Hmm…
My first impression Op was really wierd...
I mean, I thought OP was very corny....I mean, who ever heard of a main character made of rubber...And the first episode, where he beats up Alvida...I didnt like the 1st episodes...So, I missed the Morgan Arc. But I read it on MANGA after...
What was your first impressions on One piece?
When I looked at the back of one of my shonen jump mangas and saw the advert for one piece, I wasn't very interested and thought it would be a bit dull. But when I saw few of the art pictures from the recent arks, I was really interested (not spoilt by it because I looked forward to seeing the new crew members). I should say that I became more interested at the art work at first sight it.
After I took the chance to read the manga, I became…. addicted...
official version:
i bought volume 2 of the manga and loved it.
secret true version:
i bought volume 1 and hated it, i thaught that it was a really shitty idea that the main character has the same powers as mr.fantastic, then i saw alvida and threw the manga in the corner.
a few weeks later i went to a comic shop.after i watched in a few comics, i saw op 2 and just looked in it to get a short laugh how bad the manga is but then i saw the part where zoro cut buggy in a few pieces and it immediatly remembered me at frieza who was cut from his own blasts.i closed the manga, bought and read it and loved it from now on.
I first saw it when I stayed in Japan, my host friend and I watched it on TV. I saw 2 episodes where Luffy and Sanji were taking sick Nami up the Drum Rockies. I remember seeing the bad guys and going "what the hell?" and was pretty impressed by Dalton turning into a bull (I thought he was a bad guy too). My Japanese wasn't great, but I did find the scene with Zoro stealing the soldier's jacket funny. I'd heard about OP before, but I didn't know anything other than it being about pirates, and I was surprised by a lot of things (Luffy's rubber body, Ussop's appearance…the little reindeer that appeared at the end!) Since then I'd been really interested in OP, and got around to reading it a few months ago. It's my favourite manga/anime ever now. :lol:
Also, Sanji became my favourite character the moment he saved Luffy and Nami from the avalanche.
Aycee, I got to give it to you that you´ve started a really cool topic I think. :D
Well I was introduced to the anime first and I thought of it as a really weird story that didn´t catch me at the first sight. I was just lucky that it ran on a timeslot when I always let the TV on just to hear it in the background while I did other stuff. Then after a long time one certain episode catched my interest and I wanted to see more. And the more I saw the more I actually began to realize how great this whole story is and ever since I´m very adicted to One Piece what I consider as the best story ever. :D
I've loved OP starting with the very 1st episode! :D
Really? Without a doubt?
Wow!! Maybe you've heard of it from your friends saying that OP is really cool? Or you just loved it….WOW!!
I give respect to you man!!
At first I was like
This is messed up! So messed up that I want more!! :lol:
It was really wierd but, it inspired me to draw even better!
One-Piece has kinda changed me
stretches :rolleyes:
I'd seen a few adverts in Rurouni Kenshin/Naruto or something, and thought, hey, looks pretty funny. Then Usopp's nose freaked me out… Later, I was out on a manga spree in York, my last visit was in "borders" where I promptly purchased Trigun and the first two volumes of One Piece.
When I got home, I skim read it... And thought "OMG~! This is the biggest waste of money since Samurai Deeper Kyo~!" And threw it in a hidden corner for weeks. Later, when I was ill, I couldn't watch TV or go on the internet... I'd read waaay too much of the same mangas, so I picked up OP again, I though "What the f**k, may as well read the damn thing..." And fell in love with Luffy, Buggy and Zoro. I thought it was friggen' hillarious, weird, and just my taste. I didn't get what I missed the first time through. After that I dowloaded some chapters, read ahead for ages, wathced the 4K!ds dub - hated it and went fangirl... Etc. Later, it became my favourite manga when Arlong came in, but that's a totally different story.
^^;;
--Saito
I got hooked to OP from the second episode.
my friend first showed my a picture of Luffy in a magazine. he said 'this is currently a famous anime show in Japan'. and I was thinking 'what?? this ugly drawn character with this big smile?? what so interesting about this story anyway'. he did tell me, but I wasn't interested. then I heard my local television shown this anime. then one day I tried to watch it, since I have nothing to do. it was episode 4. after seen that episode, I was interested, then I watch episode 5 the week after. I was thinking 'hmm… not bad, the story is interesting'. then I borrowed episodes from my friend. then OP is my fav series, but I really got addicted after Robin came :D
When I first picked it up I was turned off by the art style. But I knew how popular it was, so I figured I should give it chance. So I sat down in the bookstore, read it, and have been addicted ever since.
i saw it on a german tv-channel and thought it was pretty stupid.
still, i had to come back to it again time after time.
