I really like Amazon Lily, outside from the ridiculous sexualized clothes they wear because what, and Margaret is probably one of my favorite side characters in one piece. but I miss my strawhats so much. the show simply feels so weird without them. It's NOT like Luffy CAN'T lead the show on its own, he absolutely can but it's just isn't the same without them. And now Luffy is going to rescue Ace and it's going to be another two arcs without them and i don't know how I will survive

Honestly why haven't I seen posts about Koala x Boa?? Their parallels and divergences.... Imagine there's a girl out there who went through the things you did but instead of being half-saved she was saved all the way through. She has a mark on her back just like yours except it's not like yours at all, is it. Yours is only shame, terror, and agony, but there's love and healing added to hers. Where you escaped only to have the weight of the world placed on your shoulders she was raised up and cared for by the very person who freed you. Who left you behind. You were so little. She was so little. Was she more deserving than you? You live in a debt you can never repay to a person long gone. She found a way to repay it, little by little. She never stops. You never started. Would she hate you? Would she be disgusted with how you have hidden? Not just yourself, but the valor of the person you both owe everything to? With your power the whole world could have known. You let him be scorned, you have your own world to take care of. One that can never know. She wears her mark with pride. You'd die to hide yours. She has to understand. You never had a choice. She has to understand. She has to understand. Please forgive me please forgive me please forgive me

This might just be a matter of just when Oda codified "haki" in canon, but I am kinda confused about Haki vs. Rokushiki, which was previously the big non-devil-fruit superpower. Obviously CP9 used that, and we didn't see them using Haki at all, even Lucci. And Garp was teaching Koby Haki. Both of them develop Haki later on.

I also know Haki was introduced at the very very beginning when Shanks scared off the sea king.

Conqueror's haki is super rare and the ability to have it is something you are born with/fated to have. But there are other kinds that anyone can have if they are trained.

So I'm mostly curious if there is any fandom knowledge about why Haki was introduced so early and then left alone for a while, and if it has any tie to Rokushiki or if that power is sort of forgotten (except for Luffy's Gear 2) now that haki has been introduced.

snake princess

I think it's actually so funny that the kuja warriors think of luffy as the model example of what a normal man is supposed to be

And he just goes along with it because hes too lazy to explain otherwise like yeah every man can stretch their bodies like rubber and blow up like balloons and eat extremely large portions of food

The kuja warriors are like okay what we've learned so far is every man can bounce like a ball, is kind of dumb, eats ungodly amounts of meat, turns red and starts steaming, will always sacrifice himself for others!!

I need to see all the kuja ladies interact with another man and immediately try to bounce him like a basketball. They try to stretch out his limbs and are so confused and disappointed when hes like YOURE KILLING ME!!!

They're like??? Arent you a man? Proceeds to ask about his balls and if hes ready to die for his friends

