 While many manga fans tend to despise the anime and many anime fans actively shun the manga, there is at least one thing that both of these groups can indeed agree upon, which is subscribing to the Grand Line Review. For regular One Piece content, upload it straight into your YouTube feed. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece, and today it's time to get into quote-unquote that topic again, except this time I'd like to do things just a little bit differently, because generally when I get into this anime versus manga discussion, it more often than involves me going into a long, winding rant about personal frustrations, which is very much why I stopped reviewing the anime weekly. However today I would like to take a more methodical and cordial approach to the issues at hand, because this video is not simply about venting, but hopefully to also provide some anime-only watches and or anime die-hard defenders with the perspective of manga readers. I also want to make it very clear that nothing about this video is intended to judge anime watches, because if you love One Piece then good on you, no matter how you decide to consume it. The most important thing is that you are following the Scoofy Dudebra on his quest to become the Pirate King. However, at the same time, if you are a frustrated anime fan who is fed up with manga purists always crapping on a show you love, then I still very much encourage you to keep watching, because in the end I just want to present the perspective of why this tension exists in a way that hopefully doesn't sound like an elitist lunatic manga zealot, and we'll see how that goes, but that's my intention. So to get into things I would like to start with a very clear statement that manga readers are likely going to be biased against an anime by default, and this is not just One Piece issue, it's an all-media issue, because humans are inherently biased towards their first experience of a story, one way or the other. For example, if you read Lord of the Rings before you watch the films and you love the books, then you're probably going to be heading into the cinematic experience with a lot of baggage consisting of your memories whilst reading it, and if the films don't line up with those memories or expectations, then it is likely going to be somewhat off-putting. I should also say that the opposite is very much true as well. If you are absolutely despised, a book or manga incarnation of a film or anime series, then you will likely be biased in favour of the adaptation, because your expectations were at absolute zero to begin with. Actually, probably lower than zero. Kind of like me when I saw Ready Player One. I really, really don't like that book, and I thought the film was kind of mere, but I found myself enjoying it a lot more because you know, at least it wasn't the book. And One Piece falls into a more Lord of the Rings-ish category. It has undeniably rich source material in the manga that has kept this series running for over two decades, and that is why it is the highest-selling comic book by a single author in human history. So even if you're not a manga person, it's pretty undeniable that the One Piece manga holds appeal on a level of pure global dominance. And that's why I will say right here and now, manga readers en masse go into the anime likely having already decided that the manga is going to be better because that was their first formative experience of One Piece. It would take the most absurdly schmick and perfect adaptation for it to be viewed otherwise. And no, this is not all manga readers, but I would definitely say a majority. So I think it's important to lay that bias down right here and now, because we as manga readers have pretty impossible expectations, but with that said, Toei does present us with a particularly egregious case. So I chose Lord of the Rings as an aforementioned example, because while the bias does exist from people who read the books, it is still a near universally praised film trilogy that takes its source material and uses every filmmaking technique at its disposal to perfect and craft what is a very different yet solid incarnation of the story. And very importantly, it adheres to the rules of its medium. Whereas the Toei anime adaptation of One Piece does not adhere to the rules of its medium, and there are three broad problems that manga readers will sometimes, admittedly, incessantly identify. Those being art style, pacing, and animation. The holy trinity of anime if you will. But rather than just bark these words at you, let me give you some very, very detailed examples of exactly what I mean. So starting with art style, it's important to know that One Piece has gone through three broad stylistic incarnations with what I'd call classic One Piece, serving from episode one all the way up to the end of Skype here. And after that, it turns into what I would call the Dark Age of Animation, which spans from Long Ring Long Land all the way to the end of the Reverie Arc, which FYI is about 684 episodes. And this era is where most of the problems stem from. Although recently, beginning with Wano, we've had a much needed revolution of that art style, which in my opinion finally makes One Piece, at the very least, look like it should. Sadly, though, the large majority of One Piece lies in the spooky Dark Age. And this Dark Age is not consistent. It actually started out not too badly. But around any lobby, some real problems started to become apparent with this art style, such as characters frequently appearing off-model and completely out of proportion. Take this shot of Sanji, for example. Now, what's wrong with it? Well, to be perfectly honest, nothing. Because I've fixed it. But in the original anime, and get ready for this, this shot looked like this. That's right. This is what Toei served us. So notice how his head obviously seems to have completely shrunk in relation to the rest of his body, because I mean, his head really should look a lot more like this. Because there is no amount of perspective possible that