One Piece Handles Death Better Than EVERY Series

One Piece deaths are massively underrated, no, we do not need more deaths.
Let me make one thing clear, I am not defending fake out deaths like Pell and Kinemon if that’s what you’re thinking, they are a totally different issue, which I think hurts the story, but this is more about the commonly held criticism that one piece needs ‘more deaths’ and the fact that ‘no one dies’ which btw is blantantly false, that because of this somehow one piece handles death poorly. No, rather, I think oda is pretty smart for not having a hard on for death, and actually saves his characters to pay off in future arcs

I think there’s often an unfair double standard when it comes to One Piece praise and criticism, people will often claim how arcs like marineford, impel down and wano are some of the best in terms of world building, but why is that? How are arcs like Marineford considered not only the best arc in one piece but the best arc in anime and manga? Over a span of 500 chapters, oda in the background of the primary story line of the straw hats, has been building up the war ever since drum island, but this pay off only works because oda chose to play the long game… especially with his characters.

What makes the weight of the marineford arc hit so hard? Every antagonist in marineford, the 7 warlods, the admirals, garp, the weight of thier appearances only work because we have already spent so much time with those characters, it almost feels surreal seeing them all on the same page, crocodile, mihawk, gecko moria, boa hancock, kuzan, sakazuki, we spent an entire arc with these characters already, just imagine if oda had those characters be written out of the story, and marineford instead introduced a new bunch of characters, antagonists with no build up, no weight behind them, no reason to care about them, like who even are you, then I 100% gaurentee thay marineford will fall in the typical and generic category when it comes to anime war arcs. Thats exactly what bleach did during TYBW, all of a sudden, a whole new bunch of characters who I couldn’t care less about due to no build up, and now I have to watch them, but imagine if kubo with what he did with grimjow, actually saving his character for later, for the other arrancar?

I can go even further, one of the best parts about impel down is seeing the reunion of Luffy and buggy, Luffy and crocodile and Bon clay, but why does the reunion hit so hard? It’s because oda is pretty smart with how he handles antagonists, he plans ahead and saves them for epic moments like this where they play a future role, this saves the author from having to introduce a whole new bunch of characters.