(hello there people, here's a writeup I've been working on for like I don't know how long at this point, feels like eternity. pretty much getting into the nitty gritty of what makes One Piece so different from (and better than tbh everything else out there, and exploring Oda's approach in a definitive way. I'm adding the medium link as well if you prefer to read it there, as it's a little bit more easier on the eyes and it actually fits there as just one post unlike reddit:) https://medium.com/@fakalit/how-is-one-piece-as-good-as-it-is-df8d5d991d65)
https://preview.redd.it/r5g8szn1dj661.jpg?width=1624&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b0456ddb6dc09958c09ed671ccfe7425ca75253
One Piece. It’s the best. It just is. There isn’t any piece of fiction that’s been more impressive than One Piece in the history of the world, and if you think there is one, you’re just wrong. Am I trolling a bit? Yes. Am I exaggerating at all? No.
One Piece is the odyssey of our times. A series of countless drawings, with each one serving 10 purposes at once, juggling an absurd amount of plot lines and preserving an impossible balance in the services of its goals that it never loses sight of for 25 years, and culminating them into constant, exhilarating peaks. Not to mention that all of this is achieved in one of the most overproduced and limiting mediums: comic books that are supposed to target 14-year-old Japanese boys; the shounen manga. A space with millions of rules on how you can do things. Imagine writing a chapter a week of the same novel for 25 years without looking back, and then publishing the first draft. Imagine that draft being any good. And imagine it being the best thing that ever was. The famous Hemingway quote on writing -“The first draft of anything is shit.”- obviously doesn’t apply to One Piece.
But just how? What could be the process of creating something like this? One Piece, to me, is the single biggest achievement by an auteur, and the question burning in my mind for the longest time was how it is even possible for one human to create something like this. Surely, we can just say the guy -Eiichiro Oda- is just that good. It comes naturally to him, he just writes and draws, and this is what comes out. He is “GODA”, as his fans put it, after all. But, as even a little bit of closer inspection would make it obvious, this thing is methodical as fuck. One Piece is tirelessly engineered with a complexity that would scare some hard-ass scientists away. It’s something that’s planned with peerless ambition and executed with confidence. And this is my attempt at understanding the method to the guy’s madness.
I’ll try to go over the central aspects that make One Piece what it is, one by one, in some vague order of importance. Through these, I’ll try to figure out how One Piece took shape in Oda’s mind, how he approached his work, and how the series slowly came to be the juggernaut we know today. I doubt any of this will turn into “writing tips for beginners” though. From what I can tell, Oda’s approach to creation is very tightly coupled with the contents of his work. Whether it is its context or contents, One Piece is uniquely him. But I’m hoping this would be an enjoyable read for anyone who wants to look a little deeper into how the series works, all the while demonstrating how almost every little detail in it is carefully and purposefully put together. Finally, I have to note there’ll be lots of surface-level spoilers in this, so if you’re looking from outside and want to be convinced why One Piece is the best before you jump in, this might not be the best read.
1. Themes are King
2. The Moral Anchor
3. Gardener vs Architect
4. A Postmodern Manga
5. The Compass
6. Confidence, Love and Talent
I’m gonna go ahead and start with the north star of the series and the fattest section of this writeup: the themes.
-dude, you should totally make a pirate series.
Let’s go back to the very beginning of One Piece, when the series was bare-bones, and consisted only of its setting. We can more or less piece the story together from Oda’s interviews: he was determined to create a manga, even from the times when he didn’t know what that manga was going to be, except that it should be an “adventure” story. His driving instinct was to make something that no one ever did before (a “disposition to stand above others” if you will, like the way he defined his coveted “Conqueror’s Haki” in the series). But before long, around when he was in middle school, he found that novel setting for an adventure in pirates, thanks to one of his childhood influences: the Vicky the Viking cartoon. Once he decided what the setting was going to be, it was all about outlining the themes he associated with piracy, figuring out the ideas he was compelled to explore, and gathering a lot of material.
He experimented a lot with the themes that would permeate in his manga, as the earlier versions of One Piece -the prototypical one-shots- displayed a variety of ideas. But by the time he was publishing the first chapter of the actual thing, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the story and what its themes were going to be. In this first section, I’ll mostly try to prove that point by going over how clearly each of those themes was communicated from very early on in the story, and the extent of which they came to define everything about it afterwards. While most of us naturally didn’t realise the weight of those signals when we were reading One Piece for the first time, now that we’re almost 1000 chapters in, it’s crazy to look back and see how in control Oda was of its progression from the very start.
I’m gonna cheat and give you the whole conclusion of the section here and now: To me, this dedication to the themes was always the secret behind the impossible consistency of Oda’s story; it’s not that he planned the details ahead of time, he really didn’t. It’s that he always stayed true to what he wanted to do. So whichever way he expanded the universe, and however crazy he went with it, all additions to the narrative and characters always fed the same core framework. This unifying purpose in everything that he did gave him the confidence to let his imagination go wild at every turn, and it’s the reason how he never lost sight of the spirit of the series throughout the decades. While many long-running stories that depend on techniques like “the mystery box” consistently disappointed their audiences with their resolutions, this one technique that we learned in the eight-grade was capable of keeping the eyes of the audience glued to the pages year after year.
I’m sure it can be summed up in a lot of different ways, but to me, there are 7 framing themes that define the manga: Romance, Camaraderie, Loving fun, Dreams/Ambition, Freedom vs Oppression, Inherited Will, and finally The Tide of The Times.
Romance
Piracy is about the call of adventure. It’s the promise of something amazing always on the horizon. It’s the shine in Luffy’s eyes. To Oda, first and foremost, being a pirate was about being an optimist, about going out to the vast oceans to look for something more than what life has to offer on land. The clearest sign of how important this theme was to the story is the working title of the series from early one-shot days: “Romance Dawn”. While it ended up being the name of the first chapter only (maybe because Oda thought naming the series with the final goal in mind instead of the starting point was a better choice), the series didn’t end up being any less about romance because of it.
https://i.redd.it/86mbpuw5dj661.gif
In One Piece, nothing has to be bound by the gritty reality. With the first words written at the beginning of the very first volume, Oda complains that the pirates he researched sadly didn’t leave any written records behind them, probably because they were so busy having fun, and just didn’t have time to write things down. Because One Piece was never about “actual” piracy, Oda made the conscious choice to make it instead about the romanticised idea behind it. As long as a story element has its internal logic -and mostly it does- the more crazy, unusual, and exaggerated it is, the better. This was so important to Oda that he says he even developed his drawing style purposefully to suit this kind of a series; just so that whatever he wanted to draw, he could find a way to make it look plausible in that limitless world.
So, One piece is 7-year-old Luffy listening to the crazy and impossible tales of passion from Shanks in a bar. It’s about islands in the sky, ships that eat other ships, people that are 10-meter tall, a goldfish so giant that its shit is as big as an island. And it’s about how men searching for romance in the great age of piracy will change the world.
