One Pieceearly in its stories is already an incredibly unique story, largely grounded in the reality of pirate life with only brief extensions into the supernatural, aswith devil fruit powersand fishmen. These extensions serve largely to create dramatic fights as opposed to creating the story itself. The baratie arc especially brings in elements of realism with its focus on how hunger and starvation affects humans. However keen-eyed, and well-read, fans may have noticed some subtle portions of this particular arc that are extremely similar to another classic pirate story. The least subtle of these references of course being the island that they stop at immediately before heading for the Baratie: Treasure Island.
One Piecefollows the story of Monkey D Luffy on his quest to find the One Piece and become King of the Pirates. The first few arcs focus on his acquiring a ship and crew, one of whom is a cook. Sanji the cook does eventually join his crew but not until after Luffy engages in an multi-episode fight to preserve the Baratie.
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Quick Summary of Treasure Island
In Treasure Island, a boy named Jim joins the crew of a legitimate treasure hunting ship to find Captain Flint’s treasure. He befriends a one-legged cook on the ship as he works as the cabin boy. The cook, Long John Silver,turns out to be a pirateand convinces the crew to mutiny against the captain. On the Island, Jim meets a marooned pirate named Ben Gunn who has been there for years, and knows where the treasure is. After a dramatic series of events, following multiple mutinies and betrayals, Silver and Jim eventually lead the pirates to the treasure’s location only to find that it has already been dug up and claimed by someone else. The captain, Jim, Silver, and Ben all leave the island, stranding the mutinous pirates there.
Just Before the Baratie Arc
Technically whether or not Luffy and his crew visit Treasure Island during the Baratie arc is a matter of opinion, but since those episodes are directly prior to the arc at the very least they foreshadow it. On treasure island,Luffy and crew meeta marooned pirate who has spent the last many years protecting the island’s treasure. He already knows where it is but when Luffy gets to it he discovers that all of the treasure is already gone. When Luffy sails away the pirate chooses to stay on the island that has become his home.
This is slightly different from Treasure Island but the similarities are unmistakable. Obviously, the pirate in the box is Ben Gunn. The biggest difference is in the book Ben is the one who dug upand stole the treasurewhereas in the anime it is never revealed who claimed it. And while he chooses to stay rather than leave, this could be inspired by the fact that in the original story the pirates were all left on the island in the end.
During the Baratie Arc
Long John Silver plays the role of protagonist, antagonist, and supporting character to Jim throughout the entire story of Treasure Island. He is a one-legged cook who takes a liking to the young boy and takes him under his wing as a cabin boy. Cook Zeff is agruff one-legged cookwho also used to be a pirate and takes young Sanji under his wing. Their bonding is a bit more dramatic with the near-starvation that they endured together, however. Zeff also only takes on the aspect of Silver related to him being a supporting character, and not the more antagonistic portions.
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Gin, and Krieg in the show seem to reference the darker sides of Long John Silver, and of his first mate Israel. Gin takes out Pearl, just as Israel takes out the other watchmen on the boat. However, later Gin takes on the role of Silver’s crewwhen he defies Krieg, now holding Silver’s position. This seems to be a direct tie into when Silver was mutinied against and outcast as leader of the pirates. Although Gin does it out of respect for those who saved his life whereas the pirate crew in the story did so out of greed and mistrust.
Even Sanji joining Luffy’s crew holds true with the story, though again roles have shifted slightly, with Luffy taking the place of Jim and Sanji taking the place of Silver. Silver ultimately decides to leave the island and crew and join Jim and his team who were ostensibly the good guys throughout the story.While Sanji doesn’t decidebetween villainy and a respectable life, he does choose to leave behind his own crew and join the ship sailing away from the Baratie.
While there is no actual evidence stating that the Baratie Arc is a direct tie-in to the story of Treasure Island, there are enough similarities to believe that it is at least a nod to one ofthe most famous pirate storiesin western culture. Even if it does pull some concepts from the book it is still its own tale and a delightful one at that.
