Doflamingo and Cipher Pol Aigis Zero?

This may be a bit thin, but I believe it's still worth the post and speculating, especially about One Piece is always pretty fun:

When Doflamingo tried to kill Moriah in chapter 581, Moria asked him whether it was Sengoku who ordered for him to be killed. "Try higher", answered Doflamingo. So we know that at least World Government Commander-In-Chief Kong and the Gorosei are higher ups than Sengoku, but I wouldn't be surprised that there would be others.

We all remember Donquixote Doflamingo talking to someone from World Government in One Piece chapter 595 who ordered Gekko Moria to be killed and the latest chapter (705) may have perhaps given us a more definite hint of that mans identity. So the resembling of the hat with the man in Cipher Pol Aegis Zero may or may not be a hint of the mans identity who seems to have some kind of deal with Doflamingo and who is implied being higher up than Sengoku. I'd say that it's not definite evidence, but I belive that the chances for this mysterious man being at least in charge of Cipher Pol Aigis 0 are quite high. (Maybe he's like Spandam being in charge of CP 9 ;)

This also rises a question that even though Doflamingo resigned from his position as Shichibukai, did he know or even arranged for CP0 / the marines (Though Akainu ordered for Fujitora to go there) to arrive on Dressrosa? It's been made clear to the readers that there's something fishy about the country not reacting to their king resigning, so this may be related to it in some way. I believe that Doflamingo has a lot more up to his sleeves than just the Mera Mera fruit and that there's a lot more going on on the background than we are shown.

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One Piece Parodizing Fairy Tail / Homage To Toriyama?

Eiichiro Oda parodizing Fairy Tail?
I think that based on the latest chapter I belive it's somewhat possible that Oda has decided to (more or less) subtly parodize Fairy Tail in One Piece.

Fairy Tail has just got out of a Tournament arc which didn't deliver to some the fans as they would have hoped. Even though it can't really be called a bad arc per se, this must have been a chance for Oda to make some comedy out of it since he most likely has been planning to make a tournament arc for a long time.

The most evident sign of this is of course in One Piece chapter 703 when Luffy is signing up for the tournament he almost spews out his real name but ends up using "Lucy" instead. Lucy just happens to be one of the main characters of Fairy Tail and the series just happens to be getting out of a Tournament arc. Also, there just happens to be some "fairies" who stole Zoros sword. I'm sure some people may think that this is just a coincidence, but I tend to think about Oda when he was either designing / drawing the latest chapter that he could not not have realized the connection that he was about to make. Whatever the reason these are the kind of small things which make reading good series just a little bit more enjoyable.

So why would Oda be compelled to make such minor notion? In Fairy Tail there has been a bit more evident resemblances regarding character similarities between One Piece and Fairy Tail.

First example is the resemblance of Gildarts Clive and Red-Hair Shanks, Gildarts happens to be the strongest mage of Fairy Tail and maybe one of the strongest mages in the whole series. Shanks however is considered as one of the strongest pirates in the world of One Piece and I have to say that they do look pretty much alike.

The second example is Bartholomew Kuma and Hoteye (Richard) of Oracion Seis. Both are huge and are for some reason or another holding a giant book near their chest in the same manner. They are however using different hands to hold their books so it may be too farfetched ;P.

Of course it is always possible for either of the authors to make these things unconsciously, but the most important thing is that it's not bad to do such things in my opinion. It brings a bit more to the fans who recognize this stuff and it's good as long as it's done in good manner as opposed to copying too straightforwardly.


Odas Homage to Akira Toriyama?

As a child, Oda has been influenced by Akira Toriyamas works greatly. I think that the most of the people have seen in the past couple of chapters that Luffy wearing the fake beard, sunglasses and the shirt really looks like Master Roshi from Dragon Ball. This one, I believe is almost certainly a homage to Akira Toriyama and it's very well done I might add.

Do you have any other examples? Please share it with us in the comment section - you can do it without signing up.

