How to read One Piece - Chapters Vs. Batch

chpollastrini

Hey everyone, 15 years member here (mostly lurker) and after so many years reading weekly I decided to re-read One Piece from the beginning and I'm having a totally different experience…

I can categorize my One Piece years in 3 moments based on the way I read it

1. The start (2005): Learning about it and catching up using the old MSN Manga forums crappy scanlations. It was a great ride with almost no outside interference. got in love with it in my own terms and was up to date in september 2005 (around the beggining of Enies Lobby);

2. The weekly adventure (2005 - ????): Reading weekly has been a part of my life for these 15 years, and I was glad doing it until I started reading from the start again last month...
In the first 7 years I used to watch the anime weekly too, and it would give me a second chance to catch little bits I missed in the readings, but since Fishman Island I've been neglecting the anime and the weekly read got to be my final taste of the storytelling

3. Reading again (2020): The reason of this thread
This second read is making me think about how much the fandom can influence how one can enjoy the ride, I remember clearly the backlash even some of today's most beloved arcs had when they were being published (Enies Lobby and Marineford comes to mind)

And it made me think:

Are One Piece fans too nitpicky with the weekly chapters?

Is One Piece better read in bulk?

So, let me know what you guys think....

Deicide

Yes, fans are nitpicky. You shouldn't mind them too much. It's nice to discuss, but don't get carried away by others' perceptions.

And yes, it's better read in bulk. It's nice to read weekly, but it's good to go back and reread them again together to get a better perspective.

otakufan

Depends on what you want to get out of the experience.

Reading in a batch helps smooth out the pacing and let's you experience a cohesive narrative all at once, but one of the things I enjoy greatly about week-by-week reading is the process of analyzing and theorizing.

I'm a fan of mystery novels, so getting time to sit back and think about how each piece of new information ties into the series's web of puzzles and conspiracies is part of what makes it fun.

G1Ravage

When I first started getting HEAVILY into One Piece back in 2008 or so, I started picking up volumes of the manga at a local anime shop.

Let me tell you…I read through multiple volumes as easily as a hot knife through butter. I couldn't put it down.

So I think having access to a LOT of chapters at once makes for a more fluid experience.

wolfwood

Marineford is one of the most beloved arcs?

StrawHatJedi

Hey, good to know that you were part of OPMv2 on MSN! I was a member there for a very long time and was even a mod for a stretch.

Similar experience, though I first started reading in US SJ magazine in 2003, then caught up in early 2006. I read weekly for years. I fell behind around Zou when I became busy with certain things in life and for several years didn't have One Piece in my life. I think I stopped for about 3.5 years, until, last summer, I decided to re-read the series and catch up. I've been reading weekly again for the past year.

It's not worth it to wait to read it in bulk, in my opinion. I didn't stop reading specifically with that intention and I certainly wasn't bored of the series. There were just other things happening. I wish I hadn't fallen behind. I really feel like One Piece is best enjoyed weekly. I think the anticipation of waiting each week to find out 'what happens next?' is a huge part of the experience. I have gone back to re-read the series from the start numerous times, most recently last year, as I said. I find I enjoy the series just as much, if not more, each time. It's a different experience, yes, but not really a better one. And you can only read the series weekly once - this opportunity will never come again. It's like seeing a film during the initial theatrical run or watching a show on live TV. They used to call shows like Lost 'Water cooler ' shows because people would congregate at work the next day to talk about the previous night's episode. It doesn't really exist with TV anymore - streaming networks release shows as full seasons and the audience is divided by the sheer amount of media available. I greatly missed the experience of discussing One Piece every week with my friends and have been really happy to have returned to that in the past year. I read everything from mid-Zou through mid-Wano in two sittings for the first time. It was cool catching up and I love those arcs, but I don't think the enjoyment of those story arcs was enhanced in any way by consuming them in bulk. I feel like One Piece is best enjoyed by ruminating over each chapter and anticipating 'what comes next?' I probably haven't explained this very eloquently, but just speaking from personal experience, having both read in bulk to catch up, and reading weekly for many years, I find the latter to be a vastly superior experience.

chpollastrini

@wolfwood:

Marineford is one of the most beloved arcs?

