One Piece

For those who don't know, it's cool that you guessed it almost correctly: "It's the name of either a TV show or a book or some series or some movie" is hopefully what you thought. Anyway, to be precise, One Piece is a fantasy manga/anime series. A manga series, very informally put, is kind of like a comic series created by Japanese authors. OK, I apologize for this funny definition. But you got the idea.

One Piece is one of the longest running mangas ever. It's been over two decades and it's still going on, currently with over 1050 chapters! Eichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, has always been praised for his inhumane ability to keep the consistency of the series over such a long time: there has not been any notable drop of quality over all these thousand chapters over two decades! Anyway let's now get into One Piece itself. So, One Piece is a story of pirates. 24 years before the present time, the king of the pirates Gol D. Roger was executed and at the time of the execution, he spoke about One Piece, the greatest treasure ever, everything the world has to offer. Then, in search of One Piece, men set to sea and the great pirate era began. Now, in the current time, we have our protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, a 18-year-old boy, who sets out to sea too in search of One Piece. His dream is to become the king of the pirates, just like Gol D. Roger. By the way, one who can achieve the great treasure One Piece and travels around the full world would be called the king of the pirates. Till now, Gol D. Roger is the only man who could travel the full world and who achieved the One Piece. Nobody could do it other than him. Now Luffy intends to do that. OK, let's turn a bit to the description of our protagonist.  Imagine a random pirate. He looks kind of evil-ish, doesn't he? OK, so Luffy is the complete opposite. He doesn't go with the usual description of a pirate. He is the stupidest person you can ever hope to meet. He understands very few things in life and in this world. And the major ones from these few are: meat, king of the pirates, friends, meat, king of the pirates, friends. He loves meat. He doesn't understand the complicacy of the world and of life. You want to win his heart? Moreover, you want him to almost die for your sake? Simple: just give him some food. And then he will go against everything because you gave him food. He doesn't need any other reasons. Just like this, in almost all cases, he thinks very linearly. He wants to be free. He is free. Once someone asked him:

"You want to be the king of the pirates?"

"Yes."

"So you want to conquer these seas, huh?"

"No."

"Huh?"

"I am not gonna conquer anything. I want to be the freest person ever. To me, being the king of the pirates means the freest person on the sea. "

Luffy doesn't like to be a hero. He doesn't want to be one, unlike a usual protagonist. He just wants to be free. And one of the main things about One Piece is freedom. Now what is freedom? Well, the beginning sentences of One Piece, words of Gol D. Roger himself: "Inherited will, the tide of the age, people's dreams. As long as people keep searching the meaning of freedom, these things will never cease to be." I guess, this one quote says a lot about One Piece. The idea it expresses is held deeply throughout the whole One Piece. The meaning of freedom is something we need to be constantly seeking. What does freedom mean? Of course, we have a few immediate answers to that question. But are these all? Is freedom such a limited concept? Are we sure? I think Oda, the author, believes the true meaning of freedom is tied existentially to the very core of existence itself. And he made his protagonist the perfect holder for this belief. Monkey D. Luffy is the worthy upholder of freedom. Oda also believes that there's no such thing as coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. The people we meet, the friends we make–they are destined to be in our lives and play a role in our lives. We are fated to meet the people who change our lives and who we share journeys with. Be it your friends, your lover–it's their destiny to be with you and your destiny to be with them. They will revolutionize you and you will revolutionize them, all as planned. 

OK now let's talk a bit more about the setup of the world and the story. So, since this is a shounen manga series, there are of course power, fights and things like that. I mean come on, it's a pirate story that we are talking about. So, there's a thing called "Devil fruit", which is literally a fruit, eating which can give you a certain unique ability (read: magical ability). But the devil fruit eaters are hated by the sea, so those who eat a devil fruit can't swim! Our protagonist himself is a devil fruit eater. The name of his fruit is Gum-gum fruit. It made Luffy's body rubbery. His body stretches and there's nothing called "breakable bones" in his body! There's another power system named "Haki", which would be introduced in a later part of the series. Haki is one of my most favorite power systems in all fantasy stories. It's kind of hard to explain this way, but let's say it's something not as magical as a devil fruit and something that you can actually "achieve" and something that you can "deserve" due to the strength of your spirit. Devil fruits have dramatic powers like being a magma-man to an ice-man to someone who can cause earthquakes to someone whose body is made of only light to someone who can turn into a phoenix! In short, there's no end to the variety of powers that devil fruits can offer. Haki is nothing like that. 

