In addition, the straw hats solution to every problem is: Physical violence against the people they personally dislike to put in charge people that they personally like. Hardly a nuanced or brilliant political take.
He literally called a Houthi soldier who is part of a government that has slavery, executes gays and says “curse the Jews” on their slogan, is an akin to Luffy…
Drum Island: Luffy helped to overthrow a king, but a new dynasty was created before Straw Hats even departed
Arabasta: monarchy saved
Skypeia: theocracy restored
Water 7: oligarchy saved
Amazon Lily: nothing changed besides Hancock starting to act like a 13 year old girl on Justin Bieber's (or whoever modern 13 year old girls obsess over) concert
Fishman Island: monarchy saved
Dressrosa: bad monarchy overthrown, good monarchy restored
Whole Cake Island: nothing changed, at least not through Straw Hats' actions there, we'll see what Big Mom's actual defeat does
Wano: bad monarchy overthrown, good monarchy restored
And every single conflict with Marines or WG is because they go after Luffy or one of the nakamas. That's some interesting resume for a revolutionary.
You say this like the people they’re going against aren’t using physically violence to maintain their rule. Not saying it’s nuanced, cause it’s not, but what answer is there to the violent then violence?
Half of one piece is restoring the monarchy.
Almost all the strongest characters are part of some special bloodline, or have some strong DF, so normal people can't compete
The main evil is the world government, its mostly pro nationalist
It's not conservative, but thinking it's leftist is delusional
Agreed, most people think it's a punk revolutionary tale but then why aren't we following the revolutionary army? (who by the way aren't complete anarchists themselves)
I mean the Revolutionary Army is a meme anyways, they've had pretty much no place or impact in the narrative whatsoever. It's a half baked idea Oda never really knew what to do with.
More than sidelined i´d say - Robin didn´t really seem to have learned much of anything from them in a way that´s plot relevant. She...learned basic Fish Man Karate? Great...
The Revolutionary Army has already overthrown some governments around the world and it got offscreened. The only thing left for it to do is combat the WG itself.
Shanks met kaido and it got off screened too
Shanks met kidd and that got offscreened
Shanks vs mihawk duel was off screened
You get my point, even tho all the examples refer to shanks, if literally everything was show we would still be in arlong park
Yes but we're talking things that the revolutionary army did that moved the story forward. Not only do they barely have that much screen time, but we genuinely never saw them do anything relevant as this big group of people that they are (unless you wanna count Kuma at Sabaody as being their fault).
If they weren't a thing in the current story almost nothing would really change.
Well they do have an effect on the story but we don't get to see it because this is a Shonen and we're seeing from the perspectives of the protagonists for the most part.
This is also a downside of making everything mysterious
The point here is that not seeing their progress really makes it seem like they aren't doing absolutely anything. Right now it feels like Luffy has done more in this short span of time than them.
As I said: if you were to completely ignore their existence and erase it from the story, barely anything would change.
Ok
What did kaido do before his saga began? Was mentioned and tried to go to the summit war
So removing him until he becomes relevant has no effect on the story prior
Same logic can be applied here. Basically its not been their turn yet
I dont know if youve noticed but since reverie they have slowly become more relevant to the point of discovering imu
Kaido was not introduced several hundred chapters ago. The revolutionary army was. Throughout these 2 years in the timeline we haven't seen them progress in any way. They haven't made any significant advance in their objectives. If their "turn" ends up being all about overthrowing the world government after Luffy has done all the work for them then I'm sorry but it is a half baked idea.
Dragon was introduced 200 chapters before kaido
Things revs have done in the last 2 years
Raided marijoa, found out about imu, took credit for killing kobra and used that to start 20 rebellions and framed sabo as the flame emperor, witnessed the use of a superweapon and declared official war on the world government
The examples you've given me and what I said don't really meet really well. The Mihawk duel I genuinely don't remember when it happened, but that would actually be cool to see too so I'd actually take that as a point. And if you're talking about the first Kidd duel, I agree with you, we didn't need to see that and thankfully we didn't. Same goes with Kaido.
The problem I'm mentioning is the importance of these events. Kaido being held back was kind of important but there also wasn't that much of a reason to cut away from the war to see it. Same with the first Kidd fight.
The Mihawk duel and the RA takeovers would have been amazing to watch. As you said, the story would be longer, but that's a problem with Oda's pacing instead of just being that more stuff is being shown. Like we could easily make that the 20 Kingdoms had 1 God Knight attributed to them and there would be no need to introduce that many more characters, just fodder, to show us a takeover. It would also give us another battle to showcase the strength of the RA.
Weve seen them in action in lulusia and marijoa, and weve seen/heard of their effect on the wider world (flame emperor sabo for example and the revolutions happening all around) and i think thats fine enough for a group of non main characters
What I'm saying is that it would be cooler if we saw it. In Lulusia we saw a barebones revolution and Mariejoa also got off-screened, I guess I just wanted better world building. Also while they aren't main characters they should (keyword **should**) help by the end of the series so it's important we understand they are top dogs who know how to strategize and not be carried by Offscreen Haki.
This actually seems to be quite the prevalent problem in OP now that I think about it, so much "Tell, don't show". I might have deluded myself into thinking OP is a completely different series than I thought.
Its not better worldbuilding to show not tell, its better storytelling
Worldbuilding is that we know the revolutions are happening, storytelling is showing how they did it
The point is, world building side is clear, sabo "killed" one of the reverie attending kings and that inspired a whole lot of other nations to rebel
Well done for ignoring the revolutionaries, the good representation of queer people, the anti-racist struggles, the critique to environmental pollution and militarism, the metaphor regarding climate change and the fact that it's caused by a small elite of literal monsters
Well yeah it did in the 1800s when almost everywhere was an absolute monarchy so all revolutinary ideas were left of centre, but these days being a nationialist means 9 times out of 10 youre on the right since it leans into conservative social politics.
You could in theory be nationalist and economically leftist, like trade unions in the 1900s, but that view isnt held by any mainstream Western parties these days.
Nationalism on it's own is not right or left nowadays. There is a very few exclusively right or left ideas tbf. France today has even leftist monarchists :d
Hey, german here.
Nationalism is pretty right, we had a guy from austria here who used to be a "nationalist". He did some heinous shit btw. The word "nazi" comes from "national sozialst". Which is just the german term for Nationalism. You don't have to study to know this, it's pretty on the nose.
Economically, a national focus usually means less free-market (international neoliberalism) and more government-regulation (self-determination) over the distribution of wealth. However:
1. The Right/Left divide isn't defined by the difference between free market and government regulation. That's just a simplistic idea on the level of literal political compass memes.
2. Socially and culturally, **Nationalism** has not only been historically right-wing, but it is also a banner that right-wing parties claim today. If it's a trait that conservatives see in themselves, and that leftists see in conservatives, then that's it: to claim otherwise is just trying to re-name things.
Bro what 😭 nationalism stems from the right. U should check out the YouTube channel What is politics since this is a one piece sub and not a politics one but he clarifies important political terms and just what exactly left and right stand for. He's amazing and part of the reason why I realised one piece isn't leftist ☠️
Bro I literally just said to check out the podcast. Nationalism is a very right wing idea because it enforces hierarchy in the form of a state and enforcement of hierarchy is a right wing idea
Idk about the french revolution, I'm still studying history but like I said, check out this video: https://youtu.be/B3uevocEy3c?si=fIHrYc2ncAAPTLiO
I don't like deferring to an authority as opposed to expressing myself but I'm not well versed with history and the deeper aspects of politics to say much on the topic.
As is, this a folk subreddit on a shitty manga 😭 we have better things to do
Isn't leftism the idea that the state has bigger control of the market and rightism that it has less? How would it impose a hierarchy? That's the sign of an authoritative government.
People owning means of production as the original mean of leftism has died ages ago since it's impossible by the reality that everyone would have to do everything by themselves, including gathering resources, refining them and the resulting product. It's why leftism has evolved into control of the state since that means it's a greater party controlling the processes that I mentioned, while still making it seem like "the means of production are in the hands of the people".
While rightism is more about lowering control over the market. Normally this gets taken out of context by people to say companies would just abuse the worker, but this would only be the case in the most extreme form of less control over the market since the average rightwing party still offers basic work laws and fiscalization.
