One Piece: The Honest Truth

one piece is a series people often avoid in the west with the anime manga scene mainly being dominated by things like Dragon Ball Naruto bleach Etc with me being one of those people that avoided it for a very long time but it was always popular in Japan becoming the greatest selling manga of all time with basically just Japan's solo carrying the title and it has been on the up in the west at least the past few years since Naruto and bleach finished now while I haven't finished one piece I have finished a decent chunk of it around 220 chapters which goes up to the end of an arc called Alabaster this is about one-fifth of the entire series at the moment and I think it's enough for me to answer the question is one piece worth getting into I am not going to be judging all of One Piece in this but only really the beginning Parts as I think for most people the biggest turn off of One Piece is its introduction with many people calling it boring or dragged out or just flat out bad many think the first part of one piece is actually up to chapter 75 or the end of our Long Park in East blue which is sort of like the real first Arc of One Piece completed with the next Milestone being alabasta around the 200. so I'm going to go over pretty much both of them one piece begins with Luffy wanting to become the pirate king and finding 10 crewmates for his ship this is the basic goal Oda is going to build his story around and dragon Ball's original goal was to find the seven Dragon Balls Naruto's was to become Hokage and bleaches is more complicated and Hunter Hunters is to find gon's Dad many Shonen tend to have the basic driving force that allows authors to easily follow up with and construct their world and plot around what it means to achieve a goal the side characters of these series are often even more simple and Dragon Ball balma just wants a boyfriend as an example but sometimes these secondary characters become massively important to the story and become just straight up deuteragonists or characters with even more build up than the protagonist for example take Sasuke's Ambitions of him wanting to take out his brother karapika wanting to get the Phantom troop Etc one piece takes this to the next level with each character having their own gold that will take pretty much as much time to accomplish as Luffy Zorro wanting to become the world's strongest swordsman Nami wanting to map the world usop wanting to become a great warrior and yes this is actually hard for him to do considering he is kind of like a normal human level guy in a superhuman World Chopper wanting to create impossible medicines and Sanji wanting to find the mysterious all blue Etc whereas in Naruto really only Sasuke has an ambition that even remotely Rivals Naruto's outside of mainly the antagonist and a lot of the crew in One Piece are characters that will require a lot of build up and development to reach their goals compared to bleach as well many characters tend to fall completely flat compared to the Ambitions of One Piece characters not to say they are all bad or poorly done just not as nearly as interesting compared to say Ichigo is in his own story even usopp's pretty generic I want to be a great warrior goal is actually something that you root for him to do say compared to Nar to Sakura as Sakura is actually kind of considered a hyper-intelligent ninja who passed like with perfect grades who just was too normal or pampered to be strong earlier in the story and usop was always a dude who lied to impress people and Did Goofy things to try and seem tough and get attention but was never noted as any type of Prodigy so when you see him actually using his raw hard work and his goofy quirks to come up in the world and actually feels pretty good to see rather than oh she actually got a buff that's cool this may seem like a little bit of a tangent but I think it's important for kind of establishing what Oda wants to do with one piece he wants everything and pretty much everyone to matter he doesn't want to become the Goku Naruto or Ichigo show he wants it to be the straw hats all group of protags basically and everything builds up to this take for instance all those many arcs when we were introduced to Zorro usop Nami and Sanji only Nami is not really on board fully with the straw hats but she accompanies them they all have very strong characters and goals and Zora will starve himself to complete a deal Sanji will feed anybody no matter how terrible they treat him or are usop will overcome all his fears lies to do anything to help his friends even though he's extremely weak and Nami tends to always be true to herself which is hating Pirates and taking from them so by the time you get to arlong Park these mini arcs introducing these characters become a main art where we finally see all the crew so far come together and see what they can accomplish so in a series full of strong characters that stay very true to themselves the entire time to have a character like Nami suddenly finally break and beg Luffy for help with tears and have all the straw hats do a rap album pose as they walk off to beat up the person that's ruling nami's Island you start to feel attached to the series you start to kind of get it it starts to click and at a certain point after all these seemingly useless interactions comments and jokes from the characters being hard-headed and childish you get to the point where you finally say you know what I actually like these guys and for me that happened around whiskey Peak which is around 110 or chapter 110 and there there was a moment where the straw hats are basically greeted by a undercover Bounty Hunter group that feeds them and treats them like royalty to try and get them to pass out so they can rob them Luffy passes out because he's Luffy but other characters like Zorro and Nami don't fall for it Zorro then takes on 100 Bounty Hunters by himself to protect the straw hat stuff and then Luffy finally wakes up to see what Zorro did and then says I'm going to kill you Zorro and Zorro tries explaining what happened explaining they're getting robbed and Luffy just does not have any of it and doesn't believe him because people that do that good for Luffy could just never be bad people for Luffy's now normally you just say oh this is just a oh I'll kill you as sort of like a unserious remark or gag scene but no he actually memes it Luffy actually