 The following is a recipe for the perfect one-piece banquet. One, delicious tangerines. Two, miscellaneous meat. Three, an abundance of monchi. Four, subscribing to the Grand Line Review for regular one-piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed, which is a pun because they use the word feed when talking about food. Five, cotton candy. And finally, an adequate chef to prepare a feast worthy of a pirate king. Hello, and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. And today we are here to talk about food. Yes, delicious food. Delicious two-dimensional food, that is. And whilst this might seem like something of a strange topic, I mean, if everything we could focus on in the series, why edibles? Well, that's because food is a very heavily underrated aspect of one piece and life in general. And I'm not just talking about the obvious ways either like how Sanji's entire character ambition is based around the idea of being a chef or even things like the wedding cake on Hall Cake Island, which was arguably the most important and most delicious point of that mega arc. No, we don't even need to go into either of those two obvious examples because Oda has masterfully used food as a storytelling tool in one piece to convey an entire world of differing emotions. And for some very broad examples, food is often used for great comic effect, but at the same time, Oda is capable of generating incredible drama. And on the odd occasion, food even becomes the centerpiece of great action scenes. And look, I'll admit that that last one is much more rare, but seriously, give me a saga, any saga in this far series, and there will be an idea that is explored that is intrinsically linked to food and the power that it holds in a particular situation. Although interestingly enough, you don't necessarily need to because someone has already accomplished that grand task for us, which is a sponsor for this video, Feast. A one-piece food scene celebrating various cuisines and memories created throughout this incredible two-decade journey. It contains over 140 pages of content by artists, writers, chefs, and graphic designers. But most importantly, it is a project made by one-piece fans, for one-piece fans. And they are currently open for pre-orders with a link in the description below and there's also a very funky 10% discount code for all of you, which is simply grand line review. And I do want to show off the scene a bit more later because our scenes have come an awfully long way since I was involved with them, but back to the primary issue at hand. The really difficult thing about world building is that authors and artists need to spend ludicrous amounts of time flashing out minuscule factors like architecture, culture, wildlife, flora, and yes, food. And where many overly ambitious series tend to fall flat is by not putting effort into these details. Whereas in one-piece, you can tell an awful lot about a location based solely on what kind of food choices there. Let's take Kokuyashi Village, for example. The most memorable type of food found there would be Belmere's tangerines, which tells us that this village is self-sufficient, fairly rural in nature, and also that the people, particularly Belmere, are quite financially poor, but full of a direct connection to life that you just don't get in a city-style setting where meals are manufactured for you. There's an awful lot of information that Oda is able to convey through a simple fruit plantation. And not to mention that she had drama created by it, because remember that Arlong only caught on to Belmere's existence because she was cooking a special meal for Nami to make amends with her. But when it comes to drama, one-piece is a masterclass of using food as a centerpiece, which sometimes has entire arcs based around them like Baratier. I mean, how many of you remember seeing Sanji see food fried rice and just having your mouth water as if you were on the verge of starvation yourself, like Geen, and the tears of joy that flowed freely from his eyes because this dish did not just represent the brief fulfillment of hunger, but the gift of life that Sanji had given him. And you can also turn to Drum Island for a very similarly touching situation where Chopper wakes up to discover a simple piece of bread sitting next to him, waiting patiently and freely to be consumed. And despite the fact that this really is the most basic of foods, Chopper is overwhelmed by kindness and once again, the gift of life that this bread represents. And this concept goes far beyond classic one-piece and we can see it in action on a whole cake island where Luffy made the vow not to eat until Sanji had returned. But of course, even in the modern times of Wano, food is effectively the catalyst of most of the drama on the island. Their citizens are starving and that is epitomized in Tama, who was one of Luffy's greatest driving forces to act. So without this food focus, Wano would lose an incredible layer of drama. And it's actually insane just how many of the most profound pieces of heart-tugging drama in one piece actually revolve around food. But that's not all that Oda is capable of using it for. He can conjure great tragedy, yes, but he can also move to the other end of the spectrum and use food to produce great joy. And quite possibly the most prominent examples of this would be the end of most major arcs where the Straw Hearts and whoever their newfound allies are throw a gigantic party which is always characterized by an abundance of food because food is life. And in many cases, food is directly linked to happiness. Or at least that appears to be Oda's mantra surrounding it because nobody is ever happier in the series than when they are surrounded by a feast. In many arcs and sagas, this is a natural full stop to the experience. And you know what Luffy's path through these pieces of story can very much be described with the following four E's. Explore, engage, eradicate and eat. Explore his new surroundings, engage with the locals, eradicate whatever threat is there and eat himself into unconscious oblivion. It's a very appealing model and I feel like very few authors understand the importance of food in world building to the extent that a true Oda does. But