Quick synopsis of Oda's poor ability to discuss oppression and why people in general hate his side characters and oligarchs.
Let's start off with the times he's done it right.
Syrup village isn't really a story of oppression simply a criminal attempting his poorly thought out plan. Oda did a good job here with Usopp, showcasing a man who while afraid is not afraid to face his fears. In the process motivating others to join his cause. Great story telling. It set the basis of why the strawhats would be motivated to help other even though they are pirates. Anything before thst could just be seen as somebody getting in Luffy's way or passing him off.
Drum Island was a story of oppression in the form of incompetence and corruption. Wapol was ruining his kingdom. Not only that but he was the representation of bad against something that was good. Drum kingdom simply did not have the power to overthrow their king. It was a band of pirates that made short work of of Aapol and his crew. I could easily say it was a bad piece of story writing because he simply had Wapol become king of another land, which highlights why his story telling is so heinous in the examples of bad story telling.
Thriller bark in my opinion is his best representation of oppression. Moria really was a great villain and he doesn't get enough love for his heinous character. People were truly hopeless, not even able to enjoy the son one of the few things guaranteed to human life.. literally cast into a pit of darkness with no hope. It stand out for it's realness of how people would react to such a tyrant. People who had their shadows stolen hated Moria and would never forgive him no matter what and would die to cast him down. A stark contrast to doflamingo, crocodile kaidou where people seem to praise their names and curse those who stood against them.
Now to the meat of the argument almost every other arc that Oda has written. It's not my understanding that if he wrote these arcs differently thst people of the Fandom would enjoy them more but thst people who have faced real oppression would relate to the story more and find them more engaging.
The first story of the one piece anime. Koby and Alvida. I won't say I hate Alvida and think she should be in prison. She was simply doing what pirates do being nasty and robbing people. Though the idea that Luffy showed Koby the way and thus put in motion his long standing career as protector of the people is absurd. Koby lived through that situation because Luffy was stronger than alvida by alot. If he had stood up to alvida and called her fat he'd be dead before the story started. It's very different from Kamina from ttgl who's purpose was to make Simon believe in himself. It was clear in the story that Simon needed kamina at that point in the series. You can't just oppose those in power you need power yourself and careful planning and determination. None of which was part of the storyline of the arc. It was simply the basis of Luffy as a savior and fly by the seat of his pants leader thst in reality would just get his crew killed.
Arlong Park. This story to this day is a master piece that committed most readers to staying with the manga through the parts that dragged. Don't get me wrong I love bellemere and I think her sacrifice was good writing. Though it is a poor representation of the rebellious spirit of people. A mother's first duty is to protect her children. Leaving them to be orphanages and under the rule of Arlong simply because she could not say she didn't have daughters goes against the Idea preservation or the will to fight.. while it's a tear jerker any mother would say she would not have done that. It also greatly undermines the reality of victims of war and tragedy. As if people are punished and persecuted because of their emotions and ideals. When in reality people are killed for one thing. Profit(in these kinds of situation)! In these situations people have two reactions to fight or flee. Simply handing your life over while it might have made an impact on her kids and the major she would have been better served stay9jg alive and she would have known that. Bad writing. It also bothered me that Luffy destroyed Nami's room. While he was right that it was a cage the drawing inside of it were her precious maps that she painstakingly drew by hand her entire life. I was also going to talk about the Fishman and their poor representation in arlong Park but I'll save thst for the Fishman island.
I'll say nothing about Alabasta because vivi and Luffy's relationship was actually the best character development in the story. In fact it was the last time Luffy showed character bar his fight with Lucchi. Her teaching him to bow his head and him punching her out of the savior complex was Oda at his highest. We saw in drum island that Luffy would go through anything to protect his crew but did not have the levelheadedness to make competent decisions. To bad Oda abandoned this level of writing and returned Luffy to the reckless unthink creature he is today. Though we see glimpses of this in arcs like amazon lily. Crocodile was one man and his ambitions brought an entire nation into tragedy. He's not a man of character. A great villain . But I won't say Oda portrays Crocodile as a magnanimous man but a cunning one. Though in the war they tried to show Crocodile as this passionate obstinate man of unwavering ambition but in reality his a small greedy simple minded fool.no matter how many times he poses with Daz he'll never be as Galant as his picture would suggest.
