Three Strikes for One Piece
At least the English intro is bad enough to be good
I want to like everything I watch. You might not get that impression from all the bashing I do on this site, but really, I give every show a fair chance. In fact, I probably try a lot harder than you (otherwise I wouldn’t like Akikan or Queen’s Blade). I hate enough things in life; I feel no need to hate anything else. With that said, One Piece sucks.
There are several things I could complain about:
- Lousy talk/fight ratio
- Lousy flashblack/fight ratio
- Too many retarded enemies
- Zoro’s failure to fight anyone remotely interesting (except Mihawk, which was awesome)
- Luffy’s rubber powers somehow include increased hand-eye coordination
- Somebody’s always crying for some stupid reason (often a random kid thrown in for the sole purpose of giving the target audience someone they’re supposed to relate to, as if the scrawny, light-skinned, dark-haired protagonist wasn’t enough for Japanese kids)
But those are all relatively minor problems. Since dropping One Piece three years ago, I’ve leveled up like a Shonen hero, watching shitty anime like Lucky Star and K-ON until I developed a tolerance for low-grade bullshit. If I could finish all those crappy shows, wouldn’t watching One Piece be a piece of cake? Not at all. I was arrogant to think I could stomach the idiocy of Monkey D. Luffy for a third time.
Oddly, One Piece sucks for the exact same reason Kure-nai sucks. I can enjoy a light & fluffy anime. I’m fine with a dramatic anime. I’m perfectly willing to accept both in the same show (e.g., Higurashi). Unfortunately, unlike good shows, Kure-nai and One Piece can’t reconcile the fluff with the serious stuff.
In every arc, Luffy is guaranteed to do something utterly retarded that directly jeopardizes the well-being of those he supposedly cares about. Then he’ll invariably spout a few tear-jerking lines about fighting with everything he’s got to protect them. Sorry Luffy, fuck you. Where were your themes of friendship when you:
- Got hypnotized as Usopp repeatedly yelled at you not to stare at the guy who was obviously trying to hypnotize you
- Embedded your feet in concrete, thereby rendering yourself helpless in battle and allowing yourself to be conveniently sunk to the bottom of the ocean
- Got stuck between two walls for a week when all it took to break free was a little willpower
Why can’t Monkey D. Luffy be more like Gon Freecs?
The similarities are subtle, but many:
- They both have stupid names
- Their character designs are both meant to appeal to Japanese kids
- They were both ditched by their father figures
- They’re both persistent about picking allies to the point of stalking them
- They both have an unquenchable thirst for fun and adventure
There’s one key difference: even though they both love the screw around, Gon doesn’t do it when it’s clearly a dumb idea that contradicts everything he believes in. Lucky Star and K-ON taught me how to tolerate bullshit. They didn’t teach me how to tolerate hypocrisy.
In all fairness, Luffy does a few things right. He’s got some sick moves when he’s fighting seriously. His destruction of Nami’s map room was reminiscent of Onizuka’s sledgehammer scene. He also…give me a minute…oh well, I guess those are the only remotely nice things I have to say about Luffy. What a shitty character.
Conclusion: I can’t put up with Luffy’s stupidity for 400+ episodes.
46 people love sucking up to me
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Holy shit, a comment RSS feed!baka-raptor@baka-raptor.com
August 1st, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I find it very disturbing that whenever people cry in this show, its that really sloppy crying – snot streaming out of the nose, eyes bursting out rivers, etc. I mean, seriously, folks, this is anime, I want it to look good.
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August 1st, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Tried watching it years ago, I couldn’t get into it. Yeah I couldn’t get behind Luffy either, that’s got to have something to do with it. I wouldn’t want to watch all those episodes just to validate my dislike for something. But I wouldn’t justifiably be able to say it’s shitty either.
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August 1st, 2009 at 11:25 pm
You’re supposed to read the manga for One Piece.
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August 1st, 2009 at 11:40 pm
To be able to finish Lucky Star AND K-On, when the latter alone sapped nigh all my will to exist…truly you are a greater man then I.
