What made me fall in love with One Piece were the characters and their interactions. This was the focus of the first phase of the series. The set is great, but it was only used as a background. In the second phase, the elements increased drastically, forcing the series to get more plot-driven. So, instead of caring about the characters, we also had to worry about secrets, charges, flashbacks, hierarchies, politics. And Dressrosa is the biggest reflection of that. So it's natural that not everyone will like this.
I can already tell that when HxH resumes again, I'll have forgotten what was going on. It doesn't help that the MS translations have a novel's worth of text every chapter.
Nobody said that it is easy to follow One Piece, it is a complex story and sometimes you have to focus on some parts and put others apart to return to them later. Dressrosa had many scenarios, but all of them was aiming toward the same thing and in the end all of them connected. You just have to know how to handle this load of information in a way that you prioritize what's most important. If you try to understand every single panel you will get crazy for sure. But it is like that in every One Piece, the story is rarely linear, so I don't know why the complaints are aimed directly at Dressrosa when EVERY arc is like that.
Not trying to start an argument but I have no idea how you can read and experience 700+ chapters of OP and then drop it over something minor like that.
One Piece was hardly ever complicated. It's arcs were mostly fairly straightforward with a simple linear plot: arrive at island > interact with residents > discover villain > defeat villain. Dressrossa was the first arc with multiple things going on with the tontatta uprising and the Colosseum tournament etc and a lot more characters were introduced than usual. It was such a big shift from the normal arc formula that it surprised a lot of people who were used to the more simple formula. Yeah the arc was too long, but when you factor in all the things that happened it only makes sense.
You literally just said that calling Dressrosa long isn't an argument for anything which is a silly thing to say because Dressrosa is the longest arc in the series which was more or less a result of Oda having to drag out the arc because he was being treated for surgery this is worth calling to attention because the pacing tends to become a problem going into the final stretch. Common complaints being that the new cast in this aren't very compelling (Rebecca is very weak character and the majority of the citizens come off mostly as macguffins or plot devices), the villains being disposable (The Domingo Family are pretty dull outside Senor Pink and Doffy himself) and this is the point where you can see Oda collapsing under the sheer number of his cast (battles getting skipped, characters not knowing what to do and contrivances on top of contrivances in order to move the plot forward). Its not a bad arc and it does have several standout moments (Ussop unleashing his haki, Law's flashback, Gear 4th, everyone in Dressrosa helping Luffy) but Oda's health really did a number on the quality of it which he seems to realize since Zou and WCI are significant improvements and the best post timeskip arcs thus far.
You literally just said that calling Dressrosa long isn't an argument for anything which is a silly thing to say because Dressrosa is the longest arc in the series which was more or less a result of Oda having to drag out the arc because he was being treated for surgery this is worth calling to attention because the pacing tends to become a problem going into the final stretch. Common complaints being that the new cast in this aren't very compelling (Rebecca is very weak character and the majority of the citizens come off mostly as macguffins or plot devices), the villains being disposable (The Domingo Family are pretty dull outside Senor Pink and Doffy himself) and this is the point where you can see Oda collapsing under the sheer number of his cast (battles getting skipped, characters not knowing what to do and contrivances on top of contrivances in order to move the plot forward). Its not a bad arc and it does have several standout moments (Ussop unleashing his haki, Law's flashback, Gear 4th, everyone in Dressrosa helping Luffy) but Oda's health really did a number on the quality of it which he seems to realize since Zou and WCI are significant improvements and the best post timeskip arcs thus far.
Well, all the arcs in One Piece are longer than anything you come across in any other series with the exception of Hajime no Ippo or something similar (lol), so I thought people are used to it by now, it didn't feel longer than any other previous arc, it was pretty normal. As for the usefulness of a character, you really never know because Oda excels in bringing back characters from way past in the story. I bet nobody remembered that Lola gave Big Mom vivre card to her way back in the story and that she would be useful to the story ever after so much time. Oda constructs a chain of events that we never know where it will stop, so I would keep the characters in mind despite looking useless right now. Battles skipped? Don't remember anything of the sort, maybe it was irrelevant anyway...
