#not splatoon

[octolingrendezvous]

there are no strings on me

[splatoonreblogger]

[worldsewage]

Warrior cats “brown tabby amber eyes” design trend…

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

The appeal of One Piece

I know everyone's a bit sour on One Piece after the clown stunt tumblr pulled, but with the live-action series out and the anime popping off on social media, there's more eyes on this goofy pirate story than ever, and I've been dying to talk about it, so now's the time.

A lot of the conversation around One Piece is steeped in hyperbole, and it's hard not to be hyperbolic when you're talking about a work of almost unprecedented length and popularity. With that in mind, I wanna try to explain what makes One Piece so good in a way that is concise, spoiler-free, and that will give you an idea if this might actually be a story you'll enjoy.

And I do actually think a lot of people who would enjoy One Piece are currently writing it off, and I think a lot of the blame lies on assumptions people have about shonen as a genre. One Piece is no doubt a shonen, with young and teen boys as the primary demographic, but it is also first and foremost an adventure story about a group of quirky outcasts setting out to follow their dreams, despite (or often in spite of) the crushing weight of reality.

But you can't have an adventure story without a world to set that adventure in, and what a world Eiichiro Oda has crafted. One Piece manages to feel like it has fully realized an entire planet, with every island we travel to having a very distinct sense of culture and visual identity. A lot of care has gone into building the history and politics of these places, and the mechanics by which their more out-there elements, like the sky-high ocean geyser or the mountain with an upside-down waterfall, function. As such, it is a setting that afford its story a lot of variety, while also being able to tackle a lot of very heady topics like authoritarianism, racism, and abuse in intelligent, nuanced ways.

But just as important as all of islands we visit are the wonderful characters we meet. A lot of people aren't into One Piece's exaggerated cartoon aesthetic, and I respect that, but it does lend itself to a lot of very unique faces and body types that make its cast of 1000+ characters a joy to behold. This is admittedly less true of the more conventionally attractive women, many of whom look very similar, but this is does not extend to their writing. Oda is very good at imbuing his characters with life, pulling on their histories to give them personalities and quirks that are often as funny as they are sad. Everyone I know that reads One Piece has a side character that they stan hardcore for, be it the lovable klutz Donquixote Rocinante or the petulant ghost girl Perona.

And all of this is especially true for our protagonists, the Straw Hat Pirates, each one of which is a deep, multifaceted character whose drive and dreams can be traced back to their often heartbreaking origins. I know I mentioned it at the top already, but at its core, One Piece is ultimately a story about a group of hurt, lonely individuals who find in each other not just friends, but a family that will support and protect them as together they chase their dreams in the face of a world whose systems have been built to squash them underfoot.

All of this is brought together by Oda's exceptional artistic skill. While as mentioned earlier, One Piece's cartoony artstyle isn't for everyone, it's by no means an accident. One Piece is a story set in a cartoon world, and Oda is able to give even his most ridiculous characters and places a tangible sense of physicality, making everything feel real within the confines of the page. While Oda has a team of assistants to help him, he still does the brunt of the art himself, and his dedication to his craft means the comic is full of panels that are breathtaking in their complexity and visual density.

But it's not just his technical skill that makes the art of One Piece so good, it's that Oda is also very good at letting his art speak for him. Compared to a lot of other big shonen manga, One Piece doesn't lean as heavily on the dialogue to give the readers all the necessary information, but can convey a lot of what is happening and how characters are thinking and feeling through its artwork. There's some sections where this doesn't hold as true (and they are frequently less well-liked as a result) but it makes One Piece a far lighter read than its soon to be 1100 chapter-count would make you believe.

But the thing I think makes One Piece the most exceptional of all, and what makes me recommend it despite its length, is that as a story, One Piece has a remarkable clarity of vision. One Piece has a stance and a worldview that it does not waver on, and it is present from the very beginning. It's is romantic story, about the power of faith and dreams, about people's right to be free and be who they want to be, and about how the beauty and wonder of the world makes its worth its danger and uncertainty.

One Piece knows what it wants to be from the very beginning, and because of that you don't have to wait for it to get good. A problem that a lot of longform media struggles with is that the opening hours are a slog to get through, because it doesn't show you its hand early enough for you to know if it's something you'll like, and that is not a problem One Piece has. It is exactly what it is going to be from the beginning, only in a simpler, cruder form that it is going to expand upon to become the sprawling pirate fantasy epic it has grown to be. This clarity of vision also makes One Piece very rewarding for attentive readers, as it frequently hints at future places and characters, and plants story seeds that it pays off hundreds of chapters later. It does a lot to make the world feel big and interconnected, and makes One Piece very fun to re-read as you pick up on things you missed the first time around.

It is frequently recommended that new readers start with the initial 100 chapters, the East Blue saga (which is what the live action series adapts, for the record), to see if One Piece is right for them, and that's the note I am going to end this post on, as well. East Blue uses its 100 chapters to tell a fairly self-contained story that introduces the first half of the core cast, setting the stakes and building its world while giving you plenty of interesting places, bizarre creatures, and wacky action all the while. It is One Piece showing you its hand, with the promise that if you like what you see, it'll have so, so much more in store for you

[matchasquid]

Made some Femtanyl fanart today <3

[are-you-judd-enough]

Feeling myself radiate a powerful aura (cooked bread)

And annoying my teammates as i run off to eat bread.

[lushroome]

hanako

[freshbeeth]

i read my animal crossing new leaf fanfiction from 10 years ago and well…

[agent4-sqidbeaksplatoon]

Hi, am back.

Sorry

I think I needed a minute

Or a month almost :<

[tapidrinks]

[anemonequeen]

ive created a new type of monster girl! sorta. i call her a knightslime. a slime from a war torn land that has adapted to a new food source: fallen soldiers! they infest and decompose their dead bodies and then wear the armor as protection

one would normally see them fully inside their armor, but ive drawn this one peeking out for demonstration purposes

[octolingrendezvous]

a wing of day / a wing of night / the pegasus flew and cried starlight

[splatoonreblogger]

[worldsewage]

Point of View

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

I know that I'm super late about this, and everyone has already talked about it at length, but if you're not caught up on the news then the reason there's an evil pirate clown staring at you on your dash is because of Netflix's live-action adaption of One Piece, which started airing today and tumblr's apparently doing some kind of promotional thing for it. The clown is Buggy, and he's first major villain of note the protagonists face off against.

Having been a One Piece fan for almost as long as some of my mutuals have been alive, I like him, but I understand that not everyone's into a clown staring at them 24/7. That said something I want to say about this whole situation is that I find all the animosity towards him super funny because his whole thing is that he's one of the most pathetic men in the entire series. Just the most sopping wet beast of a guy you can imagine. True cringefail malewife material. No one respects him or takes him seriously even in the slightest.

The thing I am getting at is that all the disdain he is receiving is in character. Your scorn is literally canon-compliant, and that's just so funny to me.

[are-you-judd-enough]

Not splatoon, but new icon peices in the nso app and they have a picture of a slowpoke wearing a tiny hat.