Me watching my prediction come true
Shit is so beautiful man
Incoming 298766235535718765532 word essay 
This is an fan fic adaptation. So technically nothing is really "wrong" here But if this was a work meant to really copy and extend Oda's work here are a few things that need rework and rewrite:
ART:
> There is FAR TOO MUCH Screentones at the wrong places.
Here is what screentones are:
Oda uses screentones with very specific purposes. Those screentones are very high resolution and they are mixed with texturing by pen. The BIGGEST use for screentones in One Piece is to create a contrast between the foregrounds and background characters since One Piece panel are often crawded. Or to create a more appealing image within a very white panel. In other word, screentones in One Piece are here to create readability !
Here for example, Oda is using it to create a dynamic in the image, and make the subject (the island) stand out:
Here, for ex, screentones are applied to push Robin and Jinbe into the foreground. And to render the Giants more readable:
This value contrast is a common composition technique in painting. The idea is to create a real distinction between the foreground, the subject/midground and the background. That way, the image will read much better and the story told will be stronger:
In manga, there is not a lot of choice, that's why you really have only two value to work with. But if you do the job good enough, you can create the illusion of shading:
Sometimes Oda allow himself and his team to go a little overboard with screentones. This is the case with Big Impactfull set like in this case:
But as you can see. Screentones are used very lightly, they almost mix with the pen shading. And when used on character, said shading is very light as well, almost invisible.
Overall Oda uses screentones to create contrast between the layers of the image. Sometimes he will use them on the foreground and sometimes on the background, depending on what he wants to highlight.
BUT RARELY.. will he uses screentones to creates big volumes on the characters.
Trying to create volumes with screentones is actually quite a rookie mangaka mistake when done that way. New artists discover those tool early and they go crazy with them, thinking that they will be able to use it to create more "cool" scenes. And this is what we can see here:
But in reality, when used that way.screentones do not create more readability but the opposite. They over complicates the drawing and if the context is not suitable for such usage, the screentones will create distanciation between the drawings and the story and pull the readers back.
Here, for example, there is no reason to create such volumes. Kizaru does not light the scene in that panel and this lightning is therefore purely for impact purpose. But the way those screentones are used here make the character appear as ghost and not really on the scene.
To shade Kizaru's light and powerfull attacks, Oda mostly uses shading and strong contrast or full screentones mixed with shadings.
And he does not always create the light effect.
So to sum up on screentones:
> Far too much and in the wrong places. Overusage in general that creates a lack of constrast between the layers of the image.
> They are used without subtility which create an impression of fake shading
> Oda is not afraid to let character in white and only with lines. It allows better readability.
> The Lines are unprecise and TOO THIN
When you start to draw a manga, there is something that you need to take into account and it's the line weights of your lines for you landscape AND your characters. In One Piece, those lines weight can vary in function of the layer of the image and the impact of the subject BUT, they are almost always thick when it comes to characters. That's one of the particularity of One Piece. (and one of the reason why I have some problems with other manga in fact)
In One Piece, the usage of the clear line technique is fundamental. The lines are homogeneous and this creates a feeling of strong presence for characters. Oda might use thiner lines for his landscape (especially in early One Piece), but not for his character or for details INSIDE the character's design (hairs, cloth lines etc.).
Compare the lines in between those two panels and you will understand what I mean by that:
The thin lines of this fan art panels lowers the impact of the action and creates an impression of instability of the characters. (Also note the problem of value in the panel I choosed from the fanart, the values are all over the place - surely because the mangaka might have wanted to reproduced the effect of Prometheus's lighthing - and this result in an uneasy panel without a clear subject)
In contrary, the thin line weight of Oda anchor the character in the space and creates more impact and a more cartoony feel that is very important with the design of One Piece and its storytelling in general.
> The physical features are WAY TOO PRONOUNCED.
One piece was created to have a cartoony feels.
While yes, bodies and volumes are present in character designs. It's RARE AS F. to have realistic facial characteristics depicted in the manga. All the shapes, even with characters with complicated faces like Kizaru or Akainu, are reduced to the maximum.
Real facial details happens in reality only in moments when Oda really want to portray the details of ALL the expressions of the face. This differences in details therefore shock the reader and render said panels iconics:
The problem with this fan creation, is that the facial expression and details are pushed WAY too much over the entire chapters.
This creates a impression taht we are reading more something closer to a seinen than a One Piece story. Added to that the overdosage of screentones and very small lines, this create the impression that the author doesn't really know what they want to draw.
