This is a continuation from the first part in another post.
Goldberg asks Luffy what was he doing on the realm of the dead even though as a non-native, the most probable out come to this question would be: "What's the realm of the dead?" But since Goldberg's speech is written by Oda who knows we already read about what the Realm of the Dead is, now Goldberg knows too because all characters share a hivemind with Oda for obvious reasons.
Oh... but if that's the case then why does Goldberg need to ask in the first place? Should he already know the answer too? Wha...? Hey, shut up and don't think too much! This is just a play and you're supposed to read and applaud not think about it!
And before we get to Luffy's reaction, more than what he was doing down there, I'd like to know why did he come back to the bridge off-screen? Last chapter Luffy had won over Loki's pets and almost broke his face with a punch. Now all that is over just because. Really?? It is how it is... Rewriting your whole manga to adapt it to Netflix's standards takes too much time for Oda to spare some writing at least one plot line that doesn't ruin any semblance of immersion on the spot due to how forced it is at every single step.
But the worst part is that Goldberg is the one asking Luffy. Why the hell does Goldberg need to ask Luffy anything, even more so, demanding an explanation about what Luffy was doing, the very first time they meet??? Think about it for a moment. It's ridiculous and I have to say it, this attitude is much much more deserving of Luffy resorting to punch Goldberg in the face for rudeness and cockiness than what Loki did last chapter. But don't worry, that's not going to happen. Goldberg is a "good guy". If Luffy didn't punch Rodo for the same reason, he's punching Goldberg even less.
And do you know why is Goldberg being this rude to Luffy? It's not because it's his personality. So far, everything indicated he's nice and quite laid back, so this question seems quite a bit out of character and it is. The reason why Goldberg asks is because "someone" had to ask in order for Oda to have an excuse to show Luffy's reaction and the little flashback panel. And why not someone else? Because it's reasonable for Luffy to just ignore Goldberg's question if he doesn't want to answer, but it'd be extremely awkward and out of character if Luffy refused to tell any of his nakama why did he leave them like he did and what did he do before coming back. Not only would it be horrendous of him not to answer them. It's still terrible that he isn't going to tell them even if they don't ask. But he won't tell and they won't ask. Because Oda wants Luffy to have a secret. But story-wise, this is deplorable and destroys even more (if it were possible) the relationship the Mugiwara pirates had. Sad times to be reading One Piece.
Now we can talk about Luffy's reaction. He gets nervous and we have a flashback panel where Loki tells us Luffy and him made a deal and it's meant to be a secret.
EXCUSE ME???
Why would Luffy make a deal with Loki?? So far, we already saw two relevant things:
It's actually not that difficult. Here's how it could have gone for every mugiwara pirate:
For fuck's sake! If he wants to copy norse mythology this hard, since Loki is supposed to be the God of Deception, make him deceive Luffy, so that the Mugiwara frees him. And show it to the readers, important detail. After all we're here to read a story, not to read that a story could exist but we're not privy to it for... "reasons".
If this were pre-time skip we'd have seen Loki fooling Luffy and fooling us at the same time. We would have fallen for it hook, line and sinker until the great reveal where we would bring our hands to our heads and ask ourselves how come didn't we realized it sooner. But no. As Orc Broggy earlier said, those times are over. Now we get off-screen plot that brings consequences we must accept just because.
If memory serves me right, in previous chapters they, all of them, were escaping from Rodo, afraid of him even and not even considering fighting him. Then why do they do the exact opposite thing? Easy. Then it wasn't convenient for Oda and now it is. Gotta love the writing!
Also, Rodo falls for the crude trap quite in a disgraceful manner. Archetypical maniac face expressions and movements included. I find it gross. Not Rodo, the scene and the perversion of the character used to shamelessly serve a plot that it's giving us nothing any way.
I mean, it is forgivable (not justifiable, though) when such fraudulent trickery is used in small amounts, to help a scene or plotline attain a higher impact on the reader, to make the story so much funnier or epic or thrilling. I don't like it, but well... at least it pays off. Some such examples can be found in the Marine Ford arc. Are there some dubious plot devices? Yes. Is the arc fucking epic from start to finish? Hell yeah!
But this? This is boring with or without Rodo being such a psychopath.
Missing objects report for the page: Nami has her magic sword in the middle row, Nami doesn't have it in the big panel. As expected.