tries to kill Zorro and when that happens that's when I was just like bro I just [ __ ] love Luffy and he is just he's sort of a bit refreshing if that makes sense compare Luffy just going zero to 100 on Zorro to Goku watching Vegeta Nuka Stadium team of people and still be unsure if he wants to fight if that was Luffy he would have already been beating Vegeta's ass the moment he raised his arm at the crowd if the crowd were people Luffy liked of course now Goku being more serious here isn't a bad thing but you get the idea of how Luffy can be a little bit refreshing so chapter 75 or 115. that's when it snapped for you yeah about where it clicked so with that information let's actually compare one piece now to the others what do the other series accomplish in about 75 or 115 chapters for Dragon Ball they're at the beginning of the Red Ribbon Army Saga or in the Pirate Bay Dragon Ball accomplishes its original idea of collecting the seven Dragon Balls quite early and it's honestly even a bit more slow than one piece for the most part with a lot of interactions but in Dragon Ball's defense Dragon Ball is sort of pioneering and creating a whole genre basically so I'll sort of give it a pass with it being at the Tian shinhan Arc or 20 second Budokai by chapter 115 Naruto by 75 is in the middle of the tuning exams and at 1 15 it's completely done with them leading into Kona hot Crush Naruto I would honestly say should be considered by most would be the ultimate battle Shonen when it comes to its introduction and beginning even the first chapter is the most gripping with then leading immediately into team Kakashi in the Bell test the Land of Waves art with zabuzan Haku and then the entire tuning exams the tuning exams introducing dozens of stories and characters in a single Arc like broccoli Gara Neji Shikamaru choji and even Orochimaru the first Second Hokage and saw it even Jiraiya is introduced in this Arc as well as gamabunta and a whole nine tails power-up Kaioken form by basically chapter 100 and this almost all happens for Ichigo even enters Seoul Society for the first time and before one piece even really gets to its first main Arc as well but this isn't to say Naruto is more worth it than one piece but it makes sense that out of all the big three it stayed probably with the West the most it is a lot easier to get into than the rest and it does it all well well Kishimoto the author of Naruto when he began the series was in his late 20s and was mainly trying to pitch a story that jump would take with jumps editors doing a lot for him to construct his premise and so forth then in kishimoto's own words his creativity even for character designs starts to die out by the time the Sasuke retrieval Arc rolls around even before chapter 200 so it's sort of like Kishimoto blows his whole creative load early and is hyper ambitious with this ambition almost being impossible to follow up on later with the story he's trying to make causing a lot of characters he introduced like Lee Neji and so on just sort of just eventually fade off as he has too many things he wants to do Oda on the other hand has been dreaming of riding one piece ever since he was a child constantly building his world for many many years until his early 20s when he finally gave it to jump one piece is sort of like that dream story every aspiring writer has when they are growing up but Oda actually brings it to reality due to this one piece says all everything ironed out the entire world has pretty much been built and thought of and advanced so when Oda introduces a bunch of characters it's highly likely he has a lot of plans for them and they will not fade away Into Obscurity and as you read that theory basically becomes fact almost every single thing Oda introduces has value and will mean something later so unlike Naruto where you will find yourself really hyped up for a character and then becoming a bit disappointed where a lot of them end up one piece doesn't really do that but due to this one piece is also slower paced like a lot slower paced at first as it establishes all the groundwork for this late game story to come into action an easy example is just right off the bat compare Naruto's Konohamaru to one pieces Kobe many people may not know this but these two characters serve a pretty similar purpose or at least we're supposed to you have the spurgy almost annoying OC main characters then be plopped next to an actual child character to then show off their more admirable traits and contrast even this I think one piece did better because Luffy after chapter one kind of goes through a mini time Skip and changes a bit where the reader doesn't really know him as well so it's kind of more interesting but that aside even Kobe gets more love than Konohamaru by far and in fact he almost gets his entire own mini story every single chapter in a single image so you can actually keep up with what he's doing without him interrupting the story or the pacing whereas Konohamaru just sort of randomly appears one day and uses Rasengan on pain bleach on the other hand has almost really nothing notable happen in his first 75 Chapters at all in comparison so let's say if you liked the first 75 or so of Bleacher thought they were really exciting probably be really easily able to get into one piece not to say one piece is better than bleach or whatever I'm not trying to get into that type of argument but I'd say out of all those examples bleach did the least with its start with it sort of exploding and quality and entertainment during the soul Society onward so in terms of pacing it's not actually that bad so why don't people get into it then I think even the whole pacing argument is a little strange as if you want to read real all of Death Note ends in 108 chapters the entire series is done before Naruto finishes even the tuning exams the only reason I haven't mentioned is because while it is a shown and it isn't a battle Shonen but even then its pasting is really insane comparatively but people don't try to scram Stan Death Note as the pacing Overlord and say everything is too slow compared to it so this is what I think is really the reason Let's do an experiment go to any number randomizer online and then have it randomize anything from one through five hundred then have it randomize anything from 3 to 15. well this be basically randomizing a chapter and a page so you take the random chapter and