#FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with Stephen Paul

“#FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with Stephen Paul”

I love One Piece and I love talking to people who love One Piece. And with the series going on 23 years now, there is a whole lot to talk about. As the series is about to publish its 1000th chapter, a true feat in and of itself, we thought we should reflect upon the high-seas adventure and sit down with some notable names in the One Piece fan community and chat about the arcs they found to be especially important, or just ones they really, really liked.

Welcome to the last installment in the series "My Favorite One Piece Arc!"

My final guest in this series is Stephen Paul, One Piece translator for Weekly Shonen Jump. For my chat with him, he chose the Skypiea arc, in which the Straw Hats soar up to an island in the clouds, and soon find themselves dealing with both a long-lasting feud and a man with lightning powers and a god complex.

A note on spoilers: If you haven't seen the Skypiea arc yet, this interview does contain major plot points. Watch the Skypiea arc starting RIGHT HERE if you'd like to catch up or rewatch!

Dan Dockery: Let’s say that, for some reason, I get to the end of the Jaya arc, and the Straw Hats are about ride the Knock-Up Stream, and I decide “Eh, One Piece might as well end here. I think it’s said what it needs to say.” What do you tell me, in one sentence, to keep me going to Skypiea?

Stephen Paul: I would say “Don’t you wanna see One Piece’s take on Indiana Jones?” That would be my hook.

Yeah! Skypiea’s my favorite arc, and it’s got a sense of pure adventure, so I could see that. I adore it, and it’s the storyline I want to revisit the most often. When did you first get into One Piece, by the way?

I got into One Piece in 1999.

Oh, wow. Where in the story was that?

I first saw it when I picked up an issue of Weekly Shonen Jump at a Japanese bookstore in San Diego. I was doing a high school report on manga for my Japanese class, and Luffy was on the cover, and it was during the Arlong arc where they’re fighting in Arlong Park. And I didn’t really know anything about it, but it was on the cover, so I figured it was the hot, new thing, and later that year, I was doing a student exchange in Japan and I bought the first few volumes.

Going Merry

That’s a pretty good place to start. Arlong Park is pretty much the “Crap or get off the pot” arc.

Yeah, if it’s not doing anything for you by then, I think you’re out of luck. But it really hooked me around the Baratie arc when Mihawk shows up for the first time because it was beginning to structure this big story to come with this huge world.

So they go up to Skypiea, and there are islands made of clouds, Nami’s riding on the Waver, Usopp nearly falls though, it’s pretty fantastic. What were your thoughts on this new location? Because One Piece has a very strong internal logic for itself and you’re not like “Clouds?!? THAT wouldn’t be physically possible,” so you immediately accept it. But what was your first reaction?

It’s really fun. At this point in the story, it’s the most prominent example of the rush of newness and intricate culture and architecture. It’s like taking someone from the World War I era and showing them all the consumer goods that are available in the 60s. And then Eiichiro Oda does this little thing where Nami rides over near the jungle and there’s a hint of foreboding. And it tells you “Yeah, we’re having fun now, but it’s not going to last.” All of it is really deftly done.

Speaking of foreboding, Skypiea is Enel’s domain. And he’s probably my second favorite villain and when I watched One Piece for the first time back in college in 2008, I was fascinated by him. There were so many online discussions about him that said stuff like “ACTUALLY, he’d have the highest bounty of anyone ever if he had a bounty,” and “He’s actually the strongest character.” And he was cool to me, but not in the same way that Crocodile was. Crocodile was cool because he acted cool, but you’re just kind of in awe of Enel. What did you think of him?

It’s interesting because he doesn’t get revealed for a while. He’s just a menacing presence until his reveal that he’s like this evil Roman emperor on the sofa with a banana. And he seems very aloof.

I think the series does such a good job with Enel, because there’s this elaborate sky island with all of this dream-like stuff, but everyone is scared of something. They’re all terrified of this kind of unknowable power.

Yeah, he strikes fear in people, but he’s such an aloof character in terms of his personality. He’s megalomaniacal, but he’s not really into monologuing like Caesar Clown or Spandam. He doesn’t delight in mockery. He just does what he wants with the people under his sway. I think that’s why it’s so effective when he finally gets shook by Luffy resisting his power. It’s why the Enel eyes gag works so well. Because up until then, he’s never panicked in the slightest. He’s god. He’s got that confidence in himself.

