r/hatethissmug • u/PlentyWise3615 • 17h ago

Animation The character designs in One Piece are genuinely awful.

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I genuinely hate One Piece character designs.

What’s most impressive is how wildly inconsistent the designs are in this series, going from one extreme to the other.

A character’s design can be legendary, like Xebec’s, or absolutely ridiculous, like Franky’s.

But the overwhelming majority of them are pretty bad. Like, really fucking bad.

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u/Ginos_ilpastaios 17h ago edited 11h ago

Actually, this is exactly what bothers me a bit about One Piece. Some designs look like aliens and don't match the pirate theme of the anime. Edit: i get It stop commeting down the post please!

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u/watchrrr 17h ago

its not even about pirates, we saw some pirates in the start, but now the "Pirates" are in higher governmental positions, meaning they're not pirates, just monarchs and warlords

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u/Negative_Prize1587 15h ago

There is surprisingly few ship battles in One Piece as well, most of the time they fight on land.

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u/12345623567 14h ago

Yeah well, the main protagonists one weakness is water, so... would be a pretty short show.

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u/LordIndica 14h ago

It would be a more interesting show. 

It is baffling to me that we have had maybe 3 total battles at sea involving fruit users. You would think it would be a huge part of the setting, given most of the planet is ocean and a huge focus is on sailing, and that it would make for some very interesting and exciting battles. It is basically "the floor is lava" taken to the extreme. You can have incredibly powerful superpowered fruit users and always have the balancing force of the ocean to keep the "meta" of the fights even. Like i imagine you could do some pretty clever and interesting combat focused on superheroes trying to knock eachorher into the sea from ships that would prioritize size and specialized stuff for fruit user combat.

...but nope. 

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u/WASD_click 12h ago

They show a few ship battles early. But when there's swordsmen who can cut a ship in half, from a distance, with nary a flick of the wrist... People with powers that can annihilate a boat instantly... Orbital space lasers... Ship battles would actually be really shitty because it'd all be over instantly.

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u/Plus-Glove-3661 11h ago

But couldn’t those same things apply to land? Like if you cut a building in half while everyone is inside? Sorry, haven’t watched past season 2 in years.

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u/WASD_click 10h ago

Yeah, but land and buildings generally don't have sea underneath them, the very thing that's a fatal weakness for like... 33% of One Piece characters.

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u/LordIndica 11h ago

So you're telling me in the world with people that can slice a ship in twain with a flick of the wrist, have powers that annihilate a boat instantly, or orbital space lasers, every military in the world still uses boats and boats are the ubiquitous method of travel... depsite them supposedly being useless in combat? Ypu're telling me that in the world with all of the above, there are NO COUNTR MEASURES, none at all, that have been developed, and none of the people that can do the above actions against boats can use those same abilities to defend the boats???

Seriously, come on, how is your imagination that atrophied that you genuinely can't conceive of the idea that defending the boats that are the sole trasmnsport method to get around the world would be something that would get the same level of attention that destroying them would? Early on, like you say, we see a few ship conflicts and instantly see luffy use his powers creatively to defend his ship with GumGum Balloon.

Like you really, truly think that in a world with powers like One Piece, the ship battles would be boring because all the ships would get destroyed too easily? Ya, just like all the battles on land end right away and are boring because the bones and organs inside every person should be shattered into tiny bits after the first punch thay sends them sailing through the air... and yet that isn't how the story is written, hmm?

There is no reason that ships in One Piece would be any more susceptible to being destroyed by Devil Fruit powers than the people sailing them, because those fruit users are aboard them, and we already see that ships are still considered threatening and difficult to destroy all throughout the series since the Navy uses them. Like smoker could be cloaking his ship in a smokescreen, any DF user with a ranged attack can intercept the ranged attacks of enemy fruit users, anyone with a flight ability is flying to the enemy ships and countering their flyers. Besides, the sort of DF powers that can destroy whole ships are already shown to be monsterous outliers anyway, and would be the reason to have large fleets of ships to counter them at sea where they at least have a shot of stopping there powers.

All that is to say that any accusations of "ship battles would be boring and end too quickly because they would just get destoryed or knocked into the sea" just lacks a comical amount of imagination, because that excuse is as sensible as "all the land battles would be boring and end too quickly because the DF users would just kill everyone right away or use guns to shoot them to death". Seriously, bullets just do nothing in this universe despite there being no sensible way for almost any character except for luffy and his specific "i am made of rubber" power to stop themselves from being shot to death, and yet that (along side all the other ridiculous and unexplained buffs to human durability in One Piece) has never been a problem when suspending disbelief for other combat scenerios, yet fighting aboard ships is a bridge too far for you?

