One Piece - Chapter 654 [manga]

[ronin myael]

Originally Posted by LeoThugs

Is everybody here? I hope noone got lost in whitestrom. Time for a headcount! Nami Swan

HAAAIIIII

Robin Chwan

HAII

Ok we are fine. Lets GOOOOO.

I spurted out my soda while reading that. Now I gotta clean the damn sticky keyboard.

god, i love sanji! LOL

[Randrak42]

Just noticed that Laboon seems to be much bigger than these other island whales. Just compare the Sunny to their eyes and then Laboon's eye and the Merry.

[marvelB]

^I think they're roughly the same size. After all, I believe the Sunny is a bigger ship than Merry was. But then again, Oda isn't always very consistent as far as size is concerned. Heh, maybe we should compare those whales with sea kings next at some point!

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

some people forget that this ISN'T a battle manga, it's an adventure manga and Oda pulls it off so perfectly.

I'd say it's a combination of both. One Piece is categorized under Shonen Jump, after all.

In any case, it'll most likely take some time for some big fights to happen. Oda always builds up his arcs and right now the story is in that phase.

[marvelB]

^Yeah, I think that's what a lot of people don't realize about OP..... the storylines are very well-structured. It would just be plain boring if it were a pure battle manga. I mean, maybe that kind of thing works for old-school series like DB or Kinnikuman, but OP is a bit of a different beast (of course, Jojo tends to take a bit of an anarchic approach to story structure at many points, but Araki's so awesome that he can get away with it ).

[KMB]

Originally Posted by marvelB

^Yeah, I think that's what a lot of people don't realize about OP..... the storylines are very well-structured. It would just be plain boring if it were a pure battle manga. I mean, maybe that kind of thing works for old-school series like DB or Kinnikuman, but OP is a bit of a different beast (of course, Jojo tends to take a bit of an anarchic approach to story structure at many points, but Araki's so awesome that he can get away with it ).

Not to digress too far off topic, but I think DB and DBZ had decent plots.... clearly nothing of the caliber of One Piece or even more complex and structured series, but I don't think they were monotonous of unimaginative by any means. Simple, perhaps, but not necessarily bad.

[aohige]

I've only seen one scanlation version, but I noticed they didn't understand "何リョーシカだよ！" line when the fish kept getting eaten by larger fish.

He said "How-many-ryoshka is that!?", referring to the Russian Matryoshka Dolls. (larger doll contains smaller dolls, and goes on and on)

[yakumo-chan]

I just realized... I think this series has so many characters created...
Is there any series that has many characters as One Piece?....

[ronin myael]

Originally Posted by aohige

I've only seen one scanlation version, but I noticed they didn't understand "何リョーシカだよ！" line when the fish kept getting eaten by larger fish.

He said "How-many-ryoshka is that!?", referring to the Russian Matryoshka Dolls. (larger doll contains smaller dolls, and goes on and on)

arigatou aohige-san!

In any case, it'll most likely take some time for some big fights to happen. Oda always builds up his arcs and right now the story is in that phase.

so true. most people would think this stage is boring but in my experience in reading one piece, nothing is insignificant and you should never take anything for granted. reading this series is like piecing together a puzzle so you better pay attention to the details.

[Randrak42]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

I'd say it's a combination of both. One Piece is categorized under Shonen Jump, after all.

Just want to point out that One Piece is serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump...which also holds plenty of other non-battle and non-battle centered manga.

One Piece fits first and foremost into the Adventure genre and while it does also have the Action genre, this only really surfaces in end of arc events where the true big fights show up. So you could say that yes, it's a mixture of the two (along with others, like Comedy) but this mixture is not balanced. You take a look at an arc from beginning to end and you'll see that True Action only accounts to around 25%, if that. Of course there are exceptions like the Impel Down and the WG/WB War, but these arcs actually got some readers used to a more action oriented pace that is not normally found in the rest of OP's arcs.

I still remember what happened during the Ace/Luffy/Sabo flashback and right after the timeskip when the crew was heading to FI, a lot of newer readers complained about the pacing. They complained that it was too slow and got all excited (too excited) when the prospect of an epic battle surfaced, only to get all angry when the battles were short and nothing more than skirmishes.

I still believe that people got too used to the pacing of the arcs between Sabaondy and the Timeskip, however it seems that some of those people are slowly getting used to OP's original pacing and true genre once again.

[marvelB]

Nice to see that good ol' Bluebeard is still pointing out translation errors despite his busy schedule.

Originally Posted by Randrak42

I still remember what happened during the Ace/Luffy/Sabo flashback and right after the timeskip when the crew was heading to FI, a lot of newer readers complained about the pacing. They complained that it was too slow and got all excited (too excited) when the prospect of an epic battle surfaced, only to get all angry when the battles were short and nothing more than skirmishes.

I still believe that people got too used to the pacing of the arcs between Sabaondy and the Timeskip, however it seems that some of those people are slowly getting used to OP's original pacing and true genre once again.

Once again, I must say I agree with you, Randrak. Also, as someone who's been following the weekly chapters since the Water 7 storyline, I've seen lots of similar complaints pop up from people who jumped to the series smack-dab in the middle of the Enies Lobby arc (which, much like the ID and Marineford arcs after it, was a near-nonstop festival of action). Like I said in my last post, those kinds of climactic battle-oriented storylines tend to spoil some folks, methinks. And it also makes me all the more sad that many of those same people tend to look down on arcs like Skypiea, which is more in tune with the actual spirit of the series.....

