One Piece - Reviews

One Piece
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cassiesheepgirl's avatar
Aug 17, 2010

Story:

For a long time I put off watching the anime of One Piece because, although it sounded fun, it was just too damn long and the thought of watching three hundred plus episodes was a bit daunting. However I soon gave in and became quickly addicted, devouring the now four hundred instalments in fairly quick succession. Then, while suffering from withdrawal from a nightly dose of my favourite pirates – and against my bank balance’s better judgement – I decided to pick up the manga. Fifty-four volumes later and I can now barely wait for the next part to come out here in the UK.

Monkey D. Luffy is a young lad who aims to become the King of the Pirates by gathering together his own crew and locating the most prized treasure of the legendary pirate, Gol D. Roger. The manga follows the adventures of Luffy’s newly-formed troupe – the Straw Hat Pirates – as they traverse the treacherous waters of the world’s toughest sea: The Grand Line.

One Piece draws the majority of its charm from the full-on wackiness of it all; Luffy’s world is big, bold and – most importantly – bloody good fun! The narrative’s comedic content shines throughout with exaggerated reactions, manzai-style exchanges between characters and the sheer absurdity of some situations. On many an occasion I find myself not just smirking, but heartily laughing out loud in the office – something that’s horrifically embarrassing if someone happens to wander past the door.

In addition to the humour, mangaka Eiichirou Oda has carefully thought out the One Piece universe. Aside from planting the seeds for later events throughout the early part of the story, the world itself is clever in its very design. The Grand Line by nature of being a mysterious and treacherous sea with its own rules when it comes to both the climate and ecological system of its various islets immediately allows for even the most outrageous of situations to seem plausible. Floating islands? Yep. Zombies? Sure, why not! Dinosaurs? Great, here, have a volcanic landmass with huge trees and a complete lack of human beings. While it may seem preposterous, let’s face it, the idea of a remote area inaccessible to people and populated by giant extinct lizards is hardly an overly outlandish idea – Jurassic Park and its sequels anyone? That isn’t to say that some plot points don’t seem a little too far-fetched even for this fantastical world, but the narrative’s inherently enjoyable nature makes any small niggles fade into obscurity, particularly when the reader finds themselves thoroughly immersed in the Straw Hat’s adventures.

One of my favourite things about the One Piece manga is the variety of extras it offers up; for example the title page stories are a nice touch in particular. Spanning a varying number of chapters, this mini-series of tales showing what happens to some of the previous characters entertains as well as highlights just how well thought out the world of Luffy and the gang is. Some plotlines such as “Little Buggy’s Big Adventure” and “Coby and Helmeppo’s Chronicle of Toil” made it into the anime, whereas others such as “Hachi’s Stroll on the Ocean Floor” and the “Baroque Works Reunion” fill in small gaps within the main narrative. Aside from these, most volumes of the manga include a Q&A section with the author. While this isn’t a new concept by any stretch of the imagination, Oda (or Odacchi to his SBS question corner fans) is such a genuinely funny guy that I actually find myself looking forward to the next instalment just to see how he responds to the latest flake that sends in a postcard.

Art:

Eiichirou Oda has a very bold drawing style full of thick, definite lines. His clear-cut imagery naturally works well for the audacious shounen series, and exudes a level of confidence that Luffy would be proud of. Though the content is generally larger than, Oda still retains an impressive level of detail throughout with proficient use of hatching to create an aged look for ancient cities or simply to add texture to barrels, cloth or paving. Though not the most breathtakingly stunning visuals ever to grace the printed page, the wacky character designs work perfectly in tandem with the narrative’s fun and brash nature. Plenty of action lines and exaggerated facial expressions – such as angry pointed teeth or eyeballs leaping two feet out of their sockets – enhance the kick-ass combat and comedic aspect of the Straw Hat’s adventures.

Oda also manages to infuse his sense of humour into the imagery in more ways than one, from adding a comedic drunk into the background of an action scene to creating his own ‘Doskoi Panda’ brand name and foisting it upon various people throughout the series. Though, without a doubt, his greatest visual gag that continues the panda theme, comes in the form of Panda Man. This joke character appears countless times in the crowd in a variety of guises; one chapter he may be a pirate, the next a zombie, then a marine in another. While this adds to the manga’s entertainment value by providing an in-volume pirate version of “Where’s Wally” (Where’s Waldo for all you Americans out there) it also encourages the reader to really look at the artwork, thus allowing them to get maximum enjoyment out of One Piece’s world.

