Due to the length of One Piece, I’m going to briefly cover the major story arcs and several key characters, before going over the themes presented, the worldbuilding and art work.
Romance Dawn: The inaugural chapters of OP function like the vast majority of introduction arcs in manga published through Shonen Jump, with a structure that feels heavily editorialized and therefore is a bit lacking in its own identity. We meet Luffy and several key members of his crew, broad goals are established for each, several key aspects of the world are introduced like the Grand Line and the Marines and eventually the plot culminates at Arlong Park. Arlong Park is a standout in the realm establishing arcs of SJ manga, almost entirely due to Nami’s growth as a character, and how here first character arc is used to solidify the Straw Hats as a team. Its rare that the SJ editorial team allows major supporting characters to have full character arcs early in their narratives, as their publishing mandate overwhelmingly focuses on slow paced character arcs that are used to tantalize readers with mysteries to come, usually at the expense of cohesive early character work. Just look at Bleach for example, where Orihime, Chad and the Quincy kid all have basic character setup in the first, but with little actual growth alongside Ichigo. Instead their Stories are delayed far into the future, long after they had individually been relegated to bit players in the plot.
In contrast, Nami’s development into a person who can acknowledge her own weaknesses and need for support is achieved within the first eight volumes of OP, and allows her and the rest of the Straw Hats to enter into new relationship dynamics as the story moves into the grand line. There are of course weak points amongst the cast in these opening arcs, Zoro is a blank slate with little to do in the narrative other then stand in as the requisite “cool guy”, and function as the patsy for introducing larger concepts like the seven war lords into the story. Sanji’s initial characterization has also aged poorly, being little more than a letch in these opening chapters. But do to the overall strength of Nami’s early character arc, Romance Dawn has held up relatively well.
Baroque Works: Baroque Works is the first real “saga” in OP. The threat of the shadowy organization is introduced early, soon after the Straw hats have crossed into the Grand Line with individual members of the cabal being introduced as the Straw Hats move closer and closer to Alabasta. This escalation works well for the arcs pacing, with the one reprieve being Drum Island, which has nothing to do with the overarching threat of Baroque Works.
Oda introduces multiple key concepts and characters over the course of this arc, Laboon & Croqus, the giants, Bon Clay, Mr. 3, Ace, Crocodile, the void century. But the three key introductions are Chopper, Nico Robin and Vivi. Chopper is of course an important element, as he is a member of the crew, but he also ensures that the Straw Hats retain a certain sense of innocence. From a writing perspective, he acts as the crews younger brother, naïve but well meaning, a character that is easy for all the existing crew members to love and try to protect from the horrors of the world to a certain degree. Robin is introduced almost as an opposite idea. She’s worldly and powerful, defeating the Straw Hats easily in her first encounter with them, escalating the sense of danger that the crew will encounter in the Grand Line. While simultaneously functioning as an exposition device, investigating the hidden secrets of the past in Alabasta. Out of the three though, Vivi maybe the most important (in this arc). Vivi’s character functions similarly to Nami’s in Romance Dawn, where its her own involvement in Baroque Works machinations that ground the crew, and her attempts to save her people that the audience connects with. She was an excellent temporary addition to the cast, and has been missed ever since, despite her characters story coming to its logical conclusion.
However, despite all my praise, there are several issues in Oda’s writing that really begin to form during the end of this arc, specifically how he writes fights and the issues with balancing heis burgeoning cast of characters during their respective climatic fights. Luffy’s multiple fights with Crocodile go on for several chapters too long, with his final victory feeling a little forced, especially viewed retroactively with how OP’s magic system has evolved over time. Simultaneously, the multiple Straw Hats have individual battles drags out the finale and distracts from the thematic focus on Vivi. The adversaries introduced for each crew member feel like filler, with most of theme introduced quickly with little context, with the one exception being Bon Clay, who was set up before they arrived in Alabasta, has their own character arc, and has a function in the plot after Baroque Works is defeated.
Despite these flaws, Baroque Works remains a beloved part of the story, and I can see why. It broadens the world, introduces multiple fan favorite characters and introduces the first overarching villain into the narrative.