can make someone's forearms look that disturbingly huge in relation to their own head. And furthermore, as a manga reader, the art style also falls very flat in conveying the original intention, which in the manga portrayed Sanji with this beautiful sense of light emanating only from his leg, which made him look menacing, powerful, and just plain cool. Whereas in the anime, he is a tiny-headed, flat-looking pile of weirdness. But art style doesn't just become an issue of proportion, but also detail, as we can see in this infamous picture with Nami, making quite possibly the sleaziest face imaginable. Well, perhaps you'd prefer a cross-eyed Zoro, whatever takes you fancy, really. And here is where a lot of anime fans might say that I'm just being nitpicky, and you know what? At this stage in the series, you might even be right. Any slobby was not perfect at all, but it did begin a long decline of art quality that truly peaked within the dress-frozer and zoo-archs of the anime, where it can sometimes feel like Altoeanus were forced to wear blindfolds whilst drawing. That's just how ridiculously off-model things became. And the most clearly you can see this sort of thing demonstrated is with, I dunno, pick literally any female character. So let's take Viola, for example, because here she appears to be drawn by someone who theoretically like understands what a woman is, but who has clearly never seen one with their own eyes. Which results in this, which looks like a person with two planets attached to their chest, sitting rather uncomfortably. But Viola also goes on to get completely butchered in every way imaginable, and here's another of my favourite examples. And look, I want to be clear, I'm not saying that Oda has realistic proportions in his own art style, but my god, is it better than whatever the anime decides to spew out? This is just bizarre to look at. Here, everything about Viola has been shrunk, except for tits and arse. Otherwise though, her head is far too small, her arms are extraordinarily thin like twigs that would snap with a slight breeze, and her waist is… well, it's non-existent. And why is one of her breasts higher than the other? Why? It just looks like botched implant surgery, and the hair is also completely misshapen, her expression has gone from sultry to like mildly pissed off, her arm is completely off angle, which makes Viola look anime confused, and in general, there is just no impact to her presence, like there is in the manga Incarnation. And as subjective as art is, this art here is about as close to objectively worse than this art as anything could get. And this is just so common in one piece that it can make the anime look like a bad joke. Haha. And of course, this is only really obvious to manga readers, who have experienced a true master artist depict this story. But to anime watchers who know nothing of this, then unless it is a particularly extreme case, which… oh there are. But otherwise, they probably won't see all that much wrong with it. And once again, I do want to highlight that the Wanoak has seen a phenomenal transformation in art style that is still not what I would call perfect but you know what, it's perfect enough. I personally love it, but I just think it's a profound shame that the large majority of one piece, being 684 episodes, has had to put up with this art style. But of course, art isn't everything, and in fact, bad art can often be very forgivable so long as the anime succeeds in other core areas of its medium, being pacing and animation. The logic being that if the pacing is swift enough and the animation fluid enough, then there will be no time to clock the questionable art. So let's dive into these two and explore pacing, shall we? And first of all, let's have some raw numbers. One piece at the time of this recording has 977 chapters available, meanwhile the anime adaptation has 927 episodes available. And the fact that those numbers are so similar should greatly alarm you from a purely pacing perspective. And that's because an ideal anime adaptation of a weekly manga series where chapters consist of between 15-18 pages would be to adapt between two and three chapters per episode. So in some sort of magical, ideal, blanket one piece world, 977 chapters would translate into around 488 episodes. That's if it were merely two chapters adapted per episode, that is, and about 325 if three chapters were adapted on average. But we'll go with the more generous two-chapter number, because even sitting at a logical total of 488 episodes to cover the material, that still leaves us with a total surplus of 439 episodes of, well, what exactly? But let's also be clear and say that roughly 103 of those episodes are pure filler. We're talking about short filler arcs like G8, Goat Island, Foxy Returns, and all of that kind of stuff. And I don't really care about pure filler, I think in the case of One Piece it's been quite necessary in the past, and for the right viewer, it can provide an enjoyable experience. But let's strike those 103 episodes from the remaining total, and that still leaves us with a 336 episode surplus of One Piece. Taking our episode count to a total of 824 when conservatively, we only needed 488 episodes to tell the story that we have. And just to continue to be very, very clear, I am not saying that there are 366 episodes that you do not need to watch. No, very sadly, you would need to watch all 824, because over the course of the history of the series, a large variety of stalling techniques have been invoked to stretch out the content beyond anything that I could have imagined. And in many cases this supreme elongation even goes to subvert the original intention of a scene or piece of action, along with creating that issue of poor pacing. Now why does this happen? Well in theory it's because of the need to artificially slow down the series, and make sure that it does not catch up to, or even worse, overtake the manga. And over the large majority of its lifespan, One Piece has been subject to a process of extreme elongation, to the