Camaraderie
Piracy is about being in a crew. It’s about trusting each other, about the crew’s trust in captain and captain’s trust in the crew. It’s about their journey learning to trust each other through thick and thin. So while not being outright told by the narrator, Roger or Shanks at the beginning of the series like the others, the camaraderie theme was so ubiquitous with the first 100-chapter prologue of the manga, that the word “nakama” came to represent what the early One Piece was all about in all of the readers’ minds. Unlike the similar and more commonplace “friendship”, camaraderie was about the bond between people who shared their days on the same journey.
https://preview.redd.it/y7l5v9x6dj661.png?width=3197&format=png&auto=webp&s=7dd26a9f2a14ba1db423c6ea9e779987d43d5699
Oda thought ‘camaraderie’ as a theme was something very new to the shounen manga at the time he was starting out. This might also be one of the reasons he was attracted to the piracy setting in the first place, as chasing fresh ideas was most important to him back then. But whatever the reason is, it was one of his best decisions. Most of the emotional peaks in One Piece came from moments about having people around that you can depend on and trust, to rise to the occasion.
While it seems like its prevalence decreased a bit with the introduction rivalry theme in the second half of the story, camaraderie never really went away. And it’s quite unlikely that it ever will.
Loving fun
Piracy is about having fun. Not caring about the rules, drinking, dancing, singing shanties and having endless parties. And more than anything else, it is about not taking life seriously. This idea is clearly communicated in the first chapter through Shanks’ crew, who quickly show that this story is not about being a violent outlaw, being self-serious, and starting a fight over a kid who insulted you. Being a pirate is more like being able to laugh at yourself when someone spills a drink in your face.
With “loving fun”, I might be merging a few themes that are close in spirit. The other half of this is that One Piece will always be about embracing the silly side of life. So much so that in addition to frequently being put on a pedestal as the way to live, it was this idea that determined Luffy’s unusual powers. While many comic book authors opt for putting their main character in the coolest premise they can think of to catch more eyes, Oda had other priorities. Luffy can stretch because it allows for a goofy vibe that keeps things from getting tense unless he wants it to. This is an aspect Oda never compromises on no matter what, probably because together with “romance”, it enables him to be endlessly creative in his work. This insistence sometimes goes against the tastes of his power-fantasy loving shounen audience, very much like how it annoyed the 7–year-old Luffy at the beginning of the story. But not compromising the party-potential at the end of arcs is so essential to Oda that he would let almost nobody (even enemies) die in the current timeline. (Funny how Punk Hazard and WCI, arcs that didn’t allow for banquets at the end, had actual, rare deaths.)
https://preview.redd.it/nprcqku7dj661.jpg?width=994&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca0212d5acd359bf4b91be04d6538249c685955d
If we ever needed more proof of how important this theme was to him, we have Oda’s recent response to a question asking his 3 favourite scenes to draw in 25 years of publication. He mentions the campfire scene at the end of Skypiea, as I guess he doesn’t think there is anything more “One Piece” than partying with dancing wolves after a treasure hunt in the skies.
Dreams/Ambition
Piracy is about having dreams. It’s about wanting things from life that others don’t, leaving the comfort of your home to seek it, and having the willpower to see it through.
The series-defining quote of Gol D Roger, right at the end of the 100-chapter prologue before the actual story begins goes like this: “Inherited Will, The Tide of the Times, and People’s Dreams. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of Freedom, these things will never cease to be!” We didn’t know what these things exactly meant at the time, but among them, “Dreams” was the one Oda didn’t waste any time talking about. All of the protagonists in One Piece are defined by their dreams; it’s what differentiates them from other people and it’s why they join the crew in the first place. Right at the very end of the same chapter, each one of them says it out loud before they start their legendary journey. As is the case with most ideas put on a pedestal in the story, this too reflects Oda’s own dreams to create the story for the ages.
https://preview.redd.it/19lh9hs8dj661.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9bc85aa0ee0ccacd3be8d008b302de3ecffea69b
Most people notice the dreams theme having less of an importance in the second half of the manga, but this is less about going away and more about changing shape. Dreams has smoothly and sneakily transitioned into ambition, as the protagonists’ dreams actually start to appear on the horizon and become tangible goals. How can you continue to call Luffy’s goal of becoming the pirate king a dream, now that the rest of the world believes he is a prime candidate for it? The introduction of haki -literally meaning ambition in Japanese- coinciding with the start of the second half of the series, along with the ambition theme, is no coincidence either. And who knows, maybe haki being the talent that literally gives things tangible form so that you can touch them is purposeful too. Both Dreams and Ambitions have been usually accompanied by the willpower to reach them, which is another trait quite frequently praised in the series.
Freedom vs Oppression
Piracy is about freedom. Honestly, it represents the quintessential pirate conflict: Chaos versus Order, Rebellion versus Civilisation. While being what most piracy stories are about, interestingly the freedom theme wasn’t mentioned in the manga at all until the chapter 100, where it was quickly singled out as the prerequisite to everything else in the same Roger quote, pretty much stating that the story of One Piece is only possible because people continue to chase the meaning of freedom. From then on, it came to define the series more and more, and at a certain point, took centre stage as the driving conflict. We saw Luffy take down one oppressive force after another. We learned what “freedom” means for Luffy. And we witnessed what “order” meant for both marines and the public struggling under it. Exploration of this duality came to a peak in Marineford as the eventual conflict of the series finally became visible. Here the final antagonists of the series let the audience know who they are and what they represent: the absolutist marine Admiral Akainu and the chaotic pirate Admiral Blackbeard.
https://preview.redd.it/1nmub1sadj661.jpg?width=580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60caab821c320aea2c0edd38ad433704b85c064d
What I love about the timing of this theme’s introduction is that it’s exactly in the same chapter as the introduction of revolutionaries, through Dragon. The Revolutionaries as a concept is something quite distant to the pirates themselves, so it looks to be an unexpected addition to a series about pirate adventures at first glance. But once we know this whole setting is going to be defined by its oppressive world power, it makes all the sense in the world that such an entity would have a direct opposing force, unlike the pirates who are mostly just circumstantially opposed to it. It’s just another amazing example of the organic growth of the world through its themes, and an unintuitive yet genius addition to the setting.
...
Other than all of these themes that Oda associated with piracy, there were two different ideas that he was compelled to explore and that he signalled with the same weight.
Inherited will / Carried Over Wishes
While being one of the most spelt out themes, it’s also one of the million examples in One Piece of how short-term storytelling is pointing towards where the story is going for the long-term. While Sanji’s and Zoro’s stories touched on the concept briefly without really explaining it, it was the Drum Island arc -first recruitment arc after the theme has been declared out loud- that clarified what it’s actually going to mean for the story: In One Piece, death is not the end as long as your will is being carried through time by others. This was precisely the same arc when the Will of D, the will Luffy is bearing, is introduced to the series as well. While we couldn’t really understand what shape “inherited will” would take until the Enies Lobby arc with the introduction of The Void Century, that declaration of the theme was what told us this narrative is going to be way bigger than just one lifetime.
If we still had any doubts about it by the halfway point of the series, Whitebeard finally put it into clear words at the end of Marineford: “Someday, someone will arise bearing the weight of centuries on his shoulders, to challenge the world.” One piece is about the weight of those centuries being carried throughout time.
