Summary
- One Piece anime sometimes prioritizes action over smaller scenes, like the Straw Hats watching the sunrise.
- The anime often changes important manga scenes, like replacing the rising sun panel with rocky cliffs.
- Modern adaptations like WIT’s version benefit from 25 years of One Piece production for better quality.
While many fans do love the anime version of One Piece, at times, a large portion of the community believes that it doesn’t do the manga justice. Long pacing, odd changes to art styles, and less-than-accurate character designs are just a few of the issues that long-time fans have with the anime adaptation. Despite the issues, however, the One Piece anime is an all-time classic that elevates many scenes from the manga to the next level with excellent animation and direction.
Still, it seems like there are many other scenes that the One Piece anime could have given a better treatment overall. While fight scenes are normally amazing spectacles in the anime version of One Piece, sometimes smaller and more personal scenes are short-changed to prioritize these massive action set pieces. This includes one scene, the scene where the newly formed One Piece Straw Hat Pirates simply stare into the horizon, watching a new dawn rise.
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Syrup Village Was An Early Arc In One Piece
The Arc Featured A Beautiful Panel Of The Straw Hats Preparing For Battle
In the early stages of One Piece, after defeating Buggy and heading to Syrup Village, the Straw Hat Crew, which only consists of Luffy, Zoro, and almost Nami, meet Usopp, who is involved in a conflict surrounding his friend Kaya and the underrated villain, Captain Kuro. Here, Captain Kuro, who had been planning to steal Kaya’s inheritance by forcing her to write him into her will and then having his pirate crew attack the island, killing her, and leaving him with her fortune. Of course, the interference of the Straw Hats and Usopp causes a major issue for this plan overall.
The sun is up! The pirates are going to come soon…
This leaves a small, but fairly significant scene where Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and Usopp have to prepare for the oncoming onslaught of the Kuro pirates. After making a few traps to protect One Piece’s Syrup Village, a brief panel in the manga shows the sun rising as the Straw Hat crew realizes that the pirates will be arriving soon. While this is an incredibly small moment, this panel is incredibly well drawn and a gorgeous addition to the sun imagery that will frequently be utilized throughout the entire series.
The Panel Was Heavily Changed In The One Piece Anime
The Rising Sun Was Replaced By Rocky Cliffs
- The Panel In One Piece Was Replaced By Rocky Cliffs
- All The Sun-Based Imagery Was Removed
However, in the original One Piece anime, the scene itself doesn’t have the same level of detail as the manga, placing far less importance on this small moment. Instead, the crew is far smaller in the frame, with the imagery of the sun in One Piece being replaced with sheer rocky cliffs. In many ways, rather than feeling like the start of a grand battle, this scene feels like an indication of how the Straw Hats are small pirates in a big world, which is interesting in its own right, though not exactly what some fans, especially newer fans, were looking for.
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Interestingly enough, this scene has also been shown in the new WIT version of One Piece as well. In this version, the scene from the anime is an almost one-for-one copy of the surprisingly amazing One Piece. Overall, it seems that WIT wanted to capture the imagery of the scene that applies heavily to the concept of modern One Piece.
The Downgrade Of The Panel Is Not Toei’s Fault
Many Factors Make The Manga Panel More Significant Nowadays
Still, despite the panel in the original Toei animation of One Piece being a lot worse than the manga version, there are plenty of reasons for this lower quality. Firstly, at this point in the modern One Piece story, the imagery present in this scene wasn’t nearly as important as it is in the modern versions of the story, making heavily featuring the sun feel less important. Additionally, One Piece wasn’t nearly as popular as it is now, making copying every scene exactly from the manga less important overall. In these ways, WIT has a massive advantage over Toei, benefitting from 25 years of One Piece production in general.
But if you just hold on, The morning sun will rise! – A Bink’s Sake lyric
Overall, although this was a small moment, the original Toei anime doesn’t do this amazing panel in One Piece justice. However, it seems like the scene of the Straw Hats looking at the rising sun will be done justice in the WIT animation. Still, in the end, while there is a dip in quality between the manga and anime for this scene, it isn’t Toei’s fault, as it would be impossible to recognize the importance of the imagery in a One Piece scene years before it’s relevant.
