What actually IS the appeal of One Piece?

welcome once again to my humble little Channel with the recent liveaction version of One Piece releasing I figure there's no better time to talk to you about the series if one piece is something you've always been aware of and interested in but you've never actually taken the plunge this video is for you now look I get it I get it it's really long that's the first thing I hear when trying to convince people to watch One Piece it's just too long not enough time of the day I don't want to watch hundreds of episodes which is fair so don't I'm about to tell you a secret the one piece purists don't want you to know I know that nowadays with the Advent of streaming most people consume media in a chronological order well I'm here to tell you just don't that's not how I got into one piece you see I saw bits and pieces from the four kids run as a kid as an adult I then swapped to the FUNimation version and watched a few episodes from the alabaster Arc since I had remembered liking that one ended up really enjoying my time and restarted from episode 1 this allowed me to get a taste for what the show was was going to be like and it let me know if it was something worth getting to to be clear I also think earlier one piece is really good and is a perfectly fine starting point but if the idea of watching a ton of episodes to build up to something you might not like is the thing that's stopping you then watch an arc out of order a lot of arcs are largely self-contained since the overarching plot is we are trying to find the one piece and we are on an adventure in an island so as long as you start the arc itself from the beginning you'll have a good understanding what's going on you might have some questions like why is there a reindeer in the crew but you'll understand the important stuff and be able to enjoy the arc as a self-contained story with questions that do have answers if you want them a disclaimer I have to add to this method is to not go too far into the future I think this only works for around the first fourth of the show past around episode 250 I think you've gone too far and you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not allowing certain arcs to flow chronologically this content is representative of what the majority of the show is going to be like and quite frankly if you don't like any of that content in the first quarter the show is just not for you if you've completed an arc out of order and enjoyed that content I think you should go back to episode one I think it's still good to see the majority of the show chronologically but getting a taste for it I think is a good way to wet your pallet to understand what you're getting yourself into I'm not saying this is the best way to get into this show but for me this worked and for like-minded people may work for you too now maybe you're saying this is all well and good but it's still too long you've watched other long anime in the past and they've deteriorated in quality now what makes one piece's length a strength rather than a weakness is quite simply [Music] planning the world what a glorious Place seek freedom and it will lie stretched out before your eyes if the endless dream guides your restless Spirit seize it raise your flag and Stand [Music] [Applause] Tall I think to the world of one piece is never allowed to be finite something I think a lot of longer anime struggle with is coming up with a justification for the next villain to be stronger than the last dragon ball took space a setting that is literally endless and could have had as many villains as they needed and then proceeded to limit the setting by announcing one character as the strongest in all of space so when the series continues Toriyama has to [ __ ] an enemy into existence yeah that faction from Dragon Ball that baby Goku took out solo it's back and it somehow made Androids that are stronger than Intergalactic tyrants of the universe yeah just roll with it for me this is a problem because it's incredibly immersion breaking it reminds me that oh yeah it doesn't have to make makes sense how someone got so strong they just are because the plot demands them to be one piece never does this whatever a definitive statement is made about a character strength it's almost always qualified oh he's the strongest on the island oh he's the strongest in the East blue it also gives us a glimpse of top tier characters very early on so we're able to better understand the scale of everything for example the encounter with arlong we know is deadly for Luffy we also know arlong isn't [ __ ] compared to mihawk so we're made very explicitly aware that there are far more dangerous foes on the horizon and this is just one step of many to being King of the Pirates there are villains who will get established only for us to fight them hundreds of episodes later simultaneously making the journey here feel more earned because we had the time for the crew to reach this tier of strength while making the villain feel all the more intimidating because we know what they're capable of this makes the world of One Piece feel lived in when a big name pyate is taken down by the straw hats it has massive Ripple effects throughout the world it really sells the idea that this is a real place where different people and factions struggle for power all the more believable as factions will fight completely offscreen