One Piece is among the greatest animated fantasy epics ever written. With an adaptable art style and sprawling world, Eiichiro Oda’s manga excels at delivering gut-wrenching drama and fist-pumping action. However, there are limits to what the ink and paper medium can do. Oda’s story is brilliantly told, but in a panel-based format, much of the action in a fight scene or emotion of a dramatic moment is left up to the imagination of the reader.
Through animation, voice acting, and music, anime can elevate certain moments (already incredible in the manga) to soaring new heights. The One Piece anime may have its weak points, but when these components are working together it can truly bring a moment to life.
10 Luffy Declares War On The World Government
Enies Lobby is one of those pivotal moments that can make someone a lifelong One Piece fan. Robin’s “I want to live” is iconic and heartbreaking, and through the voice acting in the anime you can truly hear the desperation in her voice as she finally allows herself to hope again. In contrast, the anime drives home how simple a choice it is for Luffy in this moment. He simply does not care how powerful the enemy might be. His friend needs him. If he has to go to war, so be it.
9 Walk To Arlong Park
Arlong Park delivers another devastating emotional moment with Nami’s plea for help, but what follows simply does not hit the same in the manga. The panel of Luffy gathering his crew to attack Arlong is certainly impactful, but it simply cannot compare to how it feels when the song hits in the anime.
Overtaken is one of the most commonly used songs in the One Piece anime. However, there is perhaps no scene it is more directly associated with than when Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, and Usopp take a leisurely stroll to punish a miscreant for making their navigator cry.
8 Funeral For The Going Merry
At some point in their time as a One Piece fan, every reader has mentioned Oda’s ability to make them shed tears over a ship. In the anime, viewers were driven to open weeping over that phenomenal little boat.
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Tragedy is nearly always elevated by music, and this scene is certainly no exception. However, it’s the voice acting for Luffy’s eulogy that really unlocks the waterworks. The carefree captain who has always presented strength finally breaks down, acknowledging the fact that his perceived weakness can hurt his friends. Truly one of the most heartbreaking moments in any animated show.
7 Luffy Punches A Celestial Dragon
Animation is great for selling a fight scene or driving home a tragic moment, but it can also add weight to an important story beat. As with his declaration of war, Luffy takes another stand at Sabaody Archipelago. He is making a conscious decision that will endanger himself and his friends.
While the punch itself is undeniably satisfying to see and hear, the anime really shines in delivering the buildup of tension.
Luffy is clearly stronger than this man, so there is no question of whether he can win the fight. Instead, the music and the atmosphere gradually builds to a remarkable crescendo. It all drives home the fact that after this moment, One Piece will change forever.
6 Luffy Uses Gear Second For The First Time
The reveal of Gear Second blew open the doors of One Piece’s power system. Fans had seen the overwhelming power of logia fruits on display at times, but powers like those bestowed by Luffy’s Gum-Gum Fruit seemed to simply enhance the user in some way. With Gear Second, our hero ripped the limiter off his simplistic power. That moment could only be truly elevated through animation.
With the movement of the smoke, the ability to really feel the impact, and the enhanced speed of his attacks, this was something completely new and exciting for fans. The anime emphasized the fact that Luffy had truly transformed.
5 Luffy And Kaido Split The Sky
For years, One Piece fans had waited for the moment Luffy would finally split the sky with an attack. They had seen each of the most legendary pirates accomplish the melodramatic feat, after all. It was essentially a requirement before Luffy could be declared Pirate King.
Rather than building tension with music, the anime deftly underlines just how important this moment is by doing the opposite. The audio completely cuts out as the Straw Hat captain clashes with Kaido. It’s a moment so important that even the stellar soundtrack had to take a backseat for a moment and pay attention.
4 Luffy Versus Usopp
The Water Seven Saga is One Piece at its absolute best. Luffy’s fight with Usopp is one of the lowest points for the Straw Hat crew in the whole series. For readers, it’s a sad moment, but there’s never any doubt going into the action that Luffy will win. However, what makes the fight so great is that Usopp really does get to land a few meaningful hits and show that he has what it takes to fight alongside this crew.
The anime demonstrates this by presenting the battle in a new dimension, letting the viewer feel the impact of his hits and highlighting the tragic irony of Usopp’s battle prowess.
3 The Reveal Of Gear Fourth
While Gear Second was a total surprise, Gear Fourth was a moment fans had waited for since the time skip. Through multiple battles, Luffy had only shown he could add haki to his existing techniques. The next step was to showcase a new form, to really highlight how he had evolved during his two-year training arc.
Gear Fourth is a unique, strange, and imposing form, and every element of it is enhanced through animation. The constant bouncing that defines Boundman can’t really be shown effectively in the manga, but it works perfectly in the anime.
2 Luffy Versus Sanji On Whole Cake Island
Sanji is one of the strongest members of the Straw Hat crew. His fighting style is entirely unique within the series, but many of his fights are undercut by some silliness because he is mad about an invisibility fruit (or another factor). While this fight features plenty of drama and tragedy as two friends come to blows, it is also strikingly presented.
There are plenty of great battles throughout the anime, of course. In this case, the added weight of the character work and voice acting makes it all-time great fight for the series, a moment even more defining and unmissable than it was in the manga.
1 One Piece Episode 1015
The adaptation of One Piece’s 1000th manga chapter had to be iconic, and Toei Animation absolutely delivered. The audience had heard Luffy declare his dream too many times to count over the course of the series, but the acting and sound design of this episode truly drive home just how close the boy with the straw hat is to achieving his goal.
While that alone would be enough to put the episode on this list, it is then punctuated by the exceptional animation work of the Red Roc attack. It’s a moment that has been compared to some of the best of other aesthetically remarkable series like Demon Slayer, and it holds up well to that comparison. Truly an iconic moment that is elevated by the anime.
