Miscellaneous


Well that’s where I come in, as I not only watch and read One Piece, but breathe it as well. Hyperboles aside, I’m not as fanatic about it as one who spends a lot more time analyzing the possible future and connections of the world of One Piece. However, One Piece represents to me so many things that I consider precious in life, being the passionate adventure through the sea, or the nakama connections of companionships. A satisfactory life to me is one that is full of these experiences. Yet as much as I treasure the main foundations that One Piece is built upon, it’s not to say I don’t enjoy the many twists and turns our Strawhat Pirates go through. Before all that however…

It might be interesting to know a bit about my own “anime” background, as this is an introductory post after all. If not, skip to the fourth paragraph. Funnily enough, my first experience with anime was with Sailor Moon. I really liked it for some reason, so an unconscious anime lover was born in those moments perhaps. I was an avid Saturday morning cartoon kid and watched Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! just like everyone else in my grade. Toonami had it’s share of shows as well. One of the last few anime I saw on Toonami was Yu Yu Hakusho. That was the best dub I have ever seen and I even finished it years later, all 112 episodes in about two sittings. Yes, 13 hour long marathons. It appears I had good taste even when I was little. (c’mon, YYH was amazing)

Sooner or later I was subject to the computer and the Internet and began broadening my horizons. At the time, I thought 24 episode series were incredibly short and didn’t even want to bother getting into them for fear of a waste of time. Laughable, sure, but then I was given Full Metal Alchemist to watch and told that it was amazing. 51 episodes later, mind blown, and the rest is history. There was still a slow climb to see more anime as time went on. It definitely helped that I watched mostly top tier shows when I started out, like Kanon. Currently I figure I know almost every anime that exists out there (slight exaggeration), which goes to show how drastically I’ve been sucked into the anime field. -_-‘

One Piece on the other hand, deserves its own paragraph. I picked up OP one day hanging out at the library, thinking that the art looked cool. Haters gonna hate, but I loved it. I started flipping through the pages and was immediately captured by the goal-oriented story as well as the expressive characters littered throughout the story. At that time, I had no idea there was such a thing as a One Piece anime, so when it shown on TV commercials, I was ecstatic. Needless to say, 4Kids completely massacred the anime and scarred me from the inside. Interestingly enough, it was because of 4Kids that I began searching for fansubs of One Piece. OP may have even been one of the first anime I started watching fansubs for.

With that said, I’ll just rattle off some of my favorites so you can get a sense of where my taste lies. There’s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (obligatory), Kanon (cried twice), the previously mentioned Yu Yu Hakusho, Lovely Complex, Welcome to NHK!, Mushi-shi, and Death Note (typical). As you can see, I pretty much watch anything except yaoi. Yeah, I’m sort of like Divine in that sense. Not surprising, but I feel that nothing will ever take One Piece’s place as number one.

I’ve been following Random Curiosity for five years now, always lurking in the shadows, never even making a single comment. I’ve enjoyed RandomC immensely through the years as it guided me through shows and helped make recommendations. Before I knew of Chartfag’s charts, RandomC was the only organizable list of upcoming anime every season bundled with a bonus of commentary. Omni and Divine have done an incredibly admirable job here, and I hope this continues for as long as possible for the years to come.

As you might have possibly inferred from the opening paragraph, I will be covering One Piece manga and a couple of the latest episodes of the anime to see if I can handle the commitment. I’m excited to be able to present my opinions on the gem that is One Piece to an incredibly large audience that’s built up at RC over the years. One Piece is a brilliant subject to work with, as I’ll try to refine my blogging to the standards that have been made around RC. Lock and load guys, we’ll be heading into the New World soon.

Sorry for the incredibly long intro, hope I haven’t bored you already!
As it seems proper to say so, “Kiiragi desu. Yoroshiku ne!” 「キイラギです。よろしくね～」
 

175 Comments

  10. From the opening paragraph (which is the only section shown on the main page), I thought this was going to be a post about the entire history of One Piece – which would’ve been one hell of a long article.

