tbp's Top 10 One Piece Chapters
Part 2: #9
Took a few days off and returning to the list now, placing each of these is harder than the last!
tbp's Top 10: #9
Chapter 623: Fisher Tiger the Pirate
Chapter 623 starts right after one of my favorite scenes in all of One Piece at the end of 622 (seriously, for a top 10 list Oda's habit of bisecting great moments is a bit annoying!). In 622 Fisher Tiger ended the chapter by taking the newly found slave Koala and branding her with the Sun Pirate mark, hiding the Celestial Dragon hoof the slaves are branded with. I always found this ludicrously impactful, and Koala and Tiger's story is really one of my favorites over-all.
If there's one thing Oda is truly an all-time master at, it's short-form stories with huge emotional impacts. The Fisher Tiger backstory is precisely that to me, an incredibly effective piece of storytelling which gives us a ton of information, revelation and characterization all in very few panels. And 623 does that same sort of storytelling right off the bat, instantly showing us how much Koala has changed with only her short time with the Sun Pirates so far, all through a redesign:
However, the topic of slavery is one that Oda absolutely treats with deftness. He's not so naive as to say "she's good now! they're all pals!". Koala is still massively influenced by her time as a slave, and the status of several of the Sun Pirates as former slaves forms a sort of tension on the crew, which we see through Aladdin and Arlong's interaction:
Arlong's psychology is really interesting to me, as revealed in this flashback. I don't know the proper psychological terms for it, but I think that Oda does a really good job showing how conflicted Arlong is internally through his interactions in this flashback coupled with the arc hundreds of chapters ago. Arlong seems to have such a deep (and, justified! given the behavior of humans) inferiority complex. But the way that he fights back against that feeling is to (lie to himself?) convince himself that Fishmen are genuinely superior. He's so deeply convinced of the evil in humanity's heart that counterexamples won't sway him, but it's genuinely very difficult to even say that he is wrong, given the history of the crew:
As I write this, I realize that I'm copying down basically every panel - it's hard not to, this chapter is really, really filled with excellent characterization and deft exploration of the themes Oda wants to talk about. In other words, it's an incredibly effective chapter. We get to see the beginning of Jinbei's transformation - while last chapter he was asking Fisher Tiger if it was okay as long as they kept their murder of humans to a minimum, now he's conversing with Koala and starting to see the bigger picture (also Koala playing with Hachi is really cute):
Fishman Island's theme of there being generations who "know nothing" so they can be taught is especially powerful. It's a bit of a shame that the theme wasn't communicated as strongly with Hody as it was in this flashback. Koala correctly identifies ignorance as the problem, but that also provides an opportunity - the ignorant can learn, instead, that Fishmen are just like anyone else (+ gills).
The Sun Pirates bring Koala back home, eventually, after a little of exploring the world. There are some great panels during that exploration, but I'll just show my favorite:
And finally they make it to Foolshout Island, where Koala was born. Fisher Tiger offers to walk her from the shore back to her village, and Koala continues her naive, but good hearted, intentions by claiming that she'll be the one to teach her village that fishmen are good. Arlong continues his negativity, claiming that the effort is futile. And on these panels we are basically getting the entire crux of this storyline at once: who is right? Is Koala right, with her naive intentions to make peace? Is Arlong right, and that it's far too late, there's nothing to be gained by interaction with humans? We know what Otohime thinks as one pillar of thought, what does Fisher Tiger really think?
As we watch the panels of Tiger leaving, it's very hard to think anything other than: Arlong is wrong, eventually the new generation can forgo all prior biases and live in peace. Fisher Tiger walks away with a small smile, Koala is crying her eyes out.. it seems very effective. We know where Koala's story goes after all of this, which does indicate that Tiger made the "right" moves inside the One Piece universe. Her status as a revolutionary in the current timeline is one of my favorite things, she was so impacted by the kindness of the Sun Pirates that she had to step up to the plate for them once she could. I also love the shot of Tiger walking away with the sun on his back - it's very Nika-ish, a Sun God liberator bringing peace.
But then we turn the page.
The look on Tiger's face breaks my heart every single time I re-read this chapter. You can see the fear behind his eyes. You can see him remembering his time as a slave. You can see the heartbreak. Phenomenal art by Oda, in my opinion. It makes me sick to my stomach that the Vice Admiral claims he's guilty of "escape" - how fucking horrid of them.
Tiger puts up an incredible fight, but...:
What's done is done. The people of Foolshout Island betrayed the Sun Pirates, and a military organization responsible for enforcing the whims of a genocidal slaver class descend on our revolutionary hero and... they win. Sure, maybe they don't kill him right away, but...
Fisher Tiger needs a blood transfusion. He's been too injured by fighting the Navy when escaping Foolshout and the ambush, and he needs medical attention ASAP. And then we get a string of pages with some of the most impactful panels in the series to me:
We learn the big secret. Fisher Tiger, powerful and conquering hero to the slaves... was a slave. He cannot bring himself to accept human blood because in his heart, he cannot accept peace with the humans after the barbarity they showed him. It's just too much. Arlong is immediately under pressure, too, which hits me quite hard.. he can't understand the idea of Big Brother Tai having been a slave. He can't understand the no-killing policy in light of that. None of this makes sense, it's all just awful and miserable and depressing and no side it remotely happy. This is what slavery brings about, this confusion and anger and torture is what Tiger wanted to destroy... but he just, couldn't. He couldn't win.
Fisher Tiger dies. He dies because, at the very end, he couldn't get rid of the hatred in his heart for humanity. Can you blame him? Can you blame someone treated as a slave and betrayed up until the very end? His story is heartbreaking for me, particularly with that last revelation - Tiger did all of his work in trying to treat Koala well after having been a slave. It's hard to comprehend what was going on inside his heart, as we see through Arlong. The cycle of hatred claimed a great liberator and spawned 1,000 more enemies to humanity, and for what?
Chapter 623 is Oda at his best for me. The artwork is on the busier side in this chapter, but it is necessary given how dense everything is. The story of Fisher Tiger, the great adventurer turned slave turned liberator has captivated me since it came out in this manga. I love that he saved everyone he could atop the Red Line, I love that his instinct was to protect and help Koala, I love that he reformed a band of ruffians like the fishmen in the Fishmen District like Oden would later do.
But this is one of the few outright defeats we see in One Piece of a sympathetic character. Even a character like Noland was eventually directly vindicated - but Tiger dies as a result of the hatred the humans forced into his soul. He sees that Otohime is 'right', in general, but even acknowledging that he'd rather die than accept human blood. I have to wonder if the final betrayal upon dropping off Koala was the straw that broke the camels back, but really, I just hope he is at peace somewhere inside the story's afterlife.
RIP Fisher Tiger, you would have loved Luffy.
Part 2: #9
Took a few days off and returning to the list now, placing each of these is harder than the last!
tbp's Top 10: #9
Chapter 623: Fisher Tiger the Pirate
Chapter 623 starts right after one of my favorite scenes in all of One Piece at the end of 622 (seriously, for a top 10 list Oda's habit of bisecting great moments is a bit annoying!). In 622 Fisher Tiger ended the chapter by taking the newly found slave Koala and branding her with the Sun Pirate mark, hiding the Celestial Dragon hoof the slaves are branded with. I always found this ludicrously impactful, and Koala and Tiger's story is really one of my favorites over-all.
If there's one thing Oda is truly an all-time master at, it's short-form stories with huge emotional impacts. The Fisher Tiger backstory is precisely that to me, an incredibly effective piece of storytelling which gives us a ton of information, revelation and characterization all in very few panels. And 623 does that same sort of storytelling right off the bat, instantly showing us how much Koala has changed with only her short time with the Sun Pirates so far, all through a redesign:

