Your first One Piece Experience

[Dark-Abel]

So I was wondering when everyone first heard about One Piece and how there first experience with it was.

Mine was kinda strange cause the first character I saw off One Piece was Nami in some hentai
I became interrested in the anime where she was from and found some clips on youtube with her fighting Kalifa. So my first expression was it was some action/hentai like anime lol I watch some more episodes after her fight and realized it was actually an interresting anime with cool characters (Luffy, Zoro, Sanji ). So I decided to watch all episodes from the start and watched them in like 1 week. When I catched up Luffy vs Luchi just started
After a few episodes I wondered how long the fight would last cause I started to find it kinda long, so I decided to find the next chapter in the manga. I found it and saw that Luchi would be beaten in the next episode, I was so angry at myself cause I spoiled the awesome Jet Gattling scene pff :getlost:

From there on I catch up to the mange and watch APforums each week for spoilers and read the manga, and I also keep track of the anime each week.

Please tell your first experience with one piece and are there maybe even people here who have followed it from the very beginning ?? that would be great to hear

[InvaderP]

My first experience was the German dub that began airing back at 2003. I was 7 years old. I just zapped around and saw an episode and I thought it was pretty funny and cool. I actually remember what episode it was: Luffy and Zeff were falling through the ceiling. (looks it up) –> it was episode 21. So yeah, that was my first episode.

For some reason, I was never really a fan when the show was on German TV. I just watched it when I was bored. Years passed (lol) and one of my favorite shows, "Avatar - The Last Airbender", ended - so I needed a new show I can watch.
People on a German Avatar forum said that I should start watching Naruto (because they said it was "kinda like Avatar") but then I saw an episode of One Piece on TV again. It was Zoro/Usopp vs Kaku/Jabura. I laughed my ass off and the fight Zoro vs Kaku was awesome too, so I chose One Piece instead (THANK GOD!!).

I was too stupid for that Fansub-Torrent-shit, so I just read those shitty old manga scanlations from Onemanga. I caught up to Impel Down and I follow the spoilers ever since. (And I buy the German manga to support them and shit)

That's it.

[PorcupineWeirdo]

As a wee child, I saw episodes of 4kids One Piece on the telly, deemed it retarded, and went on with my life.

I became obsessed with pirates. I wanted a pirate anime. I found One Piece. I said, "No, One Piece is crap", but could find few other pirate anime. So, I decided to watch 1 (one) episode, to say I gave it a chance. I loved it. So, over the course of one month, I watched the entire anime. Then I got caught up, but I wanted more One Piece, so I read the manga from that point. Later, I went back and read the whole manga. Now I do not watch the anime. At all.

And here I am.

[Local-chan]

Paulie from here was an old friend of mine whom I knew from before. And he wouldn't shut up about Sanji. He also shown me some pics from the series and Robin caught my eye. So I checked it out. I think I started just after Skypiea had started.

And that's the story.

Next week I'll tell you how I got into RoCho.

[irishpud]

I had been watching naruto and bleach for quite a long time and I decided to watch an episode of one piece. I searched for the first episode but found the kalifa/nami episode (I thought it was the first episode) when Nami was affected by the soap. I thought it was pretty weurd and didnt watch it for a while. I then went on erasmus to germany where I had absolutely nothing to do and decided to watch one piece - it helped me through my stay in germany and Im so glad I gave it another chance

[Jdanzi]

I had heard from a friend a weird anime called One Piece about a guy with "strech armstrong powers". I was bored one day saw One Piece, thought why not. Never looked back.

[climhazard]

I hate to say it but:

The 4Kidz dub on Cartoon Network.

After that I got into the original anime series, then once I reached the Water 7 arc and the episodes ran out, the manga took over.
I've never looked back since :)

[King Calamari]

Viz Media's Shonen Jump Issue #1 back in 2003.

