One Piece is a series that needs no introduction at this point, it is well known for many things both good and bad. I will try to bring a new viewpoint to the table, so bear with me.
I have been stuck watching the show since 2011 and I would describe my experience with the first 500 episodes or so as a beautiful journey. I would recommend it to any shounen loving anime fan. However the quality drops rather significantly after those five hundred. We get some of the laziest animations I’ve ever seen, uninspiring fillers, unnecessary recaps and ‘Reaction Faces, The Anime’. These are complaints you have most likely heard before, especially the recap one. But why do we still watch it?
I myself couldn’t drop this series, so one day I sat down and tried to watch an episode to evaluate it objectively with nothing obscuring my view. And the answer came to me much sooner than I’d expected, right after the opening song stopped playing. Those of you familiar with the show already know what comes next, which is two sections of recaps, both told by a Narrator. First one about our protagonist and the second one about several previous episodes. While most One Piece fans don’t particularly fancy this part because it takes up to 4 minutes out of the show, I have never once in my life seen a person who would actually dislike the Narrator himself. It’s the opposite, we love the guy. His voice is enjoyable and relaxing and connects us to our childhoods, right? We can have nothing but respect towards this person. Which got me thinking, what exactly is my relationship with Narrator-san? I sit there alone in my room in front of the screen with the curtains drawn and have his silky voice fill my ears with unwanted information time and time again, an experience that can only be referred to as torture, and yet I cannot bring myself to hate Narrator-sensei. This sadomasochistic relationship is now lasting for over five years and there is no way I can deny or escape it.
So why do we still watch this show? Because Narrator-sama is dominating us and we love it.
P.S.: Adding to already existing problems, the pacing becomes near unbearable during Dressrosa arc. I would like to say that it gets better later, but it doesn't. So here is my final piece of wisdom: do yourself a favor and put the playback speed at x1,50.