Now I'll combine skypeia,Fishman Island, Dressrosa and Wano in one text because they are the worst offenders of Oda's basic misunderstanding of good opposing evil. Starting with the worst offender imo Skypeia. Getting to the nitty gritty. Japan is historically a pervarior of oppression not a recipient. Oppresion starts at home. People who want to control their environment and the people in it whether good or bad form coalitions and those coalitions as seen today are Governments. Japan bought into the Nazi whole idea of superiority and through Hiroshima learned the tragic way of what failure is. They are now the dogs of America the same as Germany. Going from oppressor to puppet is tragic and you can see it all through fiction. I mean Hashirama literally being the representation of Hiroshima and the nuke that then put the uchiha/japanese into their place.
So it makes sense for the Japanese/manga artist to see serving their oppressors as equals as a natural resolution to a story. Though to project that Idea onto all people is where I get heated. I love Calagra and Noland but their representation of when White "adventures" met natives is absolute bullshit. They didn't come with good intentions, medicine and friendship. They came with death. Simple fact is that if Noland came back and Jaya was still whole it would have been a massacre for that gold. Simply shown as when part of Jaya was shot up into skyisland. Waipa was originally everything we hope Dragon would be. A strong determined leader driven by his rage against the machine. Demanding absolute loyalty and commitment. Though through the story of skypeia Waipa was somehow at fualt. Even going to the lengths of attacking Luffy just for breathing.
He was not but a human caught between the story of two gods. See it's easy to see it as two sides fighting; in life their is often two sides fighting for some reason or really no reason at all. Though Waipa and his clan were in the right. Gan Fall and the rest of the inhabitanta opposed his entire way of life and threatened to take everything he held sacred even his life. This gives him no right to win though any outside observer could see that his fight was righteous, his anger justified. I think thst evaded Oda consciousness and he just meant for a war to be happening. He borrowed from the native Americans for the concept but never understood their plight. When Waipa ended up as the guard for the man that killed his people I knew, I knew for the first time that Oda had no sympathy for Waipa. He was just a character. A minor piece of the story made to mimick the real world. A stereotype. An entertaining warrior.
In his mind the people of Jaya were primitive and incapable of understanding things like disease or ownership. His mind were more like the settlers and had no real inclination to understand the people. I digress. I think it was the first real decision that made me go "wtf, not my man Oda" in that story he related more to Gan Fall than he did Waipa. And Noland more than Calagra.
Moving on to FishmanIsland. The arc thst made me think" I hope Oda doesn't try to speak for the oppressed anymore". In Shabondy we saw what a majority of humans think about Fishman. In my eyes that is it. There's nothing more. Fishman and men can be friends but one side oppressed the other. To paraphrase Muhammad Ali. If there's hundreds of snakes trying to bite me I'm not going on the the few snakes that want to be my friend.
All the premises of Fishman island are flawed. They actually have an army of tens of thousands which in till at the end of the arc was atleast 80 thousand. There is no force thst could oppose Fishman island if they actually wanted to stop people from going their. The idea thst Fishman actually want to live above the water and intimidate with humans would be a dream of small children and women. The men can shape their environment in anyway they see fit. Anytime Luffy intermingled with Fishman their are previous engagements thst leave them indebted to Luffy.
Hody was or could have been the representation of the hatred that Fishman have of people. Yhe rightful hatred of humans. But in reality we don't like people that stand alone. We see people who have their own and we seek to destroy them. Through the old myth of isolation being inherently bad. The story of Fishman island ends up a white savior complex perpetrated through Joyboy, Whitebeard and then Luffy. As if they were there to save them from their own ignorance. I was really on the edge of my seat for a week when they asked Hody why he hated humans so. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when He said for no reason at all.
Out of all the plethora of reason he could have said he said for no reason. This was a big point in the story so far and the apogee of Oda's social commentary. He thinks the hate is unjustified, a petty existence by small minded individuals. The Fishman want to humans yay!!! Hody want to kill the celestial dragons boo. Oda ladies and germs is no rebel. He's a middle class Japanese buisnessman with no understanding of fight the power.
