 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review or source for everything one piece and today we have a discussion that I've been thinking of doing for quite some time and it centers on the structure of the Wano arc and what I think we can comfortably expect for the future. And this isn't an entirely new discussion at all, I feel like I bring it up a fair bit in my chapter reviews, but ever since we were introduced to Wano's act system, the challenge has been on to decipher exactly how many acts this arc is going to be. And in the very early days there were thoughts of a traditional western three-act story or perhaps even a more operatic four-axe and on the table was always the most daunting option of five-act story, which I've personally been rooting for and at this stage I have very little doubt that Wano will consist of five acts and that might sound a bit strange given that we are currently in act three and it looks like the climax stage of an arc, but if I were you I really would settle in and prepare for the remainder of the lengthy journey to come. And one way of doing this is just by pressing the subscribe button for the Grand Line review which is scientifically proven to lower your stress levels, make you more physically attractive and even result in regular one-piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. But back to Wano, my thoughts of a five-act structure spawn almost entirely from one word and that word is kabuki. Wano is very obviously adopting the structure of a kabuki play albeit in its own weird and funky one-piece style and in case you're unaware of kabuki it is a hyper stylized form of Japanese theater which is actually listed by UNESCO as an intangible heritage, allegedly possessing outstanding universal value. Pretty big words there UNESCO. Although fun fact one piece itself has actually been adapted into a kabuki play or more accurately a super kabuki play, which attempts to modernize and make the art form relevant again to younger audiences. Kind of like what we do with Shakespeare in the West or at least kind of what we try to do with Shakespeare. In any case that one piece kabuki play was an incredible hit and it focused on the Paramount War saga which is ambitious to say the least, but that is a lot of what kabuki tends to be. Taking on legendary historical accounts would larger than life figures. So I think it's quite cool that we're now experiencing the inverse, seeing the kabuki art form directly adapted into one piece not the other way around. And you can see this quite clearly everywhere on Wano. Whether it be the traditional curtain opening and closing with each act, the music used even in the manga, the music is very apparent and especially when you look at costumes. Many of the vassals in particular take direct inspiration from famed kabuki characters. In fact many of the vassals names come directly from famous lines of kabuki actors and this even extends to smaller character aspects like Kiku for example. She's biologically male but identifies as a woman which is very in keeping with the kabuki style given that to this very day all roles are performed exclusively by men. And furthermore the names of said famous characters have even made their way onto Wano. For example Zoro and Sanji's Wano names come from a famous play called Kotobuki Sougan or Taiman and it features two brothers named Juro and Goro. Hence why we have Zoro Juro and San Goro and every step we take on Wano brings a new kabuki feature into the mix but why is all of this relevant? Well that's because almost all kabuki plays follow a very common five-act structure and to break things down slightly more or break things up these acts also follow a common flow known as Johakyu and this in a very very I mean very simplistic sense I suppose you could consider to be the equivalent of a beginning middle and an end but also not really. Basically the rundown goes a little something like this we begin with Joe which in a kabuki play encompasses act one. The purpose of this is entirely to introduce the characters in the plot nothing more nothing less maybe sometimes more actually in Wano's case definitely more then we move to Ha which is by far the longest part of the story and spans acts two to four which are vaguely characterized by big battles commonly occurring in acts two and four whilst act three is where a particularly tragic event or events happen it's the emotional low of the piece or I suppose emotional high depending on how you view it and then finally we have Q by far the shortest aspect which is a swift conclusion with act five and I should say that Johakyu is not a formula exclusively applied to kabuki plays or in fact theater in general. Johakyu is also applied to anything and everything in Japan such as music martial arts yoga painting tea ceremony anything give me anything and you can Johakyu it it is incredibly versatile but also before we dive into laying out the floor plan of the Wanoak I also think it's very important to note that a five act structure is nothing new to one piece and to look at this we can go back to dress Rosa act one we arrive on the island of love passion and toys we're introduced to all of the major characters such as the Don Quixote family Fujitora and the strange citizens of dress Rosa we're also given the general premise and call to action with the ultimate goal of beating Doflamingo but we're also introducing stuff like ace's devil fruit to entice Luffy and act one essentially ends with Luffy deciding to compete in the corridor Colosseum and that setup paves the way for act two which is characterized in the traditional manner via battles the most obvious being the Colosseum tournament but this is also where the rest of our protagonists kick into gear such as the law facing off against Fujitora and Doflamingo and it ultimately ends with Usopp's quote unquote defeat of sugar which reverts all of the toys to their regular forms which gives us act three beginning with an uprising on dress Rosa as all of our key characters come together in a combined effort to take down Doflamingo which sees an all out war begin in the country and leads into Trafalgar Law's flashback the tragic conclusion of which triggers the end of act three then moving into act four this is where all the serious action plays out the members of the Don Quixote family fall one by one and we have the climactic battle between Luffy and Doflamingo along with all of the birdcage related drama and act four rather predictably ends with Doflamingo's defeat Yats proclaiming that Luffy was the winner and a wave of rejoicing spreading across dress Rosa which leaves us with act five where we have a swift conclusion to the arc stuff like Rebecca reuniting with Kuros Fujitora's apology to King Riku the formation of the straw hat grand fleet and just every thread in the arc is tied together it's all concluded here in a nice snappy way and that is a five act story it's not as clear to identify as Wano and to be honest it is arguable where the act specifically break down I just went by the major beads but it is all there and you can do the same thing to Holcake Island as well but I won't because I really won't talk about Wano but you can because that's how Oda writes these mega rocks so let's go ahead and do the same thing with Wano only slightly trickier because obviously it isn't finished yet but we have act one the Joe this introduces us to the samurai-esque landscape of Wano the premise behind the plight of the nation as