I love me a character who would absolutely be a hell of a dad but because of trauma vehemently believes they would be bad parents/refuse to make a child go through what they went through.
I just wanna demonstrate how common it is for the maps in One Piece to have the grid tilted at an angle to the cardinal directions rather than being oriented north-south and east-west.
(I know the Egghead one isn't immediately obvious, but the port is specifically said to be northeast)
Even Wano, altho this one doesn't have a compass so for context, if you obsess enough about the orientations you'll figure out that Onigashima is actually northwest of the rest of wano, so this map must face southeast (1)
My hypothesis is that these maps are oriented to line up with the Grand Line because that kinda makes sense for this world, right? (At least within the Grand Line where you can't navigate by compass anyway)
And a lot of maps in general tend to favour lining up with the Grand Line in general, even when there's no grid.
Although there are a couple of exceptions:
^ this one is from chapter 22 and I'm pretty sure it's the very first map we see in the series (other than Buggy's treasure map which is of an unknown location and we don't even see it properly)
Red Line is already at an angle to the cardinal directions though, so the fact that it doesn't just run north-south goes all the way back to the beginning (at least in the canon)
This is presumably a map from the East Blue, that could maybe explain the discrepancy, idk (or it's just a case of Oda defaulting to a north facing grid)
^ very small but you can just about figure out that it shows the Grand Line and the Red Line and the grid is at a 45 degree angle to them (it's a map to Thriller Bark, based on the caption) — this one might be the newest example of the grid NOT lining up with the Grand Line and the Red Line? Because most of the other exceptions seem to be at least pre-Sabaody
The map seems to be facing west, though, which is interesting. At least assuming that the grid lines up with the cardinal directions.
This could also hypothetically be a West Blue made map, since Bege is from there originally. Maybe that's why it points west lmao
Or maybe Oda just drew it whatever way looked best in the picture
^ there's also this one which doesn't have the Grand Line or the Red Line visible but which lines up perfectly with the cardinal directions and even faces north and everything
^ this also implies a north-facing orientation since Rainbase is supposed to be north of Yuba
Those are the exceptions I was able to find, there might be more of course, especially from early on in the series, but in a lot of cases I just can't remember if any directions are explicitly mentioned or not...
This one of Enies Lobby is very ambiguous, firstly because Paulie literally gives a disclaimer that it's just from his memory, but also because it's not exactly certain which direction the map is facing, although chapter 384 suggests southeast (VIZ translates it as just south for some reason)
Not sure it lines up with the tub current but then again the tub current map is very stylised. I'm counting this as a dubious example
Same with Fishman Island, which is a bit of a confusing one, the arrow says northwest (although I checked in Japanese and it's actually northeast) but the compass would indicate that north is oriented diagonally, also earlier maps said Waterwheel Town was north
Then again there's this:
Either way, this grid orientation thing isn't fully consistent, but it's consistent enough that lining up with the Grand Line seems to be the default approach to drawing map grids in this world. Also the approach that matches our world's conventions better mainly shows up in older arcs so either it's more of an East Blue and Paradise thing or in the Doylist sense, maybe Oda just hadn't thought of doing something different yet and defaulted to the modern standard. But the Bege map would admittedly suggest that it might be a Paradise thing, since the Florian Triangle is in Paradise and that cover story ran during the Wano Arc.
Who knows. I find this interesting either way.
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(1) Okay I was complaining about the lack of citations the other day so I'm gonna give my own for the Onigashima thing:
It's actually pretty easy to figure out which way Onigashima faces thanks to this little map: (the sides are south and east so the skull must face southeast)
The problem is of course figuring out which way the skull faces in relation to the rest of Wano, which is tricky because Oda always draws it facing forward on every map regardless of the orientation. But this is not a map:
And you can see that the skull faces Udon directly.
It did briefly occur to me that it could also be that this is the back of the skull and the face is just random scribbles, but firstly, this panel also has the face:
Also if they were approaching the island from the back then there would be no reason for Law to need to take the Akazaya around like this:
- In early One Piece (at least up until Jaya) maps tended to face north and be aligned with the cardinal directions, just like real world maps usually are nowadays
- From at least Sabaody onwards (possibly Enies Lobby, but it's a bit dubious) it has been much more likely that the maps don't align with the cardinal directions
- The reason for this might be that they're aligned with the Grand Line instead, and the Grand Line mostly doesn't line up with the cardinal directions
Dang, this is great analysis! Love the details in these maps, thanks for collecting them all. I also think it's neat.
Possible explanation for Jaya & Alabasta map alignment: Don't forget that the grand line changes compass directions! From Reverse to mid-Paradise (somewhere betw Alabasta & Water 7) you're going SE to ESE to E, then towards Fishman Island you're going E to ENE to NE - and then the reverse pattern through the New World. So near the Red Line, Grand Line doesn't align w East-West, but midway (e.g. around Alabasta & Jaya) it does.
That would make the Nami Red Line map from chapter 22 and the Bege cover story map the only exceptions on this list (there might still be more, I didn't check absolutely every map in the series)
This reminded me to check the map of Nami's home island because it's the only other East Blue arc map I remember
Nami's map is a bit too hard to see, or at least I couldn't find a clearer view of it in the manga
But Usopp has his own mental map here:
In the East Blue there's also this map of Goa Kingdom from Luffy's flashback, but I don't remember if it ever specifies directions:
Although in chapter one it says the wind blows from the east and you can see the Red Hair flag flying towards the sea, so presumably the sea is west
Or at least west-ish
So those two do align with the cardinal directions
Technically this could be another case of them just happening to be close to an area where the Grand Line does too, but I don't think these islands are close to each other, and it would make sense to use the cardinal directions on a sea where compasses do work
But then again that would also apply to God Valley which was in the West Blue, and yet it was also drawn facing northwest
Then again that particular marine could be from the Grand Line
“if you love this character then you must make him happy in your fics, right?” wrong. the horror. suffering. internal hemorrhage. hospital. immediately
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