This Beloved One Piece Arc Was Better in the Manga

As a lifelong reader and watcher of One Piece, the series holds a very special place in my heart. I’ve read the manga from front to back several times, and I think I can say with certainty that for all of its hype, Wano was better in the manga.

Now that the anime is fairly deep into the Egghead Island arc of the series and the events of Wano are behind us, I think now is a good time to critically look at the anime’s adaptation of the series’ longest arc and admit that for all of the spectacle and energy that the climax of the arc had, it also dragged beyond all belief and left many viewers exhausted by the end. Granted, the manga has also somewhat similar problems with its length, but at the very least, there’s a certain expectation that manga readers have going into each chapter.

Reading an individual manga chapter doesn’t take a whole lot of time. Depending on how action-heavy it may be or how much exposition there is to read through, the average chapter of One Piece takes about five minutes to go through if it’s a standard chapter lasting 18-20 pages. For a series that releases new chapters nearly every week, that’s a pretty decent length and one that lends itself to reading multiple chapters and volumes in quick succession. Wano lasted for 149 chapters, so if we’re just going to do some general math using that general estimate, if you wanted to read through Wano, it would take around 12 hours to read through. It’s a hefty sit, but something that’s easily doable over the course of a week.

Watching Wano is an entirely different beast. On average, One Piece adapts one chapter per episode, and sometimes even less than that in recent years. If each episode lasts 20 minutes (minus the opening and ending credits), and Wano lasted 191 episodes in the anime, watching all of Wano would take approximately 63 hours, which is beyond ridiculous. Yes, it’s the largest arc in the series, one that wraps up plot threads that were established for nearly a decade, but if the manga can concisely wrap up its story in a fraction of that time, then it makes watching the anime adaptation of the Wano arc a major ask.

And I know that playing a numbers game is a cheap tactic if we’re talking about anime adaptations, but One Piece is known for being a notoriously long series. It’s an epic in every definition of the word, but there’s a difference between a series running for a long time because of the density of its plot and a series running for a long time because it pads out its fight scenes. Regardless of the format, Wano is an arc that spends half of its time establishing its unique cast of characters before descending into a chaotic war over the fate of the country, so it’s fair to call it an action-heavy arc. More than half of the arc is dedicated to the fight against Kaido and Big Mom’s forces, but while the manga feels brisk with bouncing from one fight to another, the anime drags out each encounter.

Like every arc up until this point, no one really cares about the goons of each of the arc’s main villains. With very rare exceptions like Mr. 2 Bon Clay or Hachi, these characters don’t usually make appearances after their defeat and it’s even rarer for these characters to become beloved just from their status as lieutenants to their bosses. The only person I can think about who fits that description in One Piece would be Senor Pink, but again, that’s a very rare example. In the manga, the arc doesn’t try to build up Kaido’s All-Stars or the Tobiroppo as anything more than just enemies for our heroes to fight. But the anime, in its effort to pad things out, tries its best to make these enemies feel big and imposing despite the reality that they’re going to be defeated and will never be mentioned again.

Every fight in the anime has to make these battles feel big and important even if they aren’t, because if they weren’t then it’s harder to justify each episode covering as little ground as it does. Plus, it’s easy to tell that these fights don’t matter all that much because the budget takes a noticeable dip depicting them. In a way, it makes sense given that the show is saving its budget for big moments like Gear 5 or when Big Mom is defeated by Kid and Law, but it still leaves us with episodes that have noticeably poorer animation than others.

It’s important to also be aware that some of the problems of the anime’s adaptation of Wano weren’t self-inflicted. Remember, this is a weekly series that follows a manga that is actively being written, one that has also noticeably been a lot slower at releasing new chapters in recent years. So when the manga is being published at a slow rate, you can’t just blaze on ahead with the anime. If you do, you risk catching up to the manga and then you have an anime that can’t progress until there’s new material to adapt. So of course Wano has to waste its time spinning its wheels in the anime. If it didn’t, then the arc could be interrupted with a random filler arc or go on hiatus until there’s new material to adapt. The manga is allowed to take its time, but the anime is forced to take its time.

That isn’t to say everything that the anime adaptation of Wano was bad. Far from it. When those wonderfully animated moments pop up, they’re a treat, and sometimes seeing key moments animated is a lot more impactful than just reading it. I was in the same boat as everyone else when I saw Luffy use Gear 5’s Looney-Tunes abilities to mop the floor with Kaido. I was hyped as all hell, but I’m just remembering the highlights of the arc. That was one moment in one episode out of nearly 200. There are just as many, if not more, moments that I forget because the anime simply spread itself out too thin adapting them. It makes moments that are better to watch out of context just to see them rather than as a part of a serialized show that defies time and space adapting this arc. Remember, the climax of Wano is supposed to happen all in one night, and yet the real-world runtime of the climax lasts well over 24 hours. And you thought Freiza couldn’t tell time.

Wano is a fine arc. It’s not the best arc in One Piece, but it’s an arc that lived up to the years of anticipation that fans had for it. But if it comes down to watching or reading Wano, I’ll always choose reading it. Wano, as an arc of the anime, is simply too flawed due to its laborious pacing, weird emphasis on moments that don’t matter, inconsistent budget, and titanic length that will turn anyone off from rewatching it again casually. The manga may not be perfect, but it’s a more efficient and better way to experience Wano.