The more I read One Piece, the more evident that it isn't a story anymore instead it has become a consumer product where its sole purpose is to generate as much revenue as possible. Where the story lines decisions cater to marketing instead of actual story telling. This is obviously hard to prove but the symptoms of this has become more and more apparent post time skip after Fishman Island.
The reasons for this are:
1. The most obvious one is post time skip art of women. No other reason to draw bigger boobs than solely to attract as much fan service fans as possible. This is obviously a marketing decision.
2. Pacing has literally become worse and worse with each passing arc where three of the longest arcs in One Piece happened in the past three arcs: Dressrosa, WCI and Wano. For context, Sabody Arch, Amazon Lily, Impel Down, Marine Ford, Ace/Luffy flashback COMBINED took less chapters and time than Wano alone.
3. The obsession of Luffy. Yes, Oda pretime skip stroked off to Luffy however it doesn't come close to post time skip where Oda continues to hurt other characters development in order to make Luffy look good which didn't occur pretime skip. This huge shift, of focusing more and more on Luffy I think was a marketing decision instead of a story decision.
4. New mysteries and new characters. Even though there are literally hundreds of unanswered mystery subplots, Oda continues to add more and more mysteries without addressing any of the past unanswered mysteries. On top of that, Oda continues to add more and more characters to the already bloated cast of characters for no reason: Nika, Rock Pirates, Weevil and much more. Why introduce these new subplots for? Is it because the actual One Piece story has already maxed out and Oda needs to continue to add new story lines in order to extend the series as long as possible? I believe so.
5. The SH have no clear objective anymore in the story where Oda continues to have them just run around not doing anything of relevance which begs the question why are the arcs getting longer and longer when the main cast are usually shafted and aren't doing anything relevant other than fighting fodder.
6. The shift to power level story lines which is very evident in Wano where instead of getting relevant information of the Void Century, why the Marines are scared of Wano, why Wano is closed off, etc we instead get detailed chapters of useless power level discussions.
7. Promoting movies in your manga after a one month break.
8. Admitting Chopper is a mascot.
There are many other reasons why One Piece isn't a story anymore, but these are the biggest ones for me.
The reasons for this are:
1. The most obvious one is post time skip art of women. No other reason to draw bigger boobs than solely to attract as much fan service fans as possible. This is obviously a marketing decision.
2. Pacing has literally become worse and worse with each passing arc where three of the longest arcs in One Piece happened in the past three arcs: Dressrosa, WCI and Wano. For context, Sabody Arch, Amazon Lily, Impel Down, Marine Ford, Ace/Luffy flashback COMBINED took less chapters and time than Wano alone.
3. The obsession of Luffy. Yes, Oda pretime skip stroked off to Luffy however it doesn't come close to post time skip where Oda continues to hurt other characters development in order to make Luffy look good which didn't occur pretime skip. This huge shift, of focusing more and more on Luffy I think was a marketing decision instead of a story decision.
4. New mysteries and new characters. Even though there are literally hundreds of unanswered mystery subplots, Oda continues to add more and more mysteries without addressing any of the past unanswered mysteries. On top of that, Oda continues to add more and more characters to the already bloated cast of characters for no reason: Nika, Rock Pirates, Weevil and much more. Why introduce these new subplots for? Is it because the actual One Piece story has already maxed out and Oda needs to continue to add new story lines in order to extend the series as long as possible? I believe so.
5. The SH have no clear objective anymore in the story where Oda continues to have them just run around not doing anything of relevance which begs the question why are the arcs getting longer and longer when the main cast are usually shafted and aren't doing anything relevant other than fighting fodder.
6. The shift to power level story lines which is very evident in Wano where instead of getting relevant information of the Void Century, why the Marines are scared of Wano, why Wano is closed off, etc we instead get detailed chapters of useless power level discussions.
7. Promoting movies in your manga after a one month break.
8. Admitting Chopper is a mascot.
There are many other reasons why One Piece isn't a story anymore, but these are the biggest ones for me.
Last edited: