Animation Revelation Forum

So I said I was going to start this over, and I did... Well, sorta. I remembered pretty much everything up to Arlong Park so I started rereading there. I'm currently up to Baroque Works introduction in Whiskey Peak.

I started mid-Baratie and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it all was. My only issue was how long everything took. Don Krieg took way too long to take down considering how much of a glass jaw he has, and how much of a one note character he was. Arlong Park was a huge improvement, both in pacing and in general storytelling... Unlike Baratie where the villains (Gin was okay, though he didn't get to do much) were pretty dull, Arlong's crew was a big step up, and they worked great as villains. My only issue with the arc is, Luffy's fight with Arlong goes on too long for my liking. I know he's supposed to be the strongest Fishman in the group by far, but it still doesn't stop the fight from dragging a lot. Anyway, Arlong Park was where it all came together for me, the story, characters, and action all worked together to really form the atmosphere that Oda was trying to achieve from the beginning, but here it finally feels up to snuff with his characterization and art.

Loguetown and Laboon were nice little side stories, but I'm glad to finally get to the meat again in the Grand Line.

I do wonder how Oda manages to make it feel so effortless, however. Storytelling is not as easy as he makes it seem like it is, yet he seems to know exactly what to do at all times and he rarely misses a beat. Can't wait to read more!

Its great to see that you continued reading One Piece.

As for the pacing....yeah, Its always bothered me, as well. I love the manga but even as the shorter version of the story (you don't want to know how much more the anime can drag things out), its extremely slow-paced when it gets down to the fights and such, which are needlessly long and drawn out. The climaxes are usually worth the wait, though, which is why I and most other people put up with it.

Having read/watched through the early arcs multiple times now, I'd say its worth it to pay close attention to certain things that come up in the story that don't seem to have any immediate relevance on the plot. Trust me....almost NOTHING in this series is pointless. Even if it seems pointless it'll actually be brought up later on, and most likely it'll be pretty important to the story by that point.

To give you a spoiler-free example, keep Laboon (the whale and his backstory) in mind....its actually REALLY important MUCH later on in the story....

Also keep what happened at the end of the Loguetown arc in mind as well. ;)

Sounds cool to me.

It's no wonder this became the most popular manga in Jump, considering all the effort that went into every aspect of the story and the world. More modern manga should take example from this.

Yeah, Oda is one of the only few current shonen mangaka with the talent to create an entire living, breathing world that feels unique and expansive, much like Togashi and Toriyama.

I think his creative talents really shine through when the crew gets to the grand line. The story gets more ambitious, bigger, and darker with each new arc, and you learn more about the World Government and the world's greatest pirates. One Piece really has a very interesting mythology behind it that Oda has carefully developed over the past decade (more than that, actually). Its actually almost scary knowing that he had most of the story planned out from as early as the very beginning.

As for Whiskey Peak, from that point on there are a number of mini-adventure arcs which are all quite fun, and they build up to the Alabasta arc which is the next step forward in quality for this series after the Arlong arc. It also gets props from me for paying a lot of homage to Dragon Ball. You'll see what I mean when you get to that part of the series.

Fun fact: 4Kids skipped Little Garden completely in their run of the show. That's right, they actually skipped an arc that has important consequences to an even bigger one later. How did they write their way around this arc? They kind of didn't even try, making it even more awkward when we get there.

That said, it is a fun little arc with some great new characters, and doesn't really overstay its welcome. The best part was Sanji infiltrating Mr. 3's house and trying to fool Mr. 0.

I'm now nearing the end of Drum Island, which has quite a bit of emotion to it. The first one since Arlong Park, I think.

Personally, I always felt that Chopper had one of the saddest past stories in the series. The death scene with Dr. Hiruluk has to be one of the most touching moments in the series for me. One thing that disappoints me, though, is that I feel that Oda doesn't do Chopper enough justice as a character after the Drum Island arc. He has his moments, but he is often-times cast-aside in favor of giving more focus to other characters of the crew. I think he deserves more focus, but the series will be going on for a long time so I'm sure he'll get some more big moments as the story continues.

Also, I heard that 4Kids skipped Little Garden. That  actually serves very important plot points to both the Alabasta arc and also the Enies Lobby arc way later down the line. The scene with Sanji pretending to be Mr. 3 shows that he's capable of being more than just a pervert and one of the crew's best fighters, but can also use his brain when he wants to. I wish he had more moments like that in the series, but when he does he's a pretty fun character.

After Drum Island you get to meet a very important new character in the series. Its also the start starts the story events that will eventually lead to the grand finale arc of the first part of the series (before the time-skip). But for what it is on its own its a fun series of chapters/episodes with a really awesome character. ;)

Alabasta is really a great arc. So much going on with so many characters, yet Oda is always on top of everything and carefully explaining what exactly is going on at all times. Character-wise, there's too much to pick out and embellish on so I'll just say that there isn't anything really wrong with this arc at all.

The comedic bits where Zoro mocks Sanji and Luffy and Usopp are demanding water while Tashigi and Smoker are oblivious to it is some good stuff. Most shonen isn't all that original with the comedy, but One Piece is good at putting it in the right moments.

Yeah, Alabasta was a really fun adventure arc. To me its also probably the closest One Piece came to having the feeling and overall vibe of Dragon Ball (its still its own thing, but the influence is extremely clear in that arc). Crocodile was also the first really interesting villain since Arlong, IMO. He has a classic toony-gangster style character design to him but he's considerably more intelligent than most other villains in the series and I liked how he was clever enough to see through some of the Straw Hat's plans against him. That makes the fact that Sanji outsmarted him even more impressive for Sanji. Also, I don't really want to spoil anything but this isn't the last you'll ever seen of Crocodile. That's all I'll say, though. ;)

Skypiea is the next arc and it has some great moments but it is considerably weaker than Alabasta, for the most part, IMO. Water Seven and Enies Lobby come after that and are widely considered to be the high point of the entire series for most people. Water Seven is kind of slow for me but keeps things interesting, while Enies Lobby is by far one of the series's most exciting arcs, IMO. My personal favorite, though, is Thriller Bark, which comes up right after Enies Lobby. A lot of homage to Tim Burton in that one (The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of Oda's all-time favorite movies).

The beginning of Skypiea is about as far as I saw in the anime (about when it vanished from Toonami and CN), though I only really read up to Alabasta's end at the time. So soon enough I'll be getting into the stuff I never saw before, but yeah Alabasta is a fantastic arc with fantastic pacing (Oda finally hit the right mark with his biggest weakness here, IMO) and a great villain.

It does seem like the end of a bigger portion of the story (sort of like Arlong Park felt like the end of the East Blue, this feels like the end of a story that has been going since they hit the Grand Line), so I'm eager to see what happens next.

By the time the Enies Lobby arc plays out the story takes a darker turn in terms of the subject matter, and it sort of feels like the entire world and the overall story becomes a bit more mature (while still retaining the feeling of being One Piece).

Fantastic chapter! This week's chapter was the best chapter since the climax of the Marineford arc. We finally get to see what Luffy's made of after 2 years off the seas. The next chapter should also be great since we can see how far the other Straw Hats have come since the time-skip.

Skypiea is boring the hell out of me. I actually enjoyed the build up to it a lot more.

The Jaya arc (the one that leads up to it) is surprisingly good for a build-up arc. It has one of my favorite moments in the series with Luffy's confrontation with Bellamy.

The Skypiea arc itself is pretty disappointing and bland until it gets close to the climax where Luffy meets with Eneru. Up until then, Oda needlessly goes out of his way to keep Luffy out of the picture (for reasons that will become obvious later, given Eneru's ability). He also tries to do too much with the whole war thing going on (he does this type of story MUCH better in the Marineford arc, but in this arc it just feels all over the place). Its a great arc in concept but a poor one in execution (except for the ending, which is honestly one of the most memorable parts of the series).

For me, its easily the series's biggest dip in quality so far, but I'd say its worth trudging through just to get back to the good stuff from the later arcs (Oda clearly learned his lesson from all of the mistakes that he made with the Skypiea arc).

I'm officially skimming through this now. I'm not missing anything much at all, it's basically more of what I don't already care for only Oda's pacing issues are back in full force. I'm also not caring for what's happening because it all feels so inconsequential to the whole main Grand Line story line, and none of the new characters are very interesting. I'm also not really a fan of the whole ""I am God!" *Cue maniacal laughter*" type of villain because they're so one note. So of course Oda has to drag this doofus along by finding ways to keep him out of Luffy's reach constantly is so annoying.

I'm not going to stop reading, but I'm not sitting through this tedium. Sorry, man.

Eh, I actually like Eneru, but he's not that interesting until he conflicts with Luffy. I can't deny that Skypiea probably has the least impact on the story (so far anyways; I can almost guarantee that events from that will somehow become important to the story later on), out of any other arc, but I still did personally love the ending of the arc. Its just the tedious shit in the middle that lost my interest.

How far into it are you, anyways?

If you get to the flash-back of Montblac Norland, then you should be pretty close to the end since after the flash-back is pretty much the climax of the arc. The flash-back itself is actually more interesting than the entire arc itself, IMO.

I just finished it. That was ridiculously longer than it needed to be. I'm hoping it gets better again from this point on.

There is some material between this arc and the next that is still kind of slow-ish, but a lot of it is important to a later part of the stroy. Before Water Seven is the Davy Back Fight arc which is kind of pointless but really short nonetheless. Most people don't care too much for Skypiea, so you're not alone in your distaste for that arc. After this point the story takes a darker turn with Water Seven and I feel that the story gets a lot more interesting (its also one of the fan favorite arcs of the story in combination with Enies Lobby).

I think Water Seven is kind of slow-ish but definitely holds your interest and is MUCH more engaging than Skypiea. Enies Lobby is the first arc in the series that manages to come back to the heights of Alabasta and then completely tops it.

So, the manga has finally picked up and gotten interesting again with Hodi trying to take out Shirahoshi. I like how despite the fact that Luffy clearly overpowers Hodi under normal circumstances, Oda finds a way to still put Luffy at a disadvantageous position by making him have to tread underwater (and in a weak little air bubble that's barely stable, at that), in order to try and rescue her. Underwater, fishmen are exponentially stronger and Hodi certainly shows it, and on top of that Luffy can't fight at all underwater being a Devil Fruit user, so if it weren't for the fact that Shirasoshi's brothers the 3 prince mermen weren't helping him out, he'd already be pretty fucked. Since there is an air pocket where Vander Decken is, though, he might stand a chance against Hodi if he confronts him there before the Noa crashes into Fishmen Island. Though, the real question is how will Luffy (or anyone else, for that matter) even stop the ship from sinking even after he defeats Hodi. I mean, the thing is half the size of a freaking island, so nobody can stop it with sheer force, so really the only person who can stop it is Decken, and considering that he's either dead or unconscious (most likely the latter) after Hodi stabbed him, that doesn't seem like it'll happen soon enough.

Now, this is when One Piece is interesting, in situations in which the odds are severely stacked against Luffy and crew, as well as most of the "good" characters of the arc, and you just aren't sure how they are going to manage to get out of that situation. Its also a good way to keep the sense of challenge there for the Straw Hat Pirates, since in this case their enemies in this arc are clearly weaker than most of them, for the most part.

So, it looks as though we're about to learn something about Hodi that he's been trying to keep secret for a long time. I suppose that may have pretty much everything to do with why he hates humans with such a passion (even more than other fishmen do, including Arlong).

Also, I decided to try and start re-reading OP from the Water Seven arc to the end of Enies Lobby since its been a while since I revisited those arcs. Water Seven is a bit too slow for my liking but it still succeeds and building up an intriguing plot point and making Robin into even more of a mysterious figure than she was before (while also simultaneously hinting at her past and how it links to her current ambitions). Its still a step up after Skypiea, though, and it certainly kept me interested in continuing the story, so its a good arc overall, I suppose, even though its entire purpose is really just to build up to the next arc, which is Enies Lobby. To me, Enies Lobby is when the series truly reached a level greatness. Before that, the series went from decent to genuniely good with the Arlong arc, and then from genuinely good to very good with the Alabasta arc, but I feel that Enies Lobby is the first arc of the series that I would label as great. In that arc Oda takes all of the lessons he learned in his experience as a mangaka from past arcs and makes a very "epic" arc that has most of the strengths of previous arcs (including new strengths of its own) while getting rid of quite a few of the hindrances that held previous arcs back (though, it also still has a fair number of its own hindrances which can hamper pacing sometimes, so its still far from perfect).

It was also the first time we got a real taste of how interconnected One Piece's story is, since past events from a long time ago actually ended up coming back into play in this arc, such as how the Straw Hats having met Dorry and Broggy in Little Garden actually ended up helping them out a little bit in this arc. On top of all that, it really showed the darker and more corrupt side of the world government, and shed a whole new light on Robin's character, consequently making her far more interesting and sympathetic than she was before.

So, I suppose what I'm trying to say is that if any arc ended up really getting me into One Piece, it was Enies Lobby, since it was the first truly great arc of the series to me. Of course, my personal favorite arc is Thriller Bark but a lot of that admittedly has to do with its " The Nightmare Before Christmas" and overall Tim Burton sort of vibe to it. A horror themed island (One Piece style, that is) was really clever on Oda's part. I'll also be re-reading that arc when I get the chance.

Slowly plowing through the old Arlong and Alabasta arcs. They sure have a lot of SBS letters.

So, the Fishmen Island arc is pretty much over, now. By the looks of it, going by the end of this week's chapter, it looks like we may be getting a new Straw Hat crew member, which most people predicted, and it would make sense for him to join since he's been in the story for years now and is really tight with Luffy, even if he just met the other crew members, so he's already a very familiar figure with the audience and would fit in just fine with the rest of the crew. But, then again, Oda might pull one over on us like he did with Vivi in Alabasta and have him decide to stay behind after all. I guess we'll see whether he accepts Luffy's offer to join or not in the next chapter.

So, Once Piece finally got interesting again. As soon as Luffy and crew surface on the other side of the Red Line, Vice-Admiral Smoker, Captain Tashigi, and the rest of the G5 marines will be waiting for them. Its been a while since their last true confrontation in Alabasta (the fight between Luffy and Smoker in Marineford was really just a mere skirmish, so I don't really think that it counts), so I'll be looking forward to seeing how they duke it out after they've each had 2 years to become much stronger.

Alright! Its felt like way too long, but its about damn time that we've gotten to another classic adventure/exploration style chapter. Without wasting any time, the crew already makes it to their first Island, Punk Hazard, an island covered in flames and with deep dark secrets that forced the World Gorvernment to close it off for reason we are not aware of. On top of that, it not even on any of the 3 directions that the multi-log-pose points to, so its totally off-course from where any normal Pirate would go, which is once again something that feel like a very classic element of One Piece and what I would expect Luffy to do. To top it all off Luffy has his old adversary Smoker tailing him and I'm sure they'll have their first big confrontation since Alabasta within this arc. So, overall, I'm excited again. One Piece has been decent for sure, but it hasn't actually gotten me excited to read what happens next in quite a while. Thing are finally starting to look up again for this series. This is especially true because on top of everything else that's happening, the chapter ends with Luffy and part of his crew running into a giant fucking fire-breathing dragon. I love dragons. They are my favorite fictional creature from any form of fantasy, and its about damn time that I got to see one in One Piece. This should prove be awesome.

So I've been hearing that not only are fans seemingly getting tired of One Piece, but it keeps taking breaks. Does it seem like it's headed for an end yet?

As for the breaks thing, I'm not sure where you heard that from, but its still running on a weekly schedule with an occasional break every couple of months.

As for the manga itself, yeah, its getting pretty tiring. Oda's formula can only be used for so long until it gets stale. The last good arc in the series was the Marineford arc because it was something completely different and felt big. Unfortunately everything after that has been a return to form, except in this case its returning to a form that has gotten very stale over time. Its basically just more of the same with nothing new to offer, and the character never develop past the initial arcs they were introduced in, so it gets pretty boring. Its a shame, because the series was at a high point (IMO) during the Marineford arc and it felt like it was finally going to go to bigger and better places....and then it just regresses into a very derivative version of its former self. Quite disappointing. I'm taking a break from the manga myself, for now. Perhaps it'll get better again in the future, but to me it looks like the manga won't really get interesting until its about to end, and unfortunately it still doesn't seem any closer to an ending than it did before.

Is it a series where it's best to watch for a full arc (or at least a volume's worth) to come out and then read it?

Personally I think its better to just read the manga because the anime is full of filler and at least with the manga things get straight to the point. I think the series is pretty decent, though with some hitches along the way, up until the end of the Marineford arc. After the time-skip, its been pretty boring, honestly.

So, I figured why the hell not do something for One Piece as well? Here goes:

Romance Dawn- 7/10 (I just grouped this cluster of stuff into a single arc since it wasn't worth it for me to divide these segments up by that much; on the whole, though, this was an OK start to the series, but kind of slow, to be honest)

Syrup Village- 7/10 (This was an amusing introduction to Usopp's character, but not much more than that; the most noteworthy thing about this arc is that this is where the Straw Hat Pirates first acquired the Going Merry, their first ever real pirate ship)

Baratie- 7/10 (Basically the same as above, except this time its Sanji's introduction; are you starting to see a pattern, here?)