Characters:

Love or hate them, the Straw Hat Pirates all grab the readers in their own ways. While they have their quirks that could easily lead them to be pigeonholed, none of them feel flat. Each character has his or her own painful past and hidden depths, which more often than not burst forth with a gargantuan splash, scattering various bits of sea life in its wake. Though Oda constructs the back-stories to ensure that more than a few tug at every available heartstring, what truly makes the reader fall in love with this rag-tag bunch of awesome pirates are the various exchanges between the protagonists. Whether it’s Zoro and Sanji’s mutual disdain for each other’s existence, the ero-cook’s obsession with his female companions, or Luffy’s carefree friendship with resident wuss Usopp, the shipmates’ numerous interactions mean that quickly enough, it becomes impossible to imagine just what the crew would be like if one member weren’t there.

One Piece boasts a humungous supporting cast and (straw) hats off to Odacchi, his vivid and creative imagination allows him to give each creation his or her own set of unique quirks. Though most of these personalities only appear in one arc at most, their eccentricities etch themselves into your memory. From more prominent antagonists such as the lovably outrageous Bon Clay in all his cross-dressing ballet-dancing glory, and the insane spaghetti-lobed Enel to one-shot baddies that only appear in only a chapter or two like Wanze, whose uhh… freaky method of producing noodles from his nostrils is enough to put you off ramen for life.

Overall: 

Yes, this is a long manga, and it’s still going with no signs of stopping in the foreseeable future, but do not dismiss One Piece on this basis alone. This is possibly the most FUN manga that I have yet to encounter, and should you allow yourself to get swept away with Luffy, you could well find yourself laughing at his antics, punching the air with every great victory, and welling up at the painful sides of their lives. So go on, give it a shot; stow away on the Going Merry, sing along to “Binks’ Sake”, and traverse the treacherous waters of the Grand Line for yourself.

9/10 story
8/10 art
8.5/10 characters
8.7/10 overall
thor123's avatar
Apr 4, 2016

Because the text got so long, I marked the key-elements in bold

As of June 2015, One Piece has broken the world record for Most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author… by selling over 320 million books. Even taking into account the fact that it had 77 volumes at the time, it’s proof of the huge following this manga has (even more if you take piracy into account too). If you’re one of the people I speak to from time to time, who ignored this series or have thrown it aside because you don’t like the artstyle, because you think it’s “just another shounen”, or because you think it’s just too damn long (or if you ever saw the 4kids dub and thought the anime was too childish - know that the Japanese version is already less impressive than the manga, and the 4kids dub was horrendously slaughtered by overdone censorship) : I would hereby urge you to think again. Try to imagine those three hundred and twenty million books, screaming at you that you should just join the group of people who read it… or perhaps I can convince you to read it, with this possibly-too-long text about the manga that manages to make my day whenever it comes out.

Story

It’s quite impossible to summarize the storyline of this manga, but I will try to give a view on what you should and shouldn’t expect.

The first thing you should probably realize before you start reading One Piece, is that it is first and foremost an unpretentious “shounen” manga - meaning that there won’t be too much brutality, and the number of deaths is kept to the minimum that the author deems necessary to further to story. There are some prominent jokes like “nobody dies in One Piece” and “bullets only work in flashbacks” which are taken serious by some people, although the actual readers only say those ironically - even if there is some truth to these jokes, they aren’t entirely true either. And well, it’s not like a manga needs Akame ga Kill-levels of death to be good. One Piece knows it is a shounen series, and uses the tropes that come with it to it’s advantage.

The second thing you should know is that this manga is a “formulaic battle shounen” - the premise is that a boy eats the Rubber Rubber Fruit, becomes a rubber-man who can’t swim, and decides to become a pirate and find the biggest treasure in the world. Of course he will meet people on his travels, leading to friendships and fights on almost every island they land on. But of course, Luffy always wins, right? Right? Spoiler: he doesn’t.