[flandrian15]

my first encounter with One Piece was in my first year of college. Sometimes, some friends of mine would come over and we would drink and laugh and watch cartoons. At some point we were watching dragonball nostalgically and one friend asked me if there was something like DB to watch after DB had finished. I went on a search and found quite a few thing, we started watching tengen toppa guren lagann, gundam and those kind of thing but we were bored quite fast so mecha wasn't really for us. Than, we found Rurouni Kenshin which was quite short but greatly appreciated and then via Google I stumbled upon what seemed a ridiculously childish story of a boy who wants to be king of pirates. I have always been a fan of pirates see I thought I'd give it a try. Me and most of my friends are still hooked on it this very day. On a sidenote, we started Naruto almost simultaneously and none of us watches the anime anymore and only one uf us still reads the manga (me :S) but that is mainly to fill them in on how lousy it has gotten !

[Carrots]

@King:

Viz Media's Shonen Jump Issue #1 back in 2003.

Pretty much same as me, except I didn't get the first issue. I was in a grocery store with my mom, waiting for my sister's dance class to end, and I saw a copy of the magazine in the magazine aisle. I think I must have recognized the name "Shonen Jump," but anyways, I made my mom buy it. It was the first issue to feature Shaman King, and so that was the series that was initially my favorite. But, I quickly fell in love with OP, and stopped reading SJ, preferring to read the graphic novels instead. But the pace was way to slow to satiate my hunger, so I found the series online and started reading. I caught up on Chapter 405, just as the CP9 fights began.

[Crossword]

Seeing that illustration where Luffy's making this weird puckering expression. Started watching out of curiosity at the end of 2006.

[wiseman7687]

A friend of mine who used to work for kaizoku-fansubs introduced me to it. Been hooked to it ever since.

[Fuwa Kitty]

I experienced One Piece back around 2000 when it was on 4Kids.

I watched the one episode with Krieg busting into the restaurant with Gin, and it was alright. So after a few weeks of watching it, the love was gone and I stopped. It wasn't until 2004/2005, that I found it online with subs and it brought back those brief memories. After watching about 5 episodes of the sub I was hooked. I was caught up in the anime in less then a month (that was around the CP9 arc I think), then I started to read the manga.

[Flux]

The 4KIDS Dub, within Days I was reading the Wikipedia Articale with deep interest,
which I never do because usually, the articales are long and bore me.

My first proper experience were the Davy Back episodes, which I loved.

[Chimcham]

I was on a site Called "Naruto Mania" and one of my friends there at the time recommended that I watch One Piece. I watched it on fox kids and thought, of course, that the dub made it seem much worse than it was. I started watching it subbed and boom I was hooked.

I dropped out of college that year but at least I got One Piece ;_;

[Darkstorm]

We've had this thread before somewhere.

Anyway, 2003 when Viz's volume 1 came out, browsing the new manga section of forbidden planet. Liked the adventure theme I got from skimming it, so I bought it and never looked back.

[KKRP12]

Mine was the 4kids dub when they were at Buggy. I said, "Really? A clown pirate? That's stupid." and moved on. About a year later, I decided, "Meh… I'll give it a chance." I instantly became hooked. I of course didn't know about all the edits and such and just enjoyed the show. But then Funimation started dubbing and I was like "Whoa! What happened to all the voices?!" Looked it up, figured out what One Piece really was all about and fell in love with it. :wub:

[moe lester518]

Mine was also the 4kids dub. I saw it and thought it sucked, but i saw potential in it. Since i was into naruto at the time and new the japanese version was leagues better i gave one piece a chance. Was caught up on the anime when during the clip episodes, hated it and ended up reading the manga. Been loving one piece ever since.

[Sakonosolo]

At a book fair at my school forever ago they were selling issues of Jump. I didn't buy it but I flipped through it and read the part where Zoro slices himself open in the Buggy arc. I thought it was cool so I looked it up.

[GaaraofTheDesert]

Greek dub…......

[February]

I saw the preview commercials for it on, Cartoon Network I guess?, and stayed up late to watch the first dub episode on TV and wasn't totally impressed until I saw the sneak peak of "Zolo" at the end of the episode, at which point I was hooked. I didn't even know that the original existed until one of my friends online made fun of me for using the wrong letter for Zoro and talking about Sanji's ridiculous accent.