MS translations in general are bad but yeah it takes the cake especially for HxH.
That's exactly why I'm going to purchase the volumes so in a good way shitty MS is doing a good deed by giving us more of an incentive already to purchase the volumes.
Well, all the arcs in One Piece are longer than anything you come across in any other series with the exception of Hajime no Ippo or something similar (lol), so I thought people are used to it by now, it didn't feel longer than any other previous arc, it was pretty normal. As for the usefulness of a character, you really never know because Oda excels in bringing back characters from way past in the story. I bet nobody remembered that Lola gave Big Mom vivre card to her way back in the story and that she would be useful to the story ever after so much time. Oda constructs a chain of events that we never know where it will stop, so I would keep the characters in mind despite looking useless right now. Battles skipped? Don't remember anything of the sort, maybe it was irrelevant anyway...
Actually I found Zou arc to be one of the best arc since the TS. It was probably one of the smallest arcs in all of OP I think but for sure one of the best IMO since the TS. Dressrosa was good but had it's low moments for sure. Fishman Island/Punk Hazard were meh.
There were some battles skipped slightly, like he doesn't show the entire fight and stops it in between. He did that a lot for Smoker vs Vergo. It's not a big problem for me personally compared to others who complain.
WCI is one of my least fav arcs. I never put One Piece on hold until now...I'm going to sprint through this arc once it finishes. I'm hyped for Wano.
One Piece was hardly ever complicated. It's arcs were mostly fairly straightforward with a simple linear plot: arrive at island > interact with residents > discover villain > defeat villain. Dressrossa was the first arc with multiple things going on with the tontatta uprising and the Colosseum tournament etc and a lot more characters were introduced than usual. It was such a big shift from the normal arc formula that it surprised a lot of people who were used to the more simple formula. Yeah the arc was too long, but when you factor in all the things that happened it only makes sense.
Something like that. I don't believe Assassination Classroom got more than 1.5 Million copies per volume and that is I believe the only other recent series that would be closer to reach this list.
People is allowed to do anything they want, they have freedom of speech. Though this doesn't mean that everything that they do, and are allowed to do, is right.
Just because I'm allowed to cry if I want to force my parents to give me something, it doesn't mean that is right that my adult self do it frequently nor ever.
Also being allowed to criticize goes all the way. What I mean? That the same way this people is allowed to criticize all parts of the series like they are hunting for problems, I am also allowed to criticize them for doing it.
My problem with Dressrosa is not necessarily the duration, but the excess of subplots. We see a bit of X (cut) now we see a bit of Y (cut) now we see a bit of Z (cut) now we see a little more of X (cut) now we see a bit of R (cut) then we go back to see a little bit of Y... This hurts the pace. Individually, it's cool, because the humor, the new information and the characters are cool, but as a whole it's tiring as hell, especially if read weekly.
I never got this problem. I read it weekly, and watched the anime weekly as well, and never got tired nor a problem with the pace. In fact what was tiring was going to forums and hear people complain again and again about the same things. Specially about the characters they didn't remember and that in the end would be just fodder, as well as the subplots they also didn't remembered and thought it didn't matter.
Opposite to them I remembered all characters and all subplots, and I treated since the beginning them as being of importance(not the most important thing in heaven, but with its due relevance).
I would say that the problem is not in the story, but with the "level" of the people reading or watching it. I normally don't like to go there, but with Dressrossa it was so frustrating, that I will say it. It seems is the case that the story was to "advanced"/"robust" for those people.
About the pace thing people also complained. Funny enough, the pace is faster that way. As a good example you have Dressrossa with 10 volumes that got the Caesar deliver, Tournament, Tontatta invasion, Chaos in Dressrossa, Final battle and Escape. Against the 9 volumes of Yu Yu Hakusho with just a tournament. You go see any tournament in the 1vs1 format and you see that it always takes a ton of time not progressing at all.