divorced from our protagonists the characters aren't just NPCs waiting for the straw hats to show up they're proactive characters in their own story the settings themselves obviously play a huge role in creating one piece's world as well the many islands of One Piece feel Fantastical and tangible at the same time from The Haunted House Vibes of Thriller bark to the heavenly clouds of skypia there's a ton of visual diversity and it keeps the show fresh the places the straw hats go have their own feel and culture to them the amount of detail and lore in each location goes a long way to selling the idea that these places are where people lived long ago before the straw hats ever arrived since the straw hats are newcomers to these islands we get the audience to learn about the new setting as they do the straw hats coming upon a new location and the childlike Joy they get from seeing something awesome is what makes the series radiate an intoxicating sense of adventure it makes discovering the world just as fun for the audience as it is for our protagonists I'm always wondering what's around the next corner for the gang and what we'll learn about the setting as a whole you see we're not just learning about the individual Islands as we go but the history of one piece's world in its entirety little breadcrumb details are given to us as the straw hatch Journey throughout the grand line but never enough to truly answer all our questions for me it's addictive I can't tell you how many rabbit holes I've gone down looking up theories trying to find out more information I may have missed what are the ancient weapons what happened during the void century and just what is the one [Laughter] piece you want my treasure just shut your mouth you can have it I left everything I gathered in one place now you just have to find it this is what Luffy is trying to obtain the one piece the ultimate treasure very simple plot on the surface of it however if we look at the reasons why Luffy wants to find it we begin to understand what the show is actually about Luffy wants to get the one piece and become king of the Pirates because he made a promise to surpass shanks but also to be the most free person on the Seas one piece at its core is about the nature of Freedom Luffy represents positive Freedom he is the things we associate with freedom that are good being able to live how you want and do what you love to authentically be yourself Luffy's enemies often represent the ideological antithesis of freedom to oppress control and authoritatively constrict the lives of others it's why the concept of nakama or essentially found family is so present at this show to find people that accept you for who and what you are this is what it means to join the straw hats it's partly why Luffy has this magnetic property of befriending people he doesn't have a Prejudice bone in his body I doubt he even knows what Prejudice means Luffy doesn't give a [ __ ] if you're from another race ethnicity or sexual orientation he just wants to eat meat and have fun while Luffy may not understand the concept of prej he sure as [ __ ] hates it Luffy is willing to throw down for any infraction done to the people he cares about oh you made my friend cry I don't even need to know her backstory with you now that's enough you better square up [ __ ] we're fighting now em Mo Shonen fighting for your friends is a very common Trope but what makes it work well here is that Luffy's opposition to the unfair systems of the world is based entirely in the love for his fellow man frankly he's not smart enough to have a political agenda or any complicated reasons for opposing these systems he's simply aware that the people he loves will suffer from them and that's reason enough for Luffy to go to war with the world if he has [Music] to [Music] [Music] [Music] fore oh for the straw hats Rogues Gallery consists of some of my alltime favorite villains in any Show anime or not one piece has no qualms with letting the primary antagonistic Force for an arc roam free uncontested to do whatever the hell they want episode upon episode of unrelenting cruelty from the ssts gets the viewer incredibly invested in finally seeing the straw hats take them down a peg or two the show does a fantastic job of fleshing out the particular brand of evil each baddy has from kaido's darwinian hellscape to arlong's oppressive apartheid state they each find different ideological lenses to justify the malice they alash upon the people around them this is however a bundle deal as enemy pirate captains obviously have a crew to go along with them the interaction with the opposing crew mates let us get a sense for their personalities the culture of the crew and serve to flesh out our main antagonist I absolutely love that doflamingo is this demented narcissist who will kill thousands of innocent people without a second thought but shows this level of respect and compassion for his own crew leading me to believe that for all his blood lust he does actually care about them it gives us this window into the more common day-to-day behavior of the crew that we don't really get to see when they're interacting with the straw hats this isn't limited to just the Pirates either cp9 a group of Assassins working for the world government feel like a bunch of work friends and it makes watching them play off of each other way more interesting than if they were just a