The WILDEST One Piece Theories (That Are Probably True)

In chapter one of One Piece, one of the very first pieces of dialogue we're treated to are the iconic last words of Pirate King Goldie Roger, which of course translates as my treasure. If you want it, you can have it. Search for it. I left everything I have in the world there in that place. Or some variation of that. The different English translations in both the anime and the manga subtly change things here and there. However, regardless of that, as it turns out, these were not Roger's original last words. In the prototype manuscript for chapter 1 of One Piece, Roger's infamous dialogue spoke more about the One Piece itself, and Roger said that his treasure could quote buy the world. Very much pushing the nature of the One Piece treasure itself more into the realm of material goods. And if you were to take the statement at face value, then you would be expecting the world's largest pile of gold and jewels or something. But you could also read into the word buy with a less transactional emphasis and say that Roger meant that this treasure would allow you to claim the world, which is very much in line with what we currently know of the One Piece. Vega Punker said that the fate of the world will rest in the hands of the person who lays claim to the One Piece. However, I do think that Etroda quite wisely changed Roger's original words because it transforms the idea of the One Piece into something more vague. It increases the mystery and even causes readers, watchers, and in world characters to question whether or not there even is a One Piece. I think the most important thing here though was to not give away the purpose of the One Piece, as it's only now almost 1,200 chapters later that we have this information. And knowing that the one piece gives someone the power to decide the fate of the planet so early on in East Blue would kind of ruin the romance of the Romance Dawn because back then it's supposed to be about Luffy, the Straw Hats, and their dreams rather than the bigger picture fate of the world business. However, with that said, this original Roger line is in the manga. It's just not said by Roger. In chapter 22, the other Gimon chapter, which seemed like filler at the time, but continues to become weirdly important in retrospect, Gimon tells Luffy to find the One Piece and to quote, "by the world," using the exact same words that Roger said in the original manuscript. So, why does that work here in chapter 22 and not with Roger in chapter 1? I think it's because Gimon is an unreliable source. He doesn't know anything about where the One Piece is. He's just a dude in a box. So you can very sneakily use him to give away the answer to the question without drawing too much attention. Although for us English speakers it was never given away as this line is completely lost in translation and Gimon instead says now go find the one piece and make the world your oyster. And I can see why they did that. It's I was going to say kind of the same. It's not really but to be completely fair to them the literal English dialogue would have sounded a bit weird. And it does get [snorts] close to the nonliteral interpretation of buying the world. The world is your oyster, but it's, you know, it's not having it. But knowing that Gon was speaking Roger's original words does make me feel like it's a bit of a shame to have lost that connection. Not that the English translators in the mid 2000s could have possibly known how weirdly important this one-off bush in a boxes line was going to be two decades into the future. But I really want to keep this line in the back of our minds for when we do eventually find the One Piece because I think it's going to make a frustrating amount of sense in retrospect that the One Piece gives you the ability to buy the world. And it's quite difficult to overstate the importance of dialogue in chapter one of this series. In general, it is the document that laid the foundation of One Piece and one that keeps being referred back to almost like a sacred text even now almost three decades on. And something rather special was originally planned for chapter 1,000. Question. So many questions that I need answered. And instead of waiting, I'm going to use PolyBuzz, a free private, and immersive AI chat platform with over 20 million characters, including Mr. Pirate King Goldie Roger. So, let's just do it. I'm going to ask Roger the big question. What is the One Piece? The greatest treasure in the world. Boy, the ultimate freedom. Yes, freedom. This is the kind of cryptic answer that I did expect. And as such, I have prepared an even bigger second question. Who's stronger, or Gaban? Ah, the eternal debate. They're both strong in their own ways, though could probably take him down with one hand tied behind his back. It's like asking a parent who their favorite child is. Well, you see, I love them both, but uh this one much more so than the other by orders of magnitude. And now that that is settled, we're going to go check out someone else. I think that Vice Admiral Doll is a good choice today. She certainly ticked a lot of people's boxes when she first appeared in the manga. And mate, I can see why you can't see though because I can't put any of this in a YouTube video. But if you want to check out what doll has to say or do say, then you can and should click my link in the description and download PolyBuzz today and gain access to over 20 million characters from all across media and also real life. And you can even create your own character. Plus, you can use my promo code GLR8 to unlock premium features. And just on a personal note, sponsors like PolyBuzz are what makes our videos possible. So, please do check them out and show your support. But for now, it's back to you, me. Thanks, me. Something rather special was originally planned for chapter 1,000. This was the chapter where Luffy hit Kaido with the red rock and the final line of the chapter was, "I'm Monkey D Luffy and I'm the man who will surpass you to be king of the pirates." You know, your very standard Luffy stuff. Which is why it may surprise you that this was not the line that Oda originally wanted to go with. In the first draft of this chapter, Oda wanted to make a call back all the way to chapter 1 in celebration of 1,000 chapters. and he was going to have Oda say Shanksa's line to Higma which was good reason or not nobody hurts a friend of mine and you can see how Oda was building towards this line in the framework of the chapter itself because the main point of emotion is the beaten Kinnamon asking Luffy to save Wano and Luffy replies that of course he will because it's his friend's country and before Luffy hits Kaido there's a series of flashbacks of all the friends he's made on this Wano quest line all of whom have been brutally injured and some even killed by this point so Hang Shanks design in this context would have worked. Good reason or not, nobody hurts friend of mine, Kaido. Bam. And it would have had this lovely full circle effect of the child of chapter 1 fully becoming the mentor he looked up to all the way back then. But ultimately, I do think it was the right choice to give