Arlong Park- 9/10 (The first truly great arc of the series, IMO; the villain felt like a legitimate threat for a change, and Nami's back-story was suitably tragic and made for a good motivation to really want to see Luffy kick Arlong's ass into the ground)

Loguetown Arc- 7/10 (An important arc in retrospect, but on a first viewing its pretty standard stuff until you realize just how much important stuff happened here that doesn't end up resurfacing in the story until hundreds of chapters/episodes later on)

Reverse Mountain Arc- 6/10 (I could've done without this one, honestly)

Baroque Works Saga: Overall- 9/10

Part I: Whiskey Peak- 8/10 (This introduces the main conflict of the arc and quickly ups the stakes beyond what they had ever previously been before in the series)

Part II: Little Garden- 8/10 (This was an amusing arc with a pretty entertaining conflict and ridiculous enemies)

Part III: Drum Island- 10/10 (This is such a well-done story arc, and I don't even know if too many other people fully appreciate just how touching it is; I'm actually pissed off that Oda basically made Chopper such a joke of a character after this arc; for his introduction, there is a lot to him that made him feel like a big deal, and his back-story was the most tragic of any of the Straw Hats, IMO, given that he was actually directly responsible in some way for the death of the person he cared about the most; overall, though, this was the high point of the entire Baroque Works saga for me, personally)

Part IV: Alabasta- 9/10 (Crocodile is a great villain, and the overall sense of adventure in this arc was very akin to old-school Dragon Ball, which is of course a very good thing)

Jaya- 9/10 (This was a REALLY good "build-up" arc, and I absolutely love the scene where Luffy refuses to fight the guys who mock him, as giving into violence just for the sake of getting back at someone who mocks your ways would really be "losing the fight" to someone like him)

Skypiea- 5/10 (Unfortunately that previous arc just built-up to a pretty flat and mediocre arc, with not much going for it the whole way through; though, I did like the ending a bit where Luffy punched the crap out of Eneru and the guy from the Jaya arc could get the feeling of the bell finally ringing; other than that, though, this arc was honestly pretty boring for me)

Long Ring Long Land- 6/10 (The whole Davy Back Fight thing was cute, but this arc didn't really do anything for me)

Water Seven- 9/10 (This is where shit got real again, and this whole arc introduced CP9, and more importantly finally gave us insight into Nico Robin's past and her relation to the World Government; so on that note it was a pretty intense arc that built-up to an even better one)

Enies Lobby- 10/10 (This is by far my personal favorite arc in the series; there is so much weight to everything going on, and its the first time that the Straw Hat Pirates are really taking on the World Government in a head to head confrontation; its essentially the arc that puts them from being mere rookie pirates to world-famous criminals, and basically sky-rockets Luffy's bounty up to 300 million; what I like best about this arc is how much many previous events from many of the previous arcs come back, such as how the experiences that the Straw Hat Pirates had with the Giants of Elbaf in Little Garden helped them win the trust and alliance of the Elbaf guards who were initially working for the Marines; that, and we got tons of great character moments for every single Straw Hat pirate)

Thriller Bark- 9/10 (A very entertaining Tim Burton-esque arc; this one was just plain fun, and Brook was initially a fun character in this arc; though just like with Chopper, Oda had a terrible tendency to keep this character as one large running gag past this arc, even though there were more dimensions to him in this particular story)

Sabaody Archipelago- 7/10 (Just a lot of set-up; not much else to say about it beyond that, though I'll give it props for being the first arc to effectively have the Straw Hates entirely get their asses handed to them, and they had to downright live with that defeat, with Kuma forcefully separating them for quite a long period of time, starting from this point onward)

Amazon Lily- 8/10 (This was pretty fun, overall, and finally brought Ace's upcoming execution to Luffy's attention)

Impel Down- 9/10 (This is where shit got really serious, and we got a shit-ton of fan-service when Luffy raised hell in the great prison by basically busting out 90% of the freaking rogues gallery of villains/enemies that he had faced before in all of the previous arcs leading up to this point)

Marineford- 10/10 (Whitebeard is an awesome character, and the whole battle going on here had so much weight to it; but the real clincher here is how tragic the ending to this arc was, and I have to give Oda credit; he had real balls to pull it off the way that he did)

Three Brothers- 9/10 (I couldn't find an official title for this flash-back arc, but overall this was a really fun and also touching tale of Luffy's child-hood with Ace and Sabo, and had a very Tam Sawyer-esque feel to it, which I think is what Oda was going for)

Return to Sabaody Archipelago- 8/10 (Not much really happened in this arc, but it just felt so entertaining to see all of the Straw Hat Pirates reunite once again after 2 long years (both in manga time and in real time since Luffy had been forced to work on his own when he was separated from the rest of his crew)

Fishman Island- 3/10 (Fuck this arc; its so god-awfully boring and has easily the worst-written villain in the entire series; on top of that, things are WAY too easy for the Straw Hat Pirates to the point of this whole adventure not even being any fun; The only decent thing about this arc was the brief flash-back to Fisher Tiger's story as the leader of the Sun Pirates, but other than that it was just full of crap, IMO, and even makes Skypiea look almost good in comparison)

Punk Hazard- 6/10 (Eh, this was an improvement over the previous arc, but it still didn't do much for me, and truthfully felt too disjointed for my tastes, with too many elements going on with it simultaneously, while none of them felt particularly all that interesting)

Okay, how do I feel about these...

East Blue Saga; Overall: 7.5/10.

Captain Morgan - 6/10. A decent introduction to the series, but pretty slow. The plot is pretty basic and straight-forward in a more boring way, but it's not a bad beginning, just a bit mediocre to almost everything after.

Buggy the Clown - 6.5/10. Better than Morgan, but still not all that interesting. I like Buggy, don't get me wrong, but he's much funnier as a character in later arcs, although it's interesting to go back and see that how differently he values and treats his crew after being separated from them after this arc. Still, pretty decent altogether.

Syrup Village - 8.5/10. This is the arc I feel One Piece really starts picking up. Kuro is a more traditional, bastardly pirate than others in following arcs, and he makes for a creepy villain. Ussop is my favorite character in One Piece, and his determination to save his village even if others think him to be a good for nothing liar was pretty touching to me, personally. Anyways, this arc is the first really entertaining arc for me as a whole, and introduces my favorite character in the series to boot.

Baratie - 7.5/10. I like Sanji and Zeff's backstory and Gin, and of course the Zoro v. Mihawk fight, but this arc isn't really all that interesting aside from that, since Don Krieg is kind of your standard bastard-type villain. Still, it introduces Sanji as a pretty cool character, and is a good setup for the next arc....

Arlong Park - 9.5/10. This is easily the best arc in the whole East Blue saga, with an interesting but still despicable villain, great character development for Nami, Zoro, and Ussop, and Luffy v. Arlong, one of the most memorable fights in the series.

Lougetown - 7/10. A decent transition arc, better when you come back to it after reading later arcs where it's events are made more significant. I like some of the filler episode added to it in the anime, those were pretty fun.

Baroque Works Saga; Overall: 9.5/10

Reverse Mountain - 8/10. This is a pretty important arc in retrospect. I think it's a lot of fun for such a short arc, and for a giant whale who doesn't talk, Laboon ends up being a fairly memorable character.

Whisky Peak - 9/10. All sorts of fun  moments in this arc. Zoro vs. the Whisky Peak Bounty Hunters is still one of my favorite moment in the series, and the twist with Vivi, leading to Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine brutally crushing Igaram, Mr. 9, and Ms. Monday was also pretty intense, making Luffy and Zoro's easily curbstomping of them all the more funnier and cooler. The Baroque Works saga starts off with a great start here.

Little Garden - 8/10. A step down from Whisky Peak, I feel, but Mr. 3 is a fun antagonist and the "Instinct" scene is another great one in the series.

Drum Island - 9/10. Quite good, Chopper's backstory being one of the most touching, in my opinion, and the struggle here being quite interesting for what good have been a mere breather arc before Alabasta.

Alabasta - 10/10. The series finally realizes it's potential here, and it creates the first high-stakes arc in it. Crocodile was a great first big antagonist for the Post- East Blue series, and it's rewarding to see Luffy defeat him after three tries, and even then just barely. It really establishes the kind of forces the crew is going to have to face later on, and is a great precursor to great arcs to come. 

Skypeia Saga; Overall: 9.5/10

Jaya - 9/10. Interesting start to the arc and setup for other arcs as well. Without a doubt Luffy's encounter's with Bellamy and Blackbeard here are some of the most powerful, poignant moments in the series as a whole. It'll be interesting to come back to this arc after Bellamy's role as a whole in this current arc (Dressrosa) gets more  explored. He's changed quite a bit, and seems to thank Luffy for that, and was visibly troubled when Doflamingo gave him orders to kill him. Yes, interesting stuff indeed...

Skypeia - 9.5/10. Admittedly, it drags a bit, especially at the end with Luffy v. Eneru, and it is, in fact, the longest arc in the series as a whole, at 69 chapters. Still, I really love this arc; between the struggle between the Shandorians and Angel Yard, the Priests, the concept of Mantora (which is foreshadowing for the importance of Haki in the story), cool fights, a fun villain in the form of Eneru, possibly the best backstory in the form of Noland and Cagula's friendship, and just overall an engaging, fun, high-stakes thrill ride beginning to end. I guess I'm in the minority on that opinion, but I really do think this arc is quite good.

Cipher Police 9 Saga; Overall: 9.5/10

Long Ring Long Land - 7.5/10. A fun breather arc that I think is given more weight in the anime. I love Luffy v. Foxy and the Groggy Ring battle, and of course the stuff with Aokiji is important, but compared to other small arcs, it doesn't really have too much going for it.

Water 7 - 10/10. Where shit gets real. Things are at their darkest yet here for the Straw Hats, and they are put into a situation that forces them to fight against the World Government itself. Everything here is golden.

Enies Lobby - 9.5/10. Don't get me wrong, at this point it was the most intense, brutal, high-stakes thrilling arc of the series...but I have problems with it. Mainly that the crew gets new powers out of nowhere, with almost ZERO buildup. Gear 2 makes sense and all, but it wasn't foreshadowed at all, neither was Sanji's fire kick thing which is still the most bullshit thing in the series, in my opinion. But at it's core, emotional core, and as a story, it's really, really solid, and definitely as a whole makes the CP9 saga one of the high parts of One Piece.

Thriller Bark (it is it's own saga) - 10/10. Really, really fun and intense arc and great precursor to the Whitebeard War Saga, showing how outmatched the crew is against a force whose survived through the New World. Everyone gets a chance to shine here, and Brook is a fun and tragic character at once here, with his backstory with Laboon being really touching.

Whitebeard War Saga; Overall: 10/10

Sabody Archipelago - 8/10. It's a good start with some memorable moments and contains the single greatest defeat the Straw Hats have ever faced, not to mention introduces characters who will no doubt play a role in future events (Law already has), so a pretty significant arc in the story as a whole.

Amazon Lilly - 8.5/10. It's a "fun" arc to get us used to the idea of solo Luffy escapades, and it introduces Hancock, who is hilarious, so that's a plus.

Impel Down - 10/10. Fun fact, this was the first arc that I started keeping up with the manga.Obviously, the fact that Mr. 2, Buggy, Crocodile, and Mr. 3 come back in this arc and it's the introduction of both Jinbei and Ivankov to the story makes it awesome to me, but as a story it's a really good prison break one done in typical One Piece style drama, and the high-stakes on the line just adds to it's intensity. One of my favorite arcs in the series.

Marineford - 10/10. Whitebeard was a fantastic character. This was a fucking war! Chaotic, frenetic, dangerous, with a lot riding on the line, this right here is what I consider to be the pinnacle, the absolute best arc of One Piece. And Oda's art here...good lord. If you guys want to know why I love this guy as an artist this arc is a prime example of the gorgeous effort and detail that makes the artwork in One Piece so damn good.

Three Brothers - 10/10. Another great arc looking into Luffy and Ace's past, serving as a fantastic closure to what I consider the best, greatest Saga in One Piece so far.

Fishman Island Saga; Overall: 5.5/10

Return to Sabody Archipelago - 6/10. A decent start to the New World I guess, but aside from the fact the crew comes back together, not much of interest honestly happens and it's kind of just there to me.

Fishman Island - 5/10. This arc SUCKS. Boring, uninteresting and poorly characterized villains, no chemistry between the crew, poor stakes, messy art, and dragged out in a way I couldn't tolerate. As someone who loves One Piece, I hate this arc. It is the only arc in the series so far that I absolutely can't stand, and what makes it worse is that it came off the greatest arcs in One Piece, possibly some of the finest material in Weekly Shonen Jump history. This isn't Bleach bad. To be honest, I'd gladly take it over anything in Naruto and post-Soul Society Bleach and several other of One Piece's contemporaries in the battle shonen manga industry right now. But being better than the rest of the crop ain't good enough, and this is the low point of the entire One Piece manga. The only reason I didn't give this a 1 out of sheer spite is because the Queen Otohime and Fisher Tiger backstory is really, really good classic One Piece storytelling, but that's not enough to redeem an entire arc. I get that Oda wasn't used to having the crew together again and coming off of something as big as Marineford nothing could have possibly have lived up to expectations, but come on! Oda can write better than this, and I have a feeling Dressrosa is going to prove me right that he's still got it when all is said and done.

Pirate Alliance Saga; Overall: 8/10 (so far)

Punk Hazard - 8/10. Massive, massive improvement of quality. Oda begins using the characters right again here, and carves an interesting and fun story that sets up what looks to be a big, significant story in the long run. Average One Piece quality goodness here, and after Fishman, that's a big relief.

Dressrosa - 8.5/10 (so far). It's already shaping up to be a very interesting storyline, dealing with the dark underbelly of the One Piece world by pitting them against it's puppetmaster, Donquioxte Doflamingo himself. A lot of has been set up, but I feel things have only just gotten started. It's not there yet, but this may possibly turn out to be another Alabasta, maybe even CP9 quality arc/saga, if Oda plays his cards right.

Still, I haven't been this excited for One Piece in a good long while, and that's a nice thing since the number of manga I've been keeping up with has reduced sharply recently. Bleach and Naruto are too awful for me to try and continue to waste time with them anymore, although for completion's sake I'll go back and finish them when they are done. Soul Eater and Medaka Box both ended, and their endings were stupid, overall there were honestly quite decent manga and I don't regret ever reading them. Deadman Wonderland, on the other hand, also ended with a stupid ending and I am glad as hell I don't have to read any more of that mediocrity. I'm keeping up with Attack on Titan, but I don't really care for it, although I don't hate it, it's just not that interesting or well-written to me, outside of a few things like what the hell is the Beast-Titan. And so that leaves just Toriko and Detective Conan, both of which I really do quite like, and Toriko especially is at the height of it's quality and looks to keep it for a long, long time, while Conan is just the same old,  but the good old same old. Still, those two plus One Piece are now the only manga I'm keeping up with, and at this time, reading a new One Piece has once again returned to be a highlight of my weekend, and I'm glad for it.  :)

East Blue Saga; Overall 7.5/10
Captain Morgan 7/10
Buggy The Clown 7/10
Syrup Village 8/10
Baratie 8/10
Arlong Park 9.5/10
Lougetown 7/10

Baroque Works Saga; Overall 9.5/10
Reverse Mountain 8/10
Whiskey Peak 8/10
Little Garden 9/10
Drum Island 9.5/10
Alabasta 10/10

Skypeia Saga; Overall 9/10
Jaya 9/10
Skypeia 9/10

CP9 Saga; Overall 9/10
Long Ring Long Land 8/10
Water 7 10/10
Enies Lobby 9/10

Thriller Bark Saga/Arc 10/10

Whitebeard War Saga; Overall 10/10
Sabody Archipelago 8/10
Amazon 8/10
Impel Down 10/10
Marineford 10/10
Three Brothers 10/10

Fishman Island Saga; Overall 4/10
Return to Sabody Archipelago 7/10
Fishman Island 4/10

Pirate Alliance Saga; 8.5/10 so far
Punk Hazard 8/10
Dressrosa (so far) 9/10

So far I would give Dressrosa a 6/10, myself. I am just tired of Oda moving the story along at a snails pace and padding things out. For example, we have spent several chapters on the tournament so far, and we have had a ton of characters introduced at once who have already been eliminated except Luffy and the old guy. I know that if Oda introduces these characters, they will probably play a part in the story later on, but the weakness in his writing style for me is that its not interesting to see these characters fight and put more focus on them than Luffy himself, since I currently have been given no reason to even care about any of these characters, yet. Meanwhile whenever he jumps back to the plot involving the members of Luffy's crew, we get to see the bad-habit Oda has developed throughout the course of the series in having too much time spent on each character's running gags. The reason those running gags used to be funny for me is because they came up once in a while under the right circumstances. However, there are only so many times that I can see a Sanji is a pervert Joke or that Brook making puns about bones before I get completely sick of it, and if you really look at it, we see them doing this EVERY single time we switch back to these characters, which really gets on my nerves, personally.

On the whole, though, while this arc has interesting prospects to it, the pacing hasn't been moving to my liking. I know that One Piece is supposed to be fun, comedic, and adventurous, but so far the comedy has been stale, and the adventure is moving at a snail's pace, hence I'm not having much "fun" with it as it is. I think that Oda needs to learn to actually tone down the humor just a little bit. The comedy works better (and is actually funny) when it comes in smaller and somewhat less frequent doses, rather than all of the time. Move the plot along and develop the characters some more already.

While I agree that the humor is getting a bit repetitive, I just don't have much of a problem with everything else so far. I don't know, I'm enjoying reading the chapters, and there are still plenty of good moments. Is it at it's best right now? Nah. It still feels like Oda has yet to find a way to balance the focus on the crew and their interactions with each other to the level he's done before the Whitebeard War Saga. But I'm not having a problem with the pacing or the characters too much, and am enjoying the ride so far and interested to see where it will lead. I'm far from the point where I dropped the series during Fishman Island and didn't return to it until around the middle of Punk Hazard; I'm enjoying reading it again. Between the three manga I'm currently keeping up with, it's the one I look the most forward to reading, and I'm happy to say that again (although, to be perfectly honest, in terms of balance, characters, fights, and pacing etc. the current arc of Toriko's become really, really good, and probably surpasses One Piece week by week right now in terms of objective quality). 

I really need to get back into reading One Piece (because, no doubt it's the better of the big 3). But if I were to do so I'd probably have to start from the very beginning since the last time I actually read and enjoyed OP was Impel Down. Whitebeard war had some epic moments, but I felt that the war was a waste, but then again I'm still very salty about Ace (favorite character of course lol). But even then, reading the chapters where everyone got back together I just couldn't get back into the series. It's like ever since the war with Whitebeard ended Oda's lost his steam.

As far as ratings go

Captain Morgan 2/5
Buggy The Clown 3/5
Syrup Village 2/5
Baratie 3/5
Arlong Park 4.5/5
Lougetown 4/5

It took a while for One Piece to really click with me. Not to mention I also hated the artwork as well. Syrup village, I'll admit, I'm bias against Usopp. Much like Kuwabara, I'm not a fan of his character.


Reverse Mountain 3/5
Whiskey Peak 5/5
Little Garden 5/5
Drum Island 4/5
Alabasta 4.5/5

Drum Island, this is where Chopper was introduced right? Much like Usopp, not of fan of his character, but it was a great arc. Alabasta was a masterpiece. Crocodile is what I'd call Aizen done right. The only problem I had with the Alabasta arc, and this is the point I started realizing this about all of One Piece arcs is that it went on entirely far too long almost to the point of feeling tired of reading.


Jaya 4/5
Skypeia 4/5

I'm also in that rare bunch that likes this arc a lot despite the arc feeling longer than Alabasta.

Long Ring Long Land 2/5
Water 7 5/5
Enies Lobby 5/5

I straight up hated the whole ordeal with Foxy. Water 7 and Enes Lobby made up for it though, and I found these arcs the be the highest peak of Oda's potential. He won me over at this point, and characters like Usopp and Chopper also won me over at this point as well. This is where everything just felt natural. Characters actually seemed like they were great friends, and for the first time I actually didn't mind the whole "nakama" thing. In Bleach, or Naruto, or any other series that kept on going on and on about friendship didn't feel anywhere near as natural as One Piece, at least at this point.


Thriller Bark 5/5

Oda just kept it going at here.


Sabody Archipelago 5/5
Amazon 4/5
Impel Down 4.5/5
Marineford 4/5

Sabody Archipelago introduced some great characters and I really just about everything about that arc. Amazon kinda slipped off for me even though I do like Boa Hancock. Impel Down, despite being so great at this point I was beginning to get Luffy fatigued, but at the same time seeing Crocodile again won me over lol. Marineford, like I said, had some epic moments, and the saltiness of Ace still lingering lol, I'll just say it was a rollercoaster. There weren't as many questionable moments as epic moments, but the questionable moments really stood out.

I also gotta say, I don't read flashback chapters, especially One Piece's. I dread them because they go on for so long. I understand that they are important pieces of information, but I can't help it. I get so bored reading them so I skip them, and I do seem to recall there being a flashback chapter before the whole time leap, so yeah.

As someone who stopped reading at Skypeia (Oh man, I snoozed through that one) I would give them all 7's except for Baroque Works through Alabasta which I would give 9/10.

Skypeia I'm not even gonna rate. Lame.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 19, 2013, 12:39:42 AM
As someone who stopped reading at Skypeia (Oh man, I snoozed through that one) I would give them all 7's except for Baroque Works through Alabasta which I would give 9/10.

Personally I'd say that Arlong Park would be above a 7, as to me it was legitimately a step above everything before it, and a perfect conclusion to the East Blue saga. I agree about everything else being a 7, though.

QuoteSkypeia I'm not even gonna rate. Lame.

I still really liked Jaya. It was mainly just build-up for Skypiea, but it had a lot of great moments in it (many of which come back to play later in the series). Skypiea was a big disappointment, though. Oda just failed to get me invested in the characters with that one. I don't know if you actually read into Water Seven and then cut out of the series, but if you didn't, I still think that you should've continued on into there at least. Water Seven and Enies Lobby has some of Oda's best writing, as does Thriller Bark, Impel Down, and Marineford. Those are some of the best story arcs in modern shonen.