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One Piece Speculation: Have We Seen Kaido Already?

So now that the Strawhats and Law's next aim is clear I'm going to present to you some of the speculation that we've actually seen "King of Beasts" Kaido already. Oda has done a lot of Color Spreads which show a lot of differenct characters and there are some that are unrecognizable.

 There's this color spread "New Age" that was released in chapter 693, in the color spread we may be seeing some of the main characters of this part of the story. In the middle we've got the alliance between the Strawhats and Heart pirates along with Momonosuke and Kinemon. Starting from upper left corner we've got unknown silhouette which may be Kaido, then Basil Hawkins, Blackbeard, Killer, Shanks, Eustass Kidd, possibly Big Mam, Scratchman Apoo, Aokiji Kuzan, Doflamingo Donquixote, Akainu and Jinbe (Jimbei).

Doflamingo is the only Shichibukai in the picture and the characters seem to be somewhat randomly selected, so it could be a hint of who are being focused on the arcs to come. (Aokiji) Kuzan in the picture strengthens this theory since he appeared only 5 chapters after the release of this color spread.

I played around with the color spread picture and made this to make it a bit clearer what Kaido could look like. Based on that I'd say that his Zoan could be something like a Lion:
  "A common depiction is their representation as "king of the jungle" or "king of beasts"; hence, the lion has been a popular symbol of royalty and stateliness" - Wikipedia article of Lion.
Look at the ears, those definitely don't look like humans and the skin of the character seem to have some kind of stripes or something like that so based on this I wouldn't say it's impossible of Kaido to have Neko-Neko No Mi: Model Lion. He would just be so incredibly powerful otherwise to compensate with his lack of incredible Devil Fruit power.

The character however also resembles a little bit of Jean Bart, but that wouldn't make much sense.

By the way, if someone has incredible drawing skills and would be interested in drawing "missing parts" for that picture of "Kaido" I would very much love to see that.

This one's a very old one, but I think it still deserves a mention.

This is some very old color picture which Oda made which includes Buggy, Shanks and lots of unknown characters. Now look at the background and you may see that the person there looks very much like Kaidos silhouette.

Basically the only thing that we've got is this Silhouette of Kaido in chapter 432, but as we know Big Mam didn't look anywhere like what she looks in the picture, so the real design may change dramatically. But I have to say that the person on the first picture resembles pretty much Kaido's silhouette. This is however a long shot and have been around for pretty long.

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One Piece: Examples Of The Mythology Oda uses

It always manages to surprise me how multidimensional One Piece actually is. When reading people rarely if they are not familiar with the concepts of mythology may never even notice such things, but the fact is that basically every big concepts that revolve around the world of One Piece are somewhow based on real world mythologies. I've picked up the most interesting ones.

Original magnificent posts by Foxy The Silver Fox, you can also find more of the Mythology of One Piece there

East Blue

-Real life French pirate Olivier Levasseur threw a cryptogram to the people before getting executed saying that anyone who could unlock it would receive it's treasure. This obviously resembles Gol D Roger.

-Devil Fruits may be linked to the Book of Genesis, in which a serpent tempts Adam and Eve to eat the fruit that God specifically said not to eat. They eat the fruit and gain knowledge, but are punished for the rest of their lives.

-Animal that represents Zoro is a tiger: There is an old indian myth of a prince who saved a starving tiger, like starving Zoro was saved from Helmeppo by Luffy.

-Usopp is based on a Tengu + Pinocchio based on him lying and having that characteristic nose. His character animal is chameleon.

-Journey of East Blue ends in Loguetown, which can thought as "logue" as in "prologue" for the story that Luffy and Strawhat pirates had emerged. It can also be deduced as epilogue for Gol D Rogers journey ending.

Baroque works & Reverse mountain

-Strawhats get swallowed by whale Laboon, which resembles the story of Jonah who was swallowed by a great fish and lived inside it for three whole days.

