 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, a source for everything One Piece. And today we have something strange, quite strange, but hopefully fun maybe, because essentially I would like to examine what this series would have been like if Sakazuki wanted to become the pirate king. And a lot of the inspiration for this topic comes from a very old quote by Oda in an interview with Yasutaka Nakata, where he stated that if Sakazuki went on to become the protagonist of One Piece, then he could end the series within a year. He being Oda that is, although by association I suppose Sakazuki as well. Which speaking of the man himself, he's giving you quite the mean look right now, isn't he? Mmm, that's probably because he wants you to subscribe to the Grand Line Review, which will grant you regular One Piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. And I recommend you hit that red button pretty quickly because Sakazuki's already severely limited patience appears to be running out, oh dear. But as for this hypothetical that we're going to explore here today, we do need to add a couple of extra considerations, because in order for Sakazuki to truly inhabit that role of protagonist as described by Oda, we're going to need to take things a step further and give him the goal of our protagonist, which is to become the pirate king. And can he do it? Well, let's find out. But you know what, that criteria alone is still a bit too vague for my liking, so as I often enjoy doing, I have an additional set of protagonist restrictions to place on our Magma Man. One of which is that he has to start his journey in East Blue exactly where Luffy did. And the second restriction is that because this is One Piece, Sakazuki will need to gather his own pirate crew over the course of his quest to become the pirate king. And given that these features would place us pre-timeskip, that is the incarnation of Sakazuki that we'll be using, still fully equipped with a devastating legibility, but noticeably missing his dubious and underwhelming facial hair. That's pretty much it though. With a starting point, a long-term goal and a path to get there, I think that Sakazuki has now well and truly stepped into the role of One Piece protagonist. So let's see if he can achieve his now ultimate dream of becoming the pirate king. And of course, we will start with a grumpy man in boat who eventually stumbles across both Kobe and Alveda. Still believing in the idea of absolute justice, Sakazuki is going to thoroughly destroy Alveda, as well as tell Kobe that he is worthless and a waste of time, thus emotionally and mentally crippling this child for the rest of his life. Sakazuki then very easily makes it to Shell's town on his own because he is a competent individual. However, he goes on to completely disregard Zoro as the idea of justice is clearly being carried out in this case. Instead, Sakazuki turns his attention to the leader of justice on the island, Axhand Morgan, and Sakazuki will waste no time in asking Morgan to join the justice pirates, a name that Sakazuki had just now made up on the spot. And Morgan will of course accept this offer primarily out of fear, but with that, Sakazuki has his first crew member, fantastic. Oh, and also Zoro probably dies because nobody frees him, but that has no concern of ours. We then skip Orange Town because Sakazuki, unlike Luffy, is probably not going to get eaten by a bird, as well as the island of rare animals because Luffy quite frankly just went there on a whim. However, we do have an important stop in Syrup Village when Sakazuki realizes that he will need a bigger ship to properly sail any further. So here he encounters Usoppu quite promptly and correctly shits himself before strolling on up to Kai's mansion and demanding a ship from the wealthy household. And luckily for him, they just so happened to have one being the going Mary. However, this name does not suit Sakazuki, not at all. And he decides to rebrand it as the going justice. And so Sakazuki and Morgan sail away leaving Syrup Village to its untimely demise at the hands of the black cat pirates. And at this point, Morgan will probably complain about being hungry and suggest stopping in a baratier, but Sakazuki will tell him to shut up because justice needs no sustenance. And with no reason to travel to our long park, this duo is heading straight to Log Town in order to make their way into the grand line. However, whilst on the island, Sakazuki's justice senses begin to tingle and he encounters at this stage Captain Smoker of the Marines. Sakazuki then of course invites Smoker to join the justice pirates, but Smoker will refuse because he has no interest in becoming a filthy, filthy pirate. This doesn't sit well with Sakazuki though, who will use his overwhelming power to forcibly recruit Smoker regardless. So that is nice and we now have our third justice pirate. And now it's onward into the grand line, flying past Reverse Mountain to encounter an old man, a big whale and a pair of highly comical failures, the latter of which will request that the justice pirates ferry them to whiskey peak. However, Sakazuki has no time or patience for this kind of foolishness. However, being a man of justice, he does agree to let them tag along on the condition that they never open their mouths again. And after taking the log post from Crocus because justice demands it, Sakazuki chooses whiskey peak as his initial path and off we go. And there is a distinct lack of justice on the silent field with bounty hunters. Although because Sakazuki even as a pirate hasn't really done anything notable yet, he doesn't actually have a bounty assigned to him. So it's arguable as to whether or not the Baroque Works agents will even try to capture them. What does happen though is the arrival of Mr. Five and Ms. Valentine who are promptly destroyed, like utterly destroyed by Sakazuki. And after seeing such power, Igram begs Sakazuki to ferry Princess Vivi to Alabasta, which he will do, but more due to hearing about crocodile's actions as a warlord of the sea. And as a man of justice, Sakazuki will simply not stand for this. And after blasting their way through the grand line and several other insignificant Baroque Works agents, Sakazuki, Morgan, and Smoker will eventually land on Alabasta and very, very swiftly defeats our crocodile. This is certainly not taking three attempts like it did with Luffy. Interesting thing though, Sakazuki is going to recognize the devil child Niko Robin as well as the importance of her skills in deciphering the Poneglyphs. Then going on to forcibly invite her aboard the Justice Pirates. Not that Robin would decline though because she's used to working with, you know, fairly shady individuals. And this would just become the latest in a long line of employers. Pretty big stuff now though because Robin will refuse to leave Alabasta until she has seen its Poneglyph, which as we know, reveals the location of the ancient weapon Pluton. And for a man of absolute justice, well, this just so happens to be the perfect