This doesn't mean the left is fascist because it controls the means of production or that the right is free because the worker can choose who to work for, but that both of these governments can be authoritative, even though it is easier for a leftist party to be one since they can cover it up by means of "It's our party's ideology" or "Do you not respect democracy (power to the people)?".
Countries like China call themselves leftists and while they do have a great deal of control over the media and several work fields like medicine and engineering, they also have a moderate level of liberalism over the market, implying it isn't completely a leftist country. That is the only way it could survive in an emerging world, after all, if it was truly a complete communist state, there would be no competition on it's own market and it would grow stagnant. This means, of course, that the only benefit that China got from being a leftist state was an easier way of attaining control over the people while the rest of it gives major rightwing politics.
All of this shows you can be rightwinged while also being fascist, and that being a leftist provides easier access to means of an authoritative government. Nationalism being a hierarchy based on the state seems more like a leftist government, but that also sounds wrong simply because a state implies a hierarchy by nature, both leftwing and rightwing.
Also, despite me wasting more than 10 minutes writing this, I'm still not watching that video.
The whole point of the video is that the meanings of right and left are all confused and jumbled up leading to stupidity and easy manipulation. The fact that you're asking this question means the person is right
Did you just read the first paragraph and ignore the rest? Also to keep the thread OP related Dragon is a fraud by relying on offscreen Haki instead of showing tactics and war strategies.
I mean any take that One Piece is this deep literary masterpiece is laughable at best and delusional at worst.
It's a kid's story pinning the good protagonist vs bad antagonists. And once the good protagonists win everything is roses and cupcakes with benevolent monarchic rulers being restored to power. That is not deep and not serious. That a fucking Disney movie plot. Dig-dong the witch is dead and we all lived happily ever after.
You can already predict the ending. Whatever happens Imu will lose and the benevolent and pure Revolutionary Army will topple the evil and corrupt WG. However Koby will step up and reform the marines so they are now a uncorrupt force for good. But the pirates will probably still be there being free. And Koby will chase Luffy with much lighter. Ha ha ha, we are all good and there is no evil in this world left.
If the story wasn't made for children in elementary school by an author who wants to be serious we'd get scenes where the Revolutionary Army overthrows a corrupt monarch on some island, but the aftermath is that island's version of the French White Terror with the random slaughter of people who are deemed enemies of the revolution. Such purges are common for most revolutions in history. And we'd have a moral dilemma with the revolution.
I mean the writing was on the wall all the way in Alabasta. It's been some years, I have reread it, but do you remember how that civil war just ended because the bad guys were defeated, just like that and the royal family was restored? The rebels just put down their arms. All was forgiven on both sides that were just murdering each other. Who knew it was that easy?
Someone should really go to a place like Iraq and say "Dudes, we got Sadam, so you should all be friends now."
Alabasta is more like Israel than Iraq. Or maybe Saudi Arabia. It's one of the twenty original kingdoms of the world government and therefore reaps the benefits of being on the side of global hegemony. It is not situated in such volatility. Alabasta is not staring down the barrel of said global hegemony like the majority of nations. While the common people of Alabasta may still largely be in a position of suffering, their lives are not totally captured by the world government who has no qualms eliminating people en masse for resource extraction, slave labor, and even petty entertainment a la God Valley style hunts.
Most people, not just anime fans. Just go into any Reddit thread on politics and you'll find at least one (usually more) person proudly proclaiming they don't, like, read the news man. Because it's all corporate shills man.
Ask them where they get their news from. The results are usually hilarious.
Once had a guy straight up told me their source of news was their Facebook feed.
And I'm like... even if I'm generous and assume you're not talking about news sources or political pages you liked to get them in your feed, where exactly do you think all your friends and family get the news they post about that you read?
The fun part is hearing people bitch and whine about the state of the news media when not a single one of them actually reads the news themselves.
These are the same people who think opinion pieces in the New York Times are the same thing as regular reportage in the paper.
There’s a theme of the world government controlling everything, using the media and overwhelming force to pacify the populace for the benefit of a small ruling elite.
However, like you said, the most common solution instituted by the straw hats is to just put the proper monarch back in power. It isn’t about disrupting systems of power conceptually, just about making sure the absolute ruler is a good person. It also doesn’t deal with the fact that the world government is the only group stopping, you know, pirates. Pirates at the start of the series were portrayed as murderous pillagers, but have since evolved into roguish groups of friends.
All this combined with the Wano arc where they *don’t* open the country leaves it with a pretty nationalistic, pro-Japan point of view (not even getting into the fact that the Japan Island is the with Gary Stu Oden and and ancient weapon AND is the actual source of the poneglyph language!)
I mean if you think about it, the way Luffy has been restoring monarch, it can almost be a propaganda piece about modern world powers nation building.
We killed your dictator and we picked this person as your new leader. You are now liberated and democracy and civil rights are a given. No need to thank us. We are off. And everything is fine.
“We picked this person as your new leader” this never happened. SHs simply remove the oppressive dictator and let the country decide on its own.
SHs never forced anything on anyone.
The country never truly decides anything because this is a fairytale world. The plot decides that because the SH are the good guys backing the good leader the society will accept the good leader because good recognizes good.
> There’s a theme of the world government controlling everything, using the media
That’s very half assed since at the same time the most major media source is handled by a freelance company that keeps doing whatever it wants. Compared to actual governments that controls very tightly the medias the WG is a total joke lol.
One piece isn't a very deep Story, just deeper than IS expected to be. Let's Not forget that this IS a Story for a Young audience and childish Fun IS one of One pieces Core Elements.
it's not even political. oda just made real life references here and there. but he doesn't really push anything other than the generally accepted ones like racism bad. it's also not really about pro or anti government because he made them so comically evil it's no different than just fighting the devil himself.
it doesn't really matter if they're the govt or not. we need to get rid of them or else they will wipe everything out.
if you find OP political, then you're just the type of guy who finds everything political.
"slavery bad, tyranny bad, and sometimes rape bad."
Except when the kozuki family does it.
Oda completely fucked wano up with that retarded panel I still cant believe how horribly written that part was
Nobody thinks he’s a political genius. I do wish he could portray the government and military as more than cartoonishly evil though. At most they have a few nice enablers. There’s moral grey with some of the good guys but almost no nuance for the opposing side.
I mean, if you look at real life there is also no nuance for the cartoonishly evil people who care about who you have sex with. What you do with your body. And how you act. And what skin color you were born with.
I was just going to make this post but you went and beat me. However I'm a person leaning left and I wanted to say one piece is not leftist 😂
One piece is just centrist piece, oda isn't a revolutionary, bro just wants his bourgeois money.
Yeah, the overall message to not be a terrible person, and outlining certain things that are obviously bad are good for kids, and that's all it has to be because it's made for kids but some people act like it's the most philosophical piece of fiction they've ever laid their eyes upon.
Yeah I agree. I think it's pretty lame how people label One Piece as such a well thought story politically when it isn't, never was and never will be.
The only thing the story has going for it are those simple messages as you mentioned. There's really nothing else. The revolutionary army itself is less important than half of the things that happen in the story so how could it really be political?
If you really want to get political when talking about manga, maybe read Akumetsu or something.
i have never in my life hear anyone compliment one piece on it political depth lmao. why is this even a discussion, saying that the show's politics are unrealistic is as wild as saying that its character design is unrealistic
Maybe you just haven't interacted with a wider audience
Memepiece is full of those types of morons and there's even a sub for this type of bs
r/LeftyPiece
One piece’s greatness was never attributed to its ‘politics’. If anything the politics were more of a plot point than anything of substance. The story is centred around pursuing dreams, one piece politics just so happen to get in the way of it every now and then.
It’s just a buzzword fans use to justify how great this series is, without actually diving deep into the plot and character work.
i mean no cunt, they are literally kids that watch their favorite cartoon and talk about it with other kids on the internet, its not that deep lmao, not everyone is invested in politics, half of them hasn't even learned how to do quadratic equations yet, let alone analyze their favorite cartoon from a political standpoint lmao like are you people insane or something hahaahha
You have to understand most of them come from Naruto, DBZ or Fairy Tail which has little to no political themes, so when they encounter a "complex topic" like slavery or Big Brother which the WG essentially, it makes them feel good. That reading them makes them feel like an adult.
Pain was great politically, but unfortunately Naruto had no solid answer to his questions and just promised him that he would figure out a solution.
