 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything on One Piece. And today we have something actually, well, incredibly serious to talk about and it's going to be stepping into a realm that I would not normally delve into on this channel. Because as far as I'm concerned, the Grand Line Review is meant to act as an escape from reality and a deep dive into the beautiful world of One Piece. So I'll say right at the beginning, if you are not keen to explore some fairly serious real world social matters, then this video is not for you. Click away and go and watch something more fun, which is, you know, literally every other video on this channel. However, as a One Piece exclusive channel, this is one particular issue that I don't think I'm allowed to ignore in this position. And everything begins with this tweet from Weekly Shonown Jump stating that on April 24th, there will be an interview conducted between Ed Sheeran Oda, the creator of One Piece obviously, and Nobuhiro Watsuki. And out of context, you know, this is a very standard tweet announcing something of mild interest. Now, if you do not know who Nobuhiro Watsuki is, which I'd wager a fair few of you don't, he is the mangaka of Rouni Kenshin, which during its time was an incredibly popular and influential series, and Oda actually served as an assistant on Kenshin before he launched into One Piece. In fact, Watsuki even put a little straw hat Jolly Roger into Kenshin, as a way of bidding his former assistant the best of luck. Now, I also want to say upfront that Rouni Kenshin is one of my favorite manga series of all time, and one of the very few that I own in its entirety. And when I say entirety, I mean the original run. But this is the series that sparked my interest in reading manga, rather than just watching anime, and it will forever hold a special place in my heart because of that. However, in November 2017, Nobuhiro Watsuki was found in possession of DVDs, which contained, how shall we put this, footage of exposed underaged individuals, and I say it like that purely because YouTube is mad about demonetizing words that even hint towards any form of controversy. But in any case, Watsuki was subsequently charged with the possession of such materials, and he was made to pay a fine of 200,000 yen, which is just under 2000 US dollars. And not even one year after this event, Rouni Kenshin, which was now being published again prior to Watsuki's charges, was resumed in June of 2018. Now, for those of you who believe that this punishment is very light, then I would say you're quite correct, because the Western perspective on the matter takes possession a lot more seriously. Although not as seriously as I thought to be honest, because looking at the law in my home state of New South Wales in Australia, the maximum penalty for possession would be a fine of 11,000 Australian dollars, or two years imprisonment, or both. And from what I'm aware, America has a maximum of four years imprisonment. And of course, this varies according to the severity of the offense, and possession is absolutely not to be mixed up with distribution and creation, which carry an incredibly and justifiably severe consequence. And that's just me pointing out the facts of this matter. I want to make clear that I am in no way making excuses for Watsuki has done or the penalty that he was issued. I personally believe that it is far too soft of an approach, because you know, it's tempting to think of possession of this material as you know, like a light crime. But the greater context of the situation is that possession is what propagates creation and distribution, thus resulting in the continued abuse of children for profit. And well, yeah, I never thought I'd be saying that sentence on this fun one piece channel, but that's just where I stand. Because if you can just pay 2000 dollars to get out of something like this, as you apparently can in Japan, then the punishment is almost not even really a threat, especially if you are a supremely wealthy manga car. I suppose the more damaging aspect of the matter would be public opinion of you, which doesn't feel like it really matters at all either in Japan because Kenshin was put on hiatus and then promptly restarted not even 8 months later after this whole thing had apparently blown over. So now let's cut to 2020 and we have this announcement from Weekly Shounen Jump, and with all of the context that I've given you, all of a sudden this tweet takes on a very different meaning. And the current argument that has resulted from this is less anything to do with Watsuki, because he has been universally condemned for his actions, but the focus here is on Oda. And more specifically, this action being taken as a sign of support for Watsuki and what that says about Oda as a result. And we do have extreme arguments for both sides, with people claiming that this is clearly a show of Oda supporting the abuse of children and even spreading a cancel Oda hashtag. Whilst on the other end of the spectrum, many could not care less about this and just want to enjoy some fine fine manga. And as is life, I think the situation is a lot more nuanced than either of those very simplistic views. Now I personally am not inclined to immediately assume the worst about Oda, and yes I have a huge bias in this discussion because I am supremely obsessed with Oda's work, but at the same time I am very very disappointed by this public interview. And the situation might be different if at any point Oda had issued a statement decrying what Watsuki had done, but that simply, you know, is not the Japanese style. Yes, in the Western world where someone is convicted of such crime, all of those around them are pressed for statements, but the Japanese response is to remain as an iron wall of silence and not just regarding serious issues like this, but about pretty much everything. The Japanese greatly value their privacy, which in some cases is fair enough, but that makes it very difficult as a Western fan to see something like this because we have very information publicly available, and when those morsels of information are juxtaposed in our minds, then all we have to work with is one, Watsuki is convicted of this crime, and two, Watsuki and Oda engage in a fun good times interview. That is effectively all we have to form an impression, and the resulting impression is not good. Now I have seen attempted defences on Twitter which claim that Watsuki's crime was only recently made a crime by Japanese law in 2015. This is a bad defense, because it focuses on reducing the severity of the crime in order to exonerate Oda's actions, and that is not going to work, because regardless of when it became illegal or honestly even if it was still legal in Japan, this is still one of the rare issues that humanity at large