This is the second One Piece post over my little break. It is the serious one that feeds off the rest of the posts in some kind of way. You can peruse the tag on web and the index for mobile. Spoilers apply up to Fishman Island Arc.
As all art is created within our current reality, all of it has a political slant – apolitical art does not exist, cannot exist. Foolish writers will act as though they can, though it is always a matter of shifting your focus away from the “big talking points” and towards the “smaller” realities of everyday humans. Conversely, having something to say politically does not immediately make you a better writer as opposed to the apolitical ones. It is simply recognizing that trying to write a reality as you see it, no matter how small or big, is an incredibly difficult thing to do, as is formulating your argument to a concise point.
To know that Eiichiro Oda keeps up with the news is, similarly, not a particularly hard thing to spot. When your villains have all English names and titles and plan on destroying a country in the desert, it’s not very hard to figure out that this might be about the United States/United Kingdom and their various operations in West Asia (likely one of the Gulf Wars). When one of your characters is a victim of an executive decision named “Buster Call” in which a people is completely killed and an island destroyed, it is not particularly hard to put the name genocide on it. To say nothing of the Marine acting like cops and various moments of class war. The things Oda has to say about these events is that they’re bad. This is fine. He is not writing a polemic, but a manga for young boys. (And googling “one piece gulf war” returns nothing, so perhaps all this flew over weebs’ heads. I don’t think I’m reading too much into it, though, no.)
But there’s the one thing in One Piece that keeps popping up and is and isn’t inspired by real life: fishmen. Fishmen appear very early on, and serve as the primary antagonist to Nami in one of the best arcs of One Piece overall, which is the Arlong Park Arc. As per usual with this series, whatever meaning has been added to later in the series has not existed previously. Arlong, back then, was a cool-looking enemy: a sawshark with an incredible nose and an attitude so chilly that one almost gains a liking for such a tyrannical character. Arlong wanted to conquer East Blue. That he was subjected to centuries-long RACISMTM was never in discussion with him when he was the villain of the arc.
In some way, though, it is a no-brainer. It happened to Chopper too, so why not to Arlong too. Because yes, would you look at that, there’s an alien race living among humans getting ostracized because they are, in fact, not humans. For those of us humans in real life marginalized in some kind of way, everything said and done by the ethnic majority in fiction is all too familiar… because it happens to us in real life. I remember when Lindsay Ellis, in her video on aliens, talked about how aliens are and aren’t a metaphor. To me, though, this isn’t much of a discussion. Aliens aren’t literally Turks or literally Black people, but a great many writers of a great many stories think they can talk about racism if you swap out Black people or gay people or what have you for non-human creatures who just want to be seen as equal. Because to talk about Black people is political, but to talk about aliens is not. That’s when you’re talking about the human condition, see.
What does this translate to with the Fishmen (and Merpeople)? Situations in which they are enslaved, cannot ride amusement parks, and are looked at askance. They cannot go up to the surface. As a viewer of 2023 I will have a great many real-life events imposed onto this basic aspect, but even aside that – the facet of enslavement is, by itself, a thematic weight that cannot be solved nilly-willy. And Oda doesn’t like to do that, mind you. No, he loves to put in real-life horrific events to the series, as mentioned before. Explosions that go up in a mushroom shape like the nuclear bomb. Genocide in all but name. Having to pass as human. Slavery, for Mer-People, comes with a collar and chains, brought into tanks, being sold off to markets. And on top of that, Fishmen can’t receive blood transfusions from humans and vice versa. Does this remind you of anything? Anything at all?
Just as a sidebar: Arlong in the live-action is played by a Black actor. So I think there’s a couple of us that saw what was meant here.
Fishman slavery also comes with a liberator, a red-skinned man named Fisher Tiger. After having been enslaved on a trip himself, Fisher Tiger sought to free everyone enslaved from the aristocrats of the world, themselves believing to come from an ancient race called the Millennium Dragons. At the same time, down in Fishman Island, Queen Otohime sought to peacefully apply for recognition status up in Mariejoa, OP’s take on the United Nations (and about as useless) (who said that) and requires various fishmen signatures to show Mariejoa how the people demand to be seen. The arc will at multiple times parallel these two approaches: the violent liberator, the peaceful sign-collector. The arc will also, at multiple moments, say that Otohime was right. Because she’s not using violence.
What a joke, man. This idea of a peaceful non-violent protest makes me sick. That is something that you say and think when you have always been at the liberty and privilege to have your basic needs met. When you’re the ethnic majority that can proliferate about the marginalized needs as though they don’t exist in your room. It is “noble” to protest non-violently, as opposed to organizing, of starting a riot. That is unseemly, because violence is not the answer, see. The idea that “violence is not the answer” is so stunningly wrong and always has been to me. Like, yes, violence is not “the” answer, but it is “an” answer. It is also “a” statement. Violence is a tool. It can be wielded with incredible callousness and cruelty, the same way you could smash E.T with hammers. But it can also be wielded in order to elicit a response you want. When an ethnic minority uses violence, what establishment press calls “terrorism” many times, it is in order to elicit a response from a government. If letters had worked, they’d have done that – and probably have. If peaceful protests had worked, they’d have done that too! I blame Gandhi.