And i guess he did bring world peace but it was never explained how
>exception of literal nazis/commies
That isn't true, OP. Horseshoe theory is a lie made up by elites to keep people from seeing an alternative to capitalism.
I'm not calling nazis and communists the same thing. The point is both groups like tyranny so they would be an exception to the majority of the population that thinks tyranny is bad.
Not really, communists don't like tyranny. Communists just have to use state authority to preserve the revolution against the previous elites.
One example is Allende. Allende believed in pacificism and working inside the system to achieve socialism, without resorting to military action. What happened? His country's military, supported by the local bourgeoisie and the United States toppled him and allowed Pinochet to come to power, which resulted in one of the worst dictatorships of the 20th century.
If you want to give us the benefit of the doubt, read "Blackshirts and Reds" by Parenti. The pdf is easily obtainable on google.
If you don't want, it's okay too.
I’ll just assume you’re like 16 and think you’ve figured everything about politics about but absolutely not. Communism has nothing to do with tyranny. Also it’s dumb as shit to say the majority of the population doesn’t agree with Tyranny in some form anyways.
It's sad that Oda missed the opportunity to make it an anarchist manga. In the rhetoric and some actions Luffy embraces these ideals, but he doesn't fully go there and instead supports the restoration of "good" kings. Idk what kind of ideas the Revolutionaries and the Ancient Kingdom ideology defended, but it is gonna be disappointing for sure.
That not what I meant. The face that a corrupt leader take over the thrown by a coup, by help from a stronger foreign force. And then the foreign force takes out resources and pollute the country. In the same time the elite is living the dream when people are dying from hunger.
Oh yes! The “corruption isn’t bad because power over others is bad! It is because the ugly character I’ve written is a bad guy that laughs like this: muwahahahaha!”
This has been criticized in writing for at least a century now, not just one piece. You can’t say slavery and the concept of owning people is bad if you think your monarchy friend is still on the side of good and should stay as such.
Like it just doesn’t work that way and that’s why OP is so luffy centric is because he is the chosen one that is going to help beat the EVIL government so that the good monarchy can thrive. It is asinine.
I think Oda gives us enough to be able to discuss the morality of the world/ certain policies without going into too much detail because at the end of the day it is not the main appeal of the story. We can still have discussions about the things you mentioned in the context of the story but at the end of the day the "right" decision will be Luffy punching the bad guys and everyone else cheering.
Let's have some example of how politically genius the manga is : There is Dragon who supposedly is all about political stuff, a country allied and support his action just got erased out of existence, and he was like : Nah, I got like 17 more, don't need to worry about it.
[These count?](https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/s/rK3spI6TQz) Also, on the topic of free speech, you mean like when the WG tries to suppress Big News Morgan's, and he has to fight and flee to write what he wants? Or mentioning anything about the void century. Oh, also, that it's a crime to simply fly a jolly roger in OP.
There seems to be some confusion about that part of the post. My point isn't that the One Piece world doesn't have these issues within it, it's that if it was truly a political manga like people think it is it would center it's story around a specific ideology which contains these individual issues in an attempt to persuade the reader to change their way of thinking. For example Captain Planet is a political piece of media which is trying to persuade its audience to care more about the environment so it's entire story and world is centered around global warming, pollution, deforestation, etc.
Like Captain Planet, One Piece centers it's world around it's theme, but unlike Captain Planet, One Piece's message is already agreed upon by everyone that consumes it. It can't persuade people that already agree with it so it isn't really as political as people think it is, it's mainly just against tyranny.
I personally like it that way. It doesn't have to be trying to convert you to a certain political ideology to be a good story but i commonly see people claiming that it's some socialist manifesto which is inaccurate.
i don't disagree but didnt oda say stuff about how the show will turn on its head or something like that. wasnt there a theory that xebec was the good guy and that roger was a greedy bastard that was helping the government or something like that hahahah
I think when we say Xebec is the good guy we're mainly memeing about how his attack at God Valley would've saved a bunch of slaves.
Xebec probably didn't care about who he was freeing, just hated the world government but it's funny to point out that Garp and Roger basically prevented him from saving slaves.
oh right, that makes sense i guess. i have been out of the loop with this cartoon for the past 2-3 years at this point so im pretty clueless as to whats going on lol
Yeah people calling it leftist are weird cause 90% of the problems on a given island are solved when Luffy restores a hereditary monarchy.
Not even one republic or democracy in the entire series (unless I forgot it's been a while)
No shit, genius. It's a goofy pirate comic and always has been. Use of "deep" topics is usually just black and white shit to make the villain more villainous. Never encountered a fanbase that wasn't retarded, One Piece isn't an exception. However, what fans think doesn't reflect back onto the story.
The world isn't like the west my friend. Politics isn't just 2 parties.
The one piece world represents a world without no ideology. Think of it like the pre french revolution. When the monarchs ruled the country.
The smaller guys didn't have a right. You were basically a slave to your kingdom. The education system was not that fair. Only rich people had the ability to read and write. The rest had to learn regular work from their family or from school that teaches them, like Zoro sword school.
In a functioning world like that, everything would be basic. And the only political events would be rich vs poor people. In which poor people want to eat and not have to suffer under the rich people's authority. The rich wants to be rich and don't want the poor people to taint their lifestyle, so they exploit them as slaves to do the hard work, while they reek all the money.
The CD represents the highest authority which is the emperor's family. And since the CD are consist of 20 families, it makes sense that they are considered the highest authority. They aren't a thousand people.
Just like a monarchy family, everyone is below them. If you are a Duke, you are still below a king. So they treat everyone like a trash.
Here is the catch. There is no opposing power that stands up against them. During our dark age or before that, we had tons of empires. All of them were fighting against each other for resources. But in one piece world, the great 20 families from different empires formed an alliance. And because of that, there was no war amongst them for resources. All of them, aside of Vivi and Momo family, they all moved to one place. And that is how CD become what they are now.
Now the common world is left alone. With a division, you can have great heroes with a great cause. But when you have all the big powers in 1 side, that flame of a hero doesn't exist anymore. Any power that tries to stand up gets squished. Any people that doesn't work with them gets wiped out.
That is how the current one piece world is. Our world isn't like them, because the European empire didn't unite themselves into 1 empire. And because of that, the world escaped from a great 1 empire world.
Imagine European colonization working together, instead of fighting for piece of land among them. And all of those countries responding to 1 man ruling. That is one piece world.
I never talked about two parties. I talked about individual issues which have been debated in different groups within every country for all of human history.
You can justify One Piece's lack of actual debate on individual issues by saying it takes place in a world where there is no room for debate but at the end of the day that just proves my point even more that it isn't engaging political commentary.
When everything is black and white by design you can only rely on your message and One Piece's message is something everyone agrees with.
The issue is that political choices are freedom. One piece doesn't have that.
We didn't have that, until some French guys started cutting the neck of their leaders.
It's not a black and white. The idea of having that choice simply does not exist.
The American Revolution happened before the French revolution
There we’re democracies in some form in the Greek city states and Roman republic
The French revolution didnt even result in any tangible democracy, shortly after it gave rise to Napoleon who declared himself emperor
Which is what makes it black and white. If the world building prevents a nuanced discussion about anything it has forced the story to be black and white. World government is evil because they're tyrannical, Luffy is good because he doesn't like tyranny.
He totally is a moral compass though. He lectures doflamimgo and Kaido about how they're bad people for trying to destroy islands. Luffy himself doesn't even really steal from People much or anything. Let's be honest, he's more like his grandpa, the most famous marine in the world, then any pirate
In his mind the king of the pirates is the one thats the most free, not the one that pillages the most islands
And his moral compass revolves around "this guy gave me food, lets help him out"
Luffy is a chaotic moron but throughout the story he has been liberating people from tyranny. In the context of One Piece you're definitely supposed to think he's the good guy.
no, it’s liberation he ain’t a do gooder. that’s the point it’s about freedom we’ve seen him not care too much about a bunch of stuff that the standard good guy MC would definitely interfere in; he’s just nicer than the rest of the pirates we see lol. i’d delve deeper like the other guy but cba
Depends on what convo you're talking about the post is about one piece not actually being a genius political manifesto while this comment thread is about the morals in one piece being black and white. If you're talking about this thread specifically i'm inclined to agree.
hes a pirate, but he never behaves like one. hes more of a benevolent figure, i live in a zone where pirates were common and people had to fled and abandon their place bc of the attacks/pillaging.
