#ch150

I’ve always wondered if this victory had a purpose outside of comedy. It reminds me of the comedy-victory Naruto vs Kiba, and for the longest time, I felt this was an appropriate win, but kind of a disservice to Cobra, which was a shame. 

But now that I think about it, the duality of real vs fake dragon slayer can be seen in this ending, in a way.

In the Fantasia arc (or wherever it was in the manga), there’s a cutaway scene of Grandine approaching as an orb of light to converse with Igneel. 

That time, to chase her away, Igneel roared. 

Not with his element, but verbally, very loudly, He yelled at her to get the fuck out of his sight. And that’s... well, that’s what dragons do. That’s what beasts do, to establish their territory and superiority over critters that step out of their lane. 

Natsu won here, not with the power of friendship or anything, but with something Igneel taught him from young. It’s not planned or strategized-- it’s just instinct, because that’s more common sense of a predator beast, than an actual tactic. 

He is a real dragon slayer after all, and when a dragon is cornered, he roars to intimidate. A ‘fake’ dragon like Cobra stands no chance against a fierce and animalistic declaration of territory like that, and that’s why he’s caught immediately off guard, and he skitters away, terrified. 

Ch139's cover/title page shows some of his shapeshifting abilities, and a few pages in, there's a quick flashback to ch138, but that's all that I can think of.

Again, while this is framed as a joke, and I have no doubt that she actually made Luffy pay her back the full price of the jacket plus interest, Nami is admitting here that she lent Luffy something that held a lot of value to her knowing that he would probably ruin it.