One Piece: My Journey with East Blue

For those who don't know, One Piece is an anime and manga series written by Eiichiro Oda and it has been ongoing since 22 July, 1997 (the anime, that is).  One Piece has well over a thousand episodes and as I mentioned, is still releasing new episodes to this very day.  I started to watch One Piece at the beginning of this year in April, but I have a very bad habit of just dropping any piece of media after a while for no apparent reason.  So I stopped watching it, but recently I have started again and I would like to talk about the show so far.  I have only just finished with East Blue, so spoilers will be prevalent from this point on.  In this blog post I will explain the East Blue saga and why I and so many others adore the series so much.  So without making this introduction any longer, let me tell you about my journey with One Piece so far. 

A Quick Overview

Twenty years before the story of One Piece takes place, the Pirate King Gol D. Roger was executed in Loguetown.  Before his execution, he braved the Grand Line and aquired all the wealth, fame and power the world has to offer.  While walking to his execution platform, it is described that he look less like a prisoner walking to his death but more like a king getting coronated.  Right before he was executed, someone in the crowd asked him where he hid the One Piece, and the words he spoke next spawned the start of the Great Pirate Era: "My treasure? If you want it, you can have it. Seek it out! I left everything in my life at that place!"  

Romance Dawn: Enter Luffy and Zoro

Let me begin by saying that I was hooked from the first episode.  In the beginning of this story arc it introduces you to our main character of the story, Monkey D. Luffy.  We learn that when Luffy was a young boy when he befriended the Red Hair Pirates who stopped in his village.  He especially had a strong bond with their captain, Red Hair Shanks.  Luffy promised Shanks that he will one day be the best pirate that the world has ever seen.  In this flashback, we see that Luffy accidentally ate the Devil Fruit that Shanks and his crew found.  We learn that a Devil Fruit gives the person that ate it powers, and the one Luffy ate (the gum-gum fruit) now made his body into rubber, which allows him to contort and stretch his body to his will.  Later on, Shanks sacrificed his arm to save Luffy from a sea monster and before sailing off, Shanks gave Luffy his iconic straw hat, which is now Luffy's most priced possession.  

We then meet up with Luffy in the present day, where we see that the boat he wanted to sail with is starting to sink, so he climbs into a barrel and hopes for the best.  Luckily, a pirate ship sees the barrel floating in the sea and decides to load it onto their ship.  After climbing out of the barrel, Luffy meets the ship's cabin boy, Koby, who's dream in life is to become a marine.  After learning this, Luffy decides to help Koby escape from the claws of the ship's captain, Alvida.  Luffy and Koby tries to escape, but Alvida captures them and agrees to take Koby back and let him live if he calls her the most beautiful in all the seas.  Koby refuses and insults Alvida, but before she could kill him, Luffy punches her into the ground and demands a boat to sail with.  

With the boat Luffy and Koby make it to Shell town, where Luffy wants to recruit the pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro.  Zoro is a legendary swordsman, famous for his three swords technique.  But in Shell Town, Zoro was captured by the marines, because he killed the marine captain's son's dog who tried to attack a little girl with no intention of stopping it from happening.  Luffy fights off the corrupt marine captain and his son, to which the marines applaud Luffy's victory.  Zoro decides to join Luffy on his adventure and Koby decides to stay on the island to join the marines.  

Before going on to the next story arc let me first tell you Zoro's backstory.  As a child, Zoro trained in a dojo where he dueled and lost time and time again againts the Dojo master's daughter, Kuina.  One night, Kuina and Zoro dueled with real swords, but after losing again Zoro and Kuina decided to become the greatest swordsman and swordswoman they can.  Sadly, Zoro finds out that Kuina died due to falling down the stairs.  Zoro asked the Dojo master if he can have Kuina's sword and he agrees.  He then emotionally states that he will be the best swordsman the world has ever seen. 

This arc gives a perfect introduction into the world of One Piece and what we can expect from later arcs.  This arc is also pivotal in establishing how the marines can easily be used by corrupt leaders and captains to reach their own selfish desires.  