Now. I applaud the effort of trying to applicate the rough lines aspect of the work of Oda. Especially in the movement. I think this would be rendered better with fewer and more thicker lines.
(this first panel of Kizaru for example, could be more "One Piece - ish" with more thick lines, without the screentones and with less but more effective lines (some of those double lines could be just one line, some shapes are not necessary etc.).
(I'm not saying it's a bad drawing. That's actually one of the best fan made Kizaru I've ever seen, I'm just trying to tell what a more One Piece Kizaru should look like)
> Screentones, again..
I want to come back here on the screentones and one specific usage: The background.
One Piece is a very bright manga. This means that EVEN when the character are interacting at nightime, Oda will NOT darken the sky or the background unless he has too to make the shot really pop or when he is directly showing a character under big clouds.
He will most likely create one setting panel, like this one :
And sometimes remind us of this setting.
But most panels will be like that:
It's also worth noting that the screentone used will apppear as a simple grey tone and not at all as a grid.
That's why shot like this can't really happen in One Piece:
In reality. if Oda drew this (which would be weird because he would probably not do this type of panelling (I'll come back later to that) he would instead let the background completely blank white. And put Big Mom in screentones or even in very dark shading (besides the eyes and the mouth maybe) and highlight Napoleon.
As you can see here, the background doesn't serve Napoleon, in simply creates a texture that is a bit distracting. In fact Napoleon was already introduced in the story. This means that there is no need for Oda to create such an empathis on the weapong. A very small panel (with Napoleon cut would be enough (I will once again come back to that).
> Random thoughts
- The haki is especially in the case of Big Mom, feels too much like fan art and not really OP. The strenght of Big Mom do not really reside in her Haki, but her strenght and defense.. Thus showing her Haki like the panel just above is kinda weird. Even with Zoro or other big swordmans, Oda really does not push that lighting too far. He will draw clash, but very rarely just random sparks.
- There are good things, especially in the grainy feel of explosions. Those could very well be done by Oda.
- There is a lack of coherency in the page. Especially in value. Sometimes it's bright, sometimes its dark. It doesn't help the readability. In One Piece, entire page feels like a big Panel cut by borders and the changes in value are not that pronounced..
There are things that are drawn that would never be drawn in One Piece:
- This, for example, would be VERY different and stylized in OP, you would not have those details on the teeth or on the skin :
(great drawing tho, that's what I'm talking about when I say that there should be more contrast, as you can see here, the exterior lines are more heavy that the interior ones)
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OUTLINING:
> The Panelling is not comparable and would not work in One Piece
One Piece, despite being overally revolutionnary in term of storytelling is primarly very classical in a lot of aspect. And one of those aspect is the paneling.
Oda simply will not create hyper fancy panels. The reason for that is once the again the readability. Oda does not aim to create emotions through the forms of his panels but through the actions and emotions of his characters. For that, there needs to be as less matter as possible in between the reader and what is inside the panel.
So while Oda might create a few distorded panels here and there for brief moments of action, most of his panels will be rectangular.
> The problem with this fan fic is that ALL the panels are distorded. And if all the panels are distorded, there is no rythm anymore. We create distorded panel because we have non distorded ones. But if all the pages are wacky, the actions will feel exhausting.
> Another problem is that there are sometimes overlaps between panels and the main subject of the page. Like this for ex:
You can see that the smoke and clouds are overlapping UNDER up and down panels and it feels like the panels are just hanging on the pages. This is something Oda tends to avoid. What he will do is usually prevent the drawing from going too far and create a foggy white limit for his big subject on the page.
Here for example, the banquet scene is distinct from other panels by a fine white blank frontiere and the in between space is white:
> Another other problem is the lack of the passage of space and time. As you can see in the panel just above. Oda creates a very brief transition in term of panelling that is very important to understand the passage to a very different time or a very different place or scene. This fan art lacks that. The the scene are meshed together when there should be a ellipse at the beginning. (I would have also added one just after the first panel of the Big Mom pirates, the transition between the presentation of the pirates and the arrival of Kizaru is a bit abrupt)
In reality, if this was One Piece, this fight would have been cut a LOT (because a lot of things here are unecessary, but I will come back to that later) and an elipse should be present during the fight with a scene in between. Again, the reason being readability must most of all, rythm and clarity.
> A lack of creative composition
You might not notice it. But one of the big strenght of One Piece, is the creativity inside of of its panels. Especially those who are meant to be impactfull.