Eventually the dubs reached the real crunch time in the Arabasta arc and then went into re-runs, which forced me to figure out how to watch subbed anime online for the first time. I had no idea that any censorship or editing had gone on in the dub and was SHOCKED when I started catching on. And very confused for a while. What is a Laboon? Bellemere DIED?! Where did this jungle island come from, I don't remember that…

[Dark-King]

End of college in 04. A friend of mine showed me the anime fight between Chopper and Chessmarimo. It took me a year but I remember that and started collecting the Viz volumes and reading them. Once I got to Zoro's defeat from Mihawk I couldn't wait any more and I had to know what happens next, so I went online and found the scanslations on the MSN one Piece list site.

[Thatanas]

My brother called me and said I absolutely had to see the fight (Zoro vs Baroque Works), because zoro was cool and stuff like that.

Never looked back.

[AlmostLegendary]

was horrible saw the four kids version didn't pick it up again until maybe a year after that.

[Don Quichotte De Flamingo]

was reading some manga series like DB and 3x3 eyes(never finished that, lol) and was close to finish them and so i thought i should search for a new manga to buy monthly…
it was the end of 1999 beginning of 2000 when i first heard of OP.
wasn`t rly that exited first, but than i got some small ads for this new starting manga-series here in germany and so i wanted to start reading it.
after finishing the last volumne of DB and saw that they also advertise for OP as a series to read after finishing this one i was sure to try it out.
and what to say...
now for 10 yrs i spend nearly everyday a bit with OP and iam even more faszinated in it than at the beginning.

sometimes miss the old times where you waited a month(later 3 months) till a new volumne.
i remember how many times i died a thousands deaths until the new volumne came out, lol

[Pivitor]

I'd heard of One Piece before I ever read it, but my first experience was with the Shonen Jump America magazine, either issue two or three. A friend bought it on vacation and let me read it, and I was super excited because I'd be able to check out Naruto and One Piece, and I read Naruto first. It was early chapters where Naruto hung out with the little brat in his village and turned into a naked girl and gave his trainer a nosebleed, and I was disappointed-it wasn't really for me.

Then I got to One Piece. It was the Morgan storyline, including Zoro's flashback, and I fell in love. I thought Zoro's flashback (and he was still called Zoro in those early issues) was the best thing I'd ever read. I thought Zoro was badass, Luffy was hilarious, and Coby was actually pretty inspiring for standing up and being brave despite being scared out of his mind (and getting shot)

I didn't get another chance to check out One Piece for quite a while, until a friend bought me SJA#50 as a gift. It featured the first appearance of Mihawk and Nami stealing the Merry, and though I didn't like it as much as my first read, I was intrigued as to who Belle Mere was and why Nami stole the ship.

Finally, a few weeks later, another friend got his hands on subs of the first hundred episodes or so of the One Piece anime, and let me borrow them. I watched them day and night, hooked. When the episodes ended (in the middle of Alabasta, right after Crocodile defeats Luffy for the first time) I started reading the manga online, and now the American releases and the manga online are how I read OP.

I did watch one episode of the 4Kids dub, and since by then I'd already had the subs, was disgusted and never again bothered.

[m00n]

That would be this:
http://www.myvideo.de/watch/3526001/One_Piece_RTL2_Trailer_2003
Or maybe it was at some other day in the same week, when they began advertising it.

[Simetra]

I first saw One Piece in a local channel. I started with the first episode. But because of my schedule I can't watch it frequently but I still enjoyed it. When I started college I stopped watching the anime since I focused on studying and other anime. I stopped after Long Ring Long Land. After four years or so my friend convinced me to read the manga. I just finished Shaman King then and was quite hesitant when I saw how many chapters One Piece had. My friend told me she finished all the past chapters in just a week.

I gave it a try. I can't read it regularly because of Finals and loads of project. I seriously read it during the whole Christmas break.