If either of the above two points make you contort your face like someone shoved a turd into your nose: don’t read it. If you still think this manga might be okay, you should definitely give it a try, and I will try to explain why.

The first thing to point out is, of course, the simplicity of the premise. While a simple (or even nonexistent) story isn’t always bad, a more complex storyline is often preferred. While One Piece delivers by giving an outstanding execution for the “simple” storyline in the initial arcs, it also prepares certain plot points for the more “complex” (don’t worry, it’s not that hard that you won’t get what’s going on) story that becomes visible much later - some of the things that are talked about in the first 50 chapters are important for things that happen over 400 chapters later. Subtle hints for later events can be found everywhere if you know what you’re looking for, which makes even re-reading this series a pleasant journey!

As pointed out above: the execution of the story is outstanding too. What I mean by that is that the moments where One Piece gets boring are really rare: it’s either hilarious (which is one of the strongest points of the series, more below), exciting because of the ongoing battles, or exciting in an entirely different way: because of the revelations of things that are important to the overall plot. How many series have ever made your heart race after a chapter where all they did was talk? Because I sure can’t think of many other series that pulled that off for me.

This is of course accompanied by the pacing, which is pretty good. There was a period during the Dressrosa arc where some people started complaining that the story was going too slow, but that was mostly because of the breaks between chapters - I saw no problem with it when reading it in one go / by volume. On the contrary, some chapters are so filled to the brim with new, exciting content that I’ve often wondered how Oda manages to take so much good stuff and put it into one chapter, without making it feel overdone and without running out of ideas.

Speaking of ideas, Oda must have a lot of fantasy: the world of One Piece is huge, exciting and filled with all elements of fantasy and science fiction that you could ever hope to see: Dinosaurs? Giants? Giant goldfish? Cyborgs? Mechas? Zombies? Check, check, check, check, check and check. And there’s more where that comes from! Even the superpowers in this series are fantastic and original: every “ability” is unique, and fights are won by using your powers in the best and most original way possible. While physical strength is important, fights aren’t only won by “punching harder than the opponent”. Finding out what the opponent’s powers are and how to beat them is key to winning any battle (and unlike the antagonists in Bleach, those in One Piece don’t reveal it that easily). This makes for great fights, which leave the reader wondering who will win and how that person will finish the fight.

Oda’s fantasy also works wonders when it comes to plot-twists. It’s not exactly rare that fans come up with wild theories about what will come next - it happens in other fandoms too. However, while tons of those theories seem all too wild, Oda will always come up with something that tops even those.

There's also the matter of comedy: this manga often made me laugh out loud, and not just get a mere smile on my face - although I am now conditioned to have a smile on my face whenever I see that a new part has come out. And Oda even puts this into the fights - turning exciting battles into gut-busting moments of absurdity at the drop of a hat.

There are also deeper themes to One Piece, like the classic shounen theme of "protect/cherish your friends", but even more importantly in this series is the theme of "dreams", with "fighting for your dreams" and"the inheritance of dreams" as sub-themes. While "fighting for your dreams" is also prominent in other shounen series like NarutoOne Piece has a way of handling that theme that feels unique and is hard to put into words. Let's just say you have to experience it to understand what I mean :p

Last but not least, Oda alsos put in a lot of “extras” to enhance the experience: the cover-stories and the hidden Pandaman (and his friends) are some of them. Especially those cover-stories are sometimes important for the plot, or to check back on islands the crew left behind a long time ago.

Characters

The role of main character is given to Luffy, a laid-back, goofy and likeable guy who has the power of being made of rubber. An original power if I ever saw one, and combined with Luffy’s personality it’s a great recipe not only for some great comedy, but also for the previously mentioned great fights. Oda’s fantasy shines through Luffy’s power, whether he gets in trouble because he didn’t think too much before acting, or because Luffy found a new incredible way to become stronger and protect his friends. Luffy is one of the main reasons I kept reading this series when One Piece was still “simple”, and is definitely one of the most goofy protagonists I ever saw.