The Tide/Flow of The Times / Destiny of the Ages
The most overlooked one: One Piece is about changing times. While it was right in there in the same quote, most of us just skipped thinking about what it was going to mean for the story, probably because it’s not mentioned out loud in any other point in the narrative again like the others. One Piece is about empires rising and empires falling. It’s about the spirit of eras and their inevitable destinations. It’s about the faithful moments that change the history of the world. While having no direct relation to the piracy theme, it’s obvious Oda was fascinated with the idea of shifting ages. Maybe it started when he was researching the real world “Golden Age of Piracy”, or maybe he always liked it. Either way, he patiently constructed his narrative with these moments. Like the duel of Ace and Blackbeard, or Luffy and Law destroying the smiles factory, or the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in the WW1 arc. Every age slowly boils, and the small moments carried out by the wills of people living in it push it over to their finishing lines.
https://preview.redd.it/20xvskmcdj661.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e0c528117ed58dae18d5edfbf9c89fecd21981c
Combined with inherited will next to it, this theme pretty much told all of us that this was always going to be a multi-generational, world-scale narrative taking place over different eras. I’m not sure how much of the actual story Oda planned back then, but just the knowledge that this is the type of story that One Piece was always going to be, combined with his patience, enabled him to always move forward in the right directions until we found ourselves at the climax of Marineford. And soon we will be within another by the end of Wano it seems like.
...
It’s quite surprising how a big part of the unapproachable complexity of One Piece starts to feel a lot more digestible when we make the attempt of outlining its themes.
In a basic sense, the mystery behind a lot of decisions regarding the smaller story elements goes away. Like, if you’ve been wondering why the hell Oda keeps maiming his characters time and again but never kills them until they achieve resolution, he gives the answer in one of the interviews. It’s because “living another week with good cheer and vitality” is, in fact, a theme in One Piece. While death is permanent, losing a limb should never stop you from chasing your goals, and One Piece is never tragic without the hope for better days on the horizon. Even if there’s an opportunity to evoke more intense emotion from the reader at times, if it doesn’t serve the purpose of the themes it’s not gonna happen. Killing Conis’ father Pagaya in Skypiea to make the arc feel heavier in readers' stomachs is not worth it if it’s gonna cost us the campfire with dancing wolves.
And beyond that simple clarity, it starts to feel like there was no way for One Piece to be anything other than its very impressive self today. Just think about what someone would imagine if you explain all of these themes in detail and tell them to come up with a story that explores all of it. It’s hard to think someone would be able to come up with a story that doesn’t sound more or less like One Piece. Getting “what you want out of a story” right ahead of time is just that imperative: it transforms a work that feels like an impossibility, to feel like an inevitability. So to me, while obviously not nearly enough to create a recipe for success on its own, there is no more important ingredient in One Piece’s success than Oda’s uncompromising dedication to his story’s themes.
Obviously, there are way more recurring themes in One Piece that I haven’t touched on, and they all help Oda write his story with more purpose. The subjectivity of justice, manliness, the night & the dawn, war & peace, people coming together for a common goal are all ideas that come up again and again. I’m sure there are a lot of points to dig out by exploring their positive impact on the story as well. Still, if this writeup is ever going to end, we should just stop and move onto other aspects.
The thing is, finding the moral compass in a setting where leading actors are fiends with no regard for law is very challenging. But Oda responds to “challenging” as Luffy responds to danger, so of course this didn’t stop him from putting a lot of thought into getting the ethics of Luffy’s brand of piracy right until starting publication. We could see his struggle to get it right from his shaky early attempts. In both of the prototypical one-shots "Romance Dawn Version 1" and "Version 2", pirates were unnaturally split into two distinct groups: Peace Mains and Morganeers. A peace main was a pirate who goes on adventures and does not really care about treasure or fighting other pirates, while a morganeer fought for treasure and personal ambition. The latter were greedy, loved to fight, and often enjoyed causing other people pain and misery. Luffy and his idols were obviously Peace Main pirates, and that might’ve been enough to isolate them from the villainous connotations of piracy. But evidently, Oda was not satisfied with his solution and found it unconvincing. Luckily, by the third try, he arrived at something a lot more natural and profound.
Shanks and his crew were always supposed to be the model pirates of the series. Through them, we would learn along with Luffy what it actually meant to be a pirate. The first chapter “Romance Dawn” is so rich with ideas and themes that it’s not a surprise to also find the series’ code of ethics outlined here, through Shank’s crew, a code that we can sum up as: The ones who can shoot at others are the ones prepared to get shot at. At the end of their short skirmish with the mountain bandits which they were mostly laughing about until then, the crew's outlook suddenly changes when one of them raises a gun to Shanks’ head. Shanks then explains the weight of the bandit’s actions: taking up arms and guns is not the same as taking up a toy, and the moment you raise one is the moment you reject and move out of society’s and law’s protections; living outside of the law means being at peace with your death.
Taking it a step further, we can ask what happens when the law & order that was supposed to keep the world safe for the weak, becomes the cause of oppression itself? Then, the struggle to get to a better order can be the burden of the people who are willing to go outside of the law at their own expense. While that puts them in the same category with the criminals who hurt others for their own benefit in the eyes of the law-abiding, it is also the inherent moral necessity and romance of their decisions to be a pirate. So, being a pirate doesn’t have to be about selfishness, it can also be about self-sacrifice. As was the case with mountain bandits, sometimes justice can only be achieved through other people who put their lives on the line. These are the people who, for a better world, give up their standing and rights. Hence the constant emphasis that there’s no such thing as fair for pirates, as being a pirate means giving up on the whole notion of fairness.
Again, while it’s arguable how important it is for a story like this to have a moral framework to be successful, I think it’s obvious this clarity helped Oda settle down on what the story was going to be about. It helped him zero in on the specifics of the setting that a pirate adventure might work the best in, and it let him approach the story with a lot more confidence the rest of the way. The concept is quickly explored in the first arc with the conflict against the marine captain Morgan, but its best illustration is in the first major story arc of Grand Line: Arabasta. Interestingly, in one of rare crew in-fighting scenes of One Piece, between Vivi and Luffy. For a while before the conflict, we watch princess Vivi -the honorary straw hat who is frequently portrayed as an ideal representation of a leader for a civilised society- doing her best as always to solve the crisis through reasoning with the rebels. But eventually it becomes obvious that her noble efforts are in vain, as the institutions she is trying to operate under are too corrupted by Crocodile. Things finally escalate into a direct confrontation with Luffy as he explains the futility of Vivi’s approach. When she asks for an alternate solution in tears, Luffy shouts the obvious answer: “Put our lives on the line.” In the same arc, Smoker goes through similar shit, unable to do his job within the corrupted system. In both Smoker’s and Vivi’s futile efforts we witness that there are times we can not outgrow oppression without people like the Strawhats.
https://preview.redd.it/k7soy37fdj661.jpg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50b6af6b75c3769915b48ceac838f9602bef821c
What was even more interesting to watch was, Oda’s insistence on getting the morality of the series right beyond a superficial level, slowly leading the series into the concepts of moral relativism and pluralism. If we establish that being just is not about following the order of society, what is the logical next step from there? As One Piece kept exploring conflicts between people who are following their own sense of justice, we found ourselves more and more surrounded by the subjectivity of justice theme. So by the time that we were at Water 7, the manga had naturally started to ask bigger questions on how we can decide what’s wrong and what’s right; these, I believe were the result of the questions Oda found himself trying to answer early on. We watched Sakazuki and Kuzan -two marine admirals to be- trying to find and justify their own brand of justice. Was it the order that had to be preserved above all else? Were we burdened to sacrifice people to whatever that order deemed the greater good? Or could the answer be taking on yourself the responsibility to risk that greater good, just for a chance to see what our actions would mean in the long term?