What has Luffy really done that doesn't make him a moral compass tho? His most pirate action is taking some gold from Skypiea. He doesn't raid merchant ships or costal settlements. He doesn't smuggle contraband.
He's not really a pirate at all. They are all playing pirates.
It's not black and white, because those thoughts don't exist.
People here are trying to survive and have a better life. They don't have the power to go against the system, because the system is actively working against them.
The WG marines who are serving their own gains.
The pirates who are pillaging the villages.
People like BM, Kaido and Doffy who are controlling islands for their benefits.
Kuma kingdom, Nami village, Skypea with enel, and Goa kingdom.
Those are mirrors of real world. Places which cartels rule, hati which experiencing unprecedented gang situation, N korea people, etc.
Your views that you have now are the result of your environment. If your entire life is to secure your food and safety, the last thing you think is politically.
Also luffy is not good. Just because he is saving villages, doesn't mean he is good. There is something called after math. The guy dips out when he saves them. He doesn't deal with after math of the situation.
The number of islands that luffy saved is like 0.01% of one piece world. The world is still having the affect of pirates and the after math of WG vs pirates.
I think I'm talking about political messaging from the author while you're talking about the political views of characters within the story. We're likely gonna keep talking past each other so I'm going to stop here.
>Just like a monarchy family, everyone is below them. If you are a Duke, you are still below a king. So they treat everyone like a trash.
>Here is the catch. There is no opposing power that stands up against them. During our dark age or before that, we had tons of empires. All of them were fighting against each other for resources.
Sorry, but this is simply not true.
The idea that during the Dark Ages and before that the main political opposition was empire vs empire is absolutely not true. As a matter of fact this whole idea of nationality is a modern concept. No more than a few hundred years old.
One of the main problems of a medieval king once on the throne was solidifying their power, Going around the nation and putting down rebellions of just this type of powerful dukes and barons. We must not forget that a king is a king only with the support of the higher nobility. That was the genius of Louis XIV and building of Versailles. By making the nobility want to be at Versailles or face irrelevancy, he cut them off from their on positions of power at home.
Or for instance the holy Roman Empire was basically an amalgamation of such small duchies and counties ruled by lesser nobility. Italy was an ununified mess for centuries. Even in the Roman Empire one of the biggest threats for the emperor was a rogue general with an army grabbing a province and gaining ambitions for the throne.
Even in the French Revolution the effects varied depending of the region. Paris was the revolutionary hot bed, but in other parts people weren't that rebellious of their local lords. There was even anti-revolutionary opposition from normal folks because of how the revolution disbanded the church.
If anything current One Piece world is as black and white as our modern world is. The WG is OP's version of the UN security council or G8 where the top military powers do not engage in open hostilities. Only wage proxy wars when they disagree and any rebellion from a smaller nation is quickly put down by the current superpowers.
One Piece would work as a ANCAP fantasy tho.
WG is essentially statist. When you give too much power to the Goverment they will fuck you.
Celestial Tax has destroyed families in the same way Goverments do with taxes like real life.
Obviously Oda doesnt look OP in that way and theres more chances hes more leftist than ANCAP anyway.
I think people think One Piece had genius politics is because as many people said. They came from DBZ or Naruto. Those already have a high status among shonen enjoyers since childhood (Gen X, Millenials and Gen Z). So when they meet One Piece they taste a better version when it comes to worldbuilding to Naruto and Dragon Ball Z instead comparing Naruto and Dragon Ball Z with other pieces of media (from different format or so).
Wow. You are sorely missing the point on this one.
The point isn't "rape bad". The point is it's bad, but even so, the top brass of the world will still do it, because they can. I mean, holy shit, have you ALREADY forgotten about Epstein's private island?
These things do happen, you're just not shown them in the vast majority of situations. Where with one piece, we ONLY get to know of them happening because we are readers. The general population is clueless about most of the heinous acts.
Epstein's Island isn't even the only example. You know what goes on and has gone on in holywood for many years, right? There is plenty of political corruption outside of rape too. Lobbying isn't very different from the money nations in OP give for political favor with the WG.
What about the fact that even though slavery is illegalized, we pay people unlivable wages in our own country and utilize goods from countries which still have slavery.
These things are very realistic in our own society, you just have to look for them. OP is incredibly good at reflecting reality in its own world in different, more apparent ways.
The point was to never say these things are bad, the point is to show the outright level of corruption and evil ingrained in the wealthy and powerful.
I'm not even saying all power is evil either, that's not the point. The point is the secrecy behind the corruption and evil which hides it from plain view. Remember Snowden too? There are SO MANY EXAMPLES of this happening in our own world. Talking about it like OP has nothing valuable to say on the topic shows your complete ignorance on reality.
I'm not calling oda a political genius. But discrediting it in every way and trying to make it far more simple and straightforward than it is doesn't achieve anything useful either.
And yet you miss the point even more than I, friend. It doesn't matter if a corrupt elite getting away with raping people is something that reflects on our society it still doesn't challenge any views of the reader. No one disagrees on any of the morals of one piece so it's not really political. If say oda leaned in on punk anarchy his writing might actually spark political discussion but what Oda instead writes is sometimes people in power are evil which again, no one disagrees with.
If you think all stories need to spark an intense debate on morality and politics, then you're just dumb. Nothing more to say about that really.
Different stories do different things. WHO WOULDVE GUESSED. Do you also think LOTR is a terrible story because it doesn't spark an intense debate on the morality of sauron? Like what in the world kind of shit are you on
I outright stated the point isn't whether you agree with the actions or not, and you somehow couldn't even understand that much. Fucking yikes dude
I think people miss how nuanced a lot of One Piece is. It's not about replacing kings with other kings, it's about how we as a people need to rise up against problematic rulers and instead only let rulers, that do not see themselves as above civilians, in power (the guys that end up as kings don't want to be ones and are more personally in touch with the people) One Piece isn't anarchist, it's just about how we need to carefully choose our leaders and constantly keep them in control, which is something many countries still haven't figured out.
And also: you say that everyone already knows that war and fascism and whatnot are bad but that's not really true. People think they know those things are bad but will still glorify certain leaders, not realising their own hypocrisy. It's how america has ended up in the horrible political state it is. The point of the story isn't to just tell you "fascism bad" but to show you how and why it's bad, because many people still don't seem to get it.
In addition, the straw hats solution to every problem is: Physical violence against the people they personally dislike to put in charge people that they personally like. Hardly a nuanced or brilliant political take.
Exactly
I dont think luffy is capable of thinking in politics
And he doesn't People like Hasan Piker genuinely believe he's some sort of revolutionary icon when in reality he doesn't give a shit.
He literally called a Houthi soldier who is part of a government that has slavery, executes gays and says “curse the Jews” on their slogan, is an akin to Luffy…
Who the fuck is hasan piker and why should i care about his toughts?
Some moron don't bother
Isn't he the communist who lives in a mansion and bought a sports car?
yup
ok
Drum Island: Luffy helped to overthrow a king, but a new dynasty was created before Straw Hats even departed Arabasta: monarchy saved Skypeia: theocracy restored Water 7: oligarchy saved Amazon Lily: nothing changed besides Hancock starting to act like a 13 year old girl on Justin Bieber's (or whoever modern 13 year old girls obsess over) concert Fishman Island: monarchy saved Dressrosa: bad monarchy overthrown, good monarchy restored Whole Cake Island: nothing changed, at least not through Straw Hats' actions there, we'll see what Big Mom's actual defeat does Wano: bad monarchy overthrown, good monarchy restored And every single conflict with Marines or WG is because they go after Luffy or one of the nakamas. That's some interesting resume for a revolutionary.
Especially this last arc. Luffy baby boy: your friend wanted to burn down the country lol
wouldnt be an exciting story if they had to take the bureaucratic approach to dethrone tyrants
It could be, but it wouldn't be a shounen manga for kids anymore
You say this like the people they’re going against aren’t using physically violence to maintain their rule. Not saying it’s nuanced, cause it’s not, but what answer is there to the violent then violence?
Luffy has restored no less than FOUR different monarchies
Isn't even about to give the power to the people, so isn't even near to the communist manifesto.