I actually found the series fun and entertaining to watch ever since I watched the very first subbed ep. This of course lead to watching up to 20 eps in a single day since at the time I borrowed the eps from a friend and didn't know about mirc. Heck, at the time, my fave anime at the time was Naruto yet it took like less than the first 20 eps of One Piece to have me change my mind of what I considered true entertainment.
Really, I'm not the type of person who judges something simply because of one factor and not try to give it a chance, unless the series screams the word cliche and/or simply boring to me with Air TV being an example.
My first encounter with one piece was the april 2003 issue. Its the (only) one that had Luffy on the cover. At first i was like what the fuck?? Because he looked so crazy.
The first ep I saw was Zoro vs the Nyaban bros. IN GREEK!! hahaha.
My first impression?
"Holy crap, that guy's using THREE SWORDS!! COOL!!"
My first impression was: god it's crap, look at how the main character! god, can't believe my bro is watching such a crappy anime. :P'
now here i am and i'm a big fan of OP XD ironic aint it?
My first impression was when i picked up a Shounen Jump around february of 2004. Originally i was getting it to check out Naruto, but i read some of the one piece and i wasn't very interested. Then a friend of mine showed me the same exact part of the series in an episode and thought "hey! That's interesting!". I didn't watch any more of it until i went to college and attended the anime club and we started watching One Piece. Unfortunately i think i was the only person who had any actual interest in the show, since afterwards they dumped it for extra episodes of Full Metal Alchemist.
First impression. "Wow, the art looks kinda crazy. Hmm, but people (at GameFAQs) says this is a good series. Ah, I'll give it a try….. sometime" So, a few months or so of waiting, then I finally decide to watch it. "The first episode doesn't seem that good....." Puts off a little before the next. Etc. Around the Arlong arc/Logue Town arc, I was hooked eventually.
I think I was expecting more than I originally anticipated when I first started watching the show. Either way, it's awesome now.
My friend lended me the first issue of SJ that had OP in it and when I saw it, I was like "…. is this really a manga? It doesn't look like one at all! xD A rubber man, now that IS weird....."
Character first impressions:
Luffy: What an unusual main character x3
Zoro: He looks pretty bad arse! :o No way, he's going to be a main character?! KOO BEENS
Nami: She's pretty cool. A pirate thief~
Usopp: What a neat filler character! Look at his funny nose! :lol:
-From this point on I got interested in OP and saw pictures of the remaining crewmates before they joined :(-
 
The first time i saw something "one piece" connected was in the comic shop of my city. I saw the cover of the first volume and thought: "OH MY GOD! I'll NEVER read something like that!"
….
After 5 months, my dearest friend brought me the first 5 volumes in italian and said: "Try to read it... i think it will taste you"
A said: "ok..."
I red all 5 volumes in few hours and then started to keep it monthly (in Italy) :lol:
Then i started to watch the italian dub, and i was totally catched by the arlong park saga... it was love! :lol:
I saw like half an ep of US-dubbed OP like 3 months ago. IIRC, it had the axe-handed man.
I didn't much care for several aspects. Mostly surrounding Luffy– he looked 9 years old, and I interpreted the Gum-Gum power as more of a "creative licence to do whatever we need to solve the plot problem" than a legitimate power with limits. I also had yet to find my heart softened about the drawing style.
Frankly, I think what drew me back is when I saw some episodes toward the end of the Baratie cycle. I think Sanji makes this sillouquy (sp) about how he's inherited the dream of seeing the All Blue, and it really won me over as "hey, there's potentially good writing here!" It also seemed to show that there was a coherent plot, which I find is the real draw I get in anime I don't find in a lot of American series.
One Piece was hugely popular at a website forum I frequent, especially with the webmaster, who's a friend of mine. His regular praises of the series inspired me to check it out when I got DSL. I downloaded the first few episodes via KaZaA (I hadn't yet learned about Kaizoku Fansubs), wondering hat all the hype was about. I was semi-skeptical, since I'd found recently that alot of popular anime series really didn't deserve the hype, in my eyes. Fullmetal Alchemist, for instance, has a huge following, but ended up being rather mediocre. But, the first episode was good enough to make me watch s'more. As I watched, I found the series incredibly fun to follow, and the characters fun and interesting folks. When I hit the Captain Kuro arc, I was a certified fan of both One Piece, and Captain Kuro.
