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The One Piece Podcast
Episode 889, “Raise The Flag” (with GolferGareBear & Dr. Raylene Bentlin)
01:52:48
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- [00:00]
A
Today's episode of the One Piece podcast is a little different and because of that, it is ad free. And instead we are encouraging you to support any of the amazing charities doing amazing work around the world. The ones we're recommending today are WaterAid. You could check them out at wateraid.org, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and finally, please check out the National Immigrant Justice Center. So these are just some of the recommendations that, you know, we had through a little bit of research, but feel free to recommend your own and if you're not able to donate, let other people know that they can. So with that, we hope you enjoy today's episode. This is the One piece podcast, episode 889 for the week of October 20th, 2025. And we have an unusual episode for you today. One might even call it a special episode with us. First, you might know him on TikTok and elsewhere we have golfer gear. How's it going? You want to introduce yourself for people who might not know who you are?
- [01:45]
B
Oh, sure. I'm having a great day, great weekend. Had a cast party for the play that I was in a couple weeks ago, so. But big weekend for those who don't know me. I made my name on TikTok by trying to apply an ACAB framework to the Marines in One Piece and have a conversation about how you can dearly love a character like Garp and understand that his actions fundamentally are harmful to the world around him. It got a lot of people up in arms, but it also got a lot of people that I was a big fan of to open up to that conversation. So that's where I kind of, you know, made my weight talking about One Piece. That's where most people recognize me from. And I've tried to expand upon that into every direction of how the world government reflects injustices in our own world. And that's just where I love talking about One Piece. I'm not very good at theories. I'm not very good at power scaling. I am very good at applying a real world analysis of politics to One.
- [02:50]
A
Piece of See, today's episode was going to be all about power scaling, but now I have to scratch this. No, that's if you want, that's a pretty good primer to what that is a topic that I think has often come up just in at least private conversations. And I think you're correct. Coming up more and more just generally in the community. So thank you for being here and our main event, so to speak. Dr. Raylene Bentlyn formerly Gomez is joining us. Would you like to go through a little bit of your background?
- [03:26]
C
Absolutely. Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me back again. So my name is Rayleigh Bentlen. I am a cultural anthropologist. I am an anime manga researcher. I specialize on applying a lens of anthropology, cultural studies, historical studies into anime manga products to understand how they're reflecting our world and how they're constructed. Um, I am also a traveling presenter for academic presentations. I go from, let's see, this past summer I was in Anime Expo in la. Then I went to Anime New York. Last year I went to Anime Frontier in Texas. I was at Anime Central in Chicago. So, like I've been for the past couple of years just traveling around presenting stuff about One Piece. I am, I would say I'm one of those girls that's really obsessed with One Piece to the point that everything in my house is almost decorated to One Piece. We just finished the kitchen recently. We got a bunch of decorations of Sanji cooking, so on a wall. So I'm very excited to be here. This is the topic we're going to discuss today is really basically what I do as an academic and what I did back in grad school during my dissertation and what I've been doing it through research and academic grants that I've got to fund my research. So I'm very excited to see where this goes and talk more about One Piece. Thank you for having me.
- [04:43]
A
Yeah, of course. And Golfer was not trying to demean you in the way I said that.
- [04:47]
B
That's why I didn't say thank you for having me. I knew, I knew you were going to say I was the amuse Bo.
- [04:54]
A
I would never use French. No, we're happy, really happy to have you both on. Also to have like a more the academic perspective. And also I think your perspective is unique. Golfer in not just because you've kind of made your bones in, as you mentioned before in this sort of discussion. But I. I need some. I'm going to forget everything about One Piece. Somehow in this conversation, it's just going to leave my mind and I'll have people yelling at me who listen. So you're there at the very minimum to stop those people and you could yell at me personally here. So, Dr. Bentlen, I want to start. We had a conversation earlier in the week about kind of what we were going to talk about today, which is not something we usually do. We usually just riff here on the One Piece podcast. But I. Our conversation started very dour, obviously, with everything going on in the world. There's a lot of this is going to. I'm going to stop talking in a second, but there's a lot of very, you know, concerning things happening certainly in our country and certainly in your city, I know, that are terrifying and make you kind of, you know, question everything and yearn for better. And the great thing about this topic in particular, which I'll introduce in a second, is that it does kind of feel like a little nugget of optimism in what has just been a brutal, certainly 365 days. But I mean, it's been brutal for a while for a lot of people, but it just has felt especially harsh lately. So to give our listeners some insight, we were talking today about the One Piece flag and its use through protests around the world. And before we even like get into everything, Dr. Bentlen, what were your initial thoughts when you started seeing this, like, personally?
- [07:25]
C
Right. So we have observed this phenomenon where different social political movements across the world are starting to show members of the protest showing the One Piece flag. And we can trace this back to like early in the summer, late of the spring of this year when there were formal reports coming from news outlets. And one of the things that really struck me as impactful was realizing that a symbol that is so iconic, the straw hat Jolly Roger, was being mixed and kind of in a way integrated into this protest, you know, and it was so resonant and almost a calling of inspiration or encouragement to the people involved in it. That to me was unique in the sense that you do not see this often in media studies, Cultural studies, we talked about symbology from products and things that come into society for entertainment. And normally you don't see a symbol that is so integral to a story meant for entertainment purposes as it is distributed, but being used for a social political movement that spans multiple countries. I think that was the first thing that to me was so intriguing and what led me to like, okay, I think we need to not only follow this closely, but we need to really understand that and study it more. So hopefully today's discussion we can really delve into some of the nuances and specifics of this topic, which I think is fascinating.
- [08:58]
A
Golfer, what about you? What were your initial thoughts seeing the flag in. Well, we'll get to exactly where and how.
- [09:07]
B
But yeah, besides the general excitement of just more One Piece fans, the more the better at this point.
- [09:14]
A
Say that here. That's our mission.
- [09:16]
B
It was the very first link in the document that we've got with all of the different videos and articles together. There's an ABC News video that does not mention the Straw Hat Jolly Roger whatsoever. It's not about One Piece. It's about the different political unrest that is generally kind of anchored in Gen Z across the world multiple different times. You see the straw hat Jolly Roger, they make no acknowledgment of it, but you see it three or four different times. It'd be one thing to see a couple of times, like at different protests, there's always fans of something. I bet if you went out there, there'd be people wearing like the GI that Goku has in Dragon Ball Z. But to see how central it's become to even small parts of those movements and to see people be able to rally behind that and to use One Piece as kind of a vehicle of inspiration and then hope that while we don't necessarily have Happy Go Lucky Rubber Boy to punch away the bad guys, we have ourselves and we can use Luffy and the gang as inspiration that they can make a better world. So can we.
- [10:28]
A
So I'm going to post hopefully updating links and. And stuff in the description for wherever you're listening to this or watching this included. I hope to at least put. I've been. So I've been checking, I guess all sorts of sources over the last few weeks. I know the. The Indonesia was really, I think the place where this kind of exploded metaphorically, not. Not literally. And the one piece flag particularly there was really central in a way that I think shocked, stunned I think is the word I've been using. Because it's not shocking that one piece can have this kind of effect. Or I should say it's not surprising, but it is stunning in both a positive way and just generally. So I'll be posting a link, but it has been caught on by, you know, most recently I've been, you know, cnn, abc, BBC, Washington Post, Guardian, NBC, like have been covering just the Jolly Roger aspect of it, which is crazy. There's a Wikipedia article just about the straw hat Jolly Roger and the Gen Z movement. Wikipedia article, which is the current title. I think we're going to change the name today to either like the Straw Hat Protests or something like that. But do we have that authority? We should.
- [12:02]
C
We should start a petition. Absolutely.
- [12:04]
A
Yes. I don't know who we petition, but we should.
- [12:06]
B
We just put in enough edits. It goes through Wikipedia.
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A
They're going through enough right now. Let's support Wikipedia, not make their lives more difficult.
- [12:14]
C
Okay, so listen listeners, help us out with this, please.
- [12:17]
A
So. But the straw hat flag as you mentioned, not even like specifically, you know, delineated on Wikipedia, but it's, you know, those are the images of the protest. It's that flag. And I was searching today. So we're recording this on the heels of the no Kings, the second no Kings protest that took place yesterday as we, as we record here. So we're really making this timely. But just seeing people be like, why are there one piece flags everywhere? Like, not, you know, I think I've just been so inundated by this, as I'm sure the two of you have been, that I'm like, how do you not know that one piece has become such a cultural phenomenon that's starting a literal revolution in many countries? So it's, it's been, it's been a crazy few months, I'm going to say. I do want to give a quick list of all the, all the countries I think so far. And there are many that I am not mentioning or that I just don't have information for. I tried on purpose to find, you know, reliable, you know, like real primary sources here because, for example, like for the protests that happened, the no Kings protest, you know, lots of people posted from their cities showing the straw hat flag. But I'm. These are from like primary, like primary sources in that they're journalists and professional photographers because, you know, AI sucks and I don't know what's out there. So we have Nepal, which we'll definitely be talking about. Indonesia, which we've already talked about. Madagascar, that's, that's, that's a big topic as well. Italy, during protests both related to social issues in Palestine. France, similarly the Philippines, it's been a major symbol there. Morocco, it's been spreading a lot more. I think their movement is called the 212 morocco, 212 movement. Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Thailand, Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, in the US in Portland, Chicago, New York, Washington, Louisiana, Charlotte, Gainesville, Miami. You know what? I realized I don't have any from Canada. What's going on with that? I'm sure there are some there that I just don't have. It's been. And I think to get it back to Dr. Bentlein here. So, yeah, again, that's who I'm, you know, I want to hear the anthropological reasoning here. We talked about the intercontinental aspect of it and I'm going to throw it to you there.
