- [Narrator] You know the Red Line has been
a consistently confusing factor
of the One Piece world for many fans.
A constant that, like circumnavigates the globe, what?
And I'm not about to make things any better
because in reality it is also one gigantic subscribe button
specifically for The Grand Line Review
allowing everyone who reaches it to receive
regular One Piece content uploaded
straight into the YouTube feed.
And you my dear viewer, after your long journey of life,
have reached it, enjoy.
Hello and welcome to One Piece 101,
the series that breaks down everyone and
everything in the One Piece world
and today that statement is being taken
on a rather grand scale because we are going
to be tackling the massive, massive task of breaking down
the literal weld of One Piece.
And this is far from an easy thing to delve into
because one of the greatest features
of One Piece is its overwhelming mystery
and the kind of endless expanding landscape before our eyes.
However, after two decades of the series,
we do have a very functioning idea
of how this world is structured.
And first and foremost, I will begin with the fact
that One Piece is indeed set on a planet.
A planet that is overwhelmingly dominated by water,
much more so than our home of earth,
or at least I'm assuming
that's where most people are watching this video from.
If not, feel free to let me know.
Otherwise for the sake of ease of explanation,
we are now going to invoke flat earth theory
and smoosh this planet in order to begin building it.
So the overwhelming majority of the series
takes place within one particular stretch of water,
known as the Grand Line, which circumnavigates the globe.
So I suppose just imagine a planet
wearing a belt or something.
This area of the world is extraordinarily volatile,
dangerous and highly unpredictable in terms of weather.
That's providing a fantastic location
for an exciting pirate based manga.
And at the same time, the Grand Line is populated
with potentially hundreds of islands
of varying shapes and sizes.
Some of which could be the area of a small deserted island,
whilst others can be the scale of gigantic countries.
But in keeping with the fickle weather of the Grand Line,
the climate of these islands can vary rapidly,
even for relatively neighboring islands.
And these climates can be broadly classified into
full time spring, summer, autumn, winter and spring.
With some of your classic examples
including Alabaster as a summer nation,
Drum Island as a winter wonderland,
and Dressrosa as your spring paradise.
However, autumn islands tend to be exceedingly rare
in this series, so much so
that we haven't actually labeled anything
as an official autumn island as of yet,
although it is fairly widely speculated
that Wano would be an autumn Island
given that its hot land is permanently draped
in falling sakura leaves.
Wanna does bring up the first of many tricky exceptions
to the climate classification though
because it happens to be an island
that boasts multiple extreme climates.
And if you were to take one giant step out of the capital
and venture into, say Ringo,
then you would find yourself in the depths
of a winter Island.
And then there are also places like Punk Hazard
which have had their climates artificially created
by a serious battle between lougy double for users,
as well as currently unexplained operations
like Raijin Island,
which is being perpetually struck by lightning.
So there is no really solid classification system
at play in this world,
and each island will still present
its own unique challenges.
However, the Grand Line
obviously does not exist in isolation.
And in order for this stretch of water
to be differentiated from the rest of the world,
it is deliciously sandwiched on both sides
by two thinner stretches of water,
known as the Calm Belts.
And obviously, these lengths of water
also circumnavigate the globe,
but as opposed to the Grand Line,
the weather in this section is as the name would imply,
perfectly calm.
Beyond calm, actually, I'd say non existent really
because somehow in these sectors of the world
there are no winds or sea currents
and everything is pretty perfectly still.
Making it, of course incredibly difficult to sail across
and actually access the Grand Line,
or leave the Grand Line should one so desire.
That's far from the most major difficulty
of the Calm Belt, though because it is also
the designated breeding area for Sea Kings,
which are the absurdly massive creatures
that can be found all over the planet.
However, they are highly concentrated in the Calm Belt.
Meaning that, should you sail into it,
your chances of being destroyed or eaten by one
are extraordinarily high.
