Japanese Fans Believe One Piece Has Become A Series For Hardcore Fans Only

One Piece is intimidating. The story itself has has 81 manga volumes and 943 chapters with no [...]

One Piece is intimidating. The story itself has has 81 manga volumes and 943 chapters with no signs of stopping any time soon, along with an anime that is currently running at 20 season with 885 episodes. To jump into the story of Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates takes a serious commitment for any fan up to the task, which is why Japense fans of the sea faring series believe it is one that is strictly for "Hardcore Fans Only".

Online Publication SoraNews24 broke down some of the Twitter responses from fans that looks at why specifically One Piece has become seemingly tougher for new fans to break into:

The translation for this fan's tweet is as follows: "Years ago, if you said, 'Yeah, I'm an otaku, I've read all of One Piece,' you would probably be laughed at. But now, with it continuing for over 20 years, if you say, 'I've read all of One Piece,' then it feels like you've got a pretty serious otaku aura."

The longevity of One Piece certainly backs the claim that long time fans have earned a reputation as "hardcore" to stick with a story for so long.

The site went further still, collecting a number of random thoughts from Japanese social media users:

"Yep, there's not a lot of people who've kept up with it the entire time."

"Well crap. I didn't think I was an otaku, but I've read all of One Piece…."

"Does 'otaku' even really mean anything anymore though? You could always just be a 'One Piece otaku.'"

"I think a lot of people who started reading One Piece in Jump got their first steps into the otaku world by going to events and buying goods."

"My favorite parts are when they arrive on a new island, see the new culture, eat lots of food, and just have a moment of peace. It's nice."

What do you think of One Piece's proposed status as being only for "hardcore fans"? Do you feel that its length makes it impossible for new fans to catch up? Let us know in the comments or feel free to hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.

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