These questions became more and more pronounced as the series went on until they came to a head at the Marineford arc, like most other ideas within One Piece. In his fan favourite quote, Doflamingo was clearly spelling out what the series was pointing towards for a while now: that there is a plurality of value systems, and the de facto one is the one usually enforced by might. Or as Oda would put it personally in an interview later: “Opposite of a justice is yet another justice.”
This grounded take on the actual meaning of morality serves as a nice contrast to how, with almost every other element, One Piece is as unrealistic, imaginative and dreamy as it can get. Oda has a great sense for knowing when to be silly and when to be serious. But in both of those cases, I think the more crucial point for our purposes is the fact that he refuses to settle on answers that do not satisfy him in the first place if that answer is to become a part of his work.
https://i.redd.it/s8c3nx6hdj661.gif
The dichotomy seems pretty convenient until we try to apply it to One Piece and watch it break apart; the way Oda writes seems to somehow transcend this premise. One Piece kinda makes the whole idea of having to choose and limit yourself into one of these approaches look like an excuse for people who lack the imagination and willpower to do both at the same time. To put it more clearly, One Piece just makes Martin look like a little bitch.
As One Piece is one of the most tightly written stories in existence, let’s start with the less obvious other end, and try to see how “gardener” characteristics apply here. The characters within a story are usually responsible for most of the unforeseen developments, as they have a tendency to take control away from their creator if they are well-developed. The first thing to notice is that Oda loves his characters, more than any other writer I know. This love doesn’t just manifest as isolated appreciation, but also as an unwavering loyalty to who they are, whatever they are going through. On the very surface level, this starts with very simple things. Every time he draws a face or a body, the expression and the body language of the character is always informed by who they are and the situation that they’re in. It’s an easy thing to get lazy on a project of this magnitude, considering he’s drawn 20 thousand pages of panels occupied lots of different characters. But the characters’ faces is one thing Oda never lets any of his assistants touch, even at this point in his career. Because while in a comic book format characters have to express themselves in simple ways, the characterisation that goes into that simplicity is always complicated. Look for every reaction shot ever drawn in One Piece with named (or in some cases unnamed as well) characters, and each time you’ll be able to tell how they feel about what they’re seeing.
The second thing he does is always letting the characters’ identity drive the dialogue within a scene. Whatever the purpose of a scene might be, each character is given enough space to define the mood and the intensity of the exchanges that they’re in. Since Oda knows a lot more about his characters than he is depicting at any given moment, all of these scenes age very well on later visits no matter their importance. One of my favourite moments in Thriller Bark that I’m sure nobody besides me cares about is the final exchange between Luffy and Moria towards the end of their battle. Out of all the things Luffy has said or done to Moria throughout the arc, Moria gets the most angry and animated the moment Luffy claims “nobody can crush him”. Not that he destroyed his ship or laid waste to his 10-year project, but this seemingly arrogant take from a young inexperienced guy is the thing that triggers him the most. Moria’s anger here is based on his own past experiences; he sees himself in Luffy at that moment. I love it because it's so authentic.
https://preview.redd.it/8ya9rlhpdj661.jpg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a74949475193dbc0e00f70d1ca1fc48f779f947d
But more importantly, Oda lets the characters impact the narrative itself. Obviously, it’s hard to tell the intention behind a narrative point, to decide whether it is motivated by plot or character. But there are many times in One Piece where we can pinpoint a character’s individual impact within a story arc. One of my favourite moments in Water 7, and I’m sure almost everyone agrees with me on this, is the fight that escalates between Usopp and Luffy. It’s a fan-favourite scene, and if you ask most readers why they love it, the common answer you’ll get is that it feels so real. I think the reason it feels so real is that it was actually totally unnecessary for the purpose and plot of the arc and a completely organic addition to the narrative. If we remove the Usopp plotline in its entirety from the Water 7 — Enies Lobby arcs, nothing gets lost for the long term storytelling of One Piece. Oda even said in his interviews that the initial purpose behind the Water 7 arc was to get a new ship and a new shipwright. That’s its function in the overall plot. But how would Usopp feel about both his role and the precious gift from Kaya being replaced? And if this is going to lead to a conflict, what would drive the emotion behind it? With these questions in mind, the setup is then enriched with the “Franky Family stealing the money from Usopp” storyline (which also feels organic and respects all involved characters, and ties up neatly when Franky uses that money to buy the wood he’ll use to make the crew’s next ship). This new plot point, combined with the beatdown that he received, works to push Usopp’s insecurities and feelings of inadequacy even higher, putting him in an emotionally unstable state. This set-up then explodes into a memorable scene that is unlike anything we’ve experienced in One Piece until then. The only thing I’m still wondering is if Oda came up with Sogeking on the spot when Usopp was in the train with CP9 costumes and masks. That’s just too good to be true.
Like with any other story, One Piece characters are usually created based on what the setting and purpose of a story arc necessitate. But before they are put in positions to act out, they are always developed organically according to their standing within the story. Along with other details of an arc, their designs and their backstories are fleshed out further to be consistent with themselves and their surroundings. One small example of this that I like is marine captain Axe-hand Morgan’s design that Oda details on an SBS. Chronologically, Morgan is designed after his son Helmeppo, who seems to be conceived with “looking like a douche” as his only characteristic. But within that, he has a cleft chin, and that is a genetic trait, meaning that it should show up in his dad as well. But unlike his son, Morgan is obsessed with his self-image and strength to the extent that of making his soldiers erect a stone statue of himself to display his might for all to see. So of course if this guy had a cleft chin, he would hide it. Preferably with a metal mask that would make him look intimidating. Oda says he is usually quite lax with this process and he lets things go within their flow. While sketching he even lets them say a few lines of words without even thinking about it, and this helps him figure out what kinda person they really are.
...
--- continues from comments ---
submitted by fakalitt to OnePiece [link] [comments]
https://preview.redd.it/r5g8szn1dj661.jpg?width=1624&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b0456ddb6dc09958c09ed671ccfe7425ca75253
One Piece. It’s the best. It just is. There isn’t any piece of fiction that’s been more impressive than One Piece in the history of the world, and if you think there is one, you’re just wrong. Am I trolling a bit? Yes. Am I exaggerating at all? No.