Though people are complaining about pacing here and not with pacing there. Why is that?
And novels and series are known to do things like this. Showing a little part of one subplot and jumping to another, and continuing to do things like that.
I also question. How in showing 3 people running, the pace is better if you first show person number 1 all entire race, then person number 2 entire race and then person number 3 entire race. Than the pace of showing all three running at the same time, but showing little parts of one of them racing and then jumping to another.
It probably doesn't have anything to do with pacing, but your expectation and desire of seeing a particular part of the story without interruptions. Isn't it?
One Piece was hardly ever complicated. It's arcs were mostly fairly straightforward with a simple linear plot: arrive at island > interact with residents > discover villain > defeat villain. Dressrossa was the first arc with multiple things going on with the tontatta uprising and the Colosseum tournament etc and a lot more characters were introduced than usual. It was such a big shift from the normal arc formula that it surprised a lot of people who were used to the more simple formula. Yeah the arc was too long, but when you factor in all the things that happened it only makes sense.
Nope, the arc didn't has any big shift from normal at all. What happened is that it increased the volume of what already was doing.
Also about your arc formula. Dressrosa also has the "arrive at island > interact with residents > discover villain > defeat villain" so called formula. So how continuing the formula still did a big shift from the normal arc formula? It makes no sense.
The point is that when you find a common formula for a series, or for anything, you can't go for general things, for the maximum abstraction. Because that doesn't turn into formula but the basic structure/skeleton of the thing, something that anything has to have because then there would be nothing to even "digest at all".
Is like you grab a new drink, and abstract everything and come to the amazing conclusion that is just like any other drink, it is just water with additives.
With that One Piece is just sequential voyages and enemy. Hell, any adventure series is just traveling and battle manga is just enemy of the week.
I think that is this search for finding stuff complex, specially when complex is in fact a bad thing, is that make people not getting the actual satisfaction that the story is providing them.
Yeah, I also tried to avoid this particular part of the discussion but I will say, if you don't remember what is going on the series and disregard characters, that's your problem, not a problem with the series. There was a person that said to me that it didn't follow monthly series because he couldn't remember anything from one month to the other and would have to reread to remember, I think it was fine. He didn't criticize the series because of his problems and you guys should do the same.
Complex arcs I think my only problem is how they're dispersed with the information given. When I think "complex" I think immediately of multiple pages (or minutes if watching episode wise) of info dumping and a "fork-in-the-road option" meaning it's more than 1 route the direction of the arc can go. Think that's why I felt like Greed Island and Stain wasn't as great as the previous arc before it for these reasons. It changes up the script, of course though. You go from bodyguard-murder show auction and sports festival tournament arc respectively so couldn't say at all that the following arc felt repetitive but it's a double-edged sword because it can be tiring when there are long breaks within the arc to just explain something or during the action scenes it's bogged down with DBZ-like inner monologues.
Regarding Skelly's question about making a tournament arc, anything that follows the mold of the Chuunin Exams I think is how to make a tourny arc. It was perfect.
vol 7 - 0.94 mil.
vol12/13 - 0.85 mil.
vol17/18 - 0.82 mil.
vol 21 - 0.87 mil.
Yeah, strange. It sold ~800k in 5 weeks for later volumes (13 after) consistently after anime and live action.
Unpopular opinion: One Piece still isn't that complicated...more moving parts but they come slowly and usually have ample chapters reminding you about past events. Plus like any story, if you don't remember something you can go back a re-read it or read a summary to refresh yourself lol Plus how can you expect a series to not complicate in some fashion after 800+ chapters of plot. I guess Naruto and Bleach never got as complicated as One Piece has (still not that complicated) but their plots were kinda bad and wildly inconsistent so . . .
And honestly, on a weekly basis, I think it's more effective to jump around in a large arc sometimes like Oda does. Keeps the plot relatively fresh while it all builds together.
