My Problem with One Piece (a critique not a rant)

Hey you guys thanks for the support on the vid go check out my top 10 strongest one piece characters list https://youtu.be/Qa4lZGUHKRQ

A lot of people know that one piece does have many flaws. But because they are just too goddamn loyal to Oda as a person. They will literally give him a pass on anything, which to me is not fair..

This is why Koby is growing on me as a character. Dude was a literally nobody in East Blue, just Alvida's cabin boy slave. Now through sheer grit and determination, he's shaping up to be the new hero of the marines.

I never consider the one piece elitist’s from the Fanbase to be true fans of the series. For me, true fans of one piece are the ones that say they love it but here are my problems and things I don’t like about it. In order to love something you have to give criticism, you can’t pretend the flaws do not exist. The one piece elitist’s will constantly make some of the stupid excuses you will ever hear. If someone tells you, you have to go rewatch the anime or the manga five times in order to understand something, even though they probably do understand what they are watching or reading. Eventually you just have to stop and accept someone does not like your series or certain aspects of your favorite series.. If somebody gives 5 times of the exact same feedback. And you still don’t want to accept it! At that point you’re just being childish that someone does not see what you see in your favorite series. You just have to accept that some people Don’t see what you see in everything.. And that’s just life!

The lack of death in one piece is a drawback and a benefit at the same time because you could be always surprised when death happens

“I hope shanks isn’t related to the celestial dragons” . . . (Spoilers) . . . Figarland Garling has entered the chat. Jewelry Bonney has entered the chat. Bonney is now confirmed to be related to the Celestial Dragons. Most likely, Shanks is related to them as well. It just is what it is at this point.

"Why do they have to be special in some way, why can't they just be some guy?" EXACTLY how I feel about Gear 5. Why does Luffy have to be a Sun God Nika? Why can't the Gum Gum fruit just be some random power that luffy MADE great?! Why does it have to be some ultra powerful fruit thats also connected to some ancient sun god...?! Cuz its like...dayum... did Luffy even make it on his own this whole time? Or was it only cuz he had god powers the WHOLE TIME?! "It really takes the oomph outta the character" you're right man.

This is a breath of fresh air. Been reading One Piece weekly since 2008 and it's nice to see someone actually critiquing it rather than the constant "Goda" and "greatest manga of all time" statements i see tossed around when even the most basic story planning is executed while simultaneously ignoring issues they'd crucify any other series for. I still enjoy One Piece and Oda has his moments, but like all stories, it has it's issues.

I stopped caring about the one piece characters on a personal level, because I know nothing will never happen to them and because of that it makes me not care about the story anymore.

I have so many problems with this series I probably can't put them all in 1 comment lol. But I'll try. 1.) Luffy himself I like Luffy as a character and he's an amazing protagonist. His dream is to become pirate king and become the world's greatest pirate.... however my problem with him is that he doesn't LEARN, it would be quite interesting to see Luffy taking his adventure more seriously and thinking about possible situations that could result from his mindless actions. I'm not saying I want Luffy to be SMART but I want him to think a little instead of just running off instinct. Show me those captain qualities. Most of the time Luffy is completely unneeded on his crew as the captain. 2.) The Crew I love the straw hats. And following this fictional pirate crew for 20 years....I kinda expect SOME character development... Now you might point me to Sanji back story or robin back story etc. But you never see this in the character. For example Sanji, he had a hell of a back story and during the cake ark Sanji was showing some real ass emotion. But after the arc it's like that NEVER HAPPENED, and this is the same for most of all the characters in the series, there unchanging. Also I would love to see more personal interactions between the crew. Like what if Zoro and Sanji actually had a real ass talk....Sanji comes from whole cake and is pretending normal but Zoro immediately notices this and when the crew leaves he talks to him. Usopp after his fight with Luffy, even though he won't betray the crew again he starts keeping tabs on the powers of the crew. Has anyone ever had a series talk with Luffy? Sit Luffy down and make him actually talk to a crew member on a serious enough level even if it's not smart it would be good to see Luffys inner thoughts. Point is the crew need more crew moments. 3.) The girls (specifically robin) The girls in the series are uninteresting and and are poorly designed. Most are built like spoons with tits. Pre skip had this problem as well but the females looked better and had more depth. Now talking about my favorite girl robin...why oda do that? Pre and post robin aren't the same character lol. Pre robin was by far the best female design he has made. She was the complete opposite of NAMI, and this made her stand out on the crew. She had her tan skin, and that mature charm, she also had some level of self respect unlike NAMI. Then post skip happens and now she's like every other girl in OP with the spoon with tits build, always wearing the MOST revealing outfit possible, her tan is completely gone. Her personality is just a character trope now, something happened and she giggles maturely that's it. And she lost that self respect she once had in pre skip. ( Literally sitting butt naked with NAMI on a pedestal in a bath house full of guys. Pre robin would never, ask Franky) 4.) No one dies More characters in the series should have died. Death brings tension to the series and makes decisions actually matter, but most one piece arcs have no deaths at all. The series has become fat with very irrelevant characters who should be dead and would drive the series forward if they were dead. I'm still half way expecting Pedro to get back up. 5.) The One Piece Throughout this entire adventure we should get more clues on the one piece...and we should see the crew actually looking for it... Most arcs in the series have NOTHING to do with finding the one piece at all. Luffys mind set on it is like " oh we will drift there eventually" , but NO we need more moments of the crew looking and searching for it. Maybe raiding another crew to get clues etc. 6.) The islands Why the islands look like that....pre skip islands looked phenomenal, had everything you could ask for in a fictional island. Post skip islands look dumb... Like a plot of land with a stage prop directly in the middle. Just look back at all the post skip islands and you will see what I mean lol. Most of them are uninteresting, over the top and kinda boring if it wasn't for the big bad of the arc. Plus the characters do the same things ON EVERY ISLAND. like I shouldn't be able to predict what the crew dose before they do it like I have observation haki. Luffy- runs off somewhere Zoro- sleeps Nami-complains about Luffy Robin-acts mature Franky- Super Sanji- simps after the first girl he sees Usopp- somehow gets in trouble Chopper - follows the crowd Brook- tells a skull joke And that's on every island and the ones they don't do it on they stand out like wow they did something different. - And I can keep going but I'll stop here. The series is a good series but after watching for 20 years it starts to get repetitive and you see several flaws in the series. Most of which if we're resolved the series would be WAY better. But unfortunately if these flaws were fixed it would probably break the series, it's too late for oda to fix them.