Those compositions are taking a few things into account in OP:
- The speech bubble (very important)
- The movements inside the panels
- The emotion that must be delivered
- OTHER panels next to said panel in the same page
- The importance of the panel in a cinematographic vision (for ex, a reaction shot, will not be as important as a strike or a revelation in a fight)
> The first problem with this fan art is the choices of composition that are not necessary:
Let's take a few example:
Here, the mangaka is losing an ENTIRE page by trying to put the character into the light. But they loses a lot of narration by doing that and it creates a lack of "wow" effect and mystery.
In reality, what Oda would do in that situation, is use the first page and the majority of the second page and put everything into one single page while playing with the panels to creates rythm and more storytelling.
The fact that we see Kizaru here, is fine, but not really enticing in the context. What would be better here, is not to see Kizaru and just imply the fact that he will go. Therefore we don't need the bubble sayin "you can go" since the arrival of Kizaru will be a shock moment.
Same thing, we don't need that Marine vice Ad to state the Big Mom meeting with Kaido, it can simply be a bubble over a building to let us know where we are.
Also, we need to create transition and elipsis
Here is an outlining of this moment that would be a lot closer to One Piece:
This is a very rapid sketch but you should understand the majority. I used here a few of Oda's techniques:
- Quick small panel to set the place of a dialogue while delivering an information "big mom and Kaido will meet"
- A character in shadow asking to go. This creates mystery and expectation at the same time.
- Kizaru instead of reacting to the new, is reacting to Kizaru and do not object, which means that we understand that he approves
- Little vertical panels to creates a change of time and space
- Big Mom in our face. This allow the person who flip the page to understand directly the subject of the conversation of the marine without even reading the bubble.
- Instead of having a big panel on her eyes, Oda tend to create build up to those end of phrases. So here, I put a build up of all the senior officer of Big Mom, daifuku, Oven, Pero Katakuri (purpusefully in shadow, this creates rythm and a bit of mystery among a overview of characters, another Oda technique) and finally the eye and the final "I can't wait".
- I ended that with an elipse to make the reader understand that between the arrival of Big Mom and the moment where Perospero encounter Kizaru, there will be a little bit of time. This lower the abruptness of Kizaru's arrival.
- Ideally, there should be a dialogue between the Big Mom pirates after that page and Kizaru should appear on the third page (we should only have Perospero being very surprised on the last panel of the second page)
One of the core of One Piece is the choice of conscision through composition AND the outlining of the panels to create a story inside a story INSIDE a page and sometimes even inside a panel.
Everything must tell a story in One Piece
Fan arts tends to forget that and create panels or composition that are simply not needed and just slow down the reading. And I can see those lack of conscision quite a bit in that fan art.
> There is a problem of coherency between certain panels
This is not something that I can see everywhere on this fan art but this was impactfull enough to make me tick.
Let's take a simple example:
Here, Big Mom is attacking KIzaru from the right to the left and from the top to the bottom. The first three Panels are therefore coherent.
The problem is that the third is not. Instead of going toward the bottom left of the page, Kizaru is going to the bottom right.
This is a problem of coherency and movement connection. Just like in Cinema, panels in manga needs to stay coherent between themselves. This means that here, the change in direction will surely lose some readers.
Instead what would have been better is to reduce the interaction on top of the page to one single of Kizaru taunting Big Mom and instead of having her reply something a bit out of character, make her reply by punching KIzaru toward the ship.
> One panel top right "You shoulf surrender Big Mom"
> One middle top panel : Big Mom hitting Kizaru who blocks "Don't ..."
> One top left panel : The parry breaks
> The entire rest of the page page would be Big Mom in the middle top hitting Big Mom toward the ship in the middle down of the page. (and therefore not toward the right but toward the middle) "... underestimate me.. Brat!"
This is something Oda does a lot to create impactfull punchlines. he make character replies through the hits and the impact of said hit.
Because the important thing here is not the hit itself, it's the fact that Big mom refuses to be talked down by Kizaru who she consideres as a brat in the story (like many other characters).
Again, always think about the story. If you create a One Piece story and your hits or powermoves are the story then it means that there is something wrong.
> NO STORY
I just talked about it but I will go in more detail here. One of my biggest problem with fan arts is that they tend to overshadow completely the most IMPORTANT aspect of One Piece: The story.
What did those chapters tell us ?
