I have been an avid cartoon-lover for most of my childhood. I distinctly remember getting up early on the weekends just to enjoy the TV shows for kids back in the 1990s. While my parents were still sleeping I would sit on the couch as early as I could and soak up a good four hours per day of tv shows for kids originating from Hollywood. Tiny Toons, Batman the Animated Series, Sesame Street.
I don't even remember most of the shows I watched back then but as with video games the older I got the less and less I found the productions the majority of people seem to enjoy appealing. I felt the heart had gone missing and the superficiality of most media productions was unbearable to witness. Just like with the vast majority of Hollywood productions for "grown-ups" I felt terribly bored and even pissed off by what I saw.
The relentless portraying of role models and stereotype-ideals that were nothing short of embarassing to aspire to, especially considering kids and their need for high-value rolemodels to aspire to. The constant promoting of values and norms that destroy civilization and that make the viewers delegate even more of their own authority to third parties who constantly betray their trust. The audacious fantasies of painting governmental institutions in the same way they are painted within our school books disregarding the fact that not a shred of resemblance to these allegedly "democratic" and "progressive" ideals can be found in actuality when I look around.
It was an affront to my intelligence really.
Having said all that, I was never interested in cartoons or movies from other parts of the world. And shame on me - the possibility of finding a gem outside of Hollywood did not even become apparent to me until a friend of mine called to my attention this Japanese show called One Piece.
Like with most things I always thought I hated, so it was with Anime and Japanese Mangas. Not my style, too weird and overblown. Or so I thought.
But the insistence of a friend made me watch this weird One Piece show with him a few times. "We'll just watch an hour or so and you will know whether you like it, then we can do something else..."
We were big stoner buddies back then and there is hardly anything better when your brain is running on the thc train than to watch One Piece. I mean seriously!
The Camera angles! The utterly satisfying plot and battles that keep you glued to the screen and make you plow through episodes like a chainsaw through the underwood. Wow!
My friend was not surprised at all when I asked him whether we could watch for an hour more and he gladly obliged, having now watched the beginning of the One Piece saga for the fourth time in his life.
But see here is the thing: The show is not only amazing for its rewarding revelations, the overblown and deeply satisfying drawings or the Zen-inspired way of conduct and humor inherent in this show from Japan - it is so full of heart that it's at times unbearable to watch without shedding a tear or two.
I have never shed tears with any movie, nor anything else on a screen but with One Piece I must have cried at a good five different instances or so. It's just so beautiful!
The emphasis on the meaning of friendship. The priceless merit of trust and honoring your word in the face of hardship and danger. The willingness to go the extra mile when all seems lost and the people around have abandoned all hope. The spark of cosmic might that displays itself by merely willing it, by having high moral standards for oneself and by adhering to these standards regardless of circumstance.
The utter commitment to truthful words and deeds and the relentless resistance against anything subversive, evil or malicious - these qualities ooze out of One Piece and its main character like you wouldn't believe. It's contagious! It's rewarding. And it's just such a blessed way of entertaining the mind and the soul that I am hard-pressed to find anything that compares really.
It's a show I would gladly let my kids watch without reservation. It's the most instructional and inspiring manual of how to be a true hero, an active doer who never shies back from conflict only from compromise. A colorful tale of a band of friends with high moral standards who are facing a world of threats, a realm of potential and their inner deeper calling to go further and become better - not to impress anyone else, but to prove their capabilities to themselves.
If that isn't the material for idols and role models, I really don't know what is!
If you have never watched the show, do give it a go. Watching it from the beginning is advisable but not really necessary. Watch a consecutive hour and you will know whether it's your thing.
You can do an online search for "watch one piece dubbed" and you will find it.
Please, enjoy! And let me know if you dug it <3
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