The Friends We Made Along The Way

The speaker is recording an episode of their podcast, discussing their packing process and their excitement about catching up on the anime series One Piece. They talk about their concerns about fitting everything into their luggage and potentially needing to buy a bigger bag. They then reminisce about their experience watching One Piece over the years and how they initially became interested in it. They express their love for the series and their excitement about catching up on the latest episodes. Welcome to episode 4! Hello and welcome back! This is episode 4 of my podcast and as I'm recording this, it has been like two days since I recorded the last episode um, because I don't know if I mentioned this last time or not, but I would like to pack away my recording equipment sooner rather than later so I am recording this in advance for next week um so I can just get it out of the way, because two, it's like the topic is one piece assignment, it's pretty fresh on my mind so I'd rather just talk about it, you know and get it out of the way I just wrapped up a little bit more packing I'm almost done it's just hard, um with the stuff that I like like I have some things that I'm gonna wear the next, like 10 days I think we're at now so I can't necessarily pack them away yet it's not that many things, it's just like two pairs of jeans and um most of the shirts that I'm wearing are shirts that I'm leaving behind anyway so most of what I am taking is packed away already I do have a couple of shirts that I left out that I'm not necessarily even leaving them out because I'm wearing, but I'm like paranoid about my bags getting lost and um, there are like three shirts that I have that I'm like, yeah I don't care I'm not packing them in those bags, cause worst case scenario something happens to my bags and I don't get it back I'll cry if I don't have those shirts, alright? I'll be devastated, cause they were expensive and also not even necessarily that expensive they just, like, they mean a lot to me so like, my Spiderman shirt that was my dad's from like, I think before I was born it's from the 90s uh, yeah, don't wanna lose that and then my high def shirt which um, high def is Austin Knight's clothing line shocker but um, there were two shirts two shirts, one of which I genuinely was like cause he does like, um, he does like 300 pieces of each item and I got into this whole thing a little too late so obviously everything's sold out by now I was like, yeah I'm never gonna get that shirt it's not gonna happen and then miraculously I did so yeah, I don't wanna lose it two months after I bought it maybe not even two months, I've had it for like a month and a half maybe but yeah, I don't wanna lose those, so those are coming with me in my carry-on um that's it for clothes, I have like one pair of shoes too that's um, coming with me but I'm leaving them out cause I'm gonna wear them and, oh shoot I just realized I have a bag I need to pack too like a purse, it's not really a purse it's like a shoulder bag, like a book bag kind of I need to pack that away too this is so difficult but um, yeah I'm a little worried about my stuff not fitting um I just been packing right now and I'm like if it fits it is barely gonna fit I might need a bigger suitcase I might need I might need a bigger suitcase cause we have some smaller suitcases um which generally is fine but in this case, the weight limit for each check-in bag is $50 sorry, what am I saying, 50 pounds and um, if it goes over 50 pounds you have to pay an extra fee and I mean, preferably I'd rather not but if it comes down to it, sure, whatever, right but um, because the bags are smaller I could, like there's one bag that I have packed that's, it's not necessarily small I'd say it's like a medium-sized luggage bag but me and my friend packed that thing full stuffed, like she sat on it in order for us to close it like, it is so full and it's only like 45 pounds so I could put more stuff in there, for sure but it just like, it doesn't fit and that bag is bigger than the two smaller bags that we have left so I'm like, I feel like I might have to go get like another bag like a bigger bag to really take advantage of that weight limit I'm pretty sure right now if I were to fill up the two bags that I have left and then weigh one of them, can't be more than like 35 pounds which leaves me still another 15 pounds which is a lot, like I could put a lot of stuff in there, right so I'm not, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do I'm gonna, probably like a couple days before just really, like anything that's going needs to go in my bag now besides like things that I really am gonna need in the next couple days everything that needs to go is gonna go in the bag and then see if it all fits or not and then if not there's a thrift store nearby that I know has like a lot of luggage options and for not that expensive I got a really big bag the other day because I needed another big bag and it was like $20 which is not bad considering that new luggage, even like used luggage like I was looking on Facebook Marketplace for like a large used luggage bag all these people were like, yeah I want $70 dude, if I wanted to spend $70 on a bag I'd go buy a new one instead of buying it off some weirdo on Facebook Marketplace you know, so in that scenario, I'll just have to go get a bigger bag right, but we'll see we'll see, I'm nervous anyway I spent the first 7 minutes