As for Skypiea, though, that's about Bleach level quality in how boring it is.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on August 22, 2013, 03:09:15 AMAs for Skypiea, though, that's about Bleach level quality in how boring it is.

I respectfully disagree since I loved Skypeia; Eneru, I felt, was a fun villain (though yes, he's lacking in comparison to Crocodile or Kuro) and just the sense of world-building the arc gave made it seem worthwhile. (The Norland storybook is one of my top favorite moments in One Piece).

Quote from: Grave on August 14, 2013, 06:08:59 PMWater 7 and Enes Lobby made up for it though, and I found these arcs the be the highest peak of Oda's potential. Amazon kinda slipped off for me even though I do like Boa Hancock.

Enies Lobby (not Water 7 'cause that was amazing) was eh to me. Califa wasn't nearly as threatening as she had first come off when she was with Iceburg, Jyabura was pointless and the arc just felt like a chore until the end with Robin's rescue.

Amazon Lily was only average to me and I really disliked Hancock; she needs more to her rather than just squee-ing over marrying Luffy in some AU-verse.

Quote from: Sheol on August 22, 2013, 10:46:34 AM
I respectfully disagree since I loved Skypeia; Eneru, I felt, was a fun villain (though yes, he's lacking in comparison to Crocodile or Kuro) and just the sense of world-building the arc gave made it seem worthwhile. (The Norland storybook is one of my top favorite moments in One Piece).

Eh, Eneru didn't really do much for me, personally. He lacked the fun personality of most other One Piece villains, and wasn't as well-constructed as some of the other more serious One Piece villains (Rob Lucci was much better in this regard, IMO). The arc as a whole didn't really get me invested in the dilemma that the Straw Hats found themselves wrapped up in. I kind of liked the Norland stuff, but I wasn't incredibly invested in that, either. On the whole I didn't hate the arc or anything, but it was easily my 2nd least favorite One Piece arc. It's still miles better than Fishman Island, though.

QuoteEnies Lobby (not Water 7 'cause that was amazing) was eh to me. Califa wasn't nearly as threatening as she had first come off when she was with Iceburg, Jyabura was pointless and the arc just felt like a chore until the end with Robin's rescue.

Now, here is where I respectfully have to disagree. I didn't find the villains to be less threatening at all. The point was that they caught the Straw Hats completely off guard in Water 7, whereas in this arc the Straw Hats came prepared to kick-ass.  Just because Kalifa had gotten taken out by Nami didn't mean that she wasn't threatening, but rather that Nami had become a lot more formidable in fighting. And I don't really see how any of the other villains were pointless. Each member of CP9 served as opposition for the Straw Hats to overcome in some way or form. That's typical for EVERY One Piece arc. I mean, in that regard, you could then say that A LOT of OP villains in general are pointless if that were the case.

As for feeling like a chore, I guess I could understand where you're coming from on that, but really almost every OP arc comes down to having the Straw Hats split into one-on-one fights (and occasionally team-based ones, which are usually more interesting) until the end of the arc, where Luffy then squares off against the big bad, gets his ass kicked, and then kicks that guy's ass in return to save the day. I just find that this arc did the formula better than most, as I actually felt a sense of weight to each battle, rather than just waiting to get to Luffy's final battle (which was basically my main issue with Skypiea).

I also don't get why Water 7 get's more love than Enies Lobby. I mean, I do really like Water 7, hence my high rating for it, but it's just a glorified set-up arc. It was cool to see that plot-twist half-way through the arc, but other than that it's just a whole lot of questions coming up without too many answers (which are all saved for Enies Lobby, of course). As a companion-piece to Enies Lobby, I find it to be terrific, but as a solo arc, I'd probably rate it a little bit lower just based on it's own merits alone. Like I said, though, I consider it to be a great arc, I just couldn't call it better than Enies Lobby, myself.

At any rate, Enies Lobby is personally my favorite arc in the series (well, it's a toss-up between that and Marineford for me, at least), but I suppose it's just another case of different strokes (https://animationrevelation.com/DifferentStrokes.jpg).

QuoteAmazon Lily was only average to me and I really disliked Hancock; she needs more to her rather than just squee-ing over marrying Luffy in some AU-verse.

I did actually like Amazon Lily more than average, but I do agree with you about Hancock.

And in terms of characters needing more to them, as far as the comic-relief aspect of these characters go, Oda REALLY needs to get away from overusing all of those character running gags almost all of the time. It has gotten to the point where it has really started to grate on me whenever he does it. Whatever used to be funny and work towards good jokes has just become a hindrance to my enjoyment of the series. Seeing these jokes when these characters are initially introduced can be funny, and having those recurring jokes pop up maybe once or twice per arc could also be very effective. However seeing it almost every time these characters appear is where I start to get annoyed, personally.

Quote from: Ensatsu-ken on August 22, 2013, 11:58:25 AMJust because Kalifa had gotten taken out by Nami didn't mean that she wasn't threatening, but rather that Nami had become a lot more formidable in fighting.

True but, her going from how she was in Water 7 to "Zomg, is that giant thing{Monster Chopper} Nami? Doesn't look like her but, haha logic" or being a big fanservice joke just came off as a giant "wut?" to me.

And maybe pointless was the wrong word but, I really don't remember Jyabura for anything. :sweat:

Oh yeah, Jaya was pretty good which made it even more disappointing that the build-up was for such a boring arc.

One Piece by numbers.

Quote from: Sheol on August 22, 2013, 01:15:24 PM

And maybe pointless was the wrong word but, I really don't remember Jyabura for anything. :sweat:

You don't even remember Jyabura for giving Sanji that pre-ass kicking one liner? I'm... the Hunter.

Quote from: Daxdiv on August 23, 2013, 03:43:41 PMYou don't even remember Jyabura for giving Sanji that pre-ass kicking one liner? I'm... the Hunter.

Now that you mention that, I do.

I actually really liked this wee's chapter of One Piece. It had this manga's very classic brand of humor without relying on old character gags for the umpteenth time. And it finally concluded Luffy's Block C fight.

To celebrate One Piece selling 345,000,000 copies worldwide, Viz has released a free digital "retrospective," containing an interview with Oda, color spreads and all the cover artwork, and Chapter 0: Strong World (http://www.vizmanga.com/one-piece-retro).

I keep seeing on Twitter images of an ad for One Piece manga in New York Times. I don't know about you guys, but it's really making me want to buy today's issue just for that. Does look like it would make a decent poster.

Man, this arc is getting crazy. So much is going on here that I have no clue where this is all going and how Oda will tie this all together. I don't think this arc is even half-over yet even though Doflamingo has defeated Law already. I mean, the tournament isn't over, Burgess is involved so the Blackbeard pirates showing up may not be out of the question, the gnomes' rebellion has to happen, Violet is planing something, Big Mom's crew is after Ceaser, Fujitora's going after the crew...and I have a feeling that this arc is just going to get more and more complicated. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying it. I'm just worried that this arc will become a mess with so much happening. At the very least I'd like to see the tournament to end soon in the next few chapters, so that the characters involved can become a part of the other aspects of the arc.

I feel like it's already a mess. I don't mind so much that there is a lot going on, but the arc really lacks structure. The Marineford arc also had a lot happening at one time, but Oda still gave it a clear structure and directive, so it never got boring. Other than that, I really wish that Oda would take some cues from what made stuff like the Baroque Works, Water Seven, Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark, and even the Impel Down arc so good, and that's to keep the story focused. I get that Oda is trying to be all big and epic, but the story feels so all over the place right now that it's getting hard to follow. What made the older arcs work is that Oda started out small and gradually blew up the scope of the story and characters as each arc progressed. Here it feels like he's trying to make every arc a big affair from the get-go, which just doesn't work out from a writing standpoint when I have no reason to care about anyone other than the main characters, here, and even then they lack that sense of desperation that made them so compelling to watch in the best arcs of the series.

While I don't feel the story is "hard to follow" right now, I agree it lacks focus. Oda does a few chapters on the tournament, shifts to something else for a few chapters, shifts to another thing after that...heck, sometimes there isn't a consistent focus on a plot point in even 1 chapter! I am interested in pretty much everything going on, but the story is so all over the place that some things go on too long while some things feel underdeveloped. Somehow Oda seems to have lost the sense of pacing he had down before the time-skip. I personally am interested in several of the new characters in this arc, but Oda does need to spend some time developing them a bit more.

The latest chapter...yeah, Oda's definitely trying to cram too many things in and it's just not being executed effectively. Like, all the elements of the plot itself are awesome, but dammit Oda, pace them! This chapter felt really rushed and the first I felt was actually "hard to follow" with so much being thrown out there. I mean, I like these new developments in and of themselves. I like Bartholomew saving Bellamy. I like Bellamy still having loyalty to Doflamingo but helps Luffy escape the colosseum albeit passively. I like the fact Koala is a revolutionary and a practitioner of Fishman Karate (who would have thunk she of all people would be relevant to the story outside of Fisher Tiger's backstory?). And of course the big twist of the chapter...man. I've seen that coming since "his death" and have been wondering when/if Oda would do it. But damn it, just throwing that in without build up or really any real reason makes what should've been a really emotional moment not so. Just very disappointing to me. All of this stuff is awesome in concept, and I am far from bored or disengaged with what's going on. But in execution all this awesome stuff is falling flat, and that's what really hurts me about it. Hopefully he evens out the pacing and lets this stuff blend more naturally together into a more effective story for the remainder of the arc, but I have to concede to E-K's viewpoint on the state of the series for at least these last two chapters, which saddens me.  :(

Yeah, Sabo's big reveal (I'm assuming it's him) should have been a big moment. Instead Oda just glosses over it to cram everything else into the chapter. I feel like he's trying too hard to wow the readers with big reveals and plot twists like this, but it's all for naught without proper build-up behind it.

He's trying to have too much going on too fast. I like what he's going for, but this stuff should have been spread out and introduced after other plot points in the arc had settled, and of course Sabo's reveal needs to have been built up more for it to be the powerful moment it should have been. That page-long reaction of Luffy got nothing out of me, whereas if there was some build up to their reunion it probably would have. For a guy who's been capable of really great emotional scenes, it's terribly disappointing. I'm just hoping he doesn't try and clutter the arc even more ,and stick to one focus per chapter for a while.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiOJJGnIIAAQNFG.jpg)

Wow. I'm not sure if Oda planned this, but dang is it a cool little detail.

Just like with DB and AnJ, here are my rankings (so far):

1. Marineford
2. Enies Lobby
3. Thriller Bark
4. Impel Down
5. Water Seven
6. Alabasta
7. Drum Island
8. Three Brothers (Post-War/flashback arc)
9. Arlong Park
10. Jaya
11. Loguetown
12. Amazon Lily
13. Romance Dawn
14. Little Garden
15. Whiskey Peak
16. Syrup Village
17. Baratie
18. Dressrossa (so far)
19. Saboady Archipelago
20. Skypiea
21. Punk Hazard
22. Orange Town
23. Long Ring Long Land
24. Fishman Island

If it seems like I'm missing something, then it's more than likely that I just happened to combine it with another arc, rather than treating it as its own individual story-line.

I know thst I've had my problems with OP over the past few years, but I still firmly believe that it has earned it's popularity and status as a classic, and this list reminds me just how much good there is. I must admit that I get a bit ticked when those more ignorant to the best parts of the series claim that it's just another stupid battle shonen. To those people I can point to any one of my top 10 choices and say: "That's why you're wrong." As for #'s 11-17, I find them to each be solid and good to varying degrees, but they don't quite reach the height of greatness, for me. Then everything down to 23 is just "meh" territory. They each have some highlights, but on the whole they don't really do anything for me. Finally, I have Fishman Island last, at 24, and it's the only OP arc thus far that Ib outright hate.

Overall, though, there is clearly way more good than bad, even taking the past few years into consideration.

For me, it'd be:

1. Marineford
2. Alabasta
3. Thriller Bark
4. Impel Down
5. Water 7
6. Enies Lobby
7. Arlong Park
8. Drum Island
9. Three Brothers
10. Skypiea
11. Baratie
12. Syrup Village
13. Punk Hazard
14. Sabody Archipelago
15. Whiskey Peak
16. Jaya
17. Little Garden
18. Orange Town
19. Dressrosa (so far)
20. Amazon Lilly
21. Logue Town
22. Romance Dawn
23. Long Ring Long Land
24. Fishman Island

I think 1-9 are great, 10-18 are good, and 19-23 are okay.  Fishman Island is the only arc I really dislike, but even then, I'm more meh about it more than I really hate it.

Looks like we both agree on the absolute best and absolute worst arcs when it comes to One Piece. ;D

I like all of the Straw Hat Pirates, but if I were to rank them from favorite to least favorite:

1. Nico Robin
2. Zoro
3. Luffy
4. Ussop
5. Chopper
6. Brook
7. Nami
8. Franky
9. Sanji

Nothing against Sanji, I just prefer the other characters. For ranking I take into consideration stuff like personality, backstory, bearing on the plot, how interesting their fights are, and how interested I am in seeing them achieve their goal. As someone who's goal is directly linked to discovering more about the world, history, and basically stuff that is super important to the main plot of One Piece, plus having my favorite backstory of any of the Straw Hat pirates along with a refreshing personality, you can see why Robin is my personal favorite, despite her missuse in the current arc.

For me, it's:

1. Ussop
2. Zoro
3. Luffy
4. Nami
5. Chopper
6. Robin
7. Franky
8. Sanji
9. Brook

Even though he had a real OOC moment in this arc that pissed me off, Ussop is still firmly my favorite character in the series and a lot of my favorite moments in it involve him and his development through the course the series. Funny enough, Luffy used to be my least favorite Straw Hat before Sabody happened, and it was only when he was the only Straw Hat being focused on that I finally grew on his character and appreciated him more. As for Brook, he was great in Thriller Bark and has a fantastic backstory, but he hasn't really done anything since joining the crew and the small parts he does get just feel extraneous to me a lot of the time. I'm really hoping this will finally be improved in the next arc, and before the crew gets another member.

Favorite OP fights:

10. Luffy, Sanji, and Ussop vs. Satori
9. Nami vs. Ms. Doublefinger
8. Ussop and Chopper vs. Mr. 4, Ms. Merry Christmas, and Lassoo
7. Ussop vs. Perona
6. Luffy vs. Arlong
5. Zoro vs. the Whiskey Peak Bounty Hunters
4. Luffy vs. Crocodile (all fights)
3. The Straw Hats vs. Oz and Gekko Moria
2. Luffy vs. Ussop
1. Luffy vs. Lucci

I've explained the top 3 before in my favorite anime/manga fights post I did a long time back, but they should be pretty self-explanatory for anyone who has read the series. I liked each clash between Luffy and Crocodile, and how Luffy's two loses made his ultimate victory against him feel like the most rewarding and satisfying victory in the entire series (and still the second most after the fight with Lucci). Zoro's fight with the Whiskey Peak Bounty Hunters is still one of my all time favorite moments in the series. Luffy's fight with Arlong was the first truly great fight in the series and remains one of the most emotionally charged. Ussop's fights with Mr.4 & MMC and Perona are two of his finest moments in terms of his character development. I've always loved Nami's fight with Mrs. Double-Finger as it's the first time she is able to fight a strong opponent alongside the rest of the crew, and is just a great character moment for her. And the fight with Satori is one of the most creative team-based fights in the series, with an awesome ending (which is also one of Sanji's coolest moments in the series), and easily one of the biggest highlights in the entire Skypeia arc.

Awesome list! Those are all awesome fights. I'd have to think about what would make my list, though even though it'd be cheating, the entire battle at Marineford is my favorite overall battle in the series. It's just not a traditional-style fight, which is why it'd probably feel out of place ranking it with the rest.

Alright, here are mine:

10. Luffy vs. Ussop
9. Ussop vs. Perona
8. Ussop/Chopper vs. Mr. 4/Ms. Merry Christmas/Lassoo
7. Ace vs. Blackbeard
6. Luffy vs. Arlong
5. Zoro vs. Mr. 1
4. Zoro/Ussop vs. Kaku
3. Straw Hat Pirates vs. Oz (Best non-Luffy involved fight)
2. Luffy vs. Sir Crocodile
1. Luffy vs. Rob Lucci

Honorable Mention: Whitebeard vs. Akainu and Whitebeard vs. Blackbeard

Actual #1. The Battle of Marineford

Great list! Ace vs. Blackbeard is easily the best fight not involving any of the Straw Hats, and both those Zoro fights are really strong (the Mr. 1 fight narrowly missed the cut in my own list).

I actually considered listing the entire battle at Marineford, but decided against it since there was so many different fights going on in that conflict and it would also be like basically listing the entire arc. But, if I were to rank it, then it would easily be my favorite as well.  ;)

Thanks. :)

You know, if I ever were to do a list of the best fights/battles of any kind in anime/manga, Marineford would easily make my top 5, possibly even managing to place as my third favorite behind Joe vs. Rikiishi at #2 and Shohoku vs. Sannoh as my favorite.

Battles including non-combat based sports matches, among other things? Hmm, that would an interesting list to make. But yeah, all three of those would definitely be in my top ten too. :thumbup:

(https://40.media.tumblr.com/7416f121eb83672d8258ff915f954cd5/tumblr_nqoi84pjal1rz31j5o1_540.jpg)

I just had to share this!

So since I'm under the assumption that Dressrosa has ended, I'm going to give my two cents. I won't say that this is One Pieces weakest arc, but it's around there. And here's the thing, earlier when I first started posting I said that One Piece is perfect. Admittedly that was me coming off of a high from re-watching the Marineford arc, but yeah, right now I can't garner any excitement from One Piece right now. We need to go to other places. and do other things.

The positives before we get to the negatives. We FINALLY get Doflamingo as the main antagonist. He had a lot of build up, a lot of pull in the world that I am glad that we finally get to see his taking the stage. There's stuff that I'll mention later, especially on how he was defeated on this arc in particular, but we'll get to that later. Another positive is the Corazon/Law flashback. In all honesty, this is probably my favorite flashback, second to Robins of course. Laws past with his family on the White Island, and his relation to Corazon, was magnificent. Corazon from his introduction to his death proved himself to be an interesting character. The way that he was contrasted with Doflamingo in that, though they had the same past they ended up so different. Corazon could have easily become Doflamingo. But that's the thing, Doflamingo could have been Corazon. He could have been someone kind and caring that wants to help others. And his death scene was a beautiful kind of tragedy. The scene with Law in the box, having to listen to him die was so great. I loved every second of it.

Another thing I liked was Gear 4. This is the first power up Luffy has had in years. Luffy gets them so rarely that it hasn't become annoying like in Fairy Tail. The theme of blood->bone->muscle was so subtle that I didn't even know there was a theme in the first place. And because of the enormous power it holds it gives Luffy a trump card with which to use against his stronger opponents. Before I couldn't see how he would be able to defeat the stronger opponents down the line like Blackbeard or Sakazuki. Now I can, and I really can't wait for those battles to come. One more thing I liked was the very final climax. Where during the fight against Doflamingo, the birdcage was shrinking, and everyone was doing their best to hold it back. Admittedly, while I knew no one was going to die I felt like the emotion and the tension was there. And the scenery of buildings burning, and all hell breaking loose, it was such a great image that it felt like a true climax.

