One Piece

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One Piece is a masterclass in long-term storytelling and worldbuilding into which its author, Eiichiro Oda, imbues a genuine sense of emotional vulnerability, leading to an enormous amount of sentiment and heart being conveyed to the reader through its characters and use of narrative; this series is so good at making you want to cry.

One Piece also has some of the best art I've ever experienced in manga: while not being the most technically impressive, Oda draws with a unique and expressive artstyle while also possessing a seemingly instinctual, Toriyama-esque understanding of how to guide the reader's eye through a page.

While I do have numerous ... problems with One Piece, the series is so especially good at doing the things it's good at doing that it all but makes up for it, leaving One Piece as a strong contender for my favourite animanga of all time.

(...emphasis on the "manga" part there, Toei's anime adaptation is genuinely terrible and I'm praying for WIT's upcoming remake to be able to turn it around).

One Piece is a series that has much of what you want but also leaves a lot to be desired. There are many things the series does quite well, and there are many things it just does not do or fails to do at an adequate/consistent level. I’ll give two examples. One is one pieces world building and how grand and ambitious it is, alongside its narrative. This is does well but it also is a double-edged sword because my next example is…Character Writing in One Piece I believe is awful. Especially considering how long it is. There are too many characters, too many places, ... too many events, ideas, and conflicts that there just isn’t enough to also be able to have good, consistent and compelling characters. Now many would disagree…a that’s fine. If you have low standards then I envy you genuinely I wish I still had them but unfortunately, I don’t.

The next aspect I’ll talk about is that I believe One Piece is a great series to start someone out on early. I think if you wait too long and allow the viewer/reader to build their “taste” or “values” that it could end up hurting their experience. Of course, this just isn’t the case for everybody so do as you will. Regardless at some point in time give it a try but when you do make sure you understand that what you get in first 100 chapters or episodes is what you will get for the rest of the series. Some aspects will get much worse, while some get much better and much more interesting.

Do I believe the story deserves its hype? Sure, I think it’s good and at times can be quite enjoyable. I think it’s ambitious and I respect that. It’s trying to do much more than many other works do, and I understand that that means some aspects will end up being lack luster relative to other works that literally focus on those aspects. I however do not think this work is Top 10 worthy for me personally but still great and can totally understand it being Top 10 for others.

One Piece is overrated, formulaic garbage. It is no better than Fairy Tail, yet it is dishonest with itself and pretends to be something other than what it is. It is not even possible to enjoy this series as a fight-filled shonenslop à la Dragon Ball, as each story arc is padded with boring and unemotional backstories of characters that no one cares about.

**Story:**
Not including the current arc, 593 chapters or over half of the story arcs follow the same formula:
1. The Straw Hats go to a new island.
2. There is an evil villain oppressing the people of the island for no compelling reason (usually, ... they are just being evil for evil's sake).
3. A sad backstory ensues.
4. Luffy fights the villain, and the other Straw Hats fight the villain's underlings.
5. Luffy takes damage, but through a power-up reveal or the power of friendship, he defeats the villain.
6. The Straw Hats gain a new power-up (new crewmate, ally, ship, weapon, bounty, etc.).

Obviously, not every detail of these arcs follows this formula, but any deviations from the standard formula within these 593 chapters are few and far between. The two worst offenders of following this formula, the Dressrosa Saga and the Wano Saga, are also the two longest arcs of the series. The Wano Saga took a whole four years to complete. Oda obviously thinks he can excuse lazy writing by shoving in endless amounts of boring and unnecessary characters so that the current arc does not feel like an exact replica of the last.

**Characters:**
Similarly to One Piece's story, its characters are formulaic, undeveloped, and boring. In addition, some of the more interesting characters in the story were later completely ruined or shoved into the background. Most of the characters follow some basic shonen trope and are complemented by a sad and unintentionally hilarious backstory where someone important to them died.

Luffy follows the "main character that only cares about eating and fighting" trope. There is basically nothing else interesting about his character besides his power (which gets retconned and completely ruined later, don't worry).

Zoro follows the shonen trope of "cool strong guy", but sometimes he also puts a sword in his mouth and gets lost.

Nami is the "cute girl sidekick" trope, which is fine, but through the series, she starts wearing more revealing clothes while simultaneously getting shoved farther and farther into the background. After the time skip, she is effectively not a character anymore; she is merely a pair of cancerous breasts that are larger than her head.

Usopp, who is one of the ugliest main characters of a series I have ever seen, follows the coward trope. Not much to say about him; he is just incredibly boring and ugly.

Sanji is the first interestingly designed character that gets introduced and gets an expanded backstory; however, this backstory also follows the same formula as every other character.

Chopper follows the cute mascot trope with an interesting twist, but that twist was later ruined and he faded into the background.

Nico Robin's character followed the same route as Nami's, but she has a cool power.

Franky had the only backstory that was actually well written and WAS an interestingly designed character until the time skip, where he again has his design ruined and fades into the background.

Jinbe is so bland that I don't really consider him to be a character.

One Piece has no villains that have anything that actually could be considered interesting about them outside of their powers. There are some interesting side characters, but their appeal comes more from the drip-feeding of information about them rather than anything else.

**World Building:**
World-building is the strength of One Piece. Events happen off-screen in the world away from the characters that affect the direction of the story. The world of One Piece actually feels alive and lived in. However, the one good part of this series is drip-fed to the audience due to the intense slog of the story.

**Power System:**
Devil Fruits were originally an interesting concept that gave Oda lots of creative freedom to write interesting powers and exciting fight scenes. After the time skip, however, Haki is introduced, which allows for the strongest devil fruits in the series to be defeated by one character being stronger than another, rather than coming up with a strategy to negate their opponents' advantages. Haki is now the main power system in the series.

**Art:**
One Piece has by far the worst art and paneling of any popular manga. Characters often make dumb faces, and many characters are intentionally drawn to be as ugly as possible. The raid on Onigashima section of Wano, which was supposed to be an epic battle between two huge armies, had atrocious chicken scratch paneling that was basically impossible to follow.

In conclusion, I would only recommend One Piece to those who have an undeveloped frontal cortex, as those seem to be who flock to it.