The 2021 year of One Piece was insane, not just for the awesome fights and action but the lore that has been revealed is piecing together the larger story in a way I think a lot of people haven’t realized yet. I wanted to take a moment to bring attention to some of these thematic elements, because I believe the Wano arc is truly genius and needs to be appreciated.
Our year began and ended (oops, technically officially releases this week, you get the gist) with two distinct panels that set the tone for everything else between them this year:
- In the first chapter of the year, chapter 1000, it closes with Luffy landing his first massive hit on Kaido, an attack called Red Roc
- In our most recent chapter, it again ends on a hit by Luffy, this time an attack called Roc Gun.
First, let us familiarize ourselves with the Roc - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc_(mythology)
It is a massive bird of eastern folklore that makes appearances in a number of sailor stories. Notably, the Roc’s enemy in folklore is the serpent. The clash of Luffy vs Kaido is a representation of this motif, Luffy who attacks him with his series of “Roc” techniques, and Kaido the Dragon who actually has the Uo Uo no Mi - so he is more accurately a Sea Serpent. The Roc is said to be inspired by the Garuda, an analogous bird deity from Hinduism who also battles the serpent.
If “Garuda” sounded familiar to you it's because it too has a place in our story, it is the title of Judge, head of Germa 66. And as you can see, Germa sports the Bird symbol, a reference to the Garuda.
In our raid, what is it that Queen is trying to do in his battle with Sanji? Prove that he is superior to Judge as a Scientist. And what form does Queen take? Hilariously enough, a Serpent, the mortal enemy of the Garuda. This again draws directly from the Bird vs. Serpent lore of our own cultures.
Finally, we get to King - whose story is also thematically tied to this Bird vs. Serpent motif and more importantly is tied to the larger Garden of Eden theme that is pervasive throughout the entire series (“Devil” fruit, Adam and Eve tree, Tree of knowledge, etc.)
I am of the belief that King/Lunarians are inspired by the Japanese yokai known as Karura:
- They are half bird-h
I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.
Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.
Do your worst!