Orange Town: Enter Nami

After becoming lost at sea and accidentally being stolen by a massive bird, Luffy and Zoro makes it to Orange Town.  Here they meet Nami, an orange-haired girl who is running away from pirates when she meets Luffy.  Nami decides to take Luffy to Buggy the Clown, a pirate who also possesses Devil Fruit powers, to show her "loyalty" to him, but she actually only wants to steal his treasure map.  Buggy can remove his limbs and put them back again and he uses this to his advantage in combat.  Nami's conscience gets the better of her, so she frees Luffy and the two of them flee into the town.  There they find a small dog who has been protecting his late-owner's shop ever since he passed away.  Luffy then defeates a member of Buggy's crew, Mohji and his pet lion Richie, after they destroy the shop.  

Zoro and Buggy's second hand man Cabaji duels it out while Luffy takes on Buggy himself in the final showdown.  Buggy tells Luffy that he knows Shanks and that he is inadvertantly the reason why he has his Devil Fruit powers.  In the fight, Buggy de-attached his limbs, but when he tried to put them back together again, Nami tied up his legs and arms, so the only things that re-attached was his feet and hands.  Luffy then throws Buggy far into the horizon (we later find out where he landed) and the town is saved.  Nami decides to join Luffy's crew and the three of them set sail once again.  

Syrup Village: Enter Usopp

After setting sail again, the crew finds an island that supposedly has treasure on it.  When they get on the island they meet a man who is stuck in a chest and who has basically grown into it.  We learn that he was accidentally abandoned here by his crew after they searched the island for treasure.  He tried to climb the hill where the treasure supposedly was and accidentally fell into the chest.  After asking Luffy to check if there really is treasure up there, he finds out that there is not, but he decides to stay on the island as he feels that he is the protector of the strange animals that live there.  

After the pitstop at the island, the crew moves on to Syrup Village.  There we meet Usopp, my favourite character.  Usopp is shown to be an annoyance to the village, because he keeps falsely warning them about pirates.  Usopp entertains himself by acting like the captain of his own made-up pirate crew, the Usopp pirates.  They consist of Usopp and three of his younger friends.  When they arrived in the village, Usopp tried to fool the Straw Hats, but they saw through Usopp's lies and went into the village.  There they befriend Usopp and we find out that his father, Yasopp, is a member of Red Hair Shank's crew.  

Usopp has a very wealthy friend, Kaya, who is sick and can't go outside.  He always goes and tells her made-up stories of his supposed pirate adventures.  She knows that they are fake, but still enjoy listening to Usopp.  She is well looked after by her two butlers, Merry and Klahadore, but Klahadore is actually an evil pirate captain in disguise, who is planning to let his crew attack Syrup Village and kill Kaya, so that he can get all her assets.  Luffy finds out about the plan and decides to stop the pirates and save Syrup Village.  The Straw Hats then attack the pirates and Luffy decides to take Klahadore on on his own.  They defeat the pirates and save Kaya and the village.  

Before leaving and joining Luffy and his crew, Usopp goes and says an emotional goodbye to the three members of the Usopp pirates, where he encourages them to follow their dreams.  Usopp also goes to say goodbye to Kaya, who gives Luffy and the Straw Hats their own ship, the Going Merry.  Usopp then joins the crew as their cannon sniper.  We also learn Usopp's backstory here.  After Usopp's father left to become a pirate with Shank's crew, Usopp's mother became very ill.  He started to shout that pirates were coming to give his mother the strength to fight her illness, but sadly she passed away.  After her passing, he kept doing it as a way to cope with his grief and loneliness. 

This is personally my favourite arc, because it introduces my favourite character to the show.  Usopp's backstory is also very tragic and even though he is quite the liar, he has a heart of gold.  

Baratie: Enter Sanji

While on their new ship, Luffy wanted Usopp to test out the cannon launcher on some rocks in the distance, unbeknowns to them that there are two bounty hunters (Johnny and Yosaku) on the island who are friends of Zoro.  So when one of them tried to attack Luffy, Zoro stopped them and they decided to tag along with the crew for a while.  Luffy was also on the lookout for a cook, so when the two told him about the Baratie, a restaurant on the ocean, they decided to sail there next.  

