Hi, gosh, I love your blog! Thank you for all the information you share, your work really is invaluable and honestly your posts are just a joy to read.

I have a question about Chapter 580 and it’s something I’ve wondered for a long time. In the official English translation, Lucky Roux says to Shanks, “Don’t you want to see [Luffy]?” and Shanks replies, “I wish I could…but to see him now…would violate our agreement. Right, Luffy?”

I was always struck by the use of ‘violate’ and ‘agreement’ here. ‘Violate’ is such a harsh word, with the same root as ‘violence’, and while ‘agreement’ is a neutral word, it strikes me as so cold and sterile to use to reference the moment that lays the foundation for the grandness and romance of the story—and a moment full of so much emotion. I’ve wondered too about using the word ‘agreement’ there as opposed to ‘promise’—which is the word Shanks used in Chapter 1, and the word Luffy always uses to describe the sentiment between him and Shanks (at least in all the English translations I’ve seen).

How does the English translation compare with the original text? I’ve also read some of your previous posts about Shanks and I see you’ve noted that he speaks casually. How does this moment compare with how he usually speaks?

Thank you again! 🫶

yeah, i'd say that's technically not incorrect but also not how i would translate it. the word used here is 約束/yakusoku, which is indeed most often translated as 'promise' or 'vow'. it can mean agreement as well, but to me at least yakusoku invokes something less clinical and more emotional.

and then the word that's been translated as 'violate' in the official is just 違う/chigau, which means basically 'different/wrong.' so i personally would probably phrase it like "meeting now would go against/be counter to our promise."

oh, and i assume this isn't replicated in translation, but the font of shanks' dialogue in this scene is also the same as when he gives luffy the hat in chapter 1:

Reading more.

Thinking... many things... mainly about how my theory is partially right

POV: You’re watching the marineford live stream

here's some drawings from a "mt washington" -song inspired video project i never finished.

Farewell

buggy livestreaming almost the entirety of the summit war is possibly the funniest thing to come out of the entire marineford arc

OLD MAN YAOI IN ONE PIECE??????????????????????????????????

redraw of a 2016 artwork

Hey everyone!! I was super surprised about my op comic getting 3k notes ૮꒰⸝⸝> ̫ <⸝⸝꒱ა Thank you so much ♡

Somebody said something about part 2 and who am I to say no? So here is the continuation :D Also in this au Sabo regains his memory slightly before Marineford

Don’t let his stoic expression fool you, Dragon has a bunch of makeup on his face to hide the bruise (Sabo did indeed punch him :) )

So much is happening I'm.

Crocodile "We are NOT friends I am NOT saving anyone shut UP" sure buddy sure

Where tf did LAW COME FROM???? HI BUDDY.

Who next, Shanks???? Kid?????

Garp Rant #11543

Because I'm something of a Certified Garp Hater/extremely obsessed with this man, and because Tumblr people seem to like my Garp takes and/or find them extremely pain-inducing, here's another one for funsies! Again, Garp is an incredibly written character and I massively enjoy his moral failings and human shortcomings, hence why I won't shut up about how much he sucks. So we all remember Garp crying in front of Ace during his imprisonment and awaiting his execution, lamenting the fact that his son and grandson could have maybe avoided this horrible horrible fate that awaits them at Marineford if they'd just become good marines like he'd tried to press them into. Every time he says it, he sounds more desperate, sadder, and angrier, like he's experiencing the stages of grief and going through denial, anger bargaining all at once, lashing out at his grandkids for supposedly causing him grief by defying his wishes, or maybe praying or wishing for a world where they could have followed in his footsteps and lived happily ever after. And when Ace hears that again at Impel Down, he says this:

Here's the thing though: Ace is unequivocally correct Garp should, by all rights, know this. He lived through the fallout of Roger's execution. He knew long before that exactly what would happen to Roger's loved ones and anyone the government could get their hands on who'd ever associated with him. Even before they started committing femicides/infanticides in Baterilla trying to end Roger's bloodline, he knew that the Marines were going to target completely innocent people in the name of purging the bloodline and cementing their "victory" over the greatest threat they'd ever faced. He specifically had to smuggle Rouge out of there so she could give birth to Ace, and all the while dozens of families were being brutalized by his peers and having their lives torn apart. That was the cost the Marines were willing to incur to kill a hypothetical infant, and years later, when that very same child is set to be executed, Sengoku goes on a remorseless public tirade about the necessity of killing babies and the horrible trickery and audacity Rouge displayed by dying so that they wouldn't kill her baby too.

