One Piece and history

One Piece is the anime that changed the way I view the world in many aspects. I learned to never judge a person based on their appearance, I learn to always believe in your dream and do everything in chasing your dream, I believe in trust and friendship, and it also make me value history. 

If you were in a history class, most of the student would generally do something else rather than listening. But One Piece make me sit on my chair for hours, enjoying the anime. 

I once started as a normal One Piece fan, just watching the anime for days, weeks, months just to catch up with the latest anime. As soon as I caught up to it, which took me about two and a half month, I started to go deeper - making theories. 

This is where it all starts. Eiichiro Oda, the mangaka of One Piece is a mad genius. If you watch Avengers and found all those little details like the infitnity stones, and Thanos - One Piece had deeper mystery than that. 

Imagine a series from 1999 and is still ongoing until now, what could even win against that? There's even tons of unsolved mysteries in One Piece that remain unknown to anyone except the mangaka himself. Some fans even called him Goda (God Oda). 

So whats up with One Piece and History?

Did you know that many of the characters in One Piece are based on real pirate name? You can take one popular example of Marshall D. Teach or Blackbeard (Kurohige), one of the Four Emperors of the sea. Who knows there actually exist a real pirate named Blackbeard in the 18th century named Edward Teach.

Oda stated that Blackbeard is his favorite pirate.

There are other examples as well like Ronoroa Zoro, who was inspired by François L’Olonnais, infamously known as the cruelest pirate in the Caribbean sea in the 17th century. His savagery are notorious in the Spanish region and native inhabitants that many historian believed he was insane. Some called him the psycho pirate. 

Not only does the inspiration came from real life pirate, some are even based on other historical culture as well, like Javanese. 

There was a scene in the Fishman Island Arc (Yes, they have mermaids) where Robin found a Poneglyph (an ancient inscription) from someone named Joyboy to the mermaid princess 900 years ago. There was evidence that supported a theory on how Joyboy shares several similarities to a Javanese king named Jayabaya, or Joyoboyo in the 1135-1157.

Jayabaya predicted the fall of his kingdom as well as the rise of Ratu Adil, the chosen person who could restore peace in Kediri, Indonesia. He had his history and predictions transcribed in books and epigraphs, much like how the Ancient Kingdom did with the Poneglyph. Some theorized that the main character, Straw Hat Luffy is Ratu Adil, the destined hero. 

This is how we make theories - we list all the hidden messages, look deep into details from his manga (a Japanese comic) and try to find any connection with any scene in the story. Then we move on to anything that had some sort of resemblances with those hints. 

From that, I learn to appreciate the value of history, much more than what my school teacher did.