In reality not so much
We have a fight taking place and Big Mom and Kizaru are pretty much on par. But aside from that, there is no story. This is a simple brawl.
This is why you will never see those type of fight in One Piece because Oda always tell us something. Even when he make the fight go for more times he shows us that the characters is learning or evolves or gain power.
But here it's just techniques after techniques. It might appear cool but it has no real value as a One Piece story. Worst, most of the fight is in reality not needed and could be cut down drastically.
Some pages, like those one for example are not necessary :
(and I just selected a few but a lot of things here would never be depicted, or be cut down with other scenes to create rythm).
A lot of people think that a long fight is more impactfull, but in reality it just create a situation where techniques are stacked up without real interest and creates a lack of rythm that is in in fact fundamental to One Piece.
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NARRATION:
> The narration is similar to a lot of battle manga - Too generic.
deeOne Piece distinguish it self by the fact that Oda does not treat fights like other manga. While he might use som tropes like making the ennemy explains his powers or the character have an inside conversation with himself to find a parade.. he will not overdo it and usually created that in a way to create more narration and develop the characters and their characterizations.
The problem here is that some dialogues of this fan art are thrown in a generic shonen fashion..
Let's take this page for example :
Here this page didn't need those bubble. Katakuri here is oversharing, this is out of character since he is quite a stoic character.. What we needed to understand in that panel are two things :
- Katakuri tried to see in the future
- And failed.
Technically this many panel would not appear in One Piece, but even if we keep them, some bubble are not necessary. The first ones for example could be cut out. And instead of a bubble saying "this vision, I can't make any thing out.. " what Katakuri should be saying here is "Let me see y.." (so that we understand that he is arrogant still but he does not have time to finish his sentence).. but since he fails... the last panel - instead of being "it's too fast to comprehend" should be a simple "What !?" and instead of having his eyes in shadow. His eyes should be wide open and surprised.
This narration would be closer to the character and would create more impact and less useless bubbles.
We need to remember that drawing a page takes time. Time is too valuable to be wasted. So each dialogues must concise to the maximum, just like in Cinema and be important for the narration.
There is a lot more example of that in this fan art but I think you get the point.
> The narration is out of character
As demonstrated previously, there is a few problem with the characterization and the development of dialogue with the character.
> Katakuri is not stoic enough. I should not wonder in his thought too much and be very effective. He is a bit of an oversharer too. For example, there is no reason why he should say "with my level of future sight, I can morph around anything you throw at me" UNLESS, the character starts to understand his power.
Here, for example, a better dialogue with his characterization would be. "Your speed won't help you" >> which will be proven false and therefore create an irony.
> Kizaru is well written. Aside from the fact that he has power that should not exist. It's a good portrayal of the character.
> Big Mom suffers from the same problem as Katakuri. But this time, she lacks her arrogance. Big Mom should be much more menacing when we first see her against Kizaru.
This interaction for ex:
.. is quite out of character. Big Mom is not someone who talks about her power, she shows them. This explaination comes out of left field. There is no need for Big Mom to say anything here. We see her infused fist, we don't need to be sure.
Something that Oda does a lot is let his reader figures out the situations and powers (that's why there is so much powerscaling discussion). It's much more interesting to be subtle about powers than to tell everything (unless the character discovers something new and we need to know it, like Luffy learning that he can infuse his conqueror haki into his fists)
> The powerscaling is not really believable
That's a bit more subjective but with what we know about One Piece. This fight does not really make sence. While Kizaru might be able to hold himself a bit against Big Mom. he should not be able to give her such problems.
It seems like this fight was created by a fan of Kizaru who just wanted him to shine a little bit more.
But the interesting thing with Kizaru is not his powers but his inner conflict with Justice and his characterization. What is really interesting is the fact that he will try to keep face even in the most difficult moments.
Some of the technics used are cool, not gonna lie (I love "Hand of Amaterasu" for ex) but they are not consistant with the story. This therefore break the reading process. (Even if I applaud the creativity of the moves, nice job)
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SUM UP
So to sum everything up:
I get the idea behind this fan art, and once again I APPLAUD the effort. Really a good job (even if I criticized it in a One Piece context), but if One Piece was really like that, you could say bye bye to it's value. It would be a fan service fest and this would remove all the flavor of the story.
One Piece is One Piece not only because of the foreshadowing or a cool story. It's one Piece because of a hundreds of littles details:
- The pannelling
- The coherency of the outlining
- The consistancy and conscision of the dialogue and the storytelling
- The choices of composition and bubble
- The characterization
- The type of line art used
- The screentones and their usage
- The rythm
Etc.
