Usopp Splits the Crew and Jonathan Baits the Vault

Bottom line: Usopp makes a real plan and Jonathan lets the plan walk into his vault

One Piece Episode 204 splits the second assault into two practical recovery jobs. Luffy, Zoro, Robin, and Usopp go after the Skypiea gold. Nami and Sanji cross the bay for the Waver. Chopper stays with the disguised Going Merry because somebody has to protect the only exit.

The plan is sensible, which should make everybody nervous. Jonathan has spent the whole arc reading the Straw Hats through their needs. A vault full of confiscated treasure is not merely storage once the commander knows they returned for gold. The crew organizes beautifully and still walks toward a room Jonathan can prepare.

Episode facts

Japanese broadcast: October 3, 2004
Scripts: Hirohiko Kamisaka and Yoshiyuki Suga
Direction: Katsumi Tokoro and Ken Koyama
Animation directors: Masayuki Takagi and Hideaki Maniwa
Art: Miyuki Sato, Michiyo Kawasaki, and Fumihiro Uchikawa

The official guide follows the gold team to the storehouse, where Marines are waiting. Luffy and the others hold the ambush back while Usopp works on the enormous safe, and the episode ends on the question of what the vault contains.

Seven people moving together would waste the disguise

Usopp points out the obvious problem before everyone charges into Navarone as one loud cluster. The Merry may be covered, but a full pirate crew crossing the same route would draw every patrol toward the abandoned dock.

That observation is basic and valuable. G-8 rewards characters who think about visibility. A disguise protects a ship only while the people attached to that ship avoid advertising the hiding place.

The Waver cannot be treated like disposable Skypiea luggage

Nami left the Waver hidden near the eastern bay during the crew’s first scramble through the fortress. Usopp remembers the vehicle while everybody else focuses on the gold.

The reminder matters because the Waver is technology, mobility, and a piece of Skypiea they cannot replace in the Blue Sea. Recovering treasure while abandoning the machine Nami learned to ride would make the victory incomplete.

Usopp’s mission briefing is theater with useful bones

Usopp presents the division with the full Captain Usopp voice, complete with dramatic authority and a map. Underneath the performance, the route assignment works.

He puts Luffy and Zoro on the team most likely to hit resistance, Robin where institutional knowledge helps, and himself where locks and improvised tools may matter. Nami knows the Waver’s location, and Sanji will follow her across an ocean or a puddle without needing persuasion.

The gold team is built for resistance and access

Luffy and Zoro supply overwhelming force. Robin can read the fortress and disable multiple soldiers without turning every corridor into rubble. Usopp can handle distance, mechanisms, and the vault itself.

The group looks unbalanced only if every problem is a duel. A recovery operation needs people who can reach the target, open the target, and keep an exit available while the lock work happens.

The combination also gives Usopp the safest possible space to do delicate work without pretending he feels safe. Luffy and Zoro are loud barriers. Robin can stop hands from reaching him before he even turns around. Courage becomes easier to locate when three crewmates are actively building a pocket where your particular skill can matter.

The Waver team is built around memory and devotion

Nami knows where she hid the Waver. Sanji is useful protection, but the pairing also guarantees he will treat her route as the most important assignment in Navarone.

His enthusiasm is comic. His reliability is not. Sanji can cross water, handle Marines at close range, and follow Nami’s navigation without pretending he knows the vehicle better than she does.

Chopper gets the least glamorous essential job

Chopper stays with the Merry and worries that everyone is leaving him alone with the ship again. Usopp answers with praise and calls him the super doctor.

The flustered reaction is funny, but the assignment carries real weight. If Navarone discovers or damages the Merry, both recovery teams lose their way out. Guard duty is not inactivity when the entire operation depends on the hidden dock remaining safe.

There is growth hiding inside his complaint. Earlier in the arc, Chopper wandered into the clinic and found a role through medicine. Now he understands the fortress well enough to recognize why separation feels dangerous. He stays anyway. Praise gets the cute reaction, but responsibility keeps him beside the ship.

The disguised Merry is only convincing from a respectful distance

Usopp’s confidence in the camouflage exceeds the visible craftsmanship. Canvas and scrap interrupt the familiar silhouette, but nobody should invite a Marine shipwright aboard for inspection.

That imperfection fits the plan. The disguise buys anonymity inside an abandoned work area. The crew does not need to fool Mekao or Jonathan face to face. They need patrol eyes to slide past one strange maintenance vessel.

Jessica makes Jonathan finish dinner before war.

While pirates divide missions, Jessica enforces the rule that Jonathan and Shepherd must eat every bite delivered from the kitchen. The commander cannot use rank to escape his wife’s standards.

G-8 keeps making domestic routine part of military life. Meals still matter during an emergency. Jessica’s authority is funny because nobody doubts that authority for a second, including the man who controls the fortress.

Shepherd mistakes humiliation for strategy

Shepherd wants to catch Luffy personally and restore the status he believes G-8 denied him. His objective is not primarily protecting the base. He wants a visible victory with his name attached.

That motive separates him from Jonathan again. Jonathan spends units and time to shape outcomes. Shepherd spends attention trying to repair his pride.

Jonathan does not need to stop the teams at the first corridor

The commander understands that immediate pursuit can reveal what the Marines know. Allowing the pirates to approach the vault concentrates the gold team around a predictable location.

