Show Reviews #15 - One Piece's Marineford
I said once that One Piece's biggest strength was its anti authoritarian message, but this arc has another huge strength too. It's emotional core is actually really strong! Spoilers ahead!
Now, you might get the impression that One Piece is a bit of a dumb show, why? Because a lot of the times the characters will just say out loud their feelings and that makes the inspirational tone incredibly on the nose, it is telling rather showing, right? You wouldn't expect a show where every character yells out loud their attacks every time to be exactly filled with nuance or subtlety, but guess what, we were wrong.
I do agree the execution and presentation of many of the feelings in One Piece could be shown differently, but then I remember there is a Roblox One Piece hub, One Piece cards, One Piece toys, One Piece plushies and One Piece accessories and collectibles. One Piece also does its best to appeal to kids. The very yells every character does each attack is designed so kids can imitate them when role playing their favorite characters. I'm not saying that One Piece dumbs down the deliver of its message to sell toys to kids, its core message is in fact very important for kids to understand too, what I am saying is that keeping kids as part of its audience is important for One Piece.
So, yes, perhaps the on the nose execution of feelings and intentions is intentional, but is One Piece really smart? Does it have an actual strong emotional core to back up my argument? Well, that's what this arc is about. Marineford as an arc can be summarized as a escape heist where many pirates try to rescue Ace, and then hell breaks loose.
I did in fact liked many of the fights in this arc, the Pace cut is 17 episodes (395 minutes long) and I found myself watching up to three episodes at the time because I was so engaged. I also liked seeing many characters return, Jango, and having enemies fighting along with Luffy like Cocodrile and Mr 1. I liked Buggy being silly, and I liked meeting the Whitebeard pirates and Whitebeard's beautiful ethos of treating his crew as a family which represented the biggest wish he could have as a man. I also liked the harsh depiction where a man of an epic soul like him ended up killed by a bunch of low life thugs because that's something that happens countless times in real life where age turns the tides of power, but I also loved his beautiful ending speech and his resolute stance. I loved Sengoku too, because even if he plays for the other side, I can see in him a heart to do what he really thinks is right unlike many in the Marines or like unlike Akainu's who will take any chances to mercilessly destroy people in the name of something he doesn't believe, just an excuse to execute his power.
This arc is very fun and very nice and I liked it, but what is the most important is around the end when Ace dies. Why? Is it because when Ace dies that makes you feel you wasted your time in the entire arc? That all the fighting was for nothing? Tsk tsk, pay attention my friend. Because all this builds up to something real and necessary, and a true depiction of suffering.
Okay so Ace is nice and all that but in this arc I saw he also had his issues and, being Roger's son, he felt like he didn't have the place in the world. Again maybe I would have liked to hear about his emotional issues before this arc where he dies, adding flashbacks just here makes everything more on the nose, but I already said why I think the show being on the nose is actually by design. Now, Pirates are actually a minority, wandering outcasts, are a minority. It is easy to feel that you were born for no reason and there is no place for you in the world. So far, Ace's arc is very similar to Robin's but what the show does with him afterwards is incredibly different.
Ace, after feeling like an outcast and like he didn't belong to the world, is shown the biggest showcase of love he could ever get in his life. He saw many people willing to fight the world government and go to war to rescue him, from several fronts, not just from his crew, but also his sworn brother. The people he met along his life are saying, yes, you are worth the risk, because we love you. He then gets rescued and then they proceed to leave after Whitebeard dies too.
But Ace is provoked by one the marines, Akainu, and he turns back when he shouldn't have, and then while trying to protect the weakened Luffy, he dies.
What a moron? Right? He made everybody's efforts go to waste in the most stupid possible. He hadn't let Akainu get the best of him, Luffy wouldn't have turned back and he wouldn't have needed to save him at the worst moment possible. Stupid, just stupid, stupid man.
But can I really make fun of a man that was just as insecure as me?
Because I know how it feels like you don't belong, and like there was nothing good about you being born, of being stupid, and that feeling, and when someone gives you a helping hand, a reaching hand, you become incredibly defensive of it, for someone to simply insult the people who reached you in a time of need becomes an offense you just can't let go. No matter what, you feel invincible, you say, now that we are together, nobody will ever insult us, and you see your new friends, your new father, in the same place you were years ago as a kid when people said you were worthless and you didn't have a place in the world at all. You wouldn't like to have that little child to be insulted if you felt you were able to stop the mocking cries. Is in that very same moment that you feel that you must pay your respects, to honor the kindness you were given and fight back. For Ace, it is a decisive moment where the positions are inverted and fighting is crucial for his construction of self. Because he didn't grow up as someone who would run away.
That is the trap, if Ace had been around for Episode 1 and had been around with Shanks, he would have learned there are some fights you should not fight, fights that are not worth to fight and that if you fight you just lose your energy or worse, get burned.
Ace dies, but he dies thankful, knowing he was loved, understanding his mistakes but giving his life back for love, he falls into the final trap and learns he ended a foolish man, but a loved man.
That is the tragedy of Ace, and it makes me wonder, should you just not give a helping hand for those who are lost? Are those who are lost just too lost enough and if you help them, still end up messing up like this? Well, I sure hope not, I sure hope you give a helping hand to a broken person when you can, because even if Ace might not be the kind of person with the heart to change the world, if he might have been still too brash to fall in one of the fate's many obstacles, those few minutes where he realizes he is dying, but he is dying loved, represent the necessary expiation and fulfillment enough to free a soul from hell's eternity. To feel loved for a few minutes counts as much as being loved until the end of the earth in the grand scale of the universe.
You could also just watch my paced cut that removes 80% of the arc tho.