page and then open it up for your battle Shonen of choice of course if they have 500 chapters then compare it to one piece about eight out of ten times one piece will have loads of writing and dialogue Exposition compared to the series you chose and I'm not joking it is very consistently spammed with word Bubbles and even somewhat hard to tell what's happening sometimes but I don't think this is necessarily be all a bad thing I think it's supposed to be different the reason I think it's more so different than bad is because I am 99 sure it is done intentionally and not out of bad Writing Practice or something so hear me out although I do think the cluttered art is kind of hard to tell it's happening and that's not as defendable as there being a lot of writing and text which is a bit more one piece has a goal a goal many other stories don't have example look at how Dragon Ball Naruto and bleach handle going just locations of importance usually they just sort of fly over to the fight time skip over or maybe have one or two instances where the journey is sort of shown an early Dragon Ball the journey was shown a lot more but later on this is basically what happened in fact it got worse because Goku learned how to just teleport everywhere in one piece every journey to a new location in itself is part of the story in a world ridden with pirates riding your boat to an island will have consequences going to a weird tropical island wearing a tank top will have consequences you can get sick attack law lost hit by the weather tricked so many things can happen and Oda wants to and does show all of it in fact the reason they meet one of the crewmates named Chopper is for what I exactly described Nami gets sick on a weird island and has to get a doctor or she will die the consequences and things that happen to the characters the encounters it feels strangely grounded and this is weird because the story is so goofy but almost everything the characters do doesn't feel out of place in the world like the world actually exists around them there's even a panel where there is smoke coming out of the ocean and Otis spends an entire page or two explaining that underwater volcanoes exist under the sea and create new islands and not in thousands of years the oceans will look different for almost what seems like no reason but to expand his world every character has loads of interactions quirks and things they want to say just like people in real life do almost like a Discord call Oda wants you to learn about and really get involved with these characters hearing everything they want to say without restricting them because it may come off as useless us or whatever he seems to genuinely believe how characters interact is important and every little detail about his world he's been lovingly crafting since childhood apparently should be shared as much as it can this makes the story hard to read if you're actually not into that and for the West especially it tends to be a little bit harder every single detail every single thing said all matter and will matter so if you do like the series want to reread it or eventually get into it you are rewarded with that love from the author in his story that no story really can compete with which is why one piece fans they tend to be strong advocates for the series more so than a lot of people reading it is a journey you take with the characters and even the style will make that and when you get into it and one day say I actually love these guys it's definitely a good experience and makes it worth it one piece isn't all good though it's definitely a slog when I didn't like the characters Oda also starts making one piece in his early 20s and while for people online 20s might seem old and grown up for a writer your early 20s is very very young to making such large scale work writing is usually something you get better at with age as you learn more things about the world and ways people work so early 20s for writing a story is a huge feat on this level but in this case you can tell Oda grows up with one piece and gets better as he gets older with it and early on one piece has a lot of sort of useless Exposition or unneeded extra Exposition that's not needed even when information has been conveyed and many of the mini stories are sort of uncreative in the sense that they're just one piece Recreations of popular stories like boy who cried wolf or Oda making two hachiko's story arcs and 100 chapters alone and I'm not joking he actually does but it's still creative enough with the characters being people you generally are impressed by and root for all in all I think it is worth it in the long run and even the short run isn't the worst of the big three so I think it does deserve a chance if you do like the big three but that's just my honest opinion as someone who has never been into one piece and only read it literally this November anyways I know that this may not have seemed like the most in-depth video of all time but I feel like I should actually read or be caught up with the entire series before doing a full Deep dive into the story I just thought people might would be interested in hearing my take on its beginning as a newer reader and how I think it kind of stacks up maybe in the future though I can do a dive into one piece just let me know what you guys think and while I don't think it has the worst 71st 75 chapters of the big three I do think by chapter 220 it sort of fell off but then apparently it gets back better because by chapter 220 dragon ball is in the Saiyan Saga Naruto's done with part one bleach is basically at the Iran car Arc it just got done with the soul society and then one piece starts to go near the bottom but then apparently it goes right back up again so that is my final take hope you guys enjoyed until next time

Channel: SethTheProgrammer

Views: 378,233

Keywords: one piece, one piece the honest truth, how good is one piece, should you get into one piece, is one piece actually good, luffy, luffy vs crocodile, luffy vs buggy, how strong is luffy, luffy one piece, seththeprogrammer, seth the programmer, seth the programmer one piece, luffy vs zoro, zoro, sanji, nami, chopper, analysis, anime, manga, one piece analysis, how strong is zoro, is one piece better than naruto, is one piece better than dragon ball, luffy vs goku, naruto vs luffy

Id: iLN6QIPshmI

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2022