How Would You Write One Piece Differently/How Would you have wanted it.

SirCaesar

CoO and CoC are fine as they are, but CoA is replaced by kairouseki technology/accessories/weapons. A lot more devil fruit users are defeated using clever ways to drown them in the sea (which can also lead to fun things, like Luffy could have gotten a fishmen island device that insta-forms a bubble around him so… you think he got thrown in the sea and he's done for, but he emerges with the bubble! This would be similar to the vibe of Usopp's impact dial in Thriller Bark).

Oda's basic premise was made of devil fruits, countered by not being able to swim and then seastone, but these things played no major role in any fight whatsoever. Hell, Wano has seastone nails and nobody has used them so far in the main war.

One more problem which is very similar to this: early One Piece had log poses and eternal poses established as navigation mechanics. Then Oda introduced vivre cards (and he did that back in Alabasta, unless it was a clever retcon!). Now, I really love vivre cards because they are not eternal: you can get to the super secret island of secrets and make a vivre card of a local resident, but as soon as that person dies you're back at square one, which is a really clever plot device to make the Grand Line stay mysterious. It's much better than Eternal poses (which basically requires all major powers to keep a stash of those - before vivre cards were introduced I was always puzzled by, for instance, Smoker asking the navy to deliver him an eternal pose to Alabasta after Little Garden - how were they going to find him?).

However, I am really angry about vivre cards pointing to one another and not to the original user, as established by Rayleigh right before the timeskip. I do not understand why Oda chose to do this at all (I also do not understand why Ace's vivre card pointed to Ace himself, did he swallow the biggest piece?). So the way I would write it is: no eternal poses, vivre cards all around, vivre cards always point to the person they have been created from.

Alfiere

I still believe Armament Haki should have been locked from Devil Fruit users. That would have served several purposes:
Give a more meaningful late-game liability caused by eating a fruit, for example, and add a layer of strategy to the fighting part of the arcs. If among the enemies there's a Logia, you have to get Zoro or Sanji to take care of them. But if Luffy is stuck with them and can't get out of that situation, he needs to get creative. Sounds more fun to me than having everybody run aimlessly around untill the stars are alligned for them to match with their foil from the other crew.
Also would have given the opportunity to get bonkers with various Coa applications, more fruit-like powers that reflect the user's personality and style, instead of just going everyone the same standard lame black-limb effect.

Meanwhile Conqueror stays as the original "smack you with my charisma", not locked for DF users so our protagonist can flex it, but mostly a flavour thing, and CoO is just Mantra, an ability you can learn only if you are a mad enough lad to chase those fabled sky islands. A little reward for being a serious dreamer.

zeltrax225

Not have Chopper be a mascot character and do things that ultimately don't bring fanfare or doesn't matter at all. No one is going to remember the shit he did in every arc since he got assigned the mascot role.

Mungan

Don't do a time skip at all.

Don't make haki a powerquantifier, being able to read moves and hit logias would have been enough. Skip the whole armament being black thing.

Less new characters, more focus on maincharacters.

Don't introduce sabo, let ace stay dead.

