Discussion One Piece's pace.

[BetaRuler]

To put things in perspective Iv been looking at how many chapters some of the arcs took to complete, Dressrosa is one of the longest at roughly* 100 chapters! Its so crazy long its hard to even read the full arc in a day even though it TOOK only a day in one piece time!
Compared to other arcs that were pretty epic and long, Alabasta arc, took roughly 60 chapters, Moria took just under 50, Skypeia took 70.

Also even though Water 7 and Enies Lobby could be categorized as 2 arcs, it still feels like 1 arc as their rescuing Robin and fighting the world government. So it's 50 + 55 = 105, the only other arc that's about as LONG as Dressrosa and only if your combining the totals of what many would consider 2 arcs.

Ceaser and Merman island took 50 each which seems weird to think about when you compare that they aren't even as strong as Moria yet the conflict took just as long to settle.
Perhaps Oda is taking his time too much since the timeskip? Or possibly trying to achieve something different than what he was doing before, for starters he's certainly been covering and developing a wider range of characters than before?

Ladies and Gentlemen, any thoughts?

*I didn't take the full time to count the arcs chapter exact lengths, I had to leave for work! I'll find the exact lengths when I come back! Just know the counts Iv given are within 10 of their actual length.

 

[Sachsenhesse]

The arcs getting longer, because we got more and more characters. Dressrosa was kinda over the top in this regard. :/

 

[S-H-I-G-U-R-E]

Personally, I hope Oda-sensei goes back to his old pace. This one is too slow for my tastes.

 

[Notice me Escanor senpai]

Not sure what the purpose of this thread is. Logically the arcs can only get longer, with the Yonko fights coming. And Dressrosa is pretty much an exception, due to the effects DD's defeat will have, as seen with this chapter...So it makes sense it would take longer than the previous arcs to finish.
Hope this won't turn into a ranting thread, such threads aren't useful.

 

[BetaRuler]

^ Isn't the purpose obvious, don't you even find it a tiny bit interesting to put a perspective on? Was the latest arc pulled off just as good as the previous longest arc Water 7 through Enies Lobby which also introduced MANY characters on the spot to a point where it might have strained readers to keep up with whose doing what?
Merman island, swatting a few flies, showing off straw hats new strengths, did it need the same amount of time it took to defeat Crocodile and save Alabasta?
Ceaser wasn't considered very strong, yet he also took about as long as Gecko Moria took.
Also try COUNTING the number of characters we were introduced to in some of the arcs, are there radically a lot more of them in the newest one compared to previous arcs?

While I am a die hard fans of OP, I'm not completely ignorant nor apathetic to the other readers that you and I might scoff as "impatient", and in trying to make sense of why the arks feel like their taking longer Iv noticed they ARE taking considerably longer, I enjoyed watching and reading about all the new characters from the whole Coliseum but could this considerably slower pace take its toll on the other readers of One Piece? Coupled with Oda's 4 weekly breaks, the number of characters and powers that will get into conflict... How long would it REALLY take for Oda to bring One Pieces story to anything that looks like an ending?

 

[Notice me Escanor senpai]

Dunno, it's pretty obvious that the arcs are getting longer, and that One Piece's story is always expanding. New characters introduced and all their relationships etc, so it is pretty obvious that we're nowhere close to an ending. And why should it be? I always saw OP's ever expanding universe as its strength, and to me this manga could continue on another 10 years. Unless it is so bad you just want it to see it end, I don't think we should expect the manga to end so quickly.
I'd rather Oda took care of his health, and took one week breaks every 4/5 chapters, than falling ill again or be too stressed and then taking a much longer break.

---------- Post added at 04:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:24 PM ----------

And I do not believe that his pace during this arc took a toll on the fans, sure some parts felt dragged, but on the long run it's better to get introduced to these characters now than later, in the case they become allies of the SHs, and it keeps the narrative going as the SHs will eventually visit countries like Wano and Flower country. The manga is as popular as ever, based on the sales for the first half of the year, where NnT only managed to go slightly over thanks to its new found popularity. So there is no reason to worry about such things for now.

 

[Eigengrau]

The pace of the manga never bothered me that much I think. If I think things are "stalling" I can just put it away and come back when more chapters are available. That's always a treat. I did that for chapters 692 until the chapter right before Sabo was revealed, only because I knew this arc was going to be so damn good and I just couldn't settle with one chapter at a time.

I didn't think that this arc was particularly long, or that it "dragged" itself around as many have said. I believe that on a subconscious level the breaks also add a lot to that feeling, for us readers at least.

I mean, I know it's not fair to look at it this way, but I just did a quick count and from chapter 701 ["Adventure in the Country of Love-"] until today we had about 32 breaks.

Over a period of 25 months (chapter 701, June 6th 2013 until now), that's about 6 months worth of breaks. Of course, these are to be expected, not to mention the Golden Week breaks, which amount to 4 a year if I'm not mistaken, but yeah.

