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Hello, and welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything "One Piece,"
and today, we have a discussion regarding the,
I guess it's rather explosive or a tired topic,
depending on your personal viewpoint,
which is power levels, yay.
Specifically, the common misconception that a large segment
of the western "Once Piece" fan base have
regarding power levels, and this topic is more or less
a direct response to the release of chapter 980,
and I'm obviously not going to spoil things here
for non-manga-readers, but basically,
it featured a brief skirmish
between some major characters,
and let's just say that the outcome did not go
as many would have suspected,
thus causing internet controversy,
and in some rare cases, even outrage,
as the rest of us watch from the sidelines
with popcorn in hand, soon to be converted
to popcorn in mouth.
But this sort of situation occurs
because, when becoming part of a community
and discussing things like strength
and power over a certain period,
and in the case of "One Piece,"
that period is potentially decades,
a sort of communal canon develops
whereby the large majority agree on certain aspects,
and when Oda dispels such a commonly-accepted thought,
then that sparks controversy,
or not controversy, honestly,
it's more like a non-troversy,
because it is not Oda's fault
that you have built up false expectations for yourself.
And this is something that I do personally grapple with
quite a bit when reviewing the manga weekly,
not in terms of power levels, though,
but more general storytelling.
So, when I review chapters, I come up
with all sorts of ideas for where the story is going,
and then, on the odd occasion,
I will be legitimately disappointed
when things don't play out
how I personally expected them to.
It's a completely unwarranted and unfair response,
and I really think that the only way
you can truly inoculate yourself from such a thing is
to not be an active part of a fan base
or dwell too much on the series.
That's not necessarily the lifestyle
that most of us want to live though,
so let's tackle the number one issue
by far in this realm, being power levels,
and we're going to begin
with the very first misconception about power levels
in "One Piece," and that is quite simply
that power levels exist in the series at all.
To put it bluntly, they don't.
"One Piece" is not like many other classic Shonen series
where a character's power can be accurately quantified
in some way.
So the obvious example would, of course, be "Dragon Ball,"
where, at least prior to Super,
you could draw distinct tiers
because combat in that series is super simple.
There is very little room for nuance
and creativity with combative styles,
and in 99% of situations,
the stronger individual will win
because the stronger one is more often than not
the fastest one, as well as the one
with more energy reserves,
and intelligence is a questionable factor
of relevance in "Dragon Ball."
"One Piece" is an entirely opposite entity.
This is a series where it is possible
for raw power to lose to a cleverly-implemented strategy,
or simply a bad matchup of abilities.
Very roughly, "One Piece" operates
on a scissors, paper, rock type of system,
and yes, that's what we call it in Australia,
none of this rock, paper, scissors blasphemy.
But this dynamic makes power leveling very difficult,
as just because character A can beat character B,
that does not necessarily mean
that they can beat character C
because character C was beaten by character B.
You really do need to consider
the large majority of "One Piece" matchups
on a case-by-case basis,
which I have a whole series exploring
called "One Piece Battles,"
which takes an in-depth look at combatants
through at least seven different categorical distinctions,
as well as adding miscellaneous data on top
to predict an outcome, and even then,
this is often not a solid outcome, and in many cases,
I am left legitimately questioning the fight,
but that is the beauty of "One Piece."
It is an incredibly vast world
with nuanced individuals who you cannot broadly categorize,
not for the most part.
And this will bring us to the second common misconception
of power levels in "One Piece," which is that,
even if they did exist, which they don't,
but if they did, the fan base is using them incorrectly,
and here, I am referring to the emergence
of broadly-accepted leveling metrics.
Probably the best example of this would be people
who use the term Yonko level.
Now, in taking this term at face value,
it would imply that everyone granted the title
of Yonko are all pretty much on the same level of power,
and the existence of this feature is one
of the big, big reasons why a lot
of fans simply can't get their poor, poor heads
around Luffy being labeled as the Fifth Emperor,
and that's because he simply does not fit
their own established head canon definition of Yonko level,
as he cannot go head to head with Whitebeard,
Kaido, or Big Mom, likely Shanks as well,
and possibly even Blackbeard,
although I would heavily argue that last one,
and that's kind of the problem.
So I say possibly Blackbeard
because, despite his global shenaniganry,
there really isn't a lot to say
that he is too much out of the realm of possibility
for Luffy to deal with.
Physically, we've been shown evidence
that he simply is not all that strong,
and he mostly progresses in this world
via the same mechanism as Luffy,
which would be the art of fate,
and so there is a huge, huge flaw
in the armor of classifying someone as Yonko level,
because the six candidates
who would officially make up that category
in the minds of fans already have a great disparity
of personal power between them.