Luffy his tried and tested I will become the pirate king dialogue because as wonderful as a full circle is, a full circle is a complete circle and we're not quite there yet. At this stage, we're 1,000 chapters in and Luffy is still very much on his journey, just as committed as ever. And I think it's very powerful to have him look two emperors of the sea in the eye and claim that he is going to surpass them right here and right now because that is the most inflammatory thing possible that he could have said to them. I also think that using Shanks's line might have been a bit redundant because we know how Luffy reacted to Kinnamon and he said that he'll save his friend's kingdom, the flashback, etc. We all know exactly what Luffy's fighting for without him needing to verbalize it. But it's also important to note Otis's philosophy of Luffy not wanting to be a hero and that he's not just fighting on behalf of his friends, but also in pursuit of his dream. So, I think that using the pirate king line was a fantastic way to put an exclamation mark on the end of this chapter and bring everything that is Luffy together for chapter 1,000, which is also titled Straw Hat Luffy. And Luffy, of course, is not the only person who has ever claimed that he's going to become the pirate king. Many, many characters in the series have said exactly that, except not exactly that. This doesn't come across in English, but whenever a character makes the claim that they will become the pirate king, they say it in their own unique way. Luffy, for example, always says, which simply bluntly, and directly means, I will become the pirate king. Sort of. The thing is that Luffy uses very weird grammar. It's not incorrect. It's just odd. And the stronger and more grammatically correct statement would be orwa kaizoku onu. The exact same words but in a different order. But in the SPS of volume 91, at sure Oda revealed that he purposely had Luffy say the sign in his own unique way because Luffy as a character would not use the most correct grammar and it gives him this unique way of speaking. And Odo is very cognizant about all of his characters having their own unique voices. It's not just Luffy. So let's take Blackbeard. He's also claimed that he's going to become the pirate king. And remember the straightforward base statement which is however when Blackbeard makes this claim. What he says is and this is such a painfully minor but extremely impactful difference. Luffy and Blackbeard say the same thing in a different order with mostly the same words except that Luffy uses the particle wa whilst Blackbeard uses G. Luffy says ora Blackbeard says orga. And the effect of this particle change is to give Blackbeard the impression that he is emphasizing that he and nobody else will become the pirate king. It's a much more specifically defined goal than Luffy's statement and puts a slightly sinister twist on the line, showing that Blackbeard is aware of his competition and actively seeking to destroy them rather than how it sounds when Luffy says it, which is a more pure pursuit of his dream. And another character who we've more recently seen made this claim is Buggy, who also has his own spin on the line. Buggy yells, which is the same thing the Blackbeard says except that Buggy adds the particle t onto the end of the sentence which could mean a couple of things. The first is that it leaves the sentence in a lingering state creating the sense that Buggy would like to say more but that more is being left implied. But the other thing it could possibly mean is the implication of a gentle command. And I think that second option makes a bit more sense in the case of Buggy because he was exclaiming his desire to become the pirate king over the Denden Mushy to all of his supporters. So in Buggy's case, this wasn't just a declaration. It was a request. It was a soft command to his followers. And so we're left in a place where in English, all three of these characters essentially say the same thing. However, Luffy says that he will become the pirate king. Blackbeard is saying that only he will become the pirate king. And Buggy is saying that he will become the pirate king, but with the implied help of others. They're such small differences and pretty difficult to convey in English. But I do really appreciate the nuance in which these characters state their desires because it just lets us get to know them that much better. Characters that people have been trying to get to know ever since 1997. And this drawing that you're seeing here on screen happens to be the very first publicly published image of Mr. Monkey Luffy. This was published in 1996 as a promotion for Romance Dawn version 1, which itself was published in a Jump special issue. Although controversially, according to Etra Oda, it was published in the wrong magazine, a magazine that I have right here. This contains the very first oneshot of what would go on to become known as One Piece. However, it was supposed to be published in the regular edition of Weekly Shonen Jump, which is a very big deal because getting into that sweet, sweet magazine was Oda's dream at the time, and that did eventually go on to happen with Romance Dawn version 2. But the Luffy you see here is a very different character to the one we know and love. This Romance Dawn iteration of Luffy was much smarter and presented a lot more like your typical cool main character. And to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little bit boring. It's a very sanitized Luffy. And I think that that may have been a ploy to get the upper management of Shonen Jump to take One Piece seriously because there were a lot of concerns about Luffy as a character and One Piece was almost never published because of them. So, I think that Romance Dawn version one gave us a curated Luffy, one that fits the description of what the magazine editors were looking for, but not what Oda wanted Luffy to be, which was a heavily flawed but joyous rubber whack job. And there was actually a very insightful interview conducted in 2017 where Oda laid out his frustratingly simple principle of character writing. And in that interview, he said, "If a character looks cool and has a perfect personality, they end up feeling insincere." So to maintain balance, I always try to give my cool looking characters some kind of flaw in their personality. And that first romance dawn on Luffy, in my opinion, was insincere. He was trying to be a bit too cool with not enough of a flaw to balance that out, which is something that anyone from any creative field can learn from. One of the things that I feel really holds writers back are how protective of their characters they are, especially if they function as a self-insert for the author. because the writers then either make the characters blandly perfect or the world around them refuses to acknowledge their flaws as flaws. What I really love about One Piece is that no character, no character at all is immune from being turned into a complete joke. Zoro is often seen as a cool for the sake of cool kind of character, but he's actually such a and not just when he's getting lost. Anytime that he is not wielding sharp metal, Zoro is messing up