One Piece

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'One Piece', written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, is every bit the magnificent work of art it's reputed to be, and has been honoring the pages of Shonen Jump since 1997. It's an extraordinary creation which is very well planned and interestingly structured.

Often described to be one of the greatest manga of all time, One Piece has existed as a pillar that has consistently supported the world of Japanese entertainment for generations. Following the journey of a beautifully written protagonist, it is a story that enthralls readers with it's creative storytelling, foreshadowing, characters and plot development. As a manga, it allows readers to witness ... the evolution of its art across nearly 28 years of serialization.

Monkey D. Luffy wishes to circumnavigate the globe, find the One Piece, reputed to be the greatest treasure of all, and thereby become the King of the Pirates. To do this, he must find himself a loyal crew and take down rivals that get tougher and tougher as his journey continues. That is about all that those who aren't acquainted with One Piece imagine it to be. But that is nowhere near what it's all about. This story explores a plethora of worldviews, building dynamics and parallels along the way, and represents accurately, the various political and social problems we face as individuals, people, and nations. The world of One Piece is much darker than most imagine it to be. Exploring the pits of the worst of the worst, the story does not hesitate to portray the corruption, hate, greed, and disloyalty that bewitch worldly institutions. Wars, slavery, discrimination, ostracization, each of these and many more, have been depicted with powerful accuracy.

Despite it's undeniable greatness, One Piece too, is not perfect and there's a few problems that a lot of people point out.

1. The art style is not very good at beginning of the series.

However, I'm being very serious when I say it gets a lot better, and you should think yourselves fortunate to be able to witness the development of not just Oda's art, but any art whatsoever.

2. The story is very slow and takes an enormous amount of time to pick up. It takes even longer to get consistently good.

For the most part, I too agree with this. But the fact remains that its always engaging. One Piece is a story that requires commitment due to it's longevity. Oda has not hesitated to take his time in developing the story and revealing important plot points very slowly. As a result of this, the story ends up being inconsistent at times, with a few great arcs followed by rather boring ones. Even so, said arcs are not very difficult to get through, and there's always something good in there. One Piece is a diverse story with varied amounts of action, comedy, darkness, pain and plenty more so, you can't expect to be sitting around hoping for it to quickly pick up speed. The time you've spent is eventually well rewarded.

3. The story is badly paced.

It's true that events sometimes seem like a very odd patchwork, but if I'm being honest, it isn't much of a problem in the manga. The problems of pacing are more acute in the anime, and Toei is to blame.

There's more that can be said but these are the main problems of One Piece. Honestly not difficult to get through.

This is a story that emphasizes on friendship, following your dreams, committing to yourself and your goals, and doing all that you can to achieve what you wish, even if it means going against the agendas of prominent institutions and governments. It embodies the virtue of being kind and doing what is righteous. All in all, it's a very good read that deserves all that it has.

My only advice for those wishing to read it is that you shouldn't read it for the sake of catching up to it and getting it over with quickly. Just read it. At your own pace and at your own time. Eventually you'll find that you just keep going automatically and your mind doesn't even realize that you've caught up when you have. You'll wish for more. That's a given.
Thanks for reading.

One Piece is a series that has been serializing for a whopping 27 years, and has built up a very large following in the meantime. At the time of writing this One Piece has 1135 chapters. So in other words, it's pretty long and intimidating to the majority of people wanting to get into OP. So, should those on the fence take a crack at One Piece? Well, that depends on what you're looking for.

(As a side note I will not be mentioning things regarding the Elbaph arc because it's not finished)

Story/arcs

The story is pretty simple to wrap your head around since it ... begins and, presumably, ends with Luffy setting sail with the goal of becoming the king of the pirates. Obviously the most important bits of the story are going to be in between him setting sail and him eventually becoming the king of the pirates. Now I'm not too big of a fan of how reductive certain fans are when talking about the overarching themes of One Piece as the typical watered down answer given is "It's about the journey rather than the destination." While I do think that interpretation has its merits, I do think that One Piece is a story of Luffy and his friends rising up and fighting back against the tyrannical power of the world government and for the liberation of all those who are oppressed by them, even if Luffy isn’t actively seeking that out. Be it the Straw hats defeating warlords who are legally allowed to wreak havoc on a populace because they’re allowed to thanks to the world government, defeating nuisances who are terrorizing people, or just fighting for the sake of saving their friends while stepping on the toes of the "founders" of the world.