- [15:14]
C
Yeah, no, that's definitely a higher step that we're seeing the phenomenon take in. So there's a couple of things to consider here. Traditionally in human studies, historical anthropology, We've seen movements that take on symbols that kind of dominate certain regions. Sometimes they can go through continents, but it's usually between one or two, never more than three. One of the big examples is back during the French Revolution time. We saw a lot of the ideals like fraternity, all of those ideas kind of go into the South American countries during the revolutions and be adopted into the series of movements that came decades in the centuries after. But for us to see a symbol of a franchise at this point, to be spread across four continents at this, at this point, it's kind of safe to say that it is a world phenomenon and that it is happening at a speed that is unprecedented. Normally, political movements to be sharing similarities like this takes sometimes months, even years, even in a world media status that we live in. But this has happened in the span of six months. You know, in. In such a short amount of time. We're seeing such a prevalence of the flag being used. And something that is important to consider is there are barriers among these countries and these continents between the cultural groups. You know, there's a language barrier. There's also a accessibility barrier to the content of One Piece, whether it stopped in the. In the language of that area, whether it is available as fast in the manga publication, the anime episodes coming out. So when we see such a variance culturally and politically, but that the symbol is still prevalent, that just goes to show how resonant the essence of the One Piece ideas and foundational notions are. You know, we see that the message is not getting lost in translation, and that is honestly, I think, remarkable to see. There's been actually country responses where they have demonized the symbol. There are some countries that even have said that flying the flag is treason against the current government. There's also other protests where the government has been dissolved. Madagascar, I believe the leader kind of stepped down and dissolved the government.
- [17:31]
A
He didn't just step down. I think he flew out of the country.
- [17:33]
C
Right, right, right. He escaped. So we're seeing actual cause and effect of the use of the flag in the protest to inspire people that are also leading to some change, like globally, in a lot of areas. The power that this protests across the world are carrying and having the symbol as a banner for it is something that anthropologically we have not seen that much. I mean, something that I could compare to is that there were periods of time historically where, for example, the Christian Crusades back in the Middle Ages, where different countries would send their knights to try to propagate Christianity against Muslim and other kind of groups like the Romani or the Morani groups in parts of Europe using the cross as a symbol. That's a very different context, of course, very different motivation. It had to do a lot with monarchies at the time. But that is one of the few examples that I can think of where a symbol has spanned across so many different movements that involve rebellion and conflict and just political change. So, I mean, it's, It's.
- [18:43]
A
It's really fascinating with Madagascar in particular. So I, I saw. I was searching earlier on Blue sky, and there was a user, Urquion Rafosa, who posted the. So you've been seeing the Malagasy hat on the straw hat. I don't know if you've seen.
- [19:05]
C
Yeah, I saw the picture. Yeah.
- [19:07]
A
So it's been. And, and I saw someone else post like, I don't know how used it is or if it's used at all, but I saw someone post the Moroccan one with like a fez. And I do think that's a really. That's a really creative, at least, use of the Jolly Roger. But it is crazy. Any picture in Madagascar in particular has at the very least the custom version of the Jolly Roger. I don't know where I was going particularly with that, but it's been. You're right. I mean, we've had at least. So Madagascar. The president fled Nepal is, I think, the one where the most striking images involving the straw hat flag have been. I don't know if either of you want to mention, I guess, kind of either your reactions to those or kind of your thoughts, seeing them that front and center.
- [20:18]
B
Well, it's just something that's, I would say, almost impressive, especially the, the, like the burning, if I remember correctly, it's the Nepalese parliament and then it's the gate, and then someone has put the straw hat Jolly Roger right onto the front of it. And then like in. In and of itself, that can feel like a very violent image and it can feel very. It's almost scary in the same way that it is inspiring that people are able to stand up. But it's. Yeah, it's the resonance of one piece and kind of the clear ideas of wealth disparity. Now, I was doing a lot more research on Madagascar rather than Nepal because I was trying to stay on something that was a little more current.
- [21:03]
A
Nepal, I saw, is coming back a little bit because there's a whole.
- [21:07]
B
Oh, is there more going on there?
- [21:08]
A
From what I was reading, yeah, the Prime Minister. So they, they got rid of, I think, a lot of the. The other ministers there, like the, the cabinet members as we would know them, I think. But now like the prime minister is like I'm not going anywhere. Don't.
- [21:24]
B
And I think even though they elected a guy off at discord and tried to install him.
- [21:29]
A
They did that in Madagascar. I know, right? Didn't they?
- [21:31]
B
I thought that was Nepal where they did the. Because they took the finance and paraded him into a river and then they elected now the, the guy. I believe he was a previous prime minister. But I, I'm curious now. This is probably one of the hardest parts of doing any of these, any of this kind of research, at least as somebody who has not done this before is the translation through western media. It all feels very generalized right now. This all feels very. It's. It's. I feel like it's lacking kind of the minutiae of yeah. What is actually going to be needed in order to truly change the Nepalese government. The only thing I've really seen about Madagascar with installing a new leader like they did who was part of the military. All I've seen is he's adamant it's not a coup even though the previous president came from a coup as well.
- [22:21]
A
You see now I'm just going to say something completely. I thought they installed like the leader of the protest movement. I don't know if they're also ex military or current military.
- [22:30]
B
I believe he was current military and was favorable. The military in and of itself was favorable to the movement because I know.
- [22:37]
A
We switched over at some point.
- [22:39]
B
Yeah, yeah. Because I mean it all kind of falls down to the idea of wealth disparity where like I was researching Madagascar's economy and like the GDP is $545 per capita compared to 80,000 in the United States. Like the, the number seems unbelievable and unreal. So the, the clear understanding of wealth disparity kind of like what you see in one piece, right. These people don't have water 12 to 16 hours a day. They don't have electricity 16 hours a day. That's also going to affect people that are within the military. So eventually they kind of sided on that. That point of view. But the idea of like down with the celestial dragons, like there's. There is energy, there is infrastructure that needs to be mended. But it's yalls fault that it's not being mended. But the tax man shows up on time every month. So it's the, the idea of unrest and I don't want to deal with this for the next 60 years. Yeah, that was like really resonant in Madagascar because some of these other countries, like, are extremely poor, you know, are extremely poor as well. But that was the. The lowest I could find where it was just like, even at that level, how bad does it get before people are really ready to step in on their own and really take it into their own hands? Then use the straw hat Jolly Roger as a symbol to unify under right.
- [24:03]
A
With Nepal, I think it was also. I mean, I know the Nepo babies thing. And also we've been talking about Nepo piece recently. And I won't spoil what's going on in the actual manga, but that it is kind of. I don't know if ironic's the word, but one piece definitely does have a thing of. If you are entitled to something that does not mean you can oppress. You know, like Wapo is an example that comes to mind. All the evil toflamingo there. There are a lot of like, examples of that. So I get. I completely get the. The idea. And income inequalities equally. Wano is kind of a great example of that. It's a really, like, we get the food. You don't. I mean, it's. It's. It's exactly that sort of thing.
- [24:56]
C
Yeah. It's like one piece is providing the ideological blueprint to understand how to function in this status or states of inequity, especially economic inequity. As you know, I was. We're talking about Madagascar. I. One of the areas that I get very interested in was Morocco. I actually have colleagues from back in grad school who did their research on Moroccan populations and talked about the language diaspora between French and more like regional cultural languages. So I reached out to one of them, actually, Dr. Marvel, and I kind of talked with her a little bit about what she felt because she is in Morocco right now. It's like, what have you seen? Have you. Can you give me a different perspective? Because sometimes I feel like news outlets, as objective as they try to be, they portray or they present a more generalized, easy to digest version that might not have all the nuances that we need to understand. And it all goes back to the wealth disparity. You know, we have populations that are really, really disappointed and have lost a lot of hope for a better economy from every single politician that comes in. And a big aspect of that is also the corruption that exists in the systems that has become so blatant that even the population is like, we know that these people are only functioning to get richer and we're getting poorer, and that's what incites a lot of these movements to happen for a change of regime in terms of the full economical system.
- [26:26]
A
I do having. I was in Morocco like at the. When the pandemic started and I do love that country. So I do hope that they do find some. You know, that the. I think the thing about this is that one piece does in an easy to digest way express these really obvious issues. Like they're very. But they. They almost like could call attention. What is it like sometimes they're like hidden in plain sight. Like we live them every day depending where we are. Obviously there's different levels of it and we're in different places on those scales personally. And but one piece, as I think we've just made only a couple of examples to it, but it really shines a really bright light on it.
- [27:26]
C
I think we're seeing something like the Belo Betty effect in real life. You know, I almost feel like her devil fruit has really taken shape into the series. And the more we watch it, the more people in the world watch it, they just get inspired to fight for justice.
- [27:42]
A
Yeah, I mean they're going out and raising a gigantic flag, except instead of the revolutionary flag, it's the straw hats flag, which somewhat synonymous even in the series. I mean, I was thinking about this the other day, just the revolutionaries existing in one piece is kind of this gigantic, like I don't know about you, they almost feel like the most sympathetic party next to the straw hats. When you read. Yeah, right.
- [28:09]
C
You know, you have this group of people that they normally recruit from the countries that are liberating. Right. So you're getting the people that have been directly hurt by this very, I would say maliciously, strategically designed system in one piece to keep the inequities existing sustainable, sustainably. So you know, you get all the people from the countries you. They join your cause and the revolutionaries just want what I would say is an actual fair world for everyone. I mean we don't know what's the final motivations. And some of those characters. I don't know if Dragon is just so disappointed with the Navy and everything he saw that he just want to fight it. And maybe there's something more neither something they all know. But you know, we have former slaves. We get people that have been pretty much torture and utilize like objects where the celestial dragons become like the generals of the revolutionary army. Like there's a lot of symbolism coming out of that that I think will resonate with anyone who's living in a current life state right now of Economic disparity, extreme poor or wealth, lack of. And things like that.