talking about packing after I just said I was gonna talk about One Piece so if you recall in the last episode I mentioned that I was almost caught up on One Piece and now I am so like I said I locked in I locked in at work yesterday and I watched the last 9 episodes that I had to be caught up and let me tell you it's crazy they're up to episode 1108 on the Egghead Island arc and it's so good it's so good I like funky sci-fi stuff so this is a cool arc lots of futuristic elements to it which is super cool they finally reveal the identity of Dr. Vegapunk which Oda's been teasing since the beginning he's been like, oh yeah, Dr. Vegapunk and we're like, oh cool, who is he, what does he look like oh, I don't know no one knows hey guess what, he reveals it 900 episodes later and he's basically just like an Albert Einstein parody appearance wise, just because they're both scientists obviously, so he's got white hair and his tongue is perpetually out of his mouth it sounds weirder than it is, it's more goofy when you look at his character design but anyway, this arc is very cool I liked Wano I liked Wano, but I think I like the theming of this one more which is fine it's okay but I don't know, I'm excited I have been watching One Piece since 20 2014 either yeah, no, 2014 yup, that's a long time so 10 years ago I was 11 that's crazy there was this girl in my class who was reading the manga from the library one day and I was like, yo, what's that and she was like, oh, it's so good it's called One Piece, and I was like, okay let me borrow this from you, let me borrow this borrowed book from you so I read the first three volumes and I was like, oh, this is so good and then I started watching the anime and I was trying to do this thing where I would read the volume like the manga volume, and then watch the corresponding anime episodes guess what, that didn't last long for obvious reasons oops, knocked something on my desk and I so yeah, that didn't last long eventually I just changed to the anime and I I like really I'm trying to think of how to say it I'm brain rotting right now and the only thing I can think of to describe it is that I was locked the hell in, dude I watched like I definitely passed the 100 episode mark within a week, I think which sounds crazy but I was like, eat eat, sleep, one piece you know and I was like watching one piece during lunch breaks at school with my phone underneath the table it's crazy, on my LG phone my first phone yeah, I was watching one piece and then I have like a vivid memory too of watching one piece in the line at Disneyland that was like the first year that we had Disneyland passes and I want to say it was either pirates or Thunder Mountain I'm like 90-95% sure it was in the line for Thunder Mountain that I remember holding my phone up in the crowd with my little earbuds watching one piece so yeah, I was locked in I really blew through episodes and then by a couple months later I was around like the 300 mark I got to I would have gotten to hmm Sabaody maybe there was a certain point where I like blew through a bunch of episodes and then I got to specific arc and then I think probably once I started middle school and I had other stuff going on I kind of slowed down and it was harder for me to watch and then too I think what had happened was that at the time I had caught up to wherever the dub was at if you know me you know that I basically only watch dubbed anime I don't mind English voices most of the time and then also I just have like audio processing issues or something and I get distracted really easily so if I can't hear the show in the background it's hard for me to watch it and then when I do subtitles it's like not engaging I don't know how to explain it almost like my brain is like nah I don't want to do that I don't want to sit here and read which sounds pathetic but it is what it is so I think at the time I had watched as much dub as there was and then I was like waiting for more but obviously you wait a period of time and by then you get out of the routine of watching it so I got that far and then like every 4 to 6 months I'd be like oh yeah I should watch some one piece I should probably do that and then occasionally I'd be like I'm just going to watch this sub and it never lasted long and I'd fall out of it again so I never got really far I think the furthest I had gotten was Fishman Island and then 2019 I think I asked my stepdad I was like yo you want to watch one piece with me my logic being that by then it had been 4 or 5 years yeah like 5 years since I'd originally started my 11 year old brain didn't really retain much of the information also partly because I sped through so much of it so at that point I was like I'm not caught up I don't remember a lot of the stuff from the beginning so I might as well just I really wanted to start over part of me too was like I miss one piece I remember watching one piece again from the beginning and when people were like oh I'd kill to hear this song again for the first time or watch this movie again for the first time that was me with one piece and I think I still feel that way if I had the opportunity to watch it for the first time again I might it would be a lot of work to get caught up again so I was like I should just start over but it was so daunting to start over because at that point I was like let's see Fishman Island let's see when that arc started that arc starts episode 527 ish so I was like if I start over I'm losing all