And what is this trap Zoro and Sanji use to beat Rodo do you ask? Yes. I'll explain. Sanji bent a tree so that the tree-top touches the ground without it snapping or uprooting (which speaks volumes of the tree's flexibility). Then at the right time, Zoro cuts the trees base so that it unbends slapping Rodo, who would make a dive at Nami and Chopper (and make sure his arms pass under the tree so that his face can receive the impact perfectly.
I could understand them not waiting for Luffy because they hadn't seen him. Although then we must probably re-evaluate Sanji's and Usopp's observation haki, but the Sunny??? They knew Gerd and Goldberg had the Sunny. And suddenly they were determined to fight a giant. So, why do they just start walking turning their back to the sunny AND ignoring the other two giants they were also hiding from??? Who's writing all this nonsense?? A defective AI??
We then have the definitive proof that Gerd and Goldberg don't approve what Rodo did to the Mugiwara pirates (they do approve of him doing the same to others though because they knew before and still were friends with him). They arrive and hit Rodo with their weapons. And I'm going to assume Gerd hits Rodo with the back of the axe or something, otherwise her attack should be way worse than the comedic purpose it serves, even for shonen standards. I think with that, Oda considers them clean to be friends with the Mugiwara pirates now that they're proven their allegiance by lynching their comrade.
This is the first page to bring a smile to my face. Sanji looking at a woman with innocent love face rather than creepy pervert face. Maybe it's happened some other time more recently, but it feels like the last time this happened I was still a kid.
Now, the last panel intrigues me because I can't tell whether Luffy doesn't seem actually excited (and barely himself at all) because of poor drawing or is it a conscious decision trying to show a nervous Luffy rushing not to interact with his friends to avoid having to lie to them.
Regardless of the reason why the drawing is how it is, Luffy does rush in order to avoid his friends and it disgusts me. Luffy is now willing to lie and keep things from the friends who are to make him the Pirate King, in favour of a complete stranger that talks trash about Shanks. Damn Luffy! Make up your mind. Do you want to punch him or be his accomplice??
Gerd directs Luffy, Usopp and Chopper to "some clouds" so that they can reach the village. They run and jump on the clouds without passing through them. Meanwhile, Zoro, Nami and Sanji sit in Gerd's tits as though she were a taxi.
So, I suppose bosses at Shueisha must be thinking "well, the story is shit, but he's drawing tits and asses left and right now, so boys will still buy the tankobon." And that's it.
Back on the Great Erik, Dorry and Broggy try to create some hype for their village/country/island saying it's so vast it stretches as far as the eye can see and all sorts of things we already know they're false as per previous discussion. Also, you can perfectly see here the rainbow has tilted at some point to become a horizontal surface.
There are also three littile panels of Luffy and Usopp to the left. Personally, I'd have preferred the village panel occupied the whole double page as it used to happen back in the day. These panels could have gone to the next page. That said, I also have to say it's not that bad. They're not really taking much from the spread and the effect of Luffy and Usopp seeing exactly what we're seeing wouldn't be the same if you had to turn the page to see them.
Regarding the illustration, though, and not as a negative thing but as something that I think this page doesn't accomplish: We can't exactly share the impression Luffy and Usopp are having because they're nothing but a minuscule stain of ink in a cloud. I mean, the village is beautiful, but it's certainly not so beautiful as to start crying or be so amazed as Luffy. It's reasonable for them and not for us because they have something we don't and that's the scale. Taking the image alone, it's impossible for us to know whether the people in this village are regular humans, giants or dwarves. And so, for us this is a beautiful village, period. But Luffy and Usopp perceive the scale of things. for them it's not just a beautiful village. It's giant beautiful village, where everything is astonishingly big. They had seen giants before here and there. Impressive, but used to them now. But they hadn't ever seen a village where everything is that size. And that surely hads a lot to the shock of that visual. So, maybe, some element that helped the reader perceive clearly the scale of the village would have made up for that.
Now, for the story: The first thing that needs to be said is that this is a complete retcon of Elbaf village as it was shown in Big Mom's flashback.
What we could see in Big Mom's flashback, though, was the Adam tree far away in the back and not close as now. Why? Because Elbaf wasn't up inside Adam's foliage. It was at the true ground of the island.
Further proof is that Big Mom set the whole village on fire (would love to know how she did it). A fire so big that there were tall flames even in the ground. But we knew back then already that wood from the Adam tree doesn't burn. It's one of the reasons Franky made the Sunny with that wood.