The strenght of Oda is in the details.
ART:
> There is FAR TOO MUCH Screentones at the wrong places.
Here is what screentones are:
Oda uses screentones with very specific purposes. Those screentones are very high resolution and they are mixed with texturing by pen. The BIGGEST use for screentones in One Piece is to create a contrast between the foregrounds and background characters since One Piece panel are often crawded. Or to create a more appealing image within a very white panel. In other word, screentones in One Piece are here to create readability !
Here for example, Oda is using it to create a dynamic in the image, and make the subject (the island) stand out:
Here, for ex, screentones are applied to push Robin and Jinbe into the foreground. And to render the Giants more readable:
This value contrast is a common composition technique in painting. The idea is to create a real distinction between the foreground, the subject/midground and the background. That way, the image will read much better and the story told will be stronger:
In manga, there is not a lot of choice, that's why you really have only two value to work with. But if you do the job good enough, you can create the illusion of shading:
Sometimes Oda allow himself and his team to go a little overboard with screentones. This is the case with Big Impactfull set like in this case:
But as you can see. Screentones are used very lightly, they almost mix with the pen shading. And when used on character, said shading is very light as well, almost invisible.
Overall Oda uses screentones to create contrast between the layers of the image. Sometimes he will use them on the foreground and sometimes on the background, depending on what he wants to highlight.
BUT RARELY.. will he uses screentones to creates big volumes on the characters.
Trying to create volumes with screentones is actually quite a rookie mangaka mistake when done that way. New artists discover those tool early and they go crazy with them, thinking that they will be able to use it to create more "cool" scenes. And this is what we can see here:
But in reality, when used that way.screentones do not create more readability but the opposite. They over complicates the drawing and if the context is not suitable for such usage, the screentones will create distanciation between the drawings and the story and pull the readers back.
Here, for example, there is no reason to create such volumes. Kizaru does not light the scene in that panel and this lightning is therefore purely for impact purpose. But the way those screentones are used here make the character appear as ghost and not really on the scene.
To shade Kizaru's light and powerfull attacks, Oda mostly uses shading and strong contrast or full screentones mixed with shadings.
And he does not always create the light effect.
So to sum up on screentones:
> Far too much and in the wrong places. Overusage in general that creates a lack of constrast between the layers of the image.
> They are used without subtility which create an impression of fake shading
> Oda is not afraid to let character in white and only with lines. It allows better readability.
> The Lines are unprecise and TOO THIN
When you start to draw a manga, there is something that you need to take into account and it's the line weights of your lines for you landscape AND your characters. In One Piece, those lines weight can vary in function of the layer of the image and the impact of the subject BUT, they are almost always thick when it comes to characters. That's one of the particularity of One Piece. (and one of the reason why I have some problems with other manga in fact)
In One Piece, the usage of the clear line technique is fundamental. The lines are homogeneous and this creates a feeling of strong presence for characters. Oda might use thiner lines for his landscape (especially in early One Piece), but not for his character or for details INSIDE the character's design (hairs, cloth lines etc.).
Compare the lines in between those two panels and you will understand what I mean by that:
The thin lines of this fan art panels lowers the impact of the action and creates an impression of instability of the characters. (Also note the problem of value in the panel I choosed from the fanart, the values are all over the place - surely because the mangaka might have wanted to reproduced the effect of Prometheus's lighthing - and this result in an uneasy panel without a clear subject)
In contrary, the thin line weight of Oda anchor the character in the space and creates more impact and a more cartoony feel that is very important with the design of One Piece and its storytelling in general.
> The physical features are WAY TOO PRONOUNCED.
One piece was created to have a cartoony feels.
While yes, bodies and volumes are present in character designs. It's RARE AS F. to have realistic facial characteristics depicted in the manga. All the shapes, even with characters with complicated faces like Kizaru or Akainu, are reduced to the maximum.
Real facial details happens in reality only in moments when Oda really want to portray the details of ALL the expressions of the face. This differences in details therefore shock the reader and render said panels iconics:
The problem with this fan creation, is that the facial expression and details are pushed WAY too much over the entire chapters.
This creates a impression taht we are reading more something closer to a seinen than a One Piece story. Added to that the overdosage of screentones and very small lines, this create the impression that the author doesn't really know what they want to draw.
Now. I applaud the effort of trying to applicate the rough lines aspect of the work of Oda. Especially in the movement. I think this would be rendered better with fewer and more thicker lines.