bunch of Stone Cold Killers oh and I haven't mentioned them up until now but the world government is the state that controls almost everything in one piece they exist to maintain the power of the highest class of nobility called the celestial dragons the Marines are sort of a mix between police and soldiers who take their marching orders from the world government what makes them really compelling for me is that it's handled in a pretty believable way it'd be so easy to make the Marines evil [ __ ] without Souls but no they're very diverse in thought the same way Luffy is an exception to Pirates being ruthless criminals there are genuinely good people working for the oppressive world government that do want to make the world a better place there are of course also overtly evil people that abuse their power but it is a mixed bag law enforcement in this universe is bad systemically because they defend the morally bankrupt status quo and at the end of the day are just muscle for the rich and Powerful you know just like in real life the average Marine is not foaming out the mouth to do war crimes they're just a dude a dude who might be taking his orders from a bloodthirsty psychopath but a dude nonetheless speaking of bloodthirsty Psychopaths I want to talk about what I think is the most thematically interesting villain in one piece Blackbeard now BB stands out to me as a one piece villain due to his ideological lens as I previously mentioned most villains of one piece in some way want to authoritatively control the lives of others whether it's literally imprisoning them or just cheating people into being your subordinates almost every one piece villain has a certain way of wanting to shape people's lives the keyword being almost for Blackbeard isn't like that he isn't a villain for Luffy to be a foil to instead he is Luffy's dark reflection his counterpart if Luffy represents positive Freedom then Blackbeard represents negative Freedom the freedom to lie to pillage to kill Blackbeard is the Sinister smile of what people are capable of when left unrestricted everything I love about him as a character can be summarized by his initial introduction Blackbeard starts off comedically fighting with Luffy acting similar but having the opposing position to him on the food in the bar foreshadowing his nature later after Luffy and Zoro are accosted Blackbeard goes on to make a big speech about how Pirates will always dream of something bigger it's one of the best in the show and it gives real insight to how he thinks he sincerely respects and appreciates the pursuit of dreams for people to Aspire to better things he like Luffy is a pirate with a dream his dreams however are dark and Twi Ed he dreams of power and blood Luffy wants to go on an adventure for its own sake and would never do anything to hurt his friends for Blackbeard the Enterprise of power demands he'll do anything and hurt anyone this is not the light-hearted adventure that Luffy sees the world as this is the accumulation of Power by any means necessary freedom for Blackbeard is freedom from morality I believe Blackbeard will be the final opponent Luffy must face to become king of the [Music] Pirates [Music] shown in battle anime are one of the most popular genres in the medium so there's a lot of variety to choose from they can be joyous Affairs or or downright [ __ ] depressing there are a lot of different shows all with diverging takes on what exactly shown in battle anime can be the Power Systems however can usually be put into a spectrum on one side you have your chess-like strategic battles where any power can be completely busted as long as you're smart enough to use it right these are your Hunter Hunters Jojo and to a lesser extent my hero Academia where clever tactics and how powers specifically interact is far more important than how physically strong a character might be they usually focus on creative thinking and Mind Games rather than brute force on the other side of the spectrum you have your power level systems where having higher stats is King and having a bigger number than the other guy can allow you to outright negate attacks that should have otherwise been lethal these are your Fist of the North Stars dragon balls or bleach these systems can have characters that might succeed over traditionally stronger opponents due to clever abilities or strategy but the vast majority of the time the combatant with the bigger numbers going to win out neither side of the spectrum is better than the other it simply depends on how it's utilized this is just an observation of how these fights typically play out and none of them perfectly fit into these categorizations anyway throughout each Show's run you can find examples of exceptions of what I've just talked about this is more of a general rule of thumb now that we've established this I'm sure you can figure out the question I'm about to answer where exactly does one piece fit on this spectrum this is not an exact science since across so many episodes fights are going to play out in a variety of different ways but overall I'd Place One Piece here towards the center but ultimately favoring the more traditional stat-based approach which personally I think is a signifier of quality since my all-time favorite shows in the genre also fall closer to the center now that all this has been established let's go ahead and actually dissect the powers of this