I finished it just before this year started.

And now I'm addicted.

[Nia]

I randomly picked up the first volume of the manga (the German translation anyway) about 8 years ago. I read it, loved it, and unfortunately kinda forgot about it until the anime was shown in Germany. I was immediately hooked again. That was … 7 years ago or something, whenever that very first episode aired here.

[silvers]

My first experience with One Piece was when I was scanning Jump for my brother's scanlation site. This was… back at the start of Grand Line I think... I used to prefer Naruto and Inuyasha over it, but eventually those turned to shit and here I am, a die hard One Piece fan.

My first impression of One Piece was the whole sailing feel. Thought it was a breath of fresh air because of how non-adventurous a lot of other mangas were. Only problem I had with One Piece was that Luffy was not particularly "cool" in design (I liked the Sharingan and Kyuubi in Naruto, and Inuyasha's sword). However, Luffy eventually got cooler as the story advanced, and the story became perfect.

[mama]

I was 13 it was in 2005, I had already read tons of manga, and my cousin ( what a great girl ) brought us some one piece books. We completely fell in love ( even my mom )

[Retardia]

I saw the OP article on local newspaper. About 8 years ago.
Then watch it from first episode on local tv dub few days later.
But stopped watching anime and move to the manga 2-3 years later.

[ManOfMetal]

I randomly bought a Shonen Jump issue from Blockbuster years ago, having never read a manga before, and started reading the various series. I just remember One Piece standing out a lot because they mentioned pirates, and the idea of a pirate comic had me very interested. I didn't bother looking into the series until years later, but once I actually started reading it, I couldn't stop.

I've been hooked on One Piece ever since.

[eerie]

At the time (I believe the anime was around the beginning or mid way thru the CP9 arc) my friend had mentioned he watched this anime called One Piece. We were still in high school and he was like Mr. Jock, football player, etc, and so I was like "what the hell? you watch anime? and he said this OP was one of the only ones he had ever really gotten into.

So, being the manga/anime nerd I was and am, I had to check it out. I had heard of OP but had never read or watched it.

Little difficult to get into at first, but by the time I reached the Arlong arc, I was hooked. Then I watched all the episodes up till what was out (like I said earlier, beginning/middle CP9 and then read the anime from there on. I still read and watch both the manga and anime.

[Mrs.RoronoaZoro]

My first One Piece experience was in the US Shonen Jump. Chapter 25: Lies. I just started getting into manga that year (7th grade) and became obsessed with One Piece because Usopp and Luffy were so funny together, Zoro was so cool, and I wanted to know what would happen to Kaya since Kuro was plotting to kill her.

I watched the 4KIDS dub faithfully, even though it wasn't very good. Then I started going online to read manga and post on forums… and finally I started reading the latest chapters and stuff. Yeah. Then I caught up in the manga. There are still some filler episodes that I've missed or w/e but... I know enough now. I'm good.

[Big_Bad_Lith]

saw an ad for One Piece while watching fox box or something, advertising Sanji as a really cool guy, who kicks everything. I thought it was like his joke thing, that he kicks everything when he's mad, but he loked kinda cool, I figured he must be some high-school student because of the outfit (without suit jacket). Didn't watch the actual episode, though.

then, years later, browsing the manga section of Borders looking for Yugioh manga, and saw something that looked familiar. I read half of the first volume, and got so damn excited I just skipped to the second one, but then it was time to go, so I gathered like 6 volumes up into my arms. Mom is all "you can just get them from the library" so I did instead, but when I hit the end of the viz volumes, I turned to the internet, I caught up to the series at the exact chapter when Kuma showed up at TB.

good times, all around.

[Furnace Sparks]

The 4kidz dub on cartoon network years ago. We brothers really got interested in One Piece after seeing the commercials, started watching from the very first episode. Sadly cartoon network stopped airing the episodes in the middle of Baratie arc when Hawkeye makes an appearance. That was just too bad. A year ago, caught up with manga and watched all the episodes in just a matter of days. Never going to give up on One Piece.