Blackbeard does not possess the strength
of, say, Big Mom or Kaido,
but he has made it to the position of an Emperor
through the device of sheer notoriety,
and amassing a legion
of support behind him, just like Luffy,
and that's why this Yonko level garbage doesn't work,
because it isn't simply strength
or power that allows someone the title of an Emperor.
So, for example, if we take a character
like, say, Dracule Mihawk,
and decide to label him as Yonko level, as many do,
then what does that even mean?
And to answer that, it means nothing,
because what it implies is
that, yes, he is powerful, but how powerful?
Are we talking Blackbeard Yonko level,
or Kaido Yonko level?
Could it even be Whitebeard Yonko level?
Maybe even Shanks Yonko level,
which is the epitome of pointless discussion,
as we know almost nothing about Shanks's actual strength.
And this is a common problem that will arise
when trying to use titles in power leveling.
Inevitably, you will always need to fall back
to an individual character for comparison
rather than a broad group, which is fine,
and in fact, that is probably the most effective way
to judge the power of any given individual.
But for another title example,
let's use Mihawk's title as a Warlord of the Sea.
You could never say that an character is of Warlord level
because it is meaningless due to the incredible disparity
of power between all of them.
For two examples, let's take Crocodile and Doflamingo.
Both possess the Warlord title,
but one was defeated by a pre-Gear, pre-timeskip,
pre-Haki Luffy whilst the other was able
to take Gear Fourth, and it took a King Kong punch
as well as the rebellion of an entire nation to overcome.
The two are not comparable at all
in terms of power, but they each manage
to acquire the Warlord title
due to their own personal circumstances,
and as such, that title cannot be used
for anywhere near an accurate measure of strength.
Now, I will say, there is one potential exception to this.
The one title that you could maybe possibly get away
with using is Admiral level,
because, for the most part,
each of the Admirals have been shown
to be on quite a similar all around area
of power to their counterparts,
and yes, we do know things like, for a fact,
Sakazuki is stronger than Kuzan specifically,
but it took them a 10-day battle
that permanently altered the climate
of an entire island to reach that conclusion,
so the two were pretty evenly matched,
as would seem are all admirals,
so that is my one little concession
on using titles for the purpose of power leveling.
However, it is a very rare example for "One Piece,"
and I still think that, if you are going to,
for whatever reason, get your hands dirty
in the realm of power scaling discussions,
then you should steer clear of titles
because it opens up the idea of using other titles,
and then become a giant mess, as per usual.
And speaking of giant messes,
for one more title-related example,
I now present the worst possible power leveling definition
in this fan base, which is Yonko Commander level.
Now, this obviously refers
to top officers in each Emperor's crew,
such as the Calamities or the Sweet Commanders,
Benn Beckmans, whatever.
It doesn't really matter because it's absurd.
Just as with the Warlords of the Sea
and even the Emperors of the Sea,
there is a ridiculous disparity of power
within every character who holds one
of these positions within the series.
I mean, even with Big Mom's individual crew,
there is a gigantic difference between her Sweet Commanders,
like Katakuri and Cracker cannot be placed
on the same quote, unquote level,
and then have that broad level used as a relevant metric,
but it does get used, and as a result,
you see a lot of really poorly thought out arguments
claiming things like, omg, Luffy can't be Yonko level
because Katakuri is only Yonko Commander level,
and Luffy couldn't even beat him,
and if you want to weigh in
on another controversial discussion,
for whether or not Luffy actually beat Katakuri,
I have an entire video on that here,
but that is not our focus today.
No, our focus are broad statements like that
that are something of a cancer
upon "One Piece" discussion online
because of the sweeping generalizations made
and the lack of any internal consistency.
So, for example, and this is my final point
on titles, I promise,
they don't even form a cohesive system
if you do choose to use them.
I mean, how does someone
who is considered Yonko level stack up
against another character who is considered Admiral level,
and the simple answer is, you would need to look
at both characters individually,
because look, there are all of these wonderful,
fake tiers going around, but there is no way
to effectively rank those broad tiers.
I mean, I guess, if I had to give it my best go,
I'd say that Yonko level goes on top
because of characters like Whitebeard and Kaido,
followed by Admiral level next,
but that doesn't really work either
because there are characters in the Yonko level tier
that seem to be blatantly outclassed
by those on the Admiral level,
and in fact, there are even beings
within the Yonko Commander level
who can stack up evenly
against Admiral-level combatants.
