~~~~Voxlerty Review: One Piece
~~Monkey D. Voxlert
DISCLAIMER: I am reviewing Season 1 of One Piece. And from what I know, Season 1 only has up to episode 1155. So this rating will not apply for any further episodes. Only the ones up to 1155.
Reviewed Arcs: Romance Dawn, Orange Town, Syrup Village, Gaimon, Baratie, Arlong Park, The Adventures of Buggy's Crew, Loguetown, Reverse Mountain, Whisky Peak, The Trials of Koby-Meppo, Little Garden, Drum Island, Alabasta, Jaya, Skypiea, Long Ring Long Land, Water Seven, Enies Lobby, Post-Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark, Sabaody Archipelago, Amazon Lily, Impel Down, If You Could Go Anywhere... The Adventures of the Straw Hats, Marineford, Post-War, Return to Sabaody, Fishman Island, Punk Hazard, Dressrosa, Zou, Whole Cake Island, Reverie, Wano, & Egghead.
My Rating: Professionally, this anime gets a 7.6 rating, but, just like every historical event, personal feelings & beliefs triumph more than the professional truth. What I am saying is, personally, for me, this show deserves a 9.6 rating, but, including all of the fillers & horrible pacing, I alas must retain the final review rating to a maxima fair of 8.6 out of 10.0 for One Piece.
Oda's Craft: Never in history (not just anime) but in the history of modern 1990s-2000s manga/anime craft has there ever been such a carefully constructed narrative filled with such detailed and interconnected places and events. I would not be surprised if Oda's craft of this masterpiece can rival Attack on Titan's LEGENDARY "Get Up, Dad" as well. I truly believe that Oda may very well be a modern genius variant of Plato, Aristotle, or Socrates in his time and age. If you were to ask any other living person to construct such a carefully detailed & sophisticated world with all of its politics, all of its systems, all of its characters & backstories, all of its lands, all of its seas, everything and all, comes together to bring to life a vast world that feels & acts more real than what any modern mangaka can hope to accomplish. If this was all thought of in a singular person’s mind, then wow, I would love to learn from that mind. I am but a student of the greater universe after all.
Morality: Even though we cheer and root for the "good" guys, don't forget that every Straw Hat member has canonically killed unfathomable amounts of pirates & indirectly devastated thousands of innocents/civilians stemming from their stupid decisions from time to time up until now. They are pirates, they know what they are getting themselves into. So really, it's all fair game whoever wins or loses in the One Piece verse. If you live by the sword, be prepared to die by the sword.
Problems: Aside from pacing (which is what everyone expects a One Piece non-manga reader to say) the main issue stems from oversimplification, the over usage of the cartoon-ish aspect, legitimate a##pulls, nonsensical ideations that stem purely for the reason of: "for plot", extreme convenience/godly lucky timing EVERY ARC, suffering from the Truth-Truth fruit (meaning they couldn't lie out of their way out of anything ESPECIALLY when their lives depend on it), all wrapped tightly & neatly in a bow of abysmally stupid decisions (normally when [redacted for spoilers] when they have ample time to do something but they just stand there waiting for the enemy to do something first, vixing damn do I hate this one). ....Oh, and, on an unrelated note, the entirety of Marineford Arc (the arc people call the best pre-timeskip arc) could've been done in less than 3 episodes if Whitebeard took a few steps back, ran, jumped, grabbed Ace, and fled the area on Law's submarine or something.... Instead of standing there staring at him, aurafarming for 80+ episodes before [redacted for spoilers] & getting the universe's equivalent of aurataxing... :/
Theory: Ep 969: t06:47-t06:56 = "The world called everything that Roger gained collectively... ...the great treasure of One Piece!" ....Is the One Piece just all of Roger's treasures he left on the final island? I wonder if Oda will pull the biggest joke in all of entertainment history, can't wait! Or will the One Piece, being confirmed a physical tangible construct, be the final weapon Luffy needs to take down _ _ _ -sama!? ....The only counter argument is Roger himself saying "They don't know anything." Not even seconds after the quote above. Yet, considering how Roger laughed, I’m assuming its something more like Artur’s theory (Sake) or something that invokes emotion rather than battle action.
