Talk:Periodic Table/@comment-4080028-20160124164042/@comment-4080028-20160125192414

^ Agreed. One Piece being a shounen manga as it is, it follows the shounen creed of disregarding acdemic knowledge in favor of more down to earth common sense. Thing is, shounen as a demographic and manga style of sorts believes things like science, math, history and all the sorts of stuff you can learn at school certainly have their place and usefulness, but they aren't what's really important.

To get to the point here, because this involves some deep research into Japanese values, shounen and One Piece alike both feel our sense of logic and reasoning are only really good at supporting others; that's why Robin's historian expertise helps the crew when they need answers or information, instead of taking the spotlight and solving every problem with historical facts. Same goes for Nami's scientific knowledge of the weather and oceans, and Franky's knowledge of how machines work. One Piece flat out spells out that this type of knowledge is supplementary and only works to help others. This knowledge alone cannot solve anything on its own; as shown by how Luffy gets to the point of the matter instead of worrying about details or trivia. In the Alabasta arc, Vivi was more concerned with how to stop the civil war by focusing on the events unfolding around her; Luffy on the other hand knew that the quickest way to put an end to everything was to defeat Crocodile. And likewise, he's done this with every major antagonist he comes up against. He fought Lucci head on and insisted on it because if Lucci wasn't defeated, then Robin and the others would still be in danger. Everyone else would most likely focus on a smater plan, like going into Enies Lobby, taking Robin's key, freeing her and then escaping quickly. But Luffy's animal-like instincts and clear insight knew that was a bad plan and figured the easiest way out of a problem is to go through it.

And so on and so on. Another point against relying on science and other academic skills to support One Piece's logic is that the world of One Piece relies heavily on the exotic mysteries of life. The beauty of the world, seen through the Straw Hats' eyes, is because they're witnessing things they either barely understand or things that are completely alien to them. Whenever someone goes "the world is a crazy place" or "there are some amazing things out in the world," it's most likely because someone's seen something bizarre and unfathomable that just simply defies logic and what it states to be impossible. Essentially, Oda wants us to take a step back, stop trying to make sense of things, and go "wow... the world sure is an amazing place, isn't it?" One Piece is mostly an adventure story, and so it lends itself more to discovering great unknowns that defy reason and enjoying the ride as greater mysteries present themselves to the characters. If it relied heavily on science, facts, knowledge and tricia, it'd be more like a Sci-Fi or non-fiction story where relying on education is to be expected and plays more of an important role throughout the story.

Simply put, One Piece and shounen as a whole has no time to worry about our rules of physics; these independent fantasy worlds have their own logic that makes sense to them, and the story tends to work better when it stays true to its own logic instead of ours.

Not to come off as trying to lecture people as to why this sounds like a bad idea, or to come off as "you should feel bad for doing something so stupid," but rather this comes from a very strongly passionate aspect of my being. I'm pasisonate about One Piece and shounen manga as of now and I felt I should share the research I put into both of them and put that research to good use. Truthfully, I'm adamantly against the notion of relying too much on science, physics and real world logic when dealing with shounen stories, and especially One Piece as of late, but I can at least step back enough to respect why other people would want to do this. Personally, I do feel it's pointless and useless in the grand scheme of things, but who am I to judge?

Getting back to the matter at hand, I still strongly question why a page that has absolutely nothing mentioning One Piece or is related to it in any way is on this wiki. Not because of personal opinions or feelings, but because it in turn makes no clear logical sense to me. We may as well be adding Star Wars fanon to this wiki too, you know? However, I have seen why it was done and I can respect your desire to make sense of things. But really, I still see no need for it. Not a personal slam against you, but more because in the end, I find it unnecessary.