 Hello, and welcome to the Grand Line Review Your Source for everything one piece. And today we are going to talk about vassals, a collection of curious characters who are causing quite a stir currently in the manga, sparking all sorts of questions about power consistency. And since we on this channel absolutely love any discussion related to power scaling, we're going to dive into it because this is actually a more nuanced topic than I originally thought it might be. Surprisingly, it's not quite as simple as saying, yeah, these guys were this strong all along or there's no way these guys should be this powerful. The more I thought about it, the stranger of a topic it became. And I think both sides do have something of a point. So what we're going to do in this video is analyze why many fans thought the vassals were weaker than they are, why we shouldn't necessarily have thought that. And very importantly, why Oda may have intentionally set us up to believe that. It's sort of like how you have been intentionally set up to press the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review which will grant you regular one piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. And unlike the rest of this video, there is nothing to argue about here. Just press it, join the Grand Fleet and gain power beyond your wildest imagination. And obviously, before we properly jump into this video, this is a discussion which will contain spoilers for Act 3 of Wano if you did not realize that already. So if you're an anime only watcher or just not caught up, be very aware of that and proceed at your own risk. Now let's start with which side of the argument I land on. And probably rather predictably, to me everything we've seen right now in regards to the vassals versus Kaido makes sense. I am consistently surprised with many events such as Raizo absorbing Kaido's attack or just the fact that the vassals are capable of injuring an emperor at all. But it's a very good kind of surprise. However, I can see that there is a bit of a disconnect here and some fans view it as absolute insanity that seemingly, all of a sudden these figures are being portrayed as so powerful. So let's examine why that is. At this stage, the vassals have been one of the slowest burn character arcs in one piece history. Some truly phenomenal seating work by Oda here considering Kinamon's debut in the series was in 2012 and that's only just starting to pay off now eight years later. And obviously I think a lot of the issue is what happened between then and now. That's eight whole years of samurai time, which is more than enough to make a solid impression. And unfortunately, prior to the raid on Onigashima, that impression had been one of wild incompetence. For most of their time in the series, Kinamon and many of the other vassals have existed as comic relief characters waiting patiently on the sidelines for the part of the story where they become dramatically relevant. And I'll focus on Kinamon in particular because he is the leader after all and he is essentially introduced to us as a dismembered perverted samurai who has a special ability to communicate using farts. Now cut to 2020 and this man is currently fighting against not only an emperor of the sea, but an individual dubbed as the strongest creature in the world. Not fighting on his own, of course, but still there is a bit of a cognitive leap to get from here to here. And it goes for the other vassals as well, particularly Raizo and Kanjiro. Together we were very much given the impression that these three would have difficulty staying alive if left to their own devices, which is feeling that has even carried over to Wano because we've lived with it for so long. In retrospect, of course, a lot of that stupidity and incompetence can be directly attributed to Kanjiro's traitor status. And in fact, he is prime candidate number one for why we never should have assumed the vassals were weak because he turned out to be quite an amazing devil fruit user after being introduced to us as a fumbling artist. Kanjiro was a sign of things to come. Raizo turned out to be a superb ninja and Kinamon turned out to be a phenomenal samurai. But I can see why it might be hard to shake the impression that Oda has very deliberately given us of them, which are the weird left field comic relief characters. And we'll talk about why Oda chose to do that in a second. But as a secondary point as to why weakness may have been assumed, it also doesn't help that we almost never saw any of them fight prior to the conflict with Kaido. Going back to the Kinamon example, if we discount the current Kinamon-Kaido conflict, which is fun to say, but if we discounted that Kinamon's latest fight would have been on punk hazard, teaming up with everyone else in order to defeat Vega Punk's small dragon thing, which just as a fun point, there's some very nice foreshadowing there, having Kinamon slay a dragon when his ultimate goal is to defeat a bigger dragon. I think he even says something along the lines of I have a score to settle with dragon kind. But still, if we take Kinamon's two