CURIOSITIES

Little is known about the Revolutionary Army forces so far. What is known is that their movement is a threat to the stability of the world and that they aim to oppose the World Government as well as what it stands for. It would also seem that they are quite knowledgeable and well aware that it was actually Monkey D. Luffy who truly defeated Crocodile in Alabasta and that Vice Admiral Garp is Luffy’s grandfather (before it was revealed to the public).

The Revolutionaries’ base is located in the Grand Line on Baltigo, a windy island with snow-white soil and rocky terrain.

So far, only one of the association’s ships has been shown: Dragon’s unnamed ship. The figurehead and theme in fact appear to be a dragon, complete with a small dragon tail, fitting the name of the leader. This ship was kept around for at least ten years, as seen when Dragon took her to rescue the citizens from the Gray Terminal, and when they landed to get supplies. After the Battle of Marineford, she was seen moored outside of the headquarters.

The Revolutionary Army seems to use a plain dark-red triangular flag

Anyone who becomes a Revolutionary is declared a threat and becomes wanted by the World Government.

While the motives of the Revolutionary Army remain unknown, their ideals might only be dangerous to the World Government itself, as they seem to detest the current government system involving the World Nobles and slavery, as evidenced when Dragon encountered Sabo and the Revolutionary Army liberated the slaves from Tequila Wolf.

Koala and Nami were both in fishmen crews, but draw contrasting parallels with each other:

• While Nami was forced to join Arlong’s crew against her will, Koala only traveled with the Sun Pirates because they were asked to take her.
• While both were forced to wear their crew’s mark, Koala’s “mark of the sun” was put on to replace another mark. Nami’s Arlong tattoo was removed and replaced with a tattoo of her own design. Each girl ended up with a permanent mark replacing a former mark of enslavement as a result of affiliation with fishmen.
• When Koala joined the Sun Pirates, she was finally allowed to cry, whereas with Nami, after she was forced to join Arlong she refused to cry.
• Koala was never forced to do any work as she was freed from slavery. Nami was forced to draw maps and act as a slave to Arlong.
• Koala’s time in the crew was only meant to be temporary while Arlong intended to keep Nami in the crew forever.
• Koala left the crew with good memories and was sad to leave the crew while Nami’s time was spent in misery and was happy to leave. This caused Koala to have a good opinion of fishmen while Nami had to put her feelings behind when she finally came across fishmen again.
• In Koala’s case, her hometown exchanged her freedom with the Marines for the lives of the fishmen. In the case of Nami’s hometown, they fought against the fishmen for their freedom after the Marines betrayed them.

Rayleigh is able to utilize Haki the same way Shanks, Luffy and Whitebeard can. He is able to use all 3 types of Haki:Kenbunshoku Haki, Busoshoku Haki, and Haoshoku Haki. Rayleigh also shows great knowledge of Haki, and made use of all three types while teaching Luffy about them, and training him in the basics.

Rayleigh has mastered Haoshoku Haki to the extent that he can render a specific target completely unconscious. He is able to do this without adversely affecting anybody else near the initial target. He disabled an entire hall room of hostiles with this power, save for the Kid Pirates and Heart Pirates. Rayleigh later commented that the pirates still standing were no ordinary rookies. Only very strong and determined individuals can resist from being knocked unconscious. One of Trafalgar Law’s crewmen was very close to being knocked out, and even Law and Eustass Kid were sweating slightly after enduring the blast.

Busoshoku Haki allows Rayleigh to create a force similar to an invisible armor around himself. Rayleigh has the ability to bypass the powers of a Devil Fruit user, touching the “substantial body” beneath whatever protection the fruit provides as seen when he used Busoshoku Haki to kick and redirect an attack from Admiral Kizaru. He was also seen using it to deflect a giant elephant’s foot and also hurting Luffy with a Haki-imbued flick while teaching him the basics of Haki. As stated by Rayleigh just before initiating Luffy’s training, it is possible to make this Haki strong enough to be used offensively.

This type of Haki can allow Rayleigh to sense the emotions and nature of others. It appears that it is also possible for the user of this Haki to sense the strength of others. This was shown when Rayleigh used this Haki to sense that there were five hundred creatures on Rusukaina who were stronger than Luffy at that time. Rayleigh also used Kenbunshoku Haki to dodge an elephant’s attack without directly seeing the elephant.

The strength and mastery Rayleigh has over this kind of Haki is also shown by the fact that he can sense people all over the island he is currently on while most people can sense only in their immediate vicinity.

Formed from various powerful crews who managed to succeed in the New World, and the representatives and some other members have been prime contestants of the Corrida Colosseum, the crew is very powerful indeed. In sheer numbers, they have a grand total of 5640 people from various tribes and races, being quite versatile in strength and other attributes. Five of the seven leaders were powerful enough to defeat executives of the Donquixote Pirates.