Personal: One Piece is either a twist, distortion, or a giant series of a historically accurate Superbook. Every beginning arc building up until Thriller Bark (where I dropped the series for a little while, I really did not like Thriller Bark arc) then came back a couple months later to trudge through it & enjoy the later arcs was a lot of fun. I also like how at the end of pretty much every arc post-timeskip, there is an all out war filled with multiple divisions of unique characters filled with wacky & crazy imaginative abilities that make up for the oh-so-horrendous pacing. Oh, and some of OP's music is really cool to listen to & kinda fire.
Complicated: Throughout the series, I think that Oda is doing a great commentary on how certain facts in history can overlap with each other irl. Like take for example; Luffy. In many islands he saved he went under multiple nicknames & titles in order to hide his crew from being recognized. So when in the next 1000+yrs historians in the OP verse try to piece together what happened in the Worst Generation's era of pirates, they'll be complaining & theorizing over miniscule facts & names that seem a bit too similar to other traditions & heroes & titles all across the verse. It's also the same thing with religion irl: all of them have different Gods but in reality, it might just be one God under multiple titles & nicknames that got lost in translation throughout history. How interesting.
Funny: On a lesser serious note, could you imagine what would happen to the One Piece verse if Luffy decided to become a Marine instead of forming a pirate crew? What would happen to all his friends? All the people he suffered through so much turmoil & anguish & pain & did so much to save? All the horrible atrocities that were barely prevented by him & his crew? Legit 99% of named characters in One Piece would be dead, and the remaining 99% world would be in chaos by the time Luffy turned 19 practicing standard Marine drills with Coby (or was it Cody?) lmao hahahahaaa. I typically don't like anime protagonists that are the exception to every rule simply because they were born that way or because they were a blood relative or a descendant or friend of someone great but Luffy is kindhearted enough (at least early on) for me to give him a pass. I like him doing good stuff, I don't agree with his mentality but hey, all's well that end's well am I right or am I right?
Bonus Comment: The level of detailed intricacies is immense. Eriicho Oda is a behemoth of amazing foreshadowing's over 20+ years of his finest craft; the One Piece. For example, the carving on the gold next to the unbreakable stone (wording it a bit so you won't get spoiled), at the near-end of Skypeia arc, is only found out nearly 900+ episodes later, a full in-verse reason as to why it was there. Absolutely astonishing. ....I am proud to say that One Piece is among the legacy lists that are so immersive into their respective verses it feels the highest caliber and quality (sometimes quantity because of the pacing haha like that one ep in a certain arc I won't mention [starts with a W] where an entire ep was dedicated to the reveal introduction of one character, and another 10+ eps dedicated to crossing [redacted for spoilers] into the enemy's stronghold bahahahaaa) anime; Ensuring this experience is absolutely worth the big time investment.
First Layer: Successfully Arrived.
Now that the initial professional review is finished, let’s get into the unprofessional raw parts of One Sake (a joke from Artur’s theory). Starting here.
End stages of Wano arc. Episode 1015 is truly something special.
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!I also have 3 personal theories, and will publicize my least researched one:
On a semi-related note: I find it fascinating how mature complex themes in One Piece can be executed in such brilliant conversion. A prominent scene that comes to mind is after the Paramount War when Luffy was tasting mushrooms. To a regular viewer, its supposed to be a funny little side quest, but to an avid viewer, it gives the resemblance of Luffy taking his pain away by overdosing on mind-altering substances (drinking/mushrooms). If you are a regular citizen, then One Piece is the WORST place to isekai to in all of animation history, only Berserk can top it, so to say a few others.
Anyways;
This is what it feels like to watch an arc in OP:
Second Layer: Successfully Arrived.
"If you're a real reviewer then watch the entire thing first, then we will listen to what you have to say"
....Ladies & gentlemen, hi there, I'm Monkey D. Voxlert.
[Continuing on from DISCLAIMER]: To put into perspective: if you get spoiled of some main character destroying an entire solar system--you'd be pretty bored watching him struggle with wall-level villains for 300+ eps. Get what I'm saying? (No, no one in the One Piece verse destroyed a solar system haha). Skypeia arc is a bit boring but fun, Thriller Bark arc is really bad but trudge through it, trust me, its very worth it. The only major issue with OP is the vast majority of arcs can be finished in a standard 24-episode format. The infamous Plot-Plot fruit Mythical Zoan type: For Plot is a big contender in this show as well. This show is meant to be watched weekly, not binged, unlike the majority of other animes.
#Decent action, good creative backstories, well balanced character depth (pre-time-skip), but a show that takes 90+ episodes to get hooked isn't my cup of tea... usually.
