One Piece Multi-Piece #5: Hated Arc & Things Get Dark
Article by Sean Wilkinson,
Now we get to the reason I started wanting to talk about One Piece: I. Hate. Thriller. Bark. If you thought my opinions on parts of East Blue, or the Drum Island mini-arc, or that almost-filler arc with the Foxy Pirates were as savage as I could get, Thriller Bark is a cesspool of wasted time, constant annoyance, unoriginality, and intelligence-sapping contrivance.
Okay; now for the "Things Get Dark" portion of this post. But not really because the Sabaody Archipelago arc starts out pretty light-hearted with the Straw Hats trying to find a way to get to Fishman Island without the Thousand Sunny being crushed by water pressure (even though it's made from the wood of a legendary, giant, nigh-indestructible tree) because Nami's Log Pose is pointing downward. They soon meet a young mermaid named Camie (whom Sanji is delighted to see after his encounter with an elder mermaid in Enies Lobby that "never happened") and her talking, Rastafarian New Yorker starfish, who are hoping to rescue their Octopus Man boss from a group of human trafficking bikers. The gang leader wears a mask that makes him look like a Fist Of the North Star character, and seems to have a grudge against Sanji. The joke behind this reveal plays out a touch too long, but it's followed by an even better joke when Sanji kicks the man in the face so hard and so many times that it turns him handsome (possibly several years before Family Guy did a worse version of the same joke with Meg?) and he wants to become Sanji's disciple. Also, the captured Octopus Man is revealed to be Hatchan, a reformed member of Arlong's crew whom Zoro defeated back then. Hatchan has a sun emblem on his forehead that will be important later.
a.k.a. the Animeister.
I forgot to mention this last time even though it's really important, but the Enies Lobby arc actually had two more episodes, wherein Ace (shown in flashback to have disowned the Monkey name and accepted Whitebeard as his father) finally tracks down Blackbeard and faces him in battle, only to learn that the man has eaten a Devil Fruit that gives him Darkness powers that prove to be stronger than Ace's flames.
Also, there was an episode where "Red-Haired" Shanks (the man who sort of acted as Luffy's guardian when he was a kid in some flashbacks from the early East Blue, and gave Luffy his hat...and an arm) meets with Whitebeard to discuss Blackbeard's crimes and whether it was wise to send Ace after him. This meeting and the fight between Ace and Blackbeard set the World Government on edge (even more than they were after Luffy defeated Crocodile and demolished Enies Lobby), and the narrator says that events have been set in motion that will change the World forever.
So let's continue our search for the One Piece and set sail for this issue by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, commenting at the bottom of this post, helping out my ad revenue as you read, and joining my Crew on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest snail transmissions of news on my content.
To be fair, there are a few--repeat: a FEW--highlights, such as Nami's friendship-by-way-of-survival with a jealous, homicidal zombie warthog-woman, the arc's clear inspirations from Gothic architecture, classic monster movies, the "Thriller" music video, and Scooby-Doo! Where Are You? cartoons, Ian Sinclair (Whis from Dragon Ball Super) voicing a reanimated skeleton who makes bone puns and dresses like Prince, Usopp tapping into his Sniperking persona to psychologically fracture a Queen Of Hearts-inspired shut-in with ghost powers, and Luffy stacking Gears to defeat the villains of the arc with some Jet-powered Giant Gum-Gum attacks.
Plotwise, stop me if you've heard this one: a blonde ladies' man, a woman with orange hair, a sexy nerd, a coward, a Scrappy fighter, and their talking animal sidekick investigate a spooky mansion where the eccentric owner with a questionable reputation attempts to scare them because you meddling kids and your raccoon-dog won't let me get away with my evil scheme to gain notoriety. It's basically a Scooby-Doo episode stretched out into an anime arc, complete with multi-doored hallway maze slapstick chases.