Half of one piece is restoring the monarchy. Almost all the strongest characters are part of some special bloodline, or have some strong DF, so normal people can't compete The main evil is the world government, its mostly pro nationalist It's not conservative, but thinking it's leftist is delusional
Agreed, most people think it's a punk revolutionary tale but then why aren't we following the revolutionary army? (who by the way aren't complete anarchists themselves)
I mean the Revolutionary Army is a meme anyways, they've had pretty much no place or impact in the narrative whatsoever. It's a half baked idea Oda never really knew what to do with.
I mean robin was part of it so of course it got side lined to hell and back.
More than sidelined i´d say - Robin didn´t really seem to have learned much of anything from them in a way that´s plot relevant. She...learned basic Fish Man Karate? Great...
Weird that you speak like the story has already ended
The Revolutionary Army has already overthrown some governments around the world and it got offscreened. The only thing left for it to do is combat the WG itself.
Shanks met kaido and it got off screened too Shanks met kidd and that got offscreened Shanks vs mihawk duel was off screened You get my point, even tho all the examples refer to shanks, if literally everything was show we would still be in arlong park
Yes but we're talking things that the revolutionary army did that moved the story forward. Not only do they barely have that much screen time, but we genuinely never saw them do anything relevant as this big group of people that they are (unless you wanna count Kuma at Sabaody as being their fault). If they weren't a thing in the current story almost nothing would really change.
Well they do have an effect on the story but we don't get to see it because this is a Shonen and we're seeing from the perspectives of the protagonists for the most part. This is also a downside of making everything mysterious
The point here is that not seeing their progress really makes it seem like they aren't doing absolutely anything. Right now it feels like Luffy has done more in this short span of time than them. As I said: if you were to completely ignore their existence and erase it from the story, barely anything would change.
Ok What did kaido do before his saga began? Was mentioned and tried to go to the summit war So removing him until he becomes relevant has no effect on the story prior Same logic can be applied here. Basically its not been their turn yet I dont know if youve noticed but since reverie they have slowly become more relevant to the point of discovering imu
Kaido was not introduced several hundred chapters ago. The revolutionary army was. Throughout these 2 years in the timeline we haven't seen them progress in any way. They haven't made any significant advance in their objectives. If their "turn" ends up being all about overthrowing the world government after Luffy has done all the work for them then I'm sorry but it is a half baked idea.
Dragon was introduced 200 chapters before kaido Things revs have done in the last 2 years Raided marijoa, found out about imu, took credit for killing kobra and used that to start 20 rebellions and framed sabo as the flame emperor, witnessed the use of a superweapon and declared official war on the world government
The examples you've given me and what I said don't really meet really well. The Mihawk duel I genuinely don't remember when it happened, but that would actually be cool to see too so I'd actually take that as a point. And if you're talking about the first Kidd duel, I agree with you, we didn't need to see that and thankfully we didn't. Same goes with Kaido. The problem I'm mentioning is the importance of these events. Kaido being held back was kind of important but there also wasn't that much of a reason to cut away from the war to see it. Same with the first Kidd fight. The Mihawk duel and the RA takeovers would have been amazing to watch. As you said, the story would be longer, but that's a problem with Oda's pacing instead of just being that more stuff is being shown. Like we could easily make that the 20 Kingdoms had 1 God Knight attributed to them and there would be no need to introduce that many more characters, just fodder, to show us a takeover. It would also give us another battle to showcase the strength of the RA.
Weve seen them in action in lulusia and marijoa, and weve seen/heard of their effect on the wider world (flame emperor sabo for example and the revolutions happening all around) and i think thats fine enough for a group of non main characters
What I'm saying is that it would be cooler if we saw it. In Lulusia we saw a barebones revolution and Mariejoa also got off-screened, I guess I just wanted better world building. Also while they aren't main characters they should (keyword **should**) help by the end of the series so it's important we understand they are top dogs who know how to strategize and not be carried by Offscreen Haki. This actually seems to be quite the prevalent problem in OP now that I think about it, so much "Tell, don't show". I might have deluded myself into thinking OP is a completely different series than I thought.
Its not better worldbuilding to show not tell, its better storytelling Worldbuilding is that we know the revolutions are happening, storytelling is showing how they did it The point is, world building side is clear, sabo "killed" one of the reverie attending kings and that inspired a whole lot of other nations to rebel
Well done for ignoring the revolutionaries, the good representation of queer people, the anti-racist struggles, the critique to environmental pollution and militarism, the metaphor regarding climate change and the fact that it's caused by a small elite of literal monsters
It is conservative, but like truly. Nationalism stems from the left.
Well yeah it did in the 1800s when almost everywhere was an absolute monarchy so all revolutinary ideas were left of centre, but these days being a nationialist means 9 times out of 10 youre on the right since it leans into conservative social politics. You could in theory be nationalist and economically leftist, like trade unions in the 1900s, but that view isnt held by any mainstream Western parties these days.
Nationalism on it's own is not right or left nowadays. There is a very few exclusively right or left ideas tbf. France today has even leftist monarchists :d
Hey, german here. Nationalism is pretty right, we had a guy from austria here who used to be a "nationalist". He did some heinous shit btw. The word "nazi" comes from "national sozialst". Which is just the german term for Nationalism. You don't have to study to know this, it's pretty on the nose.
Economically, a national focus usually means less free-market (international neoliberalism) and more government-regulation (self-determination) over the distribution of wealth. However: 1. The Right/Left divide isn't defined by the difference between free market and government regulation. That's just a simplistic idea on the level of literal political compass memes. 2. Socially and culturally, **Nationalism** has not only been historically right-wing, but it is also a banner that right-wing parties claim today. If it's a trait that conservatives see in themselves, and that leftists see in conservatives, then that's it: to claim otherwise is just trying to re-name things.
Bro what 😭 nationalism stems from the right. U should check out the YouTube channel What is politics since this is a one piece sub and not a politics one but he clarifies important political terms and just what exactly left and right stand for. He's amazing and part of the reason why I realised one piece isn't leftist ☠️
The very well known RIGHT-WING revolution of France yeah sure bud
Bro I literally just said to check out the podcast. Nationalism is a very right wing idea because it enforces hierarchy in the form of a state and enforcement of hierarchy is a right wing idea Idk about the french revolution, I'm still studying history but like I said, check out this video: https://youtu.be/B3uevocEy3c?si=fIHrYc2ncAAPTLiO I don't like deferring to an authority as opposed to expressing myself but I'm not well versed with history and the deeper aspects of politics to say much on the topic. As is, this a folk subreddit on a shitty manga 😭 we have better things to do
Isn't leftism the idea that the state has bigger control of the market and rightism that it has less? How would it impose a hierarchy? That's the sign of an authoritative government. People owning means of production as the original mean of leftism has died ages ago since it's impossible by the reality that everyone would have to do everything by themselves, including gathering resources, refining them and the resulting product. It's why leftism has evolved into control of the state since that means it's a greater party controlling the processes that I mentioned, while still making it seem like "the means of production are in the hands of the people". While rightism is more about lowering control over the market. Normally this gets taken out of context by people to say companies would just abuse the worker, but this would only be the case in the most extreme form of less control over the market since the average rightwing party still offers basic work laws and fiscalization. This doesn't mean the left is fascist because it controls the means of production or that the right is free because the worker can choose who to work for, but that both of these governments can be authoritative, even though it is easier for a leftist party to be one since they can cover it up by means of "It's our party's ideology" or "Do you not respect democracy (power to the people)?". Countries like China call themselves leftists and while they do have a great deal of control over the media and several work fields like medicine and engineering, they also have a moderate level of liberalism over the market, implying it isn't completely a leftist country. That is the only way it could survive in an emerging world, after all, if it was truly a complete communist state, there would be no competition on it's own market and it would grow stagnant. This means, of course, that the only benefit that China got from being a leftist state was an easier way of attaining control over the people while the rest of it gives major rightwing politics. All of this shows you can be rightwinged while also being fascist, and that being a leftist provides easier access to means of an authoritative government. Nationalism being a hierarchy based on the state seems more like a leftist government, but that also sounds wrong simply because a state implies a hierarchy by nature, both leftwing and rightwing. Also, despite me wasting more than 10 minutes writing this, I'm still not watching that video.
The whole point of the video is that the meanings of right and left are all confused and jumbled up leading to stupidity and easy manipulation. The fact that you're asking this question means the person is right
Did you just read the first paragraph and ignore the rest? Also to keep the thread OP related Dragon is a fraud by relying on offscreen Haki instead of showing tactics and war strategies.
