How does One Piece look bad outside of you don't like the character design? The animation is on par with or better in some cases than Pierrot's work on Bleach.
It's almost like you're using that as a crutch to transform you disliking it into everyone who dislikes it, dislikes it for that reason alone.
Also the hell? Rick and Morty is purposely visually repelling most of the time. It's part of it's charm.
Like I said, it didn't get the launch that Bleach or Naruto got either. So yeah all it has is anime fans, most of which are fucking weeboos who think anime has to look a certain way. You keep coming back to the art and animation being something that would limit it here when western animation has a history of widely different art and animation in pretty much every show. If ugly character designs kept people from watching things then The Simpsons wouldn't be in it's 30th season and Rick and Morty wouldn't be one of the most popular shows on right now. But keep coming back to "oh but it's ugly!" as a reason it wouldn't succeed in America.
I mean if being pretty is the number one thing it needs to succeed then why is anime such a niche market in America? By that logic it should be the only animation we have.
The artstyle is only a problem for weeboos who think anime should look a certain way. Literally no one else cares. Look at any show that has ever been on Cartoon Network. We have been seeing different art styles in animation for decades.
I ended up with Free! Eternal Summer, Banana Fish, Chio's School Road, Cells at Work, Sirius the Jaeger, and Grand Blue. I'm liking all of them so far.
X Japan and L'Arc-en-Ciel is so 90s and I love it so much. Literally the only thing that could make it better is if T.M Revolution were somehow involved.
Happy being in it isn't that shocking. I mean Plue was in Fairy Tail. And using the same character design and changing the name is why Jellal has that tattoo.