One Piece

On first glance, One Piece is not too different from other Anime series. It has hilarious, roll on the floor from laughing humor and so much action it makes you wonder if the crew ever gets tired.

But in its core, One Piece is about something else: it's about nakama. Nakama, a Japanese term generally referring to comrades, receives a completely new feeling in One Piece. Stand by your nakama, believe in them no matter what happens, no matter what anyone does or says about them. Help them in any situation, even if it means putting your own life on the line. With you nakama, you can do anything. And it is this extreme sense of comradry that makes you fall in love with the characters and wish you could be a part of the strange little group.

It also teaches how humans are allowed to have flaws; in fact, all people do: seemingly perfect Swordsman and first mate Roronoa Zoro has no sense of direction whatsoever and can easily get himself lost on any one way street, navigator Nami is absolutely crazy for money, cook Sanji loses his mind once he sees a lady.. and the list goes on and on. But despite these flaws, they continue fighting. For each other and with each other. If one crewmember can't do it, somebody else will be right there for support.

If you're looking for a funny, action-filled series whose main characters easily grow to your heart and feel like family: go for One Piece. You will not regret it!

I watch a lot of fan subbed anime and occasionally watch some dubbed anime if there is nothing else good on TV. Well one day while watching Toonami in the UK i stumbled across show called one piece. It wasn't amazingly good, there were obvious problems with the dub, but it was enjoyable none the less. After i'd watched few episodes i started to become curious about the characters and the origins of the story. I did a little bit of research on the web and found out that the version of One Piece i was watching had been butchered from its original format. There were A lot of sources that all said the same thing, that the original One Piece was brilliant and that the dub was nothing in comparison. I liked the show and wanted to see what Uncut One Piece was like. After a little more searching i found some fantastic fansubs and my real One Piece experience started. What can i say, Japanese One Piece is one of the best stories ever told and is by far my favourite show to watch. I look forward everyweek to watching the next episode when the fansub is released. 280 episodes into the series and its still as great as it was when it first started.

A poor dub led me to discover my favourite show, and so if nothing else, the dub will let new fans like me discover One Piece.

Lets all hope this adventure continues for a long time.

One Piece takes place in an alternate world where pirates rule the seas and anything can happen. Gold Roger was the Pirate King who had fame, fortune, and power. But when he was captured he was sentenced to be executed. On the day he was executed he revealed his One Piece treasure is hidden somewhere at The Grand Line.

This made people set sail and try to hunt down the One Piece treasure. Many have failed and never found the location of it. But over the years it's drawn attention and formations on hundreds of Pirate groups who seek the title of Pirate King. The whole world has entered the Golden Era of Pirates.

On one island lived a boy named Luffy, who is friends with a pirate named Captain Shanks. He looks up to Shanks as a hero. And would do anything to be part of his crew. But he was too young to become a pirate or part of any crew. One day Luffy encountered the Devil Fruit. He ate it and obtain the power the fruit hold. It gave him the ability to stretch with a body made of rubber. But once you eat the Devil's Fruit, you're cursed with the powers forever. And can never be able to swim again. After almost drowning in the water, his friend Shanks saved his life. As Shanks departs with his crew, he gave Luffy his prized straw hat. He told him to keep it with him, until they meet again. While Luffy was left feeling sad but honored at the same time. And his new destiny in life, will be to start up his own pirate crew, go to the Grand Line, find the One Piece treasure, to become the new Pirate King.

A few years later, Luffy starts his quest to find him some friends for his pirate crew. Throughout the series, he'll find new lands, new allies, treasure, danger, and plenty of villains to face off. But with some faith and the powers of the Devil's Fruit. Luffy will sure to succeed his goal in becoming the Greatest Pirate that ever lived.

Comic made back in the late 90s, and the anime series has been around since the earlier days of SpongeBob. I first heard of it when it came on the FoxBox back in late 2004. I wasn't entirely into many anime back then. And I never saw the English Dub of the series, as I found it to be an OK series. After reading on the internet that the dub is heavily edited and nothing like the original. I grew interest on how good it is. I read the first volume of the Manga series. And liked how the story was going.