Next to Luffy shine his crewmates - a group of quirky and interesting people, who can come or go: not every crewmember is destined to be with them for the entire journey, and people can always join at later times. The backstories of Luffy’s friends are all gripping, and their often tragic pasts form a beautiful contrast with the laugh-inducing characters they become later on. The interactions of these colourful characters easily fill up any empty moment in the story - whether they're be heartwarming, funny or otherwise entertaining.

Of course there are also tons of other side characters, with varying degrees of memorability. Overall, the characters are all interesting, fleshed out to a degree, and - very important for the comedy - quirky. How well those characters are done can be best illustrated by the fact that lots of people had to cry at the death of a certain character - a character you would never expect to care for when you first meet him/her.

 

Art

The artwork is the most frequent reason I hear whenever I ask people why they don't want to read One Piece. It's extravagant character designs, with often huge upper bodies and small legs, combined with the goofy facial expressions and overall "not great"ness (especiall in earlier chapters) have made lots of people tell me that they "can't take it seriously".  While on one hand that may be true for some people, I never really had that problem, and once you get used to it that problem should fade away for most people. On the other hand there's the fact that this goofy artstyle works wonders to enhance the comedy. Oda's artwork also improves tremendously after the first 200 chapters.

Panels are also filled to the brim with tiny details (for example in crowds you can go look for the previously mentioned Pandaman), and the action scenes are fluid. Scene transitions are done in interesting ways as well.

Overall

Although One Piece is a battle shounen of gargantuan proportions, there are tons of fans who are still craving for more. A colourful cast, combined with great humor, epic battles and a creatively built world, tied together with the great execution for simple and more complex stories alike, make One Piece the most fun manga I've ever read. And believe me, I've been looking for better or equally good series for a long while now. It's worth every second spent reading it, which is saying a lot given the length of the series. Prepare your wallet, and start your journey!

9.8/10 story
8.5/10 art
9.8/10 characters
9.5/10 overall
nathandouglasdavis's avatar
Aug 14, 2020

One Piece is arguably the greatest manga of all time, if only for its consistency and longevity. You see, it's been published for over twenty years now and is coming up on one thousand chapters, and throughout all of that it's been able to maintain a minimum quality standard of Good with some of its plotlines and chapters managing to achieve Greatness. There are so few bad chapters that I can count those I would rate as less than 5/10 on my fourteen-fingered hand (ch. 22, 182, 208, 217, 228, 239, 262, 263, 299, 417, 468, 482, 644, 902), and I would only rate two chapters as less than 4/10. Chapter 417 is a 2/10 because it includes a really, really stupid special move for Zolo, though fe's also had a few other pretty bad ones. Chapter 217 is a 1/10 because it includes the single worst mistake in the entire series (when Pell was revealed to be alive) and made all of the life-threatening drama up to that point feel empty; it is the most blatant example of a consistent and recurring problem throughout the series, where characters who have implicitly been killed off are later brought back to life. How do I know these statistics? Well, in my most recent readthrough of the series (and, yes, I have reread it multiple times), I decided to rate each chapter as I went along so I could see how the different story arcs compared to each other. For the most part, the story arcs naturally split between the different islands, so I've labeled it as such:

