@robbybedfart:
Stuff goes on tangents all the time here. Its fine as long as its not insanely off topic.
For instance, if we all began talking about Bubble Bobble on the NES and wishing people happy Birthday and talking about Sonic the Hedgehog sucked… well, it'd be the Naruto thread. And that would warrant a new topic.
But this is related and stemmed from the topic at hand.
Feel free to join the discussion.
Oh…how Sonic the Hedgehog has sucked over the past decade...lol
Anyway, back on the discussion at hand, both manga and anime are different ways to experience One Piece. The manga is the original way to experience the story in the way Oda wants you to experience it, Oda being of course the actual creator of the world and the one who draws it. Anything on the manga is considered canon, unless it involves a mini side story that normally appear on manga volumes as extras(not including the cover art stories of course).
Watching the anime is the way to experience the actual manga in color, sound, and "life" (animated). Sadly, since most of this process is out of a contract, the actual creator doesn't have complete control over it, even though he should still own most of the franchise. The reason why anime is not considered canon at all its because the one who makes the anime is NOT Oda, but a group of animators in Toei Animation. Since the animation is not made entirely in the way its creator wants you to experience it, it cannot be considered canon unless it's his/her actual work. This of course can only be ignored if the creator says otherwise (the scene in the anime where Usopp found his goggles on Loguetown, but just that scene, not what happened before or after it, this was told in the SBS corner of one of the first manga volumes of One Piece). For that you could say that something not in the manga which its creator originally intended it to be there but couldn't be for X reason, appears on the anime instead, making it the only bit of canon an anime can have. But it can still far for non-canon for the fact that it still didn't end up on the original creation. Sure, some moments are more enjoyable in the anime than the manga, but when you think of the detail, the anime doesn't beat all the detail Oda has given to its backgrounds and character designs that the anime seems to miss.
Everyone has their opinions on what they prefer more. Some people prefer the anime than the manga, some people prefer the manga. At the same time, there are people who love both in their own way. In the end there are things which are considered facts and opinions, and with this I will end this quite long post of mine...
Opinion: I prefer/like the anime more. //Correct, its your opinion
Fact: The anime is better. //Wrong. Saying something is better is stating a fact. If you have had experience watching other animes you should know by now that the One Piece anime is not even close to being an actual high quality anime series. Not only this but the fact that making an anime based on a manga is far easier than making an anime from the ground up, since the manga itself is partially half of the storyboard for the anime itself. If you've read and observed the manga, instead of just reading and watching, the detail given to both characters and backgrounds are simply beautiful compered to other mangas who just have 5 komas (blocks/squares dunno how its called :/) per page with all white backgrounds or just lines, and its just sad how the anime doesn't put an effort on this at all, and at moments just put an image on the screen and shake it instead of actually animating it. Hell, I can find flash animated shorts that last 5 minutes that have far more animation than what 5 recent episodes of One Piece have to offer. What I am stating here is not an opinion but a fact that can be seen through experience of observing.
In the end, my opinion on this is that I prefer the manga because it is the best way to experience One Piece for me, the way its creator wants me to experience it, and I think it is best to do it in this way than watching the anime inspired by it. I will admit that I began reading the manga quite recently, and I began watching the anime first and I even preferred it over the manga, but those were the times when I was an asshole and thought that it would be tiring to read a comic(just like a friend of mine right now who I'm trying to convince to read the manga before I spoil him something accidentally). If you prefer aniem over the manga I have nothing against it, but if at some moment you begin to whine that it's having horrible pacing and greatly noticeable animation flaws, I will personally give you the link to begin reading the manga. (yes, I will magically appear in front of your house/apartment and when you open the door I'll give you a "link").