Garp knows every single piece of this information in painful, excruciating detail. He's so horrified by it he feels the need to fulfill this wish of Roger's because he knows blameless people will die. He has Ace raised in secret to protect him from Marines who are figuratively and literally out for his blood. And yet, throughout this boy's childhood, he clings to the notion that maybe, just maybe, the people he knows regularly commit atrocities, who have carried out at least 3 genocides that we know of in Garp's lifetime, who were willing to commit mass infanticide for a woman and child they hadn't verified the existence or identity of at the time, would have accepted him within their ranks and turned a blind eye to that information when it eventually, inevitably surfaced. That Ace can find salvation from the people who stole every loved one he ever had before he was even born, who slaughtered his mother's community and pushed her to her death, and were slavering at the opportunity to kill her. That even though Ace was born in direct opposition to them, has had a target trained on him before he was born, these people who tried so goddamn hard to kill him would surely welcome his presence and not murder him the second they found out if he could just be a compliant model soldier and make himself useful. It's hammered home pretty effectively–especially in the manga– and One Piece has never been known to be subtle in its messaging, but I swear to God I see so many people echoing the notion that Garp's attempts to force his grandchildren into serving the Evil Empire was done because he knew was their only shot at safety from the WG, and I fucking despise this take. Ace saying that he could never be a marine here in Impel Down isn't some young man's rationalization for his (beyond valid) desire not to subscribe to the preset path Garp laid out for him; it's literally the only logical conclusion if you know literally anything about the circumstances of his birth and upbringing, and Garp only thinks that the leopards wouldn't eat Ace's face because he's fucking delusional This in and of itself is extremely telling of how horribly warped Garp's perception of the Navy is, and how deeply he's willing to buy into the Marines and their warped propaganda no matter how many glaring examples he sees throughout his life that counter his worldview, but let's not forget that this applies to Luffy too. This is slightly hairier, in that if Luffy was a) the sort of person who could willingly accept a career in the marines and b) managed to cling really, really tightly to his grandfather's coattails and legacy, there might have been a very, infinitesimally small chance that he could have joined the Navy. The higher ups know that Dragon is Garp's son and therefore Luffy is Dragon's by logical inference, but I could see some AU where Luffy is a fundamentally different person and manages to build himself up in the Navy if not for two things I think warrant examination. It's pretty evident, and Dragon explicitly confirms, that Luffy being known as his son would have put him in incredible danger, only feeling comfortable with acknowledging it and the possibility of actually reuniting with his child after Luffy was both publicly recognized due to factors beyond his control, and proved that he was more than capable of holding his own. But I want to draw attention to this one otherwise pretty silly little gag moment between Garp and Sengoku when they learn that Luffy's broken into Impel Down, and present a theory that's kind of a reach but also not really

