- [Liam] Hello, and welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything One Piece.
And today we are here with some facts.
Some F-A-C-T-S.
That's how it's spelt, right?
Facts, shocking facts, mind you.
Which if you are a veteran One Piece-ophile like myself,
then you may very well have come across
these in your travels.
However, if you are new or are a casual One Piece fan,
then I can quite confidently say that a lot
of what we're going to explore here today
is simply going to blow your mind.
And in exchange for said blow-edge,
all I ask is that you hit that funky red subscribe button
for the Grand Land Review,
which will also grant you regular One Piece content
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But much more importantly,
continue to build the grand fleet,
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A very niche title, indeed.
Let's get straight into things today,
because we have a lot to cover.
Which will begin with shocking fact number 10,
the Supernovas were not planned.
And by that, I mean that they did not exist anywhere
in Oda's notes or even his mind
until the very chapter in which they were introduced.
That's right.
Trafalgar Law, Eustass Kid, Diez Drake,
Capone Gang Bege and the other ones
were never actually intended to be part of One Piece.
According to Eiichiro Oda's message
in the 27th book release,
he created them in a desperate rush,
because he was worried that the Sabaody Archipelago Arc
would not be interesting enough as it currently stood.
And I don't know about you,
but I personally find this absolutely maddening.
Because apparently in response to this sheer desperation,
the designs for nine incredibly striking characters
just came to Oda unconsciously from nowhere.
Thus, I suppose, proving the theory
that pressure creates diamonds.
Or at the very least, in Oda's particular case.
And from here, he also didn't expect any of them
to have anywhere near as big of a role as they currently do,
especially Law.
And so I think what we have here is an example
of creative intuition at its very best.
Oda felt that a singular arc might
be lacking a bit of excitement,
so he responded by not just providing excitement
for that particular arc,
but also an entire future's worth of excitement.
Because I don't know about you, but as we are on Wano,
I really cannot picture things without
the Supernovas being involved.
And I also think it's quite funny,
because it does go to show that One Piece
is nowhere near as planned as people think.
Although there is still very extensive planning,
as can be seen in shocking fact number 9.
Jinbe was planned to be a crew member
from the very beginning.
And this, well, this is something
that we only found out relatively recently actually.
But longtime fans of the series might
be quite familiar with this particular image.
This is a conceptual sketch of the Straw Hats,
featuring some very familiar faces
like Luffy's or Nami and Sanji.
And I suppose I'd call Brook a familiar face,
but he doesn't have one.
Yohoho!
And as for the rest, well,
they needed a bit of work.
Still, what we did not see is that,
in this sketch, it also originally included
the O.G. Jinbe design.
Which was rather sneakily erased
when the sketch was released.
But the full thing has now been made available
for us to gaze upon and enjoy.
Showing us that Oda had always planned
for there to be a fish-man as part of the Straw Hats,
right from the get-go.
And you know it took us an awfully,
awfully long time to get there, but we did.
Which I suppose goes to show that One Piece
is very much kind of like the ultimate fusion
of master planning and master improvisation.
The results of which we will see in
a few other shocking facts,
but while we have all of the Straw Hats here,
it's time for shocking fact number 8 specifically.
Which is that the Straw Hats are currently
the only crew in the series where each
and every member has an assigned bounty.
Or at least bounty that we know of.
And I was quite surprised by this,
because I felt for sure that there
was another small crew out there with a handful of members,
who each had known bounties.
But nope, it's just the Straw Hats.
Every other crew is either far too big
to have every member recognized
or too small and insignificant.
Or in the case of the New Giant Warrior Pirates,
both far too big and far too small and insignificant.
But no, tangent diverted.
The Straw Hats are still the only crew
in the history of One Piece as we know it
where every member has a known bounty.
And now that we have some money on the mind,
let's go to shocking fact number seven.
And this is one of my personal favorite facts,
but One Piece is the third
highest selling comic book series of all time.
It currently has a sales total of approximately 470 million,
which is trumped only by Batman
in second place with 484 million
and a much more further ahead Superman with 600 million.
But how crazy is that?
Especially because Batman and Superman have had
like a 60 year headstart on One Piece,
given that they were created in 1939 and 1938 respectively.
And at this stage, there is no doubt whatsoever
that One Piece will surpass the sales of Batman.
It is as good as guaranteed.
Superman, well...
Look, it's a very different question,
but there is potential.
I guess if it was to happen,
I imagine it would be towards the end of One Piece
with the release of the final few volumes,
skyrocketing sales of every other volume,
with people who just want to catch up or collect them all.
It is still a pretty rough ask though,
considering it's taken 23 years to get to 470 million.
So another 130 million,
well, it's a number.
But I'm pretty damn happy with the idea
that by the end of its life,
One Piece will be at the very least
the world's second best selling comic series.
Now as for shocking fact number six,
we have something quite obscure.
So most of you are probably familiar
with the idea of the Pandaman,
but in case you're not,
he's an Easter egg character that gets sprinkled
into the background and sometimes even the foreground
of manga chapters and anime episodes.
He also quite frequently makes his way
onto the front of Japanese volume covers,
hidden under the dust jacket.
That's not the shocking fact though.
This is very well established.
But did you know that the Pandaman lore goes a layer deeper?
And there is another Easter egg character even more obscure
and well-hidden than the Pandaman,
and that is Tomato Gang.
Tomato Gang is a debt collector and the reason why
the Pandaman is consistently on the run.
Because he's had some, well,
he's had some financial troubles
and Tomato Gang is here to collect.
However, it should be noted that Tomato Gang
has not made a post time-skip appearance.
Indicating that whatever financial issue
he had with Pandaman,
it may very well have been solved during those two years.
However, he did appear on the hidden cover of volume 85.