this progress that I've already made so I was like hey stepdad do you want to watch one piece with me because then we'd have to start from the beginning because he's never seen it but me and him were watching anime pretty consistently together it was like a nightly thing for us to wind down at the end of the day to spend time with each other so I knew that if we watched it together we would consistently be watching episodes if it was just me I'd fall off I feel like pretty quickly but kind of that accountability at first he was like nah I'm not interested I've gone this long without watching it whatever I don't really want to I was like what do you mean I felt like Loki manipulated him I was like mom he doesn't want to watch one piece with me he's like I didn't say that we got further than I had ever made it we were watching it together up until the Wano arc I started watching it by myself we made it pretty like I think at the time we even got to Wano I don't think Wano was over yet we were almost caught up it was easier to watch sub 2 when I had somebody else to watch it with the one piece dub is so funny too because I remember I remember whenever I'd go back to be like let me watch some one piece the dub was just like so slow there was a period of time where they were like I want to say something crazy 300 episodes behind on the dub and they were coming out so slow and then all of a sudden I don't know if maybe it picked up because of the sudden not popularity but it became more common for animes to do simuldub and while one piece is not simuldub they've been getting them out way faster because now the dub is only less than 100 episodes behind the sub whereas before it was like so many episodes behind to a point where I was like I don't want to watch sub to try to catch up whereas this time I was like I only have to watch 30 sub episodes that seems doable if I really try and it was! watching it at work helped too there's nowhere for me to go whereas if I'm at home I don't know if I mentioned I probably sound crazy being like yeah I've been watching one piece at work stealing company time my boss, like the big boss of the office I don't know if he's visiting family or on a business trip and our manager does not care if we're on our phones or watching stuff as long as we get our work done so because he's gone he was like yeah you can do whatever you want if you want to set up your second monitor to watch something while you're working that's fine so I did and yeah I caught up yesterday yesterday yesterday as in Friday the Friday the 14th it's like it's 1.51am at the time I'm recording this so I say yesterday it's Sunday now technically which I got caught up like two days after I dropped episode 3 I think episode 3 came out on the 12th or maybe no no no episode 3 came out on the 13th so the next day so I'm caught up for the first time in 10 years finally I'm excited I love One Piece I bought tickets to this One Piece exhibition in Japan I think in July no in August yeah in August there's a One Piece exhibition for the 25th anniversary I think and there's also a One Piece day event debacle debacle is like negative right I don't know I'll look it up later but it's a two day event on the weekend it's on the 12th on Monday and then the 10th and 11th wait I just realized do I have school that day oh no I don't it's Obon week say less dude I was like did I make reservations for the exhibition on the 11th and 10th which is Saturday and Sunday before there's a big One Piece day event so they have an exhibition area and also the concert area so they're bringing in people who have done opening songs and closing songs for One Piece to do little performances and Auto is also going to be there A-D-O by the way since she did the the songs and the singing voice of Uta in One Piece Zone Red Slay she's also done a bunch of other anime openings now too so if you don't know who Auto is maybe go go check her out it eats up every single song she does I swear so I signed up for tickets for that event too on Sunday for the concert area and the exhibition area but Japan has this way of ticketing things where typically you have to enter what they call the ticket lottery and then you don't even know if you're going to get tickets or not sometimes they have general sales if there's any tickets left over after the lotteries which sucks because if you lose the lotteries then what which I've become the first hand victim of now because I signed up for the lottery to get Olivia Rodrigo tickets for her Tokyo date in September there's only one day one Japan date she's not even going to any other city it's one day she's going to be in Japan and I signed up for the first lottery I didn't get in and they haven't announced general sales yet so I'm nervous because if they don't announce general sales I'm not getting a ticket honestly at this point if they don't do general sales and I can't get a ticket that way I might buy resale they're not that they're definitely more than the original ticket price but not as insane as resale prices here you know like here when people try to resale tickets and they're like oh yeah $80 you can have it for $600 yeah you can have it for $600 whereas over there I was looking at some resale tickets just in case and the ticket the seating area the ticket price for the seating area that I was looking at was like $90 and resale was somewhere between like $150 and $200 it's not that much more so worst case scenario I might just do