Now the phrasing here kind of interests me, in that it ties back to earlier demonstrated patterns that the Navy uses repeatedly in collective punishment for the families and loved ones of their primary targets. Rouge and Ace barely escaped the mass murders intended for them because of their connection, but Tom was also originally sentenced to death for having had a connection to Roger, and ultimately chose that as the offence he wanted to be sentenced for at Enies Lobby. Law, as a child survivor of Flevance, has multiple hospitals try and turn him in to the World Government to be killed when Cora tries to find someone to treat him because their policy is to pull out the roots and salt the earth whenever they deem a person or population politically inconvenient. Robin's flashback shows us Akainu blowing up a refugee boat on the off chance that one of those people that they were planning to evacuate might have gotten past their initial screening for archaeologists/poneglyph readers. At Marineford, Akainu specifically targets Luffy not because of his prior offences or even his attempt to rescue Ace, but because he's Dragon's son and his and Roger's bloodlines need to be eradicated. This is not an institution that is in any way reluctant to destroy anyone tangentially affiliated to a designated enemy, and Luffy being the son of the worst criminal in history seems to put him right in line with all of those other cases. In light of this, and Garp's massive blind spots and wishful thinking regarding his peers and employers, it's not that much of a stretch to assume that the only reason Garp's exempt from being targeted like Dragon is because of his popularity/symbolic importance/utility, and that Luffy likely wouldn't have been safe even if he weren't a pirate. Garp's circle of confidantes/friends in high places is powerful, but clearly there are factions (Akainu, Ryokugyu etc) that would be substantially less willing and who are given preferential treatment by the Elders and Celestial Dragons. There might be something to read into based on the fact that Garp is the only known person from a D bloodline who's achieved massive success in service to the World Government and not defected from the Navy after realizing its true nature (props to Saul), and therefore he might project the fact that he's been rewarded by the system despite being a "sworn enemy of the Gods" onto his family, but that still doesn't account for the massive, delusional arrogance he displays in insisting that, despite everything–especially, especially the murders committed in pursuit of Ace, that robbed him of his birth mother and community–the Navy is the best and safest place for either of those boys. TLDR Garp not wanting his grandsons to have a bounties on their heads is one thing, but it says a lot that in spite of everything he knows, he's willing/determined to put Ace and Luffy in an environment that's extremely dangerous for them –and in Ace's case 100%, unquestionably fatal– because he's so convinced that compliance and the platonic ideals of "justice" and military service/hard work being rewarded by the system could supersede all of that.

Months ago, you had carefully put Ace's vivre card inside a small globe made from glass and placed it on your wooden nightstand because you were afraid of loosing it— it would slip from your fingers or fly out of your pockets all the time. So, with this, you managed to rest easy for a while.

Then one day, you woke up to the sight of the globe filled with smoke and ashes. The very same day you found out that he was to be executed.

He's still alive, you think. His vivre card hasn't disintegrated completely, it's just burning up.

You want to run to him, but you know that's wishful thinking given that your father is a veteran of the Marine; he'll do something else than just disown you if you even mention you had met several times with a pirate. Even more so if you say that said pirate was Fire Fist Ace, too.

The moonlight makes you feel scared even when your body is filled with cold dread. You're helpless and you can't do anything more than hope, as if that isn't what you've been doing ever since he left, anyway.

"When will you be back?" You asked him all that time ago. Quiet and silently wishing.

He had laughed, pulling out his vivre card out of the little pouch on his leg, showing it to you with a smile on his face.

"Can't exactly say when," he hummed, putting his card into your hand. "But with this, you'll at least know how I'm fairing out. And if you ever get out of this island, maybe you can even come to me yourself."

There hasn't been a moment where you didn't want to go out after him. Even more now, when he's weeks away from being killed by the very same people your father taught you were good and righteous.

---

Days pass and no good news come back; you wish to read that whitebeard clashed into the Marine and rescued Ace, but there isn't anything that serves to console you.

You get off the chair in front of the window that allows you to look outside; walking to your bed with empty steps.

You look at the globe and see more ash and smoke.

How much time did the townspeople said there was until the execution? You've been too out of touch ever since you found out. Not listening, not talking and you also wouldn't have been eating if it wasn't for the maids coming into your room with meals every day.

Is it weeks that you have left? Ah, no, that's not it... you have hours, yes. You still have hours before he leaves you completely.

The clock on the wall ticks and you feel like you can't breathe anymore.

You have hours? Just hours before he's gone completely from your life? Before they take him from you?

No, no, no, no, no, nononononononono— you think you fall down the last steps of the stairs, not even registering the worried questions from your mother as she sees your bloody knees or your crying face. You rush out and run to the shore as fast as you can, not caring about the looks some people shoot at you.

You won't reach Marineford, of course not. What are you doing?

You only snap back into reality when you hear your mother screaming behind you. When the waves hit your hips and you look back to her with your heart hanging heavily on your throat.

You're trying to reach him; because he's drifting away too quickly and you'll be damned to let him go. Not like this, you plead. Please, God, Don't take him away from me.