(this first panel of Kizaru for example, could be more "One Piece - ish" with more thick lines, without the screentones and with less but more effective lines (some of those double lines could be just one line, some shapes are not necessary etc.).
(I'm not saying it's a bad drawing. That's actually one of the best fan made Kizaru I've ever seen, I'm just trying to tell what a more One Piece Kizaru should look like)
> Screentones, again..
I want to come back here on the screentones and one specific usage: The background.
One Piece is a very bright manga. This means that EVEN when the character are interacting at nightime, Oda will NOT darken the sky or the background unless he has too to make the shot really pop or when he is directly showing a character under big clouds.
He will most likely create one setting panel, like this one :
And sometimes remind us of this setting.
But most panels will be like that:
It's also worth noting that the screentone used will apppear as a simple grey tone and not at all as a grid.
That's why shot like this can't really happen in One Piece:
In reality. if Oda drew this (which would be weird because he would probably not do this type of panelling (I'll come back later to that) he would instead let the background completely blank white. And put Big Mom in screentones or even in very dark shading (besides the eyes and the mouth maybe) and highlight Napoleon.
As you can see here, the background doesn't serve Napoleon, in simply creates a texture that is a bit distracting. In fact Napoleon was already introduced in the story. This means that there is no need for Oda to create such an empathis on the weapong. A very small panel (with Napoleon cut would be enough (I will once again come back to that).
> Random thoughts
- The haki is especially in the case of Big Mom, feels too much like fan art and not really OP. The strenght of Big Mom do not really reside in her Haki, but her strenght and defense.. Thus showing her Haki like the panel just above is kinda weird. Even with Zoro or other big swordmans, Oda really does not push that lighting too far. He will draw clash, but very rarely just random sparks.
- There are good things, especially in the grainy feel of explosions. Those could very well be done by Oda.
- There is a lack of coherency in the page. Especially in value. Sometimes it's bright, sometimes its dark. It doesn't help the readability. In One Piece, entire page feels like a big Panel cut by borders and the changes in value are not that pronounced..
There are things that are drawn that would never be drawn in One Piece:
- This, for example, would be VERY different and stylized in OP, you would not have those details on the teeth or on the skin :
(great drawing tho, that's what I'm talking about when I say that there should be more contrast, as you can see here, the exterior lines are more heavy that the interior ones)
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OUTLINING:
> The Panelling is not comparable and would not work in One Piece
One Piece, despite being overally revolutionnary in term of storytelling is primarly very classical in a lot of aspect. And one of those aspect is the paneling.
Oda simply will not create hyper fancy panels. The reason for that is once the again the readability. Oda does not aim to create emotions through the forms of his panels but through the actions and emotions of his characters. For that, there needs to be as less matter as possible in between the reader and what is inside the panel.
So while Oda might create a few distorded panels here and there for brief moments of action, most of his panels will be rectangular.
> The problem with this fan fic is that ALL the panels are distorded. And if all the panels are distorded, there is no rythm anymore. We create distorded panel because we have non distorded ones. But if all the pages are wacky, the actions will feel exhausting.
> Another problem is that there are sometimes overlaps between panels and the main subject of the page. Like this for ex:
You can see that the smoke and clouds are overlapping UNDER up and down panels and it feels like the panels are just hanging on the pages. This is something Oda tends to avoid. What he will do is usually prevent the drawing from going too far and create a foggy white limit for his big subject on the page.
Here for example, the banquet scene is distinct from other panels by a fine white blank frontiere and the in between space is white:
> Another other problem is the lack of the passage of space and time. As you can see in the panel just above. Oda creates a very brief transition in term of panelling that is very important to understand the passage to a very different time or a very different place or scene. This fan art lacks that. The the scene are meshed together when there should be a ellipse at the beginning. (I would have also added one just after the first panel of the Big Mom pirates, the transition between the presentation of the pirates and the arrival of Kizaru is a bit abrupt)
In reality, if this was One Piece, this fight would have been cut a LOT (because a lot of things here are unecessary, but I will come back to that later) and an elipse should be present during the fight with a scene in between. Again, the reason being readability must most of all, rythm and clarity.
> A lack of creative composition
You might not notice it. But one of the big strenght of One Piece, is the creativity inside of of its panels. Especially those who are meant to be impactfull.