Wasn't until January 2007, when I finally start to check out the Anime. Only I viewed the episodes that are subtitled, uncut, and uncensored. And I grew to love it. The animation is very well done, it's funny, it's action packed, and it's dramatic sometimes. I don't even consider it a kid's cartoon, when it's more aimed to teenagers. But with an interesting cast of characters, and over a hundred secondary/miscellaneous characters. One Piece is indeed a great Anime next to Case Closed, Naurto, & other ongoing series.

The reason why it's very underrated was because of 4Kids being the first company to distribute the anime. Which they edited and censored a lot. And many flaws in the dubbing. Such as voices that don't suit the characters' personalities. Too many pirate accents and catch-phrases that get old instantly. All the violence, blood, alchol, drugs, and nudity were altered and removed. All the weapons were altered to look harmless. 4Kids spent more time edditting than spending time on the scripts. Plus a lot of filler and small episodes were removed. And most of them were too important to take out in the series.

The good thing is 4kids no longer owns rights to One Piece. I knew they would drop it, because they did a poor job in introducing the series to English speaking countries.

With over 300 episodes, I can tell that One Piece is really big in Japan. I've seen all the current episodes. And can't get enough of it.

So those who like their Anime uncut, should highly recommend seeing One Piece uncut by fan subs or Funimation's release on the series.

Looking at the IMDb reviews it seemed rather strange to me that most of them (the top ones at least) were quite outdated, written in 2005-2006 actually or the reviewers had not seen more than 50 or 100 episodes. Having said that please note that i have seen 610 episodes and 2 movies(strong world, film z) as of the day I'm writing this review. I hope my review will provide you with valuable insight to the series or even convince you to watch it. I will try to be as spoiler free as possible.

It's been about a year since i started watching anime regularly and that is something I have yet to regret. I mostly enjoy short anime with less than 50 episodes that have good plot and well made characters, anime like cowboy bebop(my favorite), mushishi, ergo proxy, code geass etc. I knew about anime like OP, Naruto, Bleach even before I started watching anime but kept avoiding them even when I had seen about 50 (I must have seen over 100 now XD) other anime mainly because I thought to myself 'how can they be any good when they have that many episodes? Aren't they out of ideas yet?'. Well I might be right about Naruto and Bleach but when it comes to One Piece I couldn't be more wrong. One piece is so good, so enjoyable and it never ends which is something everyone who is watching it wants.

Talk about long introduction huh? Anyways onto the actual review now. It will be divided into 4 sectors: story, characters, art and sound, enjoyment.

STORY: Now the story at first might seem very simple and straightforward, a young boy Monkey D. Luffy (17 years old)setting out on sea on a great journey to become the Pirate King and find One Piece the biggest and greatest treasure in the OP world that was left in 'that' place by the former Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. Before Roger was executed publicly by the marines-world government he told everyone that if they wanted OP they had to look for it and that it was all left in 'that' place and that ignited the great age of pirates. The series is divided into arcs, each featuring its very own story and setting, each island, each place the straw hat pirates (Luffy and his crew) visit is a whole different adventure with new people to meet and new circumstances. And that's one of the best things of OP, you never get bored. You are fascinated by the huge and diverse OP world and you just can't let go of it. Everything is interesting and everything is fun, Luffy and his crew never chose the easy path but they strive for adventure and excitement and they almost pass their feelings to us the viewers. That's something very rare especially in anime and OP handles that expertly. Once you have seen enough episodes you will realize that the main characters of the series, especially Luffy, don't really care about their destination, hell most of the times they don't even know where they are going at all. All that matters is that they are going somewhere interesting where they will learn new things, get stronger, meet new people and face powerful foes. Another thing worth mentioning is that the series has very few fillers (episodes that did not exist in the original story-source material-manga) unlike some other mainstream anime series(Naruto, Bleach anyone?). Also the fillers are actually not that bad, sure they are not good but many of them are OK. And that's a huge plus for an anime series.

