One Piece is another show I have a fairly colorful history with. I'm sure you're dying to hear all about it, and even if you're not, I'm opening with it anyway. My first exposure to the series came from a very brief membership in my university's anime club, in my first semester of college, all the way back in the ancient days of autumn, 2002. Most of what we watched was a mix of classic shows with a more limited following and forgettable modern action comedies. One Piece stood out. For one, we watched a Chinese bootleg with some of the most amazingly terrible English subtitles I've ever seen: Luffy was "Roof," and Sanji was "Sunkist," to name but a couple of the impressive mistranslations. On top of that, and despite the incredibly poor quality of the translation, which added a layer of mystery to the experience because it was hard to understand what was going on at any point, the show was compelling and packed a real action wallop. There's not a lot of shows that can withstand a terrible translation and still hold up as enjoyable.

From there, my only exposure to the show for years was in the occasional Cartoon Network airing of the censored, "kid-friendly" butchering of the series, courtesy of 4Kids. The airing stands out for how ridiculous some of the censorship was, as well as for the memorably embarrassing "One Piece Rap" opening they replaced the show's more iconic original theme with. Few people can rap. Even fewer people can rap well. If you're all about the animes, you have no business trying to rap. But you already knew this.

Having wanted to see the show in its pure, uncut, comprehensible Japanese form for years, I was among the elated many when 4Kids finally dropped the show, and when FUNimation picked it up with plans to storm the internet with a digital stream alongside the DVD release. As of this writing, I've been watching the show regularly since roughly last August. I've watched and reviewed quite a few shounen action series here in the past year, some of which were outright excruciating. The long-running One Piece has in many ways gone on to become the next major shounen action series post-Dragon Ball Z. Despite its limited success in the West, compared to the virtually iconic status it's achieved in Japan, the series has absolutely earned that acclaim.

All that established, it's time to talk about the actual content of the show.

One Piece is a fantasy action adventure show, which carries the action and adventure with relatively-equal emphasis. You'll see plenty of small fights throughout the series, but the plot and character arcs frequently take precedence over the action, leading to plenty of stretches of episodes well into the double digits without a throwdown that can be described as legendary. These stretches, however, become more noticeable following the first season. This first season? Plenty of plot and character development with no shortage of impressive battles.

In a massive, ocean-filled fantasy setting, the show follows Monkey D. Luffy, a teenage boy who takes to the seas in following the footsteps of pirate Red-Haired Shanks, whom he'd grown up knowing. Prior to his execution, Pirate King Gold Roger began the Great Pirate Era by announcing from the execution platform that he'd left the One Piece - the treasure by which he'd become king - at the end of the Grand Line, the world's most dangerous sea. Luffy sets out in search of the One Piece himself — King of Pirates or bust.

Luffy's no ordinary kid. The world is full of rare Devil Fruit, the consumption of which grants extraordinary powers in exchange for the consumer's ability to swim. Anyone who's eaten a Devil Fruit goes limp the moment they're submerged in water — a critical drawback for seafaring pirates. As a child, Luffy ate a Gum-Gum fruit that belonged to Shanks, turning his body to rubber, which ultimately developed into a body-stretching combat talent and resistance to bullets that makes Dhalsim cry himself to sleep every night. Yoga Flame? NOBODY CARES.

The first season's opening arc introduces a number of characters in addition to our ambitious lead. A couple of villains show up in the form of the dastardly Alvida and bizarre Buggy the Clown, the latter of whom has a Devil Fruit power that allows him to split his body into numerous parts that move and function independently. A power that could possibly make him quite popular with the ladies, were this not such a family-oriented show by Japan's standards — by which I mean there's a lot of crazily strange violence, bloodshed, bones broken, and no shortage of drinking and chainsmoking. What's family-safe in Japan isn't exactly by Western standards.

Luffy saves the bounty hunter Zoro from certain death at the hands of the navy and gains his first crew member. Zoro stands out as one of the normal human characters in being one of the show's strongest fighters, using a sword in each hand, and clutching a third between his teeth, for an approach to combat that's equal parts ridiculous and badass. The two are soon joined by navigator and thief Nami, whose motives with the other two come across as mostly shady. By this point, it becomes apparent that they're not going to accomplish much by bumping around the East Blue in a tiny boat.

The second major story arc — where I began my experience with the show in the anime club — brings in the third crew member, Usopp. His name a combination of the Japanese word for "lie" (as in, "That's an absolute untruthitude!") and Aesop, Usopp is literally the boy who cried pirate. Only Luffy's Straw Hat crew believes him when he discovers that his friend, local sickly rich girl Kaya's butler, Klahadore, is actually the sinister pirate mastermind Captain Kuro. They team up with sniper Usopp to fight off the Black Cat Pirates, earning the real ship they'd hoped for.

After a few episodes dedicated to character development and further humorous adventure, the crew stops at the seafaring restaurant Baratie in search of a cook. Luffy meets the rebellious, rabble-rousing chainsmoker cook Sanji there, who only fights using his feet, as a chef can't afford to ruin their hands in battle. The appearance of the heavily armored Don Krieg - fresh from defeat on the Grand Line and intent on taking the Baratie for himself - causes the pirates to unite and find common ground. Not even Sanji could escape his destiny to be one of the Straw Hats.

The next arc, which serves as season one's incredible plot climax, begins with Nami stealing their ship, the Going Merry, with the rest of the Straw Hats soon giving chase. This arc, the longest of the first season, centers heavily on developing Nami's character, and ultimately pitting Luffy and the other Straw Hats against the first season's deadliest villain - racist Saw Shark fish man Arlong and his Deadliest Catch fodder crew of gilled plundering bastards. The thorough scaling Arlong and his crew receive after their years of tyranny and terror makes for several of the most satisfying battle scenes I've ever seen in an anime series.