Tanuki

Have Ace focused on far far more prior to his capture and death.
One of the biggest problems for me when Ace died was I felt nothing. We learnt more about him after he's dead than when he was alive in the story and he seems to be shoehorned in everywhere now he's dead. It's by far the weirdest character narrative to me due to Ace's overall affect on the plot.
I'd give Law a career focus as something other than a doctor.
Don't get me wrong, his fruit fits a surgeon volition perfectly, but the unfortunate issue is Chopper feels redundant and has less moments to shine post-timeskip because there's always a guy who can just cut the disease out of a body waiting on the sidelines. If he was anything other than a doctor himself we could at least have Chopper come up with the idea to slice the disease out himself and guide Law on what to do, showcasing Chopper's skill, knowledge and ability to teach instead of purely Law's skills.
Showcase more of Kaido and Moria's past battle on Wano.
Okay, I'm aware this is insanely minor but I think it's a wasted opportunity. Considering Moria stealing the sword and corpse of their legendary hero was a big deal for Wano, and Kaido's murdering of Moria's entire crew led to Moria's breakdowns, this feels a bit like a missed character piece that could have affected numerous characters in one go whilst simultaneously showcasing exactly why Moria was so feared back in the day. Hell, even now I don't feel like I know much about Kaidou and we're (presumably) in the end game for him.
Have Smoker and Tashigi be bounty hunters rather than Marines.
Again, incredibly minor tweak, I know. We have Coby, Drake, Helmeppo, Garp and a few other characters filling in the role of reasonable marines. This would give them more of a reason to explain why they were so laser focused on Luffy and Zoro too, particularly for Tashigi who's 'take back the swords from bad people' quest would IMO fit better here as a bounty hunter than a marine.
If the Strawhats have to be split up, at least have them interact with a few old familiar faces.
Alright this one's incredibly personal and you could argue this may make the world seem smaller. Heck, it's just because Impel Down was my favourite arc, but the dynamic between Luffy, Buggy, Mr. 3 and Mr. 2 was incredibly fun and seeing the interactions between characters you'd not expected to see talk was great. Buggy and Mr. 3's instant friendship may be my favourite side character thing to date. I was hoping we'd get a similar enjoyable character piece when we saw Bellamy in Dressrosa and it certainly seemed like we'd get that…but the execution was less stellar.
Or alternatively have the Strawhats get sidelined less. Seems to fly in the face of the previous point, huh?
Whilst the side cast are great, post time skip Chopper has been overshadowed by both Law and Carrot, Usopp has barely done much of anything outside Dressrosa, Brook still felt very underdeveloped until Whole Cake Island as a result of only being recruited one arc prior to the timeskip, Robin had her moments to shine in combat in Dressrosa taken by Bartolomeo and Kyros. I'm not expecting the Strawhats to have to solve everything themselves, but when secondary characters take the spotlight from the 'main cast' consistently, it doesn't sit great with me. One Piece is better than many about it but I still feel it could be improved on a little.

mrsword

In hindsight, of course we can pick and tear apart things to improve the story, as we have the luxury to look at the big picture and how the story flowed and see what worked and what did not.

Long John Silvers Rayleigh

@Robby:

I would maybe split Dresserossa into two slightly more distinct halves so things could be focused a little better, but otherwise I wouldn't change much. The excesses and million "pointless" characters are what give the series scope and life. Yeah they're slowing things week to week a bit, but year to year they're barely denting the pace, they're just making the overall world bigger and more vibrant. They are what Oda brings to the table.

The one big actual change I'd make is let a few earlier characters stay dead is the main thing. Its okay to cheat and have happy endings sometimes… it's fine that Pell cheated death, he's a hero and earned it. But it's not fine that then Pagaya and Franky family and sabondy slave and Bellamy and Hach iand Mr. 2 and... you can't cheat it EVERY time to the point you never believe any of them. I would LOVE to believe that Monet and Vergo and Pedro are actually dead and have felt emotion in their moments, instead I'm just checking a calender and wondering if they'll pass the record set by Mr. 9 and Bellamy.

Barring that just don't do the fake outs so much. Them collapsing in a bloody defeated heap after giving their all is enough, they don't have to be fake dead for the drama.

The one other change I'd make isn't to the manga at all, it'd be to make the anime seasonal so that it doesn't have so much filler. Just expand on the fights and such.

You are a bad person and you should feel bad.

He's my favorite by a wide margin.

keeping some of these options dead is even worse than the fakeout in some cases.

Like for instance the franky family cliffhanger just didn't need to happen, bellamy is way more interesting in dressrosa etc

Smudger

I'd allow chopper to turn into his full human form to help with disguise and infiltration.

I mean, don't most Zoans users have the ability to fully transform (Jack, Lucci, Kako, Queen, King, Kaido, Dalton etc) . Why hasn't Chopper?

dropper

Stop writing the peak of arcs as predictable fight orders, with the crew taking out the subordinates, then Luffy taking out the main villian. Change things up.
Less tired Straw Hat tropes and more subtle character development. The main cast mainly just get power-up development outside of their backstory.
More time progression between arcs, perhaps even nods to the crew visiting smaller islands off-screen on the way. Power-ups don't feel earned when only a day passes.
Scrap the introduction of all the supernovas being on the same island simulatenously. There's no reason for everyone to be there, Oda's editors just wanted to excite readers.
Make the reader feel like each fight has real stakes by having characters die unlike what happened to Pell.
Redesign female characters to have more diverse features (not always having the same face and bust) and give them more meaningful roles (unlike Rebecca).