in some way, shape, or form. So, even though a lot of One Piece characters are larger than life and incredibly cool, they still do have these crippling flaws that make them relatable. And again, no one is safe from ridicule, let's take the coolest of the cool, arguably Mr. Robluchcci. A few years ago, one Oda was messing around with AI, and he decided to feed it one of his drawings of Robluchcci to see what the AI would turn it into. Eventually, Oda landed on this option, which filled him with so much joy that Oda redrrew the section of Egghhead Island where Luffy first encounters Luchi and inserted this AI character in his place. Odor actually did this as content for the official One Piece YouTube channel. He sent the host of that channel something in secret. They had no idea what it was and for some reason it was this. Although, you can definitely go too far in the wacky direction at times which Oda himself has acknowledged specifically with Sanji. And we discovered this thanks to the Vivia card data book which decided to show us a cut draft scene originally intended for the raid on Nonagosima after being beckoned by Black Maria. Sanji was originally going to be more heavily and straightforwardly seduced by Black Maria and her ladies during the raid. And in a practice sketch that never made it into the manga, we see Black Maria stating, "I'm ready to do it." With Sanji nervously replying it. And then either Black Maria or another one of her ladies then says, "You can strip off our kimonos. Doesn't that sound fun?" With Sanji replying, I'll happily die here. Which was a scene that I guess was deemed a bit too horny even for Sanji. It's not that Shonen Jump is a magazine that would not publish that. But I do think it crosses a line for what One Piece is. However, it is an interesting insight into the mind of Etura Oda and how he balances the intrusive thoughts with the telling of peak fiction, which is often subject to outside influence as well. For example, Amazon Lily was not originally planned to happen right after Sony Archipelago, but because one of Oda's daughters would be starting school soon at the time, he moved Amazon Lily up to get all of that pervy art out of the way so that his daughter wouldn't have a hard time with the weekly releases. And also going back to Sanji, without Oda's daughters, we would be missing a huge chunk of story about him. In 2022, Oda said that he decided Sanju would be a quadruplet because one of his daughters was a fan of the anime Osamatsuan which featured a cast of sex topuplets. His daughter loved this anime. And Oda said that because he wanted his daughter to love him that he decided to create Vinsmoke Siblings in a similar vein to the sex topuplets in Osumatsuan. And Oda also takes pretty heavy inspiration from other media sources as well, such as Oda himself being a massive fan of Star Wars. So much so that something of a crossover was organized for the Japanese release of The Force Awakens in 2015, where before the film, a short animation of the Straw Hats dressed up as Star Wars characters played with the voice actors doing classic quotes like having Usopp say the no, I am your father line as Darth Vader. Here's the crazy thing about this though. This was not being used to promote Star Wars. Because if you're seeing this animation, then you've already paid to go and see Star Wars. This was actually used to promote One Piece film Gold, which released shortly after in 2016. And it's hard to say how much it helped with The Force Awakens grossing approximately $100 million dues in Japan, whilst film gold grossed half that at approximately $50 million, which is still lots of money. I would like that much money, but then again, I can't be bothered to make a movie. But for more in-depth and dare I say miscellaneous facts about One Piece, and give this next video a go. I'm not entirely sure what it will be because the YouTube algorithm judges which video you're most likely to click. So, what I will say is trust in the curation and give the next video the hardest click it is that you can muster because I know you and we both know that you want more fictional pirates. Sabo is the fifth emperor, a very accidental fifth emperor I should say, who has now been elevated to a level of prominence that he did not expect due to a murder he did not commit. And just as his newly bestowed title of the flame emperor alludes to, this fire has well and truly started. And Sabo's power, influence, and notoriety in this world now very much rivals the established four emperors. Again, I want to emphasize that Sabo himself did not plan this, and I highly doubt that he wants any of it either, as he's now in a position where the momentum of the revolution is actively threatening the influence of Dragon, the man who Sabo trusts and believes in to deliver global liberation, and Sabo's status as the flame emperor is very potentially undermining Dragon's efforts, as we will explore a bit later in the video. Sabo, he's an accidental emperor. Whoops, I'm an emperor now. And it's all because of a series of innerworld conspiracies. This information was revealed by the director of the Naval Bureau of Investigation, Kuruuma, real name Tensei, who found that as a result of the assault on the Revery, the general public now believe that Sabo is responsible for the following three events. Firstly, the murder of King Cobra of the Alabaster Kingdom. Secondly, the kidnapping of Princess Nefitari Vivi, also of the Alabaster Kingdom. And finally, the attempted murder of St. Charles. Now, we as well read fictional pirate connoisseurs. We know that none of what I just said is true. Saba got a lot done at the Revery, but he's been credited with all of the wrong things. And here is why that is a pretty big deal to us. Having the murder of King Cobra attributed to you would be a pretty bad thing. And again, this is because we as readers, we know King Cobra. He was one of, if not the best kings of a world government nation. But what we need to remember is that his family name is Nefitari. And the Nefitari clan were one of the 20 founding families of the world government. So if you're a civilian living on some island with an absolute prick of a king, you're going to read that name Nefitarioo. And you're going to assume that King Cobra is probably even worse than your monarch because he is one of the progenitors of the system it is that you live under. He belongs to one of the founding families. The dude is practically a world noble. even if they didn't choose to go and live at Margeo. So, Cobra's murder was met with the same level of rockous applause that I know the fan base would give if next chapter Oda announced the death of St. Charles, which Sabo is also being blamed for attempting to make happen. We'll get to that. But firstly, we have item number the second. With all of that Nefitari prejudice in mind, the idea of Sabo kidnapping Nefitari Vivie is also seen as quite a lordable act. As in the minds of the revolutionists around the world, Sabo has essentially taken a world noble hostage to use for future bargaining power. What that does, right, it establishes Sabo as a man of action and as a man of planning for the future. He