One Piece Review: Why is it So Popular? Should You Watch It? Classic or Crash Test?
So yeah. One Piece is kind of a big deal of sorts. This is obvious from its record sales numbers. But for those who are still wondering why, that’s no problem. We can explain it all right now. One Piece is popular because it has a killer storyline, a gripping mystery, charming characters with a phenomenal world building. This is all wrapped together with an impactful storytelling that takes the reader to cheering emotional eyes, and teary heartbreaking lows. That is surprisingly simpler than I thought it would be. If you still find yourself confused by this explanation, that’s also fine. We can get right into it. Why Is One Piece So Popular? 1. Killer Storyline One Piece is a great adventure story. An adventure is a story in which the main conflict of the story can only be solved through extensive travel. One Piece is such a story, as the main conflict for our main character is a desire to be free. Finally, the goal of the main character, finding the One Piece, is one that can only be accomplished through travel. Further, the world is built in such a way that we further empathize with our main character. The places they visit have people living in abhorrent situations due to tyrannical governments, and kings. This makes Luffy’s dream more appealing, and additionally, it creates a certain cohesion between the main character’s motivation, the villains, and the setting. Internal story consistency is something that readers look for a lot in story telling, because it allows you to immerse yourself further into the story. Seeing One Piece’s success, we know this to be a strategy that works. 2. Mystery One Piece has captivating mystery One of the most important part of writing is creating a desire for the readers to turn the page. The only way to create this desire is by implanting questions in the readers mind. And what imposes questions in a readers mind better than mystery? One Piece is an onion of questions. From the very first chapter, till the present, there are still questions that are being raised. When you read the first chapter of One Piece, the first question you ask yourself is ‘What is the One Piece’. Then the second question becomes, ‘How will this rubbery boy manage to be a pirate if he can’t swim’. Interestingly, this was a point that was harped on a lot at the beginning of this story. Yet the more One Piece we read, the more we come to realize how little of an obstacle that actually was. Of course Oda knew that, but he still brought up the question in the readers mind, a question that you will realize is a nothing burger only after having read 200 chapters. By that point, a million more questions have been raised by the plot. ‘Who are the World Government?’ ‘What is the Ancient Kingdom’s name?’ ‘Who are the Gorosei?’ ‘What is the Will of the D?’ And finally, what the living hell is the One Piece, and what does it have to do with all these conspiracies?! As you can see, the questions that are raised end up expanding the world, the stakes, and the breadth of the realism in the world. But at the same time, the story remains the same at heart because it is still just a story about a boy who cannot swim but still wants to be free. 3. Characters One Piece has fantastical characters, who feel so human. One Piece is filled with characters who have the most bizarre looks, and the strangest of personality quirks. It is the kind of thing that would turn of any reader, or at least it should, but not with One Piece. How did Oda manage to do this? The simple answer is trust. When you read the earliest chapters of One Piece, you’ll find that most of the characters are normal. Yes, they may have a strange quirk, like the guy who likes moonwalking, and hypnotizing himself, but their general appearance is mostly human. This was because Oda was aware that his readers had to first learn to trust him, and his writing. Oda wrote characters who had such compelling stories that by the time we reached the exotic lands, we have learned to trust him. Now, if he draws a strange looking character, not only will One Piece fans not laugh at the design, but they will take it so seriously, they will start making theories about it. Today, there is a serious theory in the community that this fat guy actually has three people in him, and part of what is used to back up this theory is the weird way his missing teeth are often drawn. 4. Worldbuilding One Piece has one of the best worldbuilding in fiction. Adventure stories are the closest we will ever get to dreams, and Oda takes full advantage of this. There are few worlds in fiction as wide, and diverse as One Piece’s world. In this world, we have desert kingdoms on one end, and on the other, we have underwater kingdoms. We have cloud cities on one, and on the other we have kingdoms made purely out of food. We have all sorts of wonders, and mystiques. Consequentially, there is a constant feeling that you cannot predict what will come next, but you can’t wait to find out. What makes this work is that Oda takes great care to flesh out every little island that we visit so that it gets as close as possible to being real. For example, people on the cloud cities have their own form of greeting, and their own technology. Also, people on the snack kingdom have mayors who specialize on the specific snack the town is. For example, the mayor of the chocolate town can make chocolates. This creates a bizarre, yet believable setting, since of course the mayor will need to be able to bake the road, or
Is the One Piece Manga finished? Why Is One Piece So Long?
