Romance Dawn

Romance Dawn

Morganeers and Peace-mains

Romance Dawn (ロマンス ド一ン) is the original title of the story that eventually became One Piece. Episode 907 of the One Piece anime adapts the beginning of this original story and that’s what today’s review is all about.

There are a lot of differences between Romance Dawn and One Piece, and yet Romance Dawn will feel extremely familiar to any One Piece fans. This is because many of the characters and concepts we know from One Piece were still present in Romance Dawn.

What I found most interesting about Romance Dawn, however, was seeing how many of the characters we know today used to be combined. For example, Garp and Shanks used to be a single character that was eventually split into two.

Peace-main Monkey D. Garp from the Romance Dawn episode of the anime One Piece
Peace-main Monkey D. Garp

In Romance Dawn, the two opposing groups on the sea aren’t pirates and Marines. Instead, there are two factions of pirates: Morganeers and Peace-mains. The Morganeers are the bad pirates and the Peace-mains are the pirates who fight for justice.

Garp is one of the Peace-mains in this story, not a Marine. However, that doesn’t mean the Marines and Peace-mains are interchangeable. Peace-mains are still pirates who desire treasure. And this is where Garp’s combination with Shanks comes in.

Since Shanks doesn’t exist as his own character, Garp is the one who originally wore Luffy’s straw hat. And it’s also Garp who obtains the Gum-Gum Fruit that Luffy eats.

Although we all love Shanks, I actually don’t mind this combination of him and Garp. Romance Dawn was originally supposed to be far shorter than One Piece currently is. I believe it was going to be the length of the East Blue Saga. So this version of Garp/Shanks makes sense in that context.

Anne and Balloon

The next combination of characters is Nami and Vivi. When these two are combined, the result is Romance Dawn’s Anne. Anne basically just looks like Nami with Vivi’s hair color. But, there are more aspects of Nami and Vivi that we can see in Anne than just her appearance.

For example, Anne’s village was destroyed by pirates under the command of Six Hone Spiel and she was taken prisoner by them. This is somewhat similar to how Nami’s village was attacked and captured by the Arlong Pirates.

And while Anne isn’t a burglar as Nami is, we do get the scene of her attempting to break her companion, Balloon, out of his cage. I wonder if that influenced how Oda eventually wrote Nami, or if his choice to make her a burglar was completely unrelated.

Anne talking about Balloon from the Romance Dawn episode of the anime One Piece
Anne talking about Balloon

I think it would be easy to say that the only thing Anne and Vivi have in common is that they both have blue hair. But, the impact Anne had on Vivi’s character is easier to see once you look at her relationship with Balloon the Ruku bird.

The relationship between Anne and Balloon is the same as the relationship between Vivi and Karoo. I’ve also heard that Vivi wasn’t originally planned to be a princess, so perhaps she would have been more like Anne before Oda made that change. Or, she would have been nothing more than a Baroque Works villain.

Unlike the Garp/Shanks combination, I didn’t like Anne as much as Nami and Vivi. Anne and Balloon felt a bit bland. And while I suppose they could have joined Luffy’s crew, they felt more like one-off characters.

I guess if they had joined Luffy’s crew, Anne would have still filled the navigator role as Nami currently does. I can’t really imagine her doing anything else since she didn’t display any particular set of skills.

Six Hone Spiel

Six Hone Spiel is the character I like the most from Romance Dawn. Sure, he looks stupid. But that’s part of what makes him a good character. Think of all the other One Piece characters you probably thought looked stupid when you first saw them, like Bon Clay (the best character).

I’m guessing that Buggy being a clown was probably partially based on Six Hone Spiel’s character design. But, Six Hone Spiel isn’t a clown. He’s specifically referred to as a sorcerer. And while I first thought that was simply because he was a Devil Fruit user, it actually seems to be because of his specific Devil Fruit.

Interestingly, Six Hone Spiel’s Devil Fruit is one we haven’t seen at all in One Piece. His Devil Fruit seems to allow him to use telekinesis. We saw him freely moving around weapons, and even people, without touching them.

Morganeer Six Hones Spiel from the Romance Dawn episode of the anime One Piece
Morganeer Six Hones Spiel

But, I think my favorite thing about how Six Hone Spiel uses his Devil Fruit ability is that he carries around a broom to ride on. By using his telekinesis, he can make the broom fly while he rides on it.

Of course, there are some issues with this ability Six Hone Spiel has. And perhaps that’s a result of Devil Fruit abilities not being fully worked out at this stage. For example, why can’t he just use his ability to capture Balloon? It worked on a member of his crew, so it’s not like it doesn’t work on living creatures.

Additionally, Six Hone Spiel is able to conjure a giant hammer out of thin air, which he then controls with his telekinesis. And I guess destroying his own pirate ship was also done with telekinesis, though I’m not sure how.

Conclusion

When One Piece eventually ends, I think it would be fun if Oda created the entirety of his original vision for Romance Dawn. I’m sure a lot of fans would be interested in reading that. And if it was ever animated in its entirety, I’d definitely watch it.

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