One Piece
Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2020 12:13 pm
Edit: I renamed the thread to One Piece, but the original subject was Media Epics. I renamed it to One Piece coz I plan to write more posts justifying why I believe that One Piece has the best storytelling that I've ever seen from any modern media.
_____
Epic means Grand Narrative. Recommend any other media with a similar style of story telling, and attention to detail. I'm not really interested in generic ass Lord of the Rings or Gay of Thrones style shit though. I think that medieval shit is fucking boring, unless it's like Berserk, which feels more like a horror setting.
What I really like is fucking weird shit like One Piece, where it seems like anything can happen, but for some reason, everything actually makes sense due to how the story always respects its own internal logic.
I've been binge watching One Piece lately and epic is really the best way to describe it.
I saw episodes of One Piece way back in the 90s in Japan, but One Piece is one of those shows that you need to see from the beginning, otherwise you won't really understand the impact of most moments in the show.
I also saw the shitty 4kids dub in the USA, which completely turned me off from One Piece, all the way up until now. I got randomly interested in One Piece all of a sudden while I was looking at the roster for Jump Force. I wanted to know why Boa is always included in most games over Robin when Robin is actually a main character.
I found out that Luffy's girlfriend is Boa Hancock, and I was like wth? That's strange as fuck. Then I saw that Blackbeard is the main bad guy now, which was really strange to me coz Crocodile was the main bad dude when I was growing up, and now he's just a minor character lol.
The more I looked into the lore, the more interesting the setting sounded to me so I started watching OP on netflix. I even bought Pirate Warriors 4 after I watched 69 episodes into the series. The 4 seasons on Netflix only covers the first 6 stages in PW4. PW4 is an awesome game btw, but I talk about that in a game thread. (It's not a typical musou at all.)
I just got into One Piece 2 weeks ago. I didn't even like anime but I was hooked by Ussop/Kaya's story, Nami/Arlong feud made me realize it was something special, and the Alabasta saga got me hype for the rest of the series coz One Piece apparently stays that high quality all throughout the series. The attention to detail & build-up feels like a novel, but in Manga & Anime form.
One Piece has as much detail as the real world. They even had a warlord system which was similar to what we hav in real life where Big shot criminals ally with the police to take down lesser criminals.
There's even alphabet agencies, several illuminati style groups, etc. One Piece basically has a fully fleshed out world like Suda's KTP games, but One Piece was actually popular enough to have over 20 years of content & build up. One Piece isn't even over yet, but it's still good. Which is the crazy part.
The Kaya arc was a shitty arc, but the ending was a good pay off when it's finally revealed, the reason why Ussop lies all the time.
Arlong Park is my fave Arc so far, and it's what made me realize that this is nothing like typical anime. That shit is dark, but it has a lot of heart. (Most dark anime, is just depressing.)
You really have to watch this show from the first episode for this scene to really hit you hard. 10 episodes before this scene, we were seeing a lot of betrayals, a flashback death, the history of the town, and we had about 30 episodes with Nami before we find out who she truly is. There's a lot of subtle touches such as Luffy giving Nami his straw hat. At this point we only know that the hat is important to him coz a guy named Shanks gave it to him. (The hat is actually Gol D Roger's hat, the guy that you see in the intro of every episode.) Luffy passed the hat down to her in case none of the crew make it back from the battle.
Nami is actually the first character you ever see from the entire show, but you're not even introduced to her until episode 5. Luffy just ran into her all the time during the first 4 episodes, but they never spoke to each other. What's most amusing was how by episode 1, I was about ready to turn it off, until Luffy randomly punches the whiny nerdy kid in the face, and then the kid asks him why he did that. Luffy just responds with, "Coz I feel like it." lol! That made me realize that Luffy isn't a typical shonen hero at all, and that he may actually act like a pirate. He does act like a pirate, but he's extremely loyal to his friends, which is what makes him nominally the hero.
Since Luffy is a pirate, he tends to do a lot of crazy shit.