I must say I fell in love with the character designs from the first episode. I love when characters have all kinds of little touches and cosmetic details that make them instantly recognizable. In fact, I'd venture to say that One Piece has some of the best character designs I've ever seen.
Haha, you guys. The cartoony art and character designs was what made me check out One Piece in the first place. The only thing that bugged me at first was the way the girls were drawn (but then I realized that they at least still had those big, expressive mouths, instead of those dumb little triangles anime girls usually have, and that softened me up a bit.)
Of course I've never been a fan of "anime style" art so er…yeah.
The one who introduced me to OP was a female japanese penpal of my sister. She sent a fanart of Luffy Zoro and Sanji! She said that this is a very famous anime in japan!
Of course it was a fanart so I dont know what to say.
Then I saw For the first time OP in A-club–a hongkong anime magazine...it was in B and W. It showed Luffy only and some screencaptures of the anime...ANd of course my first impression was...hey this looks weird but it seems like a funny anime...luffy looks really stupid and it made me like him....
and some years went by and I just realized that OP is all about pirates...Ive never heard of any pirate-based anime before!!!its usually ninjas and samurais and typical student life in japan.
And since I have this story me and my cousin are making that is also all about pirates...so I really really wanted to know more about OP....then I got addicted to it--thats the present!
the first OP's comic that i got is no.12 … arlong arc
when i read it, i was like "is this guy really a captain ??? but he's sooo stupid ???"
and then i realize that i was wrong about Luffy …. he's not stupid he's totaly an
idiot :D but everything was too late coz i already addicted to OP B)
At first when I looked at it… it caught my attention really really tight.. the next thing I knew, I WAS ONE PIECE CRAZY!! My first impression on Luffy was "That guy is the future pirate king?...... Cool!"
1st impression on one piece:
buy vol 1 and 2 : it sucks! it's wierd and i don't like the hero (btw, i just bought the first japanese vol yesterday, and luffy is definitely very young in this one)
watch eps 1 to 10 : it sucks!
watch eps 10 to 20 : well, it's not THAT good but at least it's watchable
watch eps 20 to 30 : OMGWTF!!!1! the whole baratie arc made me love one piece!
To me, One Piece was, for a long time, an anime I heard of fairly often and saw some pictures of every once in a while. The art looked odd to me. Fortunately I had already fallen in love with other anime and manga styles that didn't look like Pokemon, so it didn't look repulsive. First thought I remember thinking is "Look at the size of their mouths! I can see their gums when they bare their teeth! Weird/cool!" or something to that effect.
Once I finally got the first episode and started watching it, my thoughts went pretty much:
"Ooo, a pink haired boy who isn't a bishounen!"
"Why was he sleeping in a barrel?"
"Haha I'm going to be like Alvida someday" (note: that's "I'm gonna be", not exactly "I want to be")
Luffy stretches for the first time "Ok, that's it, stupid overdone visual gag. Not gonna watch another episode"
explanation of stretching ability "Hold on… "
episode ends "Well... I suppose it's kinda cool. Lemme get another episode... I'll decide after I've seen a bit more..."
I liked it almost from the start, and once I started reading the manga, my love was truly awakened.
Shonen Jump issue 3. I found it and at first only read DBZ and Yugioh since I knew them. A few days later I flipped through the pages and discovered OP. It was when Helmeppo got hit by Luffy. Reading Luffy saying "Leave your daddy out of this" made me interested. Zoro and Morgan looked so awsome, but Kuina's flashback really got me interested. I immediatly searched the net and discovered Stephens scripts. I was in love. Oddly enough the last manga I read was Naruto.
i first caught OP during the morgan arc. i thought at first it was just some lame anime which actually cheats children feelings with some retarded looking fella and stuff. But it all changed when i decided to research on OP. It had a deeper understanding of nakama and it helps a lot. in fact, i take some of life's lessons from OP.
I've read all of these stories, and, I gotta say, mine is definitely the oddest. I didn't even know how odd mine was until I read these…
My OP obsession began back when I was maybe 9 (back in 1999). However, I didn't know - and still don't know - japanese. I got some superhero comics from my aunt, and one day when I was bored I asked my friend (who is Japanese) who his favorite superhero was. He said "Luffy" and I had no idea what he was talking about, so then he said "Rubberman". I went over his house, and he showed my Grand Battle 1 for the PS1. I wet my pants from the awesomeness. As time passed and he got GB2, he renamed all of the characters so I would be able to remember the names. Arlong got renamed "Shark", Buggy was "Clown", Carue was "Duck", Chopper was "Moose", Crocodile was "Sand guy", Mihawk was "That guy with the big sword", and Pandaman was the only one that got to keep his original name.