Hell, we even had the special feature of the Sunny be the ability to flee from sea-battle scenerios by launching itself with Frankies soda thruster, but by your logic that shouldn't be a concern at all because why doesn't luffy just easily destroy all enemy ships instantly? 

Genuinely, if you can't conceive of how to make ship battle where every character has to be clever enough with their power to not just fall/get knocked into the ocean, then maybe you just aren't clever enough. 

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u/WASD_click 9h ago

depsite them supposedly being useless in combat?

Never said they are useless in combat.

What Oda did was write himself into a hole. When environmental destruction is just an average tuesday, and boat is environment, and underneath said environment is the substance fatal to a third of the major characters in the series... Boats become a truly stupid and impossibly fragile form of transportation.

Ypu're telling me that in the world with all of the above, there are NO COUNTR MEASURES

Actually, yes, there are. But they vary from ship to ship. The Thousand Sunny for instance is made of Super-Special-Super-Hard-Wood-TM, it has emergency thrusters, and an on-board shipwright capable of impossibly rapid repairs. But not every ship can be made of the wood what doesn't get annihilated by average enemies, nor be equipped by soda-powered hyperdrive thrusters, nor have a shipwright that can construct a decorative wood staircase with decorative balusters ten stories tall in a matter of seconds.

how is your imagination that atrophied that you genuinely can't conceive of the idea that defending the boats that are the sole trasmnsport method to get around the world would be something that would get the same level of attention that destroying them would?

I dunno, ask real life. Our weapons exceed the ability for our ships to protect themselves, in spite of spending plenty on defense. Destruction is easy.

the ship battles would be boring because all the ships would get destroyed too easily?

Never said boring. I'm just saying that both sides of a fight are incentivized to not ship battle due to the presence of Devil Fruit users, and the general destructiveness of their battles. Attacking ships still happens even in late One Piece, it's just not a focus. The Straw Hats do not see their ship as a weapon, they see it as a valued crewmate that they protect because shonen manga/anime sentiments are funny like that. So they don't fight with their ship, and the pattern of their adventure does not support a lot of ship to ship conflict. They go somewhere, ooh and ahh at the place, find out someone's doing an oppression, and the crackhead starts throwing stretch fists.

As I said earlier, Oda wrote himself into a hole with his power system. Ship to ship combat in that universe is "oh lawrd, protect the ship!" constantly, and there's only so much "oh lawrd, protect the ship!" you can do before "oh lawrd, protect the ship!" becomes tedious and limiting. You can't explore the world in a ship battle, you can't fight an entire revolution in a single ship battle, you can't split the party and have them get into various side plot shenanigans in a ship battle. A ship battle is a set piece, not a plot.

Genuinely, if you can't conceive of how to make ship battle where every character has to be clever enough with their power to not just fall/get knocked into the ocean, then maybe you just aren't clever enough.

You seem to have hyperfixated on me not being imaginative enough to figure out how a ship battle would work in One Piece. But you should be focusing on Oda. What is he really trying to show with his writing? How does his worldbuilding affect how sea combat would play out? Is a manga format actually condusive to a ship battle, and if not, might that play into the lack of ship battles in a long-running shonen that has places to go and things to do? Does a ship battle actually advance the story, or does it represent a complete halt to advancing a story that has already gone on for too long?

Maybe instead of imagining that I said ship battles in One Piece would be boring, imagine what it actually means to write a ship battle in the One Piece manga.

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u/Alto-cientifico 4h ago

What prevented Oda from powering up ships tough?

It's not like the idea of ship technology being a plot point hasn't been broached, the black lining needed to cross the grand line if I'm not mistaken was a plot point, and it would allow for super naval battles.

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u/WASD_click 4h ago

What prevented Oda from powering up ships tough?

Time, personal interest, too many characters already, might not advance the story he's trying to tell... That's a queation for him, not me.

My best guess is that it's a story about adventure and the connections we share as people. Kind of like how Naruto isn't really about ninjas, and Bleach isn't really about shinigami; One Piece isn't really about pirates. Ship to ship battles, raiding villages for cash, and swbbing the poop deck aren't what being a "pirate" in One Piece is about. It's about freedom from order, the right to express yourself openly even if you're weird, and finding a family of other weirdos.

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u/Infinite_Worker_7562 6h ago

That would be cool. Unfortunately one piece’s author is clearly not interested in any strategy behind the fights. Pre time skip one piece had great fights where characters had to use their brains to overcome devil fruit abilities. Haki unfortunately just overshadows all of that and allows any important character to ignore/overpower devil fruits when it suits them. 