Skypeia: Skypeia kind of sucks. Oda struggles with giving the narrative effective grounding as the crew are incredibly removed from the threat facing Skypeia, and the narrative fails to introduce an effective POV character amongst the inhabitants of sky island. As a result, the arc feels incredibly long, with little character development or growth amongst the main cast members, and almost no relevance to the ongoing plot. There are some key concepts introduced, like the debatably planned appearance of Haki in Enel’s “Omniscience”, Black Beard’s introduction and the first appearance of the personified Going Merry.
Also as a personal note, going up to Sky Island and crashing back down is definitely what cracked the keel on the Going Merry, so fuck Sky Island.
Long Ring Long Land: People’s opinion on this arc is incredibly split. To many, it’s the worst arc of the series. To some, it’s a pleasant diversion. I’m in the second camp, because I, much like Oda, enjoyed Hana-Barbara’s “Laugh-O-Lympics”. If you like 70’s cartoon antics, you will like this arc and if you don’t, then you’ll hate it.
The arc is mostly harmless fun, with pleasant little character interactions between the Straw Hats, and acts as a nice reprieve before the emotional gut-punch that’s coming immediately after.
Water Seven/Enies Lobby: This is where OP gets good. The arc manages to balance distinct arcs for Usopp, Franky and most importantly Robin, while organically fleshing out the world, and finally focusing on what makes the world government such a threat. There are of course issues with the arc. Including the abysmal sea train portion, and the endless deluge of CP-9 agents introduced during Enies Lobby who are there to be quickly dispatched by the Straw Hats, as well as Luffy’s two visually indistinguishable power ups that show up back-to-back. But the arc allows both Usopp and Robin to find their true places among the crew, and lets Franky grow past his childhood failings, so the character work trumps the bland Shonen crap sprinkled in to pad the run time.
Thriller Bark: Thriller Bark is an odd mix of Oda’s worst aspects as a writer, and his love for old Hammer horror movies. Aesthetically, I love Thriller Bark. Its European Gothic atmosphere is distinct from the arcs that came before it, and the Frankenstein inspired Doctor Hogback, with his stitched together monstrosities are wonderful. However, there are several key flaws with the arc, particularly how Brooke’s character arc is handled. Most of the narratively fulfilling arcs in One Piece up until this point have used at least one character to the centre the conflict around. Nami in Arlong Park, Vivi in Baroque Works, and then Water Seven had distinct arcs for Franky, Usopp and of course Robin. Brooke is introduced here to act in a similar fashion narratively, but the issue lies in how his conflict with Moria is divorced from his own character arc. Brooke’s failures as a Captain and his broken promise to Laboon take place roughly forty years before he meets Moria, and as a result Moria stealing Brooke’s shadow (and his effective freedom) feels disconnected from his actual arc. Its an obstacle for the Straw Hats to overcome before he can join the crew, but its not an obstacle that’s dependent on Brooke’s growth as a character, like Usopp’s inferiority complex or Robin finally finding the belonging she always needed, it simply is a physically obstacle, like moving a tree branch off a pathway. Since Moria has little thematic importance to the story, he fails to make much of an impression, so much so that he immediately gets written out of the seven warlords in the next major arc. This issue with Moria as villain, along with Oda’s continued issues writing compelling fights and juggling his cast ensures that Thriller Bark ends up being pretty forgettable, other than Brooke’s wonderful backstory, and the brief introduction of Kuma.