So, some time later, Shonen Jump comes out. I buy it because I like DBZ. I'm flipping through it, and I see Luffy. I sprint all the way to my friend's house, and say "This is a comic????" And he just kind of stares at me and says, "Uh, yeah. It's a show, too."
And now I'm obsessed.
I saw the comercial and saw Luffy strech and thought it was weird and then when I w\saw one of Sanji's attacks on the comercial I then thought all pirates on the show could strech (because Sanji has realy long legs). THen I saw Luffy and Morgan battling and for some reason I thought they teamed up because I saw Morgan hitting Luffy and it looked like he was combining his attack with Luffy to make it more powerful (if that makes any sense). So I thought it was weird and stupid so I didn't watch the first episode, but when i saw the first episode with Zoro and heard the theme song it pulled me in and wouldn't let go.
(Thanks Jeece)
Everyone loves Magical Trevor
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/37/
The long awaited sequel
I read the third Shonen Jump first because I subscribed late but I read it because I wanted to read everything in the magazine. So, when I got to One Piece and read about Zoro and the Kuina flashback, I came out of it enjoying it. It was a good read, really cool. The art style intrigued me from the beginning because I was sick of the Shoujo style and this Shonen style was different to me…and I tend to like art styles in manga that are different from their genre in some way. Anyhow, once I read SJ one and two, I decided I liked the first few chapters a well and read OP from then on. Actually, once I got to Shonen Jump 6, I read nothing else in the magazine but OP! The obsession creeped up on me, really. I found myself wanting to draw the characters and buy some CD's of the anime music. After all, what does a pirate anime's music sound like? One I bought a CD at a con and listened to it...and then was compelled to draw it...I fell in love. So I've ended up from 10th grade to now an OP freak! XD
My friend first told me about One Piece. I wasn't really interested when she told me about it. But, I saw an fan-made music video that my older brother accidently downloaded with clips from the first few episodes, and I got intersted. I didn't see the actual show untill I saw 4 Kids' crappy dub. I thought it sucked when I saw the first episode, and thought I'd never watch if after that. Now, I love it because of fansubs.
I'm not really sure what could be classified as my first impression of One Piece, because I had heard of the series and flicked through the first book before I finally decided to buy it. When I first heard of it and flicked through it, I can't say I was impressed and if anything anti-One Piece. Then I decided to buy the first book, and read some of it on a five minute train journey. By the end of the first chapter I was hooked, especially with the quote:
Yasopp: Fair?
First mate (forgot his name): Stop whining landlubber! You're not dealing with saints here.
Shanks: We're pirates! We don't play by the rules.
And the part where Shanks sacrifices his left arm to save Luffy.
As for the anime, when I watched the first ep (not the dub) I enjoyed it and couldn't stop downloading them, even though I've gotten ahead of where I am in the manga, and originally I didn't want to do that. It was a case of "I'll see to the end of the Baratie arc"; "I'll watch the Arlong arc"; "I'll watch the Logue Town Arc" etc.
the first time i saw one piece i was in japan but i dont speek japanese. so my host was watching it and i saw the first battle when they first get to skypiea and i saw luffy streatch and i though it was just drawn funny i didnt think his hand was actualy stretched that long. my first impresion of one piece that i could understand i liked the manga from the instant luffy stabed himself in the face and i loved it right after catain morgan is falling and luffy says "nice zoro" and zoro goes "no sweat captain"
I am now on DevantART so come cheak out my art i demand it of you :laugh:
Originally Posted by the ONION
"We believe that Google Desktop Search is the best way to unlock the information hidden on your hard drive, if you haven't given it a try, now's the time. In one week, the deleting begins." ~Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Childish was my first thought when I saw the ads for the local dub on TV.
"Interesting, I should start on it since my friend is so hooked on it."
That was my first thought after seeing one episode of the anime. So, I went to buy Volume 1 of the manga after watching the Arlong Park arc.
First time was the end of Arlong arc(read it from Jump),I didn't understand it much.(cos I didn't read the beginning of the arc in that time.)
Later in Rough town arc,It showed me impressive incident(when Luffy nearly got killed and laugh. :blink: )
After that I read Little garden Arc along with vol.1-12.