But this is what we have now, so until it's retcon'd again, we'll talk about the way it is now. I have two complaints:
First, the castle. Well, not exactly the castle. The castle is fine. There was no need for it. Castles are meant as protection from raids of outside forces and I think it's fair to say being up there in the "Realm of the sun" is already protection enough from any other group of people trying to invade or raid the island. If the attackers can cross the forests full of huge savage beasts, climb the freezing mountains, take the hanging bridge and into the village while beating every defending strategy the giants had in store, then I don't think that castle is going to be of much help. But I get it that in here, it's just meant to represent the king's house so that it's easily distinguishable. That's fine.
But what about the gate before the stairs? It's the shortest fortified wall ever, strictly out of the Age of Empires videogames. I don't know why the king needs a double door to his house, but one would imagine that if that fortified gate is required, then so should be the corresponding wall around the castle. Because otherwise what's the point? I just imagine myself as a giant having some business in the castle, knocking at that first door, being not answered or denied access and simply getting around it and up the stairs with little to no effort. It's hillarious!
Second, let's talk about the clouds now. Please, someone give me a reason why the skypiean clouds had to be borrowed to decorate Elbaf. One reason. There are surely regular clouds too. There's no way there aren't. It must be incredibly stressful living in a place where birds are constantly crashing against solid clouds because they can't distinguish them and if you decide to step on some cloud, you might make a mistake and try to step on a regular cloud immediately free-falling to the realm of the dead where you, unironically, die upon arrival.
But how are they possible to begin with?? Remember that the island clouds can only exist at very high altitudes, hence why there haven't been such clouds anywhere else in the world before except Vegapunk's lab. A decision I don't approve of either, but at least explained since Egghead had its climate artifically set to whatever Vegapunk desired.
This impossibility of cloud islands existing anyehwere other than at hights such as Skypiea is shown when Usopp tried to use cloud dials in the Blue sea and the clouds just dispersed upon release. But hey, Elbaf MUST be the ultimate supercool fairytale-like experience and that requires not only giants and a village at the tree-tops, there must be liquid-solid rainbows to sail on and solid clouds to walk on, even if that destroys the uniqueness and charm of other places in this fictional world because those places... they're not of the present. And Oda needs his hype NOW, so Skypiea can go to hell for all he cares. It's not relevant anymore. And by the way, Broggy was very clear before, we're now at a point where consistency is not a concern. So, YES, liquid rainbows and solid clouds there is. Next chapter it'll be the turn for the unicorns and fairy dust. At least those won't be a ripped off from previous arcs.
And now, for the final two pages.
No. No. Just NO.
I refuse.
I refuse to accept into the Mugiwara pirate crew a character that has done absolutely nothing of value since her introduction, a literal clone of Vegapunk that shares his true brain, allegedly the most intelligent being in history, actually dumbest among the dumb characters of all time and who would render Franky and Usopp virtually useless (Sanji too if you remember and potentially Chopper and Robin but... they've been useless since the time skip, so maybe that'ss trivial).
And even more than Lilith, I refuse to accept into the Mugiwara pirate crew an interesting character that's been retcon'd into a rehashed defective she-Nika and whose merits to deserve this honor are the same as Lilith: None.
So, this composite panel with all the remaining members that had yet to see the village plus Lilith and Bonney horrifies me. After a decade being teased with Yamato, Carrot, Kin'emon and even Trafalgar Law as next Mugiwara members, the prospect that either of those two, let alone both of them, joining the crew is terrifying. Nothing definitive yet. But the panel is a bad omen if nothing else.
And as the last thing to review in this chapter, Louis Arnote.
Story-wise, this warning leaves me absolutely unimpressed. Not just because I'm more than used to this kind of empty hype in modern One Piece, but because this was refuted many years ago (both in-story and in real world time). Mother Carmel and her kids had no problem whatsoever in staying at Elbaf for as long as they'd please. Poof! Bomb successfully deactivated. No further questions, your honor.
From a narrative perspective, though, it's a different thing. What Oda did here is marvelous. Marvelously awful, but marvelous nonetheless. Because anyone can think Oda's writing is better or worse, but there is one thing no one can deny about him. His originality. Oda always comes up with new things and new ways of doing things.
YES, he's been lately a great fan of "the three R". He's reduced a lot the quality of the illustration and storytelling, he's reduced the plot into the simplest of things (if anything), he's reduced characters to their minimal archetypical expression. He's reused tropes to exhaustion and recycled lots of plot devices, scenes and moments.
