Short Summary
Main Summary
TBAG-8 arc has the following tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Zoro manages to get the crew lost in a straight hallway and thus avoids the ambush the Marines had set for them.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: A variant, during the group's time undercover in the base. Sanji meets Jessica, the head chef, and shows her a recipe for a tasty dish. But when he's revealed as a pirate and later escapes, Jessica tries to throw the recipe away. Her whole staff beg her to swallow her pride and let them use it since they like his cooking. Jessica grudgingly agrees and they use the recipe.
- Anti-Villain: Jonathan only wants to defend his base from invaders (and of course perform his duty as a Marine to capture wanted pirates), and proves to be a very amiable person who treats the Straw Hats as Worthy Opponents.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:Shepherd: I've been subjected to humiliation, and incarceration, and being called "Condoriano"!
- Big "NO!": Usopp's response when he realizes that he's the one who's going to have to fire the Impact Dial (which really hurts the user) in order for the Straw Hats to escape.
- Bluff the Impostor: Usopp gets caught out as an impostor when Drake asks if he's from Unit 18 the Sniper Unit and when Usopp says yes, he immediately calls him out because Unit 18 is actually a supply unit.
- Butt-Monkey / Humiliation Conga: Poor Shepherd.
- Came from the Sky: The Going Merry had fallen from the sky and into the heavily guarded Marine base, leaving the Marines wondering how the Straw Hats managed to infiltrate them. When interrogated, Zoro honestly told them that they'd come from the sky.
- This even doubles as a Brick Joke as Mekao had seen this happen and told some of the Marines, but wasn't believed. When the Straw Hats manage to escape via the octopus balloon and take off into the air, essentially leaving the way they came in, he promptly tells them "I Told You So".
- The Cameo: Commander Jonathan shows up later in the Marineford Arc.
- Chekhov's Gun: The octopus balloon they received from Skypiea.
- Continuity Nod: To the movies oddly enough. Drake comments he's actually ran into the Straw Hats twice when the base identify their ship. And indeed he has, the first time during the Dead End Adventure movie and the second during the The Cursed Holy Sword film.
- The Chessmaster: Jonathan is quite good at coming up with strategies, even some on the fly.
- Delayed Reaction/Double Take: The rest of the Straw Hats after Luffy reveals that he still has the octopus balloon.Luffy: I have it.
Everyone: "He has it." "He says he's got it." "He has it?" "He's got it."
Luffy: Yup, sure do.
Everyone else except Robin: WHAT?! Where? - Didn't See That Coming: No one in the base had any knowledge about dials or about an octopus balloon, so they never checked the crew for them.
- Dressing as the Enemy: All of the Straw Hats except for Zoro do this at some point during the arc, in order to blend in: Luffy and Sanji as cooks, Nami as a janitor and later a nurse, Chopper as a doctor, Usopp as a Marine grunt, and Robin as Inspector Shepherd.
- Epic Fail: Every time Shepherd tries to use his high-tech bazooka gun. The first time, he shoots it backwards, into a crowd of Marines. Then, Robin uses her powers to make him repeatedly shoot it in the wrong direction. Later, when he tries to shoot the Straw Hats and the Merry with it when they make their escape, he misses and accidentally takes out the very cannon that was about to shoot them down.
- Face Palm: Jonathan does this after Shepherd unleashes a cannon on the base itself in an effort to destroy the Straw Hats.
- Farts on Fire: Luffy stored gas on a Flavor Dial as a prank, but it ends up causing a massive explosion.
- Foreshadowing:
- In the kitchen, Luffy asks Sanji if octopus can be eaten raw. This foreshadows his reveal at the end of the arc that he had the octopus balloon all along.
- Usopp is told by a kindly engineer that the Merry has gotten too many dings during its journey and needs a proper shipwright. During a regroup in one of the unused ports, the crew agree the money they gained should be used in repairing the ship and that they need a shipwright.
- Said engineer, Mekao, also seemed to know about the Klabautermann, which foreshadowed the Going Merry's death. He is pulled away before revealing this, however, in order for Franky to give Usopp this information later.
- Whether or not this was intentional, this was the first mention of the G bases the World Government uses, as it involves Marines who have pride of their base and different personalities, and a Vice Admiral to lead said base. In the Punk Hazard Arc after the Time Skip, that same format fits the G5 base, with Vice Admiral Smoker in charge.
- Sanji stops Luffy from fighting the base commander, Vice Admiral Jonathan, when he gets a bad feeling about how casual the Vice Admiral seems when challenged to a fight. It's later revealed that training in the use of Haki, especially Armament Haki, which nullifies the defensive abilities of Devil Fruits, is mandatory for any Marine to reach that rank.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Played for Laughs; the rest of the Straw Hats get these in response to Usopp wondering who should fire the Impact Dial. (Of course, they pick him).
- Happily Married: Jonathan, the base commander, and Jessica, the head cook.
- Hot-Blooded: The Hot Wind Marine corps.
