 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today it's time to get into our favourite long-nosed sniper of the crew, being Mr. Usopp. Now I wanted to spend some time focusing on him because despite being a member of the straw hat, I do feel like he often gets quite neglected within the fanbase, in favour of placing attention onto characters like, say, the monster trio, which you know I myself am incredibly guilty of, being Azora Fanboy. But Usopp is actually responsible for some of the most hard-hitting moments in the series, because the thing about him is that he is the closest thing that the readers and watchers of One Piece have to a truly human character. He doesn't have any exceptional power or wild talents outside of a couple of hobby interests, but he takes what he has and he manages to make a profound influence on the series regardless. So it's time to give this man the credit he deserves. Now as you can imagine, the criteria for this list is incredibly simple. A top 5 Usopp moment needs only to be a point in the series where a radical zing of impact was achieved through the actions of Usopp himself. Very importantly though, all moments on this list must be canon which may be annoying to some of you and you know I won't say why, but there is a very prolific non-canon Usopp moment. If you've seen it, you know what it is, but we won't be delving into it here. But with that out of the way, let's begin. Welcome to the top 5 greatest Usopp moments in One Piece. 5. The Alabaster Speech Now this event to me is incredibly significant because it signalled the first time in the series that I began to see the incredible potential of Usopp as a character. Up until this point, I have to say I more or less tolerated him as part of the crew. I mean, yeah, he was a pretty funny guy, but his cowardice and overall design just didn't suit my own personal tastes. However, everything changed during the Alabaster Arc. Here is where Usopp put his true beliefs on full display and stood up against seemingly impossible odds because while Mr. Four and Ms. Merry Christmas may seem like a bit of a joke in the modern era of One Piece, at the time these were incredibly deadly opponents and they even managed to strike Usopp square in the face with a 4-ton bat. But this pair made one huge mistake and that was laughing at Luffy's dream to become the pirate king. This caused Usopp's mindset to change entirely from his usual cowardly self to supporting his more deeply rooted ideals no matter what the cost. And this is epitomized in his speech. There comes a time when a man's got to fight and that's when somebody makes fun of their friend's dream. Luffy can't die because he's going to be the king of the pirates. And that is the one thing I won't let you laugh at. And this speech gets me every single time. Because it's just such a beautiful moment of Usopp acting in a completely selfless manner and displaying his unwavering faith in Luffy. Which you know all the straw hats do at some point in the series, but this was very early on and becoming the pirate king was a big call. And for all intents and purposes, Luffy and Usopp were just teeny tiny specks on this planet of absurd individuals to overcome. But even so, Usopp was ready and willing to put his life on the line, not for his own sake and not even for the sake of Luffy's life, but for the simple concept of his right to not be laughed at because his ambitions are higher than most. And of course, this simultaneously defends his own dream to become a brave warrior of the sea because such an individual would never allow their friend's ambitions to be mocked. This is 100% pure Usopp and certainly one of his finest moments in the series. Number 4 Usopp vs Luffy Moving on to a complete contrast from our previous entry, the number 4 contender actually spawns from a point in time where Usopp had no faith in Luffy and strongly questioned his decision making as a captain. Which was to say goodbye to the going Merry, which Usopp considered a comrade, as much as any other member of the crew. And this one is a bit tricky because Usopp was both right and wrong in this instance, as was Luffy. Guess you know Luffy didn't quite recognize Merry's emotional importance to the crew and Usopp failed to see any form of logic behind his blind initial reaction, which was one of disgust and betrayal. However this resulted in Usopp standing up once again for his own beliefs, but this time he was standing up to one of the people that he admires most in this world. Regardless of his ill feelings towards Luffy at this point, this would have taken tremendous courage, especially coming from a man who just a couple of arcs ago, or the stoic belief that Luffy would be the one to do the impossible and become the pirate king. How are you supposed to stand up to that? But Usopp confronted him anyway, and began what is probably one of the most painful fights in the series to read or watch from the perspective of the audience. However to Usopp's eternal credit, this is another one of those times in the series where he really rose to the occasion and used the skills that he had at his disposal to put up a solid fight against Luffy. Usopp invoked his intelligence, his craftsmanship and his marksmanship to take advantage of this battle as best he could, using his knowledge of Luffy's combat style to great effect. In fact, it's undeniable that Usopp held complete control of this conflict for 99% of it, before Luffy, finally, after a great deal of endurance, broke through. And at this particular moment it became clear that Usopp had never stood a chance. Even with everything he had, defeating Luffy was out of the question, but he fought anyway. He fought proudly for the sake of a comrade and took this loss like the brave warrior of the sea that he one day intends to be. Number 3 I am about to become your legendary hero. Skipping a fair way to dress Rosa now and of everything I'll be exploring on this list, I think this is probably one of the more underrated moments of Usopp in the series. In fact, when the words dress Rosa and Usopp appear in the same sentence, the thought is usually from him awakening his observation haki or the initial quote unquote defeat of sugar. But to me, the moment preceding all of that is everything. So dress Rosa and Usopp were a frustrating combination for me in the beginning because it was annoying that after everything we'd been through and even post timeskip, that Usopp was still acting