Each of the arcs in One Piece have their own themes that are explored throughout the arc, duh. Some are great, some are good, but most are bad. Up until Arlong Park, the themes are pretty one note and aren't very interesting. Coincidentally, Arlong Park is exactly where the reader will notice that One Piece actually starts taking itself seriously and starts becoming better. That doesn't mean that every arc that comes after Arlong Park is amazing, but it does means that there's a noticeable difference in quality if you compare an arc like Baratie to something like Alabasta. There are 33 arcs in One Piece and out of the plentiful amount that One Piece has to offer, only 5 of them are good: Enies Lobby, Wano, Whole cake, Arlong park, and Marineford. Enies Lobby being head and shoulders above the rest. I don't really feel like diving into each of the arcs since that'd take forever but just keep in mind that for every Enies Lobby there are 6 Fish-Man Islands. So there's a lot of slog to parse through if you want to get to the good stuff.

Characters

The characters, like in any other story, are the central part of One Piece and are what makes One Piece what it is. Since without the characters there wouldn't be a story. The amount of characters there are in One Piece is exactly what you would imagine for a series that has been running for damn near 30 years. But unfortunately, they can be best described as a mixed bag, as you'll get characters who are genuinely amazing, like Robin, and characters who just suck and don't really play that big of a role in their respective arcs and honestly could've been cut entirely with no consequence because not much would have changed because of it, like Rebecca. Disappointingly, there are a hell of a lot more characters that fall on the Rebecca side than those that fall on the Robin side, be it whether or not they pass the vibe check or whether they're genuinely a good character. What contributes the most to this is the amount and quality of (or current lack of) character development that each of the characters have, namely the straw hat crew since they're the main characters but unfortunately not every crew member is treated equally in this regard.

That is insane because, depending on the member, the only time that each of the characters get development is within the arcs that they join the crew. This problem is especially bad post time skip as the only crew members that get any real development are Sanji, and, to a lesser extent, Jinbe. Luffy isn't mentioned here since he's a flat character. Like instead of wasting time on characters like Rebecca, why don't we get more meaningful moments between the straw hats and create more Robins? Since they all have vastly different personalities there's bound to be some good moments there. To name an example of a nice moment between the crew members, there's a moment after Thriller Bark where Zoro learns about the pain that his captain had to go through in the previous fight. Moments like these are good because they make the cast more likable. Bonney and Kuma are worth mentioning here because of how those two were handled, they single handedly saved Egghead from being a terrible arc to being acceptable because of how amazing their story is.

Speaking of the straw hats, they wouldn't be where they are now without Monkey D. Luffy. Luffy is the protagonist of the series, and one that I personally didn't come around to liking until Enies Lobby, which is like 400 chapters deep by the way. Luffy is pretty easy to understand as his motivations are pretty simple, to become the king of the pirates. He doesn't do what he does for fame, or to be liked. He doesn't want to be a hero, he "wants all of the meat," he wants to be the freest man on the sea. But this lovable goofball can't help but become emotionally invested in others affairs in every arc and to want to help out those who reach out to him and follow through with his actions and becoming a hero to them. And that's what makes his latest transformation such a good form for him, no matter how fucking stupid its inception is. It's perfect for him. Luffy is the perfect protagonist for One Piece.

Outside of Luffy and Robin the rest of the crew are, frankly, not as interesting. However there are Nami and to a lesser extent Sanji and Usopp. but I can't tell you that Zoro and Sanji are on the same level while keeping a straight face. Sanji's the better character in case you're curious. Zoro is a character who is in desperate need of development because he's pretty boring as he’s pretty much just a typical sword guy who does sword guy things, and it was pretty disappointing when Wano wasn't the arc to change things much like how Whole Cake was Sanji's arc. Jinbe did also get some, but not nearly enough, development throughout the time since his introduction in Impel Down, namely in Fishman Island and Whole Cake. Nami has Arlong park, Usopp has some interesting development during Water seven, Chopper's a cute doctor who does doctor stuff, Brook doesn't have any development outside of his introductory arc, and Franky's in the same boat as Zoro and Brook. Hopefully the straw hats get more focus in the upcoming arcs.

