What If Eiichiro Oda wrote Dragon Ball?

Saiga · Post by **Saiga** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:29 am

I agree with the sentiment that it's a significant flaw if a series takes multiple volumes to get interesting. And Water 7 starts at volume 34, it is waaay to much to expect someone to wait over 30 volumes before they see something interesting.

So no, for anyone who dropped the series before than, that's being fair. It's up to the work to keep people interested enough to continue reading.

DragonBalllKaiHD · Post by **DragonBalllKaiHD** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:51 am

Look at Naruto. It has a better pace and story. The characters are just as great as Dragon Ball is. What's even better is the author of Naruto really planned way ahead by time he started ink his manga. Story-wise, it really picks up at Chuuin Exam arc, and things get really interesting from there on. And you only have to read up to Volume 8 to capture your interest, unlike One Piece which can take a while to get your attention. That's a lot of time to invest something that is so ridiculously long. What's even more tiring is that One Piece doesn't seem to end any time soon, while Naruto is reaching its climax. The author of Naruto did a good job of keeping the readers interested and worthwhile.

Saiga · Post by **Saiga** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:55 am

Hehehe, now I'd really disagree with that... Part II just hasn't been as good, and it went downhill after Pain. The war arc is just atrocious, and I'm only reading because I really don't like leaving series unfinished.

But for that I'd say the first arc (Land of Waves) is strong enough to keep most people interested. I also think it's better than the Chunin Exams.

The Monkey King · Post by **The Monkey King** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:07 am

DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:Look at Naruto. It has a better pace and story. The characters are just as great as Dragon Ball is. What's even better is the author of Naruto really planned way ahead by time he started ink his manga. Story-wise, it really picks up at Chuuin Exam arc, and things get really interesting from there on. And you only have to read up to Volume 8 to capture your interest, unlike One Piece which can take a while to get your attention. That's a lot of time to invest something that is so ridiculously long. What's even more tiring is that One Piece doesn't seem to end any time soon, while Naruto is reaching its climax. The author of Naruto did a good job of keeping the readers interested and worthwhile.

Naruto took a dive in Part II imo. The Pain arc was good but over all, meh.
This war has been stretched for so long, there have been so many ass pulls, death is almost as cheap as it is in Dragon Ball, characters making illogical 180 degree turns in what they stand for and

Spoiler:

is one of the worst villains in manga history, he's just so goddamn pathetic. And don't get me started on how Kishimoto sidelined to two most badass characters: Rock Lee and Neji to tell us more about the goddamn Uchiha Clan, I swear for a while Naruto was just Uchiha this and Sharingan that and Mangekyo this...ugh.
And I like that One Piece is long, if it means more quality reading material for me I see no reason to complain, unlike Naruto of which I want to see end soooooooo badly.

Saiga wrote:I agree with the sentiment that it's a significant flaw if a series takes multiple volumes to get interesting. And Water 7 starts at volume 34, it is waaay to much to expect someone to wait over 30 volumes before they see something interesting.

Then I guess it's a really good thing One Piece doesn't take take anywhere near 30 volumes to get interesting
Honestly if you're not getting into One Piece when Mihawk appears (volume 6) or at Arlong Park (volume 8 ), I don't think One Piece is for you, and that's a shame.

helsinkirocks · Post by **helsinkirocks** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:22 am

Let me make it clear, I didn't mean it took up to Enies Lobby to be interesting, I meant, by that point you can make a pretty fair assessment of the series. Basically, everything up-to-and-including the Alabasta arc could be compared to Dragon Ball. Post-Alabasta is more akin to "Z", as in it is more large scale, with more action, and world building. You wouldn't read Dragon Ball, and then have that form your opinion on Z.

I was "interested" in One Piece from the moment I began watching, and I thought it was pretty good. The climax during Alabasta sold it as one of my favorites, and basically every arc after just got better and better, until it finally solidified as my favorites. It was a bit of a slow burn, but I never felt like I had to "force myself" into reading or watching more, like I did with say- Naruto. I read the first 8 volumes, and it really felt like a chore. I've been thinking of giving it another chance, but it'll be a difficult sell.

I've been interested in Bleach, I've gotten into it more than I have Naruto, and I'm only on volume 2 or 3 (I think). Neither of them come close to One Piece in my mind.

DragonBalllKaiHD · Post by **DragonBalllKaiHD** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:26 am

The problem isn't how interesting it is, but how long One Piece really is. Even Enies Lobby, as interesting the arc was, even that is taking way too long before the thunder god shows up.

rereboy · Post by **rereboy** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:51 am

JulieYBM wrote:
If One Piece takes eight volumes to get good that's probably a good sign it isn't really worth the time. Eight volumes is a half of a day's worth of reading to devote to a single comic just to justify reading it "when it gets good."

