I’m clearing house. I have one more post sitting pretty, which I’ll post on Friday; I’ll be on vacation soon and I have no interest in keeping these posts for any longer. The STENCH they emanate! Now onto the post…
I’m currently rewatching One Piece (this “currently” stretches back to last winter) and have arrived at the best arc by a landslide, Water 7. In Water 7, a sprawling island looking like a mechanic water volcano from afar, the ship Going Merry bids farewell; Robin leaves (why, we only find out the next arc); blueprints of Pluton (a ship that sounds like it’s a nuclear bomb) need to be obtained; Usopp leaves the Straw Hats; and Franky, a yakuza-but-also-shipwright, acts as the arc’s antagonist before he eventually joins the Straw Hats as the shipwright. Now, what makes Water 7 so effective is the way problems stack on top of one another. This was something Oda had kinda-sorta tried his hand at with the Alabasta saga, what with Baroque Works and political issues on top of personal developments (like Nami getting her first proper weapon) but the Strawhats there were essentially supporting cast to the big conflict; they only helped Vivi because she asked them to (and because they’re friends). Since then, Skypeia was a minor clone of Alabasta, and Long Ring Long Island shoehorned the personal conflict in only to justify Luffy entering the Davy Back Fight.
Water 7, instead, casts the Strawhats as antagonists to the Venice-inspired world and puts their relationship to the test. Of course friendship is right, but Chopper and Sanji look stumped when they ask one another what Robin likes, who she is besides an archeologist that wormed herself into the team; and while it’s fun when there’s good times, Usopp and Luffy have fundamentally different ideologies (i.e, whether a ship is a friend or not). This on top of Water 7’s existing issues: mayor/craftsman Iceberg keeps declining requests from the world government and is eventually shot, Pluton stuff, and Franky and gang are large-scale gangsters. And Aqua Laguna, the incoming storm — a temporal limit placed on top of all that.
As a result, for such a colorful world (the most colorful the islands have been so far!) the art looks notably… older, at least with the characters: Luffy looks more worried than usual, his face long and either bewildered or lost in thought. Franky, at some point, says, “Are you guys in puberty, just upsetting everyone?” and I was surprised how right he was. That’s what this is so far — an almost YA approach to OP: the entire world in crisis, with the protagonists having a crisis of faith in the middle of all of it. There’s talk of pride. There’s tears. There’s feeling like you’re not good enough. There’s feeling like nobody gets you, whether justified or not. There’s feeling like you don’t know if your friends like you. So many feelings. Before, the only thing that struck me while rewatching was how severe the injuries of the Strawhats would get — and often, as opposed to later arcs post-timeskip. But now, it’s not just physical. Usopp says, “I’ve been thinking about it, and you guys are monsters,” and you suddenly realize that all the moments where he said this weren’t a joke. This was his reality. The whole time, Usopp was not joking — and it made him feel inferior, which led to anger that came to the forefront when the symbol of the Strawhats, the Going Merry, was at the end of her road. Because to Usopp, it isn’t just a metaphor for the band’s bond. It’s something he got from the girl he loved at home. (Now, to be very clear: just the inferiority alone? is my shit. But everything else on top? The fight? My shit. Just about everything I like in stories, I could reasonably tie back to this part of the arc.)
So Usopp is mad, and Luffy is upset because Usopp won’t get it. He’s upset that someone like Usopp, who he invited to the crew because he’s funny with a sense of justice a friend, not because he’s a strong guy, would ask him for a duel. To Luffy, it’s basically assisted suicide. But the cruel thing about pride is that it’s your closest confidante in the moments you should not have it. Like… Usopp didn’t have to necessarily ask for a fight. He’s already injured. But just going won’t do. He has to hurt Luffy too in the only way he knows Luffy will get it. Or else… Or else, materially, nothing would happen. But emotionally, or else becomes a “you’re not a man” thing. That’s usually the only answer negative pride has for anyone. (Puberty!!) So they fight. Usopp loses. He’s strategic but his weapons are all children’s toys. Luffy one-shots him.
This essentially leads One Piece up to a specific track. It’s one where the sanctity of the Strawhats is not given: where, at any given point in time, characters could come and go, and we’d only be here for Luffy; where Luffy has flaws and acts on them because he thinks it’s what being a captain entails. Friendship or goals? Being kind or having pride? You’re at a crossroads and choosing one means saying goodbye to another forever. Say Usopp left for good, and Luffy would mourn for the remainder of arc, but not “get him back” like he does with Robin later. Doing so would change the jokey tone of the manga to serious fare. And you can kind of get that Oda was setting things up to that route, with the way Usopp kept saying before, “I’m not a shipwright” anytime he fixed the ship. You can tell that Oda is a smarter storyteller than one would previously assume, one who isn’t just interested in bonds (material and immaterial), worlds, and societies, but keenly understands his characters and knows they have conflicting wants and needs.