Enel

At this point, in the anime and manga, I feel like I kind of wait for the Enel eyes moments. It’s such an unforgettable visual. But I remember thinking before it “Well, Luffy is rubber, and I got a D in high school chemistry, but I think that would mean that he’d resist Enel’s shocks.” And then he did. Did you call it before it happened?

I think if I was just marathoning the whole series, it’s something that might’ve snuck up on me. But because I was reading week to week, it’s something that I saw people talking about online and expecting. They took it into account, and when it finally happened, it was fun because Oda never mentioned it beforehand. He never had a character say “Wait, rubber doesn’t conduct electricity.” He waits for the experiment to happen before the results are made clear to the audience.

So Enel has his own group of pirates, and one pirate that I’ve never heard anyone say a good word about is Satori and his Ordeal of Balls. I need your Satori hot take: Is he good? Are you annoyed by him? Because I’ve heard people mention Satori as the thing that broke their ambition to finish the story. They get to him jumping around and dancing and just drop out.

I think my take on Satori is similar to my take on Foxy: It’s impossible to take him seriously. And it’s definitely a change-up in tone when he’s introduced. But I actually enjoy that now, because once you know not to take him too seriously, there’s a bunch of good comic moments in the battle with him.

Satori

One reason I like it is because Sanji gets the KO. He’s teaming with Luffy, but Luffy doesn’t finish him. But this arc is the first big one where Robin is part of the crew. And you get a few cool Robin moments, like when she just basically eviscerates Yama or her interactions with the crew. How do you feel about Robin’s evolving role?

I feel like Oda does a balancing act with this arc, where it is the first time she’s together with a new group of people. So there’s an awkward distance there. She’s still mysterious and she’s still dangerous to everyone. There’s still traces of the Miss All Sunday there, as you see with her fight with Yama and Zoro’s skepticism of her.

Yeah, in Alabasta, they go a long way to make her Devil Fruit power as horrifying as possible. And Oda is still easing her into the Robin that she’ll become, but there are definitely traces of “Whoa, these creepy arms are basically horror movie weapons” rather than “Whoa, Robin is so cool,” which is where she’ll end up. So you have the big Survival Game, and it really ramps up the action. What’s your opinion on it, as I think it’s really cool.

He paces it pretty well, so it feels really natural when you get down to the last few characters at the ruins.

Feels very Battle Royale. Around here is where we get the flashback, though, and it’s the first big flashback that doesn’t include any Straw Hat Pirate, or any companion to the Straw Hats. And it’s a real history lesson, and I can see it being kind of a gamble. Like, you might watch and think “Okay, move it along. Is Luffy gonna show up as a baby or something? Get back to the action.” What do you think of it as this huge bit of world-building that isn’t directly related to the Straw Hats?

Noland

It’s something that’s indispensable to this story arc and it’s one that I appreciate more and more as time goes on. If you view this arc as just the story of the Straw Hats going up in the sky to find gold and beat a bad guy, it seems like it has nothing to do with the arc. But if you engage with the arc on its own terms, the flashback is explaining what the soul of the arc is, which is of these people and cultures meeting and then being ripped apart in the same way that the island was ripped apart when it was launched into the sky.

So we finally see Enel’s big ark, which he’s going to use to help destroy Skypiea. It’s probably the most direct world-ending scheme of any One Piece villain. But Luffy has a big golden ball attached to his fist, he runs up the vine, he punches Enel, and you have this moment where Luffy’s shadow is in the clouds and Cricket sees it. And more than anything, it’s Cricket’s victory, because he knew the lore, he believed in it, and now his dream is being vindicated. How do you feel about this iconic moment, which is now a piece of One Piece iconography?

The ending of this and Alabasta are probably the two best examples of the climactic blow that Luffy strikes. His fists representing the symbolic righting of wrongs in such an elegant way. Like when he punches Crocodile up through Alubarna, it basically makes it rain. And here, the blow that defeats Enel is the blow that rings the bell that lets Cricket know that the story of the two lineages, the Montblanc family and the Shandorian people, has finally become whole again.