[Fisticuffs]

Was watching Maury at my girls crib and then she sat on the remote and changed the channel to some show where all the characters voices were mad annoyin. It was the 4kids version of the show and i hated it so much i went on the net to rage about ti but then i found the japan version and that dude Luffy is an OG from the streets and he knows what fisticuffs is about so i like it now.

[Akumu]

@King:

Viz Media's Shonen Jump Issue #1 back in 2003.

Pretty much the same for me.
I followed it in Shonen Jump until about 2007/2008 when I learned that you could read it online, and that ~300 more chapters had already been released.
I caught up as fast as I could. When I did, the first chapter I read on the weekly schedule was Zoro v Ryuuma:wub:
I read it week after week ever since.
It was during the 2 week break last winter, that, suffering from major One-Piece withdrawl–after all we were in the middle of the war--, I decided to watch the anime. I caught up to the start of Impel down in the anime, and I decided to wait. I had heard terrible things about the pacing for the arc, and now that they're out of it I need to go watch it

So yeah, that's my story!

[paranoik0s]

my first experience with it was it when i was 10-11 yearls old(it was 2000 cause im 20 now)
it was the time when i was watching dragon ball-pokemon-digimon-power rangers on tv and a saturday morning i watched one piece..it was the battle of luffy vs buggy
it was really awesome..unlike smth i had seen before
it was dubbed in greek and luffy was called Drake(Ντρεικ) and one piece had the same name as well
YcoFaokJfPU

However the anime stopped before Grand line and then i never watched it again :sad:
so this october after i had finished naruto and bleach i persuaded my self to read the manga cause i was bored like hell to watch so many anime episodes so i just started the manga from teh beginning
i read till chopper joined and then i got so much bored with it
but 3months ago i started it again and i finished all the manga in like 40 days
and so i joined this forum in search of spoilers
thats my story

[Ari]

In 2007 I was bored one day and started skimming through my brother's Shonen Jumps. I thought One Piece had really weird art and read it last. It was awesome but he only had up to Whiskey Peak. I didn't think about it again until a year later when Skypeia was on Cartoon Network. That ended pretty quickly but when I went to college I got bored again and looked it up online and have been obsessed ever since.

[AlexRiis]

Once I was hospitalized for a very long time and I had to go to school on the hospital. But when I came home, I had got a "welcome home" present from one of the teachers from the hospital. In the present, there was the very first One Piece book and one dragonball book. I liked the One Piece book, but I wasn't really obsessed with One Piece until the arlong arc xD Now I love all of them <3

[PirateBeck]

The 4kids dub was coming to Toonami UK and one of the teachers in my high school had just returned from Japan with 4 different series of manga (Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto and one I forget). I was actually kind of lucky going into it, knowing it was edited slightly although I didn't learn about the theme songs until MUCH later.

Didn't say it was a great first experience but a lasting one nonetheless.

[RDarren]

My first One Piece exp was when they started airing Filipino-dubbed episodes here(maybe 2004 or '05), I was only 12/13.. My older brother was the one who eagerly watched it everyday (since he's an out-of-school boy and I'm not) and said its good.. The first episode that I passed by was the scene from Baratie and after that was the scene from skypiea(about 2eps) then Water 7 then it stopped airing…

I only started watching (hoping I could devote myself to an anime/manga w/c my college classm8s don't watch >:D) the english subbed last year and stopped at the start of ID Arc then read the manga from there on.. :D

[LaCaSiNa]

The Finnish translation of the first volume about… seven years ago, I think. Having Luffy and Zoro speak in Finnish slang really bothered me at first, but the humour and story interested me and thus I gathered every volume that had been translated up until then. I couldn't find the volume where Luffy fights Krieg anywhere, so I filled the void by starting to watch the anime on Youtube. I got to the point where I was in the manga... then went past it to Arlong Park... realized how awesome a series it was... and the rest is history.