latest battles and put them side by side, then we have another disconnect. We've gone from irrelevant mini beast to king of the beasts and there's nothing in between that can really bridge that power perception gap. So it can be challenging to reconcile what's going on, just given our history with these characters. Now, this perception is inconsistent and it does not apply to all of the vassals. In fact, it's pretty much exclusive to our time traveling band. Rota has also painted these guys as quite goofy and very ill suited to high level combat, but this could not be further from the truth for everyone else. Take the next two vassals we run into, for example, Inorashi and Nekomomushi. During the Zohark, we discovered that each of them were roughly equal to Jack. And in fact, if they had worked together instead of fighting in shifts, then they probably would have beaten him in their base forms. Because yes, they equaled Jack before we even got to the Sulong realm. So I really don't understand anyone's surprise that Sulong, Inorashi and Nekomomushi are capable of not only fighting but actually damaging Kaido. They were always set up to be massive powerhouses of the series. And I'd also say the same about Asher Odoji, who not only equaled Jack, but it is entirely possible that he was even more powerful. I mean, poor Jack, he gets wrecked a whole lot, doesn't he? But still, this pudgy dude with weird pink hair and strangely rounded teeth was immediately shown as a force that any Emperor would be lucky to have fighting amongst their top ranks. And speaking of, I probably don't have to go over, Isorite, former Whitebeard pirate commander, dude is gonna be strong. Meanwhile, Kawamatsu, I suppose, didn't have a showcase against a commander, but he was also shown as being absurdly powerful from the get-go. Dendro, meanwhile, was shown quite comfortably holding off Zora, which is not exactly the easiest task in the world. I guess I will grant that Kiku is a bit underfeatured though, but regardless, just look at this group. Odin's vassals are absolutely on par with any set of Yonkou commanders. And in fact, they may even prove superior to a whole ton of them. The problem is that some of them have always been portrayed as said powerhouses, whilst others have been treated as comic relief and very deliberately not focused on in the combat realm. And it's bringing these two groups together where this disconnect happens. And I suppose one theory you could propose to bridge this perceived gap is simply time. Every vassal we were shown packing a serious punch prior to the Kaito fight has had 20 years to develop their skills and become stronger. Something that I suppose is quite literally stated by Ashrodolji, which makes a lot of sense, but there is still an inconsistency. For example, this won't apply to everyone, like say Kawamatsu, for example, who spent the large majority of that 20 years sitting in prison. And then the timeskippers being Kinemon Raizo and arguably even Kandro are generally presented as at least equals in this force. At no stage do they feel like weak links. In fact, after chapter 992, they almost feel like its greatest asset. So I really don't think that the 20 years has anything to do with it. Really, this is just one of those situations where the fact that one piece is a story kind of comes to the forefront because Oda has chosen to do what is the most dramatically potent. And that intuition will always trump any sense of internal power scaling. Although I do think it's very important to note that we should not consider the vassals individually so much, but rather as a group. Before the infamous born to boil line, Oden said, don't make the mistake of underestimating our samurai. And looking back on it, it almost feels like this line was directly intended for the fan base as much as it was Kaido. And I really don't know how much clearer Oda could have made it, especially with the iconic pot image, which isn't just intended as some heroic display of Odin's abilities and tragic optimism, but it's also a very effective visual way of saying all of these characters here went together are roughly equal to one Kozuki Oden. So however powerful you believe Odin was, that is what Kaido is currently facing off against in the modern day, if not a force even greater. Because that is the wonder of legacy and inherited will. Something that Oda is going to great length to display through the Odin two sword style and through the various flashbacks that have accompanied key hits, which does of course include the very first Tsunachi that started the fight. And in fact, Kaido himself even perceived the vassals as Odin in this moment. So while I still don't think that they will ultimately come out on top, I see no real issue with how extraordinarily well the vassals are performing against Kaido. It's surprising because it does subvert prior expectations of characters like Kinemon and Raizo, but in the best way possible. But no, I will admit, it doesn't necessarily make the greatest degree of technical sense because it does generate retrospective questions like, why hasn't