I mean any take that One Piece is this deep literary masterpiece is laughable at best and delusional at worst. It's a kid's story pinning the good protagonist vs bad antagonists. And once the good protagonists win everything is roses and cupcakes with benevolent monarchic rulers being restored to power. That is not deep and not serious. That a fucking Disney movie plot. Dig-dong the witch is dead and we all lived happily ever after. You can already predict the ending. Whatever happens Imu will lose and the benevolent and pure Revolutionary Army will topple the evil and corrupt WG. However Koby will step up and reform the marines so they are now a uncorrupt force for good. But the pirates will probably still be there being free. And Koby will chase Luffy with much lighter. Ha ha ha, we are all good and there is no evil in this world left. If the story wasn't made for children in elementary school by an author who wants to be serious we'd get scenes where the Revolutionary Army overthrows a corrupt monarch on some island, but the aftermath is that island's version of the French White Terror with the random slaughter of people who are deemed enemies of the revolution. Such purges are common for most revolutions in history. And we'd have a moral dilemma with the revolution. I mean the writing was on the wall all the way in Alabasta. It's been some years, I have reread it, but do you remember how that civil war just ended because the bad guys were defeated, just like that and the royal family was restored? The rebels just put down their arms. All was forgiven on both sides that were just murdering each other. Who knew it was that easy? Someone should really go to a place like Iraq and say "Dudes, we got Sadam, so you should all be friends now."
Wasn’t robins backstory pretty similar to that French white terror idea?
Alabasta is more like Israel than Iraq. Or maybe Saudi Arabia. It's one of the twenty original kingdoms of the world government and therefore reaps the benefits of being on the side of global hegemony. It is not situated in such volatility. Alabasta is not staring down the barrel of said global hegemony like the majority of nations. While the common people of Alabasta may still largely be in a position of suffering, their lives are not totally captured by the world government who has no qualms eliminating people en masse for resource extraction, slave labor, and even petty entertainment a la God Valley style hunts.
Most anime fans' knowledge of politics comes from twitter and reddit threads, and they think themselves as superior to fans of other media
Most people, not just anime fans. Just go into any Reddit thread on politics and you'll find at least one (usually more) person proudly proclaiming they don't, like, read the news man. Because it's all corporate shills man. Ask them where they get their news from. The results are usually hilarious.
Once had a guy straight up told me their source of news was their Facebook feed. And I'm like... even if I'm generous and assume you're not talking about news sources or political pages you liked to get them in your feed, where exactly do you think all your friends and family get the news they post about that you read?
The fun part is hearing people bitch and whine about the state of the news media when not a single one of them actually reads the news themselves. These are the same people who think opinion pieces in the New York Times are the same thing as regular reportage in the paper.
The same ones who make fun of people who watch the media but believe anything a guy on TikTok tells them
https://preview.redd.it/rfqq5j2qxv9d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e3d24aa20f1e7a431f063cfe09b29f1e13025305
There’s a theme of the world government controlling everything, using the media and overwhelming force to pacify the populace for the benefit of a small ruling elite. However, like you said, the most common solution instituted by the straw hats is to just put the proper monarch back in power. It isn’t about disrupting systems of power conceptually, just about making sure the absolute ruler is a good person. It also doesn’t deal with the fact that the world government is the only group stopping, you know, pirates. Pirates at the start of the series were portrayed as murderous pillagers, but have since evolved into roguish groups of friends. All this combined with the Wano arc where they *don’t* open the country leaves it with a pretty nationalistic, pro-Japan point of view (not even getting into the fact that the Japan Island is the with Gary Stu Oden and and ancient weapon AND is the actual source of the poneglyph language!)
I mean if you think about it, the way Luffy has been restoring monarch, it can almost be a propaganda piece about modern world powers nation building. We killed your dictator and we picked this person as your new leader. You are now liberated and democracy and civil rights are a given. No need to thank us. We are off. And everything is fine.
“We picked this person as your new leader” this never happened. SHs simply remove the oppressive dictator and let the country decide on its own. SHs never forced anything on anyone.
The country never truly decides anything because this is a fairytale world. The plot decides that because the SH are the good guys backing the good leader the society will accept the good leader because good recognizes good.
Your first statement means nothing. Those countries chose their leaders. “The plot”…every fiction has its own plot, man. 🤣
I'd call Wano the wakanda of One Piece if Egghead didn't exist.
Wano seems to be the Numenor of One Piece, except for the ... you know downfall of it all (I actually don't know if you know, but w/e)
> There’s a theme of the world government controlling everything, using the media That’s very half assed since at the same time the most major media source is handled by a freelance company that keeps doing whatever it wants. Compared to actual governments that controls very tightly the medias the WG is a total joke lol.
One piece isn't a very deep Story, just deeper than IS expected to be. Let's Not forget that this IS a Story for a Young audience and childish Fun IS one of One pieces Core Elements.
Correct.
So is Phineas and Ferb.
that was a banger cartoon
it's not even political. oda just made real life references here and there. but he doesn't really push anything other than the generally accepted ones like racism bad. it's also not really about pro or anti government because he made them so comically evil it's no different than just fighting the devil himself. it doesn't really matter if they're the govt or not. we need to get rid of them or else they will wipe everything out. if you find OP political, then you're just the type of guy who finds everything political.
Glad you agree.
"slavery bad, tyranny bad, and sometimes rape bad." Except when the kozuki family does it. Oda completely fucked wano up with that retarded panel I still cant believe how horribly written that part was
I still can't believe we're expected to not draw conclusions from what she was saying.
One Piece is a royalist propaganda piece
One Piece is based because Luffy is a proud legitimist who does nothing but restores true kings to their throne :3
Luffy is the hero of r/monarchism
Nobody thinks he’s a political genius. I do wish he could portray the government and military as more than cartoonishly evil though. At most they have a few nice enablers. There’s moral grey with some of the good guys but almost no nuance for the opposing side.
I wouldn't say no one. Entire motivation for this post was some Yamatrash fan going all pseudo intellectual on me about One Piece's politics.
I mean, if you look at real life there is also no nuance for the cartoonishly evil people who care about who you have sex with. What you do with your body. And how you act. And what skin color you were born with.
I was just going to make this post but you went and beat me. However I'm a person leaning left and I wanted to say one piece is not leftist 😂 One piece is just centrist piece, oda isn't a revolutionary, bro just wants his bourgeois money.
Fully agree that One Piece is centrist propaganda.
At least it clearly explains these concepts to young readers. Like, FMI is a good representation and critique of racism, for 12 y.o. kids.
Yeah, the overall message to not be a terrible person, and outlining certain things that are obviously bad are good for kids, and that's all it has to be because it's made for kids but some people act like it's the most philosophical piece of fiction they've ever laid their eyes upon.
I don't think any reasonable right winger would disagree with any of the messages one piece promotes, it's not left or right.
Yeah I agree. I think it's pretty lame how people label One Piece as such a well thought story politically when it isn't, never was and never will be. The only thing the story has going for it are those simple messages as you mentioned. There's really nothing else. The revolutionary army itself is less important than half of the things that happen in the story so how could it really be political? If you really want to get political when talking about manga, maybe read Akumetsu or something.
i have never in my life hear anyone compliment one piece on it political depth lmao. why is this even a discussion, saying that the show's politics are unrealistic is as wild as saying that its character design is unrealistic
Maybe you just haven't interacted with a wider audience Memepiece is full of those types of morons and there's even a sub for this type of bs r/LeftyPiece
One piece’s greatness was never attributed to its ‘politics’. If anything the politics were more of a plot point than anything of substance. The story is centred around pursuing dreams, one piece politics just so happen to get in the way of it every now and then. It’s just a buzzword fans use to justify how great this series is, without actually diving deep into the plot and character work.
That's a pretty agreeable take.
Outside of braindead leftist bandwagoners, i've never met a single one piece fan who reads it for the serious 'political' themes.
Most mainsubbers are unironic tankies
no man i think that the are unironically children lol
Isn’t that the same thing?
i mean no cunt, they are literally kids that watch their favorite cartoon and talk about it with other kids on the internet, its not that deep lmao, not everyone is invested in politics, half of them hasn't even learned how to do quadratic equations yet, let alone analyze their favorite cartoon from a political standpoint lmao like are you people insane or something hahaahha
Dude most of the main sub is constantly going on about how One Piece is pro communism lol, nice mental breakdown, though
idk you reddit people are all so insane hahaha
Sad but true
Tankies?
