Don't forget! if you want to see me react to the One Piece Anime, click the link: https://youtu.be/_DWgM3hV2D8

"I have no idea who Oda is, I keep hearing about him."

Oh, no one important. He's just the writer and illustrator of One Piece...

20:23 Oda is the author of the manga. The creator of One Piece and sole writer/artist behind it

Yes the politics definitely are there in the story its pretty blatant I'm not sure how people have the opinion that its not political.

hi, indonesian here...,one piece flag and luffy sense of justice been a part of our protest in last few years

"Even if you don't care about politics, politics will care about you"

You can say you hate politics all you want, but you can't pretend like you can just ignore it. Every opinion you have about what the world should be, about what people deserve to have, about how we should treat each other, about who deserves to exist, your own personal morality in every way informs your politics.

Oda isnt using his story as a manifestoi or anything but its very clear his political views when you watch.

37:45 I think you're misunderstanding something about what it means to be the King of the Pirates. This title is basically given to anyone who sails through the Grand Line and manages to find the One Piece + in Luffy's eyes being King of the Pirates means being the most free out of anyone in the world. Which is something he definitely wants.

4:27 Im gonna be honest: the messaging of those themes couldnt be blunter unless spelled out in dialog on the page. Luffy would have to turn to the viewer and say "yeah this person identifies this way, but I only care about their inner charekter and moral integrity, so I will help them" / or smth like that about any other theme to make it any more obvious

37:40 Luffy actually doesn't want to rule anyone. Being "The King of the Pirates" is just the title given to the person who finds the One Piece. And while that title comes with worldwide respect and power, Luffy mainly wants it just to prove that he's capable of achieving it. Because if he can overcome every challenge that would prevent someone from reaching the most sought-after treasure in the world, that would prove that nothing could stop him from doing anything that he wants to do, making him the person with the most freedom in the world.

1. Yes one piece is that political. Non of the characters ever look into the camera and say "Medicine and food are human rights, go socialism" But you have characters on the crew who say "No one deserves to starve" and then feeds his enemy and "Medicine should be accessible for everyone".
Oda (the author) doesn't necessarily spell out when he criticises something but he also doesn't hide it.

2. It is not "political from a western world view" many of the protests he showed, where people use the strawhat flag as a sign of freedom and resistance are from Asian or south American protests

3. It doesn't matter if Oda deliberately wants to criticise something or uses real life events as inspiration. Because the way he depicts these things shows how he feels about them.
If he though the Military is good and should be allowed to act freely as long as they deliver justice he would depict it that way. The Mariens showing up would always be a good thing and casualties would be treated as necessary. But instead oda depicts it as dangerous. Calling the marines often is a gamble, even for the innocent people. Yes fojitora could show up and solve the problem while protecting civilians but akainu could also show up and you and your family just happened to stay in the way when he opened fire.

4. People dont say "This person fits my experience so they are gay/trans/nonbinary" He is very direct about it. In Wano there are two characters who openly say "I was born this gender but identity as another gender" In impel down are two characters who switch gender throughout the arc. One of the most beloved characters of the show jumps around while singing about being queer. Oda has some misses when it come to depicting queer peope, but he also often does it really good.

5. Oda being against fascism or classism or slavery has nothing to do with "western politics". Because, for one all of these things exist or existed in Japan, and secondly a Japanese man saying "Hey, violently opressing people is actually kinda wack" has nothing to do with the west.

6. Yes luffy wants to be "king" of the pirates. But when asked he said "I dont want to rule over anyone, the king of the pirates is the freest man in the world, that's what I want."

Also side note "Antifa" isn't an organisation it just means being against fascism. So there is no Antifa that can demand to do something their way. There can be anti fascistic groups who say that, but they are not "the antifa".

5:25 it's written to be political

I think the political themes are 100% there and this video is basically on point. I think the reason it might seem questionable is because its take on politics is inherently global in nature, not just local to Japan. That being said, I definitely think that the biggest concept in the meta plot of one piece, the void century, was directly insured by the way Japanese schools teach WW2 (in that they avoid it as much as possible).

Something that you mentioned is whether or not Japanese people think about one piece in a political manner or if they view it in a different way. I think it’s important to note that after WW2 Japan became very westernized and nowadays Japan is a blend of both eastern and western cultures. The JCP or Japanese communist party is japans oldest political party, and Japan shares many leftists values with western countries. Oda most certainly intended to imbue these political aspects into his stories which is why he has a picture of Che Guevara one of the most influential socialists of all time hung up in his office.

"The video speaking about serious differences in definition of Justice between Admirals"
Dude: swords are cool

10:12 The celestial dragons are just normal people, they don't have any powers or anything special other than being in power, yet they see themselfs are Gods only because of the position they are in. Also if you want lore, the reason they are in power to begin with is only because they are the descendants of the royal families of the kingdoms that founded the World Government 800 years back. So basicaly nepobabies lol

The intro is pretty neatly summarizing the ideas and themes.

Important: Luffy does not think the pirate king is a ruler. He grew up believing being a pirate is about being free, so he concluded that the king if the pirates is the person who is most free. And that's all he ever wanted: being as free as possible. He explicitly says that being the king of the pirate does not mean he is above anyone, but that he is as free as possible.

You ask if the japanese would know of western issues, I would say yes. The same way there's a lot of guys who obsess over the east the same goes for eastern people who know a LOT of the west.

A good example is Kojima (guy who made the Metal Gear Solid Games)


The probably knows more than the average westener about Politics, the War economy and turned it into a generational action espionage franchise