The season wraps with a couple short arcs, one of which centers on Buggy the Clown after his embarrassing defeat at Luffy's hands many episodes earlier. The second follows a brief excursion the Straw Hats take into Loguetown on their way to the Grand Line, where we finally get a recurring face for the navy in Captain Smoker — whose constant smoking of two large cigars from one side of his mouth acts as a veritable "What now?" to Sanji's limitless supply of cigarettes — and his lieutenant, the nearly-blind swordswoman Tashigi. You heard it here first, folks: censoring Smoker and Sanji's tobacco addictions killed 4Kids. Look into your heart. You know this to be true.

All that said, with all the meat there is in One Piece's ongoing story and especially in this first season, if there's not enough there for you to be happy with, I don't know what to tell you. Except maybe to get out, and contemplate getting some other hobbies. Maybe jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Some mix of those. What I'm getting at here is that as shounen action shows go, you really can't get much richer or more substantive than One Piece. The show's been running for over ten years now, with well over 400 episodes, and it's still going strong with no end in sight. This is one of those cases where Japan's crack-like addiction to a show is evidence of something good.

The characters, while each of them play on some archetype or another, are all enjoyable and well developed. Luffy's appealing in a way you don't often see in heroic lead characters, in that he doesn't have much sense of how dangerous any situation is, and happily challenges any potential opponent with an insane grin on his face. The fact that he may be about to get his ass kicked never even crosses his mind. And in season one, that's pretty justified — it isn't until toward the end that he finally faces an opponent he can't hurt. You can always count on Luffy to be the one to finish each of the big bads at the end of their respective arcs, though. After the show invests a lot of time into making you hate each major villain, and each big bad is more hate-worthy than the last — you can also count on Luffy to deck them in the face with one of his outstretched-arm punches at just the right moment. It's one of the only routine, predictable moments of the show as it progresses, and it's always timed perfectly when it happens. You want to see the good guys win every time, and the writing they put into each successive villain makes the experience of watching their defeat rewarding in a way few action anime series match.

The action itself is fast-paced and unpredictable. One Piece isn't full of muscly spiky-haired dudes flying around and chucking fireballs at each other while screaming with their shirts off. You get Luffy coming up with all kinds of creative moves based on his body's rubbery makeup, elaborate swordplay from Zoro, all sorts of slingshot projectiles from Usopp, the occasional staff-bashing from Nami — who, like Usopp, isn't a main fighter — and all sorts of breakdance-like moves from Sanji. The animation is fluid and kinetic in a way like no other anime series in recent times. This actually came up in a paper I wrote on cross-culturalism with Japan late in college. Creator Eiichiro Oda himself has admitted to being influenced by western cartoons in working on One Piece — In particular, Tom & Jerry. What you get here is, in a sense, an answer to the question of what you'd get if you mixed older style western slapstick cartoon violence with an action-oriented anime series. What we get is a consistently ridiculous, humorous experience, that never takes itself too seriously or gets bogged down in too much angst, with some of the freshest and most creative fight scenes in anime, period.

The series uses its visuals and audio to amazing effect as well, giving the viewer the sense that you're not just watching the action, but experiencing it. As a result of this level of quality in the production, I've enjoyed combat in One Piece in a way like I never have in another show before.

Visually, the series feels like it was made further back than it was. For a late 1999 show, they generally avoid cramming cheesy CGI down the viewer's throat. The backgrounds look hand drawn and painted, and the character designs are simple and appealing — they don't look ridiculously pretty, like most anime series. The show's look consistently reflects Oda's wicked sense of humor and penchant for cross-cultural referencing.

The audio's worth highlighting too, and not just the perfectly fitting voices for each character, but the music. The background music fits the show perfectly, in a way not unlike Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movies, maintaining a certain infectious atmosphere that always suits the Straw Hats' pirate heroics. The first opening, Hiroshi Kitadani's "We Are!," stands out as a legendary opening song and animation. One you've seen it and heard the song, it'll stay with you forever. I wish I could say the same for Folder5's second opening, "Believe," which kicks in late in the first season, but while the animation works, the song feels like it'd be better suited to Dance Dance Revolution than high pirate adventure. The first ending, Maki Otsuki's "memories," works well, but it's not the most memorable song on the show. It does stay with you, though, along with the simple first ending animation. The second ending, another Otsuki song, "RUN! RUN! RUN!," is much more high-energy and suits the show well, appearing after the Straw Hats had been through their first few big adventures together.

Whew, I had a lot to say about this one, didn't I? Still here? Better be. (That's an empty threat.) I've beaten you over the head with the fact that I like One Piece. And the truth is, I really do, and not for reasons I typically get into an anime series. At heart, One Piece feels like the kind of action adventure cartoon that came out of the '80s and early '90s that I would have killed to watch as a kid. And for me, that's the biggest pleasure in One Piece: it takes me back to the kind of thrilling fun that adventure cartoons were for me as a kid. I didn't think anything could pull that off, given my cynicism, and for that, I have to give One Piece extremely high marks. I've never watched a show anywhere near as long as One Piece is now, but I intend to stick with it to the very end. Having embarked on this adventure with these enjoyable characters, against what I'd expect, I can honestly say that I see why the show's been so popular for over 10 years and maintained such a strong fanbase. Strap on your pirate hats, grab your wooden swords, and prepare to feel like a kid again with One Piece.