Just to make this blog post a little bit shorter, when they arrived there Luffy accidentally broke part of the restaurant and was forced by the head chef Zeff to work there for a while to work off the damage he did.  There we meet Sanji, who is a chef on the Baratie.  Let me first tell you Sanji's backstory before explaining further.  When he was a kid Sanji was a chef-in-training on a small boat when Zeff, who used to be a pirate captian, attacked.  In the pursuing attack, Sanji fell into the sea below and Zeff decided to save Sanji as he also fell into the water, due to a storm that was going on.  The two of them washed up on an island, where Zeff pretended to share the ration of food they had with Sanji, but he actually gave all the food to Sanji.  After 70 days, Sanji made his way to Zeff and found him extremely malnourished with part of his right leg gone.  Zeff and Sanji started talking and realized they shared the same dream: to find the all blue, where all the seas meet.  But because of his injury, Zeff decided that he wanted to open a restaurant instead.  On the 80th day they were rescued.  

Back in the present at the Baratie, a big ship pulls up to the restaurant and out walked Don Kriel, who was famous for being a ruthless pirate.  His right-hand man asked them to give him food, but at first no one wanted to feed him until Sanji gave him food.  After eating and regaining his strength, Don demanded that the restaurant is now his and that he was going to attack it, but he first demanded a sack of food for his crew.  

Before the battle started Luffy and the others tried to sneak away, just to find out that Nami double-crossed them and stole the Going Merry.  Usopp, Zoro and Johnny then set out to find Nami but before they could, one of the seven warlords of the sea, Dracule "Hawk-Eyes" Mihawk arrived in an impressive entrance by slashing Don's ship in half.  One of Zoro's dreams is to beat him, so he challenged him to a dual but sadly lost.  Although injured, Zoro made it out alive.   After the dual Zorro, Usopp and Johnny set off to find Nami and the Going Merry.  Luffy then decided to take on Don Kriel and he defeated him after a hard and difficult battle.  Sanji decided to then join the Straw Hats, because he still wanted to find the all blue.  Sanji, Luffy and Yosaku also went to find Nami and they would finally find her and the others at Arlong Park.  

Arlong Park

We first catch up with Nami when she made it to Arlong Park.  Arlong Park is ruled by fish men who believe that they are above humans and that they can treat them like animals.  The fish men's captain, Arlong, has an agreement with a marine captain where he pays him off to be silent about his operations.  

Let me first explain Nami's backstory before explaining this arc.  Nami and her sister Nojuko (who the Straw Hats will meet later on) were young orphans when Bell-mere (who I will just call Bell for simplicities sake) found them on an empty street as she was on the verge of dying when she was still a marine.  Bell grew up in Cocoyasi village and was always a trouble-maker before joining the marines.  After she found the two of them she made her way back to Cocoyasi village to raise them there.  They lived on a tangerine grove and wasn't very wealthy, but they were happy until Arlong and his crew arrived.  When he arrived he wanted people to pay 100 000 berries per adult and 50 000 berries per child.  Because Bell couldn't pay it, she was killed in cold blood infront of Nami and Nojuko.  After seeing Nami's map drawings, Arlong decided to make a deal with Nami that if she could pay him 8 000 000 berries, he will let the village go.  So young Nami joined his crew and worked long and hard until she found Luffy and joined his crew.  

When Zoro, Usopp and Johnny catched up with them Zoro was captured by the fishmen after Usopp and Johnny tied him up to stop him from attacking the fishmen head-on.  But after seeing the fishmen coming to the ship, Usopp and Johnny decided to swim for the island; accidentally leaving Zoro tied up.  After his capture Zoro finds out about Nami being apart of the Arlong crew before being thrown into a cell.  

Usopp and Johnny find themselves in a neighboring village where all the houses were flipped upside-down for not paying Arlong.  A big fishman then starts to chase them and while Johnny runs away, Usopp tries to shoot the fishman with his slingshot before being knocked out and dragged away by Nojuko.  There he learns who Nojuko is and why she stopped him.  While they are talking, they are interrupted by Arlong who wants to kill the village's major and Usopp (while scared) saves him from being killed.  Sadly, Usopp is captured and taken with Arlong.  At Arlong Park Usopp learns about Nami and she is tasked to kill him.  She pretends to stab him, but she actually stabs her own hand and Usopp pretends to stumble into the sea and die.  But Johnny only saw Usopp being killed by Nami, not her saving him, so he runs to Luffy and the others (who have arrived on the island) to tell them.  Luffy is unphased and knows that Nami would never do such a thing.

