 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece. Today we're going to get into a bit of what's becoming an age old discussion with One Piece and that topic is, which was better, pre-time skip One Piece or post-time skip One Piece. And I feel like we're getting to about the right time for this discussion to happen because we are rapidly approaching a point in the life of the series where we have been in the post-time skip era for almost as long as we were in the pre-time skip era. So officially we made the transition in October of 2010 and it's now 2009 so after almost nine years, and I think we have enough to go with to make, you know, semi-decent comparison. And how I'm going to go about doing this is I'm going to rather straightforwardly present the case of both halves of the series, going through what makes them great as well as highlight what shortcomings they may have. And I think it's best to do it this way because at the time of writing the script, I'm not even sure what conclusion I'm going to come to. But before we properly launch into it, I would like to highlight that the pre-time skip era comes into this fight with the distinct advantage of being a more or less complete piece of story. Even though we've been in the post-time skip era for an awfully long time now, we don't appear to be nearing a conclusion to it. And so that sort of thing does need to be kept in mind when we examine that half of the series. Oh, and one more thing. This video is going to be extraordinarily subjective and based entirely on my own personal experience with One Piece. I don't think it's possible to come that with an objective victor in this debate, so I'm not really going to try. Which means that I will be very keen to hear your thoughts in the comments below after the video. But for now, let's jump into making the case for the pre-time skip era. So right off the bat, the most immediate thing that strikes me about this half of the series is unavoidable nostalgia. The beginning of the series is what charmed me into following it through to the New World era. And a lot of that has to do with the simple promise of adventure. Pre-time skip up until the whole Paramount War saga was about pure exploration and discovering this ever-growing world with every new island really putting into perspective just how small our protagonists really are. Which is a fantastic thing because this is their huge period of growth. And as such, we spend most major arcs in this era with one or multiple Straw Hat members who aren't Luffy as the emotional center of the action. So that's obviously true for sagas like East Blue, but even more so than that, I'd like to highlight the Water Seven saga which masterfully weave the stories of three Straw Hats being Robin, Usopp and Frankie, all into one gigantic and bold piece of storytelling. And yes, there are arcs like Skype here or the later pre-time skip arcs leading up to the Paramount War that don't have this direct connection. But for the most part, these pre-time skip arcs are heavily focused on our central characters, which is a great achievement considering everything else Oda needed to include in terms of world building to make one piece what it went on to become. By which I mean this is our introduction to the grand line. The core locational concept of one piece, which was able to consistently surprise and amaze after coming from the realm of East Blue where everything was made quite purposely regular and simplistic. It was like being on a magical adventure where absolutely anything could happen. You know, you could turn a corner and there would be a giant, a princess in need or even a man on stilts. There was no predicting what could happen next. And not only that, there were a lot of situations and hints that raised huge questions about this world and the people in it. Many of which would not be answered in this half of the series, but rather left lingering to entice us to think about the world even more. And all of this was happening to characters who were wildly unprepared to deal with the situations presented to them, but through various hardships, managed to break through them for the sake of their dreams. As for negative aspects of this era, I feel like most of them stem from the advantage of knowing where the story takes us in the future. As a result, a lot of the pre-timescape era, especially the first half or so can seem very small in scale with much less captivating villains to take command of their respective arcs. Now, to be clear, these villains would have been serviceable at the time, but in retrospect, they generally lack the depth of their post-timescape counterparts. And this obviously doesn't apply to all villains because we receive some of the greatest antagonistic forces in the series, like Arlong and Crocodile, but you do also get a lot more instances of less than fantastic villains like, say, Don Creek. And the other thing I'd argue that the pre-timescape era suffers from is the art style. When first getting into the series, one piece can be quite an adjustment because it's very stylistically goofy and a lot of artistic choices can take a while to settle into. A primary example of which is early Usopp. This is a character design that just plain turns many people away from the series. And at times it can be more of a burden than an asset. Of course, that investment in Usopp does eventually pay off and he becomes a frankly glorious character, but it is jarring, as are a lot of other characters and elements of this world. So it does require a fair bit of settling in time, which you would not have to deal with in the post-timescape era because you would, presumably, already be settled in by then. Now, the crowning period of the pre-timescape era is most certainly its climax with the Paramount Wars saga, which masterfully brought everything we knew about this world and threw it together in one of the greatest battles ever portrayed in fiction. I maintain that there was never a better time to be reading one piece weekly than during the Marine for Dark specifically. It was a spectacular Infinity War endgame style ending to everything we'd built over the first decade or so and makes the pre-timescape era a very satisfying piece of story to experience all on its own. A magical journey from simple beginnings, featuring incremental growth of small characters with big dreams in a world constantly threatening to engulf them. It's captivating, charming, and even on its own, one of the greatest journeys ever put to page. So how does the post-timescape era compare? Well, it starts by taking everything previously built and expands on it like crazy, be it the world, the characters, or even the greater mysteries. And as a result of this expansion, the world and the story grew incredibly complex, paving the way for larger arcs, significantly more characters, and grander settings for our protagonists to explore and encounter. And speaking of the setting specifically, almost all of my favorite islands in the series have come from the New World era. Locations like the underwater paradise of Fishman Island or the civilization of Zoe on the back of a giant elephant are able to very effectively capture the pre-timescape sense of wonder and adventure, only even better with much more detail and well-planned-out stories to play out within their boundaries. But of course, all of this does come at a cost, because longer arcs with grander settings mean that we as an audience do a lot less traveling post-timescape. Once we land on an island, we could be there for around 30 chapters, at the very, very least, or we could be there for almost 100 chapters, the