seems very reliable and that's why everything else that happened at the Revery got attributed to him as well. As we know, it was Sai and Leo of the Straw Hack Grand Fleet who flattened a St. Charles like a pancake. And it was St. Donote Moscard that allowed them to get away with it. something that Moscard has since been executed for. The world doesn't know that. Too much internal politics. It's too complicated. All that's been reported is the attempted murder of St. Charles. And with Sabo being allegedly responsible for killing Cobra and kidnapping Vivi, Gura reports that the world at large believes that Sabo is responsible for the Charloss incident as well. A very busy boy causing many chaoses in a single day, which is of course very reminiscent of his brother, Mr. Monkey Duffy. And something very interesting about this is that there is a slight difference in dialogue between the anime and the manga. In the manga, Koruma says that the public is convinced that Sabo was behind everything. However, in the anime, he says that people are excited to think that Sabo was behind all of these incidents. And there's a pretty damn big difference between those lines. One implying that the revolutionists have come to a logical conclusion. Sabo did a bunch of stuff. Other things also happened. Sabo did them as well. with the other implying a pretty serious raging blood lust within the general population. The idea that they are excited to think that Sabo may have killed and tried to kill and kidnapped so many people which has now culminated in Sabo being woripped in a manner akin to that of a god as the countries involved in the eight nation revolution have hung his portrait in their central town gathering points as if Sabo is some kind of supreme leader. And it's quite a terrifying following to be honest with you because when this sort of thing happens to Luffy and it has actually while Hancock hung his portrait up in the Amazon lily gathering place. But when it happens to Luffy, it's very good because Luffy manages to appeal to that inner good and kindness within people. However, Sambo's notoriety is appealing to the inner frustration and the inner violence harbored by those living in corrupt monarchies. When people pay tribute to Luffy, they raise a mug of assorted party liquid with a bright smile on their face. But from what we've seen, when people pay tribute to Sabo, they raise their nearest weapon with a gleam of angry determination. It's the sort of situation that could get very quickly out of hand, as is fitting of Sabo's flame emperor title. If you're not careful with a flame, then yes, it is capable of burning beyond your control. And it can be argued that that flame is already beyond Sabo's control. But being an emperor isn't always about the individual desires of said emperor. And just as with Luffy and actually Bucky before him, Sabo is being forcibly raised into that position by those around him. And what probably doesn't help are people like me who promote and support Sabo's manifesto via our choice of undergarments. However, with all of the that said, does this actually make him an emperor? I think there's a lot of people out there who would immediately say, "No, internet man, you're stupid." But you can't mate, guys. Just hear me, huh? Because first things first, the emperor system not quite as fixed or rigid as people may think. There is no rule or natural barrier that says you can only have four emperors and they have to be sea emperors not flame emperors. And in fact historically we've had less than four emperors in One Piece novel Ace during a discussion with that the makeup of the system prior to the four emperors was revealed as a three emperor system with Goldie Roger Edward Nugate and Golden Line Shiki being known as the rulers of the new world. And it was only after Roger turned himself in and Cheeky had a bit of a tantrum that room was made for the modern four emperor system to emerge. And there's no confirmation of this at this time. But it's currently suspected that what we know as the four emperor system only took hold when Shanks became an emperor, which was 6 years ago, as Big Mom, Whitebeard, and Kaido acquired all of the most powerful territories in the New World. And what Shanks did was form a coalition out of the rejected islands. the ones that were viewed as too weak to be part of an empire. Shanks built his empire out of those. And so the theory is that Shanks made space for himself as a fourth emperor by doing a bit of cleanup. And from the very beginning, Oda was writing One Piece as a story about conflict with the emperors. And he blames arbitrarily deciding to create seven warlords as the reason why One Piece has taken so long. But we actually have evidence that the emperor idea existed pre one piece as well. As in Romance Dawn version one, the main antagonist, Cresant Moon Galley, was a pirate aiming to become one of the so-called Bessuri, which is exactly what it sounds like, the best three. Again, alluding to the idea that there were three emperors. And within One Piece itself, we've not only gone below three, but also above it due to that time period where Luffy was considered to be a fifth emperor. And now, a lot of newer fans may not remember these times. I guess by newer fans I mean if you started reading or watching anytime in the past 5 years. But when chapter 93 came out declaring Luffy as the fifth emperor, this was met with quite a bit of controversy as at the time there were a lot of people who could not accept that Luffy had actually met the criteria of being an emperor of the sea. This was a wild time on the internet full of crazy semantic battles. All of which has long since been settled after Wana with Luffy actually becoming one of the four emperors. But everything that happened back then very much applies to Sabo at the moment. Whilst in Japanese, Luffy is known as a yonko today. Back in chapter 93, his Japanese title was the daigoko, which does mean fifth emperor, but it's a piece of linguistic nuance that we miss out on in English. And what it does is indicate that Luffy is not a member of the original group, the Yonko, but he is something that exists adjacent to them, which is something that would go on to be confirmed in a magazine article which clarified that Luffy could more accurately be referred to as the man who stands beside the four emperors. And Sabo now has his own unique distinction as well, just as Luffy did. Sabo is called the flame emperor in English. sounds very similar, but in Japanese, his title is ent, which means the same thing. But again, it offers up Sabo in a position separate from the system that we would refer to as the Yonko. And here's why I think that may be the case. Firstly, the title of Flame Emperor is a pretty multifaceted one. At first, you'd think that it's just an obvious reference to Sabo's devil fruit abilities. He has a fire loia, the dude's fire, and therefore flame emperor sounds nice. But it also takes on a more metaphorical meaning because the two big elemental motifs within the revolutionary army as a whole are wind and flame and together wind fanning the flame. So Saba being labeled as the flame emperor is alluding to