Current Events > One Piece anime is pretty fun

(+) Yeah! (+)

I had read up to Enies Lobby a little while ago and then fell off. I decided to start watching the anime a couple days ago and I'm enjoying it a bit more. I did start from the beginning so maybe that'll change.

Only just got to Arlong (like episode 30-something) so we'll see if I stick with it. I'm actually kinda excited to get up to various parts that I read. I do wish the animation was a bit better but it's still good enough.

And I'm watching dub (sue me) and while I initially wasn't into Clinkenbeard as Luffy (for years it was the thing that put me off the show), she's really grown on me. Love all the performances so far. Though I'm pretty sure I've heard Sonny Strait in like a million background character roles.

I think One Piece is gonna be one of the greatest stories ever told. Also, the animation gets better in stages as the anime goes on.

How can you read enies lobby and den stop lol

Honestly the fighting was tiring. I really like the story and characters and how everything interconnects but when it's pages of fighting I just kinda tune out.

The anime is definitely better for the fights than the manga. I think the anime also handles the comedic moments really well.

CableZL posted...

I think the anime also handles the comedic moments really well.

This is usually true but I can't get over Sanji almost bleeding to death because he touched a mermaid's boob.

Too bad the anime's pacing becomes terrible later on.

PMarth2002 posted...

Too bad the anime's pacing becomes terrible later on.

Yeah, I'm definitely worried about that. I know there's One Pace to watch without filler and whatnot but I figure I'll just try and stick with the main thing.

I was wondering the other day why they didn't just take breaks in the anime and wait instead of ruining the pace. No one likes filler so wouldn't it just be a better product? I assume maybe Toei has to keep pumping it out or they lose a license or something.

CableZL posted...

The anime is definitely better for the fights than the manga. I think the anime also handles the comedic moments really well.

To a degree. I'm not a fan of the newer fights. They change the art style. In the manga its better in that case.

Vegy posted...

How can you read enies lobby and den stop lol

Hating on Thriller Bark maybe? I've seen people do that.

Man the sad moments hit really hard with voice acting and music (and when the music cuts away). About to face down Arlong and everything from Bellemere to Nami asking for help was rough.

Also, that song they use for sad/nostalgic moments is amazing. The slow bells or whatever just gets me every time.

AndyReklaw posted...

Honestly the fighting was tiring. I really like the story and characters and how everything interconnects but when it's pages of fighting I just kinda tune out.

This is why reading the manga feels like cliff notes to me. I cannot follow fighting in books, and seeing the fights happen in the anime is as if I've never even seen it before.

The idea of taking breaks instead of doing really slow pacing or just doing a bunch of filler is somewhat a new concept. I feel like most long running anime from like 2016 onward started opting for breaks instead. Look at classic Bleach and now the latest Bleach seasons. Big difference.

I started the One Piece anime Dec 1st 2012 and caught up to episode 600+ by the following August I think. It's so good.

Breaks are fine, but don't overdo it. For example, Inuyasha had filler which wasn't liked and then had an extremely long break (years) when it got to close to the Manga...with the Anime finishing in an incredibly rushed final season.

AndyReklaw posted...

Man the sad moments hit really hard with voice acting and music (and when the music cuts away). About to face down Arlong and everything from Bellemere to Nami asking for help was rough.

Also, that song they use for sad/nostalgic moments is amazing. The slow bells or whatever just gets me every time.

TASUKETE!!!

The pacing gets to a point where it becomes unbearable. I dont know how people watch it week to week

I would genuinely rather have filler arcs and episodes, because at least those can be skipped. You cant skip god awful pacing because its baked into the episode

I usually let the episodes build up and them binge like 10 at a time. Does take a long time though.

tripleh213 posted...

I usually let the episodes build up and them binge like 10 at a time. Does take a long time though.

I do that for weekly mangas. I think the longest break I took of a manga I still was interested in was several years lol

now THAT is something idk how people can handle every week. Weekly chapters can be so short

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

I do that for weekly mangas. I think the longest break I took of a manga I still was interested in was several years lol

now THAT is something idk how people can handle every week. Weekly chapters can be so short

It's not as worth it for the Manga

So is the problem with the pacing later helped by watching it in bulk (without having to wait weekly), or is it just a general problem of stretching the material too much (in which case I would imagine bulk watching might amplify that)?

AndyReklaw posted...

So is the problem with the pacing later helped by watching it in bulk (without having to wait weekly), or is it just a general problem of stretching the material too much (in which case I would imagine bulk watching might amplify that)?

Your mileage may vary. For me, watching it in bulk doesnt help a ton because each episode is clearly padding time and that severely harms the experience for me

AndyReklaw posted...