    Congratulations Kiiragi, you have a couple of tough acts to follow (Omni & Divine), but I’m sure you’ll do fine. I’ll look forward to your summary and reviews of One Piece material.

    duh
    Reply

  11. Welcome

    Yay!!! Another place to vent about OP. I can’t wait to have the crew back together. The Ifmpel Down story arc has me so frustrated. The cross dressing is nice and all; but I want the nakamas reunited !!!!!!

    Island Esper
    Reply

  16. A fellow One Piece addict! Hi there! 🙂

    I’ve never actually read the One Piece manga and instead was introduced to the universe through the Anime some time ago,I’ve seen all the episodes released since and been following it weekly. I’m not a fan of manga-reading in general, and as such don’t know the manga’s current storyline, so please do try to stick spoilerifics into spoiler tags 🙂

    I’m curious, if you decide to blog about the show, will you be continuing on from the latest episodes onwards or do you have plans to revisit old episodes?

    Ashan
    Reply

    1. I think it’ll just be the recent episodes.
      Even though many people (including I) would love a revisit of past episodes, (I mean, oh god, the Water 7/Enies Lobby arc is just godly..) it seems kind of unreasonable. xD

      Nice Holystone
      Reply

      1. It will be great if the old episodes of One Piece are posted up… I have been trying to remember all the previous episodes and it would take forever to watch all of them again. With over 400 episodes, you will forget the story. The mangas are not to good because all the action and fillers are left out. Anyways, by posting so many episodes of One Piece, you will be known all over RC.

        LightningJC
        Reply

      2. Hopefully Kiiragi will only blog the anime.
        One Piece is one of the few shounens that actually keeps getting better and better.

        I succumbed to reading the mangas of Naruto and Bleach when fillers kept showing up. But One Piece anime is just too epic so I am stopping myself from reading its manga.

        But if you do decide to blog the manga, Kiiragi, could you try to keep the title and picture non-spoiler.

        I noticed before Divine would succumb to posting some epic scenes from manga on the main page lol =P

        It’s hard to follow the anime without being spoilt on the internet.

        Eamon
        Reply

      3. @ Eamon
        Yeah, I’m in the same state you are. I prefer the anime over the manga just because the music, color, animation, voice acting, and everything else just makes it that much more intense. It is hard resisting the manga when your friends are talking about how epic things are getting though.

        I wouldn’t mind if Kiiragi blogged the manga though since many people would be overjoyed about that. I would prefer to not see spoiler pictures/titles like you though. D:

        Nice Holystone
        Reply

      4. Yeah I’ll be sure the avoid spoilers with the titles and preview pictures when posting up entries for the manga. It’ll be incredibly hard though since there’s so many awesome spreads in the manga 😀

        On the subject of anime coverage, I’m not even sure if I have the ability to cover the latest episodes every week, let alone cover the entire series from episode one. Regardless, I don’t think Divine would like it if 50% of the posts on here become OP LOL.

        Kiiragi
        Reply

  21. hahahha ! welcome welcomee !!
    i’m a vivid fan of One Piece (both manga & anime) and i think it’s really great that u’re gonna start/or at least try to blog it !!! this will be AWESOME ! There’s no way i’m gonna miss ur posts every week, especially when i havnt found any other place where one can follow one piece regularly! so, now u know! u have a very appreciative reader here !

    well, see u ’round & keep’em coming bother!

    some.random.dude !
    Reply

  23. If you’re going to cover the manga..I only ask that you don’t show a small image from it like the Naruto and Bleach manga posts. Those things have serious spoilers in them. I’m thrilled that you will be covering the anime though.