I mean, that's just the world building segment and food can also go on to heavily inform and compliment your characters. I think one of the things that Oda does so well is consciously choose a favorite food for every character, even the minor ones. And while this information may seem like a useless tidbit found in data books, it really is quite enlightening in a lot of cases. For example, did you know that Dolph Lamingo's favorite meal is lobster? And that makes an awful lot of sense because lobster is very expensive and generally considered one of the finest E foods which hints at Dolph Lamingo's past as a world noble. He enjoys the nicer things that the world has to offer and he has the resources to acquire them. Well, let's take Whitebeard for example. His favorite is much less specific but it's a combination of sake and cheap food, the latter of which speaks to his upbringing as an incredibly poor orphan and also even as an emperor of the sea with boundless resources at his disposal, Whitebeard seems to have this innate nostalgia for the cheap food of his childhood. Or perhaps it was a more conscious decision to not spend too much money on edibles because he knows the true value of a berry. But my point is that you can extrapolate quite a lot about a character with such seemingly trivial information regarding what they like to eat. And to list a few more, you have Broggy who enjoys beer and triceratops meat which tells me that he likes to live life to quite a grand degree. Or St. Charles who loves luxurious soft ice cream. Further indicating just how much of a pretentious brick he is. And not only that, but one piece also gets to the point where you can do things the other way around and identify characters based on their favorite meal alone. So for example, let's look at the straw habento that Sanchi made on Whole Cake Island. And really, when I look at this box, I don't see food, I see characters. And to list a few, obviously the meat represents Luffy, very basic and larger than life. Then you see a hamburger down there and that's definitely Frankie, you know, oversized and stuffed with hidden features. And then the sandwiches right next to the burger are clearly Robin because they represent an understated yet refined feel. And I just love that you can discern this sort of information from once again, very seemingly trivial and an incredibly overlooked element of the series. And that brings us back to the people who have conveyed this idea far better than I could to be honest, being the producers of Feast. And when I first heard about this, I had the same reaction that you probably all had to the title of this video. Why focus on food? And while this scene answers that pretty succinctly by taking us on a journey through the series from East Blue all the way to Fishman Island. Stopping in at every major location along the way to examine their particular cuisines accompanied by stunning illustrations from some absurdly talented artists. And they were kind enough not only to send me the scene itself which is a pretty hefty book actually. It's thick in the best possible way. So what would that be? Like a thick with two C's and no K I guess. But they actually sent me a ton of other merchandise available with the scene including these really cool acrylic charms like this 1000 Sonny in a bottle or a dangling Luffy. And you know where all of these are going right on my Christmas tree which will annoy my wife to no end because we already have quite a few one piece decorations. And there's also an assortment of postcards and fun sticker sheets which look so many key moments of food drama that I've mentioned in this video like Chopper and Geen. And wow, I completely forgot about Zoro and the Onigiri actually. And it just doesn't stop because these guys have gone all out with this concept even including some faux Polaroids of daily life food moments. My favorite of which is definitely this one because that look on Karoo's face is just like, yeah, this guy's kind of weirding me out. Bossecute little acrylic standy and oh my God, is that a mini Momo that Sanji is serving to the crew? Dark times, man, dark times. Plus posters and just so much. And I take the time to point all of this out because this is a pretty massive undertaking and a true love letter to one piece. So I highly recommend that you will check it out. And once again, the link is in the description and don't forget the 10% discount code being grand line review. But really I think that no exploration of food in one piece is complete without actually engaging in the simple practice of eating. And quite wonderfully, the feast scene also features many recipes for one piece food. So for example, you can actually learn to cook Sanji's famous seafood fried rice, which I love. But the thing that really took my eye was the miso miso meat that features in the water seven section. And I think that's the one that I'm going to give a go. Now, if my understanding of cooking is accurate, basically what I'm supposed to do is I meant to take all of this and put it into this. And then I guess if we look inside, there should be. Yep, this is perfect. This has worked out way better than I thought it would. Nice, delicious, overexposed, and possibly blurry miso miso meat. Dog is staring very intently at my food. And that's about it. I think that food is an incredibly underrated aspect of the series, because under the control of Eturota, it has the power to express and generate almost any emotion from profound happiness to the depth of despair. And it's strange to think about, but so much of one piece is intrinsically linked to this very basic thing. So the next time you see a slab of meat or an apple or a well-prepared dish in the series, just take some time to think about the importance that that particular meal holds within the context of a scene or even the entire arc. It's not a superfluous feature, and whether we do consciously register it or not, food forms such an incredible link to this world, the characters, and the story of one piece. 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 into your YouTube feeds. And also don't forget to check out Feast in the description below. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time.