If you were wondering how an anime could consistently pump out an arc that is...checking resources...forty-five fucking episodes long!, on a weekly basis, let alone a thousand-plus-episode anime, the answer is no more apparent than it is here in Thriller Bark. Half of any given twenty-five-minute episode is either credits animation, episode recaps that just show you the entire final scene of the previous episode, commercial bumpers, or episode previews. There's even an episode or two where they just show the Laboon stuff from the beginning of the Grand Line again, but in a smaller aspect ratio with a frame and a nostalgia filter over it.
The dialogue makes my ears bleed because as bad it was to listen to two Giants onomatopoeia laugh at everything in the Little Garden material, there were only two of them. In Thriller Bark, the Shadow-stealing Warlord Moria, the zombie-making mad scientist Dr. Hogback, the ghost girl Perona, and the undead musician, Brook (who is supposedly an accomplished swordsman despite being dead and losing most of his fights in this arc, as well as a skilled musician in every instrument despite only knowing one song on only two instruments) all have annoying Japanese onomatopoeia laughs that they insist on repeating at least three times after every sentence like an elipsis of auditory torture.
Speaking of Brook, Laboon, and contrived unoriginality, after the Straw Hats stop Hogback and Moria from turning everyone's stolen shadows into souls for an unstoppable zombie army that will allow Moria to take over the World and become King Of the Pirates (also, the Peter Pan'd original owners of said shadows will burn to ash in direct sunlight like Universal Dracula), we learn that Brook was a member of the pirate crew whom Laboon imprinted on as a baby, and that they didn't abandon him; they got sick and died! Well, except for Brook, who ate a Devil Fruit that would allow him to come back from the dead one time. He wandered the ocean on the wreck of his old ship, hallucinating, singing to himself, and otherwise going star-craving mad. Yes, I know it's actually "stark-raving," but I needed to do something to distract myself from the fact that Brook has a panties fetish and this arc has been the crust of shit that I smear across my eyeballs before I claw them out with sharpened chalkboards made out of rusty nails.
Get a tetanus shot, vaccinate yourself against pinkeye, shove in those earplugs, and fuck this arc. I hate it with a passion.
Its final saving grace, though (much like how the pointlessness of Long Ring Long Land was sharpened up by the last-minute introduction of Aokiji) is the arrival of the Warlord Kuma, a massive, bear-themed cyborg with Devil Fruit powers that allow him to transfer pain, injury, and possibly more, with a swipe of his paw-palmed hands. He shows up in the middle of Luffy's battle with Moria, poofs Perona out of existence, offers to help the defeated Moria escape, and later threatens to kill the Straw Hats (not only is he a Warlord Of the Sea, but his cybernetics are the product of the World Government's Pacifista program--remember that name for a bit later) because the World Government wants to keep Moria's defeat a secret from the public. However, he offers to change his mind if Zoro can survive absorbing all of the damage that Luffy incurred in his battle, which Zoro does, unbeknownst to any of his crew, despite being found later, barely conscious and standing in a twelve-foot circle of his own blood.
With the worst arc I have ever endured out of the way, and a musician added the the Straw Hat Crew, this seems like a good time to talk about the bumper music.
