One Piece's Maturity Level

[Baou Zakurga]

One Piece is serious business

[Unrequited]

On one hand, holy necro. On the other, someone actually managed to use the search function.

[Shuhan]

I'd give it a 5, mainly because it is immature fun.

Lets call a spade a spade, One Piece is not a serious manga. However, it does have its serious moments.

[Pirate Empress Kooh]

I'd have to agree with 5, but it's only as serious as people take it. You could easily take this as a lower-than-4 seriousness level, which kids would, something kids really wouldn't be able to do with Elven Lied, or even Eureka 7.

[vodopiece]

5-6 ish

The overall plot is very straightforward. In the case of the strawhats it goes with the whole "pirates are fun and can be good guys". How many times can we wear brightly coloured clothes and yell at the tops of our voice about adventure? There is blood, but its just blood no real gore. There is very limited sexual or even romantic themes at all. That being said some of the arcs are very well thought out and defiantly non childish in nature, with detailed and and very emotional storytelling (im looking at brook and his crew playing binks sake when they're all dying). However the things which make it most "childish" to my mind is frequent use of crude humour (dont get me wrong the "banter" in OP is what makes me enjoy it, comparing it to something relentlessly gloomy like bleach) but OP does a fairly good job of not having to put in the dreaded "comic relief" characters (but there is buggy...). The other reason I find it quite childish are the villains. OP suffers from being very "black and white" in nature, all the villains are evil all the good guys are almost saintly. Every villain in the OP series suffers from an overdose of complacency. The "arc" story type is very simple and one dimensional. If you want something compelling and interesting you want episodes that can all link together to form a comprehensive, detailed story in one season (deathnote is a prime example of this). Except for the last few arcs all of OPs story has been "sail to a place, expand the story, fight, fight the boss (of course no one ever dies) then celebrate" rinse and repeat.

Dont get me wrong I love OP, i wouldn't be on this forum otherwise. I do feel however it is the (childish in nature) "banter" which keeps it alive. If someone were to ask me what the funniest scene of bleach was I could say straight off with no doubt, but if someone asked the same of OP there is no way id be able to pin it to a single moment.

[Shichibukai]

It has some very very childish things and some very very mature things so i give it a 5/10 which means it's the perfect mix.

[zachri]

can'tbelievenobodygotthereference.
SHAME ON YOU!

butyeah...
an actual answer from me...
7-8.
A good balance of humour and serious business I think.

[Kylor]

Er, can maturity be defined a bit better? I'm not sure what maturity really entails? Like, in terms of content? Like, if it has blood and stuff and nasty words then it's mature, and if it doesn't, it's for kids? Does having comedy make it less mature? Or maybe we're talking about themes and the such. I don't know, seems to me like this question is impossible to answer, as everyone has differing ideas of maturity. In general though, I'd look at One Piece like one of the better Disney movies. Everyone can enjoy it, but as you grow up you learn to enjoy different things about it.

[Kendrick]

Expanding from the post above me; I'm going to assume we are referring to the themes and the like. In which case, I'd say 7-8. Although at times the comedy is done a lot, and maybe not the best of all anime in that department, it does have mature themes. The overall point of the entire series is the powerful value of friendship and determination, basically. Now, things like My Little Pony, and other such shows designed for 5 year olds, have the same message. But it's in the conveyance. The way the Straw-Hat crew risks the lives of all for the protection of one is a very powerful message, and it can be enough to make a full-grown man feel the impact to the point of wanting to cry, or uncontrollably grinning. This is shown perhaps most in its fullest potency during the Marineford arc, with Whitebeard risking the lives of every single man in his crew to save Ace. The ending in particular, shows a great level of realism and maturity.

Also, take a quick look at any of the main crew's backstories.

[StarlightMan]

I don't see the relevance of this poll when the manga/anime can be enjoyed by a demographic as broad as 8-30 years. It's an all-ages affair, so I can't really call it "childish" when it has something for everyone. A silly visual gag can be quickly followed by bouncing boobs followed by deep, societal/racial themes, followed by amputations, gaping chest-holes, bloody half-heads, etc. Is it "childish"? Certainly. But it isn't strictly for children. You can't call every 20+ year old "immature" for enjoying this series.

[Kendrick]

Starlightman has a point, too, although I highly doubt many 8 year olds are going to be reading a manga with the gaping chest-holes and such. At least, not in America.