This very usage of the narrator reading us a book by the author Louis Arnot to introduce an island of giants is itself a poor rehash of how Little Garden was introduced. Save for the fact that back then, there was an actual book Nami had been looking for in her bookcase with those lines written on it. Now there's no book and we're just given this text completely decontextualized. Only readers that remember those little details from chapter 116 will be able to understand what the narrator is on about one thousand chapters later. This takes me back to last chapter were someone thought necessary to include a reminder of who Hajrudin is.
Any way, the point is that, just as in 116, Louis Arnote is used to end the chapter in a cliff-hanger. Back then, by creating expectations about giants, this time... I don't know. Creating expectation about "that problem", I suppose. So, what is it that is really innovative in this? The Cliff-hanger.
I have, obviously, not read every tale, novel and comic book there is nor have I watched every movie, cartoon or soap opera. And yet I'm fairly confident that here in this last page of chapter 1132 of One Piece, Oda just created the Mother of All Cliff-Hangers.
For starters, this is not just any regular cliff-hanger. It's a double cliff-hanger. Or maybe I should say it's a Cliff-hanger-in-a-Cliff-Hanger. It's very clear that Louis Arnote's warning leaves us, the readers, hanging, expecting to know it actually means. But we're not the only ones.
Since those words are, presumably because of the reclying, Louis Arnote's words in Brag Men or some other book of his, the cliff-hanger was originally meant for the readers of that book!
In time, Louis Arnote as a writer suffered the same evolution as Oda and went from being clever and original naming "Little Garden, land of giants" a tropical island inhabited by a couple giants and telling readers exactly what to expect: An island that looks like garden for the giants that live in; to reusing the same literary device to name "Elbaf, land of giants" an island inhabited by giants, even though we know Elbaf is not the only place in the world with giant settlements and disregarding every other feature of the island that makes it unique like the colossal tree, the inhabitable tree-tops, the liquid rainbows, the island clouds... And he wouldn't even tell the readers what he learnt as an explorer, no: "my advice: do not linger there for long"... Goddammit Arnote! People reading your book want to know WHY not be left hanging!! Especially because 99.99% of the readers won't ever visit Elbaf, so your advice is USELESS.
Ch. 1132 p9
Gerd keeps on yapping about how bad it was what Rodo did. As I said some chapters ago, this was bound to happen because Oda wants us to like Hajrudin's crew as they'll be co-protagonists for the arc.
Goldberg asks Luffy what was he doing on the realm of the dead even though as a non-native, the most probable out come to this question would be: "What's the realm of the dead?" But since Goldberg's speech is written by Oda who knows we already read about what the Realm of the Dead is, now Goldberg knows too because all characters share a hivemind with Oda for obvious reasons.
Oh... but if that's the case then why does Goldberg need to ask in the first place? Should he already know the answer too? Wha...? Hey, shut up and don't think too much! This is just a play and you're supposed to read and applaud not think about it!
And before we get to Luffy's reaction, more than what he was doing down there, I'd like to know why did he come back to the bridge off-screen? Last chapter Luffy had won over Loki's pets and almost broke his face with a punch. Now all that is over just because. Really?? It is how it is... Rewriting your whole manga to adapt it to Netflix's standards takes too much time for Oda to spare some writing at least one plot line that doesn't ruin any semblance of immersion on the spot due to how forced it is at every single step.
But the worst part is that Goldberg is the one asking Luffy. Why the hell does Goldberg need to ask Luffy anything, even more so, demanding an explanation about what Luffy was doing, the very first time they meet??? Think about it for a moment. It's ridiculous and I have to say it, this attitude is much much more deserving of Luffy resorting to punch Goldberg in the face for rudeness and cockiness than what Loki did last chapter. But don't worry, that's not going to happen. Goldberg is a "good guy". If Luffy didn't punch Rodo for the same reason, he's punching Goldberg even less.
And do you know why is Goldberg being this rude to Luffy? It's not because it's his personality. So far, everything indicated he's nice and quite laid back, so this question seems quite a bit out of character and it is. The reason why Goldberg asks is because "someone" had to ask in order for Oda to have an excuse to show Luffy's reaction and the little flashback panel. And why not someone else? Because it's reasonable for Luffy to just ignore Goldberg's question if he doesn't want to answer, but it'd be extremely awkward and out of character if Luffy refused to tell any of his nakama why did he leave them like he did and what did he do before coming back. Not only would it be horrendous of him not to answer them. It's still terrible that he isn't going to tell them even if they don't ask. But he won't tell and they won't ask. Because Oda wants Luffy to have a secret. But story-wise, this is deplorable and destroys even more (if it were possible) the relationship the Mugiwara pirates had. Sad times to be reading One Piece.