So, power-wise, usually the captain is the strongest of a certain pirate group. And only second to the captain is the vice-captain, who is also called the right-hand man of the captain. Luffy's right-hand man is Roronoa Zoro. There are a total of 10 members in Luffy's pirate crew, as of yet. Usually, a great crew has tons of subordinates, but Luffy, after being offered 5000 subordinates under him, directly refused. Because he doesn't want to be a boss of anyone. A free man has no boss and nobody who calls him boss. He might have friends, but not subordinates. OK, now let's zoom out a little bit. The world of One Piece is run by the world government, a single authority ruling the whole world. Under them works the Navy whose main job is to keep the pirate system under control. This world government was formed 800 years ago. But suspiciously enough, the 100 years before the forming of the world government is a blank history. Nobody knows what happened in those 100 years. In other words, the history was erased intentionally. Why? What happened then? There was an ancient kingdom before the forming of the government which was great in all ways. But that kingdom was destroyed and not much information is available regarding the kingdom. But that kingdom left some indestructible pieces of stones all spread around the world which contains secret information which the authority couldn't erase. What was the world like before that void century? Also, the world has strictly forbidden the entry to the last island of the world which holds the greatest treasure One Piece. Why? What is One Piece? Why would the government be so careful about some "treasure" all throughout 800 years? Again, what is One Piece? Well, exactly 1069 chapters have been released as of yet and nobody has any clue as to what One Piece could possibly be. Of course, it's clear that Oda plays with the simple common words and puts them at a position of higher significance and all. Mind you, he started with saying One Piece to be a treasure, which is a very misleading idea of course in the sense of usual terminology. 

One of the greatest things about One Piece is its power of diversity. Oda is a brilliant man who can magically create as many different things as you can imagine. Let me explain. There are countless characters in One Piece, yet you will see that each one of them is completely different from the other. Not only by mere character, but by their background stories as well. Each one has a unique background that won't match to any other's. There are countless islands shown, but the geography and structure is unique for each of them.

Luffy's crew is a group of 10 members. None of them is a subordinate to the other. They all have their own dreams which go hand in hand with their captain's dream. Luffy wants to be the king of the pirates. Zoro wants to be the strongest swordsman of the world. Sanji, the cook, wants to find the All Blue, a mythical sea rumored to contain all the fishes of all the seas of the whole world. Nami, the navigator, wants to draw the map of the whole world (Currently there's no such thing). Usopp wants to be a brave warrior of the sea (He is a coward!). Chopper, a reindeer and a doctor, wants to find the cure to all diseases. Robin, an archaeologist, wants to discover the true history of the void century. Franky, a shipwright, wants his ship to travel the whole world, hence making it the ship of dreams (Luffy's crew uses the ship made by Franky). Jimbei, a fishman, wants the fishmen to be raised on the equal ground as humans and the end of millenia-long discrimination. Brook, a dead man revived by a devil fruit, wants to fulfill a promise he once made to a whale. He was supposed to fulfill it while he was alive. But he died somehow. As he says, "Death isn't an excuse not to keep a promise." I am not going into details about his character but if you knew his story properly, you would appreciate Oda for his extraordinarily brilliant mind and how he literally worships ideas like "freedom", "promise", "motherhood" etc. He takes them to a different level with his magic.

I am going to finish now. But here's one thing: people usually are bored and annoyed by a too-long series or show. While Oda is constantly teasing us with tons of mysteries, a true One Piece fan, regardless of the immense desire to know the ending, to know what One Piece, void century and every other possible things are, would wish the series to continue not another 10 years, but all throughout their lifetime. Of course, there are tons of other things I haven't mentioned in this blog, for two reasons: 1) they would be spoilers and there are tons of them available of course, 2) if I really want to cover all the basic ideas of a series which has been running for over two decades and over thousand chapters, well you can guess what might happen. What I covered here is more or less like 5-7% or even less of what I should have covered to completely explain One Piece. Anyway, let's not continue it any further. Let me end with a quote by the Luffy's arch enemy and that quote by Gol D. Roger again (By the way, do you notice that "D." thing appearing in names? What is that? Well, nobody knows):

"People's dreams never end." 

"Inherited will, the tide of the age, people's dreams. As long as people seek the meaning of freedom, these things will never cease to be."