So there's no actual distinction at play
between these tiers,
which renders the whole tier system entirely pointless.
I mean, if someone on Yonko Commander level
can be considered equal to someone on Admiral level,
and then someone on Admiral level can be considered equal to
or greater than someone on Yonko level,
then what was the point
of even creating these tiers in the first place?
Well, are we supposed to dive even deeper
and say that this Yonko is actually Admiral level,
whilst this Admiral may very well be Yonko level,
and this Yonko Commander is actually
more accurately Admiral level,
whilst this Yonko Commander probably shouldn't even be
in the Yonko Commander level
despite being a Yonko Commander?
In the end, they don't actually tell you anything,
and they only serve to muddle up discussion,
so, in conclusion, stop using titles to power scale.
Next up is a misconception
that I think, thankfully, the large majority
of the fan base have gotten over,
but I do still see it enough to mention it here,
which is that bounties do not equal power.
Unfortunately, there is still a healthy trend
of power scaling according to the bounty metric,
and it's all but entirely irrelevant
in the modern era of "One Piece."
Now, granted, this was not always the case,
like when the series first started,
during the East Blue era,
bounties were probably quite an accurate representation
of direct strength.
You could take characters like Arlong and Kuro,
compare their numbers, and very accurately judge
who would be more likely to win in a fight,
and you could do that quite consistently with most
of the very, very early characters.
However, this is no longer the case,
because, when we have characters
with a 500 million Berry bounty
taking out characters with bounties
of over a billion Berries,
we do hit the realization that, uh oh,
these numbers are a bit pointless.
What bounties are an indicator of is the perceived threat
of an individual via the world government
with the limited knowledge that they have available to them.
That is very important.
It is the knowledge of the world government at play,
not the knowledge of the readers
and watchers of the series.
So yeah, it's fun to see bounties change,
and often, some of the biggest moments
of the series spawn from that,
but using them in direct correlation to power is one
of the most unreliable metrics
that this series has access to.
Now, one of the more accurate systems
one could use in the series, I suppose,
would be Haki, because it is a universal system.
Unlike Devil Fruits,
Haki does not necessarily produce a unique outcome,
and in many cases, you can make solid assessments
based on who obviously has greater levels
of Armament or Observation Haki,
not so much Conqueror's Haki, though, not yet, anyway,
but using Haki is not an effective method alone
by which to judge others.
To illustrate, Enel is one
of the finest Observation Haki users
that we have ever seen in "One Piece."
Really want to emphasize that.
His Devil Fruit gives him godlike omnipotence.
No, he doesn't have the Katakuri depth of future sight,
but Enel's particular brand
of observation is still incredible,
but even that did not stop him losing
to a pre-timeskip, pre-Gear, pre-Haki Luffy.
It's a cool thing that he had in his arsenal,
but it goes to show that you cannot depend
on Haki or even Devil Fruits for that matter
to power scale people.
Once again, it all needs to be done
on a case-by-case basis,
and even then, there are so many variables to consider.
So a good example of a shocking moment
in the series would be when Caesar Clown defeated Luffy,
Smoker, Tashigi, and several other Straw Hats,
in an instant, mind you,
because the group were not anticipating his power
to remove all oxygen from the immediate vicinity,
and look, Caesar is not a powerful character
by traditional metric means.
His Haki is nonexistent, as far as we know,
you can't place him on any vague title tier,
his bounty is fairly low, he isn't physically strong
in any way, but because of a funky quirk
with his Devil Fruit, he can still demolish characters
who would be widely considered to be capable
of wiping the floor with him,
and that sort of interaction can happen
any time, anywhere, to almost anyone,
which is exactly the case in chapter 980.
A certain character with an unknown power took advantage
of that situation, and emerged as the undisputed victor
in a brief, and I want
to emphasize that word, brief skirmish.
It was not an extended battle,
it was not an accurate judgment of power,
and the segment of fans who are losing their minds
in the depths of disappointment need to calm down,
and reread "One Piece,"
because that is the entire history of the series.
Characters caught off guard or caught
within a bad ability matchup can unexpectedly lose battles.
Welcome to the glory of this world,
and just imagine how disappointing it would be
if things were the other way around,
and we always knew who was going to win
before a fight even began,
in which case "One Piece" may not even be worth reading.
So please, for your own good,
stop power leveling, and if you do insist on the practice,
then don't overreact to the briefest of conflicts
as if it was a key scientific discovery
that changes everything we know about human existence.
What do you guys think?
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or even join my Discord server,
and if you're keen to see more videos like this,
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But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review,
and I'll see you next time.