    Kiz
    Reply

  27. Yea One Piece! I love One Piece but to my utter shame I can never keep up with the either the massive anime or manga. I’ve seen some of the earlier arcs though and have a general idea of the cast and story but never had the time to get fully caught up. It’ll be nice to see regular updates of this series here on my favorite anime blog =D Welcome! ^^

    kyosei
    Reply

  34. I used watched one piece before but couldn’t keep watching due to school and other stuff, so I have no idea which ep to continue.
    ill check your blogs too since I liked one piece before so welcome.

    amado
    Reply

  37. LOL. News of RC’s impending demise has brought out more writers. I’m glad. I have only watched a few One Piece episodes. Due to its epic-ness, I probably won’t be trying to catch up until the show ends. Still look forward to your pieces.

    M2
    Reply

  38. God We have very, very simlar tastes. I’m very happy that One Piece (My second anime/manga love but overall my #1 fav) will finaly be brought onto RC. I’m looking forward to it.

    FruitieSyrup
    Reply

  39. While I’m not particularly a fan of OP, I still enjoy reading blogs none the less. It will be fun to read a blog from a different perspective and writing style. Congratulations!

    LaN
    Reply

  40. I’m not a big fan of OP, only saw I think two seasons of it on TV and then discovered how long it actually really was and kinda stopped due to school as well. And 5 years in the shadows, huh? Suddenly you’re part of the team, nice 😛 I look forward to your posts on OP Kiiragi. See if you can hook me in to try and catch up. Btw, I like the side pic you put up XD

    Rei
    Reply

    1. Yeah I’m a hardcore lurker :/
      The side pic’s supposed to represent me, but it’s more he inspires me rather than represents. He’s Kurosawa from Onani Master Kurosawa for anyone who wants to know. Changed my life that manga did.

      Kiiragi
      Reply

      4. Dood, no…just no.
        It is not endless bullshit like Naruto and Bleach. I’m sorry but, I think Naruto and Bleach cannot even compare to One Piece. The length of One Piece is completely justified; it’s not like it repeats anything, making it boring. (Like Bleach, where every female lead seems to be getting kidnapped)

        Really, there’s a reason One Piece is the best selling manga in Japan by far. 😛

        Nice Holystone
        Reply

    4. i bet this kid just recently got past the dbz stage of anime and mistakenly considers himself to be a guru.
      pro tip: not all shonens are like dbz. one piece and hajime no ippo are cream of the crop.

      kid a
      Reply

  51. New Blood. Welcome to the Clan >:D

    On another note, I’m pretty glad someone picked up One Piece, because the manga is fantastic and has so far never used an incredibly cheap plot device *COUGH Hogyoku implant COUGH COUGH*, and I’m also pretty glad that you might be picking up a few shows, so divine doesn’t kill himself (and lets face it, he’s not gonna live long with 11-15 shows to blog a week D:)

    Click
    Reply

    1. Picking up a few shows is getting ahead of myself there. I’m not sure if I can even keep up One Piece’s anime weekly, but I’ll be trying. If I can find a groove and see myself capable, I could try to do several shows, but that’s far off the map for now. Just can’t be as godly as Omni and Divine.

      Kiiragi
      Reply

  52. Welcome, looking forward to it. One piece manga is wonderful, lately the pacing of the anime has thrown me off abit, but hopefully it will get back to it’s glorious self. And to those who do not like one piece, thats fine, but PLEASE for the love of god do not base your opinion of one piece awful the worst dub ever created that aired on tv. 4kids completely butchered it in every way, give the subs a shot, you will be amazed at the seemless blend of comedy, action and emotion that it brings.

    Aecen
    Reply

  55. It’s absolutely marvelous to see RC is blogging One Piece as well as getting another commentator. I’m hoping you’ll be able to continue with the anime for who knows how long it’ll last. XD

    Nice Holystone
    Reply

  59. OMG are you like my twin or something??? lol, your whole background is exactly like mines (except replace Sailorman with Dragonball Z and add Bleach somewhere in there hehe). Looking forward to your posts and good luck!

    RiK
    Reply

  61. I opened up randomc looking for new anime coverage. I glanced over the title and thought to myself, “Nice! This is great news, my friend is really going to like that RC is finally covering OP.” I look at the author to see that this friend of mine is the author himself.
    This is where I went nuts.