So is the problem with the pacing later helped by watching it in bulk (without having to wait weekly), or is it just a general problem of stretching the material too much (in which case I would imagine bulk watching might amplify that)?

The pacing was awful while binging it. I imagine its worse keeping up with new releases

Hmm that's unfortunate... Maybe if the Wit one isn't just the East Blue, I'll switch to that and just watch it as it releases. Though, even if they do make it all, that could take forever.

Or maybe I'll just switch to the Manga at some point...

Ehh, whatever... that's a problem for Future Andy.

I recommend watching the One Pace fan edit. It's almost entitely caught up now and removes all that extra padding.

MyMainAccount posted...

I recommend watching the One Pace fan edit. It's almost entitely caught up now and removes all that extra padding.

I've thought about it but I decided that for a first go I'll just do it with the normal episodes. I could see using it for rewatching later though.

AndyReklaw posted...

I've thought about it but I decided that for a first go I'll just do it with the normal episodes. I could see using it for rewatching later though.

The pacing only gets bad at like the 600 episode mark so you got some time lol

Honestly I was just more interested in the fact that it would cut out the repeated scenes at the beginning of episodes.

Dressrosa is where I fell off the manga for a year or two due to how slow everything was going. The arc seemed to drag on forever and I thought multiple parts were really dull. I imagine it is even worse in the Anime. Might be a good point to start speeding things up (fan edit).

tripleh213 posted...

The pacing only gets bad at like the 600 episode mark so you got some time lol

it was definitely bad before that, I didn't get that far.

I just watched the episode after leaving Cocoyashi and that's what I want most out of this show. It was just glimpses of a bunch of characters we've met so far. My biggest worry is that since this is a series about travelling, that most of the fun characters will be one and done.

I hope there's more of that.

Ive gotten up to Long Ring Long Land in the anime. I recently starred the manga and got through Orange Island. Early on I think the anime is better but I started to get bored during Skypeia. Im not sure if Ill try to pass up the anime with the manga or watch the anime first.

The anime pacing isn't awful if you're binging it.

Like, it's still bad, but if you get through like 4~5 episodes a day (which you'll end up wanting to do because you'll be so invested by that point), it'll still feel like you've watched a satisfying amount.

Then you catch up and start wishing there were even more episodes.

AndyReklaw posted...

I just watched the episode after leaving Cocoyashi and that's what I want most out of this show. It was just glimpses of a bunch of characters we've met so far. My biggest worry is that since this is a series about travelling, that most of the fun characters will be one and done.

I hope there's more of that.

It'll feel like that at first, but a lot of characters you end up thinking were forgotten get brought up again one way or another. Some reappear hundreds of chapters/episodes later for important things. Others get shown again briefly to show their reactions to current events.

Rharyx211 posted...

The anime pacing isn't awful if you're binging it.

Like, it's still bad, but if you get through like 4~5 episodes a day (which you'll end up wanting to do because you'll be so invested by that point), it'll still feel like you've watched a satisfying amount.

Then you catch up and start wishing there were even more episodes.

Dressrosa ended up being one of my favorite arcs, but I had the pretense of knowing exactly how long it was going to be. I can understand how torturous it could be watching/reading week-to-week because it has a lot of fake-out endings.

Which is better, the manga or the anime?

CastletonSnob1 posted...

Which is better, the manga or the anime?

I feel like both are good for different things. If you want to catch up to the series as fast as possible, the manga is the way to go. IMO, the anime really shines with fleshing out the drama, is really good at the comedic moments, and does a great job bringing the huge world to life in a way that the manga can't. I also feel like the manga struggles to show enough detail during fights at times, but the anime really shines there. Especially in later arcs where the animation has improved a lot.

CableZL posted...

I feel like both are good for different things. If you want to catch up to the series as fast as possible, the manga is the way to go. IMO, the anime really shines with fleshing out the drama, is really good at the comedic moments, and does a great job bringing the huge world to life in a way that the manga can't. I also feel like the manga struggles to show enough detail during fights at times, but the anime really shines there. Especially in later arcs where the animation has improved a lot.

I jumped into the manga to start Egghead - because I watch the dub, and didn't want to get spoiled while waiting for episodes - and it is a struggle to pay attention during the fight scenes.

Although I have thought about reading the manga from the beginning as a refresher, because there's numerous times I've seen a character or reference where I'm like "I don't remember this at all."

The dub is good, (great if you also grew up with the 4kids dub like me) anyway I lost interest in the anime once the pacing slowed to a crawl.

AndyReklaw posted...

I had read up to Enies Lobby a little while ago and then fell off. I decided to start watching the anime a couple days ago and I'm enjoying it a bit more. I did start from the beginning so maybe that'll change.

