Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Straw Hat Pirates



I love One Piece. An Anime about a pirate with a Straw Hat named Luffy who's dream is to become King of the Pirates. Before making that happen, his main goal is to have at least 10 people join him to form a crew. So far he now has 8 members on his ship. Leaving only 2 more to go.

#. Name - job, color, animal, family role, country based:
o. Luffy - captain, red, monkey, 4th brother, Brazilian
1. Zoro - swordsman, green, shark, 1st brother, Japanese
2. Nami - navigator, orange, cat, 1st sister, Swedish
3. Usopp - marksmen, yellow, armadillo, 3rd brother, African
4. Sanji - cook, blue, duck, 2nd brother, French
5. Chopper - doctor, pink, reindeer, 5th brother, Canadian
6. Robin - archeologist, violet, crane, mother, Russian
7. Franky - shipwright, light blue, ox, father, American
8. Brook - musician, black/white, horse, grandpa, Australian

In my opinion, it looks more likely that Jinbe, Perona and/or Crocodile will join:

9. Jinbe - helmsman, indigo, gorilla, uncle, Chinese
10. Perona - lookout, light purple, tiger, sister, Dutch
11. Crocodile - Logia-type user, light green, crocodile, British


Why these three? After the two year time skip, in chapter 598, we see from the beginning four animals Luffy befriended while training. A lion, an alligator, a blue gorilla and a vermilion tiger. The lion sort of resembles the shape and colors on the mass of Straw Hat ship, the Sunny. This could be a hint from the author, Oda, that the animals represent future crewmembers. The tiger represents Perona, the gorilla represents Jinbe and the alligator represents Crocodile.

In the recent story arc, Jinbe seems likely to join. However there is the chance that the kraken, Surume, will join instead as the crew's new pet.

Even though Crocodile was a villain, there's a chance Luffy may forgive him depending whatever is in store for the future.

If not Crocodile, other Logia-type users that may join could be Smoker, Enel or
  • Smoker was the first Logia-type introduced and is the only marine who is a nice person. He also looks more like a criminal and has shown to disobedient towards his higher ups.
  • Enel would be interesting but he's too powerful, crazy and delusional to join. It also looks like he plans on staying on the moon forever.
  • Akoiji was the first Admiral introduced and is the only one who isn't cruel or obsessive over "absolute justice." The only problem is that he seems to want to stick with job. Plus having the guy who's partly responsible for destroying Robin's friend and home island would be uncomfortable to be with.


There are other candidates besides Perona, however their role seems to be more of ether Luffy's rivals or allies. Perona has had more interaction with the Straw Hats than anyone else. She could have left the island Zoro was training on during the 2 year wait, but instead remained with him. Plus, Kuma sent her to there just like he sent the other Straw Hat members to random islands. That kind of makes her pretty important.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Top 10 Incompetent Yet Funny Cronies


  1. Jessie, James and Meowth from Pokemon - This Team Rocket trio made the books for becoming the most memorable characters in a line of comic-relief henchmen. These guys always show up in every episode of Pokemon, never knowing when to quit.
  2. Dick Dastardly and Muttley - most famous for their villainous roles in the Wacky Racers and every Yogi Bear spin-offs. If Hanna Barbera never came up with these two trouble makers, we'd probably wouldn't have the comical henchmen we see today.
  3. Scratch and Grounder from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog - a mechanical chicken and a digging robot who are the first of Dr. Robotnik's henchmen designed to capture Sonic. Kind of like and evil and more annoying version of R2-D2 and C3-PO.
  4. The Beagle Boys from Duck Tales - a family gang of criminals all aimed at stealing from Scrooge McDuck's money-bin. They're usually seen working for different major villains like Flintheart Glomgold, Magica De Spell, and their mom, Ma Beagle.
  5. Bebop and Rocksteady from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Shredder's first and only mutant experiments created to take on the Turtles. You'd think that being being part boar or part rhinoceros should provide a big advantage in terms of strength. Too bad they get their butts kicked all the time.
  6. Pain and Panic from Disney's Hercules - Minions of Hades who are capable of taking on any form and yet still manage to fowl up in the end.
  7. Swat the Fly & Smack the Mosquito from Mr. Bug goes to Town - working for their boss, Bagley Beetle, they help by trying to eliminate Hoppity. And by "eliminate," I mean fail.
  8. Emperor Pilaf from Dragon Ball - A blue dwarf who is bent on taking over the world with the help of his followers, Mai and Shu. These three were the first villains in the series that slowly became forgotten.
  9. Petra Fina from Flint the Time Detective - a time-traveling criminal mistress and her two goons, Dino & Mite. Kind of like Jessie from Team Rocket, she's selfish and vain and works for the Dark Lord, aka Tuxedo Mask's evil twin.
  10. Hack and Slash from Reboot - Megabyte's dimwitted robot lackeys. They're low on the list mainly because they later switch sides in Season 3.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Top 10 Animated Movies Based on a TV series



  1. How I Spent My Vacation - a Tiny Toon Adventures film that is so good that it should have been released into theaters over direct-to-video. The movie shows how each of the main characters from the show doing during their summer break. Mostly focusing Plucky's road trip to hell and Buster and Babs journey downriver. Making this movie best remembered for it's slapstick and humor.
  2. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm - based on the hit animated series, this Batman movie was released in theaters in 1993. Sadly, it did little in the box-office mainly because Warner Brothers focused more on advertising for that awful Batman Forever movie. It became more popular when it was being sold on home video. So popular that Warner Brothers made more films like Subzero and Return of the Joker that are equally as good as the first.
  3. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut - unlike a the ones below, this one was given strong effort into giving an original story for an adult cartoon show and providing it with memorable musical numbers.
  4. The Chipmunk Adventure - putting our favorite Chipmunks and Chippetes in a race around-the-world story...Genius!!! The animation is really topnotch especially since a couple of animators from Disney worked on it. And who could forget that song: The Girls and Boys of Rock and Roll.
  5. The Simpsons Movie - Despite it mostly being just an 87 minute episode, it was still hilariously memorable. Not to mention the introduction to the newest addition to the Simpson family cast, Spider-Pig.
  6. Duck Tales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp - an underrated Disney film that deserves a DVD or Blueray release.
  7. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island - One of the rare Scooby-Doo movies that's actually scary for a family kids film. But it's much better compared to that live-action version.
  8. The Spongebob SquarePants Movie - The only real good movie made by Nickelodeon that everyone could love. My only downside with it is that I was expecting it to be the conclusion of the entire show. But if that happened, Nickelodeon would be out of business.
  9. The Rugrats Movie - The first Nicktoons movie based on their most popular cartoon, Rugrats. The film seems to force itself into scary and intense situations just to compete with Disney. Overall, it's more enjoyable to watch for little kids or people who grew up watching the show.
  10. The Powerpuff Girls Movie - A prequel that explains the origin of the PPGs even though we've already heard it countless times in the opening credits. The only clever part of the film I liked was Mojo Jojo's plan to "make the town a better place."