Roger's List: Top 5 Reasons Why Fishman Island Flopped

In this episode of Roger's List, fish are gonna fly.

Well, it's that time of month again. The time when I, Roger, chart graph and list the many intricacies sailing across the waters of the true never ending story that is One Piece. Just this last month, the One Piece anime has reached it's 600th episode. You know what came and went in the last 100 episodes? That's right, the highly anticipated and probably too-hyped-for-it's-own-good Fishman Island Arc,. Man. Was. It....Really not that good! In fact, I dare say it was quite possibly the worst canon arc of the series to date.

Yes, even worse than the Post War Arc where episodes of repetitive plot threads go by with nothing happening. At least it had characters and motives I actually cared about.

Even worse than the Davy Back Fight Arc where the Straw Hats play carnival games with the most obnoxious, unintimidating, waste of time of a villain named Foxy when they could easily just kick his crews ass and walk away at any time. At least it was fun.

Heck, even most non-canon arcs had better story structure, characters, and action than the Fishman Island Arc.

As you can probably guess, this has lingered on me for some time now, so for my sake and the sake of this series, I am going to break down this arc and see what exactly went wrong here, and pinpoint what elements are really to blame. This is Roger's:

Top 5 Reasons Why Fishman Island Flopped.

5. The Animation

Okay, so here's one that doesn't come at any fault of the original author. In fact, one of the saving graces of the Fishman Island Arc in the manga form was that Oda's artwork and compositions were (as usual) top quality and incredibly detailed. He truly made Fishman Island look like a wonderfully rich and vibrant place that I wanted to see explored. Unfortunately, much of his rich detail did not translate to the anime at all. Most of the environment shots of Fishman Island seem very empty. There was hardly any variation in the tone and shading, and most of the colors look, for lack of a better word "watered down." Sorry, the "well, they are under water so maybe that was the point," excuse is not going to fly.

While I will be getting into the fights a bit later in my list, it is worth noting now that much of the action was kinda let down in the anime as well. A perfect example is this one scene when Luffy is marching toward Hordy, and Dosun and Ikaros try to stop him when...

Yeah... that was AWESOME!

But then when they animated it...

Yeah that was...nowhere near as awesome.

I understand that Toei Animation has a budget they have to worry about and it is very possible they either broke the bank during the Marineford Arc (which was very well animated) or were struggling financially (like many other Japanese companies) during the hurricane/tsunami disaster that occurred around the time this would have been animated. Whatever the reason, they had to cut corners, and it definitely showed.

Like I said before, in this particular element, Oda is not to blame at all. As for the rest of these reasons on the list well...

4. Pacing

"Help! We're gonna get squashed by the slowest moving ship ever!"

The Fishman Island Arc lasted for 52 episodes, making it the longest run-time the show stayed at one individual place in the series to date. (Enies Lobby is second with 48 episodes, with Thriller Bark in third with 45, Skypeia fourth at 43). This may be do to how Toei is currently animating the show at a strict one manga chapter per episode format (as suppose to the past when they would occasionally put two manga chapters worth of content in an episode, like they did often in the Alabasta Arc). This was one arc that could have seriously used some double time, seeing as the manga dragged it's feet to begin with.

• There are too many episodes used strictly for exposition.
• There were way too many support characters that were introduced that we do not care about.
• Hachi, one of the most likeable fishman characters of the show, spends the entire arc injured, therefore does absolutely nothing.
• Madame Shirley had the potential to be an intriguing character, (maybe even a good misunderstood villain), but does nothing apart from being just another fortune teller stereotype that just so happens to be Arlong's sister.
• The three episode long backstory Jimbe tells the Strawhats is more interested in developing the characters that are either dead or villains from an arc 500 episodes ago than the current villains.
• Jimbe and Luffy have a completely pointless fight that does nothing but waist time.
• The three Neptune Brothers: Fukahoshi, Ryuboshi, and Mamboshi are underused with over half their fights happening off screen.
• The Ministers of the Left and Right... um... they did... give me a minute...

Seriously, what was the point of introducing you guys?

In past arcs, I've found myself very fond of Oda's support characters. Pell and Chaka from Alabasta, awesome. Wiper and Ganfall from Skypeia, awesome. Chimney, Kororo, and everyone from Galley La in Water 7, love them all. I can't say there is anyone introduced in Fishman Island that I fell in love with or thought was awesome. The only characters I could say I tolerated were the three Neptune Brothers, but compared to other fighting support characters in the past, they hardly did anything. Characters aside and strictly plot wise, Fishman Island is an overstuffed allegory that spends far too much of it's 52 episode run trying to nail a "Prejudice is Bad," message into children's heads with a sledgehammer. Unless children in Japan are still that racist, I don't find it that relevant.


