One Piece Thread

[Lucavi]

I love One Piece and all, but I just can't see how it sells something like 15 times more than Naruto. They're both great series, but I can't see one being so damned farther than the other in terms of appeal and sales. Those one piece numbers are simply absurd.

[Kaylia]

One Piece targets a larger demographics than Naruto, that's all there is to it.

[Correction]

It's built to appeal to everyone. Naruto has a lot of angst and that's harder to sell to everyone.

[Zeb]

Blame it on Sasuke.

[Correction]

Blame it on Sasuke.

I'm very tempted to, but it's got more to do with story structure and character development than anything else. It's very, very frustrating to watch how a large part of the Naruto cast fights, fails, fights, fails, then has to be saved by one of 3-4 consistently powerful cast members. Bleach does this a ton, as well. With One Piece there is more closure with 'FUCK YEAH HE PUNCHED/KICKED/SWORDED/BLUFFED THE SHIT OUT OF THAT OBSTACLE/PIRATE/CP9 MEMBER/MARINE.' When you root for someone to win in OP, they win. When you root for the underdog in Naruto, it doesn't turn out so well. Naruto's a great manga (especially over the last year), but the appeal is much narrower and I suspect that's reflected in the sales.

Angst!

[Kaylia]

I think it's just how seriously the story take itself. One Piece always stayed true to the kid's adventure feeling it offered us, where most shonen, while proposing mature themes, remain relatively shallow.

[Correction]

I don't know that OP is a deeper experience than Naruto. Naruto himself is a very well-developed character moving from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, and it works because you actually see his personality mature via a series of father figures. The problem is he's the only one who's been developed that way. Everyone else has their sympathy moments rolled into flashbacks mid-battle and it's distracting and not as engaging. OP's broad cast orbiting Luffy is much, much better utilized than the gang of losers Naruto grew up with, however.

[Eaglestrike]

I don't know that OP is a deeper experience than Naruto. Naruto himself is a very well-developed character moving from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, and it works because you actually see his personality mature via a series of father figures. The problem is he's the only one who's been developed that way. Everyone else has their sympathy moments rolled into flashbacks mid-battle and it's distracting and not as engaging. OP's broad cast orbiting Luffy is much, much better utilized than the gang of losers Naruto grew up with, however.

I mostly agree with this. You either need to have Naruto's back or it's just some shonen battles in Naruto. In OP you only need to get behind one of the main crew members and you're invested in the story. And considering how different they are (many of them had no intention of ever becoming a pirate, in Naruto everyone is just following the family plans and being a ninja) it appeals to a much, much larger group of people. Not to mention Nami and Robin are pretty great, and Sakura teeters between useless and pretty pro and gets shit for page time regardless. Appealing to the female-loving fans of manga/anime (which is HUUUGGGGEEEEEEEEE considering how many anime have a mostly female cast lol) greatly helps numbers.

And I think Nami's tits alone are bigger than all of Naruto's females combined.

[Vaspinne]

And I think Nami's tits alone are bigger than all of Naruto's females combined.

It also really helps that Oda has things like random Luffy-Nami bondage (ala 2 chapters ago), or super bouncy physics (ala the latest preview for the new Musou game) lol.

But I totally agree. In Naruto, Naruto is really well developed. I really enjoy him as a protagonist. But outside of him, there's maybe Sasuke and to much lesser extents, Shikamaru and Jiraiya who have had a good amount of time spent on developing them as characters.

One Piece on the other hand, the entire crew has individual back stories, individual goals they want, and individual moments of development. Add to that them being driven and coming together to help Luffy, and all the group development and failures and successes as a crew, the main group of protagonists in One Piece are just better done overall. Add to that the ridiculously large (and still expanding) world, with many characters that have surprisingly good development themselves, and you have a story that is very well built

[Apelila]

Going to copy/paste what I posted in the Bleach thread because it applies to OP v Naruto as well as Fairy Tale V Bleach-

It's easy to follow and there are titties/cute animals everywhere. The fact that its not up-its-own-ass selfimportant is a huge bonus

+ everything said above me

[Kaylia]

I don't know that OP is a deeper experience than Naruto. Naruto himself is a very well-developed character moving from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, and it works because you actually see his personality mature via a series of father figures. The problem is he's the only one who's been developed that way. Everyone else has their sympathy moments rolled into flashbacks mid-battle and it's distracting and not as engaging. OP's broad cast orbiting Luffy is much, much better utilized than the gang of losers Naruto grew up with, however.