latter of which is a more common outcome. And I'd like to point the finger particularly at the Dress-Rosa arc, which spanned 102 chapters all on its own and took more than two years to publish in real time. And this can very unfortunately lead to a fatigue effect in these sorts of arcs that can be quite difficult to overcome reading or watching from week to week. But it is these long-form arcs that also allowed this era to feature a heavily extended cast of characters, all just as wonderfully written and drawn as our main cast. So for example, getting to know all of the members of the worst generation has been one of the most exciting experiences I've ever had with fiction. The trade-off, of course, is that we get less time to really focus on the straw hats. But in most cases, that's pretty fine because we're spending time expanding this extraordinarily large world and loving every panel of it. The New World era also provides us with arguably stronger villains, many of whom I could only dream of encountering in the pre-times skip era. Figures such as Dolph Lamingo, Big Mom, or Kaido are being directly challenged in this later portion of the story. And finally being able to explore them, their crews and their territories has been an unimaginable pleasure. Although the downside to this may be that by finally exploring these figures, we're lifting a shroud of mystery that existed within the pre-times skip era. During that half of the series, characters like Dolph Lamingo were captivating because they appeared so rarely. And in fact, Big Mom and Kaido were only ever mentioned by name with one heavily inaccurate silhouette each. They were lurking figures that played on our imaginations and really getting into them in the New World does demystify that somewhat, which is both a good and a bad thing. Another thing that potentially plagues the New World is the advent of Haki, to be honest. And yes, it was present in the pre-times skip era, but it wasn't given any real focus until the very end of it. In the New World, Haki is a staple of combat and it does have a lot of very interesting uses such as Karakuri's Future Sight, but there are also many situations where it's difficult to look at a fight and not just have it be about whose Haki is better. I mean, to even stand up to Luffy or Zoro when opponent needs to have Haki. In the case of Luffy, a serious opponent needs to have Conqueror's Haki in particular. And it really does make me miss the old style of purely scissors paper rock matchups that you would get in the pre-times skip era. Haki is essentially the closest one pieces come to developing a dangerous power system like Ki, Ryutsu or Chakra. And it does still worry me too this day because it's become so essential to New World combat. However, Oda has to, his credit thus far, been able to keep it quite interesting. And one final negative I'd like to state about the post-times skip era is that this portion of the story has very much seen the decline of Nami and Robin as characters. These two were centerpieces of entire sagas in the pre-times skip days and in the modern times, they don't even get individual fights anymore. I mean, Nami's last one on one encounter was during the Enis Lobby arc against Califer and Robbins was even further back against Yama in Skypeer. I'll say that one again, Skypeer. You know, around 700 chapters ago now, there is no reason why they should not be given the same combative focus as the rest of the crew and in fact, the same focus that they once actually commanded. If a musician and a shipwright can fight regularly, then so can a navigator and an archeologist, especially considering they both have such exceptional power. But for whatever reason, our two female straw hats have been kind of left in the dust for this era and that is a big negative. But in general, what post-times skip delivers is fantastic expansion, exploration and depth of the world, as well as the characters that were established pre-times skip. In order to accomplish this, it answers a lot of the questions that were presented to us pre-times skip and is leaving us with fewer and fewer mysteries to contemplate, but that's okay because we are treated to very satisfactory characters and ideas as a result. And now we come down to it. How do we directly compare the errors? Well, one broad method of thinking about it is to equate pre-times skip one piece to the idea of magic and post-times skip to the idea of science. There is something instantly fascinating and curious about magic and at the same time, there's great satisfaction and intrigue to be gained from science. One of them evokes a more childlike response to wonder while the other delivers on those childhood promises and not only that, but still continues to hypothesize and explore further. It's a very difficult decision for me to come out with a victor here because one piece is a series I've been following for far too long now and I've enjoyed both halves of the series for very different reasons, as well as many of the same reasons, actually. I mean, we've spent a lot of this video talking about the differences between the two but in these discussions, I don't think anybody really takes the time to highlight just how similar they are. For example, Luffy in chapter 900 and whatever is still just as captivating to follow as the Luffy we encountered in chapter one, which is incredible considering the sheer amount of time we've spent with him. The world is just as exciting, the enemies are just as overwhelming and the dreams that began this journey whilst edging ever closer to completion are still far away in the distance, maintaining that sense of romantic adventure. I mean, after all, they're both one piece, two parts of the same story. But I'm not going to be that guy who makes you sit through all of this just to give the verdict of a tie. No, no, no, no. There will be a victor here today and in all honesty, it was a tough call but I have to award this bout to the pre-timeskip era. It's a lot simpler and in many ways not quite as hype as the post-timeskip series but it's such an exceptionally solid piece of storytelling that takes us from humble nothingness to the beginnings of acting on a global stage, introducing this wonderful world with these brilliantly written core characters. And yes, it being a fully rounded story saga does help as does general nostalgia, but this is not to say that in the future post-timeskip will not come out on top. There is an awful lot of story left to tell here enough that the new world era of one piece could come to completely dwarf the first portion of the series. I'd say it's certainly getting there and I consider the two pretty damn equal right now. And as always, that leaves me incredibly excited for what's to come in the future. But that pretty much does it for my pre-timeskip versus post-timeskip discussion. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general then please do consider donating to the Grand Line Review Patreon because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. Also do check out my Teespring store if you're interested in shirts, hoodies and other miscellaneous items with the proceeds going directly to support the channel as well. And if you'd like to join the fun at any time then please do head over to my Discord server where a wide array of shenanigan retakes place on a daily basis. And finally, please do comment with your thoughts on pre-timeskip versus post-timeskip. This has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time. Plus in the pre-timeskip era, Robin had a cowboy hat. In the post-timeskip era, she does not. Do better post-timeskip, do better.