I'm just glad that One Piece is the kind of manga that has this kind of storytelling, as opposed to other works - with even more chapters than OP - that consist in having small, 2-3 chapters/arcs, while addressing the bigger, more important plot every 200 or so chapters

 

[MiyamotoMusashi]

One Piece has always been, at least since the ending of The East Blue Saga, a manga that is relatively slow compared to other weekly titles because Oda was lucky enough to start One Piece at a time in which there was a void of good and successful titles at WSJ, so OP became a big success pretty quickly and Oda did not feel the necessity to bring out the "best" chapter every week, which is not possible anyway, he had the freedom to take his time and build up slowly. Mangaka of new mangas always have the pressure of having to attract and keep the interest of the readers, especially since week after week, mangas get ranked based on questionnaires and if their popularity drops to a dangerous extent or they were never able to achieve the necessary popularity, they get dropped.
Oda on the other hand is in a position in which he can use a novel-like approach where each arc is like am equivalent of a book in a fantasy series (like Harry Potter for example). Now imagine getting just 2-3 pages of a book you are really interested and invested every week or sometimes even after 2 weeks, well you get the gist, people would not be satisfied, which is why OP is best-read volume-wise or even arc-wise, meaning reading an arc in one go. You will see that with Oda´s approach, the manga stands the test of time far better than mangas that are bound to bring out the bestweek after week. The same criticism about the pace was made by some people about Alabasta and especially Skypeia and W7 when they were released weekly but now they are the favorite arcs of most readers. This obviously does not excuse Oda from other questionable choices he made and makes, especially regarding Dressrosa but also PH and Fishman Island, but the pace was never really an issue and is also not one now. Try to read Dressrosa or even Punk Hazard in one go and you will understand what i mean.

Dressrosa in particular has been this long not because of the amount of characters introduced but simply because of the high amount of different objectives the Strawheart alliance had in this arc. We had the colosseum and the Mera Mera no Mi, getting Sugar to faint, destroying the factory, exchanging Caesar, beating Doflamingo and so on. In the arcs you mentioned, we had 2 or max 3 objectives the entire crew had to achieve. I do think though that this will stay a unique case for Dressrosa, i doubt the future arcs will have the same approach.
To rate the length of an arc based on teh strength of the main opponent is a wrong thing to do though, Thriller Bark was that long not because Moria was that strong but simply because he had gathered so many different threads over the years, the actual fight did not even take that long.

 

[Fox666]

However Fishman Island was indeed a low point. There was too much foreshadowing and hype for an arc with such a weak villain.

 

[Kracken]

I think some stalling tactics may have been used. I mean, the fight ending on the anniversary of Waterloo can't be a coincidence. However, I read some interviews with Oda and he said he was flooded with new ideas for characters and that he had many exercise books filled with stuff he'd like to put in the series. But he also said he was going to drop some of his proposed storylines because if he didn't the series would never end. Maybe the multiple threads of Dressrosa were his attempt to introduce characters that will play a part later in the story without giving them all their own arc? If each arc normally averages 50 chapters or so then having an arc for the SH's meeting the dwarves, the long leg guys, the pointy headed guy (whose name escapes me), Bartolomeo and Cavendish, reuniting with Sabo and all the others would result in way more chapters than just 100. Here's the thing, Oda hasn't made it a secret that the series will end in a huge world war and for Luffy to believably win, which no doubt he will, he's going to need people to help him fight and not just one or two more people on his crew but an actual army. So Oda needs to set them up beforehand so it's not like a bunch of characters we've never seen before just decide to join him out of the blue. And that's only talking about the characters. In terms of the revelations made in this arc, we've learned the Celestial Dragons have a really scary treasure, the D's are a clan and the Dragons treat them like the bogeyman, Sabo's alive, we've learned more about the devil fruit awakening, etc. and so on all in one arc. By Dressrosa being unusually long I think Oda's shaved a lot of time from the series overall, maybe several years. And now he can focus on the Yonko. If you think about it since the time skip Luffy's already directly provoked 2 Yonkos and has history with the other 2. Personally, I think Luffy being upgraded from Shichibukai to taking on 2 Yonkos at once is pretty quick progression and the aftermath of Dressrosa is going to be interesting. However, if more of the arcs are like Dressrosa it could get exhausting.

 

[hokageji]

I think you are looking at it in the wrong manner. Look at the amount of content packed in the Dressrosa arc.

Revelations in Dressrosa alone:
The new Admiral
Doflamingo is a Tenryuubito
Cp0 existence
Sabo is alive
Koala's whereabouts confirmed
Law is a D
Awakened Paramecia

This is just interesting revelations that closes previous questions and open doors to some more. Compare this to any another arc and it would seems much slower.

In terms of content, I think Dressrosa has a lot more packed into it. Other than these, we also have some amazing fights, newer characters and possible alliances we will see. More than anything, all the arcs before were just a buildup to this one. Fishmen was like a teaser and PH was merely to reintroduce Mingo as the dangerous villain he is. This arc takes Haki and Df abilities to a whole new level.