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August 1st, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Luffy is one of my alltime favorite anime characters, and I think that it’s silly to call him a hypocrite when he’s just an idiot. That’s like giving too much meaning to a stupid kids show. If you want to hate those elements, hate them for being stupid kids show elements, not hypocracy.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 12:36 am
Oh,a nd this post positively reeks of ‘this is why we can’t have nice things’
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August 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 am
I’ve been reading the manga as of late and I must say Luffy isn’t really stupid as much as he is reckless. Certain moments of dumbassery would take huge balls of steel for anyone to attempt like taking on Enies Lobby and its over 9,000 troops headfirst, go to the impenetrable prison of Impel Down alone and erm… You have a point, I don’t really like Luffy all that much. The more notable characters of the series make the show awesome like Bartholomew Kuma who literally disbanded the Strawhats effortlessly and Franky who’s arguably the manliest main character of Onepiece albeit being a cyborg.
Honestly the best moment Luffy ever had was to tell his crewmates to run away from their enemies. Boy’s not as stupid as to send his friends to death against someone who IS lasers.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 3:31 am
What’s with the author’s bizarre fixation upon cartoony, idiotic/ugly looking characters with no appeal?
By drawing every newly introduced character like that, he’s basically resigning them to always and forever be useless pieces of shit, doomed to a short, gimmicky life. Eventually, with that kind of shitty treatment, the reader begins picking out who’s really important to the plot by which bad dudes look kind of serious, and if not, appears dangerous if dropped on one’s foot.
To hell with that. That’s telling the audience what to think. Nobody appreciates being bossed around by a damned kid’s show (Nobody who matters, anyways.)
Maybe these eyes are too discriminating. They immediately began protesting at the horrendously off-model characters in Higurashi, and their judgment proved incorrect there.
However, that appears highly unlikely in this case.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 am
Yeah, the manga is much better. Much, much better. Lot more violent too. I mean, holy shit, in the first volume Shank’s arm gets bitten off by a crocodile/sea monster!
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August 2nd, 2009 at 5:52 am
The 400+ episode wall is just too big for some people to conquer and see the awesome that is One Piece. BakaRaptor, you
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August 2nd, 2009 at 6:06 am
As for me, I have two major compaints about One Piece:
1. I hate the animation. Stinks like shit.
2. Intolerable-retarded characters. Stinks like shit.
So it’s One Piece of shit.
Now I’m off to watch Black Lagoon– they’re kinda like pirates but 1000x better. Levi’s one of the few non-loli characters that got my dick up.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 10:02 am
This ‘retarded’ thing always seems to be the most divisive element of One Piece, as if you’re looking for logic or explanation where there is none. You have to be a fairly passive viewer to get into it, I mean you’re complaining about things here I never even bothered to question; it’s supposed to be fun and weird and blood boiling, but if you’re not feeling that, I’m not surprised you dropped it.
It’s a shame because One Piece is probably my favourite anime bar none, but I often see people bomb out on it like this.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
Screw the anime, read the manga, won’t change any of your opinions about Luffy but at least the art kicks ass.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
Isn’t One Piece a kid’s show? Like really, are you expecting much from a show that is targeted at 9 year olds?
I remember watching an episode of Transformers on YouTube a few weeks ago… man did I ever love that show as a kid but now it’s absolutely retarded.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 4:04 pm
@Epi: One Piece is targeted at the same audience as Naruto and Bleach. And I have love Naruto ( Bleach is a different story).
I can’t stand One Piece either and I’ve read the manga and seen the anime. Here are the reasons
1)Luffy is a terrible, terrible attempt at a Goku clone. To put it bluntly, he’s fucking retarded. Goku had a excuse for his stupidy and that’s because he practically had to raise himself in the woods so when he came out into the world he was oblivious to alot of stuff. Luffy grew up around people in civilization. 2)Zoro sucks too. The three sword style is stupid and yes he never gets any good fights. When he does, he gets his ass handed to him.
3)The villains are lame. I dropped the show after the fight with the guy who had giant um…cat claws with swords on the end? yea…
I will go out on a limb and say that I’ve always admired the art style though.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
@Day: Agreed, it’s unnecessarily ugly, but to me, ugly crying makes more sense than the moe crying I’m so used to seeing in anime.
@ghostlightning: You may want to keep watching until you can take a hard stance. Wouldn’t One Piece be an excellent show to like? 400+ episodes of something you like, imagine how awesome that would be.
@double, Asperger’s & Omisyth: If the manga is basically the same thing as the anime, no thanks. If Luffy is any less idiotic in the manga, I might give it a shot.
@Snark: Watching all that hyped up crap is the duty of blogger. Would you have watched K=ON if you weren’t a blogger? Neither would I.