Now the negatives, and this is my big one. THE ARC WAS TOO FREAKING LONG. One Piece arcs usually last a year at most. We had Water 7 and Enies Lobby, but those were two different locations spread over a couple years. We were stuck in Dressrosa and Dressrosa only for two years. There are other examples of longer story arcs like in Naruto, with the Ninja War. And while the Ninja War wasn't the best Naruto arc, fatigue didn't really set in until the stuff with the Kage. The Ninja War had a bunch of characters going to different places, and fighting different opponents. Here it was only Doflamingo and his men. Which leads into my next problem. There were your typical Bleach "People we don't care for fighting other people we don't care for."  And I might get tarred and feathered for saying this, but during that time I liked Bleach way more then One Piece. The time I'm talking about is right after the flashback where we had one off fights with the gladiators going against Doflamingos men. Those chapters coincided with the Ichibei vs Yhwach fight, and I felt much more thrill and excitement for that fight. And here's why: in that fight there were legitimate stake, we knew what would be lost if Ichibei was defeated, and we knew both of these characters prior to the fight. Admittedly we didn't get Ichibeis backstory, and stuff like that, but we didn't need to. We knew who he was, what he stood for, and the consequences should he lose. As for One Piece let me ask, would anyone care if Don Chin Jou lost his fight. What did we know about Ideo or Sai prior to their fights. That was the problem during those fights. It was a bunch of randos whom I had no connection to. I had a connection to Bartelomeo, and Cavendish, but that's about it. Otherwise I could not care if they lost. In fact, I couldn't care for the fight period because no one dies in One Piece.

Okay last one, Ussopp. Go to chapter 740, and go to the very last page. That one action irreparably damaged Ussopp to me to the point where he's easily my least favorite Straw Hat. I've been having problems accepting Ussopp as a coward post timeskip, because I feel like he should have grown more as a character. His cowardice reached a point where I honestly feel it doesn't work anymore. He's stronger now. He has pop greens, he fought against FAR worst odds, and came out alive, yet he still is the same coward who will run away. And that is the part that annoys me the most. His running away to leave the Tontatta to die is quite honestly the worst thing any of the Straw Hats could have done. Sure he came back, but that was after being guilt tripped into hearing their death squeaks. For all he knows they really were dying, and he couldn't muster up the courage to do what was right that even Chopper and Nami would. The same courage they showed during Punk Hazard. And for that reason I feel I cannot take Ussopps character seriously anymore. It feels like for every show of bravery he'll go right back to being that coward.

So, yeah this was not my favorite arc, and it hurts. This is the arc that finally brings down Doflamingo, and it feels like such a MEH arc. I should be more excited about this. I should feel happier about about these bigger arcs, but this was such a disappointment, and one of the few black marks on One Pieces otherwise prestigious record.

6/10

I agree with pretty much most of what you said about this arc, though keep in mind I've found OP to be in a real slump ever since Fishman Island.

Aside from the length, which is definitely a really big problem with this arc, I must really echo your opinion about the side characters this time. I didn't care about any of them. I didn't give a shit about Rebecca or her father or anyone else. And it's funny how this arc finally brought us huge reveals that we've wanted to see for a long time, but they all felt so bland and anticlimactic and were really disappointing. Sabo was revealed and he was kind of just....there. This is Luffy and Ace's childhood "brother" and he felt less important in this arc than many other side characters. And Doflamingo has been built up for over an entire fucking decade, and now that Luffy has finally faced him, I can only think of him as an OK villain at best. More memorable for his actual build-up than for being a great character.

What made past arcs great was a sense of something to lose and something to gain, and an actual investment in the characters. With Arlong Park and Baroque Works, it was about Luffy fighting for others, but also a clash of his philosophy as a young, naive adventurer against those of more seasoned and cynical pirates. With the CP9 saga it was the very status of Luffy's crew on the verge of being broken apart that carried us through, what with their first ship on the verge of going down, Ussopp's falling out with Luffy and temporarily leaving the crew, and Robin on the verge of being executed. The entire arc rode high on the emotions of the characters, which made us really care about the outcome. And then Impel Down and Marineford literally had Ace's life on the line and brought nearly every major character in the entire series into direct conflict against each other. It was a really rewarding climax to the first half of the series, and Oda brilliantly killed off Ace at the end of it to demonstrate that there were some things that Luffy just couldn't prevent from happening.

The newer arcs have all of the formula of the older ones but lack the same substance that made them great. And even worse is how Oda has treated some of the characters. Robin barely gets anything to do anymore (having her on the sidelines commenting on Rebecca's father's fight instead of fighting herself really irritated me), and yes, I still haven't forgotten that notoriously awful OOC moment for Ussopp. Personally, that really hurt my opinion of the character. And to be clear, he didn't even get guilt-tripped into saving the Tontatta. He literally just got cornered and had no choice but to act, to save himself. So, basically, if he'd been allowed to get away, he literally would have just left innocent people to die. Nevermind the fact that he should've long since outgrown his cowardice. Even when he was at his most cowardly, he would NEVER have refused to help defend his own fucking allies. Fuck that shit, Oda! You should know better.

Yeah I forgot about Rebecca and Sabo, but that goes to show how A) how little I cared and B) their importance to the over all story. Rebecca is such a blatant Mary Sue, Orihime level character, that she is easily the worst character in One Piece, and really brings out the worst of Odas abilities to write women. Her presentation of a female gladiator that could fight with the best of the was betrayed, hard, by her numerous damsel moments where each and every time she was forced to rely on men to come and help her. She literally screamed "HELP ME ICHIGO TOY SOLDIER" that when it happened she became the worst of the worst. And heres a theory I had. I think part of the reason I had a problem with her is because of her design. Her look, while provocative, gave that feeling of a badass woman, which One Piece is seriously lacking. If she had been designed to invoke a princess vibe, I would still have problems with her character, but I could just tell myself that she is a princess. But there was a serious dissonance between her design and her role in the arc making her such a serious disappointment. Honestly, in Alabasta I had problems with ViVi, but now looking at Rebecca, ViVi is so much better to me now.

And yeah, a lot of good that Sabo reveal had. He did nothing this arc, except fight in the coliseum as Lucy. After that he just sat around fighting random characters. He never had a moment where he fought with Luffy. He never had a real conversation with him. It was just, he was there and that's all. Such a disappointment.

And one final nail in the coffin that I and so many people forgot about. Remember back in Jaya when we first met Doflamingo, and he had this thing about how this is the new age of pirates, and dreams are meaningless and all that. That never came up at all. There was never a moment where he confronted Luffy about his philosophy. He was just presented as the puppetmaster, and that was it. He never had that at all. Back then he was presented as the ultimate cynic to Luffys ultimate idealist, and we looked forward to the moment where Luffy and him clashed for their ideals. The World Nobel twist was cool, but whatever happened to what came before. What happened to his "New Age" his era where dreams will come to an end. Yeah in retrospect Doflamingo was a disappointing villain.

I've fallen way behind on my One Piece reading (last time, I believe I was at chapter 785 or something like that) and I'm not sure when I'll get around to catch up. Still, I'd like to know one thing: Have they defeated Doflamingo yet?

Yeah. They finally beat him a couple weeks ago, and now we're in wrap-up for Dressarosa and set-up for the next arc.

I'm just praying that Oda finally manages to get the pacing of this series back on track.

So recently the One Piece Podcast crew finished their read through of the entire series from the beginning through the end of Dressrosa (http://onepiecepodcast.com/category/opreadthrough/), and a few days ago they did a two-part special where they ranked all the arcs in the series from least good (http://onepiecepodcast.com/2015/11/16/episode-394-arcs-of-consequence-part-one/) to best (http://onepiecepodcast.com/2015/11/19/episode-395-arcs-of-consequence-part-two/). It was a really interesting discussion that raises a lot of good points and different takes on various arcs, and though very long, I definitely recommend giving it a listen.

Here are their rankings, in case anyone is curious and doesn't have the time to listen through the podcasts yet:

Spoiler

1. Water 7/Enies Lobby
2. Arlong Park
3. Alabasta
4. Marineford/Post-War
5. Jaya/Skypeia
6. Drum Island
7. Sabaody Archipelago
8. Dressrosa
9. Thriller Bark
10. Impel Down
11. Punk Hazard
12. Baratie
13. Loguetown
14. Long Ring Long Land
15. Whiskey Peak
16. Fishman Island
17. Romance Dawn
18. Amazon Lilly
19. Little Garden
20. Syrup Village
21. Laboon
22. Orange Town

[close]

I haven't even read all of that and I disagree.  ;D

With the discussion, or the list?

Personally, since the list is composited from the personal lists of around two dozen people, and almost all of them have done a full read-through of the entire series in the last six months, I think where things ended up are justified, even if my own personal list would look a bit different.

I'd personally put Impel Down higher, Marineford at #1, and Skypeia and Fishman Island lower, and while my own list would look very different from this one still, there aren't any glaring stand-outs other than the ones that I mentioned.

Also, to be fair, W7/EL is a perfectly acceptable choice for the top spot, given how we ranked it above the others in our story arc list as well. Arlong Park being so high is understandable as being a pivotal arc in the series, but also a bit questionable since there are several arcs of higher quality that have come out since then. I mean, it's still good for what it is, but I couldn't justify it being higher than stuff like Alabasta or Thriller Bark, myself.

This editorial captures a lot of feelings I've had towards the series in recent years. (http://onepiecepodcast.com/2016/05/18/one-piece-still-heart/) While Oda's storytelling is still strong, he's been paying so much attention to setting things up and the goings-on of the world and big-picture stuff that the character development, and the sense of heart that first endeared me to the series, has been missing for quite a while now. I've said it several times before, but most of the Straw Hats feel like 2-dimmensional caricatures of themselves now, and their interactions no longer feel genuine, but rote. Considering what I used to love about the Straw Hats was the close, family relationships they had with each other, the shallowness of their personalities and interactions now has left me a lot less emotionally engaged in the story than I used to me.

Don't get me wrong, I still feel a surge of emotions whenever I revisit my favorite parts of the series. I consider everything before the timeskip some of the all-time best manga period. And even now, I'm still excited for the many things that lie ahead, and have been thoroughly enjoying the series' output this year. But there's a reason that I've left it off my favorite manga list for some time now. That powerful emotion connection that I have with pre-timeskip One Piece has been sorely lacking with post-timeskip stuff, even in the material I really like. While that doesn't change how I feel about pre-timeskip One Piece and the memories and emotions I associate with it, the fact the series hasn't been able to truly move me on a deeper emotional level for nearly 5 years is disappointing, and leaves me wistful. The current arc seems to be moving in a direction that might fix some of those problems (Sanji has never felt more like himself since the timeskip than he did in the Zou flashback), so I'm hopeful that the series can recapture the emotional investment I had with the series with some of the upcoming material before too long.

That's literally exactly what I've been saying for years, especially in regard to the characters (which I specifically remember discussing about with you a couple of years ago). They feel like they only have three functions post time-skip: fight, spout exposition, and partake in tired and predictable running gags. That would be fine if they still had dynamic interactions with each other and continued to develop, but I feel like I just lost any connection to them after their long absence from the Whitebeard Saga.

The story and villains have also been merely passable for the most part so far. Nobody even close to the level of Crocodile or Rob Lucci, among others, IMO.

I used to wait in high anticipation each and every week for a new chapter of One Piece to drop, and I would gobble it up and even re-read new releases and partake in intricate discussions and craft theories about future events. Now I just read it as a routine.

I've said it before, but Oda not writing the Straw Hats for two years really damaged their characterization. Only Luffy still feels consistent as a character anymore, whereas the rest have been reduced to their superficial characterizations and running gags. Compounding the problem is the fact that Oda seems to go out of his way to separate them near the start of an arc and reduce how much they do compared to Luffy, Law, and miscellaneous arc allies considerably, whereas before each crew member would have something meaningful to do and add to the story that would facilitate their own development in some way. It often feels like you can take all the Straw Hats besides Luffy out of the story and it would still play out the same way. Only now, with this new focus on Sanji and his family, does that not feel the case, but even then Oda's still split the crew in half again and we won't see them for god knows how long (especially considering that Nami, Sanji, Chopper, and Brook had been absent from the series for 65 chapters - basically a year and a half!). It's something that I keep hoping will improve, and Sanji at the very least should hopefully return to form, but I don't expect the rest of the crew to become relevant again for a while yet.

As far as villains go, Doflamingo is actually my favorite, or at least my second favorite after Crocodile. Even with how fatiguing the Dressrosa arc was as a whole, I find him as a character and as a threat the most interesting and entertaining out of everyone the Straw Hats have faced yet. But aside from him, I have found the other core post-timeskip arc villains, Hordy, Caeser, and Jack, to be underwhelming compared to previous ones, though I like Caeser as a comic relief character. Kaido made a great first impression, and is definitely imposing, but we still need to learn more about him and see a display of how dangerous he is rather than just interpret it.

I personally still find the story interesting and the series as it's been recently especially intriguing and fun to read, so reading it is not just "routine" for me. It's just the emotional investment I have in the goings-on and the Straw Hats besides Luffy is far less than what it was during the days of the Whitebeard War, and that saddens me to think about since the connection I felt with the characters was what I loved most about the series. It's entertaining, but a more hollow entertainment than what it used to be for me.

Recently, I came across the first two box-sets for One Piece (23-volumes each), and was really tempted to pick up at least the first one. On the one hand, the $185 price tag for one set is a good deal since individually those volumes would cost roughly $230, and I could always save up for it. I've also really been wanting to re-read the pre-New World arcs of One Piece from the early arcs to the golden years of this manga's run, but do you know the one thing stopping me from picking it up? Space. Or to be more specific, a complete lack of it. I simply have nowhere to put so many books for the time being. Not that my living quarters are necessarily cramped, but I don't have much in the way of shelves or storage cabinets, and there's no freaking way that I'm going to just leave a bunch of stuff cluttered on my floor.

So, I'll just have to pass all of that up for now, unfortunately. And yes, I know that I could buy the manga digitally, but the reason I don't is because I prefer to read new content digitally. If it's something that I've already read and liked, I want to own the physical copy. That said, I definitely will have to re-read all of One Piece at some point before it ends. The current stuff is good. It fluctuates a bit too much in quality for my liking, but overall I am still invested in this world and these characters, but I do feel that I lost a lot of the initial passion and drive that I had for the series back when I was first catching up to it, and just like with my revisits of manga like Dragonball and Rurouni Kenshin, I have a strong feeling that rereading One Piece from scratch would help me rekindle my love for it.

For all of the complaints that I've had about this series in the past few years, don't get the wrong idea. I still consider it to be one of Weekly Shonen Jump's greatest and most impactful properties, and beyond that it's a really important series to me.

I have been enjoying the current weekly chapters. I read it and it still feels like One Piece even near two decades since it started.

It's not personally one of my favorites, but I do like reading it. Especially since Sanji is one of the characters in the series I like best.

Whenever I revisit old clips from the anime from the pre-timeskip days, or remember iconic moments that still stick with me to this day, I rekindle that great emotional connection with the series that I reminds me how much I used to, and still, love it. There've been moments here and there from the post-timeskip stuff that might move me as well, but generally I just don't feel that emotional connection to the series that I used to in it's prime. Like with Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, I think a re-read of the series from the beginning would help me rekindle my passion for the series. I might try and do that next summer since it's 20th anniversary will be next July and all.

The current run of chapters has been great, though. I am so, so happy that the Straw Hats feel like themselves again and not the two-dimensional facsimiles that I felt most of them had become after the timeskip. Even more, I love that Sanji has been getting legitimate character development after years of him being little more than a punchline, which is well deserved and so satisfying to see. I love actually being invested in the Straw Hats themselves again instead of just the people they're helping like I was in previous arcs. Really, the only complaint I have with the arc so far is that I feel Oda's spending too much time in these goddamn woods and I just want Luffy to beat Cracker already so they can leave and go somewhere else, but considering that Oda's rectified almost every other gripe I've had about the way the characters have been written these last few years, I can deal with it in anticipation of what's to come.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on October 10, 2016, 10:32:55 AM
I have been enjoying the current weekly chapters. I read it and it still feels like One Piece even near two decades since it started.

It's not personally one of my favorites, but I do like reading it. Especially since Sanji is one of the characters in the series I like best.

I still can't believe that you haven't read anything between Water Seven to The Whitebeard Saga. That's easily one of the best story runs in Weekly Shonen Jump since the Golden Age ended. It's like you've read all of One Piece Except for its best material. :D

Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on October 10, 2016, 10:55:08 AM
Whenever I revisit old clips from the anime from the pre-timeskip days, or remember iconic moments that still stick with me to this day, I rekindle that great emotional connection with the series that I reminds me how much I used to, and still, love it. There've been moments here and there from the post-timeskip stuff that might move me as well, but generally I just don't feel that emotional connection to the series that I used to in it's prime. Like with Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, I think a re-read of the series from the beginning would help me rekindle my passion for the series. I might try and do that next summer since it's 20th anniversary will be next July and all.

The current run of chapters has been great, though. I am so, so happy that the Straw Hats feel like themselves again and not the two-dimensional facsimiles that I felt most of them had become after the timeskip. Even more, I love that Sanji has been getting legitimate character development after years of him being little more than a punchline, which is well deserved and so satisfying to see. I love actually being invested in the Straw Hats themselves again instead of just the people they're helping like I was in previous arcs. Really, the only complaint I have with the arc so far is that I feel Oda's spending too much time in these goddamn woods and I just want Luffy to beat Cracker already so they can leave and go somewhere else, but considering that Oda's rectified almost every other gripe I've had about the way the characters have been written these last few years, I can deal with it in anticipation of what's to come.

I agree about the characters. For the first time in literally years, they feel like themselves again. Up through Dressrossa we got bits and pieces of nuance and development to each of them, but it felt like everyone except for Luffy had become confined to little more than running gags and general comic relief for a while. Ever since the Zou arc I've actually become invested in the individual Straw Hat pirates again.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on October 10, 2016, 11:40:19 AM

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on October 10, 2016, 10:32:55 AM
I have been enjoying the current weekly chapters. I read it and it still feels like One Piece even near two decades since it started.

It's not personally one of my favorites, but I do like reading it. Especially since Sanji is one of the characters in the series I like best.

I still can't believe that you haven't read anything between Water Seven to The Whitebeard Saga. That's easily one of the best story runs in Weekly Shonen Jump since the Golden Age ended. It's like you've read all of One Piece Except for its best material. :D

To be fair, I only started reading it at the back end of Dressrossa (which wouldn't end!) and all your complaints were also mine. But the current arc does remind me about what I enjoyed about the series, and feels like it could have been written back then without much trouble. It feels like Oda is in the groove.

But yes, they really do need to get out of the woods already.

I think Oda has gotten about 75% of his old rhythm back, but that last quarter is the most crucial thing absent which holds this series back from being as great as it was, and that's the narrative and pacing. Something about the way that Oda used to organize the flow of his story had a quality to it that kept me wanting to read more, and even when I caught up to the material at that point in time (which was back when we were at the beginning of the Impel Down arc), I constantly spent time reading and actively participating in discussion boards and sepeculating with others on popular fan theories as to where the story was going based on subtle clues that Oda left us throughout the manga's run (he's very much like the George R. R. Martin of shonen mangaka in that regard).

With the current stuff, I'm enjoying it when I read each new chapter for the most part, but the content doesn't really stay with me after I finish the last page. I'm not constantly thinking about what happened and where the story and characters might be headed next, and that's what I associate with One Piece when it was at its best, personally.

While I am liking the development that Sanji is getting in this arc after such a long time of just having felt like a background character, I do have to agree with the fan criticism that Oda is relying a bit too heavily on the formula that he used with Nami and Nico Robin in the Arlong Park and CP9 sagas, respectively.

