 Here is a picture of Nefertare Vivi looking all thoughtful and pondersome. Now, here is a picture of Rebecca doing the exact same thing. And here is a picture of Viola doing it as well. And here's one of Hiori. Oh wait, that's just Vivi again. And let's not forget Pudding either. But what are these princesses looking at? Well, obviously it's the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review, the pressing of which grants them and their kingdoms regular one-piece content uploaded straight into their YouTube feeds. And being the refined ladies they are, they even press the bell as well to ensure that they do not miss any big news. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one-piece, and today I would like to discuss what I believe is one of the greater flaws in the series, the series that is one piece because that's what I talk about. Now this channel, despite being created due to an immense love of Etcher Oda's work, has never been afraid to be critical when it is called for, which I do quite frequently in chapter reviews and various other discussionary content, at which point I am often met with comments like, shut up. And sometimes those comments even get expanded to shut up, you're not a true fan. And I would generally say yes, that's exactly why I've spent close to three years of my life making over 650 one-piece related videos because I am clearly not a true fan. I guess we just have different definitions of fandom though, because in my eyes a true fan is someone who is able to recognize both the greatness of a series, but also take into account and to be able to maturely discuss its shortcomings because they do exist in every series. There is no such thing as a perfect manga or perfect anime. One piece does come quite close though, which is why this whole channel exists, but it most certainly has its detrimental features and to begin discussion on this topic, I first want to play a little game with you. Here's how it works. I'm going to describe a character from one piece, and I want you to guess who that character is. Sounds fun, well even if you don't think so, we're gonna do it anyway. So this character is a fairly young woman, who is quite important in the grand scheme of the world, as well as an integral element of their specific arc. They spend their early time in the series acting one way, but soon enough they have a complete 180 degree flip and become the exact opposite, as well as form the center of an intended emotional payoff, and are consistently being relegated to needing to be saved by the straw hats. Who is this person? I'll give you a few more seconds to think about it as I sit here and feel for time. Alright all done, great. So if you said Rebecca, then you are correct. And if you said Viola, then you are also correct. If Vivi popped up as a thought, you're still correct. Furthermore, if your mind went to Charlotte Pudding, then I simply cannot deny how correct you are. And if any of you thought of 1-0-act-2 spoiler character, then welcome to the Winner's Club, because you are also bang on. One piece has a huge problem, and that problem is princesses. Less the concept of princesses though, and more how they are implemented by our Lord and Saviour, Etra Oda. And for Manga readers, this whole script was actually written prior to, how shall we say, certain events taking place on 1-0. And I suppose we'll call them 1-0-act-3 spoiler character, not to be confused with 1-0-act-2 spoiler character. And I may only fans, I hope you appreciate the incredible lengths I go to to keep you moderately spoiler free. But this princess problem is nothing new to the fan base, because arc after arc, at least in the post-time Skipperra, we are faced with a very similar type of character popping up. Do the extent where they serve an almost purely technical purpose at this point. Like a princess cog in some sort of kingdom arc machine. And the story of one piece has become very synonymous with Oda's arc type of princess. But do you know what's actually really interesting to think about? Despite the abundance of princesses in this series, when you actually stop and think about it in the pre-time skip era, there was only one princess. Quite literally just one prominent princess in the series, and that was Vivi. How insane is that to think about given how intrinsically linked, the very concept of a princess is to the modern series. So this whole formula has without a doubt been a product of the new old era. As every major mega arc, with the notable exception of Pancasid, has featured either a literal princess or someone with an assigned princess role. And that distinction is important, because they don't need to literally be called a princess in order to fit this archetype. It just so happens that many of them are. But it doesn't matter because these characters serve the same function either way, with tiny flares of individuality and bits of payoff here and there. But by and large, these princesses are also incredibly poorly written, as well as implemented. And the reason for that is because they exist to serve as a device, rather than a fleshed out character. A beautiful eye-pleaser to captivate the overwhelmingly teenage male manga readers, and a character who is able to inspire other characters around them to fight, as well as generate sympathy with their inevitable princess tears. And generally, they don't actually do much of anything else. They have no real role in this story, other than to be a platform and motivation for other characters to shine. And so I'm going to try and coin a term here being the princess prop, because there is very little functional difference between many of them, and a typical film or theater prop. I mean, for example, if you're shooting a scene and the script says you need a gun, then, well, we need to source a