One Piece Diaries #65: Marineford #4

One Piece is one of the most beloved anime in history, but at over 1,000 episodes, it’s tough for those who haven’t been watching from the start to jump on board. One Piece Diaries tracks one writer’s experience with this daunting rite of passage. With hype for the highs and critique for the lows, this column will help you decide whether to take your own One Piece journey – or let you relive the one you’re already on. It will be updated biweekly every other Thursday.

Episodes Watched: 484 – 489

I just finished Marineford, so let’s dig in.

I knew that Whitebeard was going to die, but I wasn’t expecting it to happen almost immediately after Ace died.

I have mixed feelings about that approach. On the one hand, it did a great job of bringing home the relentless brutality of war, and it ensured that the pace went on at a fast clip. On the other hand, I felt like I needed more time to sit with Ace’s death. I was so emotionally caught up in said death that I found it difficult to even process Whitebeard’s, let alone feel as emotional about it as I think I would have otherwise. I’m not sure what the right approach would have been, and I’m sure the impact is different depending on who’s watching.

That said, I have to give some serious props to the animation that happened while Whitebeard was being blasted with weapons. It made the whole sequence of events look incredible and brought home how genuinely powerful he is. I’m hoping to get more individual focus on him now that he’s gone.

Another moment I want to talk about is when Koby stood up to the Marines and demanded that they stop fighting. Koby has been bothering me for a while. I think he’s an interesting foil for Luffy and I appreciate how far he’s come…but his goals involve working for a clearly villainous organization. I know that he doesn’t fully understand this and is pursuing his dreams based on what he believes is right…but it’s hard to sympathize with him because of said goal. I have an easier time with Helmeppo because his arc involves totally changing his personality and approach to life, while so far Koby has been more or less the same guy, just a bit more confident.

In this scene, he turned things around. While he didn’t realize how corrupt the military was, he could see that senselessly fighting was only going to create more casualties. That kind of growth — where you fundamentally change how you feel, believe act — makes a much bigger impact on me than just “becoming stronger.”

Luckily for him, Shanks agreed with his point, which brings me to another interesting thing about this set of episodes–Shanks’ ability to stop the war completely with just a word or two. This brings home how powerful and respected he and his crew are. This was amusingly contrasted with his bickering with Buggy…which of course got his fanclub to worship him even further. While Buggy is obviously sick of them by now, as a lifelong pessimist who is trying to get more positive in therapy, I can’t help but admire their ability to be relentlessly positive about everything that Buggy does.

One last thing–can somebody tell me whether it makes any sense whatsoever for Luffy and Jinbe to not receive anesthetics because they’re so injured that they don’t feel pain? Because that sounds fully insane to me, but I’m not a medical expert so maybe it isn’t.

I’ll soon be starting the Post-Marineford arc. I’m not sure what to expect, but I’m sure that Luffy is going to have quite the grieving process to go through. Hopefully, we’ll finally get to catch up with the rest of the Straw Hats, too.

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