show for a second if you're at all familiar with one piece you're probably also familiar with devil fruits these odd-shaped fruits give you a special power in exchange for your ability to swim Luffy can stretch the way he does because he ate the gumgum fruit or the rubber fruit early on in the show what a devil fruit specifically does has a lot more impact on a combatant's attacks and how they can be approached Luffy is made of rubber so you can't shoot or smash him he'll just bounce back but you can cut him meaning that cutting attacks are the most common way to be able to do damage to him for the first half of the show this is how pretty much all Powers work thinking about the properties of a devil fruit and what The Logical counter to that would be of course none of that matters if you're not physically strong enough to actually use this information there are plenty of people with swords but it's not like any [ __ ] who knows how to swing one can take Luffy in a fight this becomes a problem when you run into characters who are made of properties that are not traditionally able to be damaged there is a classification of devil fruit known as loia which allows its user to transform into an elemental Force this brings up an obvious logistical problem how the hell are you exactly supposed to fight a guy who can turn his body into smoke well later on in the series we are given a universal power system that solves that little conundrum called hockey hockey can do a variety of different things but the biggest one narratively is that allows you to bypass devil fruit abilities now it doesn't matter if Luffy's body is made of rubber he's taking that punch proper I've heard some complaints about its addition to the series saying that it removes creative thinking that used to go on with certain abilities now you don't need to think about how devil fruits work as much because you have a Surefire way of dealing damage to them personally I think there is some truth to that but what you may lose in creativity you gain back in World building and narrative strengthening I mean without a system like hockey characters without a blatantly broken devil fruit would be chump change I mean what even is the world's strongest swordsman to a guy who can turn into fire but thanks to hockey even people with the strongest devil fruits need to watch the [ __ ] out as you get further along the the tears of power lucking into a broken devil fruit is no longer enough to make it in this world you also have to be a genuinely good combatant which makes the characters who are both incredibly [ __ ] scary they're not just lucky [ __ ] who stumbled into Power they're genuinely dangerous people and their own right who happen to be walking around with magical powers from the sea it narratively disposes of the idea of being carried by luck and thus makes everything feel way more earned and before any one piece fans say anything yes even him Charisma is a skill all its own the show also has a very common way of setting up its arcs for fights to happen I wouldn't call it a formula per se but the certain arcs play out similarly enough that it feels like there's a sort of skeleton to how it likes to structure things the basic plot outline goes like this Luffy and the Gang arrive at some new island or location they discover some antagonistic Force that's harming the people of that new location we get a few episodes of buildup to establish the villainous faction the crew will break off into separate 1 V ones with the different members Luffy will then beat the ever loving [ __ ] out of the main villain with some insanely hype spectacle of an attack and save the day not every Arc follows this setup but enough do that it becomes noticeable I want to make it abundantly clear that I'm not criticizing the show for this my favorite arcs use this outline and it's a great basic setup each of the arcs that use this setup also have unique variables that make them each feel like their own thing and have their own identity to them so it's not like they all feel the same essentially it is a Shonen battle anime it will set up the plot in a way that allows for Shonen battles to happen shocker I know the different Power Systems wacky characters and range of straw hats that can be fighting make sure that no two fights ever feel the same some have more creative usage of abilities such as Usopp versus perona and others are just full-on clashes of Might such as Zoro versus Mr one one piece doesn't have the insane choreography of jiujitsu kaisen or the world shattering sakuga of Demon Slayer but it does have some of the most emotionally impactful fights of any show I've ever seen while there are interesting powers and fast-paced spectacles the thing that keeps me coming back is the emotions that resonate in each fight don't get me wrong I just spent several paragraphs dissecting the mechanics of how fights play out because I think the mechanics are good and they are interesting but the thing one piece does better than its peers is release emotional tension in one great explosive burst of action a release that is so addicting it's kept people coming back for a th000 plus episodes until you get to wano and the animation is modern so everything looks [ __ ] gorgeous then it absolutely keeps up with jjk and Demon Slayer but yeah one piece started in the [ __ ] 99s it's going to take a long time for you to get there and