- [Narrator] The following is a recipe
for the perfect One Piece banquet.
One, delicious tangerines, two miscellaneous meat,
three, an abundance of munchy,
four, subscribing to the GrandLineReview
for regular One Piece content uploaded
straight into your YouTube feed, which is a pun
because they use the word feed when talking about food.
Five, cotton candy and finally an adequate chef
to prepare a feast worthy of a pirate king.
Hello and welcome to the GrandLineReview,
your source for everything One Piece
and today we are here to talk about food,
yes, delicious food, delicious two-dimensional food that is,
and whilst this might seem like something
of a strange topic, I mean if everything
we could focus on in the series, why edibles?
Well, that's because food
is a very heavily underrated aspect of One Piece
and life in general.
And I'm not just talking about the obvious ways either
like how Sanji's entire character ambition
is based around the idea of being a chef
or even things like the wedding cake on Whole Cake Island,
which was arguably the most important
and most delicious pull up point at that mega rock,
no, we don't even need to go into either
of those two obvious examples
because Oda has masterfully used food
as a storytelling tool in One Piece
to convey an entire world of different emotions,
and for some very broad examples,
food is often used for great comic effect,
but at the same time,
Oda is capable of generating incredible drama
and on the other occasion, food even becomes
a centerpiece of great action scenes.
And look, I'll admit that that last one is much more rare,
but seriously give me a saga,
any saga in this first series
and there will be an idea that is explored
that is intrinsically linked to food,
and the power that it holds in a particular situation.
Although interestingly enough, you don't necessarily need to
because someone has already accomplished
that grand task for us, which is a sponsor for this video.
"Feast," of One Piece foods in celebrating various cuisines
and memories created
throughout this incredible two-decade journey.
It contains over 140 pages of content
by artists, writers, chefs and graphic designers,
but most importantly, it is a project
made by One Piece fans for One Piece fans
and they are currently open for pre-orders
with a link in the description below
and there's also a very funky 10% discount code
for all of you which is simply GRANDLINEREVIEW.
And I do want to show off this in a bit more later
because lousiness have come
an awfully long way since I was involved with them,
but back to the primary issue at hand.
The really difficult thing about well building,
is that authors and artists need to spend
ludicrous amounts of time fleshing out
miniscule factors like architecture, culture,
wildlife, flora and yes, food.
And where many overly-ambitious series tend to fall flat
is by not putting effort into these details,
whereas in One Piece, you can tell
an awful lot about a location
based solely on what kind of food choices there.
Let's take Kakashi village, for example.
the most memorable type of food found there
would be Belma's tangerines,
which tells us that this village is self sufficient,
fairly rural in nature,
and also that the people particularly Bellemere,
are quite financially poor
but full of a direct connection to life
that you just don't get in a city-style setting
where meals are manufactured for you.
There's an awful lot of information
that order is able to convey
through a simple fruit plantation.
And not to mention the sheer drama created by it,
because remember that not long only
caught on to Bellemere's existence
because she was cooking a special meal for Nami
to make amends with her.
But when it comes to drama,
One Piece is a master class of using food as a centerpiece,
which sometimes has entire rocks
based around them like Buryatia.
I mean how many of you remember
seeing Sanji seafood fried rice
and just having your mouth water
as if you were on the verge
of starvation yourself like Gin.
And the tears of joy that flowed freely from his eyes
because this dish did not just represent
the brief fulfillment of hunger
that the gift of life that Sanji had given him.
And you can also turn to "Drama Island"
for a very similarly touching situation
where Chabo wakes up to discover
a simple piece of bread sitting next to him
waiting patiently and freely to be consumed.
And despite the fact that this really
is the most basic of foods,
Chabo is overwhelmed by kindness
and once again, the gift of life that this bread represents.
And this concept goes far beyond classic One Piece,
and we can see it in action on "The Whole Cake Island,"
where Luffy made the vow not to eat
until Sanji had returned.
But of course, even in the modern times of Woonan,
food is effectively the catalyst
of most of the drama on the island.
Their citizens are starving
and that is epitomized in Tama,
who is one of Luffy's greatest driving forces to act.
So without this food focus,
Woonan would lose an incredible layer of drama.
And it's actually insane just how many
of the most profound pieces
of hag-tagging drama in One Piece,
actually revolve around food.
But that's not all that Oda is capable of using it for.
He can conjure great tragedy, yes,
but he can also move to the other end of the spectrum
and use food to produce great joy.
And quite possibly the most prominent examples of this
would be the end of most major arcs
where the straw hats and whoever their new found allys are,
throw a gigantic party which is always characterized
by an abundance of food, because food is life.
And in many cases, food is directly linked to happiness,
or at least that appears to be
Oda's mantra surrounding it
because nobody is ever happier in the series
than when they are surrounded by a feast.
In many Ox and sagas,
this is a natural full stop to the experience.
And you know what, Luffy's path
through these pieces of story
can very much be described with the following four Es,
explore, engage, eradicate and eat.
Explore his new surroundings, engage with the locals,
eradicate whatever threat is there
and eat himself into unconscious oblivion.
It's a very appealing model,
and I feel like very few authors understand
the importance of food and well building
to the extent that Eiichiro Oda does.
