Break Week Torishima's recent criticism about One Piece
- Thread starter ShinichiMugi
- Start date
In all fairness that applies to almost any long running anime/manga that was written in the 90’s/early 2000’s
I had a conversation on WorstGen about this a few years ago actually. What popular shonen from that era would make it past the “axe” period if they were to release in the modern day (so the first 10-20 chapters)
I think Naruto is one of the only exceptions due to it picking up a lot faster than its peers (Land of Waves arc is only a few chapters in)
The rest of em though? Cooked
I had a conversation on WorstGen about this a few years ago actually. What popular shonen from that era would make it past the “axe” period if they were to release in the modern day (so the first 10-20 chapters)
I think Naruto is one of the only exceptions due to it picking up a lot faster than its peers (Land of Waves arc is only a few chapters in)
The rest of em though? Cooked
I'm not going to say he doesn't have a few good points. But, a lot of this comes across like a old man complaining that things aren't like how they were back in his day. And honestly, I feel like the only reason he's getting away with saying stuff like this is because others are too "polite" to talk back to a "elder statesman" of the manga industry. Given this guy's attitude, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some horror stories about people having to work with him and his various abuses, that they're just too polite to share.
It's kind of telling that even his Wikipedia article mentions that he gets parodied a lot. Which says to me, that he actually isn't as well liked behind the scenes as he likes to pretend he is. He's actually the inspiration behind several different villains, in different manga series.
"When asked for his opinion on why he has been parodied so much, Torishima suggested it might be because his frankness and exuberance makes him easy to turn into a character, or, that some people were afraid to argue with him at work and used the parodies to get revenge and vent frustration. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuhiko_Torishima
And while he may have overseen things for a long while, it seems like a lot of his career is just riding on Dragon Ball's coat tails. He doesn't really have a lot of wins outside of that. He always wants to talk about Dragon Ball, but how often does he talk about Wing-Man?
This one, I actually more or less agree with. I don't know if I'd call it "chaotic", but I would call it cramped.
Like in one of the recent chapters, we go from a shot of Dragon finding Shank's mom in a hut, and then the next panel we see Blackbeard's mom and baby Blackbeard. So, a lot of people assumed that Dragon found Blackbeard's mom in the hut. That's very unclear panelwork, and I'm not surprised that it caused a lot of people to get confused about what was actually going on. That's just poor "flow".
And stuff like that has been happening more and more with the manga. It's a lot of ill-rendered detail in smaller and smaller panels, as time goes on. "Artistically", it's not great.
Practically speaking, I'm not sure how you fix that. Because, I think part of the problem is that Oda is actually trying his best to finish the manga as fast as he can, because he is experiencing more and more physical pain doing this as he gets older. So, I don't really want him to slow down, and make this take even longer, because then he'd just be extending his pain. And I don't want to increase the number of pages he has per week, because then that'd just make for a even larger workload.
I don't think there's a good solution here. Maybe have his assistants do more of the work? But, Oda does love drawing, and I don't want to take that away from him. And it seems kind of frowned upon in general, in the manga community.
I don't know, it's tricky working with a aging manga artist. There's a balancing act at play here. And I guess everyone's doing the best they can.
This is a little tricky. Because I'm not sure exactly what he's complaining about. Shonen Jump manga have almost ALWAYS had some level of gore and violence, and even some questionable subject matter. This is the same magazine that ran Fist of the North Star, for goodness sake!
But, I think what he's talking about isn't any of that. He might not care about the violence or the topics they cover. He MIGHT be talking about how talky it gets. We have had several chapters were no one is really fighting each other, at least not as a major focus. It's just been people talking. And while that can be pretty interesting for us as fans, I could see that boring a kid audience who just wants to see a cool fight.
A lot of One Piece is about history and culture. It's about character interactions and reactions. And that's not always the most visually interesting thing to look at.
So, when he's talking about the manga not really being "for kids", he might be more talking about how there's too much focus on worldbuilding and not enough on cool fights. And I can understand that criticism. Kids sometimes just want something that looks cool.
But, I'm not sure I'd want to change it. At least at this stage. Some of One Piece's fights could stand to be better, I'll admit. But, the worldbuilding and all the talking is actually what makes One Piece unique. I can see how it could be boring or impenetrable to a kid who's just started reading, though. One Piece has never been the "coolest" manga. But, it does have depth. And at this late stage of the game, I personally wouldn't sacrifice that depth just to appeal more to a kid audience.
