Hello everyone, with recent reveals on the bounties of Marco The Phoenix & The RA commanders I've seen various takes on how to use bounty. For majority of the case fans are relying on extreme-ends to use bounty. Meaning they either label it as complete BS or they use it as the ultimate judgement of powerlevel. I believe that's just not right when it comes to Oda's usage of bounty. I've made a previous thread about bounty's usage, that Oda's usage of bounty happens within context. That context exists for talking about powerlevels, talking about telling a story without actual words, expressing a pirate or a criminal's accomplishments and so on. So this is my humble take on Oda's usage of bounty when it comes to the Yonko Commanders & the RA Commanders.
Yonko Commanders (Not including WB pirates):
Katakuri, Smoothie & Cracker:
Often when we use bounty to talk about Katakuri not being all that much, a person tends to end up getting dragged into an argument about how bounty is irrelevant by the Katakuri fan bringing up scenarios that have absolutely no relevance to the usage of bounty by Oda when it comes to Katakuri.
You see when fans bring up bounty for Katakuri, we're not bringing it up because it seems like the easiest way to degrade or devalue Katakuri's prowess. NO... we're bringing it up because bounty was Katakuri's #2 hype when it comes to prowess. It wasn't "undefeated man" that many fans would have you believe, nope that shit was mentioned much later. His #2 hype upon his damn intro & then heavily stressed by Oda during their fight.. was his damn bounty. So much so that FS was used as the justification for him being at 1 billion beri. This is a direct connection by Oda for Katakuri's prowess & his bounty.
His bounty brought up again by Luffy to describe Katakuri's prowess.
Oda himself found it more relevant to bring up the bounties of Katakuri & Cracker, rather than their names when it comes to describing how formidable of foes he defeated. Making a direct connection between the prowess of Katakuri & Cracker to their bounties.
However, such is not the case for their sister Smoothie... who also happens to be 14+ years younger than Katakuri, while being a measly 100 mil or so bounty behind Katakuri.
King/Queen/Jack:
Jack's introduction is essentially the same as Katakuri's. His prowess is emphasized by bringing up the face that he is worth 1 billion bounty.
Then over at Wano, Oda uses Queen's bounty to emphasize on Queen's prowess to show us how impressive the feat BM just pulled was:
Such is not the case when it comes to King. King's bounty so far is completely irrelevant of his prowess. I stress the "so far", as it could change if Oda wants it to. I reckon it will as Marco brought up his the general description of his bounty "more than 1 bil" to give him some hype.
Red-haired pirates:
Bounty is used by Oda to emphasize on the Red Haired Pirate's prowess. Using it to emphasize on how their crew has a high average bounty and correlating it to being the best balance of any pirate crew with no "soft targets" aka "weak targets".
Whitebeard Commanders Jozu/Marco/Vista: Their hype of prowess has absolutely no connection to bounty. Hell Oda didn't even find it relevant for Marco's bounty to be brought up in the manga to describe his prowess, rather put it in some side content. Why? Because it's irrelevant to his prowess. Instead we have Marco's clashing with multiple top tiers... only Yonko Commander to clash with 4 top tiers at different times. Then also hyped up by the Gorosei, most knowledgable individuals in the OP world. With Vista being hyped up by Dracule Mihawk himself to a point one would be an idiot if they didn't know about Flower Blade Vista. Being the only Yonko commander to clash with two top tiers on panel, outside of Marco. With Jozu being hyped up with showcasing of going at it with a top tier, though hype inferior to that of Vista & Marco's.
Blackbeard Pirates Titanic captains: Bounty is also irrelevant to them, Oda in the very convo he used bounty to hype up Shanks' crew, chose to ignore bounty while emphasizing on Blackbeard's crew. Simply labeling them as "Mighty new followers".
Queen/Jack/Katakuri/Cracker/Beckman/Roux/Yasopp/other Red hair pirate members all have their bounties connected to their prowess as individuals. With King & Smoothie being the exceptions so far out of these crews, but could change for King upon his bounty reveal as Marco brought up his bounty estimate. Now in order to counter this you can't bring up fuckin Nico Robin bruh... Nico Robin's bounty was never used to describe her strength. You also can't bring up the supernovas from Sabaody, reason being their bounty was never used to describe their prowess, rather them surpassing the "100-mil" mark was used to emphasize their prowess. However, for these people their specific bounties are being used to emphasize on their prowess as individuals. Saying bounty is irrelevant to them or is invalid when talking about these characters is blasphemy, in my opinion.