vessel. So through whatever means necessary, which is the core of absolute justice, Sakazuki will quote, unquote, convince Robin to reveal its location. And just like that, an ancient weapon is going to be resurrected. Which does sadly mean that we will say goodbye to the going justice. Now for Justice Pirates and Continual Board Pluton gaining global notoriety, which makes the world government pay attention to Sakazuki for the first time. We're then opening bounty of, oh, I don't know, roughly four billion berries being issued. And if you think that's way too much, just remember, Sakazuki now controls an ancient weapon, as well as the knowledge of Niko Robin and one of the most devastating double fruit abilities in existence. And in fact, this unparalleled power is going to make him immediately the fifth Emperor of the Sea, beating Mufi to that point by a whole two years. Skipping Skypeer now because Sakazuki has no interest in adventure, we now arrive at Water Seven, where the whole Cypherpole thing is going to happen, Robin will be captured and force the Justice Pirates to embark to any slobby aboard the Pluton, of course, in order to rescue their Nakama. And this goes very poorly for Cypherpole and the world government, because while his crew may not necessarily be up to the challenge, they are superfluous, because Sakazuki just marches in Luffy style and decimates every one and everything in sight. Not only reclaiming Robin, but also recognizing Rob Luchi, or more specifically, the usefulness of a man like Rob Luchi, thus asking the leopard do to join his crew. And if this seems like a strange course of action at all, let's just remember that Luchi is a perfect tool for absolute justice because he does not possess pesky moral boundaries. He will do anything that he is ordered to, which means that Sakazuki can order him to do all sorts of dark and twisted things for the grander ideology of justice. So yay, we now have five official Justice Pirates and Sakazuki will use Pluton to destroy any slobby because this judicial island is but a farce in the face of true justice. Making our way very comfortably through the Florian Triangle, we will briefly stop at Sabadi, our halfway point, during which time Sakazuki becomes aware of the supernovas and seeing them as a slight to the idea of justice, he will defeat each and every one of them, much like how Kizaro beat a whole ton of them in the actual story. Now, one of the slightly painful aspects of Sabadi is going to be finding someone who can coat the entirety of the ancient weapon Pluton so that it can travel underwater and through the Fishman Island passage into the New World. Although interesting idea because since we do have control of Pluton, it is entirely possible that it is powerful enough to just blast a hole in the red line and allow the Justice Pirates to sail straight along into the New World. If so, Sakazuki would inadvertently create the old blue and make Sanji's dream all of a sudden very, very achievable. But through whatever means our Justice Pirates are moving into the second half of the ground line, we'd no time skip required because unlike the straw hat, Sakazuki is not significantly underpowered. And having come this far without a whole lot to stop him, this trend is very much going to continue. No matter what path we go down, things remain fairly consistent for Mr. Sakazuki and the only issue is really encountering the forces of the other emperors, most of which would become dispatched fairly easily due to Sakazuki's own power as well as of course, out of Pluton. And one way or the other, Sakazuki is eventually going to discover the existence of the road pornoglyphs. This may be by making it to the final island of the ground line where the whole pornoglyph revelation occurs, or he may stumble upon this information far before then like the straw hats did. He's a crafty guy, you know? Either way, we will eventually be faced with confronting both Big Mom and Kaido, who each possess a road pornoglyph. And even with Pluton victory against these emperors is not a super simple thing to achieve. And Sakazuki will require a grand degree of forces at his disposal, which I imagine would be gathered primarily via the same method as Big Mom and Kaido, which is basically intimidation to build their empires. Sakazuki defeats pirates and then forces them to submit under his jolly justice, very quickly becoming most feared of all of the emperors. And from their waging war against Big Mom and Kaido, at least individually, is not so much of an issue thanks once again to Pluton. I mean, Sakazuki might not defeat the two of the emperors individually, but their empires will melt in the face of burning justice. Leaving Sakazuki with two road pornoglyphs, three after finding the rather defenseless soul. And wherever the fourth one is, it is not safe from this man who is now the undisputed front runner to pirate kingdom. And at this point, it honestly becomes very difficult to see anything capable of stopping Sakazuki. The greatest singular force in this world would be the Marines, but taking into account their demonstration at Marineford in the actual series, quite frankly, they don't have a chance. Magma Man is pretty unstoppable in this position, going on to discover the location of Laugh Tale, landing on the island, discovering the One Piece, and eventually widely being publicized as our new pirate king, All Hail. It's a pretty scary thought, really. Like I know I've probably grossly over simplified this latter part of the journey, but with a man like Sakazuki, there is a very potent snowball effect. He is able to gain power and momentum at a rate that is obviously impossible for Luffy, who has had to endure the more slow burn journey. And there are definitely a lot of problems with this tale of events, mainly being that One Piece is so heavily affected by fate and inherited will, something that Sakazuki does not possess. At least not when it comes to the ancient kingdom, Roger, Joy Boy, and all of that stuff that is heavily implied to be necessary for Luffy to ultimately become the pirate king. But we do have to cast all of that aside here because this exploration concedes all of that when we make Sakazuki the protagonist. We have to accept that those sorts of features are no longer in play, or if they are, they are in play for Sakazuki's favor. But I do think this gives us some pretty great insight into Oda's comments. What's really interesting to think about is how long One Piece would have been in total if Sakazuki had been the protagonist all along. I think Oda very likely would have finished the series within his initial five-year real-time publishing goal. And in terms of in-world time, well, Sakazuki would have become the pirate king in a matter of months. I mean, the series probably wouldn't have been a mega hit the One Piece turned out to be with Luffy at the helm, but hey, I'd certainly be pretty keen to read this alternate incarnation of the manga. But what do you guys think? Please 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.