Plus, you could make a pretty good argument that One Piece has been slowly growing up alongside it's audience. As most good long-running series tend to do. You start off with something more easily digestible for kids, and then slowly work your way up to more complex topics. It's just that this story has been going on for 30 years, so of COURSE it's leaning more toward's the "adult" side of the spectrum, at this point. The people who grew up with this series since they were kids probably prefer it that way.
I mean...the story's lasted over 1100 chapters. So...I guess his input might have helped improve a few things. But, clearly, he didn't see what everyone else saw.
One Piece's story might not have been to his personal taste. And that's fine, to a extent, not every story appeals to every reader. But, as a editor, I would hope he would have enough objectivity to see that there was a diamond buried in the rough, here. And to his credit, he did eventually greenlight the series. So, at least he did give it a chance, eventually.
This comes across as Torishima just missing the point.
Because...this is a PLOT POINT. Luffy has outright STATED that he isn't a hero (possibly as a actual response to this very criticism from Torishima.) This is part of Luffy's character! We might not understand it yet. Oda may or may not ever explain this. But, this is a purposeful creative choice.
And, personally, I think it will end up feeding into one of the bigger messages that One Piece has to share with it's audience.
"It's okay to be selfish."
Now, that might seem like a very unusual message to you. Because, usually, we're all told to be LESS selfish. That's the lesson that's taught more often in our culture. But, something to remember is....One Piece probably isn't really commenting on OUR "western" culture. One Piece is a Japanese series, which probably means Oda is commenting on Japanese culture.
And in Japan? People are expected from a young age to think more about the "group" than about themselves. All the societal expectations they grow up with aren't about making their own dreams come true, it's about providing for your family, or about making your hometown proud. You are expected to go along with the group, and not make trouble. In the west, we kind of romanticize the individual. One person becoming great. In Japan, it's more about making the group or your company great. Everyone's going out for drinks? It doesn't matter if you don't want to go, if the group's going, you're drinking, too. You are expected to sacrifice your own happiness for the greater happiness of the group.
One Piece is all about "freedom". But, it's also about letting yourself do what YOU want to do. Not what society expects you to do. Not about what's best for society, but what would make YOU happy. Which is why Luffy often causes a lot of chaos wherever he goes. He completely upends all of society, just to make his own, selfish dream come true. And sometimes...that's for the best. I think One Piece will end up not just being about "Freedom", but the "freedom" to go against what the group wants.
As far as being like Goku...well, Goku kind of ended up being more like Luffy, as time went on. At least as far as Dragon Ball Super goes. In DBS, Goku is EXTREMELY selfish. And he almost causes the destruction of their entire universe (multiple times!) just because he wanted a good fight.
Does that make Luffy less popular in the West? Well...maybe. But, I think that's more because Oda's kind of keeping Luffy's reasoning for doing all this mysterious and yet simple. Luffy...is not the most complex character. But, he's also got his own internal reason for doing things that can be hard to understand. Luffy's got some hidden depths. Honestly, I think Luffy's just as likable as Goku. He's just a little harder to understand. Because, he's kind of supposed to be inscrutable on some level.
In a lot of ways, Luffy does tend to act like a "god". He takes "offerings" of food, which compels him to answer the peoples "prayers"...but not always in the way they want. So, I think being less understandable fits his character. But, I also feel like Oda's holding some big reveal about Luffy back. Maybe connecting to his "true dream" or maybe something else. And I think that's part of what makes Luffy a little hard to wrap your head around.
Relying too much on one big series IS a bit of a problem for Shonen Jump. Especially with One Piece winding down.
But, frankly, this kind of sounds a bit toxic. Torishima wants to pit all the manga artists against each other, in order to drive up sales. That just sounds like you're trying to start a fight for no reason.
And, honestly, I feel like this IS partially the fault of executives like Torishima. You cultivated SUCH a toxic work environment, that no one new wants to stick around for long. You pressure people working in these jobs, and suddenly they end their manga early, meaning that you don't have any big long-running series, anymore. Imagine that! Maybe if you weren't so focused on trying to get everyone to one-up one another, some of them might stick around a little longer!
