The One Piece Thread

[Maokun]

Hey, I saw both Bleach and Naruto got their threads so it's a bit weird that OP still does not have one, seeing how it is more popular. (well, in Japan, I'm not sure how it fares in the rest of the world).

So anyway, this is the thread to post your appreciation/speculation/random thoughts on this amazing shounen!

A question to kick up the thread: do you believe that Luffy's nakama is now complete or will it add new members in the future?

I personally believe it is complete now as a musician was the first member Luffy wanted to find after recruiting Zoro and now, after years he finally found Brook so it kind of feels like the complete circle. I also think the series has finally got to the point were it cannot grow up anymore and is time for it to grow older, i.e. start heading towards the end (which may easily take other 10 years )

[Tommy]

I stopped following after they recruited some skeleton with an afro.

Let me know when it's the final arc and I'll skip to it.

[jim_wijit]

I stopped following after they recruited some skeleton with an afro.

Let me know when it's the final arc and I'll skip to it.

I had the exact opposite reaction. As soon as I saw the skeleton with an afro it renewed my faith in humanity.

[goldenspines]

One Piece is one of the only reasons I will buy Shonen Jump. I don't keep up with the manga regularly. I read enough of the chapters to know what's going on, but I can't answer any trivia or anything. XD

I've always like the creativity of the characters in this series. I've seen too many manga where it's hard to tell the characters apart, but in One Piece, it's usually very easy to tell who's who.

[Gelka]

I watched a lot of the anime when it was on Toonami. I thought it was pretty cool.
My brother is like a hard core fan. 0.0

[ShiroiHikari]

One Piece! I think Oda Eiichiro is brilliant. I don't get to read much One Piece because it's so daunting, but what I have read/seen, I really like a lot. Before long I'm going to make it a point to start reading it more often.

[Fish and Chips]

I enjoy One Piece whenever they're not fighting someone. The characters and locals are all memorable, with a good sense of adventure, but the fights basically boil down to every bad guy's crew having an unnecessarily premeditated counterbalance to the Straw Hats. You can even pick them out in the beginning of the arc, ranged guy, guy who knows martial arts, the swordsman, etc.

[uc pseudonym]

I have mixed feelings about One Piece. For a long time I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I have come to this conclusion: I enjoy the series on a grand scale and dislike it chapter by chapter.

Unlike the other two big series, OP has a general sense of planning. In broad terms, you can see how it has been progressing and how different themes have developed. There seems to be a larger world out there, even if it's just the next island on the chain. Major players like the Shichibukai give a sense of something existing outside of our main characters.

On the other hand, I don't think the fighting is very interesting, I'm not particularly fond of the locales, and I dislike almost every single attempt at humor (a surprising number of the panels in any given chapter). This is why I've temporarily dropped the series a few times, but the Red Line arc has earned my interest.

In terms of recent chapters, I like the exploration of Impel Down and the use of old characters, but frankly I would be fine if we didn't see Luffy for 100 chapters. Whitebeard, people, Whitebeard.

[Maokun]

Yeah, I definitely like that from OP. The world is really large and well planned, with lots of different powerful factions on it, each pursuing their own agenda, each one with its heroes and villains. I like how Oda-sensei avoided the easy way of creating an outlaw hero series, which is to make the lawmakers and enforcers either evil or stupid. The marines in OP (at least the ones who count) are mostly righteous and good. It's only that their world view and philosophies clash with the pirate's.

The one thing I didn't like is [spoiler]how it turns out that Luffy is "special". Not only he's the son of Dragon, the revolutionary, healso has the second name D. which somehow seem to have some kind of mystic relevance in OP's universe. Why, o why, couldn't he let it be the tale of a common, normal boy who reaches greatness not because he was destined to, but because he forced destiny to ackowledge him?[/spoiler]

[Fish and Chips]

Jump protagonists are always "Special."

Which is probably what allows various side characters and villains to become so popular.

[Ante Bellum]

I agree with Maokun, but it is nice to have some recognition for other characters too. I personally like Oda's world, to me it's something different and not a generic self-contained kingdom or something of the sort. And I have the ability to tell the characters apart. Which is, when one has trouble telling some characters apart in some manga, a special thing.
Sadly I haven't read much into the double digit volumes, time to catch up soon!

[MasterDias]

I like One Piece quite a bit. Despite it's length, it has remained a remarkably consistent series, whereas other lengthy series have sometimes lost the momentum of the early volumes.

Also, now's a pretty good time to start reading it. The major players: the Marines. Shichibukai, Whitebeard, Blackbeard's crew...are all getting a role in current events.

[Maokun]

And chapter 550 of OP has a little nice BIG TWIST:

[spoiler]Ace is Gold Roger's son, which also means that he and Luffy are not really brothers. I have to admit that Oda-sensei played us quite well. During the first few humdred chapters he threw hints here and there that might have lead us to think that Luffy was Gold Roger's son, and then he finally revealed that he was actually Dragon, the Revolutionary's son. And then when the dust settled and we had forgotten about it all, slap in the face! Im now really pumped about what it's coming, all the major "bad guys" of OP are reunited and Luffy is diving headfirst! Hopefully his real nakama will make it in time to help him (not that his makeshift nakama of past enemies is not awesome too, but now he lost Bon-chan, it's bound to disintegrate)[/spoiler]

[mysngoeshere56]

I've thought of reading One Piece, but I've only watched the anime (and even then, just a little anime). I'm not sure if I'll read it though.... It's super long and seems to keep going on strong. I don't know if I'd have time to read something that long. I gave up on the Inu Yasha manga once I found out it was 56 volumes. One Piece isn't much less than that and it's still going strong, right?

