One Piece: Gyojin Tou-hen

Toei Animation is known for ruining the One Piece anime with its mediocre, at best, pacing. The Fishman Island arc, in particular, heavily suffered from this pacing issue, adapting ~50 chapters into ~50 episodes.

However, this second adaptation of the renowned Fishman Island arc seeks to give new viewers a better chance to enjoy it.

First, the pacing issue that plagued the original anime adaptation of the Fishman Island arc is seemingly gone from this adaptation. Each episode adapts ~2-3 chapters, which heavily contrasts the original anime, which adapted either one chapter or ~75% of a chapter per episode during the Fishman Island arc. This ... change in pacing makes this adaptation much easier to consume than the previous one.

The animation style is akin to the Wano arc in the One Piece anime (eps 892-1088), which gives this anime a colourful animation style, which some may or may not enjoy. I dig it, but it's understandable why some may not.

However, there are a few negative things about this adaptation and the arc itself. Sanji's nosebleeds upon viewing Nami and Nico Robin are quite annoying, albeit a bit less than the original anime adaptation. However, it might be worse in the coming episodes.

Although the animation is much better than the original adaptation, it sometimes feels stiff and lacking. There are moments within this adaptation when the animation is a bit barebones. It reminds me of "KonoSuba Season 3".

In the end, I'd recommend watching this after watching episode 516 of the original One Piece anime adaptation and resuming at episode 574 of the OG anime upon finishing this adaptation, making the viewing experience objectively better.

I'd rate this adaptation an 8/10 after considering its ups and downs.

it feels off, and I'm entirely sure why, but I have a hunch... is it too fast now?

I guess the animation is not entirely new, it's the same one from the original, just cut and stitched together differently. and so, its panels that were created with a much much slower pace in mind, when sped up 2-3x, it ends up feeling odd. I would have loved to see a complete new animation, but maybe some other time

at least for the first three episodes—"Return to Sabaody", One Pace feels much better. it is slightly slower, 32-33 minutes per episode instead of 23 but covers the same ... content and flows better

that being said, I'm still glad this exists. adds a little color, a little diversity in the ways we can watch and re-watch One Piece

This was genuinely such a waste of time and resources I could not have been more disappointed. They had an opportunity to finally turn this "quantity > quality" anime into a "quantity > quality" anime that would compare to the likes of other shonen anime (ex: Jujutsu Kaisen, Bleach, Naruto) in terms of BASIC visual flow, exept they failed miserably and achieved neither.

The frame rates per second are as low as ever and they in fact seem even laggier than the original series. It looks like they applied a phone filter to make all the images "prettier" but all it did was make them look ... un-realistically warmer while the detail hasn't necessarily improved.

This show has so much potential if the animation could only reach the basic standard, but they've decided to go the milking route and deny that possibility even after announcing a "quality remake" making this otherwise good show impossible for me to watch.