Of course most of this could be forgiven so long is the action is at least good, right?

Yeah about that...

3. Fights

Apparently, you can't kill my boredom either.

Nearly every One Piece Arc, big or small, eventually breaks up the monotony of their many characters and their elaborate plot threads to give us a string of episodes strictly reserved for showing the Straw Hats kicking some ass. After slogging through the padded melodramatic plot about how awful prejudice is, the Strawhats finally assemble for the final showdown with Hordy Jones and his New Fishman Pirates. From there, the story turns into a massive talent show as all the Stawhats line up one after another to show off all the new toys and moves they have learned during the two year time-skip. To be fair, this one brief portion of the show, was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, it turns out to the be the anime equivalent of Fruit Stripe Gum: as soon as you get over the initial buzz of "Holy shit, Sanji can fly!" or "Chopper's new Horn Point looks sweet!" or "Franky's Rhino Bike and Bracio Tank are badass," you realize there is nothing left after five minutes when the flavor is gone.

Sure, the Straw Hat's eventually all get paired up for their one on one battles with the New Fishman Pirates (excluding Nami and Robin, because we all know when you're trying to teach a lesson to young boys about how prejudice is wrong and how we shouldn't discriminate toward anyone, it makes perfect sense to exclude the two female members of the crew from participating in the big important battle so the men can have their fun). Unlike the past when each fight would get it's own episode (or set of episodes) to play out, Fishman Island tries to cram six fights in the same set of episodes. As you can imagine, this gives very little time to actually choreograph and stage full on confrontations from start to finish, and is left showing us brief glimpses of each battle one after another, usually of the Straw Hats getting the drop on their foes with little to no effort, never once making it seem like they were in any amount of danger, ending with all of Luffy's crew members (minus the girls) showing off their final KO's in the same episode.

And it's not like their opponents were lacking in fighting skill or physical prowess. The fishmen that make up Hordy's Crew are some of the most uniquely designed villains of the series to date, and they each had their own distinct special abilities. There was no reason Oda couldn't have made some truly epic fights out of this. Just to give one example, Zoro is fighting the greatest swordsmen of Fishman Island, an octopus fishman who fights with 8 Sword Style. How often is Zoro going to get an opportunity to fight and Eight Sword Stylist? I'll tell you: just once. (Maybe twice if we ever see a One Piece/Naruto crossover and he get's to have a fight with Killer Bee) For the duration of this fight, we hardly get to see any real sword play at all. Zoro ends up finishing him off with just a more powerful version of his first move, the Onigiri. Sound boring? That's because it is. The fights with Sanji, Usopp, Chopper, Franky, and Brook all play out in nearly the exact same way, and because of the drop in animation quality as I mentioned above, the few action shots we get that may have looked cool in the original manga translate to be quite dull in the anime.

Still, none of this even matters if we don't even know why we're fighting these guys in the first place.

2. Villain's Plan/Motive

         
So Hordy Jones plan essentially boils down to usurping the throne by killing King Neptune and all his heirs so that by becoming the new ruler of Fishman Island, he will be allowed to attend the next Reverie (a gathering of all the rulers from each island of the world) and then he'll proceed to kill all the [human] kings of the world. Um...okay Hordy, and how exactly do you expect the Marines to react to this? No doubt a stunt like this would make the Fleet Admiral stop everything he's doing, make you public enemy number one, and hunt you down until you and everyone affiliated with your anti-human regime is fish-sticks. Not only that, the World Government is certain to have repercussions already in place in reaction to your sudden usurp to the throne over Neptune. The reason Hordy didn't stage this coup two years ago was because he obviously feared retaliation from Whitebeard back when he had control over the island. Just because Whitebeard is dead doesn't mean his foes will be any less formidable? Whitebeard's simply been replaced by Big Mam. Sure she's not as attentive or cares as much as Whitebeard, but even she is bound to breath down Hordy's ass as soon as his new anti human laws prevent her from getting her precious candy?

Arlong's plan made sense. He knew he stood no chance in a fight against the higher ups in the Grand Line, so he goes and establishes his own small brand of tyranny all the way in the outskirts of the East Blue where no one will bother with him and he can slowly gain more power and influence. Hordy has huge, frightening ambitions that trump his predecessor, yet he's nowhere near powerful enough to accomplish them. In addition, we know why Arlong is as evil as he is, and what traumatic events brought him to hate humans as much as he did. What reason does Hordy have to hate humans? Absolutely none. He is completely void of any reason or motive. He simply believes that fishman were chosen by the gods to overthrow the human race.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with creating an antagonist with no alibi, and that simply acts on nature. In fact there is a word for it: Neutral Evil. Nearly every single big baddie in the first season of Digimon was Neutral Evil, and many of them were legitimately threatening foes. The Necromorphs from the Alien franchise are Neutral Evil, and they are seen as some of the most iconic monsters in the history of film. But if Oda was going to make a Neutral Evil main villain, I just wish he would been a bit more committed it. Suppose Hordy had Eneru levels of egotism, to where he didn't just believe he was chosen by gods, but that he IS a god? What if he was actually delusional enough to believe he had heavenly visions that gave him a plan to cleanse the world of all humanity. What if he actually knew about the Ancient Weapon Poseidon, and sought to weaponize it so that he could literally control the sea? What if his plan was something as drastic as manipulating the entire ocean to raise the water level, flooding the entire planet, instantly securing fishman's victory over humans and making them the new dominant species of the world? 

