Why I Like One Piece

It’s difficult to quantify that often ineffable reason of why something connects with you, but by discerning and analyzing the mechanisms of how it happens is a good place to start. Like with most things I enjoy, it falls back on the tone, the world, and the characters. But before that, I think the structure of One Piece is interesting as well, because of how it circumvents its seemingly baked in issues from very early on.

 

When I watch Dr Stone, I see from frame one the trajectory of the show, being that the smartest high schooler in the world has to rebuild modern society with someone else’s two hands. Every part of the story is focused on either gathering supplies to rebuild society, or warring against people who wish to stop that from happening. Everything is in the service of that central goal. So, a layman might rightfully ask, “Are you telling me that One piece has 1,111 chapters and they STILL haven’t found the treasure?” It’s a fair thing to ask in good faith, and my response is that One Piece circumvents this seemingly boring path in 2 ways: Mystery and side quests. But before we talk about that, let us get back to our first list of points to discuss.

The tone and premise of the “BIG 3” is super interesting because of how different they all are. Yes, they are all targeted at an audience of young boys, but they go about reaching that audience in different ways. Naruto asks that the reader wear the toe-showing shoes of Naruto and walk in them for a mile or two, and this premise creates an overall self-serious tone that makes young kids empathize with him and want to share in his victories. Bleach asks for even less of a leap, putting our main hero Ichigo directly in Japan, where the anime world comes to him instead of the other way around. Bleach at its core is cool, a rock and roll tone where every character has a big sword and a bigger attitude. It does not reach the emotional depth that Naruto does, simply because Bleach isn’t as interested in empathy as it is in that “it” factor that is pumped into every arc. And then there was One Piece. One Piece has the light and fun tone of a grand adventure, and the author Eiichiro Oda did this very intentionally, because he saw how every series that started lighthearted eventually got very dark and serious, all in the effort of raising the stakes. Oda sought to have that same grandness, that same weight, while still at its heart being a fantasy adventure series, while still maintaining that lighter tone. I do not have any grand ending to this paragraph other than to say that Oda succeeds! Oda has consistently proven that he can juggle serious topics, incredibly high stakes, and this light tone with apparent ease. Let us transition now (did you like that transition) to side quests and other stuff that I don’t really know how to describe lol, random compliments we will call them.

One Piece, like this review, does not have a straight path to its ultimate goal. It bounces around, and keeps you in one specific location, with a specific goal in mind, before layering a lot of what came before into the present so that it all comes crashing together. One reason I refuse to discuss the plot of One Piece in any detail is because a significant part of my enjoyment that first time watching/reading the story came from specific, story based revelations and set ups. There is a section of the One Piece fandom that enjoys power scaling, and more power to them, but I have always enjoyed One Piece from a literary sense, even when I was watching it. I am a fan of the action, but it’s the intent behind the action that really grabbed me with One Piece. What I just realized is that nothing about what I talked about had anything to do with side quests, so I will ineloquently mention them in the only way I know how. One Piece circumvents (take a shot every time I use the word circumvents) its simple premise by ignoring it for most of the way. What Luffy wants is ultimately the One Piece, but he does not want any easy answers, and his larger goal truly is to have a grand adventure that ends with finding the One Piece. The Skypiea saga, without getting into any specific plot details, is a notable example of this. An entire saga is just based on the premise that the Straw Hat crew has found a treasure map, marked by an unusual name, obtained through unusual means. And just that one sentence has our crew in an entirely new destination, with its own culture, ideas, and themes at work, which transitions back well into talking about the world!

 

The Grand Line, an ocean belt that goes all the way around One Piece’s world, is where our Straw Hat crew is sailing in search of the One Piece, and the Grand Line is home to incredibly vast and detailed worlds to explore. Most islands represent their own nation, and each nation has distinct cultures, often influenced by their geography and history, with specific plots events happening in these locations that Oda uses to touch on themes that are analogous to our world. One trend I hate in movies is the Zootopia, Elementals worlds, where its like our world, except a few things are switched around, all for the purpose of sharing a message, in both of those movie’s cases, about racism and bigotry. These analogies never really worked for me, and this is mostly because the world analogy was always a little messy and if your brain thinks about it too deeply it falls apart. One Piece is not like that. Oda tackles so many themes, dark themes, in One Piece, but they always feel both respectful to their real world counterparts and relevant within the story. There is never a moment where the reader has to make excuses for Oda because it feels like he is getting on a soapbox and talking down to his audience about how they are supposed to feel. This review, like One Piece, also has a few surprises packed in, so let us switch gears for the 5^th or however many times to talk about a completely new topic, how long does it take to fall in love with One Piece.

 

I joke (and sometimes not joke) that One Piece can and frankly should be enjoyed by everyone, but the smart part of my brain knows and understands that not everything is compatible to every person and that that is okay. That being said, there are certain places in a work that people should try to reach before giving up on it, and that place changes per work. It is generally accepted that a fair chance of One Piece means reading/watching through its first saga, the East Blue saga. Here Oda shows off, over the course of the entire saga, what you’re in for across the whole series, just on a smaller scale. In the East Blue there are 6 arcs, some smaller or bigger than others, but all working together to tell the story of how Luffy gathered his initial crew to take on the Grand Line and find the One Piece. Oda gets more complex in his callbacks and bringing past plot points back into relevance later down the line, but even in this first saga Oda was able to show off how all these separate, established plot points and themes at play can coalesce and crash into each other, making for an impact on the reader that I have yet to experience from any other work.

 

One thing about One Piece (and this is the last disclaimer paragraph that’s partially targeted at a friend I’m trying to get to start reading One Piece (Hi Bradley)), is that it isn’t trying to do too much all the time. As I mentioned previously, one of One Piece’s many strengths is its ability to bring back past plot points and developments and watch as they build and crescendo into this big emotional moment. The reality is that these moments take time to set up, develop, and pay off. The lore dump moments in the arcs feel great because this world gets ever larger at the same pace that the reader becomes ever more invested. Now, for the finale.

 

I’m not the first person to say this, and I certainly won’t be the last, but One Piece feels like it was made for me personally. Oda knew, the year before I was even born, that I would be a really big fan of this detailed world, these heavy emotional themes balanced by the light hearted tone, and these wonderful and endearing characters, and began work on what is now only under Superman as the #2 best selling comic series of all time, and Superman only had a 61 year head start. I hope you enjoyed this review, I really enjoyed being able to lay out and explain all these things that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It’s one thing to hear a really good explanation for why someone likes something, but it’s almost always a novel experience when you do it yourself. Thank you for reading.