The arrival of the elder was amazing, the following match was amazing, the speech of Vegapunk was hype as F. the escape was was Hype as F. and the ending with the death of Saturn was Metal
Really, it never stopped being good.
Not really. There was a lot to tell.
Which is simply wrong..
It's once again the same problem as every arc. YOu think it's bad paced because you read it week by week but in reality all the chapter work in context. SO on reread it's different.
My point exactly. Same fallacious critic. You guys need to stop reading week by week if you can't take a chapter as it is. One Piece is meant to be read first in volume.
The acolyte was not bad at all. In fact it was quite good. It was simply a bit boring, simple as that.
If you want to see bad shows, I got plenty to share. The Acolyte was not one. It was midly fun, midly entertaining and midly interesting.
The problem of the acolyte is that it was writen like Disney show when it should have been written like Andor or at least close to it and with a better show runner.
The ideas where excellents, the spectacle is excellent, the direction is great.. it's just the narration and pacing that was.. just boring.
You guys really need to pay less attention to enraged conservative and more to those who actually had good critic for this show to deliver a better second season.
Yeah.. my point exactly. THe problem of the Acolyte was not politic, it's was narrative.
It was simply written under the same common mistake that created Ahsoka.. Something good inside, but really boring.
While Ahsoka deserves a better pacing more than a better narration, The Acolyte deserved a better narration because, once again, the ideas that were explored were really REALLY interesting.
Because he hasn't.. I was jumping on my chair while reading the last three chapters. One Piece is as exciting for me now as it was 15 years ago.
You guys simply grow sad and cynical.
No. THe majority of fans ADORES the current story. It's just this forum and a small part of the fanbase that tries to make us drop One Piece because you guys have been incapable of managing your expectation and can't stand to watch a disruptive power up.
The low quality is in your head. One Piece's quality is still top tier. The last three chapters only were filled with amazing symbolic reaches and amazing call back. It made us debate over and over and it reminded us of the Early steps of the story.
Nothing is bad here.
Well, start reading with your brain instead of your expectations then.
One Piece is created to subvert everything you can think and create amazing development in hardcore subtility. So.. yeah... if you take One Piece like a children's book and stop enjoying the funny part, you won't like it.
That's what you don't understand, I DO understand why people are hating One Piece.
What I'm saying is that 99% of the critics made by those "fans" are illegitimate and have nothing to do with One Piece but with exterior parameters. I just explained that to someone on twitter who didn't understand, let me give you the translation :
What you think is a growing phenomenon of weariness is in fact a phenomenon that is not new and whose premises I already denounced in 2010 and which I really began to combat around 2014-2015
I learned to understand, analyze and deconstruct this phenomenon. So much so that I made it a motto: "Any expectation that is not justified by preparations in the narration of the story is an illegitimate expectation."
Except that it seems that I am the only one in the international community who has REALLY become aware of this problem. So I fought. First with my community, then with those who influence.
I contacted and discussed with two of them, JB theory, who despite my explanations did not really understand the problem, I did not force it. And the Doc from OP Passion (A known french One Piece youtuber) who devoted half of one of his videos to it 6 years ago (Time Code pinned):
Here is what I said to him at the time
In hindsight, I can see that this comment was thrown out into the void, but at least you can see here that it's not a new phenomenon and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the quality of the Manga.
Whole Cake is probably one of the most beautiful story arcs in the Manga and yet even there, this feeling and this hatred was present. This weariness, this feeling of poor quality is in fact the result - in my opinion - of a social contagion.
Since that comment, I've been working on the issue. And I think that this social contagion is due to a large number of parameters that - again - have nothing to do with the narrative quality of the work.
Obviously, the main one is the one I already named at the time and the one I fight every day (in vain) on Worstgen. This is the illegitimate expectation. An expectation that is not based on the narration, but on elements external to it and therefore the story.
