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reviewing this anime is an extremely tough thing to do for me because flawed as it is, in my eyes it is the perfect shonen anime. this is one of those few shows that takes you on a journey and makes you feel a whole array of emotions, be it joy, sadness or even frustration. now then enough of the fancy shit and let's get started with the

STORY: 10/10
on surface level it's a simple story, a kid wanting to be the pirate king. simple enough right? but that is not where the charm of One Piece lies, it lies in the journey to get there. ... every island and every arc has its own distinct communities, problems, cultures and histories and it's really amazing how oda manages to make so many of them with consistently rich lore. take Whole Cake Island, you can go to its wiki and find pages and pages worth of background just for an imaginary place. its amazing. not just the islands but the stuff that happens in the island is pretty great as well. now almost all the one piece arcs follow a simple formula: the crew arrive, everything is fun and games for a while, there's some stuff going on in the place, there's a misunderstanding, the crew each has its own thing to do, a flashback and eventually its all good. it might seem simple the way i worded it but trust me, its really well done and never felt repetitive, at least for me. there's also some really well done foreshadowing here and the payoff for those are extremely rewarding. watching this show is like putting together a puzzle, little by little, it's not a difficult or complex puzzle by any means but it sure as fuck is a fun journey. especially in the more recent arcs, we've been learning bit and bit about the world and it's all leading up to an epic final saga.

ART AND ANIMATON: 9/10 (i'll talk about art, animation and fights as well in this segment here)
now, the problem most people have with One Piece is its artstyle or animation. i really don't get the artstyle since its one of the most unique artstyles i've seen there's really no other anime with the same artstyle as One Piece. it might be off putting a little bit in the beginning, but once you get used to it, it becomes one of the biggest highlights of the show. now, onto the animation. this part is where i understand why people would have problems with the anime. let's split the animation on One Piece in three stages. the 4:3 era, the 16:9 era and the wano era. now the 4:3 era(until around episode 200 of the anime) is honestly not nearly as bad as people say it is. for the time it came out in, it's nothing too spectacular but its pretty competent and decent enough. the 16:9 era, is where most people have problems with the animation. the animations here are most of the time, just, eh. but there are other times or important moments where the animation is really great like that one scene in Marineford Arc or most major fights. the problem here is for almost all of the movements except for the major moments, are pretty much a few moving frames against a static background, it really takes the "oomph" out of many minor fights and just normal scenes barely have any animation. most the time, even the mouths of characters won't move at all they just stay open and that's that. you could easily blame the Toei for this, as you should. they had like 2 long running anime at the same time as one piece so they couldn't give One Piece the budget it required.if this seems like i'm nitpicking, i am. all this is only noticeable if you look real close and while binging these aren't really issues and the latter half of this era fixes most these problems around episode 500 so all's good. now the current era or the Wano era of animation is absolutely gorgeous to look at and they improved on most of if not all of the problems i had with the previous era and its great. even minor fights here are really well animated and if i dare say so, its up there with the likes of Mappa and Wit Studios. i can only hope that this stays after Wano Kuni Arc and doesn't just go back to the normal animation after the arc. about the fights, nothing much is there to say here except, if you're here for the fights, you'll be disappointed. not to say the fights aren't well done but it's just that the fights are almost always cut up with about 2-3 minutes of it each episode for about 5-6 episodes. the fights feel long even when they aren't because we get bits of it each episode. not really the anime's fault since the manga is like this as well.

SOUND: 7/10
the OSTs fit with the mood just right. there are a few OSTs that are memorable and some or most are just there. the problem with One Piece OSTs are they've been the same for over 20 years and could use a change. the animation being great as it is, the scores feel kinda dated.
but the opening songs on the other hand, are all absolutely fantastic and most of them are unskippable even though they are about 2 and a half minutes. most these openings make it to my daily rotation so nothing bad to say here. and also, the anime doesn't have ending songs for too long. they're there for about 250 episodes and they're then gone.

