- [Narrator] Hello, and welcome
to the Grand Line Review.
Your source for everything One Piece.
And today, we are going to be giving out
ever charismatic captain
some always deserved focus.
And you know, usually
when I'm praising Luffy
on this channel, the one factor
I will generally bring up without fail
is his sheer unpredictability.
Like the way he can just
walk into any situation
and boldly subscribed to
the Grand Line Review,
which results in regular One Piece content
being uploaded straight
into Luffy's YouTube feed.
And I would highly recommend
that we'll emulate Luffy
on this particular matter,
maybe not others.
But Luffy is a character,
who against all odds,
has been able to sustain
the interest of readers
and watchers of the series
for more than two decades now
and you don't really get to that stage
by being a simple meat nommer.
Luffy's intelligence may
be, you know, questionable,
but as a result he access to
a special brand of thinking
that no one else could
ever hope to invoke.
And with this unique brand of thinkery,
Luffy perpetually shatters
even my expectations,
and I've been reading this series
for quite a long time now, I'm old.
But Luffy just keeps pulling off stuff
that I never dreamed he'd be able to do
and I assume that's
because I don't have access
to that special Luffy brain wave.
And yet, not all of these
decisions end up working out
wildly well for our captain,
but for the most part, they
generate just enough chaos
or are a straightforward enough approach
that often it ends up
being the exact right
course of action at any given time.
And so today we're here today
to highlight those moments,
many of which encapsulate the sheer charm
that is One Piece.
So with that out of the way, let's begin.
Welcome to the top 5 times that Luffy
shattered your, or at least,
my expectations in One Piece.
Number five, accepting Robin's invitation
to join the crew.
So we are going to kicking off this list
with some super classic One Piece,
and you know what?
This moment may actually be so ancient
that people have long since forgotten
that this interaction
was shocking in any way.
However, when you look back
on the context of the Alabasta Arc,
one does need to highlight
the masterful way
in which Oda masked Robin's eventual
joining of the Straw Hats.
And it was all thanks to
a certain Nefertari Vivi
because our eyes were focused on her,
we'd just spent an entire saga
fighting to save her kingdom
and if the established
formula of One Piece
was going to continue, then
Vivi was most certainly
going to be the next official crewmate.
But then Oda pulled the
old bait and switch,
leaving our ever determined
princess to rule her lands
and leaving us with the consolation prize
of a former antagonist aboard our ship.
But, of course, the reason why
this moment is on this list,
is obviously all about Luffy's reaction,
in which he did, after
briefly hearing Robin out,
immediately accept her request
to become a crew member
because and I "she's not a bad person."
And in retrospect, we
obviously all know that,
but at the time there
were some dark clouds
surrounding Nico Robin,
but none of that mattered to Luffy
because his incredible mind saw Robin
in her simplest incarnation
and so he just decided
to say, "Sure, why not."
But this was also quite remarkable
because it was the first time that someone
had joined the crew without
Luffy having invited them,
which is why I will insist
that this is a brilliant point in history
where Luffy just up and
shattered our expectations.
And compared to everyone
else who join the Straw Hats,
this was just so easy.
Robin put forward a demand,
Luffy accepted it and history was made.
Number four, leaping straight
into combat against Kaido.
All right, now we're
cutting straight to Alabasta
to modern day events to
climax of act one of Wano
which sees a dramatic reveal
of Kaido's dragon form,
as well as a terrifying demonstration
of his supreme power which
immediately made clear,
if it wasn't already, exactly
why Kaido was considered
to be an emperor of the sea.
But as per usual, none
of that matter to Luffy
because he made an instant decision
to swoop on up and hit
Kaido in the dragon noggin'
because he was being a bit of a prick.
And this moment was shocking primarily
because of how it was
portrayed in the manga
and there is a huge
difference in the anime
and manga, which I suppose we'll go over
because that's what I do.