There are many culprits:
- Influencers and YouTubers
- The forums
- Powerscaling
- Theorycrafting
- The inertia of the fanbase
- Unjustified random expectations
- Character fandoms
- The editors
- Oda himself as an advertiser
All these parameters create illegitimate expectations:
- At the character level
- At the story level
- At the plot level
- At the hype level
- At the level of the fights
- At the writing level
- At the art level
- At the level of the author himself sometimes
And the result is MOST of the time disappointment. This disappointment builds up among fans, creating even more anticipation which creates even more disappointment until it creates fans who read One Piece and spit on it every week. If you don't believe me > Worstgen.
Then there is the narration. As I explained in the comment, although the quality of OP's narration has not changed, its form has evolved. With the new world, Oda expanded his storytelling to many more characters.
Where the Mugi were the main characters for much of the East Blue and Paradise's arcs, other characters took that place in the New World with the exception of Whole Cake. This is not new, Oda already used this narration process on Alabasta
The principle is simple.
The main character, Luffy, will play the role of tools and weapons to the REAL main characters of the arcs which are:
- Vivi
- Rebecca
- Shiraoshi
- Momo
- Bonney
(In EastBlue and Paradise, these characters are the Mugiwara)
This is followed by an expansion of the subplots which aims to deeply magnify the thematics
- Fisher T. / Otohime
- Kyros / Law / Roxinante
- Pudding / Bege / Katakuri / Pedro / Germa
- 9 Scab. / Oden / Yasue / Hiyori / Tama / Yamato
- Stussy / VegaPk / Kuma
Technically, almost nothing has changed in terms of quality. But suddenly, since 2010, the story became much denser, and therefore also takes much longer to build-up because you have to prepare all these plotlines.
I say "almost" because since 2010, but in fact for much longer than that (it goes back to Water Seven), Oda's plots are more substantial and therefore take up more space... which makes the work less aerial and the editing denser.
It is for these reasons that since 2010, the remarks on the absence of the Mugi have been constant and have never really stopped, even when the mugi were literally highlighted. What was a simple narrative observation has turned into a widespread criticism of the work.
In reality, the mugiwara are not more or less highlighted than during the first parts of OP. Except that this time, they are no longer the main center of attention and they do not all have a fight.
In truth yes, but their fight does not have the same scale of importance as it could be the case on Water Seven. The battles in the new world are much more organic than those in Paradise or East-Blue. They are much more situational.
Except that this leads to a form of frustration since people have never really recovered from the linear structure of Enies Lobby where all the mugi fought more or less at the same time and under the same order of importance. The quality is there, but people don't see it
Following that, there is art. Likewise, the work is not less qualitative, but it is SOCIALLY perceived as less qualitative. Oda, with the evolution of his manga, went from a rigid line to a much more organic and cartoonish line.
These people have the wrong idea that Oda can't draw anymore, but they have unfortunately confused a very linear and detailed drawing with a more qualitative drawing and between an organic drawing, based on emotions and movement and a failed and simple drawing.
Again, this is just an impression and not a qualitative fact. Oda still draws incredibly and the environments of his assistants have never been so abundant.
Finally, there is what is called in English the phenomenon of perceived lack of media literacy. And here, it's not a problem anymore just with One Piece
We are talking about a problem that affects all fanbases. I don't have a real explanation for this, but I have a few hypotheses:
First, there is the fact (in all media) of a radicalization of fandoms towards the search for ease and good nostalgia. Fandoms today almost exclusively think through the prism of nostalgia.
This is especially visible in fandoms like Star Wars and One Piece. The past is always fantasized (well well...) and new things are constantly criticized (well well...) to the point where fans only think in terms of their expectations and not their brains.
For Star Wars, this phenomenon takes the form of a hatred of the new and of anything that approaches engaged and inclusive plots. For One Piece, this hatred can be found in the lack of excitement and hyper emotional moments.
Then there's the fact that over the last decade, the nerds have come out and are much more vocal. This has had the effect of creating a wave of individuals calling themselves analysts, but who actually have little to no knowledge of the fundamental narrative of the craft.