extremely, extremely cowardly. In fact, there's a whole chapter that just ends on Usopp running away from facing sugar and treble. And plus to that point, he'd been blatantly lying about being a hero and raising the hopes of the Tontata tribe to insane and unfulfillable levels. And while that was incredibly frustrating to read on a weekly basis, all of that was planted solely to serve Usopp's resolve. Because when the tribe refused to stop believing in him, even when it was painfully clear that he was lying, Usopp had another one of those snap moments as he turned around and revealed that he'd been lying about being a hero this entire time. However, to redeem himself, he thrust himself into combat with the following words. My name is Usopp. Remember that, Tontatas. And if I should die, then build me a statue next to Nolan's because I'm about to become your legendary hero. And that was just wow. After what it felt like some gigantic steps back in Usopp's character development, he took one massive leap forward. And while it did not result in the same sort of success as Alabasta, this resolve is what started a chain of events that saw the entire downfall of Dolph Lamingo on Dressrosa. Without Usopp finding his bravery in this one moment here, sugar does not go down. And so the Colosseum fighters do not get revived. And so the straw hearts and lore likely become overwhelmed by the full force of the Don Quixote pirates. Usopp is the undeniable MVP of Dressrosa. And on this occasion, he did get his due recognition, earning the epithet of God Usopp and the eventual bounty of 200 million berries. Number two, this isn't the afterlife. Heading backwards now to any slobby, we have another speech as well as another proud MVP moment for Usopp. For some context here, this had taken place after the Luffy versus Usopp fight. And Usopp was not technically a member of the crew anymore. Regardless, he still came along to any slobby in order to save Robin. But when he saw that Luffy was in trouble and on the verge of losing to Rob Lucci, he put all of his animosity aside in a moment of pure desperation to see his friend through this battle. And the ensuing dialogue is monumental, with Usopp demanding that Luffy get up and even challenging Rob Lucci to fight him himself. And when Luffy responded that Lucci would easily kill him, Usopp rather uncharacteristically just snapped back saying, well, what are you going to do? You're half dead. And when Luffy replied that he was going to beat Lucci, Usopp gave him the final words he needed to hear. Then stand up. Stop lying there like a dying man. It's not like you. Sure, there's a lot of black smoke, but you can still see the blue sky and the sea. This isn't the afterlife. Stop acting like this is the end. Win this battle Luffy. We're all going back together. And that was that. Even at the lowest point in their relationship and faced with one of the most hopeless situations one could ask for, Usopp, the most timid member of the crew, was the one to pull Luffy out of that darkness to stand up and deliver the final blow. Definitely an awe-inspiring Usopp moment. Number one. Shoot down the flag. Now I think that some people may be a bit disappointed to see this at number one, especially considering the grand actions we've already explored. This moment has no profound speech or any need for conjured bravery. It's actually incredibly simple, perhaps even deceptively simple because it's Usopp following Luffy's orders to destroy the flag of the world government and in effect declaring war on the entire world. But what I love about this is Usopp's complete lack of hesitation to complete the command. He knows exactly what the consequences of his actions will be, but he does it anyway without a second thought. It's kind of like the culmination of everything we've discussed so far on this list. It demonstrates Usopp's faith in his crew, his desire to protect his friends, as well as his ideals to become a brave warrior of the sea, and it perfectly embodies the person Usopp wants to become one day, albeit behind the mask of Saga King. But it's also a complete rejection of everything that the established world stands for. It signals Usopp's intentions to achieve the dreams of both he and his crewmates, no matter what foe stands in their way, and with that in mind, why not literally make an enemy of the world? The world was already their enemy anyway. So look, I dunno, some of you may disagree with this placement, but to me, there is no greater crowning Usopp moment. This is everything he stands for wrapped up in a neat little package. Plus how cool is it that of all of the straw hats, Usopp is the one that got to declare war on the world government. Pretty damn amazing, and no doubt going to be a key chapter in the legend of Usopp. But that pretty much does it for the top 5 greatest Usopp moments in One Piece. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces in general, 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 but are planned to other anime and manga series, then please do 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 shenanigan retakes place on a daily basis. And finally, please do comment with your own favorite Usopp moments in the series. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time. Let's say you were to come back from the afterlife, One Piece were talking, would you want to be an undead with a spectacular afro? Look to be perfectly honest with you, I'm not sure if there would even be another option. I have no idea why you wouldn't want to be an undead skeleton with an afro, and in fact if it were an option prior to death, I'm sure that's the road we would all take. How much time does it take you to make a chapter review? So it depends, mostly on how much I want to talk about. I guess if I was to average it out it probably takes somewhere between three to five hours to make and release a chapter review immediately after reading it. Most of that time is spent writing and depending on how much there is to digest in the chapter, it could go on for a while. Recording is by far the shortest stage, which takes 10 to 20 minutes, so so good. And editing I'd usually say is probably about an hour to an hour and a half. Although I should say that chapter reviews are much easier to edit than any other type of video I do, because I don't need to change the images as often. So it does end up feeling mercifully swift. Here is a question. What? Oh it's certainly a question. Well done.