Alabasta Saga, made me go WTF? Damn! That entire story arc is filled with crazy ass intense drama-filled scenes like this but I chose that scene coz it was the 2nd most "WTF?" scene I saw after the Nami stabbing herself scene.
Vivi seems like she'll play a prominent role again, based off of this scene.
This scene seems to be a prelude to the end, but this actually came from a year ago, and we still don't know what that scene is about. That's not how slow the plot moves, that's just how much plot it actually has. There's so much stuff going on at the same time. You're following the journey of multiple characters, including some of the villains but the main focus is always the Straw Hat crew.
A lot of times you see a minor character from 50 something episodes ago, coming back and becoming a more important character and other times you see major characters doing the exact opposite and becoming less relevant.
The best example is the introduction of Bellamy & Blackbeard. Bellamy comes off as if he'll be the main antagonist of the seires, but he's actually just a bit player who returns 200 episodes later to get used as a obstacle by the main villain of the DressaRosa arc.
Blackbeard on the other hand, seems like he'll become an ally since he's encouraging Luffy to keep on chasing his dreams.
Then 100 something episodes later we find out just how dangerous Blackbeard is and how lucky Luffy was, that he decided not to fight Bellamy that day, otherwise Blackbeard would've killed Luffy on the spot.
One of my fave characters is Vivi, who herself started out as just random joke enemy who rides on a stupid chocobo styled duck. She's later revealed to be a princess who went undercover and the Straw Hat crew just happen to be around when the assassins try to assinate her. This starts the first 60+ episode saga called the Alabasta Saga and it's kickstarted when the main assassin
Oh man, and the main assassin was actually Nico Robin,
who later joins the crew after the Alabasta Saga is over.
When it happen, it's just so unexpected. It's weird, how they just let her join simply coz Luffy trusts her. She saved his life twice, even when she was an antagonist. She actually planned to backstab Crocodile from the beginning, but he literally backstab impales her.
Hell they even go 100 more episodes before they finally explore Nico Robin's background, which is called the Enie's Lobby Saga. I haven't got up to that yet. I'm only at Sky Island, coz I actually wasted my time watching the fillers that came before Sky Island. (Which of course aren't as good. fillers lack the tension & mystery of the canon episodes.)
I originally saw the Enies Lobby scene from the video game, but this scene is just so damn well written, that I actually teared up a bit, even during the video game rendition.
The Enie's Lobby Nico Robin scene in its original form. This is normally most peoples' 2nd fave Saga.
My fave so far is Nami's coz I haven't seen Enies yet, which is basically Government agencies trying to collect on her bounty, but it climaxes with the entire Straw Hats crew being marked for death by the World Government lol. They did that just so they could be closer to Robin, since before this Saga, she was always distant & didn't interact much with the crew.
This is another scene from the game that really caught my attention, and it's just as impactful in the anime.
That entire MarineFord arc seems to be everyones' favorite Saga. It's basically the Marvel Endgame of the One Piece universe.
You're seeing crossovers that you thought you'd never see like Buggy vs Mihawk, LOL!
Buggy himself is actually one of the 100s of characters' whose story that you see play out throughout the entire One Piece series. He's one of my faves coz he keeps gaining notoriety & fame among the pirate culture, due to a misunderstanding. The Marines view him as a mastermind due to his past connections with Gol D Roger & people that he hates like Shanks, lol. They even assume that he masterminded prison breakout with Luffy. (The joke is that Jinbei & Crocodile were viewed as subordinates, even through they're both former WARLORDS)
I hated Buggy when he first appeared, but that's a recurring theme with One Piece. I also really hated Vivi & Usopp, but they all warm up to you the more that you learn about them.
Nico Robin & Zoro are like the only two characters that I loved from the start.
Speaking of which, I find it awesome how throughout the whole series, Sanji always acts & looks like some kind of Yakuza. Only for it to be revealed 500 episodes after he was introduced that he actually is from a Mobster family, lol! They even devote about 80 something episodes to his family as part of the Big Mama Saga.