Sabaody/Amazon Lily/Impel Down/Paramount War: These arcs, viewed together as a single extended saga, are the strongest OP has ever been. Up until this point, one of the weakest aspects of OP had been Luffy himself. He had been portrayed as vapid, violent child with few moments to redeem his self-centred actions, being almost wholly dependent on the charms and skills of his wonderful crew to get by in the world. But here, Oda takes all of them away and forces Luffy to grow and face his own failures. The major theme connecting all four smaller arcs is Luffy’s inadequacy in facing the challenges presented in the New World. This is immediately shown because of Luffy punching St. Charlos at the slave market, as his rash decision immediately results in the Navy deploying Borsalino, an admiral with light-based powers that the Straw Hats are not equipped to face. They’re defeated easily, but spared death by the intervention of Kuma, sending all of the Straw Hats off to different island, and forcing Luffy to handle himself on his own for the first time in almost fifty volumes. And he immediately almost dies but eating parasitic mushrooms on the island of Amazon Lily. Here he encounters the sixth Warlord of the sea, Boa Hancock the most beautiful woman in the world, and wins her heart, not through martial prowess the only thing he had excelled at so far in the series, but by acting the defend the honor of Boa’s sister. While being executed in combat by Hancock’s sisters, Luffy covers the exposed slave tattoo on his would be executioner, while she’s trying to kill him, solely because Hancock had told him that they could not show the mark to anyone. With almost no context, Luffy understood Hancock’s point of view, and respected it so completely that he was willing to protect the honor of someone who was trying to kill him. And this is where Luffy clicked for me. There had been hints of this before, like his declaration of war against the world government for Robin’s sake, and his conversation with Brook while lying the piano, but this was the first time where Luffy’s respect for others freedom and lives was directed towards someone outside of his own chosen family. And with that, Luffy’s desperation to save his brother Ace, finally came into focus.
Impel Down follows Amazon immediately, and acts an act two for the saga, bringing back numerous characters from the previous fifty volumes, and introducing a few new mainstays to the series like Jinbei and Iva. There’s not much to the arc narratively, its effectively just one chase scene through Dante’s Inferno, letting the audience get reacquainted with characters like Buggy, Mr. 3 and Bon Clay, while reinforcing the idea that Luffy isn’t prepared for the challenges of the New World by having Luffy lose his third major fight in a row against the gooey Warden Magellan.
Finally, the saga culminates at the Paramount War. The Marine have gathered en mass, awaiting the inevitable appearance of Whitebeard. The Paramount War is a very successful culmination of the series up until this point. Most major players are present (with the exception of the Straw Hats), which allows for an almost egregious amount of fanservice to be present, but not feel forced. But where the arc really shines, is in how it covers the central theme of the series, found family and what it means to the respective characters. White Beard arrives with his full force, to save his adoptive son, personifying the ideals that had lived his life for. Being a pirate was never about money or power, it was about the family he created and died defending, and the Marines’s failed to understand him and his symbolic victory, even as he died at the hands of his one misbegotten son. Ace’s death sacrificing himself to save his brother, and his subsequent confession to Luffy, as the unwilling inheritor to the legacy of Gol D. Rodger and how that closed him off from others for so long, only for him to find love from Luffy, White Beard, Sabo and the rest of the White Beard Pirates, and how much he appreciated that love, reaffirms Luffy’s love of his own crew, and allows him to reassess both himself and his crews capabilities in the face of his own failures, as they move forward into the New World.
Fishman Island: Fishman island is a perplexing arc. On one hand it covers some of the most complex topics in OP, including intergenerational trauma, slavery, personal ideological failure in the face of systemic racism and the persistence of revenge on a societal level. But on the other hand it has some of the stupidest shit in the entire series, like Sanji’s constant horny nose bleed that causes him to be anemic, and the dumbass with the homing missile fruit. One of the most effective aspect of this arc is Hody Jones, the main villain. Hody is a new Fishman Pirate, taking the moniker from the Arlong, as a sign of reverence to a man he’s never met. His actions are justifiable from the lens of the oppressed lashing out at their oppressor, but therein lies the main contradiction in Hody Jones. He has not been the oppressed, he’s co-opting the rhetoric of a man who was literally enslaved and using a societal expectation of racism to garner support, and victimizing his own people in the name of justice against oppressors he’s never seen and cannot conceptualize. His story is that of a rebel who has inherited a generational conflict that he did not bear the brunt of, but has been raised in a society reflective of it. He cannot conceive of an effective method to grow, and overcome the damage that has been done to his people, and instead chooses direct militarization, despite not have the power or influence to actually make change through force. He’s pathetic, in an understandable way, clawing for power that he thinks will justify his own existence. Unfortunately, this is a kids comic, so these concepts are explored briefly, juxtaposed against Jinbei’s experiences and actions and then are cleanly wrapped up, with Jones and his co-conspirators thrown into prison while they quickly age out of being a threat, due to advanced aging they’re experiencing due to the powers they took on. This is disappointing, as the Fishman are by far the most interesting of the subspecies presented in OP, as they are the one’s who have had the most time devoted to how they have shouldered the burden of the world governments oppression. Characters like Tom, Jinbei, Hacchi, Hody, Arlong and Fisher Tiger all present excellent avenues to explore the effects of this entrenched racism, but the series is frequently too timid to follow up on the more difficult subject matter it introduces, and as a result will always remain media for children, simple, inoffensive and easy to consume. This is the arc where I can fully understand how people could age out of One Piece for a while, before they return to it as something to share with their children.
