Note: This article does not contain any spoilers for both the “One Piece” anime and manga.

“One Piece” is regarded as one of the best anime of all-time as it took the world by storm. The property, made by Eiichiro Oda, has collaborated with several sports teams and sold millions of dollars worth of merchandise.

As a fan of “One Piece” for the past five years, I would say that the franchise changed my life. But, the question is this. How did I get into “One Piece”?

It all started in my junior year of high school, when I got Crunchyroll for free thanks to my Xbox Game Pass perks. I was obsessed with “My Hero Academia”, as it became one of the reasons why I got into anime. Then during lunch, a lot of my friends told me to watch it, but one of my friends told me that the show wasn’t good. There was a huge debate about which was better, “Naruto” or “One Piece”.

After encouragement by one of my friends, I began to watch it in March 2022 and binge-watched the first 100 episodes (including the filler). I started to really like the series and it took the entirety of 2022 for me to reach the time skip. After that, I took a big break due to watching other anime and I was focusing on the college admissions process and the January New York State Regents.

In February 2023, during winter break, I finished the “Fishman Island” and “Punk Hazard” arcs and I began watching the “Dressrosa” arc and it was great, but it took a long time due to graduating high school in June 2023”. In my freshman year of college, I dealt with social anxiety and I would be in my dorm room watching “One Piece”.

By the time the year ended, I got to the “Whole Cake Island” arc, which is my personal favorite arc from “One Piece”. Then, in 2024, I finally got caught up with the anime and I’m currently reading the manga.

My love for “One Piece” is so great that I bought Funko pops and t-shirts. I was Luffy for Halloween in 2024 and I wore the costume for a straight week. If you follow me on Instagram, you will see anime edits on my story and my profile pic would be an anime character. It’s currently Rukia from “Bleach”, but my last profile pic was Zoro in the “Wano” arc. It is funny that even though “One Piece” is popular enough to have lots of collaborations, “One Piece” is yet to have a collab with Fortnite and I am still looking forward to it in the future

“One Piece” helped me socially, as a lot of people I know, both on-campus and at-home, are fans of “One Piece” and we would talk about what happened in the latest chapter. I would sometimes show off my “One Piece” Funko pop and my favorite one so far is “ZOROJURO” .