One Piece is the odyssey of our times. A series of countless drawings, with each one serving 10 purposes at once, juggling an absurd amount of plot lines and preserving an impossible balance in the services of its goals that it never loses sight of for 25 years, and culminating them into constant, exhilarating peaks. Not to mention that all of this is achieved in one of the most overproduced and limiting mediums: comic books that are supposed to target 14-year-old Japanese boys; the shounen manga. A space with millions of rules on how you can do things. Imagine writing a chapter a week of the same novel for 25 years without looking back, and then publishing the first draft. Imagine that draft being any good. And imagine it being the best thing that ever was. The famous Hemingway quote on writing -“The first draft of anything is shit.”- obviously doesn’t apply to One Piece.
But just how? What could be the process of creating something like this? One Piece, to me, is the single biggest achievement by an auteur, and the question burning in my mind for the longest time was how it is even possible for one human to create something like this. Surely, we can just say the guy -Eiichiro Oda- is just that good. It comes naturally to him, he just writes and draws, and this is what comes out. He is “GODA”, as his fans put it, after all. But, as even a little bit of closer inspection would make it obvious, this thing is methodical as fuck. One Piece is tirelessly engineered with a complexity that would scare some hard-ass scientists away. It’s something that’s planned with peerless ambition and executed with confidence. And this is my attempt at understanding the method to the guy’s madness.
I’ll try to go over the central aspects that make One Piece what it is, one by one, in some vague order of importance. Through these, I’ll try to figure out how One Piece took shape in Oda’s mind, how he approached his work, and how the series slowly came to be the juggernaut we know today. I doubt any of this will turn into “writing tips for beginners” though. From what I can tell, Oda’s approach to creation is very tightly coupled with the contents of his work. Whether it is its context or contents, One Piece is uniquely him. But I’m hoping this would be an enjoyable read for anyone who wants to look a little deeper into how the series works, all the while demonstrating how almost every little detail in it is carefully and purposefully put together. Finally, I have to note there’ll be lots of surface-level spoilers in this, so if you’re looking from outside and want to be convinced why One Piece is the best before you jump in, this might not be the best read.
1. Themes are King
2. The Moral Anchor
3. Gardener vs Architect
4. A Postmodern Manga
5. The Compass
6. Confidence, Love and Talent
I’m gonna go ahead and start with the north star of the series and the fattest section of this writeup: the themes.
Themes are King
The level of importance themes have for a fictional story is an interesting conversation. Some even question their necessity outright. Back in 2013, David Benioff -the notorious showrunner of “Game of Thrones”- famously said that “Themes are for eighth-grade book reports”. Whether that controversial statement has any validity or not, I’m not gonna get into it. I don’t even know if series writer George R. R. Martin agrees with it. But it certainly serves as a great backdrop, when it comes to examining the high regard One Piece gives to its themes. And this won’t be the only time I put the two series against each other in this writeup. “A Song of Ice and Fire” is frequently mentioned as being in the same vein as One Piece with the scope of its lore and the ambition of its storytelling. With its recent failures, I think these comparisons became even more fascinating to look at.
-dude, you should totally make a pirate series.
Let’s go back to the very beginning of One Piece, when the series was bare-bones, and consisted only of its setting. We can more or less piece the story together from Oda’s interviews: he was determined to create a manga, even from the times when he didn’t know what that manga was going to be, except that it should be an “adventure” story. His driving instinct was to make something that no one ever did before (a “disposition to stand above others” if you will, like the way he defined his coveted “Conqueror’s Haki” in the series). But before long, around when he was in middle school, he found that novel setting for an adventure in pirates, thanks to one of his childhood influences: the Vicky the Viking cartoon. Once he decided what the setting was going to be, it was all about outlining the themes he associated with piracy, figuring out the ideas he was compelled to explore, and gathering a lot of material.
He experimented a lot with the themes that would permeate in his manga, as the earlier versions of One Piece -the prototypical one-shots- displayed a variety of ideas. But by the time he was publishing the first chapter of the actual thing, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the story and what its themes were going to be. In this first section, I’ll mostly try to prove that point by going over how clearly each of those themes was communicated from very early on in the story, and the extent of which they came to define everything about it afterwards. While most of us naturally didn’t realise the weight of those signals when we were reading One Piece for the first time, now that we’re almost 1000 chapters in, it’s crazy to look back and see how in control Oda was of its progression from the very start.
I’m gonna cheat and give you the whole conclusion of the section here and now: To me, this dedication to the themes was always the secret behind the impossible consistency of Oda’s story; it’s not that he planned the details ahead of time, he really didn’t. It’s that he always stayed true to what he wanted to do. So whichever way he expanded the universe, and however crazy he went with it, all additions to the narrative and characters always fed the same core framework. This unifying purpose in everything that he did gave him the confidence to let his imagination go wild at every turn, and it’s the reason how he never lost sight of the spirit of the series throughout the decades. While many long-running stories that depend on techniques like “the mystery box” consistently disappointed their audiences with their resolutions, this one technique that we learned in the eight-grade was capable of keeping the eyes of the audience glued to the pages year after year.
I’m sure it can be summed up in a lot of different ways, but to me, there are 7 framing themes that define the manga: Romance, Camaraderie, Loving fun, Dreams/Ambition, Freedom vs Oppression, Inherited Will, and finally The Tide of The Times.
“Inherited Will, The Tide of the Times, and People’s Dreams. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of Freedom, these things will never cease to be!” — Gold Roger
Romance
Piracy is about the call of adventure. It’s the promise of something amazing always on the horizon. It’s the shine in Luffy’s eyes. To Oda, first and foremost, being a pirate was about being an optimist, about going out to the vast oceans to look for something more than what life has to offer on land. The clearest sign of how important this theme was to the story is the working title of the series from early one-shot days: “Romance Dawn”. While it ended up being the name of the first chapter only (maybe because Oda thought naming the series with the final goal in mind instead of the starting point was a better choice), the series didn’t end up being any less about romance because of it.
https://i.redd.it/86mbpuw5dj661.gif
In One Piece, nothing has to be bound by the gritty reality. With the first words written at the beginning of the very first volume, Oda complains that the pirates he researched sadly didn’t leave any written records behind them, probably because they were so busy having fun, and just didn’t have time to write things down. Because One Piece was never about “actual” piracy, Oda made the conscious choice to make it instead about the romanticised idea behind it. As long as a story element has its internal logic -and mostly it does- the more crazy, unusual, and exaggerated it is, the better. This was so important to Oda that he says he even developed his drawing style purposefully to suit this kind of a series; just so that whatever he wanted to draw, he could find a way to make it look plausible in that limitless world.
So, One piece is 7-year-old Luffy listening to the crazy and impossible tales of passion from Shanks in a bar. It’s about islands in the sky, ships that eat other ships, people that are 10-meter tall, a goldfish so giant that its shit is as big as an island. And it’s about how men searching for romance in the great age of piracy will change the world.
