 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece. And today it's time to talk about one of those fun little words that pops up quite consistently in online discussion with One Piece in particular. And that is the concept of off-screening or off-paneling, specifically in regards to fights. And this is a fairly recent phenomena in the grand scheme of things, which only noticeably started to increase its presence in One Piece with the Dress Rose Rock. But forget that for a second. What is off-screening? Well, it's a rather vague definition, but it basically refers to a piece of action that occurs off-screen or off-page that we either hear about or see the results of after the fact. And it can include either the fight being partially or entirely off-screen. But just before going further, something that can be achieved on-screen is clicking the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review, which will result in regular One Piece content being uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. And unlike many fights in One Piece, it is essential that we see this happen and continue to grow the grand fleet. So please do not off-screen your subscription. But a good example of off-screening would be Garp and Sengoku versus Shiki, which occurred in chapter zero. We saw the very beginning of their fight and then it cut to some narration describing the outcome. And the next time we saw Shiki, well, he was an impaled down. But the actual fight itself was off-screened and there are countless examples of this happening over the course of the series, especially in the New World era. And unlike the Shiki example, which occurred in what was effectively canon bonus material, most of these instances do happen within the core fabric of the series. And that leads to some dissatisfaction amongst parts of the fan base. Because in many ways, yes, One Piece can be considered a battle manga and there is a certain expectation of experiencing, you know, action. One that to be fair, One Piece has delivered on for most of its life. And that face value, this leads to all sorts of claims. Most common of which is that Oda is rushing the series or that Oda hates certain characters or whatever. I'll be honest, it's mostly nonsense because these thoughts really only take into consideration what is missing rather than why it is missing. So that's what we're here to talk about at great length today. Why off-screening fights is necessary both technically and narratively, as well as at least one case where I do admit it was a questionable decision to do so. But to get into the great benefits of off-screening, we should actually start by recognizing that this practice is pretty much as old as storytelling itself, which is mostly operated on a tell-don't-show theory throughout human history. And good old William Shakespeare is a great example of this because even in some of his most violent plays, very key moments of action happen off-stage. Like in Macbeth, where Duncan's murder as well as the deaths of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth all happen off-stage, which is almost unthinkable by modern narrative standards. And while a lot of this was out of technical necessity, because it was difficult to make these things happen on stage, it did push Shakespeare and his contemporaries to come up with ways of conveying action and meaning without seeing the act itself. So to go back to Macbeth, and I promise I will apply this to one piece very, very soon. But instead of seeing Duncan's murder, what we see is Macbeth enter the scene with his hands slathered in blood, which immediately says so much more than actually seeing the murder ever could. It sparks the imagination immediately with questions like, what exactly did he do to him? How brutal was this? And it leads to increased mental engagement throughout the scene because our minds have a gap to fill with whatever our imaginations are able to come up with. Meanwhile, if this was to happen in a modern day one piece chapter, then I 100% bet that there would be a chorus of comments like, omg, I can't believe Oda off-screen Duncan's son's death. He's just rushing to get to the end. Or Macbeth's armor has not had a good fight since the time skip and this is what we get. I'm dropping Shakespeare. And yes, while we're here, I would equate Oda to something of a manga Shakespeare having radically redefined and explored the true potential of the Shonen area that doesn't make him or One Piece perfect far from it. Shakespeare also not perfect far from it. But there is often a good and very effective reason as to why things like off-screening are performed. So let's take a key example of what has become the poster child of off-screening in One Piece, which is Sanji versus page one. And I happen to think it's one of the worst examples that we could choose, but it's the one that people really latch on to when off-screening comes up, particularly in the manga because the anime did expand on the fight a bit and we'll get to that. But one key thing to remember about fights, especially in a Shonen series is that they're probably the weakest aspect of most properties. And that's because raw action in and of itself doesn't do anything to progress anything. Fights sent to actors roadblocks or barriers to progression with the exception of when they occur at the climax of an arc, be it story or character. Because by that point, we've gotten through all of the necessary story and generally all that remains is to defeat the ideologically opposed villains. And that is where action shines. These are the kind of moments like say the alabaster