Johnny B. Decent

Just a few things I'd have had done for Wano:

**I think I would have the Scabbards be 7 instead of 9. I'd have the two Minks merged into one character, and drop….let's say Denjiro, maybe.
**And on that note, I'd have the Tobi Roppo have seven members like a evil counterpart of the Scabbards (and a new name, obviously).
**I'd have the Yakuza just be regular Samurai. So, Hyogoro would have just been a retainer to Sukiyaki.
**The Numbers are replaced with one actual Ancient Giant, Kaido's "Wild Card". Since the Numbers are goobers with all the same personality and look, let's have a REAL giant be a threat for once.
**I would have the Mimawarigumi be the main bad guy Samurais, with a Captain who is Orochi's right hand, and a Vice-Captain and Staff Officer (who would be Fukurojuru).
**The Beast Pirates ranks and names feel all over the place to me, so I would give them a Yakuza or Mafia theme. (Kaido being the Patriarch, King and Queen being the Underboss and Advisor, the TR being Lieutenants, etc.)
**I'd have Yamato be mentioned much earlier like a "Beast of Onigashima" being a local legend.

DatYute

-Introduce Sun God Nika myth in fishman island and tie it into the sun pirates story
-Have Whoswho show up in dressrosa to help Doffy and do his exposition dump about gum gum fruit

Probably would make the fruit reveal less jarring, though ideally the story never goes that direction for me…

blue-san

Start murdering characters left and right. No one is safe. That should add some tension to the fights

Captain M

I don't think it's an unpopular opinion that Luffy's final blow on Kaido lacked a certain pzazz that normally makes final hits memorable. It's not bad, but it's not playing back in my head on a loop the way the endings of the Doflamingo and Katakuri fights did. I've been thinking about how I might ramp up just that final stage of the battle. I don't want to try to rewrite the whole arc, there are just too many things with too many potential narrative butterfly effects to try and change everything that didn't quite land, but I want to see if there's a way to polish up just this last stage of the fight without having to change anything on either side of it.

I think part of what the finale for Luffy is missing is the final move of Kaido's that it was up against - the magma-clad dragon is visually appealing, but it lacks something of the savagery of his club attacks or the awe factor of his team-up with Big Mom. That has to change - we want it to be something if feels like Luffy needs a giant fist to beat. So Kaido needs to bring this form out a little sooner and do some real fighting with it.

The moment where we see his tail melting the horn off the island is great, so we want more of that. This thing should be dripping lava all the time, melting holes in the roof of the dome, causing chaos and worsening (or risking restarting) the fires below. Now it's a threat to everyone at once, and that's not even starting on what happens if it melts away enough layers to expose the armoury that just got secured. Luffy takes a swing at this monster but gets a future vision of his hands melting away to nothing, much like what he saw when he tried to attack Mihawk at Marineford. He picks up a boulder from the edge of the arena and flings it, but the rock liquifies on contact. Even with all his new power, Kaido is too hot for Luffy to even touch.

But that's fine, Luffy decides. He spent all that time training to fight Kaido without touching anyway. He pushes all the Haki he has into his fists, emitting it as far out as it can go. He attacks, lava splattering. His knuckles are scorched, but he's holding in there. Kaido flinches when hit but it's still not enough. The magma reforms every time Luffy punches through it.

Dodging attacks, the young pirate flings himself into the sky. He needs more power, a way to blast away more magma at once. He brings a giant fist down through the clouds, just like the canon version. Kaido's flaming body rears up to meet it.

Here, there is no elongated push war of the two attacks. All the dialogue of worlds that should be can take place during the extended back and forth leading up to this moment, it shouldn't have to be changed. Bajrang Gun falls. Momo finally moves the island out of the way. A couple of slow motion panels show the magma armour splattering along the invisible contours of Luffy's emitted Haki, parting until Kaido's true body is exposed. My alternate version rejoins the manga we got on the final spread of chapter 1049, with the titanic backswing of Luffy's finishing move and Kaido being driven straight into the ground.