That's what I see out of here…

Sengokusgoat

I think I like weekly more because I get more out of every chapter, specially for something as dense as One Piece. Frankly I would probably have a hard time keeping up with something like Wano if I didn't spend so much time talking about it with people of the internet. And my memories of things that happened since I'm reading weekly are a lot more clear and vivid than what happened before.

wolfwood

Always happy to play into the stereotype of the overly critical forumite. Just sayin it's the Michael Bay movie of the OP arcs. It's fine for what it is, at points even enjoyable in its pandering, but if it has suddenly been bumped up to the same lofty heights as Arlong Park then i'm quite out of touch with the general opinion

theackwardstation

Reading in batch is a smoother experience to feel all the beats of the story. The pacing is better, the emotional continuity is tighter, and you usually don't nitpick what doesn't need to be nitpicked. It's also a very personal experience, so you don't get influenced as much by other people's biases.

But there's a whole new world only possible through reading weekly. Besides being a social experience, the manga becomes a part of your life that you take with you for years, which is nice. You can also reach a depth of knowledge and understandment of the series that you can't reach by reading it once in one go. All the theories and analysis and scrutinity have the beneficit of making all the details stand out so you can notice the richness of the story you're reading.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

@wolfwood:

Always happy to play into the stereotype of the overly critical forumite. Just sayin it's the Michael Bay movie of the OP arcs. It's fine for what it is, at points even enjoyable in its pandering, but if it has suddenly been bumped up to the same lofty heights as Arlong Park then i'm quite out of touch with the general opinion

Marineford was an instant classic and it's definitely in the top 2 of the fandom statistically.

chpollastrini

@theackwardstation:

Marineford was an instant classic and it's definitely in the top 2 of the fandom statistically.

I wouldn't go as much as say instant… It was really hard to keep with it weekly with all the 13, 15 page chapters with nothing but spreads...

For me, it is an clear example of an arc better read as a whole

HikaruYami

@wolfwood:

Always happy to play into the stereotype of the overly critical forumite. Just sayin it's the Michael Bay movie of the OP arcs. It's fine for what it is, at points even enjoyable in its pandering, but if it has suddenly been bumped up to the same lofty heights as Arlong Park then i'm quite out of touch with the general opinion

You are… definitely out of touch with the general opinion, yes lol. Arlong Park is often fondly remembered as "the arc that got many people hooked", but it's broadly not considered on even the same level as Marineford, much less Enies Lobby.

@chpollastrini:

I wouldn't go as much as say instant…

While I do remember there being nitpicking at the time (tbh I remember half of it being "when are we seeing the rest of the straw hats again, it's been forever"), in the chapter Ace died and the few after it, most fans were just going "Holy fucking shit this arc, what the fuck", and that is the impression people remember of the arc as a whole. So it was "instant", just not "from the beginning of it".

And yes, it was because Oda had never confirmed a kill before (outside of backstory). But that still made a huge fucking impression. Especially when Whitebeard died soon after. "Oh shit, we a serious manga now." That was roughly what happened.

Edit: I'll add that one of the chief complaints besides the lack of straw hats was that the stakes were fake because Ace wouldn't die after all of this buildup (to contrast, while most people assumed that the Straw Hats would succeed in Enies Lobby, they had just come off a series of failures from Luffy vs Ao Kiji in Long Ring Long Land and CP9 in Water 7, so it seemed at least conceivable that Robin would be taken away by the marines to be saved later, since the threat was not about execution, merely a sort of… enslaved imprisonment. Spandam really wanted the ancient weapon revived lol). People took Oda's "well I don't want to have some dumb revival mechanic so that's why I don't kill my characters off" answer to mean, before that, that he would never kill any character of importance at all. So Oda washed away those complaints and made them look downright foolish in retrospect, thus making those very people instantly gain a whole new respect for the whole arc. While I'm sure there were some complaints about pandering, I personally don't remember many at all, maybe just a couple of louder voices repeating the same point over and over again week after week.

theackwardstation

@chpollastrini:

I wouldn't go as much as say instant… It was really hard to keep with it weekly with all the 13, 15 page chapters with nothing but spreads...

It is an clear example of an arc better read as a whole

Well, I said it was an instant classic because I remember the reactions from that time. I can't speak for AP forum (although I was aware of its existence), but many other groups were praising Marineford for being this brilliant climax to the first half of the series. The level of hype and engagement with the series was gigantic at that time even outside OP forums, and the sales were rising immensely in Japan.

Not all chapter were short and uneventful as you're suggesting. Actually, most were not. I remember being worried when 553 and 554 came out (the first two chapters after the tsunami), but the progression was much more sensible after that with the return of normal pages. Of course, there was still an abundance of doublepages throughout the arc, but that's eye candy.

