Are The Strawhats’ Dreams Still Relevant?

Dreams have always been a hugely important part of the story of One Piece. Often acting as the main motivation for almost every character in the series, the concept of dreams and achieving something that seems unachievable is the one thing that links nearly every character in the show. Whether they be villains or heroes, the Great Pirate Era is full of dreamers with massive ambitions, looking to change the face of the world.

However, as time passes, while the plot of the series gets bigger and bigger, the importance of the initial dreams for the Straw Hat Pirates seems to get smaller and smaller. With the Straw Hats’ dreams being the main motivation for the group to set sail, it seems like massive story arcs, like Elbaf, Egghead, and Wano, have taken priority over making progress to make the individual dreams of the Straw Hat Crew a reality. Due to this, many fans are currently wondering whether the dreams of the Straw Hat Pirates are still truly relevant in One Piece.

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The Dreams Of The Straw Hats Are Some Of The Biggest In The Series

Without Hard Work These Goals Are Impossible To Accomplish

For the Straw Hat Pirates, each member of the crew has a clearly stated dream that they want to achieve in the series. Outside of Luffy’s goal of finding the One Piece and become the Pirate King, each member has a motivation to sail the seas that rival or even surpass Luffy’s goal in terms of difficulty. From Franky’s goal of circumnavigating the Grand Line on his own ship to Nami’s goal of mapping the world to Sanji’s goal of finding the All Blue, each of these dreams may take a massive amount of work to accomplish.

However, it seems with each passing chapter of One Piece, these dreams are mentioned less and less as an important element of each Straw Hats’ character. For example, while it’s implied that Nami has continued working on her maps of the world, the series hasn’t mentioned it often and doesn’t deal with any interesting storylines surrounding her dreams. Instead, larger story plots that deal with the One Piece world as a whole, like Wano and Egghead, often take priority over the admittedly smaller dreams of the Straw Hats.

The Dreams Of The Straw Hats Took A Back Seat Post-Time Skip

This Is Even Worse In The Final Saga

• Other Elements Of The Story Take Priority Over The Dreams Of The Straw Hats
• Sanji In Particular Seems Unfocused On His Goal

A great example of this idea is Usopp and his current role in Elbaf so far. While Usopp frequently talked about his lifelong dream of becoming a brave warrior of the sea and visiting Elbaf, outside of a brief mention that visiting the island was always a dream of his, Usopp hasn’t really had any important things to do on Elbaf as of now. Instead, the plot chooses to focus on the Giant Prince, Loki, and the God’s Knights, larger world elements that overshadow the Straw Hats more and more every day.

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While this isn’t a bad thing for the story as a whole, as these larger world plot elements like Loki’s imprisonment and the plans of the God’s Knights are very interesting, it does mean that the dreams of the Straw Hats, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t relevant anymore. Overall, a character hasn’t even mentioned his dream of finding the All Blue since One Piece’s Whole Cake Island Arc, hundreds of chapters and episodes ago. While Sanji doesn’t need to be constantly mentioning the All Blue every chapter, seeing him make a little progress once per arc, like finding a book that mentions the All Blue or hearing an old song that sings of a mythical All Blue, would be enough to keep their dreams relevant.

Oda May Have Major Plans For The Resolution Of The Straw Hats’ Dreams

Fans Will Have To Wait Longer To See More Progress On Their Goals

Still, as the story is currently going, when the Straw Hats do eventually achieve their dreams, it won’t be nearly as satisfying as some fans hope it will be. Realistically, for many of the Straw Hats, especially Sanji, depending on how the author of One Piece, Oda, finishes their respective character arcs, it’ll just feel like their dreams come true out of nowhere, with little effort on their part. Although the crew is most likely putting in a lot more effort behind the scenes, it would be nice to see it in the main story occasionally.

In the end, while the Straw Hats’ dreams are still important motivators, in the grand scheme of the story, they are no longer relevant. Sadly, this is simply a natural consequence of One Piece moving on to bigger and better things, leaving behind some elements of its roots. Hopefully, when the story has its big resolution for these dreams, Oda will find a way to remind fans of how special they once were.

One Piece

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Network

Fuji TV

Directors

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou

• 

  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

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  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)