One Piece

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Alright, rather than creating a regular topic for One Piece (which would be pointless seeing as how me and only a few other members on this board even care about it), I wanted to create this as sort of a little survey, to gather information for something I might want to write in the future.

Anyways, I don't care if you love, hate, or are indifferent to One Piece. As someone who used to think it would be trash, then became indifferent to it, then came to really enjoy it, I just find it to be interesting to see people's different opinions on it.

Even if you haven't seen any of it before, I'm still curious to hear your honest impressions of it from what you've seen or heard of it on the outside, even if you think it looks like trash. Just be sure to include some reasons why you feel about it the way that you do, as that's important information for me to know.

And even if your only experience with the show is from the 4Kids sub, I'd still like to hear your opinion on it.

As for me, I see OP as and acquired taste, but honestly once it grew on me, it really did become a great experience. Its easily the best currently running shounen series that I'm reading, and I love its style of humor as well as its adventure elements that were inspired by the early portions of the Dragonball manga. Its far from being one of my favorite series, but I think it manages to encompass a very fun epic adventure story and masterfully combines it with some fairly deep and also surprisingly dark undertones.

Of course all of this was completely lost in translation, along with plenty of other things, in the 4Kids dub of the series, but the FUNimation dub fixes a lot of those problems. I still have trouble getting used to Luffy's English voice, but I have generally loved the voice-acting for just about every other character in FUNi's dub of the show. Still, my preference leans more towards the Japanese VAs since they really emphasize the unique qualities of each character, and really nail their quirky moments in a way that's just too hard to describe in words.

Overall, OP is one of the few series in which I really look forward to the next new chapter of the manga or even the next episode of the anime (even if I already know what will happen). Though, I have to say, Toei has been pissing me off with how much they've been slacking on the budget for the animation, except for a key few episodes. I know its very typical of them, but I thought that even they would make and exception for a single important arc like this which isn't even that long. I mean, they can honestly afford it with all of the money they must have made off of series like this and DBZ, among other things.

[Daxdiv]

I got into One Piece due to Shonen Jump magazine I found at my Blockbuster that had Goku and Yugi on the cover. I mostly read it for DBZ, Sandland, YGO, and YYH. But then I decided to try out this series that I thought was Ne Pec, until I learned that it said One Piece. I thought the first chapter was pretty good, and wanted to read more. Unlike most, I was in love with it after the end of the Buggy arc, yes it was that early for me, Arlong was more like the point that I knew I would love the series forever. I really liked the comedic bits in the story at that point, it reminded me of Dragon Ball series in a way, along with the seriousness that it had, like Usopp trying to warn his neighbors about Kaya's butler being the famed Captain Kuro, to his devotion to protect the village.

Right now out of the big 3, One Piece is the only one I give a damn about, Naruto I check in from time to time, and Bleach, I avoid like the plague. But I can agree with the animation. Most people I've talked to actually dropped the anime adaptation somewhere near Thriller Bark arc due to all the padding they did, which I can agree is annoying. Streching out a 20 minute manga chapter into a 22 minute episode is annoying, especially considering most of those chapters had a shitton of two page spreads. As for me, I buy the DVDs from FUNi and check out the simlumcast from time to time. I can safely say that I will follow One Piece, even if I'm approaching my 40's.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I couldn't give a rats ass about Bleach, and honestly, for whatever reason I still keep up with Naruto, but I don't know why because its like torture. Almost none of the characters are likable, and there are WAY too many characters to the point that I can't even keep track of them all.

Sure, OP has had a lot of characters, but it has wisely introduced them slowly over time, and when it does show you characters, they are almost always memorable. In Naruto, if they brought back a villain from several hundred chapters ago, I probably wouldn't even recognize him, except for Zabuza and Haku, with the former being the only decent villain Naruto ever had, and Haku ends up being memorable just by having been associated with him.

Anyways, One Piece's main strength is memorable and likable characters. And honestly I've grown to love its uniquely absurd art style. I really appreciate it compared to all of the genericly designed shounen series out there. It also helps that the writing is actually really solid most of the time.

[SSJ Jake]

I got into One Piece the same way Dax did. I remember my first exposure to it seeing a Luffy action figure in Wizard's Toy Fair magazine, not knowing where it came from. Years later I saw a commercial for Viz's Shonen Jump magazine, noticing how they mispronounced Luffy's name "luh-fee". I thought it looked too silly and ridiculous at first, but then actually reading it I thought it was awesome. I was really into the manga and hoped that FUNimation would pick up the series. Then 4Kids got a hold of it and turned it into something worse than I thought OP was going to be like. I don't think I need to go into detail as everyone knows of the horror that was Hacked Pieces.

When 4Kids finally lost the license this gave it a chance to redeem itself and for a better company to pick it up again. I hoped one again for FUNi to get the license and to my surprise, they finally got it. Overall I really like FUNi's dub of the series. I didn't like Colleen Clickenbeard (sp?)'s Luffy at first as I think Luffy should have been played by a male actor. Yes I realize his Japanese VA is a woman, but so is Goku's and I prefer him to be voiced by a man in english as well. However her voice for Luffy grew on me. All the other voices I had no problem with, I was glad to see the show getting treated with respect and not absolute stupidity. There are some minor errors in the script that I find questionable ("Zoro killed Daz Bones" despite him later playing a rule in the Whitebeard War), but that's more or less nitpicking.