That said, for anyone following fan theories (and unlike other manga, many of the fan theories for One Piece are based off of actual clues left by Oda in both the artwork and the text), the rest of the arc seems like it'll play out much differently than the Straw Hat Pirates just participating in a series of one-on-one boss fights. Clearly there are other parties besides the Straw Hats who are aiming to crash this wedding, and considering that Big Mom has invited a ton of big names to this event, I have a strong feeling that this will go down as a glorious clusterfuck of multiple top-tier pirates going against each other. I'm picturing something like "Gangland" from TSSM, but on a much larger scale, obviously.

Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed that Oda's doing the whole crewmember pretends to betray the crew/Luffy doesn't believe them and convinces them to believe in the power of friendship angle again. But at least he's not doing it from the perspective of it being a reveal that the crewmember has betrayed the crew for the sake of the crew like it was with Nami and Robin, since we already know why Sanji's doing what he's doing, which is at least a different way to go about the same trope.

As for the wedding being crashed by multiple parties, I always imagined we'd get something like that during the Reverie, but I'd be interested in seeing that happen here. There's a lot of big players that could come into play, and I have to imagine they'll be some twists and betrayals in store too.

Capone is definitely going to betray Big Mom at some point. It's pretty obvious that he was only pretending to submit to her for the past couple of years since she and her crew massively overpowered him. But I don't believe that any of the Eleven Supernovas would willingly play second fiddle to someone else unless they had a plan in store to take advantage of the situation when things turned in their favor.

Speaking of betrayals, a popular fan theory is that Law will betray Luffy at some point. Despite their alliance, they are still rivals, so I could definitely see this happening, but not for quite a while. The thing about this betrayal, though, is that if it happens, it'll really sting since Oda made us care a lot about Law's character through his extensive backstory, but that could be a really good thing from a dramatic standpoint. Still, I feel like they at least need to overtake Big Mom and Kaido before Law could possibly justify breaking off from their alliance.

Yeah, Capone is definitely a prime suspect. I think Reiju betraying Judge at some point is also a given, probably to help Sanji but maybe for her own ends as well. Caeser also is in a do-or-die situation so he's bound to be figuring out a way to escape Big Mom, so whatever he does during the wedding is no doubt going to cause some chaos.

Law betraying Luffy would be so good dramatically because of how much they've been through now, and how much time we've spent with him over the last couple of years. It'd break my heart as a fan of the dude, but I think we need that kind of shocking heartbreak in the series again, and we haven't really had a surprising dramatic heel turn in the series since Lucci, Kaku, and Kalifa were revealed to be members of CP9. But yeah, something like that probably wouldn't happen until after Kaido is out of the picture, since they formed the alliance to take him down in the first place.

So, my temptation to re-read the entire manga from the start up to at least the Whitebeard saga got the better of me and I bought the first five 3-in-1 volumes, which comprises the first 15 single-volumes of OP and covers the entire East Blue saga along with the beginning of the Baroque Works saga. Collecting it this way is actually even cheaper than buying the 23-volume box sets or buying the individual digital volumes.

I'll be updating you guys on my thoughts about the manga as I go through it in retrospect. It'll be interesting given Oda's tendency to clue you in on future events since he's quite well-renowned for having planned much of the story ahead and peppers in lots of clever foreshadowing that many fans notice on their second go through the manga.

Cool. Re-reading the series from the beginning is something I've got to do at some point. I'll probably wait until next summer before I attempt that, but I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts as you go through it again.

I'd like to see that. As for me, I'm still waiting for my copy of Black Museum to come in. Should be Monday.

First of all I just want to say that this week's chapter of One Piece was excellent. It's been a while since I've been this emotionally invested in the Straw Hats Pirates.

Secondly, I've been meaning to post about my re-read of One Piece. I actually just bought the omnibi versions of volumes 16-24, which completes the entire Baroque Works Saga, and I'm currently five volumes into East Blue right now (right at the beginning of the Baratie arc). I intended to update you guys with my thoughts on the series after completing each 3-in-1 volume, but I've been so exhausted from work these days that even during my downtime, I don't have the mental capacity to write what I want, but I'll still post my thoughts up in briefer posts. Just don't expect them too frequently.

So I'm currently about seven volumes into my re-read of One Piece from scratch, and I figured I'd give you guys some updates on my thoughts about the manga in retrospect whenever I got some time to talk about it.

One thing that I should definitely mention is that it really does help that I can go into this series from the start again without a pre-conceived bias against it. Back in late 2007 to early 2008 when I first got into the series, I was watching it more out of curiosity than anything else since quite a few of the members that I hung out with on the YYH board from TV.com were fans of One Piece, and I figured that there must be something to this series. But I also hung out with a lot of other members who hated a lot of shonen series at the time, and this was around the time when I was really self-conscious about my opinions and figured that I was "supposed" to hate shonen and with just a few exceptions only "dumb kids" could find any enjoyment out of stuff like that. It didn't help that One Piece was regarded as one of the "Big 3" of the time and I had completely turned on Naruto and Bleach by that point (and to be fair, neither of those series appeal to me even now, so that had less to do with peer pressure and more to do with me just naturally growing out of those shows). Having One Piece lumped in with the likes of them didn't help my conception of it much, and this was also the time when I was a bit of a snob about my opinions and had turned on the Dragonball franchise, so having it constantly compared to that was also a turn-off for me (I of course would soon realize how stupid that was of me when I rediscovered DB through the manga about a year later).

Anyways, I've talked about that at length before, but needless to say, I no longer see shonen manga as an inherently inferior form of story-telling to any other genre or medium of entertainment. Like everything, quality depends on the talent of the people behind the story and how they tell it, as well as how interesting and engaging the characters are. So, going into One Piece once again with this fresh perspective made me realize how much more fun and entertaining the beginning of the series is, whereas I had found it too slow and dull on my first time through when being overruled with a pretty idiotic mentality about how I was "supposed" to feel about a show like this.

Now, a point of contention among many people who haven't gotten into the show or manga is that it looks and feels too "kiddy." Unlike other popular Shonen Jump manga like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or Rurouni Kenshin, or heck: even the later portions of Dragonball, One Piece has a much more cartoony design and it's unfathomable to anyone that you could get any value out of it as an adult. And on the one hand, yes, this is clearly a series that was designed with its much younger readers in mind. There is some blood and violence, but it's really tame compared to most WSJ fair not only from before when there was less censorship in the publication but even in regard to its own time. However, as good writers have proven time and time again with timeless works like the old Scrooge McDuck comics or Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, a story for children can still be appealing to any person of any age if it doesn't talk down to its audience, and to me One Piece very much falls into that camp. It's intentionally silly and designed to be light-hearted, but that by no means restricts it to never being legitimately emotional and heartfelt when it wants or needs to be.

So, with that stuff out of the way, I really do enjoy the early arcs of One Piece and how different they feel from what we have now. In many ways it's amazing how much Oda has managed to keep the core spirit of the series in-tact in a way that even the likes of Akira Toriyama or Hirohiko Araki couldn't quite do with their long-running epics. What I mean is that while both JoJo's and Dragonball do carry on the spirits of their creators' writing styles, they do feel immensely different from what they were at the start once you get several hundred chapters into either. One Piece of course feels very different as well, but what's strange is also how it simultaneously feels all too familiar, and in that regard it's because while the scale and stakes of the story change over time, the actual spirit of the series that was established at the very beginning is still just as pronounced as ever, and it somehow manages to still walk that tight-rope of balancing both comedy and action in a way that's rather unbelievable for how long it has been going on for.

Getting into the thick of things with the early arcs, one thing that struck me right away was seeing the seeds of Oda's decisive writing style planted as early as chapter one. What I mean is that Oda is very distinct for a shonen mangaka in that he's one of the few who has serialized a long-running series of this caliber with a clear plan for how the major plot points will unfold and how the adventure will finally end when it comes to that point. Whereas this genre is clearly better suited to writers who are able to adapt and change plans in response to what does and doesn't resonate with their readers, such as the likes of Araki or Toriyama or Togashi, Oda amazingly enough (to his much deserved credit) sticks true to his original vision for the series and pursues the type of tale that he set out to tell. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that he had every little detail planned out and of course certain things are made up as they go along, and at times the story can feel like it drags when Oda is so steadfast on trying to get things set up the way that he wants them set up, but on that end, the payoff almost never fails to exceed readers' expectations, including my own. Without that long haul of set up and exposition and backstory, you wouldn't get some of the most well-renowned story arcs in all of Shonen Jump history, nor would you experience the revelation when bomb-shell plot twists are dropped which makes it feel so rewarding to have stuck with the series and see how everything adds up so perfectly yet you were so oblivious to the clues right in front of your face several years (or hundreds of chapters) ago (which is why I refer to Oda as the George R. R. Martin of shonen manga in that regard).

To get back to the point which I was just making, though, Oda already showed us his ability to flash clues at us without us even realizing it only for something seemingly insignificant to come up right in our faces, and he did it right from the very beginning. It's just on a much smaller scale, just like all of the East Blue saga is. For instance, in the very first chapter itself when Luffy first attains his Devil Fruit ability, whereas a common writing trope would be to introduce the fruit, give it a lot of exposition, and then have Luffy consume it in a panel that draws a lot of emphasis to that action, Oda instead opts to not tell you anything about what these fruits are or even the fact that there are mysterious fruits that can grant people unique powers, and also doesn't even draw attention to the fact that Luffy eats one. You can just see him casually munching on it in one panel (and at that it's partly obscured out-of-frame), only for readers to experience a bizarre reaction when Luffy's arm stretches out for apparently no reason once Shanks grabs him. The exposition then only comes after that point and even then it's kept relatively brief and doesn't tell us all that much right from the get-go, leaving something to the imagination and a bit more mystery to reveal to curious readers in increments over time (something which I feel that the current One Piece material could stand to remember in certain instances). Another example is in the Captatin Kuro arc when we see the flashback of how Kuro had Django hypnotize a Marine to declare that he had successfully captured and executed Kuro as a way for him to fake his own death. Oda doesn't draw any special attention to it, but if you pay attention to the character design along with subtle clues, you realize that this Marine being hypnotized was a younger version of Captain Morgan from two arcs prior, and this little flash-back not only explains Kuro's backstory but also why Morgan was such a pompous, self-entitled dick when we saw him as a minor villain in the Zoro arc. And right before the Baratie arc, Yosaku and Johnny casually mention to Zoro about how "that Swordsman he's been looking for" has been spotted roaming around the waters that they are headed to. It's done in such a nonchalant and casual way that makes it really easy to forget about, only for it to become a plot point out of seemingly nowhere right in the middle of the Baratie arc.

Ultimately, I can see that right from the very beginning Oda had a natural talent for setting things up and paying them off. And even if it's on a smaller scale, I really have to admit that there is something so quaint and charming re-reading this stuff in retrospect and realizing just how big the series will get later on. There is something really amusing and rewarding about seeing the Straw Hat pirates taking such small steps and making minor accomplishments that you know will ultimately lead to even greater adventures and feats of prowess. Reading Mihawk telling Zoro that he needs to learn just how big the world really is takes on a whole new meaning than the first time I read that bit of dialogue since now I really do know just how insanely big the world of One Piece is, much like the characters themselves come to experience over time.

So there's my long-ass introduction to this series of "not-articles" that I'm going to occasionally churn out. I'm not going to do anything fancy or even try to make very long posts unless I somehow have the time and willingness to write something like that, but I did feel it apt to first explain my general thoughts and how I was approaching this series for my second time going through it. In subsequent posts I will talk about the series proper, arc-by-arc, and critique them while also comparing how I feel about them now as opposed to how I felt about them back then. I do however think that I'll wait until I finish a whole saga before I post about my thoughts regarding the arcs which comprise it. I won't have much time to read this week, if any, but I'm a bit more than halfway through the East Blue saga and will probably manage to finish it either by next weekend of the weekend after that, depending on if I get any chances to read this week or not.

Yes, One Piece makes a splash right out of the gate. The first few arcs are more entertaining than great but it finds its footing remarkably fast since Oda knows exactly where he's going with his characters and story.

It's great that you're enjoying your re-read! I've always enjoyed early One Piece myself. A lot of Oda's talents as a writer and artist already show themselves here and hint at the scope and potential of this story and world. Maybe because I've revisited the East Blue stuff the most, but a lot of moments and scenes from those arcs have stuck with me over the years and still stand among my favorite moments from the series overall. Volume 9 is still my favorite volume in the series overall, for many reasons, including being the first volume of the manga I had ever read and bought, and the first time I had seen the series "uncut" as opposed to the butchered 4kids version.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on November 06, 2016, 09:49:09 PMYes, One Piece makes a splash right out of the gate. The first few arcs are more entertaining than great but it finds its footing remarkably fast since Oda knows exactly where he's going with his characters and story.

Yeah, the beginning does show Oda's lack of experience with telling a story, but he learns really fast and manages to hook you in by Arlong Park, IMO. What I really like about the East Blue saga is its good combination of both humor and action, and in this regard it really tonally resembles the Red Ribbon Army arc of Dragonball, while still of course being its own thing, which is a huge plus in my book.

One little pet-peeve that I have with these releases from Viz is having Zoro's name still featured as "Zolo" in the manga. I understand that these volumes were originally being published in English back when 4Kids still held the NA licensing rights to One Piece, but it's a shame that they never corrected it for the reprints. Honestly, though, I'm not sure why they felt the need to match the 4Kids naming of Zoro alone. Every other character retains their proper names, and none of the violence in the manga is edited out, so I find it to be incredibly weird that this one little detail from the 4Kids dub was retained in these translations. It's not a big deal, though. I still read his name as "Zoro" in my head, anyways.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 06, 2016, 11:54:42 PM

One little pet-peeve that I have with these releases from Viz is having Zoro's name still featured as "Zolo" in the manga. I understand that these volumes were originally being published in English back when 4Kids still held the NA licensing rights to One Piece, but it's a shame that they never corrected it for the reprints. Honestly, though, I'm not sure why they felt the need to match the 4Kids naming of Zoro alone. Every other character retains their proper names, and none of the violence in the manga is edited out, so I find it to be incredibly weird that this one little detail from the 4Kids dub was retained in these translations. It's not a big deal, though. I still read his name as "Zoro" in my head, anyways.

Actually, Viz STILL uses "Zolo" instead of "Zoro" in their translations even with current material. It's an unfortunate carryover of trying to match the 4Kids naming that's been kept for the sake of consistency. Funny enough, when Viz started publishing OP chapters back in 2003 in their Shonen Jump and in the first printings of the first couple of volumes, they originally used "Zoro" in their translations, but later changed the name to "Zolo" in reprints and later volumes when the 4Kids dub started coming out. I wish they'd just have stuck with "Zoro" and kept that as a different naming from the 4Kids dub just like how their naming of several Dragon Ball characters ("Kuririn", "Tenshinhan", etc.) differs from the FUNimation dub's.

Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on November 06, 2016, 11:47:37 PM
It's great that you're enjoying your re-read! I've always enjoyed early One Piece myself. A lot of Oda's talents as a writer and artist already show themselves here and hint at the scope and potential of this story and world. Maybe because I've revisited the East Blue stuff the most, but a lot of moments and scenes from those arcs have stuck with me over the years and still stand among my favorite moments from the series overall. Volume 9 is still my favorite volume in the series overall, for many reasons, including being the first volume of the manga I had ever read and bought, and the first time I had seen the series "uncut" as opposed to the butchered 4kids version.

Speaking of early One Piece, I may be in the minority on this, but I actually much prefer Oda's early artwork to the style that he developed later on. The art from the get-go is legitimately great, being very simplistic but using pretty advanced techniques to create depth perception for Luffy's Gum-Gum abilities, and everything is easy to follow and has a good flow to it. Later on I feel that Oda's drawing talents lead him to be overly detailed to a fault. Nothing in and of itself is badly drawn, but often times these days I find his panel composition can be very messy and it's hard to tell what's going on sometimes, especially in spreads and chaotic action scenes. I do think that he could benefit from simplifying things a bit more like he did in the early material.

Also, since it came up in my re-read, does anyone remember Gaimon? I totally forgot that he was a thing. Knowing Oda's tendency to have seemingly insignificant characters become big deals in the story later on, I'm sure that there has to be some crazy One Piece theory out there about how he's some essential plot point towards finding Raftel or unlocking one of the Ancient Weapons or something like that. But....maybe he's also just some random character that Oda thought would be kind of funny. The thing about Oda and One Piece is that you never really know what the hell is going through his head when he throws something silly like that at you.

Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on November 07, 2016, 12:06:09 AMActually, Viz STILL uses "Zolo" instead of "Zoro" in their translations even with current material. It's an unfortunate carryover of trying to match the 4Kids naming that's been kept for the sake of consistency. Funny enough, when Viz started publishing OP chapters back in 2003 in their Shonen Jump and in the first printings of the first couple of volumes, they originally used "Zoro" in their translations, but later changed the name to "Zolo" in reprints and later volumes when the 4Kids dub started coming out. I wish they'd just have stuck with "Zoro" and kept that as a different naming from the 4Kids dub just like how their naming of several Dragon Ball characters ("Kuririn", "Tenshinhan", etc.) differs from the FUNimation dub's.

Wait....so does that mean that Smoker is called Chaser in this translation? I'm gonna be pissed if I see that when I get to the Logue Town arc....:wth:

I've always considered going back to watch the 4Kids dub for the shits, but I'd need a drinking partner to watch it with. :thinkin:

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 07, 2016, 12:14:15 AM

Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on November 07, 2016, 12:06:09 AMActually, Viz STILL uses "Zolo" instead of "Zoro" in their translations even with current material. It's an unfortunate carryover of trying to match the 4Kids naming that's been kept for the sake of consistency. Funny enough, when Viz started publishing OP chapters back in 2003 in their Shonen Jump and in the first printings of the first couple of volumes, they originally used "Zoro" in their translations, but later changed the name to "Zolo" in reprints and later volumes when the 4Kids dub started coming out. I wish they'd just have stuck with "Zoro" and kept that as a different naming from the 4Kids dub just like how their naming of several Dragon Ball characters ("Kuririn", "Tenshinhan", etc.) differs from the FUNimation dub's.

Wait....so does that mean that Smoker is called Chaser in this translation? I'm gonna be pissed if I see that when I get to the Logue Town arc....:wth:

I've always considered going back to watch the 4Kids dub for the shits, but I'd need a drinking partner to watch it with. :thinkin:

I'm one of those people that started One Piece with Shonen Jump before 4Kids, so yeah, this has always been a pet peeve of mine. If you're going to name change I can accept it at the beginning of the beginning of the series but not when I'm already reading it and its been running a while. It's jarring and takes you out of the story when they do it this way.

A funny thing is that every time his name is said in NA Jump there's always someone in the comments asking them to stop calling him Zolo. So obviously it's never been accepted and I wish Viz which just yield and change his name back. It's always been the worst part of the translation here.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 07, 2016, 12:14:15 AM

Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on November 07, 2016, 12:06:09 AMActually, Viz STILL uses "Zolo" instead of "Zoro" in their translations even with current material. It's an unfortunate carryover of trying to match the 4Kids naming that's been kept for the sake of consistency. Funny enough, when Viz started publishing OP chapters back in 2003 in their Shonen Jump and in the first printings of the first couple of volumes, they originally used "Zoro" in their translations, but later changed the name to "Zolo" in reprints and later volumes when the 4Kids dub started coming out. I wish they'd just have stuck with "Zoro" and kept that as a different naming from the 4Kids dub just like how their naming of several Dragon Ball characters ("Kuririn", "Tenshinhan", etc.) differs from the FUNimation dub's.