Oh yeah, the Italian mafia & the five families are actually a thing in One Piece. This setting is so fucking detailed.
_____
Epic means Grand Narrative. Recommend any other media with a similar style of story telling, and attention to detail. I'm not really interested in generic ass Lord of the Rings or Gay of Thrones style shit though. I think that medieval shit is fucking boring, unless it's like Berserk, which feels more like a horror setting.
What I really like is fucking weird shit like One Piece, where it seems like anything can happen, but for some reason, everything actually makes sense due to how the story always respects its own internal logic.
I've been binge watching One Piece lately and epic is really the best way to describe it.
I saw episodes of One Piece way back in the 90s in Japan, but One Piece is one of those shows that you need to see from the beginning, otherwise you won't really understand the impact of most moments in the show.
I also saw the shitty 4kids dub in the USA, which completely turned me off from One Piece, all the way up until now. I got randomly interested in One Piece all of a sudden while I was looking at the roster for Jump Force. I wanted to know why Boa is always included in most games over Robin when Robin is actually a main character.
I found out that Luffy's girlfriend is Boa Hancock, and I was like wth? That's strange as fuck. Then I saw that Blackbeard is the main bad guy now, which was really strange to me coz Crocodile was the main bad dude when I was growing up, and now he's just a minor character lol.
The more I looked into the lore, the more interesting the setting sounded to me so I started watching OP on netflix. I even bought Pirate Warriors 4 after I watched 69 episodes into the series. The 4 seasons on Netflix only covers the first 6 stages in PW4. PW4 is an awesome game btw, but I talk about that in a game thread. (It's not a typical musou at all.)
I just got into One Piece 2 weeks ago. I didn't even like anime but I was hooked by Ussop/Kaya's story, Nami/Arlong feud made me realize it was something special, and the Alabasta saga got me hype for the rest of the series coz One Piece apparently stays that high quality all throughout the series. The attention to detail & build-up feels like a novel, but in Manga & Anime form.
One Piece has as much detail as the real world. They even had a warlord system which was similar to what we hav in real life where Big shot criminals ally with the police to take down lesser criminals.
There's even alphabet agencies, several illuminati style groups, etc. One Piece basically has a fully fleshed out world like Suda's KTP games, but One Piece was actually popular enough to have over 20 years of content & build up. One Piece isn't even over yet, but it's still good. Which is the crazy part.
The Kaya arc was a shitty arc, but the ending was a good pay off when it's finally revealed, the reason why Ussop lies all the time.
Arlong Park is my fave Arc so far, and it's what made me realize that this is nothing like typical anime. That shit is dark, but it has a lot of heart. (Most dark anime, is just depressing.)
You really have to watch this show from the first episode for this scene to really hit you hard. 10 episodes before this scene, we were seeing a lot of betrayals, a flashback death, the history of the town, and we had about 30 episodes with Nami before we find out who she truly is. There's a lot of subtle touches such as Luffy giving Nami his straw hat. At this point we only know that the hat is important to him coz a guy named Shanks gave it to him. (The hat is actually Gol D Roger's hat, the guy that you see in the intro of every episode.) Luffy passed the hat down to her in case none of the crew make it back from the battle.
Nami is actually the first character you ever see from the entire show, but you're not even introduced to her until episode 5. Luffy just ran into her all the time during the first 4 episodes, but they never spoke to each other. What's most amusing was how by episode 1, I was about ready to turn it off, until Luffy randomly punches the whiny nerdy kid in the face, and then the kid asks him why he did that. Luffy just responds with, "Coz I feel like it." lol! That made me realize that Luffy isn't a typical shonen hero at all, and that he may actually act like a pirate. He does act like a pirate, but he's extremely loyal to his friends, which is what makes him nominally the hero.
Since Luffy is a pirate, he tends to do a lot of crazy shit.
Alabasta Saga, made me go WTF? Damn! That entire story arc is filled with crazy ass intense drama-filled scenes like this but I chose that scene coz it was the 2nd most "WTF?" scene I saw after the Nami stabbing herself scene.