Hunter x Hunter is a bit more complicated but mostly it's just the gaps that make it harder to remember every detail without refreshing yourself a bit.
Dressrosa had other problems than just the pacing.
Sugar's devil fruit power is something godlike. One touch and everyone on the planet forgetts about you, you become her eternal slave and for some reason she stops ageing. This power solely exists for the plot of Dressrosa and makes even the strongest logias look useless.
The Birdcage is an indestructible construction that can kill anyone trapped inside it. Multiple new world bigshots and a Marine admiral couldn't destroy it. It's a forced plot element to create tension, but instead it makes everyone look like a dumbass. Like Zoro who didn't even try to cut it down. He just pushed against it.
Throwing in too many parties to count them all didn't help either. There are the Strawhats, Law, the original royal family, the Doflamingo family, the Blackbeard pirates, the Revolution army, the Marine, the Tontatta kingdom, i don't know how many new pirates who entered the tournament and many more. It was a clusterfuck of parties and characters.
I think it is more how Oda handle things than anything else because One Piece could be very complicated if it were not for his good storytelling. He knows how abstract things for the readers, there are a lot of pending things to solve in the story, but we don't worry because he will come up with them eventually. It is complex, but not complicated, it sounds crazy, but that's what it is. Attack on Titan is an example of badly handled complexity, I dropped because I was not understanding anything, too many questions and no answers, overwhelming amount of information and so on.
Story lines can be compared with this. I LOLed Gintama. XD
One thing I like in the One Piece narrative is that the more the climax approaches, more into the story I feel. In Dressrosa this was difficult, because as already mentioned, there are too many subfights, information, flashbacks, etc. The plot overshadowed the emocional crescendo.
Dressrosa had other problems than just the pacing.
Sugar's devil fruit power is something godlike. One touch and everyone on the planet forgetts about you, you become her eternal slave and for some reason she stops ageing. This power solely exists for the plot of Dressrosa and makes even the strongest logias look useless.
The Birdcage is an indestructible construction that can kill anyone trapped inside it. Multiple new world bigshots and a Marine admiral couldn't destroy it. It's a forced plot element to create tension, but instead it makes everyone look like a dumbass. Like Zoro who didn't even try to cut it down. He just pushed against it.
Throwing in too many parties to count them all didn't help either. There are the Strawhats, Law, the original royal family, the Doflamingo family, the Blackbeard pirates, the Revolution army, the Marine, the Tontatta kingdom, i don't know how many new pirates who entered the tournament and many more. It was a clusterfuck of parties and characters.
About Sugar. This is like saying that Crocodile devil power solely exists for the plot of Alabasta, or Mr.3 for Little Garden, or Wapol for Drum Kingdom, Buggy for Orange Town, or Moria for Thriller Bark, or Magelion for Impel Down.
She is a character that only appeared in Dressrosa, saying that the power was solely made for the plot of Dressrosa is stupid. Dressrosa wasn't predefined to have the toys nor the memory lost people, this is something that we only knew inside the arc. Is more that the plot chosen was that, than she existed for the plot. From the infinite possibilities the plot could be, it ended being like that. Note that you could change various parts of her power and still make a plot of the arc. They didn't need to turn into toys, people didn't need to forget about them, she could not stop ageing. Nothing of those things were needed for a plot of this arc. You're basically are thinking her powers are to much and want something more to blame.
It doesn't make even the strongest logias look useless, this depiction of logias looking useless is the most stupid one and people keep bringing this since armament haki was first noted to be able to counter their intangibility. Like the only thing worth a thing about logia is their intangibility. And like the armament haki removes totally the intangibility aspect of things(Note: it doesn't).
Yep, her power is strong, but she needs to touch a person, and there is haki too. A lava punch, and she would be easily defeated. A king's haki active(a la shanks in whitebeard ship) and not only she would be defeated but all her toys would be void.
I would say that in terms of controlling people, Miss GoldenWeek is better than Sugar, and she doesn't even have a Devil Fruit.
