What I love about One Piece

Ok, I know I already talked about this during my post on the Big 3, but I've been playing One Piece Romance Dawn almost non-stop so I figured I'd elaborate on why I consider One Piece to be the king of the Big 3. Pardon me if this ends up turning into a crash course on One Piece.

This thing is arguably the most popular anime and certainly best selling manga series in the world. I have yet to actually meet anyone in the anime community with something bad to say about it other than its length. It is quite honestly an anime that is worth all the acclaim that the fans give it. It is also one of the strangest anime I have ever seen yet the show makes it work so well that it just results in a really fun show.

All of the Straw Hats are great characters and each of them has gotten great moments so far. Unlike the other members of the Big 3, where the main character is usually the only one shown getting stronger, everyone gets the chance to become stronger so they don't just get knocked out of a fight immediately. They all feel like legitimate characters. My personal favorite being Ussop because I feel he has come along way since his cowardly beginnings both in terms of his tactics and in terms of his creativity. Characters that might seem broken actually aren't as the anime/manga makes it very clear that no matter how strong someone gets, there will always be someone stronger down the line. This leads to a lot of very gripping, intense fights. My personal favorite arc so far is the CP9 arc because it shows exactly what each of the Straw Hats are capable of. The villains are unique, very memorable, pose a great threat, and in general are just fun antagonists. Every battle in this anime/manga has this sort of grand feel to it which lacking is really lacking in Naruto and Bleach.

One Piece is that at that level of weirdness where everything just seems to make sense no matter how odd or outlandish it gets. Seriously, only in One Piece can a cola-powered cyborg shipwright, fish people (not just mermaids), a skeleton musician with an afro, and a talking shape-shifting blue-nosed reindeer doctor make total sense. My personal favorite example of its weirdness however comes from the Alabasta arc. It is during the battle where Chopper and Ussop are fighting Baroque Works agents Mr.4, Ms. Merry Christmas, and their cannon dog Lassoo who is quite literally a cannon that ate the Mutt-Mutt fruit Dachshund Model.

Ussop asks Ms Merry Christmas how it was even possible for a cannon to do that and she basically responds by saying "Its a new Grand Line trick. You haven't seen anything yet.". That one line speaks volumes about One Piece's weirdness.

The Devil Fruits bring a very nice variety in abilities to the table. Though each fruit has different strengths, they all share the same weakness: people who eat the devil fruits can no longer swim and will sink like a rock in water deep enough to drown in. On its own, that doesn't sound a like a big weakness but it becomes a major possibility when you consider that the two most common occupations in the show/manga are Navy and Pirate so just about every devil fruit user falls into one of those two categories. That isn't the only threat to the devil fruit users either. There is a special stone from the bottom of the sea that can shut off a person's devil fruit abilities as long as the stone touches them. There is also Haki and one of the types (Armament Haki) can counter devil fruit users abilities and is especially effective against Logia types.

One of my favorite Devil Fruits: Ace's Mera Mera Fruit.

Overall there are three basic types of devil fruits: Logia, Zoan, and Paramecia. Logia devil fruits allow the user to change their body into a specific force of nature like Ace's fire based powers thanks to the Mera-Mera Fruit. Zoan fruits give the user the power to transform into animals such as Chopper's humanoid form and ability to speak via the Human-Human Fruit. The Zoan type is not limited to just regular animals, there are some that grant the powers of mythical creatures like Marco's Phoenix fruit as well as the Ancient Zoan fruits that allow the user to turn into dinosaurs. Parameicia fruits grant the users general super-human powers such as Luffy's ability to stretch via the Gum-Gum Fruit. To make it even more interesting, certain devil fruits render the user immune or resistant to other devil fruit abilities, like the Gum-Gum fruit rendering Luffy virtually immune to Enel's Rumble-Rumble fruit due to Luffy's body being rubber or the Wax-Wax fruit being able to neutralize/block the Venom-Venom fruit's poison.

One of the more fascinating things about the show is how Oda set up the Navy wanting the Straw Hats heads. The Straw Hats are pirates in name and symbol only, they have for the most part done nothing that is actually illegal. It shows how corrupt that the Navy and the World Government actually are if they're willing to hunt down people doing more good than harm. The testimony from all the people they've helped would be more than enough to clear them of the charges but as long as they fly the Jolly Rodger, the World Government will only ever see them as pirates. That is a stroke of genius.

