Why One Piece Will Have The Perfect Ending

the most difficult part of any long running story is nailing the ending how many times have we seen manga anime TV shows and film series that Captivate Us for years only to fall flat at the end often it's considered a huge win if a series even just manages to have a semide decent ending that doesn't the story up that's how low the bar is but that's not the way that it should be is it endings are the most important part of any Story by far as that is is where all of the themes ideas plot threads and character story lines are meant to finally come together this is the make or break point this is what determines whether or not the story was just some good ideas thrown together with no real payoff or if it can all build into one coherent vision and the longer a story goes the more difficult a good ending is to pull off since the more pieces the more characters the more plot threads the more elaborate the conflict you have the harder it is to maintain a clear picture of how it can all conclude in a beautiful Crescendo rather than just a noisy mess and yet one piece as it enters its final Saga seems like it is actually giving us the absolute peak of its storytelling right now at the end of the entire epic despite being a series that has run for 25 years with over 1,00 chapters and two many character story lines and plot threads and themes to count somehow this absurdly ambitious series looks like it's going to pull off the impossible not only is it shaping up to stick the landing this final storyline seems like it is going to surpass everything in one piece that came before it so let's break down why that is narratively what is the final Saga doing that is setting up for an all-time great story ending to begin with the simplest thing that the final Saga has going for it is that it is clear that Oda has a very very strong handle on all of his overarching plot threads this is a major problem you can see in Long running stories where the writers May either add a lot of plot threads over the course of the story without a clear idea of how they're all going to wrap up and then they have to rush or Nix many of said threads or alternatively the author attempts a particularly Grand final Conflict without having put in the proper work setting up a more elaborate and structured plot beforehand one piece does not have either of these problems because it seems that Oda has not deviated from his original vision he has Simply Built around it if you went back 500 chapters to when the time skip happened and asked readers back then to Guess Who the most important players would be in the final Saga they would likely have said the Yono the revolutionaries and the world government and well that's still pretty much exactly right the key threads that were set up are exactly the ones that are finally coming to a head today the countless plot threads that have developed in one piece over 1,000 chapters have always turned out to be ancillary or complimentary story lines to the main core pillars of the series that Oda set up over the first couple hundred chapters of the story it's still about finding the one piece it's still about fulfilling the promise to Shanks it's still about overthrowing the world government we've just had a lot more pieces added to the mix to make things more interesting but it feels like everything is still coming together exactly as it should Oda clearly has major plans for Shanks he clearly has major plans for Blackbeard he clearly has major plans for Dragon and the revolutionaries he clearly has major plans for the Marines and even the few aspects of the story that didn't quite seem like they neatly fit in anywhere have actually been elegantly tied into the fold as well such as combining mihawk buggy and crocodile into cross Guild to complete the four Emperors and this brings us to a far more impressive aspect of what Oda has done which is that it's not just plot threads that he clearly has a final vision for but it's the characters and their actual arcs as well now Oda has always been great with fleshing out side characters any given Island the straw hats go to we can expect a plethora of new Side characters that shape the narrative with their own character arcs storylines and so on however interestingly many of the most beloved Side characters in the story are actually the ones that aren't bound to any singular Arc storyl line I'm talking about the long running figures that pop up throughout the series and these types of characters have actually had comparatively limited development for the majority of the story for a lot of them we really just knew their iconic character traits and personalities for for example kizaru was a very popular character for a long time just because he was a trolly Admiral with a really cool ability miok is this cold badass swordsman who wanders the Seas and does whatever he wants but it's not like these were deeply fleshed out characters and yet these Side characters are the ones we actually wanted storylines for don't get me wrong while it was truly great to learn about these nine random scabbards who are all totally interesting and captivating figures of the wano storyline the side characters in one piece that readers actually find the most interesting the shichibukai the revolutionaries the most prominent Marines and so on these are also the characters that Oda has largely kept very obscure so far and it turns out it's because he actually has had phenomenal character storylines and development planned for all of these beloved and anticipated Side characters for so long he was just saving it all for the final Saga I cannot stress how incredible it is that in the span of just the Egghead island arc so far we have had huge strides in development for countless already iconic one piece characters GARP aokiji Kobe Kuma Bonnie kizaru camaru hell even buggy they are all getting their most powerful most meaningful development now at the climax of the story and the way all of their moments of growth are coming out fit perfectly into the narrative Kuma's story fits into Bonnie story which seemingly fits into kizaru's and camaru stories as though all of them were planned together all along from the start and at the same time we're getting the trifecta of GARP aiji and Kobe on haosu three generations of Marines being used to showcase the conflicting paths to a true just future which in itself adds so much more depth to the meaning of what the Marines represent in one piece and the philosophy of what a better world will need to bring and of course Buggy's surprising huge leap as a character turned out to be the Lynch pin in bringing this final conflict between the four pirate empires together we are barely 40 chapters into the final Saga and we are sweeping through all of our favorite Side characters who we have been waiting and wanting to see more of and Oda has been knocking it out of the park with each one of them down to the most minor of players all of them contributing to building the themes and Narrative