The Yonko
Bounty for the Yonko was used to emphasize on their greatness as pirates or rather their accomplishments as pirates so far and the threat they overall presented to the World Government. This made evident with the newest Yonko having the least bounty, the 2nd newest Yonko having the 2nd least bounty, then with BM & Kaido having the highest bounty. But bounty was nowhere used to describe one being over the other in individual prowess or to hype up their individual might.
The RA Commanders
Now these dudes are the weird ones when it comes to bounty. To a point where bounty is completely irrelevant to their prowess. It wasn't mentioned to hype them up in their introduction, rather it was brought up in side material of the series. It also has yet to play any significant role narratively, unlike the bounties of some of the Yonko Commanders.
They're first brought up in chapter 593 right before we go into the timeskip:
Then their prowess is hyped by Doflamingo in the throne wars speech with the RA being STOCKED with fighters to be reckoned with, with Oda showing a shillioute of just 1 of the unknown leaders of the RA:
Then in chapter 803, they're introduction is built up directly again:
Accumulating at chapter 904 with their official introduction, where they had bunch of "fodder" civilians beat up the crew of a guy worth 50 mil, turning a normal girl into being superior to a 50 mil worth pirate:
So why are their bounties low? Simply because the Marines can't gauge their prowess. If the marines can't gauge somebody's prowess they won't give them a high bounty. Marines didn't know how to gauge the prowess of the strawhat crew that didn't participate in WCI, thus their bounties were never touched... despite Luffy's bounty jumping by a bil. Some fans bring up the whole thing from Oda about how being under a Yonko boosts one's bounty. Sure it does... by a tiny margin that is. When Luffy jumped from 500 mil to 1.5 billion, did anybody's bounty jump on it's own?? Nope. Why? Because Marines had no reason to have their bounties jump. The very example Oda brought up to highlight the whole "being under a yonko affects bounty" was that of the 50 mil increase for the whole crew at Dressrosa... which some fans blew it up to it affecting the bounties of individuals by hundreds of millions, while having no evidence to back it up. Since Oda even gave a reason for why the whole SH crew got a 50 mil boost, because.. ding ding the marines couldn't gauge their prowess properly, thus they assumed they would've improved to deserve a 50 mil raise atleast. The person has to actually do direct things that will let the marines properly gauge their bounties and give them a boost accordingly. The RA captains who remain hidden and normally in the other blues have not done so. Especially Morley who is a recent member of the RA.
"But if the marines can't gauge their prowess, how can Dragon be labeled as the Worst Criminal??" Because the Marines & the top dogs have a general idea about Dragon's prowess.
Doberman here isn't surprised by Luffy having CoC, because he's Dragon's son.. implying that Dragon has showcased CoC to the Marines:
Moriah & Buggy were shitting his pants when it got revealed Luffy is Dragon's son:
Hancock calls Dragon a Demon:
An a powerful new world captain who was an OG member in the WB pirates when Marco and co were just apprentices, was mildly freaking out while others being impressed as fuck:
Meaning the world in general has an idea about Dragon's prowess. Hence the reactions above when hearing about the luffy-Dragon reveal. Do they know about the RA commander's general prowess.. ehhh. They know that they're the commanders of the RA, thus have to be powerful. But their specific prowess, nope. Difference between them & Dragon is that Dragon is stated to have done crazy ass shit like the stuff Luffy did pre-TS. Where as the commanders ain't like that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now if you simply disagree about bounty not representing their prowess, then that's fine. Just can't really have any discussion about it from there. However, if you want to invalidate the usage of bounty when it comes to individuals who have had their prowess connected to their bounties, by bringing up Nico Robin or Supernova bounties or Sanji-Zoro bounties or other examples where the individual prowess of the person hasn't been connected to their exact bounty then I'm sorry but.. that's just being illogical. Oda's usage of bounty is always within context, not outside of context. Oda also brings up exceptions like in the case of who accomplished more as a pirate Kid vs Luffy by the time they got to saboady with their bounties. With Oda going out of his way to point out Kid only having a higher bounty because he slaughtered civilians but Luffy didn't. One can debate about whether Oda is having an exception in a specific bounty, but until that exception is revealed in that specific usage of the bounty.. there's no point in bringing it up.
So Queen > Katakuri ~ Jack > Cracker, is a perfectly legit argument based on their bounties. Why? Because Oda used their bounties to emphasize on their individual strength. In which Queen's was the highest. Now you might not agree with that argument, which everyone is entitled to, but in the end it is a legit argument.