Punk Hazard: This is a personal opinion, but I believe that Punk Hazard is the worst arc in One Piece. Oda is a writer who wears his influences on his sleeve, and unfortunately here he’s pulling from the X-Men. Ceaser is Mr. Sinister, experimenting on children in a vast underground laboratory devoted to replicating superpowers. Unfortunately, as a story structure, this gets repeated in X-Men comics every couple of months, so when it gets redone in OP its played out, uninspired and incredibly dull. There’s not much else to say about the arc unfortunately, Ceaser is a dull megalomaniacal mad scientist who doesn’t present much of a challenge to over come, and as a result the arc feels like its little more then drawn out set up for Dressrosa.
Dressrosa: Its Baroque Works….. again….. but longer….. This arc was a massive let down. Donquxoite is essentially just Crocodile with actual development, which isn’t an inherently bad thing, it just comes across as uninspired. His pirates manage to take over a sovereign country, the Straw Hats help the populace of the island defeat him, the navy lets them get away. There are excellent parts however, including the back stories for Traffy, Donquxoite and Senior Pink, and Oda almost solves his cast balancing issue by removing half the Straw Hats, but flounders by introducing ten new pirates from the gladiator arena that he then has to give effective time during the big final fight. As a result the climax drags on for multiple volumes. Its nowhere near as bad as it is in the anime, but it still feels like Oda is spinning his wheels and wasting the audiences time.
Zou: Zou is a quick and effective set up arc for both Whole Cake and Wano. It’s pleasant, introduces Skypeia 2.0, but this time it has an actual function in the plot.
Whole Cake Island: It’s a whole arc centred around Sanji….. Great…….
Whole Cake is centred around the legacy that parents force upon their children and refuting the legacy. It’s the most effective use of Sanji that Oda has ever managed, with him struggling under the burden of his families wishes as a means of protecting Zeph, his chosen father from harm. This is paralleled with the struggles and machinations of several of Big Mom’s children, as they seek to define their place within her hierarchy that she enforces upon her children or begin to openly rebel and find their own path. This all culminates in a spectacular Godzilla style rampage by Big Mom, though it has to constantly cut back to Luffy whose trapped in the mirror dimension figting some guy for the majority of the back half of this arc. Overall it’s a massive improvement over Dressrosa, presenting ne ideas, and finally giving Sanji some development and actual room for character growth.
Wano: Wano is long. It is so god damn long. It had been set up for around eight years before it began, and plays like a very effective feudal Japanese revenge story. But I’m unsure if the pay off was worth the amount of time it took to set up the arc. Some of the issue lies with shared power between Orochi the Shogun of Wano and Kaido the last Emperor of the Sea to be introduced. The Shogun is set up as a conniving and treacherous man, and his downfall is cathartic and well earned, as most of the suffering of the people of Wano is a result of his actions. But Kaido presents a narrative issue, as he is the power behind the throne, but he serves little narrative purpose other than being Orochi’s muscle and an obstacle for Luffy to overcome. Kaido ends up functioning similarly to Big Mom’s son who fought Luffy during Whole Cake, a distraction to help remove Luffy from the actual plot. While I won’t deny that Gear 5 is definitely my favorite of Luffy’s power up’s over the course of the series, it would have been a little more narratively fulfilling if it had happened during a fight with an antagonist who is more important to either the overall narrative, or simply more integral to the plot of the arc they’re in.
Egghead: This arc has been fun so far. Kuma’s tragedy porn backstory was sad, and it really does seem like Oda is trying to escalate towards the ending with the involvement of the elders.