How does that make sense? Imagine that after reading those volumes, things just keep getting better and better, until you find One Piece one of the best mangas out there and you even gain renewed appreciation for the early volumes since they establish stuff that is going to be fun and amazing in the future. How is that not worth your time?

Like I said, it took a while for me to really get into One Piece, I only got into it after the first 10 volumes, but do you really think I ever considered it a waste of time? It would be a waste of time if things didn't evolve positively or if things got much worse, but that wasn't the case at all. I consider the time I spent getting into One Piece one of the best uses I ever made with my time in regards to entertainment, and now One Piece, like Dragon Ball, is one of my favorite mangas.

Kid Buu wrote:I disagree, I read about the first three volumes and felt no desire to read the rest. Other series I don't really continue reading unless they "hook" me in.

That's too bad. If I had done the same as you, since I didn't really get into One Piece before around the 10th volume, I would never have discovered how great One Piece is and I would never have discovered one of my favorite manga.

Saiga wrote:I agree with the sentiment that it's a significant flaw if a series takes multiple volumes to get interesting. And Water 7 starts at volume 34, it is waaay to much to expect someone to wait over 30 volumes before they see something interesting.

So no, for anyone who dropped the series before than, that's being fair. It's up to the work to keep people interested enough to continue reading.

Of course. But if they do, how can they justly criticize One Piece? First, they didn't read/watch most of it, and second, what they read/watch wasn't even the best parts of it.

DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:Look at Naruto. It has a better pace and story. The characters are just as great as Dragon Ball is. What's even better is the author of Naruto really planned way ahead by time he started ink his manga. Story-wise, it really picks up at Chuuin Exam arc, and things get really interesting from there on. And you only have to read up to Volume 8 to capture your interest, unlike One Piece which can take a while to get your attention. That's a lot of time to invest something that is so ridiculously long. What's even more tiring is that One Piece doesn't seem to end any time soon, while Naruto is reaching its climax. The author of Naruto did a good job of keeping the readers interested and worthwhile.

Naruto is kind of like the opposite of One Piece. It starts out great and keeps being great up until the point that Sasuke gets rid of Orochimaru. Then it starts to get worse and worse and eventually goes downhill. Nowadays its a shadow of what it was. And its too bad since I, like many others, was a fan of Naruto (and still am a fan of early Naruto).

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:32 am

DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:What's even more tiring is that One Piece doesn't seem to end any time soon, while Naruto is reaching its climax. The author of Naruto did a good job of keeping the readers interested and worthwhile.

I think that's a little bit contentious, Naruto's reader-base is nothing to what it was. Naruto was huge when the anime adaptation first started, but it's trailed off in popularity year-on-year ever since. By contrast, One Piece reached the peak of its popularity 2 or 3 years ago, and the most recent One Piece Movie, Film Z, totally smashed a handful of domestic box office records in Japan.

TheAldella · Post by **TheAldella** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:50 am

DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:Look at Naruto. It has a better pace and story. The characters are just as great as Dragon Ball is. What's even better is the author of Naruto really planned way ahead by time he started ink his manga. Story-wise, it really picks up at Chuuin Exam arc, and things get really interesting from there on. And you only have to read up to Volume 8 to capture your interest, unlike One Piece which can take a while to get your attention. That's a lot of time to invest something that is so ridiculously long. What's even more tiring is that One Piece doesn't seem to end any time soon, while Naruto is reaching its climax. The author of Naruto did a good job of keeping the readers interested and worthwhile.

I'm not so sure. Naruto's actual meat is in Part 1, (Not to say Part 2 doesn't have its moments) whereas One Piece is just better as it moves along. It's a difficult comparison.

JulieYBM · Post by **JulieYBM** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 1:06 pm

I think the problem here is that a lot of One Piece fans confuse it for being a successor to Dragon Ball in a very surface-level manner. The two series couldn't be any more different. One Piece is about sentimentality, Dragon Ball isn't about anything. It's carefree, but that carefreeness is in no way meant as a message. Dragon Ball is merely the work of a guy who screwed around every week for money. One Piece is one man's crazed attempt to put himself in the record books and the hospital all while saving the children from having to spend more then five dollars on a book. Oda's a true believe, Toriyama does things for other people because he's too passive.

