@Ruin:
Fishman Island's handling of the complex nature of racism and hate is honestly one of the most nuanced depictions I've seen and it really endeared me to the arc as a whole, like the reveal of Hody's lack of a motive was more shocking to me than most of the twists in the series
I definitely agree. In fact, how One Piece handled racism as a whole, especially by flipping the "Fishmen oppressing the humans" dynamic back in Arlong Park was genius and really showcased how complex and tragic it could be. And not only that, but seeing it be based around humans fish/mermen made it feel organic to the world and story of One Piece as a genuinely entertaining, emotional, and inspiring tale, and didn't feel at all like a PSA shoved into the story screaming "HEY KIDS, DON'T BE RACIST" with obvious references and analogies to real life examples. The nuance, subtlety, and uniqueness of the situation allows the story's inspiration to adapt to various forms and examples of racism in the real world rather than look like it's only based around a specific instance. You can easily draw comparisons between Otohime with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Fisher Tiger with Malcolm X as representations of the warring methods of civil rights (peaceful negotiations versus rebellious violence), and Oda probably did take inspiration from those two figures when conceiving the arc. But it's executed so uniquely with these characters and stories that it stands on its own and represents the complexity and mindsets of those two sides without seeming like a blatant reference. That's also a lot like Charles Xavier and Magneto from the X-Men as well.
But something does irk me about the whole arc though despite how great it was handled (and by a freaking Japanese man no less, Oda deserves a lot of credit considering the cultural influences of Japan). It was just one page, specifically this one:
I'm really not a fan of this page at all. For the obvious reasoning that the New Fishman Pirates are literally the KKK in this pic. Unlike the rest of Fishman Island, Sabaody Archipelago, and Arlong Park, there's no impressionable subtlety or creativity to be found. It's just the Fishmen as the KKK, and I find that such… A cop out. And a really unnecessary that didn't need to be drawn with how well the rest of the story was progressing. It didn't ruin the arc or anything, and it's fortunately just a single page. But when I first watched the Fishman Island arc in the anime, I think they actually expanded upon it for a couple minutes, and I remember it bothering me quite a bit at how blatantly it was trying to portray racism as a negative mindset by shoving a real-life event into a story as unique and fantastical as One Piece. It's not that I think a group or real life instance is arbitrarily untouchable, or that this is somehow "too dark" for One Piece or anything that dumb and hypocritical. I just found it to be really out of place, and if anything, it made the scene and tone feel more goofy and exaggerated by trying to make the Fishmen dress and act exactly like white supremacists instead of diagetic subtlety and creativity that flowed with the rest of the arc's story and atmosphere. It almost felt like a parody or political cartoon. Changing the robes from white to black with less pointy masks doesn't make it any less obvious.
Sorry if this is really random to remark on, and I can understand if people think I'm being too nitpicky. It's just that I've never had an opportunity to organically bring this up in a One Piece forum until now, and I feel like Oda's credibility as a storyteller portraying such dark and complex concepts as racism, religious oppression, social class oppression in a subtle creative fashion is executed so well and effectively that a page like that looks unnecessary. It would be like if Enel suddenly dressed like a pastor when Noah was activated and quoted a couple Bible verses to Luffy in order to reference an explicit example of real-life religious corruption/persecution like a Soviet propaganda film. It takes you out of the experience, tries too hard (which makes it uncreative and rhetorical as result), and just looks a bit ridiculous, which is very ironic to say about a series starring a childish rubber kid trying to be king of the pirates.