While in his cell, Nami gave Zoro his swords back and instucted him to wait for Arlong and his stonger crew to leave before escaping.  Zoro took her advice and killed a lot of the fishmen and made his way to Cocoyashi village where he met up with the rest of the Straw Hats. 

While they are talking, Usopp emerges from the horizon and tells them all about what happened.  The crew makes their way back to Cocoyashi village where Luffy finds Nami (who found out that Arlong lied to her about the deal) trying to carve the Arlong tattoo off of her arm until he stops her.  Luffy never hated or doubted Nami and he promises her to get her revenge.  With that Luffy, Usopp, Sanji and Zoro made their way to Arlong park to defeate the evil fishmen.  Seeing the gang walk to Arlong Park is one of the coolest moments so far in the show and it was at that moment that I decided that I want to finish the series.  

After they arrived in Arlong Park, Luffy and the gang attacked Arlong and his crew.  Towards the end of the fight, Luffy found the room where Nami drew Arlong's maps.  There he destroyed every map and part of that room.  Luffy then defeated Arlong and the village was saved.  The village then held a party and Nami decided to change her Arlong tatoo to one with which she can remember Bell forever.  The next day the crew set sail once again, this time heading to Louge town, the place where Gol D. Roger was executed.  

Louge town: Buggy's return

When the crew arrived in Louge town, Buggy was also there on the lookout for Luffy, because he still wanted his revenge.  To make a long story short, Buggy got his body back and found Alvida, who ate a devil fruit and now also possessed powers of her own.  They teamed up as they both had the same goal: to get revenge on Luffy.  

Before getting to Louge town, Luffy got his first bounty poster and all the people that he has helped thus far cheered him on when they saw it.  We even see Mihawk and Shanks celebrating together.  

Back in Louge town, Luffy is determined to see what Gol D. Roger saw before he died, so he sets off to his execution platform with Buggy close on his trail.  After Buggy catched up with Luffy, he captured him and tried to behead him, but Luffy only smiled in the face of death.  By a stroke of luck, a lightning bolt hits him and Buggy.  Luckily, Luffy is ok and Buggy also didn't die.  Luffy then met up with Zoro, Sanji, Nami and Usopp again (who each had their own sub-plot that I won't go into now) and they made a dash for the ship.  On the Going Merry they set sail, leaving Buggy, Alvida and the marine captain Smoke (who also has devil fruit powers) on the island.  

Something then happened that I assume will be explained in later arcs, because a big gust of wind came and saved the whole crew as it blew the ship away.  I'm still not really sure what happened there but I think it was probably some divine intervention.  There is another story after this arc but I don't see its relevants to the plot, but after it they finally set sail for the grand line and East Blue comes to an end.  

My thoughts

After picking One Piece up again I'm embarrased that I ever dropped it.  This show is really, really good so far.  I also enjoy how One Piece sets up their world in a way where everything feels connected in some sort of way.  The whole world of One Piece just feels so alive.  Oda also beautifully sets up Luffy and the rest of the crews morals and personalities in this first Saga in a way that little of shows ever do.  And to make it even better is that I still have over a thousand episodes to go.  

If you've kept up with world news lately you would know about the protests happening in Nepal.  While protesting, they used the Straw Hats flag as a form of resistance against their government.  In Indonesia the Straw Hats flag has been banned, because it was used in protests against their government.  That is what makes One Piece so good.  It teaches people that they need to stand up against corrupt systems and to make the world a better place.  The same goes for Luffy.  He teaches us to laugh when things go wrong and to stand up for the weak and oppressed.  Luffy is also a great example of someone who will not die before they reach their goal in life.  

Luffy and his crew is also such a great found-family, because the whole crew mixes so well.  Their different personalities and goals compliment each other perfectly and all of them gets a moment to shine in the show.  Even the villains like Arlong and Don Kriel is so perfectly made, because they are well set up and made to look like this larger-than-life figure until Luffy absolutely destroys them.  

In Conclusion...

One Piece is a great anime so far and I highly recommend it.  I still can't say that it is the greatest just yet, because I haven't finished it yet.  But I would still recommend it if you want something light, funny and full of adventure.  Thank you so much for reading this blog post, I really appreciate it.  If you enjoyed it, please consider following my blog.  You will be notified whenever I post a new one and it will make me very happy.  Thanks for reading, and until next time stay jolly!