point where episodes commonly adapt to one chapter of manga material, and sometimes much less than that. And you know what, let's head to Wano for an example of this, because as much as the art style has improved infinitely, the pacing most certainly has not. So here I present to you four mighty panels from chapter 916 of the manga, whereby Luffy briefly, and I want to emphasize briefly, took on the Okuzunno Urashima. There is a clash, two small close-ups, and a shot of Kiku thrown in there as well. And this is just over half a page of manga content. Now how long do you think it took to adapt this half a page in the anime? I want you to place your bets now, because we are going to watch it happen in real time, which occurred in episode 903 of the anime. And obviously I'll have to do something weird with the video and probably change or mute the audio for copyright reasons, but rest assured I am playing the full clip here in all of its integrity. So how long do you think this event would take? 10 seconds? 20 seconds? Maybe 30 seconds? I don't know. Let's find out. Alright, we have begun. So we've got the clash. That's good. That's the first panel taken care of. We've got all reaction shots. They get inserted to pad time, which is always good fun. Still more reaction shots. Oh, environmental shots. They're also good to pad time as well. Oh, the floor. Look at the floor. This is fascinating. Oh, and we flipped the shot. So let's look at the other side of the floor. Close-up again, which we've already seen. First close-up of a combatant. Second close-up of a combatant. We're almost over now, right? Yep, the shot of Kiku. That completes everything. We're done. No, we're not done. We're still struggling. Second close-up of Hiroshima. Second close-up of Luffy. Another wide shot. We're still not done. Third close-up of Hiroshima. Third close-up of Luffy. Fourth close-up of Hiroshima. Another wide shot. I've lost count of the wide shots. Fifth close-up of Hiroshima. Third shot of the floor, because we like the floor. Six close-up of Hiroshima. I think it's the fourth close-up of Luffy. And more hands. So many more hands. Seventh close-up of Hiroshima. Fifth close-up of Luffy. Another wide shot from a different- And time. So that is one minute and 23 seconds. One minute and 23 seconds. All to convey these four panels of manga. And wasn't it just enthralling? But here's the real slap in the face, because after that happens we spent another literally 46 seconds just watching Luffy and Hiroshima going whoa whoa whoa whoa trying to stay in the ring. 46 seconds. And I'm not going to make you sit through all of that in real time, but have fun looking at all of these padded shots that the anime had to introduce to give this event some variance whilst notably stalling the action. And with that, I welcome you to garbage pacing. This is the weapon that Toei has utilized to turn what should be 488 episodes into 824 episodes. They thoroughly extend action-based clashes, which have the effect of removing their overall impact. They fill every episode with at least two minutes of recap from the previous episode, which went all the way up to five and six-minute recaps during the Dressroser arc. They frequently insert reaction shots that were not in the manga just to buy a couple of precious extra seconds. They linger on shots long since past their narrative expiry date. They blatantly repeat segments of animation within the same scene. They often incorporate unnecessary flashbacks to fill time, with all of this and more combining over the years to waste a grand total of 336 episodes worth of your time, or roughly 112 hours of your life. So that's right, if you've seen every episode of One Piece not counting pure filler, which will make this number much bigger, then you have invested just under five whole days of your life for no real benefit. Because of the One Piece business model, which is to keep the series running all year round and to endlessly pad thus watering down the impact of each and every single moment, not to mention the greater impacts of arcs and meta-narratives. So when manga readers see a piece of action that took half a page to complete, extended into a fruitless two-minute anime experience, we get a little disenfranchised to say the least. And when that sort of thing happens in every episode, especially during the Dark Age, then we get pretty greatly disenfranchised, if not outright furious. And I will say that this is not the responsibility of Toei alone, this is a combination effort between Toei, Shueisha, the manga publisher, and Fuji TV, who all have a business arrangement mandating that this is just how One Piece needs to run. So Toei is put in a bit of a tricky position where they just have to kind of do the best they can. But sadly, the best they can do under these circumstances is produce a series that perpetually feels stagnant and never moving forward. And please spare me any of the horrible arguments about how, well, Toei need to keep their animators employed, or while they have to do it this way because of the manga, if Oda would just stop taking breaks and this wouldn't be a problem, because none of that is true. In fact, no excuse for the anime's pacing is true. In reality, this is a straightforward business model designed to generate maximum cash from milking One Piece all year round. They could switch to a seasonal model like the large majority of Shonen anime series currently airing, which would work just as well for One Piece as any other property. And they even had the chance to do so with the big 1-0 changes, but they didn't. Because here's the thing to remember, this is not about storytelling, it is about revenue. And pacing will always be a secondary concern to revenue. But let's finish this off by moving into the third primary criticism, which is the animation itself. Now once again, yeah, it's gotten a lot better during Wano, which I very much appreciate. But for the large majority of the series, the animation was kind of meh at best. More often than not, key scenes would