Hello everyone, long time no see, I hope y’all are doing great.
The very first saga of the series introduces us to our protagonist "Luffy" recruiting his first four crew mates and heading towards the Grand Line where awaits the greatest treasure "One Piece" that Luffy is seeking for. Whoever finds this treasure would become the "Pirate King". So far the only one to attain this treasure is former Pirate King "Gol D Roger". Moments before the his death, Roger declares the world to find his treasure (One Piece) if they want to, thereby starting "The Great Pirate Era". The first five arcs of this saga introduces us to the first five members of the "Straw Hat Pirates"(including Luffy). These crew members are:
I thoroughly enjoyed this saga. I would say it was a very strong opening, starting from Luffy travelling alone to the five "Straw Hat Members" escaping Navy from Louge Town heading towards the Reverse Mountain crossing which they would finally reach the Grand Line. The main highlight for me was "Luffy Vs Arlong". Smoker was a formidable opponent, but the build up for Arlong was better. At this point Smoker and Dragon were still somewhat of mysterious characters.
In the month of May, 2022, I posted a blog on my initial feedback on One Piece anime. I have taken several long breaks ever since. After so many breaks, I recently completed Pre-Timeskip.
Nevertheless, I wanted to share my pre-timeskip experience.
This anime is divided into two parts, this blog will only cover part one of the series also known as pre-timeskip.
This part consist of below 6 sagas and I will be sharing my experience on the first three of these in this part and the last three in the next part of this blog.
- East Blue Saga
- Arabasta Saga
- Sky Island Saga
- Water 7 Saga
- Thriller Bark Saga
- Summit War Saga
East Blue Saga
- Luffy (The Captain)
- Zoro (The Swordsman)
- Usopp ( The Sniper)
- Sanji (The Cook)
- Nami (The Navigator)
This saga also introduces some interesting antagonists including Buggy the clown, Arlong and Navy Captain Smoker and Dragon. Surprisingly while some of them do appear in future sagas, one of them had impact even in part 2 for the anime even after not appearing after this saga (based on what I have watched so far).
To me, the first part of this anime can be considered to be divided into two parts:
- East Blue
- Grand Line
This is the only saga in the whole anime that I am currently aware of that takes place in East Blue Saga. All other sagas primarily take place in Grand Line.
I thoroughly enjoyed this saga. I would say it was a very strong opening, starting from Luffy travelling alone to the five "Straw Hat Members" escaping Navy from Louge Town heading towards the Reverse Mountain crossing which they would finally reach the Grand Line. The main highlight for me was "Luffy Vs Arlong". Smoker was a formidable opponent, but the build up for Arlong was better. At this point Smoker and Dragon were still somewhat of mysterious characters.
Arabasta Saga
The second saga of this anime and first saga in the Grand Line. This saga starts with the crew crossing the reverse mountain. After this they meet "Laboon" the whale who has been harming himself while awaiting the crew who left him behind promising that they will return for him. The catch is the promise was made fifty years ago. We are also introduced to "Miss Wednesday" and her partner Mr. 9. They also provide the crew with a "Log Pose" that would help them in their Grand Line adventures. The crew, along with Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 head towards Whisky Peak. Here the island residents welcome the crew but are then revealed to be Bounty Hunter working under Baroque Works. This is around the time when I took a break for the very first time. I later continued with the series and Miss Wednesday was revealed to be Princess Vivi from Arabasta who went undercover to join Baroque Works to get information required to save her country. She joined the crew as a temporary member. The big bad of the saga was one of the Seven Warlord of the Sea named Crocodile who wanted to bring chaos in the land of Arabasta. On the way, Nami fell sick and in the process of getting her to the doctor they met Tony Tony Chopper (A reindeer who ate a zoan type devil fruit Human-Human fruit) in the Drum Island. later Chopper joined the crew as the crew's doctor. On the way they also meet Mr. 2 (a.k.a. Bon Clay) who had ability to impersonate anyone.Once the crew reached Arabasta, they went into their own battles and Luffy faced and got defeated by Crocodile. At this point Luffy didn't had much of a counter for Logia type devil fruit eaters like Smoker and Crocodile. Luffy almost got killed by Crocodile, however sort-of got saved by the secondary antagonist of this saga "Nico Robin". Luffy found that Crocodile's weakness is water and he can hit crocodile as long as his body is covered with water(or blood in case of their final fight). Luffy eventually managed to defeat Crocodile and saved the kingdom of Arabasta. The straw hats said their good byes and headed forward with Nico Robin joining the crew as the crew's Archaeologist.
While "Whisky Peak" didn't felt that interesting and the crew's journey through the sandy desert felt pretty repetitive as the episodes went by in the same sandy desert, the action and story were great. Also the saga ending with Bon Clay's sacrifice to hep the Straw Hats escape and Robin joining the crew was a cherry on the top. Surprisingly, this saga proved somewhat important with a part of the climax of Pre-timeskip. Overall, the breaks were much needed during this saga but with these breaks I really enjoyed the experience.
Sky Island Saga
The third saga of the series literally took the crew to the heavens to fight God. We are also first introduced to "Black Beard" and a warlord of the sea "Doflamingo". The crew reached the sky island "Skypeiea" and faced the four priest and "God Eneru". All of them possessed some special powers called "Mantra" using which they were able to predict their opponents moves making them difficult to be defeated. The crew finally managed to defeat them. Unlike Crocodile (the antagonist of the saga prior this this one) whose powers made him stronger than Luffy, Eneru's lightning powers made him weaker to Luffy who seemed to be the only counter to Eneru. After a long fight, Luffy finally defeated Eneru. It is also revealed through a poneglyph that Gol D Roger and his crew also reached Skipia in the past leaving a message to whoever find the message.
Every arc in this saga act as dots connecting towards the final act. Personally, my favourite part was the real story of Nolan was people believed to be a liar. Initially the story was about how he made up stories of his adventures it it had more of a comical touch to it, however the real story was much more emotion packed. Merry also went through a lot of damage during this saga even post modification for going to the Sky Island. I had a feeling that this might have repercussions in the later arcs. The arc was exciting with revelations of the history of Shandians and the Skypiea.
My rating
Overall the I really enjoyed my time watching these arcs and I give it a rating of 8.5/10.
Anyways, if you guys have any thoughts and suggestions, just drop them in the comment section below.
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