[Maokun]

Yeah, at this pace, I wouldn't be surprised if OP reaches 100 volumes or nearly. However I may atest that I read the whole thing in one week or so. It is that good!

[Fish and Chips]

It bothers me that the best of the "Big Three" Shounen has the most compartmentalized plotline of all of them, though that probably makes it easier to manage.

[Maokun]

@Anonynous: There was no hint at all. As a matter of fact Oda was extremelly misleading by showing us that fragmented conversation between Ace and Garp [spoiler]that seemed like a confirmation that Ace was Dragon's son.[/spoiler]

Also on a related topic, [spoiler]I hope Oda-sensei has the guts this time to kill Bon-chan. Not that I want him dead, but it would take a lot out from his brave sacrifice if he miraculously managed to survive against an enemy that not even Luffy could defeat. He even said "I have no regrets"! Oda has already pulled that with that hawk-man who implausibly managed to survive after taking a city-razing bomb with himself to the skies in Alabastra arc. It was a really moving scene and to find out that he survived against all odds and without an explanation, just hurted the value of his actions.[/spoiler]

[pikmintaro]

Yeah One Piece is definitely one of my favorite series and I like what Oda is doing with it now.

For the first few episodes I just "liked" it but I wasn't too into it but then it got a lot better as time went on and here we are now and it looks like it is still getting better and more epic.
But I do agree the Art Style can take a bit of getting used to.

[Maokun]

Ok, I think Oda-san is going nuts with this war arc! The scalation of power is incredible, and so many new, absurdly powerful characters that my head is spinning! This is shounen at its highest level, people!

[IchiTone]

I hated the art. With every issue of Shonen Jump that arrived, I'd skip over the OP chapters and find Naruto or Hikaru no Go. Never really gave it much thought or much of a chance simply because the art style was radically different than anything I'd seen up to that point. That and I remember thinking to myself, a manga about silly anime pirates and their zany adventures? Bah. Ignore.

Cue the anime party I'd attend a year later. We watched tons of stuff, and a lot of it completely random (Witch Hunter Robin, Grave of the Fireflies, Excel Saga). About 5 or so episodes of the One Piece sub got shown...and by the end of the 5th episode, I felt like kicking myself. Now, dozens of manga volumes later, having watched every fansubbed episode and buying the dvds as they come out, there is no fooling anyone. I'm a HUGE One Piece fan, and proud of it. :-)

Oh, and yes...BIG things going on right now in the manga, BIG! The storm's done brewin'. It's time for things to get loco...One Piece style.

[Fish and Chips]

This is shounen at its highest level, people!

I am inclined to disagree with this, but since I can't bear to run the thread off course, allow me to simply say that One Piece is indeed of majestic proportions right now and leave anything that's possibly more so left unsaid.

[Maokun]

I am inclined to disagree with this, but since I can't bear to run the thread off course, allow me to simply say that One Piece is indeed of majestic proportions right now and leave anything that's possibly more so left unsaid.

Now you went and piqued my curiosity. Why exactly do you disagree? You have something else on mind fo "highest level of shounen"? or think the hiperbole doesn't apply to OP for positive reasons?

[Fish and Chips]

Now you went and piqued my curiosity. Why exactly do you disagree? You have something else on mind fo "highest level of shounen"? or think the hiperbole doesn't apply to OP for positive reasons?

I'm afraid I've been spoiled when it comes to epic Shounen climaxes these days:[spoiler]JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, while not necessarily the most strategically planned or well written Shounen, per se, does have the distinction of presenting the only final battle I've read so far wherein the protagonists must face off against a villain who can (and does) speed up the gravitational rotation of the universe itself to the vanishing point to create as many new alterations to the universe as he could ever desire. Repeatedly. As easily as breathing. As a standard power.

And they win.

Of course, this is several arcs after they've already defeated an entirely invincible immortal. And also won. Maybe it's par for the course.[/spoiler]Again, not by any means knocking what's going on in One Piece, just that it's been more real down the block, is all I'm saying.

[Maokun]

Wow. Ok, that's really something else. Now I definitely have to check it myself. Though in all fairness, I wasn't really talking about the capabilities of the characters itself but the crazyness that is the gallery of new characters that had been introduced in the last three chapters.

[spoiler]Taking in account that Luffy wasn't really able to defeat his latest enemy whom was clearly, several steps below the shabbiest of the new characters introduced in this arc, the mind boggles when trying to figure how is Luffy going to eventually top them all.[/spoiler]

[Maokun]

[spoiler=chapter 556]Aaaand Luffy finally joins the fray, in his usual fashion. Good, things were getting a bit too srs [/spoiler]

[Myoti]

*dusts off the thread*

One again, this series gives me one of those "This is a really awesome scene, but WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT ALREADY!?" moments.

The sheer scale of everything makes me hate so much how it's a weekly series. :C

It's also intriguing how every chapter has managed to be an average of only 15 pages lately, yet has often had a lot more going for it than most of the other Shonen's right now. Hrm.

And is it just me, or does Garp look really huge in that last shot...?


Oh, and thanks Fish and Chips for reminding me how far back I am in Jojo and need to start speed reading.

[uc pseudonym]

I have been enjoying One Piece lately, in a way that I'm not enjoying many other series. Whitebeard has finally acted, plus his crew members are actually making themselves distinct. Furthermore, we get to see much of the full force of the Marines, who are managing to appear like a credible threat. It feels much more like a large scale battle, with plenty of extras as well as powerhouses like Mihawk, unlike many series where it's just a few characters.

That having been said, this has been going on for quite a while. I want them to get to the other side of the Red Line so the plot can move on. Also, I would like to know more about haki and other world mechanics.