Finally I became an addicted. :P
It was more than 8 months after I discovered One Piece, that I bought the first 8 volumes. At that time, I were low on income and currently following Dragonball (whcih I had spoiled)
My raction to vol 1 was: "Wtf is up with all those people getting fangs and beady eyes? This is just like Pokemon. Too childish."
And the drawings…" Everybody looks the same when they're yelling! The Axe hand guy looks cool though."
Only positive thing was: "Hey, he's got the same powers as Mr. fantastic-but he uses them in different ways!"
I put it away. However, Dragonball was nearing its end, and I kept an eye out for new meat. As the volumes came out, I flicked through them and vol. 1 again, just to see what was going on.
Vol1: "Hey, this Zorro guy has an okay motivation and stuff..."
Vol 2: "Heh, pretty badass when that clown killed his subordinate"
Vol 3: pretty dull put me off for a while.
Vol 4: "Ho-ley SHIIT that guy with the Claws is cool!!!" Buggy was an okay villain, but Kuro just radiated evilness. This was when it got interesting
Vol 5: "Hey, the emotional scenes are pretty good! And the action's not bad either-lots of blood!"
Vol 6: This was when I checked regularly, and read a little too much in the stores compared to the owner's preferences.
Once the Luffy Vs. Krieg fart started I bought 'em all, and was hooked. Then I spoiled it all by finding this place.
I was watching one of the dubbed episodes, something with zoro and thought
"This dude uses 3 swords, THAT'S AWESOME!!" I then started reading the manga, hating the dub, loving zoro and all that jazz.
I became addicted this yr…My friend sent me a file and told me to check it out. She does that sometimes and some of them are very good, so I looked. Then I knew it would be damn funny from the opening music with its unusual drawing style and emotional expression. But I didn't know it was a masterpiece. I really respect Oda's work now...
I feel so lucky and happy to have found OP. I think more people have to watch it as there's a lot to learn and a lot to laugh about.
i wasn't all that impressed upon first seeing OP, i mean luffy looks more like a random bystander than a pirate, and when i first found out what his powers were i thought "they've gotta be kidding.", but after seeing a couple more episodes something just clicked, at first it was the fight sequences, well thought out and superbly animated, then there was something about the characters and the story itself. i know the themes they're tackling isn't anything new, it's been done many times over before, but there's something about the back-to-basics way the story is told that's so refereshing. i can almost imagine Oda saying: "This is how to do Adventure!"
The very first issue of shonen jump that i bought was april 2003 issue with the freaky luffy pic. Around the buggy arc was when i really got into it.
I first read it in the American SJ (my friend let me borrow the first issue shortly after it came out). I took one look at it without reading it and didn't take interest. It was the last thing I read, but then I read it maybe 2 more times that day! The main reason I even get the magazine (well, maybe not the ONLY reason… Yuyu Hakusho, Shaman King, and Naruto as well ^^ ).
mine is kinda strange but anyway it was like a couple years ago when i was 10 and i loved digimon(yes digimon) and i wanted to see japanese episodes.so i went to this site called anime archive and it showed all these shows airing in japan. i clicked on some and thought they were all weird.Then i saw this guy with a strawhat and i thought it was about a farm or something so i didnt bother to download the preview.then i started getting curious and downloaded it and i was pretty freaked out cause the guys arm stretched!!!!!and i saw kuro trying to kill kaya and it fritened me more cause it reminded me of freddy kreuger.And i saw ussop's nose and freaked and turned off the computer and ran upstairs to watch digimon <_<
When Suna first showed it to me I was like :"W.T.F.?" But I started to laugh at the jokes and get really interested in the plots and stuff. So yeah, after that, I've loved OP!
(WTF as in…. "DUDE! Did he just stretch for like 10 feet?!" And "EEEP! The Pirate lady! Hide me!" Refering to the original Alvida)
At first, I bought the first volume of the Shonen Jump manga release when I was in Holiday in the States, last year around August or so. I was stuck in the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, for about seven hours to wait for a flight back into Manchester, England… and I was pretty annoyed about it, too.
So, I ended up taking some of the manga I bought out of my bag, and I read the first volume in English, but I wasn't really concentrating so hard, so I put it back. I think I hung out in the smoking room for about two hours, and I had a copy of Shonen Jump with random Yu-Gi-Oh! characters on the front, it also had a part of One Piece inside, the section in which Iron Fist Fullbody shoots a cannonball at the boat, and ending where Sanji kicks his ass, and is holding his bleeding body up by the face, with that whited-out eye look on Fullbody, too.