Characters:
The Straw Hats: All the Straw Hats will be ranked in descending order, 1/10 being the best, 10/10 being the worst.
Luffy: For the most part Luffy is perfectly serviceable Shonen protagonist. His back story at the end of the paramount war along with Oda allowing Luffy to actually fail has allowed him to be much more dynamic than a lot of peers. But unfortunately, it took almost sixty volumes for his character to be developed and begin growing. Ranked 5/10.
Zoro: I have to be honest, most arcs I forget Zoro is in the story. He’s incredibly dull, and there’s been so little to his character over the years, that if he was removed, I don’t think I’d notice. His terrible sense of direction is funny though. Ranked 9/10.
Nami: The lynch pin of early One Piece, and one of the most important “adult” members of the crew. Most of my opinions about her were covered in the “Romance Dawn” section. Ranked 4/10.
Usopp: The everyman that the straw hats need to remain believable as people. Usopp’s arc in Water Seven/Enies Lobby remains one of the series best. And his resulting confidence has allowed him to find such an effective place in the crew over the subsequent arcs. Ranked 2/10.
Sanji: For the vast majority of the series Sanji was incredibly one note. He was a homophobic lech, with little in the way of personal growth or development. And then Whole Cake happened, and his development basically became “Well at least he’s not a Nazi like his family”. Yeah, that was really great, and least he’s better than his dad. Ranked 10/10 the absolute worst, I’m not just annoyed because he’s the OP character who has the same birthday as me.
Boku Wa Doctor Tony Tony Chopper: I love Chopper. I think his role as the “little brother” in the group is needed as a means of softening the Straw Hats, and his resolve to become a brave adventurer of the years has been sweet, despite him failing to become tougher. Ranked 7/10.
Robin: Early on, Oda struggled to make Robin anything more than an exposition device. And than Water Seven happened, and she became one of the most important characters connecting the Straw Hats to the actual plot, while also growing as character. Now she gets to live an actual life surrounded by the people she loves. Ranked 1/10, the peak, we cannot get much higher.
Franky: Franky’s introduction and backstory are great. But he hasn’t had much to do since then, other than his wonderful fight with Senior Pink. Also, his post time skip redesign is just awful. Ranked 8/10
Brook: Oda uses Brook very effectively to explore the theme of living with your own failures, albeit extremely literally by making him live a ship with the corpses of his dead crew for fifty years. But the story is for children, so being overly literally isn’t the end of the world. And his backstory is still one of the most compelling in the series, and I look forward to his pay off with Laboon. Ranked 6/10.
Jinbei: Jinbei finding a reason to live through Luffy, at the behest of Ace hits like a gut punch. Mix that with the thematic conclusion of Fishman Island where he actively moves past their racial trauma in support of Luffy, and Oda has finally introduced something the series was lacking for a long time. A responsible adult man, who makes an excellent pairing along with Robin as the crew’s responsible adult woman. I know Jinbei isn’t particularly popular with the younger fans of One Piece, but he’s a character who is very reflective of Oda’s growth as a writer and his own maturity. Don’t worry if you don’t get him now, you’ll understand when you’re older. Ranked 3/10.
Villains of Note:
Buggy: The true Clown Prince of crime. I sincerely hope that Buggy fails his way to being King of the Pirates.
Arlong: The first intimidating villain in One Piece, where his actions are effectively tied to one of the main characters. He’s more compelling on a second read through, where the context of his history is already known.
Crocodile: Crocodile is an effective enough megalomaniacal villain, even if his motivations aren’t adequately explored. He comes across as a first draft for what Donquixote would end up being.
Eminem: Skypeia sucks, Enel is boring. I hope he stays on the moon forever.
Foxy: Foxy is great, if you’re not stuck up your own ass about taking a comic for children incredibly seriously.
Rob Lucci: He comes across as a character that a teenager would’ve written in fan fiction. Pointlessly edgy and incredibly “badass”. There’s not a whole lot to him, so I find him incredibly boring. So, its very fitting that he was brought back to fight Zoro during Egghead.