There are actually very few One Piece analysts who are truly relevant and the rest are a bunch of fans who think they are capable of deciphering and therefore clearly judging the quality of a work without truly understanding it. (edit : it's ok not to know, but it takes time to learn those things)
And for that I have dozens and dozens of examples, I invite you to read what I wrote on this subject on Worstgen here:
So there you have it (there are other reasons, notably social ones), but I won't go any further for the moment. All these factors combined have formed a phenomenon that is in fact a wave of hatred that is progressing in the community, for no other reason than perception.
It is a form of social contagion, which spreads through forums, but which is also the product of the way we act as a community and of our individual and common view of works of fiction.
One Piece is no worse today than it was 15 years ago, I could write several books on the new world only.. Which shows just how full of brilliant ideas and fantastic narration it is.
Whole Cake wasn't bad, Wano wasn't bad, Egghead wasn't bad, and this chapter wasn't bad either. These last three chapters alone have more symbolic significance and narrative promise than the last 30 chapters of MHA.
Now it would be a matter of opening our eyes and minds a little and stopping thinking that because it is childish, which has ALWAYS been the case, it is not serious or bad. This chapter is located at the very beginning of the Elbaf arc plantings.
We are in a slow period. So we have to accept it. IF you can't read. Wait for the volumes. Not everyone likes setup periods. But please, I can't stand these tirades from pseudo analysts who have lost their childlike hearts.
---
I'm a fan, yes. But I stand on the knowledge of the craft. I'm not loving it by pure delight. I've actually questionned multiple time this love to be sure it was legitimate.
I'm much more aware of the REAL weaknesses of One Piece than you ""fans"" who spit on the manga 24/7.
And yes. The revelation of G5 is a narrative feat that any good writer would love to reproduce. It's simply a legendary narrative move.
But to understand that, you need to have the narrative knowledge to deconstruct that revelation. You can't just say "it's lame becaome it's a retcon". > It's not, and it's an amazing relevation.
Why would you rush such a story ?
And people don't understand why I ask for a less toxic One Piece fanbase ?
This is not normal, please don't let that slide.
Really, it never stopped being good.
Not really. There was a lot to tell.
Which is simply wrong..
It's once again the same problem as every arc. YOu think it's bad paced because you read it week by week but in reality all the chapter work in context. SO on reread it's different.
My point exactly. Same fallacious critic. You guys need to stop reading week by week if you can't take a chapter as it is. One Piece is meant to be read first in volume.
The acolyte was not bad at all. In fact it was quite good. It was simply a bit boring, simple as that.
If you want to see bad shows, I got plenty to share. The Acolyte was not one. It was midly fun, midly entertaining and midly interesting.
The problem of the acolyte is that it was writen like Disney show when it should have been written like Andor or at least close to it and with a better show runner.
The ideas where excellents, the spectacle is excellent, the direction is great.. it's just the narration and pacing that was.. just boring.
You guys really need to pay less attention to enraged conservative and more to those who actually had good critic for this show to deliver a better second season.
Yeah.. my point exactly. THe problem of the Acolyte was not politic, it's was narrative.
It was simply written under the same common mistake that created Ahsoka.. Something good inside, but really boring.
While Ahsoka deserves a better pacing more than a better narration, The Acolyte deserved a better narration because, once again, the ideas that were explored were really REALLY interesting.
Because he hasn't.. I was jumping on my chair while reading the last three chapters. One Piece is as exciting for me now as it was 15 years ago.
You guys simply grow sad and cynical.
No. THe majority of fans ADORES the current story. It's just this forum and a small part of the fanbase that tries to make us drop One Piece because you guys have been incapable of managing your expectation and can't stand to watch a disruptive power up.
The low quality is in your head. One Piece's quality is still top tier. The last three chapters only were filled with amazing symbolic reaches and amazing call back. It made us debate over and over and it reminded us of the Early steps of the story.
Nothing is bad here.
Well, start reading with your brain instead of your expectations then.
