 Hello and welcome to the Ground Line Review, your source for everything One Piece. Last week on the Arc Review, the world of One Piece changed irrevocably as we knew it, with the events of Marine Food. And this week, the planet is in recovery mode as we examine the post-war arc. Post-war is the 23rd arc in the series, consisting of 17 manga chapters and 26 anime episodes. And word, how in the hell did Toei manage to stretch 17 chapters into 26 episodes? This is a new low for the adaptation rate. Which is a shame because post-war is already one of my personal least favorite arcs in the series, primarily because of its overwhelmingly somber nature. We've had arcs in One Piece tackle very dark and serious material in the past, but they've always managed to be diffused with humor. The best example of which is in Pell Down. That arc takes place inside a literal hell of a prison, but is balanced by amped up quirky comedy. And over the post-war arc is all one big lamentation. Not that that's a bad thing, in fact it's really what the series needed after going through Marine Food. It's just not one of my favorite arcs to reread, because there really is no satisfaction to be gained. And this especially extends into the Luffy flashback. Of all of the flashbacks in the series, this is probably the one I would be least keen to go over again, because it's dark as hell and some pretty horrifying things happen that were never expected to come out of One Piece. Like that time, Child Luffy was literally tortured by Poccemi with a spike fist. With that said, I appreciate this flashback a hell of a lot, because it finally gave me something to make Ace a character worth caring about. Seeing his childhood development makes him an infinitely more empathizable character, and it's something that I wish I'd seen prior to Marine Food, because it would have made his death a lot more impactful for me anyway. Of course, the main reason why that wasn't a possibility is due to the character of Sabo, who needed to stay hidden. Now I have a lot of problems with Sabo. Personally, I don't understand why it was necessary to create him, and sometimes it feels an awful lot, like Oda locked in his decision to kill Ace a bit too prematurely, and then scrambled to create a new older brother who could feel the gap that he'd left. I should say that I like Sabo just fine. I think he has a really cool design. I just don't get his purpose. He's done some great things in the series going forward, but I would never say that he was essential to the story in any way. Everything he's done could have been done by another character, or just not done at all. However, the one place he is essential is during the flashback of this arc. Sabo's story gives us a great insight into the world of nobility, and the sheer pain and disgust that can drive someone to becoming a member of the Revolutionary Army, and commit to overthrowing the global political system. And if Sabo had actually died during this flashback, then I would say he served a brilliant purpose. He showed us all of the aforementioned, plus he gave Luffy and Ace a hurdle of despair that they had to overcome in order to evolve into the characters we know and love. But instead, Sabo lived, creating a whole world of potential plot holes in an otherwise tight series, which we'll get to later on when he makes his reappearance into the series proper. However, an unexpectedly great character to come out of this flashback was Dadan. Her name had been dropped by Woopsslap in the post-Ani Slavia, which had led to wild speculation of exactly who or what Dadan was. Turns out she was a hard-shelled bandit with a heart of absolute gold. Not at all what I expected from her introduction, and when we get to see her afterwards in the current timeline assaulting Garb, it really hit me a lot harder than a character who I've known for such a brief time should have been able to. But just before we leave the flashback train of thought entirely, I'd like to offer my praise to Oda for taking this route. A second flashback for Luffy was one of the last things I ever would have expected to see at the time, and I thought that we already knew everything we needed to know about our main protagonist. But Oda showed us that we can be almost 600 chapters into the story and still be able to reveal more of, and continue to grow, Luffy's character. In fact, one little tidbit that I particularly enjoyed was the revelation that Luffy's devil fruit was really incredibly weak at first. I think people associate the Gomu Gomu no Mi with easy, raw power, because of how we see Luffy wield it in the current timeline. But in reality, this fruit was next to useless without an entire childhood full of strength training for Luffy. I just found that cool because it really highlighted all of the hard work Luffy has put in towards achieving his dream, rather than shrugging it off by saying he's strong because he's eaten a devil fruit. So meanwhile, the world at large is in utter shambles, following the death of Whitebeard, because he was such a powerful figure, his sudden departure resulted in a power vacuum, and we got a hint of how that was going to be filled during this arc. We got a nice bit of focus on the supernovas as well, as each of them make the big leap into the new world. This was an important move because it confirms that the old ways of this world had parted along with Whitebeard and that we were now entering a new and exciting era full of upcoming figures, promised future conflicts, and a hell of a lot of crazy islands to visit in the new world. But the most important event of this arc is nothing so grand in scale, but the recovery and return to form of Monkey D Luffy. This is the most crushed we have ever seen him, even more so than his despair paralysis during Marineford. And it really hurt to see this character who has always seemed so impenetrably optimistic, undergoes such suffering and loss of faith in himself. But of course, he is brought to his senses by the thought that he still has his Nakama. But why don't blame Luffy for forgetting about it, because at this point they had been out of the story for at least two years of real time. That's pretty ridiculous to think about, actually. What other story could possibly survive canning 90% of its most popular characters for a two-year period? Nothing, that's what. So the suggestion of a two-year time skip, while that number might seem arbitrary, in retrospect was the perfect number of years at the time. Because while in manga form, this arc would end and the next would immediately pick up two years later. However, we as an audience had experienced a two-year separation from the Straw Hats, which would go a long way to serving their fantastic reintroductions into the series. And so, the final part of this arc is spent setting up their training regimes. This introduced us to the notable ability of Haki, of which all three types had popped up from time to time in the series, although it was more of an unknown show of power. And this worried me, a lot. Up until this point, I'd very often praise One Piece for the fact that it doesn't rely on some sort of internal power source, like Nen, Chakra, Ki or Reatsu. Because I believe a system like that is fundamentally flawed, because more often than not, a battle will simply be decided by who holds more of any given resource. With notable exceptions, of course, especially in the case of Nen for Hunter x Hunter. And some of my fears have since been justified in the new world because you really need Haki to be a serious competitor these days, and things sometimes do simply slip into a battle of whose Haki is better. But so far, Oda has done an all right job of not making this a boring power system, so let's continue to see where he takes us into the future. The other straw hat that stood out most to me during this arc was obviously Zoro. For a man who claimed that he would leave the crew if it ever got in the way of his dream in the beginning of the story, he sure was pretty well prepared to sacrifice all of his ambitions for those of his captain. This was a wonderful moment of humility as well as a big old shit moment for the audience, because you just know that he is going to return as an undisputed badass after receiving training from the world's greatest swordsman. I also really enjoyed the concept of Sanji's training, with him having to spend two years defeating the 99 Masters of Okama Kempo in order to attain the Attack Cuisine recipes, as well as resulting in physical training for himself. In fact, each of the straw hats ended up in fascinating places that held such diverse skills to be acquired, and a lot of promise for the future of the series. But I have to say, despite this being one of my least favorite arcs, the ending had me more on the edge of my seat than ever before. I said when we went from Sabadi to Amazon Lily that we were stepping into the unknown, but this time we are stepping into the true unknown. We had no idea what to expect in terms of story or the characters, and indeed the very shape of the world. And that pretty much does it for the post-war arc. Next week we will be reuniting with these straw hats after two entire years to recommence this incredible journey in the return to Sabadi. If you enjoyed this video then feel free to like, favorite, or subscribe, and please do comment with your thoughts on the post-war arc. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.