Story:
Off all the shounen anime series I have watched One Piece (OP) has one of the most interesting main stories. There is Gol D. Roger's notorious treasure One Piece, whose discovery makes the finder Pirate King, and Luffy, in pursuit of it.
I guess I don't need to say much more about this since it can be considered common knowledge in the anime world.
Furthermore, OP also offers other interesting stories which will keep the viewers glued to the screen, e. g. Sanji's "All Blue" and Nico Robin's "Hieroglyphs". In fact all main characters have their goals they pursue, while assisting Luffy. Nothing out of the ordinary, though, since it's quite usual for shounen anime.
So far for the main storyline. However, when it comes to the other, normal adventures the Strawhats go through, OP lacks much. A usual arc has terrible pacing with many episodes were literally nothing happens (imagine members of the crew running to a certain place of importance, packed into nearly 25 minutes). Arcs are pretty much endless fightings until Luffy takes care of the main villain. This can make it very difficult to watch OP, for arcs often take longer than a year to finish (and some, like the recently finished one, even two). In fact, OP can sometimes feel like an ordeal. But ultimately, once arcs near its end
Art:
OP's animation style can be described best as happy, joyful... and childish. Absolutely everything in it looks amusing and you get the feeling the series is constantly laughing at itself. Being animated that way often ruins the mood in serious moments, however, even in those OP tries to stay funny anyway, so it doesn't really matter and over time one gets used to it. Honestly, I could not imagine One Piece to be animated differently.
Sound:
The soundtrack really is nothing special; it contains some catch tunes that fit the OP universe and highlight the battle scenes. I assume especially Luffy's tune when he's ready for combat is a classic already.
Characters:
OP has a huge cast of characters, beginning with the Strawhat crew, who you just have to like. I'm not going into detail here since it can be considered common knowledge. However, one thing I want to point out is the two females, who often play no role whatsoever and mainly seem to be there to seldom assist in some battles, or for fanservice, highlighted by their hilariously big breast, something which is by the way very normal in the anime actually.
Apart from the Strawhats, you have a hole bunch of other characters and nakama, many of them funny and annoying at the same time (OP manages to do that). Well, it's the usual shounen anime characters where dealing with. As I like shounen, I find most of them enjoyable.
Enjoyment and overall:
Long-running arcs and mostly terrible pacing throughout the series, and furthermore the typical OP childishness are flies in the ointment, but nevermind all those because it's OP, and somehow there's always something enjoyable about it; maybe it's the weekly shounen madness, waiting for Luffy to go to action, the excitement when an arc ends and a new one starts, long story short, One Piece is, even after more than 700 episodes, still a great series for fans of easygoing fighting anime. And those who breathe shounen will love it anyway.
