So the MCQ exam is over and I think I should pass the exam. It may not be a fantastic result but hey, this is not the determining one so 50% will do it for me too.
I spent the entire afternoon catching up on One Piece (I swear I had only meant to watch 2 episodes..) But One Piece IS that addictive. Sure, some of the episodes are fairly boring and I hate it when fillers come in the midst of exciting episodes. Nevertheless, those make up probably less than 5% of the entire series (565 episodes to date!!!) and I am still all for it - hook, line, sinker. I dread the day where I manage to catch up to the entire series (already at 498..) and then the next episode will be a excruciating one week wait.
Why do I love One Piece, you may ask. It's the longest darnest thing ever - manga in 1997 and anime in 1999. I focus on the anime, so it's been.. 13 years. And running! Pretty amazing results I should say. The magnetism in One Piece is still very present in Japan, where any gift shop will invariably include Luffy/Chopper/Ace. Now I very much regret not getting any Ace keychains after watching his arc :(
I love One Piece for it is the singular one anime to have me laughing and crying all within one episode. One anime episode is less than 20 min after the commercial breaks and all - so it's a highly tough job and yet each episode is packed with all sorts of emotions, of which credit must of course go to the scriptwriter and artist, Oda sensei, who has captured countless fans with his artwork. Luffy & crew are fantastic work done and coupled with the story arcs, it is impossible not to love this anime. Each of the crew has a story of their own and none of these stories had been neglected, though Luffy as the main protagonist gets more than his fair share.
Kudos much to Oda sensei who has also managed to bring characters back even though they are a few hundred episodes away. The few antagonists from the previous story arcs had all reappeared in the arc which I had just finished not too long ago, all with their own agenda yet it blends into the story as if it is the most natural thing in the world. This fantastic scripting constantly amazes me.
The emotions in the characters also got me. It is hard not to laugh with them when they laugh and cry (buckets, I might add) when they cry. Losing Merry was an episode still etched in my mind and I thought that was one of the most awesome things Oda sensei has achieved - whole crew (and probably all the audience) crying over the loss of a ship. Luffy losing Ace was another and I was highly depressed after that. :/ But their hilarious childhood scenes made me gawk like an idiot and those episodes were back to back - imagine how stupid I might have looked.
The story arcs themselves also had impressed me. Some were light and silly, some were extremely heartwarming while others are dark. It is actually not an anime suited for kids as I have realised. I like the anime for not having clear distinctions between black and white. After all, some parts of the world's always a shade of grey, no?
I love 麦わらの海賊.
In short, you need to watch One Piece. Full stop. :)
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