  • Island #1 (Luffy's hometown)--one chapter (1); average score of 10 with 100% being 10
  • Island #2 (Alvida)--one chapter (2); average score of 9 with 0% being 10
  • Island #3 (Captain Morgan)--five chapters (3-7); average score of 9.4 with 40% being 10
  • Island #4 (Buggy)--fourteen chapters (8-21); average score of 8.6 with 36% being 10
  • Island #5 (Gaimon)--one chapter (22); average score of 4 with 0% being 10
  • Island #6 (Kuro)--nineteen chapters (23-41); average score of 9.5 with 58% being 10
  • Island #7 (Don Krieg)--twenty-seven chapters (42-68); average score of 8.7 with 22% being 10
  • Island #8 (Arlong)--twenty-seven chapters (69-95); average score of 8.8 with 33% being 10
  • Island #9 (Roguetown)--five chapters (96-100); average score of 9.8 with 80% being 10
  • Island #10 (Reverse Mountain)--five chapters (101-105); average score of 9.4 with 40% being 10
  • Island #11 (Whisky Peak)--nine chapters (106-114); average score of 7.9 with 11% being 10
  • Island #12 (Little Garden)--fifteen chapters (115-129); average score of 8.5 with 13% being 10
  • Island #13 (Drum Island)--twenty-four chapters (130-153); average score of 8.9 with 50% being 10
  • Island #14 (Alabasta)--sixty-four chapters (154-217); average score of 8.2 with 27% being 10
  • Island #15 (Mock Town)--nineteen chapters (218-236); average score of 8.2 with 37% being 10
  • Island #16 (Skypiea)--sixty-six chapters (237-302); average score of 7.2 with 9% being 10
  • Island #17 (Davy Back Fight)--nineteen chapters (303-321); average score of 8.3 with 16% being 10
  • Island #18 (Water Seven)--fifty-three chapters (322-374); average score of 8.5 with 25% being 10
  • Island #19 (Enies Lobby)--sixty-seven chapters (375-441); average score of 8.7 with 40% being 10
  • Island #20 (Thriller Bark)--forty-eight chapters (442-489); average score of 7.6 with 15% being 10
  • Island #21 (Sabaody)--twenty-four chapters (490-513); average score of 8.4 with 25% being 10
  • Island #22 (Amazon Lily)--eleven chapters (514-524); average score of 9.3 with 45% being 10
  • Island #23 (Impel Down)--twenty-five chapters (525-549); average score of 8.9 with 36% being 10
  • Island #24 (Marineford)--thirty-two chapters (550-581); average score of 9.3 with 56% being 10
  • Island #25 (Time Skip)--sixteen chapters (582-597); average score of 8.4 with 31% being 10
  • Island #26 (Sabaody)--five chapters (598-602); average score of 9.2 with 40% being 10
  • Island #27 (Fishman Island)--fifty-one chapters (603-653); average score of 7.9 with 16% being 10
  • Island #28 (Punk Hazard)--forty-six chapters (654-699); average score of 8.6 with 24% being 10
  • Island #29 (Dressrosa)--one hundred and two chapters (700-801); average score of 8.4 with 24% being 10
  • Island #30 (Zou)--twenty-one chapters (802-822); average score of 8.1 with 14% being 10
  • Island #31 (Whole Cake Island)--eighty chapters (823-902); average score of 8.9 with 33% being 10
  • Island #32 (Reverie)--six chapters (903-908); average score of 7.3 with 0% being 10
  • Island #33 (Wano)--currently seventy-nine chapters (909-present); average score of 8.6 with 25% being 10

The art gets much better as the series continues, especially the backgrounds, which get intricately detailed and gorgeous. The fight scenes are drawn well throughout. Many of the women are drawn with a weird and unattractive hourglass figure, and several of the cute-girl faces look pretty similar. I'll just throw this out there, but I think the cutest girl is Sandersonia. There are decent characters throughout the series, but my absolute favorites so far are Luffy, Zolo, Dr. Kureha, Sir Crocodile, Mr. 2 Bon Clay, Blackbeard, Aokiji, Trafalgar Law, Monet, Fujitora, and Kaido.

As Luffy gathers together feir crewmates, it's made obvious that each of them have their own separate goals as well. Luffy intends to be the king of the pirates. Zolo intends to become the world's greatest swordsman. Nami wants to make a map of the whole world. Usopp wants to become a brave warrior of the sea. Sanji wants to find the All Blue. Chopper wants to become a doctor who can cure anything. Robin wants to unravel the mystery of the void in history. Franky wants sail on the ship fe made to the end of the sea. Brook wants to reunite with Laboon. And Jimbei...Jimbei doesn't seem to want much of anything honestly...Another theme that's very prevalent, especially in the earlier chapters, is the idea that treasures can be something other than gold: Zolo's swords are feir treasures (ch. 4); Luffy's hat is feir treasure (ch. 8); Chouchou's treasure is the pet food store (ch. 12); Boodle's treasure is the town and its people (ch. 14); and honor is a treasure to the warriors of Elbaph (ch. 117). I'm sure there are other examples, like Whitebeard's entire mentality, but you get the idea.

