Greg: Teacher of SUPER " OP " course !

[Robby]

Hey, Greg. Has Oda recently shifted completely to drawing digitally now?
I ask because of this Twitter video of the cover process for Vol. 91. You've might have already seen it.
https://twitter.com/Eiichiro_Staff/s...20128943972352

Oda's art still has varying line widths and little ink dab pools at the end of lines that you only get from physical inking. It's lacking a lot of the telltale signs of digital inking like super consistent line widths and a built in whispy quality to the line. However much he's doing digitially, it's not 100%.

At a guess, I'd say he's probably switched to digital for doing layouts, especially for complicated group cover shots like that, because it's way easier to resize and adjust things... but he then probably prints that layout and then inks over it traditionally. Hence the reason that video stopped at the layout stage instead of going on to show more refined line art.

And his coloring is definitely still traditional, you can't get that particular quality in photoshop without crazy amounts of extra work ad texture drops.

[MasterKingJC]

That makes sense, Robby. I know he's done digital drawings occasionally for the Eiichiro Staff twitter and the official site. I've always assumed Oda was pretty old school and I don't think he'll ever go 100% digital in the future.

[Roronoa Zacho]

Greg, prediction on how Luffy and Kid will break out?

Well, you gotta wonder: that Hippo guy was the deputy warden. If Shonen-rules aren't broken here, the actual warden has to be stronger than him. Like the difference between Hannyabal and Magellan (or even greater difference if Queen is the warden). But like Greg has put it: If Luffy and Kidd inspired other prisoners, they might cause a huge ruckus in that prison mine and the break-out will be a team-effort.
I am really curious about the fishbone-guy. the 2 Samurais next to ashura douji might have been brought up at the beginning of ch. 926 (the manslayer and that robinhood-esque Boy).

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That makes sense, Robby. I know he's done digital drawings occasionally for the Eiichiro Staff twitter and the official site. I've always assumed Oda was pretty old school and I don't think he'll ever go 100% digital in the future.

Iwonder how many assistants Oda has. That one Panel with the People in line t buy Sanji's Food, it doesn't look like much in thefirst place, but all those houses are really accurate and detailled. That one Panel alone would take me a week (I only draw in free-time, though).

[Greg]

A sizeable team works on the series.

As for Oda going digital, you'll note that he does a lot of that kind of work for side projects.

Messages to other authors, online promotional material, and the like. He likes the convenience of digital artwork, but I don't think it's changed his mind regarding how to 'best enjoy' comics.

[Roronoa Zacho]

A sizeable team works on the series.

As for Oda going digital, you'll note that he does a lot of that kind of work for side projects.

Messages to other authors, online promotional material, and the like. He likes the convenience of digital artwork, but I don't think it's changed his mind regarding how to 'best enjoy' comics.

I heard he had to get used to the drawing tablet. I'm glad now that I had the same issues with my first drawing tablet: the pen's thicker, the drawing's surface' texture feels different. I can understand him doing the main work "traditionally", although digital supplies a lot of possibilities.

[CHiZZoPs]

So Sabo was very close to Enel than I guess going by that logic?

He's close to Dragon, though, whose storm fruit might be able to impart it, were this conjecture to be true.

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It seems like a simple task but believe me, keeping track of a series in two languages at once is a job in and of itself (^o^)

Were it to be made a job, you would be a shoe-in.

[raziu]

A sizeable team works on the series.

As for Oda going digital, you'll note that he does a lot of that kind of work for side projects.

Messages to other authors, online promotional material, and the like. He likes the convenience of digital artwork, but I don't think it's changed his mind regarding how to 'best enjoy' comics.

Hi Greg

Do you think Zoro fans will be happy this arc? I mean ever since time skip started Zoro has kinda been on the backburner....just getting his solo fight and then disappearing from the plot.

Now of course I'm not expecting his own arc like Sanji just had considering how many WG members and other major players are on the island...but do you think he will at least participate in the plot this time?

Seems like we barely saw him for a chapter or two and he once again went MIA... really hope Oda delivers since Zoro feels way underused post skip

[Seafarer33]

At a guess, I'd say he's probably switched to digital for doing layouts, especially for complicated group cover shots like that, because it's way easier to resize and adjust things... but he then probably prints that layout and then inks over it traditionally. Hence the reason that video stopped at the layout stage instead of going on to show more refined line art.

And his coloring is definitely still traditional, you can't get that particular quality in photoshop without crazy amounts of extra work ad texture drops.

