Can we stop talking about one?

Yeah, I'm fine with this, thanks. You got my approval.

Well, if you have a mega conglomerate of an anime you would like us to watch, you can send us recommendations. You can reach out to us. Are we there yet@gmail.com? Or on social media at are we there yet? On Twitter and Instagram. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan.

Should I say what we're watching next week?

This podcast starts in that it's frilling us.

We got to be an actual anime recap podcast and watch every episode now. No.

I chose.

So what's going on next week?

I picked Tokyo ghoul, which is another one of those animes that I started and never finished, but have a vague recollection of enjoying. So we're going to watch the first three episodes. It's a little spooky. I'm excited.

Little ghosties for pirates to zombies.

Yes. Anyway, you can find me on Instagram at queen. Period Weebu. And you can find me on Twitter at queen underscore weebu. And queen underscore weebu art.

You can find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan I'm going to be talking about one piece tough shit that's happening. And then I got a video game podcast called Almost Better Than Silence. I think we just recorded our 300th episode. So if you like long standing bullshit, there's a podcast for you.

If you liked this episode of Brendan Talking on Love, his other podcast, no one liked that.

Thank you to camille Ruley for artwork. And thank you to Louis zong for theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with animals.

I won't live with one. yo.