 Luffy and Usopp present one of the best friendships in all of media. The two go together like wine and cheese, or pasta and cheese, or cheese and other cheese, or most importantly, like you and the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review, the greatest friendship of all, which will result in regular One Piece content being uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, yourselves for everything One Piece, and today we are going to continue our exploration into the more detailed depths of relationships between straw hats. And today we have quite a powerful and often underrated one, as we are going to dive into the Captain and the Sniper. Now previously I have described Luffy's relationship with Zoro and Nami as more of a respective partnership. In each of those cases, Zoro and Nami brings a compounding quality to Luffy, and they almost fuse together to create a sort of unbeatable presence on land, as well as on sea. However, Usopp is quite different. Yes, he does possess a whole host of qualities that Luffy does not, but in this case, I would describe this duo as a tale of best friends. In fact, Luffy and Usopp is a really fascinating examination right from the beginning, because Usopp would have been the first straw hat who just immediately hit it off with Luffy. Thinking back on it, Zoro more or less told Luffy to f off the first time, and Luffy pretty much told Nami to f off on their initial meeting, but with Usopp they just immediately decided to go and eat together. Wildly amicable in comparison to the meeting of every other straw hat, except Broke actually, that was pretty amicable, and it's because these personalities whilst incredibly different are a near perfect fit for one another. You know, there's this really fun dynamic where Usopp gets swept up in Luffy's adventurous nature, while Luffy often gets swept up in Usopp's imagination. And this works really well, because as we all know by now, Luffy is the kind of guy who dreams bigger than most people, if not all people. He has aimed directly for the top of this world in regards to his goal of becoming the Pirate King, but each and every time he hears of something dangerous, impossible, or potentially entirely fabricated, he latches onto it with an intense desire to explore and conquer it. He's the kind of guy who hears a tale about an island existing in the sky and is willing to risk everything on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, it does exist. And Usopp is able to feed this part of Luffy. Usopp is capable of stoking his captain's imagination like nobody else, primarily through the realm of exorbitant lies, and at the same time Luffy believing these lies feeds into Usopp, forming a very dangerous almost childlike combination really. Because with the addition of chopper, Luffy and Usopp make up the easily carried away trio of the crew, and form this band of dreamers unrestricted by any kind of logic or reality, and as such they primarily just have a lot of fun together. And weirdly enough, fun is a pretty new word for these relationship explorations, because I actually would not describe Luffy's relationships with half of the crew as primarily fun, but when it comes to Usopp, this is what they've got, two best friends exploring the world together. Although that does come with some very interesting implications for Usopp, because as much as these two heavily click, there is a stark stark line drawn between the captain and the sniper, the most obvious feature of which would be the juxtaposition of bravery and cowardice. When thinking about Luffy, I find it difficult to identify a time in the series where he has been scared, and I mean truly scared. I'm not talking about the more comical stuff like running into zombies on thriller bark, or being afraid of suffering the comical wrath of Nami. When it comes down to it, Luffy will very willingly walk into any kind of danger that he is presented with. Consequences be damned, and maybe bravery is not necessarily the right word for that, because in theory you do need to actually be scared to enact bravery. But Luffy has this quality that Usopp is spending the entire series simply trying to attain. Luffy just had this from the get go, whereas Usopp is struck with fear in almost every given circumstance, and would be unwilling to walk into a mildly dimly lit cave, much less all of the insane stuff that Luffy takes on. And Usopp holds great admiration for Luffy because of that. In some ways you may even be able to consider it a student teacher dynamic, because Usopp spends a lot of time in the background very much observing Luffy, and more often than not he will spawn his own courage as a direct result of watching Luffy in action. That, or simply being in close proximity to Luffy, kind of just forces him into acting, which you know is just a former very extreme exposure therapy really. However before we dive into that aspect in a bit more detail, I would like to point out one other key difference, because it isn't just Luffy bringing something to the table for Usopp here, it very much works the other way around as well. Usopp might not be the greatest of individuals in the area of combat, bravery or intelligence, but what he offers in terms of utility is priceless. When you think about it, Usopp is a very enviable character, because his skills cover such a wide breadth of areas, from engineering to the arts. And a fantastic example of this would be the straw hat Jelly Roger. This is Usopp's creation, following Luffy's design brief of course, but still to think that our Sniper is the man responsible for crafting what will surely become one of the world's most recognizable pirate symbols is extraordinary. And that is just one of many many examples of Usopp's utility and sheer ability. The subtleties and skills required for which will always be completely locked off to a figure like Luffy. And Luffy might be um questionably intelligent, but he is more than aware of that as well. And that is part of the reason for his enduring faith in Usopp, which is a particular brand of faith that I'm not so sure any other straw hat, or even readers or watchers of the series initially had an old Usopp. I mean to put it quite blatantly, he was a coward, a liar, and evidently quite physically weak. He did not seem like the kind of figure who you would want to entrust an issue of any brand of importance to. And that's of course your Luffy, because for whatever reason our rubber lad in his infinite wisdom places 100% unconditional trust in Usopp. And that is a super powerful thing, and that trust is reciprocated. As a result of his experiences and permanent admiration of his best friend, Usopp has 100% faith in Luffy as well, which would even culminate in a particularly famous scene on Alabasta, where Usopp was told that Luffy had been killed, and he just flat out refused to believe it. But why did he do that? Last time we saw Luffy, he was facing off one on one against a wall out of the sea, whose ability seemed insurmountable, and the captain had not been seen since. All of the available evidence would point to Luffy having been killed or at the very least, being