can coalesce around and universally condemn. There aren't many of those issues, so this is pretty big. But it is here that I do have to bring up once again that I, as with most of English-speaking Twitter, are seeing this from a purely Western perspective, and that information regarding when this was actually made illegal is enlightening to some degree, because it causes a glimpse into Japanese culture, which is something that I have never been able to crack in all of my time as an anime and manga fan. I've consumed so much of their media, their history, and their modern events, but to this day I still have no idea why they do half the crap they do. So this situation is an indicator that their society at large whilst finding underage material socially unacceptable, at the same time they're fairly willing to tolerate it, and that can also be seen reflected in the anime and manga industry, which frequently champion sexualizing child characters. And just while we're on this fun fact, in my country of Australia at the moment, one senator has even brought this up as a concern, because in Australia any depiction of children in these situations is put in equivalence to real life material, and that is definitely not the case in Japan. But at the moment we may very much be facing a national review of all anime and manga available in the country, so thank you very much Eremaga-sensei for that. Back to the issue at hand though, what goes on to compound this situation is an event that took place way back in 2002 when Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro was convicted of a significantly more serious crime in which he actually paid an underage individual to engage in sexual relations, for which he was given a two-year suspended prison sentence, which means that rather than going to prison, Shimabukuro had to serve out a probation period, so as long as he was on very good behavior during that time, you could also argue that there was no punishment issued here whatsoever. And he was also allowed to continue his career as a manga car, and in 2008 he began serialization of a little series called Toriko, which became wildly popular, and it is on the record that Shimabukuro and Oda are allegedly good friends, and they even worked together in 2011 to come up with a one-piece Toriko crossover one-shot. And at this point you would be really stretching to defend Oda because it is apparent that he is now on good terms with two individuals convicted of underage sex offenses. But the reason why I brought up cultural differences before is to hopefully dispel the idea that we should completely vilify Oda for engaging in an interview with Watsuki and even being on good terms with Shimabukuro. Because really sadly, according to the law of Japan, they have both been sufficiently punished and according to the social standards of Japan, this is evidently not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, both of which would be at play in the mind of Oda subconsciously, and therefore, and I know this sounds incredibly shocking to us, but he may legitimately believe that he is not doing anything wrong. That's just how Japan might be, in which case this is not an individual problem with Oda that we need to examine, but a much larger systematic issue that needs to be tackled head on, which is sadly not something that this channel is equipped to do. Now with all of that said, should we as Westerners simply accept this as a cultural difference and move on? Absolutely not. We as a society have our own set of core values, and one of those values is that we do not condone the abuse of children or any individual who assists or normalizes that behavior, and from my personal perspective, Oda is indeed engaging in the latter. By sitting down with Watsuki and collaborating with Shimabukuro, he is whether he's doing it knowingly or not, normalizing the issue. I find that problematic and wildly unhelpful to say the least, which is why I feel such a great sense of disappointment to see this tweet. But at the same time, I do not agree with any call to cancel Oda or to address him as an apologist, because I do believe these are not his intentions going into this. And yes, maybe I am just incredibly naive, but my belief is that Oda is just another cog in the machine of Japanese society, and from his perspective, these issues have been settled. So once again, this is a problem that a simple one piece channel cannot tackle, but a conversation that I believe we really do need to start having as a global society. And the last thing I'd like to go into is the importance of separating art from the artist. I can't deny that my thoughts on Roroni Kenshin have changed ever since the Watsuki incident. Every time I glance at those volumes on my shelf, I am reminded of what he did, and it does sadly have an impact on the work at hand. But I can't deny the influence that Kenshin had on my life, nor the amazing experiences it gave me when I was a teenager first reading it, and where it has led me today. My thoughts on Watsuki himself, however, have changed. And even though I generally believe in a society where people can receive their appropriate punishment and be reformed, I don't think I'll ever be able to look at him the same way again. And that is kind of where I am with One Piece, although not to the same degree at all. Nothing of One Piece has been lost from this situation. I still believe that it is the greatest manga ever put to page, and quite possibly may never be equaled. At least probably not in my lifetime. But culturally generated or not, I will never agree with the stance that Oda has publicly adopted, which has the effect of normalizing the behaviour of people like Watsuki and Shimabukuro. And I understand that many of you feel the same way, but my only hope coming out of this situation is that you are also able to separate the individual from their work. And that pretty much does it for this awful but necessary discussion on the recent controversy surrounding Etchera Oda. If you somehow enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general, which I assure you is usually much more fun than this, no promise, then please do consider donating to the Grand Line review Patreon, because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. And if you'd like to see more videos like this, except definitely not like this, but applied to other anime mark series, then please do feel free to check out my second channel New World Review for all of your wider needs. And if you'd like to join the fun at any time, then please do head over to my Discord server, where a wide array of shenanigans takes place on a daily basis. And finally please do comment with your own thoughts on the Etchera Oda controversy. This has been the Grand Line review, and I'll see you next time.