him being the spark of the revolution which he was. He was the one who declared the war and he's also the one who is deemed responsible for all the conspiracy theories floating around in world and overall he is now the single greatest driving force for revolutionary activity all over the world. He is a literal and metaphorical flame burning rather bright. But also another thing in this, this could just be me, but I believe that Sabo is labeled as the flame emperor as a direct contrast to Luffy. In chapter 1,54 when the unnamed revolutionary dude is speaking through the megaphone, he says, "In the world of pirates, the flame emperor's brother has upended the old order. The times are indeed changing." which is directly referring to Luffy and claiming that this fight for the world is taking place on two fronts. You've got Sabo challenging the old order of the government and you've got Luffy challenging the old established order of piracy which together are the reason why the world is the way it is. And so if we're looking to perfectly contrast those two battlefields, if Luffy is an emperor of the sea and the sea is like a lot of water and stuff, then Sabo is the emperor of the flame, the opposing element of water. And together, these two brothers are upending the world order. And part of challenging that world order may be installing an emperor from an unexpected background with unexpected qualifications because I don't know, maybe Sabo doesn't meet the criteria to become an emperor as we know it. But the whole point is that we're trying to escape those rules that we know and build a new world with new rules. So, as for the established criteria of being an emperor, I don't know if it's necessarily that important. It's more about the theory of how Shanks became an emperor by how you carve space for yourself. And to me, Sabo has done that quite accidentally effectively with a current coalition coming from these newly freed world government nations. The countries that revolted during the eight nation revolution are not affiliated with any emperor, nor are they affiliated with the world government. And what's happened is that we've started to create a whole new empire claiming Sabo as its leader. one which only has the potential to greatly expand as any number of the remaining 170 plus world government nations find themselves slipping into revolution. But also when discussing the idea of Sabo becoming an emperor, I feel like a fairly easy wall to run into is the idea that mate surely only pirates can become an emperor. And to that I say I don't know about that because yes, the four emperors have been referred to as the four strongest and most influential pirates specifically. But that's because they all happen to be pirates, not because it's necessary as a prerequisite. And even then, if anything, the four emperors have transcended piracy as we know it. And you can tell that because of how they all refer to themselves. Oda makes some very interesting deliberate choices here with Big Mom calling herself the queen of Totaland, whilst Kaido is the governor general of the Beast Pirates. And Blackbeard has the audacity to label himself as the admiral of his fleet, which is also what Golden Line Shiki called himself during his reign. And Whitebeard, of course, was lovingly labeled as Pops. Meanwhile, current Emperor Buggy is referred to as the chairman. All of these emperors no longer take on the mantle of captain. They give themselves a new title. And in fact, the only two known emperors who still refer to themselves as pirate captains are Luffy and Roger, who also happen to be the two most unconventional emperors because they're the most pure of pirates. And if anything, the very concept of being an emperor is antithetical to piracy. Because being an emperor, having followers and territory and all that, it becomes very logistically restrictive. You're not free at all. And from now until the day you die or get overthrown, life is a constant chess battle to maintain the empire you've built. And so there are definitely more natural pipelines of life to plunk a person who would excel in a position like this. A revolutionary ideology being one of them. Their aim is to change the world. And they are very actively invested in liberating, maintaining, and building individual territories. But even if we went with a more classical interpretation of an emperor, let's examine the words that led to Luffy being labeled as an emperor. But even more than the imminent meeting of world leaders, the people of the world buzzed with the news of young pirate Straw Hat Luffy, who dared to confront Big Mom, the Emperor of the Sea, whose supremacy had gone unchallenged for decades. The newspaper stated that according to reliable sources, Straw Hat Luffy already had seven powerful crews under his sway, combining the authority of a captain with over 5,000 followers, the notoriety with both Ace and the number two of the Revolutionary Sabo, the extreme charisma and leadership to assume impromptu command over the formidable trio of the evil Germa 6, the Sun Pirates and the Fire Tank Pirates, the calculated strategic brilliance to execute the destruction of the Queen's Castle. and the strength to defeat her officers worth 800 million and 1 billion berries. The result of this incident was clear to all. Straw hat Luffy was victorious and it was the arrival of the fifth emperor of the sea. So, a couple of things here. The first is that almost everything that's said by the narrator here about Luffy, Sabo has an equivalent of. In fact, you could replace Luffy's name with Saro and also a couple of other nouns and it would still sound quite convincing. Luffy confronted Big Mom, an emperor of the sea. A power that had gone unchallenged for decades. While had confronted the world government, a power that had gone unchallenged for centuries, and he came out of it victorious. Luffy managed to unite seven powerful pirate crews as his grand fleet. And Sabo has done something similar as after the erasia of Lucia, Sabo now has exactly seven countries united behind him from the eight nation revolution. Meanwhile, it was Luffy's strategic brilliance that was said to cause the destruction of Big Mom's castle, a building shaped like food. And it was said to be Sabo's strategic brilliance that caused the destruction of the world nobles buildings containing actual food and leading to their famine, as well as causing the destruction of their fancy hoof symbol. In addition, Luffy took on two officers of the Big Mom pirates and Sabo took on two marine admirals, etc. It doesn't matter if it's actually true. What matters is that that is what's being reported. And really, it's as if Sabo read the narrator's speech and used it as a step-by-step guide. And so, I would imagine that Sabo's next bounty is very much going to reflect that because Another wall, I predict, is the inevitable, but man on the internet. Sabo only has a bounty of 602 million berries. That is nowhere near enough to be considered an emperor. And I do agree with that. Bounties, they're not power scaling, but they do represent threat levels. And no emperor is threatening at only 602 million berries. But after everything