After all the One Piece content I’ve been writing, I couldn’t help but notice something. One piece manga is long. Now, this is something people complain about all the time when you suggest they watch One Piece. Is One Piece finished? Why is One Piece so long? And finally, why must the universe care so little about us? I can’t answer the last one, but I may have an inkling for the answer of the first two. One piece is primarily as long as it is because Eiichiro Oda got more ideas as he was writing the story, leading to a bigger world, diverse character cast, and thrilling plot lines. Because he did not want to keep these from the readers, he added them into the story. Initially, One Piece was meant to be a story that took place over 5 years. It would have featured the Yonko pirates as the main villains. However, Oda got the idea of the Shichibukai. These are the seven pirate warlords who serve as antagonists for the main character, Luffy, and they expanded the story. Then, he added the 12 supernovas, who further increased the length of the story to over 20 years. This is best explained through these following topic lines. Let’s get right into it: Why Is One Piece so Long? 1. Preparation for Manga by Anime producers One Piece anime are deliberately made long so that they can give the manga time to get ahead from the main story. One of the most well known secrets in the anime community is that the anime are filled with fillers. The stories that you read in the manga are different from the final product that you get in the anime. This is because the stories of the manga are made by the author himself, while the anime is an adaptation of the manga. But in most cases, anime are serialized simultaneously with the manga. If you’ve ever heard of Game of Thrones, you know what kind of problems this can lead too. Usually, the anime catches up to the manga, and they have no more work to adapt. So they create their own story to give the manga time to get ahead. These stories created by anime studios instead of the authors are called fillers. They are terrible and above all, they bloat out the story. That’s what happened to One Piece. 2. Plot Thickening One Piece’s story plots thicken. As mentioned earlier, Eiichiro Oda decided to add in more villains, and more worldbuilding. This increases the length of the story, and thus, One Piece becomes longer. 3. Popularity Finally, One Piece became popular. If you’ve been watching Disney for the last couple of years, you know that there is an additional law of physics that Newton left out. The higher the popularity of a series, the more useless adaptations, and marketing schemes the owners of that series will create. One Piece has grown in popularity, and completely blown other comic books out of the water. It beat pretty much every other manga series, even Dragon Ball Z. Then it proceeded to wage war against western comic series like Batman, and Spiderman. And it won these wars. Finally, it is facing it’s last titan, Superman. As soon as it beats Superman, One Piece will be the most selling comic series of all time. So what do you think the magazine that owns this giant will do? Obviously indulge the creator of the series to pad out the story with as much pointless detours as it sees fit. How Long will One Piece continue? One Piece is going to end within the next 5 years. So it will end in either 2027 or 28. There has been a number of times when Oda predicted One Piece would end. However, this time seems to be real. In a 2019 interview with Fischer, a comedy group, Oda stated that he wanted to end One Piece in 5 years. He had also mentioned in a 2018 Yomiuri Shimbun interview that One Piece was 80% finished, so these two things align. Finally, the recent pace with which the manga has been flying is neck breaking. The Wano Arc abandoned a number of plot points, like Zoro’s parentage, and instead flew into the final battle with Kaido. The battle concluded so fast, people could not believe the main villain was actually defeated until many chapters after. And right now, a lot is happening in the One Piece world, still travelling at the same speeds. In conclusion, observing Oda’s corresponding timelines, and the pace of the story now, we can safely assume that One Piece will probably really end by 2027-28. What Writers Can Learn From Is The One Piece Manga Over? There is a lot that can be said about the succcess of One Piece, but one thing that stands out to me is the comparison of One Piece to Batman. One Piece officially outsold every single batman issue that’s been sold. This is crazy to consider, especially looking at the content. One Piece is this playful story with cartoonish character, and its even written in a different language. Yet it dominates the world, without the additional push of live-action movie adaptations, and the American market. This should teach all writers that the most important thing in a story… is the story. No matter how different, or unique your story idea is, it does not matter. What matters is how congruent, and stable the story is, thematically, and internally. If readers can see this in your story, they will know whey are dealing with someone whose on their way to mastering mastery.