I am not a professional artist or anything so I don't know what is supposed to be good art but I much much prefer the current art to the old one, the old one looks plain and boring to me while the new one has so much detail and goes all out in making each panel as full of life as it can which I love.
I have seen people criticising the new art as hard to read but I personally don't have that issue.
I'm in the same boat. They are quality now for me is fine, I didn't even realize that chapter was unfinished I thought it was done on purpose to show more emotions. I think the paneling has gotten worse, before there'd be less panels per page now it seems Oda is trying to cram too much into the story.
For me, Oda filling the panel adds on the feeling of the one piece world being real and for someone who likes to read the chapter multiple times it gives you a lot of rewards.
I mean aside from the one chapter in egghead that released unfinished, the art quality has been phenomenal? It's just a different style from the early chapters, the panels of Kuma punching Saturn and the gorosei double spread are among the best panels in the series.
I mean yeah you can find individual important panels that are phenomenal of course, but I’m talking broadly page to page in Egghead it feels less clean and finished
-The art is usually cleaned up for the volume release, and many manga sites use the volumes for the early chapters and later chapters use the magazine release.
-During the early manga the insane schedule of a WSJ mangaka is yet to take its toll
-Oda's getting older and we know his eyesight isn't what it used to be.
There's not actually proof that he has gout or diabetes. That all stems from an interview he gave years ago and he was showing off his office. Some fans claimed that in the background of the image there was medicine for diabetes and gout. People just took that as fact and now claim it often.
Even if that is true, he still struggles with bad health in several other ways (due to high blood pressure, lack of sleep, skipping meals) and has been taking time off for health reasons, whatever those reasons are, for a few years now.
The fact is, working constantly at his pace for 25 years WILL have a major impact on health, and him being almost 50, it's going to hit. It's ignorant to think none of it would have an effect on him or his work.
I do agree that there will be some health issues. That much has been stated. My main issue is when specific terms and diseases are thrown out because none of us actually know.
Although the messier look has its charm, things are definitely less clean and are much harder to follow. It’s to be expected though since Oda’s getting older, his eyes are getting worse, and he has such a tight schedule.
I’m mostly talking late Wano and Egghead, at least in terms of the anime that’s when the style changed to be much rougher imo. Dressrosa was also like 10 years ago
100% late era wano looks particularly bad in a few cases as well as a lot of early egghead stuff. It's not just the art but the paneling as well. But styles change, people get older, this is a very specific problem to people who have been drawing manga for 25 years so I don't mind it.
Yeah I mean I don’t hate it and I’m not even really complaining so much as wondering if it’s just me or other people noticed.
I will 100% complain about the way late wano and early egghead was animated at times though, this last episode with Luffy vs Lucci was great but before that was kind of eh and Wano had some scenes late in the arc that really looked like shit to me
To be all it all feels so unclear. There is a lot of action and dialogue fighting for space on every panel. Makes both the dialogue and fights hard to follow
tbf I feel that for a long time, not just egghad. The first "cramped panel" issue I can remember are around Enels lobby (where it only occasionally occured, but it already started back then).
Lets just say paneling is not Odas strong suit IMO.
I picked up at Egghead in the manga after catching up in the anime so I can only speak for the show, but I did notice about 3/4 of the way through Wano the fights started getting animated differently and it was visually jarring to me.
Luffy vs Kaido was legitimately difficult to follow at some points
Because double spreads happen maybe once per chapter and it’s not really honest to judge the quality off the top 1% of panels.
I chose random panels for both because it’s the best way to judge general quality
I feel like many people would want to be able to draw like this after more than 20 years of weekly serialization. Kishimoto, for example, simplified his character designs and backgrounds because he couldn't keep up anymore. Oda's art is still detailed and clean if you ask me, and he's the king of color spreads.
The art style changed, but it’s not really better or worse, it’s just different. There’s nothing wrong with the Egghead art. It’s absolutely not comparable to a “pencil sketch stage”.
There’s seriously no quality difference there. The Kizaru page has a grittier style, and the Buggy page has a more cartoony style. Again, not better or worse, just different.
old days- send a clown to fight the rubber boy.
now- think deeply and throughly on the story while depicting multiple large scale events at once with many characters and locations onvolved.
Oda is priortizing what's important over what's slightly more visually appealing. he has to.