And it's not like Shonen Jump hasn't had other hits over the years. My Hero Academia. Assassination Classroom. Black Clover. Dr Stone. It's just that most of those ended early, because they saw what happened to fellow artists like Oda and Togashi, and they didn't want that for themselves. This work culture is crippling these artists, and I can't blame anyone for wanting to just do their story as quick as possible and then leave.
Oda isn't at fault for this. This "churn and burn" work culture is.
If you look at the list, it seems like only 1 in 20 series actually get any notoriety at all. Most of these are ended before they even get much of a chance to grow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_series_run_in_Weekly_Shōnen_Jump
And honestly? Bringing back old series probably isn't helping things. I don't like that Japan is falling into the same "reboot culture" trap as the west is. Bringing back Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Bleach might help Shonen Jump in the short term. But in the long run, you're basically suffocating any new series that could rise up in the crib. Why BOTHER trying to make a new series, if you have to directly compete with a legacy with a built-in audience?
It kind of just comes across like he wants the editors to be the ones in control, rather than the "creatives". Which...I will say there's a balancing act to that. Some artists DO work better given some limitations. But, others get stifled under too much control. It's really a case-by-case basis. Maybe a firmer editorial hand could have kept Wano from becoming as bloated as it became.
But, again, at this late stage of the game...let Oda tell his story the way he wants to. He's earned it.
Personally, I'd say some of the fault that caused Shonen Jump's problems right now lays at the feet of editors like Torishima. You used your artists like tissues, and just let them burn themselves out until they tear themselves apart. You burn through new series as fast as possible, chasing a quick buck. And you set them all against each other, making them compete for some imaginary "top spot", so that there's no sense of community to the company, giving them no reason to stay any longer than they have to. New artists just seem less inclined to put up with all this nonsense and I can't blame them. Some of the editorial "old guard" probably should either learn to change with the times, or retire.
So, yeah, I'll admit, he has a few good points. But, I feel like a LOT of his complaints are just him being a cranky old man yelling at clouds. Personally, I want to see ODA'S ending, not some editor's ending. Let the creatives create. Sometimes they need some guidance. But, there's a difference between "guiding" a story, and "rewriting" it. And a lot of Torishima's comments make me think that he'd rather he could just rewrite parts of the manga he's in charge of, himself. And that's going too far.
It's kind of telling that even his Wikipedia article mentions that he gets parodied a lot. Which says to me, that he actually isn't as well liked behind the scenes as he likes to pretend he is. He's actually the inspiration behind several different villains, in different manga series.
"When asked for his opinion on why he has been parodied so much, Torishima suggested it might be because his frankness and exuberance makes him easy to turn into a character, or, that some people were afraid to argue with him at work and used the parodies to get revenge and vent frustration. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuhiko_Torishima
And while he may have overseen things for a long while, it seems like a lot of his career is just riding on Dragon Ball's coat tails. He doesn't really have a lot of wins outside of that. He always wants to talk about Dragon Ball, but how often does he talk about Wing-Man?
This one, I actually more or less agree with. I don't know if I'd call it "chaotic", but I would call it cramped.
Like in one of the recent chapters, we go from a shot of Dragon finding Shank's mom in a hut, and then the next panel we see Blackbeard's mom and baby Blackbeard. So, a lot of people assumed that Dragon found Blackbeard's mom in the hut. That's very unclear panelwork, and I'm not surprised that it caused a lot of people to get confused about what was actually going on. That's just poor "flow".
And stuff like that has been happening more and more with the manga. It's a lot of ill-rendered detail in smaller and smaller panels, as time goes on. "Artistically", it's not great.
Practically speaking, I'm not sure how you fix that. Because, I think part of the problem is that Oda is actually trying his best to finish the manga as fast as he can, because he is experiencing more and more physical pain doing this as he gets older. So, I don't really want him to slow down, and make this take even longer, because then he'd just be extending his pain. And I don't want to increase the number of pages he has per week, because then that'd just make for a even larger workload.
I don't think there's a good solution here. Maybe have his assistants do more of the work? But, Oda does love drawing, and I don't want to take that away from him. And it seems kind of frowned upon in general, in the manga community.
I don't know, it's tricky working with a aging manga artist. There's a balancing act at play here. And I guess everyone's doing the best they can.
This is a little tricky. Because I'm not sure exactly what he's complaining about. Shonen Jump manga have almost ALWAYS had some level of gore and violence, and even some questionable subject matter. This is the same magazine that ran Fist of the North Star, for goodness sake!