Now we can talk about Luffy's reaction. He gets nervous and we have a flashback panel where Loki tells us Luffy and him made a deal and it's meant to be a secret.
EXCUSE ME???
Why would Luffy make a deal with Loki?? So far, we already saw two relevant things:
- Luffy feels such animosity towards Loki that he resorted to violently attack him, even though he was severely handicapped, for the pettiest of children quarrels.
- Loki's offer was of no value to Luffy. Loki offered Luffy to wipe out a pirate crew of his choice.
- First of all, Luffy has no such interest that we know off or it's reasonably expectable.
- And second, that like offering a carpenter to make him a chair. Goddammit! Luffy is the one who usually offers effective violence to others as a favor! Luffy doesn't need, and most certainly doesn't want others kicking asses for him. It's what he does on a daily basis.
It's actually not that difficult. Here's how it could have gone for every mugiwara pirate:
- Loki tells Zoro has already agreed to help him saying Zoro wouldn't be capable: Zoro works for Loki.
- Loki offers Nami 100 million beris: Nami works for Loki.
- Loki tells Usopp that finding the key to his chains is a national contest and the one to bring it to him will attain supreme giant glory in this life and the next: Usopp works for Loki until his final breath.
- Loki offers Sanji his sister's hand (even if he doesn't have one): Sanji works for Loki.
- Loki asks Chopper real nice: Chopper works for Loki.
- Loki offers Robin first-hand relevant historical knowledge:Robin works for Loki.
- Alternatively, Loki offers Robin a meeting with Saul: Robin works for Loki.
- Loki tells Franky how badly he's been treated by his people: Franky works for Loki.
- Loki offers giant panties to Brook: Brook works for Loki.
- Loki saved Aladdin's life back in the day: Jinbē settles the debt by working for him.
For fuck's sake! If he wants to copy norse mythology this hard, since Loki is supposed to be the God of Deception, make him deceive Luffy, so that the Mugiwara frees him. And show it to the readers, important detail. After all we're here to read a story, not to read that a story could exist but we're not privy to it for... "reasons".
If this were pre-time skip we'd have seen Loki fooling Luffy and fooling us at the same time. We would have fallen for it hook, line and sinker until the great reveal where we would bring our hands to our heads and ask ourselves how come didn't we realized it sooner. But no. As Orc Broggy earlier said, those times are over. Now we get off-screen plot that brings consequences we must accept just because.
Ch. 1132 p10
In this page we're now back to Zoro's group. They use Nami and Chopper as bait and Zoro and Sanji have a simple trap set for Rodo. And that's enough to take him out.
If memory serves me right, in previous chapters they, all of them, were escaping from Rodo, afraid of him even and not even considering fighting him. Then why do they do the exact opposite thing? Easy. Then it wasn't convenient for Oda and now it is. Gotta love the writing!
Also, Rodo falls for the crude trap quite in a disgraceful manner. Archetypical maniac face expressions and movements included. I find it gross. Not Rodo, the scene and the perversion of the character used to shamelessly serve a plot that it's giving us nothing any way.
I mean, it is forgivable (not justifiable, though) when such fraudulent trickery is used in small amounts, to help a scene or plotline attain a higher impact on the reader, to make the story so much funnier or epic or thrilling. I don't like it, but well... at least it pays off. Some such examples can be found in the Marine Ford arc. Are there some dubious plot devices? Yes. Is the arc fucking epic from start to finish? Hell yeah!
But this? This is boring with or without Rodo being such a psychopath.
Missing objects report for the page: Nami has her magic sword in the middle row, Nami doesn't have it in the big panel. As expected.
And what is this trap Zoro and Sanji use to beat Rodo do you ask? Yes. I'll explain. Sanji bent a tree so that the tree-top touches the ground without it snapping or uprooting (which speaks volumes of the tree's flexibility). Then at the right time, Zoro cuts the trees base so that it unbends slapping Rodo, who would make a dive at Nami and Chopper (and make sure his arms pass under the tree so that his face can receive the impact perfectly.
