What makes One Piece so great?

[Souplex]

As someone who doesn't watch/read but is pals with people who do, I'm told the following:
It avoids shonen power-inflation.
It avoids shonen cast-inflation.
It avoids shonen forced-grimdark.
It seems actually planned out.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I am gonna get flak for saying this but....I love Luffy as a character who he is and what he wants, but I don't like his Rubber Powers.

Especially since he gets new powers that does not seem to themeatically correlate well with his rubber powers.

 

[PapaGreg096]

I don't like his Rubber Powers.

Especially since he gets new powers that does not seem to themeatically correlate well with his rubber powers.

What do you mean by that, all 3 of his gears have to do with his rubber powers.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I don't like his Rubber Powers.

Especially since he gets new powers that does not seem to themeatically correlate well with his rubber powers.

What do you mean by that, all 3 of his gears have to do with his rubber powers.

Gear 3rd totally fits with the Rubber Powers.

Gear 2nd does not with the whole venting of steam thus making him stronger? What does that have to do with Rubber?

And why does he can suddenly turn his body into solid stone?

 

[Nazulu]

Lots of great points in this thread so far. I'd also like to add that I never feel like fights are won through some bullshit plot-no-jutsu. Most of the main cast are badasses right from the start. The first few villains they face aren't particularly strong and get defeated fairly quickly once the actual fighting starts. So, when Luffy actually does lose a fight for the first time, it's a big deal and ramps up the tension for that arc.

I never felt very engaged with any of Naruto's fights, because I knew no matter how badly he was losing, he would always pull something out of his ass at the last second and win.

I have no idea how much Naruto Shippuden had changed (flying ninjas?), because I got sick of it early on, but the first 135 episodes of the original series I thought was pretty great.

Naruto was a fun and funny stupid kid who always put in his all, and while he had that stupid catch-phrase in the dub, I felt he was even less annoying than Luffy with his "king of the pirates". The series ramped up the drama fairly quick, and there are many very creative and clever offensive and defensive maneuvers used throughout nearly every battle. Then it had those special animated episodes once in a blue moon that made it feel as a big as movie for a short time. I found it far more exciting, before it shit the bed.

After some disappointing and tedious moments in One Piece I moved on. However, just recently I saw that Big Mom Tea Party from Hell song, as well as some of her creepy monster faces, and I absolutely love it. It's the best thing I've seen from One Piece, and I'm wondering if I should attempt watching it again.

Seems to me the reason One Piece is more popular now is because it's pretty consistent with the quality, and now they're pulling out the big guns for the big 4.

 

[PapaGreg096]

I don't like his Rubber Powers.

Especially since he gets new powers that does not seem to themeatically correlate well with his rubber powers.

What do you mean by that, all 3 of his gears have to do with his rubber powers.

Gear 3rd totally fits with the Rubber Powers.

Gear 2nd does not with the whole venting of steam thus making him stronger? What does that have to do with Rubber?

And why does he can suddenly turn his body into solid stone?

For Gear 2 he increases his blood and heart rate to his body, if it was some normal human that would kill them but seeing how Luffy's body is made out of rubber he can withstand the strain. Gear 4 mixes Haki with a bounce like form

 

[Asita]

I don't like his Rubber Powers.

Especially since he gets new powers that does not seem to themeatically correlate well with his rubber powers.

What do you mean by that, all 3 of his gears have to do with his rubber powers.

Gear 3rd totally fits with the Rubber Powers.

Gear 2nd does not with the whole venting of steam thus making him stronger? What does that have to do with Rubber?

And why does he can suddenly turn his body into solid stone?

For Gear Second, see here:


For the latter, that's not solid stone, that's Haki, which (at least in that form) literally everyone in the series is theoretically capable of using, but only a comparative few ever awaken. Like a lot of things in One Piece, it debuted some time before it was officially named. In this case its first appearance was right after Ennis Lobby, at which point Garp's punch managed to hurt Luffy despite the latter's rubber body rendering him largely immune to blunt force. Short version is that it's a reinforcement ability with the side-benefit of bypassing the passive defenses provided by Devil Fruits.

 

[Veldel]

Here's what I, personally like about it:

1. It feels more planned out in advance than Naruto did. You know that Naruto twist where we thought that one character was the big bad, but it turned out that another character was? That didn't feel premeditated. It felt like Kishimoto making things up as he went along.