However to claim Cracker > Sabo, is not a perfectly legit argument based on their bounties. Why? Because Oda never used Sabo's bounty to emphasize on his individual strength. Thus his bounty plays no factor in determining his prowess.
Anywho this is my take as far as the recent bounty fiasco goes. Share your opinions on my take, whether you
or whether you 
, down below.
Yonko Commanders (Not including WB pirates):
Katakuri, Smoothie & Cracker:
Often when we use bounty to talk about Katakuri not being all that much, a person tends to end up getting dragged into an argument about how bounty is irrelevant by the Katakuri fan bringing up scenarios that have absolutely no relevance to the usage of bounty by Oda when it comes to Katakuri.
You see when fans bring up bounty for Katakuri, we're not bringing it up because it seems like the easiest way to degrade or devalue Katakuri's prowess. NO... we're bringing it up because bounty was Katakuri's #2 hype when it comes to prowess. It wasn't "undefeated man" that many fans would have you believe, nope that shit was mentioned much later. His #2 hype upon his damn intro & then heavily stressed by Oda during their fight.. was his damn bounty. So much so that FS was used as the justification for him being at 1 billion beri. This is a direct connection by Oda for Katakuri's prowess & his bounty.
His bounty brought up again by Luffy to describe Katakuri's prowess.
Oda himself found it more relevant to bring up the bounties of Katakuri & Cracker, rather than their names when it comes to describing how formidable of foes he defeated. Making a direct connection between the prowess of Katakuri & Cracker to their bounties.
However, such is not the case for their sister Smoothie... who also happens to be 14+ years younger than Katakuri, while being a measly 100 mil or so bounty behind Katakuri.
King/Queen/Jack:
Jack's introduction is essentially the same as Katakuri's. His prowess is emphasized by bringing up the face that he is worth 1 billion bounty.
Then over at Wano, Oda uses Queen's bounty to emphasize on Queen's prowess to show us how impressive the feat BM just pulled was:
Such is not the case when it comes to King. King's bounty so far is completely irrelevant of his prowess. I stress the "so far", as it could change if Oda wants it to. I reckon it will as Marco brought up his the general description of his bounty "more than 1 bil" to give him some hype.
Red-haired pirates:
Bounty is used by Oda to emphasize on the Red Haired Pirate's prowess. Using it to emphasize on how their crew has a high average bounty and correlating it to being the best balance of any pirate crew with no "soft targets" aka "weak targets".
Whitebeard Commanders Jozu/Marco/Vista: Their hype of prowess has absolutely no connection to bounty. Hell Oda didn't even find it relevant for Marco's bounty to be brought up in the manga to describe his prowess, rather put it in some side content. Why? Because it's irrelevant to his prowess. Instead we have Marco's clashing with multiple top tiers... only Yonko Commander to clash with 4 top tiers at different times. Then also hyped up by the Gorosei, most knowledgable individuals in the OP world. With Vista being hyped up by Dracule Mihawk himself to a point one would be an idiot if they didn't know about Flower Blade Vista. Being the only Yonko commander to clash with two top tiers on panel, outside of Marco. With Jozu being hyped up with showcasing of going at it with a top tier, though hype inferior to that of Vista & Marco's.
Blackbeard Pirates Titanic captains: Bounty is also irrelevant to them, Oda in the very convo he used bounty to hype up Shanks' crew, chose to ignore bounty while emphasizing on Blackbeard's crew. Simply labeling them as "Mighty new followers".
Queen/Jack/Katakuri/Cracker/Beckman/Roux/Yasopp/other Red hair pirate members all have their bounties connected to their prowess as individuals. With King & Smoothie being the exceptions so far out of these crews, but could change for King upon his bounty reveal as Marco brought up his bounty estimate. Now in order to counter this you can't bring up fuckin Nico Robin bruh... Nico Robin's bounty was never used to describe her strength. You also can't bring up the supernovas from Sabaody, reason being their bounty was never used to describe their prowess, rather them surpassing the "100-mil" mark was used to emphasize their prowess. However, for these people their specific bounties are being used to emphasize on their prowess as individuals. Saying bounty is irrelevant to them or is invalid when talking about these characters is blasphemy, in my opinion.
The Yonko
Bounty for the Yonko was used to emphasize on their greatness as pirates or rather their accomplishments as pirates so far and the threat they overall presented to the World Government. This made evident with the newest Yonko having the least bounty, the 2nd newest Yonko having the 2nd least bounty, then with BM & Kaido having the highest bounty. But bounty was nowhere used to describe one being over the other in individual prowess or to hype up their individual might.