That is, of course, unless you are an absolute boss
of which this series does have a fair few,
one of which I'd like to point out being
Silvers Rayleigh, the first mate of the former pirate king
who is able to casually swim across the Calm Belt
without any fear of Sea Kings whatsoever.
Also, in more modern times, the Marines have developed
a method by which to cross the Calm Belt,
which involves lining the bottom of their vessels
with sea stone,
which I suppose apparently repels the Sea Kings
as if they were zoo bats in a rock tunnel.
In actuality those sea stones just masks
the appearance of the ships,
and renders them for all intents and purposes
invisible to the senses of Sea Kings.
Now we have one more pretty big piece to place here
because while the world of One Piece
is predominantly composed islands,
it does have one crowning continent
which goes smack bang here known as the Red Line,
and it is a particularly long continent by anyone standards,
and just as with the Grand Line and the Calm Belt,
it also circumnavigates the globe,
just along a different axis.
And I suppose you could say that the Red Line functions
as something of a gigantic wall
because it extends 10 thousand meters below sea level
right down to the sea floor,
and while its exact height is still unknown,
it is certainly tall enough to be considered impossible.
Which isn't to say it's impossible to do so
because the Germa Kingdom, for example,
have developed a technologically savvy way
of climbing the Red Line with their ships,
And we have also had at least one example of an individual
who has painstakingly climbed up the Red Line,
being Fisher Tiger.
And he did so in order to get to the one known settlement
on this tall continent,
being the Holy Land of Mariejois,
which is where the world nobles reside
and rule over the riff raff masses from afar.
But the existence of the Red Line
also has the effect of creating four more
distinct bodies of water in the world,
which are known as the Four Blues.
Having been divided into North, South,
East, and West Blue, respectively.
And these probably represent what we would consider
average chunks of water
that operate very much akin to our real world.
There is nothing particularly special
or volatile about them,
except I suppose you may encounter a seeking
on the odd occasion,
but otherwise these blues are all quite peaceful
and reasonable areas of the planet.
The one that we are by far the most familiar with
in the series, being East blue,
which is where we commenced our journey
with one Monkey D. Luffy in the Goa Kingdom specifically.
And it is also the home of iconic locations,
such as Shells Town, where we found Zora,
Syrup Village, where we recruited
to stop the floating restaurant to Baratie
when we found our chef guy, Nami's home of Cocoyashi Village,
as well as Loguetown, where Gol D. Rodger was executed,
and many, many more.
As for the other blues,
we know very little about them at this late stage,
other than some scattered kingdoms and random fun facts
about who was originally from where.
Like for example, Noland and the Luvneel Kingdom
were located in North Blue,
whilst Portgas D. Ace was born in South blue,
and Ohara, Robins home island,was located in West Blue
prior to it being completely and utterly destroyed that is.
So they certainly contain great importance to the world
and the series at large,
however, what tends to happen is that prominent figures
migrate from these blues and make names for themselves
within the Grand Line.
That's problematic though,
because with the map as it is now,
there is no way to access the Grand Line
or any of the other Four blues actually.
For example, if I was to migrate from East Blue,
I would either be met with the Calm Belt,
or the Red line on all fronts
making any form of progress impossible.
Before we get to how to overcome this problem, though,
it's actually very important
to completely reshape this map for a second.
Now previously, I stated that the Red Line
also circumnavigates the globe,
which is accurate and wonderful,
however, it makes the map that we are viewing
incredibly inaccurate.
To account for the fact that the One Piece world
is a globe this is a bit trippy, but the flattened map
ends up looking a little something like this,
which just to avoid any potential confusion,
because I know it will come up,
this does not mean that there are two Red Lines,
it is still one continent,
and when scrunched up into a ball,
this map will become a flowlessly connected globe.
Great, with that out of the way
it's now time to point out the Grand Line
is not in fact a singular stretch water,
and due to the Red Line,
it is separated into two distinct areas,
one of which is referred to as paradise,
whilst the other is labeled as the New World.
