How long do you think it will be before One Piece gets a new anime series starting from the beginning of the story? Five years? Ten years? The manga’s 20th anniversary? I can’t imagine them holding back long enough to wait until the first series ends. When they inevitably do such a thing, will they reanimate it or will it be an abridged re-edit? Toei Animation is currently producing both Dragon Ball Kai and Sailor Moon Crystal, so it’s a tough call (Dragon Ball Kai was cut up from old animation, while Sailor Moon Crystal is 100% new animation).

One thing the world is not short of is criticism revolving around the production quality of the current One Piece anime. The distribution of budget and creative staff throughout the hundreds of episode is noticeably inconsistent, not to mention the unfortunate pacing that the series has had to adopt to keep the story from overlapping the manga. It’s safe to say that Toei’s adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s master work is not without imperfections.

Modern day remakes of classic manga and anime series are all the rage these days. Shows like Hunter x Hunter and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure have almost unanimous approval among fans of the source material, and have managed to bring in many new fans as well. I often see fans of One Piece melancholic that they can’t compliment the production value of their favorite show on the same level. To some, the thought of a do-over is a dream come true.

Why is this? As stated above, there’s not much room for debate whether or not One Piece’s adaptation is imperfect, but why are we so insecure that we want to start over completely? What exactly do we have in mind when we consider the possibility of a remake?

So, let me go out on a limb here and say that One Piece’s manga is really freaking good. Call me crazy, I know, but I’d say the series deserves to go down in history as one of the greatest pieces of literature ever created. It’s more ambitious in size than anything I can compare it to while carrying the personality and vision of one of the most realized auteurs ever to grace the world of graphic novels. There’s this real feeling that, once completed, One Piece will have accomplished many things no other work of fiction will ever come close to.

And yet, I think of One Piece as a TV show first and foremost.

That’s just the way it gets sliced. My memories, your memories, and the majority of future memories created by new fans will likely stem from the animated version of this series. There’s a real emotional split that happens there. On one hand, it clearly doesn’t matter a whole lot if the anime is up to snuff. The story still reaches people. The show’s production value have been hit-or-miss since day one, and yet One Piece has still made us cry again and again.

But we’re still not happy. We still can’t shake the feeling that Oda’s art and pacing deserves to be preserved in the version that most people will experience. The final destination of this conversation stems from an eternal truism: nerds want their stuff to be perfect.

Imagine an anime adaptation of One Piece with the animation budget of a feature film in every episode! Imagine consistent yet creatively controlled pacing throughout! Kohei Tanaka’s soundtrack! Sticks to manga canon entirely, while capturing the the pulpy edge, nuanced themes and tender storytelling of the manga! This vision is so perfect it should be illegal.

The reality is that this version of One Piece kind of can’t exist, even ignoring budget issues. When the inevitable reboot comes along, what’s it going to look like? Will the animation style be too different or too similar? Will we ever yearn for the old directive style when a classic scene previously nailed by the anime gets reinterpreted? I know I sure don’t prefer the Episode of Nami special over what we got in that arc the first time. If we get a simple Dragon Ball Kai style re-edit, will some scenes move too fast, especially during the early episodes?

The thing that people often ignore about modern anime reboots is that they too come with a lot of trade-offs. I posit that Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood doesn’t work as a stand alone piece of art because they had to make sure they did the retreaded material differently from the previous attempt, really screwing with the pacing and style of the early episodes. Sailor Moon Crystal is ugly, and the fact that the story moves faster doesn’t mean a lot when it also feels like it has a lot less soul. Dragon Ball Kai has a lot going for it, but they tried to update the series with a new soundtrack. Can you imagine that happening to One Piece?

One Piece is a story so enormously popular in Japan that it’s guaranteed to get re-released and retold for decades to come. While there are aspects to appreciate about the execution and intent of Oda’s work, the heart of it lies somewhere deeper. As I said earlier, the anime, even the “bad parts” (a much more narrow category than I think the series gets credit for), hasn’t stopped people from finding One Piece. The story, the characters, the cliff hangers, the plot twists, the tragic back stories are all things that seem to find a way into the hands of the people who will appreciate them one way or another.

I guess I’m saying that I sympathize with the angst over the lost potential in the One Piece anime. I would never want to see the series change studios, though I would like to see Toei at their best more often. Regardless, I take deep, deep consolation in remembering that, hey, at least it looks nicer than Sailor Moon Crystal.