 Law's kind of a weird guy, I mean just between you and me, he doesn't like bread. I mean what kind of dude doesn't like bread? Unless he's gluten intolerant I guess and that would actually explain quite a lot about law. Which is a shame because at the moment the only alternative for gluten-free bread in the One Piece world is pressing the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review thus allowing you to receive regular One Piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. So what do you think about that? Law? Yeah that's more or less what I thought you'd say. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece and today is essentially going to be Trafalgar Law Appreciation Day and I wanted to do this because I came to a very sudden realization that for whatever reason I really don't actually feature law on this channel a whole lot. I mean I talk about him in chapter reviews and stuff like Sargasm Minutes and I have this really really abysmally old One Piece 101 on him which is in yet desperately need of an update but other than that he's something of a missing aspect of the Grand Line Review and that's ever so strange because that isn't a conscious decision. I really like law and just thinking about his prominence in the series is a bit absurd which we'll get into in some nice detail here but to be perfectly honest if Luffy was not the main character of One Piece then I think that mantle would fit quite nicely on the shoulders of law and in fact in any other series he would probably be the primary protagonist. One Piece is really good like that though it's packed full of characters who could very comfortably helm an entire series of their own but even then law still very much stands apart and I think a lot of that is very well reflected in his general popularity amongst the fanbase especially the core Japanese fanbase which is really the only source of empirical evidence we have to go by thanks to their officially conducted character popularity polls and throughout his time in the series law has been featured in three of these six polls the first of which was the fourth poll which saw law rank in 10th place. Now I know that probably doesn't sound all that impressive especially by today's standards but some very important context about this poll is that it was conducted in 2008 and published alongside volume 55 which was during the impel down arc and the poll itself would have opened slightly earlier but just let that sink in for a moment impel down this was before the time skip which means it was before anything to do with punk hazard or dress rosa which was law's key area of focus. At this stage literally the only thing the Japanese fans knew about law came from his initial appearance on sabotee where his two most notable acts were fighting alongside luffy and kid as well as giving kid the finger that is effectively all that law had done at this point in time and Japanese fans saw that and went yep that is a top 10 character right there and to give you even more context a few of the characters that law defeated to attain that spot included usopp and mihawk so a fairly prolific straw hat member and one of the most revered cool dude series characters that odor has ever created that is not at all an easy thing to do so how did mr. law accomplish it and as much as this would come to be developed and eclipsed in the future i have to say that it is almost entirely likely aesthetically based odor managed to create this really schmick looking character who was unique but not in the like outrageously goofy odor style that we've all come to know and love in fact it's so anti-order that's kind of hard to believe that this guy existed in the one piece world at all i mean all he's doing is wearing a hoodie and some jeans which tends to be my favorite style of outfit coincidentally but i guess he also had a funky bucket hat as well as some tattoos because you know tattoos in general equal cool oh and of course a sword this sword is very important any character who has a sword automatically starts on an entirely new plane of popularity compared to those without blades but i suppose my general point here is that this was the kind of popularity that law had managed to acquire by doing basically nothing at all you just needed to exist and he was instantly loved and i have no empirical evidence for the western world at the time but anecdotally i will say that of all of the supernovas introduced law tended to be a very very strong favorite amongst my circles anyway so let's go to the next poll now and see how things changed over time so this would be the fifth popularity poll which was published in late 2014 within volume 77 to be precise and this is a huge jump we have gone from the days of impel down to fairly deep into dress rosa and in fact it was around the climax of the arc immediately following law's flashback so by this time everything had changed law was no longer just some cool guy who existed he was very well fleshed out character with a compelling backstory a prominent connection to one of the most revered and mysterious villains in the series to date being doflamingo and he had also formed an official alliance with monkey d luffy so how did all of this impact the polls well i'd say it moved the needle just a little bit because law happened to rank in second place in the fifth popularity poll and i really do need to emphasize what an achievement this is because to put it into some perspective up until now zoro had always secured second place always always in the first four polls he was an immovable asset in that second position just as luffy was undefeated in first place so law did something unprecedented here by unseating zoro and knocking him down to third quite comfortably as well i might add having secured just under 1000 more votes than zoro and you know what law was actually pretty damn close to defeating luffy as well he was about 400 or so votes shy so that is pretty ridiculous right there and i feel like i can quite comfortably state that this situation is highly unlikely to ever happen again in the series although having said that just go ahead and watch it happen again now just to make me look like a fool law is a true aberration though he's a popularity black hole that just absorbs people's admiration and here i'm going to come back to the idea that in a lot of other series law probably would be the main character especially after everything we learn about him during dress swosa one of the more intriguing things being that he is also subject to the will of d something that i haven't even touched on yet but a factor that of course only impacts him positively he went from a stock standard cool due to a surprisingly deep and driven character with his vendetta against doflamingo which of course we all truly felt after witnessing his pretty damn tragic even for one piece style flashback i mean i don't know many