defeated and down for the count. But in Usopp's mind, that was never even a possibility, which I find amazing given that Usopp's brain tends to always move to the worst-case scenario possible when thinking about himself. However, the best part was yet to come because following that, Usopp used this faith in Luffy as his own driving force to muster the bravery and endurance to eventually defeat Miss Merry Christmas and Mr. Four, which was an incredible step forward in his own personal journey of growth. And the moment in which I would personally pinpoint in the series, that I began to take Usopp seriously. And he only continued to grow from here, because Luffy has consistently forced Usopp out of his comfort zone and into situations where he is tackling and overcoming greater and greater senses of fear. So this is a heavily symbiotic relationship. Usopp feeds Luffy's imagination and more juvenile side, while at the same time Luffy is guiding Usopp on his journey to become the brave adult warrior of the sea that he one day dreams of being. But if that's all there was to it, then I'm not sure that this video would have been worth making, because there is another massive layer yet to come. Luffy and Usopp is not a flat story, I've shown them best friends who just get along at all times, and in fact this relationship has completely broken down on one occasion during the Water Seven Arc. And I really cannot emphasise this moment enough, because this is the first and only time that Luffy has experienced an internal conflict on this level. I mean yes, other straw hats have left the crew like Sanji and Robin, but there were much greater outside forces facilitating that, and actually just outright blackmailing them. Whereas Usopp made the choice to leave in order to fight for his beliefs. That is a very, very different situation. This was a case where Usopp profoundly disagreed with Luffy's philosophy in regards to the Going Merry, which Usopp had always treated as a genuine crew member. And this is because he was always much more connected to the ship than any other member, having it being gifted to them by Kaia, and even acting as a makeshift shipwright prior to the existence of Frankie. Usopp had a really strong relationship with the Going Merry, and in this case from his perspective, Luffy was far too willing to leave a wounded friend on the battlefield, and that played heavily on his mind because of Usopp's own weakness. And at one point, Usopp even questioned if Luffy would do the same to him, because that is how Usopp saw himself, a weak link of the straw hats. And if Luffy was willing to do this to one of his comrades, then why wouldn't he do the same to Usopp? Now in this situation I personally feel like both were right and both were wrong, which is fine in the context of friendship and is almost often the case, but unfortunately there is also a crew structure to consider here. A disagreement between friends is one thing, but under this umbrella, this was an outright mutiny against the decision of the captain. Regardless of whether Luffy was right or whether he was wrong, this was a breakdown of crew hierarchy, one that was only made possible via the extremely close friendship that Luffy and Usopp had built up. And that put Luffy in a really rough position as well, because the decision to let go of Mary was not made lightly, and so this disagreement between friends eventually devolved into a full on fist fight, which I would like to say, even though it was under very unpleasant circumstances, also very much served to evolve both of these characters. Usopp for quite probably the first time in his life was knowingly facing off against a stronger opponent without a single shred of fear, because he felt that his ideals were worth fighting for. Meanwhile, Luffy was put in a position where his place as captain was being stress tested. A test which he would go on to pass, albeit barely. And after the conclusion of this, Usopp left the crew and faced a life on his own for a while anyway, which is a pretty terrifying thought from his perspective. A weak coward all on his own within the grand line, but this time on his own would also lead him into grand acts of bravery, some that he simply may not have been capable of if he was still a member of the Straw Hat Pirates. Such as getting involved in the events of the sea train or any slobby, putting his life directly on the line against impossible odds for the sake of Robin. But speaking of any slobby, the Luffy-Usopp relationship was effectively the key to victory on this island, because faced with the overwhelming power of Robbucci, there was a moment where it looked like Luffy was down and out. Where rather uncharacteristically, Luffy was mentally broken and simply thought that he could not go on, and as such the entire rescue Robin endeavour was on the verge of absolute failure. But it was in that moment with every other crew member fighting for their lives, where it fell to Usopp to do what Usopp does best and flame the fire that is Luffy. He delivered what is hands down one of the greatest speeches in One Piece, and at least in my eyes, he is directly responsible for Luffy's eventual victory over Robbucci. Without Usopp and without that relationship, One Piece probably ends during the any slobby arc. That is how powerful this bond is. And of course, the two would then go on to reconcile with Usopp admitting that he was wrong and asking to rejoin the crew. And the moment that the Captain and the Sniper were properly reunited was a powerful one indeed. And this is because some of the strongest connections in this world are forged through tough experiences like these. I don't know a single couple or pair of best friends who have not had at least one major potentially relationship-ending experience, but once they got past that, their bond had not only strengthened, but become nigh on invincible. And this is the position that we find Luffy and Usopp in today. Sadly, as with many post-Time Skip straw hat interactions, this one hasn't been particularly expanded on because throughout the New World Era arcs, Luffy and Usopp have been generally kept separate from each other, even in ones where they're both on the same island like Dressrosa, Fishman Island, Punk Hazard, and of course, Wano. But even though we don't blatantly see it as much, you can still feel this bond between them. No matter where they are, Luffy and Usopp still retain that unconditional belief in one another. That is why Usopp is able to operate these days in the context of Wano. Faced with the prospect of going up directly against Kaido, a figure who is quite literally referred to as the strongest living creature in One Piece, but what does that even matter? Usopp is still going to act without a single doubt in Luffy's abilities. Meanwhile, Luffy's stance has not changed one bit since the early days of Zero Village. Luffy always has and always will believe in Usopp, and thus propagating one of the strongest friendships in the entirety of the series. 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, upload it straight until YouTube feeds. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.