Replacing Usopp, a gag character (a protagonist in another story) with a heart of gold, with Franky, a gag character (in every story) with a heart of gold but ultimately stronger, ties in so well with the Going Merry issue. You can’t replace a ship, and even if you tried to, it would be a new one. Ship of Theseus, literally. It would make the core of One Piece a dramatic, maybe even tragic, one. The sense of joy would be irrevocably lost, just like how puberty ends with adulthood, must do so. Luffy is seventeen, at the precipice between childhood and adulthood. And you can see a glimpse of it here, in the way he’ll quietly ask Nami: “What are you thinking about?” when he notices her out of it. He knows what she’s thinking about, but a previous Luffy would have never asked this, let alone let us as viewer know that he knows. Already with Usopp gone — and, mind you, it’s meant to hurt — things start to change.
But what actually happens? Usopp comes back. Usopp has to pretend he’s Sogeking for a bit (because… Pride!) and it fools Luffy for just a second, but he’s… back. Robin is back next arc (obviously; somebody needs to read) And Franky (who, turns out, had the blueprints to Pluton but destroys them the next arc) joins the gang with a new ship. So Oda had his cake for this arc but ate it for all of the story too. Good for him. But to me, it’s essentially being blueballed.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for big losses in One Piece. (Although… given Marineford Arc… it’s not like Oda is against it, lol). I’m not advocating that writers must always heed the call of violence and observe its effects, and preferably add more violence so the grace can peek through the bruises or whatever. But it’s just strange to introduce these obviously high-stake dramatic concepts only to pull back and bring back the fun. It’s going from 200 km/h to a handbrake. “Strange” — strange for a critic, a reader. For a writer, of course, changing things too much, the entire fabric of the story, can be awful if not debilitating. For someone with such a big an IP even back then, it’s unthinkable.
But we’re readers and critics here. And just to reiterate, Usopp and Franky have the same function1. Both are gag characters. Both provide a ship. Franky is stronger, Usopp more relatable. Losing Usopp hurts, and keeping Usopp around keeps the heart of the story as the Monster Trio fights ever stronger enemies intact; the “ganbare!” spirit, if you will. Losing Franky after Water 7 — would have done nothing. Gaining Franky from Water 7 on… also… does nothing, unless Usopp left for real, in which case he’d have filled Usopp’s function. But no. Think of things happening after the timeskip. Not fair? Then think of a non-canon movie, like Strong World or even a non-canon-ish one like Red. What does Franky do meaningfully? Exactly zero.
Franky, on a writing level, only joined because somebody had to provide a ship and tend to it. That’s it. Usopp could’ve done the same. Usopp could’ve taken a shipwright crash course, learned how to be a shipwright instead of complaining about not being one (LOL), and the Going Merry’s problems would not have extended to the keel. Maybe Franky is his mentor and fulfills his gag character fate during the arc but no longer. Going Merry stays. Small, shitty ship, but the crew’s small too; they don’t need a fancy big one. You can still bring out Usopp’s pride: maybe he never wanted to be a shipwright, instead wanting to be a brave warrior, and Luffy would have to bring him down, saying, you’re a loser, my guy. You are a jobber… on a good day. Hearing that at 17 hurts. Hearing that at any age must hurt, because Pride can say: Hey, this guy doesn’t believe in you. (Oooh, look, a flaw for Luffy! So he’s not believing in his nakama unconditionally!) How you deal with staying for that long? They have to wait a week for the log port to adjust anyway.
Or, you make Franky join for other reasons that are not related to the ship. It’s not like Usopp got the role because Luffy thought he needed a sharpshooter. Actually, now that I’m typing this, is Usopp the first case of nepotism in the OP canon? Then again, Luffy is also a nepo child… a strange one… but… anyway, point is that Luffy picks crew members based on an omoshiree-barometer only known to him. Franky is a cyborg. That’s fun/interesting to Luffy; he joins. Same deal happens after this saga with Brook in Thriller Bark anyway. What is Brook’s function? Playing music and being a pervert!
The main problem is that the threat of dissolving the Strawhats we know and love is the necessary component to bring out the core theme of friendship, that the losses set the wins in stark relief. But that also means Luffy would no longer be wholly joyous at his core. And this was a threat so big that Oda pulled out.
