Anime series like One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen can be compared in terms of their core themes and style, not to mention the impact of their story arcs. These two anime and many others like them have plenty of worthwhile arcs to excite viewers, though One Piece reached star heights as Jujutsu Kaisen never did it. It partly depends on One Piece had the benefit of time and gave himself more chances to write the best story arcs in all of anime and manga.
Jujutsu Kaisen hits hard in its limited time frame with great arcs like the Shibuya Incident and Culling Game, allowing it to compete well with an older, bigger title like One Piece. Still, Eiichiro Oda's creation remains on top with its five most incredible bows, some of which are striking Jujutsu Kaisen at their own game, while others do incredible things Jujutsu Kaisen couldn't or wouldn't try.
The Alabaster Arc was One Piece's first truly epic adventure
The Civil War, a poneglyph, and an ancient weapon helped shape this arc
The whole East Blue Saga, while a fie start for One Piece adventure, didn't feel quite epic. At the time, audiences weren't given a sense of the scale of the world Luffy called home, but all that changed in the Alabasta Saga. The Grand Line lived up to all expectations as the largest part of the world, and that feeling culminated in the Alabasta Arc. On the deserted island of Alabasta, One Piece fans seriously felt like they were in another world alongside the Straw Hats, and the scope of the story kept pace with this remarkable world-building.
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The stakes and complexity of One Piece reached new heights in the Alabasta Arc, and pound for pound it remains one of the best arcs in manga and anime. Like many of the finest One Piece story arcs, the Alabasta Arc contained a deep sense of adventure that Jujutsu Kaisen and other modern anime can't, complete with cool plot elements like Crocodile's mission to use the Poneglyph to find the ancient weapon called Pluton. Such intrigues are rare in Jujutsu Kaisenbut One Piece makes it seem easy.
Enies Lobby Arc featured Luffy's bitter rematch with CP9
This arc was a life changing moment for Nico Robin
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The overall Water 7 Saga was driven by much more than more world building and cool fights, although it had that too. The real heart of the Water 7 Saga, especially Enie's Lobby Arc, was the personal angle. Jujutsu Kaisen does quite well with personal stakes and conflicts, such as Maki defying the stuffy rules of her conservative clan or Yuji struggling with constant personal losses, but One Piece's Enies Lobby Arc blows all that out of the water.
Above all, fans admire Nico Robin's personal arc in this phase of One Pieces story, with her giving up her life and leaving the Straw Hats to avoid dragging them into her mess. But Luffy insisted on saving Robin despite the danger, and it inspired Robin to famously declare his intention to live despite her misery. That balance of dark heartbreak and hope is astonishing, and it's something not even Jujutsu Kaisens Shibuya Incident Arc could handle. On the side, Enies Lobby Arc did well with Luffy and Usopp as crewmates after they fell out in the Water 7 Arc.
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The Marineford War Arc felt like a massive crossover event
Everyone who was anyone at the time showed up at Marineford
Only the greatest anime can pull off a mega-crossover story arc such as One Piece's Marineford Arc in the Summit War Saga. Although an anime like One Piece cannot transfer with other franchisees, One Piece has enough characters and world-building to carry over on its own, which is really good. Until this arc occurred, One Piece felt somewhat disjointed as the Straw Hats traveled from one island to another, meeting different groups along the way.
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The incredible Marineford Arc brought together almost everyone who One Piece fans had met so far, along with new faces like Trafalgar D. Water Law and the officers of the Whitebeard Pirates armada. As a result, Marineford Arc helped make One Piece Feel united as a world while delivering a variety of exciting fights and brutal personal actions. This was the Shibuya Incident Arc multiplied by ten, where everyone came together and Ace's death hit even harder than the fates of Nobara Kugisaki and Kento Nanami in Jujutsu Kaisen.
Dressrosa Arc shocked One Piece Fans with Awakened Devil Fruits and Gear 4
Dressrosa had something of everything that makes fans love One Piece
Together with the Wano Arc, One Piece's Dressrosa Arc works best in manga format, because One Piece the anime notoriously stretched the material without using many filler episodes or going off the air. The anime tested everyone's patience, but the manga version delivered the goods when Luffy's crew arrived at Dressrosa after their Punk Hazard adventure. It was an even more epic version of the Alabasta arc as the Straw Hats fought to save a kingdom from terrible internal strife, with some new elements mixed in.
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The Corrida Colosseum tournament really spiced things up, along with the arrival of Fujitora and the Revolution Army later on to shake things up that much more. The full horror of Doflamingo's rule made the Dressrosa arc even grimmer than anything else Jujutsu Kaisen ever did, along with truly spectacular fights involving the awakened String-String Fruit and Luffy's brand new Gear 4 in the climactic showdown.
The Wano Arc is a breathtaking story of time travel, pirate battles and the fate of a nation
The manga had better pacing for the Wano Arc
This is another example of a decade-defining story arc that works much better in manga, so One Piece fans can appreciate what Eiichiro Oda wrote without the slow pace of the anime dampening the fun. Wano did practically everything One Piece is meant to do, giving it a sense of scale and bet on it Jujutsu Kaisen can't even imagine. Bigger isn't strictly better in anime, of course, but if One Piece do it, then “bigger” is usually a strength.
Wano is a busy time for One Pieceblending a staggering variety of elements into one massive arc that was divided into three acts like a play. From the fierce battles of the Onigashima raid to Yamato joining the Straw Hats' side as the embodiment of Kozuki Oden, all the way to time travel and betrayal, fans won't know where to begin. By the time this massive arc came to an end, Wano's story and setting felt completely different, creating an impressive sense of progress and change in every way. It set an incredibly high bar for One Piece and other anime, one that precious few series can clear.
One Piece
- Release date
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October 20, 1999
- Network
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Fuji TV
- Directors
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Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Ma Shihi Endo, Toshihiro Ma Shihi Endo, Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
- Author
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Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
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Mayumi Tanaka
Monkey D. Luffy (voice)
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Kazuya Nakai
Roronoa Zoro (voice)
