User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 395: Tartarus Arc - Part 5: Extreme Pain, Review./@comment-24102956-20140803172555/@comment-4829046-20140809085521

I get the point of bringing up One Piece but the comment gave me a particular impression discounting the "and they are still the only important characters that have died so far" and that is the thing that- Why do some people keep forgetting the amount of fodder characters that get killed in One Piece? I know they are unnamed and are useless to the audience as they are just "Some random pirates/Marines/other" but it was established that some fodder DID die. The problem is that Oda keeps it vague about how to identify whether a fodder character is dead or just KO. The foaming mouth and snotty face is usually KO but sometimes the empty expression means death as evidenced by flashbacks(which CLEARLY stated that they were dead btw). I had to go to wiki to find that some random characters had been killed. To clarify, I do get that we are discussing important character deaths, but the words "nobody died at all" I find iffy even though it was just used for emphasis.

I do understand that hardly any named characters or characters we are supposed to sympathize with(Fishman, Dwarves/Gnomes/Fairies(WTF?), G-7 etc.) get killed but this is still a series where people use killing moves even if the mains(minus Robin.... sorry but breaking spines like that is more serious than Oda makes it out to be) don't use them so..... Though again, OP is more consistent that the others and I applaud it for that plus the fact that it has been more enjoyable than Naruto and Bleach for quite a few weeks even though it is a bigger grind than those two. Still doesn't change my hatred for Oda. Just a personal thing though and nothing to say FT is better or anything.

Also, "but i never see anybody want to see members of Luffys crew die" *raises hand* ( ._.)/ There is a reason why I love the OP movies and specials. They actually make that seem more possible and since they condense important events, I don't feel the boredom as much. I'm the type that likes FMA type progression, not OP type. OP can just keep adding islands and give entire arcs to each new island so I don't feel any real connection from the overarching developments. Also, again, just a personal thing but I find it odd that in the world of OP, the Strawhats are still like this. It is a "mid-sized" central cast(people that are always important in every arc after their introduction) which I find to be... I don't know.... Small size(about 5) is good because death is less likely due to manga rules and character development can be focused on a lot more but large-size cast(10+) mean death should be a factor imo. Mid-size is good to keep us guessing but it doesn't fit right with the darker elements of the series. I mean c'mon, does it really make sense for a small group of people to withstand the immense scale of enemies and pressures of the OP world? I always think "Manga logic" whenever the Strawhats escape a massive scrape from the Marines and I absolutely HATE thinking "manga logic". >:( Hypocritical I know but I'm a weirdo that takes stories I like seriously when they give me content that is indeed serious. No point thinking too deeply about a gag-manga or a comic-harem cause those are just meant for laughs and/or fanservice but series like FT and other top action shounens are different. They bring up very real problems with severe and brutal consequences and in my book that equals tragedy. Tragedy is one of immobilization/paralysis or actual separation(death included) or trauma. OP has those but randomly adds comedy to the mix when outside of a flashback. The good thing is that it did so from day-one. FT on the other hand had long sections devoid of over-the-top comedy so the tone change stands out a LOT more than in OP which is a cause for the huge amount of hate for FT and major criticism of Eclipse arc and Tartarus Arc.