But, I think what he's talking about isn't any of that. He might not care about the violence or the topics they cover. He MIGHT be talking about how talky it gets. We have had several chapters were no one is really fighting each other, at least not as a major focus. It's just been people talking. And while that can be pretty interesting for us as fans, I could see that boring a kid audience who just wants to see a cool fight.
A lot of One Piece is about history and culture. It's about character interactions and reactions. And that's not always the most visually interesting thing to look at.
So, when he's talking about the manga not really being "for kids", he might be more talking about how there's too much focus on worldbuilding and not enough on cool fights. And I can understand that criticism. Kids sometimes just want something that looks cool.
But, I'm not sure I'd want to change it. At least at this stage. Some of One Piece's fights could stand to be better, I'll admit. But, the worldbuilding and all the talking is actually what makes One Piece unique. I can see how it could be boring or impenetrable to a kid who's just started reading, though. One Piece has never been the "coolest" manga. But, it does have depth. And at this late stage of the game, I personally wouldn't sacrifice that depth just to appeal more to a kid audience.
Plus, you could make a pretty good argument that One Piece has been slowly growing up alongside it's audience. As most good long-running series tend to do. You start off with something more easily digestible for kids, and then slowly work your way up to more complex topics. It's just that this story has been going on for 30 years, so of COURSE it's leaning more toward's the "adult" side of the spectrum, at this point. The people who grew up with this series since they were kids probably prefer it that way.
I mean...the story's lasted over 1100 chapters. So...I guess his input might have helped improve a few things. But, clearly, he didn't see what everyone else saw.
One Piece's story might not have been to his personal taste. And that's fine, to a extent, not every story appeals to every reader. But, as a editor, I would hope he would have enough objectivity to see that there was a diamond buried in the rough, here. And to his credit, he did eventually greenlight the series. So, at least he did give it a chance, eventually.
This comes across as Torishima just missing the point.
Because...this is a PLOT POINT. Luffy has outright STATED that he isn't a hero (possibly as a actual response to this very criticism from Torishima.) This is part of Luffy's character! We might not understand it yet. Oda may or may not ever explain this. But, this is a purposeful creative choice.
And, personally, I think it will end up feeding into one of the bigger messages that One Piece has to share with it's audience.
"It's okay to be selfish."
Now, that might seem like a very unusual message to you. Because, usually, we're all told to be LESS selfish. That's the lesson that's taught more often in our culture. But, something to remember is....One Piece probably isn't really commenting on OUR "western" culture. One Piece is a Japanese series, which probably means Oda is commenting on Japanese culture.
And in Japan? People are expected from a young age to think more about the "group" than about themselves. All the societal expectations they grow up with aren't about making their own dreams come true, it's about providing for your family, or about making your hometown proud. You are expected to go along with the group, and not make trouble. In the west, we kind of romanticize the individual. One person becoming great. In Japan, it's more about making the group or your company great. Everyone's going out for drinks? It doesn't matter if you don't want to go, if the group's going, you're drinking, too. You are expected to sacrifice your own happiness for the greater happiness of the group.
One Piece is all about "freedom". But, it's also about letting yourself do what YOU want to do. Not what society expects you to do. Not about what's best for society, but what would make YOU happy. Which is why Luffy often causes a lot of chaos wherever he goes. He completely upends all of society, just to make his own, selfish dream come true. And sometimes...that's for the best. I think One Piece will end up not just being about "Freedom", but the "freedom" to go against what the group wants.
As far as being like Goku...well, Goku kind of ended up being more like Luffy, as time went on. At least as far as Dragon Ball Super goes. In DBS, Goku is EXTREMELY selfish. And he almost causes the destruction of their entire universe (multiple times!) just because he wanted a good fight.
Does that make Luffy less popular in the West? Well...maybe. But, I think that's more because Oda's kind of keeping Luffy's reasoning for doing all this mysterious and yet simple. Luffy...is not the most complex character. But, he's also got his own internal reason for doing things that can be hard to understand. Luffy's got some hidden depths. Honestly, I think Luffy's just as likable as Goku. He's just a little harder to understand. Because, he's kind of supposed to be inscrutable on some level.