characters who had to hide in a pile of corpses to survive a genocide but law is certainly one of them and i will also stress once again that being connected to doflamingo would have helped considerably because he has quite consistently been one of the most popular series villains as well in fact in the character poll will all play second the only antagonist rank higher than doflamingo was crocodile and well he's a tough act to beat it's a perfect recipe for captivation though when you have two superbly well-liked characters playing off each other and directly driving the core narrative at the time and you can say a pretty similar thing about law's connection to luffy as well this man is the undisputed most popular character in one piece he has always been and likely always will be but luffy functioned as a perfect ally of law particularly because they formed an odd couple dynamic two people whose personalities could not be more different which resulted in a lot of comedy from law who was forced to consistently put up with luffy being luffy and that only endeared us more to law because in many ways he acted as a perspective of the readers and watches of one piece you know luffy does something insane and in our heads we go what the hell is he doing well that was law and given that the rest of the straw hats had mostly acclimatized to luffy's behavior it was nice to have a new input of reasonable shock in regards to our heavily unreasonable protagonist dress rosa had a lot of insanity going on but it was the definitive trafalgar law arc where he functioned as its heart and soul and i think i've said this before but in many ways law serves the princess role of that arc and i suppose the whole saga as well despite there being two literal princess figures to inherit that idea because that's right even in an awkward two competing princesses law is still best girl and here's another crazy thing everything i've said to this point more than adequately explains law's general popularity but we haven't even delved into his abilities yet because maddeningly enough law also happens to possess one of the more mentally and visually intriguing devil through powers in one piece as well as one of the most overpowered ones the opi-opinomi is always a treat to watch in action because it's one of the ultimate pieces of utility for concocting all sorts of cool strategies one of which i'll point out being that first hit on dol flamingo where law very sneakily switched places with luffy leading to a pretty spectacular red hawk impact but it doesn't need to be anything that fancy either because it has a more raw appeal such as on punk hazard where law crafted a room so huge that he was able to casually control an entire marine battleship which i personally think is one of the strongest single images that this series has ever conjured i remember reading that chapter weekly and just like being in awe of its sheer lunacy and that all still continues well into this day every time law activates a room it's like time stops in anticipation for what is to come and that is an incredible asset for a character to wield that constant intrigue and hype just to see them do their regular thing even when it is for a comparatively mundane purpose it's still exciting to see for me anyway i suppose i can't speak for all of you although given the data i feel like i can probably speak for a massive segment of the japanese one piece fan base which brings us to the results of the final poll that mr trefalgar law has been a part of which would be the sixth popularity poll fairly recent one as well which was published in 2017 around the climax of whole cake island and very notably this poll received a record amount of votes totalling approximately 80 000 respondents and with that in mind law came in at a fairly stunning fourth place and keen mathematicians out there may pick up on the fact that fourth is a lesser place than second despite the fact that two is actually less than four and good on you for noticing that clap clap however this is still ridiculous because once again we need to look at the context of the events happening here dress rosa was long since complete in fact zo was long since completed and by this time we were looking at having spent almost two years with law completely out of the story altogether he was on his way to warn her with the other half of the straw hats he did absolutely nothing and yet he still he still made his way to the top of the one piece world landing in fourth place and just a point of interest zoro would reclaim his second place in this particular poll and sanji also took up his standard positioning of third place which makes all the sense in the world because whole cake island was very sanji centric so i'd be pretty shocked if law doing nothing managed to topple sanji in particular under that context but this final poll actually gives us a very well rounded view of trafalgar law because essentially what happens when audience members know of him but don't actually know anything about him is that by and large his aesthetic and atmosphere alone propel him into a top 10 position instantly then when an audience member gets to know him and he is the focus of an arc then he comes close to being by and large the favorite character of the series and when an audience member gets to know law and he does absolutely nothing within the story or is just sort of in the background he still very comfortably claims a position within the top five characters of the series and obviously that will be different based on individual tastes but by and large that would appear to be the trend and that's why i feel like i can quite comfortably say that there is no other character like law currently in the series he has now been the most popular non-straw hunt for the large majority of the new world era and in fact he is one of the only characters that you can solidly state as a following as dedicated to that of luffy because there have been times when sorrow and sanji fans have been overtaken by law and the other straw hats don't stand any chance whatsoever against this demonstrable beacon of i suppose excellence let alone series antagonists or side characters and while law certainly isn't in my top five favorite characters personally possibly not even in the top 10 to be honest i can very easily understand his appeal i for one have never been anything less than excited whenever he appears on a new page and that dates all the way back to the pre-times kip sapati days and even if i don't focus on him a whole lot on this channel he is still absolutely one of a kind so to all of you i would like to wish a happy trafalgar law appreciation day but what do you guys think please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even turn 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 until youtube feeds but for now this has been the grandline review and i'll see you next time