I have absolutely no idea how Oda does things naturally, but Photoshop is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to digitally emulating traditional inks and paints. Software has been making leaps and bounds, so if a talented artist such as him wants to go digital through and through while keeping a traditional touch, the tools are definitely out there.

[Robby]

I have absolutely no idea how Oda does things naturally, but Photoshop is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to digitally emulating traditional inks and paints. Software has been making leaps and bounds, so if a talented artist such as him wants to go digital through and through while keeping a traditional touch, the tools are definitely out there.

Yes, there's other programs out there. Painter, illustrator, clip, gimp, artweaver, krita, and a dozen others, not to mention 3D programs for making backgrounds and objects, and they all do different things. For lineart specifically he'd probably use Illustrator.

"Photoshop" is just shorthand to encompass all digital art programs since its the universal one that does almost everything you need.

And again, his art has all the telltale signs of still being inked traditionally. Line waverings and little ink blobs and the consistent blacks you just don't get out of digitial. Like Greg noted, you look at some of his outside project work, that stuff is often digital, but the main series in still done by hand.

You can tell when its done digitally. You go look at Berserk and you can tell when he shifted to digital art, and Ken Akamatsu has been doing digital for a while, and you compare it to his earlier work and it shows.

[Lord Monkey D.]

[Big Black Hole]

I mean Jinbe's obvious, but Vivi?

[Robby]

I mean Jinbe's obvious, but Vivi?

She kept appearing in the "playing with animals" cover shorts for years and years along with the other strawhats. Oda definitely kept her in mind and separate as an unnofficial/official member of the crew we should keep remembering (and then later he started expanding Carue as well.)

Right around the time skip he just started making the covers completely random any character per fan request, so that means nothing now, but for about a 10 year stretch he went out of his way to showcase Vivi about once a year.

[Long John Silvers Rayleigh]

Greg so Ive been wondering lately

Is Enies Lobby put on a pedestal in the west compared to how its received in Japan? Over here its the consensus pick for favorite arc amongst western fans but could it be more middle of the road in japan with a lot more people arguing dressrosa/alabasta/thriller bark over it?

Ive looked around for any official arc ranking lists and couldnt find any but what I did find was 2 things which may mean nothing but piqued my interests.

The first was none of the top 10 voted covers from jumps OP cover ranking where from the Saga.



There's probably some recency bias since all except 2 are post-timeskip but alabasta was there and it's even older than Enies Lobby.

There's also the fact when the saga was really moving in 2005 and 2006, one piece wasnt first in either year in terms of popularity (and sales?, Im less sure of that though)

Its just intriguing to me ans Ive never seen anyone bring it up because, aa americans we usually dont question if others think differently because "of course theyd think like us" lol.

If there isnt a list based on any signifcance on how the arcs are ranked could you give a general idea of how people in japan's tastes in favorite arc differ, is there more of a recency bias, certain arcs that are more/less loved compared to the average one piece arc.

[FelRes]

Its just intriguing to me ans Ive never seen anyone bring it up because, aa americans we usually dont question if others think differently because "of course theyd think like us" lol.

With anime and manga, I think it's more the case that different regions have very different tastes, namely the west, latin America, and Japan. Anyone with a brain is aware they have different tastes, but I don't think we really respect each others' tastes much judging by popularity poll commentary lol, so it's easy to dismiss Japanese readers. I'm curious about how a volume cover ranking would go with the English speaking audience though. I doubt too much W7/EL would get in our top 10. I feel like it would have a lot of Marineford era, especially since that's when a ton of new fans came in.

[Monquito]

I recall volume sales going drastically down during Gyojin island, so that we all worldwide could agree to give it the very bottom position.

[MasterKingJC]

I recall volume sales going drastically down during Gyojin island, so that we all worldwide could agree to give it the very bottom position.

Sales would have gone down regardless because most of it during that time was backlog volume sales.

[Robby]

Is Enies Lobby put on a pedestal in the west compared to how its received in Japan?

Is it really put on a pedestal in the west? Sure, the "ooh so dark wearing all black assassins" things appeals to the casual Bleach crowd and drew in some fans that didn't like the series before, but those villains and that arc in general are so different from what OP is usually about, it's hard to reconcile it with everything else.

The entire arc is a dreary and sad "the strawhats are falling apart" followed by an extended battle sequence that took a solid year and was kind of boring. It's probably not a coincidence that Oda hasn't given the entire crew extended 1 on 1 fights in a single arc since.

I think if you poll this site at least, you'll see it pretty low on the lists here too. (I think Foxy arc is consistently the lowest.)

