About Skypiea
About why Skypiea is the best arc in One Piece - I wanted to show my love for skypiea here :
Skypiea my favorite arc because it has pretty much everything I love most about One Piece: the joy of discovery, the love of adventure, a completely new land they have to explore and understand, great lore, and a huge amount of humor, especially between the crew members. And as a bonus, it even has a genuinely terrifying villain.
There’s also the dreamlike aspect of it. An island in the clouds is basically the ultimate fantasy for an eight-year-old kid, and Oda actually brings that fantasy to life. That’s why the characters themselves feel so euphoric there — they’re like kids discovering an impossible world.
And I’d include Jaya as part of the whole experience, because it sets Skypiea up perfectly. Jaya is absolutely brilliant. It has that special One Piece touch where grotesque, ridiculous-looking characters somehow end up becoming incredibly charismatic and lovable.
It also captures the essence of the manga through two completely different ways of looking at the world: Doflamingo and Bellamy on one side, Luffy and Teach on the other. That whole clash of worldviews, dreams, and what it means to pursue them is pure One Piece to me.
But at the end of the day, One Piece is still a shonen, and a lot of fans naturally prefer it when the story revolves more around fights, power-ups, power scaling, etc. Skypiea doesn’t really have the usual setup either — no Marines, no Admiral, none of the more familiar enemies or stakes — so I can understand why it doesn’t work as well for everyone.
But for me, Jaya and Skypiea contain almost everything that makes One Piece special. And ironically, I think the things that make these arcs so quintessentially One Piece are also the things that separate them the most from a more conventional shonen.
I’m not much of a shonen fan in the first place, so that works perfectly for me. Obviously, that’s not the case for everyone.