However, the topic of slavery is one that Oda absolutely treats with deftness. He's not so naive as to say "she's good now! they're all pals!". Koala is still massively influenced by her time as a slave, and the status of several of the Sun Pirates as former slaves forms a sort of tension on the crew, which we see through Aladdin and Arlong's interaction:

Arlong's psychology is really interesting to me, as revealed in this flashback. I don't know the proper psychological terms for it, but I think that Oda does a really good job showing how conflicted Arlong is internally through his interactions in this flashback coupled with the arc hundreds of chapters ago. Arlong seems to have such a deep (and, justified! given the behavior of humans) inferiority complex. But the way that he fights back against that feeling is to (lie to himself?) convince himself that Fishmen are genuinely superior. He's so deeply convinced of the evil in humanity's heart that counterexamples won't sway him, but it's genuinely very difficult to even say that he is wrong, given the history of the crew:

As I write this, I realize that I'm copying down basically every panel - it's hard not to, this chapter is really, really filled with excellent characterization and deft exploration of the themes Oda wants to talk about. In other words, it's an incredibly effective chapter. We get to see the beginning of Jinbei's transformation - while last chapter he was asking Fisher Tiger if it was okay as long as they kept their murder of humans to a minimum, now he's conversing with Koala and starting to see the bigger picture (also Koala playing with Hachi is really cute):