- Why does Zoro cut the tree? It'd only take Sanji to release the tree-top to achieve the same effect. There's no in-story reason, but as with everything we've discussed already, there's an Oda's convenience reason I'll telly in a moment.
- How the hell is Sanji keeping the tree from returning to its original shape?? He's not holding it down in any way! Even if still stupid, I'd let it pass if Sanji had one foot on ground and was supposedly holding the tree down with the other. But he isn't even doing that. He's entirely stepping on the tree. There's absolutely nothing holding down the tree. The tree should have returned to its shape already and sent Sanji flying to the next island. It's... It's... I don't have words for such nonsense any more.
- When released, the tree should RETURN to its original shape, which is upright. This is the reason why Zoro cuts it. Because the impossible tree's movement would be too obvious otherwise. But, if Zoro cuts it, then the only thing that should happen is the tree unbending to a "straight" shape, but not moving in any direction. There is absolutely nothing making one end of the tree moving with such force to knock out a giant in any direction. Least of all if the other end is going to stay fixed just because Sanji is on top of it when I'm sure those trees have nests on them of birds far heavier than Sanji and it doesn't keep them in the ground. Or maybe Sanji ate the Kilo Kilo no Mi between chapters and we weren't told.
Ch. 1132 p11
With Rodo done for, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji and Chopper start walking to their own adventure despite just a moment ago they were looking in the direction where Gerd, Goldberg, Luffy and the Thousand Sunny are coming from not too far away from them.
I could understand them not waiting for Luffy because they hadn't seen him. Although then we must probably re-evaluate Sanji's and Usopp's observation haki, but the Sunny??? They knew Gerd and Goldberg had the Sunny. And suddenly they were determined to fight a giant. So, why do they just start walking turning their back to the sunny AND ignoring the other two giants they were also hiding from??? Who's writing all this nonsense?? A defective AI??
We then have the definitive proof that Gerd and Goldberg don't approve what Rodo did to the Mugiwara pirates (they do approve of him doing the same to others though because they knew before and still were friends with him). They arrive and hit Rodo with their weapons. And I'm going to assume Gerd hits Rodo with the back of the axe or something, otherwise her attack should be way worse than the comedic purpose it serves, even for shonen standards. I think with that, Oda considers them clean to be friends with the Mugiwara pirates now that they're proven their allegiance by lynching their comrade.
Ch. 1132 p12 & p13
Gerd introduces herself and Goldberg to the crew and Luffy rushes Usopp to run to their village.
This is the first page to bring a smile to my face. Sanji looking at a woman with innocent love face rather than creepy pervert face. Maybe it's happened some other time more recently, but it feels like the last time this happened I was still a kid.
Now, the last panel intrigues me because I can't tell whether Luffy doesn't seem actually excited (and barely himself at all) because of poor drawing or is it a conscious decision trying to show a nervous Luffy rushing not to interact with his friends to avoid having to lie to them.
Regardless of the reason why the drawing is how it is, Luffy does rush in order to avoid his friends and it disgusts me. Luffy is now willing to lie and keep things from the friends who are to make him the Pirate King, in favour of a complete stranger that talks trash about Shanks. Damn Luffy! Make up your mind. Do you want to punch him or be his accomplice??
Gerd directs Luffy, Usopp and Chopper to "some clouds" so that they can reach the village. They run and jump on the clouds without passing through them. Meanwhile, Zoro, Nami and Sanji sit in Gerd's tits as though she were a taxi.
So, I suppose bosses at Shueisha must be thinking "well, the story is shit, but he's drawing tits and asses left and right now, so boys will still buy the tankobon." And that's it.
Back on the Great Erik, Dorry and Broggy try to create some hype for their village/country/island saying it's so vast it stretches as far as the eye can see and all sorts of things we already know they're false as per previous discussion. Also, you can perfectly see here the rainbow has tilted at some point to become a horizontal surface.
Ch. 1132 p14_15
Finally, we arrive at the village of Elbaf. We see it in an almost whole double page panel. It's beautiful. Very much. But it pains me a little that part of how much I'm appreciating this big panel is not just because it's beautiful but because it's so much beautiful than the rest of the panels. All of them. And this happens chapter after chapter. Since the illustration is quite poor now in general, when a panel made with love and care appears, it stands out so much more. But it's not exactly a good thing.
