#chapter 1138

One Piece, chapter 1138 "That's why I think... it was probably just some kids dream."

it reminded me of one other time when luffy also didn't believe others' words about his friend

and this

and this

and each time, luffy was right!

but out of the four (that i can think of, there might be more that i didn't), elbaf and arlong park have the strongest similarities:

the news came from first hand observers

those observers were neutral parties who had no reason to blame shanks and nami respectively (at least that we know of)

those observers were actually telling the truth of what they thought they saw, and their observations were actually reasonable to make (shamrock does look like shanks, and nami did make a convincing performance of killing usopp)

in contrast, luffy didn't hear the news about robin directly from iceberg, and the news about sabo came from the newspaper which very often told lies to spread government propaganda.

another thing i noticed is that nami is the only person out of the four accused (again, that i can think of right now), that personally watched luffy angrily defend them. (actually, nami is the only person who was present in all four scenes.)

i wonder if in chapter 1138, nami was thinking back to arlong park and all those other times that luffy defended his friends, thinking about how much trust he has in his friends, including herself. (ok i know shanks and sabo are family, but i'm just using the word friends as an umbrella term for loved ones here.)

i wonder if oda was actually thinking about arlong park when he wrote that scene, and that's the reason he showed a close-up of nami's reaction and mentioned bellemere.

another comparison to make is about the differences in luffy's reaction in the four scenes. with sabo and shanks, luffy clearly laid out his reasons for not believing the news, because he knew them so well. but with nami and robin, luffy didn't know them enough back then to explain why he didn't believe the news about them. but still, luffy chose not to make any assumptions. in arlong park, luffy chose to wait and do nothing. eventually, he was proven right when usopp came back alive and unscathed. in water 7, luffy chose to ask iceberg directly for clarifications. with the news about old friends, luffy showed how well he knew his friends, and with the news about new friends, luffy showed the wisdom to not jump into conclusions and judge people prematurely.

Let's see what I can find in here...! Cut bc this is gonna get long I think.

This moment in 1138 was really too big to simply tack onto the end of a chapter review. Everyone who talks about One Piece has been buzzing about it. For good reason. We're seeing some serious origin myth stuff. We've had our initial reaction to the big mural and sacred texts, but here I really want to drill down on where we have ties to other similar aspects. And you should recognize all five:

The Adam Tree mural with Robin's translation of the Harley text.

The mural Enel found on the Moon.

Bink's Sake, taken from 488 when we get the full lyrics.

Toki's prophecy, first reiterated by Denjiro in 919.

The Tale of Noland the Liar, read by Nami in 227.

Those are the big ones to me. So are there any connections? I can think of some right away. Enel's is easy; I think that one just shows more of the First World. Then this theme of final goodbyes and reunions. The Harley texts hit on both as a motif. Bink's Sake is a nightmare translating a song where the line flops around a bunch but the closest to the original Japanese has the third verse with a line about never meeting again. While it never made it into the fairytale about the Liar of course Noland's story is built around never being able to reunite with Kalgara which led into a Skypiea story who's climax centered around Luffy making good on that old promise.

From the podcast, we also had Stephen Paul the official translator go into a specific quirk with "half-moon" in the Third World segment. He talked a bit about how he really wished he could translate the archaic word used there as something more like "broken" moon, but because it was a reference to an old poetry collection called the manyoshu that has cropped up elsewhere he needed to be consistent with their translation of Half-Moon. That prior instance? The title of Chapter 292 where we get the climax of the real story of Noland and Kalgara. "To meet, like the half-moon hidden by clouds."

(For what it's worth too the next chapter 293 was titled "Bolero" which isn't unique for Skypeia having a musical motif in titles but you remember that concept sketch of the early drafts of crew members? Yeah it's always had this extra name Bolero floating in the bottom corner so make of that what you want.)

What I found really interesting about that subtlety was Paul lamenting needing to keep that consistency because that archaic "broken" moon can work for anything short of a full moon. You know, like a crescent. Or even if you wanted to take it allegorically Wano had a lot of "moons" broken apart by Orochi's rule given how many clans had a moon motif in their name. Knowing that especially on top of the lines about a promised day and reawakening the Sun God...makes me really think of Toki's prophecy. Especially when that prophecy was handed down by a "moon" who very literally echoed across the ages.

I prefer the nuance and poetry of the scans more, but true, some information is different, but overall basically the same. Also, sheesh, get with the 21st century official translators. "Humanity" is far more inclusive than "man" (grinds teeth) (Edit in: But read below). (The use of 'with' for the sun god and serpent can be read a few ways. I wonder if it means in the way that the scans implied (alongside)). Okay, I need to add to this. I haven't read any comments or tags I might've got on it. Artur says: 彼らはきっと会えるだろう

And once that conflict ends, “The Sun will return. A new morning will arrive”, indicating that the Dawn of the World will come. And at last, “Those men will surely be able to meet again.”. It is unclear who these “men” is referring to, as it just uses the male third person pronoun in the plural (while English doesn’t have male third person plural, Japanese does), so it’s just referring to a group of men, though keep in mind it could also be generalizing to men as a large group if it also includes women.

Probably not explained later. Nefertari D. Lili seems to be in the group of people joining in on the battle at least. Edited: Feb 6: Also, Sandman (on Twitter) and Artur differ somewhat First of all, this:

The texts are written in a poetic style. In particular, the words 隷人 (slave), 片われ月 (half-moon), and 残影 (afterimage) are difficult vocabulary that an average JP person has probably never even heard in their lifetime. Oda has successfully elevated the tone of the text.💪

Sandman's Twitter Link is here:

Artur used standard Japanese for half moon, at least on Library of Ohara (unless it's mentioned twice). Read below for moon update! Then Sandman says this of Artur's comment on the use of 彼ら, although Artur responds too.

Also, Feb 12, Artur’s latest visual!