Everything involving the Fishman leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I love fisher tiger. Wish he was still alive in the story now. Such a man could have ambitions of a powerful ruler. He did the same thing Bellemere did. His hatred for human/celestials wasn't enough for him to take that donation and keep fighting. He instead decided to hand over his life to the enemy because of emotion. His right hand Jenbe didn't step in after he lost consciousness and save him. They wept and clung to whitebeards name and
became a retainer of his cause. Not that I'm against this coalition or him then following Luffy. Jenbe has his own fight. Not just to protect Fishman island. Naturally he would want to progress the positions of Fishman to where they could oppose the WG. That doesn't fit the narrative though. Fighting against oppresion is paltry. It's better to appeal to others who can save you. Sad really.
Dressrosa was the worst arc in my opinion. Illsay this about it. Oda insinuating that Violet was willingly sleeping with Doflamingo is disgusting. For what reason. Why do these things roll around his mind. I could see you being a little kinky but a woman who had her kingdom destroyed and her family killed sleeping with the man she knows did it. For what reason? To gain his trust? To stay alive? It just reminds me of game of thrones where Shae says "a woman who was just violated doesn't then just invite a stranger into her bed."We can both agree only a fool would think that.
Then the people who praised doflamingo as a savior. I mean people are dumb but among them are people who are more skeptical. Same with Wano. Another arc that ranks low on my list. I don't actually have a problem with Odas representation of people and oppression. I think it's silly thst Zou in its entirety sees themselves as retainers of Oden. As if he did something so glorious as the be perpetually indebted to him. To risk extinction to someone in all honesty they gave more to than he did in return. Even Orochi living decadesbtorturing people over a grudge was pretty unrealistic in my opinion. There's not enough hatred in a humans heart to torture thousands of decades. Most people could agree that Oden wasn't a good leader and the idea of opening Wanod borders is dubious at best.
But that's it. This is why theirs so much powerscaling and people in general don't care to much about the side characters. It's because they're not real. Just simple representation of real humans popular in shounen style Mangas. it takes actual emotional intelligence to represent real people in their entirety and its not something Oda is good at. As a man it's easier to portray things and emotions that can artistically intrigue and move people. Things like sacrifice, pain power. Though to write real human and real concepts is much harder. The concept of hunger or thirst Odanhssndonenangrest job at but people... society, social commentary. odas just not that good.
Let's start off with the times he's done it right.
Syrup village isn't really a story of oppression simply a criminal attempting his poorly thought out plan. Oda did a good job here with Usopp, showcasing a man who while afraid is not afraid to face his fears. In the process motivating others to join his cause. Great story telling. It set the basis of why the strawhats would be motivated to help other even though they are pirates. Anything before thst could just be seen as somebody getting in Luffy's way or passing him off.
Drum Island was a story of oppression in the form of incompetence and corruption. Wapol was ruining his kingdom. Not only that but he was the representation of bad against something that was good. Drum kingdom simply did not have the power to overthrow their king. It was a band of pirates that made short work of of Aapol and his crew. I could easily say it was a bad piece of story writing because he simply had Wapol become king of another land, which highlights why his story telling is so heinous in the examples of bad story telling.
Thriller bark in my opinion is his best representation of oppression. Moria really was a great villain and he doesn't get enough love for his heinous character. People were truly hopeless, not even able to enjoy the son one of the few things guaranteed to human life.. literally cast into a pit of darkness with no hope. It stand out for it's realness of how people would react to such a tyrant. People who had their shadows stolen hated Moria and would never forgive him no matter what and would die to cast him down. A stark contrast to doflamingo, crocodile kaidou where people seem to praise their names and curse those who stood against them.
Now to the meat of the argument almost every other arc that Oda has written. It's not my understanding that if he wrote these arcs differently thst people of the Fandom would enjoy them more but thst people who have faced real oppression would relate to the story more and find them more engaging.
The first story of the one piece anime. Koby and Alvida. I won't say I hate Alvida and think she should be in prison. She was simply doing what pirates do being nasty and robbing people. Though the idea that Luffy showed Koby the way and thus put in motion his long standing career as protector of the people is absurd. Koby lived through that situation because Luffy was stronger than alvida by alot. If he had stood up to alvida and called her fat he'd be dead before the story started. It's very different from Kamina from ttgl who's purpose was to make Simon believe in himself. It was clear in the story that Simon needed kamina at that point in the series. You can't just oppose those in power you need power yourself and careful planning and determination. None of which was part of the storyline of the arc. It was simply the basis of Luffy as a savior and fly by the seat of his pants leader thst in reality would just get his crew killed.