The globe— she's standing with the globe! you can't reach Ace if you don't have his vivre card, stupid you.

Your vision is blurry with tears, and when you blink them away, you don't see more ash or smoke.

"He's gone," she breathes out, gulping for air. "He's gone, love. It's too late."

Oh.

Oh.

Of course it's too late. Maybe if you would've ran faster, done something the moment you found out—

No... you wouldn't have reached him anyway.

You can't reach ash and smoke, the wind will take it away more quickly.

Thinking about how Buggy and Shanks parallel Zoro and Luffy but if Luffy dropped his ambitions. The agreement between Zoro and Luffy was that Zoro would follow Luffy, be his first mate, be his swordsman, the first member to join his crew and set sail to achieve Luffy’s dream of being Pirate King IF Luffy never got in the way of Zoro’s dream of being the Strongest Swordsman in the world.

Buggy and Shanks were “apprentices” to Roger (and really more or less they were his sons). They were learning from Roger and learning what being a pirate SHOULD BE. So as apprentices, it would go without saying (at least as far as Buggy is concerned) that that means they need to be the ones to carry Roger’s Legacy. That they should be the ones to get their captain’s treasure and carry out what he wanted for the world. We see it in what Buggy is CURRENTLY doing. That he wants to inspire people to achieve their dreams. Crocodile sees piracy as a business, and Mihawk sees his position as a power pirate as a means to live a peaceful, lazy life where no one would dare bother him. But they don’t have the  ROMANTICISM of a dream anymore. And all those years ago Buggy heard Shanks say he was no longer throwing himself into the romanticism of pirating and adventuring anymore. He’d be a pirate sure, but there was no drive, no DREAM behind it anymore. 

And then he asks Buggy to still be a part of his crew. I can only imagine what that request must have felt like to Buggy. For Shanks to tell him “I won’t be the pirate king you saw me as. I’m not seeking any dream. But come be a part of my mediocracy. Just settle for less, Buggy.”

Now of course, Shanks still went and became a HUGE big name pirate. One that achieved Emperor level. But in that moment? In that moment it felt like Shanks was asking Buggy to give up on his dream, settle for being a pirate simply to be a pirate, and betray what they had learned from Roger.

Luffy was never going to get in the way of Zoro’s dream. Zoro’s desire was Luffy’s desire and vice versa, because as they said themselves in the show- the pirate king shouldn’t have anything less than the best swordsman on his crew. But Buggy’s desire was not Shank’s desire. I’d argue it probably still isn’t! I know Shanks is now making his move for the One Piece, but I honestly don’t know that that is his true objective. I think he thinks his place is to BE THERE when the battle for the One Piece happens. He placed a bet on the new generation and he is going to be there to see that bet come to fruition.

And I think part of that conversation between Shanks and Buggy was how they were each grieving. They had both lost a captain, but also a father.

But Buggy has not given up. His own dream was rekindled this most recent chapter (yes partially because he believes Shanks finally wants to be pirate king too), but partially because he finds himself SURROUNDED by people who know longer believe in the child-like wonder of adventure and treasure and the DREAM of becoming PIRATE KING. I think Buggy HAD also given up down the line. I think we saw a Buggy who’d lost his way at the beginning of the series. I do think Buggy doesn’t have the... best morals... But whether it’s intentional or not Buggy is not who we saw at the beginning of the series and he’s rallying so many people under him, and giving them sanctuary, and honestly? Reaching a king’s status to so many people. 

But honestly? If Luffy suddenly went “You know what? I’m happy with what I’ve got here. I don’t need to be pirate king anymore. We don’t need to get the One Piece.” The Straw Hats would be SO LOST. Sure maybe they wouldn’t all get immediately angry or upset as Buggy had and asked “Well, what DO you want then?” But they are a crew made from the collection of DREAMS. And everyone’s dream is their own dreams. Zoro’s ambition became Luffy’s ambition, but that would never had happened if there was even a small chance that Luffy would be satisfied with anything that fell lower than reaching their dreams.

All this to say I’m proud of Buggy and support him as Leader of Cross Guild LMAO I hope he continues to fail upwards.