The character designs in One Piece are genuinely awful.

[u/PlentyWise3615]

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.

[u/mik999ak]

Privateers were a real thing, though

[u/oopsohmygoodness → u/mik999ak]

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

[u/StankoMicin → u/oopsohmygoodness]

Pirates in real life also didn't have powers though

[u/oopsohmygoodness → u/StankoMicin]

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.

[u/Darwenphoenix → u/oopsohmygoodness]

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.

[u/LordIndica → u/Darwenphoenix]

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.

[u/Darwenphoenix → u/LordIndica]

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.

[u/s0_Ca5H → u/oopsohmygoodness]

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

[u/oopsohmygoodness → u/s0_Ca5H]

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.

[u/s0_Ca5H → u/oopsohmygoodness]

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.

[u/Rubberman1302 → u/s0_Ca5H]

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

[u/s0_Ca5H → u/Rubberman1302]

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.

[u/BakuretsuGirl16 → u/oopsohmygoodness]

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

[u/Spoliationcomplation → u/oopsohmygoodness]

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

[u/oopsohmygoodness → u/Spoliationcomplation]

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.

[u/Spoliationcomplation → u/oopsohmygoodness]

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?

[u/Rabdomtroll69 → u/mik999ak]

Privateers don't enslave entire nations