-At Whiskey Peak the strawhats are offered lots of wood, wine etc. but the people there were in fact part of criminal organization called Baroque Works: There's a similar Greek story of Odysseus where him and his men were captured by Goddess Circe who offered them wine, cheese and beautiful ladies.

-In Little Garden The Strawhats encounter Dorry and Brogy who are giants based on vikings. Elbaf is "Fable" spelled backwards.

-Chopper is obviously based on Rudolph the Reindeer who has a red nose: both have colored nose and both were basically exiled by their kin: Choppers birthday is also on Xmas eve.

-Rumble ball resembles "rum ball", German origin truffle-like confection flavored with chocolate and rum.

-Animal that represents Chopper is Tanuki, which are considered as innocent, like Chopper.

 -Hiluluk's name comes from Ancient Greek word "Chirurg" meaning "Surgeon".


Alabasta

-Mr 2 or Bon Clay represents swan, which in Celtic Mythology are sign of change or change of mood. Fits Bon Clay's identity as an okama and his power of Clone-Clone Fruit. His name was later revealed to be Bentham, which can be related to Jeremy Bentham who was supporting homosexuality, women's rights etc.

-Alabastas name may came from alabaster that is a mineral found in Egyptian architecture and art. The whole kingdom being desert resembles Egypt and Middle-East.

-Ace gives Luffy his "Vivre" card, which means "to live" in French.

-In Egypt there was a deification of crocodiles called Sobek who had the opposite power of Shichibukai's Crocodile: to put stop to droughts.

-There was also a Egyptian Deity called Horus, who had the head of a bird and was a guardian of Egypt: Pell had a Falcon model Zoan fruit and was the guardin of Alabasta.

-The Poneglyph which was found in Alabast was in Tomb of the Kings, resembling Egypt's Valley of the Kings: the poneglyph's design is from Rosetta Stone, which was found in 1799 during the French expedition to Egypt.

-The Ancient Weapon Pluton -> Pluto, The god of the Underworld -> Greek Hades

-Nico Robin's character is based on eagle, Eagles are considered having lots of wisdom.

Jaya

-Strawhats are ridiculed by Bellamy pirates in Mock town, the name comes from them mocking Luffy and his group because of their dreams.

-Montblanc Cricket comes from a french dessert that looks like Montblanc's hair.

-Knock Up Stream is based on Charybdis, which is a monster in Greek Mythology that creates whirlpools and shoots them ships that get caught in it into the air.

-Doc Q is based on one of the Four Horseman Of the Apocalypse, Death. Doc q also carries a scythe.

-Van Auger may be based on Adolphus from "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". Adolphus was a sniper who was able to shoot an apple off a tree nine hundred miles away.

-The Blackbeard pirates themselves have a philosophy that fate is in control of everything: Blackbeard's theme is "three", as in Shanks' scar, his jollyroger etc. In Greek Mythology there was three sisters of fate who controlled death by cutting someones life string. Those who have watched Disneys Hercules will surely know of this.

Skypiea

-The name Skypiea comes from the saying "Pie in the Sky" which basically means a slim chance of something happening.

-Pierre, Gan Fall's bird who ate the Horse Zoan Fruit is based on Pegasus.

-Gan Falls armor reminds of Don Quixote De La Mancha

-The Shandians are based on indians, native americans who were ripped of their homeland, just like the Skypieans took the land from the Shandians. Also Shandians design reminds me of indians.

-Giant Jack -> folk tale Jack and the Beanstalk

-Klabautermann is based on, surprise surprise, Klabautermann

-Enel represents Shinto Thunder God Raijin, they both have drums on their back with tomoe symbols.

-Logia is based on New Testament where term "Logia" is spoken by Jesus Christ that Logias "speak" with forces of nature.

