One Piece is a freak show. With over 750 episodes aired so far, it's not going to be ending anytime soon.
So One Piece is a battle shounen anime, which follows the adventures of one Monkey D. Luffy, who aspires to be the King of the Pirates. He is the captain of the Strawhat Pirates, a crew consisting of both males and females, who all play an important role that helps keep the crew going.
Luffy is our typical, dumb shounen hero, who is a glutton, grins a lot, and is happy-go-lucky. The rest of the Strawhat Pirates all have unique personalities, and you're likely to find a favourite among them. Although, some of them can be annoying sometimes.
The art style is something you'll either love or hate. It can be either appealing or unappealing to look at. In my case, I don't have a problem with it, and that there are worse-looking anime than One Piece. It's quite cartoony, and has a distinguishing look to it. The designs of the Strawhat Pirates look fine. But it has some of the ugliest-looking supporting characters you will find in an anime.
The animation is ass. Produced by the infamous Toei Animation, the animation is average and just looks outdated compared to other long-running anime that aired (or is airing) around the same time. It's just disappointing and I know it could look better if another studio had did it, or if Toei put more budget into it like in the films. Along with this, the fights (which are mindless) just look unimpressive and are unexciting compared to the fights in other battle shounen anime (like Naruto and Bleach), and it also uses a lot of stills. Barely any of the fights are memorable, nor have much rewatch value, and the choreography for the fights are just lame. This isn't a show you want to watch for the fights.
The music is a mixed bag. It's upbeat most of the times, which goes well with the theme of the show. The first opening sounds amazing, and made me revisit the show frequently early on, but other openings are just painful to listen to. The main characters have their own theme music, which I always liked the idea of in anime in general, and they fit with the characters. The voice acting in both the sub and dub are great. I personally prefer the dub.
The pacing is fine from episodes 2 to 301 (episode 1 was slow-paced), but it becomes indefinitely slow-paced from episode 302 onwards. And the filler episodes are surprisingly decent, for the most part. Though, in latter episodes, there are almost no filler episodes to speak of, which results in snail-pacing for the canon episodes.
There are some things that annoyed me about this show. There is a lot of crying in it, from both main and supporting characters. Not only that, but they make these ugly, exaggerated expressions on their faces when they cry. It's probably a staple of the show, but it feels like they went way overboard with the tears, and it gets irritating the more you watch it and hear them wailing. Another thing is the lack of deaths. Basically, for the most part, nobody dies in this show (outside of flashbacks). Like nobody. This gets noticeable the more you watch it, and it kind of ruins the suspense. Like I wasn't expecting any characters to die within the first 100 episodes or anything, but just damn, it takes a long-ass time for the first actual death to take place in the show (we're talking about hundreds of episodes). What also irks me are the moments where the show makes it look like somebody has died, but later on you find out that they didn't. I also don't like the humour; it's just childish and involves slapstick and retorting. In other words, it's mostly unfunny, at least to me. There are some jokes here and there that made me crack a smile, but that's it. And I just don't like the general tone of the series. You often see these minor, nameless characters (usually from the Marines) shout whatever is going on in front of them in a silly way in serious moments, and it's pretty annoying.
Overall, the main characters are the strongest aspect of the anime, and is the biggest reason why I try to continue to watch the anime. I admit it's fun to see the Strawhat crew's adventures. It's a pretty silly show, not taking itself seriously at all. However, the abundance of melodrama might be a turn-off for some people. The arcs are also formulaic for the most part, so it gets repetitive too. If you have a lot of time on your hands, and like adventure, then consider checking this show out. If you're looking for a battle shounen with spectacular fights, then I suggest you look elsewhere. The fights in One Piece are crap. I myself grew tired of watching this show from the beginning of the Summit War saga, and there's little reason to continue watching this show after the timeskip.
Boku no Hero Academia is a great upcoming shounen anime. Its rare now to see the main character starting from zero to a hero. And this is all what the anime is about. Young boy, Izuku Midoriya having a great interest to become a 'Hero' goes through various hardships and training to join U.A.~ The Hero Academia. This hero of ours lacking the uniqueness called as 'Quirks' has a dream to walk over the footsteps of the 'No. 1 Hero' All Might.