I think a sequence like this could be made to fit roughly into the space given to the canon fight. Obviously it wouldn't solve everything that didn't quite come together in the back half of Onigashima, but it would probably make the final clash a tad more involved (and easier to visualize) than multi-chapter attack push that Oda went with. A little bit of polish to leave a better last impression.

puffing.cinema

I...don't really like Kaido magma dragon.
It is too close to King's final move, and the later was chilled as a special being from a piromancer cast. I would make do with a thundercloud final form (since Awakening seems to be something Oda isn't willing to make a go right now, no need to eye-roll me and shout "let it go already!!!" guys I swear). Instead of regular thunder, we would have it covered in Conqueror's Haki. I like the idea of Kaido's final move putting the safety of Onigashima as a whole in peril, so I'd have some thunderous haki almost hit the bombs in the bottom.

In regard to Bajrang Gun, I'd have 2 changes: the first would be some compressed skin - like Luffy do when using Kong Gun. That immense fist would discharge that energy into a bust of haki-charged air that would dispel the thundercloud form back into baseform; the second would be mostly a cosmetic change to give some edgyness to the move - like some sort of rhomb shaped skin to show us that so claimed LIBERTY that Nika mode has on his own body.

I'm fine with the plummeling into lava finale, it's old fashioned and titan apropriate.

ljxjlos

Honestly? Up until Wano, I wouldn't change a single thing. (Except adding a few chapters of random crew Interactions here and there after the timeskip)

In Wano, tho? Especially the end? Way too much, especially small things. I still love and believe in Oda, have done so for...good lord, 22 years?...but something just feels off about his writing recently.

danie

@ljxjlos 25 years. I think Wano feels off because it was too much/too long and Oda just got sick of it to the point he just had to off-panel or set to the side many things. Hopefully he will be able to handle things better next time.

Nidhoeggr

@Nidhoeggr said in How Would You Write One Piece Differently/How Would you have wanted it.:

@Zar:

Honestly just cutting out a bunch of characters.

I'd be tempted to cut out all the Samurai except Kin'emon and have the samurai storyline focus entirely on him and Momo. Reason he went to Dressrosa? Strawhats went there and got dragged with them. And to Zou? To recruit the Minks. On Wano the other samurai could be combined with those yakuza types so they're the strong figures Kin is trying to recruit. Hell remove Hiyori and let that panel time go towards Momo and Tama, remove Orochi and give some of his traits to Kaido so he feels like a more relevant villain for mainland Wano. Dunno who'd be the traitor in this scenario but they could work directly for Kaido and maybe even be one of the flying six.

Just… condense things.

I feel like we could have done with just 4 or 5 samurai, but give those more prominent screentime.

As for my changes to the story:

I'd probably split Green Bit and Dressrosa a bit more narratively and geographically so they can work as two arcs belonging to the Dressrosa saga instead of just one mega arc.

Add G8 as a proper little arc between Skypeia and LRLI. It should have been canon as it showcases both a different side to the Marines as well as foreshadow Akainu to lay the groundwork for both War saga and the appearance of Aokiji a bit later.

Add back the mentioning of Shiki between Shanks and WB's conversation and add Strong World's movie plot as a small arc between TB and Sabaody. Oda would probably have to change a bit more in the arc itself to not contradict powerscaling and showing off too much of Marineford, but I feel like it was a cool movie and Shiki is a funny villian.

Make room for at least one small detour in the NW so we can properly visit one island not related to the entire main plot that started in PH. Maybe have the Strawhats interact with Urouge there or so. And as someone who enjoyed those early anime filler episodes about the crewmates working on their dream, I feel like it would be nice to have that as the focus of a small arc as well.

Add a proper seabattle. I don't care if it gets added in 4) or whereever, but it needs to happen. I want the Gaon Cannon to go BOOM.

Expand the interaction with Ace during Alabasta a bit more, I found it hard to care that much about Ace since we barely saw him.