When you finished Skypiea, did you know immediately that it would be your favorite arc?

I remember it being very satisfying when it ended, but I was also very excited for what was coming next. The Going Merry was all busted up and they needed to find a new shipmate to fix it. And since this arc didn’t provide that new crew member, I just wanted to get to that. But as I said, it was my first time reading it on a week-to-week basis, and the richness of getting a new chapter and having a week to think about it, really imprinted on me. And the stuff that I go back to I appreciate more and more.

I mentioned the Indiana Jones aspect of a rascally, roguish guy exploring and finding the treasure. And there has to be a bad guy who also wants the treasure, and thus it makes it okay for us to want it because we have to save it. But in most cases, the treasure usually ends up in a museum or an FBI vault or whatever. But what this story arc does so well is that is that, unlike many of these stories, the Skypiea arc actually asks “Well what about the people that created this thing?” What about the inhabitants? It’s never their story, too. So it’s a very colonial style of story structure.

But in the flashback that brings them all together, Noland is a botanist, and when he makes contact with the Shandorians, they’re suffering from a disease that they don’t know how to treat and all they can do is pray to the gods for help. So Noland helps them out and the way that the story plays out, it becomes clear that it’s not about Noland being more advanced and bringing his gifts to the less-advanced people. It’s about Noland helping them because he is a man of good character. He even gets executed by his own people because he refuses to be less than a good man.

It’s not the enlightened versus the un-enlightened. It’s a story about character and their friendship that they form, which is brought whole again when Luffy beats Enel. It’s such a different take on that pulp serial style of adventure.

ONE PIECE LIGHTNING ROUND!

Favorite character?

Gotta be Luffy, but I also really like Robin

Favorite villain?

Crocodile

If you had to live on one island, which would you pick?

Water 7 seems pretty chill.

If you could have any Devil Fruit power?

It’d be pretty nice to have Mansherry’s healing powers. You wouldn’t have to rely on the medical insurance system.

One Piece moment that made you cry the hardest?

Probably Nami’s flashback. Oda really shivs you in the gut.

One Piece moment that made you cheer the loudest?

The ringing the bell, and all the way that resonates with the characters. That’s hard for me to top.

And that concludes the My Favorite One Piece Arc series. If you've kept up with them so far, I truly appreciate it. And if you've missed some, all six of them are linked below for you to peruse. One Piece has always been very special to me, but for the most part, my time at Crunchyroll has been spent giving you my perspective on it and my perspective only. And that's neat. I'm truly thankful to have a platform that allows me to discuss the things that I find most fascinating and exciting about one of the greatest anime/manga franchises of all time. That said, I am a very, very, very small part of the One Piece community. A drop in the Grand Line, if you will. So, I decided to reach out, and talk to other creators/fans about their experiences and what they appreciate about this wonderful series. And I was delighted to see everyone bring their own unique tastes and personality to the table. They're all wonderful people, and I am so proud to not just have them as collaborators, but as friends as well.

One frequent question I saw over the course of this series was "Where is Water 7/Enies Lobby?" It's one of the greatest story arcs in fiction itself, and to some, it seemed like an oversight to not include it. Well, that's not by my design. When I first came up with the idea for My Favorite One Piece Arc, I immediately feared that everyone I reached out to would simultaneously dogpile upon Enies Lobby, forcing me to draw straws or auction it off to whoever bid the most thrilling idea. But…no one did. No one from this list chose Enies Lobby. This seemingly random (and ultimately inspired) array of six arcs were the interviewees' first choices. That said, if we ever do a "Season 2" of My Favorite One Piece Arc, I think you'll be pretty happy with who I have in mind for the discussion of such a monumental storyline.

Anyway, keep watching/reading One Piece. It's at a really great spot in both the manga and the anime (Did y'all see that fight between Big Mom and Kaido? You went hard, Toei, and I appreciate it,) and I imagine it's gonna close out 2020 with a bang.

Hot take: One Piece? It's good.

CHECK OUT ALL OF THE "MY FAVORITE ONE PIECE ARC" INTERVIEWS RIGHT HERE!

Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

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