Manga: as the series went on the panels are so cluttered and I gotta zoom in jus to read. It’s so annoying Anime: the pacing and the animation at the beginning. They want make money so they prolong every little scene. It’s so annoying. That’s my biggest issues

what you said is completely true, but I would like to add its inconsistency in terms of power: It wasn't really avoidable considering that one piece wasn't supposed to last this long, but seeing ace surprised after being hit, cp9 not have haki, or crocodile being insanely strong in marineford is just incosistent and anoying.

As a one piece super fan it’s nice to see actual criticism and not just “ oh it too long” or “oh it’s bad b/c I think the animation is bad” or whatever else bottom of the barrel excuses people use. I feel like people theses days just can’t say that they don’t like something, it’s always gotta be justified in some way. Nice vid, much love 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽.

I agree with your statements. I started getting pissed after time skip, arcs went too long, and story doesn't progress at all. We didn't discover anything about the one piece in 10+ years.

Everything has flaws but i love how it is the story, adventure, frienship and the world . I just wish i get to see the ending before i die

Japanese media is really obsessed with genes and special bloodlines . It's in 80% of anime, manga and movies. It's, in my opinion, really lame and it comes off as lazy writing

Naruto arcs were not that repetitive though. The part about no stakes is so true and it made me drop one piece twice

You’re right! There’s no continuity with health/life & death in this story. For example: Doflamingo keeps law hostage after shooting him, instead of just making sure he’s dead. Then 60 episodes later tries fighting him to the death. Why wouldn’t he just kill him when he had the chance? The man is master strategizer and overlooked that simple detail? Law gets shot three times point blank and suffers little to no damage, has on sea prism cuffs and doesn’t get healed for 40 episodes. Walks it off. Kyros gets his leg cut off, doesn’t phase him. Law gets his arm ripped off, doesn’t matter. Then gets shot by doflamingo 5 more times. Still doesn’t matter. Neither of them stop fighting… but when sanji gets a nose bleed from being too horny he needs an emergency blood transfusion after losing too much blood. Make it make sense, Oda. Rebecca gets hit with a mace right in the face, gets up and walks it off No matter how fierce the opposition, no matter the magnitude of the attack, most characters just get up and walk it off. Except for the backstory characters like people’s family, they’re the only ones who die immediately for some reason. What a coincidence, right?

So one of my favorite things about One Piece is how much mythology and outside references are in the show. Some mysteries can even be better theorized by using the mythological origins. The symbolism is also a big factor. There have been times when the current may seem like an asspull but has actually been constructed and the effect of biding time is apparent. Like how Luffy and Zoro both were shown to have Conquers Haki way back in Whiskey Peak when they fought each other over the Borogue Works bandits. Everyone was theorizing when it was already proven YEARS before it was discussed in story

Idk if this is a hot take or not but Oda’s style of writing remind me so much of JK Rowling, they both think of cool things that can happen in the arc, but they both don’t figure out a way to implement them naturally at all, like the whole implementation of Haki just comes out of nowhere and we’re expected to accept that everyone’s always had it they’ve just never mentioned it or acknowledged it’s existence pre time skip