More importantly, it was a relatively short arc with many stand out chapters. The last portion was particularly dense with impactful moments and twists. Just too many iconic scenes. That's an instant classic.

And I say that as someone who doesn't put Marineford at my top 2. I prefer the more "conventional" arcs with the Strawhats.

StrawHatJedi

Water Seven was and still is my favorite arc in the series. It's One Piece firing on all cylinders. I think the story from Zou through the present arc is the best it has been in years. I've never disliked One Piece. There are no arcs I consider anywhere close to bad or even boring. But I will say that I think Dressrosa was the weakest arc to date. Again, far from bad, but definitely not up to Oda's usual standard, in my opinion. Fishman Island and Punk Hazard also had shortcomings. Zou, Whole Cake, Reverie, and Wano have all been excellent, however.

gyuukarubi

Definitely better as a batch.

Just because it’s more enjoyable that way and it’s a better use of your time. If you haven’t the bandwidth for weekly speculation, make predictions after each volume. Unless you’re getting paid for weekly speculation, as there’s a lot of opportunity to do so.

Reading the Reverie arc and Oden flashback this way solidified this for me. I haven’t read since 977 and I might pause until we hit 1000.

Riddler

I think ultimately, the series is better read in bulk, yes. You get a much better sense for the flow of the story and reading week-by-week opens the door to a lot of premature bitching and nitpicking, especially concerning pacing issues that often disappear when you read a whole volume at once, for example.

Buuut I wouldn't want to miss reading my weekly One Piece chapter for the world, it has become such an integral part of my weekly routine over the last, I think 13 or 14 years (damn, I'm old…). Its much easier to really focus on and appreciate the little details of each chapter that might be overlooked in bulk reading - and Oda packs so many cool little details into each chapters that this would truly be a shame. And in general, I do love seeing the reactions and discussions regarding each new chapter. And I want to second what Vongola_Boss_XI said, I also watched Lost for example when it was airing and the weekly discussions were a huge part of what made the show so special. I'm not a big fan of the current trend of just releasing whole seasons at once, you really lose this aspect of discussing each new episode with the other fans, because everybody is watching at their own pace now and every viewer is at a different part of the story. That's just not how I enjoy watching things. Even now, when I've got a whole season of a show on DVD or on Netflix or whatever, I never binge, I always watch two or three episodes at once at most and then take a little break for a few days to a week before I continue. I don't want to have everything become just a blur for me, I want to take in each individual episode, too.

Personally, I love combining both ways of reading. Read the new chapters weekly when they come out and then read the whole volume in bulk when it comes out in Germany. I do rereads constantly, too, I just never tire of this story - currently, I'm on Enies Lobby. Due to the nature of the beast, I've read the first 40 volumes or so a lot more often than the latter ones, so I can't wait to reread Thriller Bark, Sabaody, Marineford etc. very soon. Since I'm really into hearing what other people think or feel while watching/reading, I also sometimes watch reaction vids on Youtube, though its hard to find really good ones that aren't way over-the-top annoying (shoutout to the Youtuber animaechan, her One Piece reactions are very thoughtful and enjoyable).

chpollastrini

@Riddler:

I also sometimes watch reaction vids on Youtube, though its hard to find really good ones that aren't way over-the-top annoying (shoutout to the Youtuber animaechan, her One Piece reactions are very thoughtful and enjoyable).

I can heavily recommend the blind read that is being done by Totally Not Mark…. He is around the same place as you, great stuff

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@HikaruYami:

So it was "instant", just not "from the beginning of it".

Maybe we just had different experiences with it, all I remember around here at the time was the backlash about Shanks (and Law) showing up… It took a long time for these plot points settle with the community

vlad Dracul

i've started reading OP on a weekly basis since enies lobby as well, a short time before i created this account on APforums.

and in addition - at start just to support this series - i began buying the volumes in my native language, german. i've been doing this shortly after actually.
sometimes i slack in reading those newly printed volumes and just wait for the current arc to finish or reach a certain point. this is when i start reading in a bulk, and i enjoy it alot.

reading some volumes in a bunch or even a full arc makes me appreciate the storytelling and character development. it can tighten the emotional continuity just as theackwardstation said, especially true for those long flashbacks.
my goal is to re-read the full series when it finally concludes, but this time in japanese :)

Kdom

Reading in bulk may smooth the pacing but in the end it never really changed the main opinion I had when I read weekly.

