#op 1051

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**SPOILERS FOR ONE PIECE 1051 (WANO FINALE) AHEAD**

One of the things this finale reinforces is One Piece as an explicitly political narrative. This is seen in the finale, where it's strongly established that one of Luffy's aspirations for others is simply open access to food.

As his battle with Kaido reaches its peak, Kaido asks Luffy, "And what kind of world can you create, Strawhat?"

Luffy responds, "I'll make a world where my friends can eat as much food as they want!"

While phrased in a deceptively simplistic way, this is Luffy essentially saying a just world in his view is one where food is free and distributed equally, where there's no shortages of food and no one ever goes hungry. At first glance this seems like a childish dream, but we know that no matter how big Luffy dreams, he is always dead serious and always comes through. And comparing it to our own world, it is certainly a political issue that our world governments haven't organized food production and distribution to eliminate hunger, something that seems feasible were things more equitable.

This theme of food as a human right is something that has been consistent through the series. Initially it seemed like kind of a gag cus of how much Luffy can eat and how that is a shonen protag trope (see: Goku). It was further developed with Sanji's arc, and accompanied by related themes like free and easy access to medical care through Chopper and access to housing through the Luffy / Ace upbringing flashback. The presence and importance of food is more consistent than these other human rights issues, and is shown as one of the greatest pleasures in life and from my memory rarely commodified. Rather, it's provided to the strawhats by Sanji, who is rewarded through the crew's appreciation of his food. It is also consistently given freely and in great amounts in thanks to the strawhats whenever they beat a big bad. Now, when you think about it, unrestricted access to food is a very political theme. It's right up there with free housing as one of the foundational external building blocks of being able to live a good life. What I mean by external is that in modern society, food and housing are not something that can be dependably secured by any individual, since control of food and housing has to fall to a larger controlling entity. Whether that's a socialist government or a capitalist society with grocery stores and commodified food, there is an external force determining how people can get food.

So when Luffy says he wants to create a world where his friends can eat as much as they want, he is saying he wants to make a world where food is FREE. Where societal structures are organized to provide essential services including food (and medicine, and housing) to all people free of cost (or where societal structures are abolished entirely and communities barter for food... this is a bit more complicated and still unclear in the series seeing as this anarchist structuring of the pirates seems to continually lead to conflict). This is possibly meant as anarchist and and least meant as socialist.

So if you see anyone trying to use One Piece as an example of manga as apolitical fiction that shows western comics how to make "non-woke" stories... they're obviously not paying attention.

Also this isn't "political" (or shouldn't be) but we got a panel with the strawhats clearly shocked by Yamato, referring to him as "Kaido's son" - the stress of surprise is consistent throughout the lettering, implying to me that the surprise is not with Yamato's being trans but with Kaido's son being alive and potentially about to take revenge for his father. Yamato then introduces himself as "...Oden, otherwise known as Yamato," fully cementing that this is not a case of Yamato believing he is someone else, but rather identifying with someone else while still acknowledging himself as an individual. Obviously this is an english translation, so there are definitely differences across languages in how this scene will play out, but at least for the english audience, Yamato is trans.

Guys. He might be in an adult body but he's still fucking mentally 8 fucking years old.