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One Piece >Dragon Ball/Z
- Thread starter Seesaw15
- Start date
- Status
Good post.
I stopped reading/watching it once they got back together and were with the giant kids.
The underwater arc and the giant kids arc were so bad, that I ended up giving up on the series.
I'd rather watch the Buu arc than the time skip under water arc....
What world do you live in where DBZ isnt drawn out
OP has had really good pacing for its manga, the anime struggles, but so did DBZ.
Despite its lengths the current arc is probably the most meaningful arc since Marineford and might be the best written one as well; the aftermath will have a huge impact on the entire world.
Do you mean after as in "after those arcs happened" or that Dressrosa is the second best arc? Because I still think Alabasta is better than Dressrosa.
However, I think Dressrosa is going to need some solid "sit down and read it all in one go" time for me to fully appreciate it. It's been tough week after week because honestly there's been a lot of redundant stuff and meaningless characters. It's still great though, Doflamingo is the best villain since Crocodile.
I'm going to echo everyone else in that the series' quality went down after the timeskip, though. The crew seems really marginalized and, in many cases, flanderized. Hell, we haven't seen Sanji, Brook, Chopper, or Nami for a full year. I like all of the things that are happening from a macro level, but ground level execution is a bit all over the place. Not very focused. This arc had some of the best flashbacks ever, though.
KidA Seven
Member
Dragon Ball
The true king
Bow down to kid goku
The true king
Bow down to kid goku
That was Punk Hazzard. Dressrosa has been going on for what, over a year now? It's easily the best (manga, cause anime had lots of early filler) arc since Enies Lobby.
Spoilers:
SABO DA GAWD
I agree week to week DB might have OP beat but when its all finished and collected in one complete story I feel like OP reads better. If you just look at the pacing during the Sayain/Frieeza Arcs its basically lets wait for Goku to arrive. While OP is really too dense at this point to be narratively satisfying on a week to week basis Oda's world building pays off more than watching Krillin get beat up for 10 chapters.
Nemesis121
Member
One Peace is better writing, but for action DB wins hands down..
KingofGourds
Member
DBZ is more iconic.
OP is technically and narratively superior.
OP is technically and narratively superior.
Gintama is better than both, as long as you ignore the odd traditional shounen arc which does nothing but get in the way of all the pointless meta-surrealism.
Hodie Jones was a pretty cool villain and the story hit its stride towards the end of the arc
Buy saga introduced useless Gohan, Young Trunks, Goten, SSJ 3 transformation which was useless and had some of the laziest fights ever (LOL GOHAN IS NOW MYSTIC GOHAN OOOPS HEBGETS ABSORBED FOR NO REASON LOL)
SolidusDave
Member
One Piece is stronger from a storytelling perspective, but as far as enjoyment goes, I enjoyed DB a hell of a lot more than One Piece because, as flawed as Toriyama was an author, Oda has very annoying bad habits of his own that make his chapters a drag to read week in, week out - and it's showing post-timeskip. As far as shōnen battle manga being shōnen battle manga, DB is the clear winner, no doubt in my mind about that.
thecoolFNF
Member
I don't. HxH is a good series, but One Piece is king.
That's because one is telling an actual story and the other is a random assortment of fight scenes with a shoestring tying them together. You can prefer the latter, that's fine, but let's just recognize it.
No.
FootballFan
Member
Nah sorry OP
Dragon Ball is king.
Dragon Ball is king.
John Kowalski
Banned
fuck why can't i vote
am i a criminal in gaf's eyes?? so heartless
am i a criminal in gaf's eyes?? so heartless
petethepanda
Member
This has to be one of those "whichever one you watched as a kid" things. I've never actually watched/read any One Piece though, been meaning to give it a shot for a while now.
Solid Samus
Banned
There's a whole lot more reasons to that then you want to admit...
Punk Hazard ends up with some good payoff because it's intrinsically tied to the next arc (the current one, which seems like it's about to tie up and, a few pacing stumbles and asinine decisions nonwithstanding, has been pretty goddamn exciting and satisfying up to now.