well as most of our major players definitely not all but we end on a profoundly dramatic note with Luffy's defeat and subsequent imprisonment which sets up act two in much the same way that Luffy entering the corridor Colosseum sets up act two of Dressrosa very similar situation actually with Luffy being sequestered to a combat focused era and act one of Wano took 16 chapters to complete which is quite a lot for Oda in comparison you could argue that act one of Dressrosa was complete within three to five chapters but then again Wano is a much longer story quite reflective of Kabuki players which generally take a whole day to complete the program although with that said rather fittingly that is more true for the core fabric of Dressrosa since the whole arc essentially took place over the course of a single day in any case after act one we are then introduced to the concept of interludes which I personally believe are the most brilliant idea that Oda has incorporated into this Kabuki play scheme during those day-long features the audience does take a break to digest and reconnect with the outside world briefly and I think that these have been a much needed feature of Wano because it almost makes every act feel like an entirely new arc whereas with Dressrosa and Hulkic Island for example the acts blend together and the feeling of fatigue becomes very very problematic it's sort of like trying to sit through the entire five acts worth of a day long Kabuki play without a break at all and here's the fun thing we've been on Wano for over two years now this arc began in July of 2018 so actually it's getting close to the two and a half year mark and it really doesn't feel like it's been that long at least not to me whereas approaching the two year mark with Dressrosa and Hulkic Island I was feeling very very tired with the general setting and I was quite anxious to move on and speaking of moving on let's begin act two of Wano which actually appears to have been signified during the chapter that ended act one which was 924 entitled Ha and if you've been paying attention you will know that this is incredibly significant considering that it paves the way for the beginning of the half portion of the Johaku model I will say that the official English chapter is titled Ha as in H U H which is a reference to the noises the straw hats make after seeing the news of Luffy's capture and in Japanese this Ha likely has a double meaning referring to both the straw hat reactions and the meta structure of Wano being Johaku but stuff like that is impossible to convey in an English translation however act two follows traditional Kabuki standards being characterised by battles and once again we have Luffy at the centre of all of the action in the Udon prison but outside all of the straw hats are also engaged in action like Zoro versus killer Sanji versus page one both them coming together to protect Toko and of course all of the big mom related incidents it's incredibly similar to act two of Dressrosa in that regard lots of minor skirmishes building up to a revelation and preparation for an all-out assault in act three which speaking of from here on out we will be dealing with spoilers for Wano so if you're an anime only watcher just not caught up and don't want spoilers then sorry but it does need to be done so act three of Wano commences startlingly similar to act three of Dressrosa without forces uniting to launch one key attack however it would appear to flip the Kabuki model by having the act three moment of tragedy right at the beginning of the piece rather than at the end so in this case that profound tragedy would be Odin's flashback which does satisfy the Kabuki criteria however I must stress that generally the events of act three are meant to lead up to and culminating great tragedy and the door is well and truly still open for exactly that to happen with our current vassals versus kaito situation and at this stage I think we've already seen the beginnings of it but I suspect that act three is going to end with their complete defeat and potentially even a death and that's going to happen probably very soon bringing the curtain down on the darkest chapter of this Wano play and that would then pave the way for act four which is going to be where all of the traditional battles take place basically doing the standard thing of going from our lowest moment then the momentum shifting and the tides well and truly beginning to turn seeing the defeat of the beast pirates one by one and culminating in however kaito himself gets taken down and this could take quite a while going by previous examples I mean act four of whole cake island was the whole running away from big mama deal and that was like 30 chapters long so this will probably be quite an impressive chunk of action but that doesn't mean it's all it would be for example you might even see a kaito flashback thrown in there so we have the full scope of his character prior to his defeat but that is most assuredly how act four ends with an emperor of the sea or even two being taken down and then we move to act five which will be wrapping up all of the loose story threads on Wano such as reinstalling the kozuki family and resolving relationships and parts forward for the worst generation members having a party for jinbei joining the crew and so on and so forth there is quite a lot to resolve on Wano but it will be done in a swift manner worthy of a queue and I imagine it would be by far the shortest of the five acts and with all of that in mind at the time of recording this video I can't help it feel like we still have at least one whole year left on Wano in modern times we tend to average around 40 chapters of one piece per year usually just below actually like 39 or 38 and even with act three's imminent ending it is so hard to see act four and five being told in less than 30 chapters especially when you consider that things like luffy versus kata curry took almost 20 chapters to play out and I don't think that kaito will be given a lesser treatment than that but that is our path forward with Wano right now we are smack bang in the darkest hour and I would prepare for some grand tragedy but followed by glorious victory with act four although one interesting thought I do have as well is this whole kabuki model being taken a step further a sort of kabuki seption if you will and this is unlikely to happen during the sake but just a thought for the future I have this incredible inkling that at some stage whether it be during a cover story about Wano or near the end of the series that this whole conflict we're seeing play out right now is going to be turned into an in-world kabuki play and we'll see actors on stage in exaggerated makeup representing luffy the straw hats kaito the vassals the worst generation etc and even if it's only a single panel of a cover story I would bet quite a bit that this in-world historical event is going to be turned into a kabuki play furthermore in the real world I think there's also a very strong chance of the wanuak becoming another super kabuki performance I mean they tackled marine food in kabuki play form already and the wanuak is perfectly catered to the format so really I don't see why not but yeah just like the patient audience of any good piece of kabuki theater I suggest that we all sit back relax and enjoy the rest of the program because we still have a long day ahead of us 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 ground line review and I'll see you next time