The Marines — May 3, 2018
Are the Admirals carrying the entire Navy on their backs?
If the Admirals disappeared tomorrow, what would the Marines look like?
Are Vice Admirals actually elite — or just named extras?
And has the Great Pirate Era completely exposed the Navy’s limits?
- “There’s No Talent” — The Core Complaint
- Admirals vs Everyone Else
- Vice Admirals as “Mob Characters”
- Marines, Technology, and Missed Potential
- Power Balance in the Great Pirate Era
- Smoker, Future Leadership, and Structural Problems
- 👉 Why Japanese Fans Think This Way
- 👉When the Middle Collapses, the System Fails
There’s No Talent — The Core Complaint
1: Anonymous Pirate
There’s just no talent at all…
3: Anonymous Pirate
It’s just that it’s the Great Pirate Era, so the pirates are way too large-scale.
4: Anonymous Pirate
If the Marines were too strong in a pirate manga, that’d be bad.
5: Anonymous Pirate
They did counterattack and beat the world’s strongest, Whitebeard, though.
Admirals vs Everyone Else
9: Anonymous Pirate
Realistically, only Admirals and maybe Vice Admirals count as actual combat power.
16: Anonymous Pirate
>>9
They’ve got Colonels and stuff to catch weaklings like Krieg.
Right now we’re only seeing top-tiers.
10: Anonymous Pirate
If they had something like nuclear weapons, they’d be monsters.
But in the One Piece world, everything depends on how strong individual soldiers are.
21: Anonymous Pirate
>>10
Pirates are scattered and constantly moving,
so nukes wouldn’t really be usable as military power.
Vice Admirals as Mob Characters
13: Anonymous Pirate
Vice Admirals are basically mob characters.
15: Anonymous Pirate
What country’s navy even is this?
32: Anonymous Pirate
>>15
It’s the World Government’s army.
19: Anonymous Pirate
The fact that Smoker is a future Admiral candidate is insane.
At least Vice Admirals should’ve been Warlord-level.
Leadership Irony and Past Glory
24: Anonymous Pirate
Akainu becomes Fleet Admiral and is always pissed,
while Sengoku retires and looks like he’s enjoying life. That contrast is hilarious.
31: Anonymous Pirate
Twenty years ago it was
Fleet Admiral Kong, Admiral Sengoku, Zephyr, Vice Admiral Garp, Tsuru,
plus the old three Admirals — shows how bad things are now.
33: Anonymous Pirate
The Marines need power inflation too.
Marines and Moral Contradictions
37: Anonymous Pirate
It’s bad that part of the Marines (Koby) is buddies with a pirate worth 1.5 billion.
45: Anonymous Pirate
>>37
Well, the Pirate King and the Hero of the Marines were close too.
Weapons, Technology, and Missed Potential
61: Anonymous Pirate
The Marines have Seastone, at least…
62: Anonymous Pirate
All their fighting power is human-only.
They should deploy more weapons like Pacifistas.
77: Anonymous Pirate
>>62
They’d just introduce some junk “object-type” weapons
that exist only to get jobbed.
“If the Yonko Team Up, It’s Over”
70: Anonymous Pirate
If two Yonko teamed up, this trash military would get wiped instantly.
73: Anonymous Pirate
It’s bad that the Marines’ top combat power can’t even catch one rookie.
Vice Admirals Are Too Weak
75: Anonymous Pirate
Admirals aside, Vice Admirals are way too weak.
They’re like 100-million-bounty level at best.
89: Anonymous Pirate
>>75
They were beating up 300-million Luffy during the war though.
Strategic Gaps During Marineford
79: Anonymous Pirate
While the Marines were fighting Whitebeard,
they left other seas completely empty.
Were pirates just behaving themselves?
88: Anonymous Pirate
>>79
Things went wild all at once after the war.
Whitebeard and the Fragility of the System
84: Anonymous Pirate
Getting Marine HQ half-destroyed by Whitebeard alone is embarrassing.
If two Yonko attacked, the world would end.
95: Anonymous Pirate
>>84
They’ll never team up.
94: Anonymous Pirate
If the Marines were strong, they wouldn’t need the Warlords.
96: Anonymous Pirate
At least put like five Vice Admirals just below Admiral level.
Can the Marines Stop Anyone?
101: Anonymous Pirate
Anyone below Admiral can’t even stop mid-tier pirates.
105: Anonymous Pirate
>>101
When a low–mid rank officer lost to Bartolomeo, I got chills.
Akainu must’ve been furious.
“Don’t Worry, Kong Exists”
116: Anonymous Pirate
It’s fine, Kong is still around.
147: Anonymous Pirate
>>116
He’s 100% a Zoan — Model: King Kong.
The orangutan and gorilla were those Sky Island guys.
If that’s not a Devil Fruit, it’d be weird.
Territorial Failure
122: Anonymous Pirate
The fact that pirates control multiple islands already makes the Marines incompetent.
Smoker as a Structural Problem
157: Anonymous Pirate
Smoker being helpless against Warlords and still an Admiral candidate is insane.
No wonder Akainu pushed conscription outside Marine elites.
186: Anonymous Pirate
>>157
Losing to Law or Doflamingo is one thing,
but he got completely destroyed by their subordinate Vergo.
Then got told his power just makes him a bigger target — brutal.
>>158
What Devil Fruit is that anyway?
From just the hands, it looks like a worse version of Cracker’s Biscuit Fruit.
190: Anonymous Pirate
>>186
I’ll say it again — that was strategy.
Expanding your body in a straight fight is the dumbest move possible.
Devil Fruits and Rank Logic
158: Anonymous Pirate
This guy is strong though.
160: Anonymous Pirate
>>158
What Devil Fruit is that?
From the hands alone, it looks like a downgrade of Cracker’s Biscuit Fruit.
171: Anonymous Pirate
>>160
His name’s Onigumo, so it’s probably some spider thing.
How Do Devil Fruit Users Even Serve?
159: Anonymous Pirate
How do Devil Fruit users who can’t swim even become Marine officers?
Do they just sit out swimming class at the academy?
167: Anonymous Pirate
>>159
They probably have a separate exam for Devil Fruit users.
“Good Pirates” and Fiction Logic
161: Anonymous Pirate
Stop using the phrase “good pirates.”
181: Anonymous Pirate
>>161
Still better than “good yakuza,” so it’s fine.
Rank vs Actual Ability
166: Anonymous Pirate
Was the guy who rusted Zoro’s sword a Vice Admiral?
184: Anonymous Pirate
>>166
Not sure now, but he was a Captain when first introduced.
168: Anonymous Pirate
Higher rank isn’t about strength, it’s about command ability —
but in fiction, rank equals personal strength.
Final Comparisons
169: Anonymous Pirate
Lucci is probably Admiral-level by now.
176: Anonymous Pirate
Vice Admirals Bastille and Maynard couldn’t do anything to Sabo at all.
👉 Why Japanese Fans Think This Way
Japanese fans often judge the Marines as a system, not individuals.
Because the story focuses on extreme outliers (Yonko, Admirals),
everything beneath them feels structurally hollow — even if it logically shouldn’t be.
👉 When the Middle Collapses, the System Fails
The frustration isn’t that the Marines are weak —
it’s that the hierarchy no longer functions as a believable counterweight.
When only the very top matters, the middle collapses,
and fans start seeing the entire organization as being carried by a handful of monsters.
Sengoku figure
Sakazuki / Akainu figure
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