Only just got to Arlong (like episode 30-something) so we'll see if I stick with it. I'm actually kinda excited to get up to various parts that I read. I do wish the animation was a bit better but it's still good enough.

And I'm watching dub (sue me) and while I initially wasn't into Clinkenbeard as Luffy (for years it was the thing that put me off the show), she's really grown on me. Love all the performances so far. Though I'm pretty sure I've heard Sonny Strait in like a million background character roles.

The dub is pretty great overall and a lot of it's actors legit give a damn, so yeah if you are enjoying it now then you are good to go.

CastletonSnob1 posted...

Which is better, the manga or the anime?

The anime is very faithful to the manga when it comes to adapting everything that is supposed to be there. The main parts the anime can drag in is pacing issues. (There was many, many, many times when the anime adaption caught up to the manga. During these times is when you will notice toie doing the old school dragon ball z-like stalling techniques to make a episode's run time drag out a few pages from the manga. If you don't mind me rambling for a little bit:

Early one piece all the way up to the davy back fight arc is totally fine (from episode 1 all the way up to like, episode 206.

From the davy back fight arc up through the enies lobby arc, there will be some stalling here and there. Its still not too bad here.

When this arc called thriller bark starts, you'll actually start to blatantly notice those stalling techniques. It can sometimes take an entire episode for the straw hats to do something that didn't even take half a manga chapter.

The sabaody arc right after thriller bark and amazon lily isn't bad. Some slight stretching here and there.

Impel down....it definitely has it's stretching moments.

Marineford is a bit worse than impel down's stretching, but nothing the fast forward button can't fix when the peanut gallery comments and background character staredowns every time a major character so much as fart happens.

There is a flashback arc here that has those same vibes of something like the sabaody arc's pacing. Its not too bad.

There is now a time skip here.

After that spoiler bar happens, there is 2 infamous arcs that is the absolute worst of the one piece anime adaption. Like the pacing is legit awful for these 2 arcs.

The first awful one is the fishman island arc.

The next one after that is this arc called punk hazard. Its whatever/not too bad here.

The second awful and imo by far the worst in the entire anime when it comes to pacing is the dressrosa arc. They was straight up stretching out like 3 pages of the manga to last a whole episode's runtime because the anime straight up caught up to the manga here. Like, they were both on the same arc at the same time from what I remember. (and each episode has a mandatory "last time on one piece" beginning segment with that same straw hat crew animation to extend the run time).

Once you get pass dressrosa, there is this mini zou arc that goes by pretty quick, and the whole cake island arc which imo is only really annoying towards the last half. (There is a certain chase segment towards the end that will really make you get annoyed at the word cake because of how much it is repeated).

The wano arc is when the one piece anime completely changed it's anime style to have those thicker lines and really animated sequences. If you are seeing a clip of the one piece anime on social media during these modern times then its no doubt clips after the anime changed it's style up. The pacing imo wasn't bad at all from wano on up, although I do admit I didn't watch most of the start of the wano arc since I was waiting for the more exciting later arc segments to start up. (When the raid is starting up basically).

All in all imo when the one piece anime is at it's best, the anime actually surpasses the manga. The soundtrack and voice actors when they are showin' their asses out during the emotional scenes elevates the series. The manga is consistent and it's quick. (Also you can only get the manga cover stories which are all canon to the story in the manga version. The anime actually did animate the first 2 with the buggy the pirate separation mini and the koby and helmeppo diaries one, but apparently the japanese fanbase in those days gave these episodes poor ratings or something and thus they were rarely animated again afterwards.

If a manga cover story does pop up in the anime, it'll be a very brief segment when it's star character returns in the story. (Like wapol and this dude caribou had these very quick catch-up style anime segments for their cover stories. It isn't perfect, but its better than nothing).

Personally Im enjoying Davy Back a lot more than I did Skypeia

AndyReklaw posted...

I've thought about it but I decided that for a first go I'll just do it with the normal episodes. I could see using it for rewatching later though.

The edit is designed to make the anime like the manga, cutting filler and such; its actually more accurate.

If you're having issues with the pacing, you could try checking out the manga. There's a lot less padding. The manga's issue is that after Enies Lobby/Thriller Bark (can't remember which off the top of my head), the paneling gets pretty cluttered, but I don't think that's as much of an issue if you don't read too much manga (or started reading One Piece from the beginning, which started off with relatively clean, simple paneling).

It'll definitely be faster to catch up if that's what you care about. You can also always watch the individual parts of the anime that stood out from the manga, so like any of the big fights, especially in recent arcs. There's also scenes like the end of Thriller Bark that are greatly enhanced by having audio, since it does end with a song.