Mini Bonus: I really enjoy that for the majority of DF power holders we meet throughout the series, many of them in their own right are extremely powerful if they put their minds + logic to use. I am unsure if it is "for plot" or anything of that sort, but if I were Monkey D. Luffy I would have easily won the majority of battles from my sheer creativity/insanity alone. Similar to the green lantern, the only limit is your imagination with the power system held. I like it.
Although there are certain repetitive themes in the middle arcs (300-800), I won't get into detail, if you know, you know. And, Oda HAS TO be accepting fan-submissions or have an entire team of costume designers cuz it is NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to be having THAT MUCH uniquely designed characters not only by what they wear but their personalities too in EVERY ARC. It is AMAZING! You'll also notice that there is A LOT of blatant exposition from character names to what literally happened a few minutes ago. And It's thanks to the cartoonish setting of One Piece that such blatant exposition gets an easy pass, making it enjoyable.
Third Layer: Successfully Arrived.
"Anything worth enjoying is worth criticism" –a random dude.
Mini Disclaimer: Just to let you know: I did NOT watch ANY of the fillers. ONLY the canonical manga-esque (I had to check back and forth from this very helpful filler website) episodes. So subtract ~100 episodes from my anime-stats and you'll have my total that I remembered adding in haha.
Comments I Agree With: "but d@mn oda really likes unnecessarily dragging shd.. making the journey to fight [spoilers] take like 30 episodes then the fight with [spoilers] too gonna take like 50 episodes, then in between we got recaps and backstories.. so many things that makes one piece longer than its supposed to be" \|/ "Nepo Piece. Everybody is Relative of Someone from Past (Very Strong Character). Not a Single Character is through Hard Work alone. Every Body is Related to Every Major character." \|/
Intriguing Factor: Also, another factor is the uniqueness of the characters. They are both complex and simple at the same time, a bit hard to explain but; Either it be a simple four-letter word at the end of every sentence, a simple phrase they make, or their type of laugh, or prospering personality, Oda cranks that up to a hundred and gives them an okay backstory to compensate for why they act the way they do (especially on Dressrosa arc, I'll say this in the most non-spoilery way possible, but its a certain woman who reeeaally wants to be needed by others, and a guy wearing a baby's hat who speaks like a brazillian).
A TWISTED BONUS, KEEP QUIET NOW, DON'T TELL ANYBODY!:
:) : I really like how Robin-chwan pronounces the "Mil Fleurs! Gigantesco Mano!" it sounds so satisfying whenever she says that ability in that tone of hers.
Fourth Layer: Successfully Arrived.
“How funny would it be if "D" literally stood for "Devil". And if ________’s last message was "there is p-ower within yourselves”. It’s just a theory, a game theory..
Funny Gripes: One Piece is likely one of the only anime(s) in history that people can complain about having literal "filler fights" & "filler moments". Even if they are canonical, they are stretched out so much it would take 20-30 seconds to open a door and 40-60 episodes to walk inside a room. I am not joking. In the Wano arc there was an entire episode dedicated to introducing a certain-character-I-will-not-spoil where the character was walking in the streets for over half the episode. And a scene of the capital peoples dancing and celebrating scene shown over 13 TIMES. Granted the music was fire but come on, it gets kind of crazy sometimes. Don't even get me started on Dressrosa where they had an entire sub-plot filler arc dedicated to the stupid spring-spring fruit guy or whatever he was called which took soooo long just for him to amount to a stupid side character.. the action for the most part is really awesome though.
Heavy Criticism: Do not assume this is a perfectly done story to the caliber of Attack on Titan or Serial Experiments Lain. There are many flaws that sometimes take the immersion away. With the biggest immersion-breaker being a certain part of the Wano arc. My main complaint being: since the [spoiler-spoiler] fruit acts as a Devil Fruit, wouldn't it be easy to negate the effects if the people simply wore a Sea Prism Stone necklace or wristband? Or is it true that the [redacted-for-spoilers] Devil Fruit that also cannot awaken.. can somehow negate seawater, the literal equal-grounds for the entire OP verse???
Read With Caution:
Cool Theory:
Fifth Layer: Successfully Arrived.