Post-timeskip, Oda is even more skittish introducing such concepts that could ruin the sanctity of the Strawhats as one nuclear unit. Don’t be fooled by Wholecake Island aka the Sanji abduction saga: the least interesting character of that was Sanji, a side figure to the show that was Big Mom. He somehow got all the runtime devoted to his retcon as a prince who never fit in, but his original arc was shorter and hit the same spot of chosen family and sacrifice a million times better (and didn’t feature the OP equivalent of Nazis!?). That Luffy was determined to not let this guy go is a good move dramaturgically, what with the starving, but to me, Sanji not returning never felt like something that could’ve happened. And if you don’t pull through with the threats on the Strawhats, your next best choice is to introduce arc characters that get the drama. And it’s really why the worldbuilding is so intricate in this series; it’s not only what Oda is comfortable with, but he has to do it, since the Strawhats have been flattened (which is exactly why the Sanji abduction feels a foregone conclusion). Luffy punches and hakis his way to dominance. Gags. Women looking like hourglasses. The narrative payoff here and there. That’s what OP is now. Woohoo. I’m so excited just thinking of it.
Make no mistake: it wasn’t always that. And also: One Piece is still one of the greatest to ever do it. But it’s not one of the most dramatic to ever do it. Sometimes you can tell, by fan reception, where a story’s strengths lie. So I’m not even remotely surprised that the last big moment of One Piece that everyone talked about was a gear update and a crucial reveal that Luffy is kinda-sorta God and that the One Piece is just a means to an end. That as a while ago. Meanwhile, My Hero Academia — a manga also on the Weekly Shonen Jump roster, that did take the leap from fun times to dark shit — regularly goes viral for daring to go there (characters killed off). And that to me says OP has stopped making the Strawhats the focal point of the story, but the islands. It’s a difference in approach. You keep Luffy being a childish, funny guy, but you also killed the human in him. See, I’m not even expecting characters dying from Oda. I only expect drama. Some. For catharsis reasons. Just make them leave. Make something happen to them. Make things hurt not in the body, but in the soul. Where it matters!
I have this inkling that what inspired Water 7 (and, also, Long Ring Long Island) was a movie that came out a little before both: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island. In that movie, the Strawhats are invited to a getaway where they’re promised everything they want: riches, ladies, food, glories. To get there, though, they first must go through Trials of Hell against the Red Arrow pirates. Despite the latter cheating, the Strawhats win the first one — involving a giant fish — but come by the second, a race, things start to crack: Zoro and Sanji, who already can’t stand one another, now want to fight one another in earnest; Nami and Usopp, who do get along normally, end up with a case of miscommunication so critical Nami isn’t certain if she can ever forgive Usopp, who indignantly refuses to talk to her, too. Luffy is roped into a mission with one of the island’s inhabitants, a scientist-pirate whose crew was wiped out by the Red Arrow pirates; both Robin and Chopper find out too much and get abducted; over the course of the movie, the whole group falls apart, and Luffy ends up friendless (or that’s what he thinks). The look on his face — the utter devastation, as if his superpower was not his Gum-Gum fruit but believing in his friends the whole time — is one that had fueled the best moments of One Piece before. And when it turns out that his friends were all believing in him to rescue them out of a giant human-sucking flower, Luffy puts all his energies into his punches, and still can’t defeat Baron Omatsuri alone, not without his new friends. A story like this one would never permanently break the Strawhats; it couldn’t. But it made you feel like that was a very real thing that could’ve happened, whether argued or physical.
Unlike all previous One Piece movies, director Mamoru Hosoda and Masahiro Itou understood what makes One Piece, well, One Piece — friendship. It’s why we switch from Corby to Luffy in the early chapters and why we say goodbye to Corby. Because it’s not about Corby trying to find his footing at sea. It’s about Luffy and his outsized, fervent belief in he bonds he has with other people, and the bonds they have with others (and objects that represent it). It’s why he got the straw hat in the first place: someone who he believes in believes in him. That’s the core of One Piece. You could say Omatsuri toyed with the question “what is One Piece made of?” and found its answer in Luffy. Water 7, in contrast, asks: what is One Piece made of more: Luffy or the world? Oda chose the world, and it’s only fitting, then, that Luffy has become God, doing as he pleases, never growing up.
But I can’t help but miss Luffy the human after all this time. One who would’ve let Usopp go.
Forget the blueprints. Take the blueprints away and he’s Usopp with bikini pants and a strangely homosexual undertone (strange only because Oda ditched it later) who goes SUUUUUPEERRRRR half the time. Should’ve lived and died on Water 7. And his timeskip looks are so bad lmao