One Piece might involve actual plotting, but it's not the penchant for plotting that I do not want to see Dragon Ball afflicted by, but the other stuff that comes with it. Oda writing Dragon Ball in his own manner would be completely foreign in character to what makes Dragon Ball so great. If Koyama Takao's Hero of Justice Gokuu is a problem just imagine how terrifying Oda's Gokuu would be. Or worse yet, his take on everyone else.

B · Post by B » Sat Jan 18, 2014 2:24 pm

DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:Look at Naruto. It has a better pace and story. The characters are just as great as Dragon Ball is. What's even better is the author of Naruto really planned way ahead by time he started ink his manga. Story-wise, it really picks up at Chuuin Exam arc, and things get really interesting from there on. And you only have to read up to Volume 8 to capture your interest, unlike One Piece which can take a while to get your attention. That's a lot of time to invest something that is so ridiculously long. What's even more tiring is that One Piece doesn't seem to end any time soon, while Naruto is reaching its climax. The author of Naruto did a good job of keeping the readers interested and worthwhile.

I stopped reading Naruto a long time ago, and recently decided to not go back to it. It occurred to me that if I were to pick it up again, the only chance I would have at making sense of anything would be to:

Start over from the beginning
Start over from Part II

Neither of which sounded appealing to me, so I just gave it up. I had reached the part... God there were so many things going on I don't remember.

Spoiler:

... And at that point, I was really bored with the whole thing. The build up to the Konoha War, Pain's backstory, Sasuke being the greatest shonen rival ever, and the various Akatsuki fights, are interesting enough, but then we get to the actual war and story-wise, everything falls apart. It's one convoluted fight after another until Naruto shows up and then we get this overly sentimental ending, which in my opinion is more schmaltzy and forced than anything you'd find in One Piece. There are so many different pieces moving around in the plot, it's difficult to really comprehend what's going on, let alone care that Danzo wants to be Hokage or Tobi is trying to create a war or Orochimaru and Kabuto are doing something. And then there's the art. People love to point to One Piece's early chapters for how terrible they look, and I suppose I can give them that, but Oda's vastly improved and it doesn't take that long for the series to look appealing. Naruto has done the complete opposite. The series was decent enough when it started, and then became gorgeous I guess late Chuunin Exam arc, and then you get knee-deep in Part II... It's just bad. There's no excuse for it considering Kishimoto has so many assistants helping him. Fight scenes become incomprehensible messes(OP is not immune to this, it offends much less, though). Remember Might Gai versus... the shark person. Kisame? What the hell was going on in that chapter/battle? Characters essentially look pasted on the page like cardboard cut-outs. I don't feel immersed into the scene when reading Naruto; he's got his assistants laboring on backgrounds. Hair doesn't look like hair; it look likes sharp blocks on top of characters' heads. To top it all off, you have Kishimoto's lazy way of portraying emotion; full-page shots of people crying. Sasori the puppeteer, Sasuke, Nagato, Naruto... the best explanation I can come up with is perhaps he approaches storyboarding these scenes like a film. I am particularly reminded of the three or so pages covering Sasori's backstory with his parents, and there was no dialog, but himself just sitting on a blank page, sad. Kishimoto doesn't organize his panels in any particularly interesting way, so a lot of times it looks like he is trying to reach is mandatory page count per chapter.

I'm not really interested in Oda's Dragon Ball, but I would give that a peak before Kishimoto's.

(Also, "reaching its climax?" Why does it feel like people have been saying "Naruto's wrapping up and is gonna end in 2-3 years!" for five years?)

JulieYBM · Post by **JulieYBM** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 2:38 pm

Kishimoto streamlined the story in the late five hundreds. The last one hundred chapters have literally taken place at two locations with two plotlines that have since merged into one. Kishimoto himself keeps saying he's almost finished but this is the same guy who spent three years promising the JUMP Festa crowds that he would focus on Kakashi. It got to the point where Kishimoto started making fun of himself at JUMP Festa. Of course, Kakashi finally did receive focus early last year. Right now Kishimoto is in "throw in everything including the kitchen sink" mode. The war arc will finish this year, at the very least.

I am pretty impressed that he's managed to keep the series going so long. It's become clear from a lot of his drawings that he's aged a good decade in the last five years alone. Kishimoto doesn't take many breaks, either, despite the volume of work he does on each chapter.

DBZGTKOSDH · Post by **DBZGTKOSDH** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 2:45 pm

For Naruto, it started getting good in the Chunin Exams for me, and it's still awesome IMO. But it annoys me when it gets melodramatic, and the anime makes thing far more worse.

