So, a lot has been said in the past week about the unusual and ridiculously large amount of blatant illustration mistakes of last chapter (1127). Mainly from people claiming they are exactly and plainly mistakes and people claiming they are conscious decisions made on purpose to hint at the fact that there's some sort of hallucination going on in last chapter.
In this post I'm going to show you why, regardless of the cause of those mistakes, they are not related to any hallucination caused by the absinthe or otherwise even though some of that could also be happening in the chapter. The point is, the two things are not related.
Let's go through every possible scenario case by case:
1. We, the readers, are suffering the hallucination and everything in chapter 1127 is part of it.
This is the most extreme scenario. Common sense says this shouldn't be the case because there's no point in deedicating a full chapter what would constitute basically a "discarded plotline". This would be similar to those chatpers of One Punch-Man that are completely revised a month later and become entirely something else. It would serve no purpose.
That. however would sadly not be enough reason to overlook the popssibility. We've already had our share of irrelevant chapters in recent times.
There is something, though, in the chapter that I think rules out this scenario:
This chapter uses a title template "Adventure in the land of <something>" that has always been used for the chapters in which Luffy first sets foot in the setting of a new arc and the first time we're shown around the place.
If this old tradition were being respected, that would indicate that at least the whole chapter isn't a hallucination, and that, at least the parts where we see this "land of mystery", are real.
2. We, the readers, are suffering the hallucination and the elements of the chapter we believe we know, such as Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp and Sanji, are part of it.
This hypothesis is also highly unlikely. There could be some ways to develop the story in this way, such us our point of view being also the one of a new character we still don't know about, but for most possible future developments this would still be nonsense.
In any case, since now we rely that events in which the protagonists aren't involved are real, then the following was no hallucination either:
The fire in the "forest", the bees being beaten and the "ear god" being defeated are all real. And this:
Would be a hallucination. Okay, someone is hallucinating that there are some Mugiwara pirates in the castle and that they are the cause of a lot of trouble going on.
But that's not only not possible because how could that unknown person know of the way the Mugiwara behave and their quirks and all? Moreover, if someone who doesn't personally know Luffy would hallucinate about him, the last thing the hallucination would lack is precisely the biggest error in the chapter:
Luffy has no straw hat!
There must be something else then.
3. Nami is the one hallucinating. Everything that happens to her is a hallucination.
Besides the first pages where we only see random unknown people from this new place, Nami is the protagonist of the chapter. All the action happens from her perspective even if Usopp joins her at some point. So, maybe she is hallucinating it all, right? After all, how could she possibly not just survive but be completely unharmed after such a fall from the top of the castle, unless everything was a hallucination?
No. Nami can't possibly know about the "ear god" and the other bees, so she can't hallucinate the arrival of Luffy, Zoro and Sanji that culminates the whole thing. Hence, not possible even if they appear completely out of thin air. Next.
4. Nami is hallucinating. But only about the mistakes.
Okay, everything we see through Nami's point of view is mostly true, save for little costume details, such as her carrying or not carrying a sword.
It would be strange that Nami hallucinated about her own back, but it's technically possible to feel tactile hallucinations and the only way to show us would be through the drawing anyway. In fact, let's not be too strict because things like the straw hat and Usopp's bag disappearing or Nami's buckle shapeshifting aren't technically hallucinations but illusions. But since "hallucination" is just the translation that was used from a japanese word that it's likely to not have the exact same specific meaning, let's be a bit more loose with semantics.
Well, first of all, if we're onto hallucinating those costumes, I'd have really preferred nicer ones. Say... like these ones:
Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji... all designs were vastly superior here. Especially Zoro that now lagging two arcs behind with clothes from the Beast pirates. It would also be a breath of fresh air to not have fur, wool and feathers drawn in the exact same way so that not all coats and capes look the same, but whatever.
Any way, why would Nami be having this hallucinations (she would have been having them since the end of last chapter) if the others (Franky, Robin, Brook, Jinbe) don't? We know Nami has excellent alcohol tolerance. She can drink a lot without getting drunk. Why would he be this drunk but not Robin or Brook?
5. Usopp might be the one hallucinating and not (just) Nami.
Usopp is not really the character whose point of view the chapter follows, so this wouldn't make sense, but for the sake of completeness, let's discuss it too.
Actually, he does consider the possibility too and... well chapter is self-explanatory in this regard. Usopp is not hallucinating.
Yeah, okay, but what about hallucinating just the odd mistakes? You may think. Well, I think, out of all the Mugiwara, Usopp and Nami would have notice they were seeing inconsistent things here and there and if they were there to serve any purpose at all, this very moment would have certainly been the one to let Usopp talk about it.
Something like:
They talked about hallucinating as something that migh be happening to them, however, not once they pointed the blatant inconsistencies we can see. Again, with special mention to Luffy not having his hat. Something, I'm sure Nami would have noticed.
6. Wait! Let's go back. We, the readers, are the only ones hallucinating and only about the inconsistent bits.
Look... at this point, this is just cope.
That makes no sense at all. If what we see isn't at all connected to the story, then, Luffy ressurrecting into Nika and defeating Kaido might just have been us hallucinating as well. In fact, what if next chapter a 7 year old Luffy wakes up at Dadan's and these past 1127 chapters were all just his dream, right? Surely we've had hints here and there, like Crocodile having two hands, Law missing his tattoos or Teach not lacking a single tooth.
Just no. Let's be real.
Last chapter is completely full of very careless mistakes.
There's so much room for possible reasons why that happened like:
Hallucinations don't justify the terrible mistakes of last chapter.
What do you think?