About Doflamingo Bird Cage. Are people being stupid? Not even a Admiral was able to stop it? Weren't you paying attention to the arc? Fujitora didn't wanted to stop the birdcage. And he just wanted to seem like he was helping. The same way he faked not knowing who Zoro was. Are you also say that Fujitora didn't know who Zoro was and that he had to capture him?
This is like the people don't knowing the characters after time and time again being presented. It was shown time and time again Fujitora plan, but let's feign ignorance just for the sake of finding another thing to complain.
And the New World big shots you're talking are all the people in the Luffy alliance, people that are weaker than Luffy. I don't know how people argue that Doflamingo is stronger than Luffy(He isn't), but complain that a ton of "New World Big Shots" should be stronger than Doflamingo ultimate attack. Is like there is not a speck of objectivity and is people just using their feelings, for the sake of complaining.
Sorry, but Zorro in fact tried to cut it down. You know that by the special sound effects. He isn't able to cut it down. I know the shock, people think Zoro is the mega hype guy that doesn't have shown his maximum power yet. The only problem is that he did. Not only to be able to defeat Pika he had to use his most ultimate attack 2 times; Yep, the Sanzen Daisei Sekai is the most secret arts that Zoro has in his arsenal; but after that he even went looking into his sword to make sure he didn't bust them up, because he possibly had stressed them to much and could had damage them.
About the multiple parties. There is basically the same amount as in Alabasta
You have the Mugiwara and allies:
Alabasta - Mugiwara crew and Vivi, Carue, Eyelashes(the Camel) and the Duck brigade
Dressrossa - Mugiwara crew and Law, Kinemon, Momonosuke and Tontatta.
Marines:
Alabasta - Smoker, Tashigi, Hina and other marines
Dressrossa - Fujitora, Bastille, Maynard and other marines
(Ex)Royal Family:
Alabasta - King Cobra, Pell, Chaka, Iguaram and other royals(specially the other 4 or 5 that died by drinking the water)
Dressrossa - King Riku, Viola, Rebecca, Kiros and Tank Lepanto and other
Revolutionaries:
Alabasta - Kohza, Farafra, other Suna Suna Clan friends and other rebel army
Dressrossa - Sabo, Koala, Hack and others
Villain group:
Alabasta - Crocodile, Numbered members and other Baroque works
Dressrossa - Doflamingo, Donquixote Family officials and other members
Outsiders:
Alabasta - Ace
Dressrossa - Foreign competitors that includes Blackbeard's Commander Jesus Burguess and the Alliance.
Only the Outsiders this time was highly used and in Alabasta not.
Skypiea also got a ton of groups battling. Even water 7-Ennies Lobby, Fishmen Island and Punk Hazard got is fair share of parties.
Are you saying you can't handle 6 parties in an arc, did you thought it was also too much in Alabasta?
Certainly Wano Country there will be the same 6 parties or probably even more.
One thing I like in the One Piece narrative is that the more the climax approaches, more into the story I feel. In Dressrosa this was difficult, because as already mentioned, there are too many subfights, information, flashbacks, etc. The plot overshadowed the emocional crescendo.
People is allowed to do anything they want, they have freedom of speech. Though this doesn't mean that everything that they do, and are allowed to do, is right.
Just because I'm allowed to cry if I want to force my parents to give me something, it doesn't mean that is right that my adult self do it frequently nor ever.
Also being allowed to criticize goes all the way. What I mean? That the same way this people is allowed to criticize all parts of the series like they are hunting for problems, I am also allowed to criticize them for doing it.
I never got this problem. I read it weekly, and watched the anime weekly as well, and never got tired nor a problem with the pace. In fact what was tiring was going to forums and hear people complain again and again about the same things. Specially about the characters they didn't remember and that in the end would be just fodder, as well as the subplots they also didn't remembered and thought it didn't matter.
Opposite to them I remembered all characters and all subplots, and I treated since the beginning them as being of importance(not the most important thing in heaven, but with its due relevance).
