Why I dropped OP post Wano
So I know this is a hot topic and bc this is a OP subreddit I’m going to get a lot of heat from Oda-wankers and ‘OP is the best anime ever’ people. But idec bc that’s part of the reason itself so here we go—-
So I’ve been a fan for YEARS. Probably longer than most of the people even in this subreddit. I started when I was 6 years old on 4Kids and now I’m 23 lmao. I started reading weekly since Jaya and been reading it weekly ever since except for a break during Fishmen island. I follow BDA, Morj, Syv, KOL, Sawyer, and Tekking on YouTube so I’m pretty deep into the OP-verse if I say so myself.
So why am I quitting? I have a lot of gripes with how the story has progressed and things Oda does with his writing that has killed the allure for me.
It may be the fact I’m getting older and more busy. And that’s def a reason. Bc OP is at the end of the day a boys manga. That’s what shonen is lol you can’t deny that. And I’m not hating, obv since I been in the verse for years and years. But some stuff like luffys dream are so generic along with the general atmosphere/art of the manga. Bleach overtook OP for me as my favorite a few years after I reread both because bleach felt more relatable and mature. “I want to be the pirate king” to me is like a kid saying I want to be an astronaut when I get older. But I like more relatebale goals like being strong to protect your friends and family. So one aspect for sure is the maturity of the dreams and characters.
Another thing is the island arc formula. This is something you could only experience if you have read it for as long as I have or relatively close to that. It has gotten very very very stale with me. Legit all that’s left is Elbaf and Laughtale and then the final war. But the burnout is real. Oda has followed the same formula for years. Go to island—-explore—-evil person oppressing people—-defeat—some hints about the grander world; rinse and repeat. And this is where the Oda-wankers will get mad and say “world building” and all that but no I’m sorry. You can create an AMAZING story with more unique arcs. Look at LOTR, GoT (the books not the show), Harry Potter, etc. and that’s why I WISH that OP was serialized monthly instead of weekly so oda could have his time with story progression and not tease.
And speaking of teasing. This is where my BIGGEST and probably major reason I had to drop it was—-the teasing and over promising. Imagine this, you have been reading it since Jaya. So alllllll ur experiences are weekly since then. In almost every arc oda wastes so much panel time teasing things that never will happen or be over committed and didn’t have the time to achieve what he wanted (another reason I wish it was monthly). My most recent example is Wano and the anti-kaido weapons, curing smile, yamato joining tease, uniting the samurai under Zoro. And trust me there are a lot more that aren’t JUST in wano. They’re in every arc. In Whole Cake its a when he ended the chapter with the teasing that BM destroyed the ship. And in the most recent chapter……well you’ll see it. I’m pretty sure it’s dropping tomorrow. Speaking of Egghead, …Dragon. That’s all I’m going to say for the sake of spoilers. And there is also Odas thing with silhouetting the characters. There is no point in silhouetting characters like Oden when his appearance being shown means nothing to the greater story. So why do it. OP in retrospective from someone that’s been reading it for years could have EASILY been slimmed down to 900 chapters so far as I’m writing this (we’re at 1108 rn) if oda didn’t do that. It’s very much a cash grab. And I’m not saying it’s oda; it’s Shonen Jump. And frankly it gets very tiring. Oda is not the best writer ever. Many people need to get that through their skull. I’ve read many great AMAZING manga and books (code Geass im rereading rn) and they were spectacular and didn’t need 1000+ chapters to be spectacular. They didn’t. Oda constantly adds new things that make the story longer.
He says it’ll end in 5 years every 5 years lol. Then adds more to it. And as a long term fan it’s tiring.
Other things that annoy me but aren’t big big reasons are
- lack of character death. “Oh but it’s a shonen and that’s just how oda writes, get over it”. No. There is no tension with that kind of writing. And it hinders his arc formulas. If we went island to island and death was prevalent in the series it would be so much better bc I would think “dang who might die this arc” and not yawn and know all the heroes are making it out alive. Idek why oda tries to tease us with the idea that the Sunny might get destroyed. It’s Frankys dream that it’ll reach Laughtale. So why waste panel space trying to tease it when you could use those panels for pushing the story forward. See what I mean? There’s no stakes. Ever since Marineford; there has been zero stakes. I say Bon Clay should’ve died at impel down.
- The Nika Nika fruit. This entire time luffy has been the underdog. He had a weak fruit or a fruit that was overlooked and he got away with being a hard worker and intelligent fighter. Now, just like Naruto and many other shonen, he has the power of a god and most likely Joy Boy had it too so there’s the whole “destined one” aspect of it. I would have rather luffy defeat Imu and BB with the Gomu gomu to show that you don’t need a special lucky power to defeat ur oppressors. You just need hard work. It completely spits all over the original concept of the story.
Anyways the title was kind of a tease. I was channeling my inner oda. I probably won’t completely drop it SIMPLY bc of commitment bc it’s a big part of my childhood. But I definitely do not enjoy it anymore and most likely will take a big break until the chapters start piling up. But even then, I’ll reread it and know—-there’s very little death, luffys retconned fruit is a slap in the face, and oda will just keep teasing. People say it’ll end at around chapter 1300. I’m calling it rn——1500