    Congrats man. I don’t think I’ve been as shocked as this in a while. I literally sat in my seat being excited for you for 10 minutes. I know how much this means to you to be part of this community where we shared our high school experiences together.

    I’m still going nuts.

    limchi
    Reply

    1. WOW…that sounds awesome!
      I can only imagine how you must have felt.

      As for me, I couldn’t be happier that my favorite manga/anime will be finally covered by my favorite anime blog.

      Darklord
      Reply

    2. LOL I was going to tell you online, but you’re never available anyways. I’m not sure if you even checked RC anymore, but you were the one that told me about RC in the first place. Good times.

      Kiiragi
      Reply

  65. ^-^ so glad RC doing OP now… I read manga for bleach and naruto, but refuse to read OP, and have been told the manga is a lot better than anime tho (like apparently they always seems to be?).. as theres no such thing as a black and white adventure.

    N0216332
    Reply

    1. Well, it’s not like they’re obligated to stick to anyone’s anime/manga standards.
      Random Curiosity blogs a lot of series I would have never watched by myself. But I check out new series and end up liking them because of this blog.

      Dunno’ why you would be so negative to One Piece, especially if you haven’t checked it out for yourself.
      One Piece is freakin’ awesome

      Nice Holystone
      Reply

      1. I did check it out… and thankfully managed to drop it.

        there’s a limit on how many ridiculous powers, butt pirates, ridiculous-died-no-i-did-nots and goodie-converts-baddie I can take.

        Frankly, I felt like watching DBZ, except there was no Vegeta.

        If it was ~20-52 episode adventure/comedy series I might have had patience to sit through it, however turning a plot-less adventure series into never ending shounen is really bad idea.

        After ~70 episodes or so I finally understood that plot is going nowhere and that episodes will most likely continue into ~1000’s. Every arc is the same thing over and over again.

        Of course I understand that there ARE “omg secrets and plot twists to be” but sadly they will either turn out into some random crappy stuff, like it happens with most of shounen series OR by the time something IMPORTANT will be shown/said I will be an old old man.

        And in the end, the good guys will win yet again and whatever shounen moral that was fed to everyone in each episode, will be reinforced yet again.

        Frankly I am surprised by how overrated it is…

        UnknownVoice
        Reply

      3. And you would be saying pure truth. 🙂

        All shounen manga are overrated 🙂

        At least Naruto was good at what is needed for shounen series for first ~15 chapters or so.

        UnknownVoice
        Reply

      4. Well UnknownVoice…what other animes do you recommend? Animes that are super NOT awesome? Shounen Jump beats your little fantasies you think up everyday! Do you expect the main character to die?… NO or else it will be the crappy animes you recommend. You try publishing your little lame fantasies and see if anyone would give a crap about it. I hope you’re stupid ideas will be heard…wish you good luck!

        LightningJC
        Reply

      5. @LightningJC: Wow, chill dude. Just because someone else doesn’t share your views on your favorite anime does not mean you should personally attack them… All he’s doing is sharing his opinions on a particular series. Not everyone likes the same things. ;D

        Chen^2
        Reply

      6. @Unknown Voice
        Well, personally, I think that Naruto and Bleach fit your description of a shounen series,
        but the latter part of the One Piece series to date just completely defies it.
        All I can do now is suggest that you might pick it up again to see for yourself!

        Nice Holystone
        Reply

    2. Shounen Jump beats your little fantasies you think up everyday!

      shounen jump beats nothing but fantasies of their demographic audience – 14 year old boys.

      Do you expect the main character to die?…

      yes, from a good story I expect deaths with high emotional value.

      Oh and I except a lot of plot advancement, instead of ~20page filler chapters.

      Oh and I also expect a lot of good character development without generalized good/evil crap.

      Go read and watch real anime/manga instead being of fed the shounen crap 🙂

      UnknownVoice
      Reply

      1. So much bias…

        I understand your problem with shounen manga and you are right about many things, but guess what – it’s still very exciting to watch and follow.