In a lot of ways, Luffy does tend to act like a "god". He takes "offerings" of food, which compels him to answer the peoples "prayers"...but not always in the way they want. So, I think being less understandable fits his character. But, I also feel like Oda's holding some big reveal about Luffy back. Maybe connecting to his "true dream" or maybe something else. And I think that's part of what makes Luffy a little hard to wrap your head around.
Relying too much on one big series IS a bit of a problem for Shonen Jump. Especially with One Piece winding down.
But, frankly, this kind of sounds a bit toxic. Torishima wants to pit all the manga artists against each other, in order to drive up sales. That just sounds like you're trying to start a fight for no reason.
And, honestly, I feel like this IS partially the fault of executives like Torishima. You cultivated SUCH a toxic work environment, that no one new wants to stick around for long. You pressure people working in these jobs, and suddenly they end their manga early, meaning that you don't have any big long-running series, anymore. Imagine that! Maybe if you weren't so focused on trying to get everyone to one-up one another, some of them might stick around a little longer!
And it's not like Shonen Jump hasn't had other hits over the years. My Hero Academia. Assassination Classroom. Black Clover. Dr Stone. It's just that most of those ended early, because they saw what happened to fellow artists like Oda and Togashi, and they didn't want that for themselves. This work culture is crippling these artists, and I can't blame anyone for wanting to just do their story as quick as possible and then leave.
Oda isn't at fault for this. This "churn and burn" work culture is.
If you look at the list, it seems like only 1 in 20 series actually get any notoriety at all. Most of these are ended before they even get much of a chance to grow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_series_run_in_Weekly_Shōnen_Jump
And honestly? Bringing back old series probably isn't helping things. I don't like that Japan is falling into the same "reboot culture" trap as the west is. Bringing back Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Bleach might help Shonen Jump in the short term. But in the long run, you're basically suffocating any new series that could rise up in the crib. Why BOTHER trying to make a new series, if you have to directly compete with a legacy with a built-in audience?
It kind of just comes across like he wants the editors to be the ones in control, rather than the "creatives". Which...I will say there's a balancing act to that. Some artists DO work better given some limitations. But, others get stifled under too much control. It's really a case-by-case basis. Maybe a firmer editorial hand could have kept Wano from becoming as bloated as it became.
But, again, at this late stage of the game...let Oda tell his story the way he wants to. He's earned it.
Personally, I'd say some of the fault that caused Shonen Jump's problems right now lays at the feet of editors like Torishima. You used your artists like tissues, and just let them burn themselves out until they tear themselves apart. You burn through new series as fast as possible, chasing a quick buck. And you set them all against each other, making them compete for some imaginary "top spot", so that there's no sense of community to the company, giving them no reason to stay any longer than they have to. New artists just seem less inclined to put up with all this nonsense and I can't blame them. Some of the editorial "old guard" probably should either learn to change with the times, or retire.
So, yeah, I'll admit, he has a few good points. But, I feel like a LOT of his complaints are just him being a cranky old man yelling at clouds. Personally, I want to see ODA'S ending, not some editor's ending. Let the creatives create. Sometimes they need some guidance. But, there's a difference between "guiding" a story, and "rewriting" it. And a lot of Torishima's comments make me think that he'd rather he could just rewrite parts of the manga he's in charge of, himself. And that's going too far.
Last edited:
I was utterly shocked when I found out that Attack on Titan was listed as a shonen. 
Solo Leveling has over 200 chapters iirc
I don't know why people think OP would get canned immediately if it were made today when we have slop like that getting a large following and hundreds of chapters lol
At this point anime is normalized to the point where any manga can really get picked up as long as it's not extremely problematic (i.e depicting serious things like murder, rape, substance abuse just for the sake of doing that).
I don't know why people think OP would get canned immediately if it were made today when we have slop like that getting a large following and hundreds of chapters lol
At this point anime is normalized to the point where any manga can really get picked up as long as it's not extremely problematic (i.e depicting serious things like murder, rape, substance abuse just for the sake of doing that).
SL is a free webtoon whose shelf-life is linked to clicks and ads, and can be prolonged longer than a printed series because of the difference in costs between the two. SL was only picked up for print after online engagement already proved it to be a good return on investment.
As part of Jump, OP would need to receive enough votes in the first 20-30 chapters from actual buyers of the paperback for the series to be greenlit further.
As part of Jump, OP would need to receive enough votes in the first 20-30 chapters from actual buyers of the paperback for the series to be greenlit further.