Those compositions are taking a few things into account in OP:
- The speech bubble (very important)
- The movements inside the panels
- The emotion that must be delivered
- OTHER panels next to said panel in the same page
- The importance of the panel in a cinematographic vision (for ex, a reaction shot, will not be as important as a strike or a revelation in a fight)
> The first problem with this fan art is the choices of composition that are not necessary:
Let's take a few example:
Here, the mangaka is losing an ENTIRE page by trying to put the character into the light. But they loses a lot of narration by doing that and it creates a lack of "wow" effect and mystery.
In reality, what Oda would do in that situation, is use the first page and the majority of the second page and put everything into one single page while playing with the panels to creates rythm and more storytelling.
The fact that we see Kizaru here, is fine, but not really enticing in the context. What would be better here, is not to see Kizaru and just imply the fact that he will go. Therefore we don't need the bubble sayin "you can go" since the arrival of Kizaru will be a shock moment.
Same thing, we don't need that Marine vice Ad to state the Big Mom meeting with Kaido, it can simply be a bubble over a building to let us know where we are.
Also, we need to create transition and elipsis
Here is an outlining of this moment that would be a lot closer to One Piece:
This is a very rapid sketch but you should understand the majority. I used here a few of Oda's techniques:
- Quick small panel to set the place of a dialogue while delivering an information "big mom and Kaido will meet"
- A character in shadow asking to go. This creates mystery and expectation at the same time.
- Kizaru instead of reacting to the new, is reacting to Kizaru and do not object, which means that we understand that he approves
- Little vertical panels to creates a change of time and space
- Big Mom in our face. This allow the person who flip the page to understand directly the subject of the conversation of the marine without even reading the bubble.
- Instead of having a big panel on her eyes, Oda tend to create build up to those end of phrases. So here, I put a build up of all the senior officer of Big Mom, daifuku, Oven, Pero Katakuri (purpusefully in shadow, this creates rythm and a bit of mystery among a overview of characters, another Oda technique) and finally the eye and the final "I can't wait".
- I ended that with an elipse to make the reader understand that between the arrival of Big Mom and the moment where Perospero encounter Kizaru, there will be a little bit of time. This lower the abruptness of Kizaru's arrival.
- Ideally, there should be a dialogue between the Big Mom pirates after that page and Kizaru should appear on the third page (we should only have Perospero being very surprised on the last panel of the second page)
One of the core of One Piece is the choice of conscision through composition AND the outlining of the panels to create a story inside a story INSIDE a page and sometimes even inside a panel.
Everything must tell a story in One Piece
Fan arts tends to forget that and create panels or composition that are simply not needed and just slow down the reading. And I can see those lack of conscision quite a bit in that fan art.
> There is a problem of coherency between certain panels
This is not something that I can see everywhere on this fan art but this was impactfull enough to make me tick.
Let's take a simple example:
Here, Big Mom is attacking KIzaru from the right to the left and from the top to the bottom. The first three Panels are therefore coherent.
The problem is that the third is not. Instead of going toward the bottom left of the page, Kizaru is going to the bottom right.
This is a problem of coherency and movement connection. Just like in Cinema, panels in manga needs to stay coherent between themselves. This means that here, the change in direction will surely lose some readers.
Instead what would have been better is to reduce the interaction on top of the page to one single of Kizaru taunting Big Mom and instead of having her reply something a bit out of character, make her reply by punching KIzaru toward the ship.
> One panel top right "You shoulf surrender Big Mom"
> One middle top panel : Big Mom hitting Kizaru who blocks "Don't ..."
> One top left panel : The parry breaks
> The entire rest of the page page would be Big Mom in the middle top hitting Big Mom toward the ship in the middle down of the page. (and therefore not toward the right but toward the middle) "... underestimate me.. Brat!"
This is something Oda does a lot to create impactfull punchlines. he make character replies through the hits and the impact of said hit.
Because the important thing here is not the hit itself, it's the fact that Big mom refuses to be talked down by Kizaru who she consideres as a brat in the story (like many other characters).
Again, always think about the story. If you create a One Piece story and your hits or powermoves are the story then it means that there is something wrong.
> NO STORY
I just talked about it but I will go in more detail here. One of my biggest problem with fan arts is that they tend to overshadow completely the most IMPORTANT aspect of One Piece: The story.
What did those chapters tell us ?
In reality not so much
We have a fight taking place and Big Mom and Kizaru are pretty much on par. But aside from that, there is no story. This is a simple brawl.
