Luffy Crashes Arlong Park
Status: pending · Technique: arc-villain-first-contact · target-identification-by-proximity
The seed
Predicted payoff
Forward-pattern: every later Luffy-meets-arc-villain beat — Crocodile in Alabasta (“You’re Crocodile, huh?”), Doflamingo in Dressrosa, Kaido in Wano — operates on the same identify-on-eye-contact register. The chapter installs the target-identification-by-proximity mode at its East-Blue canonical example.
Why this matters
Luffy doesn’t pre-study villains, doesn’t know what they look like, doesn’t recognize them from reputation. He identifies them at the moment of combat-proximity. The chapter installs this as a recurring Luffy-grammar feature.