In general I'd just add a bit more breathers so we can properly relax and aren't just tied to constant mega arcs. This is an adventure series after all and I feel one or two smaller, low stakes adventures would pull a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to building up crew interactions and newer members like Brook. Oh, and add more single panel doublespreads in general: Oda does a lot of very dense doublespreads these days but I think a good dozen or maybe two dozen of them should have been single-panel ones for better impact. The scabbards looking at the sea, some Kaidou moments, etc. Push the other panels for those pages onto others - would add maybe 1 or 2 chapters overall in the grand scheme of things, but make it feel that much more epic.

Otherwise I agree with Robby that I wouldn't really change the story too much.

@Zik:

Never been satisfied with Luffy's "rivals". Law's great but he's basically the biggest non-SH character/ally. Kid is a joke to me. The rest were lame or haven't been in the story enough but its basically Bonney and Urouge, they seem like they'll serve different purposes. So I would've added a 13th worst generation member. I dont know why Oda teased us with events during the 2 years the crew were training separately. Yeah he's not gonna cover it but he could've done a lot more teasing about the 'incident in ×', the 'tragedy at ×', etc.

I'd love to see what that incident at Rocky Port was. Coby and Law must have done something to warrant their reputation, but we will most likely only find out via SBS…

Didn't want to create a new topic for this, so I'd like to add to my previous post. Now that Wano is over, here are a few things I would have liked to see in a potential director's cut:

A medium-scale Wano restructuring:

a) Add backstories for the Supernovae: Kidd and Killer's SBS backstory when he and Luffy talk in Act 2; some more about Hawkins, Drake and Apoo and their motives during the raid.

b) A general split of the Onigashima Raid in two acts to make room for a lot of the cut stuff that feels like it needed an expansion to make it click, as Wano is imho the arc where rewrites and scrapped subplots are the most obvious. This includes:

A split between fights on Onigashima and the other counties of Wano; maybe make the takeover of the harbour a bigger plot point (a proper sea battle!) so that parts of the forces can split up. Adds setting variety and gives options to have other, shafted characters fights.
To add to that, give small on panel fights to the Numbers, the Oniwabanchu, some important Minks like Carrot, Jack and known members from Kidd's and Law's crew like Bepo or Heat. This would make them feel less like fodder and give the Alliance a certain gravitas and scale needed to take down such mighty foes.
An expansion of the clan politics, the Kurozumi drama with Tama should not be SBS-only. There are a lot of good narrative seeds about the dangers of Sakoku laws in japan, old Samurai traditions, etc. in here, but Oda never really drove the point home.
A proper Kaidou and Yamato flashback. Who was Yamato's mother, how did Kaidou rise to power, explanation on some of his legends. Not much, but please a bit more than half a chapter.
Give a proper reason why the BM fleet does nothing. This always felt weird and it feels even weirder that we never heard of them again afterwards. If my proposed split between acts and locations remains in place, maybe let them attack the harbour and have the left-behind forces of the alliance fight against them.

c) An extension of the last few final chapters to a proper post-arc known as Act 5, thereby fulfilling the often speculated about 5 act structure. This should imho inclue some small tidbits on Ryuma and Moria as well as adress the ramifications of BM and Kaido essentially being dead as far as the story is concerned.

This would overall maybe add 20 or 25 chapters to Wano, but could have really helped to round this very uneven arc out.

Oh, and maybe a small but important change I'd make is to actually have the Gomu Gomu no Mi exist in universe. This would make a secret conspiracy to snuff out the legend of Nika and the rather lax approach towards Luffy for a large time period much more plausible without changing too much. Hell, there could even be a fun little cameo somewhere about the actual Gomu Gomu user being examined by the Wg before being deemed irrelevant.

electricmastro

@Nidhoeggr said in How Would You Write One Piece Differently/How Would you have wanted it.:

A proper Kaidou and Yamato flashback. Who was Yamato's mother, how did Kaidou rise to power, explanation on some of his legends. Not much, but please a bit more than half a chapter.

Maybe Oda is saving it for later, in light of how he just revealed that Gloriosa sailed with Kaido to God Valley.