Hey, everybody, it's your straw hat wearing rubbery is all rubber balls holding McNeely and it is I your

fish man bruiser Jake I have I'm a man but also a fish he is covered in an oily water right now

I can attest he wanted to quote unquote get into character for the podcast and I said Jake it's

not a character thing.

You're supposed to be yourself at the end of the day. No. Why are you covered in fish nuts? I'm a flounder. I have all the abilities of a flounder. You know, everybody. It is our one piece episode and I'm so excited to do it. And this one goes out to our patron, Michael Bortness. Michael, thank you so much because honestly you opened up a whole new one.

You've opened up a grand line, a blue line, a West Sea.

So, Holden, this is the number one thing that blew my mind.

Really quick, he dedicates this episode to his favorite pickled bread, Amber.

Okay, take it away, Jake. I thought we were just going to cover an anime, because as I've been an anime fan for, like, my entire life at this point, and, you know, you got your Dragon Ball, you got your bleach, you got your Naruto, and One Piece is also there. One piece is also up there. It's in there, but it is so intimidating. It has always been so intimidating to me. I see the still shots of the giant pirate crew. And they all look crazy. There's like a big weird skeleton man and a fucking guy in a straw hat and a dude with a weird mask with a really long weird nose and everybody looks nuts. I mean, sometimes the mask. Sometimes it's just his fucking weird face, which is also weird. And I've just been like, okay, I'd like to check this out. What? 800 fucking how many episodes? 800, you dumbass. They're up to, they're well into the 900. It's now in the 900s, right? They're going to hit a thousand. It is obscene.

No, so here's, here was my like third eye opening, much like putting Sabah in the latest

arc.

This is my third eye opening moment when I realize that like, one piece to anime is like

Star Wars to science fiction. It's like Star Wars to Science Fiction.

It's like Harry Potter to fantasy.

It is like, okay, yes, technically it's within this genre, but it is so epic and its fan base is so loyal.

Yes.

And its world building is so complete in its singular vision.

It is amazing world building.

That it is a column unto itself.

You cannot, like, there are people in the, this is like, you must have come across this statistic.

In Japan, like, even though One Piece has been running for 20 years, or I think next year it hits 20, and Shonen Jump, the people that actually read it are like 80% over 18.

These are the same fans that like picked it up in the first place.

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