One Piece Episode 523

Storyline

Sabaody Archipelago: Luffy and his crew have managed to go underground thanks to their friends and are now on their way to Fish-Man Island. Meanwhile, the Caribou pirate gang wants to take revenge on the fake Straw Hat gang and bury them alive. Drip (the fake Sanji) apologizes with the others for lying and pleads for his life. Caribou, however, explains that their original plan was to become members of the Straw Hat Pirates, only to murder them unexpectedly and in cold blood. Caribou then uses his devil powers to make Drip suffocate in the mud. The fake Sogeking tries to stop Caribou and fires at him, but Caribou is a Logia user, so such attacks are futile. Caribou demands that Coribou bury the rest alive.

Grove 46: Sentomaru reports via Den-den Mushi that all pirates – except for the real Straw Hats, DeMaro’s crew, as well as the Caribou pirate gang – have been captured. He also explains that the Straw Hats have become significantly stronger, as they managed to defeat two Pacifista without any problems, so the Navy must be informed of this immediately without any detours.

Sabaody Archipelago, Coast: Shacky finds Rayleigh on the coast, who is still looking at the horizon. She notes that the Straw Hat Pirates has grown quite strong. Rayleigh agrees, at which point Shacky asks him what he’s thinking about.

Flashback: Once Rayleigh’s house burned down, so he stole a ship and has been living on it ever since. One day, a man with a straw hat comes to him, admiring him for his house. The man introduces himself as Gol D. Roger. The latter finds it fateful that they meet here today. Roger explains that he plans to turn the world upside down with Rayleigh, and that Rayleigh’s ship looks strong enough to withstand some storms.

Present: Rayleigh wipes tears from his eyes in the face of this old memory. In his opinion, perhaps nothing happens for an undetermined reason; one’s destiny takes more and more shape as time goes on. The old pirate thinks Luffy the hat looks great, even better than before. Besides, Rayleigh has found a reason to live a little longer.

Underwater: The Thousand Sunny is still diving and the Straw Hats are enjoying the view. Luffy and Zoro want to catch some fish outside the bubble. Chopper and Usopp immediately give them both a bump before bursting the coating. Sanji, meanwhile, flies out of the bubble into the ocean bleeding profusely from his nose as he looks at Nami. At this, Robin is fascinated by what the bubble can withstand. Luffy manages to pull Sanji back in before he drifts too far away. Chopper immediately provides Sanji with some blood transfusions, worrying about him since the Cook has a rare blood type. Meanwhile, Nami opens up to the others about some rules for the Coating Bubble. She explains that they can quietly fight off underwater creatures, as the bubble can quickly reseal a single hole. However, if multiple holes occur at once, the Coating will burst. The bubble can withstand quite a bit, as long as they don’t mess around inside and escape external threats. Still, she warns that at least 70% of all ships end up at the bottom of the sea on their way to Fish Man Island. Franky asks Nami if they can be quiet for a while, as he wants to tell everyone something important.

Franky explains that Hatchan couldn’t show them the way to Fish-Man Island because he and Duval had been protecting the Thousand Sunny for the past two years. At some point, the ship came to the attention of the Navy, so they both had their hands full guarding the ship. At some point, however, both were too badly injured. Franky explains the reason why the ship still didn’t get a scratch in the two years: There was someone else who protected the ship with his life. The one who separated them two years ago: Bartholomew Kuma. When Franky reached the Sunny a few days ago, he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the Samurai in front of him. This one was badly damaged, but when he saw Franky, he just said that the mission was accomplished and went his way again. From Rayleigh he learned that Bartholomew Kuma whispered to him at the time that he was working for the revolutionaries, and therefore took the gang to safety. After he did that, he talked to Rayleigh again and told him that he probably wouldn’t be able to help them much since he was running out of time. As Franky correctly guessed, the samurai probably meant his transformation into a complete robot, causing him to lose his entire personality. Chopper, however, doesn’t understand why he was protecting the Thousand Sunny anyway. Franky explains that before his last transformation, the samurai had the command programmed into him, “Protect the Straw Hats’ ship until one of them returns.” Zoro wonders why he did this, while Usopp thinks it’s probably related to Luffy’s father Dragon, the leader of the revolutionaries. Franky can’t answer that, however he just wanted to mention that Bartholomew Kuma ended up being one of their greatest allies, but now is just a heartless weapon that will attack them mercilessly next time.

Coribou spots the Straw Hat Pirates’ ship, which is only a few feet away from them. Caribou sees this too, and this time he really wants to carry out his plan. He thinks it would be easy to sink the ship now, but then the Straw Hats wouldn’t know what hit them. Caribou therefore wants to defeat them himself and bring their heads to the surface so everyone can see how strong he is. The Caribou gang then launches their surprise attack and tries to capture the Straw Hat gang’s ship.