matchups where every fight holds incredibly deep meaning for every straw hat and their character progression is on the line because their ideology is challenged to the core. Stuff like Luffy's desire to become the pirate king needing to break through a seemingly insurmountable opponent who is denying him that dream or Zoro facing the ultimate barrier to his progression as a swordsman who stops belief in both Luffy and himself coming to the forefront and so on and so forth. These battles are essential character moments and not just fun action pieces. And that is why we need to see and experience the struggle to completion with those characters. Meanwhile, Sanji versus page one as well as most off-screen fights in the series is not that. Sanji versus page one in particular is a fight that occurs circumstantially very early on in an arc where we have not yet achieved a full emotional investment. It really only serves one main purpose which is to show Sanji being willing to use the raid suit, a massive step forward in his character due to his, you know, family feelings. And I suppose as a secondary measure it is to show us what the raid suit can technically do so that it can be put to better use in the future. Neither of which requires seeing the fight in its entirety. We have two key beats to hit. One, Sanji making the decision to embrace the suit and two, Sanji demonstrating the power of the suit both of which we see quite succinctly and we leave that fight running away with Usopp, Frankie and Laura in a rather nice transition with the knowledge that Sanji is undoubtedly going to win. And I'm pretty happy with that. In fact, at this stage, I really don't see the point in expanding that to show the moment of actual victory because page one is not an enemy whose defeat carries any meaning whatsoever. There would be such a diminishing return of satisfaction in seeing him pummeled into oblivion at this stage. So sure, Oda can take the rest of the fight off screen because we have the information we need and there is nothing that Oda is going to show us that can possibly add to that experience which interestingly enough we do have conclusive proof of because the anime just so happens to go beyond that final manga moment. You know, we linger on the Sanji versus page one fight and take it to a point that I guess we could call completion. Basically, they scuffle for a bit. We see Sanji do another super powered kick and then he runs away, which if anything defeats the entire point of leaving the fight early in the manga because it makes Sanji seem incredibly underpowered by not actually being able to defeat page one as we were led to believe he could do comfortably in the manga. And this would be my main argument in favor of off-screen events. There are certain times in one piece where the imagination of the reader is going to be far greater than anything Oda could show us and he selects these moments very carefully to increase our mental engagement. In the Sanji versus page one example, I was left imagining just how utterly wrecked page one was getting. But if it played out the same way the anime did then there was nothing left to imagine. The scene came to a full stop and that gives permission for my mind to completely disengage. There was just no need for that extra information and in fact, I do think it's a great detractor. And I will move on from this soon, I promise but I would also like to point out that Sanji versus page one took place over a total of 12 pages across two chapters. And that is a shocking amount of time dedicated to a single minor conflict. And I would ask, do people really want to see this material expanded into what two whole chapters? And have such an irrelevant scuffle take precedence over everything else happening on Wano? I definitely would not. But let's move on to a different brand of off-screening now because it's one thing to see bits of a fight. However, what about the cases where we see absolutely none of the fight? Two great examples of this in one piece would be the payback war or Kuzan versus Akazuki on punk hazard. These are grand conflicts that we only found out about in retrospect and I get more prime targets for being labeled as odor off-screening fights. All of the best fights happen off-screen, the people will say. Once again, lamenting what they have seemingly lost rather than recognizing everything that they've gained because instances like this are the lifeblood of one piece. The strategic dishing out of tantalizing morsels of information, which once again are designed purely to spark the imagination. The mere mention of Kuzan versus Akazuki was enough to have my mind frothing at the thought of what happened over the course of that 10 day battle. And it makes me view both of those characters in an almost legendary status these days because I've heard the myth of what they did. Meanwhile, if I'd seen that with my own eyes, I don't think that would quite be the case. And you can see this quite clearly with Luffy actually. He is a beautiful example. We as readers get to see every single move that Luffy makes. And as a result, we don't quite see him the way the rest of the world does. To the rest of the one piece citizens, Luffy's achievements are completely off-screened. And as a result of that, they see him as this terrifyingly powerful figure because they've heard the Luffy myths. The man who destroyed any slobby, the man who invaded Impel Down, the man who stood side by side with white beard at the paramount war, the man who took on an emperor of the sea in total land and so on and so forth. That's obviously not how we see Luffy