In this post I'm going to show you why, regardless of the cause of those mistakes, they are not related to any hallucination caused by the absinthe or otherwise even though some of that could also be happening in the chapter. The point is, the two things are not related.
Let's go through every possible scenario case by case:
1. We, the readers, are suffering the hallucination and everything in chapter 1127 is part of it.
This is the most extreme scenario. Common sense says this shouldn't be the case because there's no point in deedicating a full chapter what would constitute basically a "discarded plotline". This would be similar to those chatpers of One Punch-Man that are completely revised a month later and become entirely something else. It would serve no purpose.
That. however would sadly not be enough reason to overlook the popssibility. We've already had our share of irrelevant chapters in recent times.
There is something, though, in the chapter that I think rules out this scenario:
This chapter uses a title template "Adventure in the land of <something>" that has always been used for the chapters in which Luffy first sets foot in the setting of a new arc and the first time we're shown around the place.
If this old tradition were being respected, that would indicate that at least the whole chapter isn't a hallucination, and that, at least the parts where we see this "land of mystery", are real.
2. We, the readers, are suffering the hallucination and the elements of the chapter we believe we know, such as Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp and Sanji, are part of it.
This hypothesis is also highly unlikely. There could be some ways to develop the story in this way, such us our point of view being also the one of a new character we still don't know about, but for most possible future developments this would still be nonsense.
In any case, since now we rely that events in which the protagonists aren't involved are real, then the following was no hallucination either:
The fire in the "forest", the bees being beaten and the "ear god" being defeated are all real. And this:
Would be a hallucination. Okay, someone is hallucinating that there are some Mugiwara pirates in the castle and that they are the cause of a lot of trouble going on.
But that's not only not possible because how could that unknown person know of the way the Mugiwara behave and their quirks and all? Moreover, if someone who doesn't personally know Luffy would hallucinate about him, the last thing the hallucination would lack is precisely the biggest error in the chapter:
Luffy has no straw hat!
There must be something else then.
3. Nami is the one hallucinating. Everything that happens to her is a hallucination.
Besides the first pages where we only see random unknown people from this new place, Nami is the protagonist of the chapter. All the action happens from her perspective even if Usopp joins her at some point. So, maybe she is hallucinating it all, right? After all, how could she possibly not just survive but be completely unharmed after such a fall from the top of the castle, unless everything was a hallucination?
No. Nami can't possibly know about the "ear god" and the other bees, so she can't hallucinate the arrival of Luffy, Zoro and Sanji that culminates the whole thing. Hence, not possible even if they appear completely out of thin air. Next.
4. Nami is hallucinating. But only about the mistakes.
Okay, everything we see through Nami's point of view is mostly true, save for little costume details, such as her carrying or not carrying a sword.
It would be strange that Nami hallucinated about her own back, but it's technically possible to feel tactile hallucinations and the only way to show us would be through the drawing anyway. In fact, let's not be too strict because things like the straw hat and Usopp's bag disappearing or Nami's buckle shapeshifting aren't technically hallucinations but illusions. But since "hallucination" is just the translation that was used from a japanese word that it's likely to not have the exact same specific meaning, let's be a bit more loose with semantics.
Well, first of all, if we're onto hallucinating those costumes, I'd have really preferred nicer ones. Say... like these ones:
Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji... all designs were vastly superior here. Especially Zoro that now lagging two arcs behind with clothes from the Beast pirates. It would also be a breath of fresh air to not have fur, wool and feathers drawn in the exact same way so that not all coats and capes look the same, but whatever.
Any way, why would Nami be having this hallucinations (she would have been having them since the end of last chapter) if the others (Franky, Robin, Brook, Jinbe) don't? We know Nami has excellent alcohol tolerance. She can drink a lot without getting drunk. Why would he be this drunk but not Robin or Brook?
5. Usopp might be the one hallucinating and not (just) Nami.
Usopp is not really the character whose point of view the chapter follows, so this wouldn't make sense, but for the sake of completeness, let's discuss it too.
Actually, he does consider the possibility too and... well chapter is self-explanatory in this regard. Usopp is not hallucinating.
Yeah, okay, but what about hallucinating just the odd mistakes? You may think. Well, I think, out of all the Mugiwara, Usopp and Nami would have notice they were seeing inconsistent things here and there and if they were there to serve any purpose at all, this very moment would have certainly been the one to let Usopp talk about it.
Something like:
They talked about hallucinating as something that migh be happening to them, however, not once they pointed the blatant inconsistencies we can see. Again, with special mention to Luffy not having his hat. Something, I'm sure Nami would have noticed.
6. Wait! Let's go back. We, the readers, are the only ones hallucinating and only about the inconsistent bits.
Look... at this point, this is just cope.
That makes no sense at all. If what we see isn't at all connected to the story, then, Luffy ressurrecting into Nika and defeating Kaido might just have been us hallucinating as well. In fact, what if next chapter a 7 year old Luffy wakes up at Dadan's and these past 1127 chapters were all just his dream, right? Surely we've had hints here and there, like Crocodile having two hands, Law missing his tattoos or Teach not lacking a single tooth.
Just no. Let's be real.
Last chapter is completely full of very careless mistakes.
There's so much room for possible reasons why that happened like:
- Oda has been so focused in working for the live action that he didn't even cared to design how he would draw characters this arc and he didn't even checked what he was drawing.
- There's an editor's strike going on and they're not overseeing manga, so anything goes to print.
- There are more than one people drawing One Piece. That also explains Kaido's different faces in hybrid form.
Hallucinations don't justify the terrible mistakes of last chapter.
What do you think?
