One Piece, (currently) at 744 episodes, stared airing since
1999 (manga/comic began in 1997, by Eiichiro Oda)- running for 17years now,
includes 13 movies, its own theme parks and museums… etc. (I can’t begin to
describe how big this anime is) One piece is very popular nationally and
internationally, just for perspective of how popular: Oda in 2015 won the Guinness
World Record for "The most copies published for the same comic book series
by a single author”, selling over 300 million copies worldwide!
This series follows the “Straw hat Pirate” crew in their
adventure to complete their individual dreams, sailing to many different
islands, completing many tasks and overcoming trouble (with other pirate crews
or, “the justice” keepers, the Marines, they finally reach the halfway point of
their adventure “The Red Line”. Just for this blog I will focus mainly on the
anime (which is an adaption of the manga anyways) “The Sabaody Archipelago” arc
and the “The Fishman Island” arc. These two arcs have really focused on the
racism between “humans” and “Fishmen”, and even “human” verses “human”
relationship, adapting real life events into the One Piece world, and revealing
(what I believe) the irony/ reality of racism.
SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T SEEN ONE PIECE EPISODE 390
ONWARDS.
Celestial Dragons-
the “Celestial Dragons” are what I would call “the
extremists” and the “what-could-have-been-White-supremacy”. Watching the video,
and imagine it in a real-life situation, how would you feel or react? The
Celestial Dragons are “the World Nobles”, the descendants of a group of
royalties that created “the World Government”- a political organisation that
controls a huge military organisation “the Marines” to keep “peace” throughout
the (One Piece) world. Of course this organisation is very corrupted in
executing their definition of “justice”. The Celestial Dragons participate “The
Human shop” trade- buying slaves, whether that be a child slave or Fishman
slave, (as seen in the video) they treat the salves like animals- chaining them
up and riding on them, killing their slaves as they please and buying more just
“to add to their collection”. They wear a bubble around their heads because
“they don’t want to breathe the same air as other lowly commoners”. They live
in “Mariejois”, a place literary in the clouds, a heaven-like area with
castle-like architecture. These correlations between The Celestial Dragons and
White supremacy is uncanny; the situation with slavery, the superiority act,
the idea that “they created civilisation”, the control of many countries around
the world, the royalties in a castle, and the belief they are the superior
race; through these similarities of the One Piece world and the real-world situations,
I would say One Piece gives a perspective of how unjust and extreme racism
would have become.
Symbols-
The collars use to “control” their slaves, if a slave runs
away or misbehaves, are explosive on command and cause death on slave. They are
symbols of being a slave and cannot be removed easily; forcing it open,
“displeasing” their master, trying to remove the collar are all buttons that
will initiate the explosion; wearing the collar is degrading, inferior,
helpless… all the synonyms for “sad” is closely latched on to the slave once
the collar is on their necks. The other symbol is “the claw of the dragon”, the
symbol that gets branded on slaves brought by the Celestial Dragons, a scar
that stays on the body forever (and a sort of tracking device to find runaway
slaves). The girls in the video were slaves but were rescued, they later become
very powerful people/ pirates and one of them even becomes queen of their home
country; yet they still hold and hide those scars of weakness, of disgrace, it
is a reminder of their traumatic past as slaves. To believe such powerful
people were once treated as animals. And to mention that they were just human
girls. Don’t these worn symbols remind you of a certain Holocaust?
Slavery-
In Sabaody Archipelago there runs an industry of buying and
selling slaves, whether that be giants, humans or fishman -if it is in chains
it can be sold. This “industry” is indeed quite disgusting, in the video the
scene which the mermaid retorts but poking her tongue, she gets beaten up and
looked down as “just a damn fish”, what was not in the video is that one of the
workers says “She is an important item, if you hit her, her value will drop… if
you’re to kick her, do it somewhere where her clothes will cover it, like her
stomach”- this violence is so inhuman, the fact that they inflict violence “as
long as it can be covered up”, and the greed to obtain the “highest value” for
their “item” (not even labelling the mermaid as a living-being anymore); such
racism, violence and greed is hard to swallow. What is further
upsetting is that the slave industry even produces approximate prices for each
“item”; prices depending of jobs the slave can do, what specialties/ tricks the
can perform, the height, age, weight and
birth-place, and what “race” the slave is; items are further glorified with
persuading intros and “packaging”; with the mermaid, she was placed into a
fishbowl, had a band playing to her “entrance” and had lights shined on her-
creating a spectacle and suspension to her auction; this further markets her as
just a item/product. The huge contradiction and irony to the slave industry in Sabaody
Archipelago is that it is illegal to perform auctions of slaves, illegal in
capturing people into slavery, and illegal to own slaves in the One Piece
World… essentially because the Celestial Dragons are there and participating in
the trade, the “justice” Marines ignores the situation. Reflecting on the
real-life slavery acts done in the past, the idea that Whites are commodifying
Humans, and they do it as an act of prestige (the idea that “if it can afford a
slave, I am rich and superior”)- slaves are used as labourers and decorations.