There are also three littile panels of Luffy and Usopp to the left. Personally, I'd have preferred the village panel occupied the whole double page as it used to happen back in the day. These panels could have gone to the next page. That said, I also have to say it's not that bad. They're not really taking much from the spread and the effect of Luffy and Usopp seeing exactly what we're seeing wouldn't be the same if you had to turn the page to see them.
Regarding the illustration, though, and not as a negative thing but as something that I think this page doesn't accomplish: We can't exactly share the impression Luffy and Usopp are having because they're nothing but a minuscule stain of ink in a cloud. I mean, the village is beautiful, but it's certainly not so beautiful as to start crying or be so amazed as Luffy. It's reasonable for them and not for us because they have something we don't and that's the scale. Taking the image alone, it's impossible for us to know whether the people in this village are regular humans, giants or dwarves. And so, for us this is a beautiful village, period. But Luffy and Usopp perceive the scale of things. for them it's not just a beautiful village. It's giant beautiful village, where everything is astonishingly big. They had seen giants before here and there. Impressive, but used to them now. But they hadn't ever seen a village where everything is that size. And that surely hads a lot to the shock of that visual. So, maybe, some element that helped the reader perceive clearly the scale of the village would have made up for that.
Now, for the story: The first thing that needs to be said is that this is a complete retcon of Elbaf village as it was shown in Big Mom's flashback.
Ch. 866 p9 & p14
As you can see, the architectural style is the same but the terrain is not. No wooden protuberances popping up anywhere, no waterfalls, creeks or any form of water running anywhere, no building-height clouds, no rainbows, no abruptly broken ground anywhere and most definitely no precipices anywhere.
What we could see in Big Mom's flashback, though, was the Adam tree far away in the back and not close as now. Why? Because Elbaf wasn't up inside Adam's foliage. It was at the true ground of the island.
Further proof is that Big Mom set the whole village on fire (would love to know how she did it). A fire so big that there were tall flames even in the ground. But we knew back then already that wood from the Adam tree doesn't burn. It's one of the reasons Franky made the Sunny with that wood.
But this is what we have now, so until it's retcon'd again, we'll talk about the way it is now. I have two complaints:
First, the castle. Well, not exactly the castle. The castle is fine. There was no need for it. Castles are meant as protection from raids of outside forces and I think it's fair to say being up there in the "Realm of the sun" is already protection enough from any other group of people trying to invade or raid the island. If the attackers can cross the forests full of huge savage beasts, climb the freezing mountains, take the hanging bridge and into the village while beating every defending strategy the giants had in store, then I don't think that castle is going to be of much help. But I get it that in here, it's just meant to represent the king's house so that it's easily distinguishable. That's fine.
But what about the gate before the stairs? It's the shortest fortified wall ever, strictly out of the Age of Empires videogames. I don't know why the king needs a double door to his house, but one would imagine that if that fortified gate is required, then so should be the corresponding wall around the castle. Because otherwise what's the point? I just imagine myself as a giant having some business in the castle, knocking at that first door, being not answered or denied access and simply getting around it and up the stairs with little to no effort. It's hillarious!
Second, let's talk about the clouds now. Please, someone give me a reason why the skypiean clouds had to be borrowed to decorate Elbaf. One reason. There are surely regular clouds too. There's no way there aren't. It must be incredibly stressful living in a place where birds are constantly crashing against solid clouds because they can't distinguish them and if you decide to step on some cloud, you might make a mistake and try to step on a regular cloud immediately free-falling to the realm of the dead where you, unironically, die upon arrival.
But how are they possible to begin with?? Remember that the island clouds can only exist at very high altitudes, hence why there haven't been such clouds anywhere else in the world before except Vegapunk's lab. A decision I don't approve of either, but at least explained since Egghead had its climate artifically set to whatever Vegapunk desired.
This impossibility of cloud islands existing anyehwere other than at hights such as Skypiea is shown when Usopp tried to use cloud dials in the Blue sea and the clouds just dispersed upon release. But hey, Elbaf MUST be the ultimate supercool fairytale-like experience and that requires not only giants and a village at the tree-tops, there must be liquid-solid rainbows to sail on and solid clouds to walk on, even if that destroys the uniqueness and charm of other places in this fictional world because those places... they're not of the present. And Oda needs his hype NOW, so Skypiea can go to hell for all he cares. It's not relevant anymore. And by the way, Broggy was very clear before, we're now at a point where consistency is not a concern. So, YES, liquid rainbows and solid clouds there is. Next chapter it'll be the turn for the unicorns and fairy dust. At least those won't be a ripped off from previous arcs.