[yakumo-chan]

Originally Posted by marvelB

I've seen lots of similar complaints pop up from people who jumped to the series smack-dab in the middle of the Enies Lobby arc (which, much like the ID and Marineford arcs after it, was a near-nonstop festival of action).

I really dont like Enies Lobby arc, I dont know about the manga, but in the anime this arc is seriously bad for me... there's too many episodes its kinda irritating.....(I started reading the manga after the marineford Arc)

I was hooked on one piece when the Ussop Arc started... most of the people were hooked from enies lobby arc which i dont understand... maybe because of the fights? the gear second were introduce? if thats the reason, then you are lame....

Ussop Arc, Sanji Arc, Nami Arc, Arabasta Arc, Skypiea Arc were far way better than enies lobby arc.... although thats just me.

[paradox13]

I really dont like Enies Lobby arc, I dont know about the manga, but in the anime this arc is seriously bad for me... there's too many episodes its kinda irritating.....(I started reading the manga after the marineford Arc)

- is it because of the fights? I dont love a manga if it is only great in fighting, I love a manga because of its story

Yes and the story during the Usopp arc was better than the EL arc because?

[yakumo-chan]

Originally Posted by paradox13

Yes and the story during the Usopp arc was better than the EL arc because?

I dont like enies lobby because of its too damn many episodes... but the story of Robin was great....

The reason i dont like that arc is because it uses too many episodes,, but I dont know about the manga.... maybe the manga is better
also the fact that gear second and diable jamble came out of nowhere made me not watch this series for a week

edit at my last post,,, i didnt mean far better but I like it better than enies lobby

dont worry its just me....

[KMB]

Originally Posted by yakumo-chan

I dont like enies lobby because of its too damn many episodes... but the story of Robin was great....

The reason i dont like that arc is because it uses too many episodes,, but I dont know about the manga.... maybe the manga is better
also the fact that gear second and diable jamble came out of nowhere made me not watch this series for a week

edit at my last post,,, i didnt mean far better but I like it better than enies lobby

dont worry its just me....

I can see what you mean - to be fair, the Enies Lobby arc was extremely long. But I think Enies Lobby was the first time Oda first started writing One Piece on a worldwide scale. Up to that point, every arc had been mostly about the StrawHats adventures and encounters, but nothing that really affected the world. However, during the Enies Lobby arc, the whole world became involved, so Oda started writing on a really vast scale, including all kinds of factors and catalysts, so it's only natural that it would be really long.

And I guess I see what you mean about Diable Jambe, but Gear Second made sense - he copied CP9's Soru technique... he even mentioned it beforehand and said 'There's some new techniques I want to try'.

PS: On an unrelated note, I love Yakumo...... I feel bad for her, though

[Poetic Justice]

The only thing good about this chapter was that it made me listen to Bink's sake again. Such a great song.

[noktown]

Originally Posted by yakumo-chan

I dont like enies lobby because of its too damn many episodes... but the story of Robin was great....

The reason i dont like that arc is because it uses too many episodes,, but I dont know about the manga.... maybe the manga is better
also the fact that gear second and diable jamble came out of nowhere made me not watch this series for a week

edit at my last post,,, i didnt mean far better but I like it better than enies lobby

dont worry its just me....

Well this is a weird reason to hate on an anime.

I liked training arcs in the animes when you know that you still have 200 episodes ahead.

But when you have to wait one week for each episode,i absolutely HATE training arcs,because it's just a waste of time.

This is where One Piece is the best,no training arcs,Oda provides an explanation what inspired the character to invent that attack and moves on.

[Undertaker]

The problem I see in W7/EL anime was pacing, but still I like the OP's way of handling it then Naruto or Bleach's year-long fillers.

Though I will said, if you're anime-only watch, it is a drag when every week you only got 10 minutes worth of new material, but at that time, just treat it as those 5 min anime shorts that you see in every season as place holders.

[ronin myael]

personally, i don't like training arcs. training can be explained through flashbacks. the writer doesn't really have to go into detail on how the character learned the technique. that's why naruto started to bore me. the training arcs are so long and tedious that i started to question why i need to see naruto struggle and look like an idiot because he couldn't get it, and then finally triumph. it happened each time he tried to learn a new technique and it got boring. i liked how oda handled luffy's haki training. the manga barely showed us the training itself but the anime gave us some flashbacks and it was a nice touch. the flashbacks were short but you could get the gist of what luffy was trying to achieve and what rayleigh was trying to teach him. that to me is enough. you don't need a whole lecture about how a certain technique works and see the step by step process on how the character learns it. perhaps seeing it happen once is okay but to do it each time the character needs to learn a new technique, that's tiresome. i don't really think it's essential to the story nor would it affect the plot itself. there are other things that need to be addressed in the story than just the character's training, especially in one piece where the plot is so vast and complex that a training arc simply has no place in it. if oda did that each time luffy or any of the straw hats learned a new technique then we would have 800+ chapters by now. in my opinion, most training arcs are done to prolong the series, one piece doesn't need that, oda knows how to prolong it without compromising its quality. besides, i kinda like to be surprised when the character finally shows us his/her new technique.

[yangxu]

So the crew landed on that lightning island... wasn't it the island where one of the Supernovas went to two years ago? And why would whales go there of all places? I hope the next arc will be interesting, I was bored to death with the Mermaid Island arc.