One Piece: "I'm going to be king of the pirates!"

[Gnarfard]

About the Author Eiichiro Oda debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997 as a comic creator and artist with ONE PIECE.

One Piece follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a 17 year old boy, who gained supernatural abilities by eating a magical fruit, and his ragtag crew of heroic pirates, named the Straw Hats. Luffy's greatest ambition is to obtain the world's ultimate treasure, One Piece and thereby become the next Pirate King.

I just think that the Pirate King has the most freedom of anyone else on the ocean ~ Luffy

Join the Strawhat Crew and their zany leader Luffy on their action packed journey across four oceans to the Grand Line! On the way they have extremely action packed battles!

Did I mention One Piece is action packed? :evil:

Who else loves this masterpiece Manga by Oda?

Join the bandwagon, join the club! :7up:

 

[Atomsk]

"Masterpiece"? Bit strong, but when stacked up against Naruto, Bleach, even Dragonball, it is the best shounen manga out there, and for me, the successor to Dragonball.

I prefer the manga over the anime, simply because the latter is of the "let's-drag-it-out-for-as-long-as-we-can" variety, but both rate pretty highly for me. 'Course, if you don't get used to the artwork, you won't really get into it, which is a crying shame. Again, compared to Naruto, it has a good measure of anatomy. I'm pretty sure someone said they didn't like it because it "looked like an American cartoon". May I ask: what's wrong with that? Anime and cartoons are not mutually exclusive phenomenae, considering that both are the same deal.

That's my $0.02 on the matter.

 

[Gnarfard]

At first I didn't like one piece, but when I got to the Arlong Arc, when Nami was crying and went up to luffy and asked for help, he just put his straw hat on her and went to fight arlong with zoro and usopp

That gave me chills and I cried a little inside
I'll never forget when I first got hooked on One Piece!

 

[bell02+]

Hehehe, I love one piece, but that statement sounded like an advertisement, lol. I'm wondering when they will start it back on CN again, something I waited weekly to see.

As for when I first liked it... him, I don't remember the exact details, but there was a topic on a forum suggesting it. It might have been the old bulbagarden, I can't remember. (I think at the time it was basically just starting) I think the comics were around the Restaurant arc when I started to read it, I got into the series around the Buggy arc though.

I basically read the first chapter and said, "I didn't really favor the artstyle" but I gave it a second shot and was quickly was drawn into it. I could see it was trying to be American style, but it seemed strange as well. I did grow to love it, I guess like a fine wine or something, it seemed to come across to me like a cartoon from the 1700 or 1800s, which I think is a bit creative because it was also pirate themed. It also had a lot of the extremely American cartoony gestures, which I also grew to like.

Now, it's my favorite series. I agree that Masterpiece is a little much, but it's definitely the series I have the most fun reading/watching. (I also prefer the comics)

One thing I like about One Piece though, besides being light hearted and fun, is how the story ties itself together. Oda either puts a lot of forethought into characters and his stories, or he's just really cleaver at wrapping them together because I love how he takes characters that seem minor, and brings out to be more important than they seem. To me that is really clever. I also like the creativity in the wacky designs for his characters and how he makes them cool:
Kung-fu Polar bear in cowboy boots, cool
Former Marine turned Pirate that can turn into a T-Rex, yes!
Shape Shifting Ballerina, funny!
Giraffe Swordsman, awesome!

 

[Sketch]

There are quite a few threads on the subject of One Piece. Seek them out.

 

[Coontank!]

One Piece is one of those shows that I wish I watched regularly. I've only seen a couple of episodes here and there, but all of them were pretty amazing in my opinion. Yeah, the art is a little crazy, but I think it had its own beauty to it. And the show itself is definately unique. I think I've seen a lot of anime, and I have yet to find a show like it. I think I'll definately pick up the manga since those tend to be better than anime versions.

 

[Casual_Furi]

I like the anime and manga, but can't stand either dub.

 

[Atomsk]

I like the anime and manga, but can't stand either dub.

Are you referring to the 4Kids version or the FUNimation version? Because the latter is an excellent dub (well, better than what 4Kids did to it). I've heard people hate it because Luffy says "Gum Gum Pistol" rather than "Gomu Gomu no Pistol" or "Rubber Rubber Pistol". Guess people aren't aware gum is a type of rubber and "gomu gomu no" sounds ridiculous in an English dub. That said, Zoro's 4Kids voice is the better; his VA also voices Guts in Berserk.

As for VIZ's translation, they're decent, but they have a strange policy towards swearing: it's OK for Sanji to call people "crap-jerks" (which doesn't make sense; "crap" is translated from "kuso", which also translates as "damn", so "damn jerk" would work fine), but then you get "Darn you, Arlong!" or "Curse you!!"

wtf mate

 

[Amewsment]

I prefer the manga over the anime, simply because the latter is of the "let's-drag-it-out-for-as-long-as-we-can" variety

I concur on that point, it's the main reason I stopped watching it. I prefer episodes to contain their own little stories or if an event/fight is spread over multiple episodes for the whole situation not to take longer than 2-3 episodes. The situation in One Piece is simply ridiculous and the number of dramatic up close face shots you get becomes really tiring very quickly. I liked the stories and the characters but the presentation just broke it for me.

 

[Casual_Furi]

The FUNI dub is a great improvement over 4kids' massacre of the show. I just don't like Sanji and Luffy's voices. I wanted someone like Vic Mignogna (Edward Elric) to voice Sanji and for Luffy to have a lighter, more careree voice.

 

[kai3114]

Cool hehe

 

[Adamant]

Still no news about the series' return to CN, eh?

 

[Dogasu]

No, but Toonami is pretty much dead anyway, so the network may not feel that it has any place to go. The common idea that I keep seeing is that if Naruto fails, then the only anime CN is going to try for in the future are Pokemon-type shows since those are the only ones that get the ratings that the network expects.

New episodes are supposedly going to air in Australia, though. In fact, I've heard that they've already aired the Alabasta movie.

 

[Casual_Furi]

Naruto is still the #1 anime on CN, even after 3 years. It's not going anywhere. I can't stand how CN only airs Shonen battle anime. This is where the stereotypes come from.

 

[bell02+]

Well, I hope they don't kill Toonami, I for one don't find much appealing outside of that and Adult Swim. I'm not sure if showing Non-shonen programs will bring bigger ratings either as shonen programs tend to be long running while shojo programs are not. Usually, long running programs are more commercial, the only example I can think of that isn't is Eva, but that's because it's been treated like some kind of cartoon whore in terms of marking from gainax.

Honestly, though, I assumed the double Naruto was mainly because they wanted to speed their way to the Shipuden series. Such that it could be commercialized cheaper, and get more teen angst to look cooler becoming more popular. (Like Ben10, but I like Ben10AF so ) Shipuden is also more kid friendly than Naruto, probably because they started to keep the American Audience in mind. However, they're on track right now for a spring premier of Shipuden which doesn't help me who wants more One Piece. (However, take off Samurai Jack or Ben10AF on Toonami, I don't care much, Jack's an old program and Ben10 is shown so much that it's saturating the episodes)