#i like both the arabasta saga and arc

[tamayokny]

i ship vivi/koza 💯

[team7-headquarter]

Now that I'm reading One Piece, let me say this: even when I think One Piece is better written, the comparison between both mangas in their pre timeskip period is often done poorly.

Naruto decides to be immediately a more explicit and visceral story in terms of cruelty, with a main cast of 12 year old children. While One Piece takes its time building the foundation for its characters and future arcs, Naruto jumps right into the issue at hand. The first chapter is practically spelling it out to you, the reason why Naruto could and even should be a villain, given the circumstances. He's a sad sight, the loneliness and general dark feelings coating Naruto as a story are strong from the very start. I'm not saying that One Piece doesn't have a lot of dark themes and feelings too, but Oda style is to use comedy and good humor to balance it first. One Piece is lighter at the beginning.

For example, compare the East Blue saga and the Land of the Waves arc. Unfair, I know, but I want to prove a certain point here.

Each arc of the East Blue has a bit of cruelty in it, the worst being Arlong Park. In the 3 first arcs, when Luffy meets his three first nakamas, we can say it is more comedy than tragedy. No one dies, there is cruelty and battles, but it's kept on the "safe side". The villains are shown to be more "evil" than anything else. Morgan, Buggy and Kuro are pirates after all. Then they reach the Baratie and things start to get serious. Sanji's backstory is heavy (everything Sanji and Zeff went through is dark, from the starvation to the amputation and the grey scale of their animosity turned bond). You have the first hint at Nami's complexity as a character, you get a taste of the Grand Line in the Mihawk and Zoro encounter where Zoro almost dies, there's explicit sacrifice...

Like I said, Arlong Park is the worst of it all. The story of the town, of Bell-Mere and her children, of what the fish-men did to Nami... It would be incorrect to say that comedy is out aside. First of all, because one of the most common purposes of comedy is to build the ground for drama. You will need a light mood to present the gravity of the situation at hand. The reader must be desperate to see the characters laughing and joking again, to recover the good times, to preserve the bonds and friendships. All the previous arcs needed to be so silly for Arlong Park to be impactful. Nami lived through hell. There's war and discrimination, abuse, manipulation, government corruption and betrayal. I'd never dare to say it's a light arc.

With Naruto, it's like they went straight to their own Arlong Park. It doesn't get clearer than the explanation Tazuna gave about what was going on with Kato and the bridge. They step out of the gates and there's an assassination attempt where Kakashi pretends to get explicitly murdered in front of the kids so he can figure out what they're dealing with. You have the story of how the local town hero was basically crucified to get his arms ripped by Kato's men. Hell, before all of these you have things like the Uchiha massacre and Sasuke saying his goal is to kill someone.

Then the top of the cake: Zabuza and Haku. They end up dead, both of them. Suddenly the enemy is not just "evil" or "ambitious" but also very very human. Kids killing kids or refusing to kill kids, it's a nightmare. Kakashi kills Haku with a chidori to the chest and the manga lingers on the blood of it all. There's a panel when Sasuke takes a hit meant for Naruto— the visual impact is insane. That one panel of Naruto awakening the kyubi's chakra and threatening to kill Haku? This is not a story about pirates and treasures and dreams. This is a story about survival and murder and duty, where a kid happens to want to dream above all the misery of his world.

Compare now the Arabasta saga and the Chuning Exams. Both are about politics, foul play to take a country/hidden village down, how normal people are nothing but pieces of a bigger game, how the world is baster and more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine.

The difference is that the straw hats choose to participate and choose how to do so. Every step is one they take conscious of the risk. They are teenagers still, sure, but they have their agency and they're powerful enough to not let anyone else push them around. They're at the heart of the conflict, they know what's going on behind the curtains. One Piece is about freedom, something that people in Naruto clearly lack. Even when there's death and sacrifices and a lot of cruelty, it's shown differently than in Naruto.

Team 7 gets thrown into the mess of Konoha's crush knowing nothing. The Chunning Exams are a shit show. The horror of Orochimaru and the cursed mark, the Hyuuga's plotline about family branches and slavery, arms exploding, Rock Lee's fight, Hiruzen's death, Gaara's backstory... Team 7 (at least the kids) move on such a different scale. It's terrifying. The Chunning Exams are war in a micro scale, designed to keep the power balance using their lower class soldiers, children included.

I can keep going, but well. I feel like I made my point clear with this post.

While Naruto's story pace is faster, the characters and the themes aren't rushed per se. It fits that in a world in constant conflict, things keep coming faster and the characters can't catch a break. The journey of the straw hats allows them more time to build the foundations of the crew, going from island to island. The way the stories are told are different too, so it'd be futile to compare them if you don't acknowledge that. What are the core values of the story? What is the general feeling? What is it trying to tell and how it corresponds to the way the story is told?

You either ask yourself those questions or you'll get a half-assed analysis, at most.

[redhatmeg]

The final reconciliation between Sanji and Luffy has some parallels to Robin's declaration of will to live, but there are few obvious differences.

The main similarity between Robin in Ennies Loby and Sanji in Whole Cake, is that they are both in desperate situation which they don't see any way out to. They both also were ready to just sacrifice themselves to terrible fate, believing that it's the only way to save their crew (and in case of Sanji - also Baratie), only to learn in last second that the bad guy doesn't intend to keep their end of the bargain and they're going to kill everybody either way.

And then comes a moment when Robin and Sanji face their captain once again, and even though they tell him to just leave, Luffy has none of it and tells them to state outright what they want. He asks Robin to say if she wants to die, and he asks Sanji to say what he really want.

Now, the main difference is the setting. Robin is on the upper level, surrounded by enemies and wearing seastone handcuffs, while Straw Hats just burned down the World Government flag to show they will go to war for her. Meanwhile, Sanji talks with Luffy on a desolated area, only with corpses of defeated soldiers around them; Sanji managed to sneak out of the Whole Cake Chateau to meet with his captain.

There is also the fact that Sanji points out reasons why he can't go back: because he attacked Luffy, because Baratie is held hostage and because his family is going to die. Because he and Luffy are alone, they can have a conversation like that, while Robin couldn't (partly also because a lot was happening around her, with Spandam, Franky burning Pluton and all).

I've read that people draw comparisons between the two arcs, but I actually think it's good. I've realized long time ago that there is a trend with female Straw Hats' arcs - Nami, Vivi and Robin - when they are dealing with terrible situation on their own and Luffy basically tells them it's alright to ask for help; that he will risk his life for them, because they are friends (maybe it's not as pronounced with Vivi, who - for most of the Arabasta Saga - hangs out with Straw Hats and tells them what they should do, but at some point Luffy has to remind her that during the fight people die and she shouldn't be the only one staking her life on the line to prevent it).

Meanwhile with guys, most of the time things just happen. Luffy says he's going to help them fight and the guys are like: "Okay, thanks!" This was how they defended Syrop Village, Baratie and Drum Kingdom etc. Well, maybe Franky was a dick at first, and Brook told the Straw Hats he doesn't want to risk their lives for him on Thriller Bark, but they quickly move past that, becuase hey, they have common enemy and they may as well fight with it together.

Bottom line is that for once we have a male Straw Hat in a situation which he originally wanted to deal on his own, but he soon realized that he can't do anything about it alone. This time it's Sanji that is told by Luffy to ask for help, because he has friends. And I think it's a nice change of pace.