- [29:17]
A
And we talked about it. I had an outline for this that I'm already feeling like I've accidentally thrown out. But we'll get there. But I think we have been talking about particularly. And I'll be as spoiler free as I can. The recent events in the manga. The recent flashback in the manga. The amazing gift of being able to travel and to being able to meet people around the world and speak to people around the world of different incomes and backgrounds and all of that. For me personally, even though it's been a while since I've had kids. But it's been such a inspiring and just like, wow. Everyone is dealing with what they're dealing with. And seeing like the income inequality around the world and here. And seeing that everyone is kind of in the same boat so to speak. And everyone is reading one piece. I assume it has felt unifying and resonant and like I completely get it. Like how, you know, we. We are all kind of, you know, doing the same thing here. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, golfer.
- [30:47]
B
I think the question becomes too. Does one piece have the staying power that it has if it doesn't resonate from chapter one? Like one of the big discussions that I've tended to have is this is present from the moment Luffy ends up on the island that Zorro's on. And we learn about the Heavenly Tribute. We learn about the exertion of force by the world government through the Marines. If that is not something that is so innately relatable immediately. And then every single chapter afterwards having an example after example. And even just with just the straw hats when it comes to Chopper and the idea of having proper medical care for everybody around you. Namis with a pretty heavy topic of like human trafficking. Like you can absolutely look at her as someone that was trafficked. Usopp. Living your dreams. That's. He might have the lightest one outside of him as like a person. But like the people upon his island and Kaya and the idea of like being taken advantage of and then every single straw hat outside of that. If it doesn't resonate as well as it does. Does it exist this long? Does it keep the attention of everyone who's reading it this long. Does it inspire as many people over this period of time? And I think that's. I'll try not to. Like. I know when we start talking about Oda too much because there is a bit of an aspect of divorcing the work from the writer but if he wasn't in tune with these things, at least early on in his life, could he have written such a resonant story? I think is, like, always a question that I've had, especially as he's grown to be. You know, Some estimates are $250 million worth of wealth, and yet he still is able to tap into these ideas. He's never grown out of applying a better world, meaning the most to the titular character, about the world around them constantly needing to evolve to something better. And then using literally, like geographical representation of wealth disparity, like literally just having the rich live on a gigantic ridge and everybody lives below them. And everything that they've done to reinforce that hierarchy, to have kind of the wherewithal to present that in a story for this long and not really lose sight of that is extremely impressive. And I think it's a big reason why it's so easy to grab onto this. Even if you just started one piece, you know, two weeks ago. You can find those examples in there, or if you've been reading it since the first chapter dropped. And I'm. I think it's really exciting that a lot more people are having these conversations really frequently. Like, this is coming up a lot, especially in regards to, like, it's also getting backlash online. Like, people are thinking that you're taking too much from it, or you're overanalyzing it, or you're begging the story for these kinds of aspects. So to see it, like, be this persistent is really impressive as just, like a form of media and how much, like, people, like, take to it is extremely inspiring and I.
- [34:03]
A
Very well put. Yeah, go ahead.
- [34:05]
C
I was going to say, I think following what you're saying, Carrie, is that one piece does started, like, from the very beginning, you know, East Blue, like, even Luffy Saving Sorrow. It poses to the readers and the audience a question of can we trust in the system that we exist in? And that it's a question that, anthropologically speaking, is very essential for someone to understand their societies and our current human, like world the way we exist. We are on this social contract of a society where basically we're part of a society and we put the faith, trust and money into the ones who, like, lead us or, like, are governing us. Then we're going to get security, we're going to get a stable structure, we're going to get the needs met, things like that. But what we're seeing.
- [34:51]
A
Stadium.
- [34:52]
C
Right, Right, exactly. But what we're. We're seeing here is in all these processes People are actually, you know, criticizing that. It's like we put all this faith and trust into our governments, and we're not getting the basic needs met. You know, we're not getting running water, we're not getting electricity, we're not getting a path out to lead us out of poverty state. And one piece put that question on the table from the very first chapter, you know, if we cannot trust the Marines, who are the ones to keep the peace and keep us safe from the evil pirates, who can we trust in but ourselves to then take matters into our own hands? And I think that's. That's why it's resonant from. I think from chapter one to, you know, the whole essence of the story so far is that people see that, like, that's what I'm living through right now. You know, when they're in this countries that under certain systems can be considered third war countries. You know, they're like, we're not getting the basics of what we want as, you know, just citizens of this country. And it can be extrapolated to any other country itself. I think that's also a lot of what kind of fueled the no Kings protests that we saw yesterday across the country is like, people are. Are demanding. We want the promises that were given to us or a promise that the system is going to work for us, the governed, if we're going to trust in you as the governor.
- [36:18]
A
Yeah. I think the concept of a republic or democracy has, like, tons of promise. However, it is often exploited in, like, kleptocracies and oligarchies and, you know, what. What societies end up festering into sometimes. Like, I think that is what really is fueling that protest. And unfortunately is, you know, is. Is. Is like. Is here in. In a lot of countries at the same time for whatever reason, you know, here we all are in kind of the same boat. And I. Yeah, no, I think it's. It's certainly resonant in one piece. Like, I think particularly what's really crazy. Like. So, Golfer, you. You had mentioned separating the art and the artist with Oda. I feel like, you know, I've always. Oda has always seemed apolitical to me. However, his story has always seemed extremely political. And you kind of mention his. You know, from what I hear, ODA is kind of embodies the monkey D. Luffy in every way. And, you know, Luffy also kind of embodies that contradiction of being both apolitical and also extremely political. And there's something really, I don't know, almost gives me chills. Like, the idea of the leader, the revolution that happens because of people just striving for making things better for their friends and their neighbors and, you know, and then strangers, equally importantly. And I think that's kind of where the subtlety is, you know, like when people say one piece isn't political, it is extremely political, and they're wrong. And if, if this news does not prove that, I don't really think anything will to. To the people who think that it's apolitical. Oda, on the other hand, I wonder, and there's for, like, psychoanalyzing at this point, if we do it. But I wonder how much he is just doing the things, writing the things that he thinks is right. And I feel like he's moved further left in his opinions generally of, and certainly has portrayed more and more egregiousness in government. I think one of the things that originally appealed to me about One Piece was like, it felt like it wasn't black and white. And recently I feel like those distinctions are becoming clearer and clearer and the world government is looking worse and worse. Like, even if the individual people might be striving for better, they're certainly creating bad. And it's been. It feels like, what an inflection point in the story of One Piece and the story of our civilization here as we sit here in 2025. It's been resonant in more ways than one, I feel like.
- [39:43]
B
So, yeah, there was a creator that I've followed for a little while that brought up something pretty interesting. She is an educator in Japan, so she teaches about feminist literature, especially Western feminist literature, and teaches it to. To folks at, like, Japanese universities. And what she, she talked a bit about was that there are a lot of folks that will come in with some of the most radical ideologies in terms of how they can kind of reshape Japan to be a country with less femicide than what they're currently experiencing, with a social structure that does not incentivize the. The nature of what we understand a lot of men are like, or incentivizing the type of media that they're allowed to, like, produce and sell within stores that wouldn't be allowed in most places. And then she would ask them, are you feminist? And they would say no. So there's kind of this hesitancy, at least from now. This is, you know, coming from a guy who's been to Japan for two weeks and reads a ton of manga. I'm trying to just relay What I learned from. From folks that do live there, have been grown up in Japan, there is a hesitancy to put any type of distinction upon yourself, but your beliefs can be extremely radical. So like it. I imagine if someone sat Oda down and said, you know, like, right, let me. Let me try and define anti police state structures or and put a label on it and argue that he would say no. But then what we see in one piece is obviously someone that has a massive disdain for the idea that the state is always correct in its violence towards people and that you can, even if you are a part of that apparatus, you can abstain by your own intentions. Your intentions are greater than the sum of violence committed against a lot of people. And that's kind of like the. One of the things that I fell in love with one piece about was that that is a tough conversation to have anywhere. Anywhere that has a police state structure where there's no accountability. It took an entire country of people protesting to get one guy who was caught on video killing a man a proper conviction. And that's just the one we caught on video. And so to see that in a story where it questions that idea that you can still be good even if you are supporting a structure that is demonstrably evil. And it all kind of comes back to Garp in that way where it's you, you see what. I won't say what happens, but you see what happens in the manga. And now you were a marine for the next 40 years and we might have an inflection point that might change the kind of sympathies towards him, but there still becomes that question of, you know, what's going on and you have the power to change things, but you don't. And it kind of goes to every police state structure and, you know, especially a lot of these countries that we're talking about. Generally, these movements need the support of the military at the end of the day, because the military is comprised of the common man. Outside of, you know, maybe the. The absolute top levels. If we just flattened it to as evenly, you know, into one piece as possible, it becomes the Celestial Dragons that are owning the government and, you know, still have electricity. Say in Madagascar, where they still have electricity and water, they're still allowed to shower. But can you get the apparatus behind you that now defines how much power you actually have?
- [43:32]
A
You actually reminded me of the whole plotline that's happening recently, which shouldn't be a huge spoiler, but that the Celestial Dragons having their food, the revolution of.
- [43:45]
B
Their food I wanted lobster Akainu. I wanted lobster.
- [43:48]
A
Right. And yeah, it's. Well, first of all, I mean, this kind of gets into another point I want to talk about comedy and comics are a just brilliant way to. And accessible way to kind of get across those messages. On the main podcast, we were talking about a series that's very important to me, Maus by Art Spiegelman, which looks like it's a bunch of anthropomorphic, you know, but it's a story of the Holocaust and it's really able to convey those kind of serious messages in a way that looks accessible and that's so important. And One Piece does that. And when we, when we try and do an elevator pitch for One Piece, sometimes I mention how it's this kind of like candy wrapped but like very serious middle. Like you're looking at it and it looks wacky and it is wacky. And then you get to the center of it, it's like, oh, we're gonna be discussing genocide today or something like. Or we're gonna. I mean, there are million millions. There are many, many examples, like I think of like the Ohara flashback surrounded by, you know, everything else, or choppers flashback on a much smaller scale or Kuma or whatever it may be. There are like so many heartbreaking and also vitally important sorts of stories, politically and also just emotionally that, that are, that are held in One Piece. And I mean, first I want to ask the two of you before, well, I don't know, Dr. Bentlen, how long ago this might have been for you, but before you got into one piece, was there any clue to either of you that this might have existed inside of it?
