General & Others Why has One Piece failed so miserably in the West?
- Thread starter Shiroyru
- Start date
Two things - One Piece lacks real tension and it lacks proper fight build up. In the West we are used to Training Sagas > Beating the New Bad Guy. Just like van Damme movies or Rocky.
One Piece does many things right but it is much more geared towards silly jokes, hidden nuggets, foreshadowing and so on. Except Luffy getting trained by Rayleigh off panel during time skip we hardly get any training arcs with high stakes were it feels like people might actually die if the SHP don't power up, we only get magic power ups.
DBZ trained under Master Roshi, the Cat, Kame/God, Kaiou, Chamber of Time, Beerus/Whis and so on.
Naruto under Kakashi, Jiraiya, Toads, Gai and so on.
And even with all the training many died in DBZ/Naruto. Very few died in One Piece. But of course DBZ cheated with bringing them back with Dragon Balls and Naruto killed off too few important characters but at least Neji, Jiraiya, Hidan, Kisame, 3rd Hokage and so on died.
That is why Marineford is GOATed. Ace and WB actually died. Wano should have had more important characters than Ashura Douji and Izo die. Even Kinemon survived ffs.
One Piece does many things right but it is much more geared towards silly jokes, hidden nuggets, foreshadowing and so on. Except Luffy getting trained by Rayleigh off panel during time skip we hardly get any training arcs with high stakes were it feels like people might actually die if the SHP don't power up, we only get magic power ups.
DBZ trained under Master Roshi, the Cat, Kame/God, Kaiou, Chamber of Time, Beerus/Whis and so on.
Naruto under Kakashi, Jiraiya, Toads, Gai and so on.
And even with all the training many died in DBZ/Naruto. Very few died in One Piece. But of course DBZ cheated with bringing them back with Dragon Balls and Naruto killed off too few important characters but at least Neji, Jiraiya, Hidan, Kisame, 3rd Hokage and so on died.
That is why Marineford is GOATed. Ace and WB actually died. Wano should have had more important characters than Ashura Douji and Izo die. Even Kinemon survived ffs.
its not that appealing compared to other two...And no one wants to sit down and wait for somany chapters/episodes to have good scenes/plot.
Atleast that was the case for me...I was instantly hooked to Naruto, Bleach a bit meh but definitely I can say I was only hooked to one piece after Arlong Park...and this is from someone who doesn't really try to expect much when starting a series and giving as many chance as needed.
Other two series for me definitely has better characters/dialouges/goals/reasons to invest in(You could find a lot of good dialouges even on reels/shorts/pics from Naruto too such things do matter in popularizing a series).
Atleast that was the case for me...I was instantly hooked to Naruto, Bleach a bit meh but definitely I can say I was only hooked to one piece after Arlong Park...and this is from someone who doesn't really try to expect much when starting a series and giving as many chance as needed.
Other two series for me definitely has better characters/dialouges/goals/reasons to invest in(You could find a lot of good dialouges even on reels/shorts/pics from Naruto too such things do matter in popularizing a series).
DBZ/Naruto can be fun to watch if you don't follow the plot because they had a high density of fight episodes. One Piece not so much - the early fight scenes were pretty vanilla compared to early Naruto and DBZ/DBGT, even more so after the 4kidz edits. And it's hard to follow a story when 4Kidz kept cutting major plot points and going on several month hiatuses.
It's the hiatuses that did me in. It was never clear if the anime was just done or if it would eventually resume. At one point I missed the highly anticipated Luffy vs. Crocodile because I had no idea that they resumed after a 7 month hiatus, and I just stopped following the series. Years later I found out about scanlations which restored my interest in the series. It's why I still defend scanlations - they were instrumental in keeping One Piece from dying in the US.
It's the hiatuses that did me in. It was never clear if the anime was just done or if it would eventually resume. At one point I missed the highly anticipated Luffy vs. Crocodile because I had no idea that they resumed after a 7 month hiatus, and I just stopped following the series. Years later I found out about scanlations which restored my interest in the series. It's why I still defend scanlations - they were instrumental in keeping One Piece from dying in the US.
One piece is simply hard to get into and is avarage in story. It has best world and lore . But is boring.
Like for example first episode of naruto has everything , from problem to resolution and you have good understanding allready what the world is about for one piece you need two episodes for that.
I forced my self to like OP back in 2007. And than in dressrossa forced myself again to read it.
it sinply is not that good.