Wait....so does that mean that Smoker is called Chaser in this translation? I'm gonna be pissed if I see that when I get to the Logue Town arc....:wth:

I've always considered going back to watch the 4Kids dub for the shits, but I'd need a drinking partner to watch it with. :thinkin:

No, don't worry. He's still called Smoker in the Viz edition.

So, in regard to current One Piece, I've read the theory that Pudding is deceiving the Straw Hat Pirates and that she's the one who actually sent Big Mom's forces after Luffy, since Big Mom herself seems to be pretty oblivious to what's going on outside of Whole Cake Island at the moment given how preoccupied she is with planning the wedding. The evidence to support this is small, but one tidbit that I found interesting is how someone pointed out that there were clocks scattered all over the background of The Seducing Woods, and the clock in Pudding's room from the most recent chapter (which Oda specifically displays in its own panel) apparently matches the designs of those found in the woods. While the theory could go either way, I have to admit that Oda's propensity for using subtle visual clues does have me at least somewhat convinced of this possibility.

On another note, I find that through the last few arcs, Caesar has become far too fun and humorous. I'm pretty convinced that he'll get some redemption in either this or the Wano arc (if he sticks around for that long) since he's just way too amusing and strangely likable to remain as a villain. I won't be surprised to see him become yet another ally to the Straw Hats in the future, especially since he's screwed without the backing of Doflamingo and Kaido protecting him from Big Mom, and she's certainly not going to be happy when she finds out that he flat-out can't complete his research at this point. Backing the Straw Hats is literally his only hope for survival at this point, and I'm pretty sure that this will occur to him before long.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 07, 2016, 12:14:15 AM

I've always considered going back to watch the 4Kids dub for the shits, but I'd need a drinking partner to watch it with. :thinkin:

I'd volunteer, but I'm not an alcoholic.  :D

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 07, 2016, 12:08:23 AM
Speaking of early One Piece, I may be in the minority on this, but I actually much prefer Oda's early artwork to the style that he developed later on. The art from the get-go is legitimately great, being very simplistic but using pretty advanced techniques to create depth perception for Luffy's Gum-Gum abilities, and everything is easy to follow and has a good flow to it. Later on I feel that Oda's drawing talents lead him to be overly detailed to a fault. Nothing in and of itself is badly drawn, but often times these days I find his panel composition can be very messy and it's hard to tell what's going on sometimes, especially in spreads and chaotic action scenes. I do think that he could benefit from simplifying things a bit more like he did in the early material.

I like Oda's art from Arlong Park through Alabasta the best, actually. That was when the series looked the cleanest and sharpest too me. I love the amount of detail and the scale of the art in later arcs, but especially these days, it looks too busy and cluttered that I have trouble understanding the flow of action sometimes. I wish he returned to that simpler aesthetic with his fight scenes in particular.

Quote
Also, since it came up in my re-read, does anyone remember Gaimon? I totally forgot that he was a thing. Knowing Oda's tendency to have seemingly insignificant characters become big deals in the story later on, I'm sure that there has to be some crazy One Piece theory out there about how he's some essential plot point towards finding Raftel or unlocking one of the Ancient Weapons or something like that. But....maybe he's also just some random character that Oda thought would be kind of funny. The thing about Oda and One Piece is that you never really know what the hell is going through his head when he throws something silly like that at you.

Well, he did factor into Buggy's cover story, and I can totally see the friendship between them coming back into play at some point.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 07, 2016, 09:21:57 PM
So, in regard to current One Piece, I've read the theory that Pudding is deceiving the Straw Hat Pirates and that she's the one who actually sent Big Mom's forces after Luffy, since Big Mom herself seems to be pretty oblivious to what's going on outside of Whole Cake Island at the moment given how preoccupied she is with planning the wedding. The evidence to support this is small, but one tidbit that I found interesting is how someone pointed out that there were clocks scattered all over the background of The Seducing Woods, and the clock in Pudding's room from the most recent chapter (which Oda specifically displays in its own panel) apparently matches the designs of those found in the woods. While the theory could go either way, I have to admit that Oda's propensity for using subtle visual clues does have me at least somewhat convinced of this possibility.

Pudding is totally deceiving them. She came off pretty manipulative in the latest chapter, and those visual clues and set-up with how twisted some of Big Mom's children are earlier in the chapter is definitely foreshadowing. I'm curious to see if Sanji will discover her deception himself or someone else will find out and intervene at the last second.

Quote
On another note, I find that through the last few arcs, Caesar has become far too fun and humorous. I'm pretty convinced that he'll get some redemption in either this or the Wano arc (if he sticks around for that long) since he's just way too amusing and strangely likable to remain as a villain. I won't be surprised to see him become yet another ally to the Straw Hats in the future, especially since he's screwed without the backing of Doflamingo and Kaido protecting him from Big Mom, and she's certainly not going to be happy when she finds out that he flat-out can't complete his research at this point. Backing the Straw Hats is literally his only hope for survival at this point, and I'm pretty sure that this will occur to him before long.

Yeah, he's pretty much stuck with the Straw Hats at this point, and since he's so important to both Big Mom and Kaido, he's probably going to continue be relevant in the story for a long while. I don't expect he'll every actually be "redeemed," but like Buggy in Impel Down and Marineford, he'll probably continue to be a reluctant ally that also serves as comic relief.

So, I finished re-reading the East Blue saga last weekend, and my thoughts on it pretty much hold up to how I felt about it before, but I'll wait until this weekend to write about it in more detail.

That said, one thing that I want to touch on is Usopp's character. In the beginning, Usopp does certainly have his cowardly side, but he also does have a legitimate sense of pride and while he mainly shows his fear before engaging in a fight, he honestly takes things fairly seriously once he gets into the action. Yes, he still has his quirks and anxious attitude towards being in so much danger, but he also is still giving a legitimate effort to win his battle, and mostly through strategy at that.

I mention this because for a period of time after the time-skip, I swear that Oda seemingly forgot this and made Usopp a charicature of his former self, being jumpy and overly cautious about EVERYTHING and having him contribute a lot less to fights than he usually did. It's almost like he regressed the character by overemphasizing his cowardly side, but the thing is, I've always seen the main theme of Usopp as a character being that as scary as the world is for people like him, his eagerness and desire for adventure and his bonds with his crew-mates will always win out over that.

Now, Oda has gotten a lot better with characterizing the Straw Hats again, lately, but I just hope that he keeps this in mind for Usopp going forward once we make it to the Wano arc.

Ussop has by far the best development in the series before the timeskip, as you can see in every arc him becoming just a little bit braver, more confident, and more heroic. Then after the timeskip Oda regresses him back to how he was before his experiences in Water 7 and Thriller Bark. I think the breaking point for me was when he ran away from his fight with Sugar. I mean, sure, he did forget about Robin because of Sugar's powers, but Ussop should still be long past running away crying from a fight. It really disappointed me, as Ussop was (and still is) my favorite character because of all the development he had received in the series from the beginning through the timeskip.

I'm hoping just like how Sanji's character has been redeemed a good deal by the current arc, Ussop will also get his due come Wano, or maybe Elbaf if they ever visit there.

Yeah, that bit from Dressrossa always has and always will infinitely enrage me, and Ussop isn't even my favorite Straw Hat. In both his introduction arc and the Arlong Park arc, which take place early on in the series BEFORE much of Ussop's development, even then he would never hesitate to save someone else's life, even if it meant putting his own in danger. Remember when Arlong was about to kill Genzo? Ussop shot him with an Exploding Star. He physically assaulted the main villain of the arc without a moment's hesitation to save someone he didn't even know. Sure, he ran afterwards, but only AFTER he had drawn the Fishmen's attention away. He earned the right to run like a coward in that instance, because in reality he wasn't a real coward, and he had proven it. Compare that to Dressrossa where he ran from helping an entire group of people who not only pleaded for his help, but had fought for and supported him as well before this point. You done fucked up, Oda! :srs:

Elbaf will definitely be an upcoming arc at some point. It was a big surprise to have the events of Little Garden come back in a big way in the Enies Lobby arc, and it simply wouldn't make sense for Oda to bring it up again like that if it wasn't going to be a future Island that the crew visited.

On that subject, some of the loose-ends that I'm most looking forward to Oda tying up (besides the obvious ones like what happened during the Void Century and what the other Ancient Weapons are) would be:

-Crocodile's past: Oda teased that there's more to his backstory than we know in both the Alabasta arc and the Marineford arc, so I would be surprised if we didn't get any insight into it when he inevitably makes his next appearance in the series. I've actually read some pretty interesting theories about how he may have had some connections to Germa 66, but the evidence isn't quite strong enough to support it well enough for me to completely buy into it, yet.

-Why was Doflamingo ordered to take out Gecko Moriah after the war, and where has he been hiding since the time-skip? I'm a tad peeved that Doflamingo didn't shed much light on this during the Dressrossa arc, other than dropping a hint or two for theorists to go nuts over. This is another former villain who has been hinted at having a more interesting past than we may realize, and it'd make the most sense for him to pop back up during the Wano arc as a possibly ally to the Straw Hats since his character may develop in order to rekindle his hatred towards Kaido. And as we've seen with Bellamy in the Dressrossa arc, Oda does in fact redeem some of his former villains, and I suspect that Moriah will follow suit.

-When the fuck are we going to meet Vegapunk? This one should be pretty self-explanatory.

-Eneru's return: I want to know the significance of what he found on "Fairy Vearth" (which, yes, is basically the moon and thus takes the world of One Piece to fucking outer-space). Oda made one of his longest cover story arcs to date about Eneru's discovery, and as we all know, that shit always comes back. Who knows, maybe the Straw Hats will even make it up there themselves!

-Will the Straw Hats ever manage to pull off a complete Dock Formation 15, or will Nico Robin forever snub the idea? Just for shits and giggles.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 15, 2016, 11:09:47 PM
-Crocodile's past: Oda teased that there's more to his backstory than we know in both the Alabasta arc and the Marineford arc, so I would be surprised if we didn't get any insight into it when he inevitably makes his next appearance in the series. I've actually read some pretty interesting theories about how he may have had some connections to Germa 66, but the evidence isn't quite strong enough to support it well enough for me to completely buy into it, yet.

I'm half-expecting him to crash the Reverie. I'm not sure why he would, but I want to see that happen not only because it would be interesting to see him interact with Vivi again, but also because I'm sure that the Revolutionaries are definitely going to interfere with the Reverie, and Ivankov may be among them. Ivankov knows something about Crocodile's past that he doesn't want people to find out, so I feel we'll learn a lot more about that when they cross paths again.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 15, 2016, 11:09:47 PM
-Why was Doflamingo ordered to take out Gecko Moriah after the war, and where has he been hiding since the time-skip? I'm a tad peeved that Doflamingo didn't shed much light on this during the Dressrossa arc, other than dropping a hint or two for theorists to go nuts over. This is another former villain who has been hinted at having a more interesting past than we may realize, and it'd make the most sense for him to pop back up during the Wano arc as a possibly ally to the Straw Hats since his character may develop in order to rekindle his hatred towards Kaido. And as we've seen with Bellamy in the Dressrossa arc, Oda does in fact redeem some of his former villains, and I suspect that Moriah will follow suit.

Yeah, I'd bet Moria will play a role in Wano and the battle with Kaido considering his grudge against him. Definitely another character I suspect we'll learn a lot more about when he shows up again, though whether or not he actually becomes an ally to the Straw Hats will be interesting to see.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 15, 2016, 11:09:47 PM
-Eneru's return: I want to know the significance of what he found on "Fairy Vearth" (which, yes, is basically the moon and thus takes the world of One Piece to fucking outer-space). Oda made one of his longest cover story arcs to date about Eneru's discovery, and as we all know, that shit always comes back. Who knows, maybe the Straw Hats will even make it up there themselves!

They are definitely going to have to visit the moon at some point. Eneru's cover-story implied that humans, shandorians, and skypeians were all descendants of tribes that once lived on the moon and originally created the poneglyphs and the ancient technology. To get all the answers she's searching for to learn about the Void Century and history of the world, Robin has to go to the moon, and since we know there are "space pirates" from Eneru's cover story, I wouldn't be surprised if we get a full-fledged space adventure arc at some point.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 15, 2016, 11:09:47 PM
-Will the Straw Hats ever manage to pull off a complete Dock Formation 15, or will Nico Robin forever snub the idea? Just for shits and giggles.

I will seriously be disappointed if this doesn't happen before the end of the series.  :D

As promised, here are my thoughts one One Piece as I go through my re-read. I'll update you guys each time I finish a saga, though in this case I'm already well past the East Blue saga, but just didn't have time to post about it until now.

PART I: THE EAST BLUE SAGA

[Chapters 1-101]

Romance Dawn: So, this is the first chapter, where this now nearly 20-year long running series started. Yes, you could argue that its roots truly lie in Oda's previous two one-shots,  but the series as we now know it officially began here. This is arguably one of the most iconic and recognizable introduction chapters to any Shonen Jump manga, and whether that's due more to the chapter itself or the status of the series' popularity over time, I'm not completely sure, but for what it is it's a solid starting chapter, even if it's rather basic in structure. I think it does a good job of endearing you to follow Luffy as a main character, and it sets up his goal for the series while also introducing Shanks as not only his role-model but someone who we as readers will want to see Luffy meet again later on in the series after he keeps his promise of becoming a great pirate. What stands out to me most about this chapter is how even this early on, Oda already had such a good understanding of how to make his art-work flow while also knowing just how to evoke emotions out of not only his characters, but his readers as well, and to do that in just the first chapter is absurdly impressive. On its own it's nothing that stand-out, but given the legacy which the series now holds, it holds a lot more weight to it in retrospect. It's also very telling of the overall tone and feel of the series that all the stuff that we learn about Gold Roger and Luffy's ultimate goal of becoming the next Pirate King really take a backseat to the story happening in the chapter itself, yet it all ties back into the same themes by the end of it. This is pretty much One Piece in a nutshell. I also give Oda props for making the unique decision of starting out years before the main story actually begins, making this first chapter technically a prologue.

Coby and Lady Alvida: I don't really have much to say about this. It's a decent second chapter, and Coby is an interesting early companion to Luffy. And....yeah, it's pretty basic stuff, so, moving on....

Zoro Arc: There's no official name for this arc since this is often thought of as part of the Romance Dawn arc, but personally I feel that it's clearly distinguishable as its own arc, so thus I refer to it as the Zoro arc. Zoro is a fan-favorite in One Piece, and probably my favorite overall Straw Hat, and this introductory arc to its credit does a good job of setting up his character to be endearing to readers in the simplest way possible, much like Oda did for Luffy. He's initially set up to look like a complete fiend, but then we quickly learn of his conviction and good-hearted nature despite all of the dark stories about him as he sacrifices himself to serve out a sentence for protecting a little girl who was being abused by the spoiled brat son of a Marine commander. In addition to being our first introduction to the Marines as a force of authority in One Piece, it also quickly establishes the concept that while a majority of the lower-level soldiers are pretty just people dedicated to their perceived cause, that doesn't mean anyone who's a Marine is automatically a good guy, and as we see with Captain Morgan and his son Helmeppo, corruption among authority figures and later on "nobles" is a common theme in the world of One Piece. The rest of the arc is pretty standard shonen stuff, but one thing I wanted to point out here is that I like Luffy's cleverness at the end of this arc, in which he beats on Coby as an act to make it seem like they were never friends. This allows Coby to join the Marines without his history as a chore boy on a pirate ship being investigated due to suspicion. I kind of miss this aspect of Luffy in the later arcs of One Piece, and especially the current series. Sometimes I feel that author's will write their characters one way and then completely drop interesting aspects of their character in order to emphasize what's most popular and recognized about that character by most readers. Similar to what Toriyama did with Goku and his love for fighting, I feel that Oda may have taken Luffy's "idiot" side to a pretty heavy extreme as the series progressed, as in these early stories he did at least show some level of cognitive thinking and reasoning skills, while still being lovably naive. It's just something that I noticed while reading this part.

Orange Town Arc: This is of course the introduction of both Nami and Buggy as characters, with one becoming one of our main Straw Hat Pirates (though not in this arc, of course) and the other being a recurring character who starts out as a villain here. And on that end, Buggy is a really fun character, and learning of his connection to Shanks is pretty surprised considering how early on this is in the series and I'm used to big characters like that not really coming up in any notable way until much later on, sort of like how Hunter X Hunter waited several arcs before we saw Kaito again or even hearing anything significant about Ging. I do really admire the pretty good use of Toriyama-esque slapstick humor here, much of which can be seen embodied in the spirit of the fight between Luffy and Buggy, being more comedic than serious (aside from when Buggy damages Luffy's Straw Hat). My favorite little bit is when Buggy uses his Devil Fruit ability to send the top half of his body after Nami, only for Luffy to casually kick him in the nuts causing him to feel pain in both parts of him. It's a good simple gag but also a clever tactic to fight against his unique ability. I really forgot about how much I enjoyed Buggy as a character in the beginning, so it's good to know that he becomes pretty important to a later arc in the story, and will continue to be important in the future of the manga several years down the line.

Gaimon: This is a thing.

Syrup Village Arc: And then we get to Ussop's introduction arc. Once again, it was strange to me to have another character connect back to Shanks so early in the series, or at least one of his crew members, since Ussop is Yassop's son. However, that of course is more of an afterthought here, and Ussop quickly establishes himself as both a comedic and likable character right from the very beginning. The stuff with Kuro and Kaya are alright, though ultimately both are rather forgettable characters if I'm to be honest. What really works for me here is how we learn of Ussop's history as the town liar, but as the arc progresses, those lies start to take on a new meaning. Ussop is the youngest of the Straw Hat Pirates at this point in the series and thus arguably the most child-like....well, at least comparable to Luffy in that regard. However those lies come from a strong desire to actually live out real adventures. In addition to that, he uses them to cheer up Kaya who he clearly likes a lot and really wants to lift her spirits. What works so well about his character so early on is that despite his spinning tall tales about doing brave things and actually being cowardly towards danger in reality, Ussop does still have a legitimate sense of pride that will make him pursue that very danger when it comes down to it, and in effect that's what actually makes him a brave character in his own right. It's that very nature that endears Luffy and the others to help him fight off Kuro and his pirates, and seeing some of his tall tales actually be realized in both subtle and grandiose ways as the series progresses is what makes his character arc so endearing....at least until the time-skip, anyways, but we'll get to that when we get to that. This is also the introduction of the Going Merry, or the Merry Go in the Viz translations, which is pretty much the Starship Enterpriese 1.0 of One Piece (meaning that it's clearly going to become something sentimental to the series and its core characters that must be sacrificed later on).

Baratie Arc: And this is where we meet Sanji. I was particularly careful when re-reading this arc, since given the current revelations about Sanji's character in the Whole Cake Island arc of One Piece, I wanted to see if Oda had planted any of his classic seeds this early into the series. In doing so, I discovered that while he clearly doesn't have every little thing planned out, he is pretty smart about leaving certain things open for possible future story-lines. In Sanji's flashback, we learn absolutely nothing about his royal lineage, but Oda also clearly doesn't go out of his way to spell out anything about Sanji's family. He starts off his backstory with him simply on a boat serving under some amateur chefs on a ship, and as readers we don't question where his parents are or what he's doing by himself in this setting given the odd nature of the unique world of One Piece as well as common shonen logic. However, by leaving these things open and unanswered, Oda can retcon in more details about Sanji's past as he sees fit without any of it feeling like an ass-pull. So in that way, Oda's writing can be clever in how he knows when to leave out certain details for possible future plans that he may come up with. That said, the flashback that we do get here between Sanji and Zeff is quite good, and honestly the most endearing thing in the arc besides the fight between Zoro and Mihawk. That fight itself is a very good indicator of how powerful enemies beyond the Grand Line will be, and it's a good indicator of how far the Straw Hat Pirates will have to go in order to achieve their goals. As for  the rest of the arc, it's pretty standard stuff, and Don Krieg is just a rather boring and forgettable one-note villain, to be honest. Gin is a bit more interesting, albeit still nothing all that special. He does drop a line about how he hoped to meet the Straw Hats again on the grand line, but flash forward nearly two decades and we're in the New World and we never saw him again. Guess even Oda drops some plans from time to time, as he probably didn't care too much for these characters either and decided not to bring them back, but this arc does at least indicate that at one point he planned to have these villains become recurring characters.

