One Piece: The Pros and Cons

One Piece is, in my opinion, one of the best anime/manga series out there today. If you haven't watched or read any of it, get to it! You're missing out on quite a great piece of work. However, like everything else, there are good things and bad things about the series that can make or break your love for it. Here are some pros and cons from my experience of One Piece.

Pros:

1. Storytelling: One Piece has a phenomenal story and even if you solely read the manga and don't touch the anime, you will feel the pull of the series and the emotional twists and turns. Eiichiro Oda has a great way of webbing all of his characters together in a mind-blowingly complicated but understandable plot that will make you exclaim, 'No way!!' plenty of times throughout the series.

2. Character Design and Development: Aside from the plot, the characters are what makes One Piece great. The main cast is loveable and the villains are despicable, yet flawed. Every character has a unique design and back-story, some more tragic that others, and you can understand why they have come to where they are. As the storyline progresses, you see not only the emotional changes, but the physical changes as well in the characters. Some villains come to redeem themselves, the main cast has even more motivation then before to achieve their dreams, and it all fits like a puzzle into the twisty plot.

3. Appeal: The series appeals to a very wide audience. It has action adventure, Steampunk elements, shounen fighting scenarios, romance, intrigue, politics, cutesy squishable characters, anything you could want, I bet you can find in One Piece.

4. Series Length: At the time of this article, One Piece has 584 manga chapters and 450 episodes of the anime (available streaming at FUNimation's website). For lovers and current fans, this is a complete blessing as the series has not ended, and there will be more One Piece probably until Oda croaks of old age.

5. Gateway Series: If you're looking to get a friend, relative, or what have you, into anime in general, this is a good place to start. Though the series starts out a little slow, let them watch at least the first 20 episodes, and they'll be hooked and might even want to explore more in depth in the animation genre.

Cons:

1. Licensing/Dubbing Fiasco: When One Piece was first licensed in the United States, 4KIDS took the reins to this masterpiece work and ripped it apart, stitched it back together, and gave it a rap theme song. This horrid patchwork monster of an anime was aired on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block for a while and then dropped completely, with good reason. This version of the series disgusted a great deal of the original fanbase, and turned away many more potential fans. I was one of those turned away by this debacle, but thankfully I was turned back by a friend. FUNimation has since taken over the series, but is slowly working their way up from the beginning subbing and dubbing the episodes in their (mostly) uncut fashions. They have a good deal of back-log episodes dubbed and subbed, but all of the episodes will not be available to you unless you find the illusive fansubs. FUNi is also streaming subbed episodes as they are released in Japan, so you can legally get the newest episodes and not have to rely on fansubs.

2. Art Style: Oda's art design, while portrayed very accurately in the anime series, is very unique and not really every anime fan's cup of tea. The face faults are weird, some of the characters look gross or unappealing, among other factors. Oda's work is very stylized and some people, not including myself, don't really like it.

3. Story Pacing: The story starts out sloooow. You have to watch or read at least 20 episodes or 40 chapters to really get going. There are elements in these first episodes that are necessary and even cool at times, but it just seems to take forever to take off compared to the fast pacing of the later storyline.

4. Anime Recaps: This gripe is anime-specific, but a legitimate one. Becoming ever more prevalent in the newer episodes, the Episode Recap/Intro is impeding into the episode content itself. The most recent episode has four minutes and 17 seconds of buffer before the series starts. This includes the intro song, obligatory repeated plot recap, and previous episode recap. Granted, the show cut the ending theme to make room for the two and a half minute intro song, nonetheless, out of a 24 minute show, a good chunk of it is unnecessarily long intro song and recaps. Now a reason for doing so is that the anime is coming very close to where the manga is in the story right now. Though both are released weekly, there is only so much content that can be fit into a manga chapter versus an anime episode. They have to stagger the content in the anime as to not catch up with the manga. If the anime does catch up to the manga, the fans will most likely be subjected to filler (pointless non-plot time-consuming episodes), which One Piece has very little of in comparison to other series. If forced to choose, I would pick longer recaps with stretched out content over multiple filler arcs.

5. Series Length: The length of this series is a double-edged blade. For returning fans, it is a blessing to have a continual supply of content at your fingertips, however, for someone just getting into a series, 584 chapters and 450 episodes is a daunting colossus to be dealt with. One Piece is a time-consuming endeavor to embark on, but well worth it. The length itself is what turns many people away with excuses like 'I know I'd like it but I'd never catch up,' or 'I want to watch it but I don't have time!' To watch all 450 episodes at roughly 24 minutes an episode, it would take a person 180 hours to complete, a week and a half of straight One Piece. Most people don't have time for that. I had a unique opportunity where I was working overnights behind a desk of a rarely visited hotel, which is where I did most of my watching. It took me about two years to get caught up with on and off watching, and casually reading the manga. 450 episodes is a lot to ask of a person, but the ride up is well worth the view.

Overall, I can think of many more pros than cons with this series, and the cons are really nitpicky at best, and shouldn't hinder a new watcher too much. If you have the time to watch it, I highly suggest One Piece to any anime fan, old or new. You can watch it streaming (up to episode 118 currently) on FUNImation's website.