- [Narrator] Dorry and Brogy, a strange tale of One Piece.
Co-captains and best friends who got into a fight
over whose subscribe button
for the Grand Line Review was bigger.
However, little did they realize
that pressing either one of them
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Do not make their mistake.
Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything One Piece.
And today we are turning our attention
towards the existence of a fairly legendary island.
One that has continuously hinted towards,
built up and scantly showcased in a almost similar manner
to that of Laugh Tale itself.
And that would be the the giant paradise of Elbaf.
Although I suppose that probably depends
on what your definition of paradise is.
More accurately, I suppose we could call it
a warriors paradise, and that's a bit better.
But here is everything we know about Elbaf.
So Elbaf acts as the only currently known
hub of giants in this world.
And this might easy to forget from time to time
but giants are pretty exceedingly rare in their existence.
Even in the New World,
facing off against very high level figures,
giants are still a pretty abnormal sight to behold,
despite the fact that there is an entire race
of them in existence.
And I'm certain that many residents
of the Grand Line and even the New World
could go their entire lives
without ever once gazing upon a giant.
Speaking of entire lives though,
we should also note that giants operate
with a mantra of big size equal long lives.
So for example, the two most famous giants
in this series being the iconic Dorry and Brogy,
both former Elbafian residents, are currently 160 years old.
And they would probably both be considered
as being in the prime of their lives
because we also have an example
of an elderly giant, being Jarul,
who was 345 years old when we encountered him
in Charlotte Linlin's flashback.
And for all we know, he may very well still be alive today
which would make him a mighty 408 years of age.
And something else that has been probably made quite clear
just aesthetically by these examples
is that the culture of Elbaf
is heavily inspired by Norse Mythology
and medieval Scandinavian culture, i.e. Viking fun times.
And that will only become more apparent
throughout this video.
But as in in keeping with the Viking lifestyle,
I think that this quote from Jarul
very much sums up Elbafian belies,
"A warrior is not defined by how he lives
"but by how he dies"
And I really do think that quite effectively
presents the sheer pride and life's mission
that the residents of Elbaf carry with them.
With that said, there is also a fairly common misconception
that all giants are from Elbaf,
which the large majority that we've seen certainly are
but that is not the case for everyone.
And one prominent example of this
would of course be Jaguar D. Saul,
who actively stated that he was not from Elbaf,
and even that he found their practices barbaric.
Then there are also characters like Sanjuan Wolf,
the Yeti Cool Brothers and even Oars
and Oars Jr. who would appear
to present entirely different sub races of giants,
so the whole term extends into very general territory.
But we are, of course, primarily concerned with Elbaf,
an island which is located somewhere within the New World,
and rather intriguingly,
to match its more mystical based culture,
the name Elbaf is actually fable backwards.
Although in the official English translation,
it is spelt Elbaph, like with a ph,
which I suppose backwards
could still be Phable, like Phable.
Or not actually, because the P wouldn't come first,
the H would.
So it ends up being something like Hpable.
Good old hpables.
But Elbaf is an independent nation,
meaning primarily that it is not affiliated
with the World Government,
in a similar manner to that of Wano.
In terms of physical composition,
we haven't seen a broad shot of the entire island,
however, it appears to be a truly
massive chunk of the old rock
that is home to one of the largest trees
we have ever seen in the series.
Probably not the largest tree
because that title currently belongs
to the Sunlight Tree Eve,
but then again, we currently have no idea
how high or how deep this Elbafian tree runs.
The tree itself is highly likely to based on Yggdrasil,
the mythological construct that houses the nine worlds.
And with this inspiration in mind,
it is highly likely that giants,
particular the ruling class live in
or perhaps on top of said tree.
Which does bring us to the fact that, yes,
there is giant royalty and as such,
Elbaf operates as a monarchy,
which is very in keeping with it's medieval roots.
Currently we do not know of any king or queen of Elbaf.
