About my friend actually,
We just started Water 7 and are at the part where Usopp confronts the Franky Family for stealing his money (but before he gets beat up again).
@solis he hated Long Ring Long Land, an arc that I was a fan of
Mostly because he had some disagreements with the set-up and how the Straw Hats went along with the game or even agreed in the first place. He made an opinion that if you got another pirate like Kuro or Kreig and tried to get them to do the game then they would've just wiped out the Foxy Pirates instead.
Thankfully he at least enjoyed the groggy ring match with Sanji and Zoro (And has even said he wants to see them fight each other since he liked their small scuffle) and some parts of the fight with Foxy.
He also had an impression with no sword style
@AdmiralKinyagi we finally meet Aokiji and it went pretty well. He was impressed with the ice powers and how easily he took out the Straw-Hats at the time. Said he set the bar for the trope in this series that "stronger guys have shittier ships). Nothin too much other than theories. Though I'm kinda pissed at the anime for botching it though. If you watched this anime in it's original form weekly there's a stretch after Skypeia where there's a filler arc (G-8 but still filler), the LRLL arc that's doubled because of dogshit anime canon, and ANOTHER filler arc after LRLL ends cause they have it so that Aokiji shows up on a random island instead.
I'm so glad there's no more of that (I think) going forward
On to Water 7, he was very surprised about the Seatrain and he told me that he shouldn't set expectations for what's going to happen since he's surprised every time. He liked the visuals of Water 7 and said it looks like Venizia. But said it looks like it has dogshit walkability and said he couldn't live there because the roads are basically thrill rides.
He was very relieved when Nami went to get the money appraised alongside Luffy and Usopp since he knows they would screw it up. But he instantly called that the money would get stolen in some way.
Liked Iceberg, thought he was a funny character.
Kaku really stood out to him when he started doing his jumping thing. Said he was literally flying through the air and started calling him Goku. Also called that everyone would make the joke about the nose.
I'm not sure how he feels about the Merry being unsalvagable yet, but he had a bit of a somber tone I think.
Now on to Paulie
@Ghostly Reflections
He doesn't really know about what the full crew looks like, more of a vague idea. Thought Jinbe was the shipwright and asked me if there was a fish shipwright on the island but I didn't answer (though there was lmao). Basically he doesn't know for sure that Franky is the one joining. So I decided to have a bit of fun and point out how crewworthy Paulie seemed. Design, unique power, a reason for leaving with the gambling debt, he's got it all.
My friend is not taking the bait quite yet though. Though he fuckin
hates Paulie's gag and has started to be disappointed in Sanji's (This is what he's reduced to he says lmao)
For some reason, he thought Franky in the mask was Buggy but realized it wasn't when he saw how hulking he was lmao. But I'm interested in seeing if he figures out that Franky is the one who's joining.
The moments of Usopp being sad about losing the money and blowing up the door to confront the Franky family had an impact as well. Thought that the one to blow up the door was the crew and not Usopp. He was generally impressed by him for doing that.
And he is intrigued by the CP9 thing, before we got to this point he told me he was hoping that this arc would explore Robin's character more. Thankfully that's exactly what he's going to get.
@AwakenedCabbage