One Piece is created to subvert everything you can think and create amazing development in hardcore subtility. So.. yeah... if you take One Piece like a children's book and stop enjoying the funny part, you won't like it.
That's what you don't understand, I DO understand why people are hating One Piece.
What I'm saying is that 99% of the critics made by those "fans" are illegitimate and have nothing to do with One Piece but with exterior parameters. I just explained that to someone on twitter who didn't understand, let me give you the translation :
What you think is a growing phenomenon of weariness is in fact a phenomenon that is not new and whose premises I already denounced in 2010 and which I really began to combat around 2014-2015
I learned to understand, analyze and deconstruct this phenomenon. So much so that I made it a motto: "Any expectation that is not justified by preparations in the narration of the story is an illegitimate expectation."
Except that it seems that I am the only one in the international community who has REALLY become aware of this problem. So I fought. First with my community, then with those who influence.
I contacted and discussed with two of them, JB theory, who despite my explanations did not really understand the problem, I did not force it. And the Doc from OP Passion (A known french One Piece youtuber) who devoted half of one of his videos to it 6 years ago (Time Code pinned):
Here is what I said to him at the time
In hindsight, I can see that this comment was thrown out into the void, but at least you can see here that it's not a new phenomenon and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the quality of the Manga.
Whole Cake is probably one of the most beautiful story arcs in the Manga and yet even there, this feeling and this hatred was present. This weariness, this feeling of poor quality is in fact the result - in my opinion - of a social contagion.
Since that comment, I've been working on the issue. And I think that this social contagion is due to a large number of parameters that - again - have nothing to do with the narrative quality of the work.
Obviously, the main one is the one I already named at the time and the one I fight every day (in vain) on Worstgen. This is the illegitimate expectation. An expectation that is not based on the narration, but on elements external to it and therefore the story.
There are many culprits:
- Influencers and YouTubers
- The forums
- Powerscaling
- Theorycrafting
- The inertia of the fanbase
- Unjustified random expectations
- Character fandoms
- The editors
- Oda himself as an advertiser
All these parameters create illegitimate expectations:
- At the character level
- At the story level
- At the plot level
- At the hype level
- At the level of the fights
- At the writing level
- At the art level
- At the level of the author himself sometimes
And the result is MOST of the time disappointment. This disappointment builds up among fans, creating even more anticipation which creates even more disappointment until it creates fans who read One Piece and spit on it every week. If you don't believe me > Worstgen.
Then there is the narration. As I explained in the comment, although the quality of OP's narration has not changed, its form has evolved. With the new world, Oda expanded his storytelling to many more characters.
Where the Mugi were the main characters for much of the East Blue and Paradise's arcs, other characters took that place in the New World with the exception of Whole Cake. This is not new, Oda already used this narration process on Alabasta
The principle is simple.
The main character, Luffy, will play the role of tools and weapons to the REAL main characters of the arcs which are:
- Vivi
- Rebecca
- Shiraoshi
- Momo
- Bonney
(In EastBlue and Paradise, these characters are the Mugiwara)
This is followed by an expansion of the subplots which aims to deeply magnify the thematics
- Fisher T. / Otohime
- Kyros / Law / Roxinante
- Pudding / Bege / Katakuri / Pedro / Germa
- 9 Scab. / Oden / Yasue / Hiyori / Tama / Yamato
- Stussy / VegaPk / Kuma
Technically, almost nothing has changed in terms of quality. But suddenly, since 2010, the story became much denser, and therefore also takes much longer to build-up because you have to prepare all these plotlines.
I say "almost" because since 2010, but in fact for much longer than that (it goes back to Water Seven), Oda's plots are more substantial and therefore take up more space... which makes the work less aerial and the editing denser.
It is for these reasons that since 2010, the remarks on the absence of the Mugi have been constant and have never really stopped, even when the mugi were literally highlighted. What was a simple narrative observation has turned into a widespread criticism of the work.
In reality, the mugiwara are not more or less highlighted than during the first parts of OP. Except that this time, they are no longer the main center of attention and they do not all have a fight.
