It's not Yoko Kanno or Joe Hisaishi, but OP anime has excellent bgm. The classical John Williams-ish stuff they use for the epic and the sentimental moments is perfect for one piece, and the bad guy themes are great too, very creepy and scary. And there's a lot of diversity too. Sanji has jazzy themes, Zoro has asian themes, and there were even some arabian-sounding themes for the Alabasta arc. They also have some great tunes that capture the weird ,quirky and silly moments of the manga, something that isn't easy to do. Yea, it gets repetitive after a while, but that's just the nature of the beast for a tv show this lengthy. They can't write new music every 10 episodes. American cartoon soundtracks have have that much range… Not even really great ones like JLU.
Anyways, on the actual topic... AHEM
I didn't like the rainbow misty at all either. I mean, the premise was decent, I could actually see Oda making something cool out of it, but the straw hats were acting like idiots. Nami was way too bitchy, and Zoro, Chopper and Sanji were completely useless. You know what was REALLY frustrating? Why the hell didn't Zoro and Sanji try to pull the plug on the electricity guy? I mean, it was right there, in plain sight! Sanji could have simply jump over the robot and taken out the guys behind him, who were pumping him energy. And Zoro could've simply cut the cord instead of trying to cut freaking electricity. :wassat:
I actually thought the Nico in the third special was cute, and I don't see why it's particularly out of character for her. She had a rough childhood, and now that she's with the straw hats, she's trying to have some fun for the first time in her life. I could see her embarrassing herself in certain situations. And there's nothing wrong with overacting on stage. How many of you in here are good stage actors?
On the actual manga stuff... I loved how Zoro was acting silly during skypiea. He definitely tries too hard to maintain his manly image, and the tarzan yell made perfect sense for him. Remember the stuff in little garden where he was trying to die in a good pose, and even chops his legs off to fight like the black knight from monty phyton? People seem to think that was just Zoro being cool and bad-ass, but I thought it was hilarious.
Don't have a problem with Sanji pulling a gun on ms. all-sunday. Yea, he's girl-crazy, but his crew mates come first. And sure the straw hats have guns. They're pirates. It'd be silly for them not to have some weapons in the ship to defend themselves.
Ya know what was a serious WTF manga moment for me, though? Usopp falling for Jabura's stupid trick. Okay, I get that Jabura's a trickster. I even think it's cool. But this is freaking Usopp here. The king of liars. I don't see him ever believing such a stupid and obvious lie. I wish I could know what Oda was going for there.