When an episode goes to, or comes back from, commercial breaks, there is a brief animation related to one of the characters (in the East Blue through Skypeia--I think; I don't recall the exact moment when it changed to something else, but I know Robin was the last to be included--it was their individual Wanted posters wafting toward the camera, and thereafter, it was their reactions to being peered at through a spyglass--possibly inspiring May's "Destroy" Finisher from Guilty Gear?--followed by a relevant activity or possessions), accompanied by a snippet of theme music. Luffy's is a triumphant trumpet scale that sounds like old-school superhero fanfare. Zoro's is...Zorro-sounding with a dash of samurai flavor. Nami's is a slinky spy melody. Usopp's is whimsical and clownish like zydeco music as inspired by Bulk & Skull. Sanji's is suave and jazzy. Chopper has kind of a woodwind melody with a hurried and tense quality. Robin's is mysterious, smoky, and sexy like a femme fatale from an old noir detective movie. Franky's is bombastic and celebratory. And Brook's starts out with a haunting hum before ending with a few notes of "Binx's Brew" (or "Booze" in the original Japanese because kids in the West aren't supposed to know what alcohol is, and it's the one song that Brook knows how to play). Even Vivi gets her own bumper during the Little Garden and Alabasta arcs, with music that is kind of regal and forelorn, highlighting her true station and her feelings about the state of her country. They match their respective characters perfectly. My only criticism is that the bumpers are, for the most part, chosen at random, with no hint that "we're switching focus from this character's fight," or "we're going to follow this character through town now." I don't care much for the opening or ending theme music that I've heard so far (even the fan-favorite, "We Are," failed to grab me like it probably should have), but these short bumper themes are the kind of character expression I dig.
Speaking of Wanted posters, there is another episode from the Enies Lobby arc I forgot to mention, wherein the entire Straw Hat Crew get Wanted posters and Bounties (previously, it was just Luffy, Zoro, and Robin). The most notable being Robin's updated poster to a more recent image, Chopper being disappointed that his Bounty is only fifty Berries, and Sanji needing to be hand-drawn because the press couldn't get a picture of him for some reason.
But for now, he leads the Straw Hats to the Sabaody Archipelago, home of fantastical new tech like bubble bikes, and morally reprehensible activities like kidnapping, human/Fishman trafficking, slavery, torture, and public assassinations. That bubble tech is what the Straw Hats will need to coat their ship (courtesy of Gol D. Roger's former first mate!!!) so they can get to Fishman Island. But because the criminal element on Sabaody (not counting the other nine rookie Pirates with 100M+ Berry Bounties who have come to witness a Slavery Auction and maybe discover something even more fun) get the richest from kidnapping mermaids (read: Camie gets kidnapped for the auction), Zoro gets bored and lost going for a walk, and there's a family of disgusting, pompous aristocrats with diplomatic immunity riding their slaves around town, shooting any "peasant" who makes unwarranted sensory contact with them, and snatching new harem wives off the street at random, Luffy has some new asses to kick.
When he punches one of said aristocrats (let's just call him Snot-Nosed, Fat Space Elvis) who was in the process of acquiring Camie for his slave collection, it causes an international incident that draws the full might of the Marines to the Archipelago, which, at this point in the story, is like a Buster Call times ten, plus four Pacifista cyborgs who look like Kuma, as well as an Admiral with light powers and Kuma himself.
Despite teaming up with the other "Supernova" rookies (including a mafioso-looking captain who can shrink his entire crew and ship's artillery and store them on his body, and has the unfortunate name of Gang Bang) and "Dark King" Rayleigh (the aforementioned first mate of the King Of the Pirates), the Straw Hats can only struggle in vain while their shaky allies are slaughtered and Kuma swats them away one by one, leaving Luffy for last.
Likewise, we in the audience can only stare at the empty, silent aftermath of the Navy's wrath as Luffy is also swatted out of existence.
The credits roll and a filler episode is previewed. But for the first time in over four hundred episodes, Luffy's sign-off declaration is nowhere to be heard. He's not gonna be King Of the Pirates.
Of course, there are hints in the finale's dialogue (particularly between Kuma and Rayleigh) that the Warlord's touch does not mean death like we previously thought, and we know that there are at least another six hundred episodes after this. But when you've heard "I'm gonna be King Of the Pirates!" over four hundred times, the one time you don't hear it is something you notice. It isn't final, but it feels that way.
I think my in-the-moment reaction was something like, "What‽ Holy shit! He didn't say it! Oh, my god! What now?"
And for that answer, you'll have to wait until next time. Please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read, and join my Crew on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest snail transmissions of news on my content.
Piece,
Out.
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