I recall volume sales going drastically down during Gyojin island, so that we all worldwide could agree to give it the very bottom position.

That had less to do with the arc and more with sales being inflated during the war due to the perfect storm of war/timeskip/strong world encouraging a huge swatch of backlog. Numbers were always going to drop after that, no matter how good the quality of the follow up.

[Long John Silvers Rayleigh]

Is it really put on a pedestal in the west? Sure, the "ooh so dark wearing all black assassins" things appeals to the casual Bleach crowd and drew in some fans that didn't like the series before, but those villains and that arc in general are so different from what OP is usually about, it's hard to reconcile it with everything else.

The entire arc is a dreary and sad "the strawhats are falling apart" followed by an extended battle sequence that took a solid year and was kind of boring. It's probably not a coincidence that Oda hasn't given the entire crew extended 1 on 1 fights in a single arc since.

I think if you poll this site at least, you'll see it pretty low on the lists here too. (I think Foxy arc is consistently the lowest.)


That had less to do with the arc and more with sales being inflated during the war due to the perfect storm of war/timeskip/strong world encouraging a huge swatch of backlog. Numbers were always going to drop after that, no matter how good the quality of the follow up.

In any search for best arcs I always either find it or marineford as the best arc,

here was a 1500 person reddit survey result from 2014 https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/co..._poll_results/

That and a ton of other threads I have seen where enies lobby or water 7+enies lobby is either the favorite or 2nd favorite arc

I honestly would expect to see the opinion that "Enies Lobby is mid-tier or worse" on an unpopular opinion thread

That would be interesting if we had a poll from google forms to see where enies lobby would be ranked here because ive always honestly figured its either 1 or 2 in the west without how many youtubers, the unofficial one piece podcast, forum posters, and general fans ive met lead me to the the conclusion this forum might be an aberration. At the very least I would expect it to be in the top 5 and at the lowest top 10.

[Shiebs]

Watchmojo even had water seven as the second best anime arc of all time in there top ten anime arcs

but they also had the pain arc from Naruto in there, which was crap, and far inferior to the chunin exam (by far Ksihimoto's best work) so take there list with a grain of salt

[Robby]

In any search for best arcs I always either find it or marineford as the best arc,

here was a 1500 person reddit survey result from 2014 https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/co..._poll_results/

That and a ton of other threads I have seen where enies lobby or water 7+enies lobby is either the favorite or 2nd favorite arc

I honestly would expect to see the opinion that "Enies Lobby is mid-tier or worse" on an unpopular opinion thread

These are the same sort of things that brush Skypeia off as worst arc and filler. So. And they rated Sabaody as the number 4 arc? It wasn't even an arc! It introduced the supernovas and then... the strawhats got kumaed. Yes it was 20 chapters long so it deserves the classification but... that's not an arc.

Two different audiences looking for two different things. If you're looking for adventure and comedy and worldbuilding and character moments, W7 isn't the place. If you're just looking for badass action sequences, then... Enies Lobby and the War, and apparently Sabaody, are for you.

The same thing happens in Dragonball where the Android/Cell saga is some people's favorite for some reason even though it's the worst arc of the series in terms of adventure and fun, and its just an endless series of powerups and fights and nothing happening. (And yes, Dragonball has always been an endless series of fights. Cell took it to the extreme.) It has the great ending with Gohan but then that's squandered by the series continuing, so...

As a whole, Water 7 arc has some of the best highlights. The starting intrigue, Usopp and Luffy's fight with him leaving, the flashbacks, Robins "I wanna live" , all the drama with Merry and Merry's death scene, the first reveals of the gears... and then the aftermath reveals with Garp and such. The Water 7 portions of the arc was great! But the sea train/Enies Lobby stuff that lasted for a solid year, against the most boring lacking in personality lead villain in the series, just killed it. That was one of the slowest and dullest years in the series. Even on reread all at once its not much better.

I mean cripes, if you watch the Luffy/Lucchi fight on youtube, with all the other fights and filler cut out, it still takes over an hour. I'm all for big epic lengthy fights, and I expect them the end the series with, but cripes.

That would be interesting if we had a poll from google forms to see where enies lobby would be ranked here because ive always honestly figured its either 1 or 2 in the west without how many youtubers, the unofficial one piece podcast, forum posters, and general fans ive met lead me to the the conclusion this forum might be an aberration. At the very least I would expect it to be in the top 5 and at the lowest top 10.

Pretty sure we've had such polls here but I can't find them from a cursory search. They must have had weird titles without obvious keywords. Maybe it was character tournament material?