Contextual portfolio
One piece
Why I love One Piece
“You can poor drinks on me. You can throw food at me. You
can even spit on me. I’ll just laugh that stuff off. But good reason or not
nobody hurts friend of mine!”
When people mention animation to me I instantly want to
introduce them to One Piece. People usually tell me the reason they did not start watching it is because it has too much episodes. I respond to them have
you ever thought you should give it a chance because despite of it being too
long it is still one of the most talked about anime till now, so there must be
a reason it is has gained this amount of love. One piece is Japanese manga series written and illustrated
by the famous Eiichiro Oda. It was released on July 19, 1997 as individual
chapters and continued on releasing the first volume on December 24, 1997. The
manga has over 77 volumes. On October 20th 1999, the manga was
adapted into anime television series, with 687 episodes and continuing. It is
one of the most popular manga and anime series of all time.
One piece is about the adventure of Monkey D. Luffy and his
multicultural ‘nakama’s’ (comrade,friends in Japanese) crew in search of the ultimate treasure known as
one piece because he will be able to become the next Pirate King. Monkey D. Luffy is a young man has the ability
of stretching like rubber because by mistake he ate a ‘Devil Fruit’. Luffy may
lack intelligence and easily be amazed by the simplest things such as meat,
hermit crabs and monsters but the same cannot be said when he is in his
fighting stance because he is a genius when it comes to fighting, he defeated
by corrupted war lords and saved many.
Initially it was the character designs that caught my interest because you could tell this is
meant to entertain. There are a lot of people that criticizes on the art style
because it is not realistic style such as for example Psycho pass, Kuroko no
basket and Gintama, but honestly if want to speak about being realistic then I
ask you this, when do anime characters look realistic? You have people with
vibrant colored hair and eyes as if it is natural, big eyes and sometimes a
line for a nose. I feel that the art style One Piece has suits one of the main
genres of the series, humor. One of the best things about this show is that
the pirates are not what you would usually assume, they could differ from
animals, skeletons and even ninjas and many more you have yet seen. Many
characters have extremely unique fighting styles, powers and motivations that
creates for a lot of differentiating action.
I did not realize that I was attached to certain characters
until the moment they die. I have shed more tears whilst watching One Piece
than drama movies. Our emotions come natural to us when we are watching One
Piece, the simplicity of friendship, family and love between the characters
connects to us. You constantly see their relationship develop and new members
joining, you can see they are becoming a true family although they are a pirate
crew. I think that this show hysterical
causes us to let our guard down and can easily grab out emotions. Some people
think that anime is like a kid cartoon shows; they never assume death is
possible.
I am still watching this animation till this day; I started
in 2005 and am still hooked. The art may not be perfect as other popular anime
and manga’s but Eiichiro Oda can get his message through one sentence “You can
poor drinks on me. You can throw food at me. You can even spit on me. I’ll just
laugh that stuff off. But good reason or not nobody hurts friend of mine!” and
they always influential.
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece
