- [Narrator] Law's kind of a weird guy.
I mean, just between you and me, he doesn't like bread.
I mean what kind of dude doesn't like bread?
Unless he's gluten intolerant, I guess.
And that would actually explain quite a lot about Law.
Which is a shame because at the moment the only alternative
for gluten free bread and the One Piece world,
is pressing the subscribe button for the grand line review.
That's allowing you to receive regular on piece content,
uploaded straight into YouTube feed.
So what do you think about that law?
(chirping)
Yeah, that's more or less what I thought you'd say.
Hello, and welcome to the grand line review
associate everything One Piece and today
is essentially going to be Trafalgar Law Appreciation Day.
And I wanted to do this
because I came to a very sudden realization
that for whatever reason,
I really don't actually feature Law
on this channel a whole lot.
I mean, I talk about him in chapter reviews
and stuff like sagas in minutes and I have this really,
really abysmally old One Piece one or one on him,
which is in desperate need of an update.
But other than that,
he's something of a missing aspect of the Grand line review,
and that's ever so strange,
because that isn't a conscious decision.
I really like Law, just thinking about it.
prominence in the series is a bit absurd,
which we'll get into in some nice detail here.
But to be perfectly honest,
if Luffy was not the main character of One Piece,
then I think that mantle would fit quite nicely
on the shoulders of Law.
And in fact, in any other series,
he would probably be the primary protagonist.
One Piece is really good like that, though.
It's packed full of characters
who could very comfortably harm
and tie a series of their own,
but even then Law still very much stands apart.
And I think a lot of that is very well reflected
in his general popularity amongst the fan base,
especially the core Japanese fan base,
which is really the only source of empirical evidence
we have to go by thanks
to their officially conducted character popularity polls,
and throughout his time
in the series Law has been featured
in three of these six polls,
the first of which was the fourth poll,
which solo rank in 10th place.
Now I know that probably doesn't sound all that impressive,
especially by today's standards,
but some very important context about this poll
is that it was conducted in 2008
and published alongside volume 55,
which was during the impel down och,
and the poll itself would have opened slightly earlier,
but just let that sink in for a moment
impelled down this was before the time skip
which means it was before anything to do with Punk hazard
or Dressrosa, which was Law's key area of focus.
At this stage literally the only thing
that Japanese fans knew about Law,
came from his initial appearance on somebody.
But his two most notable acts with fighting alongside Luffy
and Kid, as well as giving Kid the finger.
That is effectively all that Law had done
at this point in time,
and Japanese fans saw that and went, yep.
That is a top 10 character right there.
And to give you even more context, a few of the characters
that are defeated to attain that spot
included Usopp and Mihawk.
So a fairly prolific Straw Hat member
and one of the most revered cool dude serious characters
that Oda has ever created.
That is not at all an easy thing to do.
So how did Mr. Law accomplish it
and as much as this would come to be developed
and eclipsed in the future,
I have to say
that it is almost entirely likely aesthetically based,
I would have managed to create
this really schmuckle looking character,
who was unique but not in like outrageously goofy
or the style that we've all come to know and love.
In fact, it's so anti odor that's kind of hard to believe
that this guy existed in the One Piece world at all.
I mean, all he's doing is wearing a hoodie in some jeans,
which tends to be my favorite style
of outfit coincidentally.
But I guess he also had a funky bucket hat
as well as some tattoos,
because you know, tattoos in general equal cool.
Oh, and of course, the sword.
The sword is very important.
Any character who has a sword automatically starts
on an entirely new plane of popularity,
compared to those without blades.
But I suppose my general point here
is that this was the kind of popularity
that Law had managed to acquire
by doing basically nothing at all.
He just needed to exist and he was instantly loved.
And I have no empirical evidence
for the Western world at the time,
but anecdotally, I will say
that of all of the supernovas introduced,
Bullet tended to be a very, very strong favorite,
amongst my circles anyway.
So let's go to the next poll now
and see how things changed over time.
So this would be the fifth popularity poll
which was published in late 2014.
Within volume 77 to be precise, and this is a huge jump.
We have gone from the days of impel down
to fairly deep into Dressrosa,
and in fact, it was around the climax
of the arc immediately following was flashback.
So by this time, everything had changed,
Law was no longer just some cool guy who existed.
He was very well fleshed out character
with a compelling backstory,
a prominent connection to one of the most revered
and mysterious villains in the series
to date being Doflamingo.
And he had also formed an official alliance
with Monkey D. Luffy.
So how did all of this impacts the polls?
Well, I'd say it moved the needle just a little bit,
because Law happen to rank in second place
in the fifth popularity poll.
And I really do need to emphasize
what an achievement this is.
Because to put it into some perspective, up until now,
Zoro had always secured second place,
always, always, always in the first four polls.
He was an immovable asset in that second position,
just as if he was undefeated in first place.
So Law did something unprecedented here
by unseating Zoro and knocking him down to third
quite comfortably as well.
I might add having secured just under 1000 more votes
than Zoro, and you know what Law
was actually pretty damn close to defeating Luffy as well.
He was about 400 or so vote Shy.
So that is pretty Ridiculous right there.
And I feel like I can quite comfortably state
that this situation is highly unlikely to ever happen again
in the series.
Although Having said that,
just go ahead and watch it happen again now
just to make me look like fool.
Law is a true aberrational, he's a popularity black hole
that just absorbs people's admiration.
And here I'm going to come back
to the idea that in a lot of other series,
Law probably would be the main character,
especially after everything
we learned about him during Dressrosa,
one of the more intriguing things
being that he is also subject to the will of D,
something that I haven't even touched on yet.
But the fact that of course only impacts him positively.
