Coby is speed-running through the Marine ranks and might end up as admiral orange crab at
the end of the story, wielding the Mera-Mera no mi.
There are very few characters I have changed my mind about as drastically as with Koby,
the little annoying pink-haired harry-potter-glasses Koby, that we got to meet at the very beginning
of the story.
When I first started getting into One Piece, he was pretty damn annoying to me, I'm not
gonna lie.
I was here for pirates and epic fights and wanted to see Luffy and Zoro beat people up.
The few episodes with Coby were enough for me.
Jump forward a few episodes, more, no like a few hundred episodes, what?
A THOUSAND?
Holy hell.
It's like someone accidentally left the printer on.
Anyways, nowadays my opinion on Koby has done a full 180 degree turn.
To me in a way he is the embodiment of great writing in One Piece and one of the most quickly
growing characters in the story, and I guess it took some time for me to grow as well as
a person to realize that.
Hi my name is Manu, thanks to you guys I'm at that level where YouTubers start saying
stupid shit, so I don't know, if this video gets a million views in the first week, I
will dye my hair pink *laughs uncontrollably* you become what you hate the most I guess
- like you know how people really hate on something, like writing shit on t-shirts hate,
but then end up doing it themselves?
That's me, but with Youtubers.
I completely lost my thread here.
*tries to calm down* One Piece.
Today I want to talk about Koby's very unique role in the story, what his encounter with
Boa Hancock probably means for Luffy, and of course, you know the drill, a crazy theory
about how Koby will become Marine Admiral Orange Crab, inheriting Ace's and Sabo's Mega
Mera no mi.
Yes another dead brother.
I know.
Koby's role in the story is one of the most interesting and creative ones in One Piece,
which really says something.
At first glance, it might be easy to think that Coby is supposed to be to Luffy, what
Garp was to Roger, a rival and foil in the marines.
However, Coby has neither the power, nor the necessary presence in the story to fill that
role.
Much rather it is Smoker, who chases Luffy from Island to Island and slowly but steadily
forms a bond with him, such as Garp and Roger did.
To me personally Coby's relationship to Luffy is much closer to the one Luffy has with Shanks.
He was the one who inspired Luffy to follow his dream and even though Luffy never really
gets to see Shanks, he keeps chasing after him and catching up in strength and experience.
And the way I see it, it's the same for Coby.
Luffy was the one who inspired him to follow his dream to become a marine and even though
he barely ever sees Luffy, he strives to catch up to him as fast as he can.
He is the first an maybe most important example of Luffy's unique ability to make allies and
friends wherever he goes and bringing out the best in people.
With Luffy by his side, Coby goes from the small, plump and cowardly boy to a full-blown
Marine Captian, with Haki and Rokushiki powers in just 2 years.
He is still far behind Luffy, but considering that Luffy has been training his entire life
with Garp and Ace and Sabo, I think it's more than impressive how fast Coby has developed.
He starts as a people pleaser with little self-value on Aida's ship, which is of course
understandable if you want to survive, who is too scared to step out of his comfort zone
to actually chase his dream.
Inspired by Luffy's confidence he finally awakens his inner flame of courage and decides
to take the necessary step to turn his life around.
Essentially Coby stops making excuses and starts taking things into his own hands, accepting
the risk that he might fail or be rejected.
Under Garp's special training and following Luffy's quick rise in the pirate world, even
though he still is undeniably Coby, every time we see him he has more and more confidence
and power.
He still cries a lot, but it's completely different, because instead of self-pity and
cowardness he now is a man that simply embraces his emotional side and is as caring and kind
to people as any straw hat.
Again, in true Luffy-fashion, his new big dream is to become a marine admiral, mirroring
Luffy's dream to become pirate king.
Luffy inspires Coby that anything is possible.
Marineford then is a true milestone in his development.
The moment he was determined enough to step in front of Akainu the coldest and most unforgiving
Marine out there, well-knowing that it will probably cost him his life, but with 0 regrets,
was when Coby gained 20.000 extra respect points in my book and in yours probably as
well.
Just like Luffy, he is now prepared to embrace his values and ideals and life for them.
In that moment he is the ultimate contrast to the cruel war-mongering of Akainu and shows
us what the Marines could and let's be real, should be like.
Something for which he even earns the respect of Shanks himself.
He keeps rising through the ranks and now is holding the 6th highest position in the
countless Marine ranks, taking on more and more important tasks.
Not only is he now on his way to fight the former warlord Boa Hancock, but he also is
part of the secret Marine organisation sword, that actively is fighting to free the Marines
form the hand of the corrupt world government.
So to my eyes at least, Oda is clearly building Coby up to play an important role in the story.
On the one hand he shows us how great and special a person Luffy truly is, throwing
out seeds of friendship with a future top-marine in the second chapter of the story.
Coby is a personification of the effect Luffy has on people.
On the other hand, he is now imitating Luffy on the Marine side, and is being set up as
one of the 'proper ones' that will lead the navy on the right path once the world government
is taken down.
An absolutely fantastic supporting character that is written very unconventionally, but
that I absolutely have grown to love.
So, where does our pink-haired bad-boy go from here?
The abolishment of the Shijibukai System was one of the major outcomes of the Revery and
threw a lot of heavy hitters back into the game.
I'm super excited to see where Mihawk is going to end up, Buggy is surely gonna run into
Luffy again at some point, but the most interesting storyline right now is undoubtedly Boa Hancock's
confrontation with Coby.