This is why you will never see those type of fight in One Piece because Oda always tell us something. Even when he make the fight go for more times he shows us that the characters is learning or evolves or gain power.
But here it's just techniques after techniques. It might appear cool but it has no real value as a One Piece story. Worst, most of the fight is in reality not needed and could be cut down drastically.
Some pages, like those one for example are not necessary :
(and I just selected a few but a lot of things here would never be depicted, or be cut down with other scenes to create rythm).
A lot of people think that a long fight is more impactfull, but in reality it just create a situation where techniques are stacked up without real interest and creates a lack of rythm that is in in fact fundamental to One Piece.
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NARRATION:
> The narration is similar to a lot of battle manga - Too generic.
deeOne Piece distinguish it self by the fact that Oda does not treat fights like other manga. While he might use som tropes like making the ennemy explains his powers or the character have an inside conversation with himself to find a parade.. he will not overdo it and usually created that in a way to create more narration and develop the characters and their characterizations.
The problem here is that some dialogues of this fan art are thrown in a generic shonen fashion..
Let's take this page for example :
Here this page didn't need those bubble. Katakuri here is oversharing, this is out of character since he is quite a stoic character.. What we needed to understand in that panel are two things :
- Katakuri tried to see in the future
- And failed.
Technically this many panel would not appear in One Piece, but even if we keep them, some bubble are not necessary. The first ones for example could be cut out. And instead of a bubble saying "this vision, I can't make any thing out.. " what Katakuri should be saying here is "Let me see y.." (so that we understand that he is arrogant still but he does not have time to finish his sentence).. but since he fails... the last panel - instead of being "it's too fast to comprehend" should be a simple "What !?" and instead of having his eyes in shadow. His eyes should be wide open and surprised.
This narration would be closer to the character and would create more impact and less useless bubbles.
We need to remember that drawing a page takes time. Time is too valuable to be wasted. So each dialogues must concise to the maximum, just like in Cinema and be important for the narration.
There is a lot more example of that in this fan art but I think you get the point.
> The narration is out of character
As demonstrated previously, there is a few problem with the characterization and the development of dialogue with the character.
> Katakuri is not stoic enough. I should not wonder in his thought too much and be very effective. He is a bit of an oversharer too. For example, there is no reason why he should say "with my level of future sight, I can morph around anything you throw at me" UNLESS, the character starts to understand his power.
Here, for example, a better dialogue with his characterization would be. "Your speed won't help you" >> which will be proven false and therefore create an irony.
> Kizaru is well written. Aside from the fact that he has power that should not exist. It's a good portrayal of the character.
> Big Mom suffers from the same problem as Katakuri. But this time, she lacks her arrogance. Big Mom should be much more menacing when we first see her against Kizaru.
This interaction for ex:
.. is quite out of character. Big Mom is not someone who talks about her power, she shows them. This explaination comes out of left field. There is no need for Big Mom to say anything here. We see her infused fist, we don't need to be sure.
Something that Oda does a lot is let his reader figures out the situations and powers (that's why there is so much powerscaling discussion). It's much more interesting to be subtle about powers than to tell everything (unless the character discovers something new and we need to know it, like Luffy learning that he can infuse his conqueror haki into his fists)
> The powerscaling is not really believable
That's a bit more subjective but with what we know about One Piece. This fight does not really make sence. While Kizaru might be able to hold himself a bit against Big Mom. he should not be able to give her such problems.
It seems like this fight was created by a fan of Kizaru who just wanted him to shine a little bit more.
But the interesting thing with Kizaru is not his powers but his inner conflict with Justice and his characterization. What is really interesting is the fact that he will try to keep face even in the most difficult moments.
Some of the technics used are cool, not gonna lie (I love "Hand of Amaterasu" for ex) but they are not consistant with the story. This therefore break the reading process. (Even if I applaud the creativity of the moves, nice job)
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SUM UP
So to sum everything up:
I get the idea behind this fan art, and once again I APPLAUD the effort. Really a good job (even if I criticized it in a One Piece context), but if One Piece was really like that, you could say bye bye to it's value. It would be a fan service fest and this would remove all the flavor of the story.
One Piece is One Piece not only because of the foreshadowing or a cool story. It's one Piece because of a hundreds of littles details:
- The pannelling
- The coherency of the outlining
- The consistancy and conscision of the dialogue and the storytelling
- The choices of composition and bubble
- The characterization
- The type of line art used
- The screentones and their usage
- The rythm
Etc.
The strenght of Oda is in the details.
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