One Piece is an action-packed tale of the Straw Hat Pirates and their adventures on the high seas. It takes place in a fictional universe where vast numbers of pirates, marines, vagabonds, and others fight each other, using various superpowers as well as supernatural abilities.

The series' storyline follows a group of pirates called The Straw Hat Pirates, as they search for the One Piece, a rare treasure the infamous pirate Gol D. Roger spoke about before his death.

Our hero, Monkey D. Luffy, is a teenager determined to find the legendary treasure and become the King of Pirates. He is unique to say the least, having eaten one of the Devil's Fruit – giving him the awesome power of rubber, giving him the ability to stretch his limbs and skin way beyond normal and use it in creative ways to fight for instance blowing his body up to a gigantic size to ward off cannonballs which cannot hurt him, and other wonderful tricks. Unfortunately, especially for a pirate, all of those that have eaten the Devil’s Fruit becomes weak in sea water.

With his eccentric crew, which include the direction-impaired swordsman Roronoa Zoro, singing skeleton Brooke, the cola-powered cyborg Frankie, and money-obsessed navigator Nami, Luffy goes off looking for the Grand Line, an ocean where this treasure is supposedly hidden.

One Piece is all about pirates, complete with the swashbuckling swordsmen and cannon-studded galleons that we've grown used to in the 'pirate' genre. But there's always an accompanying weirdness, such as the floating Oden bar (Oden is a traditional Japanese dish, made with boiled eggs, radish, fishcakes and broth), and Zoro's bizarre skills with a katana, that gives it a Japanese touch.

It's all very bizarre and overblown, but that's what makes it so much fun to watch, taking you on a journey to new unique worlds where mermaids are not quite the Disney cuties you are used to, where telephones are snail-like creatures called Den-Den Mushi and the pirates are not the usual stereotypes. Those who love this anime, love it fiercely and are extremely loyal to it.

Interesting Facts:

• One Piece is produced by Production I.G. It’s original run started in October 1999 and is still going strong. At time of publishing One Piece just released Episode 630.
• Part of the names of Sanji's attacks are in French. Part of Nico Robin's are in Spanish.
• Nami was the first main character to appear on screen in the anime before Luffy's famous début.
• Roronoa Zoro was originally planned to be introduced as Buggy the Clown's bodyguard.

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If you are into adventure anime we also suggest Hunter X Hunter, Tales of Eternia, and Star Ocean.

About our contributor: Allen Simpson is a blogger and a published poet who has a deep passion for anime. He is also co-owner of AnimeFanatika, a reliable source of information on Anime providing fans with the latest news, reviews and goings on in the industry. Visit their Facebook page and become a Fanatik today. Sugoi!