I catched up to One Piece.

It has been a long journey since I started reading the One Piece manga on December 24, 2019. I'd go as far as to say I'm a completely different person now than I was then. OP itself has also continued during that time - back then, there were 966 chapters out, and the Finnish volume releases had only just begun the Wa(no) arc. And on December 29, 2022, when I after 3 years and 5 days finally catched up to the manga, the last chapter I read was 1070. Over 100 chapters came out during those three years while I was reading! 

In my previous blog post back in November 2021 when I reached volume 50, I made a chart that showed my reading progress until then, and now I can present the final version: 

(Interactive chart can be found here.)

As you can see, 2022 has really been a year of reading One Piece for me. I essentially doubled my speed, reading as much in 2022 as I did in 2020 and 2021 combined, if not more. As for the sagas: 

  • East Blue: December 2019 - March 2020 
  • Alabasta: March-November 2020 
  • Sky Island: November-December 2020 
  • Water Seven: December 2020 - September 2021 
  • Thriller Bark: September-December 2021 
  • Summit War: December 2021 - May 2022 
  • Fish-Man Island: May-July 2022 
  • Dressrosa: July-October 2022 
  • Whole Cake Island: October-December 2022 
  • Wa(no) Country: December 2022 

Yeah, I read the entire Wa saga in one month. And a bit of the final saga too, as the manga is currently about 12 chapters into that. By the way, I'm using the writing forms Alabasta and Wa since they're the ones used in the Finnish translation of the manga, which is what I used for over 90% of it and am therefore the most familiar with. It's a really good translation. You English readers are missing out. 

So, what is my takeaway from everything I've read over the last three years? Was One Piece worth reading? Absolutely. I wouldn't be entirely honest if I said I liked every single thing about it, but there's so much good aspects that I could spend hours gushing about them. The massive and incredibly detailed world, the colourful cast of characters, the unbelievably well though-out plot... it's simply a masterful feat of storytelling, both on a macro and a micro level. And perhaps most importantly? It's fun. And that's probably the greatest thing about it - all that fantastic storytelling is contained in a comedic adventure series for the younger end of the shonen demographic. Sure, the sometimes rather juvenile humor and cartoony character designs may not be for everyone, but I think everyone can (especially in times like these) appreciate a story that, while not shying away from showing the darker side of humanity, ultimately has a stubbornly optimistic view of it. 

Now that I'm caught up and following new chapters weekly, the most exciting part lies ahead of me: the final saga. The next few years are going to be very interesting, and I can't wait to see what Oda has been cooking. I'm happy that I have the opportunity to witness the last stages of this magnum opus as they happen, and highly recommend everyone to even just try One Piece. It may be long, but as a work of fiction there is nothing like it. 

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