of this Grand conclusion to the story it's as though what Oda wanted to do with each of them and the role that they were each meant to play in both the plot and themes of the final Saga was always in his mind from their conception this is how every good story should treat its character of course but to do it on this scale with a cast of characters this vast and varied is just absurdly impressive and if you're enjoying this video so far make sure to subscribe for more videos like this every week and make sure to get your one piece inspired clothing today in the morge store we have hoodies sweatshirts and t-shirts and get your oneof a-kind puzzle of all major one piece characters Link in the description below now a nice natural consequence of the fact that Oda saved his best and most anticipated characters for last is that this final Saga is set to be inherently more exciting than anything that came before Oda spent 1,00 chapters being extremely abnormally stingy with his most hyped up characters it is insane that to date we have not seen Shanks mihawk or dragon in a serious fight we literally only just got to see what GARP can do but that's precisely what makes that entire GARP segment so impactful not just the emotion of what's happening but how surreal it feels to actually finally see characters like GARP and aokiji in an extended fight that's not off screen I mean a single attack by Shanks was for many readers the most exciting chapter of the year that's the kind of space that we're in now where it is going to be legitimately difficult for the final Saga to be anything less than the most hyped Saga in one piece because Oda has put in the time to properly build anticipation for so many characters over such an absurdly long period of the story no matter what happens in this final Saga it will not fail to produce the most epic moments of the series so far but more important than that of course and really the most important facet in all of this is the actual depth of the writing it may be too early to call but if Kuma's backstory is anything to go by then it seems like Oda has saved his most powerful ideas for the end it's not just about how dark and tragic Kuma story was it was the concept of it taking us through every beat of a man's life from start to finish to truly illustrate the meaning of self-sacrifice and the execution of it the Artistry behind how Oda framed each step of Kuma's Journey the visual symbolism the language he used throughout it all of it speaks to an evolution in one piece's writing for a writer like Oda who was already the king of flashbacks this was his magnum opus this flashback has by most standards a more sophisticated and mature literary approach than anything that Oda has done before this is what you want to see in the conclusion to any story not just seeing the story match its previous Highs but showing us something deeper something more profound than anything that came before it and sure it's a 100% possible that the kuma flashback was the best that it gets and that we're not going to see something like this again in the final Saga but at the same time I see so many other stories that have been equally built up as kumas that Oda has yet to explore stories with just as much potential to break new ground in what we can expect in one piece and even beyond that it seems as the oda's approach in the final Saga is to go further than he has before to be bolder and more dramatic than he has been before even just his approach to setting Stakes has taken a dramatic turn with him now actually killing off characters with far greater regularity I definitely feel that this final Saga has all the makings to be the most powerfully written storyline we've ever had in one piece to be honest there are only two question marks I still have for this final Saga two areas that are still yet to be proven first you all may be surprised that I did not mention that one of the greatest strengths one piece's ending is set to have is all of the lore and Mysteries being tied together that's because I can't confidently say that this will be the case yet see whereas I can definitely say that Oda is clearly shaping all of the relevant plot threads together very well at the moment and he is clearly bringing out the best in all of the side characters that he has built up so far and he has clearly started delivering on all of the hype moments that we've been hoping for and the recent flashback has clearly taken the literary depth of the series up a notch I do not yet have any idea or evidence if all of the lore threads being set up so far are going to come together neatly we're getting a lot of new stuff thrown in at every turn like this ancient robot but we're still waiting to see it all begin to tie together now I definitely have faith that it will and at the end of the day tying together all the vast lore in one piece would be yet another definitive stamp of success for the story's ending I can't fairly list that in this video till we actually see things being tied together and the other final missing piece that is absolutely necessary from my perspective at least in order for one piece's ending to truly stick The Landing is for the main character story lines to come together one piece at its core was always built around the straw hat Pirates somewhere along the way it feels as though we began to lose that North Star the straw hats still get their fights and their moments every few arcs or so but so many post times skip arcs have had them play play the role of minor characters for the majority of the arc to instead focus on swads of Side characters for the bulk of the plot and as I said while I am loving the focus on so many fan favorite long-running Side characters in this final Saga they cannot be the ultimate focus now we are approaching the time for the most important characters of the story the actual protagonists to have their stories come full circle for their arcs and hopefully to some degree at least some of their dreams to become pivotal centerpieces of the narrative Egghead so far has not done much to give love to the straw hats but maybe this Arc just wasn't the one we still have several arcs to go and I do believe that if Oda had so many great closing story lines planned for characters like Kobe and aliji and even buggy then he is definitely saving the best for last for the most important characters of the series as well so let me know how likely you think it is that the final Saga will be the best Saga in one piece in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video then definitely like And subscribe and you can get my extended thoughts on what makes one piece much more likely to have a great ending than other popular manga in the past on my weekly podcast by supporting me on patreon link in the description below

Channel: Mr Morj

Views: 82,808

Keywords: One Piece Ending, Luffy, Final Saga, Egghead Island, One Piece Writing, Analysis, One Piece, One Piece Final Saga

Id: p6b7k8PUuFo

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 02 2024