Basically in the manga, Kaido
performs his bro breath,
and we see a brief reaction of Luffy
looking from afar and the next time we see
anything from Luffy, he had
appeared right above Kaido
to smacks him in the head.
However in the anime, this
action was shown in its entirety.
We see Luffy's shocked face,
then he gets all angry,
which is kind of out
of character for Luffy,
and we track him running towards Kaido
which ruins the eventual surprise
of seeing Luffy strike
the emperor out of nowhere
because it's not out of nowhere
and we've known for like
two minutes at this stage
that this was exactly
what he was going to do.
But I really cannot emphasize the effect
this had in the manga enough.
It's not that it doesn't
make sense for Luffy
to launch into conflict with an emperor
because we did see that
on Whole Cake Island,
but Oda had set it up narratively
that that was the last
thing that we as readers
were anticipating in the chapter.
You know, here we are, we've
only just landed on Wano
and already Luffy has
caused unprecedented chaos
by tackling the big bad of the entire arc.
A classic Luffy manoeuvre right there,
devoid of any real
sense, logic, or planning
and hey, this one that
didn't work out too well
for Mr. Captain, although as
with everything in One Piece,
in the long run, it certainly did.
Number three, declaring war
on the World Government.
Moving to the glory
days of Enies Lobby now
and by the time that
Luffy had reached Robin
via invading the island and
defeating a member of CP9
all on his own, you would have thought
that this was about the most shock
that he was capable of generating.
I mean this was, I
think, the first example
of the Straw Hats straight
up raiding an island
and it was incredibly exciting
but Luffy was going to take
things a big step further
as when facing the reality of not just CP9
but having the entire
world declare war on him,
Luffy instead decided
to take some initiative
and declare war on the world first.
And while in the end, it
achieves the same outcome,
it does so with significantly
more style and flair,
and not only that but it
sent a powerful message
to Robin that her crew was not afraid
to make the entire world their enemy
just so that they could have her back,
which is very powerful
because Robin's life story
was about the world being against her.
And this is also another
one of those situations
where this event might be so old
that people have really
forgotten its initial impact
because before now,
Luffy and the Straw Hats
were still small time pirates.
I mean, yeah, Luffy had
beaten a warlord of the sea
but it really didn't earn
him all that much recognition
in the grand scheme of things,
so here we have a band of rookies
who have forced their way
onto one of the World
Government's most secure
facilities in theory anyway,
and Luffy, metaphorically,
pulls down his pants
and took a steaming fiery crap
all over everything that they stand for.
This was quite the boss move
and without a shadow of doubt,
one that shattered all expectations
that I had of Luffy at the time.
Number two, punching the world noble.
All right, here we go,
I feel like many of you
were probably expecting this
and for a very good reason
because it is one of the most
incredibly satisfying events
to have ever occurred in One Piece
and even knowing Luffy as
well as I did by this stage,
I still did not expect
him to go quite this far.
And it's actually very interesting
because weirdly enough
this one simple punch
held far more power than
even declaring war against
the entirety of the World Government
as we have just seen on Enies Lobby.
I mean striking a world noble
was a serious enough
offense for a marine admiral
to be immediately summoned
to take retribution
upon the offending party,
and as we know Luffy is
always the offending party.
And I guess it's not that we didn't know
this going into it.
But Luffy knew the risks
of what he was doing
and he did it anyway because Luffy.
And by this time you'd think
we could have predicted
behavior like this but I
guess just because of how high
the stakes were this time around,
there was a sense of "No, not
even Luffy could go that far.
It would put a target on his head
that would probably
destroy the entire crew,"
which, (chuckles) yeah, very well did.
As it was directly
responsible for the decision
to separate the crew for two whole years,
and I guess, yeah, that all worked out
for the best in the end,
which means that, yes, we
do get to have our cake
and eat it too.
We just have to wait two years
to do the whole eating part.
But, you know, there Luffy goes again
shattering all of my pathetic expectations
like a butter knife gently
colliding with sugar glass.