Moria: The worst of the Seven Warlords. Thriller Bark would’ve been much more effective if Hogback had just been the main villain.
The Admirals: Kuzan is the one I’m most interested in due to his relationship with Garp, allowing Robin to escape as a child and his defection to the Black Beard pirates. I hope he’s explored more in the future.
Akainu is of course easy to hate due to him killing Ace, but beyond that, he hasn’t really done anything.
Borsalino is great. He has my favorite devil fruit, his drip is top notch, his relationships with Kuma and Sentomaru have added some nice development to him. And his line about the death of the laws of physics is amazing.
Hody Jones:
Caesar Clown: He’s Mr. Sinister. Mr. Sinister is one of the worst X-men villains. Much like Minister Sinister he sucks.
Donquixote Dolflamingo: What if Crocodile had been developed as a character. Well than you get Donquixote. His back story makes him an effective villain, but Dressrosa’s awful pacing stop him from really being anything spectacular, as his fight just drags on forever.
Big Mom: Big Mom is a wonderful abyssal horror, and that makes for a wonderful contrast with her aesthetic. Her Kaiju rampage at the end of Whole Cake is fun, and her return in Wano feels justified.
Kaido: It’s a great shame that Kaido seems so passive in Wano. He’s built up as a massive threat but ends up being an incredibly reactive character. None of the plans involving his fief are his own, and as a result he comes across as little more than a powerful lackey for the shogun.
Blackbeard: Blackbeard has been fun as a foil to Luffy. A man who shares similar philosophies on personal freedom, but without the firm belief in family that Luffy has makes him easy to hate but easy to contrast with the lead. Hopefully he does something again soon.
Supporting Characters Who I can Remember well enough to have an opinion on, and were not covered effectively during the story portions:
Ace: Ace is a very effective vehicle for Oda to explore themes of legacy. From Ace’s resentment of his father, both his father and mothers’ efforts to protect from his father’s legacy, Garp’s attempts to mold him into something else, White Beard embracing Ace for who he is, and both Luffy and Sabo living their lives reflecting Ace’s choices and eventual sacrifice makes Ace a very thematically resonate character. Shame that he’s not in very much of the series.
Sabo: Sabo feels a little like Oda killed off Ace, immediately regretted it, and then wrote him back into the story. That’s not a terrible thing, and Sabo is an effective POV character for the audience to follow during chapters focussed on the revolutionary army. But that hasn’t really topped him from feeling like a hastily conceived replacement.
Iva: Iva has the second best devil fruit in the entire series, the gender affirming surgery fruit. Also they’re just a camp delight, and I’m so excited anytime they’re on panel.
Kuma: One Piece is famous for its tragedy porn back stories, and Kuma’s might be the most overwritten of all of them. Still fist pumped when he saved his daughter though.
Boa Hancock: I’ll forgive anything she does, because she’s beautiful.
Kinemon: My GF has pointed out that I have a very specific type when it comes to fictional men. She calls them “disasterpieces”, men who are so wholly pathetic, that they have nowhere to go but up, and the more they reek of middle age desperation the more I’ll love them. Buggy is like this, and so is Kinemon, the man that now one should have trusted with the heir to the thrown of Wano. His accidental fuck up about the invasion time of Onigashima which ends up saving the entire armada is one of my favorite moments in the whole series.
The Entire Staff of Impel Down: The intense public hatred the vice warden has for Magellan is wonderful, and his vindictive treatment of the rest of the staff is hilarious. Magellan’s portrayal as a long suffering bureaucrat is hilarious, and I hope all of them come back at some point.
Fisher Tiger: He presents an excellent moral struggle for Jinbei to overcome, as a folk hero who will act in the interest of innocents who are from the same ethnic groups as his oppressors, but cannot overcome his own justifiable prejudices to save his own life. He’s great, and he really helps flesh out the world.
Mihawk: Goth daddy, need I say more.
Traffy: Traffy is a fun foil for Luffy, and the panel of Chopper being tied to his head is one of the best reaction faces in all of One Piece.
Jaggy: Jaggy is not as an effective foil for Luffy as Traffy, but he’s also had significantly less time devoted to him in the story. He ends up being an effective rival archetype, like Gary in original Pokémon.