I didn't start reading scanlations until later on, but when I finally got up to the point where the next chapter hadn't been released even in Japan yet, I found out about this forum and a thing called "spoilers". At that time the newest chapter was the one where it's revealed that Kokoro is a mermaid. From there on I've been following OP in a weekly basis and buying Finnish translations of the volumes as they come out, volume 52 being the most recent.

[icel]

Ever since I was little my mom read manga and watched anime. Sometime in 2004 she started ordering the english version of Shonen Jump and I flipped through the first one we got. I remember looking at One Piece (It was somewhere during the Baratie Arc) and I looked through the character descriptions at the beginning which had pictures of the characters. I remember looking at Usopp and being DEEPLY disturbed, so much that I didn't even give it a chance and put the book down.

A year or so later I noticed that there was a bunch of One Piece art on deviantart, and a couple of cutesy pictures convinced me to give it another chance. I asked my mom to get me some of the Viz volumes (oh the old 'Zolo' days) and we got until Vol. 10 or so, and immediately after that I started watching the anime online from where it left off. Been a huge fan ever since. :D

[black-leg jex]

i saw an advert for 4kids and thought it looked crap but then a year and a bit ago i played JUMP! ultimate stars and loved playing as sanji and luffy so i thought i'd give it a go and i loved it :D same reason why i got into black cat

[Dervish]

My first One Piece experience was, unfortunately, the 4Kids dub. I can no longer recall when exactly I watched the first episode, but it was several years ago. There was a marathon or something airing on Cartoon Network and I decided to check it out. I watched a few episodes and thought, "…the hell is this??" and turned it off. The dub made the series seem unbelievably stupid, like a total waste of my time. And that was that for a while.

A year or two later, I was browsing a scan site, looking for a new series to pick up when I came across it again. I wasn't eager to start reading the manga, but I thought "Well, it might not be as bad as the anime. It's a pretty popular series, so it might even be good." Ha. Anyway, I didn't have anything to do that weekend anyway, so I sat down and started reading it.

12 hours later, I was still reading it. That's how absorbed I was. I have to say that it was the Alabasta arc that really sealed the deal for me and made One Piece into something very close to my heart. I marathon-read the chapters over the next few days until I caught up to the current arc. And I've been a fan ever since.

[LaCaSiNa]

@Dervish:

A year or two later, I was browsing a scan site, looking for a new series to pick up when I came across it again. I wasn't eager to start reading the manga, but I thought "Well, it might not be as bad as the anime. It's a pretty popular series, so it might even be good." Ha. Anyway, I didn't have anything to do that weekend anyway, so I sat down and started reading it.

12 hours later, I was still reading it. That's how absorbed I was. I have to say that it was the Alabasta arc that really sealed the deal for me and made One Piece into something very close to my heart. I marathon-read the chapters over the next few days until I caught up to the current arc. And I've been a fan ever since.

Ah yes, marathon reading… I had sessions of similar length also, sometimes reading through the night and finally crawling to bed at 12am the next morning. It was so much fun, I kinda miss those times. When there were still lots of anime episodes on Youtube in good quality I'd watch ten episodes a day. That one summer, just sort of living in my own little One Piece-bubble. To be young again! wipes a tear from the corner of my eye

I mean come on, who needs sunny summer days when you can sit inside and read OP on your computer? :ninja:

[Silverblade]

Early 2003 german channel RTL II began to dub the series. Even the first advertisments caught my eye. I believe that was shots from the first opening, Zoro and Sanji. So, I got interested and was looing forward to it - only to miss the first episodes; and so it happened that the very first One Piece experience was Zoro vs Kabaji fight.

I loved it from that very moment.

Afterwards, I have caught up on the beginning and watched all episodes till Arabasta - when suddenly in late 2005, our TV provider lost its rights to show RTL II. I was very sad and all, since I didn't have a slightest idea about the manga. But late in the 2006 I got a link to a manga chapter or something. That link led me to Arlong Park which I lurked all the way to 2009. And so, since chapter 443 I haven't missed a week on this manga.

Good times.