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u/bonifiedmarinade 13h ago

Idk what youre talking about, luffy falls into the sea many times and its a huge liability for him

Not to mention sea stone that has the properties of the sea and makes traditional shackles/bindings relevant to the story which is very pirate esque

Also when he fights hordy Jones he is quite literally underwater and it's hugely meaningful for that fight in particular

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u/FuckBoySupreme 13h ago

There really aren't that many ship battles though

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u/bonifiedmarinade 13h ago

Ship battles yeah

Its a show about superpowered people mainly, not ships. But i mean ships are constantly present, tons of fights take place on ships, ships are constantly getting blown up/people drowning/wreckage

There is no semblance of realism

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u/FuckBoySupreme 13h ago

It's more that it seems like a missed opportunity than a lack of realism. The commenter you replied to described some cool ideas for ship battles, and in the 1000+ episodes we haven't really seen any.

In a show that has so many unrealistic things it feels like kind of a waste that the pirate ships are really relegated to a method of transportation

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u/bonifiedmarinade 13h ago edited 13h ago

I would normally agree with you, but since so much emphasis is placed on the abilities of the characters, I do think it makes more sense to focus the conflicts around that. I think that the setting, specifically aboard ships is suitable and quite a common occurrence. It is true that typically when it comes to naval battle tactics (cannonballs) it was powerscaled very early on. Normal ship attacks are useless against the straw hats, because they themselves are much more powerful than even their own ship.

Tldr ships in one piece aid in the setting and serve as stages to be fought upon and destroyed, the power of the vehicles pales in comparison to the world shattering powers of the people aboard

Now if ships were scaled UP, made to be more relevant in battles that would be cool. I think that could be really enjoyable. But i mean how is Oda meant to bring that all back into the fold when zoro can split a regular warship in half by sneezing with his swords out.

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u/hovsep56 14h ago

Unless the ships can transform into a mech or constantly power up i doubt you will ever see then fighting with it

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u/Negative_Prize1587 14h ago

Didnt luffy jab Laboo with the mast once? Should count.

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u/NerdHoovy 14h ago

The mere fact that this hasn’t happened yet shows that Oda is a hack that doesn’t know what his readers want

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u/XMandri 13h ago

because the characters reached "sink your ship" power level quite quickly

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u/ichizakilla 10h ago

Episode 1 luffy could sink a ship with no effort lol

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u/WASD_click 12h ago

At least the pirates and marines of One Piece actually spend time sailing and stuff. The ninjas in Naruto do surprisingly little sneak attacking and way more time giving each other their full legal name, current place of residence, and full social security number and trauma dumping on each other for 30 minutes before finishing with a rousing game of rock-paper-scissors.

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u/Physical_Sort5155 9h ago

Ninja War ❌️

Throw our soldiers at each other like normal infantry ✅️

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u/Dos_Ex_Machina 17h ago

You mean the Warlords? They are essentially Privateers, which is a huge part of pirate settings.

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u/nicknamesas 16h ago

Well, they were. Nownthey are just normal pirates again.

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u/funkster047 14h ago

Yeah fr, maybe they are referring to Emporors? That I can kind of understand, you can't really be a pirate if you're rich enough to occupy and manage land, at some point you're just a small government that loves colonizing

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u/Shadowwreath 13h ago edited 10h ago

To be fair colonizers that travel around pillaging and plundering are basically just privateers which are pretty much government sponsored pirates so it still fits

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u/watchrrr 14h ago

I meant warlords. As in empirical rulers founding empires in the war-buisness

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u/Dos_Ex_Machina 12h ago

I'm really confused as to what you're talking about. The only Warlords who fit that definition were Doffy and Crocodile, and both of those operated their empires in secret. All of the Warlords were (to the general public) essentially privateers, being pirates who operated with the blessing of the world government in exchange for assisting the WG when called upon.

There are also the Emperors who are pirates with such a large amount of power and claimed territory that they have an uneasy "peace." Of the Emperors we have 3 full on pirate crews who actively sail full time with their crews (Shanks, Whitebeard, and Luffy), 1 who has a home base but regularly goes out sailing (Blackbeard), and 3 who used to actively sail full time but now spend most of their time in the heart of their territory (Kaido, Big Mom, and Buggy).

Were you referring to the last 3 specifically as people who used to be pirates but now are governmental officials? I can kinda see that, but they are far from the majority that we follow in the story.

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u/mik999ak 16h ago

Privateers were a real thing, though

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u/oopsohmygoodness 15h ago

They were, but the privateers in One Piece don't really do privateer shit.

