One
Piece is the opposite.
I am very happy with watching the anime because, at least in the U.S. releases,
it is farther along in story and doesn’t get bogged down by the random crap
that’s in Naruto.
For those unaware, One Piece is about pirates in a fantasy world more unreal than
anything they have in the Pirates of the
Caribbean series. The captain of the
main crew, Luffy, has the same powers as Mr. Fantastic from Fantastic Four, only cooler. His swordsman fights with a sword in both
hands and one in his mouth. There’s
always somebody bursting into flame or turning into smoke or sand, or morphing
into a bear or dog. And then there are
the dogs and animals that act like people.
And most of the villains are so ridiculously drawn that it’s hard to imagine
them being at all a challenge to the heroes.
It all works.
There is plenty
of comedy, but better, it also becomes highly emotional throughout. There is deep, personal drama that grabs the heartstrings and stretches them so thin you think they could break.
Couple reasons I think this work: comedy helps us
enjoy where we’re at but it also can make us care. So when these people we care about are at
risk, you feel the danger that much more acutely. And the transition from comedy to serious and
back again is much smoother to audiences from serious drama to comedy and back
again. This latter thing does not sit
well with most adult audiences. We can
enjoy humor in a drama, but it has to be kept at bay to lighten the mood. But stories that begin with comedy can have
equal amounts of both without feeling like you’re screwing with the audience.
The other reason I find this works is the separation
between Luffy’s crew and the rest of the world.
It’s hard to distinguish this line until near the end of the “East Blue”
arc when Luffy battles the pirate Arlong.
Arlong has had this village captured for years. He tortures, he kills, he robs, lies, and
that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He
has grandiose plans to start taking more land.
He hopes to create a comprehensive map of the world in which to take
over all the known seas. All noble
reasons for Luffy to fight him. That’s
not why Luffy gets involved. He doesn’t
understand most of what’s going on and couldn’t care about the stuff that he
does. He gets into the fight because
Arlong made his crewmember Nami cry.
That is what makes this series so good. Luffy and his crew constantly get involved in
national crises and nasty wars with world governments. Inevitably, they’re on the right side but
their story is separate. The “Baroque
Works” arc, an entire nation is at risk but Luffy doesn’t get involved to
uphold a principle or to gain a reward.
He fights because his friend Vivi is going to die if he doesn’t. “Water Seven” arc, he declares a war on the
whole world because they captured one of his crewmembers, and one that his
people didn’t even know they could trust.
“Impel Down” arc ended an entire era and Luffy is
the cause of it, but that the war needed to be fought isn’t on his mind. He just wants to save his brother.
In the end, it’s these two stories rubbing against
each other that give it its power: the personal crises and hilarities of
Luffy’s crew and the turmoil and intrigues of the world at large rubbing
against each other helps maintain both the depth of the drama and the continued
comedy going strong years after the manga was first published. There is a reason this is the number one
manga in the world today.
I think it speaks some truth about life. How much of the world is affected because of
the actions of a few? Do the leaders and
movers and shakers always intend to shape history, or do they just fight for
their own personal desires and relationships with such fervor that the world
bends itself around those simple things?
It’s something to ponder on.
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