- [45:50]
C
Like when we first got, like when I first started, like reading it or watching it?
- [45:53]
A
Yeah, like even. Yeah, like even after chapter one, like, or just looking at, or just hearing about One Piece in the ether without having read it.
- [46:04]
C
At least for me. No, I think I'm coming from a perspective where the idea of enjoying anime manga as part of the fandom in those early stages of my life came with the taboo that you were going to be part of a smaller section of the population that was more into like video games, sci fi fantasy, that wasn't going to see a lot of mainstream. And there were a lot of stereotypes around people who enjoyed those kind of areas, obviously misconceptions and things that are not accurate. So for me, I joined One Piece because I kind of stumbled onto it after I finished watching my very first anime was Fairy Tale. So after that one I was looking for Another adventure type of thing. And for me, the big selling point was the introduction of Goldie Royer talking about, you want my treasure? Go final. I want to know what they want before. And that was like the big thing. But it took. It took about an arc for me, like East Blue, to understand that one piece. And we talked about this. I would argue that one piece, it is entirely political, but it's not political in the sense that the adjective has been used in recent decades. It's not political as it is guiding us to a certain ideologies like Marxism, communism, socialism. It's not doing that. It's not indoctrinating people into a specific strand. It's actually truly political in the sense that it's sharing some kind of purity. On what is the human story of struggles with power? So it is politically, and I would say in a more prime version, we're seeing what actually is the representation of the struggle with economic disparity, power, oppression, hegemonic powers at play. And that speaks so much of the human experience, regardless of the decade, the century or the millennium, that I think that's why one piece, it's purely political, but in a piece of voice, right? Absolutely.
- [47:57]
A
Golfer.
- [47:59]
B
I had a bunch of buddies that watched one piece and I really thought it was just Happy go Lucky Rubber Boy. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into when I convinced my wife to start it. But the when, especially the first you meet Captain Morgan and all that kind of stuff, I was pretty used to animes and mangas having a little like sprinkle of like state power violence and stuff like that. But you hit the. The choo choo episode where he's waiting outside of the store that had been burnt down. And I looked over at my wife, had tears in her eyes, and I was tearing up. So I didn't know even at the very beginning that it would get to a level where I'm talking on a podcast about protests that are hoisting the straw hat Jolly Roger. But even pretty early on, you can, you can hit a point where it's. It hits really hard. Like it can hit really, really hard, really fast for a million different reasons. So I think I got through the. The candy exterior pretty quickly. But like, that was. That's what also sold me on it was that it is happy Go Lucky Rubber Boy. But we're going to deal with some pretty heavy stuff here.
- [49:11]
A
It's digestible. And. And as on for your end and for Dr. Bentland's, it is. It definitely gives a voice to Things that are very hard to say. I know. Like, there's a reason that Robin's I Want to live moment is like the, if not the defining moment of the series, one of like the most impactful. And it's because it gives, you know, I don't mean to put any words in anyone listening's mouth, but I, I think it, it gives voice to struggles, you know, with. We've talked about this a lot on the podcast, but just mental struggle, struggles, feeling like you don't belong, isolation, demonization. There's like so many difficult things that are expressed in like one panel or one page of a manga. And that's, you know, I think we talked about this a little, Dr. Bentley, earlier in the week, but like, when comedy and art are under assault, that's a big, gigantic red flag.
- [50:27]
C
Oh yeah.
- [50:30]
A
Because those, those things are so important to individuals, to give them power, to give them self, self empowerment and empowerment generally and validation and vocabulary that, you know, I, we talked about this a little, but like, do you fear for the future of One Piece because of this?
- [51:03]
C
I, I thought about it a lot recently, especially after a conversation. Zach, outside of the podcast, I, I'm wary. I am. I want to follow it as an academic very carefully to see what happens. We do have already at least one example of a country that has said that waving the flag is an act of treason. So we already have that precedent already stabled, and it happened. I think one of the things that to me is more worrisome is observing that history, erasure, censorship and an attack of freedom of expression is already happening in different parts of the world, and also I would say, including in our country right now. Why that is worrisome to me is because historically, as you see different cycles of societies coming and going, civilizations kind of rising and falling. Something that happens very often when authoritarian fascism or justinism kind of comes into play is that the control of information is of the essence. What the masses know, what they get access to, what they get revealed to a way to control their communal perception. And it's a way to also control any kind of, you know, attacks or critics to your own power when you're just teasing it for yourself as a disproportionate government. So with one piece being at the one of the symbols of all of these protests, what I'm worried about is that they're going to start associating it with a lot of malicious tactics that authoritarian governments use. One of them is creating a enemy out of nothing or creating a kind of negative image. Association to their resistance that they can use to kind of vilify what's going on. Something that we've seen in other governments and including in ours, is that they're talking about antifa as a movement, the anti fascism, and they're trying to make it a terrorist organization. And I worry that if the protests continue and one piece keeps being at the center of it, they're going to start associating that with one piece. They're going to start creating the narrative that one piece is an antifa symbol, that one piece is an insurrectionist symbol, that one piece is something like that when it really isn't. I think one of the duties of people who understand history, academics, researchers, reporters, anyone, is for us to keep clear that things are not the way they're being portrayed. One piece is the symbol of a lot of this freedom that is give to people every day. It's a story about justice, about finding what's fair and what works for everyone. And it hasn't been tainted through the protests. If anything, we're seeing that it's coming alive because of it. But it is not, it should not be associated with vilifying enemies that are not there because that would be just a tactic used by the authoritarian powers to try to stop this from growing. And to me that's very important. I have actually shifted. I'm working currently on a paper, hopefully some for publication on understanding the true nature of the symbol of the Jolly Roger and Nika as you know, as I think one of the more iconic presence in the story. So that it's not twisted or it's not influenced negatively by what's happening throughout all of these movements.
- [54:35]
A
Yeah, I. It's been, it's been like a whirlwind of emotions. For that reason I think as a one piece fan and as a fan of fan of just free freedom generally that the chance. Well, I have to say in the United States though, one piece flags certainly took center stage in a different way than they previously did. But it looked like it was one amongst many symbols here, more than versus Nepal, Madagascar, Indonesia.
- [55:14]
C
It was not the heart of it.
- [55:16]
A
It was not the heart of. And Peru recently. I know, I think it's been a lot more the heart of it.
- [55:22]
C
And.
- [55:22]
A
I think it's making those hegemonic, you know, like regimes kind of, you know, quaking their boots. But here I don't think, I don't think we were talking about, you know, last week before the protest, is this gonna affect it?
- [55:40]
B
I think at least for just speaking strictly to the U.S. i think it's safe in essence until it's a threat to capitalism. I think that's the big thing is. And not even necessarily within the borders of the United States. But if one of these movements was happening in a country where we have vested interests in some type of natural resource, and this happens, you know, this happens to any country that decides, decides to take away the ability to invest in their natural resources and get it for pennies on the dollar. And I think if it was central in one of those kinds of movements, I think is when it would be very apprehensive. Now that's again, speaking strictly of the United States. I know in especially like Indonesia, they were trying to celebrate their 80th year of independence and they said fly the flags. And that's how the protests kind of seem to have started. Was flying the Jolly Roger because of lack of nationalism and not having pride in the current state of affairs. So as long as the money machine keeps churning and there isn't a flag of a straw hat Jolly Roger at the center of stopping some form of US Capitalism, I think we can rest easy that we'll at least continue to see one piece. Because one of the big examples is like In England, like 1940 or 1984 was never banned because it sold. It was never explicitly, like taken off of bookshelves. While many books have been banned, that's generally a social pressure for a litany of different reasons. The state never censored 1984 because in and of itself it's almost pacifying by being a catharsis for people that feel that they're under the pressure and constant watch of the state. And it can. I think that's maybe the only apprehension within the United States where you see in other countries where they have a lot less to lose. Like, they're, they have. They're in much more dire straits than the average person is in the United States in terms of economically. Economically, even as bad as the United States can be, you know, when we're talking about like GDPs below $10,000 per capita, we're talking about people that make $2, US$2 a day. And that's how they have to. To live. That economic anxiety can create a lot more hostility towards the people that are in power. A lot of people in the United States fear that type of civil unrest because if any downturn happens, they're like absolutely terrified of which is fair. Like. And, you know, it's kind of. The idea of any revolution is kind of scary. Not even Talking about, like, a full, like, societal revolution. But just even questioning this, any change, questioning the state, questioning the apparatus. And that's the hardest part to kind of translate to this is that while like, we have, like, the no Kings protest, what's the quantifiable questions? Like, one of the things I kept seeing yesterday was, we're gonna take. We're gonna have the ice officers take their masks off. It was like, well, we shouldn't have ice to begin with. Like that. It's funny how, like, the. The Overton window shifts, and while we may be protesting and it's a rightful thing to. Yeah. And like, I. I 100 believe that everyone's heart is in the right place. It's just. It feels like things have shifted so far to the right because of the stampede of. Of kind of liberal capitalism and what it allows. We have ended up at a place where that's the ask.
- [59:30]
A
The.
- [59:30]
B
The idea that, like, state violence now has to have a face on it. Instead of stopping it all together, instead of not ripping people out of their homes, it becomes, well, at least I want to know that John's doing it. You know, like, it's. It feels like we need to ask for more. And it feels like at times the government in and of itself can rest easy because we get the catharsis we need from One Piece and people, and there's plenty of people as well, that will argue to the ends of the earth that we're taking too much from One Piece, even as protests centered around the straw hat Jolly Roger take place. They'll tell you you're begging it. They will tell you with a straight face that you're asking too much of it. Oda's a weirdo, and you're being too radical.
