The manga of One Piece is one of the longest-running anime stories. The speed at which the story is told does not please every fan. According to mangaka Eiichiro Oda, the manga could end faster, but that would come at the cost of one of the coolest features of the anime.
Why does One Piece take so long? In an interview, Oda explained that the characters are “alive.” They act according to their own sensibilities, and readers immediately notice when the mangaka forces a character to act in a certain way.
As an example, he cites Luffy. He is the worst problem in the manga:
The characters function on their own, and the reader knows that, and if I force a character to move for the sake of the story, then they say, “This character would never do that.” That’s why Luffy… That’s the hardest part about it. If I don’t intersperse different episodes and hit the brakes, the boss is defeated immediately. The characters are alive.
Eiichiro Oda, Sound & Recording Magazine 2102, Issue 4 (via Screen Rant)
Thus, One Piece could be even shorter if Oda didn’t hit the brakes with Luffy. Otherwise, the straw hat would probably just use his strongest attacks and defeat the biggest villains immediately. Thus, the longest fight in anime history would have ended faster. But then we would miss a spectacular feature of the anime.
One Piece is currently heading towards its end. Here you can see the trailer for the Egghead arc:
One Piece leaves amazed fans with animations
Would the missing boss fights be a problem? Especially the fights against the final boss of each arc are the highlight in One Piece. Luffy often surpasses himself in battles and shows new techniques. This was also the case with Gear 5 in the fight against Kaido. It would be a shame if they were ended merely due to faster pacing in an episode.
In the last two arcs, it is especially noticeable that special animations are used in the boss fights. The spectacular boss fights also leave MeinMMO editor Jasmin Beverungen astonished, so she has watched the fight against Rob Lucci several times already.
Are there other factors that Oda could save on? The mangaka revealed in another interview that there are even more factors why the story is so long:
- Each of the Seven Samurai has received their own appearance. By including each of the characters in the story, Oda had to slow down the pacing.
- The same goes for the Worst Generation. Oda regrets that he included a total of eleven pirates in this group. Almost all pirates of the Worst Generation have received an elaborate appearance so far. Urouge is, for example, a pirate who has hardly been seen so far.
If Oda had packed fewer people into these groups, the story would have been completed faster. When exactly One Piece will end is not known. The mangaka has postponed the deadline for the end of the story several times already.
If the anime of One Piece is too long for you, you will soon have the opportunity to experience the story in a shorter version: One Piece has incredibly many episodes, soon you can start easier: Netflix is providing a new adaptation