Camaraderie
Piracy is about being in a crew. It’s about trusting each other, about the crew’s trust in captain and captain’s trust in the crew. It’s about their journey learning to trust each other through thick and thin. So while not being outright told by the narrator, Roger or Shanks at the beginning of the series like the others, the camaraderie theme was so ubiquitous with the first 100-chapter prologue of the manga, that the word “nakama” came to represent what the early One Piece was all about in all of the readers’ minds. Unlike the similar and more commonplace “friendship”, camaraderie was about the bond between people who shared their days on the same journey.
https://preview.redd.it/y7l5v9x6dj661.png?width=3197&format=png&auto=webp&s=7dd26a9f2a14ba1db423c6ea9e779987d43d5699
Oda thought ‘camaraderie’ as a theme was something very new to the shounen manga at the time he was starting out. This might also be one of the reasons he was attracted to the piracy setting in the first place, as chasing fresh ideas was most important to him back then. But whatever the reason is, it was one of his best decisions. Most of the emotional peaks in One Piece came from moments about having people around that you can depend on and trust, to rise to the occasion.
While it seems like its prevalence decreased a bit with the introduction rivalry theme in the second half of the story, camaraderie never really went away. And it’s quite unlikely that it ever will.
Loving fun
Piracy is about having fun. Not caring about the rules, drinking, dancing, singing shanties and having endless parties. And more than anything else, it is about not taking life seriously. This idea is clearly communicated in the first chapter through Shanks’ crew, who quickly show that this story is not about being a violent outlaw, being self-serious, and starting a fight over a kid who insulted you. Being a pirate is more like being able to laugh at yourself when someone spills a drink in your face.
With “loving fun”, I might be merging a few themes that are close in spirit. The other half of this is that One Piece will always be about embracing the silly side of life. So much so that in addition to frequently being put on a pedestal as the way to live, it was this idea that determined Luffy’s unusual powers. While many comic book authors opt for putting their main character in the coolest premise they can think of to catch more eyes, Oda had other priorities. Luffy can stretch because it allows for a goofy vibe that keeps things from getting tense unless he wants it to. This is an aspect Oda never compromises on no matter what, probably because together with “romance”, it enables him to be endlessly creative in his work. This insistence sometimes goes against the tastes of his power-fantasy loving shounen audience, very much like how it annoyed the 7–year-old Luffy at the beginning of the story. But not compromising the party-potential at the end of arcs is so essential to Oda that he would let almost nobody (even enemies) die in the current timeline. (Funny how Punk Hazard and WCI, arcs that didn’t allow for banquets at the end, had actual, rare deaths.)
https://preview.redd.it/nprcqku7dj661.jpg?width=994&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca0212d5acd359bf4b91be04d6538249c685955d
If we ever needed more proof of how important this theme was to him, we have Oda’s recent response to a question asking his 3 favourite scenes to draw in 25 years of publication. He mentions the campfire scene at the end of Skypiea, as I guess he doesn’t think there is anything more “One Piece” than partying with dancing wolves after a treasure hunt in the skies.
Dreams/Ambition
Piracy is about having dreams. It’s about wanting things from life that others don’t, leaving the comfort of your home to seek it, and having the willpower to see it through.
The series-defining quote of Gol D Roger, right at the end of the 100-chapter prologue before the actual story begins goes like this: “Inherited Will, The Tide of the Times, and People’s Dreams. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of Freedom, these things will never cease to be!” We didn’t know what these things exactly meant at the time, but among them, “Dreams” was the one Oda didn’t waste any time talking about. All of the protagonists in One Piece are defined by their dreams; it’s what differentiates them from other people and it’s why they join the crew in the first place. Right at the very end of the same chapter, each one of them says it out loud before they start their legendary journey. As is the case with most ideas put on a pedestal in the story, this too reflects Oda’s own dreams to create the story for the ages.
https://preview.redd.it/19lh9hs8dj661.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9bc85aa0ee0ccacd3be8d008b302de3ecffea69b
Most people notice the dreams theme having less of an importance in the second half of the manga, but this is less about going away and more about changing shape. Dreams has smoothly and sneakily transitioned into ambition, as the protagonists’ dreams actually start to appear on the horizon and become tangible goals. How can you continue to call Luffy’s goal of becoming the pirate king a dream, now that the rest of the world believes he is a prime candidate for it? The introduction of haki -literally meaning ambition in Japanese- coinciding with the start of the second half of the series, along with the ambition theme, is no coincidence either. And who knows, maybe haki being the talent that literally gives things tangible form so that you can touch them is purposeful too. Both Dreams and Ambitions have been usually accompanied by the willpower to reach them, which is another trait quite frequently praised in the series.
Freedom vs Oppression
Piracy is about freedom. Honestly, it represents the quintessential pirate conflict: Chaos versus Order, Rebellion versus Civilisation. While being what most piracy stories are about, interestingly the freedom theme wasn’t mentioned in the manga at all until the chapter 100, where it was quickly singled out as the prerequisite to everything else in the same Roger quote, pretty much stating that the story of One Piece is only possible because people continue to chase the meaning of freedom. From then on, it came to define the series more and more, and at a certain point, took centre stage as the driving conflict. We saw Luffy take down one oppressive force after another. We learned what “freedom” means for Luffy. And we witnessed what “order” meant for both marines and the public struggling under it. Exploration of this duality came to a peak in Marineford as the eventual conflict of the series finally became visible. Here the final antagonists of the series let the audience know who they are and what they represent: the absolutist marine Admiral Akainu and the chaotic pirate Admiral Blackbeard.
https://preview.redd.it/1nmub1sadj661.jpg?width=580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60caab821c320aea2c0edd38ad433704b85c064d
What I love about the timing of this theme’s introduction is that it’s exactly in the same chapter as the introduction of revolutionaries, through Dragon. The Revolutionaries as a concept is something quite distant to the pirates themselves, so it looks to be an unexpected addition to a series about pirate adventures at first glance. But once we know this whole setting is going to be defined by its oppressive world power, it makes all the sense in the world that such an entity would have a direct opposing force, unlike the pirates who are mostly just circumstantially opposed to it. It’s just another amazing example of the organic growth of the world through its themes, and an unintuitive yet genius addition to the setting.
...
Other than all of these themes that Oda associated with piracy, there were two different ideas that he was compelled to explore and that he signalled with the same weight.
Inherited will / Carried Over Wishes
While being one of the most spelt out themes, it’s also one of the million examples in One Piece of how short-term storytelling is pointing towards where the story is going for the long-term. While Sanji’s and Zoro’s stories touched on the concept briefly without really explaining it, it was the Drum Island arc -first recruitment arc after the theme has been declared out loud- that clarified what it’s actually going to mean for the story: In One Piece, death is not the end as long as your will is being carried through time by others. This was precisely the same arc when the Will of D, the will Luffy is bearing, is introduced to the series as well. While we couldn’t really understand what shape “inherited will” would take until the Enies Lobby arc with the introduction of The Void Century, that declaration of the theme was what told us this narrative is going to be way bigger than just one lifetime.
If we still had any doubts about it by the halfway point of the series, Whitebeard finally put it into clear words at the end of Marineford: “Someday, someone will arise bearing the weight of centuries on his shoulders, to challenge the world.” One piece is about the weight of those centuries being carried throughout time.