Because in the end, we all
know it was worth everything
just to see that smug
look on Saint Charloss
punched right off what I
suppose passes for a face.
So well done Luffy, however
this is not what I would call
the most shocking action that our captain
has ever performed.
But just before we get to that though,
I'd like to briefly go over
some honorable mentions
because really just about every action
Luffy performs in One Piece
is shocking to some degree,
even if it may not necessarily be worthy
of adding to his official CV.
And we have some very simple examples
of this such as the very dawn of One Piece
where Luffy was talking to Coby
and then just blatantly stated
that he doesn't like him.
This was one of those moments
where I knew that One Piece
was something different
and not necessarily representative
of the goofy aesthetic
that the series presented.
But you also have a number of
fantastically hyped moments
of decision making from
the Straw Hat captain,
including when on Punk Hazard
he very readily accepted an
alliance with Trafalgar Law
despite being told that these things
generally end in betrayal
and this attitude would also be taken
into the Whole Cake Island arc
where he temporarily joined forces
with the Firetank Pirates.
And both of these situations
are ones in which I feel like most boring,
logic-driven captains
would come to question
how wise such course of action would be,
but not our ever wonderful Luffy.
And then there's the
examples of when Luffy
is just incredibly bold
like when he decided
to invade Impel Down,
alone, in order to save Ace.
Because that's right,
Luffy was prepared to take
on the entire prison complex
all on his lonesome
because that's what he
wanted to do at the time.
And you can really look to any saga,
any arc, any interaction really,
and find an example of Luffy invoking
his bizarre left field thought process
but I cannot think of a better example
than today's number
one, which is announcing
that he will become the pirate king,
while standing right
next to the strongest man
in the world and promptly
telling him to shut up.
Oh Luffy, your ignorance
never ceases to amaze me
but this interaction is solid gold.
And it starts out with
Luffy defending Whitebeard
from an attack launched
by one Sir Crocodile,
which is already kind of shocking.
The idea that Luffy feels the
needed to protect this guy
from someone like Crocodile,
and look, if it wasn't Luffy,
this could probably be taken as an insult.
And that's before we get
to the literal insults
that Luffy throws Whitebeards way.
Because, yeah, Luffy
decides to be something
of a smart ass as
Whitebeard politely notes
that Luffy's Straw Hat looks
an awful lot like the one
that used to be worn by red haired Shanks.
To which Luffy replies in
his best teenage voice,
"Oh, you know Shanks?
Yeah, I'm holding this hat for him,"
which once again, if this was anyone else,
I feel like they would've
received a Gura Gura infused
smack down but this is not
the crowning achievement
of this interaction
because Whitebeard takes
Luffy's insolence in his stride
and then warns Luffy that
he is out of his league
on this battlefield, to which
Luffy replies, and I quote,
"Shut up, that's not for you to say!
I know you're trying to
become the pirate king.
But I'm going to be the
pirate king, not you!"
And there you have it.
Not only did Luffy just
tell the strongest man
in the world to shut up,
but he also claimed that
he would surpass him
to become the pirate king.
And I really just don't
know how much more Luffy
you can get than this.
To stand right next to quite
possibly the most undisputed
individual source of
authority on this planet
and proceed to talk smack
is the paramount example
of why I love this character.
There is no force on this planet
capable of keeping Luffy in line.
Not the marines, not the government,
not the overlords of the world at large
and not even the most
physically powerful individual
that One Piece has to offer.
In my eyes, Luffy is less a man
and should more technically considered
some kind of a natural disaster
because he is completely uncontrollable
and it will often result
in untold destruction.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is our captain
and until the day this series ends,
I am convinced that he will only continue
to shatter our expectations.
But what do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts
down in the comments below
or even join my Discord sever.
And if you're keen for some
more One Piece content,
then please do go and check
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But for now, this has
been the Grand Line Review
and I'll see you next time.
