piece | mysterio

One Piece

I wrote this a while ago and it was posted elsewhere, but every anime watcher needs to read this! So here!

One Piece is a weird anime, even the creator, Eiichiro Oda says so. The story is about a young pirate called Monkey D. Luffy, who aspires to rule the seas and assembles a crew to help him become King of the Pirates and find One Piece, the hidden treasure left behind by the previous Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, put to death for his crimes in his hometown. You`ll watch Luffy and his crew go through their many trials and tribulations in an everlasting adventure that is still going on to this day. Doesn`t sound weird does it? You`ll see. The anime is 350 + episodes and the manga is 550+ chapters, with new installments every week. It`s still going strong and many are turned off by its longevity, but if its your kind of thing you will be hooked from episode/chapter 1 and going through the whole series will be nothing.

The legendary King of Pirates, Gol. D Roger

Visuals – At first glance it looks horrible. Absolutely horrible. It looks like its for a teletubby demographic. But believe me its not. It can be very violent just in its own way. But you will see enough for you not to place it in a kiddie category. And I know that’s a bad way to start a review but its true. I almost never picked it up because of how it looked. I saw a random episode on Cartoon Network from the universally hated 4kids dub. But it had such a unique art style that I decided to try the manga and got hooked from chapter 1. It just gave me that “Whats he going to do next? How is he going to do that?” feeling that I probably haven’t felt since.

"One Piece is a weird series!" - Eiichiro Oda

For the manga, there will be a lot of text, so if your a Bleach fan and your used to reading a chapter a minute start building your reading skills right now, sometimes it competes with the Death Note manga in text…because the story is a big part of it…and like many mangas and animes the art will look better and sharper over time.

Don't try this at home. "Viz Media & Eiichiro Oda"

Anime wise the downloadable HD episodes are nothing short of amazing.

Music – Always sets the tone perfectly. I`ve never really wanted to download tracks from animes until One Piece. In the later story arcs you will see why.

Plot – Peerless. It never has dead arcs. Which is pretty funny considering the maker was never really a great storyteller. It is loosely based on pirates, but not so loosely that you will forget…*cough* ninjas! And there are a lot of real life references (including real life pirates). It`ll make you laugh, cry (and i know people who will testify to LITERALLY crying)…and everything in between. It’s been around so long for a reason….a good one at that. You can talk about it with others for hours and ponder “Wtf is going to happen next?” after every episode/chapter. There are a lot of easter eggs mostly in the manga from DBZ cameos to extremely important character cameos and you wont even know it. It`ll keep you on your toes and manage to shock you quite often….believe it….woops. But the reason for that is because there is always so much going on and so many unanswered questions to this day…even considering its been out for a decade. It`ll pick your brain trust me. No two arcs feel the same and they are always feel fresh and new. Dragonball was one of its main inspirations, but One Piece goes so above and beyond that its not even funny. They even did a crossover special for the manga with DBZ and OP characters.

The main characters (the crew) are very lovable, unique and ACTUALLY GET DEVELOPED evenly. You will like the other characters just as much as the protagonist if not more. And it doesn’t stop there because there are countless others who also get developed. You owe it to yourself to try this series. Heck, even the non-canon material is decent (movies fillers etc).

The icing on the cake would be again the easter eggs. I`ve never seen animes with as much real life references eggs and extras including databooks….the whole nine. A great balance of quality and quantity. Makes you really think on how long it was in the making and how premeditated it was.

In conclusion, this is a MUST try…I`d say for anyone but ESPECIALLY if you like Shonens such as Bleach, Dragonball, Naruto and unique adventures this is really a must. Now that Funimation has been doing the dub on Cartoon Network and DVDs it will be even better for those who just don’t like subs for animes.

Dont judge a book by its cover and if you dont believe me believe the millions of fans in Japan who made it one of the best selling manga ever and one of the most watched in Japan.