One Piece: How a Setting Informs the Story

I don't think that I've made a secret of my love of all things shonen. There's some kind of special magic to following the stories of plucky, never-say-die heroes as they travel fantastical worlds and overcome greater and greater obstacles with the power of friendship that I just cannot find anywhere else. I know that the modern anime community looks down upon long-form anime like this in favor of the new hotness that is seasonal anime releases, and I can see why, but I believe that there are strengths and weaknesses inherent to both. And what better case study to talk about how long form anime can succeed than with the king of long form anime, and my personal favorite anime of all time, One Piece?

For the uninitiated, One Piece is the story of Monkey D. Luffy, a young man who dreams of becoming the Pirate King. To do this, he searches for the lost treasure of the previous Pirate King Gold Roger, which is known as One Piece. Over the course of his voyage, we follow him as he recruits followers to join his crew, visits all sorts of different islands, and combats both rival pirates and the corrupt World Government, whose number one mission is to eradicate piracy once and for all.

Now, naturally, the maritime setting and lost treasure hunt angle create the perfect setup for a story that can, for all intents and purposes, go on forever. As long as they never actually find the One Piece, each island that they visit can tell its own self-contained story that ends with them setting sail, hoping that the next island will have the treasure they're looking for. But if that were all that was going on here, then it wouldn't be worth talking about. Indeed, while the setting and geography of One Piece does justify the long running nature of the story, it also goes further than that and has significance that ties into the motivations of the characters, the backstory of the world, and the themes of the story itself.

As demonstrated by the map above, One Piece's world is almost entirely aquatic, with only one continental land mass of nigh impassable mountains acting as a prime meridian, completely circling the world. Waters from the North, South, East, and West Blues all feed together into a central sea called the Grand Line, where unusually dangerous weather patterns and giant monsters known as Sea Kings are an everyday sight, and hostile pirate crews make travel even less appealing. Every island in the Grand Line has its own incredibly strong magnetic field (rendering most compasses useless), its own climate, and its own level of technological advancement.

All of these factors -- long distances overseas between islands, harsh and unpredictable weather patterns, the unique magnetic fields interfering with conventional compasses, and the dangers presented by Sea Kings and pirate crews -- lead to one unavoidable conclusion: the islands of One Piece are all isolated from each other. This isolation is what allows the story arcs of One Piece to be so unique and different from each other -- from a zombie apocalypse on Thriller Bark to a gangster story on Whole Cake Island to a war story on Alabasta to a gold rush on Skypiea -- but they all feel connected as part of a greater world because of the continued involvement of the Straw Hat Pirates and other crews like them.

Every island becomes an important and necessary part of the story because the special Log Pose needed to navigate from island to island needs to reset and lock onto the next island's magnetic field. And if you grew up on an island, trapped in the same geography for your entire life, and you finally leave to see the world, would you just sit on the ship and wait for the Log Pose to reset? No! The only natural thing to do would be to go out and see what new sights this island has to offer.

And when one of the stops on your journey is an island on the back of a giant elephant, how could you resist?

So, yes, the setting works really well to reinforce the story's structure and make everything feel massive in scope but still interconnected. But I said earlier that it created thematic depth as well and tied into character motivations and backstory of the world, didn't I? And, I actually touched on that as well in the last paragraph. Imagine living on a small island, where it's impossible to safely travel to other locales, where the views of the open seas are taunting you while you remain trapped on your tiny island. And that ties into the main idea that One Piece is all about: freedom. Luffy wants to become the Pirate King because that means that he would be, in his words, "the freest person on the seas." Every member of his crew took to the seas with a desire to break free of their limitations and become the best versions of themselves that they could be. They all have different goals, but they are united in their desire for freedom.

Also tying into the idea of freedom, albeit in a roundabout way, is the existence of the World Government. While the World Government is undoubtedly tyrannical in the present day story -- and with the existence of the World Nobles, they probably always were -- it is reasonable to infer that the World Government was formed, at least in some part, as a response to the danger presented by the chaotic and dangerous world and went too far in their quest to provide security and peace to the world, leading to the present day corruption and oppression. It's easy to look down on the World Government because of the horrible atrocities they had committed in the name of Justice, but the fact remains that the government was formed during the Void Century: an unrecorded time of history that occurred 900 years before the current story. It's impossible to say what the original twenty kings that founded the World Government were thinking for certain, but considering that we know that the Nefertaris of Alabasta, a family famous for their love of the people, were one of them, I think it's safe to assume that a desire for safety and security played a factor in its creation.

