In the Strawhats crew canonically there are three groups: Monster Trio, Mid Trio and Weak trio (actually the Mid Trio is not textually enlightened like the others, but we can just extract and get it by exclusion). There also are duos: Luffy-Zoro as captain and right hand man, Zoro-Sanji as right hand man and left hand man, Usopp-Chopper as the two idiots, Usopp-Nami as the two weaklings, and so on.
I think it's blatant that all the crewmembers are really united and have a great bond between themselves, but the greatest and firmest bond is the one between Luffy and Zoro, the ones who started the crew, the strongest ones, the only ones in the Strawhats who are Supernovas, who have Conqueror Haki, who have top tiers and their benchmarks, who have fighting oriented dreams that require them to reach and surpass top tiers. Luffy and Zoro are not only close in strength, they also behave and act the same, they think the same, they do the same things in an equal or polarly opposite way.
Another thing that I think is clear is that the so called East Blue Strawhats (Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp and Sanji) are most relevant and enlightened than the other Strawhats (bar maybe for Nico Robin and her ability to read Poignee Griffe). The first five members get far more focus on than the others.
What maybe some people don't know is the notion of "Original Trio", formed by the first three original members of the Strawhat Crew: Luffy, the captain; Zoro, his right hand man who is the close number two strongest and the first mate for the crew; Nami, the navigator.
How does this wonderful manga, that we all love, start?
"Gol D. Roger, the King of Pirates, the man who obtained everything. Wealth, fame, power..."
It's One Piece's heart. And the heart of One Piece is the Strawhat crew. And the heart of the Strawhat crew is the Original Trio.
Wealth = Nami. Fame = Luffy. Power = Zoro. Do I even have to explain why?
Nami, the woman who seeks gold and richness more than any other one. Luffy, the one who will be the most famed in the world once he achieved his dream. Zoro, the man who will defeat even the strongest opponents to fulfill his ambition.
Do you remember the Alabasta Arc, one of the most important and one of the best in the entire manga? It all started because of the Original Trio: Luffy and Zoro were fighting one on one to see who was the strongest, then Nami arrives with the info she gathered; the plot moves forward and the arc starts. The other Strawhats? You can remove them and nothing will change: back then, the fulcrum of everything really was the Original Trio. Like Oda himself stated, after all.
"Luffy, Zoro, Nami... these three together are the triggers."
Eichiiro Oda - One Piece Color Walk, 2001
Do you remember one of the greatest and most iconic moments in the entire manga? I am talking about this one:
Oda could have had Luffy alone meet Blackbeard, or could have had Luffy together with all the Strawhats meet Blackbeard. But that's not what Oda wanted: the author chose that in the iconic moment of the revelation of the final villain of the series (or, at least, if not the final villain, still of the protagonist's declared nemesis) the protagonist Luffy had to be with no one less and one more than Zoro and Nami.
After all, ask Oda, and he will answer...
Every time that Oda took the fun to realize some color spreads with a "different style" than his usual one, the characters who he chose to draw are Luffy, Zoro and Nami, again...
Luffy, Zoro and Nami are the protagonist pirates in the very quintessential way in Oda's original idea. I mean, look, these are pirates in Oda's mind. And tell me, who do they resemble?
I think it's clear that Oda started from their lookings and from the concept of three pirates, two boys and a girl, and starting from that he created Luffy, Zoro and Nami.
Luffy, Zoro and Nami are the core of the Strawhat crew.
The rest? Just mere addiction around them.
In the recent years, Oda has put most of the focus on Luffy, who has the most panel time by far, and the other Strawhats mean little, bar Zoro who managed to have a good deal of space and some crazy moments. Nami seems left in the background now. Maybe her relevance slowly faded in favor of Sanji's one, who "robbed" her of the place of third most relevant Strawhat.
After all, it's blatant that the Strawhat crew parallels the ond of the King of Pirates, with Luffy -> Gol D. Roger, Zoro -> Silvers Rayleigh, Sanji -> Scopper Gaban; and maybe Yamato -> Oden, if she were to join (and then she would break the Monster Trio, just like Oden broke the Metal Trio in Roger's crew). Going by this, could Nami be the parallel for Crocus?
Seeing the most recent eye catches from the anime, and the special cover created by Oda to celebrate the chapter 1000 of the One Piece manga series, well maybe he didn't forget about the Original Trio...
What do you think?
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