He went from a stock standard cool due
to a surprisingly deep and driven character
with his vendetta against Doflamingo
which of course we all truly felt after witnessing
his pretty damn tragic even for One Piece style flashback.
I mean, I don't know many characters who had
to hide in a pile of corpses to survive a genocide.
But Law is certainly one of them.
And I will also stress once again
that being connected to Doflamingo
would have helped considerably,
because he has quite consistently been
one of the most popular series villains as well.
In fact, the character poll will play second,
the only antagonist rank higher than
Doflamingo was Crocodile.
And well he's a tough act to beat.
It's a perfect recipe for captivation
that when you have two superbly well liked characters,
playing off each other
and directly driving the cool narrative at the time,
and you can say a pretty similar thing about both connection
to Luffy as well.
This man is the undisputed, most popular character,
in One Piece, he has always been and likely always will be.
But Luffy functioned as a perfect ally of Law.
particularly because they formed an odd couple dynamic
two people whose personalities could not be more different,
which resulted in a lot of comedy from Law,
who was forced to consistently put up
a Luffy being Luffy.
And that only India too small to law because in many ways,
he acted as a perspective of the readers
and watchers of One Piece.
You know, Luffy does something insane
and in our heads, we go What the hell is he doing?
Well, that was Law
and given that the rest of the Straw Hats
have mostly a climatized to Luffy 's behavior.
It was nice to have a new input of reasonable shock
in regards to our heavily unreasonable protagonist.
Dressrosa had a lot of insanity going on,
but it was the definitive Trafalgar Law Arc
Were he functioned as its heart and soul.
And I think I've said this before
but in many ways law serves the princess role of that arc
and I suppose the whole saga as well
despite there being too literal princess figures
to inherit that idea because that's right,
even in an awkward two competing princesses,
Law is still best girl.
And here's another crazy thing,
everything I've said to this point
more than adequately explains those general popularity
but we haven't even delved into his abilities yet.
Because maddeningly enough, Law also happens to possess
one of the more mentally and visually intriguing depth
for powers in One Piece,
as well as one of the most overpowered ones.
To be open to me is always a treat to watch an action
because it's one of the ultimate pieces of utility,
for concocting all sorts of cool strategies,
one of which I'll point out being
that first hit on Doflamingo,
were a lot of very sneakily switch places with Luffy,
leading to a pretty spectacular Red Hawk impact.
But it doesn't need to be anything that fancy either
because it has a more raw appeal,
such as on Pong caused by Law crafted to a room so huge,
that he was able to casually control
an entire marine battleship, which I personally think
is one of the strongest single images
that this series has ever conduit.
I remember reading that chapter weekly and just like being
in or if it's shield, lunacy,
and that all still continues well into this day,
every time Law activates a room,
it's like time stops in anticipation for what is to come.
And that is an incredible asset for a character
to wield, that constant intrigue
and hype just to see them do their regular thing,
even when it is for a comparatively Monday in purpose.
It's still exciting deceive for me anyway.
Suppose I can't speak for all of you.
Although given the data, I feel like I can probably speak
for a massive segment of the Japanese One Piece fan base.
Which brings us to the results of the final poll
that Mr. Trafalgar Law has been a part of,
which would be the sixth popularity poll,
fairly recent one as well.
Which was published in 2017,
around the climax of Whole Cake Island, and very notably,
this poll received a record amount of votes
totaling approximately 80,000 respondents.
And with that in mind,
Law came in at a fairly stunning fourth place.
And keen mathematicians out there may pick up on the fact
that fourth is a lesser place than the second,
despite the fact that two is actually less than four
and good noticing that clap clap.
However this is still ridiculous because once again,
we need to look at the context of the events happening here.
Dressrosa was long since complete.
In fact, Zou long since completed.
And by this time we were looking
at having spent almost two years with ball completely
out of the story altogether.
He was on his way to Wano
with the other half of the Straw Hats,
he did absolutely nothing.
And yet he still made his way to the top
of the one bass world, landing in fourth place.
And just a point of interests,
Zoro would reclaim his second place in this particular poll
and Sanji also to accompany standard positioning
of third place, which makes all the sense in the world
because Whole Cake Island was very Sanji centric.
So I'd be pretty shocked if you're doing nothing
managed to topple Sanji in particular, under that context.
But this final poll actually gives us a very well
rounded view of Trafalgar Law because essentially
what happens when audience members know of him,
but don't actually know anything about him,
is that by enlarge his aesthetic and atmosphere alone,
propelled him into a top 10 position instantly.
Then when an audience member gets to know him
and he's the focus of an arc,
then he comes close to being by a large,
the favorite character of the series
and when an audience member gets to know Law,
even when he does absolutely nothing within the story
or is just sort of in the background,
he still very comfortably claims a position
within the top five characters of the series.
And obviously that will be different
based on individual tastes.
But by and large, that would appear to be the trend.
And that's why I feel like I can quite comfortably say
that there is no other character
like Law currently in the series.
He has now been the most popular non Straw Hat
for the large majority of the new world era.
And in fact, he is one of the only characters
that you can solidly state as a following as dedicated
to that of Luffy.
Because there have been times when Zoro and Sanji fans
had been overtaken by Law
and the Straw Hats don't stand any chance whatsoever
against this demonstrable beacon of I suppose excellence,
let alone series antagonists or side characters.
And while certainly isn't in
my top five favorite characters personally,
possibly not even in the top 10, to be honest.
I can very easily understand his appeal.
I for one have never been anything less than excited,
whenever he appears on any page.
And that date all the way back
to the free time skip somebody days.
And even if I don't focus on him a whole lot
on this channel, he is still absolutely one of a kind.
So to all of you I would like
to wish a happy Trafalgar Law, Appreciation Day.
What do you guys think?
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But for now, this has been the grand line review
and I'll see you next time.