        Nobody’s forcing you to follow it or read its reviews on RC, so please if you are just going to say how much it sucks, just…don’t.

        Darklord
        Reply

    3. Chen^2… I am only pissed off at UnknownVoice because you shouldn’t be criticizing someone’s post(Kiiragi). I think Kiiragi is trying to improve the RC society and not ruin it…so if UnknownVoice doesn’t like it then he shouldn’t say anything.

      DON’T GO POSTING SOMETHING BAD IN SOMEONE’S POST…INSTEAD COMPLEMENT THEM AND SUPPORT THEM!
      (This goes to all the people that posted something like One Piece sucks, etc)

      LightningJC
      Reply

  81. Agreed. One piece is too damn crazy. The world is so damn huge (probably at least 5 times as big as Earth) anything is basically possible. Not in the sense like Bleach where everything and anything is possible (because they actually DO it). I mean holy balls. The first books of One Piece I have is the VERY first one and the Alabasta double books (where it shows Luffy and gang and the other has Crocodile and such). I love One Piece with all my heart and always wait in anticipation for the next chapter to come out. So many things happen so fast but at a pace that isn’t too fast. It’s just too good. Things you think might happen (in which you think of being plausible) actually turns out to be something else you didn’t really thing would happen (I say ‘really’ because some people though that something like ‘that’ might happen where as others didn’t even think things would turn out the way it does).

    ROFLWAFFLELAWL
    Reply

  83. I’m not exactly a One Piece fan (probably because of our effin dubbers in our country) so I don’t watch it in TV. I was probably disappointed and given a bad side on One Piece (blindly) so thinking that you made this introductory post not just for yourself but also for One Piece, I might watch One Piece from the start with the commitment you made starting with a very, very long introductory post. It wasn’t boring (for me) though. So, good luck and welcome. 🙂

    achluo
    Reply

  86. Glad to welcome in new people blogging for the site. I’ve been watching the One Piece manga after an intense marathon catchup session.. Not really sure what inspired that since I dropped it after about 20 anime episodes in.

    Still something about One Piece still amuses the hell out of me. They even have important people dying ~ something I love. So I’m glad to see you adding something in from the OP side to RC 😀

    Looking forward to enjoying your posts-

    imerik
    Reply

  87. Yo ujust made my day and gave me a reason to post. Yes, I totally agree with you. Absolutely nothing can take One Piece’s place as Number 1 ^_^ Thanks a lot and welcome. Hope we’ll all have a great time! ~_^ 😀

    Kewldude
    Reply

  89. YAY!! ONE PIECE!!!
    i also started my manga/anime life through Sailor Moon! though i much prefer the manga since the anime totally trashed it.

    finally, someone from RC is blogging about one of the most awesome anime/manga ever. most of us fans will either go to APforums or Kaizoku Fansubs Forum, but this is really great to know. definitely looking forward to your posts.

    YAY!! ONE PIECE!!!

    naixil
    Reply

  92. I would have just phrased the headers as “So I heard RC needed some One Piece…?”

    In anycase, One Piece would be a welcome addition, and I believe it can boost the sites popularity by a lot. I’m just hoping that the many of the HATERS out there would give this masterpiece a second look, rather than the general first impression of “quirky/weird/bad art”.

    The color spreads are awesome, the story and plot are interwoven intricately, the characters are great, and unlike Bleach and Naruto, this baby still got 500+ chapters to go ^_^

    Ddadain
    Reply

  93. Yay, even if I’m not a One Piece fan, it’s always nice to see new writers~ And your anime background is eerily similar to mine (Sailor Moon… ah, childhood). So, welcome!

    xxstripes
    Reply

  94. Glad to see that OP is going to be blogged. I too was turned off by the horrible 4kids sub. Luckily a friend convinced me to watch the proper one piece, most fun i had watching an anime in a while. Too bad after a marathon i went and started on the manga. Now i cant stop reading it. >_<

    Giostz
    Reply

  101. You call those pirates?..more like gangsters that wanna act cool… they jump on a boat and start shooting randomly. All they can do is shoot…how many times can you watch a bullet fly? and how many times can you watch some super special skills?

