One Piece: Marines strengthening their ranks has only helped the Revolutionary Army

Modified Nov 01, 2024 23:29 GMT

One Piece: Marines strengthening their ranks has only helped the Revolutionary Army (Image via Toei Animation)

As the ongoing two-week publication break for mangaka Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece series comes to an end, the manga’s return was heralded by the release of a special Q&A session with Oda. Several topics were addressed, including Saint Garling Figarland’s strength, the Cross Guild bounty system, and more in fans’ selected questions.

However, one of the more intriguing answers was to the eighth question, which focused on the World Military Draft leading to Admirals Fujitora and Ryokugyu joining the Marines. The One Piece mangaka’s response certainly answered the question but also raised a major one regarding how good of a practice the World Military Draft is by the Marines.

Recent success of One Piece’s Revolutionary Army may be attributable to the Wold Military Draft

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In Oda’s response, he explains that those countries affiliated with One Piece’s World Government have their own soldiers for protection. The World Military Draft likewise pulls the most capable soldiers from these ranks, enlisting them into various positions in the Marines. As seen via Fujitora and Ryokugyu, these soldiers can sometimes be strong enough to be called Admiral-level.

However, Oda’s ending point in his response highlights the downfall of this. He says that the Draft was a major factor in the so-called “Eight-Nation Revolution” sparked by the Revolutionary Army’s invasion of Mariejois during the Reverie. In Oda’s typical way of all but confirming something, he does suggest that the Draft’s weakening of individual national defense forces contributed to the success of those eight revolutions.

Oda’s response can likewise be assumed as an official, canonical confirmation of this influence,, given his typical approach to such topics and the logical answer. Individual nations could be considered lucky to have found or trained warriors as strong as Fujitora and Ryokugyu once a generation. These soldiers’ absence due to the Draft would undoubtedly have a major effect on national security, especially on internal threats like revolution.

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While One Piece’s Devil Fruit power system can certainly help create strong warriors, Fruits themselves aren’t always enough to guarantee a strong warrior. This has rung especially true in the post-time-skip portion of the series, where Armament Haki is plentiful enough to nullify even a Logia-type’s inherent, overwhelming power. This further speaks to how difficult it is for these individual nations to find, and also keep, such strong warriors for their own defense.

It can also be argued that removing such strong and well-known warriors from a nation’s defenses may create plans for revolution where they may not have existed before. In these cases, the impact of the World Military Draft is not only helping revolutions to succeed but being the direct cause of them.

However, it’s more likely that Imu, the Gorosei, and other higher-up World Government leaders are aware of this fact but simply don’t care. Such a conclusion perfectly aligns with the philosophies, morals, and ideals demonstrated by the Celestial Dragons and aforementioned World Government bigshots.

Final thoughts

The Revolutionary Army may benefit the most from the World Military Draft (Image via Toei Animation)

While it’s logical that the World Government would leverage their power to take their member-nations’ most powerful fighters for themselves, it is a harmful practice. Each nation will suffer from losing its strongest soldiers, opening them up to threats from within and abroad, like the Revolutionary Army. However, the World Government will likely not stop anytime soon, prioritizing the elimination of piracy (as a means to Imu’s ends).