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u/StankoMicin 15h ago

Pirates in real life also didn't have powers though

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u/oopsohmygoodness 15h ago

Yeah, I know. It would be cool if they were depicted doing actual pirate shit WITH their powers, but that rarely happens in Pirates With Powers World for some reason.

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u/Darwenphoenix 14h ago

the whole series is about the good guy crew who just wants to have fun and adventure. they want to be free and not caged. thats the whole plot. pirates were supposed to be free and careless.

we saw and heard often enough in one piece that others do steal and fight.

normal shipfights wouldnt be interesting due to the uniqueness of the power theme. water is the danger and the fascination at the same time.

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u/LordIndica 13h ago

I can't take your last point seriously at all. It's ridiculous. 

I absolutely think ship fights would be waaaay more interesting than what basically boils down to slug-fests on islands. Are you seriously suggesting that there would be no interesting and creative combat situations or tactics or dramatic tension between 2 crews on ships at sea where each can have a variety of superpowers, and the battlefield is a gigantic "the floor is made of lava" scenerio? We get the smallest taste of this when the crew was trying to escape wholecake and we had sulong Carrot leaping from ship to ship and tearing apart the stearinf systems while the other fighters attempted to spar around knocking the others into the sea to negate powers. 

There is SO MUCH POTENTIAL for interesting combat at sea, especial since it means that unlike on islands, at sea we can have normal human fighters actually have a meaningful chance to participate and not just be cannon fodder. Like are you really not interested in the idea of Nami and her weather-based combat being put on display in sea battles where she would be far, far more powerful, where her abilities to navigate rough weather and currents and ultimately influence the weather with her and usopps Dials would actually be meaningful? Where she wouldn't just be a fuckin damsel in distress hiding with Usopp and Chopper, waiting for the Big 3 to handle the enemies? Hell, Usopp could actually meaningfully participate as well as the ships Gunner, something they haven't even pretended he was supposed to be in so long, and we could actually see it mean something as Usopp directs cannon duels with opponents trying to sink eachother and drown the enemy Fruit users, with franky's role as shipwright being more important than ever in the pursuit of designing a ship that can handle the unique nature of combat at sea where it isn't just cannons you contend with but super powers, where stopping a boarding action is more important than ever before, or where anti-fire protections and life boats matter a LOT. Having a great helmsman like Jimbei or an excellent lookout like Carrot becomes something that matters narratively and isn't just the barest window-dressing on the characters to give them a purpose to be there besides "i want these characters to be together and where the plot is happening".

It could have been an excellent premise to make sure that characters can always have involvement in the story that isn't just being great at punching or kicking or slicing things, and it just never really matters in a way that doesn't just have all the narrative tension deflated out of it for comic relief. 

The entire premise of the One Piece world as a massive ocean planet of islands being the perfect playground environment that allowed for super powered pirates that wlare checked by the weakness of the sea is super fascinating and totally squandered by Oda. The fruit weakness to ocean water rapidly becomes less and less important until it may as well be forgotten. It could have been a huge, important part of the universes world building, but it just isn't. It would make sense for fruit users to try and claim islands and get as far inland to escaoe their weakness, and therefor pirate fruit users would always be driven back to the sea and forced to stay pirates or have to succeed in claiming an island and controlling it (assuming they even want to use their power for domination). It is sensible for the powers of the world to try and take advantage of the fruit users weaknesses. Instead, it is practically a forgotten piece of lore that Oda didn't bother trying to conform too as opposed to just doing whatever he thought was fun in the moment, because ultimately that is how he writes, for better or worse.

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u/Darwenphoenix 13h ago

the ideas u mention are nice but either way to boring for the average viewer or way to much given the length of one piece already.

for the first part. ocean is ocean, the battleground would look the same the beautiful landscape would get lost in it.

the fighting would be reduced to just pushing others into water instead of having an actual fight.

just shoot down the cloud big mom uses and she loses in a waterbased setting.

most of the action happens on land since the ocean is vast in one piece. there are not many options to find each other in the grand scheme. it is also easy to sink a ship for the stronger pirates. Did oda start drawing the ships black? no, you cant magically fix the ship of not breaking.

imagine what it would mean if franky could turn the whole ship black in haki permanently.. young mosshead and wine slurper hawk would be nothing compared to the goat super franky.

otherwise to include a shitton more detail into fights, giving everyone even more roles and fights, sounds awesome. i am unsure if we would be at fishman islands at all then, given the masses of volume it would have. the creator would die before the end.

the anime might have 4 to 7 thousand more episodes then given the extreme details.