appear as underwhelming in order to be produced quickly. So for example, let's head to Marineford and examine the very brief conflict between Bollahankok and Smoker. In the manga, you see her leg moved to kick Smoker with a clear upward and forward momentum at play. Sort of like, you know, a kick. And it has a great impact on Smoker, forcing him off his feet. Meanwhile, in the anime, this scene has Bollah sort of gently prodding Smoker with her foot, and then seeing a mostly static image being forced back on his feet. Which immediately removes any sense of the impact of Bollah's kick, because one, it looks like she was gently poking him, as I said. And two, it had no actual effect on Smoker, it was just mildly irritating at best. And this is the majority of the One Piece anime. Actual animation is something of an afterthought. And you know why this scene was done this way? Well, it was done that way because it was quick. Instead of animating the figure of Bollah performing an actual kick, all the quote unquote, animator, and to do was take two stills of a disembodied leg, one of which has the all important motion blur technique invoked, and then have it come into contact with any part of Smoker, it doesn't really matter. At which point the animator just needs to cut to a mostly still image of Smoker, with the background gently moving behind it. And really, this is the classic creative conundrum. You can have it done well, you can have it done fast, or you can have it done cheaply. However, you can only choose two of these options. So if you want quality work fast, then you need to pay handsomely for it. And if you want quality without paying for it, then you need to invest the time into it. But if you want it fast and cheap like the Toei business model, then you have to settle for sacrificing any semblance of quality. But to give credit where credit is due, every now and then a scene does emerge with an exceptional amount of effort put into it. Another marine for example would be Luffy standoff against the Admirals, that was pretty damn beautiful, or Luffy versus Magellan in Impel Down, or the transformation into Snakeman. There are a ton of moments in the series where things are animated to a stunning degree, but that does not comprise 99.9% of One Piece. They are very select moments that Toei knows it cannot botch under any circumstances, lest their clever ruse be revealed. So let's take some stock of what we have here. First is the natural bias that a Manga reader will come into One Piece having. It's unfortunate, but they've just read a near objectively incredible story and they have emotional ties and expectations attached to their first experience of One Piece. So the anime starts off in a pretty bad place. However, it then proceeds to fall completely flat on its face by refusing to take advantage of most of the devices that make the anime medium worthwhile. For most of its life, One Piece neglected its very basic art, and the animation of said basic art was subpar. And furthermore, the pacing of the overall story is like Toei invokes the world and literally stops time with extraordinarily minimal progress made in every episode. And that's just not how the manga is. The art is near flawless, its sense of movement on a 2D page is supreme, and in many cases somehow is more fluid than the actual anime. And while this is, yes, a very very long story, there are very very few cases where it feels like a chapter has accomplished almost nothing. So much so that I write 10 minute reviews on at most, 18 pages of manga per week, and sometimes I write much much much more than that because there is just so much material to digest on those pages. And this isn't to say that the anime doesn't do anything correctly, I for one think that the vocal performances are brilliant, and I now actually read the manga with the actor's voices in my head. And the music of the series is also wonderfully appropriate and tends to enhance the atmosphere, as does the overall choice of colour. But to many Manga readers, those things just become so meaningless when you encounter 112 hours of wasted life with art like this and animation like this. It's really frustrating because we know that with even a sliver of artistic integrity, one piece could be the undisputed greatest anime in history, just as it is already practically the greatest manga in history. We do not shit on the anime for fun, at least not most of us, yes trolls will exist, but for the most part we complain because we know it can be so much better than what everyone is currently being fed. Even the current 1-0 anime can be better, a lot better. However it's unlikely to ever be that way. So here we are, us manga fans, sitting on what we know is one of the greatest stories ever told, and watching it being perpetually watered down to a blatant cash grab experience. And if after all of this you're going to be one of those people, who says well Oda clearly doesn't have a problem with it so you're just being a nitpicking prick thing. And firstly that's an interesting choice of insult, but to address the Oda thing, he more than likely is contractually obligated not to speak up about it in a negative manner, but then again even if he wasn't, publicly denouncing something in Japanese society is like the height of rudeness, and finally, why would he? Because the continued milking of the one piece teat in anime form makes him money, lots and lots of delicious money. But against everything I've said, if you are still an anime only fan and you're still watching this video, then thank you for sticking with it, but good on you. The most important thing is that you are a one piece fan, but I would encourage you to give the manga a go, because if you like what you're seeing right now, then I think that you are going to absolutely love the manga experience. But what do you guys think? Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious one piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds. But for now, this has been the ground-line review and I'll see you next time.