I still keep up with One Piece, both the manga and anime, when I can. It's like every awesome aspect in culture, from pirates to cyborgs to dictators etc, added into this kickass story.

[Angus]

I first heard of One Piece from Cartoon Network and all those 4Kids complaints. I didn't bother with watching the series until about a year or two ago, when I saw some One Piece episodes at the library and when Funimation was fully dubbing it.

I do like the adventure aspect of the show. It reminds me a lot of Dragon Ball, which I had always preferred to Dragonball Z for years until I finally got to hear the Japanese audio. The characters get introduced gradually and their stories get decently developed so that you feel like you can care and cry too. Lots of baka moments to mix in with the drama, and it's always fun to see the next new Devil Fruit power, and not hear characters moaning about getting stronger all the time.

I'm at a little over 100 episodes at the Alabasta arc, so who knows when I'll be able to catch up, but it's my current favorite shonen to marathon along with Soul Eater.

[talonmalon333]

My opinion on it. I have never seen it, but I'm SURE it's a solid show and is miles better then the ones it often gets compared to (InuYasha, Naruto, and Bleach). But the animation is just... ugh, a complete turn-off for me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I believe you mean the art design. I always tend to point out that animation and art design are 2 completely different things.

That said, One Piece has pretty average animation outside of the movies, but the Thriller Bark arc actually has pretty decent animation, and is about the only exception to the rule with the TV series.

I'll admit that the art design took a lot of getting used to for me, personally, but really now I prefer it over the generic shounen-art style, at the very least, and at its best its actually fairly pleasant, since it is purposely drawn the way it is as the series is self-aware and a lot of its charm comes from its humor and how it doesn't take itself seriously in areas where a lot of other shounen series do (and fail miserably at it, in the process).

[Foggle]

I've never really been a fan of One Piece, but after watching some of the non-4Kids version I realized that it's actually pretty decent for what it is. Not something I'd watch or read, but it's certainly better than Naruto or Bleach or Hitman Reborn or Inuyasha or anything else like that.

I actually think the art style is pretty cool. A lot more interesting than the super generic stuff in the other of Big 3 shounen series, for sure.

[Avaitor]

I like the art style myself. Very Fleishcer-like. It looks like I'm watching a long-lasting Talkartoon or early Color Classic short.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That's kind of how I felt about One Piece after watching a few episodes of the sub, but really I think for me I mostly got surprised by how much more complex and dark the series gets. Its definitely not for everyone, which is why its the one thing I don't mind when people say its not for them, but I have to say that the Marineford arc stands out in quality above the rest of the series for me, as something that's genuinely one of the best things that I've ever read or seen from anything that has been produced by Japan. Though, even that isn't exactly Urasawa level, but it comes so close for me that its actually kind of scary. I don't know if the series can ever reach that brief level of insanely high quality again, though, but it has certainly evolved over its decade+ long run.

I think that's what intrigues me the most about OP. Its really nothing special in the beginning parts of the series, but unlike the lazy-ass authors of most shounen manga, Eichiro Oda clearly gained writing experience as he went along with the series, and constantly shows a ton of improvement with each new story arc, IMO.

The one thing that I like the most, though, is that no matter how dark or serious it can get at times, it never completely forgets what it is, and it mostly remembers to not take itself too seriously and tell a good fun adventure story. That's probably its main appeal to me.

[Avaitor]

I'm totally going to go through that arc you recommended me tomorrow, and I'll post here with reflections.

I'm willing to give anything another chance. Hell, I saw FLCL three times to see if I can find anything I liked about it. I did not, but damned if I didn't try.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Heh, you're a braver man than me. I saw it 1.5 times before giving up on it. Well, to be fair I can at least respect it now. Its something that I can get appeals to certain people, and it does have damned good animation, but its definitely not my kind of show, personally.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just out of curiosity, did anyone here who is actually a fan of One Piece see the latest movie for it, Strong World?

I just got around to seeing it and I thought it was a lot of fun. Obviously its still tied down in quality by the fact that its a movie, and none of the OP movies can truly be that great because OP's strength is sort of in its length, since the manga and anime TV series have all the time that they need to build up a strong plot and give the characters a lot more time to show personality and interact with one another. But, having said that, I found his to basically be as good as you could probably ever make a One Piece movie. Its a bit of a special case in that it had a 2 hour running length when every other OP movie is under 90 minutes long, but to be honest most of that extra time was used on action scenes anyways. Still, I was really impressed by the animation in this movie. They went all out and spared no expenses in this case, which makes the animation stand out even more relative to the other One Piece movies, and especially to the TV series which cuts way too many corners.

I thought that the movie was pure fun from beginning to end mostly based on simply just catering to things that fans would love to see. It wasn't necessarily a very well-written story or anything like that, but there was a lot of eye-candy in the visuals, and there was some really good humor throughout the film for those who enjoy OP's style of humor. I at least felt that this movie gave each Straw Hat at least one opportunity or more to show off some aspect of their character in some way in the movie, and overall it had a lot of parts that were just plain fun to watch. The music was also pretty good, and I like how the movie actually had some of its own original tracks, rather than just relying on tracks from the regular TV anime. Overall I thought it was a highly enjoyable experience.

[Angus]

Hmm, they showed Nico Robin as part of the crew in the opening for some of the episodes of the Alabasta arc,  before she officially joins.

[Veggie]

I love it when I see/read it. The art is amazing, the characters are enjoyable, and the writing is solid.

But I just get scared off by the huge number of episodes/chapters.