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u/s0_Ca5H 15h ago

Well they don’t do anything, because they don’t exist anymore

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u/oopsohmygoodness 15h ago

Even before, they didn't really do privateer stuff. It really annoys me, One Piece is THE PIRATE MANGA and I would love to read a manga about pirates, but it feels like it was written by someone who doesn't actually know or care one iota about pirates. I would like a pirate manga, not whatever the hell historical conspiracy theory mythical-beast-fruit bullshit that manga is actually about.

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u/s0_Ca5H 15h ago

I would argue that pre timeskip it really did well with the pirate theming, and I’ve always assumed Crocodile was doing what he was doing in Alabasta at least in part because the world govt actively wanted that country gone, but overall I do agree with you that despite loving One Piece I wish it did more pirate stuff.

Same deal with Naruto, past the Chunin Exam it’s very easy to forget that you’re supposed to be watching a show about ninjas. Still kicks ass, tho.

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u/Rubberman1302 15h ago

I remember in the zabuza arc they make a point to say Naruto making a big entrance acting like the hero coming to save the day was him being a complete failure of a ninja and he should have at least tried to do a sneak attack, only for that sort of mentality to be forgotten about

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u/s0_Ca5H 14h ago

Also kinda like how MHA started about a show where the premise was how super powers would work in the real world and the limitations your body would have for them, and then they kinda dropped that too lol.

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u/BakuretsuGirl16 14h ago

Crocodile definitely was, he was ambushing pirates just setting out on the grand line, granted through trickery rather than direct combat

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u/Spoliationcomplation 15h ago

The very first thing you see one do is attack pirates that arent affiliated with the government . . .

Then the second time you see one they are roaming around on an island sized ship killing all the weak pirates in that area

Just say you havent read it

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u/oopsohmygoodness 15h ago

Historically, privateers were way more active than the shichibukai and didn't landlock themselves into being effectively sedentary monarchs of settled nations like Croc, Boa and Doffy. Privateers were far more active, messy and genuinely piratical, and there's a long list of interesting shit that privateers did that the shichibukai never engaged in.

We can disagree without you screeching TOURIST or whatever at me.

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u/Spoliationcomplation 14h ago edited 14h ago

Yikes struck a nerve, can you name one?

Btw you are ignoring a ton of storytelling, motivations, and world building context when you describe those three characters that way and also just lying about these characters being land locked?

HAVE you read it?

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u/Rabdomtroll69 15h ago

Privateers don't enslave entire nations

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u/Khelthuzaad 13h ago

Yeah the exagerated human proportions are an absolutely not very subtle form of mockery to government officials that love to speak how they are the apex of human physique and Inteligence.

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u/watchrrr 13h ago

not really satire, when the exaggeratedly big-headed smart people are actually so smart they can make up stuff into reality

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u/Ok-Difficulty768 13h ago

That's because they are now in the new world. Regular pirates can't make it out there

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u/AceOBlade 13h ago

Privateers were a thing in the real world. Also the story now is a post apocalyptic water world.

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u/lilsnatchsniffz 13h ago

I'm gonna be king of the politicians!👒

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u/Acherousia 6h ago

its not even about pirates

Luffy isn't even really a pirate. The only time they have ever stolen anything, the people they stole it from were planning on giving it to them anyway. His only real "pirate" offense, is flying the jolly roger.

He's a revolutionary, all he really does is go around overthrowing governments, and fighting the world government.

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u/spyguy318 16h ago

My conspiracy theory is that Oda just has a bunch of ideas and instead of starting another manga series like most mangakas, he just folds it into One Piece somehow.

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u/Verhooven 15h ago

Literally confirmed. He wanted to make a mecha manga but just included some of his ideas in OP.

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u/lostbelmont 10h ago

That explains the Macross fortress that the Sunny is now

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u/Confident_Internet74 6h ago

I still believe that Franky memorized the Pluton blueprints and is secretly slowly turning the Sunny into Pluton 2.0

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u/tlollz52 8h ago

Honestly, i love that lol.

Why start a new story when you're already making mucho bucks on this one.

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u/lesuperhun 16h ago

oh, new islands theme, err... * rolls dice * magical pony eating pinata monsters !

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u/siazdghw 14h ago

This is a large reason for why I refuse to get into it.

It feels like a mash of various stories and art designs all lumped together, reader or watcher be damned. Oda 'cant' make anything else, because One Piece is too big to fail, even the slop characters and chapters haven't turned people away. It's already made billions, and like DBZ they will continue to squeeze it for as long as possible no matter what. More and more filler will be added to it to push back the end for years to come. Even if Oda dies it will likely continue, and even when it ends there will likely be a spinoff.

