Sailing Spacious Seas and the Sea of Space
Recently I decided that even if it killed me I’d read the 300+ chapters I had to go before I was caught up with One Piece. A week into this undertaking I also started re-watching the early episodes of Space Pirate Captain Harlock. It was as I was switching off between reading the former and watching the latter that a connection began forming in my mind between the two.
Admittedly comparing One Piece and Space Pirate Captain Harlock is a rather strange undertaking. They may both be about pirates but they couldn’t be more different in almost all other regards. One Piece is light-hearted shounen with bright, cartoony art whereas Harlock is a dramatic 70’s space opera.
Yet what these series do have in common, and what I love about them, is the romanticism. It’s ever present in the enormous world of One Piece which overflows with the fantastic and the bizarre, from sky islands to trains that run on the ocean. There’s a feeling that the world is vast and exciting just like the endless sea of space that the Arcadia sails through, its Jolly Roger fluttering despite the fact that there is no wind in space… but then that’s precisely the point isn’t it? A space pirate needs a flag and a flag that stands for freedom must wave in the wind, impossibilities be damned.
There’s a straightforwardness with emotions, too, which allows characters to say the sort of things which would certainly earn an “embarrassing remarks are not allowed!” reprimand from Aika if this were Aria. This is especially true of the characters in One Piece who are unafraid to shout out their dreams, to laugh, to cry and to genuinely move the reader. For as anyone who has read enough of it will tell you, and the Japanese readers seem to agree, One Piece will make you cry.
A Man’s World
Another thing One Piece and Harlock have in common is that they appeal to boys and teach these boys how to be men. That’s not to say that women can’t enjoy them just as much (after all I’m one and I’m writing this) nor that they don’t have any strong female characters. Queen Emeraldas, Nami and Robin prove otherwise. However undoubtedly Eiichiro Oda and Leiji Matsumoto’s stories are written from a male perspective.
Thus any boy watching in the 70’s probably thought that Harlock was the epitome of manliness and he’d be right. Of course in this case “manliness” refers not to machismo but more to the ideals Harlock holds although his rugged, windswept appearance doesn’t hurt either. A Real Man in the Matsumoto universe is someone who would fight to the death for what he believes in, who follows his dreams and ambitions and who believes above all in freedom.
One Piece on the other hand doesn’t take manliness, or anything for that matter, as seriously as Harlock does. Still, as a quintessentially shounen story it definitely caters to a boy’s fantasy in the purest sense. There are unbelievable adventures, friendship, enemies that need beating up, really cool weapons and Viking giants who teach you that a Real Man never backs out of a battle even if it means dueling for 100 straight years. Not surprisingly, Nami found said duel entirely stupid while it appealed to the male characters right away.
So What?
So what’s my point with all this? Well it’s not that Space Pirate Captain Harlock and One Piece are two sides to the same coin because they’re not. For all the similarities I’ve pointed out there’s still far more differences. What I can say is that the romanticism, or I might call it a lack of irony, and the unabashed masculinity they share is something I can’t get enough of and wish we could see more often.
It makes for a viewing experience that’s exciting, that gets my blood pumping and sweeps me off into worlds far grander than our own. Sometimes I feel like anime is turning more and more inwards. So instead of trying to create appealing narratives creators resort to clichés and fetishes: the tsundere girl, the moe character, the maid… the tsundere-moe-maid with rockets for legs. That’s all well and good but I’d much rather be swept away by a moving story. I really think moe should take a backseat to manliness for a while too, if only to balance the scales a bit.
At the very least I can take comfort that space opera, a genre which I thought was dead, has made a come back this season with Noboru Ishiguro’s Tytania. As for One Piece, it’s been eleven years and the Straw Hats have only just made it halfway around the world so I don’t think it’ll be ending anytime soon. You know, Oda once said that at the very end the only eyepatch wearing pirate in the entire series would show up. I’ve got a great suggestion for who that should be…
fuckwin mcawesomepants post. I love One Piece, but from a distance since I lack the dexterity to make it far into the story, and I love it for the reasons you’ve said. It’s all about heart, soul and manliness, and Luffy is just so ridiculously awesome. He exudes respectability.