I would say that the problem is not in the story, but with the "level" of the people reading or watching it. I normally don't like to go there, but with Dressrossa it was so frustrating, that I will say it. It seems is the case that the story was to "advanced"/"robust" for those people.
About the pace thing people also complained. Funny enough, the pace is faster that way. As a good example you have Dressrossa with 10 volumes that got the Caesar deliver, Tournament, Tontatta invasion, Chaos in Dressrossa, Final battle and Escape. Against the 9 volumes of Yu Yu Hakusho with just a tournament. You go see any tournament in the 1vs1 format and you see that it always takes a ton of time not progressing at all.
Though people are complaining about pacing here and not with pacing there. Why is that?
And novels and series are known to do things like this. Showing a little part of one subplot and jumping to another, and continuing to do things like that.
I also question. How in showing 3 people running, the pace is better if you first show person number 1 all entire race, then person number 2 entire race and then person number 3 entire race. Than the pace of showing all three running at the same time, but showing little parts of one of them racing and then jumping to another.
It probably doesn't have anything to do with pacing, but your expectation and desire of seeing a particular part of the story without interruptions. Isn't it?
--- Double Post Merged, , Original Post Date: ---
Nope, the arc didn't has any big shift from normal at all. What happened is that it increased the volume of what already was doing.
Also about your arc formula. Dressrosa also has the "arrive at island > interact with residents > discover villain > defeat villain" so called formula. So how continuing the formula still did a big shift from the normal arc formula? It makes no sense.
The point is that when you find a common formula for a series, or for anything, you can't go for general things, for the maximum abstraction. Because that doesn't turn into formula but the basic structure/skeleton of the thing, something that anything has to have because then there would be nothing to even "digest at all".
Is like you grab a new drink, and abstract everything and come to the amazing conclusion that is just like any other drink, it is just water with additives.
With that One Piece is just sequential voyages and enemy. Hell, any adventure series is just traveling and battle manga is just enemy of the week.
--- Double Post Merged, ---
FMA complex story? where?
AOT complex story? where?
O_O
I think that is this search for finding stuff complex, specially when complex is in fact a bad thing, is that make people not getting the actual satisfaction that the story is providing them.
--- Double Post Merged, ---
Didn't Assassination Classroom got any volume with a bigger 1st print? Strange.
i think they are because of the use of connections, themes, character interaction, etc
lookin at this thread talking about what story "complex" can be difficult becasue people seem to have there own definition of what Complex is, some it means a complicated story
Unpopular opinion: One Piece still isn't that complicated...more moving parts but they come slowly and usually have ample chapters reminding you about past events. Plus like any story, if you don't remember something you can go back a re-read it or read a summary to refresh yourself lol Plus how can you expect a series to not complicate in some fashion after 800+ chapters of plot. I guess Naruto and Bleach never got as complicated as One Piece has (still not that complicated) but their plots were kinda bad and wildly inconsistent so . . .
And honestly, on a weekly basis, I think it's more effective to jump around in a large arc sometimes like Oda does. Keeps the plot relatively fresh while it all builds together.
Hunter x Hunter is a bit more complicated but mostly it's just the gaps that make it harder to remember every detail without refreshing yourself a bit.
Word I see what you mean, for me OP is complex(tho without being to complicated) becasue of what I said for FMA and AOT connections, themes, interactions and progression and so forth.
Finding the One piece/Raftel itself has evolved from just finding a treasure but also having a plotline of learning the lost and intentionally hidden history(by WG) of the world. which the last group of people learning that information caused their entire country of people to be killed
same for how I see AOT and how it went from just a survivial horror to what it is now.
There's been an update to our forum rules to broaden crediting/sourcing to all series news/announcement, etc. Please read HERE
To manage thread loading speeds and general user experience, we'd apppreciate if volume covers could be wrapped in spoiler threads, going forward. If you have any questions, reach out to a staff member. Thanks for your cooperation.
We use cookies
Essential cookies keep the site working. Analytics cookies help us improve.