because we get to follow his journey and we know the truth of the situation, but it is how we see the rest of this world and its characters through these off-screen instances, which I think is only for the betterment of one piece. I maintain that if Oda were to show us more than the briefest of glimpses of the payback war or Sakazuki versus Kuzan, then it would only lead to disappointment because in cases like this, there is nothing that even Oda can do to trump the power of our imaginations. And yeah, show don't tell would be a very stereotypical statement that you'll hear in regards to any visual media, but it does neglect that there can be incredible power in the act of telling rather than showing when used appropriately, that is, and for the most part, it is in one piece. And with that said, I would like to talk about one potential exception now though. And for this, I'm going to put up a spoiler warning for events deep into act three of Wano. If you're not caught up with the manga or you're an anime only watcher who dislikes spoilers, then you will definitely want to skip to this time because there's a pretty big spoiler for multiple reasons. So I'll just give you some time to do that, but for everyone else, here we go. So a more recent example of off-screening that does kind of work me is the whole Kandro situation. Now I want to preface this by saying that at the time of this recording, Wano is not over and for all we know, this is a fake out and Kandro could still be alive. So I'm just working with what we have at the moment. And what we have is an off-screen death of one of the most pivotal characters of the entire post-time Skibara. Kandro is shockingly responsible for a lot of the situation that we find ourselves in here today. And he carried some incredible emotional weight behind him. Kandro was not some last minute villain edition like page one, he was a character who had been with us ever since Dressrosa and his betrayal hit hard, not just the Scabbards, but also the readers. So to begin a miscellaneous chapter and just finding him dead on the floor is what I find to be a less than satisfying way of dealing with him. I think that the Kandro situation is more akin to our climax fights where it is important to see that moment of defeat to give our seven-year journey with this figure some proper closure. With that said, I would like to reiterate that this may not be the end of Kandro. He is indeed a sneaky mofo and he could make his way back into things, but as the story currently stands, this is one instance of off-screening action that I do have trouble reconciling. Because even if I do go back to my own Macbeth argument, yes, we do see the impact of Kandro's death on the Scabbards, which does ignite the imagination, much like Macbeth's bloodied hands after killing Duncan. The difference is nobody cared about Duncan. He was an incompetent old man that you knew for like half an hour and then he's gone. What was more important was that Macbeth killed him. Meanwhile, with Kandro, there is a much stronger connection to the readers that really does demand an on-screen resolution, at least to me, but of course, you're all very welcome to argue that point. But in essence, conducting fights or the conclusions to fights off-screen is a beneficial practice for one piece overall, both in terms of the technical needs such as needing to condemn story, as well as for narrative impact by producing potent shots of information and feelings that we do need, but not allowing us the time to linger on them and have that feeling dissipate. And something else I will say is that I would be very curious to know the ages of the average person who complains about odor off-screening fights. And I say that because as I've flagged many times, these devices are dependent on imagination and being able to fill those gaps yourself. And it might be difficult for younger readers to do that, specifically, I don't know, around the ages of 12 or 13, because they might not have the life experience or the wealth of stories consumed to activate that imagination, which I don't mean as a derogatory statement, it is what it is, but I suppose that is the gambit that odor takes with this sort of stuff, which I quite like because to me, it invites the reader to become part of the storytelling process. You know, we can look at examples like, say, Sarbo versus Burgess, where we see the beginning of their fight and then cut to the end with Burgess defeated. And we can construct our own impression of how that played out through all of the cues that we were given. Or even better, we can be given a dramatic chapter-rending like Kaido facing off against kid and friends and be left to ponder exactly how that played out without the need to ever actually show us what happened. There is just so much absurd power in the unseen that goes unappreciated with One Piece, but also media in general, when properly utilized that is. There are many cases in other series where it is not. But with One Piece, if you're one of those individuals who gets annoyed by not being able to see certain bits of punching, then I want you to ask yourself, what would seeing that fight achieve that you did not already have? And much more importantly, how could seeing that potentially detract from the overall experience? Because I guarantee you that if we took the time to play out every conflict that the fan base accused odor of rushing and off-screening, then One Piece would become a much more shallow experience because yes, we would have more action, but overall, much less value. 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.