gun. The gun itself has no character of its own, it's just there to be used for a narrative purpose. And in one piece, when Otas insert New World Ark, needs a princess prop because the story takes place in a kingdom or kingdom-like structure, well, then we need a princess to fight for. And that princess is the all-important princess prop. And for the most part, the use of these characters' makeup arguably the weakest aspect of every major arc they appear in, and since the New World era, they appear so often that it is a lingering detractor of one piece as a whole. Before we hop into some more depth, though, I do want to make it clear that despite mentioning her earlier, I do not consider Nefertare Vivi to be a princess prop. Vivi is actually a very rare example of a princess, implemented extraordinarily well in one piece, and I know that a lot of people do find her annoying and whatnot, but I don't care. She drove the action of the alabaster saga, not just the arc, the entire saga. Vivi was not there just to be saved by the straw hats, she was every bit as active as the rest of them, and her drive is most prominently on display during the climax of alabaster, where she would know other options available, just continues to shout and shout and shout for the armies to stop fighting. Vivi was always the center of the action and the drama, and never at any stage on the sidelines just watching. She is a character that we got to know to the core, and without her, alabaster would be nothing but a pile of sand. And it is nigh on impossible to say the same about a modern princess who we barely get to know, and to be perfectly frank, their presence in the arcs they feature in are incidental at best, and near pointless, and completely forgettable at worst. So let's take an example of the latter by zeroing in on one, Rebecca, royalty of the Riku family on Dressrosa. Now she gets a fair bit of hate in the fan base, a lot of which I think is undeserved, primarily because it is not the fault of the character themselves, but it is an unfortunate truth that Rebecca is a princess prop, masquerading as a gladiator, whose entire purpose on Dressrosa is to serve as motivation for her father, Kuros, and actually fleshed out character with a story of his own. Meanwhile, Rebecca also serves as some sub-motivation to two key straw hats, being Luffy and of course Robin, the latter of which is assigned the task of protecting Rebecca in the final conflict, thus eliminating any chance of the princess prop actually having a profound moment of her own. So as a result of this, I would pose to you all the question of what would happen if Rebecca was removed from the Dressrosa arc. And to be perfectly frank, I think there would be very little functional difference, despite the trifecta of motivation she provides. Kuros would still hold a grudge and fight against Diamante because he killed Scarlet, and meanwhile Robin and Luffy were going to fight against the Don Quixote pirates regardless, so them meeting Rebecca changes absolutely nothing. Rebecca was not a catalyst for that action, that role fell primarily to Trafalgar Law actually, who was a far better princess on Dressrosa, and you know what, if anything removing Rebecca may have actually freed up Robin to take on some more prominent action during Dressrosa, because this draw hat pretty much just turned into Rebecca's babysitter for the most climactic segment. I will say there is one thing that does go missing without Rebecca in the picture, which is the feeling of profound sympathy towards Kuros, due to the heartbreaking flashback scenes of him in the toy soldier form with Rebecca. Those are super super effective, but once again this only goes to show that Rebecca exists almost exclusively to serve the character of Kuros rather than herself. Rebecca is no vivi to say the least, she is hollow royalty and a princess prop to be used, as a purely technical and functional source of drama, that arguably isn't even necessary. Sticking to Dressrosa though, let's take a look at another of our princesses Viola, because Dressrosa did it double princess style, because one prop was not enough for the madness of this particular art. So Viola first up fits the physical stereotype, a generally attractive woman at least in the manga, because look let's be real, the anime did her very very dirty, sometimes making her look like an alien wearing a Viola costume, but in any case Viola follows a very stereotypical princess prop path, where she is actually introduced as an antagonist, who very shortly after becomes an ally. And while we'd not seen that before now, it's not as if Nami, Robin, Vivi, Pudding, Boa Hancock all followed that path, and you know what in fact even Rebecca was also kind of an antagonist to begin with, because she did try to assassinate Luffy. Plus Dressrosa also had baby five, who followed this bad to good model, but we'll leave her out of this. The point is we'd seen it before and we were going to see it again. In any case after Viola's abrupt change of heart, she then went on to do pause for dramatic effect, very little if anything at all. And once again, I have to ask the question, if Viola had been removed from Dressrosa, what would we have lost from the arc? Yes, you would have had to forego some sanji comedy and some exposition, because Viola did primarily serve to tell the audience what was happening on the battlefield, due to her incredibly overpowered, but incredibly underutilized double fruitability. And everything that Viola does serve in this regard, could have been accomplished just by using Otis narration, much like he does in every other arc. So Viola does very much exist as another princess prop, but Dressrosa is definitely the worst of it. To be fair to any other character that I would label as a princess prop, they do tend