that because I really really want to see her so we'll see but yeah ticket lottery dude back to my original point I signed up for the ticket lottery for the one piece day event so we'll see if I get tickets or not but it would be really nice if I did it would be a whole one piece weekend I'd go Sunday and then the next day the exhibition that would be cool I'd be sick I'm excited every summer Universal Studios Japan does a one piece theme event because anywhere that puts one piece on the poster yeah they're going to get money so they've been doing it for a long time now too they do it every summer so they'll do a performance like a you know how Universal here does like a stunt show they do like a water world here they do like a one piece show and then also the restaurant they do Sanji's restaurant and they'll have characters walking around and they have a themed menu obviously so I have tickets for that I have tickets for the performance I don't have tickets for Sanji's restaurant yet I think they drop like 2 months before Japan does that also you can only get tickets for stuff like 2 months before the actual date you're going so I have to wait I don't even have Universal Studios tickets for the day we're going I have the one piece performance tickets I don't even have that tell me why they let me buy that but they don't even have tickets released yet there's like no way to buy those they're just not available yet I have to wait 2 months before would be like end of July yeah I have to wait another month to buy tickets but yeah I want to go to Sanji's restaurant I saw a lot of Zoro and Law walking around and I think everybody listening to this should know how I feel about Zoro for sure and more recently Law Law can get it I understand now I used to not understand every time I saw posts about Law I get it we'll see yeah I'm excited so many one piece things coming up and I have tickets for a Haikyuu thing a Haikyuu exhibition also that's in that's in July I think I don't even know when my stuff is yeah Haikyuu there's so many things coming up in Japan that I just can't keep track of there's a Dr. Stone cafe I signed up for the lottery for there's I'm going to Jujutsu Kaisen cafe in like two weeks or I guess oh scary scary soon sorry I don't know why I blew into the mic dude that probably sounded awful bad at this I feel like there's more cafes sorry I'm tired it's 2am there's a website that I'm constantly checking that does, they like post every time there's a new cafe coming up let's see if there's anything new that I missed make me watch an ad no actually I don't want to go to an Oshinoko cafe thanks let's see nothing for anything I've seen Pokemon? I'm such a fake Pokemon fan I've only played one of the games I don't I don't collect the cards I can't name you too many Pokemon but you know what those little guys are cute those little guys are cute so sue me oh this stuff looks so cute dude Charizard Pasta that looks so good help dude am I going to go here? July 11th that's like 2 days after I start school I think I have a meeting that day oh no it's the day after maybe then oh it's from July 11th until September 16th that's a ton of time I'm probably going to sell out so fast though speaking of selling out I'm scared there's a soul eater I think 25th anniversary also let me see 20th anniversary there's a soul eater exhibition for the 20th anniversary I want to go but the website they're doing the lotteries through I can't sign up unless I have a Japanese phone number and I don't yet shocker either you can do it online and you need a Japanese phone number or you can buy the ticket in 7-11 I'm kind of scared I'm kind of scared they're going to sell out reservations are going to close but I want to go it's an art exhibition I want to go I'm hoping by the time we get there I can pop into a 7-11 and be like hey can I buy these I want to go there's another thing what is this I'm not going to do that I was considering going to a Oran High School Host Club cafe that they're doing in Osaka but we are going to be in Osaka for such a short time during the period of the cafe I'd have to really go and come back real quick I don't want to do that but yeah a bunch of stuff is going on I'm excited I'm excited to do fun things by myself yeah I'm excited looking forward to it hopefully a one piece cafe I've never seen a one piece cafe there's usually a lot of anime cafes during promotional periods at the start or end of a season or if they have a movie coming out there's a bunch of haikyuu pop ups and cafes right now because of the movie that just came out they'll do it more for popular animes too even if it's not for a promotional period like I said I'm going to Jujutsu Kaisen one there's a Dr. Stone one I said that already that I want to go to but I've never seen a one piece cafe I went to Fullmetal Alchemist cafe last year while we were in Japan sorry I got kind of sidetracked there but it was very cool there was this girl there and she had a bag and it was just buttons of Envy which I can't talk because I have a Todoroki bag and a Shinto bag and a Kokomi bag that's a story and a topic for another podcast where I talk about Genshin I haven't done it yet because I don't know if I can talk about Genshin I probably could I just wouldn't know where to start should I do it right now? should I do it right now after I finish recording this one? and pack all my audio stuff away finally but yeah she had a bag I've seen this pretty often too and I