The Grand Fleet has the second highest total bounty of any currently known pirate group, behind the Straw Hat Pirates.

Putting the combined known bounties of all of the “Straw Hats” together (both main crew and Grand Fleet) comes to a known total of  2,800,000,100 which far surpasses the bounty of any other known crew.

Blackbeard has eaten the Logia-class Devil Fruit Yami Yami no Mi. With it, he can create an ebbing shroud of darkness, shown to possess a strong gravitational pull. Teach demonstrates that the “darkness” is a void which devours anything, able to pull in (much in the manner of an actual black hole), and crush his surrounding environment into a pile of rubble. Due to the Yami Yami no Mi’s gravitational ability, Blackbeard, unlike every other Logia user, cannot disperse and let attacks simply pass through him, drawing the attacks faster towards himself instead, meaning he takes equivalent or more damage than a normal human would.

However, Blackbeard states that the deficiency this presents is well worth the advantages the fruit bestows upon him, such as the ability to “absorb” certain projectiles and then hurl them back at his foes using moves like “Liberation”. The second, and the most frightening power of the fruit is to nullify other Devil Fruit abilities through physical contact, allowing Teach to physically hit Ace, whose body was composed of intangible flames, and injure Luffy, whose body was made of rubber. Teach states that this is because the Yami Yami no Mi truly holds the power of the devil. As such, Blackbeard’s style revolves around getting close to his enemy and grabbing them, canceling out any defensive abilities they have, forcing their own natural resilience to take Blackbeard’s massive strength.

Blackbeard must, however, physically touch his enemy to cancel out their powers. This puts him at a huge disadvantage against enemies he cannot reach out and grab, even more so when the enemy can hurt him at a distance. However, this weakness can be rectified somewhat by his signature technique “Kurouzu”, which utilizes his suction powers to drag his opponents towards him. This technique opens up another weakness since right after he uses it he is left open for an attack at close range.

*Chapter 822 Spoilers

The alliance has decided to split into 4 teams: Luffy (with Pekoms, Pedro, Nami, Brook and Chopper to Whole Cake Island), Nekomamushi (in search of Marco and the WB pirates), Inuarashi (to protect Zou from possible threats, along with Momo and Sicilian), Kinemon (with Law and his crew and Zoro and the rest of SHs to Wano)

So Luffy team leaves Zou, we’re finally moving onto Sanji.

But wait, Oda wouldn’t be Oda if he hasn’t teased us a bit, so he shows Vivi as a cliffhanger!

• Dressrosa is the longest arc in the manga to date, surpassing the Skypiea Arc, with 102 chapters.
• This is also the longest arc in the anime to date, surpassing the Fishman Island Arc, with 108 episodes.
• Starting after Chapter 730, Sanji, Nami, Brook, Chopper, Caesar, and Momonosuke are absent from the manga all the way until Chapter 795, amounting to 620 days of publication time (1 year, 7 months, and 25 days).
• This is the second arc in the series to take two years to finish and still be on the same island. The first arc to do this was the Alabasta Arc.
• Many characters make their first appearances after the time skip. The characters (in the order they were reintroduced) are: Jewelry Bonney, Brannew, Sakazuki, Bellamy, Jesus Burgess, Bastille, Sabo, Koala, the Gorosei, Urouge, Capone Bege, X Drake, Sengoku, Tsuru, Rob Lucci, Spandam, and Hattori.
• Usopp activates Kenbunshoku Haki for the first time during his second defeat of Sugar
• Luffy activates a new technique called Gear Fourth. He created this technique during his training on Rusukaina. Doflamingo reveals that Devil Fruits can awaken to a higher level and the user can affect things around themselves in addition to their own bodies, which makes the type of their fruit seem no longer applicable.
• More information about Haki is revealed during this arc. According to Law and Luffy, if Haki is overused, it will not be able to work for a certain period of time until it recharges. So far, Busoshoku Haki is the only one that can be overused.

-A yet unexplained force is created when two users of Haoshoku Haki clash. This is demonstrated when Luffy clashes with both Don Chinjao and Donquixote Doflamingo. It appears to resemble black lightning crackling the air, and produces shockwaves strong enough to blast people away and/or incapacitate them.

-Zoro reveals he can now coat his blades in Busoshoku Haki after receiving training from Dracule Mihawk, a skill that was inferred in the Punk Hazard Arc but not demonstrated until now.