- [60:21]
A
Two things could be true.
- [60:25]
C
I also think that, if anything, One Piece, what we're seeing is the causal effects of the product itself. This branching in all different directions of what the product has done. The manga, the anime. And I don't know if we can associate that directly to the author, like, linearly. I think it's just One Piece has grown to have that much of an influence. That happens a lot with historical works in literature. You know, you see a story that comes out that is so impactful to humanity, and it might not be that the author meant it for it that way, but it just became that way. I think for One Piece, that's what we're seeing. You know, it's resonating people's hearts. Maybe it was an ODA's intention. It was not like a grand plan or it's just that it's an object that was meant to do that. But it has done that for the audience.
- [61:12]
B
It has done that film, you know, the artist. There's a million examples of it. I mean, I imagine Shakespeare didn't imagine Hamlet would last 300 years at this point. It can, it can definitely take more of a presence than they ever could have possibly intended. And it's one of the most beautiful parts about One Piece.
- [61:31]
A
Yeah, it's one of the most beautiful things about art just generally. I mean, it is. We're the One Piece podcast and that's what we're talking about here today. But yeah, it's. Yeah, it's hard to put into words. I, I've been, I was thinking of like after I need to reread 1984. It's been a while, but 1984, Minority Report, that movie I remember, like those kind of have the. Okay, you know, the, the, the, the roadmap of how these like authoritarian regimes operate while simultaneously like, shit, they're in my mind like they're at like that point, I can't even think the wrong thing. And that is powerful in both directions. Like, I think one Piece can be as, as well. I mean, you know, speaking for myself, it has felt exceptionally. I've been in, unfortunately the more defeatist camp recently and I feel like this is if anything, helped lift my spirits a lot in humanity. Like I have faith in humankind. It's more of the oligarchical aspects that we've really been seeing, I don't want to say shine, but really becoming kind of the focal point of all of our societies.
- [62:55]
C
If anything becoming more clear.
- [62:56]
A
I think, yeah, that's a better way than to say letting those oligarchy shine. Finally. It's been inspiring to see. There's like I mentioned my Judaism, which has obviously been really just tough to see everything happening in Palestine and in Gaza. Personally it's been. But like, for me, you know, I, I'm not like a religious Jew, I am a cultural Jew and, and you know, like ethnically and the Holocaust is something that's really like very present minded in growing up and just being like you were part of a group of people that everyone hates at all times. Um, so like I could. For me, that makes me empathize and sympathize with those who are being oppressed more. Just speaking for myself here, because when I see other people going through that kind of crap, that kind of awful, the kind of criminal behavior from governments, it is enraging. But it's like, what can. What can I do about that? And I don't know the answer to that. But I will say, seeing I do feel like a gratefulness to the fact that, you know, the series came into my life, obviously, but that it's also, you know, being used by people to find hope in hopeless situations, to find empathy, even if it's from a manga in these, like, really dire circumstances, is very inspiring for me sitting here today.
- [64:57]
C
Well, I think one piece has become a cathartic outlet for a lot of the anxiety that grows inside a person when they feel hopeless or they have. They feel like they have no agency in a lot of these major structural organizations that construct our world and our societies. You know, when they feel like they don't have a power, they don't have a say or a voice, one piece through the story gives you that at least that capacity to connect with the struggle, acknowledge it, name it, and go from there. And sometimes that's more powerful than anything else to get started. When we were looking at this protest and this and the use of the flag, and for me, a clear example of how this is giving not only a place for boys or a place for change and innovation, is the fact that we're using a pirate flag to represent a movement that is fighting for freedom. Now, historically, I mean, as a cultural anthropologist, I've done a lot of research on piracy in general. A lot of my academic papers have to be prefaced with, I have a strong foundation of understanding what piracy has been for our world, especially for Japan. So I can tell you that the idea of a Jolly Roger, which was first mentioned in one of the old books talking about Captain Kidd and the iconic pirates of that era, was that a Jolly Roger was a symbol of fear that, you know, all the pirate vessels were carrying. And the reason they had a cross made out of bones is because that signified this is the place where you die. If you see this flag, this is a place where they will find you. You know, because we don't leave anyone surviving because they were mostly merchants and looters who were attacking all of these vessels at sea to get rich and then take it to the poor to exchange and live like a life of basically an old version of black marketing around all of these things. So for centuries, seeing a Jolly Roger on a vessel in the middle of the sea coming towards you meant that that was it. You know, your vessel was going to be attacked, was going to be ransacked, you were going to either die at Sea, or you were going to be taken as a slave and then be sold out in any market or recent port. But through the power of one piece and what the story signifies, it's almost like people completely separated the idea of fear and danger and honestly, just kind of malicious intent. And then they added hope, they added encouragement, unity, and that's what the stands at the beginning of the. At the front of the protest are doing. And I think that subversion, that transformation also speaks of how much agency and voice one piece is giving to the audience that are participating in this movement.
- [67:48]
A
Golfer, did you have? I don't know.
- [67:50]
B
I mean, I absolutely just kind of like love the framing of that and the way Dr. Bentland put that. But because, like, anecdotally, like, I was at New Orleans a couple months ago and just learning about the pirates that, like, took care of the entrance to the Mississippi river and just kind of hearing how lawless they were and how they ran this part of New Orleans. And specifically, like, one of the characters that's named in one piece on Blackbeard's crew is Lafitte. Like, John Lafitte was the guy who basically ran the outlet to the Mississippi River. And to take something that for one, also didn't really live that long, like, pirates were not nearly as prevalent as, you know, stories would probably make us think growing up and to take something that is lawless, outlaws, debaucherous, basically villainous groups of people, and to reframe it into at. At the core of what they like, what it really was, was seeking a way out of the south, at least specifically in the United States, a way out of the. Not tyranny, but just the way that the south was governed, even though it translates into some pretty heinous things that they did. But the idea of freedom away from what could be translated as, you know, like a world government apparatus, these are people that owned slaves, and they did a lot of really bad things. And a lot of these, like, pirate crews took in slaves and used them. And that's why they wanted to be pirates was because it was a way to stay away from the US Government or at least in the south at that point in time. And so seeing a lot of that and seeing the framing of like, just the straw hat Jolly Roger in and of itself, about chasing that freedom and kind of nurturing an aspect that throughout most of human history that we've known pirates was a bad symbol, and now it's leading towards a unifying symbol of freedom.
- [69:56]
C
No, absolutely. I, I want to add something here. I think this kind of goes to speak about one piece as a whole. So one of the oldest texts that talks about piracy is written by Robert Ritchie, which some people believe is a pen name. We don't really know if that was an actual author, but it's about Captain Kidd and the history of piracy. Or warriors of Deceit, that's another title for that book. It's a very old text that has been spread around Europe that talks about piracy. And one of the things that was very interesting in this book is that it was the first to present a classification of pirates. Basically what could pirates be historically? They could have been merchants that would come to ports to exchange goods. They could have been looters that were just trying to steal and ransack or they were government officials that were hired to protect their ports or attack foreign ports. But in any of those classifications we never saw like a freedom seeker or like a justice fighter. That's a very modern ideation that I have argued before in some academic panels. One piece started for the east, but when we think about that and then we start to see the effects of this new type of identity association to piracy, it's now being kind of permeated through all of the social movements to the fact that the audience are now. They think of pirates, they think of Luvia, they think of a positive thing. They're not going to think of the negative historical centuries long association of fear and destruction. And that's. That's impactful in itself. I mean I obviously we had big franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean that came out, you know, from the cinema world. That was very impactful to see the kind of black and white gray areas of piracy. But One Piece predates that. So when we really take a look. Yeah, absolutely. One Piece is before Pirates of the Caribbean. So even though Captain Jack Sparrow is very recognizable and everything, you know, I feel like Luffy is still a little.
- [71:54]
A
That's more about a ride in Disney, I think. Yeah, yeah, no, I. My association with One Piece and real life pirates. The amount of we talk about real life pirates on our podcast over the last 16, 17 years is minimal. Is infinitesimal. Like because it just, it to me, you know, obviously when you're elevator pitching the series, it's oh, it's about pirates and. But also not at all about pirates in the way. There's no one really with an eye patch. No one who says R. No, there's one guy with two peg legs. Right. Or one peg leg. No, one peg leg. I'm thinking of a different.
- [72:37]
C
Did it. Shake it. Have like two peck legs.
- [72:39]
A
That's what I was thinking of. No, those are swords.
- [72:41]
C
Oh.
- [72:41]
B
And then Zeff is the one.
- [72:44]
C
Yes.
- [72:45]
B
But when we see the eye patch, that's when the story is going to be.
- [72:48]
A
That's what they said. That's what Oda said. Yeah. You get one eye patch and then we're done.
- [72:54]
C
That's all you get.
- [72:55]
A
That's all you get. Oh, come on. People don't have eye injuries. I mean actually a lot of people.
- [73:00]
B
Do, but just close their eye forever now or they.
- [73:02]
A
They're sabo and they have. They just have a cool scar on their face.
- [73:05]
C
But you know the amount of people that have lost arms and legs and like all other kinds of.
- [73:11]
A
But no, there's a lot of. There's a lot of. Yeah. What was that called? Like a body horror.
- [73:16]
C
Yeah.
- [73:17]
A
In one piece. But. Yeah. Yeah.
- [73:20]
C
Does that mean like eye medical care in the world of one piece is very advanced opposed to everything else?
- [73:26]
A
It's the. Yeah. Yeah. They. They. They only have a great ophthalmologic. Ophthalmologic department there. That's. That's all they got.