Kinemon been more useful in the journey thus far? He could have been phenomenal on Dressrosa. And similarly, why wasn't Raizo tapped to help fight Jack Konzo? If his Ninjutsu is that powerful, then he really could have been the deciding factor in Jack's defeat. And if, you know, Jack is beaten, then there's no need to hide Raizo in the first place because his presence won't be reported. I mean, well, traitor aside, but hiding Raizo did no good in that regard anyway. But the easy answer to all of those questions is always going to be for the sake of drama. Hiding Raizo was the smartest move from a storytelling perspective because it allows for hard-hitting moments like Raizo is safe. Similarly, not revealing Kinemon's true strength on Dressrosa makes that arc a much more desperate situation and allows for greater stakes. But that leads us into something that I did start on before, which is an explanation as to why Oda had the Time Traveling Vassals act as comic relief prior to and honestly, even during most of Wano. And I think this is probably the single greatest contributing factor to the disconnect here because the Time Traveling Vassals were purposely designed not to be taken seriously in their first few arcs. And the reason for all of the goofiness here is simply to build a connection. It's a very classic one-piece feature, but Oda doesn't begin your investment in most characters via drama or action. Instead, he usually chooses to do so via comedy, at least in the case of protagonist. So as an example, take Ace's proper introduction into the series, where in the manga, the very first clear scene we have of Ace is him falling asleep in his own food. It's quirky and it generates light-hearted intrigue. It's a gateway into immediately liking and investing into this character, which is then immediately built on with some nice action against Smoker and ultimately down the track, it helps the feeling of tragedy of his death at Marineford because that connection was made and it all started with goofy comedy. And that's because as an audience, we will immediately bond with the character who was able to make a smile, which in turn allows for an audience to care about the drama of said character later down the line. And this is true even in some of the most serious of cases, like say, Mihawk. In his introduction, he's actually quite hilarious. Like when he states that he destroyed Krieg's armada for fun or apologizing to Zoro, they're not having a smaller weapon on hand to deal with him. They're probably the most underrated aspects of Mihawk's introduction, but they are absurdly important because they add levity and it's an invitation to enjoy and invest in the swordsmen. And applying this theory to the vassals is just a more extreme case. Oda has played them for comedy to invite us to like them through whatever charming failures they concoct. But then when he flips that switch and makes them the center of drama, that comedic investment pays dividends because these aren't just some dudes in a bad situation. They're some dudes that we know and we like and they're in a bad situation. They've made us laugh, they've made us smile and now they're in the most dire spot so we care or at least we care more than we would have without the comedy. And to be perfectly honest, power has no real place in this discussion. Yes, it does need to be vaguely consistent or it would get ridiculous, but what guides Oda is always going to be the significantly more basic elements of emotional investment. Oda wants you to feel the determination and plight of the funny fart samurai. And if that means that he needs to fight the strongest creature in the world, then that's what's going to happen. And it's not like it really came out of nowhere either because other than the weird fights on Pankhazard, Kinamon's power has been deliberately shrouded and anyone who assumed that he was weak because of that is guilty of basic conjecture, forming a strong opinion without all or even most of the evidence. So while I will agree that it is a bit jarring, I honestly could not be more satisfied with what's currently happening with the vassals versus Kaido. I love every second of it because it's finally paying off our investment in the group. Every subsequent chapter of this arc makes me appreciate Pankhazard, Dressrosa and Zoe more and more. And I think that those arcs are going to be a very different experience to go through following the events of Wano. But in any case, if you are in the opposite camp of opinions to me, I'll just say be careful about assumptions that you might make, especially in one piece. This is a series where the most bizarre left field characters frequently shatter your expectations and have been doing so for close to a quarter of a century. So much so that at this point, you should probably expect to have your expectations demolished, which is strange, but it is what it is. But what do you guys think? Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this, then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious one-piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time.