And the fact that such trade was “acceptable” was the power colonisers/ Whites
had over the minorities, and even if there were laws, it is usually biased
towards the more powerful majority.
Burden of Representation -
The Sun Pirates are a crew Fishman. The founding of this
crew was to help Fishman be free of slavery and fight for their own justice.
Their sun mark was their jolly roger and a branded symbol to hide their “claw
of the dragon”/ hiding the memories and label of being a slave. The Sun Pirates
thus contains Fishman who are a mix of slave and non-slaves. As The Sun Pirates
become more notorious for their “criminal actions” against the Marine, the
“leaders” of the crew starts to have bounties- these bounties are delivered in newspapers
around the world, this creates the burden of representation for Fishman as
violent and destructive creatures. The (One Piece) world are believing of the
“justice” Marines, so the fact The Sun Pirates are retorting against them,
further defines Fishman as criminals, and trusting what newspapers and Marines
say. In The Fishman Island Arc, the opposite is seen, Fishman view humans as
kidnappers and criminals- as they kidnap mermaids and other Fishman to sell on
land into slavery. Fishman see and experience these events in their own nation,
leaving a bad impression of humans in Fishman Island. It is indeed the lack of
knowledge, representation, and confrontation between the two “races” that has
caused such a negative view against each other.
Why the racism? –
This scene is one of the most shocking scenes in One Piece
(in my opinion). This scene is in the Fishman Island Arc, where the New Fishman
Pirates try to overtake Fishman Island and continue to try rule “the above
world” of humans. (as seen in the video) After many fights the Fukaboshi (blue
hair merman) asks the Captain of the New Fishman Pirates, Hody, “Why?! why the
deep hate for humans? What did humans do to you?”, and the shocking answer
(sadly not on the video above, or on videos on YouTube) “nothing…”. Humans did
nothing to Hody, yet he holds such a deep anger towards humans. Essentially
Hody was brought up in an environment where he watched humans kidnapping his
own kind, he watched (ironically) the pre-Sun Pirates “protecting” Fishman, by
killing the humans”, and brought up with the teachings that “humans are weak
and Fishman are the superior race”; Hody has internalized his surrounding
racism against humans, and reproduced it into a more brutal and violent racism,
that even effects Fishman who are “friendly” to humans and killed the Fishman
Island’s Queen- for trying to unite humans and fishmen together.
in the above video shows the response to Hody’s empty
racism; admitting to how the racism against humans were left to grow in Fishman
Island into something as terrible as Hody and now “Fishman Island will be destroyed
by its own grudge against humankind”; realising how Fishman has been
brainwashed by all the negative events relating to humans, and creating
baseless stereotypes, and marks of the plural against the (very) minority of
humans/ pirates who are able to survive the travel down 10 thousand metre under
the sea to reach Fishman Island; the creation of such racism was what was
stopping a formation of a good relationship between races; the cycle of passing
down of racism over many generations. All these elements of racism are what
initiated the destruction of Fishman Island. The lack of knowledge between
races, the passing down of racism, the lived experiences of racism, stereotypes
and mark of the plurals… all the elements relates to real-life initiators of
racism.
Blood-
This scene is very touching. The conclusion as the
protagonist Luffy (captain of the Straw-hats Pirates) is dying from loss of blood
after fighting against Hody, his crew is begging Fishman for a blood donor; the
law in Fishman Island is that it is illegal to give blood interracially; what’s
sad is the hesitant reactions from the Fishman population, knowing it is
illegal, yet knowing Luffy just save their lives and home, they all still
hesitate to step up and save Luffy. Jinbei, the current Captain of the Sun
Pirates, deem himself as an outlaw/ “pirate” so he doesn’t have to “obey” the
law, volunteers to donate blood to Luffy and save him. Listen to the scene’s
narration and visuals/ flashbacks, describes how the overall picture: this
racism is just a way to hurt others that share the same blood, and through this
transfusion will start a new relationship between humans and Fishman! The idea
that Fishman and humans share the same blood, really spoke to me in the way
that if in reality, racism is basically discrimination against ourselves as
humans; yes, we look differently and our colour skin is different shades but we
all share similar bloods (an element that is deeper than aesthetics). And just a quote from Shakespeare’s “the
Merchant of Venice” that relates to racsim being deeper than asthetics and that cycle of racsim:
"He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction." (Act3,Sc1)
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction." (Act3,Sc1)
This concludes this blog of racism in anime One Piece. I
would like to say I skipped lots of details just to summaries the main points.
And I wouldn’t advertise to get people to watch it, since it’s 744+ episodes
long, wasting 14880mins=248hrs=10.3days straight just to finish the anime show
of its normal 20mins episodes (not including the hour long specials, films and
OVAs). One Piece being such a successful anime and manga series around the
world, it brings awareness to subjects like racism to countries as conservative
as Japan, and allows people to imagine the “what ifs” if racism turned
different route in history. A shorter anime recommendation from me, that
touches on racism, “Black Bullet”- very sad and action filled anime (with a bit
of gore).
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