@digitalboy: Fine, on behalf of all One Piece fans, you have chosen that Luffy is an idiot, not a hypocrite. From now on, you and all One Piece fans are estopped from ever asserting that Luffy’s actions are motivated by a shred of intelligence.
@Zantetsu: Real men wear speedos. End of story.
@LJ: Perhaps the artist has no talent. No, that would be too simple an explanation. Perhaps the artist is just lazy. Nobody can tell when ugly, unappealing characters are drawn incorrectly so he gets away with it.
@Miha: I don’t mind watching a crappy show for 13-26 episodes. Any more than that isn’t worth my time when there are so many non-crappy shows I haven’t seen. Like Gantz.
@Rakuen: Good call, perhaps it’s about time I watched Black Lagoon in all its non-pedophilic glory.
@bateszi: I haven’t committed to dropping yet. I think I’ll just be extremely selective about the episodes I watch. There’s a lot about the show that’s likeable. Unfortunately, the main character isn’t one of them.
@Epi: I’d agree with you, but many people in my general age group are of the opinion that One Piece is better than sex.
@thekungfukid: I kinda liked the claw-dude, mainly because he was the first boss in the show who wasn’t clearly retarded. Powers sucked though.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Might as well go watch Black Lagoon. Same Pirate theme + killing and stealing.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Given how much random fighting bollocks I watch and enjoy, I can follow your opening paragraph. It would be great if I could obtain the kind of pure joy some people get from watching Luffy dick around. And, indeed, I agree that Gon, despite his rubbish design, is miles better. In particular, I like how Gon’s singlemindedness is shown as potentially terrifying and ruthless as well as being naive.
And I’m sure you’d like Black Lagoon, because it is fairly brilliant. Oh, and the first arc of season 2… should not be spoiled.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Hmm, I don’t recall Gon ever stalking anyone to become friends. Probably one of the reasons why Gon also isn’t as bad is because he has Killua to smack him in the head whenever he’s being too retarded.
Oh and he probably makes One Piece ugly to make a point of some kinda. Down with Bishie characters or something.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
>>Fine, on behalf of all One Piece fans, you have chosen that Luffy is an idiot, not a hypocrite. From now on, you and all One Piece fans are estopped from ever asserting that Luffy’s actions are motivated by a shred of intelligence.
I don’t mind that of course, but I doubt other One Piece fans will share my outlook :p
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August 2nd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Oh C’Mon Baka-raptor !!! You manage to watch countless “pieces” of Naruto Filler episodes, there’s no way you cannot pass through at least one season of One Piece
Now the only thing that is missing on your site, is a major post about how crappy BLEACH is.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 11:27 pm
“At least the English intro is bad enough to be good” What does that even mean?
I think the song is just bad. It’s kind of like Luffy. He can’t maintain a train of thought for long, perhaps to the point where he has ADD or ADHD, whichever is more appropriate. That song has a new tune every few seconds and sounds like a complete mishmash of jumbled ideas.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 2:00 am
Surviving 3 almost,Infinite filler animes and live to tell the tale. Truly I was right sucking up to you
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August 3rd, 2009 at 8:26 am
@Baka-Raptor: Do so. I’ll wait for them blogposts. I’ll do some myself too.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 11:18 am
Please don’t compare a lackluster character like Luffy to a decent character like Gon.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
[...] like it, it might be because you are 21 and you shouldn’t like it. Recently, Baka-Raptor did a post about how he hated One Piece because he hated Luffy. He lists a lot of reasons both for disliking the show itself and Luffy as a character, namely that [...]
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:30 pm
That intro almost made me want to watch the show… then I read the rest of your post.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 11:48 pm
……annnnnnd Baka-Raptor just blew up the internet.
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August 5th, 2009 at 8:00 am
One Piece is better at switching moods than Higurashi. The light-hearted scenes in Higurashi just felt completely out of place and it would have been at least 50% better without them.
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August 5th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Searching for Black Lagoon on Danbooru seems to be the ultimate pedo-test these days.
You too, should try it. See what your subconsciousness thinks about grown women.
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August 5th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
@Glo the Legend & coburn: Black Lagoon is now on the list, after Gantz.
@moridin84: Gon stalked Leorio early in the series. The kid has a great eye for talent…
@Laguna: 43 consecutive episodes of One Piece is more than enough to say I gave the show a fair chance. Bleach will never get a total bash-post like One Piece or Naruto. I prefer to tackle Bleach issues one at a time.