Naruto had good first part, not too complicated narrative and simple but powerfull motivation in main character. And than part2 come and naruto become so bad to the point unreadable.
at least OP is consistent... But how is Oda ending it in 5 years ? When Kaido fight alone took 100 chapters ?! And than he makes Coby of all people top tier . Its joke.
Like for example first episode of naruto has everything , from problem to resolution and you have good understanding allready what the world is about for one piece you need two episodes for that.
I forced my self to like OP back in 2007. And than in dressrossa forced myself again to read it.
it sinply is not that good.
Naruto had good first part, not too complicated narrative and simple but powerfull motivation in main character. And than part2 come and naruto become so bad to the point unreadable.
at least OP is consistent... But how is Oda ending it in 5 years ? When Kaido fight alone took 100 chapters ?! And than he makes Coby of all people top tier . Its joke.
I don’t think it’s correct to say that it isn’t popular, since this forum and other active communities exist. It‘s more so that it might not be as popular as newer, trending anime. A lot of people tend to watch/read what’s currently relevant and save the older stuff for when they feel like seeing it.
Did you watch the anime…?
Gaara vs. Lee is still dated by animation standards, that goes for anything that’s more than 5-10 years old. Technology develops rather quickly!
One Piece’s animation has improved a lot since Wano, although it’s been getting gradually better over the years. You would need to watch 1000+ episodes to get to the really good stuff, but the new One Piece anime coming up should give many people a reason to watch it.
Did you watch the anime…?
Gaara vs. Lee is still dated by animation standards, that goes for anything that’s more than 5-10 years old. Technology develops rather quickly!
One Piece’s animation has improved a lot since Wano, although it’s been getting gradually better over the years. You would need to watch 1000+ episodes to get to the really good stuff, but the new One Piece anime coming up should give many people a reason to watch it.
The goofy world and characters makes it less appealing to adults; for a show this old you would have wanted people to grow with the story. But at a certain point people become embarrassed by it because it really is a kids show.
Naruto on the other hand is objectively much cooler.
One piece fans are nerds and now with the live action they're gay nerds. Naruto fans are the cool kids.
Naruto on the other hand is objectively much cooler.
One piece fans are nerds and now with the live action they're gay nerds. Naruto fans are the cool kids.
Well, there are a few reasons:
1. Animes/mangas in general aren't that popular in the west as they are in Japan. Perhaps it got more attention recently, specially with the One Piece live action, but it's a MUCH stronger market in Japan;
2. The more successful ones had better adaptations and stronger starts, I think. One Piece has a slow start and only "hooks" most people in Arlong Park (some may even start to like it much after that, in Arabasta or even Water 7, for example). In the other hand, Naruto has a much stronger start; while I think it's massively inferior to One Piece after the Sasuke rescue arc, the first arcs (Land of Waves, Chūnin Exams, Konoha Crush) are among the best.
I think that Dragon Ball Z came first to the west, and bloody action packed cartoons were everything a 90's/2000's kid wanted, although I personally prefer Dragon Ball. Pokemon was another thing, it was already successful due to the games for Game Boy;
3. The One Piece dubs were horrible back then. At least in my country, the dub was based in the 4Kids dub, so, in my view, it didn't seem worth watching at the time. Scanlation was still crawling in the early 2000's, in my country they were more focused in the "main hits" of the moment (Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, etc.).
1. Animes/mangas in general aren't that popular in the west as they are in Japan. Perhaps it got more attention recently, specially with the One Piece live action, but it's a MUCH stronger market in Japan;
2. The more successful ones had better adaptations and stronger starts, I think. One Piece has a slow start and only "hooks" most people in Arlong Park (some may even start to like it much after that, in Arabasta or even Water 7, for example). In the other hand, Naruto has a much stronger start; while I think it's massively inferior to One Piece after the Sasuke rescue arc, the first arcs (Land of Waves, Chūnin Exams, Konoha Crush) are among the best.
I think that Dragon Ball Z came first to the west, and bloody action packed cartoons were everything a 90's/2000's kid wanted, although I personally prefer Dragon Ball. Pokemon was another thing, it was already successful due to the games for Game Boy;
3. The One Piece dubs were horrible back then. At least in my country, the dub was based in the 4Kids dub, so, in my view, it didn't seem worth watching at the time. Scanlation was still crawling in the early 2000's, in my country they were more focused in the "main hits" of the moment (Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, etc.).
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