One Piece 319

[DarthEnderX]

It's out...

http://www.vegapunk.com/downloads.php

[DarthEnderX]

For a one-shot filler, I didn't dislike this episode.

It wasn't too stupid, and didn't pretend to do anything important either.

It was just a nice little story.

[Kraco]

Aye, this was a decent "empty" filler. It was good in the sense that it was faithful to the characters, as opposed to the previous one. Still, it's kind of funny the whole story of the episode was basically a jar of salt...

[Assertn]

Woo....well it was a long 2 weeks...but I finally caught up! Pretty insane stuff, although, much like practically every other big fight Luffy's been in, the one with Lucci started to drag a little too long for me. Also, I couldn't bring myself to sympathize with the devastation of the buster call from Robin's flashback, and it wasn't until there were 9 battleships completely surrounding the bridge in Enies Lobby that I felt any sense of intimidation from it.

For a while it was a toss-up for me as to whether Paulie or Frankie will ultimately join the crew as Luffy's carpenter. Both have enough personality to allow for amusing recurring interactions with the rest of the crew, and both have unique fighting skills to contribute to the cause. Both are also very capable carpenters.

I'd have to say though, neither of them has yet expressed any particular dreams that they could accomplish by following Luffy, which also seems to be an important deciding factor in each of Luffy's nakama. In addition to that, there has to be a willingness to leave their home town, but both of them have strong bonds with others from Water 7...especially Frankie.

During the later half of the Enies Lobby arc though, Frankie played a much bigger role than Paulie did, and now he's responsible for the new ship. For these reasons I'm inclined to lean more towards him as being the new nakama.

HOWEVER....just like with the Arlong arc, this arc could have just been dedicated to the recovery (and formalized acceptance) of a previously acquired nakama, and maybe the ship will be badass enough that Luffy's crew won't need a carpenter with them at all.

[DarthEnderX]

I'd have to say though, neither of them has yet expressed any particular dreams that they could accomplish by following Luffy, which also seems to be an important deciding factor in each of Luffy's nakama.

During the flashback to when he was a kid Frankie comes right out and states that his dream is to sail the seas in a ship of his own creation.

So...since he's building Luffy's ship...and his involvement in the fights in EL...at this point, Paulie isn't even in the running anymore for me.


This two weeks off has been murder....I hope to god tomorrow's episode isn't filler...

[Assertn]

Ah...did he say that? Ok well, that's good then...

At this point I'd prefer to see Franky chosen over Paulie anyway. Franky just seems to have so much more to offer.

I think it would have worked better if Franky didn't destroy the blueprints though. Not so much for the ability to use it, but rather just so they can say that luffy's crew holds both keys to awakening the ancient weapons. This also would've further justified Franky leaving with them, since Iceburg always told Franky to take the blueprints far away from Water 7.

[DarthEnderX]

I like Paulie too, but the simple fact is, personality-wise, he's pretty much just another Zoro. Franky's unlike anyone else on the show. Plus his powers have alot more places to "go" over the course of a series. Rope stuff is pretty limited. But Cyborg "I could have anything in here, you don't know man!" is alot better.