The Tide/Flow of The Times / Destiny of the Ages
The most overlooked one: One Piece is about changing times. While it was right in there in the same quote, most of us just skipped thinking about what it was going to mean for the story, probably because it’s not mentioned out loud in any other point in the narrative again like the others. One Piece is about empires rising and empires falling. It’s about the spirit of eras and their inevitable destinations. It’s about the faithful moments that change the history of the world. While having no direct relation to the piracy theme, it’s obvious Oda was fascinated with the idea of shifting ages. Maybe it started when he was researching the real world “Golden Age of Piracy”, or maybe he always liked it. Either way, he patiently constructed his narrative with these moments. Like the duel of Ace and Blackbeard, or Luffy and Law destroying the smiles factory, or the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in the WW1 arc. Every age slowly boils, and the small moments carried out by the wills of people living in it push it over to their finishing lines.
https://preview.redd.it/20xvskmcdj661.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e0c528117ed58dae18d5edfbf9c89fecd21981c
Combined with inherited will next to it, this theme pretty much told all of us that this was always going to be a multi-generational, world-scale narrative taking place over different eras. I’m not sure how much of the actual story Oda planned back then, but just the knowledge that this is the type of story that One Piece was always going to be, combined with his patience, enabled him to always move forward in the right directions until we found ourselves at the climax of Marineford. And soon we will be within another by the end of Wano it seems like.
...
It’s quite surprising how a big part of the unapproachable complexity of One Piece starts to feel a lot more digestible when we make the attempt of outlining its themes.
In a basic sense, the mystery behind a lot of decisions regarding the smaller story elements goes away. Like, if you’ve been wondering why the hell Oda keeps maiming his characters time and again but never kills them until they achieve resolution, he gives the answer in one of the interviews. It’s because “living another week with good cheer and vitality” is, in fact, a theme in One Piece. While death is permanent, losing a limb should never stop you from chasing your goals, and One Piece is never tragic without the hope for better days on the horizon. Even if there’s an opportunity to evoke more intense emotion from the reader at times, if it doesn’t serve the purpose of the themes it’s not gonna happen. Killing Conis’ father Pagaya in Skypiea to make the arc feel heavier in readers' stomachs is not worth it if it’s gonna cost us the campfire with dancing wolves.
And beyond that simple clarity, it starts to feel like there was no way for One Piece to be anything other than its very impressive self today. Just think about what someone would imagine if you explain all of these themes in detail and tell them to come up with a story that explores all of it. It’s hard to think someone would be able to come up with a story that doesn’t sound more or less like One Piece. Getting “what you want out of a story” right ahead of time is just that imperative: it transforms a work that feels like an impossibility, to feel like an inevitability. So to me, while obviously not nearly enough to create a recipe for success on its own, there is no more important ingredient in One Piece’s success than Oda’s uncompromising dedication to his story’s themes.
Obviously, there are way more recurring themes in One Piece that I haven’t touched on, and they all help Oda write his story with more purpose. The subjectivity of justice, manliness, the night & the dawn, war & peace, people coming together for a common goal are all ideas that come up again and again. I’m sure there are a lot of points to dig out by exploring their positive impact on the story as well. Still, if this writeup is ever going to end, we should just stop and move onto other aspects.
The Moral Anchor
Do you need your protagonists to be always morally justified in a story? Not really; it depends on the story you’re trying to tell of course. But One Piece is a story of a group of tightly knit people challenging the whole world with their own ideals and beliefs, and it is a story targeting young kids, so we could argue it has an ethical responsibility. Even though Straw Hats are frequently put in positions in the story where they are the actual troublemakers, the audience's belief in the justness of their journey feels like a necessity of sorts.The thing is, finding the moral compass in a setting where leading actors are fiends with no regard for law is very challenging. But Oda responds to “challenging” as Luffy responds to danger, so of course this didn’t stop him from putting a lot of thought into getting the ethics of Luffy’s brand of piracy right until starting publication. We could see his struggle to get it right from his shaky early attempts. In both of the prototypical one-shots "Romance Dawn Version 1" and "Version 2", pirates were unnaturally split into two distinct groups: Peace Mains and Morganeers. A peace main was a pirate who goes on adventures and does not really care about treasure or fighting other pirates, while a morganeer fought for treasure and personal ambition. The latter were greedy, loved to fight, and often enjoyed causing other people pain and misery. Luffy and his idols were obviously Peace Main pirates, and that might’ve been enough to isolate them from the villainous connotations of piracy. But evidently, Oda was not satisfied with his solution and found it unconvincing. Luckily, by the third try, he arrived at something a lot more natural and profound.
Shanks and his crew were always supposed to be the model pirates of the series. Through them, we would learn along with Luffy what it actually meant to be a pirate. The first chapter “Romance Dawn” is so rich with ideas and themes that it’s not a surprise to also find the series’ code of ethics outlined here, through Shank’s crew, a code that we can sum up as: The ones who can shoot at others are the ones prepared to get shot at. At the end of their short skirmish with the mountain bandits which they were mostly laughing about until then, the crew's outlook suddenly changes when one of them raises a gun to Shanks’ head. Shanks then explains the weight of the bandit’s actions: taking up arms and guns is not the same as taking up a toy, and the moment you raise one is the moment you reject and move out of society’s and law’s protections; living outside of the law means being at peace with your death.
Taking it a step further, we can ask what happens when the law & order that was supposed to keep the world safe for the weak, becomes the cause of oppression itself? Then, the struggle to get to a better order can be the burden of the people who are willing to go outside of the law at their own expense. While that puts them in the same category with the criminals who hurt others for their own benefit in the eyes of the law-abiding, it is also the inherent moral necessity and romance of their decisions to be a pirate. So, being a pirate doesn’t have to be about selfishness, it can also be about self-sacrifice. As was the case with mountain bandits, sometimes justice can only be achieved through other people who put their lives on the line. These are the people who, for a better world, give up their standing and rights. Hence the constant emphasis that there’s no such thing as fair for pirates, as being a pirate means giving up on the whole notion of fairness.
Again, while it’s arguable how important it is for a story like this to have a moral framework to be successful, I think it’s obvious this clarity helped Oda settle down on what the story was going to be about. It helped him zero in on the specifics of the setting that a pirate adventure might work the best in, and it let him approach the story with a lot more confidence the rest of the way. The concept is quickly explored in the first arc with the conflict against the marine captain Morgan, but its best illustration is in the first major story arc of Grand Line: Arabasta. Interestingly, in one of rare crew in-fighting scenes of One Piece, between Vivi and Luffy. For a while before the conflict, we watch princess Vivi -the honorary straw hat who is frequently portrayed as an ideal representation of a leader for a civilised society- doing her best as always to solve the crisis through reasoning with the rebels. But eventually it becomes obvious that her noble efforts are in vain, as the institutions she is trying to operate under are too corrupted by Crocodile. Things finally escalate into a direct confrontation with Luffy as he explains the futility of Vivi’s approach. When she asks for an alternate solution in tears, Luffy shouts the obvious answer: “Put our lives on the line.” In the same arc, Smoker goes through similar shit, unable to do his job within the corrupted system. In both Smoker’s and Vivi’s futile efforts we witness that there are times we can not outgrow oppression without people like the Strawhats.
https://preview.redd.it/k7soy37fdj661.jpg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50b6af6b75c3769915b48ceac838f9602bef821c
What was even more interesting to watch was, Oda’s insistence on getting the morality of the series right beyond a superficial level, slowly leading the series into the concepts of moral relativism and pluralism. If we establish that being just is not about following the order of society, what is the logical next step from there? As One Piece kept exploring conflicts between people who are following their own sense of justice, we found ourselves more and more surrounded by the subjectivity of justice theme. So by the time that we were at Water 7, the manga had naturally started to ask bigger questions on how we can decide what’s wrong and what’s right; these, I believe were the result of the questions Oda found himself trying to answer early on. We watched Sakazuki and Kuzan -two marine admirals to be- trying to find and justify their own brand of justice. Was it the order that had to be preserved above all else? Were we burdened to sacrifice people to whatever that order deemed the greater good? Or could the answer be taking on yourself the responsibility to risk that greater good, just for a chance to see what our actions would mean in the long term?