I thought, wow.. this is good. I even liked the English version, as there was a line that was something like, "Hooray! Saved by Lime Juice!" in which Zorro's old bounty partners, Johnny and Yosaku.. I could be wrong, had boarded the boat.
Inbetween the time I was waiting, and the time it took to fly home, I read the first volume five or so times, and thought it was great fun. I particularly liked how the artwork was crazy… wide eyes, huge mouths.. the reactions to certain things, including Luffy calling Alvida a fat old hag, and Captain Morgan's face when his statue is broken had me in stitches. One Piece tends to show about a hundred random thugs with severely shocked looks on their faces, and the boss standing somewhere nearby. At least, this volume did.. and at first, I sort of considered it something similar to the original Dragonball, crossed with Hokuto No Ken. But, a lot more accessible to children.
Afterwards, I saw about thirty episodes of the animÃ
this year, HK Subbed... so, a lot of it was confusing, but I found it all pretty good. It was faithful to the manga I'd read months before, and had most of the comedy done in an excellent fashion. The appearance of Buggy the Clown literally blew me away, because it was so out of control and insane. And somehow, nostalgic.
I literally felt like someone had custom made this show for me, which was pretty touching.
So, I ended up getting two GC games, and thinking Smoker was Zorro's Dad. I literally exclaimed, "OMG, that's Zorro's Dad!" when I first saw Smoker.
Of course, now I've seen some more of the animÃ, and I get filled in here a lot, I know that Smoker is actually probably not Zorro's Dad, but he looks a lot like him, when you think about it.
Originally posted by Captain Shmeckie@Jun 12 2005, 03:59 PM
**One Piece was hugely popular at a website forum I frequent, especially with the webmaster, who's a friend of mine. His regular praises of the series inspired me to check it out when I got DSL. I downloaded the first few episodes via KaZaA (I hadn't yet learned about Kaizoku Fansubs), wondering hat all the hype was about. I was semi-skeptical, since I'd found recently that alot of popular anime series really didn't deserve the hype, in my eyes. Fullmetal Alchemist, for instance, has a huge following, but ended up being rather mediocre. But, the first episode was good enough to make me watch s'more. As I watched, I found the series incredibly fun to follow, and the characters fun and interesting folks. When I hit the Captain Kuro arc, I was a certified fan of both One Piece, and Captain Kuro.I must say I fell in love with the character designs from the first episode. I love when characters have all kinds of little touches and cosmetic details that make them instantly recognizable. In fact, I'd venture to say that One Piece has some of the best character designs I've ever seen.
[snapback]68589[/snapback]**
This is exactly how I felt about OP. The only difference is that I found it in a "Top 10 animes you are most likely to see" special in a magazine called Anime Insider. It was the ONLY anime magazine I ever bought and will probably be the only one ever. One Piece ranked in as #1. I was intrigued by the character designs (the picture shown had the crew up to Alabasta and Crocodile was leering in the background). I too downloaded it off of KaZaA at first and loved it to death. Midway through the Kuro arc though I only had HK subs to watch so.. I never knew what the hell was going on. I lost interest halfway through Baratie and I didn't watch any OP for about two or three months until someone on an IRC channel I frequent pointed me to KF. I downloaded all their subbed episodes (they had 1-84 done at the time) and fell in love with the series again once the Baratie arc ended. Arlong Park was the real turning point for me. It is what made me a wild, obsessed fan… And since those episodes, I have proclaimed One Piece as my favourite anime and favourite television show of all time. Arcs such as yes, Water 7, have only made my love for the series grow stronger and I feel that I love the show more today than I did when I had just become a full blown addict.
About… '02 or so was when I was first kind of piqued to it, I guess. A couple of my friends (one my present beau, even) were just spouting off about Devil Fruits and the wacky fighting styles so much that I just had to ask them "what are you TALKING about ?"
They told me nothing about Zoro besides that he fights with three swords at once (I couldn't figure out how), nothing besides Sanji that he only fights with his feet (which, also I couldn't figure out), nothing about the fruits - so I was left with this really weird image in my head that was something like King of Fighters crossed over with X-Men :lol:
Anyway about a year later I got the chance to read it while at the mall - and I'm fairly sure it was the chapter where Zoro and Luffy make their break from the island Zoro was being held on. Zoro wowed me, Luffy made me laugh and his logic just kinda made me go 'whoa'. So I began to read the issues before it, and then I dug around as far as I could on IRC channels to get caught up with the rest (which ended up being about halfway through Skypiea at that point). And the rest is history :E