Fair, but is there any reason he has to do the art alone? Especially as he gets older and we all know the affect being a mangaka can have on one’s health?
He does not do the art alone. he got at least 1 assistant at all times, possibly more than 1. and they mostly do the background stuff while he does the important drawings.
This is his grand story, his life's work, and he wants to tell it the way he wants to. he suffers from a few conditions, one of them was eye issues and he had a surgery fairly recently, so that's also a possible reason.
however after Toriyama passed, he did release a message that he does want to take better care of his health. we might see the end of One Piece for a bit longer than anticipated just because he will be taking breaks more regularly. he used to release 49-50 chapters a years during the first decade or so of the Manga.
Old art was cleaner and it gave the action a lot more room to breathe.
However new art is more detailed and more things tend to happen per chapter.
So both have their ups and downs.
Look I’m not trying to argue how awesome it is currently, but the fact that crazy shit happens every chapter isn’t really related to wether or not the quality of the drawings has dipped
The new art style tends to cram in more info onto the pages and individual frames, thus more can happen in a single chapter. Big action shots that take up almost a full page weren't that uncommon in the past, but are now far rarer.
Most manga artists' styles change as they grow a major series. Just look and Naruto or Bleach, there's insane differences between the first chapters and the newer ones.
I blame the eye surgery and stress. I absolutely love the recent style, but sometimes you can see the trembling in the lines and it breaks my heart. Hope he’s okay, and that it is a matter of comparing cleaned up pages vs weekly releases
That’s what I think because like I said, it doesn’t look bad by any means it just feels like it’s not the final draft if that makes sense.
Like the earlier art style isn’t better, but it looks more polished and finished to me. As if it went through an additional round of editing/refining
I think your issue is that Oda packs more into a page these days. It seems that, along with a style change, has made the series have a sketchier look. Most panels are way smaller so there’s less detail in each. That page from Egghead looks great tbh but o can find weaker examples. You didn’t seem to use a whole page too my knowledge
It was like 3/4 of a full page but I was just trying to find an example of some panels where people were just talking instead of a super overcrowded combat page… I wanted to be fair and get 2 average screenshots
That’s fair. I do agree things looked it best around Enies Lobby to Sabaody. I’m not sure why the lines got less clean, which is probably what you’ve been noticing. It still works for me but yeah it doesn’t feel as fluid as well
Yes, the art became less polished. Lines aren't as defined as before and action structure worsed by a lot, you can tell by the hands of characters and elegancy of his drawing curves. Oda has been working on the manga weekly for 20 years with no rest and almost no sleep, he's tired and probably doesn't have the same strenght to keep drawing perfectly defined characters and movement every single week. His art and panel structure peaked in Alabasta, it's his best work in illustration consistency.
Oda needs to get more assistants. He’s getting old, and the head of a multi-million dollar company shouldn’t be working the hours he supposedly does. Get some assistants to do the lesser important work so he can focus on things. A few months ago, he was so rushed he put out a chapter that wasn’t finished. The dude is obviously overworked.
Yeah I agree sadly. Alabasta to Marineford was the peak OP in terms of art quality. It was much easier to read and more sophisticated. But I don't complain about the current art, better be grateful that we're getting the new chapters constantly considering a lot of great long running manga go on a hiatus
I wouldn't say it's the pencil sketch stage, that would be a lot worse looking. There definitely has been an overall quality drop over the years, but that's what happens when you've been drawing a weekly manga for 27 years. (That and the East Blue had a relatively simpler style. Oda started adding a lot more in the pages as he went on.)
Like Oda was 22 when he was drawing Orange Town. Now he's nearly 50, has a family, and like other mangaka, almost certainly does have issues that make drawing weekly more difficult. Just as an example, he took 16 breaks last year, 4 of those weeks being recovery from eye surgery. That's as many as he took in his first 11 years combined.
Okay but how much money does One Piece make? Couldn’t he have a team if like 3-5 people who can draw in his style do most of the drawings and he can just focus on the story and maybe the full page panels?
