Jun 3, 2023
If you are fan of stories that have a massive focus on worldbuilding with lore and mysteries that go deep and feel interconnected, this is for you. I don't think any manga, no, I don't think any media does worldbuilding like One Piece does. The world feels like a real, lived in place despite being so absurdly cartoonish.
Multiple concepts/characters/locations are introduced hundreds of chapters before becoming relevant. Every island we visit brings it's own cultures and cast of characters with their own backstories and motivations. The world doesn't revolve around the main characters, the side characters from
...
hundreds of chapters ago are still going through their own stories while the main plot is happening. All this makes the world feels alive.
Despite being a story aimed at a younger audience, One Piece tackles mature concepts often. We have an entire arc built on racism and how generations of prejudice is formed. One Piece has a very heavy emphasis on free will, so you will often see concepts that go against freedom, like actual slavery (There is an entire island dedicated to human trafficking), suppression from people of higher authority, nobles of 'higher birth' having more rights than 'peasants' abusing their power, or normal citizens being stripped of their basic rights like food or water.
Still, the world isn't all black and white i.e. 'Pirates are good guys' and 'all the marines are corrupt'. We are immediately shown that there's evil pirates like Kuro and Arlong, while the story also introduces good marines like Koby and Smoker. There is good and evil on both sides. And the thing is, most of the in-universe people are like Smoker who think the opposite: 'Pirates are all evil' and 'Marines only work for good'. Then we see Smoker's views be challenged when he sees Luffy liberating the kingdom of Alabasta, while the marines there do nothing to help the citizens. In punk hazard, there is a part where the pirates and marines are eating together, while Smoker draws a line between them to keep distance between his marine men and the pirates he considers evil. But minutes later, we see that people from both sides have crossed over and are all over the place just having fun, signifying that both sides are just people living their lives.
The story itself is also consistently good. The lows in the story are very few and far apart, while having constant highs. Despite being so long, there is a clear sense of progression to the plot. One Piece excels at creating long build ups then having massive payoffs for those build ups. There are mysteries which will get you hooked and won't be explained for hundreds of chapters. We see Luffy going from a random kid in Foosha village to the pirate king (He isn't the pirate king yet while I'm writing this, but we'll eventually get there). Despite being so long, the story remains consistently good and keeps you hooked.
And please don't make all the above explanation make you feel like the story is only good for it's world. Luffy is one of the best concepts for a main character I've seen in Shonen. He doesn't want to be the Pirate King to prove himself or anything, he says that he sees the Pirate King as 'most free person in the world'. He is a simple man, he wants a world where his friends can eat all they want. Luffy is a symbolism for freedom. Many people complain that he has very little character development, but you don't need a character to go through a major character arc or personality change to be a good character. Luffy is an example of a static character, the world around him doesn't change him, he brings changes to the world with his personality. It's the moments where he reminds the readers who he is, that are considered the best moments in the series (For those who have read One piece, examples are those scenes in Jaya and Sabaody). The other Strawhats also have their own goals and ideals that make us root for them. All of them feel important, you feel like Luffy needs all of them to achieve his dreams, while they also need Luffy to achieve theirs. So far, my biggest complain about One Piece is that after the timeskip, there is much less focus on the personalities of all the Strawhats except Luffy and Sanji.
Gather up all of the crew, it's time to ship out Binks' Brew,
Sing a song, and play along for all the oceans wide.
After all is said and done, you'll end up a skeleton,
so spread your tale from dawn til' dusk upon these foamy seas.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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