- [73:35]
B
Except for Mihawk's Island. He just said Zorro. You gotta have to suck this one up.
- [73:39]
C
Yep.
- [73:39]
A
Oh yeah. He's missing. Yeah. Why does he have an eye patch? Oh well, he probably. He probably lost it and he can't find it. Well.
- [73:48]
C
Crazy that we still don't know what happened to his eye. He hasn't even mention it. And for the amount of flash, would.
- [73:54]
A
It be funnier never to find out? Is the. Is the question there? Like should that just be forever a mystery?
- [74:00]
C
What if he just opens it? He's like oh, it was fine the whole time. I just wanted to keep my eye closed. That's.
- [74:06]
B
That's the best possible answer.
- [74:07]
A
The. There's a non chance.
- [74:10]
B
The people who love Zorro want him to like awaken some power and open the eye and it's the same hawk's eyes.
- [74:17]
A
I've seen the bad fan video stuff that. That's out there. That's very popular. Or the Naruto kind of thing. Right. Isn't that the only one?
- [74:26]
B
He opens his eyes and has a Sharingan.
- [74:28]
C
Yeah. Or Renegade had something. Yeah.
- [74:30]
A
No.
- [74:33]
C
Anyways.
- [74:35]
A
Okay. To. To. To try and segue. I was trying to pitch this series to you. It was pitched to me. I only just finished it. I don't know. Colfer. Have you watched Orb on the movements of the Earth?
- [74:50]
B
So I am like 30 ish chapters in. They.
- [74:55]
A
I haven't read it yet, actually, but, yeah.
- [74:57]
B
Oh, okay. So I won't say anything.
- [74:59]
A
I only watched it.
- [74:59]
B
Yes, it has. I. I saw it all.
- [75:02]
A
I haven't read it, but.
- [75:03]
B
Oh, you. They just found the girl with. From the. The thing they put up on the board because they need help with.
- [75:12]
A
You're in a good part. I like that. I like that section.
- [75:15]
B
So I. I saw the volumes at Kino, and every once in a while, because it, like, fell on the floor or something, they stick a 10% sticker off or on the 10% off sticker on it. And so I picked it up and I. I've absolutely loved it. But like many series that I started reading very recently, Kingdom took over all my time.
- [75:35]
A
Oh, I need to read that. Yeah, I need to read that, too.
- [75:37]
B
The English release is coming out next month, and I am dutifully going to buy it every single month. Kino's going to be sick of me by the time it's done.
- [75:48]
A
Yeah, Kino's sick of me. They've been sick of me for years. But I do want to say I do a podcast about this because I was really into one piece. I wanted to talk about one piece. So having just come off of finishing that series, I really want to talk about it. It's just top of mind, but, like, it is really inspiring. Like, all of these messages are really in that series. So that's my elevator pitch. The. The importance of the. Of writing and knowledge as like, a tool. And it's a lot about the Inquisitions, too. And there's Romany and, you know, all that stuff is. Is there. Is it perfect? No, but it's really good. And it's. I've never. I haven't seen very many serious. I don't want to say ever. I haven't seen too many series, like, seriously tackle those kind of really resonant political issues. And also, I'm an astronomy nerd, and it's about that. So it's a good combo. But, like, I am very optimistic that. Well, I'm hopeful that this won't scare off the anime and manga industry from pursuing, like, these really important sorts of topics.
- [77:11]
C
Yeah, I don't think it will. I think, if anything, it's becoming more of motivation to do it. I think we've seen an evolution of the shonen genre in the last two decades where it had, like, if we look back at Astro Boy and then Dragon Ball, you know, those series that kind of create the foundation. We see a lot of the sometimes cliche situations, a lot of the comedic habits coming up, up and up again, but now shown, and that's coming out in later years. It's really touching into those questions of ideology, of notions of humanity and idealism, things like that. So I think it's going to continue. I mean, Attack on Titanic, Shingeki no Kyojin. It did really well for a while and it was even banned in some countries because the political undertones are overtones, if you want to put it at that point.
- [78:02]
A
Yeah, that's why I dropped it. It's because it had the other side of the aisle political overtones, I thought. But I didn't. I never finished it. So maybe I'm wrong.
- [78:12]
B
But yeah, it's a hot, hot topic. How it tackles the ideas of.
- [78:23]
A
The.
- [78:23]
B
Subjugated group can actually end the world. Yeah. Personally, I've been in some heated conversations about how it fails to alleviate the idea that they. There should be subjugation of people.
- [78:40]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. From what I read up to. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
- [78:45]
B
Sorry.
- [78:46]
C
It just. It makes it seem like both groups kind of like keep cussing in a cyclical way that's never gonna stop.
- [78:53]
B
Very pessimistic view of humanity. Very, very pessimistic view of humans.
- [78:57]
A
I think I saw an article recently, like he wanted to change the ending, but he just stuck to his one that he wrote when he was like 16 or whatever, like a teenager. And it definitely feels like a teenager wrote it because it's. Everything is awful. And you know, like, there's that very. I mean, when you're a teenager, everything is awful. So there's, you know, a lot of the time depends on the teenager, I guess. But there's. There's definitely that sort of like grim pessimism and like, okay, we're going to be really like hardcore and you know, like, yeah, everything's bad and look how dark this is. But yeah, like, maybe it's just because I'm in my 30s and that is not what I want to read.
- [79:41]
C
I.
- [79:42]
B
To come back to like the idea of like, if something like, oh no, you're good because it opens up like a really neat conversation and maybe I'm of that same thing where I just finished Goodnight Pun Pun a couple weeks ago. And if the idea that at least the manga industry wanted to shy away from that kind of publication of actually really taking on the societal pressures of the world and translating it. Even though Pun Pun is a very like siloed idea of like growing up under capitalist monotony and not feeling like you fit in anywhere but Feeling like everybody else kind of has it figured out, and the author translating the derangement that can happen to people through that. I don't think Asano would have gotten any more publications, but he's currently publishing something called Mujina into the Deep, which, again, is another critique of the monotony of specifically Japanese capitalism and how everything can be very nice and look very shiny and everybody has something to say about how you should carry out your life, and yet you feel miserable and you feel like there's no outlets, and your own internal processes become darker and darker, and where do you go with that, and how do you relieve that? And spoiler alert in Goodnight. Pun. Pun. It's never good. It's never a positive thing. But to put that out into the world, and it's like a devoutly loved series. It's the joke that I always hear is it's a 10 out of 10 that I'll never read again.
- [81:20]
A
Yeah, that's one of those.
- [81:21]
B
That'll really.
- [81:21]
A
The fireflies for me.
- [81:23]
B
It'll just really attack that sense of feeling, and I think it's important to continue to have those kinds of stories. I think it was Simon Pegg. I was telling one of my buddies in my discord that Simon Pegg in the Criterion closet was talking to his daughter and told her that entertainment is an overrated aspect of art and that pain and misery are just as valuable as purely being entertained. And granted, you know, that gets far away from One Piece. One Piece as a vehicle is extremely entertaining, almost entirely, but it's plenty of points that it. I can't. You know, I'm wearing the. The Kuma Breaks the Chain shirt.
- [82:04]
A
Yeah.
- [82:08]
B
It was one of those things that. That is, like, in the span of five chapters after, you know, reading 1100, he became my favorite character. The persistence of someone and the kindness, like, to. To maintain the level of kindness that Kuma has, even if it's a bit idealistic, like the. You know, the guy's allowed to have a bad day, but he has plenty. It's inspiring. It's. It's the whole thing about. I want him to be a straw hat, like, so bad. I want him on that ship because.
- [82:41]
A
I'm annoyed they haven't, like, kind of. He's, like, around, but they haven't, like, mentioned. But that's. That's a different topic. Yeah, Kuma. It. Yeah, there's. I mean, there's a lot of reasons that backstory is resonant, but I think Kuma is a great example. It's like the ability, again, the candy wrapping with the. But you could also say even within that wrapping, the serious thing.
- [83:06]
C
Yeah.
- [83:07]
A
You know, you have the grim and the realistic, the, you know, heinous things that happen in the world and that do happen in our world as well. And. But there is that like positive message to it that even if you can't overcome them now, that, you know, one day, you know, the. The tide will eventually turn, all things will pass, you know, like every things will change. And like that Nika idea being there, as you mentioned, Dr. Bent Lin, like that's like a. Literally a millennia of time has passed where there's tons of indignities and crimes and horror happening in the world. But that the optimism through those kind of stories is what helps people get through those moments. And that's kind of almost self reflective. On one piece, I feel like.
- [84:08]
C
Yeah, I think one piece. If we talk about all these components, I think one of the reasons why it resonates so much with everyone is the story itself feels very realistic. And what do I mean by obviously we have, you know, the devil fruit powers the world structure. That is very. Yeah, no they don't. I'm very sad they don't. I really wish they did.
- [84:30]
A
Which devil fruit would you have though? Oh, probably. Probably Vega pugs. Right. Except then you have the head.
- [84:37]
C
I wouldn't want to have such a big head. Honestly. I think I would want to have just because I really like mochi. I would probably have katakuris.
- [84:47]
A
But you can't eat yourself.
- [84:49]
C
Well, but you can turn other things into mochi if it's awakened or if you're awakened.
- [84:53]
A
But then you gotta really train and figure that out. What about Robin? You get to do like 10 things at the same time. Although I guess Vegapunk also got to do that.
- [85:01]
C
Right? Right, right. Or maybe Boaz, if you just want to like turn people you like into stone.
- [85:05]
A
Oh, that's fun. That's fun.
- [85:07]
B
Real get out of jail free card of any conversation.
- [85:12]
A
I'm sorry, I gotta turn you into stone. I'm leaving.
