Thanks to zorospride for the idea. Inspired by this

As zorospride correctly notes here things get a little dead around here when there isn't a new chapter or new episode. So here is the idea: during "off-days" we could have discussions of old chapters.

Keep in mind this is the first post of its kind here on r/onepiece. Suggestions on improvement are definitely welcome. This is something of a trial run and if you view the topic linked above you can see some of the ideas tossed around including whether to do one chapter or multiple chapters at a time, whether we should jump around or start from the beginning, etc. In any case, here we go!

Chapter links:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

We haven't established a spoiler policy on these yet, so beware of spoilers. For the time being I'm inclined to say that all spoilers are allowed, maybe information from more recent chapters could be spoiler tagged so be wary of spoilers if you are not current with the manga.

Plot Summaries, courtesy of One Piece Wikia:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

You are welcome to comment on any aspect of these chapters as you see fit, even if your idea is only loosely related. Taking a cue from r/tolkienreads I will attempt to throw out some possible discussion points, naturally some of them are tinted with my own opinion:

Chapter 1

• What is the real reason as to why Shanks refuses to take Luffy to sea with him? Keep in mind that Shanks and Buggy served on the pirate king's ship at a very young age, probably not too much older than Luffy at this time.

• What do you think about Shanks losing his arm to the Lord of the Coast? Given how powerful he is shown to be later in the series and his ability to scare off the Lord of the Coast even in Chapter 1 does it seem odd he lost his arm to it?

• This chapter has the famous scene of Shanks' crew taking a beating from a bunch of weaklings. Why specifically do they allow themselves to be beaten up? After all, Shanks is no pacifist and is perfectly willing to hand out a beating or even do some killing to those that he thinks deserve it.

Chapter 2

• What do you think of Luffy's initial interactions with Coby? For example, Luffy shows no sympathy for Coby's plight and outright states that he doesn't like people like him. He also gives a speech about why he wants to be pirate king which serves as a statement on his outlook on living life and what's worth dying for which inspires Coby to do the same. What do you think of Luffy being able to change his mindset so quickly?

• Given the above, what do you think of Luffy defending Coby as soon as he shows a little backbone? Throughout the series Luffy states that he isn't really keen to help people that he would probably define as cowards as in people not willing to fight or die for their dreams.

• Another reoccurring element is just how strong Luffy and his crew are. Contrary to many other animes/mangas of the same genre Luffy absolutely owns his first significant opponent here and he (and his crew) continue to do so more often than not. What do you think of the fact that starting out Luffy and the strawhats are arguably already the strongest people in East Blue?

Chapter 3

• Luffy is often (rightfully) depicted as naive and sometimes outright stupid but what do you think about the fact that he pays no attention to what people say about Zoro and makes no judgement until he meets him?

• This chapter features the first real appearance of the marines. What do you make of the fact that their first appearance is marked by Helmeppo, a clearly corrupt spoiled son of a famous officer and the other marines who disagree but still faithfully carry out orders? What kind of message does that convey to you, especially in light of what the marines do in later chapters?

• This is also our first look at Zoro. What do you make of his characterization especially in light of later chapters? Even though he is known to only hunt fugitives he still has quite the nasty reputation, why do you think that is?

To reiterate, you are welcome to comment on any aspect of these chapters as well as suggestions for future retro discussions. If some good talking points come up in the comments I'll attempt to edit this post to include them.

tl;dr: Discuss Chapters 1-3. GO!

Edit(Probably the first of soooo many): On lemonyellowblack's suggestion chapter links have been changed to batoto. Sidebar, of course, has some links to manga chapters for those who don't like batoto for some reason.

Edit #2: Well this was a trial run to see what would happen and it seems pretty clear in the future we should do one chapter at a time unless there's a chapter where nothing really happens, then maybe that discussion would be two chapters. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far and gave feedback.