But I mean, that's just the well building segment
and food can also go on to heavily inform
and compliment your characters.
I think one of the things that Oda does so well
is consciously choose a favorite fruit
for every character, even the minor ones.
And while this information may seem
like a useless tidbit found in databooks,
it really is quite enlightening in a lot of cases.
For example, did you know
that Doflamingo's favorite meal is lobster,
and that makes an awful lot of sense
because lobster is very expensive
and generally considered one of the finest seafoods
which hints at Doflamingo's past as above noble.
He enjoys the nicer things that the world has to offer
and he has the resources to acquire them.
Well, let's take Whitebeard, for example.
His favorite is much less specific,
but it's a combination of sake and cheap food,
the latter of which speaks to his upbringing
as an incredibly poor orphan.
And also even as an emperor of the sea
with boundless resources at his disposal,
Whitebeard seems to have this innate nostalgia
for the cheap food of his childhood.
Well, perhaps it was a more conscious decision
to not spend too much money on edibles
because he knows the true value of a beri.
But my point is that you can extrapolate
quite a lot about a character
which such seemingly trivial information
regarding what they like to eat.
Until just a few more you have Brogy,
who enjoys beer and triceratops meat,
which tells me that he likes to live life
to quite a grand degree.
Well, Saint Charlos who loves luxurious soft ice cream
further indicating just how much
of a pretentious brick he is.
And not only that, but One Piece also gets
to the point where you can do things the other way around
and identify characters based on their favorite meal alone.
So for example, let's look at the straw hat bento
that Sanji made on Whole Cake Island,
and really when I look at this box,
I don't see food, I see characters.
And to list a few, obviously the meat represents Luffy,
very basic and larger than life
then you see a hamburger down there
and that's definitely Franky,
you know, oversized and stuffed with hidden features
and then the sandwich is right next to the burger,
are clearly Robin, because they represent
an understated yet refined feel.
And I just love that you can discern the sort of information
from once again very seemingly trivial
and an incredibly overlooked element of the series.
And that brings us back to the people
who have conveyed this idea
far better than I could to be honest,
being the producer of "Feast."
And when I first heard about this,
I had the same reaction that you probably all had
to the title of this video, "Why focus on food?"
And well this scene answers that pretty, so simply
by taking us on a journey through the series
from East Blue all the way to Fishman Island.
Stopping in at every major location along the way
to examine their particular cuisines
accompanied by stunning illustrations
from some absurdly talented authors.
And they were kind enough not only
to send me the zene itself,
which is a pretty hefty book actually,
it's thick in the best possible way.
So what would that be like?
A thick wood two season, okay, I guess.
But they actually sent me a ton
of other merchandise available with the zene,
including these really cool acrylic charms
like this Thousand Sunny in a bottle or a dangling Luffy,
and you know where all of these are going?
Right on my Christmas tree,
which will annoy my wife to no end
because we already have quite a few One Piece decorations.
And there's also an assortment of postcards
and fun sticker sheets, which look
so many key moments of fruit drama
that I've mentioned in this video like Chabo and Gin
and wow, I completely forgot about
Zoro and the Onigiri actually,
and it just doesn't stop because these guys
have gone all out with this concept,
even including some full Polaroids
of daily life food moments,
my favorite which is definitely this one
because that look on Kuro's face is just like,
"Yeah this guy's kind of waiting me out."
Plus a cute little acrylic standee,
and oh my god, is that a mini mumu
that Sanji is serving to the crew?
Dark times man, dark times, plus posters and just so much
and I take the time to point all of this out
because this is a pretty massive undertaking
and a true love letter to One Piece.
So I highly recommend that you will check it out
and once again, the link is in the description,
and don't forget the 10% discount code
being GRANDLINEREVIEW.
But really I think that no exploration of food in One Piece
is complete without actually engaging
in the simple practice of eating.
And quite wonderfully the "Feast" scene
also features many recipes for One Piece food.
So for example, you can actually want to cook
Sanji's famous seafood fried rice, which I love,
but the thing that really took my eye was the Mizu Mizu meat
that features in the Water 7 section.
And I think that's the one that I'm going to give a go.
Now if my understanding of cooking is accurate,
basically what I'm supposed to do
is I'm meant to take all of this
and put it into this.
And then I guss if we look inside there should be,
yep, oh, this is perfect, this is worked out
way better than I thought it would.
Nice, delicious, overexposed
and possibly blurry, Mizu Mizu meat.
Dog is staring very intently at my food.
And that's about it.
I think that food is an incredibly
underrated aspect of the series,
because under the control of Eiichiro Oda,
it has the power to express and generate almost
any emotion from profound happiness
to the depths of despair.
And it's strange to think about, but so much of One Piece
is intrinsically linked to this very basic thing.
So the next time you see a slab of meat
or an apple or well prepared dish in this series,
just take some time to think about
the importance that that particular meal
holds within the context of a scene
or even the entire rock.
It's not a superfluous feature,
and whether we do consciously register it or not,
food forms such an incredible link to this world,
the characters and the story of One Piece.
But what do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below
or even join my Discord server.
And if you'd like to see 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 into your YouTube feeds.
And also don't forget to check out "Feast"
in the description below.
But for now, this has been the GrandLineReview
and I'll see you next time.