Vivi seems like she'll play a prominent role again, based off of this scene.
This scene seems to be a prelude to the end, but this actually came from a year ago, and we still don't know what that scene is about. That's not how slow the plot moves, that's just how much plot it actually has. There's so much stuff going on at the same time. You're following the journey of multiple characters, including some of the villains but the main focus is always the Straw Hat crew.
A lot of times you see a minor character from 50 something episodes ago, coming back and becoming a more important character and other times you see major characters doing the exact opposite and becoming less relevant.
The best example is the introduction of Bellamy & Blackbeard. Bellamy comes off as if he'll be the main antagonist of the seires, but he's actually just a bit player who returns 200 episodes later to get used as a obstacle by the main villain of the DressaRosa arc.
Blackbeard on the other hand, seems like he'll become an ally since he's encouraging Luffy to keep on chasing his dreams.
Then 100 something episodes later we find out just how dangerous Blackbeard is and how lucky Luffy was, that he decided not to fight Bellamy that day, otherwise Blackbeard would've killed Luffy on the spot.
One of my fave characters is Vivi, who herself started out as just random joke enemy who rides on a stupid chocobo styled duck. She's later revealed to be a princess who went undercover and the Straw Hat crew just happen to be around when the assassins try to assinate her. This starts the first 60+ episode saga called the Alabasta Saga and it's kickstarted when the main assassin
Oh man, and the main assassin was actually Nico Robin,
who later joins the crew after the Alabasta Saga is over.
When it happen, it's just so unexpected. It's weird, how they just let her join simply coz Luffy trusts her. She saved his life twice, even when she was an antagonist. She actually planned to backstab Crocodile from the beginning, but he literally backstab impales her.
Hell they even go 100 more episodes before they finally explore Nico Robin's background, which is called the Enie's Lobby Saga. I haven't got up to that yet. I'm only at Sky Island, coz I actually wasted my time watching the fillers that came before Sky Island. (Which of course aren't as good. fillers lack the tension & mystery of the canon episodes.)
I originally saw the Enies Lobby scene from the video game, but this scene is just so damn well written, that I actually teared up a bit, even during the video game rendition.
The Enie's Lobby Nico Robin scene in its original form. This is normally most peoples' 2nd fave Saga.
My fave so far is Nami's coz I haven't seen Enies yet, which is basically Government agencies trying to collect on her bounty, but it climaxes with the entire Straw Hats crew being marked for death by the World Government lol. They did that just so they could be closer to Robin, since before this Saga, she was always distant & didn't interact much with the crew.
This is another scene from the game that really caught my attention, and it's just as impactful in the anime.
That entire MarineFord arc seems to be everyones' favorite Saga. It's basically the Marvel Endgame of the One Piece universe.
You're seeing crossovers that you thought you'd never see like Buggy vs Mihawk, LOL!
Buggy himself is actually one of the 100s of characters' whose story that you see play out throughout the entire One Piece series. He's one of my faves coz he keeps gaining notoriety & fame among the pirate culture, due to a misunderstanding. The Marines view him as a mastermind due to his past connections with Gol D Roger & people that he hates like Shanks, lol. They even assume that he masterminded prison breakout with Luffy. (The joke is that Jinbei & Crocodile were viewed as subordinates, even through they're both former WARLORDS)
I hated Buggy when he first appeared, but that's a recurring theme with One Piece. I also really hated Vivi & Usopp, but they all warm up to you the more that you learn about them.
Nico Robin & Zoro are like the only two characters that I loved from the start.
Speaking of which, I find it awesome how throughout the whole series, Sanji always acts & looks like some kind of Yakuza. Only for it to be revealed 500 episodes after he was introduced that he actually is from a Mobster family, lol! They even devote about 80 something episodes to his family as part of the Big Mama Saga.
Oh yeah, the Italian mafia & the five families are actually a thing in One Piece. This setting is so fucking detailed.