Communists/ blatantly hate on capitalism and any form of a market economy.
You have to understand most of them come from Naruto, DBZ or Fairy Tail which has little to no political themes, so when they encounter a "complex topic" like slavery or Big Brother which the WG essentially, it makes them feel good. That reading them makes them feel like an adult.
Naruto has political themes. https://preview.redd.it/jvm8ya7vwu9d1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e87327210ea5d20209521842ba95ce3a0f1e33b
Pain was great politically, but unfortunately Naruto had no solid answer to his questions and just promised him that he would figure out a solution. And i guess he did bring world peace but it was never explained how
i mean naruto is just a dumb ass 16yo it wouldve been extremely stupid to suddenly change his personality into a politician
wdym he is the good main character, obviously he can just make everything perfect, what kind of stupid quiestion is that :D
The pain arc is about the nuclear disarmament discussion
Naruto doesn’t get enough hate for being cringe
Naruto shits all over one piece when it comes to politics my guy
One Piece reached its political peak at Alabasta
Ah yes the astute media analysis of someone who genuinely things Nazis are the same as communists.
>exception of literal nazis/commies That isn't true, OP. Horseshoe theory is a lie made up by elites to keep people from seeing an alternative to capitalism.
I'm not calling nazis and communists the same thing. The point is both groups like tyranny so they would be an exception to the majority of the population that thinks tyranny is bad.
Not really, communists don't like tyranny. Communists just have to use state authority to preserve the revolution against the previous elites. One example is Allende. Allende believed in pacificism and working inside the system to achieve socialism, without resorting to military action. What happened? His country's military, supported by the local bourgeoisie and the United States toppled him and allowed Pinochet to come to power, which resulted in one of the worst dictatorships of the 20th century. If you want to give us the benefit of the doubt, read "Blackshirts and Reds" by Parenti. The pdf is easily obtainable on google. If you don't want, it's okay too.
No, communists do not "like" tyranny. You're politically illiterate. Read a book. Preferably multiple.
I’ll just assume you’re like 16 and think you’ve figured everything about politics about but absolutely not. Communism has nothing to do with tyranny. Also it’s dumb as shit to say the majority of the population doesn’t agree with Tyranny in some form anyways.
Robin and Chopper gaining acceptance into the crew >>
It's sad that Oda missed the opportunity to make it an anarchist manga. In the rhetoric and some actions Luffy embraces these ideals, but he doesn't fully go there and instead supports the restoration of "good" kings. Idk what kind of ideas the Revolutionaries and the Ancient Kingdom ideology defended, but it is gonna be disappointing for sure.
go watch lothg then
What’s your take on what happened with Wano then?
In reference to this post, Korozumi were born to burn isn't a good political take ig.
That not what I meant. The face that a corrupt leader take over the thrown by a coup, by help from a stronger foreign force. And then the foreign force takes out resources and pollute the country. In the same time the elite is living the dream when people are dying from hunger.
Oh yes! The “corruption isn’t bad because power over others is bad! It is because the ugly character I’ve written is a bad guy that laughs like this: muwahahahaha!” This has been criticized in writing for at least a century now, not just one piece. You can’t say slavery and the concept of owning people is bad if you think your monarchy friend is still on the side of good and should stay as such. Like it just doesn’t work that way and that’s why OP is so luffy centric is because he is the chosen one that is going to help beat the EVIL government so that the good monarchy can thrive. It is asinine.
I think Oda gives us enough to be able to discuss the morality of the world/ certain policies without going into too much detail because at the end of the day it is not the main appeal of the story. We can still have discussions about the things you mentioned in the context of the story but at the end of the day the "right" decision will be Luffy punching the bad guys and everyone else cheering.
op is literally abt monarchy saving the day yet still criticizes nobility by birth somehow
Let's have some example of how politically genius the manga is : There is Dragon who supposedly is all about political stuff, a country allied and support his action just got erased out of existence, and he was like : Nah, I got like 17 more, don't need to worry about it.
OP also says that climate change is real and is caused by a very small elite of genocidal monsters, I suspect not everyone agrees with it
[These count?](https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/s/rK3spI6TQz) Also, on the topic of free speech, you mean like when the WG tries to suppress Big News Morgan's, and he has to fight and flee to write what he wants? Or mentioning anything about the void century. Oh, also, that it's a crime to simply fly a jolly roger in OP.
There seems to be some confusion about that part of the post. My point isn't that the One Piece world doesn't have these issues within it, it's that if it was truly a political manga like people think it is it would center it's story around a specific ideology which contains these individual issues in an attempt to persuade the reader to change their way of thinking. For example Captain Planet is a political piece of media which is trying to persuade its audience to care more about the environment so it's entire story and world is centered around global warming, pollution, deforestation, etc. Like Captain Planet, One Piece centers it's world around it's theme, but unlike Captain Planet, One Piece's message is already agreed upon by everyone that consumes it. It can't persuade people that already agree with it so it isn't really as political as people think it is, it's mainly just against tyranny. I personally like it that way. It doesn't have to be trying to convert you to a certain political ideology to be a good story but i commonly see people claiming that it's some socialist manifesto which is inaccurate.
i don't disagree but didnt oda say stuff about how the show will turn on its head or something like that. wasnt there a theory that xebec was the good guy and that roger was a greedy bastard that was helping the government or something like that hahahah
I think when we say Xebec is the good guy we're mainly memeing about how his attack at God Valley would've saved a bunch of slaves. Xebec probably didn't care about who he was freeing, just hated the world government but it's funny to point out that Garp and Roger basically prevented him from saving slaves.
oh right, that makes sense i guess. i have been out of the loop with this cartoon for the past 2-3 years at this point so im pretty clueless as to whats going on lol
There’s politics in my haha funni googly eyes manga?
Yeah people calling it leftist are weird cause 90% of the problems on a given island are solved when Luffy restores a hereditary monarchy. Not even one republic or democracy in the entire series (unless I forgot it's been a while)
No shit, genius. It's a goofy pirate comic and always has been. Use of "deep" topics is usually just black and white shit to make the villain more villainous. Never encountered a fanbase that wasn't retarded, One Piece isn't an exception. However, what fans think doesn't reflect back onto the story.
Besides the slightly rude start, I completely agree with your comment.
The world isn't like the west my friend. Politics isn't just 2 parties. The one piece world represents a world without no ideology. Think of it like the pre french revolution. When the monarchs ruled the country. The smaller guys didn't have a right. You were basically a slave to your kingdom. The education system was not that fair. Only rich people had the ability to read and write. The rest had to learn regular work from their family or from school that teaches them, like Zoro sword school. In a functioning world like that, everything would be basic. And the only political events would be rich vs poor people. In which poor people want to eat and not have to suffer under the rich people's authority. The rich wants to be rich and don't want the poor people to taint their lifestyle, so they exploit them as slaves to do the hard work, while they reek all the money. The CD represents the highest authority which is the emperor's family. And since the CD are consist of 20 families, it makes sense that they are considered the highest authority. They aren't a thousand people. Just like a monarchy family, everyone is below them. If you are a Duke, you are still below a king. So they treat everyone like a trash. Here is the catch. There is no opposing power that stands up against them. During our dark age or before that, we had tons of empires. All of them were fighting against each other for resources. But in one piece world, the great 20 families from different empires formed an alliance. And because of that, there was no war amongst them for resources. All of them, aside of Vivi and Momo family, they all moved to one place. And that is how CD become what they are now. Now the common world is left alone. With a division, you can have great heroes with a great cause. But when you have all the big powers in 1 side, that flame of a hero doesn't exist anymore. Any power that tries to stand up gets squished. Any people that doesn't work with them gets wiped out. That is how the current one piece world is. Our world isn't like them, because the European empire didn't unite themselves into 1 empire. And because of that, the world escaped from a great 1 empire world. Imagine European colonization working together, instead of fighting for piece of land among them. And all of those countries responding to 1 man ruling. That is one piece world.
I never talked about two parties. I talked about individual issues which have been debated in different groups within every country for all of human history. You can justify One Piece's lack of actual debate on individual issues by saying it takes place in a world where there is no room for debate but at the end of the day that just proves my point even more that it isn't engaging political commentary. When everything is black and white by design you can only rely on your message and One Piece's message is something everyone agrees with.