Bepo: I love Bepo. I love his annoying voice; I love his insecurity. And I love Polar Bear Karate.
Garp: I wish he’d tie me to balloons and float me off into the jungle, then I could be a real man.
Themes:
One Piece excels when it covers personal themes based around family, friends, living with personal failures and legacy. However, it struggles when covering larger societal themes like racism and civil disobedience as it struggles to make a cohesive point about the evils of its world without devolving into cartoonish villainy. As a result, the series remains thematically simple enough for kids and can teach them effective lessons to help them through middle school, but won’t be relevant as they mature.
Art:
Oda has taken a lot of inspiration from old American daily strips like Popeye, and multiple works by Tezuka. His style is exaggerated and cartoony in a way that’s incredible rare for a series from SJ, avoiding the common manga “house style” you see in so many of his contemporaries. There are several key advantages to the use of this style, like distinct character designs (for men) that can be replicated from multiple perspectives effectively, ensuring that characters remain on model consistently. It also allows great flexibility for design modification, allowing his to change characters outfits and hairstyles arc to arc without much visual confusion. This clean style also ensures that he rarely runs into issues with line weights and inks, characters are usually clearly definable, and rarely conflict with the backgrounds. Luffy’s powers also make him particularly well suited to foreshortening, allowing for Oda to pose him effectively and dynamically in fight scenes.
However, where Oda truly struggles is with layouts and lettering. He has terrible page economy, with cramped panels filled with excessive amounts of texts, and sluggish layouts that force the reader to re-read pages frequently or assess panel layout as you begin each page. This has also gotten progressively worse over the years as his cast has ballooned, and he struggles to find space for all the characters involved in scenes. Fortunately, his skills as a writer are enough to overcome his technical failures as an artist, but its frustrating to see, especially in a magazine that has hosted artist like Takehiko Inoue and Akira Toriyama, both masters of page layout and flow, but unfortunately the controlling hand WSJ editorial department did not take the correct lesson from them.
World Building:
I hold a somewhat unpopular opinion among OP fans, that Oda is not as good a planning and foreshadowing as is publicly accepted, but is in fact a master of retconning. They key issue I have with his world building is his multiple magic systems, particularly Haki. Haki as a system comes across a late addition meant to address power scaling issues present by Logia fruit, particularly how each Logia user would require a specific environmental factor to defeat. Crocodile’s defeat comes basically out of nowhere, especially for a man who is effectively impervious to harm, and surrounded by the material he controls. Luffy’s confrontation with Smoker is solved simply by never explaining how Dragon stops him (it can now be inferred via retcon that Dragon used Haki). And Enel is defeated solely because Luffy is rubber and is effectively grounded against Enel’s attacks, though at the voltage presented in the story, its more likely Luffy would’ve been ionized. Haki simply solves that environmental condition issue by simply stating that Haki user can damage Logia types. Why? How? Soul damage I suppose, but it’s a poorly explained system that allows OP’s magic system to be dumbed down considerably over time.
Haki is also reflective of several abilities presented before including Shank’s intimidation of the sea beast, Enel’s Omniscience and CP9’ array of of body hardening and sensory techniques. I’m curious as to when Haki was formalized as a single system in Oda’s mind, and how these other systems played into it, because Haki’s absence in the first half of the story leads to some minor, but annoying character discrepancies. Both Crocodile and Moira were able to challenge Emperor’s of the sea, and walk away still breathing, which seems unlikely in Crocodiles case where White Beard would’ve simply been able to stab him with armament Haki, and Moira’s case where he managed to fight Kaido and live. There’s also issues with Arlong not knowing Haki, despite the Sun Pirates being versed in it, CP9 being ill equipped to fight any major pirates, despite being described as the strongest operatives the world government has. All of these are small issues that are indicative of retconning, which isn’t a massive issue, but introduces logical inconsistencies into the world building.
Final Thoughts:
One Piece is a messy series, most things that last this long are. But it is a charming one, with enough variety over the years to keep it feeling fresh and exciting, while never having dense enough lore to scare off potential new readers. It’s a simple series and probably a good choice to read with your kids or nieces and nephews.