However, there is one fascinating figure
that has been revealed to us, who is Prince Loki,
and he is actually a comparatively young giant.
We do know for a fact that Loki is a mere 63 years old,
which makes him one of,
if not the most youthful resident of Elbaf
that we have been introduced to.
Or at least sort of introduced to,
like via a classic Oda silhouette.
However, most of our solid information regarding Elbaf
does not concern royalty or the giant tree,
but rather the village at the base of the tree
which is rather creatively known as Elbaf village.
And this would be where the more common giants reside,
as well as the warrior class,
which actually from what we've seen,
most male Elbafians would be career soldiers.
Or if not soldiers, then career pirates
because this is, you know, One Piece.
And pirates are a bit of a big deal in this series.
In fact, quite literally a big deal in this case
with one of the most fearsome crews in known history
being the Giant Warrior Pirates,
a legion formed by the residents of Elbaf.
And we have no idea exactly how old this crew is,
but they go back quite a long way,
and this band used to be captained
by Jorul and Jarul, our giant elders.
Which brings up an interesting trend actually
because Jorul and Jarul were co-captains,
a very rare hierarchical choice
amongst pirates in One Piece, but that trend would appear
to have continued past their retirement
with the role of co-captaincy
being taken up by Dorry and Brogy.
And with these two at the helm,
the Giant Warrior Pirates were said to be a force
that terrorized the world, a crew that no legion
were capable of bringing down.
This was over a century ago though,
so we probably shouldn't judge things
by the current standards, of say the Marines,
but the Giant Warrior Pirates
were still very, very serious business.
So much so that Dorry and Brogy were each issued
a 100 million berry bounty, which I know does not sound
like a lot by today's standards.
I mean, currently Luffy is worth 15 times that
at 1.5 billion, but this was the world
of One Piece 100 years ago,
so adjusting that amount for inflation
would probably result in quite a startling number.
I mean, if we did it by real world inflation
over the last century, then we would end up
with something 200 billion berries,
which is why we do not use real world inflation
because that would be absurd in One Piece.
But the Giant Warrior Pirates continued
to be a plague on the seas
until one day Dorry and Brogy mysteriously disappeared,
which of course, we know the story behind.
The co-captains got into an argument
regarding whose catch was bigger
and they were forced to settle the dispute
in true Elbafian manner, which is of course,
a fight to the death.
And the idea behind this custom
is not to prove who is right via strength
but for both combatants to relinquish any sense of agency
and leave the outcome up to the will of the gods.
Which is probably best epitomized in the words of Dorry,
"When there is a dispute and neither side will yield,
"the god of Elbaf decides the matter.
"Our god protects the one who is right, and lets him live."
And as far as we know, this dispute is still ongoing
to this very day, so over 100 years,
which means we can safely say
that if there is a god of Elbaf,
apparently they are very, very indecisive.
The rest of the Giant Warrior Pirates
did continue to operate though
for at least 13 years after their captain left,
although eventually they were captured by the Marines
and sentenced to execution.
These giants were not executed though,
thanks to the interference from a human
by the name of Mother Carmel,
or Sister Carmel back then actually,
who made the argument that killing these giants
could spark a war with Elbaf,
implying that the army of giants gathered there
could present a true threat to the World Government,
much like the forces of modern day emperors,
but perhaps even more powerful.
But after this event,
Carmel garnered strong favor with the giants
and was allowed to take up residence on Elbaf itself,
founding an institution known as Sheep's House,
which focused on taking care of orphaned children.
Or at least that's what it did in theory anyway,
because in truth, Carmel was a child trafficker,
who set her sights on Elbaf to access, how shall we say,
greater stock to sell the Marines.
And actually it was Carmel who was responsible
for providing them with their very first enlisted giant,
who was John Giant.
And through this, you could make the assumption
that most members of the Giant Squad
are likely former residents of Elbaf sold in this manner.
That is not universally true though
because once again Jaguar D. Saul steps in
to ruin everything, as an enlisted Marine
who was not from Elbaf.