2. The protagonist is way less obnoxious than Naruto and Ichigo. Those twoare like bratty kids. My man Monkey D. is more na?ve and innocent.

3. It doesn't take itself too seriously. You can tell that a sense of fun is important to Oda, even in the most serious arcs.

I'd also posit that Oda is simply much more whimsically creative. Kubo ended up going "Rurouni Kenshin with Magic Swords", Kishimoto went "Ninja-Mages"...Oda went with "Gulliver's Travels, by way of Xanth". And while I'd say that the former two eventually started phoning in[footnote]Bleach actually ended up with the dubious distinction of having filler that was arguably better than the source material, which I credit largely to the fact that the people writing it were more willing to explore Kubo's implications (including a whole arc focusing on the souls of those magic swords that Kubo tended to ignore)[/footnote] the premise their story was based around, Oda's is based in large part around the same "you want to see something interesting?" angle that Doctor Who is, and that's allowed him to keep things fresh. The cast finds a floating restaurant, then a desert kingdom being torn apart by a war profiteer made of sand. Then a flying island largely made of clouds led by someone made of lightning. Then they find a train that runs across the ocean leading to an island modelled off of Venice. Then they find the island of Frankenstein/Moreau. Then an almost themepark themed island...where they encounter slave traders and the thoroughly detestable World Nobles. Then a hellish prison which took cues from Dante's Inferno...and jumping ahead we've just seen kingdoms inspired by Babes in Toyland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

And across all of these the major characters they meet almost all have their own unique abilities/Magical Talents.

Bleach always made me think of trying to do Jojo but with Swords replacing Stands. Its major downfall also is it just keeps doing the same arc over and over in different paint. I stopped reading bleach after Aizens defeat as that was the concrete end in my mind.

 

[Vausch]

I don't like his Rubber Powers.

Especially since he gets new powers that does not seem to themeatically correlate well with his rubber powers.

What do you mean by that, all 3 of his gears have to do with his rubber powers.

Gear 3rd totally fits with the Rubber Powers.

Gear 2nd does not with the whole venting of steam thus making him stronger? What does that have to do with Rubber?

And why does he can suddenly turn his body into solid stone?

For Gear Second, see here:


For the latter, that's not solid stone, that's Haki, which (at least in that form) literally everyone in the series is theoretically capable of using, but only a comparative few ever awaken. Like a lot of things in One Piece, it debuted some time before it was officially named. In this case its first appearance was right after Ennis Lobby, at which point Garp's punch managed to hurt Luffy despite the latter's rubber body rendering him largely immune to blunt force. Short version is that it's a reinforcement ability with the side-benefit of bypassing the passive defenses provided by Devil Fruits.

Y'know the funny thing is if you look at Gear Fourth, you realise what Luffy did there: he vulcanised his rubber body.

 

[Natemans]

I love talking about One Piece.

 

[Natemans]

Also the characters are just extremely likeable especially Luffy and whenever it comes to him helping his friends, it doesn't feel phoned in or cringey, like a certain other shounen that is notorious for it's friendship speeches. Whenever Luffy wants to help out a friend, he's goes above and beyond to do so, the best example being his declaration at Ennies Lobby to declare war on the World Government, just to help rescue a friend.

That's actually one of my favorite scenes in the series because of how it played out. You've got a character with severe trust issues because since she was a kid almost everyone has told her that it was a sin for her to be alive and pretty much everyone eventually betrayed her either out of greed or because they believed the government's propaganda about her. She'd grown genuinely fond of the Straw Hats, but when she realized that they were about to be threatened because of her she abandoned them both to protect them and because she didn't want to be faced with the fact that they'd be forced to betray her or be obliterated. Because it would be them basically against the entire civilized world. Cue...this:


It's not that they don't realize what they're up against or that they're suicidally overconfident, or that they love her in spite of her past. They don't care about it. It's quite moving.

Its one of the many reasons I love One Piece. Totally agree with this.

 

[Erttheking]

Ok, in order to talk about how it's great, we have to first think that it is great and I, well, don't. It's gotten way too silly, complicated and fucking long for me to even bother keeping up with it.

 

[Tanis]

It took me a LONG time to get into it, I still don't like the art style that much, but...OT?

This series got ME to 'tear up' over a fucking SHIP.
A goddamn BOAT.

BELIEVE IT!

 

[sanquin]

This video explains it quite well in my opinion. I could explain it all in text, but this guy is far better at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ5H72_2O7k