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UnevenEdge

The dilemma the One Piece anime finds itself in....


moose

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Ok. It's no secret the One Piece anime has been pretty lackluster in recent years.

 

Even though it has excellent source material to go by, the main problem is that it's just way too slow. 1 chapter per episode, even tho OP chapters are particularly meaty (this would never work for Bleach), just isn't ideal and lately they've even opted to go even LESS than a chapter.

 

The problem is the anime is wayyyyyy too close to the manga (less than 30 chapters away) and Oda is now required to take a week off every four weeks, meaning only 3 chapters of OP a typical week, as opposed to 4. So with that being a thing, the anime is even more likely to catch up with the manga.

 

Of course... everyone wants Toei to just turn One Piece seasonal or do what Fairy Tail and GinTama do and take breaks off the air once they catch up to the source material.

 

The thing is those two series aren't nearly as successful as One Piece is, so they can afford to take breaks... the corporate suits behind the OP anime will not allow it to take a break of ANY kind. So it literally just keeps chugging episodes.

 

Some people, being desperate, are BEGGING for a long-enough filler arc... just so the canon material would be properly paced. I guess you can say Naruto does this, but the filler runs so rampant in that series it has glaring problems of it's own so I'm not sure that would fix anything.

 

In any case, OP's anime refuses to do full-blown filler arcs anymore. The longest they last are 3-4 episodes. They rather just pad the canon stuff to death.

 

So yeah... I feel like the anime is stuck in a rut. It's a shame because i'll always have a soft spot for the OP anime. It's how I was introduced to the series... I love the voice actors, the BGM and when it tries it can be amazing and improve on the manga stuff... but too often it just meddles in mediocrity and pacing issues are just becoming too much.

 

This series deserves a much better anime, at this point. At the very least with Naruto, I couldnt really careless given the source-material went to shit. But with One Piece, it's as good as it's ever been. OP rarely has drastic quality drops and for a series that's been running for years upon years that is impressive.

 

It's just a shame the anime can't share that notion. And that there's really nothing they can realistically do at this point to fix it. Later down the line I suppose a One Piece Kai or something can be made, but that's all I can think of.

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One Piece will just keep chugging along it it' s middling pace until the series is over.  That's really what it's going to come to here. 

Yeah, at this point it's a given that nothing's going to change.  Either you've grown frustrated enough that you've given up on the week-to-week anime and just watch select scenes, or you've learned to accept it for what it is and glean your personal level of enjoyment from it.  And hell, sometimes the Toei padding actually manages to be enjoyable.  (See: everything Carrot.)

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Actually, Top Gun, you're wrong on many levels there. Many things will change and eventually the story will conclude with the end of Luffy's journey.

 

Well yeah, obviously, it isn't a story that can be said is fast, but it is always moving albeit slowly.

 

Although I'm talking more about the anime being a lackluster adaptation of the manga at this point. I honestly have almost no problems with the manga itself. That stays improving.

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It's like the Simpsons in Japan.  It's a far cry from peak quality and popularity, but is so engrained to a core audience and just does enough to warrant staying around.

 

Only difference is OP is still almost as popular as it's ever been in Japan, while the Simpsons has lost popularity in America.

 

Plus there's the manga aspect that the Simpsons doesn't have.

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Hate to nitpick, but The Simpsons has had an ongoing comic almost as long as the show.  Specifically, Bongo Comics, an imprint Matt Groening founded to bring actual comedy focused comics back to the mainstream (it was founded in 1993 during the Dark Age of Comics.  Groening had a point.). It actually has just as big an effect in comics as it does in animation.

 

Simpsons is actually huge in Japan too.

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It's like the Simpsons in Japan.  It's a far cry from peak quality and popularity, but is so engrained to a core audience and just does enough to warrant staying around. 

It's been at " peak" popularity pretty consistently for several years now.  The anime itself is consistently in the top 5 most-viewed weekly anime series, behind only such perennial family juggernauts as Sazae-san and Chibi Maruko-chan.  Obviously the manga volumes sell gangbusters, and the merchandise prints money.  It's been at least 15 years since The Simpsons was that relevant financially.

 

 

Actually, Top Gun, you're wrong on many levels there. Many things will change and eventually the story will conclude with the end of Luffy's journey.

I'm so glad reading comprehension is your strong suit Zeni.

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