And the reasoning for these names is that
despite how incredibly deadly and unpredictable
the Grand Line is in general,
the first segment is absolutely nothing
compared to that of the second,
hence it being known as paradise by all those
who have experienced the truly apocalyptic conditions
of the New World.
And the New World is also very notably
the only area of this planet
that is not currently under the direct rule
of the world government.
Instead, it acts as more or less a lawless territory
primarily under the command of the four emperors,
who are known as the most influential pirates
in this world.
But back to how we actually access any of these locations.
This is where we introduce the concept of reverse mountain,
which is a super toll point of the Red Line
in which all Four Blues meet
and from which they may enter the Grand Line
through the various scattered paths shown here.
However, once entering the mountain you have but one choice,
which is to be ejected into the paradise section
of the Grand Line at which point
we encounter another problem
because even if you make your way
around to the endpoint to paradise,
you encounter the Red Line again,
blocking your path into the New World.
And unfortunately, getting into the New World
is nowhere near as easy as Reverse Mountain,
which actually wasn't very easy to begin with,
but you basically have two options.
You either need to somehow get over the Red Line,
or you need to go under it
because there is a segment of passage available,
a sort of tunnel through the continent, if you will,
which will take one pass Fisherman Island.
But this is important, actually
because now we need to discuss the One Piece World
through a different lens, which is height and depth.
Up until now,
we've mostly been considering things from sea level,
which in this case is referred to as the Blue Sea.
But the world of One Piece extends far below
and far above this concept.
Firstly, making our way down,
once we reach seven thousand meters below sea level,
we hit an area known as the underworld of the sea,
which is a position so deep
that no light from the surface can penetrate it.
So it's very spooky, dark,
and full of all sorts of terrifying sea life.
But then we can go even further down
and at 10 thousand meters, we hit the sea floor,
which is actually to possess quite an array
of civilized life,
including the aforementioned Fisherman Island
and in an incredible natural phenomenon,
light does indeed reach this area of the world
via the roots of the sunlight tree, Eve,
which allows everyone and everything to prosper.
But then we can also go in the opposite direction as well
and make our way up,
and once we reach seven thousand meters above sea level,
we hit the White Sea,
which is heavily populated by island clouds,
which are allegedly created by a particular element
that composes sea stone called pyroblown,
which is a fictional element ejected into the air
by volcanic eruptions, and then it binds with water vapor
to create clouds of various levels of solidity.
Some of them could be sturdy enough to walk on for example,
whilst others could mimic the properties of water
and allow vessels to sail upon them.
However, most of the more solid clouds are found
once we reached the height of ten thousand meters,
which is known as the White White Sea,
which is another layer of sea clouds
that includes prominent sky islands,
like Skypia for example,
as well as half of Giant Island,
which was sent up there by the knock up stream.
Which speaking of the knock up stream
is thus far the only way that we've been shown capable
of reaching the White Sea levels,
which is an absurdly dangerous practice
and not at all recommended
because apparently there are all of much safer ways
of traveling to this area,
although none of them have been revealed to us
at the time of this recording.
But with that,
we have the very basics of the One Piece fold,
and I would like to emphasize
that this is not an exhaustive examination.
Every new arc in the series tends to present us with new
and conflicting information
regarding the composition of this realm.
And even with everything we do know,
there is still an incredible amount of remaining mysteries,
the most prominent of which
being where as the hidden island fell off tail,
the discovery which theoretically leads someone
to the One Piece and putting them on the path
of becoming the next Pirate King.
And then there's also the entire realm of outer space,
which I have decided not to touch on in this video.
But rest assured, life definitely exists out there as well.
So there is an awful lot left unpack,
but I hope this has provided you
with some sort of solid grounding.
But what do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below
or even join my discord server.
And if your keen for some more videos like this,
then please do go and check out some of my other content
or even subscribe to the channel
for more glorious One Piece business
uploaded straight in to your YouTube feeds.
But for now, this has been The Grand Line review,
and I'll see you next time.