The scared kid from East Blue versus the revered Pirate Empress.
Now the outcome of this battle is heavily debated, after all, both are pretty powerful.
Coby has shown us how much stronger he has gotten, while hancock is even able to use
conquerors haki.
But of course, the one thing that combines this unlikely duo, is their love for Luffy.
Hancock is the self-declared future wife of the pirate king, while Coby is the biggest
member of the Luffy-fanclub, second only to Bartolomeo maybe.
I am more than curious to see how this fight is going to turn out, but I am convinced that
sooner or later, both of them will realise that they are on Luffy's side.
And I don't put it past either of them to team up and come for Luffy's aid, maybe even
still in Wano.
However what's even more fun to think and speculate about is whether Coby will actually
fulfil his big dream and become a marine admiral by the end of the story.
And there is a super interesting theory about this, that exist in a number of different
variations and with different twists, so it's hard to figure out who to credit for it.
Nonetheless it's an incredibly fun one and makes surprisingly much sense.
Now as a premise for this theory, we of course have to assume that coby WILL actually become
and admiral at some point.
You could say against that, that he still seems to have a long way to go, but then the
rate at which he has been growing has been pretty damn insane.
Plus we don't know if there might not be another time skip somewhere ahead of us.
The biggest clue however lies in the fact that this is Coby's declared dream.
Coby mirrors Luffy and One Piece is a story about dreams.
So while Oda could simply go and be like, ah yeee you gonna be an admiral in the new
marines some day my boy and they lived happily ever after at the end of one piece, why bring
it up in the first place?
So I do think that Coby will fulfil this dream, just like the straw hats will fulfil theirs.
The basis of this theory is the pattern that Oda uses to create the admirals in One Piece.
As you know, each admiral has a color associated with their devil fruit power, as well as an
animal.
Thus, with the original trio we have the red dog, akainu, the blue pheasant Aokiji and
the yellow monkey, Kizaru.
Later we get the purple tiger, Fujitora as well as the green bull, Ryokugyuu.
Another common pattern is the number 3.
There always 3 admirals.
Never more and never less.
Based on that alone it would be pretty hard to figure out more about Coby and his future
in the marines.
However, there are actually 2 more patterns hidden this system, that you're maybe not
familiar with.
The first is the color system.
It might seem a bit random at first, but red, blue and yellow are actually the 3 primary
colors, that you can use to make any other color.
I actually love design and stuff, so I'm pretty excited that we're talking about color theory
now.
Now let's mix each of these primary colors together.
Red and blue gives us purple.
Blue and Yellow gives us green.
And Red and yellow gives us orange.
Now Aokiji and Akainu have already been replaced by green and purple.
Kizaru still remains, but following this pattern would be replaced by an orange admiral.
Under the assumption that that's coby, this would make him the orange....what exactly?
And you may or may not believe me, but there actually is a pretty clear pattern to the
animal theme within the admirals as well.
You're already familiar with the legend of Momotaro from my video on Momonosuke.
Here's a quick refresher: It's an old Japanese story about a boy who on his journey to defeat
an oni, meets a pheasant a dog, a monkey and then in the second phase of the story a tiger
and later on a bull.
During this second part, the Monkey picks up and plasy with a Crab that defends itself.
The Dog goes to kill the Crab, and fails to, instead it can only throw the crab with its
mouth and knock it unconscious.
Later the crab comes back and attacks the dog during the final phases of the story of
Momotaro.
Now for full disclosure, this is only one of the many variants of the story, that is
however particularly prominent in the south of Japan, where Oda is also from.
The order in which each animal appears, corresponds perfectly with that of each admiral in the
story.
So once we have met admiral green bull.
I believe we will meet admiral orange crab, who is gonna be none other than coby himself.
Sound way more reasonable than orange crab should, am I right?
I feel the same way.
But it all seems to fit really nicely.
A bit too nicely.
The 2 conflicts between the dog and the crab might tell us more about this.
Let's just go back to this scene her for a moment [].
Coby steps up to Akainu.
A clear clash in morals and codes of justice.
Akainu TRIES to kill Coby, but fails, in the end only knocking him unconscious as shanks
steps in, who uses his shell, his haki to defend against Akainu's logia abilities.
A bit too much coincidence don't you think?
And this would also foreshadow a rematch between Koby and Akainu, this time on the same level.
Now what we still need to figure out is what ability Coby might have that would coincide
with the orange theme.
If coby becomes an admiral, he needs a fruit to back it up.
There is probably more options out there, but the best one that comes to mind is subscribing
to my channel for next generation anime content.
And the second best is Ace's mera mera no mi, that is as orange as it gets.
Ace even has a direct connection to Akkainu, like as direct as it gets.
Now the only problem with this is obviously that Sabo has already eaten Ace's fruit.
Sabo, who fights with claws, just as a crab.
Now if only there was any sign that Sabo might not survive and lose the fruits ability to
someone else.
The reverie really turned that idea on its head for me.
If Sabo was in comparable trouble to Ace, that might well lead in his death, or who
knows maybe he has already died.
And who better for Luffy to inherit both of his brother's wills than Coby?
But hey, that's just a theory, a One Piece theory.
And, if you want to know why Coby could inherit Ace's and Sabo's will by eating their fruit,
I strongly recommend you watch exactly that video, right here.