- Identity Amnesia: Usopp invokes this on Shepherd, who Robin was impersonating at the time and the guards had mistaken him for one of the Straw Hats. Usopp plays this out by acting shocked that his friend "Condoriano" cannot recognize him and must have hit his head, hence why he kept claiming he was someone he wasn't.
- Indy Ploy: The Straw Hats make use of several of these throughout the first half of the arc when they're trying to avoid being caught by the Marines. Most of these plots involve disguise and infiltration.
- When Usopp realizes that the Marines think the real Shepherd is one of them (since Robin is currently pretending to be Shepherd), he successfully manages to convince the Marines that Shepherd is their comrade "Condoriano", with Zoro helping the ruse.
- When the Straw Hats are attempting to make their escape on the Going Merry, they are surrounded by about a gazillion men with guns and swords. Dr. Kobato, and Nami soon after, pretend to be Chopper's hostages in order to help the crew get to the deck safely. The others quickly play along (with Luffy even thinking that Chopper's being serious).
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At the end of the first episode of the arc when Jonathan comments on how the Straw Hats will be able to escape the base, he's looking directly at the camera (i.e: the viewer) when he says it.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: A downplayed and subtle example with Luffy, but it's there. During the first confrontation between Luffy and Jonathan in the latter's office, Luffy spends most of it grinning and cheerfully munching on Jonathan's food, entirely unconcerned as usual about being found out. However, once Jonathan informs Luffy that Zoro was captured, Luffy immediately stops laughing and becomes deadly serious, gets his dangerous blank expression on, and prepares to fight Jonathan (towards whom, until then, he'd been quite amiable).
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Shepherd, whose attempts to capture the Straw Hats himself only ends up aiding them.
- Oh, Crap!: Usopp's reaction when, after he wonders aloud who should be the one to fire the Impact Dial, the rest of the Straw Hats give him evil grins and Glowing Eyes of Doom before unanimously deciding that Usopp himself should be the one to do so. His response is a Big "NO!".
- Sarcastic Confession: When a captured Zoro is being interrogated by the Marines on how he managed to sneak into their well-defended fortress, he tells them that his ship had fallen from the sky.
- Sound Off: The Hot Wind Marines sing one even when engaging the enemy.We are Navarone's combat corps!~Let them feel the hot wind of our souls!~
- Storming the Castle: Luffy and Sanji do a mild version when they charge into the brig (despite knowing that there's a giant squadron of Marines waiting for them) to rescue Zoro and Usopp.
- Supreme Chef: The Navarone cooks are REALLY good at what they do, but Sanji takes the cake here. He prepares a meal to put a kitchen full of professional cooks to shame...using the ingredients said cooks threw away
- Sympathetic P.O.V.: Both the Straw Hats and the Marines on Navarone are portrayed as sympathetic. The former are good-natured pirates who only want to escape in one piece, while the latter group are honorable soldiers doing their job. The Marines are given more screentime and focus than usual to emphasize this.
- Trap Is the Only Option: When he and Luffy go to free Zoro and Usopp from the brig, Sanji notes the lack of trouble reaching it means there must be a trap. He's right, but Luffy convinces him to rush the place anyway.
- Troll: Luffy messes with one Marine for the fun of it. Usopp also had some fun messing with Shepherd, as seen above.
- Trouser Space: When the Straw Hats realize they need the Balloon Octopus for their escape, Luffy reveals that he's kept it in his pants.
- The Unfought: Despite being the "Big Bad" of the arc, Luffy never really fights with Jonathan. In fact, the main struggle is overcoming his traps to get out of the base.
- Use Your Head: Zoro knocks "Condoriano" (Shepherd) unconscious this way (to keep him from spoiling Usopp's ruse), since he was handcuffed at the time.
- Villain Episode: Downplayed, but most of the focus in episode 196 is on the Marines rather than the Straw Hats, who only appear in the last third of the episode.
- Win-Win Ending: The Straw Hats manage to get away in the end, but Jonathan reflects that it wasn't a bad thing. The base managed to come together for a perceived threat, its relevance in the Marines is still proven, and the bond between him and his wife is only strengthened. What's more, Shepherd's incompetence has ensured that he won't be blamed for letting them escape.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Nami while dressed as a nurse pretends that the "invading pirates" had attacked her and threw off suspicion from her.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Just as the Straw Hats are about to escape the fortress thanks to Luffy blowing a hole in the gate, Nami realizes that all their treasure from Skypeia is gone, so they have to go back for it.
- You Will Be Spared: Near the end of the arc when Jonathan and the G-8 troops seemingly have the Straw Hats cornered, he states that he'll have to take Luffy, Zoro, and Robin into Navy custody since they all have prices on their heads (of 100 million, 60 million, and 79 million Berries, respectively), but promises to let the four members without bounties—Nami, Usopp, Sanji, and Chopper—go free if the crew surrenders peacefully. Naturally, none of the Straw Hats are interested, and they escape the fort soon after.