Arlong Park. This story to this day is a master piece that committed most readers to staying with the manga through the parts that dragged. Don't get me wrong I love bellemere and I think her sacrifice was good writing. Though it is a poor representation of the rebellious spirit of people. A mother's first duty is to protect her children. Leaving them to be orphanages and under the rule of Arlong simply because she could not say she didn't have daughters goes against the Idea preservation or the will to fight.. while it's a tear jerker any mother would say she would not have done that. It also greatly undermines the reality of victims of war and tragedy. As if people are punished and persecuted because of their emotions and ideals. When in reality people are killed for one thing. Profit(in these kinds of situation)! In these situations people have two reactions to fight or flee. Simply handing your life over while it might have made an impact on her kids and the major she would have been better served stay9jg alive and she would have known that. Bad writing. It also bothered me that Luffy destroyed Nami's room. While he was right that it was a cage the drawing inside of it were her precious maps that she painstakingly drew by hand her entire life. I was also going to talk about the Fishman and their poor representation in arlong Park but I'll save thst for the Fishman island.
I'll say nothing about Alabasta because vivi and Luffy's relationship was actually the best character development in the story. In fact it was the last time Luffy showed character bar his fight with Lucchi. Her teaching him to bow his head and him punching her out of the savior complex was Oda at his highest. We saw in drum island that Luffy would go through anything to protect his crew but did not have the levelheadedness to make competent decisions. To bad Oda abandoned this level of writing and returned Luffy to the reckless unthink creature he is today. Though we see glimpses of this in arcs like amazon lily. Crocodile was one man and his ambitions brought an entire nation into tragedy. He's not a man of character. A great villain . But I won't say Oda portrays Crocodile as a magnanimous man but a cunning one. Though in the war they tried to show Crocodile as this passionate obstinate man of unwavering ambition but in reality his a small greedy simple minded fool.no matter how many times he poses with Daz he'll never be as Galant as his picture would suggest.
Now I'll combine skypeia,Fishman Island, Dressrosa and Wano in one text because they are the worst offenders of Oda's basic misunderstanding of good opposing evil. Starting with the worst offender imo Skypeia. Getting to the nitty gritty. Japan is historically a pervarior of oppression not a recipient. Oppresion starts at home. People who want to control their environment and the people in it whether good or bad form coalitions and those coalitions as seen today are Governments. Japan bought into the Nazi whole idea of superiority and through Hiroshima learned the tragic way of what failure is. They are now the dogs of America the same as Germany. Going from oppressor to puppet is tragic and you can see it all through fiction. I mean Hashirama literally being the representation of Hiroshima and the nuke that then put the uchiha/japanese into their place.
So it makes sense for the Japanese/manga artist to see serving their oppressors as equals as a natural resolution to a story. Though to project that Idea onto all people is where I get heated. I love Calagra and Noland but their representation of when White "adventures" met natives is absolute bullshit. They didn't come with good intentions, medicine and friendship. They came with death. Simple fact is that if Noland came back and Jaya was still whole it would have been a massacre for that gold. Simply shown as when part of Jaya was shot up into skyisland. Waipa was originally everything we hope Dragon would be. A strong determined leader driven by his rage against the machine. Demanding absolute loyalty and commitment. Though through the story of skypeia Waipa was somehow at fualt. Even going to the lengths of attacking Luffy just for breathing.
He was not but a human caught between the story of two gods. See it's easy to see it as two sides fighting; in life their is often two sides fighting for some reason or really no reason at all. Though Waipa and his clan were in the right. Gan Fall and the rest of the inhabitanta opposed his entire way of life and threatened to take everything he held sacred even his life. This gives him no right to win though any outside observer could see that his fight was righteous, his anger justified. I think thst evaded Oda consciousness and he just meant for a war to be happening. He borrowed from the native Americans for the concept but never understood their plight. When Waipa ended up as the guard for the man that killed his people I knew, I knew for the first time that Oda had no sympathy for Waipa. He was just a character. A minor piece of the story made to mimick the real world. A stereotype. An entertaining warrior.