What's a shonen without its share of antagonists? And boy does One Piece have its fair share. Unfortunately the majority of them are awful as they're typically one-note about how cartoonishly evil they are, Spandam being the worst offender of this, since his presence in Enies Lobby was genuinely annoying and honestly makes the arc a tiny bit worse than it would’ve been otherwise. Though that doesn't mean that all of the antagonists are bad, since I do think that of the one-note evil antagonists, Oda really nailed it with Doflamingo. Katakuri is also up there for various reasons but I won't go into that now. If you're planning on getting into One Piece it's best to keep your expectations low. But I'd say that the main antagonist of the story, the world government, are actually pretty good for what they are.

Art

Even at the beginning of the series that art isn't that bad, but the art really starts picking up when the story reaches Arlong Park. Ever since Arlong Park Oda's art has been pretty great, especially with how amazing the fight sequences are and how easy they are to follow.

Humor

It’s worth touching upon the humor because a lot of the jokes and situations are actually pretty funny and does help ease things when things get pretty boring.

Despite its faults, the best things about One Piece is not only the worldbuilding but also how coherent and natural the transitions are when going from one arc to another. It's just really unfortunate that the characterizations of the characters are admittedly pretty bad. It is really disappointing when you consider that most of the Straw hats are like this too, but it is also best to keep in mind that the series hasn't ended yet and we could get some good development for the characters. For example, Usopp could get some nice development in the current Elbaph arc. It's also worth mentioning again that One Piece is currently 1135 chapters strong and still going, and it really does look like One Piece is on its final stretch. If there's one other thing that One Piece does well it's that it really does sell the idea that these guys are on an adventure sailing through the sea on their journey for the One Piece. And if you don't want to go on that journey, that’s fine. But if you choose to go on that journey, that’s great too, just don't fall down some stairs along the way.

People will always ask "when does this get good?" and answers will vary. My answer to that is around 450 chapters in. I don't understand how people can claim that One Piece is a god-sent masterwork from Romance Dawn. It's slow, obnoxious, repetitive, predictable, and unbelievably annoying. The identity of the series is also steeped in juvenile misogyny that gets gross pretty quickly. Dragon Ball did it for a couple volumes. One Piece did it for 20 years.

The Story is basic but fine. Clear motivations, clear goals. Nothing wrong with that. The art style is sometimes overwhelming. You get used to it and it's ... definitely a key aspect to the identity of OP but sometimes less is more. The characters are pretty hit and miss, with one half being really endearing and sympathetic and the other half being detestable. There are so many characters that I despise (including some of the main cast), which does not help me enjoy the series. I didn't like a lot of the humour but there were some laugh out loud moments. The world building is phenomenal. This is my favourite part of One Piece. The problem I found with this is that the cool stuff was metered out way too slowly. I was always thinking "when are we going to get to the cool stuff, why are we wasting time with some stupid shit when there's so much potential for more interesting stories?" Maybe that's a "me" problem.

The fights are always good, that's one area where OP shines, although a lot of the villains suck. Over-the-top evil, obnoxiously arrogant, usually over-confident. And it's the same end result every time. Luffy gives the guy a big punch. Wow! He got what he deserved! Who could have seen that coming?? It's painfully transparent. I don't understand how a person can watch this happen 4 or 5 times and clap and cheer every single time. Also no one ever dies ever (I can count like 4 significant deaths in over 600 chapters). It really takes the tension away. How am I supposed to care about a fight if I no that there are no real stakes because the writing is predictable? Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

I'm happy for everyone who loves OP and gives it a 10. I don't get it but I'm happy for you. Clearly this series just isn't for me. And don't get me wrong, OP has some really great moments. There's a lot of good stuff to find. The only problem is that those gems are buried in an ocean of tedious mediocrity. I did not enjoy the journey. The destination was okay. An overall unpleasant experience.