don't know if it's a thing and I'm just out of the loop but people will have Iida bags with a character and it's the same button it's not different buttons with different pictures it's the same button and that's the bag she had it's just buttons of Envy and she came and she had a little display she had a sign I translated it was like when you go to cafes they have a coaster in a little blind bag and it's a little fun thing they try to get you to buy more drinks because each drink will come with a coaster and you don't know which character you're getting so it inclines you to buy more drinks so you can try to get the character that you want so she had a sign that was like I'll trade you for it and I did have an Envy coaster and I was too scared to ask which I should have because I didn't get an Ed I didn't get an Ed coaster and I wanted one I got one of Hohenheim bro I got one of his dad but not of Ed I got two of Winry and then I want to say one of Lust I don't remember but I did get an Envy one I don't even think I still have it I'm pretty sure I gave it to my friend who loves Envy I think that's part of the reason why I didn't give it away but I could give it to my friend so yeah, Reid if you're listening to this I could have traded for an Ed coaster anyway yeah dude, I've never seen a One Piece cafe let's look it up real quick I have like 5 minutes left One Piece cafe every time I think I've looked up One Piece cafe before it shows like the restaurant or cafe area One Piece Tokyo Tower which R.I.P. wanted to go there so bad and then they closed I think like a year before COVID there's a One Piece cafe in Vegas right now it looks not as good as it would be in Japan but still good somehow yeah it's cute but yeah, absolutely it would be better in Japan One Piece cafe I wonder why I also very rarely see Naruto cafes with One Piece and Naruto I feel like I would see more of that because it's two out of the big three so that's kinda weird I've seen like maybe one Naruto cafe ever hmm weird I don't see any One Piece cafe stuff that's crazy I should do more Naruto cafes though I wanna buy merch of Kakashi I wanna have a Kakashi themed drink I wonder what it would be he doesn't like sweets I don't know but Naruto cafe win I wanna go to Fuji Cube Land that's like near Mt. Fuji and they have a Naruto section dude I like I feel like such a loser whenever I talk about Naruto I don't know I was just like I didn't wanna watch it at first and I was like you mean the nerdy ninja anime the lame little loser ninja anime I'm not watching that I'm not watching that and I was like oh this is good not only good good but enjoyable to watch I don't particularly think that the writing in Naruto is outstanding it can be at certain times when Kishimoto is writing the one character that he likes like Kakashi's backstory and Itachi's flashback episodes those are good those are so good but other parts of it fall short in the writing department I wouldn't say Naruto is the most outstanding anime I've seen in terms of quality but it's still in my top 5 because it was so fun to watch and the characters are so good I think honestly Kakashi is holding everything on his shoulders busting his back for Naruto pulling all the weight I think maybe if Kakashi wasn't in it I'd like Naruto a lot less I'm a little biased but Naruto was so fun to watch I was looking forward to watching the next episode but I feel like actually whenever I talk about Naruto that's the kind of vibe that I feel like I'm summoning I stick my finger up and be like so actually gross but yeah One Piece I'm finally caught up I'll never have to worry about catching up ever again yeah watch me forget to watch new episodes as they come out every week and then I'll get behind another 30 episodes don't let me do that guys I've been watching Delicious and Dungeon on Netflix if you haven't seen it maybe go watch it because it's so good the season just finished the last episode of the season came out on Thursday it was past Thursday the episodes were coming out every Thursday so by the time every Thursday would come be like oh it's time to watch Dungeon Meshi so I feel like I just gotta figure out I gotta see what days the One Piece episodes come out that way I can just be like oh yeah this is the day I watch One Piece this is the One Piece day then it'll become a little thing for me to do every week so I gotta do that man I've been yapping for 45 minutes oh Genshin what did I just say I was gonna talk about in the next episode yeah maybe I'll talk about Genshin we'll see I haven't played in a while I've been so busy and then every time I log in I'll like mess around with it for like 5 minutes and then fall asleep usually because I end up doing it at the end of the day I used to play a lot more when I was working from home because I was doing phone calls so either while I was waiting for a phone call or while I was on a phone call just listening to these old people yap and yap and yap I was playing Genshin but I have to be more active in this new job and also like I said I can't just be playing Genshin on an overworked day when I work in an office so I haven't played lately but this character I want is coming up in the next banner so I think I have enough primogems to pull for her again that's a topic for another episode so I'll just wrap it up here before I go on another tangent about something totally unrelated but yeah this is episode 4 thanks for tuning in and I will see you next week bye bye