 The five elders are responsible for hiding an awful lot of things, be it the national treasure, the void century, the name of the ancient kingdom, et cetera. But their most well-kept secret by far is the subscribe button for the Ground Line Review, conveniently hidden within this dude faces moustache. The pressing of which will grant you regular One Piece content uploaded straight until YouTube feed. Hello and welcome to the Ground Line Review, yourselves for everything One Piece, and today we are going to be doing something slightly different, but also quite the same. Because as many of you will know, the largest series on this channel is One Piece 101, which does aim to break down everyone and everything in the One Piece world. However, this does become problematic with certain topics because we have quite an incomplete knowledge pool. So much so that I could never in good faith make a video titled, it said something like, Laugh Tale Explained or something along those lines. But there is still a hell of a lot of important information to know within these kind of topics. And as such, we are going to start covering everything we know about certain aspects of the series. And today we will be beginning with a rather exciting subject, one of the most prolific yet mysterious groups within One Piece being the Five Elder Stars. So here is everything we know about them. The Five Elder Stars are a group of extraordinarily high ranking world nobles who exert complete command over the world government. In fact, they have been specifically referred to as the highest authority of the world government. And through this shared politics and administration alone, they are some of the most powerful individuals that this world has ever known. And this group currently consists of this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, and of course, everyone's favorite, this guy. Although this guy is my favorite because he has a funky moustache. So as you can tell, none of these elderly gents have been given individual names as of yet, which is kind of insane because they were first introduced in chapter 233, which was the Jayar. And this would make them quite easily the longest running prominent characters to be featured in the series without being named. In regards to the name they do have though, this does change depending on how you consume One Piece. For example, the Five Elder Stars is a label given to them by the Funimation subs. Meanwhile, the Vis Manga translation simply refers to them as the Five Elders, which is probably the most accurate translation at this point because in chapter 907, Oda himself labeled them as the Five Elders in English. However, if you are familiar with Japanese, then this group is known as the Gorase, which does translate much more closely to the Five Elder Stars than it does Five Elders. But honestly, whatever title you use, it is perfectly fine. Now I stated before these elderly gentlemen are indeed world nobles. An idea that you might find initially kind of shocking because let's just say that they are, they don't embody the traditional aesthetics of a world noble. Plainly meaning that they don't look like the result of 800 years of inbreeding. With that said, not all world nobles look like this. A great example of which would be the Don Kyoto family, who all looks like fairly regular beings. And female world nobles are also usually presented as idealistic beauty, but these are exceptions. Most of the time a world noble will still look like whatever this is. Not the Five Elders though, which is very interesting and furthermore to top this off, the Five Elders also do not subscribe to the general fashion of their people. Instead choosing to don sleek black suits, or in one case a pure white ghee, rather than the over the top full body spacesuits of their brethren. So it's very clear that while they are considered world nobles, there is something very profound that separates the Five Elders from the rest of this pack, which can also be seen in their attitudes. The Five Elders present themselves as a beacon of maturity, logic and reason, whilst other world nobles are much more juvenile, selfish and possession based existences. And it's probably for the best that the Five Elders are like this because their primary purpose is specifically to maintain the balance of the world. Now I should say that the word balance is how they choose to refer to it, but I suppose it could more accurately be referred to as their desire to maintain the world government's control over the planet. You know, the concept of balance changes depending on whose perspective you're looking at it from. But you can see this concern at play in effectively every scene in the series that features the Five Elders. For example, in their introductory chapter they show great concern over a potential meeting between Whitebeard and Shanks. Two of the four emperors of the sea. And this is because if there were to ever be an alliance between two of the four emperors, then that would throw the world out of balance and it would create a power capable of toppling the world government itself. And as one measure to continue a stranglehold on the living realm, the Five Elders also instituted the world system, selecting seven powerful pirates and granting them amnesty in exchange for their occasional services. But it is mostly about name recognition, a sort of symbolic bowing of global power to the world government. And the awareness of the Five