One Piece takes place in an alternate world where pirates rule the seas and anything can happen. Gold Roger was the Pirate King who had fame, fortune, and power. But when he was captured he was sentenced to be executed. On the day he was executed he revealed his One Piece treasure is hidden somewhere at The Grand Line.
This made people set sail and try to hunt down the One Piece treasure. Many have failed and never found the location of it. But over the years it's drawn attention and formations on hundreds of Pirate groups who seek the title of Pirate King. The whole world has entered the Golden Era of Pirates.
On one island lived a boy named Luffy, who is friends with a pirate named Captain Shanks. He looks up to Shanks as a hero. And would do anything to be part of his crew. But he was too young to become a pirate or part of any crew. One day Luffy encountered the Devil Fruit. He ate it and obtain the power the fruit hold. It gave him the ability to stretch with a body made of rubber. But once you eat the Devil's Fruit, you're cursed with the powers forever. And can never be able to swim again. After almost drowning in the water, his friend Shanks saved his life. As Shanks departs with his crew, he gave Luffy his prized straw hat. He told him to keep it with him, until they meet again. While Luffy was left feeling sad but honored at the same time. And his new destiny in life, will be to start up his own pirate crew, go to the Grand Line, find the One Piece treasure, to become the new Pirate King.
A few years later, Luffy starts his quest to find him some friends for his pirate crew. Throughout the series, he'll find new lands, new allies, treasure, danger, and plenty of villains to face off. But with some faith and the powers of the Devil's Fruit. Luffy will sure to succeed his goal in becoming the Greatest Pirate that ever lived.
Comic made back in the late 90s, and the anime series has been around since the earlier days of SpongeBob. I first heard of it when it came on the FoxBox back in late 2004. I wasn't entirely into many anime back then. And I never saw the English Dub of the series, as I found it to be an OK series. After reading on the internet that the dub is heavily edited and nothing like the original. I grew interest on how good it is. I read the first volume of the Manga series. And liked how the story was going.
Wasn't until January 2007, when I finally start to check out the Anime. Only I viewed the episodes that are subtitled, uncut, and uncensored. And I grew to love it. The animation is very well done, it's funny, it's action packed, and it's dramatic sometimes. I don't even consider it a kid's cartoon, when it's more aimed to teenagers. But with an interesting cast of characters, and over a hundred secondary/miscellaneous characters. One Piece is indeed a great Anime next to Case Closed, Naurto, & other ongoing series.
The reason why it's very underrated was because of 4Kids being the first company to distribute the anime. Which they edited and censored a lot. And many flaws in the dubbing. Such as voices that don't suit the characters' personalities. Too many pirate accents and catch-phrases that get old instantly. All the violence, blood, alchol, drugs, and nudity were altered and removed. All the weapons were altered to look harmless. 4Kids spent more time edditting than spending time on the scripts. Plus a lot of filler and small episodes were removed. And most of them were too important to take out in the series.
The good thing is 4kids no longer owns rights to One Piece. I knew they would drop it, because they did a poor job in introducing the series to English speaking countries.
With over 300 episodes, I can tell that One Piece is really big in Japan. I've seen all the current episodes. And can't get enough of it.
So those who like their Anime uncut, should highly recommend seeing One Piece uncut by fan subs or Funimation's release on the series.