Arlong Park Arc: So, while they were introduced in the last arc, I really just wanted to say that I forgot how entertaining Johnny and Yosaku were as supporting characters. Every major One Piece saga seems to have some supporting character or characters that tag along with the Straw Hats as allies and can almost be considered to be temporary or honorary crew members. Johnny and Yosaku were the first of this kind and I really enjoyed them. They were both former allies to Zoro, which ties them in with one of the Straw Hat Pirates, and despite clearly being comic relief characters, they have a strange sense of pride and heart to them that makes them kind of lovably endearing in their own odd sort of way. I particularly like how much they came to legitimately care about Luffy and his crew despite their short time together, and one stand out moment for me is how they hold the gate to Arlong Park and stop the locals from entering in order to stop them from getting themselves killed. And in doing so, they simply say that they are waiting for the Straw Hat Pirates to arrive, and you can see that they have complete faith in them to get the job done. That's some really compelling stuff for some minor throwaway characters. Don't get me wrong, Oda writing them out after this arc was smart as they could have easily become one-note and boring, but they tagged along for the perfect amount of time and were really fun characters, and I wouldn't mind seeing them make a brief appearance at any point in some futures story arc similar to how Coby popped up again at the end of the Enies Lobby arc. Putting that aside, I always remembered this arc as the clear best of the East Blue saga, and my memory serves me correctly. Nami's history with her adopted mother and sister is probably the most genuinely tragic backstories of any of the Straw Hat Pirates from the East Blue saga, and it does a lot to get you pumped to see Luffy take down Arlong and his crew. And that's what's so special about this arc. It's the first one which truly feels like a big deal with real stakes. Not only does Luffy defeating Arlong feel gratifying in a way that simply wasn't there for past fights since the villains never felt like a big enough deal before this point, but it also proves to actually be a big deal with the world of One Piece itself as it earns Luffy his first bounty, and officially gets him recognized as a threat by the World Government. As we've established earlier, the WG and Marines in this series can be corrupt in how they use their influence, and learning of how Arlong paid off one such member to keep the authorities off of his back really drives that point home given just how awful of a person he is. Another thing that I noticed as I re-read this arc is how much stuff is set up here that is paid off much later in the story. Clearly, Oda had a much stronger vision of where his series would eventually go from this point onward, but it's still really gratifying to go back to this arc and already see characters like Jimbei being set up (someone who has become a MAJOR character in One Piece and is once again an important player in the current arc that we are now experiencing), as well as to have certain imagery from this arc hold a symbolic significance that we don't quite realize until it's revealed much later on in the story, such as the structure of Arlong Park itself being reminiscent of a certain other iconic building from the world of One Piece. So, yeah, this is clearly the standout arc from this entire saga.

Roguetown Arc: And finally we end with this saga here. I know that it's called "Loguetown in several other translations," but I'm going with Viz's official translation in this case since "rogue" town actually makes a lot more sense to me, and I think it's probably what Oda was going for with the naming here that may have gotten lost in translation. So, on its own, Roguetown is nothing more than a mandatory transitional arc, and in that regard nothing spectacular. But, here me out here: re-reading this arc was a really fascinating experience for me since it has such a strange quality to it that really makes it feel truly important in the grand scheme of things. This arc doesn't just set up stuff for going into the Grand Line. This arc sets up and foreshadows TONS of SIGNIFICANT characters, plont points, and reveals in One Piece. It's also the first arc to pay off a cover story arc, this one being the one of Buggy meeting Lady Alvida and reassembling his crew to go after Luffy and get his revenge. The cover story arcs are another really unique and big aspect of this series that I want to touch on at some point, but needless to say, they are definitely something that Oda wants readers to be paying attention to as they hold a lot of clues as to what may come in the future. Of note in this arc are the introduction of new characters Captain Smoker and Tashigi. Smoker is probably my favorite Marine character in One Piece, with the exception of maybe Admiral Aokiji who depending on how I feel could be at a time with Smoker for that position. Tashigi is also an interesting character in how she resembles Kuina and how Zoro seems to always act strange when she's around. I particularly like the scene in which she picks out a sword for him to try and it turns out to be the cursed Kitetsu III, which Zoro then tests his luck with, impressing the store owner and giving him both that and his most prized sword completely free of charge. It's one of my favorite moments for Zoro as a character. We also have the reveal of Dragon here, which is something that always stands out to me. I remember the first time I was going through the series and encountering this mysterious character. While I did wonder who he was and why he was helping Luffy, I also didn't think much of it since such things are common in shonen. And when we didn't learn anything about this character in the next few arcs, I naturally just forgot about him since I'm used to seeing long-running shonen manga have characters pop up only to be dropped almost immediately when the mangaka decide not to pursue certain plot points that they had planned for them before. In this case, though, Oda never has something so mysterious happen only to just drop it. Dragon is a massively important character in this story. It's just that you have to trust Oda as a writer and be patient enough to let him naturally deliver on stuff like this in future story-lines. And this is easily what stands out the most to me about the Roguetown arc. Incidentally, Dragon's appearance also happens to fall exactly on the 100th chapter of One Piece, which just feels so fitting for some reason, since this was a milestone point in time for the Straw Hat Pirates within the context of the story but also a milestone for Oda as a mangaka since he managed to achieve having a series last this long within the most notoriously competitive shonen magazine anthology in Japan's history. At any rate, ultimately this arc to me is worth a lot more than the sum of its parts, and on this re-read I found a lot more to enjoy here than I realized, which is pretty impressive given both its context in the series and how short it is.

Overall Summation of Thoughts: I really like the East Blue saga. It still holds up, and mostly fits in line with how I remember it from my first time though the series. If anything, I actually have a lot more appreciation for certain aspects of this arc in hindsight since I know how much is set up here and how much of it pays off much later on in the series. It also has a very unique feeling within the context of One Piece as a whole that is never quite emulated in any future arc, so it still holds its own even compared to a lot of the later (and to be fair, arguably better) material from this manga.

Arc Rankings:

7. Baratie
6. Misc. (Romance Dawn, Coby/Lady Alvida, Gaimon)
5. Zoro
4. Syrup Village
3. Orange Town
2. Roguetown
1. Arlong Park

Favorite Supporting Character:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fopwiki.org%2Fimages%2FJohnny_%2526_Yosaku_Arlong_Park.PNG&hash=51016c561ff245f6870138e1ab066a2bba3defdf)
Johnny and Yosaku (Tie)

Favorite Villain:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvignette3.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fonepiece%2Fimages%2F2%2F29%2FBuggy_in_Chibi_Form.png%2Frevision%2Flatest%3Fcb%3D20130512061000&hash=7b02e87fbca411575931362c77348b914ae964da)
Buggy

Most Iconic Moment:

(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs18.postimg.org%2Fx1yj5t9e1%2Fooo.png&hash=5644cdfaba280fd0aa3e63c2aa4f38bd83053396)

I don't think that there's any argument to be had here. Not only is that the most iconic moment of this arc, but arguably the most recognizable in all of One Piece. And before anyone says it, I don't consider any of the Gold Roger backstory from the beginning to really qualify as a "moment." We do eventually get a flashback with him, but it's not in this arc, so to me that's just introduction material, even though it is certainly iconic "imagery."

Well, it was certainly a lot of fun re-reading this far. I can't wait to make my way through the Baroque Works saga and share my thoughts with you guys on that.

I'm currently on the Drum Island arc, and damn did I forget a lot about this arc. For one thing, this was actually the first mention in the series of Blackbeard (I always remembered him first being mentioned by Ace, but this was actually his first inception into the series). What's so brilliant about it is how it's casually mentioned by Dalton in passing that Blackbeard and his crew passed through Drum Island just a few months earlier. However, right from the start Oda is drawing parallels between both Luffy and Blackbeard along with their crews. For one thing, both of them had five members (including themselves) by this point in their respective journies. Additionally, Blackbeard and his pirates actually already defeated the main villain of this arc, Wapol, which is what the Straw Hats have to do again on Drum Island, so it's a big hint that both crews are following similar paths and are after similar goals.

Later on, Ace mentions that Blackbeard was a former subordinate of his who betrayed him and that he's hunting him down for revenge, and as readers we can now connect the dots and realize that there's something to this Blackbeard guy that we've heard twice about but have yet to see.

Then when we finally meet Blackbeard, he's not at all what we expected. While yes, he is a clear villain, he doesn't act like a clear villain in the way that we are accustomed to. He is quite frankly....a lot like Luffy, not just in certain mannerisms of his character but also in terms of ideology and his overall goal, with the major difference being his lack of restraints or morals in achieving his goals. It's also very fascinating that even as someone out for Luffy's head, he has a clear respect for Luffy's determination as a captain, being the only person on Jaya to not laugh at his ambitions and to even support him to follow his path.

Blackbeard truly is one of the most unique and fascinating villains not only in all of One Piece, but from any Shonen Jump series that I have ever read or watched, and it's neat to see just how well Oda has ingrained him into the overall story and lore of One Piece since early on, especially considering that he's clearly going to stand as one of the final major villains of the entire series.

Blackbeard really has some great build up before his official introduction and has really cool characterization throughout the series. He's at once likable and despicable in a way that you can't say for most other villains in OP, or even most other SJ series. Of all the big things to come in the future of the series, Blackbeard's return and a direct conflict between the Straw Hat and Blackbeard crews is something I'm looking forward to seeing the most.

I missed your sum-up of the East Blue saga earlier, but great write-up! I pretty much agree with your observations on the series and the arcs. Both the Zoro and Orange Town stuff is pretty underrated and has a lot of heart to them, with Zoro having a great and compelling introduction and Luffy distancing Coby from himself so he could join the marines being really clever of him and a really memorable moment in the series,  and the stuff with Shushu the dog in the latter arc really tugging at the heartstrings, and Buggy is of course a great first comedic villain for the series in the same vein as Emperor Pilaf. I've always loved him and glad he's remained relevant to the story. actually like Syrup Village a lot and it's my second favorite East Blue arc after Arlong, since I really do love Ussop as a character and find his relationships with Kaya and the kids endearing, and Kuro as a interesting villain in terms of how he contrasts Luffy as this calculating, brutal killer of a pirate who's philosophy on pirating is probably the most similar to real-life piracy than most other pirate crews and villains in the series, and all his gimmicks like why he adjusts his glasses the way he does, sword claws, and cat walk fun and memorable. I wouldn't say Baratie is the weakest of the arcs either, though I do agree that it peaks during the Zoro v. Mihawk fight and the second half isn't as engaging outside of Sanji's flashback, mostly because of how bland Krieg is as a villain.

For me, the most iconic moment of East Blue, and the series as a whole really, is Nami breaking down and stabbing her tattoo while screaming "ARLONG!!", Luffy stopping her, Nami trying to get him to leave before finally swallowing her pride and asking for help, and then the reveal of the entire crew waiting and ready to go, and then the ensuing "march on Arlong Park" which ends with Luffy busting down the doors of Arlong park and asking "Which one's Arlong?" I think the fact that I can describe that sequence of events in so much detail and the fact I can still picture each image of it in my mind so vividly speaks to just how much I love that scene. To me, that's just the perfect blend of emotional catharsis and badass hype, characterization and heart, that captures One Piece at it's best. So it easily ranks as my favorite moment in the series, and one of my all-time favorite moments from any manga for that matter.

Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the Baroque Works saga after you're done reading it!

Thanks! :thumbup:

To be fair, One Piece has a lot of iconic moments, so it's almost impossible to be right or wrong about what the most iconic moment is. For what it's worth, if we're talking about my personal favorite moment from the saga (which is a category that I should really add for my future write-ups), then I totally agree with you about that scene being the best.

As for Blackbeard, he's definitely among my top three favorite villains from One Piece, and depending on how interesting and menacing his future appearances are, he could very well become my overall favorite in the series, and one of my favorite WSJ villains in general.

In regard to the most recent One Piece chapter, there's one bit that may or may not be a minor plot-hole, but it still kind of bugs me in a weird way. Big Mom says that she wishes that she knew where Lola was so that she could have her assassinated, except....didn't Lola carry around a Vivre Card linked to Big Mom until the end of Thriller Bark? What stopped Big Mom's pirates from tracking her down and eliminating her at any point before she gave it to Nami? As far as I can remember, Vivre Cards work both ways, so she should have been pretty easy to find.

The rest of the chapter was great, though. Really loved Luffy's conversation with Big Mom. Luffy basically telling her that she can make all of the excuses that she wants yet it still doesn't change the fact that her not becoming Pirate King is purely her own failure is a legitimately great comeback to her rant about how things didn't work out according to her plan.

Thriller Bark was obscured in the Florian Triangle and only showed itself to ships it wanted to capture, so it's no surprise that any agent of Big Mom's would have trouble finding her while she was there. I presume Big Mom just gave up and forgot about killing Lola after a while and didn't notice the Vivre Card start to move again when Nami got possession of it.

Big Mom's complex with giants and the lack of them in Totland is rather curious and I'm wondering about the reasons for it. I'm also curious as to who she was possibly planning to marry Lola off to if she is that bitter about it. I really did like Luffy's retort towards her too. That clearly struck a nerve.

Lately I've also been wanting to re-watch all of the One Piece movies up to Film Gold and rank them from favorite to least favorite. I'll probably get around to that during my time off work for Christmas.

I haven't seen all of the movies, so it might be time for me to go through them all for once before Film Gold comes out. I'm seeing Film Gold on the 10th, so I might try to watch one of the movies a day before then leading up to that.

Saw Film Gold a couple of hours ago and really enjoyed it. It's set such a high bar for the cinema this year that I don't think anything else will top it.  :e_hail: :h_hail: :el_hail:

I am not a super fan of One Piece but I enjoy reading it every now and then. I am honestly not sure why I don't consider it to be one of my top favorites, just a series I casually follow, but the movie makes me glad I follow it at all and I will be an eternal fan now.

The One Piece films (barring the story arc recap ones) are probably among the better movies to come out based on Shonen Jump properties. While I wouldn't call any of them great movies, most are really entertaining for what they are, or in the case of that one movie in the franchise directed by Mamoru Hosoda, really fucked up to the point of being worth watching just to see how uncomfortably dark it gets.

I started buying the 3-in-1's Viz volumes lately. It seems to be the way to go if you want some bang for your buck instead of breaking the bank, especially if you joined the party late with One Piece. I can always get an art book later on if I want to look at the full covers.

I did the same. It's by far the cheapest official way to collect One Piece in English. I own the first 24 volumes this way. I would have bought more, but my local BAM is missing most other volumes, and it hasn't restocked the shelves in months. And I don't want to order anything online right now since I don't currently have a private mailbox which I can use.

One Piece is getting a live-action Hollywood tv-show.  (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-07-21/one-piece-manga-gets-live-action-hollywood-tv-show/.119132)

As much as I've hated most of Hollywood's attempts to adapt anime into live-action films, I can only be cautiously optimistic for this. One Piece is too important of a property for Shueshia to let be messed up, especially after they saw what happened with Dragon Ball Evolution. And Oda himself is excited about this. If they have enough creative control and say in how the show turns out it just might work. The fact that they are doing it as a tv show and not a movie is also going to really benefit the pacing and flexibility they'll have to tell the story. There isn't really a live-action equivalent to the kind of adventure story OP is on US television right now, so if it's done right I think it could be a real breath of fresh air and be pretty successful. In the same way exponentially more people got into the A Song of Ice and Fire books thanks to Game of Thrones, a great live-action One Piece tv-show could really boost the popularity of the manga and anime over here, so I'm crossing my fingers it'll work out.

So on the one hand, One Piece works so well as a manga because Oda takes full advantage of the medium and tells a story in a way that I'm convinced can only be done as a manga. For it to be adapted into live-action, it would have to be a very loose adaptation that mainly retains the same general themes and basic premise of the manga.

Been catching up in this recently since I somehow missed out on reading anything since the timeskip (I know I should get back to YYH, but as long as I finish rewatching that by March, I'm good) and I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

Fishman Island, while most of it was the Straw Hats trouncing Hody's forces, I still felt for Shirahoshi in regards to her mom. And, it was great tying it into Nami's past with Jimbei's past and their relation to the Arlong debacle. Punk Hazard, I'm almost done with and while Caesar Clown is seeming a weaker villain story-wise than Hody, the character interactions have more than made up for it. Sanji!Nami and Smoker!Tashigi was glorious.

Next up seems to be Dressrosa which... 101 chapters.... I'll clearly have to pace myself on this one, huh?

Dressrossa is a mixed bag, IMO. While it never feels outright terrible, it has several parts that drag. There are definitely some high points, and one particular returning villain who gets a surprisingly compelling redemption story within the arc, but on the whole it felt about fifty chapters too long.

The good news is that the Zoe arc, which immediately follows this one, is a much shorter transitional arc that gives the characters some breathing room. This is then followed by the Whole Cake Island arc (which is currently in the middle of its climax) which is superb. It's easily the best post time-skip arc of One Piece, and the story only looks like it'll grow more interesting from here.

That's good to hear, should make trudging through Dressrosa easier if I know that there's good stuff coming up afterwards.

So Dressrosa... overall, I did like it and there were some good ideas tossed around in there that kept me reading but at the same time, once you got past chapter 750, it clearly started to show its length and I started to wonder if I was going to finish last night because of how little progress I felt I was making. I did though, so that felt good. Tl;dr: Good arc but, man did it need an editor.
Also, I doubt I'm going to remember Doflamingo much in the long run. Not that I'm gonna say every villain needs a sob story (because just look at Naruto how bad that could go) but there ultimately just wasn't much to him beyond "I mess up a city, make people sad"... which well, even Buggy could do that so I don't get what makes Doflamingo so much worse.

Agreed. The arc had its moments but much of it was hampered by the simple fact that it long out-stayed its welcome. And after all of the build-up from previous arcs, Doflamingo wasn't nearly the threat that I imagined him to be.

Like I said, though, Oda learned his lesson from that going forward.

It's funny that Dressrosa went on for over 100 chapters but I barely remember anything from the middle portion because the focus would erratically jump around and too much was going on at once.  Meanwhile, Wholecake Island has been exceptionally memorable.  I just caught back up with the manga last week, and it's probably the most that I've enjoyed the series since Marineford.  Hopefully, Oda will be able to keep it up with Wano, because it feels nice being excited for One Piece again.

Caught up last night and, I'm not sure how I feel on Whole Cake Island; in a good way, though. But every time I thought I had an opinion, it kept changing as I read. Like, when we got introduced to the Germa 66, I thought "These guys are buttholes, I hope they get killed"; and they still are, don't get me wrong but I didn't want them to die as Pudding and Big Mom wanted it. Or when Big Mom got her flashback, I thought "Really? Do we really need this?" to "Holy sh#t, she just ate her foster mom?!?!". So, props to Oda for keeping me guessing how I'll feel rather than being static about it.