I prefer Dragonball over One-Piece, but let's be honest there. Even Akira Toriyama said it himself in some interview that he was making the entire story up as he went along without really any planning.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
One Piece is a well written, well characterized work with lots of lovely art and iconic scenes
Dragonball is like the GoldenEye of the manga universe. Beloved and iconic, but doesn't really hold up to it's successors in direct comparison. They are both responsible for popularizing a lot of the tropes in each field, but the series that came after did so much more with the groundwork laid out for them.
Dragonball is like the GoldenEye of the manga universe. Beloved and iconic, but doesn't really hold up to it's successors in direct comparison. They are both responsible for popularizing a lot of the tropes in each field, but the series that came after did so much more with the groundwork laid out for them.
BinaryPork2737
Unconfirmed Member
I'm just disappointed that Jojo's Bizarre Adventure isn't an answer to the poll.
The same critique can be made of One Piece. What significant impact does the island to island formula usually have on the greater, overarching plot of One Piece? Very little. What little development we get is usually ancillary to the SHP's goals, which are never directly related to achieving Luffy's dream or more interesting potential plot lines but instead used as a plot device to push onwards to the next island. The fact that getting to Raftel and finding One Piece is being treated as "we'll get there when we'll get there and in the meantime we'll do all this other shit" is precisely why One Piece feels like it has little interest in getting anywhere and is more interested in contuing to worldbuild endlessly until Oda gets bored writing his mediocre fight scenes and throws us a bone - which is usually a hint or reference to one of the greater mysteries of the world.
It simply isn't enough. Some might like it, and I thought I did too, but who needs this long to tell a fucking story? Hell, it's not even a very good story. In fact, there is barely a story there relative to the number of chapters. I'd like to actually finish reading this within my lifetime. Sure, if the story kept pushing forward instead of stalling and dragging along, I probably wouldn't care how long it took for it to finish so long as it was good, but that simply isn't the case.
Donquixote Doflamingo was first introduced in chapter 233, he's the main bad guy in this arc that started in chapter 700(on 780 now). How fucking cool is that?!!! The world that the manga takes place in is so big, with so many different characters, it's incredible. One Piece is a masterpiece and a true adventure that will still entertain me for the next 15 years.
And that is why it so good, what other manga would have it main dude died in the first fight of the time skip.
Yeah, that's 100% true. Just didn't like the way the comment was presenting that - if it was even presenting that at all. Just sounded like like a complete dismissal of Dragon Ball's plotting to me.
SnakeSlashRO
Banned
HxH is the first shounen that actually made me bust tears in my adult life.
One Piece did that once.... ONCE... a bit with choppers back story, but damn HxH is very good too, no doubt. With time and effort It could be as good as One Piece or better.
I feel this way, and I by far love them all...
One Piece > Dragon Ball > Yu Yu Hakusho > Hunter x Hunter - Overall (IMO)
One Piece > Hunter x Hunter > Yu Yu Hakusho > Dragon Ball - Story/Drama
Dragon Ball > Hunter x Hunter == Yu Yu Hakusho > One Piece - Action
Dragon Ball > One Piece > Yu Yu Hakusho > Hunter x Hunter - Main Character Development
One Piece > Yu Yu Hakusho > Hunter x Hunter > Dragon Ball - Supporting Character Development
Solid Samus
Banned
I definitely understand these complaints and I will readily echo them if the fallout of Dressrosa doesn't flip the script on the formula a bit like I expect it to. The Strawhat's who are
still on Dressrosa
God Usopp 2nd Division Commander y'all
It's not like characters in DB truly die either
I agree with the manga fight scenes being confusing, but not necessarily overdrawn or poorly paced, though Dressrosa is the first arc I've been keeping up with manga wise so can't really put much input.
The fight with side characters is an odd complaint though because the most common complaint of DBZ is that literally everyone but Goku becomes useless. Oda actually gives everyone something to do, though there are quite a few times where it's just fight a lower tier villain.
One Piece however still has the overall better storytelling, world building, and characters.