[pyromonki]

Starlightman has a point, too, although I highly doubt many 8 year olds are going to be reading a manga with the gaping chest-holes and such. At least, not in America.

At 8 years old in america, we saw an old man age to dust in thundercats, Optimus prime shot fatally by Megatron, Duke get shot in the heart, watership down, the hobbit, and the plague dogs. And that was on videos.

In comics? Way worse.

I think it's at about the same level of maturity.

I think some posters in this thread are trying to make themselves feel "better" about reading a japanese comic for children.

This manga deserves no higher than 5 or 6.

[ShinigamiKing]

It's simply a show that doesn't take itself seriously when it doesn't have to.

[Luffyko]

Watership Down... for 8 year olds?
I was 8 years old when I watched that movie. After that, I had nightmares for weeks. I still remember how the rabbits were trapped in their den and slowly suffocated ;__;



One Piece has it's funny, immature sides, but also pretty mature themes like Racism or censorship. So it's kind of impossible to rate the maturity level of the whole series. It just depends on the situation. I would definatelly rate the Foxy Arc lower than the Marineford Arc, for example.

[Buuhan1]

Everything about this post is horrible, but mostly because it bumped a nearly SIX year old thread.

Dammit, stop making me feel old!

[Kendrick]

At 8 years old in america, we saw an old man age to dust in thundercats, Optimus prime shot fatally by Megatron, Duke get shot in the heart, watership down, the hobbit, and the plague dogs. And that was on videos.

In comics? Way worse.

I think it's at about the same level of maturity.

I think some posters in this thread are trying to make themselves feel "better" about reading a japanese comic for children.

This manga deserves no higher than 5 or 6.

I watch My Little Pony. I have absolutely no shame about reading One Piece.

[RomanceDawn]

Racism the way it was portrayed in the manga is a pretty mature issue. Doesn't matter if it's cartoony fishmen, some of the things said and done carried some weight from the real world.

I like how Vodopiece has One Piece all figured out.

[GiantGuy]

I'd say 5. There's no nudity (of course there is no explicit nudity in any shonen series, but One Piece doesn't even show Nami's naked ass). There's some blood, but it's mostly portrayed in a quite cartoony way, and there's no more blood than in most other shonen mangas. It never gets 100 % serious. Even in dramatic moments like the Whitebeard War and Water 7, there are respectively Buggy and Franky's wacky antics. Sexual jokes are present, but are mostly quite mild for manga standards. The themes are easily understandable and typical of children's series - friendship, freedom, it's not what you're born as that makes you who you are etc. The vocabulary used in the series is, at least in the translations I've read (I don't know Japanese), quite limited and understandable. While the One Piece arcs are (fortunately) often more complex than simply beating down evil, they're not that intricate either, and most 10-year-old kids would understand what's going on, even though they might not see as many dimensions as an adult reader. The art is funny, cartoony and colorful which might not play much of a role to the series itself, but it surely helps drawing in young readers/viewers.

So when all is said and done, I'm not doubting that One Piece is a shonen series aimed for young kids, but luckily there are several bonuses for the older readers, and it's certainly not the most immature shonen.

[Honor Among Thieves]

It all depends on what you consider to be mature content. If you're talking about thematic content and intelligent moral messages, then One Piece is fairly mature. It has so far maintained a consistent ideology and has an interesting view of death. The fact that the main overarching villain thus far, the world government, contains a wide range of morally ambiguous people(Coby, Smoker, Garp, Aokiji, etc., etc.) people is a point for it in this category. On the other hand, One Piece has quite a bit of childish humor and some blatant fanservice, which I would consider immature.

If you're rating it solely based on objectionable content, then One Piece is about a 5 by western standards in my opinion. It blows most western programs aimed at children and/or teens out of the water, but doesn't hold a candle to something like The Dark Knight.

If you're rating it based on themes and moral messages, I'd give it a 5.5 or a 6. It isn't exceedingly complex, but it does teach things that most programs for it's demographic don't, like the government's potential to do awful things, and that almost everyone has at least a little bit of good in them.

To be honest, "immaturity" isn't necessarily a bad thing. What draws me to One Piece is the mix of cartoonishness and vitality with genuine intelligence and inspiring depictions of heroism. One element doesn't really work without the other in this series. You kind of have to take the mature parts with the immature, or the experience feels incomplete.

[Monkey King]

One Piece is mature children's entertainment. It isn't mature outside that particular vaccum.