Watch One Piece.

[Squeek]

There have been times where in passing conversation, I'll mention a good anime I recently saw that I recommend to others for viewing pleasure. In turn, they recommend others to me. It's a nice cycle and it allows everyone I know, including myself, a wide variety of shows to watch. Whether or not I liked it will be determined after I tried it, as will be the case with those to whom I made recommendations.

But there is one show that I can't just ask people to watch in passing, because it never quite works. No matter how hard I try, I can't convince anyone to watch it. I try to rid all the prejudice they have toward the show, I try to explain just how amazing the show is, I try to persuade them to at least start watching the show, but nothing works. The preconceived notority of this show has a stranglehold on its progress among anime fans, and as a result, it has poor viewership outside of Japan, even among the most 'hardcore' of anime fans.

The show, obviously, is One Piece. You read the title.

This thread is here because I am tired of those who watch a huge variety of anime have a predisposition of this show they should not have, and I will do my best to convince you to watch One Piece. If I convince just one person, that's more than satisfactory.

I will begin with my story. You can skip past it if you want. Just look for the next line that isn't a paragraph long.

It all began in the summer of 2005. My friends were home from their first year of college and we were getting back into the swing of things. There were two or three visits to houses for various forms of LAN parties. Though, I don't even know if you consider a 3-person LAN party a real one. That doesn't matter. What matters is what happened late one night having just come back from getting our dinner at the local Burger King.

Our computers were all lined up with myself positioned on the left, friend 'A' in the middle, and friend 'B' on the right. Friend 'A' had gotten me interested in anime in the first place the first time I took a trip to his house by showing me what kind of a joke American television makes of anime. Cowboy Bebop. Starting point for a lot of people you know? It wasn't airing in America at the time, and even if it were by this time in my life I had already resolved never to watch American television ever again. A promise I still uphold.

Having just come back from college, his collection was loaded with games, songs, movies, and, most importantly, anime. We always watch something while we eat because, frankly, it's hard to play an FPS and eat a Whopper at the same time. I don't know what I had on and friend 'B' didn't like anime back then. All I remember is that friend 'A' was watching One Piece. I knew right away and refused to watch it, even insulted him for watching it. It was a lame show after all, just like Dragonball Z (which I had seen dubbed before resolving never to watch television again). People fight, it takes hundreds of episodes, etc. Boring. He was one some episode where they were riding some wave uphill over a mountain. Typical shounen crap.

Somehow he convinced me to watch the first episode to find out what was going on, so I did. I didn't put much interest in it at first. In fact, for the first five minutes, I'm not even sure I was paying attention at all. Then things got interesting. I spent the next hour watching One Piece and demanded the rest before we parted ways. I spent the next day watching all he had given me. I spent the next week procuring the rest of the entire series.

Thus ends my story. Yay if you read it. Boo if you didn't. It was a good story =(

First, this is a list of the most popular reasons people have given me as to why they won't watch One Piece.

1) "I heard it sucked"
2) "It's too long"
3) "I saw an episode on tv and it sucked"
4) "It's just like DBZ"

Now, here are my counterarguments.

1) I heard it sucked. I hear a lot of shows suck, you know? I hear of a lot of shows that RULE too. You know what, public opinion means nothing. The public has an alarmingly high number of people who enjoyed .hack//sign, one of the worst shows ever created. Personally, I have absolutely no idea how anyone could enjoy 26 episodes of people talking. I did enjoy the naptime I got while watching it.

Look. Take it upon yourself to find out if a show sucks or not. Do what I do and sample it. I actually finished .hack//sign. That was a mistake. I fixed that mistake in later years. When I started Wolf's Rain, I stopped before I got a quarter of the way in. I finished maybe a quarter of Shuffle before deciding it was going nowhere (turns out I was right eh?).

2) It's too long. Then watch it in pieces. Next. I wish it were longer. I can't get enough. I respect the decision to air the show once every two weeks so as to avoid running filler (LOL NARUTO AND BLEACH) and live with it. Once you get started, you'll see that ~300 episodes is not that many.

3) I saw an episode on tv-- That wasn't One Piece. Watch the real thing. Turns out they're not playing in a world of toys with candy and happiness everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece_Anime_Adaptions

* Cutting longer scenes for time, editing episodes together, and skipping entire story arcs. As of June 2006, the equivalent of 32 episodes of material had been cut from what were originally 102 episodes. Among the removed was the Warship Island arc, the Laboon arc and the entire Little Garden arc. All removed episodes and arcs were written around.
* Removing the original symphonic score and replacing it with music produced on a synthesizer.
* Replacing the opening theme (originally a succession of upbeat pop songs) with a rap theme (though an English version of the original theme is used in promos).
* Altering some dialogue to utilize different types of humor.
* Removing or changing anything suggestive of alcohol or tobacco use.
* Many firearms were changed to look less realistic, and some were edited into other objects.
* Renaming many locations and attack names.
* Toning down violence and other extreme situations
* Removing Japanese text and replacing the word "MARINE" on Navy members' clothing with the word "NAVY".
* Changing the skin colors of characters to avoid potential racial insensitivity

4) It's just like DBZ Well, in terms of length, it is. But you know, DBZ has like four sections to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z#Sagas

In total, the show could have taken half the number of episodes and still have a decent series. We all know the joke about how long it takes for a single battle to end. Could be a dozen episodes before anything happens at all! And in the end, this equates to a total of 4 major bad guys. Grr bad guys. Sure, you had the minor bad guys. One Piece has them too. But in the end, it always comes down to a battle between the main character and the main bad guy. DBZ has four. One Piece has more than a dozen. It's much more spread out and usually takes only an episode or two for a battle to end.

Secondly, the characters are so much more unique. In the end, DBZ was all strong saiyans for the most part. They all threw energy and could go supaa. One Piece has a wide variety of characters, both main and secondary, that leave you with a massive list to work with. Within each arc there can be anywhere from five to twenty new characters who actually have names you need to remember. With over 15 major arcs, that's going to be well over 200 characters. Wow.

I hope that covers most of the excuses people give me as to why they won't watch One Piece. Now here's why you should watch it.

It's awesome. It's amazingly awesome. At the end of every arc you're left feeling satisfied, even happy, of the result. Sometimes all it takes is a single within-arc episode and you're cheering inside. I know I have.

It's funny. It's serious. It's dramatic. It's exciting. It's entertaining.

I can't even explain exactly why I like this show. There's too much about it to write in one post, even though this post is getting pretty long. I think I've been at it for over an hour.

If you're one of those people who I've spoken to and have given me one of the excuses, please post here if my thread has not helped and I will make sure it does.

And no, I cannot tell you where to get it.