In his mind the people of Jaya were primitive and incapable of understanding things like disease or ownership. His mind were more like the settlers and had no real inclination to understand the people. I digress. I think it was the first real decision that made me go "wtf, not my man Oda" in that story he related more to Gan Fall than he did Waipa. And Noland more than Calagra.
Moving on to FishmanIsland. The arc thst made me think" I hope Oda doesn't try to speak for the oppressed anymore". In Shabondy we saw what a majority of humans think about Fishman. In my eyes that is it. There's nothing more. Fishman and men can be friends but one side oppressed the other. To paraphrase Muhammad Ali. If there's hundreds of snakes trying to bite me I'm not going on the the few snakes that want to be my friend.
All the premises of Fishman island are flawed. They actually have an army of tens of thousands which in till at the end of the arc was atleast 80 thousand. There is no force thst could oppose Fishman island if they actually wanted to stop people from going their. The idea thst Fishman actually want to live above the water and intimidate with humans would be a dream of small children and women. The men can shape their environment in anyway they see fit. Anytime Luffy intermingled with Fishman their are previous engagements thst leave them indebted to Luffy.
Hody was or could have been the representation of the hatred that Fishman have of people. Yhe rightful hatred of humans. But in reality we don't like people that stand alone. We see people who have their own and we seek to destroy them. Through the old myth of isolation being inherently bad. The story of Fishman island ends up a white savior complex perpetrated through Joyboy, Whitebeard and then Luffy. As if they were there to save them from their own ignorance. I was really on the edge of my seat for a week when they asked Hody why he hated humans so. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when He said for no reason at all.
Out of all the plethora of reason he could have said he said for no reason. This was a big point in the story so far and the apogee of Oda's social commentary. He thinks the hate is unjustified, a petty existence by small minded individuals. The Fishman want to humans yay!!! Hody want to kill the celestial dragons boo. Oda ladies and germs is no rebel. He's a middle class Japanese buisnessman with no understanding of fight the power.
Everything involving the Fishman leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I love fisher tiger. Wish he was still alive in the story now. Such a man could have ambitions of a powerful ruler. He did the same thing Bellemere did. His hatred for human/celestials wasn't enough for him to take that donation and keep fighting. He instead decided to hand over his life to the enemy because of emotion. His right hand Jenbe didn't step in after he lost consciousness and save him. They wept and clung to whitebeards name and
became a retainer of his cause. Not that I'm against this coalition or him then following Luffy. Jenbe has his own fight. Not just to protect Fishman island. Naturally he would want to progress the positions of Fishman to where they could oppose the WG. That doesn't fit the narrative though. Fighting against oppresion is paltry. It's better to appeal to others who can save you. Sad really.
Dressrosa was the worst arc in my opinion. Illsay this about it. Oda insinuating that Violet was willingly sleeping with Doflamingo is disgusting. For what reason. Why do these things roll around his mind. I could see you being a little kinky but a woman who had her kingdom destroyed and her family killed sleeping with the man she knows did it. For what reason? To gain his trust? To stay alive? It just reminds me of game of thrones where Shae says "a woman who was just violated doesn't then just invite a stranger into her bed."We can both agree only a fool would think that.
Then the people who praised doflamingo as a savior. I mean people are dumb but among them are people who are more skeptical. Same with Wano. Another arc that ranks low on my list. I don't actually have a problem with Odas representation of people and oppression. I think it's silly thst Zou in its entirety sees themselves as retainers of Oden. As if he did something so glorious as the be perpetually indebted to him. To risk extinction to someone in all honesty they gave more to than he did in return. Even Orochi living decadesbtorturing people over a grudge was pretty unrealistic in my opinion. There's not enough hatred in a humans heart to torture thousands of decades. Most people could agree that Oden wasn't a good leader and the idea of opening Wanod borders is dubious at best.
But that's it. This is why theirs so much powerscaling and people in general don't care to much about the side characters. It's because they're not real. Just simple representation of real humans popular in shounen style Mangas. it takes actual emotional intelligence to represent real people in their entirety and its not something Oda is good at. As a man it's easier to portray things and emotions that can artistically intrigue and move people. Things like sacrifice, pain power. Though to write real human and real concepts is much harder. The concept of hunger or thirst Odanhssndonenangrest job at but people... society, social commentary. odas just not that good.