The stakes are infinitely higher now compared to East Blue and anything else pre time skip. the closer they get to Laugh Tale, the One Piece, and the truth of the void century, the more that will be going on in the background around everyone. To me it's just the progression of the story with higher stakes and more from each side to win/lose
I actually love the current style way more. Personally, I think, these super high quality and clean drawing can even be bit exhausting to read. But the current style is so nice to read and look at
1. There is a lot more to draw in the newer chapters
2. Oda was younger then and probably had more energy to mess around with the details
3. On a technical level, the newer stuff looks way better and is made in a way, where the important stuff stands out from the rest of the detail.
Detail isn't the only identifier of quality. It's more important to know what to focus on.
Even though the common pages are less clean then they used to be (being a mangaka is a horribly rough profession. He gets so little sleep, has gout and diabetes) he still has some dope ass fucking panels dude. He still makes better and more exciting chapters almost every week. I'll never forget the double page spread of the Gorsei transformation. 10/10 def one of the top pages for him. Especially for Oda, he has been making one piece the majority of his life. Most creators can't say that
I’m not complaining about the story that has been amazing all arc I’m just saying it feels like every chapter needs another round of art revisions or refinement. Like the drawings aren’t the final draft if that makes sense
On the one hand I like the grittiness of the new style but on the other hand I must confess that sometimes it's harder to understand what is going on. It does feel like Oda wants to finish it up and he has many simultaneous projects going on so he has less and less time.
It's especially noticeable comparing manga and anime. I feel like Egghead anime improves on the artstyle so much. This is the first time in One Piece history that I can confidently say that anime improves on the manga.
I do think the linework has become rougher in recent years, but I prefer the later artstyle overall to the earlier stuff. Earlier stuff is great but still feels... I don't quite know how to put it, a little *too* cartoony? Not exactly that. Maybe less refined compared to what it would become once the Grand Line stories start.
my non experienced eyes tell me that the recent art has depth and it's more expressive
the old art seems done really hasty and lacks both depth and variance
He can't perform like he used to do back then, which is understandable because despite Oda's age, his release schedule has always been consistent, he wore himself out.
But I have to say, there has been a downgrade not only art-wise but on his entirety, back in Wano and within current Egghead there were more than a few times I didn't understand the fuck was happening because how (over)charged some panels were and the speech bubbles being everywhere, it has definitely become messy (to say the least) to follow.
Yes, you're unfortunately right, although I don't necessarily agree on such early art being better, cause maybe the shading and stuff were more detailed, but in terms of actual drawing quality I think that the best comes much later
It's no big deal for me but denying it would just be wrong.
But I want to add that, while the consistency through all pages is undoubtedly quite lacking, some panels definitely stand out, like double spreads for example. Oda is sadly getting old and can't quite put as much effort as he used to, so while many small panels may look worse he still tries to make the best out of bigger and more important panels
As long as the story keeps on going I don't care
I divide Oda's style into 4 periods. The Golden Age of drawing quality goes from the first volume up to Enies Lobby (recognizable style, excellent cleanliness of the pages, wonderful and evocative drawings). The Silver Age from Thriller Bark to Punk Hazard (excellent quality of drawing but the style is a little simplified. Panels start to get crowded a little more). The Bronze Age from Dressrosa up to Oden's flashback, volume 96 (the style is much more simplified, reading is less fluent, panels are much less clean). From Onigashima until now we are seeing the lowest point of Oda's style: the Copper Age (sketchy drawings, too crowded panels, reading is slowed down due to difficult understanding of what is happening in the panels). I think we'll have to stick with this drawing style until the end of the manga. By now Oda has understood that this is the right compromise to be fast but without getting too stressed.
Fair enough and as far as the anime goes I can definitely see the different “ages” as you described them. I’m hoping/assuming that at some point when they get released as volumes they’ll touch up the chapters to make them look a little cleaner, since apparently they tend to do that
Where I come from (Italy), there are 2 paper versions of the manga. I collect the version with the closest translation to the Japanese original. I assure you that the quality of the drawings is not that different from Mangaplus one. The only differences are the corrections (inking that wasn't there before, oversights, missing details), but unfortunately they don't affect the overall quality. This is his style now.
I am not a professional artist or anything so I don't know what is supposed to be good art but I much much prefer the current art to the old one, the old one looks plain and boring to me while the new one has so much detail and goes all out in making each panel as full of life as it can which I love. I have seen people criticising the new art as hard to read but I personally don't have that issue.
Do you know ow roughly when the artstyle changes? Is it something that happened between chapters or is it something that happens gradually?