Elders does spread beyond that simple concept as well because in the quest for balance, they also seek to portray peace, whether they're actually engaged in it or not. And this was one of many reasons why they decided to make Jinbei a warlord of the sea so that he could serve as a symbol of good faith relations between human and fishmen. And as such, the Five Elders were greatly concerned when Jinbei resigned from the seven warlords after refusing to fight against the Whitebeard pirates. Although in recent times the Five Elders have tried to rebuild that image by inviting the Ryugu royal family to the most recent reverie. But the concerns of the Five Elders range far and wide. And a very rapidly growing matter for them is the increasing infamy of our protagonist, Luffy. The Five Elders, unlike much of the world, have not underestimated Luffy. And he has been a strong fixture on their radar ever since he defeated Sir Crocodile on Alabaster. And this has only continued with every other amazing feat that he has accomplished such as destroying any slobby, participating in the Paramount War and defeating Dolph Lamingo, the latter of which was a very, very big deal which we will talk about in a second. But the key reason why the Five Elders have always been wary of Luffy is because of his heritage, which doesn't even necessarily mean being the son of dragon, the world's most wanted criminal or the grandson of Garp, the hero of the Marines. No, the Five Elders concern has to do with Luffy's middle initial D. Because while we as readers and watchers are not privy to this information, it is clear that the Five Elders understand the will of D as well as the events of the void century. In fact, they are almost certainly the most knowledgeable source of this information which is a bit awkward because the most paramount task on their agenda is keeping this intelligence from ever becoming public knowledge. And this can be seen in a statement the Five Elders made following the Paramount War where they say, the largest problem here as always is D. That name has become far too well-known in recent years which is of course referring to the prominence of Luffy, Ace, Dragon, Garp and Blackbeard all of whom share that curious D so much so that the world might even start paying attention to it. Now there have of course been examples of those who have attempted to directly seek out this knowledge in the past though. The one obviously coming to mind being the scholars of Ohara, Nicarobans home island in West Blue and led by Professor Clover these curious individuals began studying the Ponyglyphs, the ancient language and the void century all of which was strictly forbidden by the world government. And so once the Five Elders discovered this they ordered a bus to call on the island effectively wiping away civilization that had existed for 5,000 years. And they did so by uttering these simple words Ohara has learned too much give the order to attack and just like that a genocide occurred. With that said a very underrated aspect of this order is that one of the Five Elders is seen with what looks to be a pained physicality which is notable because this group almost never show any form of emotion aside from maybe mild anger. At all times they are stoic and serious and so this constitutes the only time that we have seen one of their members break that facade. And this could mean many things. It could hint that the Elders are feeling a degree of guilt for ordering the deaths of the entire island which could be a maybe dose of humanity that we don't get from them elsewhere. Then again it could also be a sign of frustration that the civilization had been able to discover all of their juicy secrets or maybe that there even could have been some intrinsic value to Ohara that we are unaware of. By the way it's fascinating. And one other point of interest while we're talking about the Ohara incident is despite the fact that it took place now 22 years ago in the current timeline the Five Elders look pretty much exactly the same now as they did then. Leading to a whole host of ideas that they may indeed be immortal or not immortal but perhaps perpetually youthful which can actually be attained in the one piece world with at least one method we know of being through the Ope Ope No Mi. And this raises a whole new world of speculation with many even positing that the Five Elders have been alive for hundreds potentially even thousands of years. None of which is anywhere near close to being confirmed but it is intriguing nonetheless. So as established these guys are pretty damn powerful but that does not make them infallible. Not at all actually because we do have several examples in the series of the Five Elders being manipulated. The most embarrassing of which would be when Spandam convinced them to allow him to seek out the blueprints for the ancient weapon Bluton which is embarrassing because you know, it's Spandam but the more prominent example would be a figure that we've mentioned once already being Dolflamingo. Now he is a former world noble who was effectively able to blackmail the Five Elders by threatening to reveal to the public an item in their possession known only as the national treasure. And the threat of this information was enough to allow Dolflamingo to manipulate the Five Elders and by association the entirety of the world government which was very apparent when he used them to announce his fake resignation from the Seven Warlords to appease