that Sabo has done, and more importantly, everything that he's been falsely accused of doing, Sabo currently has a new bounty out in the world that is currently unknown. And I would be shocked if his new bounty wasn't close to that 3 billion berry range. Not because he's necessarily worth that, but because of all of the things that have been attributed to him, and especially because the five elders even know a little secret that Sabo has seen Emu and is therefore even more of a threat to the world government than all of the false accusations make him out to be. And what gives me the most confidence in terms of Entree's grand bounty, Paul Lasabo, is that it's reported that he is now so popular that he may have even more influence than MonkeyD Dragon, who I will remind everyone is considered to be the world's worst criminal and likely has the highest bounty of any living character in the series. So, if Sabo exceeds Dragon's threat level, then we are looking at potentially unfathomably big numbers. Not that numbers alone make an emperor, no matter how big they be, as shown probably by dragon, but more tangibly by Mihawk, whose current bounty is higher than two of the current four emperors. And there's also no one person, one factor, or one body that decides whether or not someone is an emperor. I often see the misconception online that the world government are the ones responsible for officially crowning a pirate as an emperor. But I think this is from people getting a bit confused with the warlord system because it would very much not be in the world government's best interest to hype up their enemies. Warlord titles are granted because theoretically the world government controls warlords. But becoming an emperor is more to do with global consensus and natural public impression. But on that note, if there was one person who could theoretically crown an emperor, then that person would be big news Morgans. Because if he publishes a big newspaper claiming that someone is now an emperor, then that is going to be taken quite seriously by the rest of the world. Provided that that person has the CV of notoriety that we've already explored. So, what I think this comes down to is if Morgans has published the Flame Emperor title, then I think this is as good as done. And we have no hard confirmation that he did. But when Saba returned to Mama Era Island, Emporio Ivankov calls him Flame Emperor Boy, a name that he must have heard from somewhere. And given that he wasn't present at any of the nations adopting that title, it's likely that he read it in the World Economic Journal. And if so, then this world has already given birth to another fifth emperor. Ediro Oda made a YouTuber quit his job because he hates One Piece theories and he especially hates people who make One Piece theories on the internet. Well, this puts me in a bit of an awkward position because this has become quite a big story and quite a massive overreaction to a sprinkling of misinformation. So, let's get into the drama and this all started with a tweet from Mr. Sandman on Twitter saying, "A few days ago on Shimoua's radio program, it was revealed that Etra Oda dislikes having the future developments of One Piece predicted by theorists. After hearing Oda's remarks, Uderon, a well-known Japanese One Piece YouTuber, announced his retirement." Now, a lot of you will have heard of Udon before. I've referenced him on this channel, and he is, or I guess he was, a content creator who focused on One Piece theories and analysis. and he's actually the one responsible for coming up with the core idea behind one of the most successful videos in our entire niche being Ohara's the best One Piece theory you'll ever watch, I guess, which was made about 4 years ago now and very much changed the entire trajectory of English-speaking One Piece content on YouTube. So, it's very hard to overstate the impact that Udon has had on this platform in this niche, even if you've never heard of him. And so you can imagine that it must have come as quite an unpleasant shock to Udon to hear Oda state how much he actively dislikes what he does and hence why Udon is retiring. Or at least that's the narrative that formed as a result of this. The actual story is a lot more complicated. There's a lot of misinformations, misconceptions, and a lot of people who are getting weirdly angry at something that may not necessarily exist. And yet another case of pointing out that you shouldn't just immediately trust whatever it is you read on the internet. And let's begin with the figure who reported this, Sandman. He is a, how shall we say, slightly controversial figure in the One Piece fan base. What I will say for him is that Sandman is an absolutely invaluable source to English-sp speakaking fans because he goes out of his way to hunt down and translate these incredibly obscure interviews with Oda as well as his former One Piece editors. And they have given us such a profound insight into Oda's minds that I have cited countless times in my videos. And a lot of this information comes from the late 90s or the early to mid 2000s. This was back when Eti used to do a lot of interviews, none of which are online. They were printed in magazines and stuff. And Sandman, he tracks all of this stuff down and translates it for us. Some very good stuff. However, he can also be a bit polarizing because of the way that he words a lot of these translations, which can sometimes feel deliberately incendary. And I do believe that this is one of those occasions. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he does this on purpose to troll people as others would suggest, but English isn't his first language. And sometimes I think Sandman conveys information with a different implication than what was originally intended. And on this occasion, I believe a mistake was made with the tweet because the way that Sandman worded it makes it sound like a quote from Oda when in fact Oda wasn't even on this radio show at all. This was an acquaintance of Oda speaking and what he actually said was very different from what was reported. So for context, there were two people on this program and one brought up that the other used to make One Piece theories on YouTube and asked how many of them were accurate and this is a response to that question translated by Manu from the Ohara channel. Some things haven't been revealed yet, but it's hard to say how much I can talk about it. I mean, I kind of know Oda sensei now. Calling him a friend would be overdoing it, but we message online. He's like a god of manga. So, if someone he messages is out there doing fan theories, that might feel unpleasant. Yes, I kind of stopped doing them. Apparently, he doesn't really like them too much. So, this already gives a completely different impression because you got a bunch of people running around on the internet right now yelling about how Oda hates One Piece theories. And it's all based on not even hearsay because this guy isn't quoting Oda or conveying anything that Oda told him personally. what he's expressing is a vibe. He says apparently he doesn't really like them too much. And I'm 99.9% sure that this impression comes from an actual statement