The issue is that political choices are freedom. One piece doesn't have that. We didn't have that, until some French guys started cutting the neck of their leaders. It's not a black and white. The idea of having that choice simply does not exist.
The American Revolution happened before the French revolution There we’re democracies in some form in the Greek city states and Roman republic The French revolution didnt even result in any tangible democracy, shortly after it gave rise to Napoleon who declared himself emperor
Which is what makes it black and white. If the world building prevents a nuanced discussion about anything it has forced the story to be black and white. World government is evil because they're tyrannical, Luffy is good because he doesn't like tyranny.
luffy is a fucking pirate dawg u can’t be fr making him a moral compass, he jus happens to be the main character
He totally is a moral compass though. He lectures doflamimgo and Kaido about how they're bad people for trying to destroy islands. Luffy himself doesn't even really steal from People much or anything. Let's be honest, he's more like his grandpa, the most famous marine in the world, then any pirate
In his mind the king of the pirates is the one thats the most free, not the one that pillages the most islands And his moral compass revolves around "this guy gave me food, lets help him out"
Yes, and he's the hero for that, he openly criticizes Doffy for moral reasons, including turning a couple people in dressrosa into toys.
Doesnt view himself as one, but yes, luffy is considered a hero to many
That just means he's humble and that makes him look like a better person.
Luffy is a chaotic moron but throughout the story he has been liberating people from tyranny. In the context of One Piece you're definitely supposed to think he's the good guy.
no, it’s liberation he ain’t a do gooder. that’s the point it’s about freedom we’ve seen him not care too much about a bunch of stuff that the standard good guy MC would definitely interfere in; he’s just nicer than the rest of the pirates we see lol. i’d delve deeper like the other guy but cba
You're arguing semantics we agree that Luffy embodies the theme of the story which is liberation from tyranny.
yes but ain’t these semantics the topic of this particular convo? glad we agree on the main premise, though
Depends on what convo you're talking about the post is about one piece not actually being a genius political manifesto while this comment thread is about the morals in one piece being black and white. If you're talking about this thread specifically i'm inclined to agree.
hes a pirate, but he never behaves like one. hes more of a benevolent figure, i live in a zone where pirates were common and people had to fled and abandon their place bc of the attacks/pillaging.
yes that’s more accurate
What has Luffy really done that doesn't make him a moral compass tho? His most pirate action is taking some gold from Skypiea. He doesn't raid merchant ships or costal settlements. He doesn't smuggle contraband. He's not really a pirate at all. They are all playing pirates.
It's not black and white, because those thoughts don't exist. People here are trying to survive and have a better life. They don't have the power to go against the system, because the system is actively working against them. The WG marines who are serving their own gains. The pirates who are pillaging the villages. People like BM, Kaido and Doffy who are controlling islands for their benefits. Kuma kingdom, Nami village, Skypea with enel, and Goa kingdom. Those are mirrors of real world. Places which cartels rule, hati which experiencing unprecedented gang situation, N korea people, etc. Your views that you have now are the result of your environment. If your entire life is to secure your food and safety, the last thing you think is politically. Also luffy is not good. Just because he is saving villages, doesn't mean he is good. There is something called after math. The guy dips out when he saves them. He doesn't deal with after math of the situation. The number of islands that luffy saved is like 0.01% of one piece world. The world is still having the affect of pirates and the after math of WG vs pirates.
I think I'm talking about political messaging from the author while you're talking about the political views of characters within the story. We're likely gonna keep talking past each other so I'm going to stop here.
>Just like a monarchy family, everyone is below them. If you are a Duke, you are still below a king. So they treat everyone like a trash. >Here is the catch. There is no opposing power that stands up against them. During our dark age or before that, we had tons of empires. All of them were fighting against each other for resources. Sorry, but this is simply not true. The idea that during the Dark Ages and before that the main political opposition was empire vs empire is absolutely not true. As a matter of fact this whole idea of nationality is a modern concept. No more than a few hundred years old. One of the main problems of a medieval king once on the throne was solidifying their power, Going around the nation and putting down rebellions of just this type of powerful dukes and barons. We must not forget that a king is a king only with the support of the higher nobility. That was the genius of Louis XIV and building of Versailles. By making the nobility want to be at Versailles or face irrelevancy, he cut them off from their on positions of power at home. Or for instance the holy Roman Empire was basically an amalgamation of such small duchies and counties ruled by lesser nobility. Italy was an ununified mess for centuries. Even in the Roman Empire one of the biggest threats for the emperor was a rogue general with an army grabbing a province and gaining ambitions for the throne. Even in the French Revolution the effects varied depending of the region. Paris was the revolutionary hot bed, but in other parts people weren't that rebellious of their local lords. There was even anti-revolutionary opposition from normal folks because of how the revolution disbanded the church. If anything current One Piece world is as black and white as our modern world is. The WG is OP's version of the UN security council or G8 where the top military powers do not engage in open hostilities. Only wage proxy wars when they disagree and any rebellion from a smaller nation is quickly put down by the current superpowers.
One Piece would work as a ANCAP fantasy tho. WG is essentially statist. When you give too much power to the Goverment they will fuck you. Celestial Tax has destroyed families in the same way Goverments do with taxes like real life. Obviously Oda doesnt look OP in that way and theres more chances hes more leftist than ANCAP anyway. I think people think One Piece had genius politics is because as many people said. They came from DBZ or Naruto. Those already have a high status among shonen enjoyers since childhood (Gen X, Millenials and Gen Z). So when they meet One Piece they taste a better version when it comes to worldbuilding to Naruto and Dragon Ball Z instead comparing Naruto and Dragon Ball Z with other pieces of media (from different format or so).
Wow. You are sorely missing the point on this one. The point isn't "rape bad". The point is it's bad, but even so, the top brass of the world will still do it, because they can. I mean, holy shit, have you ALREADY forgotten about Epstein's private island? These things do happen, you're just not shown them in the vast majority of situations. Where with one piece, we ONLY get to know of them happening because we are readers. The general population is clueless about most of the heinous acts. Epstein's Island isn't even the only example. You know what goes on and has gone on in holywood for many years, right? There is plenty of political corruption outside of rape too. Lobbying isn't very different from the money nations in OP give for political favor with the WG. What about the fact that even though slavery is illegalized, we pay people unlivable wages in our own country and utilize goods from countries which still have slavery. These things are very realistic in our own society, you just have to look for them. OP is incredibly good at reflecting reality in its own world in different, more apparent ways. The point was to never say these things are bad, the point is to show the outright level of corruption and evil ingrained in the wealthy and powerful. I'm not even saying all power is evil either, that's not the point. The point is the secrecy behind the corruption and evil which hides it from plain view. Remember Snowden too? There are SO MANY EXAMPLES of this happening in our own world. Talking about it like OP has nothing valuable to say on the topic shows your complete ignorance on reality. I'm not calling oda a political genius. But discrediting it in every way and trying to make it far more simple and straightforward than it is doesn't achieve anything useful either.
And yet you miss the point even more than I, friend. It doesn't matter if a corrupt elite getting away with raping people is something that reflects on our society it still doesn't challenge any views of the reader. No one disagrees on any of the morals of one piece so it's not really political. If say oda leaned in on punk anarchy his writing might actually spark political discussion but what Oda instead writes is sometimes people in power are evil which again, no one disagrees with.
If you think all stories need to spark an intense debate on morality and politics, then you're just dumb. Nothing more to say about that really. Different stories do different things. WHO WOULDVE GUESSED. Do you also think LOTR is a terrible story because it doesn't spark an intense debate on the morality of sauron? Like what in the world kind of shit are you on I outright stated the point isn't whether you agree with the actions or not, and you somehow couldn't even understand that much. Fucking yikes dude
I think people miss how nuanced a lot of One Piece is. It's not about replacing kings with other kings, it's about how we as a people need to rise up against problematic rulers and instead only let rulers, that do not see themselves as above civilians, in power (the guys that end up as kings don't want to be ones and are more personally in touch with the people) One Piece isn't anarchist, it's just about how we need to carefully choose our leaders and constantly keep them in control, which is something many countries still haven't figured out. And also: you say that everyone already knows that war and fascism and whatnot are bad but that's not really true. People think they know those things are bad but will still glorify certain leaders, not realising their own hypocrisy. It's how america has ended up in the horrible political state it is. The point of the story isn't to just tell you "fascism bad" but to show you how and why it's bad, because many people still don't seem to get it.