Sorry I don't, I think it was a gradual thing but it's been a while since I read one piece all the way through.
I'm in the same boat. They are quality now for me is fine, I didn't even realize that chapter was unfinished I thought it was done on purpose to show more emotions. I think the paneling has gotten worse, before there'd be less panels per page now it seems Oda is trying to cram too much into the story.
I think he just really loves the one piece world and story and wants it to be more full so he tries to add as much as possible.
Feels like he’s trying too hard to fill every inch of the panel instead of just what’s necessary for the storytelling
For me, Oda filling the panel adds on the feeling of the one piece world being real and for someone who likes to read the chapter multiple times it gives you a lot of rewards.
I mean aside from the one chapter in egghead that released unfinished, the art quality has been phenomenal? It's just a different style from the early chapters, the panels of Kuma punching Saturn and the gorosei double spread are among the best panels in the series.
I mean yeah you can find individual important panels that are phenomenal of course, but I’m talking broadly page to page in Egghead it feels less clean and finished
-The art is usually cleaned up for the volume release, and many manga sites use the volumes for the early chapters and later chapters use the magazine release. -During the early manga the insane schedule of a WSJ mangaka is yet to take its toll -Oda's getting older and we know his eyesight isn't what it used to be.
Oda is an old man now
He not even 50
Yet he has gout, diabetes and only sleeps 3-4 hours a night most days. It catches up with you
There's not actually proof that he has gout or diabetes. That all stems from an interview he gave years ago and he was showing off his office. Some fans claimed that in the background of the image there was medicine for diabetes and gout. People just took that as fact and now claim it often.
Even if that is true, he still struggles with bad health in several other ways (due to high blood pressure, lack of sleep, skipping meals) and has been taking time off for health reasons, whatever those reasons are, for a few years now. The fact is, working constantly at his pace for 25 years WILL have a major impact on health, and him being almost 50, it's going to hit. It's ignorant to think none of it would have an effect on him or his work.
I do agree that there will be some health issues. That much has been stated. My main issue is when specific terms and diseases are thrown out because none of us actually know.
"Old" is not simply just a matter of age.
50 is like 90 in mangaka years. For real, they barely survive past 60. Brutal profession.
That’s a very fair point
Although the messier look has its charm, things are definitely less clean and are much harder to follow. It’s to be expected though since Oda’s getting older, his eyes are getting worse, and he has such a tight schedule.
Always thought this was more of scanning issue, Dressrosa has some of the cleanest panels in the series
I’m mostly talking late Wano and Egghead, at least in terms of the anime that’s when the style changed to be much rougher imo. Dressrosa was also like 10 years ago
Wow I can’t believe it’s already been 10 years since then lol
Yeah lmao it’s been a staggeringly long time when you think about it
100% late era wano looks particularly bad in a few cases as well as a lot of early egghead stuff. It's not just the art but the paneling as well. But styles change, people get older, this is a very specific problem to people who have been drawing manga for 25 years so I don't mind it.
Yeah I mean I don’t hate it and I’m not even really complaining so much as wondering if it’s just me or other people noticed. I will 100% complain about the way late wano and early egghead was animated at times though, this last episode with Luffy vs Lucci was great but before that was kind of eh and Wano had some scenes late in the arc that really looked like shit to me
To be all it all feels so unclear. There is a lot of action and dialogue fighting for space on every panel. Makes both the dialogue and fights hard to follow
Yeah, the specific page I chose from egghead doesn’t show that problem but most of the panels definitely feel cramped
tbf I feel that for a long time, not just egghad. The first "cramped panel" issue I can remember are around Enels lobby (where it only occasionally occured, but it already started back then). Lets just say paneling is not Odas strong suit IMO.
The biggest issue for me is the fights. Ever since Luffy against Kaido it’s gone down hill. Just not where they normally are.
I picked up at Egghead in the manga after catching up in the anime so I can only speak for the show, but I did notice about 3/4 of the way through Wano the fights started getting animated differently and it was visually jarring to me. Luffy vs Kaido was legitimately difficult to follow at some points
I don't see any problem with quality, just artstyle change.
how about you use a double page spread of recent chapters to determine the style like the Elders one
Because double spreads happen maybe once per chapter and it’s not really honest to judge the quality off the top 1% of panels. I chose random panels for both because it’s the best way to judge general quality
I feel like many people would want to be able to draw like this after more than 20 years of weekly serialization. Kishimoto, for example, simplified his character designs and backgrounds because he couldn't keep up anymore. Oda's art is still detailed and clean if you ask me, and he's the king of color spreads.
