One Piece

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.

One Piece has become something of a colossal cult-phenomenon around the world, though it's a household name in Japan thanks to Toei Animation's seemingly undying commitment to Shonen Jump adaptations, such as Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, Saint Seiya and Slam Dunk.

At over 900 episodes this show has become probably the longest running digitally-painted anime in history: thanks to Toei's transition to digital cel-animation in the late 1990s. This show's got great characters, a fun world and the action gets just enough punch to not be too boring or derivative of Toei's other Shonen-derived shows.

This is an anime household name and anyone into Japanese animation should give this one a shot. P.S. You DON'T need to have seen all of this show's episodes because... y'know: it's ridiculous catch-up time in one sitting.

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.

It is difficult to sum up the story of a series with hundreds of episodes, TV specials and movies, so I'd rather just try to tell you what it is about and why it is so incredibly good.

The series starts off with a guy named Luffy whose ultimate goal it is to become the one and only "King of all Pirates" and to find the greatest treasure in the world. The first episodes introduce him and some characters and make a lovely start that is entertaining and makes one want more. On his way Luffy meets a lot of very interesting characters who become his crew members and friends - each of them with an intense and captivating background story. Every character in this series - be it friend or foe - is either adorable, tragic, despicable or interesting at the least... no boring characters anywhere. Later on in the series, important events and story twists are often visualized or supported by huge appearances in the fabulous and unreal environments that our crew travels. This is perfectly done and helps the already epic feel of the story. I have seen 150 episodes, four movies and two specials so far and there were moments that made me cry, laugh, think and re-watch some episodes (especially 85-90) at least 30 times. You might come to the false conclusion of having a kids show here due to the presentation, but that is definitely wrong. People sometimes say about a movie or series that it is "not a life changer, but entertaining". That is definitely not the case here! I know it sounds nerdy, but this series has broadened my horizon in many ways and I recommend anyone to take the admittedly long time to get into this epic adventure. The best way to do so will be to watch the fan-subs which are as close to the original as a non Japanese will get (explanations of puns and traditions). There are of course some filler episodes in a huge project like this which won't blow you away, but that is only natural with hundreds of episodes and helps developing the characters. This show is an easy 10/10