One Piece

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One Piece is not like any manga out there. If you can get past its length, and find the characters likeable, it's dang near perfect. One Piece is one of the only mangas that have had me pulling all-nighters just because an arc is THAT good. One Piece seems like a goofy pirate adventure, but it turns into this emotional master piece 400 or 500 chapters in. From the start, you're immediately teased with what is to come. Just from the East Blue, you can tell that the Straw Hats will definitely be on a grander journey than the one in the first 100 chapters. ... One Piece is a magnificent work of art, so once you get past its length, you're in for one heck of an adventure.

It's a pretty good manga. It's just not for me. And that's fine, if some people enjoy it, they enjoy it.

However, I will say my piece. The beginning starts off great, with the East Blue saga being a pretty good introduction to One Piece. We saw our first group of characters, Nami got her arc, and it was well done. The entire series is done fairly well. So why don't I like it. It is just far too long, with little to no stakes. I get that the journey is the point, you're supposed to derive enjoyment from just watching the gang have fun ... and wander around, but it's just far too dragged out.

The side characters constantly get sidelined and the main 3 guys always take the spotlight in every single fucking arc. I just don't like it anymore. I am also of the opinion that the writing went downhill post timeskip.

But that's just what i think. If you want a story that's decent at some points, a story that's just an adventure with almost nothing else to it (in my opinion), read the story. If you want literally anything else, don't read this manga. Lastly, this manga should definitely not be number 4.

One Piece is overrated, formulaic garbage. It is no better than Fairy Tail, yet it is dishonest with itself and pretends to be something other than what it is. It is not even possible to enjoy this series as a fight-filled shonenslop à la like Dragon Ball, as each story arc is padded with boring and unemotional backstories of characters that no one cares about.

**Story:**
Not including the current arc, 593 chapters or over half of the story arcs follow the same formula:
1. The Straw Hats go to a new island.
2. There is an evil villain oppressing the people of the island for no compelling reason ... (usually, they are just being evil for evil's sake).
3. A sad backstory ensues.
4. Luffy fights the villain, and the other Straw Hats fight the villain's underlings.
5. Luffy takes damage, but through a power-up reveal or the power of friendship, he defeats the villain.
6. The Straw Hats gain a new power-up (new crewmate, ally, ship, weapon, bounty, etc.).

Obviously, not every detail of these arcs follows this formula, but any deviations from the standard formula within these 593 chapters are few and far between. The two worst offenders of following this formula, the Dressrosa Saga and the Wano Saga, are also the two longest arcs of the series. The Wano Saga took a whole four years to complete. Oda obviously thinks he can excuse lazy writing by shoving in endless amounts of boring and unnecessary characters so that the current arc does not feel like an exact replica of the last.

**Characters:**
Similarly to One Piece's story, its characters are formulaic, undeveloped, and boring. In addition, some of the more interesting characters in the story were later completely ruined or shoved into the background. Most of the characters follow some basic shonen trope and are complemented by a sad and unintentionally hilarious backstory where someone important to them died.

Luffy follows the "main character that only cares about eating and fighting" trope. There is basically nothing else interesting about his character besides his power (which gets retconned and completely ruined later, don't worry).

Zoro follows the shonen trope of "cool strong guy", but sometimes he also puts a sword in his mouth and gets lost.

Nami is the "cute girl sidekick" trope, which is fine, but through the series, she starts wearing more revealing clothes while simultaneously getting shoved farther and farther into the background. After the time skip, she is effectively not a character anymore; she is merely a pair of cancerous breasts that are larger than her head.

Usopp, who is one of the ugliest main characters of a series I have ever seen, follows the coward trope. Not much to say about him; he is just incredibly boring and ugly.

Sanji is the first interestingly designed character that gets introduced and gets an expanded backstory; however, this backstory also follows the same formula as every other character.

Chopper follows the cute mascot trope with an interesting twist, but that twist was later ruined and he faded into the background.
Nico Robin's character followed the same route as Nami's, but she has a cool power.

Franky had the only backstory that was actually well written and WAS an interestingly designed character until the time skip, where he again has his design ruined and fades into the background.

Jinbe is so bland that I don't really consider him to be a character.

One Piece has no villains that have anything that actually could be considered interesting about them outside of their powers. There are some interesting side characters, but their appeal comes more from the drip-feeding of information about them rather than anything else.

**World Building:**
World-building is the strength of One Piece. Events happen off-screen in the world away from the characters that affect the direction of the story. The world of One Piece actually feels alive and lived in. However, the one good part of this series is drip-fed to the audience due to the intense slog of the story.

**Power System:**
Devil Fruits were originally an interesting concept that gave Oda lots of creative freedom to write interesting powers and exciting fight scenes. After the time skip, however, Haki is introduced, which allows for the strongest devil fruits in the series to be defeated by one character being stronger than another, rather than coming up with a strategy to negate their opponents' advantages. Haki is now the main power system in the series.

**Art:**
One Piece has by far the worst art and paneling of any popular manga. Characters often make dumb faces, and many characters are intentionally drawn to be as ugly as possible. The raid on Onigashima section of Wano, which was supposed to be an epic battle between two huge armies, had atrocious chicken scratch paneling that was basically impossible to follow.

In conclusion, I would only recommend One Piece to those who need a series to distract them from extreme boredom over multiple days. It performs that task quite well due to its immense length.