Beyond any sort of objective analysis that feeling of relief when Luffy finally shoves a fist the size of a mountain into a dude who just spent 70 episodes killing puppies is something no amount of words can possibly do justice this is a bit of a cop out but it is 100% true you just have to experience it to really understand it's why I've spent so much time talking about the villains in this video it's why when you ask fans which are the weaker arcs they're typically the ones with the weaker villains because if that emotional catharsis isn't there then a lot of what one pieces fights do simply don't [Music] work now I've been talking a lot about the pros of one piece but to keep you my beautiful little insert pronoun here on the straight and narrow I got to talk about the cons I'll get the most common complaint out of the way the anime's pacing can be downright [ __ ] terrible this isn't as bad if you're catching up to the series since you don't have to wait a whole week just to get 10 minutes of meaningful plot progression but even still the amount of filler in episodes can make even the most engaging story arcs feel like a drag to get through this can be subverted by reading the manga which has significantly better pacing if you're anything like me however animation is simply your preferred medium I love my voice acting and I prefer the silly little pictures to move I'm just too ADHD for Comics that aren't spawn or Sandman so if you're going to commit to the anime grind I hope you're also ready to hear this sound effect over and over endlessly yeah a problem that the bad pacing makes even worse is inevitably with a show this long sound effects and audio cues are going to have to be reused all anime reuse sound effects but when it's a show hundreds of episodes long you really begin to notice the Main Stays some of them are good enough I frankly don't care I can listen to Luffy punching someone all day long no complaints here but things like the stock gun sound effect the the aforementioned boots and this [ __ ] gag sound all greats my ears now due to the amount of times I've been bombarded with them but moving on to our next problem this is of course a Shonen anime so as is tradition the general attitude it has with women is well suboptimal a shown in anime doesn't have the healthiest relationship with women who could have possibly have predicted this the show does have plenty of well-written compelling and downright fun female characters it's got that in Spades in fact I'd say it's probably miles better than its contemporaries on its overall writing and treatment of women our two primary female leads are irreplaceably useful they are fully developed fully formed characters unto themselves they are not girlfriends waiting in the wings for the real characters to show up in other words none of them ever get the socca treatment now having said all this it's still a shown in anime a lot of women in one piece just have the the exact same body type I understand that there are women who look like this in real life but when 85% of your feminine characters have the exact same Pencil Thin fan service design it really begins to feel like a 14-year-old boy who can't keep it in his pants is drawing this for some reason one piece also feels the need to delve into the occasional haha the joke is sexual assault level of Comedy you know where a guy character does something really [ __ ] up than any other scenario would be a lawsuit but in the world of anime it's just a haha he gets punched I cannot in any good conscience condone the show without acknowledging that it does this and that I think this type of joke needs to be gutted and left to die again I don't think it's as bad as other offenders like manetta in my hero but holy [ __ ] dude taking what for many women would be scarring and turning that into a joke is at minimum distasteful SL disrespectful ful but given how godamn popular this franchise is I would say actively contributes to how shitty anime fans are about women in general because they're being shown this behavior and it's treated as lighthearted rather than the very [ __ ] up and damaging event it would actually be in real life this is a whole video unto itself about how anime needs to get its [ __ ] together about this subject I just want to sit the show down look it in the eyes and say dude I'm in my 20s I have a girlfriend I have seen a boob in real life you don't need to constantly remind me that they exist it's really quite disappointing since I think the wacky designs are usually a point in the show's favor but sadly with its girls one piece drops the ball and again to reiterate this really is juvenile like dude come on this is so beneath us speaking of designs there are a few depictions of what could be interpreted as trans women that are incredibly harmful by today's standards the term they actually use for these characters is okama which as far as I can tell is just Japanese slang for queer I've heard conflicting opinions on if these are supposed to be drag queens or trans women presuming even the worst possible interpretation of these characters being harmful stereotypes of trans women this ultimately comes off to me as ignorance rather than malice the show is overtly Pro LGBT even in this phase of the show with multiple LGBT characters that are portrayed as heroic and having the moral Hy ground later on we even get a trans woman whose