Welcome everyone, to InBetweenDrafts’ One Piece week! In honor of the 25th anniversary of the One Piece anime, the crew at InBetweenDrafts have come together to celebrate this beloved pirate manga.
It should be no surprise to see even more coverage from us, a site that has already covered One Piece a lot. Seriously, a whole ton. But this week, we’re diving deep in ways we’ve never explored One Piece before. We’re going to look closer at the anime than our regular coverage has before. We’ll be exploring the Straw Hats and their dynamics in new ways. You can even tag along as I learn about the One Piece Trading Card Game. And of course, a giant sized Rookie Pirate Radio episode covering two whole manga chapters.
But InBetweenDrafts is far from focused on One Piece (don’t worry, all regular coverage will continue this week too), so there may be readers of our little site wondering why so many of us here care this much. That’s worth exploring as a kick off to this week of cartoon pirates.
Why One Piece?
One Piece fans, to put it lightly, can be a bit much. The fandom often becomes evangelistic in a way that stands out from others. Outsiders will in one moment see people make bold declarations about One Piece’s political themes. In the next they will see the official One Piece Twitter post a video in which its author lets the intrusive thoughts take over, throwing out a half done color spread just to draw a giant woman.
One Piece contains multitudes. The world building is on par with the hardest of fantasy novels. Its art is iconic and vibrant. It features characters willing to take on the entire authoritarian government at the slightest inconvenience and it also dedicates entire chapters to delivering a pun. Never before has something so dense and deep also made this many penis jokes. There’s nothing quite like Eiichiro Oda’s adventure story, and there likely never will be again.
But what really brings people in? Before they realize the darkness lingering at the fringes of the sea or become obsessed with piecing together the deeper history of the world, what gets people hooked on this story? I would argue that it’s not all the finer things fans come to adore, but something much more simple.
It’s this guy:
There is no One Piece without Luffy
Monkey D. Luffy isn’t just the series protagonist, he’s the very concept of the shonen hero refined. He carries with him the DNA of the work done by Oda’s predecessors: the thirst for challenge seen in Goku, the unrelenting sense of adventure of Gon. However, unlike them, his appeal is that he’s flexible enough to remain just as believably pure now as he was in the first chapter.
Luffy wears his entire persona on his almost non-existent sleeves. He doesn’t have an internal monologue to commentate on his feelings or his thoughts. Everything we see is either in his face or his words. He doesn’t really hide secrets and possesses an extremely high emotional intelligence for those around him, even if he can’t recall their name. Luffy is intentionally childlike even at his most serious, which in an antithetical way gives him the ability to be far more real than the people around him.
This is why Luffy is the perfect person to be a pirate captain. His crew and friends gravitate to him naturally, because he’s always being 100% at all times. Even his enemies often find themselves becoming tentative allies thanks to this innate ability to establish trust and comfort. He’s a safe place for many people and I believe this makes One Piece significantly more accessible to people who get past the reaction to 1000+ chapters or episodes.
While he’s pretty unrealistic, Luffy is the kind of person we want to see in the world. He’s a friend, a found family member, a protector. He’s not cruel and even at his most selfish, only wants the same for others. He doesn’t need to know your trauma, just that you mean no harm. All the while, grinning like an idiot at the horizon, barely containing his excitement for what’s next.
Luffy matters
Luffy isn’t a traditional hero, but he’s inspired many of Shonen Jump and beyond’s future heroes. You can see his earnestness in My Hero Academia’s Izuku Midoriya, his unseriousness and determination in Jujutsu Kaisen’s Yuji Itadori. You can even see his simple love of a good meal in Sakamoto Days’ titular hitman turned shopkeeper. If you love any recent shonen anime, you’ve probably gotten a taste of what Luffy has to offer.
This One Piece week is a celebration of how far the series has come, but it’s just as wonderful that even with all his growth and change, Luffy remains unyielding. If there was any good argument for giving the series a try, it’d be to see what Monkey D. Luffy’s deal is all about.
Wouldn’t you know it, there’s an easy to digest live action adaptation that completely understands this, too. Just in case you were curious now.
One Piece’s original manga is available on the Shonen Jump and Manga+ apps. The One Piece anime is available on Crunchyroll and Netflix. The live action series is also available on Netflix.
Featured images ©Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation
Travis Hymas is a freelance writer and self appointed Pokémon historian out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Known to be regularly obessive over pop culture topics, gaming discourse, and trading card games, he is a published critic featured on sites such as Uppercut and The Young Folks.
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