Part 1 - Eiichiro Oda Deliberately De-emphasizes The Combat Elements
“Dragon Ball made such a deep impression on everyone; I think fans could still remember it five years after it ended. And it was certainly one of my favorites, too. I would never have stood a chance against it. So I had to come up with something different. That’s why I really tried to emphasize the adventure element for readers, rather than the fight scenes.”
-Oda Eiichiro interview with Naruto’s Creator Masashi Kishimoto, 2015
-Oda Eiichiro One Piece Magazine Volume 1, 2017 (Sandman's translation)
The same sentiment was echoed by one of the editors that Oda insisted on less fights to differentiate from other mainstream manga. This is how I always viewed combat in One Piece; a complimentary aspect to the overall series rather than the main focus.
The fights are about tying up the arc’s themes (destroying Nami’s room, ringing the bell, stopping Doffy’s control, bonding with Katakuri over familial drama, etc...), intensity and emotional drama rather than power stats and ability/strategy exposition.
They’re not video game vs. style combat without story elements interfering. For example, Nami and Law helped Luffy defeat Cracker and Doffy. Katakuri grew to respect Luffy as the person that can free his siblings from Mama’s emotional oppression so he handicapped himself/was happy he escaped. Story and characterization will always prevent the powerscalers’ dream of character A vs character B at full strength going all out for multiple chapters to see who’s outright stronger.
Heck, Luffy’s strongest ability is to attract people to help him. So he might not be individually the strongest combat wise but he can compete with stronger opponents by making allies.
Part 2 - Challenges of Creating a Weekly Manga and One Piece's Giant Cast/Plot
The inhumane demands of creating a weekly manga are well-documented. If you have 3 days each to create the story and art while sleeping 3 hours a day, you have to pick and choose which areas you’ll focus on. It’s always weird seeing fans claim that “series x doesn’t have a complex fighting system like series y” or “series x doesn’t have expansive world building like series y”. It’s infeasible to cover all aspects in one weekly comic.
To choose to create a story with an ever-expanding lore of islands and characters, will lead to narrative focus being on political tension/plot lines, drama, humor, adventure, and existing character personalities/interaction/backstories rather than one on one fights. While also introducing new characters, islands, mysteries and plot lines to maintain the “ever expanding adventure” feel.
The complex plot then becomes more about untangling this web of political/power structures to achieve the ultimate goal of reaching one piece and less about the simple crew adventures. Juggling all these characters and plot lines to coherently reach the conclusion lessened the attention to combat details and lighthearted Strawhat adventures. That’s why the later arcs are different in tone compared to earlier arcs (that’s a longer discussion for another thread
).
Oda said the reason One Piece became so lengthy is because he introduced the Shichibukai and he (Jokingly) regrets it. This is basically an admission that he realized he created a monstrous world full of mysteries and plot threads that are begging to be resolved. And that his perfectionist self will need a long time to do justice by each thread.
Part 3 - Future of Power Level Debates
I’m not naive to think that powerscaling discussions aren’t an integral of any battle shonen. I don’t look down on powerscalers or anything like that. Everyone that has a passion for any aspect of One Piece, regardless of how significant it is, is on my team. Greg said that Oda himself is happy about fans speculation and discussion about power levels. The fans should and will continue to have fun with powerscaling discussions.
Shout out to @Admiral Lee Hung , @Jo_Ndule , @Topi Jerami , @Light D Lamperouge and all the passionate powerscalers here :cheers:
I just see some people taking them way too seriously in a series that’s not designed to decisively satisfy those discussions. After that, they extrapolate the feelings about characters’ lack/abundance of feats to bash/praise that character from a story perspective (Big Mom and Sanji in WCI are an example of that. Maybe another long thread about this in the future
).
So I’m just hoping that those cats aren’t setting themselves up for disappointment, because when One Piece ends, we most likely still won’t have definitive answers to their (EOS strawhats, YCs, Yonko vs Admiral, etc…) power level debates.
What’s required to resolve this complex world will demand every last bit of Oda’s remaining mangaka HP.
“I need the courage to chip away at the ideas I come up with. It’s a race against time between my remaining lifespan and the end of the series (laughs)”.
-Eiichiro Oda to Fuji TV, 2016
That told me he’s decided to stick with this style until he’s able to draw the ending.
And I can’t say I blame him. He spoke about health concerns in the past as well as wanting to spend time with his daughters. There’s a human element that some people ignore. Hopefully the pressure of finishing up such a giant series doesn’t lead to a Berserk/Bastard/Hunter x Hunter/Nana situation.