made by Oda. And this was all the way back in 2021. Specifically, the SPS of volume 101. Oda was asked by a reader if he watches any One Piece YouTubers. And Oda replied with, "I know they exist, and I have actually watched a number of them. I'm surprised. Everyone is really detailed. And the theories, too. They actually predict future stories. So, I stopped watching them. Lol. It's dangerous for me to consider all of my readers to be at that level. After all, there are plenty of casual readers, too. I need to draw One Piece so that it can be enjoyed by anyone. Seeing people that understand things so well will corrupt me, lol. Ah, I don't have to explain stuff here. They'll get it. So, yeah, I won't be checking anyone. Just get along and enjoy. So, you can start to see where some pretty heavy misconceptions come from. It's not that Oda doesn't like fan theories and fan discussion. and he's actually a little bit in awe of it and how accurate some of it can be. It's just that he doesn't like reading and engaging with it himself. Oda worries that if he engages too much or at all in that One Piece fan theory culture, then it will quote corrupt him and hinder his ability to draw a story for everyone. Because as he's writing, he'll be considering the hardcore fictional pirate fans on the internet too much rather than the average person in Japan who picks up a copy of Weekly Shonen Jump every week at a conbini or say the average person in the US bringing up manga plus on their phone and reading a chapter on their way to work. And so if Oda gets too involved in that hardcore fan culture, then he'll begin to assume a level of common knowledge that is in fact rather uncommon or even rare. And his writing will become impenetrable for a more casual fan who doesn't at all times remember every little thing that's happened over the past three decades. And what's quite remarkable about Oda and I guess One Piece in general is how accessible it is to anyone who picks up any random chapter and that's their first experience of the series. And that's part of the notso secret formula that has made One Piece the most popular and highest selling manga series in human history. That level of accessibility for casual fans. And then there's that optional range of depth for the crazy obsessive Australian men who spend 7 days a week writing, recording, and editing videos about these fictional pirates. And this is actually something that I myself have to consider a lot. I generally try not to assume that viewers of this channel have too much knowledge because you're all incredibly intelligent. and may I say aesthetically appealing individuals, but you guys have got your own lives to live. I'm sure you're doing your own things. Which leads me to repeating myself a lot across videos because I try not to make the assumption that everyone has a certain level of knowledge. Even if I've said something in a previous video because a new viewer won't necessarily have watched that previous video, I go and say it again. So, I do get where Oda's coming from here. I also think it is possible to be well, his word is corrupted, but I think it is very possible to be corrupted by the theories of others. So, I try to limit the intake of other One Piece content that I watch from other One Piece creators so that I can keep my opinions mostly my own because if you watch enough content, eventually your thoughts are going to be at least subconsciously affected by the media you consume. So, again, I 100% get where Oda's coming from here. And the absolute last thing I would want him to do is watch a bunch of our videos and start to be subtly influenced by that because whatever we're spewing from our mouths is not as good as what's going to come out of his brain. So, it's definitely the best thing for One Piece and for Oda to remain in his bubble, which has served us so well for so long. And again, that doesn't mean that he doesn't like fan theories or fan culture. It's just that he doesn't want the story to be in any way compromised by it. And neither do I. So, in that regard, I do think that Sandman has done quite a disservice by not making the context of what was said clear. Namely, that it was not Oda's words. It was not him being interviewed. And secondly, that it was also completely speculation from the speaker, almost certainly based on the SPS answer that I read out. But things get slightly more complicated when we get back to Udon, who did indeed retire after the show was broadcast. And he did site this comment as one of the reasons why, but it was not the primary reason. Uron was in fact retiring because his channel just wasn't getting the views required to make it a worthwhile endeavor. And if you look at his channel, you'll see a lot of videos that are getting around 20,000 views on average. Sometimes less, sometimes more. And to be completely blunt, that's just not enough to sustain a career. Not with the length of his videos and not with his posting frequency, which was about once a week. I know that 20,000 views sounds like a lot. 20,000 is so many you could fill a small stadium with that many people. But most YouTubers don't make anywhere near as much money as people think. Especially not ones in this niche. If you're talking about beauty, fitness, or personal finance, and that's a different matter. But fictional pirates, I mean, I think Udon could probably make it work if he posted maybe five to seven times a week, but that is such an insane amount of work. And the other incredibly important reason he cited for his retirement was his actual life. Things were getting very busy, and making One Piece videos wasn't really feasible anymore. And so, hearing this comment on a radio show was more a case of convenient timing. It gave Udon the final permission to say goodbye. But the way that Sandman worded it made it sound like Oda hates theories and it is such a profound dislike that it essentially forced a One Piece YouTuber to quit. That is unfortunately the narrative that spawned from this in reality kind of nothing statement which also isn't helped by YouTubers who jumped onto this a bit too quickly like say Chibi Reviews who made a video 5 hours after Sandman's Twitter post about how horrible of a take this was from Oda. How dare he say this? which is particularly crazy because Chibi Reviews also played Udon's videos with subtitles in his video, but I guess didn't watch it all the way through to find out the real reason why he was retiring. Nor did he try to confirm whether or not Odor actually said the thing that his entire video was about. He just assumed, not to single him out because he was far from the only one, but he was definitely one of the bigger presences to do what I describe as jumping for the treat. And what that means is essentially I have two dogs and when I offer a treat, one of those dogs is extremely skeptical and takes a bit of time to review the situation, including such factors as whether or not I actually have a treat in my hand before deciding to jump. Whereas the other dog will immediately jump at the mere concept of treat. There's no thinking. It's all doing. And sometimes that really doesn't work out for her. There's a lot of