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One Piece Speculation: Oda hinting towards Sabo being Alive

 In this picture of Ace's and Whitebeard's graves from chapter 668 cover page left you see the cleaned version which was included with the tankobon format of One Piece, right one is from the jump in which the texts were covering an important part of the picture: the three cups in front of Ace's grave.

These three cups are known from chapter 585 "Cups of Brotherhood", Luffys, Aces and Sabos flashback in which Ace stole some of Dadan's booze and they decide to drink from the three cups of brotherhood to celebrate them being brothers. So basically no one else than these three could even know about the cups, so the only one capable of putting them on Ace's grave is Sabo.

Of course the fans recognized this immediately and one of them even wrote to Oda about the cover page in SBS 68: it's roughly translated like this:
The fan had gone to the One Piece exhibition gallery and in the Jump One Piece insert art gallery he saw that particular cover page and the three sake cups. He asks Oda if "That person", (meaning Sabo), visited Ace's grave?

Oda answers and explains that for the weekly chapters the other cups were covered by text and they put up the clean version without the text for message, confirmation of "that person". Later in the manga the fans can confirm this clearly, but as for this message he'll leave for our imagination what it means.

Well the message of Sabo being alive is pretty obvious and Oda wants to still be a bit "mysterious" about it even though he basically confirmed him being alive.

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One Piece Speculation: Rob Lucci in the New World?

The first screen capture is from when Caesar Clown was demonstrating the power of Smiley, his weapon of mass destruction. The second capture is from Enies Lobby. The silhouette looks a lot like Rob Lucci with the similar the hat, the liquor and the glass. However I would find it a bit unpleasant for Oda to use Rob Lucci again since I wasn't that fond of him even though in his own way he was pretty amazing. It may be that the silhouette of Lucci is just for the "show" to show us just some new world pirates who are watching Caesar Clowns demonstration.

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Hunter X Hunter Anime 2011: Chimera Ant Arc is coming soon

Hunter X Hunter 2011 Anime is now in it's 66th episode. The Greed Island arc has started and is progressing in a good pace so I decided to analyze a little bit how long is it going to last and when we are actually going to see story of Hunter X Hunter that is yet to be animeted: The Chimera Ant Arc.

In Hunter X Hunter manga Gon and Killua stepped on the Greed Island at the end of episode 60, which in manga represents chapter 127.

However, in episode 66 we saw Killua pass the 288th Hunter exam, come back to Greed Island, roll some dice and finally we saw some of the Gensuru's group doing their evil stuff. Alone this episode 66 contained 4 whole manga chapters from chapter 148 to 152, so I'm going to use this as a baseline for our progress.

 The Greed Island Arc ends in chapter 185, which means that in terms of manga chapters there's only 33 chapters to go where Hunter X Hunter anime is now. If we assume that the anime progresses in pace of 1 episode / 4 chapters, it would take 8 or 9 episodes to go to finish the Greed Island Arc.

I'm going to take it safe and say that the Greed Island will end in episode 67, which would mean that there's 10 more episodes to go. It's however possible that it could drag on as far as from 12 to 15 episodes long if the animators decide to make some scenes more longer than expected.

Well, in the end it isn't too long of a waiting time if the anime airs every week without breaks.

After all, we'll be seeing an amazing arc which hasn't been animated, Chimera Ant Arc which honestly trivials me a little bit. In manga it was very brutal which will definitely give some headache to the animators who obviously try to make the anime for the whole family or something. Anyway I'll be following how it turns out to be and most likely start writing recaps and comments of the Chimera Ant Arc.

I also hope we also get to see the Election arc after the ants: it was an incredible one.

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One Piece Theory: Kaido has Mythical Zoan: Typhon

Update: Check also out my speculation of "Have We Seen Kaido Already?"
Eiichiro Oda really likes to use mythology general themes in One Piece, so this theory is about Kaido, but first couple of points:

(Picture credits)
-Law said that Kaido is the strongest creature in the world
This would imply that Kaidou isn't even human, but it may as well be a trick by Oda to make fans speculate about what Kaido really is. Of course it's possible that Kaido himself isn't anything that he's pictured out to be in people's minds, only time will tell.