CHARACTERS:9/10
as good as the story may be, that's not enough to keep an anime running for almost 25 years. no, that requires investment in the characters. and that is also another aspect where One Piece excels at. all of the crew are great. our main character Luffy, might look like a simple shonen protagonist at first but he definitely has a lot of depth the more we get to know about him and he's absolutely my favorite MC of any anime. the rest of the crew are all entertaining and all have distinct personalities as well. they all may seem like stereotypical cliches but all of them have a certain level of depth to them. if all's good then why a 9, you may ask and that is because they lack screentime. you'd think with over 1000 episodes, we'd have equal screentime for all the characters, but that's not the case here. Robin and Franky who are both some of my favorite Strawhats barely get any time to shine anymore and its especially annoying when Nami and Robin used to get whole sagas just for them pre timeskip. and my boy Chopper, really has been reduced to comic relief and a mascot, and cute as he is, it's frustrating because he has so much potential. Nami has the most destructive power among the Strawhats but she really never gets time to shine. you wouldn't believe it but Nami and Robin's last 1v1 fights were around 500 episodes ago. yeah, annoying, i know. that's not to say they're non-existent in the story, they aren't, i gave this part a 9 because, even in the little bit of the sceentime they get, they absolutely shine and make use of their time in the spotlight really well.
not just the main character, each island has its own side characters who are all vibrant and some of them are even spin-off worthy like Whitebeard or Ace or Law, which is why we have 13-20 episodes of flashback in every major arc without our main characters and the show still remains great. standout side characters are, for me, Whitebeard, Law, Rayleigh and Oden. now on to the antagonists. the antagonists in One Piece are, honestly, hit or miss. we obviously have amazing ones like Doflamingo or the entire World Government and The Marines but on the other side of the spectrum we have characters like Foxy who are just fucking annoying. point is, most of them are great and some aren't. let's move on.

ENJOYMENT: 10/10
like i said One Piece is an extremely enjoyable and addicting journey rather than an anime and it will always be my favorite. i wouldn't have watched all the movies and currently be watching all the specials if i didn't love the series. now a problem people have which hinders the enjoyability of the anime is the pacing. now i do feel like a few arcs like Thriller Bark and Fishman Island Arc were really slow in the story progression, i don't really have an opinion on the worst offenders since after Fishman Island Arc i switched to something called One Pace which is basically the anime with the fillers cut out and i'd recommend you switch to One Pace after the Paramount Saga to get most of the enjoyment. after watching Whole Cake Island, i did switch back to the anime for Wano Kuni arc for the incredible animation, and the pacing is honestly terrible but i really don't mind because after reading the manga, it feels like Oda really left some things in the manga rushed and fast for the anime to expand upon in the first 2 acts. the third act of this arc is still moving at a snail's pace and i can only hope it picks up after a few more episodes for the parts that are coming.

FINAL RATING: low to mid 9/10
you have my warning before watching One Piece because it's really dangerous. it's very dangerous how it can suck you in and have you absolutely obsessed with the world and characters so much that it'd make you give up about 2-3 months where you can watch nothing but One Piece. so be warned. while it's not for everyone, it's an absolute journey that deserves atleast one chance by everyone. try watching about 66 episodes since that's kinda the prologue and if you don't like it, it's not for you.

everyone has that one anime, that made them fall in love with the medium itself. for me, it was Your Lie In April. for that reason alone, i would reccomend it to pretty much anybody but thankfully not only does it give me great nostalgia, it is also an excellent series in itself. when you think of Your Lie In April, the first thing that comes to mind is it has amazing music. each opening and ending is so welll done that it's hard not to listen to atleast one of them even once you're done with the anime. not only does the anime excel ... in this department, it excels pretty much everywhere else as well. the animation is amazing, and so are the characters. pretty much every main character is very strong and none of them are one dimensional or forgettable. the only flaw this show might have is that it does not have the strongest storyline but it does not really matter at the end of the day because it isnt about having a great story but about taking you on a journey. an unforgettable and very sad journey at that.