Trafalgar Law. But furthermore even after Dolflamingo's defeat it is implied that the Five Elders would have done whatever they could to cover up that event for him. However, this effort was prevented by Marine Admiral Fujitora who publicly announced Dolflamingo's defeat and more importantly his corruption immediately following the event forcing the Five Elders to arrest the former world noble instead. But their strategy has been successfully implemented in the past which was when Luffy defeated Gekko Moria on Thriller Bark. In this case they made sure that no word of this was ever publicized and the Five Elders even sought to silently assassinate Moria with the idea that they would claim that Moria died during the Paramount War. And while this effort did ultimately fail it is a great example of how the Five Elders primarily operate in the shadows. Yes, even dealing with a man who can control shadows. And of course they achieve a lot of this through the dedicated cypherpulse cells including the secret CP-9 and the theoretically even more secret yet surprisingly publicly known CP-0. That is how the Five Elders carry out more straightforward tasks anyway but the bulk of their power lies directly within the marine organization. Although in this case they have to use the marines a lot more strategically given that the Five Elders have admitted that the marines are the public face of the world government. With that said, they don't really collaborate with the Fleet Admiral who to the Five Elders exists only to serve their desires which is a great source of annoyance for the current Fleet Admiral Sakazuki. I mean, I say annoyance more accurately it infuriates him because Sakazuki has an immense belief in his own justice. The efforts of which are constantly being thrown into turmoil by the decisions of the Five Elders which is important because it shows a stark disconnect between the world government and the marines. As it stands, the marines are nothing more than a tool to be wielded by the Five Elders. And just briefly when it comes to their own physical power this area is a complete unknown because they've only ever been seen standing still or sitting comfortably. However, they do possess various aesthetic cues that they have or once had the power to engage in combat on their own which can be seen in the various scars amongst them and also by the fact that one of them would appear to be a swordsman. So there is every chance that these guys are far more than a gaggle of politicians but it remains unconfirmed as of right now. And as for one of the more fascinating encounters we've ever seen regarding the Five Elders this would occur during the Reverie Arc when of all people Red-Haired Shanks requested an audience with them. And this is odd for many reasons. The biggest of which being that Shanks was one of the four emperors of the sea and thus leaders of piracy amongst the globe which Shanks representing everything the Five Elders were actively fighting against. That's not the most interesting part of this encounter though. What I find truly fascinating is that when Shanks came to visit them they more or less completely disregarded him. It's very subtle but when Shanks was in their presence they were all preoccupied with paperwork and various pieces of administration almost completely disregarding Shanks. And this might seem small but the Five Elders have never done this to anyone before. They've always shown their visitors very basic levels of respect although it may be because they were dealing with issues that directly concerned them rather than one being brought up by a guest. But it is still kind of crazy to think that you have one of the four emperors of the sea sitting in the same room as you and your main concern is paperwork. Welcome to bureaucracy. But now it's time that we definitely mention the elephant in the room. So in my introduction of the Five Elders I mentioned that they were referred to as the highest authority of the world government. This is not true. I mean this is what the general public believes but in reality there is a force even higher than that of the Five Elders which is Imu who is effectively the sole king of the entire world who sits upon the empty throne. And during the Reverie Arc it was revealed that the Five Elders were more or less servants of Imu and in his presence any impression that they hold power just evaporates in the face of this singular entity. And this was also the point where the primary goal of the Five Elders changed radically. Previously this group was all about maintaining balance but that was becoming a bit difficult to say the least. Primarily thanks to the chaos being caused by the worst generation as well as the news of a potential alliance between Big Mom and Kaido to other emperors of the sea. And in response to these events the Five Elders said the following the world's equilibrium cannot be maintained forever. The time has come for a great cleansing after which they posed a question to Imu have you decided upon another light to be erased from history? So clearly the Five Elders stars in this modern day and age of one piece are now through with passive acting and are about to enact a much more brazen strategy to continue their stranglehold on this world. And that is everything we know about the Five Elders stars. 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 until YouTube feeds. But for now this has been the ground line review and I'll see you next time.