 In the end, I did what I wanted to do. Now I have to pay the price for doing so. Otherwise, how will I be able to face the ones long gone? Now, leave the rest to me. I'm going to give you guys one final lesson. I am the hero of justice. My name is Zed. Hello, and welcome to One Piece 101, the series that breaks down everyone and everything in the One Piece world. Today, we are going to be examining the main antagonist of One Piece film Zed, Black Arm Zepha. Zepha is a rather large and intimidating man standing roughly two loophies tall and sporting some very Gurrenlagen-esque sunglasses. And right at the outset, I need to note that Zepha is not currently considered a canon character in the world of One Piece, which is very important to point out because as he is portrayed in film Zed, he is quite a prolific figure amongst the Marines. So just keep the whole non-canon thing in mind as I go through this. Zepha is initially presented to us as the leader of the Neo-Marines, an organization created out of frustration with the Marines and the world government whose mission it was to eradicate the existence of pirates and despite his, you know, questionable methodology, shall we say in regards to achieving this, Zepha is a man of strict honor and belief in greater justice. This is a belief that stems directly from his childhood as he would often stand up to bullies under the guise of a persona he created, a hero named Zed. Then at the age of 14, Zepha decided to pursue the idea of becoming a hero further and deemed that the best course of action would be to enlist in the Marines and join the fight for justice. During his younger years, Zepha fought valiantly for his ideals and he was even assigned to the G5 base located in the New World, which was particularly well known for its exceedingly brutal conditions. As time went on, Zepha climbed the Marine ranks, however, he began to realize that the idea of justice was less black and white than he had originally envisioned and took particular note that the actions of the Marines were not always correct and certainly not always heroic. Despite this, Zepha continued with the organization and at the age of 38, he reached the incredibly high rank of Admiral, a position bestowed upon only three individuals at any given time. During this period, Zepha also got married and had a child. However, this high point in Zepha's life was not to last, as three years later, his family were unfortunately killed by pirates, causing Zepha to resign his position as Admiral out of grief. In fact, at this stage, he wanted to resign from the Marines entirely, however, he was persuaded to stay within the organization and given the special rank of instructor, a mentor-like position designed to train the upcoming generation of Marines. And in this capacity, Zepha went on to inform the lives of almost every Marine we've encountered in the modern day series. I mean, just in this image, you can see Strawberry, Onigumo, Rons, and Komal, all four of whom would go on to become Vice-Admirals. But Zepha's influence even extended to the future Admiral such as Cousin and Borsalino. And so for the next 23 years, Zepha would perform as an instructor before tragedy struck once more. And his division was attacked by an infamous pirate who severed Zepha's arm and slaughtered everyone, save for Zepha and two of his subordinates, Ein and Binz. As a result, Zepha's drive to rid the world of pirates was fueled substantially and at the age of 70, Zepha received a mechanical arm, partially made of sea stone. Known as the Battle Smasher, so that he could hunt down pirates with devil fruit powers. Now this brings us into the modern era of One Piece, in which the new wave of pirates such as Luffy and the worst generation began to take prominence. However, during the two year time, skipped the pirate who severed Zepha's arm and slaughtered his division, was made into a warlord of the sea by the world government. And this was the last straw for Zepha, who now no longer saw the Marines as the path to justice. Renouncing the organization and creating the Neo Marines along with his surviving subordinates, Ein and Binz, as well as abandoning the name Zepha and adopting his childhood superhero persona, Zed. Zepha then came up with a radical plan to annihilate the entirety of the new world and thus the greater threat of piracy on the planet, by acquiring weapons of mass destruction known as the Dynastones and using them to destroy the three endpoints located in the new world, causing apocalyptic levels of subterranean magma to emerge and engulf the stretch of sea. Once again, I'd like to note that neither the Dynastones nor the endpoints at Canon in the actual series, they're just devices for film Zed to work. And also just to go on a bit of a tangent for a second, rather conveniently in the film, the Marines held the Dynastones on one of these endpoints known as Furs Island, which in retrospect seems incredibly irresponsible and very poorly thought out. Like, yeah, let's hide the weapons of mass destruction on an island that structural integrity could quite literally determine the fate of the world. I mean, whose idea was that anyway? I mean, what kind of fleet admiral would do such a thing? I guess Akazuki must have been having just a bit of an off day when he made that decision. Speaking of top-ranking Marines, though, Kizaru does appear to stop Zepha in his efforts to destroy the new world. And this gives us a taste of Zepha's power, showing us that even at the ripe old age of 74, Zepha is more than capable of holding his own against a combatant of Admiral Tear. So he succeeds in acquiring the Dynastones as well as destroying the first endpoint, but was blown away in the process and ended up being rescued by the Straw Hat Pirates. Of course, Pirates being a bit of a trigger word for Zepha, things did not work out so amicably and Zepha managed to take on Luffy, Zora and Sanji quite successfully before the Straw Hats were forced to retreat. Zepha and the Neo Marines would then encounter the Straw Hats once more on Second Island, yielding similar results, except this time Zepha understanding its significance took Luffy's hat, a big big no-no that would come back to completely ruin his plans, but for now Zepha also managed to destroy the second endpoint, bringing his ideal justice one step closer to completion. So with the first endpoint being called Furs Island and the second endpoint being called Sekon, would you all like to guess what the third endpoint was called? That's right! Periodo! Because who needs to follow established naming schemes anyway? In any case, here the Straw Hats would face off against the Neo Marines one final time, would Zepha eventually conceding defeat after a vicious slugfest with Luffy? Not only that, but his encounter with Luffy greatly shifted his black-and-white perspective on pirates, and he came to believe that Luffy was far more courageous than the Marines and developed a great respect for the Straw Hat Captain. In this moment, Zepha gave up on his ambition to destroy the New World and prepared to pay the price for his actions, going on to insist on facing a full force of Marines led by Admiral Kizarra alone, and during the ensuing conflict, Zepha met his demise, causing Marines all across the battlefield to shed a tear for their former instructor. Some more fun facts about Zepha! Despite having held the position of Admiral, Zepha does not appear to have received the typical Admiral epithet, which is a combination of a colour and an animal. Instead, he is simply referred to as Black Arm Zepha, a name that was developed as not his mastery of Armament Haki and strong preference to use it on his arms. Though he is a non-canon character, Zepha is the highest ranking Marine in the series, and its extended media, to not possess a devil fruit power. Interestingly enough, the Warlord of the Sea who claims Zepha's arm has never been revealed, and it's kind of tricky to hypothesize over who it could possibly be. The problem arises because this individual was made a Warlord of the Sea during the two-year timeskip, which eliminates any of the original Seven or Blackbeard. Now that leaves us with three options, and it's very unlikely to be Trafalgar Lux, he would have been like 16 at the time, and slaughtering an entire Division of Marines just doesn't seem like his style. And all memes aside, we know it's not Buggy because he's, well, Buggy, which leaves us with only one possible candidate being Edward Weevil, who does possess the strength and brutality to do such a thing, but at the time of making this video, we know so little about him, that labeling Weevil as the man who did this to Zepha, even in a non-canon context, is nothing but pure process of elimination. And finally, a truly useless fact, Zepha's favorite alcoholic beverage is Jerez, which most of the English-speaking Western world would know as Sherry, which is produced in the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Spain. But that pretty much does it for Zepha. 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