-Kaido is called "Hundred beast Kaido" and / or "Kaido the beast"
I can't say for sure whether this is because of mistranslation or whether Oda meant to give us these two descriptions of Kaido. Of course there is meaning in example we've known of "BIG mam" for many years now and we got to see her right after Fishman island arc and she was seriously big. This is a indication that Kaido is some kind of beast that is so important factor in his essence that it has became a nickname.

The "Hundred beast" proportion could also relate to the SMILE aspect of Kaido making hundreds of his underlings to artificial Zoans.

So, on to the theory part of this text

Kaido could easily have a Mythical Zoan: Typhon
(Or Typhoeus, Typhaon, Typhos)

Typhon was the most deadly monster of Greek mythology, which would be in line with the saying of "The strongest creature of the world". Wikipedia describes Typhon as having hundred dragon heads (which would also be in line with the "hundred beast"!) His bottom half was gigantic viper coils and his whole body was covered in wings.

Of course Oda's version of Typhon could be something entirely else, but it would pose as a great "base" for his design of Kaido.

In the wikipedia article of Typhon there's also talk about offspring of typhon, which would be linked to the underlings of Kaido, whom he's making artificial Zoans. Typhon's offspring includes Orthrus, Sphinx, Nemean Lion, Cerberus, Ladon, Lernean Hydra and Chimera. We could easily see that some of these or all of these belong to the crew of Kaido if Oda decides to follow this route.

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One Piece 695 speculation: Person on the bird?

Credits of this amazing picture goes to Franky D. Boss

The character's lines remind me very much of Aokiji and the sleeping in weird places would hit spot on. The bird, or the seagull obviously is a mystery, but I don't find it weird for super powerful people to tame big animals. It's not weird at all when you think that Luffy tamed a huge Kraken by himself!

Of course the "bird" could still be made of ice or something.

I would be great to see Aokiji once again and now he wouldn't have any reason (we know of) to oppose Strawhat Pirates. It would be amazing to see Aokiji versus Donquixote Doflamingo at Punk Hazard, but we'll have to wait to see whether or not my fantasies come true or maybe Oda figures out something even more incredible for us.

Edit: There's a rumor going around that someone has leaked what's going to happen and one of the spoilers / theories state that the person going to Punk Hazard is in fact Dragon. It's a great theory since falling asleep in weird places is essentially a Monkey D. Family's trait so to say. We've seen (Ace, even though he's Gol D Roger's son), Luffy and Garp do this so it wouldn't be a big surprise for Dragon to have that trait.

 Update: Credits to Zeff redleg made this great discover

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One Piece revealed -theory

Original post, Props to Zephos

I believe everyone wonders at some point "What is One Piece?": here's a good theory and I decided to share it with everyone. Only thing that disturbs me that could it be so obvious? Honestly I would be a bit disappointed if One Piece truly is the Rio Poneglyph - of course depending on the information it contains. For that information we will have to wait for many years - until Luffy and strawhat pirates finally reach Raftel.

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Fairy Tail ending soon?

My thoughts on the speculation, that Fairy Tail would be ending in a couple of years:

I  don't think it's probable. Hiro Mashima still has lots of ways to go with the story so that he isn't in too tight spot ie. compared to Naruto which definitely is, or at least should be ending soon. We should think about this from the business perspective: Fairy Tail has been gaining lots of popularity over the years and I'm sure it still hasn't peaked. I think that if Hiro would even hint about putting a quick end to the story 1. Editors would be resisting it a lot 2. Fans would start an uprising.

So if we think this whole thing from business perspective and from the potential of the ways which Fairy Tail story could go I'd say it isn't ending anytime soon. Of course there's still possibility that are Hiro's personal reasons - we can only hope that he won't start taking example from Togashi.

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