But this does of course now brings us
to the tale of one Charlotte Linlin,
a girl who was abandoned on the island of the Elbaf
when she was a mere five years old,
due to her uncontrollable power
and downright demonic hunger tantrums.
As an orphan though, Linlin would be taken in
by Mother Carmel, who obviously had the intent
to sell her to the World Government,
but most of what we know of the physicality of Elbaf,
very much comes from Linlin's flashback,
which would turn out to be a very classically tragic ordeal.
It did introduce us to another fascinating
core custom of Elbaf though,
which is the idea of the Winter Solstice.
Basically this is an annual 12 day fast
that the residents engage in,
followed by a huge festival afterwards to celebrate.
And in preparation for the fast,
everyone consumes large quantities of semla
to give them enough nutrients
to survive the following 12 days.
And semla, as far as my understanding goes,
is basically a cardamon-spiced bread bun
filled with all sorts of cool and funky stuff.
Which does admittedly sound delicious,
and Linlin certainly thought so,
as her thoughts were consumed by semla,
thoughts of her consuming semla, that is,
which would eventually culminate in a hunger tantrum
that saw her kill the giant elder Jorul,
and result in mother Carmel
having to relocate her orphanage to another island.
And this event is one of the primary sources
of bad blood between Linlin,
now known as the emperor Big Mom,
and the giants in general, not just Elbafian giants.
Although skipping a fair few decades ahead,
there would be a further rift caused
between these two parties, because once he had grown up,
Prince Loki actually fell in love with and proposed
to one of Big Mom's many, many daughters, being Lola.
The acceptance of which would have healed
the feud between Big Mom and Elbaf,
as well as given her access to its army of giants.
Very unfortunately for Linlin though, Lola refused,
because she wanted to choose her own husband.
And as such, this rift was significantly widened
to where it remains in the modern day.
This certainly is not the end
of the story of Elbaf though, not by a long shot,
as we currently have an ongoing effort in place
to revive the Giant Warrior Pirates,
which is being helmed by the familiar figure of Hajrudin.
He is currently the captain of a force
known as the New Giant Warrior Pirates,
once again showcasing the ever creative naming skills
of those from Elbaf.
And this is because Hajrudin very much looked up
to Dorry and Brogy as role models.
As a child, he always had faith that they would return
and revive the crew themselves.
However, over time, Hajrudin decided
that this new generation of giants would take on the task
and this crew currently consists of four other members,
being Stansen, Road, Goldberg and Gerd,
which doesn't sound like a whole lot
but remember these are warrior giants we're talking about.
So a gathering of five of them is a pretty terrifying force.
So much so that they played a major role
in the success of Buggy's pirate dispatch squad,
until Hajrudin switched, allegiances that is,
and is now a member of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet,
meaning that Luffy has inherited five giants,
and now inherently carries the legacy
of Elbaf alongside him.
And whether he wants it or not, it is there on his side,
and after everything we've explored in this video,
we should all know that that is a pretty amazing benefit.
And in fact, this implicit alliance with Elbaf
or at least certain members of Elbaf
is one of the many very well slept on features
of Luffy's future in this series,
because if he could rally the entirety
of Elbaf to his course, then there is nothing
that is going to be capable of preventing him
from becoming the pirate king.
It would be as good as done.
But it would still be far too early to make that assessment
as it considers the giants of Elbaf
to be a monolithic entity.
However, there may very well be all sorts
of different factions at play within the kingdom
as there are on almost every island we visit.
So there is still an awful lot
that needs to be unwrapped regarding Elbaf,
which may very well take place
in the form of it's own dedicated arc.
It's something that Oda has been building up towards
ever since the nostalgic days of Little Garden
and I cannot wait to explore this island further,
especially that tantalizingly mysterious massive tree thing.
But for now, that is everything we know about Elbaf.
But what do you guys think?
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But for now, this has been the Ground Line Review,
and I'll see you next time.