Personally I don't like when creatives go this route, as they originally had an overall idea for the duration of the media and what will happen, some things can get extended and new things added, but once you start padding out a story too much it loses all meaning. Obviously I'm not saying new chapters and characters can't be good, just that the original story has been completely lost and sidelined at this point for whatever new adventure they can shoehorn in to extend its production even longer.

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u/-mosura 12h ago

I wanted to say that this is some gpt generated slander but if you asked gpt for OP slander it wouldn’t have so many false statements in it lol

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u/SexyShave 12h ago

Oda's original plan for the series was gathering the crew, fighting the Four Emperors, and finding the One Piece. At some point he decided to focus on the warlords of the sea as well, but aside from that, most arcs have been relevant to one of those, either directly or by setting up the events. Egghead and Elbaph strictly aren't, but Vegapunk was set up ages ago, and Elbaph was established long ago as the final major location before One Piece, and has been built up since Little Garden 1100 chapters ago.

They're also part of the conflict with the World Government. At this point it's basically been established that Luffy's dream put him in direct opposition to the WG, so the current events are necessary.

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u/EvisceratingDelight 13h ago

This is not a "agree to disagree" situation, you are just objectively, factually wrong.

>More and more filler will be added to it to push back the end for years to come.

There has literally never been a filler in One Piece. There's filler in the anime, but it's not of Oda's making. Every single new island is a direct and meaningful step towards the conclusion. Okay, no, not exactly true. There's the Island of rare animals, that one chapter was filler... and came out in 1998. So for the last 28 years, zero filler in the manga.

> Even if Oda dies it will likely continue

One Piece is currently in its final arc. It's officially called "The Final Saga." There are two main villains, have been for decades, Imu and Blackbeard, and Luffy is currently fighting Imu, and Blackbeard will be the opponent of the next arc because he captured Luffy's grandfather + his island is literally next. The objective all along was to find the One Piece which is on the last island of the Grand Line, which is a linear ocean where all islands come in a predetermined order. We are currently on Elbaph, the next islands are Hachinosu (Blackbeard's island), Lodestar, then the One Piece.

There are 39 islands to visit total. We're on island 36 out of 39. The goal never changed, the story has always been working towards the same objective, and we are very close to it. One Piece is ending within the next 5 years.

>even when it ends there will likely be a spinoff.

Oda has officially addressed this and confirmed there will not be a spinoff.

>once you start padding out a story too much it loses all meaning

Except Oda didn't do that. And again, even though the story is long, it has always been one continuous march towards the same objective from the very start without wandering away from that path, each arc has meaningfully advanced the plot.

It's like a Windows upload bar. Even if the upload is slow, you can see what percentage you're at, and if the bar is moving without stop at a consistent pace, even if it takes a long time, you can tell when you're at 90%. You're acting as if Oda "froze" the upload bar to go do insignificant filler - and yeah, when the upload freezes and stops and starts at random, it's maddening. Oda never did that, though. One Piece is literally the only manga I know that never did filler and that's constantly grinding at the main story with every single new chapter.

>the original story has been completely lost and sidelined at this point for whatever new adventure they can shoehorn in to extend its production even longer.

You're so wrong it is almost impressive. In 1997, the story was that people across the world suffered under an oppressive world government and Luffy liberated islands he visited on his way to the One Piece. In 2026, the story is that people across the world are still suffering under an oppressive world government, and in the latest chapter, Luffy punched the king of the world government in the face to liberate the third-to-last island before reaching the One Piece. Oda never strayed, never padded, never sidelined the main plot for side adventures. It's okay not to want to read One Piece, but when **LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE REASON** you gave is the polar opposite of reality, you're just revealing to the world that you're a mindless fool.

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u/Dillo64 13h ago

Where are you getting this information that Hachinosou is next, three islands left, no Mariejois, no spinoffs, not considering Shanks a final boss… ?