- [85:15]
C
I didn't like this. So like, bye bye. But no, what I was saying is one piece. The essence of the story is believable. People can see the struggles as this, this is happening. It's not sugarcoated, it's not painted through a lens. I think with Attack on Titan, the issue is that it felt a little bit too pessimistic, short sighted and unrealistic at times. That's why the struggle itself didn't pan out with the Audience Other shows that kind of delve into these questions of humanity, like My Hero Academia with what's heroism. They don't really have as much for us to grasp to really go into that moral dilemma of humanity. But One Piece feels realistic. People can put themselves into X character story and connect. You know, whether it is that a parent has died, whereas that someone that you love has been murdered or kidnapped or with slavery. I mean, there's so many other aspects of One Piece just connects with people on a real level. And to do it in such a grandiose way that the story is over a thousand episodes and a thousand plus chapters and it's still doing that. That's why this piece of art is so, I think is so important to these movements. And I. I wouldn't be surprised if we're starting to see One Piece show up in more ubiquitous and prevalent waves throughout a lot of the social dissent that's happening in the world right now outside of just these protests.
- [86:41]
B
It's almost getting better at reflecting it. Like over time. It's almost getting better at it. And that's supremely impressive.
- [86:49]
A
Yeah, I. Yeah, that's surprising almost. I mean, we talked about Oda. He's now a 50 year old Japanese man with a lot of money. Like why? How is he doing that? Like that. I feel like, is everything dirt poor?
- [87:06]
B
Every time I see the SBS questions on what he eats.
- [87:09]
A
Oh yeah, no, he does. But he also has a giraffe. Like a full size giraffe stuffed out. I don't know what but. And he has the shark head on his toilet, so he's living extravagantly in those.
- [87:20]
B
He's got some nice knickknacks. He's for sure got some nice knickknacks.
- [87:23]
A
But he's definitely permanently a 12 year old from everything we've seen. I think so. Like, Luffy is a character which is I think kind of one of the main motivating. Like what does the straw hat flag represent? Like, to get back to the brass tacks there. Luffy, as he says many times, is not a hero. He just wants to make sure he gets his meat and make sure that other people don't get their meat stolen from them. I guess I forget the exact line, but like he has this realistic tangibility that's also kind of idealistic. And he's not like a hero in the traditional sense at all.
- [88:11]
C
Or Luffy says that he's not a hero.
- [88:14]
B
Yeah, and I'd argue a hero would never proclaim themselves to be a hero. Regardless of what other shonen manga are going to show us. He does what's right when the moment, like, calls upon it.
- [88:28]
A
Right. And he does it because it is, you know, to his core, the right thing. Like, you feel his righteous anger. I think that's really something that the righteous indignation just generally is what a lot of people over the world are feeling like. I saw. So sorry. Let me. Let me pull it up. But there was the drawing that the daughter of Bill Corbett drew of Luffy punching the president in the face as a celestial dragon dressed as a celestial dragon. And there's. There's that sort of catharsis, I think, in Luffy in that if he sees someone doing something wrong, he just tells them to their face or tells them to their face either. Like, whether it's Kobe, you know, needing to just stand up for himself, you know, like, even if it's the hard thing to say, he has that, you know, in him. And I think that's something we all strive for or at least idealize. Like, I wish I could be in the position to, you know, tell truth to power.
- [89:42]
C
Yeah, the idea of righteousness. Yeah, the idea of righteousness in one piece is humane, is believable. It's not idealized or performative. So it comes within real limits of what a human would be. And I think that's what makes it so identifiable.
- [90:00]
A
You actually speaking of performative, the performative justice thing, I wanted to touch on because there's that Doe Flamingo quote. That's also another quote. Do you have the site for that? Because I don't have that in front of me. I don't know.
- [90:13]
C
I don't have the specific paper, but I know there's anthropological. Anthropological historian that she wrote in a lot of different political studies that the people who are in power get to determine what's justice and what's not, then get to term with the course of history, and they get to control also what history is provided to the audiences. That's like the general gist of the quote. If I find it from the original paper after a dive, I'll send it to you sac because it's actually very interesting. She wrote that after World War I, and she was kind of figured saying that the winners of the war get to determine what justice will be for the world.
- [90:53]
A
I think that there's a reason that quote is so resonant, and that's because it's just. It's like. It's basically. It is a real quote, like from Dope Flamingo. I remember going through that chapter in our manga recap in 2010 as I age before your eyes. That. That was so poignant in a way that Oda had never really lifted something that I could think of up to that point at least. That's just so. Just directly like this is from our world in such a tangible way and it's. And boy is it true. And we always. And we're living through the lens of like, you know, whatever justice came before us that won. And it gives the reader a critical eye that I don't think they necessarily would. It's like, oh, maybe if what Doflamingo is saying is true in the Marines we know are bastards, maybe it's particularly Sakazuki who, you know, sitting right there. Maybe our world is a little bit twisted as well. Like, you know, it's. It's a. It's an important tool that Oda. It's like one of the few times I could think of like Oda just very directly saying the thing. Because he doesn't usually. I feel like he usually just shows he doesn't tell.
- [92:27]
B
Yeah, it's that and existing is not a crime are the two big ones that I can think of where he really puts it straight on there.
- [92:36]
A
Yeah, there's a couple of those moments and when they happen, they come with a dome, as a One Piece fan would say, as I would, and I did. But yeah, there are a lot of of those moments, but they do feel. He saves them for when they're crucial. But we are getting them more. I feel like.
- [93:05]
C
I also wonder if it's because the story is coming to a big climax of towards the end that we're getting more of those.
- [93:11]
A
Or maybe it's our world is coming to a be.
- [93:15]
C
Honestly, I think it's just happening simultaneously the day.
- [93:20]
A
I don't want to live through history. I just want to. Yeah, yeah.
- [93:23]
B
I want to stop living through big historical events or once in a lifetime events.
- [93:28]
A
Yeah, we've had a lot of those recently. As a millennial, I could say I'm done.
- [93:33]
C
I would say as an academic, I love seeing them in person because I can write about it then it's like super exciting. As a human being, I'm like, can we stop?
- [93:42]
A
I'm kind of invented time machine. And then you could.
- [93:45]
C
Right. I would love to go in, like observe from afar and just be like, okay, yeah, and just write about it.
- [93:51]
A
But you could also stop awful things from happening if you have the time machine.
- [93:55]
C
But that's a paradox. Do I make changes and that affects the Whole timeline always paradoxes with you. That's why ODA hasn't gone back in time yet.
- [94:04]
A
He's only gone forward.
- [94:06]
C
Yeah, Toki's devil fruit.
- [94:07]
B
That's why that's.
- [94:08]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, if you go back that backward time travel doesn't work, but that's a whole other topic. Were there any other points that we want to mention? I feel like these mostly came out relatively, you know, smoothly. Right. Like, naturally.
- [94:32]
C
Yeah. I think the next thing for me, as an academic personal needs to. To see how much of this continues being relevant for the movements as the months go by. I kind of want to see if it's just like a big influx at the beginning of it and then it's going to kind of die down, if it's going to remain consistent. And also if at one point with Shueisha, Toya, Animation, Netflix, or even Oda himself would acknowledge that this is happening.
- [95:04]
A
I. I think the thing I've been comparing it to is like, Star wars in the United States. I feel like at least I see a lot of like and. Or is a great example, great series of, like, really seeing it up front. I can never imagine Disney saying anything for so many reasons. I think. I think call for man, it mentioned a few of them, capitalism. But, like, I don't know. Shueisha might be a different animal there. Like, if you mention it, though, do you help your cause or whatever that may be? Like, I'm sure Toy and Shueisha have different opinions than oda probably on, like, how what's happening right now. They're probably not thrilled about it. If I had a guess. I don't know that.
- [96:01]
C
But I think they would probably try to distance themselves from it to, you know, solidify that they're not causing it directly. Like, they're not promoting it.
- [96:10]
A
Well, like in Madagascar, Nepal, where, like, actual regimes are changing.
- [96:14]
B
Yeah.
- [96:16]
A
Where there's actual toppling of portions or full governments and there's a big straw hat flag in front of, like, a fiery parliament building. Like, can you get away, like, with not saying anything?
- [96:31]
C
I don't know. I mean, the fandom will not. Like, whether they say something or not is not going to affect the fandom if they continue loving the show. I don't think because we all know what the show is about and that the essence is being used to its rightful way. I think it's more about what they think they should do in optics and some kind of, I don't know, politics game for the business. But I am not an economist, so I don't really know if that would be that much of an impact for them. I would think maybe Netflix, with the upcoming second season of the Live Action, might want to say something.
- [97:08]
A
Yeah, Netflix, they might have more. But like, would Netflix say anything if like Disney wouldn't at the same thing, you know, like, I don't know, like that might be one of those things. I'm just thinking as a corporation now because they're also people, as we all.
- [97:24]
B
Know, they would say something if it boosts the share price. That's, that's like it, that's how it feels at the end.
- [97:30]
A
They probably wouldn't say that out loud, but. Yes.
- [97:32]
B
Yeah, I, I think my hope with it is, is even if they Shoisha was like, like, you know, filters out every single SBS question asking about it. If I hope there is some sense of pride for Oda when it comes to this, that there is. He always talks about when he goes and does the live Action stuff, how like he sees the effect it has in Japan. But to go to even just South Africa where they're recording it, or when he snuck off to LA when they did the premiere night to see the, the adoration people have for One Piece and how impactful it can be in something like changing the circumstances, the material conditions of your life. I hope there is some pride in that. Like he, he obviously doesn't own these movements. These are, you know, the straw hats, enough money.
- [98:21]
A
But he does not own them.
- [98:22]
B
He does not own them. They're an effect of the movements. And One Piece can be an absolute like pinnacle of the inspiration of it. But it's not like Oda is, you know, writing out a playbook of how to topple a regime in, in One Piece.
- [98:38]
A
Then what about this chapter? The Playbook chapter? That's the next week. That's next week's chapter name. We're going to Nepal.
- [98:45]
B
But I hope he has some, some sense of pride in knowing how resonating it is with I know few One Piece fans that it doesn't mean the world to them.