In truth yes, but their fight does not have the same scale of importance as it could be the case on Water Seven. The battles in the new world are much more organic than those in Paradise or East-Blue. They are much more situational.
Except that this leads to a form of frustration since people have never really recovered from the linear structure of Enies Lobby where all the mugi fought more or less at the same time and under the same order of importance. The quality is there, but people don't see it
Following that, there is art. Likewise, the work is not less qualitative, but it is SOCIALLY perceived as less qualitative. Oda, with the evolution of his manga, went from a rigid line to a much more organic and cartoonish line.
These people have the wrong idea that Oda can't draw anymore, but they have unfortunately confused a very linear and detailed drawing with a more qualitative drawing and between an organic drawing, based on emotions and movement and a failed and simple drawing.
Again, this is just an impression and not a qualitative fact. Oda still draws incredibly and the environments of his assistants have never been so abundant.
Finally, there is what is called in English the phenomenon of perceived lack of media literacy. And here, it's not a problem anymore just with One Piece
We are talking about a problem that affects all fanbases. I don't have a real explanation for this, but I have a few hypotheses:
First, there is the fact (in all media) of a radicalization of fandoms towards the search for ease and good nostalgia. Fandoms today almost exclusively think through the prism of nostalgia.
This is especially visible in fandoms like Star Wars and One Piece. The past is always fantasized (well well...) and new things are constantly criticized (well well...) to the point where fans only think in terms of their expectations and not their brains.
For Star Wars, this phenomenon takes the form of a hatred of the new and of anything that approaches engaged and inclusive plots. For One Piece, this hatred can be found in the lack of excitement and hyper emotional moments.
Then there's the fact that over the last decade, the nerds have come out and are much more vocal. This has had the effect of creating a wave of individuals calling themselves analysts, but who actually have little to no knowledge of the fundamental narrative of the craft.
There are actually very few One Piece analysts who are truly relevant and the rest are a bunch of fans who think they are capable of deciphering and therefore clearly judging the quality of a work without truly understanding it. (edit : it's ok not to know, but it takes time to learn those things)
And for that I have dozens and dozens of examples, I invite you to read what I wrote on this subject on Worstgen here:
So there you have it (there are other reasons, notably social ones), but I won't go any further for the moment. All these factors combined have formed a phenomenon that is in fact a wave of hatred that is progressing in the community, for no other reason than perception.
It is a form of social contagion, which spreads through forums, but which is also the product of the way we act as a community and of our individual and common view of works of fiction.
One Piece is no worse today than it was 15 years ago, I could write several books on the new world only.. Which shows just how full of brilliant ideas and fantastic narration it is.
Whole Cake wasn't bad, Wano wasn't bad, Egghead wasn't bad, and this chapter wasn't bad either. These last three chapters alone have more symbolic significance and narrative promise than the last 30 chapters of MHA.
Now it would be a matter of opening our eyes and minds a little and stopping thinking that because it is childish, which has ALWAYS been the case, it is not serious or bad. This chapter is located at the very beginning of the Elbaf arc plantings.
We are in a slow period. So we have to accept it. IF you can't read. Wait for the volumes. Not everyone likes setup periods. But please, I can't stand these tirades from pseudo analysts who have lost their childlike hearts.
---
I'm a fan, yes. But I stand on the knowledge of the craft. I'm not loving it by pure delight. I've actually questionned multiple time this love to be sure it was legitimate.
I'm much more aware of the REAL weaknesses of One Piece than you ""fans"" who spit on the manga 24/7.
And yes. The revelation of G5 is a narrative feat that any good writer would love to reproduce. It's simply a legendary narrative move.
But to understand that, you need to have the narrative knowledge to deconstruct that revelation. You can't just say "it's lame becaome it's a retcon". > It's not, and it's an amazing relevation.
Why would you rush such a story ?
And people don't understand why I ask for a less toxic One Piece fanbase ?
This is not normal, please don't let that slide.