However, the most impressive feat of the anime/manga by far is Oda's ability to keep things consistent with previously established continuity and character backstories. Now on its own, that compliment doesn't sound like much of a compliment but consider this: At the time of this post the manga currently has over 748 chapters which is a total of 78 volumes and the anime has 708 episodes with about 12 movies. That in and of itself is amazing. I can't help but think Oda reads through some of his notes before writing a new arc just to make sure he doesn't repeat himself. Oda also really knows how to handle character deaths. He rarely kills off characters but when he does, he always does it in a grand fashion so no matter what happens later, you will always remember the character's final moments. Anyway those are my thoughts on One Piece, an anime that I consider to be the current king of the shounen genre and it is definitely worth the acclaim that the fans give it. The anime is just plain old fashion-ed fun. And with that, I'll leave all with this:

My thoughts on shounen anime's Big 3

When the subject of anime comes up, inevitably one of 3 names will pop up in the conversation at some point: Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. These three are by far the most popular anime in the world. Two of these anime suffer from main character syndrome. To clarify what that is, its a term I coined to describe the phenomenon wherein the main character is the only one who can do anything and gets insanely powerful simply because the plot says so while the side characters get reduced to background roles. Though one suffers to a much greater degree than the other. Anyway here are my thoughts on the Big 3:

Bleach:

For the record, my knowledge of the events of the Bleach anime only extends to how far the dub has gotten on Toonami and I haven't caught up with the manga. This is my least favorite of the big 3 for the simple reason that it has a tendency to drag and repeat itself during the canon arcs. The Hueco Mundo arc is the exact same arc as the Soul Society arc just swapping Rukia for Orihime and the Arrancars in place of Soul Reapers. The War For Karakura arc is where the show just hits the fan for me due to Aizen having the largest amount of plot armor/plot convenience I've ever seen. Seriously, it got so bad that I ended up doing a massive rant about Aizen. The less I say about Aizen here the better so just go check out my Aizen rant for my full thoughts on him. The show actually has some interesting filler arcs. My personal favorite being the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc because it gave you the feeling that they were more than just weapons used by the Soul Reapers. I almost cried when that arc ended. The overall plot for the canon portions of the anime simply boil down to "Aizen was responsible for everything up to the War for Karakura" so the plot really only hinges on him and Ichigo. Ichigo's personality is kind of hard to pin down since he has that generic "I will protect everything precious to me" type of personality and well he doesn't go very far beyond that. Ichigo suffers from main character syndrome and his friends often have to rely on him to save them (Orihime and Chad). Orihime's downgrade is especially stupid since she basically has the powers of a God and can reverse any phenomenon she wishes yet she is basically reduced to acting as a medic and mostly uses her healing shield. This show is by far the biggest offender of the 3 when it comes to main character syndrome.

Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden:

This is the one I'm more neutral on so it might be harder for me to put this one into words. Its better executed than Bleach that much is for sure, though Bleach has the more interesting filler arcs. The characters are alright and don't seem to constantly suffer from main character syndrome or at the very least not to the degree that Bleach's side characters do. It has a nicely built up world and I like its history. With that said I do have some issues, like Sasuke not being killed off yet. Seriously, Kishimoto kills off better characters yet lets Sasuke live. Its gotten to the point where even some of my friends who are Naruto fans are calling BS on it. Granted my knowledge extends more into the manga than it does the anime and I left off at the 4th Great Ninja War.The only reason I stopped reading the manga was because SJ magazine went all digital. Though from what I've heard, it might have been good that I stopped there as I've had some people tell me that the rest of that arc basically amounts to spring cleaning in terms of character deaths. This included two really shocking ones, Neji and Shikamaru.This anime had a strong start with some really great fights early on. My personal favorite fight is the Zabuza/Haku fight. Anyway thats about all I can say for this series.

One Piece:

Well what can I say about this one that hasn't already been said by other people. Out of the Big 3, this is the one people seem to love the most and honestly, I think that love is totally justified. The characters are lovable, the villains feel threatening, the world is nicely built up, and the plots are nice. The show just seems to have a knack for making the implausible plausible and making weird stuff look completely normal. Only in One Piece can a cola-powered cyborg shipwright, a skeleton musician with an afro, fish people (not just mermaids, actual fish people), and a shape-shifting talking blue-nosed reindeer that is also a doctor not seem out of place. None of the characters in this anime suffer from main character syndrome. The entire crew feels like they are actual characters and don't get reduced to background roles. Each member of the crew is able to hold their own in a fight, even Usopp who as of the Franky arc earned his spot as my favorite character during his fight with Luffy. Luffy is one of those Goku-remakes that is able to take on a life of his own and step out of Goku's shadow to become his own character instead of just an example of his archetype. The only thing I can think of that I dislike about this anime is the second half of the Foxy Pirate arc. The world is actually set up well enough to where Oda can write side-stories for some of the characters outside the Straw Hat crew. I'd personally love to see a side-story based on Buggy the Clown, Jimbei's adventures before becoming a warlord, the story of how Crocodile founded Baroque Works and a whole lot of of other things. While a lot of characters can be seen as over-powered, it is shown from the very beginning that no matter how strong someone gets there will always be someone stronger down the road. Every shounen anime/manga series will inevitably hit the point where they start to drag and One Piece is no exception to that but I don't see it happening anytime soon.