#hes so. earnest. like. yeah. luffy. you are gonna be the king of the pirates. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

neverwatchedonepiece · 6 years

Text

496: “To the Sea Someday! the Pledge of the Three Brats!”

... I’m listening.

Another great episode. I think the post-arc fatigue is wearing off.

In another case of Art Imitates Life, we have a tiny Sabo who loathes the privileged society of nobles within which he was raised. Must say that one of my favourite One Piece moments is when Luffy caved in Saint Charloss’ face, so I am all for Oda revisiting this theme.

I also liked the way Sabo’s social status was revealed in small, hinting increments. I didn’t realise what was going on until Sabo himself spelled it out.

The Dine and Dash

This was the first time I realised something was up with Sabo, though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was yet.

After the nice intro showing Luffy’s first attempts at his gomu gomu no pistol attack (awww...), world building began in earnest. If you travel north of Grey Terminal, you will hit a wall. Literally. There is a wall. This wall encloses the Goa Kingdom - a place with a strict immigration policy.

Have you ever wondered why Grey Terminal exists? It’s because the residents inside the wall dump their trash outside the entrance, leaving the cast-offs of society to fight over cast-off scraps. Lovely.

The poor people of Grey Terminal are sometimes allowed inside to sell recycled items. This exception allowed Ace, Sabo and Luffy managed to sneak in.

Just beyond the gate, is Edge Town, where all the edgy types hang out. Ace, Sabo and Luffy easily dealt with a bunch of muggers. Those muggers knew their names, so our three favourite prospective pirates have obviously won a bit of local notoriety here. I can just picture the headlines: AREA KIDS OUT OF CONTROL. AREA KIDS CAUSE CROCODILE SHORTAGE. AREA KIDS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL SOCIAL ILLS.

In the middle of town, there’s another wall. You’d need one to keep out all the Edge. This part of the kingdom is called High Town. There is not a scrap of garbage on the streets here. Apparently, Goa Kingdom is the most beautiful in East Blue. Now we know why. I’m guessing the photographers aren’t taken round Grey Terminal.

And High Town is where the nobles live.

I thought, good, good. Now things are interesting. Is Luffy going to punch out another entitled parasite and form the habit of a lifetime?

The kids sold the crocodile skin and decided to go for ramen. Sabo knew a place. It was a really fancy place. Disguised, they walked in. Sabo demanded a private dining room and flashed a gold locket/pocket watch engraved with a floral emblem. This had the staff fawning all over them. Ace said, “Wow, that thing sure comes in handy!” Sabo was uneasy, “Haha, yeah, I found it on the street one day.”

Being mischievous imps, they had about two hundred bowls of ramen between them, then dined and dashed by jumping out through a fourth floor window. xD

This is when I started thinking: wait... something is up here.

If Sabo is hard-up, how does this kid know about private dining rooms? How did he know about that fancy restaurant. Why was he so sketchy about finding the locket? He robs people all the time. Why not proudly say you robbed a rich noble?

But no. I justified it away as nothing. Sabo might have spied and seen nobles demand private rooms. He’d never tried ramen before. Maybe he had a pang of conscience about stealing the locket and said he found it instead.

Then, a random in the street seemed to recognise Sabo. I did not know who he was at the time, so I shall call him Sweaty Chins (due to his multiple chins and excessive perspiration).

“You’re alive!” Sweaty Chins exclaimed. “Let’s go home.”

“Um... that guy’s calling you,” Ace said.

Sabo seemed shaken, then said, “He confused me for someone else.”

They ran for it. One last shot of Sweaty Chins before the scene concluded was ambiguous. I wasn’t sure if he was happy or not to see Sabo.

[Comrade Sabo]

As Ace is not dumb, he suspected something was amiss. Sabo didn’t want to tell, but Ace literally wrung the secret out of him.

“I’m the son of a noble,” Sabo said miserably.

“And?” Luffy and Ace chorused. (I laughed.)

Sabo explained both his parents were alive. He wasn’t an orphan and never grew up in Grey Terminal. Sweaty Chins was his father. He apologised for lying to Ace and Luffy.

Luffy being Luffy, wanted to forgive him immediately. Ace being Ace was more cautious. “You should wait to hear the motive before you forgive.”

He wanted to know why Sabo was living out on the edge with them if he was from a noble family.

Sabo told his tale.

The flashback opened with a sinister shot of looming, overbearing, lecturing parents. “You need to acquire intelligence and knowledge you need to know as a noble and become a man that can marry a woman from the royal family,” Mr Sweaty Chins said. “Then we’ll live in security and I’m sure that you will live happily,” Mrs Chins chipped in.

“Are you sure?” Sabo said, unconvinced.

“YEAH, OF COURSE!”

Later, Sweaty Chins received some bad news. An entire cargo ship was lost along with the goods he had invested in. He didn’t give a damn about the crew. The money was the main thing. Oh great, I thought. Sweaty Chins is another callous, noble piece of excrement.

Believe it or not, my opinion sunk even lower.

Little Sabo turned up at his study with a drawing he’d done of his dad. Sweaty Chins took out his anger on Sabo, ripped the drawing in half and said, “I’m exhausted from work. If you have time to draw, you should be studying.”

And little Sabo’s heart just shattered into a million pieces.

Then the popular theory about posh schools breeding psychos also cropped up (thank you, Oda!) As little Sabo walked to his expensive school, a bowl-cut fucknugget approached him. “I’m from the royal family,” he brayed. “I’m related to the king. Give me a piggyback to my house.”

Since Sabo has a backbone and pride, he was like, “Um... no,” and walked on. This did not go down well.

“Are you gonna ignore my royal order?”

And then the kid pulled a knife on him.

Yes. You heard right. This royal, parasitic sponge pulled a knife on Sabo (these nobles really will have to go. They are out of control).

And it gets worse. When Sabo beat up the kid in self-defence, *he* was punished for it! Mrs Chins rushed to the school. Not to aid her son. But to fawn over the poor, injured widdle royal. When Sabo tried to explain he almost got knifed, it earned him a ringing slap across the face.

And in that instant you see the hatred born in Sabo right there.

Fuck that noise, he thought. I am out of here.

And he went to party with the people of Grey Terminal, who had time for him and who told him cool stories of all the places they’d been to out on the open sea.

When his flashback ended, Sabo announced he would go out to sea one day no matter what and write a book about it.

Ace said: “I’m gonna become a pirate and defeat others and become infamous. It doesn’t matter if all the people in the world reject and despise me. I’ll become a great pirate and show them what I can do! I won’t run from anyone or lose to anyone. My name will be known all over!”

If they had shown this just before Ace died, it would have been tears time. ;_;

Sabo realised they had a problem. All of them wanted to be a captain. Ace got round this by stealing some sake from Dadan, and That Scene took place.

“Maybe we’ll set out independently,” he said. “When we become pirates, we might not be on the same ship. But our brotherhood will always be there. So from now on, we’re brothers!”

God, I hope Sabo isn’t dead. Maybe that’s why he fought so hard to save Ace, his last remaining brother.

Underage drinking!

#neverwatchedonepiece #nwop #never watched one piece #monkey d. luffy #portgas d. ace #sabo #goa kingdom #sweaty chins #mrs sweaty chins

57 notes · View notes