This all started when I claimed to my friends that I could read all of One Piece in twenty-four hours.
For some context on this self-imposed challenge, One Piece is a popular Japanese manga that started in 1997 and has since been publishing at a consistent rate into the present. Over the nearly three decades of the manga’s existence, it has accumulated over 1,100 chapters featuring over a hundred characters and thirty-three story arcs. I hope this paints a picture of the sizable task that I had put before myself. Despite this, I gleefully dived into One Piece with a smile on my face and with the support of my friends.
I didn’t finish it. Starting at noon on a Friday and ending at noon the next day, I made it just over the halfway point. After twenty-four hours of nearly non-stop reading, except for falling asleep a couple of times, I ended at chapter 606 out of 1162 (at the time that the challenge was conducted). Based on these results, I am confident in saying that all of One Piece can be read in forty-eight hours. After my experience, though, I would not recommend that anyone who wants to genuinely enjoy One Piece read it in the way that I did.
However, reading half of the story in one-go did give me an opportunity to look at One Piece in a temporally connected context. While I don’t know what will happen beyond the point that I stopped, this experience has given me an idea of the themes being presented throughout the whole narrative. As such, this review is not intended to discuss whether or not I enjoyed it and if I recommend others to read it. Rather, I will examine the primary themes of the story that are revealed over the length of the manga. My hope is that this will give people a clearer understanding of how the themes of One Piece allow it to be universally popular across different cultures.
Recently, protesters in Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines have been protesting against their respective governments with the usage of the pirate flag seen in One Piece. While it is obvious that the usage of the flag in these protests demonstrate the manga’s popularity, I also view the flag’s usage as a recognition of its meaning within the story. As I have alluded to, One Piece is about pirates. Specifically, the story revolves around a crew of pirates, known as the Straw Hats, and their quest to find the “One Piece”. The “One Piece” is the classic hidden treasure trope that is a standard in pirate fiction, but in the story of the magnamanga it is a treasure with the ability to change the course of the entire world and is therefore desirable to every faction of characters.
The manga makes it very clear that societal change is wanted within the story world, as it is controlled by an exceedingly powerful and maliciously corrupt global government. The oppression of this world government manifests throughout the story in it’s military, the Marines, who are a constant threat to the protagonists and the common people of the world. Beyond the Marines, though, other villains emerge to subjugate the masses for their own gain. Almost every story arc, with a few exceptions, revolves around the Straw Hats saving a specific location from the oppression of either an individual villain or the world government. This framework for the story arcs, to me, is the core of the message behind the grander story of One Piece.
To further illustrate what this core theme of One Piece is, I want to highlight the nature of pirates and piracy in the story world. At the world at large, pirates are seen in a negative light as multiple characters associate them with plundering, violence, and a general lack of morals. However, through the antics of our pirate protagonists seen throughout the manga, the reader becomes endeared to characters who align themselves with the pirate cause. Most of them are not portrayed as being overtly violent and maliciously self-serving but are rather portrayed as people who genuinely want to help others out of pure humanity.
Let’s take the main character of the manga, Monkey D. Luffy, as an example of the difference between the expectations of pirate behavior and the reality of their personality. Luffy’s mission in the story is to find the “One Piece” and become “The King of Pirates”, both goals revealing that Luffy is both ambitious but also selfish. This point is reinforced by Luffy’s large appetite and general disregard for the rules established in a specific location. However, throughout the course of the story, Luffy demonstrates at multiple times that he is willing to put himself in life-or-death situations for the sake of others. Whether this is him helping one of the members of his pirate crew or saving an entire country from tyrannical destruction, Luffy puts his goals aside so that others are not oppressed by stronger forces. Even though his goals are selfish, Luffy himself is a caring and compassionate individual who wants the betterment of others.
This idea, that a pirate has selfish goals but goes about those goals in a humanitarian way, is displayed by multiple characters throughout the story. Since these characters are usually contrasted with the villains of the manga, I view this idea as the core message of One Piece. It doesn’t matter if your pirate, a Marine, or an ordinary person just trying to live, compassion will conquer oppression.
In the world we live in today, this message resonates in multiple cultures and breaks the societal boundaries of the “West” or the “East”. Everyone is facing some form of oppression in their society, so a story about those living outside the pre-made standard of the oppressors fighting against them through compassion and common humanity is bound to become popular. Apparently, One Piece is popular enough for peaceful protests to sprout worldwide and challenge the established orders of corrupt governments.
I should clarify that this does not mean that One Piece is calling for every government in the world to collapse. Rather, I hope this review shows that One Piece advocates compassion as the main vehicle for positive societal change. Now, I must admit that this could not be at all what the writer of One Piece intended for the story. After all, I did only read half of it in a condensed form. However, whether the writer wants this or not, people from around the world are using the image of One Piece to fight oppression. Humanity is core to the story of One Piece, as it should be to everyone’s story.
The Tributary 