第164回：The Joyboy Connection

This week’s title gave a major hint as to the existence of Usopp, Nami, and Tama’s savior in the form of a reference to a famous Sex Pistols song, Anarchy in the UK.

We know that Odacchi likes to listen to music the fits the theme of what he’s drawing so is it safe to assume that Oda was punking out this week?

Two in a row for music-inspired titles by Odacchi! Thanks to some sleuthing by One Piece’s official translator, Stephen Paul, this week’s title has been found to be in direct reference to the Japanese cover of a popular French song ‘The Ham’ by storied performer Charles Aznavour. The song is a ham actor’s first-hand affirmation of their ‘role’ and their dedication to it throughout life. After listening to the song (spoiler: thematically, it’s pretty intense) and considering Kanjuro’s sad life (likely more than half of it being a complete lie) you can’t help but feel…something…for him. Maybe not quite compassion, but definitely something. Curse you, Odacchi! Giving these despicable villains shades of humanity!

Oh, if the name sounds familiar but you *just* can’t place it, Charles Aznavour’s name inspired *that* masked mobile suit’s name.

What an odd thing for Kaido to say here, no? Why would he even make that connection to begin with? Luffy certainly doesn’t seem to have any aspirations to ‘become’ Joyboy so it’s not like he would have made such a declaration during their match. Without any kind of prompting from Luffy, I see only two possible explanations:

1. The D
Is the ever-elusive D a name inherited by potential candidates for Joyboy? Speaking of which, Kaido’s line here seems to suggest that Joyboy was never a name but more of a title. Yeah, I think some of us guessed that but still nice to get a confirmation!

2. The Hat
Rather than the D, is Kaido perhaps recognizing the bearer of the straw hat as a Joy Boy candidate? Kaido mentioned that Luffy couldn’t manage to become Joyboy ‘either’ so who was the first individual who ‘failed’ in his eyes? If the connection Joyboy really is the hat, he could very well have been talking about Roger. What would this suggest about the owner of the giant straw hat in IM’s vault?

I was wondering about the meaning behind Queen’s ‘Black Coffee’ attack. Why coffee? Why does he like it black? What’s the connection!?

The coffee part is a combination of the Japanese words for ‘light’ (光read: kou) or ‘beam’ and ‘fire’ (火 read hi) so basically ‘Fire Beam’.

Cool, so kou+hi sounds like coffee. But why specifically ‘black’ coffee? The answer is a groan-worthy pun. Remember, Queen has a Zoan ability. He’s a brachiosaur. Get it? ‘BRACH’iosaur? How is Odacchi both the best and the worst? ^o^