-Jesus Burgess is revealed to be a Haki user, and along with the other Blackbeard Pirates, is attempting to steal Devil Fruits by killing their users. Sabo has also learned how to use Haki from his time in the Revolutionary Army and engages Burgess several times, sparking a grudge when the former suffers devastating injuries after provoking the latter, prompting him to escape from Dressrosa as a stowaway

• Luffy and Law’s bounties have now risen up to 500,000,000 for defeating Doflamingo. Law’s bounty increase indicates that he has officially been expelled from the Shichibukai
• Dressrosa is possibly inspired by Spain, particularly the regions of Andalusia and Catalonia, as evidenced by the architecture, clothes, flamenco dancers, typical cuisine, and Spanish terminology. The passionate murders that are so common in Dressrosa is also commonly present in Spanish literature, particularly during the Romantic era in early 19th century.
  The fighting fish native to the island seem to resemble bulls, both in appearance and temperament. Bullfighting itself is a popular sport in Spain.
  It also has some hints of the country of Italy, as it features a large colosseum where gladiators would fight to the death for the amusements of the spectators.

• Ace shares the same birthday as the creator of the series, Eiichiro Oda(January 1).
• Ace would have been 21 if he were born on time. Instead he is 20 because his mother held him in her womb for eleven months past his due date, meaning he spent a total of twenty months inside her womb, instead of the usual nine.
• The status of Shichibukai was offered to Portgas D. Ace, but he refused the offer. This is the only known time an invitation into the organization had been rejected
• Ace being captain of the Spade Pirates, is a pun on the “Ace of spades”, or “spadille”
• Ace is the first known Devil Fruit user to die.
• His bounty, being at 550,000,000 before his death, was the highest amount revealed in the series before the timeskip.
• Universal Studios of Japan has built a replica of Ace’s and Whitebeard’s tombs. Ace’s epitaph says: “Ace, may your soul be eternal. Your brave soul will always be with us.” This epitaph was also shown in Episode 663 of the anime.

• In the 5th Japanese Fan Polls, Ace ranked as the sixth most popular character in One Piece making him the most popular of the Whitebeard Pirates and also the most popular deceased character in the One Piece series.

• The symbol of Impel Down is an overlap of the prison name’s initials, “I” and “D”

• Various influences of “Hell” are present within its walls:
  • Impel Down seems to be heavily based on how Hell is described in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Both are level-based, “inescapable” prisons with unique forms of punishment per level, and the lower one traverses, the worse the punishments become.
  • Level 3: Starvation Hell is ironically the third floor, while in Dante Alighieri’s hell, its the place where who was damned by the sin of gluttony are punished by “starving to death” inside Cerberus’s gullets.
  • Level 4: Blazing Hell is a typical representation of Hell in cultural and fictional references, with intense flames and heat burning the “sinners” (or in this case, prisoners), while a demonic figure (in this case, the Jailer Beast Minozebra) pushing sinners into the flames. Magellan’s residence on this level could refer to this depiction of hell being where the devil resides. This resembles, in Dante’s tale, the level where violent people are punished: a lake of boiling blood, where the damned are drowning.
  • Level 5: Freezing Hell is another thing that is based on Divine Comedy. In fact, this level is the one where the damned are fraudulent. With the only difference that the Dante’s damned are totally frozen into a lake of ice.
  • A few of the levels of Impel Down also seem to resemble Buddhist concepts of hell such as the Crimson Hell which seems based on the “Hell of the Sword Tree and Knife Hill” which similarly tortures its victims by forcing them to run upon or impaling them upon trees and hills covered with knives and swords. Also the Four Jailer Beasts seem to resemble the Jailer Beasts Horse Face and Ox Head.
  • Each of the high ranking staff members seems to have a devil theme in their dress codes, a reflection to how each level of Impel Down is called Hell.
• Level 5.5 is a pun, as it is pronounced Go Ten Go. “Goten” means “Roaring Heaven”, and Level 5.5 was portrayed as heavenly.
• The level 6 purpose of erasing a person from history is similar to the damnatio memoriae, a form of punishment in the ancient Rome which had the intent of erasing the memories a person and everything that could carry it to the future generation, effectively erasing the existence of a person from history.

Kidd –Favorite Food:Cabbage Rolls –Least Favorite Food:Curry Udon
Killer –Favorite Food:Peperoncino –Least Favorite Food:Curry Udon
Apoo –Favorite Food:Tom Yam Soup –Least Favorite Food:Mayonnaise
Urouge –Favorite Food:Azuki beans, Pork –Least Favorite Food:Vegetables
Hawkins –Favorite Food:Fortune Cookies (hah!) –Least Favorite Food:Meat
Drake –Favorite Food:Chicken Rice –Least Favorite Food:Eggs
Law –Favorite Food:Onigiri, Grilled fish –Least Favorite Food:Bread, Umeboshi
Bege –Favorite Food:Meatballs, Tomatoes –Least Favorite Food:Tomato juice
Bonney –Favorite Food:Pizza (Margherita) –Least Favorite Food:Carrots

Source: SBS Volume 81