- [98:58]
C
Yeah, well, One Piece is solidifying itself so much more in human history than ever before. You know, from being the best selling manga series in human history to the world, Guinness records they retained, to all the monuments and media impact that it had from Japan to the United States to South America. And now for it to be causing this propagation of the symbol across political movements and more than 14 history. Right. It's I, I, at this point I, I'm very, I'm like 99% confident to say that I don't think any other anime manga product has come to this point of influence in a sociopolitical footprint.
- [99:49]
A
Specifically in that way. Yeah, I can't think of anything to.
- [99:52]
B
Add one more stat to it. The most pirated anime of all time.
- [99:57]
C
Which sounds kind of fitting, actually.
- [100:01]
A
Yeah, I believe that too. Because even, like during Game of Thrones, like, being at its top, I do remember one piece being. I don't know how you keep track of pirate. Most pirated, but there you go. Yeah, I. I want to echo that part about oda. Like, I think the way you described, like, revolutions and this sort of thing is like, inspiring and terrifying simultaneously. I think you said something along those lines. Like, I am sure that is what ODA is probably feeling like, wow, this is really cool that my art has inspired people in this way. But also there are people dying and there are things being set on fire and all this stuff is probably like, whoa, this has gotten crazy like that. It's gotten to this point. Like, I know the. I think there was a protest in Peru this past weekend where a couple people were killed, and I think in Nepal, there were casualties of everything that happened there. So, like, this isn't, you know, this isn't just, you know, discourse and politics in that way. It's like real, you know, tangible impacts happening to people. And that's. It has that mixture of inspiring and terrifying that there should be a word for. And if there is, I. I don't have it. It's been a crazy few months.
- [101:44]
C
One piece has effectively stretched out of the manga panel into a world. You know, it's. It's four.
- [101:50]
A
That's. That's what Gear five is. I was gonna say four, but that's that fourth wall.
- [101:57]
C
I. You know, it's. It's interesting to see. It's fascinating. Historically, this has never happened before with a culture, cultural item, or artifact of media entertainment. To be able to have this much influence and grasp in social, political footprints and imprints, it's just, it's. It's unprecedented at this level. And it. I don't know, as someone who studies one piece in academia, like, for her whole life, it's something that inspires me to continue researching this, to do more about it. I am actually shifting some of my academic panels that I'm going to be doing in upcoming conferences to talk about this topic instead of what I was bringing before that. And I. I don't know, I. I feel lucky to see it happen in real life. I. I feel sad that our world is coming to A point where there's multiple protests against governments happening simultaneously. But you know, that's just, that's the era that we're in, and it's so identified with one piece, which is also likely scary, you know, when we fight so many similarities between our world and their world that that's when, you know, things are not going great. But we have one piece to connect and to continue inspiring us. So I'm standing hopeful. At least I'm, that's what I'm trying to do.
- [103:27]
A
Call for thoughts on if we have.
- [103:30]
B
Not hope, we have nothing at all.
- [103:33]
A
Yeah, well, both of you, I, I, I'm sure we will come back to this because it is continuing to unfold as, as we sit here today. I, I don't know if we're like, what end of like this wave we're, we're on right now, if we're at the crest or an ebb or what, but it definitely is. You know, I think you, you both put it well. It's like this inspiring thread going through this very, very devastating time. We're done living through history, but, but we keep, I think, keeping history in mind as Dr. Bentlen has like brought, you know, examples that, you know, everything is cyclical. There's a reason why a lot of these themes in one piece are resonant, and that's because they've happened before and they're happening. They might be happening now, but they've happened before. Like, I doubt very much of this is pulled out of thin air. Like, much like Oda's character designs. Those on the other hand, probably pulled out of thin air.
- [104:49]
C
Wait, people don't have like four sections on their arms.
- [104:52]
A
I have six chins and whatever. What was that? Red. What's the name of that whatever? Like the guy in Egghead, he's, he's in the anime now, I think.
- [105:03]
C
Oh yeah, the one that has like multiple chances. Like.
- [105:05]
A
Yeah, freaky looking.
- [105:07]
B
The Vice Admiral, to be fair, he.
- [105:09]
A
Is based, I think, on a Sentai show. I think we talked about that before. So he didn't pull that out of thin Air. They picked the one Red King, I think is the name. Anyway, I thought you were gonna see.
- [105:19]
B
The color schemes out of Thin Air because I saw this stuff that he does for the Holy nights today and.
- [105:24]
A
I was volume 113. Right. So it's funny. Our. I do want to give a shout out to our artist Sai, who did predict Gunko's color scheme somehow. I know I have labeled her a prophet. So if you have any questions about where the world is going. You could ask her, but she could only tell you the color scheme. We we have other really great stuff planned in the future for this topic and similar topics. Please also listen if you haven't our Fight Together podcast, which this will also be on the feed for. It's. It's a also available as a separate feed that goes through these sorts of topics one by one, and we have special guests for each of them. We talked about asexuality. We talk about transgender representation, fascism and tyranny. We did one on which I'm curious to listen to our discussion from 2021 on that. Pride, race, all of the important themes, neurodivergence that either are explicitly in the series or that we as readers take away from it. And well, golfer. Where could people find you?
- [106:53]
B
You can find me on TikTok as.
- [106:54]
A
Golfergearbear and Dr. Betlam. Where can people find you?
- [106:59]
C
You can find me on social media as the One Piece Doctor or on Blue sky as the One Piece Doctor. So just find me there.
- [107:08]
A
I love your new branding, by the way. I think that's fantastic.
- [107:11]
C
So it actually came out of. I was at Anime New York. I was presenting on a paper of one piece and two people came to me in the eyes. They're like, oh, you're the one Piece Doctor. And I was like, yeah, that sounds nice. Let me make sure.
- [107:24]
A
When I was like, oh, this is who we're going to talk to. Or like when I'm telling my wife, oh, yeah, we know a one Piece Doctor. And they're legitimately a doctor in one piece.
- [107:34]
C
Exactly. My dissertation in grad school was specifically on one piece. All of my papers, like dating all the way back to 2014, have been an academic takes on one piece. So it's. If anything, I've really just researched one piece. I don't know if I'm good at other areas of anthropology, but we're not gonna go into it.
- [107:50]
B
We're anime.
- [107:51]
C
Right, right, right. I think I might just be.
- [107:53]
A
You're wearing a Sailor Moon shirt today, so I would hope at least.
- [107:56]
C
Oh my God. Yeah, don't tell people. I should have worn a one piece one.
- [107:59]
A
No, it's okay. You're fine. I'm not wearing anything on my shirt. And that's really the worst thing of all.
- [108:04]
B
I've got all the one piece we need. I've got one piece socks and a one piece shirt on. So we got us all covered.
- [108:10]
A
That's why we got.
- [108:10]
C
Yeah, Girls are coming in clutch.
- [108:12]
A
Yeah. Thank you so Much golfer too, for coming on, for just like, amazing insight as usual. Yeah. You can find us@onepiecepodcast.com or support us and our apparent journalism@patreon.com One Piece Podcast. If you like this, please let us know. And if you want to see more like this, please also let us know. I think also, Dr. Ventlin, the other thing I was going to say, I completely forgot is that you're going to inspire a whole generation of competitors of yours now, or I guess colleagues of One Piece doctors.
- [108:52]
C
It has happened already. There's people that are doing their masters in any kind of humanities aspect that are reaching out for quotes of papers of mine and One Piece. And I'm like, I am so proud. Also, I. Please, let's do collaborations. I don't want to be, like, taken down, but no, it's super, super amazing. The more people research, the more they do. It's, it's, it's wonderful. That's what we're here for, you know, to see more of knowledge being spread out.
- [109:17]
A
Absolutely. Yeah. And I, I do, I do hope that if they're somehow our journalists that listen to two hours of us talking about One Piece, listening that they do reach out to Dr. Bentlen for like, someone who really knows their One Piece and also knows their anthropology and, you know, like historical. Yeah. So I'm saying that right now.
- [109:39]
C
Thank you.
- [109:40]
A
Yeah, yeah. Again, you can follow us Patreon.com One Piece Podcast. One Piece Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. We're gonna have at least one more of these kind of shows in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out on your feeds. Please also subscribe to the Fight Together One Piece podcast series wherever you get your podcast. We will be putting these episodes on there as well and hope to come back soon with new episodes of that series. That's something we've been hoping to do for a while, but scheduling is impossible as adults. We will be hopefully continuing to post images on our blue sky account of these protests and the locations that they're happening, so you could keep an eye there. And we're gonna post all the links and stuff from this episode in the description, so please check those out. There are some really incredible articles, crazy articles, stunning ones, videos that it's. It's really just crazy watching a video about a regular, you know, like a regular thing about, like, you know, a current event. It's like, oh, there goes the Jolly Roger and there's 10 of them in the background or whatever it might be. It's. Yeah, the times are changing. And they're crazy. So for the One Piece podcast, my name is Zach. We'll see you next week, everyone. Goodbye. Oh, actually, so before we go, we did get one comment that I did want to read because it was. It was cool and it kind of mirrored from Straw Hat. Rigby Delaney, you could add this at the end if you want. Hey Opp, really glad you're doing an episode like this. During all of the no Kings protests this weekend, my friends from around the country just kept sending me pictures every time they saw the Straw Hat flag, which was many, many times. It really made me emotional in a way that's hard to describe to people who are not fans of One Piece. I have always tried to tell people that what I love most about One Piece is how meaningful it is and how deeply its themes resonate with me. I think seeing so many places around the country and world adopt the flag for their in real life causes is what makes that more apparent to my friends and family now friends and family now than just me being super obsessed with a manga or anime. Hope everyone is safe and has a great week. Ice Delaney. You could end on that if you want.
- [112:29]
B
Great way to sign off.
- [112:37]
A
Sam.