What makes One Piece remain interesting for so long is the way that it seamlessly integrates humor into its stories. First of all, the fact that Luffy is made of rubber and Zolo holds a sword in feir mouth are inherently pretty silly. There are also many other character designs and power suites which are exaggerated for humorous effect. But the best jokes are when they'll have things that appear to just be visual gags become integrated into the actual plot. For example, Sanji's bawooga eyeball getting punched (ch. 188) or feir nosebleed geyser causing fem to be near death (ch. 609). There are also other gags that only work because of how long the series has gone on without addressing certain things. Like, we readers had just come to accept and not even register the fact that the Straw Hats would break their teeth and bones during fights only to have them get fixed during peacetime, which makes it hit that much harder whenever Luffy and Brook fix their bone injuries by drinking milk (ch. 858). They also have recurring jokes, such as Zolo's bad sense of direction or the in-fighting between fem and Sanji. Like, I loved when Sanji lead all the navy men to taunt Zolo (ch. 686).

Other than the fact that characters who should be dead are written back into the story, the biggest problem with One Piece is probably the fact that many of the story arcs follow similar patterns. The most common pattern seems to be there being some big baddy who's been terrorizing an island and Luffy coming in and saving the island by defeating fem. It's a good pattern though. And often, the fight scenes along the way will be well-choreographed and interesting. There have also been some dud fights, but if nothing else, all of Luffy's fights have been consistently engaging. Another problem is that sometimes the cheesiness can be a bit much, where it falls flat more than pulls on the heartstrings. For example, I found Bellamy's reintroduction to the storyline to feel pointless and uninteresting. But other times, it works pretty well. Another problem is how they try to tie everything together in order to make things feel interconnected and significant. Most recently, this has been done with the introduction of the Rocks pirate crew, though another example is the lineage of Luffy's straw hat.

[Reviewed at chapter 987]

9/10 story
10/10 art
10/10 characters
10/10 overall
Hethran's avatar
Oct 17, 2010

Story:

How does one describe the story of One Piece? One can easily write a description in a single sentence. It's a pirate manga with a crew of goodly pirates who spend their days fighting other pirates, overthrowing corrupt governments, and generally being badass, with plenty comedy and fantastic elements thrown in. However, that fails to truly describe what One Piece is.

One Piece is a heartwarming tale of achievement despite the odds. It is a tale of Luffy daring to dream the impossible, and accomplishing it, again and again. It is an utterly outrageous comedy that will have you laughing every minute. It is an action series that will have you on the edge of your seat with every battle. It is tale of comraderie and friendship that will likely reduce you to tears countless times.

Whether it be the Straw Hats assembling for their latest badass pose, Luffy striking down yet another foe in a way more epic than the last, or Zolo's newest outrageous sword stunt, practically every volume has an epic crowning moment of awesome that will steal your breath away.

As for pacing, often the deathknell of long running shounen- the individual storyarcs all move at a good clip. The overall story is proceeding at a snail's pace - but with each arc better than the last, you won't even notice.

Art:

Absolutely brilliant.

Unlike many other action mangas, it is always easy to tell what is going on in every battle. The comedic art is also very well done, with Oda's goofy art stye the source of countless laughs - whether it be eyes popping two feet out their sockets, or Mr. 2 Bon Clay's preposterously outrageous clothing.

Characters:

Very well done. Whether it be the incredibly badass trio of Luffy, Zolo, and Robin, the conniving thief Nami, the hilariously naive Chopper, the comedically "chivalrous" pervert Sanji, the speed carpenter Franky, the cowardly liar Usopp, orthe brave and heroic Sniper King, you'll grow to love them all. You'll laugh at their comedic antics and be frustrated by their failures. You'll be enchanted by their unwavering comraderie, and laugh some more at their constant bickering. You'll be inspired by Luffy's boundless courage, and laugh even more at his stupidity.

Overall: 10/10

One Piece is one of the best manga or anime I have ever watched or read. If you like Shounen manga, read it. If you like action or comedy manga, read it. Heck, if you like manga or anime period, read it. You won't be dissapointed.

10/10 story
10/10 art
10/10 characters
10/10 overall
riqfujii's avatar
Apr 22, 2021

i love a good communist story!!! hate the sexualization tho 😕

10/10 story
8/10 art
9.9/10 characters
9.3/10 overall