I didn't use the term "deeper" for a reason, I don't think it is. One Piece simply embraces it's simplicity and tell a story that reach people more efficiently than most shonen. It doesn't put the emphasis on battles or technicalities the way Naruto does (if you click on Naruto threads, all you see is people arguing how chakra works or why this character can/cannot do that). It's just nonstop adventure.

By putting the emphasis on battles, powers level, abilities, most shonen probably lose a chunk of their audiences who simply do not give a single fuck about the logic behind everyone's power and other made up rules.

[Vaspinne]

I don't think Dragonball helped in that matter either. Being the most popular manga ever for the longest time (until One Piece recently overtook it), that entire series is power levels and being stronger than the next person and techniques and blah blah. I think other battle mangas suffer from that "have to scale everyone" mentality that DB created.

[Eaglestrike]

I think OP handles power levels rather well with the diverse powers of everyone and then putting in an "obvious" power level system via bounties, then showing how they're nothing close to absolute power rankings at all, lol.

[Vandole]

http://www.memecenter.com/uploaded/9...e0ba58852b.jpg

[Apelila]

Holy shit rant:
Another problem with "Dragon ball power levels" is that a story is meant to progress, and characters are supposed to improve over time; DBZ made the power level increase exponentially instead of on a scale and reached the point where they jumped a shark by going SSJ2/3/4. Look at the Frieza arc: "I'm only using 10% of my TRUE POWER".
Like Kaylia said with Naruto - putting a bunch of rules down for how powers work means you have to keep up with those rules. Then you have to give exposition time to explain that the fuck is going on,(You activated my trap card!), ignore it all together (See: Why can everyone fly in Bleach now?) or retcon/ignore earlier established rules. That third option can be make/break, usually its used to subtley remove a rule of the series (FF6 when the cast gets Magic through use of the Espers) other times it just makes for a stupid villain (Lots)

One piece has to give an explanation from time to time, but its usually done while the fighting is going on while the characters are trying to figure out what the fruit's ability is or while the villain is gloating about how he's going to kick an ass or 13. The only specific time I can think Luffy gave a "This is how I'm going to kick your ass" was the introduction of Gear 2nd, and he didn't win that fight single handed. The villains do it a bit, but see previous. Just a standard gloating trope. "Oh your fucked now because I can do this".

The simplicity of the story belies the depth of the story too. I wouldn't say the story is deep in meaning, but definitively in content. I love that the story doesn't try to establish deeper meaning, and fails when it does (See all the bitching about the fishman island arc. We get it, slavery/hate bad) Haki was shown very early, but not explained until years later. There are many loose plot threads right now that have potential. I keep reading every week for "what next". I've gotten to love the art style, and the humor. Even when the story feels plodding to me it's still entertaining.

</rant off>

Sorry, sometimes I just start typing and have to force myself to stop.

[Eaglestrike]

The funny thing about OP and Naruto based off of Vandole's picture there is that the two stories are setup to be opposite of that. One Piece is a story about a crew heading DOWN ONE LINE and yet it's an ENDLESSLY EXPANDING UNIVERSE while Naruto is supposed to be a big open world and it's a linear storyline.

[Vaspinne]

Sorry, sometimes I just start typing and have to force myself to stop.

This happens to me a lot, lol. I'll get half-way through my post and be like "...why the fuck am I doing this again?" and 99/100 times will stop right then and there and never actually post.

[Apelila]

Got to the end of the last paragraph and I went "well, I made good points but fuck, why am I ranting?" and decided it was time to stop. I need an IRL nerd friend

[Kaylia]

Like Kaylia said with Naruto - putting a bunch of rules down for how powers work means you have to keep up with those rules. Then you have to give exposition time to explain that the fuck is going on,(You activated my trap card!), ignore it all together (See: Why can everyone fly in Bleach now?) or retcon/ignore earlier established rules. That third option can be make/break, usually its used to subtley remove a rule of the series (FF6 when the cast gets Magic through use of the Espers) other times it just makes for a stupid villain (Lots)

Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about the difficulty of understanding these "rules". It's part of the problems for sure, but I don't think it's the most pressing one. What matter is that explaining these "technicalities" (and showing them off in battle) takes the focus away from more meaningful plot and character developments, and ultimately, that's what most people want to see.

Obviously, many readers still love long and complex battles, but at the same time, it's most likely where the wider appeals is lost.


A poor use of the setting (ex: bleach) is definitively harmful, but I don't think it's really an issue in Naruto.

[Apelila]

That's exactly what I meant and what started me, there are cases in manga where exposition takes so much away from a battle, but is necessary for the battle any sense in the established universe/with the established character. I was just using Naruto as you brought it up, not that it's overly guilty of doing so. There are many more egregious examples to chose from from other sources. (Hi Bleach, all pokemon rip off)