So let the conspiracy theories begin!
And on that train of thought,
shocking fact number five!
Aliens exist in One Piece!
And furthermore, even if you've seen every episode
of the anime, you're probably still unaware of this fact,
because they were only showcased in the manga.
Quite specifically,
during the Enel's Great Space Operations cover story,
which saw Enel literally traveled to the moon,
or one moon anyway.
It's been heavily hinted that there
are multiple moons surrounding the One Piece world
or that the One Piece world is in and of itself a moon.
But that's a discussion for another time.
But on the moon,
Enel met two fascinating races.
One of which is a series of Automata
with very space-like names,
such as Cosmo, Galaxy and Spacey,
the space-iest of the names.
And it should definitely be noted
that these little guys are not the aliens in question,
because we did see a flashback of them traveling
to the moon via balloon, as you do.
But that is okay,
because we also have the big giant fox space pirates,
who are absolutely extraterrestrial.
Furthermore, it's also revealed
in this cover story that Enel's ancestors
and likely all sky citizens came from the moon.
Which, you know what?
That does make Urouge an alien.
As well as every Skypiean local,
which weirdly enough includes the Shandorians,
even though they chose to settle on the blue sea.
They are still aliens,
each and every one of them.
And I will never, ever, ever understand why
the anime refuses to animate these stories,
because this one in particular is just pure insanity.
I mean, who doesn't want to follow Enel
to the moon to fight a series of furry aliens?
Speaking of, though, this cover story ended rather ominously
with Enel now in charge of a legion of space cyborgs
and ready to set sail for who knows.
But that does very importantly explain where he was,
which relates to shocking fact number 4.
Every known Logia user was present
at the battle of Marineford,
with the exception of Enel.
And I should say that this
was every known Logia user at the time.
So it's pretty hard to deny that Logias were
the king of class back in the pre-time skip era.
Absurdly powerful and practically unbeatable.
So it's only natural that if an event,
say some sort of paramount war, were to occur,
then these legends would absolutely be involved.
And you wouldn't be wrong.
Because in fact, this war was sparked by two Logia users,
one of which being Portgas D. Ace
and the man who defeated him, Marshall D. Teach.
Ace was then the catalyst for the war
and Teach obviously rocked up at the end.
But we had our three admirals:
Aokiji, Kizaru and Sakazuki,
all of which were equipped with Logia of doom.
And lower down the rankings, we had Mister Smoker,
our very first Logia user in the series.
And also calling in for classic One Piece,
we had Sir Crocodile, our very first defeated Logia user.
But still, it's a pretty cool fact that once again,
apart from Enel, who was on the moon,
our entire Logia squad up until this point saw fit
to assemble at the battle of Marineford.
And while we're on the topic of pre-time skip,
let's sneakily transition into shocking fact number three!
Did you know that the entirety of pre-time skip One Piece,
which, just as a reminder,
is chapter one all the way through to chapter 597?
Well, did you know that all of those events took place
over the course of roughly four months?
That's right!
From the moment Luffy set sail from Fuchsia village
to the point where he begins training with Rayleigh
is a mere four months.
Potentially even less, but probably not.
And we know this because a very detailed timeline
of One Piece does exist.
And, bonus fun fact,
it even includes the year that the series takes place
which pre-time skip, is the year 1522
of whatever One Piece calender is used.
And essentially, Luffy begins his adventure in May of 1522
and then puts it on hold to train in August of 1522.
Which very much implies that for the most part,
the Straw Hats were effectively as strong
in their arc introductions as they were
in their late stage pre-time skip fights.
Minus upgrades of course,
like Diable Jambe, Asura or Gears.
Aha!
And now that I've said the gear word,
I should immediately move onto shocking fact number two!
There is an incredibly subtle significance to Gear Fourth,
primarily being the chapter in which it was introduced,
which would be chapter 783.
That number again is seven, eight, three.
And this is not where we see Luffy
using Gear Fourth for the first time,
but this is when he announces it.
Now this is really trippy,
but when we reverse that chapter number,
we end up with 387.
Three, eight, seven.
And maybe that doesn't sound so special
until you realize that this is the chapter
where Luffy announced Gear Second for the first time.
And this is just one of those things
that is so insanely coincidental,
that I refuse to believe that it is in fact, coincidence.
The history of One Piece has taught us that Oda is very,
very aware of numerical patterns and designations.
And while I think that, no,
a detail like this was not planned from the beginning,
Oda did take it into consideration and structure things
so that these chapter numbers
would mirror each other perfectly.
An opportunity that could really only be given
to such a long running series.
And if you've ever wondered why One Piece turned
into such a long running series,
then you may very well be interested
in shocking fact number one!
The biggest reason for the extended serialization
of One Piece is the Seven Warlords of the sea.
According to Oda's comments in the 23rd log,
One Piece was originally just supposed to be a story
about fighting against the Four Emperors.
But then Oda came up with a cool idea
to introduce a series of pirates aligned
with the World Government.
And because he didn't like the sound
of Gobukai or Nibukai, being five and two warlords,
he went with Shichibukai, being the Seven Warlords.
And that singular decision has led to entire arcs
and even sagas focusing exclusively on these members.
For example, the whole Alabasta saga with Crocodile,
Thriller Bark with Gecko Moria,
and how could we forget both Punk Hazard and Dressrosa,
which focused on Doflamingo?
The answer is, we can't forget,
because it lasted so long that
it was burned into our brains.
Those two arcs known as the Dressrosa saga took 148 chapters
to complete and were told over four different years,
from 2012 to 2016.
So with that in mind,
yes, it's pretty easy to see how
the Warlord decision practically made One Piece
what it is today.
And that's it for our shocking facts!
But what do you guys think?
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