But what does this have to do with freedom? We can find that answer in a quote from, of all people, Benjamin Franklin. As he famously said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." While there is an argument to be made that that quote has been twisted and taken out of context over the years, that is neither here nor there, and the basic idea that the idea introduces -- that being, the idea that freedom and security paradoxically struggle to exist simultaneously -- is central to the themes of One Piece. And even though freedom is the most important theme that One Piece, it is impossible to explore the idea of freedom fully without showing the antithesis of freedom: tyranny. But the government isn't shown to be wholly tyrannical just for tyranny's sake in One Piece. There is nuance here. Because even though they fear the reprisals of the Marines and the World Nobles, the average citizen of One Piece fears pirates and the Revolutionary Army more. 

The citizens of the One Piece world trust the World Government to keep them safe as long as they do the right thing and obey their commands. It might not be perfect, and they might fear what will happen if they offend the local Marine Captain or, even worse, the World Nobles, but the alternative would be to take their chances with independence and have no safety net at all when it comes to pirates. And while the Straw Hats might be more interested in adventure and exploration than in rape and pillage, they are not the norm in this world. Pirates like Blackbeard, who is first introduced by burning a city to the ground and chasing the island's leader into a self-imposed exile, are far more common. To the average citizen, a little bit of freedom is a small price to pay for the protection that the World Government can offer.

And yet, the sea still calls to many. The vastness of the world and the open ocean that seems to go on forever sings to the hearts of romantics, and the idea of ignoring the freedom it promises is tantamount to trying to live without breathing to them. The World Government stops being a benefactor and starts being an oppressor to people like that. They don't need a government from far away telling them what to do and how to live. They are their own men and women, the world is their oyster, and they can take care of themselves. And even if they die along the way, at least they were out on the open sea, living on their own terms as free individuals. 

That core narrative of freedom versus security lies buried at the heart of every story arc in One Piece. It's a central conflict that speaks of two of the most base and primal urges of the human condition and pits them against each other. And the setting of an open and dangerous sea: full of potential and danger in equal measure, brings the extreme nature of the two sides to life and justifies them. The themes at the heart of One Piece could be explored without such a fantastical setting, but the setting reinforces these ideas and creates a perfect justification for a long running adventure story at the same time. And this sort of thematic weight just could not be generated in a mere 12-25 episode seasonal anime like we currently have in the modern era. One Piece as we know it would not have existed if it had released in those short chunks like so many modern fans demand that every anime should. Because these ideas take time to build, and the year long breaks in between seasons would slow down the pace in the transition between islands and cause viewer interest to fade before it could ever get the chance. If nothing else, I would argue that the existence of One Piece's setting alone justifies the continued existence of long form anime storytelling in stories like it, Dragon Ball Super, Black Clover, and others. 

One Piece is a very important anime to me, and one that I am very passionate about. More than any other story, it's one that I want to talk about here on this blog and try to get as many people as possible to give it a shot. But I understand that this is a massively long story, with the original manga at 929 chapters and counting at this time of writing, and that sort of thing can be intimidating. And it also makes talking about the appeal and merits of the series impossible to talk about all at once. With that in mind, I conceptualized this post as the first in a sort of series that I plan to post throughout 2019, as I cover the different elements that make up One Piece's success. I don't know when part 2 will be uploaded, as this is the sort of thing that takes a lot of work and planning to make, but I can say with certainty that I wouldn't expect it in the next few weeks, as I also understand that One Piece isn't for everybody and I want to space out these rants and continue to diversify my content as best as I can. 

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Thank you so much for reading this post. The Weekly Roundup will not be put up this week, as I am giving new shows a chance to premiere, and will come return on Sunday, Januray 13th. I may have a new post up this Sunday anyway, a sort of special if you will, but I'm still working on putting something together and I cannot guarantee anything. But aside from that, I have a lot of ideas for 2019, so expect new posts talking about all things anime every Thursday and Sunday!