I think the fact there are so many breaks makes it feel longer, but considering the amount of flashbacks, detailed fights and reveleations, the length seems alright.

 

[BigBadDogg]

I believe people only noticed the pacing because of the breaks that happened periodically through the arc and their timing. Which seemed to happen just before a big revelation. I enjoyed the arc except for some small parts like Cesar and some of the exec fights, like Pika.

 

[Zehahaha]

The pacing most of the time is fine, except the fucking tournament and in Fishman Island, also in PH (Yeti shit brothers), Oda definitely stalls sometimes (Shitjao's pathetic backstory that nobody cares about it, introduction of the Yeti Cool Brothers who served no purpose, Luffy getting caught in stupid situations that can be easily avoidable)

The chapter that pissed me off the most is about Hody, remember when Oda left us with a cliffhanger about Hody's true nature only for Fukaboshi to state the fucking obvious ? That made me rage so hard

In this arc, the tournament could've been made much more shorter IMO, along with some fights, I still believe for example Trebol should've been taken by Usopp... Although Oda somehow redeemed himself with the Haki stuff, but he could've done so in situation where Usopp is fighting Trebol. We all know how annoying Trebol was in the fight vs DD

detailed fights

Just so you know, Oda skipped 20 min of Luffy's fight against DD, where he should've been the real focus instead of some other characters

 

[MiyamotoMusashi]

I recently reread the arc, the tournament does not even take up that many chapters, the only thing that felt slow and unnecessary was the running for several chapters and Luffy getting "tricked" by the Funk Brothers and stuff.

 

[danzouismadara]

I think ODA does a perfect job, pace wise, considering how much is being introduced/connected.

 

[Lee-tyme7]

Yes the Dressrosa arc seem very slow pace but when I go back and re-read it the arc seem to all come together in a really good pace and when you finally get to the climatic fight between Doffy and Luffy it was all worth the wait. Yet this arc was a little bit too long, about 2 years to finish but hopefully future arc and Kaido arc doesn't take as long.

 

[GomuGomu_Getsuga]

Dressrosa is fine. Punk Hazard and FI were too long with no true payoff.

 

[Notice me Escanor senpai]

Dressrosa is fine. Punk Hazard and FI were too long with no true payoff.

FI was a reunion arc mostly, PH was an introduction to Dressrosa. Without PH there will be no Luffy-Law alliance, and Law wouldn't have dragged the SHs to Dressrosa...

I think rather than a problem of pace, like some have pointed out, when reading a weekly manga it can feel dragged. Alabasta is 60 chapters or so, and it doesn't have half of the stuff happening in Dressrosa (see the subplot thread). So Oda is still in the norm, except that this arc is more complicated than others.
But once you read or reread everything in one go, it doesn't feel that dragged actually. And I can assure you that one OP chapter has more stuff happening than most other manga titles. So it's not like there is no action or anything, even inside a flashback. So the issue is really having to chose whether or not you want to read a weekly manga, knowing that the action will be divided between various chapters, that sometimes end on cliffhangers. Add to that the breaks and the holidays the latter Oda can't do anything about. So between that and reading everything in one go, or just 4 or 5 chapters at a time, clearly things wouldn't feel as dragged out while reading everything in one go. Which is why I believe mangas are meant to be read in volumes, it's not really worth it to wait each week for a chapter to come out, then feel frustrated when things aren't going as fast as you want them to be...

 

[Zehahaha]

It's not the issue of content, it's the issue of irrelevant content. You gotta make the distinction

The Shitjao deal (even his fight against Lao G was beyond shitty) could've been handled better and shorter, the introduction of Cool Yeti Brothers was unecessary too for example, Oda trying to make to give some semblance of " depth " to Hodi was unecessary (while completely ignoring the Fishman Karate dojo for example)

People will say, it's just panels, but when you add up all those panels you'll end up with lots of pages... People criticize Kubo for his pace/panels, and I criticize Oda for sometimes putting too much useless crap in panels

It may be rude, but I couldn't care less about some things that Oda introduced and some characters too

 

[MiyamotoMusashi]

It's not the issue of content, it's the issue of irrelevant content. You gotta make the distinction

The Shitjao deal could've been handled better and shorter, the introduction of Cool Yeti Brothers was unecessary too for example, Oda trying to make to give some semblance of " depth " to Hodi was unecessary (while completely ignoring the Fishman Karate dojo for example)

It may be rude, but I couldn't care less about some things that Oda introduced and some characters too

While i disagree about the Chinjao part or even Hody for that matter, i agree with the general sentiment.
I did not find anything regarding the colosseum unncessary and irrelevant but for example, there was no need to do all the stuff with Chinjao and Lao G later on, or Baby 5 and Sai, just seemed unnecessary at that point. Nevertheless, it was a problem of what Oda did and not how much time he took to do it. He definitely needed to show the fights of the Officers and how they get beaten but the how was lackluster.
There are some questionable things about all arcs though but they are overshadowed by the high points, at least for me.