Fishman Island's theme of there being generations who "know nothing" so they can be taught is especially powerful. It's a bit of a shame that the theme wasn't communicated as strongly with Hody as it was in this flashback. Koala correctly identifies ignorance as the problem, but that also provides an opportunity - the ignorant can learn, instead, that Fishmen are just like anyone else (+ gills).
The Sun Pirates bring Koala back home, eventually, after a little of exploring the world. There are some great panels during that exploration, but I'll just show my favorite:

And finally they make it to Foolshout Island, where Koala was born. Fisher Tiger offers to walk her from the shore back to her village, and Koala continues her naive, but good hearted, intentions by claiming that she'll be the one to teach her village that fishmen are good. Arlong continues his negativity, claiming that the effort is futile. And on these panels we are basically getting the entire crux of this storyline at once: who is right? Is Koala right, with her naive intentions to make peace? Is Arlong right, and that it's far too late, there's nothing to be gained by interaction with humans? We know what Otohime thinks as one pillar of thought, what does Fisher Tiger really think?



As we watch the panels of Tiger leaving, it's very hard to think anything other than: Arlong is wrong, eventually the new generation can forgo all prior biases and live in peace. Fisher Tiger walks away with a small smile, Koala is crying her eyes out.. it seems very effective. We know where Koala's story goes after all of this, which does indicate that Tiger made the "right" moves inside the One Piece universe. Her status as a revolutionary in the current timeline is one of my favorite things, she was so impacted by the kindness of the Sun Pirates that she had to step up to the plate for them once she could. I also love the shot of Tiger walking away with the sun on his back - it's very Nika-ish, a Sun God liberator bringing peace.
But then we turn the page.

The look on Tiger's face breaks my heart every single time I re-read this chapter. You can see the fear behind his eyes. You can see him remembering his time as a slave. You can see the heartbreak. Phenomenal art by Oda, in my opinion. It makes me sick to my stomach that the Vice Admiral claims he's guilty of "escape" - how fucking horrid of them.
Tiger puts up an incredible fight, but...:



What's done is done. The people of Foolshout Island betrayed the Sun Pirates, and a military organization responsible for enforcing the whims of a genocidal slaver class descend on our revolutionary hero and... they win. Sure, maybe they don't kill him right away, but...
Fisher Tiger needs a blood transfusion. He's been too injured by fighting the Navy when escaping Foolshout and the ambush, and he needs medical attention ASAP. And then we get a string of pages with some of the most impactful panels in the series to me:



We learn the big secret. Fisher Tiger, powerful and conquering hero to the slaves... was a slave. He cannot bring himself to accept human blood because in his heart, he cannot accept peace with the humans after the barbarity they showed him. It's just too much. Arlong is immediately under pressure, too, which hits me quite hard.. he can't understand the idea of Big Brother Tai having been a slave. He can't understand the no-killing policy in light of that. None of this makes sense, it's all just awful and miserable and depressing and no side it remotely happy. This is what slavery brings about, this confusion and anger and torture is what Tiger wanted to destroy... but he just, couldn't. He couldn't win.



Fisher Tiger dies. He dies because, at the very end, he couldn't get rid of the hatred in his heart for humanity. Can you blame him? Can you blame someone treated as a slave and betrayed up until the very end? His story is heartbreaking for me, particularly with that last revelation - Tiger did all of his work in trying to treat Koala well after having been a slave. It's hard to comprehend what was going on inside his heart, as we see through Arlong. The cycle of hatred claimed a great liberator and spawned 1,000 more enemies to humanity, and for what?

Chapter 623 is Oda at his best for me. The artwork is on the busier side in this chapter, but it is necessary given how dense everything is. The story of Fisher Tiger, the great adventurer turned slave turned liberator has captivated me since it came out in this manga. I love that he saved everyone he could atop the Red Line, I love that his instinct was to protect and help Koala, I love that he reformed a band of ruffians like the fishmen in the Fishmen District like Oden would later do.
But this is one of the few outright defeats we see in One Piece of a sympathetic character. Even a character like Noland was eventually directly vindicated - but Tiger dies as a result of the hatred the humans forced into his soul. He sees that Otohime is 'right', in general, but even acknowledging that he'd rather die than accept human blood. I have to wonder if the final betrayal upon dropping off Koala was the straw that broke the camels back, but really, I just hope he is at peace somewhere inside the story's afterlife.
RIP Fisher Tiger, you would have loved Luffy.