These questions became more and more pronounced as the series went on until they came to a head at the Marineford arc, like most other ideas within One Piece. In his fan favourite quote, Doflamingo was clearly spelling out what the series was pointing towards for a while now: that there is a plurality of value systems, and the de facto one is the one usually enforced by might. Or as Oda would put it personally in an interview later: “Opposite of a justice is yet another justice.”
This grounded take on the actual meaning of morality serves as a nice contrast to how, with almost every other element, One Piece is as unrealistic, imaginative and dreamy as it can get. Oda has a great sense for knowing when to be silly and when to be serious. But in both of those cases, I think the more crucial point for our purposes is the fact that he refuses to settle on answers that do not satisfy him in the first place if that answer is to become a part of his work.
Gardener vs Architect
Let’s go back to George R. R. Martin. He has a famous quote in which he splits writers into two distinct groups. The architects, he says, plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners like himself, on the other hand, dig holes, drop in a seed, and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, but they find out the details as it grows. This distinction got quite a bit popular, as lots of people started to pigeonhole their favourite writers into one of these two groups. Some took this as an inspiration and tried to apply one of these approaches to their writing.
https://i.redd.it/s8c3nx6hdj661.gif
The dichotomy seems pretty convenient until we try to apply it to One Piece and watch it break apart; the way Oda writes seems to somehow transcend this premise. One Piece kinda makes the whole idea of having to choose and limit yourself into one of these approaches look like an excuse for people who lack the imagination and willpower to do both at the same time. To put it more clearly, One Piece just makes Martin look like a little bitch.
As One Piece is one of the most tightly written stories in existence, let’s start with the less obvious other end, and try to see how “gardener” characteristics apply here. The characters within a story are usually responsible for most of the unforeseen developments, as they have a tendency to take control away from their creator if they are well-developed. The first thing to notice is that Oda loves his characters, more than any other writer I know. This love doesn’t just manifest as isolated appreciation, but also as an unwavering loyalty to who they are, whatever they are going through. On the very surface level, this starts with very simple things. Every time he draws a face or a body, the expression and the body language of the character is always informed by who they are and the situation that they’re in. It’s an easy thing to get lazy on a project of this magnitude, considering he’s drawn 20 thousand pages of panels occupied lots of different characters. But the characters’ faces is one thing Oda never lets any of his assistants touch, even at this point in his career. Because while in a comic book format characters have to express themselves in simple ways, the characterisation that goes into that simplicity is always complicated. Look for every reaction shot ever drawn in One Piece with named (or in some cases unnamed as well) characters, and each time you’ll be able to tell how they feel about what they’re seeing.
The second thing he does is always letting the characters’ identity drive the dialogue within a scene. Whatever the purpose of a scene might be, each character is given enough space to define the mood and the intensity of the exchanges that they’re in. Since Oda knows a lot more about his characters than he is depicting at any given moment, all of these scenes age very well on later visits no matter their importance. One of my favourite moments in Thriller Bark that I’m sure nobody besides me cares about is the final exchange between Luffy and Moria towards the end of their battle. Out of all the things Luffy has said or done to Moria throughout the arc, Moria gets the most angry and animated the moment Luffy claims “nobody can crush him”. Not that he destroyed his ship or laid waste to his 10-year project, but this seemingly arrogant take from a young inexperienced guy is the thing that triggers him the most. Moria’s anger here is based on his own past experiences; he sees himself in Luffy at that moment. I love it because it's so authentic.
https://preview.redd.it/8ya9rlhpdj661.jpg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a74949475193dbc0e00f70d1ca1fc48f779f947d
But more importantly, Oda lets the characters impact the narrative itself. Obviously, it’s hard to tell the intention behind a narrative point, to decide whether it is motivated by plot or character. But there are many times in One Piece where we can pinpoint a character’s individual impact within a story arc. One of my favourite moments in Water 7, and I’m sure almost everyone agrees with me on this, is the fight that escalates between Usopp and Luffy. It’s a fan-favourite scene, and if you ask most readers why they love it, the common answer you’ll get is that it feels so real. I think the reason it feels so real is that it was actually totally unnecessary for the purpose and plot of the arc and a completely organic addition to the narrative. If we remove the Usopp plotline in its entirety from the Water 7 — Enies Lobby arcs, nothing gets lost for the long term storytelling of One Piece. Oda even said in his interviews that the initial purpose behind the Water 7 arc was to get a new ship and a new shipwright. That’s its function in the overall plot. But how would Usopp feel about both his role and the precious gift from Kaya being replaced? And if this is going to lead to a conflict, what would drive the emotion behind it? With these questions in mind, the setup is then enriched with the “Franky Family stealing the money from Usopp” storyline (which also feels organic and respects all involved characters, and ties up neatly when Franky uses that money to buy the wood he’ll use to make the crew’s next ship). This new plot point, combined with the beatdown that he received, works to push Usopp’s insecurities and feelings of inadequacy even higher, putting him in an emotionally unstable state. This set-up then explodes into a memorable scene that is unlike anything we’ve experienced in One Piece until then. The only thing I’m still wondering is if Oda came up with Sogeking on the spot when Usopp was in the train with CP9 costumes and masks. That’s just too good to be true.
“An ‘emotional story’ is one that springs up from the life of your characters, but if a writer tries to force emotion as a goal when writing a story, you end up crushing the characters [under it]. It’s the characters that have to make the story” — Oda
Like with any other story, One Piece characters are usually created based on what the setting and purpose of a story arc necessitate. But before they are put in positions to act out, they are always developed organically according to their standing within the story. Along with other details of an arc, their designs and their backstories are fleshed out further to be consistent with themselves and their surroundings. One small example of this that I like is marine captain Axe-hand Morgan’s design that Oda details on an SBS. Chronologically, Morgan is designed after his son Helmeppo, who seems to be conceived with “looking like a douche” as his only characteristic. But within that, he has a cleft chin, and that is a genetic trait, meaning that it should show up in his dad as well. But unlike his son, Morgan is obsessed with his self-image and strength to the extent that of making his soldiers erect a stone statue of himself to display his might for all to see. So of course if this guy had a cleft chin, he would hide it. Preferably with a metal mask that would make him look intimidating. Oda says he is usually quite lax with this process and he lets things go within their flow. While sketching he even lets them say a few lines of words without even thinking about it, and this helps him figure out what kinda person they really are.
...
--- continues from comments ---