CHARACTERS: This is where OP really shines. Each character is presented with great detail, they are all quite unique. Everyone has their own backstory explained thoroughly and we get to see why they are who they are, why each one of them has their very own ambitions and dreams. Due to their different experiences they have very different personalities and through good character development we see how they interact with each other and how they get closer to each other. We see how they become comrades and everyone is looking for each other, they become something very close to a family. That's the kind of bonds they make. Furthermore we not only see the history and personality of the straw hats but many others too like members of the marines. We see why they make the kind of choices they make. Nobody is entirely evil and nobody is purely good. Everyone has a good reason behind what they are doing and they strongly believe in their own cause, in their own justice and in their own dreams.

ART AND SOUND: One Piece also excels in this sector with beautiful and vivid animation. The sceneries look alive and all different from each other with their very own characteristics. The characters are illustrated masterfully and each character looks a lot different from each other (that's a huge plus in anime). The sound department also did a great job especially with the voice actors, I'm always talking about the original Japanese (don't you dare see the English dub),who fit really well into their respective characters. The music, for me at least, is very catchy and actually really well made. However that depends on personal taste, if you are not really into this kind of karaoke-Japanese style of music you might not like it. Nevertheless OP really has some of the greatest music themes I have heard in an anime.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT: One Piece is one of the most, if not the most enjoyable and diverse anime series you can find. It really excels in pretty much every field there is. It is the only anime series, or any series, I have seen with that many episodes and yet manages to stay that good(and believe me, have I seen a lot). I recommend OP to anyone with enough time and hunger for adventure. If you have not decided whether to watch it or not just watch 10 episodes and see for yourself if you want continue or not (oh you will want to continue). Trust me and you won't regret it, just like I did.

And yep that's the end of it fellas. If you enjoyed my review and found it useful please upvote so others can see it.

2021 update: I've been on the fence about deleting this since it's so poorly written, I was 17 at the time of writing and not a native speaker, and my opinion on one piece and anime in general has changed dramatically for the worse. But I figured I might as well leave it be since people seem to like it and it serves as a kind of snapshot of my 17 year old self whose input other hopeful 16 and 17 year adventurers out there might find helpful.

I've followed this series for going on 15 years and it never fails to amaze me. From the characters to the world building, the details are everything here. Until almost 500 episodes in, I honestly forgot about the One Piece, because there is so much more going on. The emotional impact of each saga, and the naturally feel good vibe of this series can probably cure depression (I know it cured mine).

At first glance, I like many others, skipped over this series because of the animation and overall goofiness that seemed to engulf it. I couldn't have made a bigger mistake. Don't be fooled, just like the real world, this world shows a coloful fun facade, but there is a much darker reality that lies underneath. The world is a very cruel and unfair place, but that can't deter you from achieving your dream and exploring all it has to offer.

The main protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, embodies the human spirit as much as any character in fiction, and just like his rubber ability, he always bends but never breaks. His fiery passion and indomitable spirit to become "King of the Pirates" inspires those around him, and his fun loving, free spirited personality and compassion for his crew make him an excellent leader.

The crew itself are full of different personalities and I almost guarantee that you'll relate to at least one of them. Each bringing their own strengths to the crew. As a fan of the original Dragon Ball, I loved the teamwork aspect and sadly, it's something that didn't carry over as well to DBZ, but was somewhat redeemed in Super. By which I mean, there was a point where Goku and Vegeta vastly surpassed everyone else. Whereas in One Piece, Luffy is the Goku of this series, but no one survives in this world alone and strength comes in all different forms, not just raw power. The strongest crew will find the One Piece, not the strongest person.

Eiichiro Oda and his team have been producing chapter after chapter almost every week for over 22 years. The love and detail he puts into everything is noteworthy, and the anime should receive recognition for the voice acting and excellent score, despite how some people feel about the animation and pacing. It's still better than most.

Whether you decide to read the manga, watch the anime or both, take your time and enjoy one of the greatest adventure series ever made.