Just think of the potential we could have had with this arc.

And yet, the lack of an intimidating villain with a genuinely threatening plan is not even the worst of it. Oh no. That honor belongs to none other than...

1. Princess Shirahoshi

  
Where do we even begin? Rounding out the list of reasons why Fishman Island is the worst arc of the series to date is Shirahoshi, lone daughter of King Neptune, and by far the absolute worst character Eiichiro Oda has ever created. She is credited as the most beautiful woman in the entire world. No, really. It's even said that she makes the Pirate Empress Boa Hancock look pale in comparison. Yes, because when I think of the most beautiful woman in the world, the first thing that comes to mind is some easily frightened, fragile, fifty-five foot mermaid who spends 90% of her screen-time crying her eyes out. Yeah, that's certainly attractive. What else has she got going for her? Well, she's spent her entire life locked up in a shell fortress to protect her from Vander Decken's violent displays of his love for her. Despite possessing an ability that makes her probably one of the Top Three most powerful characters in the series, she has spent no time at all trying to tame/control this ability of hers and is constantly having to be rescued and protected during the entire arc, even after the main battle is over. Oh, and did I mention? She is single handedly responsible for letting Hordy Jones get away with his hostel takeover of her entire kingdom.

For the last ten years Shirahoshi was the only person aware that Hordy was the true culprit behind the murder of her mother, Otohime. Had she regaled this information to anyone in the Kingdom, Hordy would have been arrested on the spot (any retaliation would have resulted in a swift beatdown by Whitebeard, who had custody of Fishman Island at the time), after a swift trial he'd be in prison for life, and his entire regime would have ended before it even began.  No one would've been hurt by Hordy ever again.

But no, Hordy was let alone to roam free across the Fishman District where he could gain ten years worth of influence and resources to stage a coup that (had it not been for the convenience of the Strawhats) would have succeeded in killing her, her father, her brothers, and enslave the entire kingdom under the rule of a tyrant that wanted nothing more than to commit genocide on the entire human race, all because she kept her mouth shut for ten whole years.

You know what the worse part about this though? When Shirahoshi finally confesses that she knew Hordy was responsible all along (long after it's far too late to save anyone mind you), everyone in the kingdom praises her for it, stating how strong and noble she is for keeping such a dark secret inside her for so long. Even Luffy (who I was appreciative for giving her such a hard time about being so weak and obnoxious) says that he now has more respect for her. NO ODA! THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE! WE DO NOT TEACH CHILDREN THAT IT'S NOBLE TO KEEP QUIET ABOUT MURDER, OR ANY CRIME FOR THAT MATTER! In fact, this is the one time in the story where everything Hordy says is 100% true. This IS the definition of idiotic.

Shirahoshi's excuse for why she kept it a secret is because her Mother's dying wish was for her children to hold no hatred for her killer. I'm sorry, but that doesn't have any ground to stand on. Hordy committed a crime of 2nd Degree Murder. Hordy should have been put on trial and properly punished for said crime. There's nothing hateful about that. Just cold, simple, emotionless facts of law and order. If there is one thing Vivi taught us back at Alabasta, it's that a Princess has one job and one job only: to look after the safety and well being of her people. For the last ten years, Princess Shirahoshi failed, miserably, at this one task, and yet is rewarded for her failures.
Most beautiful woman in the world, my ass.


Well that certainly got hot and heavy. On the bright side, One Piece still remains strong enough to move past these short comings. The Punk Hazard Arc is being animated right now, and while I still have a few gripes about the animation style as of late, I can't deny that it's been a pretty fun to watch so far. Not only that, the current manga arc in Dressarosa is shaping up really nicely, slowly building to what looks to be a very exciting climax on the way. And who knows. Maybe the next time we see Shirahosi, she will have pulled a Helmeppo and reinvented herself as someone I can get behind.


Thank you all for sticking through such a long winded rant. Next time, I promise tone it down a bit. Tell you who the real most beautiful women in the world are. Until then, I'm Roger, and they just made the list.