@jcpenguin: Take a line like “Yo-ho-ho took a bite of Gum-Gum!”. It is a terrible pun and therefore allowed to be amusing. Ok, the song sucks. Perhaps I’m just impressed with the Naruto version:
@Gunstray: That’s isn’t quite accurate. I dropped Naruto Filler a long time ago.
@Kyoin: Anyone’s a mediocre character compared to Luffy. What do you want me to do, compare him to Raki?
@Praz: Gotta gooooooooooo, gotta go gotta gooooooooooooo, uh-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
@thekungfukid & Ikki: Danbooru says it’s serving too many files. The kungfukid is right: I blew up the internet.
@Merk: Seeing total chaos develop from total tranquility is one of the beauties of Higurashi, though perhaps our disagreement has more to do with how the peaceful episodes were done than whether they were necessary/valuable.
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August 6th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Seems to be working again.
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August 6th, 2009 at 8:02 am
So, are you gnashing your teeth and wailing yet? Or are you just focusing on your hatred for Luffy so you can ignore that you’re stuck with Eli for the next six years? But, hey, maybe he’ll accidentally shoot himself in the leg, too.
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August 6th, 2009 at 8:23 am
@Ikki: Seems non-pedophilic enough for my standards. According to Revy’s MySpace page, she’s 28. Not that you can trust these things. Always need to check ID. Always.
@Day: Yeah, Eli might accidentally shoot himself with a water gun at Chuck E. Cheese.
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August 8th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Well,One piece is a pretty good anime.I just don’t like the crying scenes and Luffy being helpless for a period of time because of stupidity(feet embedded in a concrete by himself in Arlong arc). Crying scenes are the most stupid things in the anime,I mean, everybody can cry without a snot flowing in your nose.That’s disgusting.Even female characters are like that,for example,Nami.I think it’s a turn off for most of the viewers.
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August 12th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Did you watch Law of Ueki, by any chance?
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August 19th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
One piece rox man… stop being emo about it, read the manga, stop being emo about it
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August 21st, 2009 at 12:00 pm
[...] jos se nostetaan puheenaiheeksi. Luonnollisesti kuitenkin vain nörtit viitsivät kirjoittaa pitkiä sepustuksia siitä miksi eivät siitä pidä; koska nörteillä on säännönmukaisesti joko liian suuri tai [...]
September 19th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
lol thats y one piece is the most sold manga of all time
its just overall better than the bs u watch dood
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September 19th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
can you explain me why One Piece is still rank number 1 in japan even you say it suck?
Also why some people still watching One Piece?
It also surpass Dragon Ball and rape Naruto in the ranking of Japan.
I respect your opinion to One Piece but did you watch all the series before you make a crappy review of it.
I think your just saying this because your favorite series gone downhill
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September 28th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
How many episodes did you watch before you dropped it?
The first half is bad, but it gets better after episode 200 or so…
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October 14th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
One piece is like Marmite (UK reference see http://www.marmite.com)
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November 4th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
>Lucky Star and K-ON taught me how to tolerate bullshit. They didn’t teach me how to tolerate hypocrisy.
Simply wow. 2/10 for bad troll, but 6/10 for a hilarious read.
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November 29th, 2009 at 12:14 am
“can you explain me why One Piece is still rank number 1 in japan even you say it suck?” Well I don’t know, he’s maybe capable of having his own opinions. Seriously, that was a lame argument. Plus, a large portion of One Piece-viewers in Japan are probably children with lower expectaions. I don’t feel like writing anymore, but please do argument why YOU think it deserves a better review instead of throwing out some lame ass thing about rating.
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January 9th, 2010 at 9:40 am
I agree luffy is a bad character though i still enjoy the show, the man has an opinion and everyone is going insane.What i DO hate is the retarded fanbase one piece has people like different things simple as that.
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February 22nd, 2010 at 8:21 pm
This wasn’t really a good assessment of the series. You’re taking it too seriously when One Piece doesn’t take itself seriously. A lot of things Luffy does is for comedy. He’s still a capable captain and it doesn’t detract from the story.
When you truly cry, it’s nasty and ugly. Your eyes get puffy and red and you get snot all over the place. It’s not supposed to look cute.
One Piece is indeed made for children. However, it’s a series that even those who started reading it 10 years ago can still enjoy it.
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