Re: NARUTO vs.Bleach vs. One Piece Poll
I think both are very different styles of writing, and I'm sure that OP is WAY easier to write than Naruto. I mean, you have the Naruto fans in their forum discussing that the elemental composition of the chakra proves in fact that X character is able to learn a certain jutsu, there's even a thread discussing psychiatric illnesses of the characters, the culture, values and moral conflicts. I can imagine Kishimoto having headaches on whether his character can learn a jutsu because his blodline limit will allow it or if a raiton bunshin will use half of your chakra. The only people I've seen discussing stuff with so much frenzy by comparing it to the script are Jehova's witnesses with a bible.
Now, compare it to OP, where Oda can write something like this: "This time Luffy will go to a village where... there are... people that walk backwards, the villain will be able to convert anything into cottage cheese". You have an indestructible character made of rubber --rubber with no yield strenght nor plastic deformation whatsoever-- which usually gets powerups out of nowhere whenever he needs them, with no moral code but rather a life built upon a whim, and so many logical inconsistencies that you can't possibly have any plot hole as long as you have enough imagination. Does a sandman get beaten by using 20 liters of water? Great idea! Makes Marvel's Hydro looks stupid. Having a gigantic golden ball melted over your hand is nothing: rubber is indestructible.
Personally, I'll give more credit to Naruto because of the effort to create a "realistic" manga.
So is realistic that a man can handle shadows, clone yourself 100 times, get lightining out of your hand, spit huge balls of fire from your mouth, take out of your own body snakes, without getting harmed, killed, being in a profund pain? Come on, this is shonen, most of the physic laws don't work.
Really I think the opposite. Non realistic? I think Oda handles societies is very realistic, a world where nobody is altruistic enough to live without rules. He uses interesting subjects such as discrimination, conflicts of interests, search of freedom, politics, lack of natural resources, corruption, slavery, war, moral systems. I find Naruto very interesting, but now everything has become a Sasuke/ Madara/Akatsuki/Orochimaru vs the world. The good vs the Bad. So used. At least in the last One Piece war was something like:
"Whitebeard Pirates vs Marines (or WG), the good vs the bad? Its all about perspective: In one hand, Whitebeard, as being a pirate, is socially (and legally) seen as a renegade of law, and during his life he has done things that probably weren't good, an element that should be locked/eliminated for the sake of people, and the war is the best oportunity to do it.
But the Marines aren't angels, because the people who are in the high charges (Gorousei, the head people in the World Goverment) are probably, surrounded by corruption, (See the subject?, that just a few people rules this world because they are powerful politically and economically? See how similar is in this world?), and see Whitebeard as a threat to their interests; because many societies in One Piece world were slavered, and so races (total discrimination with Fishmen, they were treated worst that scum, which was almost solved by the revolution in Mariejoa, but there is still slavery in the most official places of the WG), and Whitebeard, with his great power and strength he protected all those people, also the people that lived in peaces where the marine couldn't get into, because its filled with bandits, assasins, etc..., so Whitebeard protects them.
And Whiteberd, a great capitain, that loves deeply their subordinates, because that is his true dream: a family; that is why he is in the rescue of one of his sons, Ace; he knows the consequences of it, but he is gonna do it, because when a father looses a child, he looks for him whatever happens, even if he needs to fight the Marines."
There are a lot of facts that were a pelude to the war, the facts were always there, and so was the tension, but it just needed to pull the trigger to it, the war's Luisitania: Ace.
In Naruto, is kinda similar, but not realistic. Its like Madara: "I want to own the moon so I can do an illusion that will dominate you guys *insert evil laugh here*. And yes, a bunch of powerful people (but just physically) tring to make the world theirs, but just with jutsus and powers. But just them, the rest is gonna suffer.
In OP, its similar to the Imperialist countries, that dominate the weak countries, but not only by force, but with political, ideologial, and economical domination.
And the themes that he uses, like the desert for Arabasta, the Clean-ish form of clouds for Skypiea, the Scary Castle for Triller Bark, the Venetian form of Water 7, the Japanese-fortress of Marine Ford, the Chinese vilage of Amazon Lily, The bubbled-island of Sabaody etc...
The power ups, well Oda doesn't like to write training arcs (which someone may like it, and someone they dont), so he gives several clues that he needs the training. For example: Gear Second. Luffy gets pwned by Aokiji, and Robin was about to die for it, so he realizes he needs to be stonger. Timeskip (where its supposed to the strawhats to train), he imagines a new power, but he needs to practice it: experiment and error. I suppose you've read until the last chapter, so you could see why Luffy was so strong in the beggining, and how his training is about.
And about the art, I like the way that Kubo handles people, the shape (arms, legs, torso) positions of human people are really excellent. But he really needs to do some backgrounds
Naruto, well, loved the detailed very pointy form of face, stuff, and specially clothes. In part two me hade it more simpler and organic, all the clothes shadows i loved so much are gone (but thats a matter of interests), still there is a epic double spread (the one with the kyuubi), i really hope that kishi does a lot of those in the future.
And One Piece, well art in the beginning was kinda too simple and DB-ish, but is has gotten better.
This is a Huuuuge expample of that.
(art, relationship between characters, construction of the plot and individual chapters, etc)
