Top Gun

I know a ton of people grew up with the Jack Nicholson Joker, but I never saw the movie when I was younger, and it really doesn't do anything for me now. To me the Joker was always Mark Hamill, and then later Heath Ledger.

Hey, Alita kicked ass.

In a world in which The Dark Night was made I can't even with that movie.

Don't worry, it happens to every guy once in a while.

Where. Is. My. Fucking. Mob. 2.

Those people are sociopaths.

...the fuck would you drink any Coke warm?

The hell are you on about, Vanilla Coke is bae.

Honestly the fact that I have to scroll down past an entire screen's worth of floated threads just to get to something that's non-episode related really sucks.

The Big Three background meme is at least a decade old. Is this dumbass really claiming that SuperEyepatchWolf started it?

Because pretty much the entire main cast is eminently likeable, something that precious few shounen manage to pull off? Because it's an anime take on classic caped heroes, which a ton of people around the world like? Because it has arguably the most accomplished animation studio in Japan doing the adaptation complete justice? I mean I don't think it's a complicated formula.

That fucking hand.

I see your point, and I'll freely admit that Oda got a little...enthusiastic with Big Mom's brood, but at the same time I think there's still a fundamental difference there. It's been a long-standing expectation that most of the side characters in any given One Piece arc have an impact largely confined to that arc's island, and aren't meant to do anything beyond that. Arlong's gang, Wapol's henchmen, pretty much everyone in Skypeia, the lower-tier Marine captains on Enies Lobby...pick your poison, but none of them are meant to do anything beyond provide a temporary obstacle. I'd put most of the Charlotte family in that same exact category. The only difference is that Oda gave them somewhat more distinct character designs and powers, instead of them all being Generic Enemy #47. When there's a new group of characters that are meant to have more of a broader impact, Oda makes sure to sell them as such. The Supernovas are the obvious example, one that's absolutely come to fruition over the past couple of arcs, and it's a pretty sure thing that the Straw Hat Grand Fleet will be as well. Katakuri is bound to play some sort of significant role later too. As for Bleach, I'll grant Kubo something like most of the Espada, since they were primarily intended as single-arc villains. (Though even then you had characters like Harribel, who were apparently meant to do something important later and then...literally vanished into thin air?) But look at the Gotei 13. Over two dozen characters dumped mostly at once, characters who are clearly meant to be around for the long haul, and at least a...third(?) of them never do a damn thing outside of filler episodes. Remember those name charts that got passed around in AD so people could keep them straight. I looked at those a ton, but if you held a gun to my head and asked me the name of the 1st lieutenant, or even what he sounded like, I could not tell you from Adam. (Which is even more hilarious considering what Kubo decides to do later.) The Visored suffer from this same problem, albeit to a lesser degree. All that aside, the main reason why I think Oda earns the benefit of the doubt here is that he's spent the past two decades digging up seemingly-throwaway characters from hundreds of chapters ago and slotting them into important roles in the story. Who could have possibly guessed that big doofy Hachi would wind up being the unwilling cause of the Straw Hats' defeat at Sabaody? Or that Mr. goddamn 3 of all people would play a starring role in Impel Down and Marineford? One of the coolest parts of the series has been seeing just who will show up next. So when Oda chucks a whole bunch of new characters at us, I figure the odds are pretty good that we'll be seeing some of those faces again.

I would never make the claim that One Piece "only gets good at arc X," because I submit that it was a good series right from the drop. What I will say is that for me personally, the series went from "I'm enjoying this" to "I love the shit out of this" with the Arlong Arc. That was the first time Oda truly exhibited his masterful ability to wring pathos out of a flashback with Nami's backstory, and Luffy putting his beloved hat on Nami's head after she begs him to help and marching on Arlong Park remains one of my all-time favorite moments in the entire series. (There are some really great moments even before that, though: Sanji's backstory, or Zoro's stand against Mihawk at Baratie, or that original flashback with Shanks being a consummate badass.) Once the series gets through Loguetown and to the Grand Line, it keeps growing and growing in scope and stakes, until you wind up at era-defining wars, global political intrigue, a suppressed history whose existence threatens the current world order, and a direct confrontation with the most powerful beings on the planet. All that from a kid jumping out of a barrel. So yeah, OP has fundamentally changed a great deal from its earliest days as a simple quest for adventure. I would also still put OP at least a bit above the original DBZ in terms of pacing. There's a good reason that "Namek time" became a running joke in anime fandom. For all of its myriad flaws, I can't remember a single OP episode that consisted of nothing but two characters screaming at the top of their lungs and powering up for minutes on end, and DBZ ABSOLUTELY had that going on. That being said, at this point I'd have to recommend that anyone interested in the series pick up the manga, due to the massive time commitment involved. I still generally enjoy the anime for its voicework and soundtrack, plus I've never been much of a comics fan. I do have to lol at the Bleach comparison, because unlike that, One Piece didn't blow its load after its first major arc. The initial introductory portion was fun and engaging, and it built up to a shounen classic in the Soul Society arc, but after that it plummets downhill in shockingly swift fashion. Kubo starts introducing gobs of characters that will never ever do anything of consequence (and frequently get flat-out abandoned) in lieu of actual plot progression, the Hueco Mundo arc is an exact retread of the Soul Society arc only much worse (and lol it winds up being utterly pointless), the "final" fight against Aizen is hilariously dumb, and that's where I tapped out but I've read enough about what comes next to make me recoil in horror. Kubo's editors gave him a few years to craft a satisfying resolution to the story, but he spent most of it fucking around to the point where they all but pulled the plug on him. Meanwhile Oda's over here more than 20 years later consistently doing his thing, keeping things fresh and winning high praise for the Wano Arc.

Goddamn I am jealous of that. I have zero room for shelves in this dinky-ass room I call home, so I've got animu stacked 2 and 3-deep in these wire cubicles that are crammed next my bed to the point where you can barely get in there. I finally cleared off the lone free-standing shelf or two of other crap so I could put disks on there, but I've never once been able to have my whole collection all in one nice display. It may be pathetic but one of my main motivations for moving out of here is being able to have enough room to set up a few Ikea shelves and finally get to see it all.

TWO YEARS' WORTH OF SEMEN MADE A GLOPPING NOISE

This blows. :(

This is the worst.

Dammit, beaten to it.

MOB! MOB! WHO DO YOU WANT!

That's not how you spell "Mob season 2" Toonami.

I have not remotely heard of six of the first seven things on that list.

I was rocking a CRT until, like, 2015. Old skool 4 lyfe.

My resolution was 1280x960 for a long time.