Third-last layer. Thanks for reading up until now. Wrapping up closely down below! Continue?:
Two Piece: From a writing perspective, I think Oda should go with Nami betraying the Straw Hats near the end (or Robin being a coalescence and/or an unaware sleeper agent, that's fine too), as it would resolve many plot holes such as the inability/incompetence of the WG, or another member if he must. Oda already has an idea for this ( Chapter 1113 cover - Robin controlling the Straw Hats on a chess board & ep1118 t20:14--t20:17 sounds like Robin's voice actor with a voice changer haha but that might have been to save costs on the production itself rather than an in-verse hint).
Also, people saying "One Piece isn't a battle-esque anime/battle shonen" really need to rewatch every major arc that happened in the series. The primary two genres One Piece is catered to is firstly adventure & secondly action. Literally from the very beginning to the very end of season 1, ALMOST EVERY ARC has never ONCE been resolved without conflict and/or via battle of morally good against morally evil. I will defend this stance.
By far, post-timeskip, the BEST paced arc in OPS1 is the Egghead arc. Compared to the absolute atrocity that was the Dressrosa arc, Egghead arc is an amazingly paced arc in One Piece. To unravel some non-spoilery mysteries, I will timestamp moments I found I want to make a comment on, such as: ep1098 t18:23--t18:29 this is likely the reason why the WG
Also another comment for the Egghead arc I agree with:
I remember reading a comment that went along the lines of: "cp0 is basically the government when you find out the cure for cancer" and it couldn't be more true. An interesting perspective in One Piece is how neither side is perfectly good or bad, both sides have both good and bad apples in them. Neither one of them (including the Straw Hat pirates) are in the good zone.
Good Bonus:
"History is written by the victors." --Vegapunk, ep1152
Throughout Egghead arc, I have only been disturbed of my suspension of disbelief at certain times near the ending (when the animation looks significantly better) primarily due to local device buffering & loading issues caused on my end. Aside from that, this is… GreaT.
ep1118 t07:44--t07:55 the closing of the doors sounded exactly like the "To Be Continued" soundtrack that plays at the end of every episode. I will not spoil this dear reader, but once you catch up to this point, you will realize who the true antagonist of One Piece really is. This gave me goosebumps when I first heard it.
ep1133 t19:45--t19:49 Indeed I do, indeed I do.
Sixth Layer: Successfully Arrived.
Second to last layer.. Almost there. Thank you for reading! Continue?:
Overall Arcs: It does seem up until this point, all of the previous arcs were introducing the viewers/audience into the overall important worlds of One Piece. And now, after Egghead, all of the world will now be thrown into the main central conflict, with Luffy likely playing one of the biggest roles in it. Oh and I would rather rate arcs separately, since I feel a lot differently for some sloth arcs like Dressrosa or Zou arc than I do for the amazingness that was Marineford or Egghead arc. So I'm glad its getting a season 2.
VOXLERT’S REVIEW: Horrific catastrophes masked in the form of cartoon delight. Specifically the atrocities being committed in the political and hierarchical world of One missing Piece from history. the Hollow World before silly little Noah decided to build an arc and suddenly God decided to link the event that happens once every 2000yrs in Made in Abyss, some not-so-cute events pertaining the Book of Enonch, some important cute archived documents in the Library of Lumeria/Alexandria/Vatican, to the OP verse to have the entire world underneath the firmament/raquia get flo----” mysteriously gets temporarily canceled.
Seventh Layer: Finally Arrived.
Thank you for reading! :)
Finale embers of the Voxlert's Review for One Piece -- Season 1 (from Romance Dawn to Egghead)!
The only legacy anime in existence that the argument of "it gets good in the next 900+ episodes" can actually be a valid argument.
:) I cannot believe I am saying this, but truthfully, I actually kind of wish there were more episodes. It's crazy to think that the majority of the 1000+ episodes were basically build-up arcs to establish the world of One Piece and it ending right before the overlapping overshadowed final main-central plot really began to shine. If you got some time to spare, then yes, this is undoubtedly worth it in the end. (even though I got spoiled big time for Film Red, Marineford arc, Dressrosa arc, Wano arc, and Egghead arc haha). I highly recommend you avoid recent online forums of this show like the plague.
It took me nearly two days to write this review due to my inten device crashing haha..
As said by an unknown individual: …
_Also, please don’t like or dislike the review without reading it.
I don't know if its bots or something, but there is no way in the first 30 seconds of this published 10-page review, several people already read it all, thought about it, then came to a conclusion that quickly. (Edit)._
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