On the regulars: I like Jinbei, he's cool. Carrot, I could take or leave; I don't have much opinion on her really, she's just there. Pudding's a delightful mess though, why can't more tsunderes be total nutcases like her? "If I sit on that carpet next to Sanji, people will think we're married a-a-a-a-and I w-w-w-wouldn't mind being married bu-bu- *explodes*" :lol:

Quick edit: Oh, vaguely related, but I saw this during my reading and does anyone know who these characters are (https://i.imgur.com/gUNp4oy.png)? The designs on the left interest me more but, I wouldn't mind knowing who both are.

Some of those are characters from WSJ's last round of Jump Starts. They belong to various different series, one of which (Hungry Marie) has already been cancelled. Of those, Dr. Stone (featuring Senku as that guy with crazy blond hair on the right) is currently the most popular in the weekly rankings.

Huh, interesting. I'll have to look into that then, thanks!

So, remember how earlier this year Oda's editor claimed that we would be getting to see the Reverie and Wano arcs this year? Yeah, I had my doubts about that and apparently Oda has confirmed that it will be at least another year before the story reaches that point. There's still too much ground left to cover for Whole Cake Island alone to even be finished before the end of this year.

So much for learning from Dressarosa. This arc is too long.

Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on November 12, 2017, 05:26:52 PM
So much for learning from Dressarosa. This arc is too long.

I disagree. Unlike Dressrossa this arc has constantly changing scenarios to keep the story interesting and engaging, and having these various different phases in conjunction with the consistently interesting character dynamics is how you do good story-telling in a battle shonen series like this. It really reminds me of the first half of the Namek arc with the multiple factions (Straw Hats, Germa 66, Big Mom Pirates, Sun Pirates, and various other groups or characters) working independently of one another while in some cases teaming up. In any case, what one person or group does has a cascading effect on everyone else's plans, keeping the plot excitingly unpredictable.

Something feeling long doesn't really have to do with how many chapters it goes on for as much as it has to do with the actual content being covered. Dressrossa both was too long and felt too long because it told a story that was something we had already seen done better in just half the time (it's basically a weaker version of the Alabaster arc, with Doflamingo replacing Crocodile). Whole Cake Island still works because it's constantly thwarting readers' expectations while effectively building up the story through really well-written scenarios that both work on a short-term level while also cleverly planting seeds for later plot points to unfold.

It's one of the best story arcs running in Weekly Shonen Jump right now, and considering the competition, that's saying a lot.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on November 13, 2017, 02:36:45 PM(it's basically a weaker version of the Alabaster arc, with Doflamingo replacing Crocodile).

Man, Doflamingo wasn't even as fun to read as Crocodile. What helped the latter was how ruthless he was from cutting down Robin to putting two Baroque Works in the clocktower. That and his claiming that... iirc, he tried crossing the Grand Line but the journey broke him(?) into who he was today helped him be a good foil for Luffy.

Dofla just had a bunch of boring cannon fodder and he was upset he couldn't buy more slaves, yawn.

So, does anyone remember when Luffy's bounty reaching 100 million after the events of the Alabasta arc seemed like such a big deal? Yeah, that almost seems cute to look back on....

Oda says we're 80% done now: https://kotaku.com/the-one-piece-manga-is-80-percent-finished-says-eiichi-1827796353/amp

If this were anyone else I'd be thinking that they are planning to rush out an ending after making a statement like that. With Oda I'm a bit more skeptical because for all I know that "80%" could take him another decade to get through. I'm not really sure Oda gets the concept of percentages all that well considering that it was 65% done just two years ago which was only 5% progress from the 60% that he had covered four years before that. ;)

Totally Not Mark is doing a blind read of One Piece. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9E0ay65Ue4)

This should be fun.

One.
Thousand.
Chapters.

Man, on Sunday OP is gonna be the first manga published in english to reach the 1000 chapter milestone, considering Viz is still 20+ volumes behind on Case Closed.

I can't believe I've been reading OP weekly for over 10 years, and almost half the series at this point. Time's really flown by...

I bought the first One Piece manga box set to replace the volumes I used to have in a more economical way. It also comes with a poster and an English translation of Romance Dawn which to my knowledge has never been published in the language officially before. I plan on getting the next two box sets so there is no more gap in my One Piece collection.

I meant to comment on the 1,000 chapter milestone back at the beginning of the year, but was behind by a bit so waited to play catch-up. I took a break at the end of Wano Act 2 and was initially going to wait for the entire rest of the arc to finish but just said screw it and caught up.

Firstly, all due props to Oda for managing to carry through for over 1,000 chapters. No matter what you think of the series, that's an achievement by any stretch. Secondly, it's incredible how good he is at keeping this series continuously engaging. I've read manga that haven't even gone on for half as long which wear out their welcome well before reaching their conclusions. While he does rely on a familiar formula and you can (for the most part) see the conclusion to major story arcs coming a mile away, it's everything in-between that makes the series so enjoyable, from the humor and antics to the insanely well-interwoven plot-lines and excellent world building. For that very reason I've really been enjoying this final act of Wano thanks to just how insanely well built up it has been since even before the time-skip; and that was over a decade ago at this point, which is a real "HOLY SHIT!" revelation for me. :sweat:

The series has plenty of faults and weaker areas, but damn if it hasn't been a fun ride getting this far.

We've heard on several occasions over the past few years that Oda is working his way into the series' endgame with various progress reports of roughly what percentage is done. However, the consensus between him and his editors, while still to be taken with a grain of salt, that the series will wrap up in the next five years is more believable to me than most. I still have my doubts of course, even considering how Oda has somewhat sped up the pacing of his story-telling, given his track record with this kind of stuff. Yet, I can't deny that all of the pieces are in place and it's pretty clear where the series is headed. Essentially, while there are a bunch of smaller plot threads to wrap up, only three major arcs really need to be explored to get to the end, by my estimation: Elbaf, Laugh Tale, and The Final War, and Oda has done such a great job of interweaving a bunch of older story threads together and resolving them naturally and in a satisfying way for over a decade, now, that I have no doubt in his ability to conclude the story properly.

I'm guessing that the level of conversation and hype that this and the current Wano arc have generated have created a new spike in readership. This previously happened with the Marineford War around 2009 right before the time skip where the hype levels inspired a bunch of new readers to jump on board. Perhaps the reputation of this series to maintain and even improve it's quality even after 1,000 chapters, combined with the fact that a conclusion is finally within sight, even if still somewhat distant at this point, has generated a new wave of interest in it.

For me at least, the mysteries that are still waiting to be uncovered are just so enticing, and Oda has yet to let his readers down in any major way given how good his pay-offs have been for the last two-decades of his story. This basically has the opportunity to succeed where a series like Game of Thrones utterly failed.

I recently re-read the entirety of the pre-time-skip era of One Piece, and it's always such a satisfying experience going back through the earlier material not simply because of it's nostalgic value, but because of how much more you get out of it on a re-read. There are so many seeds planted for later developments so early in the series that it can actually cause certain scenes and moments to be completely re-interpreted, or at least given far more weight than on a first read. This is one of the few series that I can think of that is actively improved in every single aspect on a re-read.

I'm thinking of doing a ranking for all of the pre-time-skip arcs, but I may wait until I go through the post-time-skip arcs as well all the way back up to Wano. Though, I'm not re-reading those parts. I'm actually watching One Pace since I never bothered to watch the anime again after dropping it mid-way through Fishman Island until I finally picked it back up with the beginning of the Wano arc. I'm going with the unofficial fan-edit since I couldn't deal with the pacing of the original broadcast version when I tried to watch a few episodes on Crunchyroll.

Nice! I'm tempted to give the series a re-read when Wano ends, and I have been thinking about trying to watch Wano in the anime from the beginning. I feel like I've kept up with the anime every other arc post-timeskip; I missed most of Fishman Island, Dressrosa, and Zou, but watched all of Punk Hazard, Whole Cake Island, and the Reverie. I can definitely tell you that Whole Cake Island has a lot of highlights in the anime, whereas Punk Hazard is a little more inconsistent, and the Reverie is seriously bogged down in flashback filler despite being so short and would definitely benefit from watching a fan-edit that cuts out all the fat. I kept up with Wano at the start but fell off after a few months and have only tuned in intermittently for standout episodes I hear buzz about. But with how good the show is consistently now I think it's worth giving all of Wano a watch. The fact the arc is gonna last over 100 episodes is kinda daunting though.  :sweat:

I believe One Pace has already made an edit of Wano Act 1, and I think part of Act 2, but I have to go back and check. I used that to re-watch all of Fishman Island and am currently half-way through Punk Hazard and it is a MUCH more engaging experience. Obviously it can't fix weak bits of animation or poor directing, but as an edit everything flows seamlessly even down to the music beats being matched up to the re-edited footage. It's worth it if you ever feel like watching the post-time-skip era of the anime.

While I usually prefer reading, I opted for this since it was an alternative way to refresh myself on this material. I don't know about you, but I tend to forget a lot and my knowledge gets super rusty when I haven't revisited these arcs in several years (nearly a decade in some cases). :sweat:

I think I'll stick with Wano as-is, but yeah, I'd probably One Pace the other post-timeskip arcs. I watched some Punk Hazard episodes through a cut that simply removed all the recaps and padding at the beginning of the episodes and that alone made a world of difference when some of the padding can take up a third of the runtime of those episodes sometimes.

Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on July 14, 2021, 10:50:38 PMThe fact the arc is gonna last over 100 episodes is kinda daunting though.  :sweat:

I usually just watch about 10 episodes of One Piece a day. It makes binging easy for me.
When I had my VRV account in 2019, I thought I'd catch up with the anime after a long break using this method. I started at Punk Hazard and made it all the way to the Reverie in a month. That's 310 episodes--you can catch up crazy fast.

Yeah, when you can watch a lot a day you can get caught up fairly quickly. It's more of a motivation thing for me - I don't know if I can handle that watching that many episodes of a tv show in one sitting these days.  :sweat:

Quote from: LumRanmaYasha on July 15, 2021, 07:12:18 PMYeah, when you can watch a lot a day you can get caught up fairly quickly. It's more of a motivation thing for me - I don't know if I can handle that watching that many episodes of a tv show in one sitting these days.  :sweat:

Same. I know it makes me sound old, but I just don't have the energy to binge anymore. The last time I really did that was when I read through all of Invincible last year, and even that wasn't every single day.

Also, my limited spare time has spread between so many different things, including exercise (mostly jogging outside since I still haven't gone back to the gym yet), manga/comics/novels (Spy X Family, Master Keaton, Asadora!, Zdarsky's Daredevil, Hickman's X-Men, Tomasi's Superman, Carey's Lucifer, Ice Cream Man, The Gentlemen Bastards, Wheel of Time; and that's just to name a few), movies (been on a Michael Mann and Stanley Kubrick kick lately), TV (OK, mostly only Disney+ at the current moment, though I want to get back into Star Trek and The Sopranos; and I do get around to some anime as well), and video games (marathoning the 2D Metroid games in preparation for Dread, currently). I love all of those things and make very little progress in any of them on a daily basis because of my widespread passions. :sweat:

One Pace works well for me, and I can usually manage about an episode or two a night, which is equivalent to a few manga chapters.

One Piece is finally coming to an end. (https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2022-06-07/one-piece-manga-takes-1-month-break-as-eiichiro-oda-prepares-for-manga-final-saga/.186407)

Wano will wrap up in 2 chapters, then the manga will take a month-long break. When it comes back, it will enter the final saga.

How long will that take to finish, 3 years?

Quote from: Avaitor on June 08, 2022, 04:42:59 PMHow long will that take to finish, 3 years?

Probably longer. A saga in One Piece consists of a few arcs bunched under one umbrella.

If we're going by Oda's original 5-year projection back in 2020, then 3-years would he about right. But given that there's still a fair deal to wrap-up even in one saga, that length could easily double. That said, yes, after this saga the natural endpoint of the series does legitimately feel like it's in sight. A fairly distant sight, but still visible all the same.

I will truly be sad when this series ends. It really is one of the all-time greats.

Quote from: Dr. Ensatsu-ken on June 08, 2022, 09:54:27 PM
I will truly be sad when this series ends. It really is one of the all-time greats.

Agreed. Through all the ups and downs I've had with this series I'll also be sad when this comes to an end. The big 3 will finally be done.. Damn, despite how we all feel about them individually will there ever be a run like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece again?

With the exception of One Piece, which still pulls in new, younger fans to this day while retaining a dedicated older fanbase who grew up with it, I do feel that the Big Three is a generational concept that is becoming slightly but noticeably less prevalent as the years go by. Regardless of anyone's personal feelings on them, it's impossible for anyone growing up during the 2000's to think of any of those series as any less than monumentally popular. In many ways they still are, but I've noticed a lot of younger anime and manga fans that are more or less oblivious to anything about these series other than knowing that they exist. They would pretty much have their own modern equivalent to the Big Three at this point.

I guess that's what I'm asking, just terribly worded. Is there a modern equivalent? I've been out of the loop for a long time. I come back to One Piece every now and then. I've dabbled in some of the newer series before (Demon Slayers, MHA, AoT), but with forums just existing at this point and most conversations being held on twitter (I guess? I don't have an account) I don't know what everyone is talking about. I go to youtube and see reactions and whatnot, and most reactions towards some series are equal in a sense (I could be completely off with that since most of the reactions are towards fights)

Going by twitter feeds I'd wager this generation's equivalent of the big 3 would be Demon Slayer, Jujuutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man and MHA, if we're keeping things strictly to Jump.

Demon Slayer and MHA for sure would be a part of the big 3, but I feel like what would be the last series is dependent on if they have a new season of something out. Spy x Family is very popular right now, but I know Jujutsu Kaisen also was when its season aired a year or two ago. Some would say that Black Clover would be a part of that, but I'm not sure.

It's more of a big five or six in that regard, with multiple series of comparable levels of popularity running in WSJ, or at least still not having their anime finished yet like with Demon Slayer. In that regard, MHA, Demon Slayer, and Jujuutsu Kaisen would be the most direct equivalent if we're sticking strictly to battle shonen series.

Kaijuu No. 8 also arguably has a shot at this as it has a solid fan-base that could grow drastically if it gets a popular anime, much like those other three series. Chainsaw Man is also just a step below that level as it has gotten very popular but doesn't quite seem to edge out any of those other three in popularity just yet. Meanwhile you have non-traditional shonen series that are also making it big which was a lot more rare in North America back when Naruto and Bleach were still at the top. Spy X Family has been a massive hit with the debut of it's anime, and even more recent titles that have a long way to go before getting a potential anime are already being discussed a lot more than they would have several years ago among mainstream fans. Akane-Banashi already netted itself a pretty solid following in less than 20-chapters, and Super Smartphone is being treated somewhat in the same vein as series like Death Note and The Promised Nederland were before it.

There's also still series like Mashle and Sakamoto Days which never garnered quite the same level of popularity as some of these other series, but could still very well get to that level if given a similar anime treatment and strong market push.

Quote from: Daikun on June 08, 2022, 02:07:03 PMWano will wrap up in 2 chapters, then the manga will take a month-long break. When it comes back, it will enter the final saga.

Well, that turned out to be wrong--Wano isn't done yet. It still turned out to have one hell of a cliffhanger, though (and a rather insane plot twist).

Enjoy your month-long break, Oda.

This reminds me of the 4-week break between the time-skip over a decade ago (it's hard for me to realize that it's already been that long). It's going to feel like a long wait, but Oda has earned his break.

I do wish that more people on this board could've got into the series, as I've been dying to talk about it but Lum is barely here anymore and nobody else was really able to get into it or wanted to invest the time in it (which is completely understandable). But man, Oda's long-term storytelling is really something else. I'm insanely excited to see where the story goes from here, and how much the world has changed outside of Wano.

Yeah, I tried to get back into it a few years ago and enjoyed what I got through this time, but it's just too daunting for me, which is why I stopped around Arlong Park. I may try to get back into OP soon, but it'll probably wait until I'm done catching up with Berserk.

I've been re-reading the manga from the beginning at my own pace since I got the first manga box set a year ago. I also started genuinely watching the anime since December. There's more but I am short on time so I'll write more later.

Quote from: Daikun on May 29, 2020, 02:54:05 AMTotally Not Mark is doing a blind read of One Piece. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9E0ay65Ue4)

This should be fun.

He's back after giving the series a break for close to two years! He focuses on the first half of the Raid on Onigashima and how the anime wildly improved to cover this event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16MAc_lBerk

At long last, Wano is done.

Okay One Piece. You got me. After over 1000+ chapters and ex-amount of years, you finally got me. Ordinarily I'd give you credit on certain things but at this moment you got it all. I'd usually say something along the lines between Bleach, Naruto and One Piece that Bleach has the best artwork and I still think so, but now, even I've grown fond of the character designs. SO as of right now I'd throw One Piece up there with the YuYu's and the Kenshin's as best shonen's, at least in terms for what I tend to go for.

Re-reading the last tidbit of Wano (although, I do need to go back to the beginning since I still don't know things got to this point lol) and seeing some of the transformations and abilities, man this has been some fine stuff. Considering how sick Luffy's fight against Katakuri was, whenever I get to it, I can't wait to see some of these fights animated.

Let me speak on Luffy as a character for a minute. When I was following anime/manga heavy, and we talking back when I was about 19-24 I couldn't stand Luffy because I hated airheaded main characters. The appeal to these type of characters never clicked with me, not to mention I never really found anything Luffy did as comical. Here I am today, turning 39 in what, about 4 months, have came full circle with Luffy as a character. I still don't find him that funny, but as a character I've grown to like him (probably because this is the last of my teenage years that's coming to an end someday and the closer we get I do feel a little bit more emotional towards it all).

Ace is still my favorite character in One Piece but tied with him and even surpassing him in certain areas, SHANKS!

One Piece's manga really is on fire right now. Wano was suitably epic in both scale and length and Egghead Island, despite clearly being a shorter transitional arc, has done a fantastic job of vastly fleshing out the lore while brilliantly setting up the endgame of the series.

This is the absolute most exciting time to be a One Piece fan. Not coincidentally, I have noticed an exponential influx of new fans in the past couple of years as the hype has just gotten that infectious.

Wait, time out, time out. What the hell did I just see with this last chapter? My imagination is running wild right now. Tell me that's not who that is at the end.  :huh: This is taking me back to them days where all the theories were running rampant (them Toonzone Naruto theory-crafting days. Probably a few years prior to me joining TZ. Them theories were wild at other forums as well).

Quote from: Mustang on May 12, 2023, 12:31:50 AMWait, time out, time out. What the hell did I just see with this last chapter? My imagination is running wild right now. Tell me that's not who that is at the end.  :huh: This is taking me back to them days where all the theories were running rampant (them Toonzone Naruto theory-crafting days. Probably a few years prior to me joining TZ. Them theories were wild at other forums as well).

Let me clear this up and tell you where my headspace was at when I first read that chapter lol (my previous laptop died so I couldn't get back to this).

So I didn't pay any attention to the wheel chair at the end of that chapter so I didn't put 2 and 2 together at that point. So when I see Cobra looking the way he look, and seeing this is coming from Sabo, not seeing that wheel chair, I'm like "oh shit, Rayleigh!" At that point I had already rushed to post that post and I usually would re-read that chapter to make sure, but again, laptop died around the time I was going to do that.

Fast forwarding to today. Ohhhhhh. I completely forgot about Wapol, so seeing him knowing what ever is going on and his reaction got a chuckle. I do hope to get at least one more chapter here cause I still don't know who or what they are.

Yeah, the vibes I'm getting from the recent chapters are on par with how nuts everyone was going on the TZ forums back during Impel Down and the Marineford arcs, albeit for somewhat different reasons.

The reveals have just been insane lately, and this really does feel like things are finally gearing up for the endgame while still being a fair bit off from actually reaching the ending.