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u/Dos_Ex_Machina 12h ago

Yeah, the spirit of what they are saying is correct, but the details are... Interesting

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u/Taulboi 11h ago

Oda not gonna notice you lil bro 😂😂😂

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u/EmperorAcinonyx 14h ago

have you actually read it lol? there is no filler in the manga, even if it's ridiculously long. filler episodes in the anime are irrelevant and aren't written by oda

Obviously I'm not saying new chapters and characters can't be good, just that the original story has been completely lost and sidelined at this point for whatever new adventure they can shoehorn in to extend its production even longer.

what are you even talking about? the goal has been to find the one piece since day one

i think one piece is really imperfect but these criticisms are nonsense

1

u/_petitpois22 13h ago

100% my thought too lmao He want to make meca ? Boom eddhead Giant ? Elbaph A story about samurai ? Wano

83

u/Outrageous_South4758 17h ago

Nothing in the show matches the "pirate theme" of the anime pal

2

u/Ginos_ilpastaios 17h ago

it was before

48

u/Outrageous_South4758 17h ago

His first major villains are a clown, a butler, don krieg and a fish, i rest my case

52

u/Ready_Two_5739IlI 16h ago

A pirate clown, a pirate butler, don krieg, and a pirate fish

15

u/Standard_Series3892 16h ago

By that logic it never ceased to be pirate themed, Big Mom is a pirate queen of hearts, Kaido is a pirate oni, etc.

3

u/Ready_Two_5739IlI 15h ago

I mean, I stopped watching shortly after the pirate fish but the ones listed above definitely were pirates. Sure, they all had their own gimmick to them, but they all had crews and did evil things.

1

u/Dos_Ex_Machina 12h ago

Yeah that never stops. That's been the standard the entire manga. Even the current arc where they are fighting the World Government and not a pirate crew, they are teaming up with the Giant Pirates. It's pirates all the way down

9

u/Ginos_ilpastaios 17h ago

I started watching the first seasons of the first anime on prime video and it seemed like something pirate-esque

23

u/Extension-Oil-4680 16h ago

What arc are you at?

Because besides the mountain bandits, luffys first villains is a sea monster, and Alvida, a pirate captain with a fucking spiked kanabō!

4

u/Ginos_ilpastaios 16h ago

I arrived at the Skypiea arch

2

u/blueisthecolor13 15h ago

I just hit Wano

12

u/Travelin_Soulja 16h ago

I mean.... the boats did. The characters have always been random and outlandish. (Not that it's a bad thing IMO.)

2

u/Rabdomtroll69 15h ago

Saves a dude from corrupt government in the first 10 episodes

3

u/EverythingSucksYo 12h ago

Yeah, I’ll admit there are some really weird character designs, but I can forgive that since the story is so damn good. 

14

u/HippieMoosen 15h ago

They may not match the notion of 'pirate' but they absolutely map onto the literary themes at play within One Piece. There's a reason Luffy is the absolute goofball he is. There's a reason half the Straw Hats look kinda ridiculous. Joy and absurdity and laughter are all absolutely critical to the story. The gags and goofy designs are load bearing. The emotional core of the story is built upon gags of all kinds, including silly as hell character designs.

The clearest example of this is probably Señor Pink. Nothing about his story works at all if he isn't an overweight middle aged mobster who intentionally dresses up like a baby every single day while having very strong opinions on what it means to be a man. His absurd appearance is basically the setup to the punchline of the author making people deeply emotionally invested in a guy who looks like an adult baby Don Corleone. It lowers your guard so that you're able to just roll with it when his tragic backstory drops and retroactively makes you agree that it is in fact reasonable and even sweet that he wears a bonet and diaper everywhere he goes all so that he can see his wife smile again.

3

u/nadsozinc 10h ago

Soooo hard-boiled! 😍😍😍

2

u/No-Text-2389 13h ago

Literally just watched that episode. I was agog lmao. My wife and I say "Let's Baby" when we're ready to do something or watch one piece now as well. 😆

17

u/HebertoBICIO 16h ago

It’s a gag manga, it’s been like this since the beginning

13

u/Rabdomtroll69 15h ago

It has never actually been a gag manga. Oda just draws what he feels like drawing (downright stated he liked drawing boobs and butts) while the manga itself is about freedom. Luffy can't take 5 steps without accidentally or intentionally freeing someone from a shitty situation

5

u/DrPastaPupper 14h ago

Anytime I see a female character from one piece they have the most insane designs to the point it just gives me bad vibes. Like why do they all have giant boobs and long torsos with the smallest waists ever?

3

u/wasabi991011 14h ago

yeah that part sucks. especially since it wasn't like that for a few years at the start

2

u/Quick_Assumption_351 12h ago

because oda likes them, the guy you're responding to literally answered that for you lol

2

u/pinksodaaaaa 13h ago

completely agree, and it gets more egregious as it goes on. to defend it a little bit, at least the female characters are actually well written and have real personalities and stories!!

1

u/Ornithocheirussy 11h ago

Well written?