“Dragon Ball made such a deep impression on everyone; I think fans could still remember it five years after it ended. And it was certainly one of my favorites, too. I would never have stood a chance against it. So I had to come up with something different. That’s why I really tried to emphasize the adventure element for readers, rather than the fight scenes.”
-Oda Eiichiro One Piece Magazine Volume 1, 2017 (Sandman's translation)
The same sentiment was echoed by one of the editors that Oda insisted on less fights to differentiate from other mainstream manga. This is how I always viewed combat in One Piece; a complimentary aspect to the overall series rather than the main focus.
The fights are about tying up the arc’s themes (destroying Nami’s room, ringing the bell, stopping Doffy’s control, bonding with Katakuri over familial drama, etc...), intensity and emotional drama rather than power stats and ability/strategy exposition.
They’re not video game vs. style combat without story elements interfering. For example, Nami and Law helped Luffy defeat Cracker and Doffy. Katakuri grew to respect Luffy as the person that can free his siblings from Mama’s emotional oppression so he handicapped himself/was happy he escaped. Story and characterization will always prevent the powerscalers’ dream of character A vs character B at full strength going all out for multiple chapters to see who’s outright stronger.
Heck, Luffy’s strongest ability is to attract people to help him. So he might not be individually the strongest combat wise but he can compete with stronger opponents by making allies.
Part 2 - Challenges of Creating a Weekly Manga and One Piece's Giant Cast/Plot
The inhumane demands of creating a weekly manga are well-documented. If you have 3 days each to create the story and art while sleeping 3 hours a day, you have to pick and choose which areas you’ll focus on. It’s always weird seeing fans claim that “series x doesn’t have a complex fighting system like series y” or “series x doesn’t have expansive world building like series y”. It’s infeasible to cover all aspects in one weekly comic.
To choose to create a story with an ever-expanding lore of islands and characters, will lead to narrative focus being on political tension/plot lines, drama, humor, adventure, and existing character personalities/interaction/backstories rather than one on one fights. While also introducing new characters, islands, mysteries and plot lines to maintain the “ever expanding adventure” feel.
The complex plot then becomes more about untangling this web of political/power structures to achieve the ultimate goal of reaching one piece and less about the simple crew adventures. Juggling all these characters and plot lines to coherently reach the conclusion lessened the attention to combat details and lighthearted Strawhat adventures. That’s why the later arcs are different in tone compared to earlier arcs (that’s a longer discussion for another thread
).Oda said the reason One Piece became so lengthy is because he introduced the Shichibukai and he (Jokingly) regrets it. This is basically an admission that he realized he created a monstrous world full of mysteries and plot threads that are begging to be resolved. And that his perfectionist self will need a long time to do justice by each thread.
Part 3 - Future of Power Level Debates
I’m not naive to think that powerscaling discussions aren’t an integral of any battle shonen. I don’t look down on powerscalers or anything like that. Everyone that has a passion for any aspect of One Piece, regardless of how significant it is, is on my team. Greg said that Oda himself is happy about fans speculation and discussion about power levels. The fans should and will continue to have fun with powerscaling discussions.
Shout out to @Admiral Lee Hung , @Jo_Ndule , @Topi Jerami , @Light D Lamperouge and all the passionate powerscalers here :cheers:
I just see some people taking them way too seriously in a series that’s not designed to decisively satisfy those discussions. After that, they extrapolate the feelings about characters’ lack/abundance of feats to bash/praise that character from a story perspective (Big Mom and Sanji in WCI are an example of that. Maybe another long thread about this in the future
).So I’m just hoping that those cats aren’t setting themselves up for disappointment, because when One Piece ends, we most likely still won’t have definitive answers to their (EOS strawhats, YCs, Yonko vs Admiral, etc…) power level debates.
What’s required to resolve this complex world will demand every last bit of Oda’s remaining mangaka HP.
“I need the courage to chip away at the ideas I come up with. It’s a race against time between my remaining lifespan and the end of the series (laughs)”.
-Eiichiro Oda to Fuji TV, 2016
That told me he’s decided to stick with this style until he’s able to draw the ending.
And I can’t say I blame him. He spoke about health concerns in the past as well as wanting to spend time with his daughters. There’s a human element that some people ignore. Hopefully the pressure of finishing up such a giant series doesn’t lead to a Berserk/Bastard/Hunter x Hunter/Nana situation.
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