The RA Commanders
Now these dudes are the weird ones when it comes to bounty. To a point where bounty is completely irrelevant to their prowess. It wasn't mentioned to hype them up in their introduction, rather it was brought up in side material of the series. It also has yet to play any significant role narratively, unlike the bounties of some of the Yonko Commanders.
They're first brought up in chapter 593 right before we go into the timeskip:
Then their prowess is hyped by Doflamingo in the throne wars speech with the RA being STOCKED with fighters to be reckoned with, with Oda showing a shillioute of just 1 of the unknown leaders of the RA:
Then in chapter 803, they're introduction is built up directly again:
Accumulating at chapter 904 with their official introduction, where they had bunch of "fodder" civilians beat up the crew of a guy worth 50 mil, turning a normal girl into being superior to a 50 mil worth pirate:
So why are their bounties low? Simply because the Marines can't gauge their prowess. If the marines can't gauge somebody's prowess they won't give them a high bounty. Marines didn't know how to gauge the prowess of the strawhat crew that didn't participate in WCI, thus their bounties were never touched... despite Luffy's bounty jumping by a bil. Some fans bring up the whole thing from Oda about how being under a Yonko boosts one's bounty. Sure it does... by a tiny margin that is. When Luffy jumped from 500 mil to 1.5 billion, did anybody's bounty jump on it's own?? Nope. Why? Because Marines had no reason to have their bounties jump. The very example Oda brought up to highlight the whole "being under a yonko affects bounty" was that of the 50 mil increase for the whole crew at Dressrosa... which some fans blew it up to it affecting the bounties of individuals by hundreds of millions, while having no evidence to back it up. Since Oda even gave a reason for why the whole SH crew got a 50 mil boost, because.. ding ding the marines couldn't gauge their prowess properly, thus they assumed they would've improved to deserve a 50 mil raise atleast. The person has to actually do direct things that will let the marines properly gauge their bounties and give them a boost accordingly. The RA captains who remain hidden and normally in the other blues have not done so. Especially Morley who is a recent member of the RA.
"But if the marines can't gauge their prowess, how can Dragon be labeled as the Worst Criminal??" Because the Marines & the top dogs have a general idea about Dragon's prowess.
Doberman here isn't surprised by Luffy having CoC, because he's Dragon's son.. implying that Dragon has showcased CoC to the Marines:
Moriah & Buggy were shitting his pants when it got revealed Luffy is Dragon's son:
Hancock calls Dragon a Demon:
An a powerful new world captain who was an OG member in the WB pirates when Marco and co were just apprentices, was mildly freaking out while others being impressed as fuck:
Meaning the world in general has an idea about Dragon's prowess. Hence the reactions above when hearing about the luffy-Dragon reveal. Do they know about the RA commander's general prowess.. ehhh. They know that they're the commanders of the RA, thus have to be powerful. But their specific prowess, nope. Difference between them & Dragon is that Dragon is stated to have done crazy ass shit like the stuff Luffy did pre-TS. Where as the commanders ain't like that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now if you simply disagree about bounty not representing their prowess, then that's fine. Just can't really have any discussion about it from there. However, if you want to invalidate the usage of bounty when it comes to individuals who have had their prowess connected to their bounties, by bringing up Nico Robin or Supernova bounties or Sanji-Zoro bounties or other examples where the individual prowess of the person hasn't been connected to their exact bounty then I'm sorry but.. that's just being illogical. Oda's usage of bounty is always within context, not outside of context. Oda also brings up exceptions like in the case of who accomplished more as a pirate Kid vs Luffy by the time they got to saboady with their bounties. With Oda going out of his way to point out Kid only having a higher bounty because he slaughtered civilians but Luffy didn't. One can debate about whether Oda is having an exception in a specific bounty, but until that exception is revealed in that specific usage of the bounty.. there's no point in bringing it up.
So Queen > Katakuri ~ Jack > Cracker, is a perfectly legit argument based on their bounties. Why? Because Oda used their bounties to emphasize on their individual strength. In which Queen's was the highest. Now you might not agree with that argument, which everyone is entitled to, but in the end it is a legit argument.
However to claim Cracker > Sabo, is not a perfectly legit argument based on their bounties. Why? Because Oda never used Sabo's bounty to emphasize on his individual strength. Thus his bounty plays no factor in determining his prowess.
Anywho this is my take as far as the recent bounty fiasco goes. Share your opinions on my take, whether you
or whether you , down below.
Last edited:
