I started One Piece about 3 years ago and have read all the manga and just recently caught up on the anime.
Some of the things I really enjoy about it:
The story progression ramps up nicely. Nobody is that OP from the get-go, and the stakes and power levels have increased steadily as the story goes on. There is definitely plot armor, but it’s not like every bad guy is on the same level as the previous one.
There is great representation. There are people of different races. There are gay-coded, trans, and gender fluid characters, there are young and old people. And none of them are really played for laughs for those traits. All character types have heros, villians, comic relief, and serious characters. And none of the characters with real screen/page time are flat and one dimensional. This along with the power scaling, really makes the adventure feel important and like a fleshed out and lived in world that you are part of. I can only imagine this is even moreso true for people that have been fans since the late 90s.
At almost 1200 chapters, I feel like I understand this fictional world and how it works. There are macguffins and such, but nothing that feels out of place. Characters still behave how you would expect them to behave and the creator doesn’t just pull stuff out of nowhere. There is still great continuity with the earliest things that happened in the story. There are many familiar characters, but more still come and go, but not before becoming necessary parts of the full tale. It’s not like Star Wars where it feels there’s about 2 dozen characters with names in the whole universe.
And the last thing I’ll say is in spite of all this, it still does stuff just for laughs regularly. It knows it’s a story primarily for young boys, and despite being one of the best loved anime/manga ever, it doesn’t take itself all that seriously. It’s a damn fun time to read and watch almost every bit of it with few exceptions. The stuff coming out now is as good or better as it’s ever been.
Like anything else, it won’t be for ever single person out there, so if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. I saw a few random episodes on Toonami in the 90s and was WTF is this random stuff then. It is a weird thing to dive into the middle of, and a lot of it is outright silly. But I had people at work keep telling me I’d like it, I finally gave in, and I was hooked from the first chapter.
I tried it after seeing the pirate flag thing being used in Nepal Gen Z Protests and I thought it must be a cool story if its so popular, so I tried watching it… and I got bored so quickly. I mean, it just feels very weird to me, doesn’t “click” for me, oh well, I guess my brain is just different.
If you’re actually interested you can just try the Netflix show. It’s a watered down version but it’s decent enough to give an idea of what makes it have so many fans. The Anime is just weekly television that’s been running for decades - it was never meant to be binge watched.
Tbf, Avatar: The Last Airbender was also made for kids, but I quite enjoyed it as a young adult (even though it does have “cringy” moments). I guess One Piece just doesn’t have a “deep” overarching story like a world war, propaganda (talking about the fire nation), and genocide.
I assure you, One Piece is very much not child friendly later on. The first like 700 episodes build up to a specific story arc (Wano). The current (anime) arc has a major back story of a characters life which includes him begging to be allowed to die as a child.
One Piece. Never watched it because having to watch a thousand episodes just to catch up is simply not possible for me.
I started One Piece about 3 years ago and have read all the manga and just recently caught up on the anime.
Some of the things I really enjoy about it:
The story progression ramps up nicely. Nobody is that OP from the get-go, and the stakes and power levels have increased steadily as the story goes on. There is definitely plot armor, but it’s not like every bad guy is on the same level as the previous one.
There is great representation. There are people of different races. There are gay-coded, trans, and gender fluid characters, there are young and old people. And none of them are really played for laughs for those traits. All character types have heros, villians, comic relief, and serious characters. And none of the characters with real screen/page time are flat and one dimensional. This along with the power scaling, really makes the adventure feel important and like a fleshed out and lived in world that you are part of. I can only imagine this is even moreso true for people that have been fans since the late 90s.
At almost 1200 chapters, I feel like I understand this fictional world and how it works. There are macguffins and such, but nothing that feels out of place. Characters still behave how you would expect them to behave and the creator doesn’t just pull stuff out of nowhere. There is still great continuity with the earliest things that happened in the story. There are many familiar characters, but more still come and go, but not before becoming necessary parts of the full tale. It’s not like Star Wars where it feels there’s about 2 dozen characters with names in the whole universe.
And the last thing I’ll say is in spite of all this, it still does stuff just for laughs regularly. It knows it’s a story primarily for young boys, and despite being one of the best loved anime/manga ever, it doesn’t take itself all that seriously. It’s a damn fun time to read and watch almost every bit of it with few exceptions. The stuff coming out now is as good or better as it’s ever been.
Like anything else, it won’t be for ever single person out there, so if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. I saw a few random episodes on Toonami in the 90s and was WTF is this random stuff then. It is a weird thing to dive into the middle of, and a lot of it is outright silly. But I had people at work keep telling me I’d like it, I finally gave in, and I was hooked from the first chapter.
I tried it after seeing the pirate flag thing being used in Nepal Gen Z Protests and I thought it must be a cool story if its so popular, so I tried watching it… and I got bored so quickly. I mean, it just feels very weird to me, doesn’t “click” for me, oh well, I guess my brain is just different.
If you’re actually interested you can just try the Netflix show. It’s a watered down version but it’s decent enough to give an idea of what makes it have so many fans. The Anime is just weekly television that’s been running for decades - it was never meant to be binge watched.
Or ypu know you aren’t the actual target audience for One Piece which is children.
Tbf, Avatar: The Last Airbender was also made for kids, but I quite enjoyed it as a young adult (even though it does have “cringy” moments). I guess One Piece just doesn’t have a “deep” overarching story like a world war, propaganda (talking about the fire nation), and genocide.
One Piece actually does have those things.
But I’m still not gonna sit through 1000 episodes for it.
TLA is aimed at an older kid than One Piece seems to be.
I assure you, One Piece is very much not child friendly later on. The first like 700 episodes build up to a specific story arc (Wano). The current (anime) arc has a major back story of a characters life which includes him begging to be allowed to die as a child.
That and the anime pacing is terrible.