As for One Piece moving island to island I don't take much of an issue with, because it still stays true to the adventure nature that it started off with. Going to a new place, discovering and learning new things, and having the world expanded upon.
I suppose it comes down to preference over fights and story, though I find the fights in One Piece to be much more entertaining and re-watchable than DBZ as well as better overall.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
Struggling to think of a One Piece arc that had "nothing to do with the overall story" or wasn't supposed to facilitate some sort of character development
Come now, One Piece doesn't do character development outside of flashbacks.
Did Raditz ever come back? I don't think he did!
I suppose Ussop, Robin, Nami, Bellamy, Law, Franky, and others don't count?
Sibersk Esto
Banned
So there's no difference to
Luffy pre and post marineford?
Zoro pre and post Mihawk fight?
Sanji post Mihawk fight?
Nami pre and post Arlong arc?
Ussop pre or post Water 7?
Chopper pre and post meeting the strawhats?
Ditto Franky?
Robin pre and post enies lobby?
Brook learning that Laboon was alive?
not to mention the rest of the characters
You say that One Piece follows the island to island arc trope( a self-created trope mind you), but have you seen the Alabasta, Water 7 or Dressrosa arcs? Saying that One Piece's pacing devolves to hopping from island to island and replaying the same story every time could only really apply for the pre-Grand Line segment. At best. Dragon Ball Z follows a far more strict flow of events in that it devolves into throwing people at a bad guy until someone gets the power up to crush them. Because the bad guys barely have any depth to them beyond generic evil.
Toriyama is really good at making his stuff really accessible since he essentially starts fresh after every arc and returns to the status quo (retaining a few things but disposing of everything else) Oda is kind of letting OP get weighed with too much stuff so I hope after this arc he cleans house a little bit.
And for the shōnen battle manga aspect I think Oda has one over Toriyama with the introduction of Haki so the fruit user don't become the all powerful mary sues of the series (but yeah OP fight choreography is pretty confusing these days.)
Solid Samus
Banned
There have been plenty of interesting fight scenes and fight situations since then, particularly during the Marineford and Impel Down arcs but also occasionally during Punk Hazard and Dressrosa, usually brought down by their brevity as of late, and in Luffy's case he's been doing less surprising things with his powers now that he's cool with Gear 2nd and 3rd all the damn time. I think you're being a bit reductive toward the series in a lot of ways, although as someone who's been reading weekly since Thriller Bark I understand the crux of most of your complaints. But, like, these characters aren't just carbon copies of Goku and crew just because they're simple characters with surface similarities, as they've got their own individual appeal and have defined and unique goals helping to differentiate them and give each of them their own roles to play in the overarching journey. And the flow of events, and (plodding) mystery/tension of situations in One Piece over time is supported by strange, creative characters, twists and angles on tropes that make for a pretty fun read most of the time.
IdreamofHIME
Member
One Piece is the better Manga and DBZ was the better Anime. OP does dialogue and storytelling much better, while DBZ is pure nonsense and peaks during fights which are nearly always AAA.
NeonZ
Member
That's actually what makes me like DB more than One Piece. I don't need, in a series that's supposed to be focused on light adventure and action, many chapters spent on the backstory of villains or secondary characters. Then, with One Piece, you've also got all this "world building" of completely separate islands that often adds very little to the overall world. Modern shounen manga seem to believe that they're way more sophisticated than they actually are, and that just drags them down, since all that weight, although resulting in a comparatively more develop cast and world, still feels rather needless, since those are hardly the strength of a series like this. In spite of those backstories, which certainly make them more developed than most of DB's cast, "deep characters" certainly wouldn't be a reason to read One Piece. So, they just feel unnecessary.
The pacing of Dragonball's battles in the manga also are superior to One Piece's, which, in addition to often having multiple battles going at once, seems to give them longer length than equivalent battles you'd see in Dragonball. For example, if you look back at the Budokai, when the entire secondary cast got battles of their own, those battles were often finished in a single chapter. You'd never get supposedly "important" battles ending that quickly in One Piece.
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