And now, for the final two pages.
Ch. 1132 p16 & p17
The Great Erik arrives. The Mugiwara pirates reunite. And we get a lot of words from Louis Arnote that summarize as: "Elbaf, the land of giants", "Do not stay there for long".
No. No. Just NO.
I refuse.
I refuse to accept into the Mugiwara pirate crew a character that has done absolutely nothing of value since her introduction, a literal clone of Vegapunk that shares his true brain, allegedly the most intelligent being in history, actually dumbest among the dumb characters of all time and who would render Franky and Usopp virtually useless (Sanji too if you remember and potentially Chopper and Robin but... they've been useless since the time skip, so maybe that'ss trivial).
And even more than Lilith, I refuse to accept into the Mugiwara pirate crew an interesting character that's been retcon'd into a rehashed defective she-Nika and whose merits to deserve this honor are the same as Lilith: None.
So, this composite panel with all the remaining members that had yet to see the village plus Lilith and Bonney horrifies me. After a decade being teased with Yamato, Carrot, Kin'emon and even Trafalgar Law as next Mugiwara members, the prospect that either of those two, let alone both of them, joining the crew is terrifying. Nothing definitive yet. But the panel is a bad omen if nothing else.
And as the last thing to review in this chapter, Louis Arnote.
Story-wise, this warning leaves me absolutely unimpressed. Not just because I'm more than used to this kind of empty hype in modern One Piece, but because this was refuted many years ago (both in-story and in real world time). Mother Carmel and her kids had no problem whatsoever in staying at Elbaf for as long as they'd please. Poof! Bomb successfully deactivated. No further questions, your honor.
From a narrative perspective, though, it's a different thing. What Oda did here is marvelous. Marvelously awful, but marvelous nonetheless. Because anyone can think Oda's writing is better or worse, but there is one thing no one can deny about him. His originality. Oda always comes up with new things and new ways of doing things.
YES, he's been lately a great fan of "the three R". He's reduced a lot the quality of the illustration and storytelling, he's reduced the plot into the simplest of things (if anything), he's reduced characters to their minimal archetypical expression. He's reused tropes to exhaustion and recycled lots of plot devices, scenes and moments.
This very usage of the narrator reading us a book by the author Louis Arnot to introduce an island of giants is itself a poor rehash of how Little Garden was introduced. Save for the fact that back then, there was an actual book Nami had been looking for in her bookcase with those lines written on it. Now there's no book and we're just given this text completely decontextualized. Only readers that remember those little details from chapter 116 will be able to understand what the narrator is on about one thousand chapters later. This takes me back to last chapter were someone thought necessary to include a reminder of who Hajrudin is.
Any way, the point is that, just as in 116, Louis Arnote is used to end the chapter in a cliff-hanger. Back then, by creating expectations about giants, this time... I don't know. Creating expectation about "that problem", I suppose. So, what is it that is really innovative in this? The Cliff-hanger.
I have, obviously, not read every tale, novel and comic book there is nor have I watched every movie, cartoon or soap opera. And yet I'm fairly confident that here in this last page of chapter 1132 of One Piece, Oda just created the Mother of All Cliff-Hangers.
For starters, this is not just any regular cliff-hanger. It's a double cliff-hanger. Or maybe I should say it's a Cliff-hanger-in-a-Cliff-Hanger. It's very clear that Louis Arnote's warning leaves us, the readers, hanging, expecting to know it actually means. But we're not the only ones.
Since those words are, presumably because of the reclying, Louis Arnote's words in Brag Men or some other book of his, the cliff-hanger was originally meant for the readers of that book!
In time, Louis Arnote as a writer suffered the same evolution as Oda and went from being clever and original naming "Little Garden, land of giants" a tropical island inhabited by a couple giants and telling readers exactly what to expect: An island that looks like garden for the giants that live in; to reusing the same literary device to name "Elbaf, land of giants" an island inhabited by giants, even though we know Elbaf is not the only place in the world with giant settlements and disregarding every other feature of the island that makes it unique like the colossal tree, the inhabitable tree-tops, the liquid rainbows, the island clouds... And he wouldn't even tell the readers what he learnt as an explorer, no: "my advice: do not linger there for long"... Goddammit Arnote! People reading your book want to know WHY not be left hanging!! Especially because 99.99% of the readers won't ever visit Elbaf, so your advice is USELESS.