It isn’t “just” ethnic minorities or marginalized people or indigenous people. Environmental activists here in Vienna tried to stop a highway project from happening because it was going to put a forest at risk. How did the city retaliate? With cops, violence, and lawsuits… they took back the latter because it made them look bad to sue a bunch of young people that were practising the green city they kept preaching. Social democrats, mind you.
The position of violence being bad in this case (where it would be wholly justified) is exacerbated through Arlong. Because now Arlong isn’t just the villain of the arc, he is also the one who has pure, plain hatred for humans, terrorizing even innocents and equally enslaved humans because he does not believe they could ever change or adapt. Even if that were the case, even if all humans suddenly ended up liking fishmen, we get the understanding that violence and anger has become part of Arlong’s DNA. He cannot change, and will always see humans with suspicion and distrust, people to lord over lest they lord over him. This is a position some people will have in real life also. White people have done X and Y to us, therefore we can’t trust any white person.
This is no value judgement of my part – how any one person responds and reacts to racism and general bigotry, how they process all that, is a difficult and thorny thing. It is known to happen. It is something that will pass from generation to generation. When Fisher Tiger dies at the hands of marines, refusing to get a blood transfusion, he even says that while there are kind humans in the world, he can never see their kindness again, because of his history of being enslaved.
Then there is the second part of this “violence is bad” stance: Hody Jones, the antagonist of the Fishman Island Arc, or shall we say Arlong-from-Shein. Hody has never met human beings, but has celebrated Arlong and Fisher Tiger, and wants to destroy the entire Ryuuguu Kingdom (the people ruling over Fishman Island) and take over the island and then kill all humans. He hates because he does. He needs no reason to hate humans.
This strikes me as right-wing extremist. Which is… different from being marginalized and having suspicions and disinclinations towards the people marginalizing you. If you’re right-wing and marginalized, that’s a whole can of worms not relevant to this post, but let’s assume that yes, this is known to happen, right-wing extremism, and Hody has it. Sure. Fine. Hody attacking the monarchy because they’re all human-lovers, using a human to kill off Otohime to sway public perception, only for him to turn out to just… not… have a reason he hates humans… ? Not only do Hody’s actions solidly veer the Fishman Island arc to domestic terrorism now, despite two flashback sections dedicated to their struggle to be recognized, but the fishmen are marginalized. They’re not Turks looking at diaspora Turks deciding they also hate all Europeans. In fact, the very opposite happens!! Mainland Turks look at diaspora Turks and decide the latter deserves every bit of racism they get, because mainland Turks see it from an ethnic majority perspective. (And jealousy. Lots of it.)
Hody does not need a particular reason to hate humans because humans already hate him. Hody’s response is natural. Unfortunate, yes, but it is not nurtured by any Fishmen, the way the arc suddenly claims has been happening. It is nurtured by humans. It is a natural response to systemic injustice. This isn’t particularly hard to get. Otohime in her dying breath asks her children not to hate the person that killed her. She understood, but her children didn’t. But why present it as climax? Is this what the writer thinks too? What is this gargantuan fumble I’m looking at here?
All along, the arc wants us to say that there’s kindhearted humans and could they please not lump humans all together. I’ll let you guess who ends up changing the Fishmen’s minds. Starts with S and ends with trawhats. The White Savior trope, right in front of our eyes, saving the monarchy, imprisoning Hody Jones and the gang, and in fact a historic thing happening on this island, considering Whitebeard (DILF, RIP) has previously “claimed” Fishman Island as his own to save them from harm. So all along, the island has remained at peace because some White Savior has protected the island. Cool.
See, even Alabasta Arc had the dignity of letting someone actually Alabastan save the country (Vivi shouting at the rebels to stop). Luffy got to fight Crocodile and defeated him, yes, but he was a supporter. Here, he’s the main savior. Jinbe, who has previously been part of the Sun Pirates with Fisher Tiger and Arlong, aids Luffy. He asks him not to get involved at the start, but of course Luffy does. (His friends are imprisoned. He has to save them, duh. Jinbe isn’t even given the dignity to defend his own people.) Luffy and gang end up being the main event. The way the Fishmen celebrate him, you’d think the Strawhats literally made it possible for them to go up to the surface? LMFAO
I am staring at a hole here, thematically, and I can’t get out of it in my head. That’s what being liberal does to you: it is quicksand of empty platitudes that, upon sucked at the center of it, lands you smack dab into the lap of the establishment, right where they want to have you. It is a position forever in the reactionary. I wish fishmen had just remained a quirk in the One Piece world, not a political talking point. Let the alien world be inhabited by aliens, strange creatures, and fun characters. It doesn’t have to be political. It’s not like they’re Black.