to have a lot more meat allocated to their existence, like Charlotte putting for example, she is not a literal princess, but she does have that same narrative role. Standard attractive Otis female who herself takes very little action and spends pretty much the entirety of the arc on the sidelines, in this case, forming over Sanji being cool, which Sanji has a tendency to do, but putting is better integrated into the story, because as much as I'm not a personal fan of her split personality, the fact that she was experiencing that sort of inner conflict is actually sort of interesting, and it does pay off at the very end of the arc, with the scene of her collapsing into tears with Sanji's memories. Absolutely beautiful, 10 out of 10 scene there, even the anime did it great, that's how good the scene is. But that is not the large majority of the pudding experience, and 95% of her time is spent either doing this or this, forever depreciating comic effect. However, pudding does pass the test that Rebecca and Viola fail, because if you were to remove her from Hawkeak Island, you would need to massively rework the story, because her presence is integral. Although it can definitely be argued that at the same time, it's almost purely technical, because she does serve as the key item to get Sanji and therefore the retrieval team onto Hawkeak Island to begin with. So even though she does have a splash of character in his, granted a genuine moment at the very end of the arc, pudding's overall presence is quite princess-prop-like in nature. And heading into one, I'm not gonna say anything because at the time of this recording, I don't think things have quite happened in the anime yet, and out of respect for the fact that the arc has not ended yet, so there is always potential. However, what I will say is that if you were at all, expecting anything different from what you've already seen, about a hundred times in one piece, then prepare to be disappointed. Stepping back a bit now, you might be wondering why I started at Dressrosa and skipped over Princess Shirahoshi of Fishman Island. While that is because despite her volatile popularity within the fan base, I think she is a solid example of a New World Princess who cannot be labelled as a princess-prop. And that's because as much as she did need some saving and protection, Shirahoshi took command of her own destiny during Fishman Island and became the absolute key figure of that arc. In a similar manner to how Vivi took charge in Alabasta, although it did take Shirahoshi a long time to get there, but Shirahoshi was actually a direct participant in the art climax, and not only that, but her importance and uniqueness was seared into the series through the revelation that she is the ancient weapon Poseidon. So as much as some people out there may not like the character, it is undeniable that she is in fact a character rather than a prop. Especially because Shirahoshi's arc is entirely her own, about her living and embracing the legacy of Ultihime, rather than just providing motivation to like Luffy or her father to fight or act on her behalf while she sits quietly in a corner, waiting for the arc to be over. But even without Shirahoshi you have a series that I would say is dominated by the presence of Princess Props. And if you think that the handful of characters I've mentioned isn't much, then let's just think about it this way. We have literally only had three gigantic mega arcs featured in One Piece, being Dressrosa, Hawkeye Island and Wano, all of whom have shared the Princess Prop feature and collectively, these arcs currently make up about 250 chapters of One Piece, a fair bit more now actually, and that is roughly a quarter of the entire series, which has taken place over the last seven years. So that is seven whole years in a row where the Princess Prop has been a prominent feature. And of saying it like that, it may be somehow still doesn't sound so bad. I mean, so what if Oda sprinkles in a Princess Prop after a couple of arcs? Well, the key problem is that it's all entirely weighted towards one side of the series, being our modern events. One Piece went about 700 chapters without a Princess Prop. Yes, there was Vivian Shirahoshi, but they were already different as explained. And even when we did need a useless character to fight for, Oda branched out and made existences like Tonjit, for example. He would be the quote unquote Princess of Longering Longland, someone who served a technical purpose, but because he was designed as an old goofball rather than a stunningly attractive lady thing, he left Tonjit open to be used for excessive and weird comedy, a role which he performed quite brilliantly. But for the last seven years, Oda has very much adopted this Princess archetype, and it now seems inescapable. So much so that within three arcs, the very word Princess has become a source of size from the One Piece fan base who are exhausted with exploring, or I guess more accurately, attempting to explore this kind of character and almost never receiving a narrative reward for their existence. And who knows, there may still be more Princess Props to come following Wano. I mean, if we're visiting any kind of kingdom for a longer than Zo period of time, then I would bet large quantities of Australian currency on it. And as per usual with my more negative discussions, I do want to end by saying that this is not a series breaking feature. Luckily, Oda excels in so so many other areas that we can more or less choose to ignore this, but me being me, I just want One Piece to be that little bit better. And addressing this archetype would be one way to achieve that, as we may very well actually be seeing currently on Wano. 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. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.