she lives in Germany! She’s lived there since she was 13! She hasn’t said anything at all about the war! THE STRAW HATS ARE TERRORISTS! NICO ROBIN WORKED WITH THE revolutionary-army DURING THE TIMESKIP! YOU WOULD 100% CONSIDER THAT TO BE TERRORISM! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT matt-jokerfied

  • corgiwithalaptop [any, love/loves]
    ·
    2 days ago

    Is this the only site on the internet that correctly understands the politics of One Piece? I very much tend to not engage with anime fans aside from asking y'all for some recommendations so I'm not sure what the overall....uh, vibe, I guess....is of the general public.

    Also am on Dressrosa pt2 (around ep705) so pls no spoilers if this post gets engagement.

    • Barabas [he/him]
      ·
      2 days ago

      Anime fans on twitter are terrible by and large. It is all about power scaling and "aura" shite or arguing about how characters are goats or washed, like a more annoying version of sports twitter. The reason that Zoro is by far the most popular character from one piece there is likely linked to that he is the least silly Straw Hat other than Robin.

      Don't really know much of the ability of the general public to read, I just discuss anime here (very rarely) or on another forum that is even more niche.

      • AndJusticeForAll [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        It is all about power scaling and "aura" shite or arguing about how characters are goats or washed, like a more annoying version of sports twitter.

        You see this disingenuously rephrased as "character development" when what they actually want is for all characters to get more powerful and to become either cooler or more gender-role-inhabiting by the end of the show. The idea that these characters aren't your friends but pieces in a broader work is totally paved over by their homeostatic need for art that doesn't challenge them at all and isn't a message from another person's experience or ideas of the world.

        See the visceral hatred people have for characters in Evangelion, particularly Shinji and Asuka.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        2 days ago

        It is all about power scaling and "aura" shite or arguing about how characters are goats or washed, like a more annoying version of sports twitter

        This bullshit also ruined Star Wars fandom for me. "Who would win in a fight" with midi-chlorian count babbling like some sort of fantasy football league.

    • AndJusticeForAll [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      I think so, mainly because Hasan mentioned to the Trash Future* podcast the basic, basic politics of One Piece and those guys were basically like "damn, what a wacky, subjective interpretation you have there" and barely patronized the idea.

      The comments on the YouTube video and the subreddit for that podcast were slightly better but you know reactionaries seem to not post when there's an actual left presence already in spaces so a bunch of them were likely holding their tongue. It was posted here, I think.

      Edit * : sorry, meant Trash Taste not Trash Future. Different podcast.

      • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        2 days ago

        As always in the realm of Nate or November adjacent podcasts they're all leftist in name only with only one person having actual leftist politics, while the rest are anticommunist brain-wormed larpers

      • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
        ·
        2 days ago

        Well Trashfuture has one of the two bad hosts from WTYP so that is unsurprising honestly.

    • Alisu [they/them]
      ·
      2 days ago

      "Luffy is an anarcho-monarchist", whatever the fuck that means

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        anarcho-monarchist

        Thesis: DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

        Antithesis: OBEY MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

        Synthesis: DON'T TELL THE MONARCH WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

      • SpiderFarmer [he/him]
        ·
        2 days ago

        It's an anarchist commune where they wear those Burger King crowns.

        • CommunistBear [he/him]
          ·
          2 days ago

          Yeah, it's a bit weird but I usually view that more along the lines of national liberation vs support of monarchy in general.

        • Infamousblt [any]
          ·
          2 days ago

          Yeah but they're generally monarchies that support the people and have the people's support. It's a weird dynamic but it feels intentional to avoid the whole "and now Luffy and the straw hats stay for a month to guarantee a free and fair election" thing that would slow the already glacially slow story down

          • hello_hello [comrade/them]
            ·
            2 days ago

            Also they are not monarchies in a sense because they are all under the control of the world government. They are essentially puppet governments that allow the WG to extract and hoard wealth while also giving the illusion of political autonomy/diversity.

          • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
            ·
            2 days ago

            It does kinda undermine the world building that's supposed to be oppressed under the world government when you line up all the monarchs under them and half of them are our buddies from the last arcs

            • hello_hello [comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              2 days ago

              undermine the world building

              It doesn't undermine it at all. It's hard to answer this question without spoiling the entire series but I can just say that there is no choice of government within the OP world that isn't a monarchy since the world is controlled by an empire which calls itself the "world government." That's to say, It's not a coincidence that Luffy and co. keep stumbling into monarchies and leave them as monarchies. There is a world police force called the marines that enforces this social order and each "kingdom" (which are really just colonies) has to pay a tribute to the world government to simply exist.

              The WG doesn't recognize governments that are not monarchies or at the very least doesn't protect them. The majority of the world is dependent on the WG's military force of marines and intelligence agencies for protection from pirates. Those pirates were created from the conditions of enforced poverty and servitude that the WG set (the lumpenproletariat) while the working class inhabitants of the world have their labor value taken from them by the WG in the form of tributes. In exchange, the monarchs of these countries live lavish lives (nowhere near the level of the WG) and have slight autonomy in how their affairs are handled.

              There exists a revolutionary army that wants to destroy the WG which would upend the entire social order that has been constant for centuries. Luffy is not part of that army since he's a pirate, therefore he doesn't do any organizing in these islands since that's not his goal/role.

              EDIT: In an interesting sense, pirates must exist in order for the marines to justify their control. It's only when these pirates grow too powerful and amass territory that is independent of government control that they are considered threats which then justifies the hyper-militarization of the marines which continues the cycle until it reaches a breaking point and a revolution occurs like we have in the current narrative of OP.

            • REgon [they/them]
              ·
              2 days ago

              I mean the places that don't line themselves under the world government get designated as islands where nobles get to hunt slaves for fun, so it's not like they have much of a choice.

              spoiler

              or worse they just get hit with a space laser and removed from existence

            • AndJusticeForAll [none/use name]
              ·
              2 days ago

              Is there any chance this is like a Bolivarian-thing? Where the regional bourgeoisie team up with the proles/peasants, etc to expel the colonialists/imperialists?

              • hello_hello [comrade/them]
                ·
                2 days ago

                It is from what I've read and interpreted, all Luffy does is just give the locals a fighting chance to save their country. Most of the time, the problem isn't that a king exists but that some foreign entity like a pirate group, marines, world government is trying to take over an already vulnerable country.

                The time when it actually is a bad king the kingdom becomes an electoral democracy run by the people headed by the those who fought for the freedom of the country. Oda makes sure that the people themselves have agency in liberating themselves and it isn't some one sided savior complex. Even in arcs where it seems like the straw hats are doing everything Oda still manages to tie it to the people of the island.