Both have their advantage and inconvenients. And Oda knows how to make his story progress so that both types of reading are satisfying

Medical Orbit

Reading in bulk you get to see the full photo album of all the weekly pictures and how they all connect and flow. I've always enjoyed reading or watching series in bulk the most. It feels like an exciting, nonstop adventure.

One good thing about weekly though is that smaller details are more memorable. If I read 400 chapters in one sitting, I'm not going to remember or pick up on all the subtle hints that take some time to notice. With weekly I read slower and there's a week for people to discuss and point out stuff like "this character in this panel in this chapter is the same one from this panel 430 chapters ago".

Supernova

I literally just reread the series. Probably for the 4th time.

While my general love for the series has been there. Weekly readers do ruin certain arcs. WCI for example I think is a great arc that will stand the test of time. However, weekly readers kinda ruined that experience.

Kdom

@Supernova:

I literally just reread the series. Probably for the 4th time.

While my general love for the series has been there. Weekly readers do ruin certain arcs. WCI for example I think is a great arc that will stand the test of time. However, weekly readers kinda ruined that experience.

How does it ruin your experience if you still think it is a great arc ?

ea77

Both for me.

Rereading past 10 chapters of every manga I'm following just to catch up.

wolfwood

@theackwardstation:

Marineford was an instant classic and it's definitely in the top 2 of the fandom statistically.

@HikaruYami:

You are… definitely out of touch with the general opinion, yes lol. Arlong Park is often fondly remembered as "the arc that got many people hooked", but it's broadly not considered on even the same level as Marineford, much less Enies Lobby.

Fascinating. It would never have occured to me that people would be so enamored with a strawhat less action arc. I don't dislike it as such, but i find large parts of it to be fairly shallow with lots of fan servicey aborted skirmishes. I much prefer the slower paced arcs where crew gets to interact, like W7, Arlong Park and Alabasta. But out of touch is a label i can live with, just fun to see the viewpoints shifting over time.

Buggy D. Clown

I always re-read arcs once they're done, so much fun. I love the weekly chapters - something to look forward to every week (sometimes 2 - damn breaks)

Kdom

Even if those who believes Marineford is not that great are a minority, I'm not sure they are that little in numbers

Cockycent

The weekly read isn't bad. I wouldn't be mad if Oda took a 2 year break. He deserves it.

Captain M

The weekly One Piece chapter and all the discussions around it has become a vital part of my routine by now, and I love watching the discussions develop while everyone has the time to comb through each chapter panel by panel, but it takes a rare artistic talent to make something that can hold my interest through such drip-fed pacing for such a long period.

Despite how much I've come accustomed to reading that way, I try to keep the volume readthrough in mind when I'm looking at a chapter. How is the book structured? Where does it start and end? Does one week's chapter feel dull because it's building to something that will be five minutes of reading later in the volume, as opposed to the two weeks it might be now? These things are important because the weekly read only exists at one point in time and can't be recreated. Every other readthrough of the series for the rest of history is going to follow the volumes, whether its new readers or veterans doing a revisit. Ultimately, that version is the one that's going to go down in history and be remembered, and I think Oda knows it too. Even things like the volume covers and titles are important because of how they build anticipation and expectations for the book ahead in a way the weekly read doesn't have. Some have complained that they can give spoilers that weekly readers wouldn't have had, but that's just an expected part of the volume read - its better they be considered part of the storytelling for this version than something tacked on that punishes the non-weekly readers. It's not spoilers if the author himself chose to put them there.

And it's particularly important for One Piece to have a good reread experience! There's so much underlying lore and foreshadowing that I honestly think the best readthrough of the series is not the first one but the second one, when you know what's coming and can start seeing in advance how it all connects. All these little snippets no one could catch on the first time through. It's night and day how much more you get it the second time through.

Anyway, my reading experience starts with the weekly chapter. Bits of it tend to get reread through the week to double check different things that come up in discussions and whatever. I flip through the raws of the Japanese volumes when they come out, just following the pictures because I don't read Japanese, which is a broad strokes recap and feeling for how it flows as a book. I do a proper read of each English volume in full as they come out and a full reread of an arc when it's finished. I also flip back through old arcs and volumes when the mood takes me. It's been a number of years since I did a complete, start-to-finish reread though. I couldn't even say how many times I've gone over certain parts of the story.