Art: 5
Sound : 8
Character : 8
Enjoyment : 6
Overall : 7
One Piece is one of the biggest anime and manga out there, not just in length, but also in popularity, now popularity is not a good way to proof quality, but when the source manga is not only THE most sold manga in the world with over 100mil more sales than the number 2 most sold manga but its also THE most sold COMIC in the world by a single author and it got a record in the Guinness book, beside manga sales its also one of the most popular anime even here on mal at number 32 and 4 in most favourites, its also one of the most talked about show in youtube, with many big anime youtubers being fans of it, like Gigguk, chibi and even someone who is more critical like thatanimesnob said it was actually pretty good at some point, and again I know that popularity doesn't equal quality, but when a show is THIS popular, you can at least fairly say its does somethings good.
over the years the show's quality has changed a lot, and not in a linear fashion where it kept getting better or kept getting worse, it just went up and down in quality a lot, to the point that if I had to rate each arc differently some would get as high as a 10 and some would get as low as a 5.
The Good :
1- If you look at the genres for One Piece in MAL you'll see : Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Shounen, Super Power
and I have to say one piece does all of these genres very very well.
Action : the fights in one piece aren't that frequent with the story more focused around other things, but when they do happen they are very well done and there many different types of fights, you have some fights that are centred around raw power or some that use tactics and brains, and every fight has a lot of meaning behind it, in a sense that the stakes are high and what the characters had to do to reach that fight was a lot, basically the author really knows how to hype up fights before they happen.
Adventure/Fantasy : the is probably one of the best thing about one piece, I've met many different kinds of people who've watched the show and one thing they always praise -even if they hated most other things- is the world building and the adventure in it, the world in one piece is HUGE with many island that each have their own kind of twist, a lot of different factions from pirates to world government to underworld workers to kings and leaders of the islands, almost every type of mythical creature there is, from mermaids, fishmen and dwarfs to giants, dragons, undead and talking animal people ( and much more ), and experiencing all of these islands gives a really nice sense of adventure, and the world is also very well connected, for example one character from the early episodes ends up being in an important character in an arc 500 episodes later.
Comedy : this one is different to each person but I found the comedy in one piece hilarious and has really good delivery and timing, I'd link you some funny moments but its hard to understand it in its own without having an idea about the characters.
Drama : its hard to go into this one without too much spoilers but I can say that one piece has affected me emotionally with its many tearjerking moments, even ones that you'd never expect.
Superpowers : Superpowers in one piece can be very simple or very creative and interesting, but even the simple ones can be made creative with how the characters use them.
Now MAL doesn't say One Piece has Mystery, but I'd say it does, Oda (the aurhtor) also leaves a lot of hints and forshadowing in many parts of the story and its why there are a bunch of one piece theories out there, I mean just search " one piece theory" on youtube and see how many results you get.
and the ways these mysteries are revealed are also pretty good, not in an asspull kind of way but in way that will make you go " whhaaat! so thats what happened!"
2- One Piece has some of my favourites Soundtracks that are really effective in doing what they are trying to do, whether its for building hype or making the viewer emotional.
3- The characters are also a great part of one piece, with many of them having really awesome designs, interesting/emotional backstory, and each have their own goals and ideologies.
Our main crew in particular is really great, seeing their interactions with each other is surprisingly one of my favourite things about the show, they are all interesting in their own ways.
The Bad :
Just like my ratings indicates, One Piece has a lot of problems and even someone who loves one piece like me can see them.
1- For starters the animation is pretty bad overall, it changes over the course of the show, some parts its Sakuga level but most of the time its pretty bad, especially compared to today's standards.
2- while I did say the soundtracks are usually great, the recent episodes haven't really been using great soundtracks, sometimes the SFXs are all over the place, The voice acting for the most part is pretty good and I have no problem with it, but its nothing mindblowing.
3- the pacing of the anime is very very slow, the manga has 870 chapters ( as of right now ) and the anime has 798 episodes, just by looking at those numbers alone you can tell just how slow it is, with the recent 200 something episodes only adapting one chapter OR LESS per episode which is just crazy slow, one piece the manga is already slow enough at some parts but the anime just made it really terrible, there are also always about 5 minutes spent on recaps+opening. however that is not always the case, while the early episodes also had slow pace, its wasn't nearly as bad as now, and it was a very minor problem, which is why I kept watching the show and didnt drop it.
4- Being repetitive is another one of One Piece's problems, however this one is minor, because while every arc has core elements that happen in ever other arc, for the most part its still a fresh new arc and these core elements are done in a slightly different way.
5- Asspulls, One Piece doesn't have many of those but it still does have them and its a problem, fortunately though, when it does happen its in the arcs that are considered one of the better arcs ( because of other things of course ) and so this problem is overshadowed.
6- some parts are pretty much useless and the show would be a lot better without them.
Overall I'd say for sure give One Piece a chance, and keep going until you just cant watch it anymore, if you reach that point before episode 500 then well I guess its not for you, if you reach it after, then I'd say move over to the manga and give it a try, its worth it.
And thats about it, I hope you found my review helpful, I apologise for any English mistakes I had (English is not my first language)
I wasn't going to write a review but I noticed the reviews for one piece are either all 10s or all 5 or below, and I found both to be ridiculous, so I decided to write my own review.