One Piece: Amazon Lily Arc

Kizaru tore through the pirate Captains and their cfews without abandon. SHe watched as the Supernovas did their best to fight the strange giant humans. Light flshed so brightly she had to cover her eyes. A loose growl in her throat as she used her zoan form to leap from her hiding place atop the giant mangrove. Landing on her feet she dodge an oncoming blast of fire as a Marine company sent a volley of bullets her way. Each movement she did required all of her enhanced reflexes, Only when she went sailing over the edge, though, did she truly know fear. --- The Amazon Lily Arc, whoa! WE got this far! Luffy is sent flying after a moment of pure gut- wrenching despair. His body is struck by the power of Kuma's Nikyu Nikyu no Mi and on his way at high speed through the air. After he strikes the ground we find him in the one place perhaps he shouldn't be. Amazon Lily, home to the all-cisfemale (YES I AM INCLUDING OKAMA and NEWKAMA IN THIS ASSESSMENT!) Kuja Tribe. We get to meet Marguerite and her friends as they discover poor Luffy after he stupidly consumes a parasitic mushroom. Bouncing forward and skipping over the anime dick jokes with the Kuja, what is most important here is how Luffy reacts. He wakes up, freaks out and yet as he gets chased he doesn't intentionally try to ruin a bunch of stuff. Instead, he nearly dies and get's saved by Marguerite while her friends, Sweet Pea, and Aphelandra do their best to support her. A few things about the Kuja I like. One yes, some have the pretty curvy designs of the typical One Piece women, but many also have pretty different body types. WE see broad-chested women, short, plump and more. Plus, yes, they all wear bikini's in a pretty blunt manner which is all the better when Luffy ignores everything. I love how Luffy is easily this lovable Ace motherfucker who just wants to make people happy. Now skipping through all the shenanigans Boa Hancock comes in after turning entire Marine Crew to Stone. After Luffy pops into her bath and sees her back she flips out (with good reason). The Snake Princess is shown in parts of this arc as cold and distant. Her looks and her fruit make people love her without any really deeper feeling. They see her as an object, and this makes her painful backstory all the worse. Plus I wanna say that I love her sisters, Sonia is just a fucking darling. And, Marigold is just this awesome fat goddess who can kick serious ass. The scene after they take over Luffy's execution after he defeats their giant panther is, funny and interesting. It sets up the Boa sisters as cold, and brutal. They use their Haki to easily defeat and toy with Luffy. When they move to smash the stone forms of Marguerite, Sweetpea and Aphelandra I was calling for Luffy to destroy them. There is a point to this brutality though, the sisters have been shaped by their society which forbids men, and they were tortured. So just as Luffy first unleashes a mega Conqueror's Haki burst and soundly starts kicking their asses I cheered loudly for him. One Piece is a show I can just watch for Hours and just feel good about. With gusto! I was lost in writing when I saw Sonia knocked toward the sharpened spikes and heard how her mark would be exposed. Seeing Luffy just leap onto Sonia's back even after she eagerly threatened to smash one of her own people was a clincher for why I love him. Wait no, it was him say, yup fuck my freedom, save your people please! Yeah, Luffy has a level of goodness that just makes me feel better. Boa Hancock's Backstory So, I didn't go much into my feelings on the Celestial Dragons, but lets ignore the fact that they are literal caricatures of what rick people really do! SO. All three young girl were captured as cabin girls on their own ship and then branded with the "Dragon's Claw". Let that sink in, these were young teens sold into slavery for some monsters. I swear if these fuckers were wearing crosses and were part of a mega-church or even a republican meeting! Yup, the girls got away after they were experimented on and wow. The amount of trauma they all went through and the fact they can still lead a country is pretty impressive. All of the stories and the coldness they show to their people is kind of explained in their trauma. Honestly, I am so glad they ran with how blunt the story was. Because any other idiot would have turned this into a tragic villain scene. Instead, we got a scene that shows us how a ruler can easily become distant from her own people. If they show weakness they think the people will turn on them. Damn, you think that the kids making a homemade statute would prove the opposite. I think the dissonance I felt as I watch them threaten to smash Marguerite versus revealing their trauma was surreal. It really shows how much emotional distant and masking the three do. All to maintain the false story of the Gorgon Sisters. Preparing For Impel Down After Hancock acquiesce to Luffy's request to save (and yes I realize I'm skipping a plot beat or two) she gets a pretty thorough verbal comment from Granny Nyon. As Luffy prepares to leave Hancock becomes suddenly sick. WE learn that all of Luffy's compassion has given her reason to fall head over heels in love with him. This was a bit of a weird scene, that her cold heart would come to fixate so much she could die outside his presence. The scenes where we see Luffy and her traveling aboard the ship alone was strange. Hancock's lovesickness seems a bit out of left field for me, I would have preferred if it was a little less sudden. Now,  know beforehand she had a thing for Luffy. Hell, I even tried to find a few fanfics that played around the relationship. The problem is I couldn't find any really shorter than 50k words that kept my interest. Please don't blame me that I prefer Nami and Luffy. Please note, I headcanon Luffy as a nonbinary ace hero. Overall This setting does a good job of showing more abilities derived from Haki. The idea that up until now we've barely seen it becomes more realistic as it seems it's not a widely practice gift outside of the New World. Sentamarou was a master of Armament Haki and it appears the Kuja use it as well to empower their attacks. This was a decent continual show of what Haki can achieve and it was a nice way to show how Devil Fruits can be defeated by Haki users. If Luffy didn't have his experience in battle he wouldn't have dodged all those Kuja arrows. If he didn't have Second Gear, he wouldn't have defeated Sonia or Marigold without it really. The increased speed was the only way he really got around Sonia's observation Haki and the increased velocity for his strikes assisted him against Marigold. This is a big change from when we first saw a certain annoying Skypeian using "Mantra" (Satori) against Sanji. Or hell, Shank's in episode one from the get-go. Conclusion This Arc focused on Luffy regaining a sense of hope. Watching him break down in Saobody when everyone disappeared was nerve-wracking. As someone who has felt a sense of despair, I will never reach Luffy's level. The poor kid loses his entire found family and finds out his brother is to die not long after. The actual way they emphasized each disappearance by Kuma by a bubble popping was tightened the anxiety I felt as I watched. Switching suddenly to something a bit more filled with hope was a nice change of pace. I say hope because both Hancock and Luffy brought it to each other. Luffy brought about the physical beating of two Celestial Dragons. Plus saving a friend of his from slavery ups the reality of how much Hancock can show some trust. Hancock, on the other hand, and as she treats her people better gives Luffy stability. It also seemed to give him time to remember his crew wasn't dead. They were all just sent flying everywhere. A pause to recover from watching everyone almost die. Hottakes:

That poor giant boar at the beginning, he deserved better.

The entire scene with Luffy being considered a girl was, so weird for me.

Like I was happy that the girls were like "ah yes another woman", but then the mushroom jokes and body washing. eeeww.

Mageurite deserves a bigger part in a side story, watching her help Luffy was interesting.

Sweatpea was a fucking amazing bean.

Aphelandra really shows how people in One Piece can be super tiny or fucking giants, and NOT BE ACTUAL GIANTS.

Momonga, wtf is up with the naming of this world.

The Mero-Mero no Mi is such a weird fruit, it's a fruit that creates a great sense of attraction and can turn people to stone if they have lewd thoughts.

THE FUCK ODA?!

The snake forms on Sonia and Margold into big titty nagas, shows that furries are well loved in ONe Piece.

I like how they are emphasizing this weird sort of fated pairing of Luffy almost in a folkloric way. He and her have Conqueror's Haki which is pretty damn rare.

Hancock needs a good Polyam ship with Vivi and Nami.

Robin would adore Amazon Lily since it appears to have constant sense of archaeological history.

Kuma, throwing Luffy at Amazon Lily: Hancock is totally gonna murder this twink lol

Boa Hancock: Boy? Boy toy?? Baby??? My boy now???? Mine????? 🥺

Kuma: what the fuck

i love the lesbian island that is the amazon lily

I hope Luffy asked about haki before leaving Amazon Lily, or I'm gonna be so pissed off at him.

Snake Empress 🤭

Hi! During Amazon Lily (ch522 and ch523) Gloriosa talks about the two other Empresses. In the translation it says "the previous empress died of this illness, as did the empress before her" and "(they) ruined themselves by suppressing those feelings". Since Shakky is very much alive, are there any nuances in the original Japanese text that didn't come through with the translation that suggests those two empresses didn't die for real? Thank you!

oooh, good question! i'd forgotten about this line!

so, if i'm reading it right, there is a small but important distinction here between the japanese and the english. gloriosa says 先代皇帝もこの病で死んだ/sendai koutei mo kono yamai de shinda, "the previous empress also died of this disease."

however, when talking about the empress two generations in the past (so, shakky) she says 先々代も同じだったそうじゃ/sensendai mo onaji datta sou ja. the important word here is sou, which is a pretty versatile word in japanese that can have several meanings- in contexts like this, it usually means 'seems'/confers a sort of uncertainty on the statement. so her statement about shakky is something like "it the empress before her seems to have been the same" or "it seems the same befell the empress before her." there's a few ways you could translate it.

given she seems (from the one panel we get) unsurprised that shakky is alive when we get the reveal in chapter 1059, my guess is that shakky faked her death or otherwise chose to suddenly disappear when she quit pirating, and that gloriosa was aware and may have helped her cover for it.

ep. 1087

hancock 🌫️

whenever a one piece fan tells me 'the next arc is really good' it has the same energy as nathan fielder talking about his really good grades