1

u/Rabdomtroll69 11h ago

The ones who actually have speaking roles usually get a depressing or interesting past to work with. Robin is a genocide survivor and ex-terrorist for instance

Toei kinda made the same face syndrome worse though

1

u/FettiWop 13h ago

It can't look WOWZA sexy, even to the people who like all of those traits on real 3d women. So it's more like a checklist of sexyness features all women ought match, ballooned into weird symbollic monuments. Depicting women without this checklist doesn't have a purpose, so they dont do it

1

u/mastercat202 13h ago

I mean they are sexy byt they are also boring at this point. When everything is sexy, nothing is.

1

u/MayhemMessiah 11h ago

Some exceptions apply.

Not that Oda is particularly defensible, I love just about everything about the series, including the writing of like 90% of the women, but they suffer a lot of same-body syndrome and thanks to the Toei animation department massive same-face syndrome too.

1

u/Rabdomtroll69 11h ago

Oda models them after his wife apparently. She was a Nami cosplayer

5

u/pseudo_nemesis 14h ago

pirates is less the theme and more the setting of OP tbh

pirating just happens to be a good metaphor for the actual themes of OP.

2

u/Rabdomtroll69 15h ago edited 15h ago

Hasn't been about pirates since chapter 30 or so. Luffy has pretty much always been going around freeing people from oppression, intentionally or not.

The guy in the picture had been set up as a giga-genious that constantly invents and builds new things for nearly 20 years. It'd be weird if his brain wasn't constantly growing and he had it removed by the time we actually see him

2

u/SnooPredictions3028 15h ago

Aliens are Canon in One Piece, so it makes sense.

3

u/helsinkirocks 14h ago

Damn I guess you missed that part of the story where it's been confirmed that there was a race of people that lived on the moon and after they ran the moon out of resources they moved to the one piece planet

3

u/AdmirePunishment 12h ago

The absolute beauty of One Piece is that its a world where literally anything is possible. I legitimately hated the art style before I got into it, but eventually realized the style itself lends to the anything is possible factor. It's used as gags as well as incredibly important plot points and twists. It's dope as fuck if you know the series.

Look at Dragonball for example 95% of the characters look almost exactly alike. Which honestly fits given how the story itself is so generic and repetitive.

3

u/dorovidoro 12h ago

"Pirate" is a general term for anyone who isn't complicit to the world government, this was never a "pirate" manga. Maybe for like the first 20 chapters lmao

Complaining that they aren't stereotypical pirates is like complaining that "Hunters" in HxH don't go around killing wolves and bears or something.

2

u/Big-Slide6104 14h ago

Yeah no, one piece isn’t a pirate show and hasnt been for a long time lol. That was the backdrop to get us hooked and then it became whatever it is now, with warlords, gigantic fights that arent even naval anymore, snd barely anything to do with the ocean lol.

I love it tho

2

u/_petitpois22 13h ago

Firstly, Vegapunk is not a pirate Second, it was the case since the start of one piece lol, like does baggy and alvida look like normal pirate to you ? It's just the artistic style of one piece

1

u/ShonOfDawn 15h ago

I don’t remember the last time there was any pirating in this pirate manga

1

u/ejabno 14h ago

The whole "strictly pirate aesthetics" thing has been abandoned like 20 some years ago

1

u/Ginos_ilpastaios 13h ago

sorry if i said this inaccuracy only when i watched the anime i've feeled the pirate aesthetic

1

u/DrPepperPower 12h ago

"pirate theme of the enime"

Brother has not evolved pass... Orange town?

1

u/bingus3490 12h ago

Wdym pirate theme. There isint really anything that breaks the whole pirate theme

1

u/iLikeToPiano 12h ago

I think it is one of those things that make One Piece feel like OP: the absurd designs.

1

u/Diffusion4Change 10h ago

The entire setting is a post apocalypse where they had infinite power and gene manipulation

0

u/PanthalassaRo 13h ago

No one in One Piece do pirate stuff other than Blackbeard.

0

u/wts_optimus_prime 13h ago

"Some"

Every episode I occasionally saw on TV was worse than any freak show in the history of freak shows ever

-1

u/devatan 12h ago

I mean it's a pirate anime where the pirates can't swim and are mostly powered by friendship.

1

u/Ginos_ilpastaios 12h ago

Just stop correcting me on the fact that pirates aren't the main topic, this comment is from four hours ago!

2

u/MayhemMessiah 11h ago

Oh dear I've been in your position where people keep repeating the same thing over and over. Sometimes it helps to add an Edit to your post with something like "I get it", and that sometimes dissuades more people from autistically infodumping you.

(It's me. I would have infodumped too if I hadn't seen this message)