And if it doesn't end this year, it will definitely end next year.

DonZ · Post by **DonZ** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 3:25 pm

DragonBalllKaiHD wrote:What's even better is the author of Naruto really planned way ahead by time he started ink his manga.

Oda did the same thing too. in fact, when we talk about planning on the coming future events in the manga, One Piece easily take the cake form Naruto. Oda planned almost everything in his manga from the start in a brilliant way.

dprez · Post by **dprez** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:21 pm

The art in Naruto has changed so much. The quality has dropped significantly and I agree some fights are difficult to nearly impossible to comprehend. Early One Piece has the rounded edges like early Dragon Ball, and slowly changes. By the time we get to Arabasta the change is obvious. Then it slowly gets to it's more refined look we see today. Toriyama's style changed around the late Freeza arc to more jagged edges, like he was trying to draw faster. Even Kubo's art in Bleach has it's "rookie" faze. I actually prefered that early look, but his late character designs are awesome.

What I don't understand is how Kishimoto's style has changed and really regressed.

Gyt Kaliba · Post by **Gyt Kaliba** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:25 pm

On the idea of 'One Piece doesn't get good until Volume duh-duh-duh' thing, it's a little off topic but...I just don't see that, in comparison to Toriko, per say. For One Piece, the big stumble for me getting into it was the 4Kids dub, which pretty much soured me on the series as a whole (I know, I was stupid) for the longest time. It wasn't until FUNi got it and put the first of their dubbed episodes on Toonami that I gave it another go, and even then it was just to hear some of my favorite actors in a new show. Once I actually started from the beginning of the anime with their dub, I quickly realized how great I found the story. There was no 'Eh this is okay, but suddenly WOW THIS GOT AMAZING' moment for me.

I'm currently reading and getting caught up on Toriko though, and THAT is where I've had the 'it gets better later' feeling, despite not hearing many people say it about that series. I'm currently about 17 volumes in I think, and it was very subtly that I found myself liking it more. I had to think on it to realize that around volume 12, it had finally grown on me a fair amount. And while I'm still liking it more as I read on now, I can't help but think that it's a little off for a series to only be 'eh, this isn't as bad as I thought I guess' for the first handful of volumes. But then you do get into stuff like Bleach, Naruto, and even One Piece, where as much as I'm liking the series and still loving some characters, take severe dips in quality for various reasons for me later in. And here's the kicker - say what you will about Dragon Ball, but I have no issues at large with it like I do with any of these other series.

And that, I feel, is because of Toriyama's innate genius.

rereboy · Post by **rereboy** » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:27 pm

JulieYBM wrote:I think the problem here is that a lot of One Piece fans confuse it for being a successor to Dragon Ball in a very surface-level manner. The two series couldn't be any more different.

I absolutely agree. The reasons why I like Dragon Ball are different from the reasons why I like One Piece.

DBZ Mick · Post by **DBZ Mick** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 4:27 am

The plots and characters would be a lot stronger and all the characters would still play a vital part. It'd have even more perverted humour, haha.

I just started watching One Piece with my sister last year and I thought it started getting great around Arlong Park. I tried the manga but the artwork turned me off and Oda stuffing the panels full of too much. So manga wise I prefer Toriyama for sure.

SaiyanZ · Post by **SaiyanZ** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 4:39 am

The only thing saving Naruto atm is Madara Uchiha. Naruto and Sasuke have taken nosedives as characters in Part II, the Konoha 11 is pretty much useless, Tsunade sucks as a Hokage, Yamato is forgotten, Obito is one of the worst villains ever......yeah Naruto isn't as good as One Piece imo even though I like them equally, though Part I is really good. Ever since the declaration of the 4th World War, Naruto just hasn't be as good. Plot isn't near One Piece's right now, but pace is most certainly better.

Saiga · Post by **Saiga** » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:23 am

SaiyanZ wrote:The only thing saving Naruto atm is Madara Uchiha. Naruto and Sasuke have taken nosedives as characters in Part II, the Konoha 11 is pretty much useless, Tsunade sucks as a Hokage, Yamato is forgotten, Obito is one of the worst villains ever......yeah Naruto isn't as good as One Piece imo even though I like them equally, though Part I is really good. Ever since the declaration of the 4th World War, Naruto just hasn't be as good. Plot isn't near One Piece's right now, but pace is most certainly better.

Yamato is straight up dead, apparently, according to a recent interview. So not forgotten, his "death" was just given absolutely no focus. Kind of sad, I liked him.

Kanzenshuu

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