that happening here. Too many people jumping for the treat without thinking first. But this toothpaste isn't going back into whatever the toothpaste comes out of. And this narrative has already spread, hitting many One Piece fan nexuses or Nexai, such as the One Piece subreddit and of course the pirate folk subreddit. In case you don't know what pirate folk is, that's where One Piece fans go to be miserable. And so we have the following thread. Oda made a Japanese One Piece theorist quit his YouTube channel for doing theories on his story. So let me get this straight. Oda, you create a manga that goes on for 25 years in a weekly magazine and cultivated this loud fan base of smart tales. People stroke you and suck you off because of your world building, the foreskinning, the law, and the mysteries, and now you hate the idea of people in your country engaging with your world by uncovering its mysteries and characters. Is Oda exposing himself as a dumbass? As it turns out, Oda isn't, but the person who posted this thread is, as well as the this is crazy, one and a half thousand people who upvoted it and also most of the 400 or so comments reacting to it. It's a sign of an insecure writer. IMO people coming up with better reveals, thus making you look like the hack you are a multi-million dollar writer that cares about theories random on the net make about his story whose videos aren't even seen by 0, 5% of the fandom, is pretty pathetic. NGL Oda is an idiot if he doesn't realize that his manga is one of the highests selling graphic comics of all time. And folks are going to engage with his material and analyze the out of it. People will always theorize based on how the story is written. He has no one to blame but himself. And just to reiterate, because this is extremely important, all of these people are getting angry and miserable over something that never actually happened. Oda never said this, but because this has spread so far, it's now going to become one of those fan-based myths. There's already quite a few of these myths that are almost always based on bad translations of an interview. And I don't think this one gets spread quite as much anymore. But when I first started reading and watching One Piece, it was a very common myth to say that if a human ate Chopper's devil fruit, then they would achieve enlightenment, which was based on a confusing comical non-answer that Oda gave to that question in an SPS that was horrendously translated back in the day. And another one of those myths that's actually quite relevant to this topic is that allegedly Oda once said that if any fan managed to predict the ending to One Piece, then he would actively go out of his way to change it. I see this one brought up a lot and it's actually reemerged with this discussion. And so now what we've got are myths turning into a compound myth. The idea being that Oda doesn't want to have to go out of his way to change the ending. So he's trying to elucia all one piece theorists out of existence before any of them discover it. But weirdly enough, there is a bit more truth to this one though. Oda did in fact say this in 2019 during an appearance on Fuji TV. I believe the show was called Homadeca, which is a very classical kind of Japanese chat show. And it's where we learned a lot of very cool stuff, such as Oda having a whopping 10 assistants that work with him on Drawing One Piece, which is apparently what you need to bring to life such a wildly detailed manga weekly. It's also where Oda revealed that he only sleeps for 3 hours a day, which is apparently from 9:00 a.m. to midday. And because this was from so long ago, they also hilariously asked Oda if One Piece is going to be over 100 volumes. And as of recording this video, we're currently at 111. But the host of this show then went on to ask what would happen if a fan managed to guess the ending of One Piece. And Oda jokingly replied that he would have to change the ending, which Anime News Network picked up and ran with, publishing this statement as if it was made in all seriousness and unleashing this myth onto the fan base. But look, there is an interesting discussion to be had on the topic of whether or not One Piece theories are actually getting very close to hitting the mark and whether or not somebody already has already accurately predicted big reveals being saved for the end of the series. Because as we get more and more information in the final saga, these pieces are coming together. It's like playing Hangman. When you filled in enough letters, eventually the word becomes easy to guess. And I don't think we're quite at that stage yet, but a point will come in a couple of years where we've got enough information that someone somewhere is going to make a theory that pretty much spoils the end of One Piece, which is a very bizarre place for our online culture to be in. For most of its lifespan, the appeal of One Piece theories has been the infinite potential that there's so much left to explore and to be done that people were having a lot of fun exploring crazy ideas and connections. But gradually, as One Piece prepares to wrap up, fans are being funneled into increasingly common tunnels of thought because the possibilities for the future have significantly narrowed, as is expected when a story starts to reach its end. And it's definitely a lot harder to come up with interesting and unique theories than it used to be. And now a lot of speculation tends to center around trying to predict when exactly the end of One Piece will be, rather than all the crazy crap that's going to happen along the way. But look, again, I don't think we're quite at that point yet. However, there may come a time in the future where One Piece theory videos do genuinely turn into One Piece spoiler videos. But you let me know what you think about all of the this and in fact let me know what you think about anything anything you want in the comments below. And also don't forget to check out the calm belt and my dog my dog and the calm belt which is a channel currently undertaking the project of re-editing the Grand Line Review video library into themed compilations. very long videos, perfect for your very long- form activities like driving, drawing, gaming, sleeping, whatever it is you do for extended periods of time. We've got you covered for as long as it takes with no need to pause what you're doing and pick a new video every 15 minutes or so. They're not just compilations either because throughout the years, there have been what I refer to as lost videos. And these are Grand Line Review projects that were fully written, recorded, and edited. However, for various different reasons, were never published. I'm not going to tell you where they are, how many there are, or even what they are, though, because that's not really in the spirit of One Piece, is it? My videos, well, they're yours if you want them. I left everything I own in the link in the description. So, if this new long- form channel meets your needs, then please do check it out and make sure to subscribe because that is insanely important for small channels, and I look forward to seeing you there. But for now, let's get back to you, me. Thanks me.