One Piece Review

Straight to the Point

• One of the best adventure anime series ever with over 900 episodes.
• The episodes are split into arcs whereby Luffy and crew visit a place, the place has issues, Luffy and crew beat up the bad guys, and the situation returns back to normal. This happens in all the arcs which can feel predictable.
• Hardly anyone dies – only a few select figures have died.
• Some of the most memorable anime characters ever drawn are within this anime.
• Repetitive fight scenes from each character throughout.

Plot

Monkey. D. Luffy travels far and wide for his dream of being the King of Pirates. One-by-one he encounters new villains and friends throughout and starts building up his crew. Roronoa Zoro, Nami, Sanji, and Usopp to name a few help Luffy along the way who have their own unique fighting style, troubles, and skillset. The pirates set their course for the Grand Line to find the legendary treasure, One Piece!

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One Piece Review

Where to begin, this One Piece review could be enormous with more than 900 One Piece episodes it’s difficult to choose so let’s focus on discussing One Piece at a high-level and begin at the start.

Luffy is an adolescent pirate who has yet to find a crew for his journey to become the King of the Pirates. He always runs towards trouble and doesn’t put any thought into where he wants to go and leaves that up to fate. He meets many people along his journey around East Blue where he is trying to get together a crew to reach the Grand Line and beyond. He battles with enemies along the way in an attempt to get stronger at every turn.

One Piece has been going since 1999! You can see how the anime art develops from the picture above so I suggest not being freaked out too early when you first start watching the series. The story is full of adventure, and at times, very entertaining quests with emotions flying all over the place.

You become attached to the characters where (in my case) I have spent more than 20 years watching the show – so now I just keep watching to see what Luffy does and what happens at the end.

Luffy is an idiot that keeps running towards danger but he has a big heart that helps out those in need. This can be slightly frustrating as you would hope to see Luffy mature over time with his new experiences gained – but he doesn’t.

Another example is Zoro and his sense of direction – it just gets worse and worse to the point where it is over-exaggerated. Overall, the characters seen from their first introduction is who they are in 20 years time.

When watching One Piece you need to tell yourself that it’s not if he will win but how. This is important as the show becomes predictable in the aspect of fighting bad guys but is very unique and amazing in what happens during the build-up to it, throughout the crew’s adventures.

I clearly remember the times during the Summit War, crossing the Red Line, and reaching Skypiea and felt a sense of ‘Wowww’. The broader story of One Piece is truly a masterpiece.

The fight scenes do develop as they mature but very slowly over time. So do expect to see the same Luffy punch or Zoro slash a thousand times. The most important part of the fight scene is not necessarily how they beat up the bad guy but is One Piece building up the audience to hate the bad guy so much you can’t wait to see him get punched in the face 🙂

Once you have seen the abilities of Luffy’s crew, the show continuously brings in new enemies with new powers from the Devil’s Fruit to prevent you from getting bored.

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Evilness

One Piece doesn’t have many dark scenes throughout the whole series but there are however storylines on slavery (by the Celestial Dragons), murder (by the pirates), child abuse (i.e. Arlong of the Arlong Pirates) etc but never go into graphical detail. These epic tales of struggle and pain are told very well and it helps to become attached to the characters in One Piece.

Within this anime, they depict and know that the world is sometimes evil. However, this helps push Luffy to the next level in his righteous battle with his foes along the way.

I even feel sorry for Luffy’s enemies at times for example during Donquixote Doflamingo back story of his struggles and torment in life.

Summary

In summary within this One Piece review, if you enjoy evil, sadistic anime where the characters are tormented and give breath-taking fight scenes this is not for you 🙂 However, if you enjoy an easy-to-watch adventure that you will grow to love with tons of characters and places then this is one of the best family-friendly anime out there.

The characters are inspiring and give hope to even ourselves as they struggling through their strenuous path in reaching their dreams.

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