    LightningJC
    Reply

    2. Yeah, every time people give me Black Lagoon as an example of good pirate anime, I laugh. It’s more of a gritty gangster/mafia type of story with an overall bleak outlook on life.

      One Piece, on the other hand is a true classical pirate anime, which exhibits the spirit of adventure, freedom and endless optimism from its every page!

      Darklord
      Reply

    3. Sorry this is off topic but hey Lightning just so you know I’m the one who created that Naruto wallpaper that you’re using as an avatar (Jason Isenberg@JaYson Designs). I don’t mind if you keep it, it was just surprising someone liked it. If you don’t believe me, click my name. My site is right there. Oh and nice to meet you Kiiragi, more people = good!

      Jason Isenberg
      Reply

    1. Bleach may still get covered, Divine has two people he’s trying out just like I was. However, if they don’t work out, I may just cover Bleach myself. It’ll be hard for Bleach to be as exciting as the One Piece coverage though. Just kidding 😛

      Kiiragi
      Reply

  116. wahah, your tastes matches mine… you got a really good taste, oddly enough i started anime watching TORIBIO, Heidi, mazinger Z, you know(the classics) and then sailor moon showed up along with saint seiya and dragonball, after that with pokemon and yuyuhakusho and SLAYERS, you’re under arrest and a few more I don’t remember right now, just like you =P, and as we were thinking the same thing, the TV no longer picked my interest and started using the internet =P, I’m not going to exaggerate that i know mostly of the animes out there, but i have seen roughly 800… and out of all those series/mangas/movies/ovas and whatever there is, none has picked my interest and entertained me more than ONE PIECE! (Second place goes to mahou sensei negima…)

    Trejon
    Reply

  126. YYH is one of my favorite shonen series.. and one of the best dubs I’ve ever heard. One Piece. I been planning to pick up for a while now but haven’t yet. Currently downloading the subs though and will start it soon. So you blogging it is a welcome addition. Welcome to the RC staff!

    Koby
    Reply

  128. Awww, I liked how RC was mainly covering mainly new anime and not ongoing series (other than Bleach, I lost interest in that long ago so I don’t really care). Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge OP fan, but due to certain reasons I’m not and won’t be fully caught up for some foreseeable future (currently I’m re-watching the series with some others but I haven’t watched the last 40+ episodes).

    If I could ask for a small favor, could you please not include spoiler pics and spoiler titles on the main page? If it comes down to reading RC and possibly glimpsing OP spoilers or being spoiler-free and not visiting RC I’d go the latter route hands down, 10 times out of 10.

    Whisper
    Reply

  129. As I answered before, I’ll try my best to not have spoiler pictures and titles on the main page. The first manga post is already up, and as you can see (hopefully), it’s not spoilerific at all. You might THINK it’s a spoiler at times, but if you knew what I knew, you would know it’s not. Trust me, I was paranoid too when I was only an anime follower. Then when I caught up in manga, I realized most spoilers my friends annoyed me with weren’t spoilers at all, just random unimportant things.

    Kiiragi
    Reply

    1. To me, there’s no unimportant things when it comes to my favorite show =P

      Thanks, appreciate it. Actually was looking around and heard about the manga chapter title page “mini-arcs”. Never even knew about them, and I found them very interesting. I know when I watched the anime and Jango was on Hina’s ship, I was o.O But now that I’ve read some of the mini-arcs (e.g. Jango’s Dance Paradise) it fills in some of the background info.

      Whisper
      Reply

  134. I hope Omni would come back and help Divine, Kiiragi and the others so they wouldn’t need to spend so much time blogging and do not have any free time left! So…RC bloggers please try and drag him back to make your blogging easier…I was thinking about this cause if Kiiragi posts all the OP episodes, he will have no free time at all!!

    LightningJC
    Reply

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