Submitted by existential1 in Anime

Whew boy, the way this show gives everyone, including side-villains a backstory, is a lot.

I'll try a new format for these that are basically: "Character" - "Spoilers"

Luffy - My boy got some big power-ups this arc but it was great to see that for almost all of his fights, he still needs help from his homies. The show does a good job of giving the plot-armor protected character the ability to overcome his foes, but not in a way that makes him feel OP to the point that you don't want to watch. The last fight that he had seemed like a good character growth moment where he realized he couldn't just rando-rage his way to victory and had to be a more composed version of himself.

Sanji - His full backstory is revealed in this arc, and it is trauma-laden. What's interested is that unlike some other characters, like Big Mama who I'll get to later, his trauma does not seem to directly explain his main character flaw...perviness. It does explain his chivalry obsession and relationship to cooking. I particularly like how even after all of the events of this arc, he still can't truly have the freedom of being his own person on his own terms. It is one of the things about life that, you just can't fully control how others perceive you. In his case, he's forever linked to his bio-fam even if he would rather be associated with his "adoptive" father.

Big Mama - What a terribly sad story for her. A person who simultaneously dreams of creating a nation without bigotry while also being so traumatized and constantly re-triggered that she could never develop what she seeks. It's also apparent that she may have not had a single day in her life that wasn't filled with manipulation from elders. Her parents abandoned her, her "mother" was grooming her, and her "business partner" was also grooming her since she was a child. It makes you wonder what a healthy version of this person looks like.

All that isn't to excuse the soul-slavery and general shittiness she displays. But as I said before, this show is great at fully rounding-out their villains.

Pudding - Wow...she went from innocent -> evil -> split personality -> erasing her own memories to get over heartache. But again, another person who was shamed to the point she had to create a persona just to give herself the perception of agency in her life. Tragic.

Brook - Too much panty-stuff.

Nami - She's starting to really become combat-honed. By hitting Big Mama, twice, we're seeing some major growth in her fighting ability. Also, the hustler version of Nami I like to call "Ole' Slick Red" really went off when she used Big Mama's Vivre Card. When the tree dude got got, I believe this might have been the first time in Nami's Arc where she was directly responsible for the death of a "subservient" person and it seemed to affect her for a second. I wonder if that moment will have impacts later in her character development.

Minks - Garchu! Two people sacrifice themselves for the cause, a third jumped on ship for a "day-venture" and wound up being an integral team member

Germa 66 - The Power Rangers/Sailor Moon aesthetic was very pleasing when they were fighting. I'm guessing for those scenes, they legit had a completely different team come in and do that work. It felt like a different show for a bit. But very entertaining. Obviously, terrible people and such. Sadly, I felt like the brothers/father were the least rounded-out characters of the arc. Perhaps they'll get to that later. The sister was very clearly the person who held it all together...maybe we do just need women running the nations and criminal organizations of the world and everything would be better. /s

Favorite Episode- Episode 825. What a great episode to show how difficult and complicated male-male friendship is/can be. I feel like I've been in this situation from both sides when I was a young man. In a lot of ways, I don't think our society is setup to give grown men the opportunity to forge strong enough bonds to even try to reconcile relationships. We just shrug and move on.

Overall - One thing this show does that I haven't seen discussed a lot is how much it normalizes a full range of male emotions and behavior through all of their characters. No character is perfect...except Uncle Iroh...i mean Jimbei :) ...but through all of the male characters you see toxic male things and you see real vulnerability.

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