The Journey To Be The Pirate King - One Piece

Summary:

Gol D Roger becomes the King of the Pirates after acquiring everything the world has to offer. He gets captured by the Marines and sentenced to execution for being a “filthy pirate”. Before his death, he challenges the world to find his treasure that he hid at “That” place. This spawned the beginning of the Great Age of Pirates where people set to the see to find the ultimate treasure. The One Piece. 20 years pass and Monkey D Luffy sets out to complete his dream of becoming the Pirate King after eating a magical devil fruit called the Gomu Gomu no Mi (Gum Gum Fruit in english).

Review:

One Piece is probably my favourite anime of all time, and that is including other highly regarded anime and manga like Fullmetal Alchemist and Dragon Ball Z. I enjoyed from the beginning all the way to the current ark. Its combination of comedy, drama and adventure is one of the reasons that I really like it, in addition to the characters and the overall story that is well integrated into the multiple arcs and contained stories.

I understand that reading or watching One Piece might seem pretty daunting (seeing as it's over 800 chapters). It may seem especially so if you are still in school and/or have a job/long time commitment. My response to this is that while One Piece may interfere with your non-anime related life, it can be read in chunks, as in read a story arc and then take a break, then start the next story arc. Rinse and repeat. If this doesn't appeal to you because once you start a series, you don't put it down ‘till you finish it (like me) then I have the perfect solution for you! Simply decide a time (like summer break) where you can spare a month at most and a couple weeks at least. Then just start reading. However, since this series is still ongoing, you will have to wait a week (sometimes several) for the new chapter to come out. Which may annoy you because it will be a drastic difference from how you were reading it up ‘till then (ie binge reading). It is though a good idea to invest in this series because I guarantee that if you enjoy Dragon Ball, Fairy Tail or Naruto, you will highly enjoy One Piece.

Okay, encouraging you to get over the fact that One Piece is very long aside, this series does an amazing job of switching between humour, drama and a great sense of wonder and adventure. Eiichiro Oda (the author) has been doing this since the first chapter of the manga, where first you laugh when Shanks (a really cool pirate) makes fun of Luffy (the main character), then you become serious when the bandits come in and make fun of Shanks, and finally sad when Shanks finally has to leave Luffy’s hometown to continue his journey. Oda is a master of moulding the reader’s emotions as he pleases to draw you into the story and keep you there.

The characters in One Piece are highly enjoyable and also relatable. The only gripe I may have is that all the main characters (Luffy’s pirate crew) have a sad past. While some may be worse than others, they are all sad in some way or another. However, that doesn't stop me from really liking most of the characters, and if I don't like them it's because Oda purposely made them hateful because they are usually the antagonists of the story. My personal favourite character is the main character (yeah so original) Monkey D Luffy. His personality is likeable and childish but can also take a 180 if his friends are in trouble, but only his friends. Contrary to other shonen protagonists, he doesn't care about the world or future consequences of his actions. He just does what he wants and protects his friends with all his enormous power. I'm sure that if you read it, you will certainly find a favourite character in the diverse pirate crew of one Monkey D Luffy which includes a hothead busty navigator, a calm and collected busty archeologist, a green-haired eternally lost swordsman, a womanizing cook, an adorable reindeer doctor, a lying sniper, a cyborg shipwright and a 7 foot tall skeleton musician with an afro.

The story in One Piece is the most entertaining story I have ever read. The lore that is contained within the pages of Oda’s masterpiece is amazing and breathtaking. Sooooo many theories have been made to answer the holes in the history of the world of One Piece, but only Oda himself and his editor know the answer for real. The storytelling of One Piece is to bring you to an island, inform you of what is happening, resolve the problem via Luffy beating someone up and then tell the reader the importance of the arc towards the overarching plot. This means that the reader is always looking forward to what happens next and coming back for more. The story about a man’s romance in adventure never ceases to amaze and enrapture me. It’s just… really good!

In conclusion, even though it might be long, there’s a really good reason for that. Everybody who considers themselves a shonen anime fan or even an anime fan should watch or read this marvelous series called One Piece.

#onepiece #review