[COLUMN] Uh Oh, One Piece Finally Got Me | by Marty Sliva (Patreon)

Why didn’t any of you tell me that One Piece is pretty much just one big sprawling JRPG? Maybe that would’ve convinced me to start watching it several decades ago as opposed to waiting until last month to finally embark on the nearly-1200 episodes journey.

But thanks to equal parts love of the Netflix live action adaptation, plus ongoing recommendations from pals, I once again hit play on the first episode of the anime, and this time it finally stuck. And over the past five or six weeks, I’ve made my way up through 150 episodes with no sign of slowing down. Because like the very best JRPGs, once an adventure like this has its hooks in me, I can’t stop until I’ve seen it through.

Until I caught the live action series, I always had a skewed view of what One Piece actually was. It debuted in the US in 2004, which was a few years past my initial Toonami-fueled tryst with anime, and a few decades before the current Pandemic-fueled reignition of my love affair with the medium. And because of its poppy theme song and placement as a Saturday morning cartoon, I always kind of assumed that it was a pirate show aimed at kids.

That assumption quickly went out the window once I realized that the show features the tragic loss of loved ones, musings on revolution and occupation, heart-breaking origin stories, plenty of cussin’, and as much swashbuckling murder as you could ever ask for…while also being a pirate show that kids can enjoy.

While I really enjoyed the first season of Netflix’s One Piece back in 2023, it was this second run that really unlocked something in me. Maybe it was the amazing introduction of best boy Chopper, maybe it was the fantastic casting inside (and outside) the Straw Hat found family, or maybe it was the promise of the Alabasta civil war on the horizon. But whatever the case may be, I wrapped up season two of the Netflix adaptation near the end of March, decided to give the anime another chance, and now I’m now over 150 episodes in, which is roughly 8% of the current run.

And holy moly, am I glad I did this, because it fucking rules. The found family aboard the Going Merry is immediately one of my favorites in all of anime, and I’ve loved getting to know some of the newer members along the way like Chopper and Nico. The sense of adventure is palpable as the Straw Hats travel from island to island, solving trouble just as quickly as they find it. And the weird and wild critters they come across – from the Super Sonic Duck Squadron, to Bananagators, to some Kung-Fu Dugongs – are all perfect and I hope they pop back into the adventure sporadically down the road.

All this is to say, as I mentioned at the top, the thing One Piece reminds me most of is a big, meaty JRPG. The East Blue bleeding into the Grand Line feels like a sprawling world map that I’ve only seen a fraction of so far. I dig how the party splits up when they hit a new location like Loguetown or Alabasta, with each member going on their own little side quest. I love how new party members filter in and out – some seemingly here for the long haul, and others just temporarily aligning their goals with those of the Straw Hats.

Throughout the past month, the game I keep coming back to that reminds me the most of One Piece is Skies of Arcadia, a criminally-underplayed Sega Dreamcast JRPG that got a great GameCube port, but then has sadly been left to collect dust over the past 20+ years. That game also deals with a group of well-meaning pirates who sail the seas/skies in search of adventure, trying to stay one step ahead of the world government all while they help out the citizens of each new land they come across. Both feature a sense of one generation passing the torch to the next, major characters with secret origins, and mythological weapons that expand the scope of the story. Skies of Arcadia rules, Sega should rerelease it for modern hardware, and until then you should all play it by any means necessary, 

Speaking of games, I know I also have several decades of One Piece video games that I haven’t played, ranging from Japan only-GBA titles (including a sick-looking baseball game), a line of musou games developed by the Pokémon Pokopia developers at Omega Force, and bigger adventures like 2023’s One Piece Odyssey. So if anyone has any specific recommendations of games to check out, holler at me.

I’m glad I decided to skip the abridged One Pace playlist, which cuts out a lot of the anime-original filler episodes, because I’ve already found a ton of enjoyment in said filler. Post-Alabasta, the crew each got their own episode dedicated to a personal side quest, which included an excellent Zoro flashback, Usopp putting on a fireworks show, and a great little Chopper+Robin hang. I’m sure that there’ll be some pacing issues down the road that makes me wish the series had taken a hacksaw to the edit, but for now, I’m really glad I decided to fully commit to each and every episode.

As of this posting, there are 233 days left in 2026. And I have currently watched 151 of 1161 episodes, meaning that I have 1010 left. Which means that in order to meet the arbitrary goal of being caught up by the end of the year, I’d have to watch 4.33 episodes per day…which I am literally just now realizing isn’t actually correct, because I didn’t account for the fact that new episodes will be continuing to air throughout the year.

Regardless of the accuracy of my bar napkin math, the point is that I still have a hell of a lot of One Piece left to watch, which is a good thing because I’m still enjoying the ride. Sure, I feel a bit bad about the fact that I’m probably going to be neglecting the rest of my anime backlog throughout this project, but given the scope of this undertaking, that’s something I’m willing to live with. 

On the bright side, I’ll be able to revisit arcs I’ve already experienced in various forms throughout the near future. There’s the third season of Netflix’s live action adaptation, which is set to debut next year and center on the aforementioned Alabasta arc. Then we have The One Piece, a new animated take on the story from Wit Studio that’s going to be condensing the first 50 or so issues of the manga into a single seven-episode season. But most importantly there’s the One Piece Grand Pirate stunt show at Universal Studios, which uses the bones of the A+ Waterworld attraction to put on a One Piece performance.

Because when you think about it, what better way to show our support for Waterworld Week 2026 than by watching 1200 episodes of an anime set in a world filled with water?