Patience becomes the trap. Every quiet hallway feels like proof that Usopp’s route succeeded, but empty space inside Navarone often means Jonathan has cleared a path toward prepared resistance.

The coastal shortcut keeps the raid physically exposed

The gold team avoids regular routes and follows the fortress edge toward storage. Fewer checkpoints do not mean no danger. The sea wall limits cover and escape directions.

Robin’s map makes the shortcut possible, yet maps cannot remove the fact that four recognizable pirates are moving beside a military base under searchlights. Navigation reduces risk. Navigation never deletes risk.

Nami and Sanji crossing the bay is the quieter suspense line

The Waver sits almost opposite the hidden dock, so traveling by land would consume too much time. A small boat across the bay offers speed and exposure in equal measure.

Their operation lacks the giant vault and central ambush, but discovery on open water would leave nowhere to hide. Nami has to reach a machine hidden in reeds before patrol boats recognize two figures moving against base traffic.

The Waver represents knowledge the crew earned in the sky

The vehicle is not valuable only because the crew owns a rare object. Nami learned how Skypiea movement feels through that machine. Dials and Wavers expanded what she understands about navigation.

Bringing the Waver forward protects experience as much as equipment. G-8 has already shown how Skypiea technology can disrupt Marine predictions. Leaving that advantage in the grass would be absurd.

Robin gives the gold team calm without pretending the route is safe.

Robin moves through hostile institutions with an ease the others cannot imitate. She watches patterns, reads structures, and saves energy until a response becomes necessary.

Her presence balances Luffy’s forward drive and Usopp’s nerves. She does not promise that Jonathan missed them. She helps the team keep moving even when the silence feels designed.

The storehouse is too easy because the trap needs them inside

The gold team reaches the vault and gains entry with less resistance than Navarone’s earlier defenses suggest. That ease should scream louder than an alarm.

Jonathan knows treasure will pull the crew to storage. A fortress does not accidentally forget the room containing confiscated sky gold during a Code Red search.

The Marine ambush validates Jonathan’s entire approach

Soldiers reveal themselves once the pirates are committed near the vault. The commander has traded open pursuit for enclosure again.

The setup mirrors the prison rescue without repeating the exact mechanics. Then, a Seastone cage turned loyalty into bait. Now, a secured storehouse turns the repair fund into bait.

Both traps depend on something the Straw Hats cannot emotionally discard. Jonathan never asks them to behave out of character. He creates a battlefield around the choice they will make precisely because they are themselves. That is why his strategy feels personal even when he remains polite and distant.

Luffy, Zoro, and Robin become the lockpicker’s wall

Usopp cannot open a massive safe while dodging every Marine in the room. His crewmates create working space by holding the ambush back.

This is teamwork without equal-looking tasks. Three fighters can produce spectacle while the least physically dominant member performs the one action that actually completes the objective.

Usopp at the vault is exactly where Usopp should be

He lies, tinkers, invents, observes, and survives through tools. A giant locked safe asks for patience and technical improvisation rather than a harder punch.

Placing him at the mechanism respects his competence. The crew does not bring Usopp merely because he proposed the mission. They need the particular mind behind the presentation.

The episode ends before the vault can become an answer

The door opens, and the contents remain the cliffhanger. Episode 204 is about reaching the question. Episode 205 owns the answer.

That boundary matters for a React series. Pulling the next reveal backward would flatten the exact suspense this episode creates: Jonathan expected the team, so what did he leave for them to find?

What worked

The two-team plan gives every recovered object its own route and risk. Usopp contributes both strategic structure and vault access. Chopper’s guard duty keeps the hidden Merry present even while action moves elsewhere.

Jonathan’s patience also remains credible. The gold team reaches the target because reaching the target is part of his preparation, not because Navarone suddenly becomes incompetent.

What held the episode back

The Waver side receives less tactical texture than the gold operation. More attention to patrol patterns across the bay would make Nami and Sanji’s route feel equally dangerous.

Shepherd’s solo-capture ambition repeats an established flaw. The episode could push the joke further by showing how thoroughly his private hunt interferes with actual Marine coordination.

What changed every time I replayed the episode

The first viewing makes Usopp’s command performance the joke. On replay, his assignments hold up. He accounts for group visibility, travel time, the Merry’s safety, the Waver’s location, the vault lock, and the need to regroup at one exit.

I also noticed how Jonathan weaponizes success. The crew believes reaching storage proves the shortcut worked. From his side, their arrival proves the bait worked.

The episode becomes less about whether Usopp planned well and more about the limits of good planning inside somebody else’s fortress. His choices are sound. Jonathan simply owns surveillance, personnel, storage, and time. Both men can make smart decisions, and the one controlling the environment begins with an unfair amount of leverage.

RaeRae’s verdict

Episode 204 lets Usopp be loud and right. He builds a mission around two missing pieces of Skypiea, gives Chopper the ship, sends Nami toward the Waver, and takes the correct people to the vault.

The plan gets them exactly where they want to go. Jonathan wanted them there too. That is the G-8 problem in one sentence, and the open vault is waiting to prove whose version of success matters.

Official source and routes

Official ONE PIECE Episode 204 guide
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G-8 Episodes 196-206 Directory