One piece strong point was its world and adventure...which we experienced most in Pre time skip. I mean a pirate series needs to have a proper mystery adventure that pirates are actively looking into. Naruto had its ninja stuff + shounen, FT had its magic stuff, Bleach has its shinigami's...but one piece doesn't even put pirate stuff into the plot much... it's just a shounen right now and someone saying it's a pirates show will be a joke... I mean everyone could be a mountain bandit for all I care and it wouldn't matter.
Its strong point i.e. the lore is not even concentrated much... especially the main characters. We had skypeia so I know it is capable of using the characters for a good adventure which feels like a pirate adventure....but what we have is For ex. Sanji who became a "pirate" to find All Blue and never uttered a word about it.
.. it had probably took the bad route long time back.
Completely agree, it feel more like a fantastical, magical, jack of all trades/include everything sort of series now. We still have Laugh Tale and the One Piece but we also have Will of D, Void Century, Imu, Xebec and Rocks Pirates, Poneglyphs ,Joyboy, Ancient Weapons, new races, prophecies, potential supernatural elements, the moon and so on, its overwhelming.
I really miss the initial vibes of OP where we started with Roo killed a bandit with no hesitation and the tone was so much more different, simpler but a lot more depth and consistent too.
I've had how the series didn't really go all in on the pirate stuff too. What Oda has done is really unique, creative, details, wondrous and such but it hasn't felt like a pirate series for a lot of it too. It does seem like he's doing his own personal takes on pirate stuff though here and there throughout so that is fine too, even if its not what i expected and hoped for.
Skypeia is legit the most adventurous and fun arc, I'm always glad to see people point it out and praise it for that and shaming Skypeia skippers or those who call it "filler" or that it sucks and such. Skypeia felt like the "most One Piece" arc there was. WCI was probably the 2nd most for me.
Yeah, Oda has this thing of making characters "pirates" or "bandits" as a means to serve their goals or just being labelled as that by the WG or so, rather than them wanting to be pirates and such and find that underwhelming and annoying.
I was so happy for Oda to bring up All Blue at FMI even though it was a gag moment. I still hope Sanji gets to live that dream somehow but we'll have to wait and see.
Yeah I think so, when the Warlords and Supernovas weren't planned and had to be added in and the Yonkos were the main original focus of OP, that says a lot tbh. I do really wonder if Imu, Xebec and thus Rocks Pirates es were always planned or added in later at some point too.
Sanji is so different post TS but I hope Oda goes back to focusing on him being a chef, the All Blue dream and Zeff as he should. We saw him refer to his vs Queen of course and with him destroying the raid suit, there is hope.
In a way, it might be a blessing that other SHs have a lot less known about them then we should know, that they aren't fleshed out as much as Sanji is. I'm very divided on Sanji but I really loved how he was pre TS, he was my fave SH and character and I kept wanting and asking for more for him but I think I should have been satisfied with what we had and just embraced and accepted it.
All this Germa stuff is very interesting but I feel its too much in some ways, that it could have been saved for another character and that Sanji was fine as he was. if Sanji was the main protagonist it would make more sense, he has FAR more backstory than Luffy on-screen somehow! Although Luffy might get a lot more (lol I said a lore more by accident, kinda fitting) once Dragon and Garp get their focus finally ofc.
I might just be too stuck on the nostalgia for early/pre TS One Piece too but I do feel it was better. Post TS is a lot more flashier, spectacular, convoluted and that's not entirely a good thing either ofc. It's amazing to look at, on the surface, but it's a complete mess beneath that, not as "stunningly beautiful" deep down imo.
Arcs got way too big, too dragged out, WAY too many characters, far too many plotlines, way too big a scale and so on. It just harming the series and its roots, its origins in the long run imo.