gender identity and appearance are treated completely seriously this is more distinct than previous queer characters for me because she looks like literally any other woman in the show if I didn't tell you she was trans you would have no idea Our Heroes just accept her for who she is and it's done in a way that indisputably validates trans people one piece does say trans rights but I think it stumbles to get there to talk about my next Point requires me to go into more Major Spoilers than any other point so go to this timestamp if you'd like to avoid them I don't think the knowledge would meaningfully change your enjoyment of the show but I feel obligated to warn you okay so later on the show has a Time skip which at this point in the story makes narrative sense as far as I can remember Luffy doesn't really have training arcs up until this point the biggest spike in power Luffy gets is an ability he kind of pulls out of his ass I figured they would need to dedicate time to getting stronger at some point so story-wise this move makes complete sense to me but I have some problems firstly overall I think the designs are a lot weaker for a few of them they're solid upgrades specifically Usopp and Zoro but for Brook Chopper and especially Frankie the new designs are largely downgrades this also coincided with the art style becoming less distinct as the quality improved becoming more streamlined the two things of note are the lack of cross-hatching as well as everyone generally becoming more round while the newer look is admittedly more conventionally attractive I personally think the older style works better with the more cartoonish designs at the risk of sounding like a broken record I think it finally Finds Its footing later down the line with the most recent wano Arc it's leagues above what has come before with its use of color and thicker black lines making the visuals pop out it is is easily the best the show has ever looked this is however only fixed in the most recent Arc so you'll have to go a few hundred episodes in what I consider to be a much weaker art style cards on the table though I am just a sucker for older anime I am absolutely biased in this regard maybe the newer art style and Designs aren't a problem for you and this is just my L to hold secondly I think the stories after the time skip are generally weaker I've enjoyed the time skip content but I felt that one piece had an easier time showing its strengths and hiding its blemishes in the earlier stories it feels like these problems are exacerbated by to's piss poor handling of the pacing however I do think at its core a lot of the storytelling is just weaker so once again if you like manga these problems can be mitigated it's not like it's all bad either there are positives to the time skip that are uniquely their own characters that have been built bu up previously can finally enter the spotlight the scale of everything can be much bigger and we can see the fruition of buildup that was years in the making so there is still a lot to like in the new material I just don't think the series ever peaked as hard also this isn't really a con but I didn't know where to put this I think that the subtitled version is the superior way to experience the anime I appreciate the FUNimation version and you probably noticed I've been flip-flopping between the two a little bit but ultimately I do you prefer the Japanese version I think there's a lot to like of the dub and sub but ultimately I got to give it to the Japanese ordinarily I would argue that if you listen to a Japanese voiceover while not actually being able to speak the language you lose a little bit something ordinarily I would say that you miss out on the nuances of being able to appreciate the way certain lines are articulated but with one piece I think that the raw emotion in the line is more important than what the line is actually saying and that'll actually do it for our con section one piece doesn't have many problems however the ones it does have are orders of magnitude bigger than most shows if you don't have the patience to look past some teeth grinding pacing or stomach hearing the same sound effect 10 times per episode I don't think this is for you dreams together we will find everything that we're looking for One [Music] Piece One Piece is above all else fun it's a hell of a ride that I think everyone should consider taking the show is incredibly rewarding for sticking with it in new additions of lore slot right in like pieces of a puzzle it's got some of the most touching and emotionally poignant moments of any anime I have ever seen if the only metric for ranking show was how many times I've been deeply moved by them one piece would be the best show ever to exist lovable characters badass fights mystery and a sense of adventure that makes me feel like I'm a kid pretending in my backyard again these are the descriptors I would use for this show it's remained the king of Shonen for this long for a reason so why don't you go ahead and do yourself a favor and check it out's for you if you want to be my friend we are we are on the Cru we [Music] [Music] are

Channel: Too Much Caffeine

Views: 6,409

Keywords: one piece, wano, video essay, TooMuchCaffeine, anime, caffeine, shonen, battle, luffy, villains, blackbeard, doflamingo

Id: 8EVMvoZ00WI

Length: 34min 29sec (2069 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2024