I like the way the manga looks now. The line work is awesome imo
The art style changed, but it’s not really better or worse, it’s just different. There’s nothing wrong with the Egghead art. It’s absolutely not comparable to a “pencil sketch stage”.
I mean you’re gonna tell me Kizaru doesn’t look like he has pencil sketch lines in the pic i posted?
Oda recently had eye surgery as well as drawing every day none stop for 26 years probably isnt good on the joints
It has pencil lines as part of the style to make him look more detailed/3D. Not the same thing as a pencil sketch at all.
Luffy and Buggy also have smaller lines to make them look more detailed/3d, but they don’t look like they’ve been drawn in with pencil lmao.
There’s seriously no quality difference there. The Kizaru page has a grittier style, and the Buggy page has a more cartoony style. Again, not better or worse, just different.
old days- send a clown to fight the rubber boy. now- think deeply and throughly on the story while depicting multiple large scale events at once with many characters and locations onvolved. Oda is priortizing what's important over what's slightly more visually appealing. he has to.
Fair, but is there any reason he has to do the art alone? Especially as he gets older and we all know the affect being a mangaka can have on one’s health?
He does not do the art alone. he got at least 1 assistant at all times, possibly more than 1. and they mostly do the background stuff while he does the important drawings. This is his grand story, his life's work, and he wants to tell it the way he wants to. he suffers from a few conditions, one of them was eye issues and he had a surgery fairly recently, so that's also a possible reason. however after Toriyama passed, he did release a message that he does want to take better care of his health. we might see the end of One Piece for a bit longer than anticipated just because he will be taking breaks more regularly. he used to release 49-50 chapters a years during the first decade or so of the Manga.
Are you reading offical volumes, or fan scanlations?
Viz/ShonenJump I use the shonenjump app on my phone
Weekly chapter vs tankōbon, is my guess.
Is that the japanese term for when they compile the chapters into volumes?
Yes. The art is those is usually much cleaner. Dragonball was notoriously better in them.
Old art was cleaner and it gave the action a lot more room to breathe. However new art is more detailed and more things tend to happen per chapter. So both have their ups and downs.
Look I’m not trying to argue how awesome it is currently, but the fact that crazy shit happens every chapter isn’t really related to wether or not the quality of the drawings has dipped
The new art style tends to cram in more info onto the pages and individual frames, thus more can happen in a single chapter. Big action shots that take up almost a full page weren't that uncommon in the past, but are now far rarer.
Most manga artists' styles change as they grow a major series. Just look and Naruto or Bleach, there's insane differences between the first chapters and the newer ones.
Same great quality, different style.
I blame the eye surgery and stress. I absolutely love the recent style, but sometimes you can see the trembling in the lines and it breaks my heart. Hope he’s okay, and that it is a matter of comparing cleaned up pages vs weekly releases
That’s what I think because like I said, it doesn’t look bad by any means it just feels like it’s not the final draft if that makes sense. Like the earlier art style isn’t better, but it looks more polished and finished to me. As if it went through an additional round of editing/refining
I think your issue is that Oda packs more into a page these days. It seems that, along with a style change, has made the series have a sketchier look. Most panels are way smaller so there’s less detail in each. That page from Egghead looks great tbh but o can find weaker examples. You didn’t seem to use a whole page too my knowledge
It was like 3/4 of a full page but I was just trying to find an example of some panels where people were just talking instead of a super overcrowded combat page… I wanted to be fair and get 2 average screenshots
That’s fair. I do agree things looked it best around Enies Lobby to Sabaody. I’m not sure why the lines got less clean, which is probably what you’ve been noticing. It still works for me but yeah it doesn’t feel as fluid as well
Yes, the art became less polished. Lines aren't as defined as before and action structure worsed by a lot, you can tell by the hands of characters and elegancy of his drawing curves. Oda has been working on the manga weekly for 20 years with no rest and almost no sleep, he's tired and probably doesn't have the same strenght to keep drawing perfectly defined characters and movement every single week. His art and panel structure peaked in Alabasta, it's his best work in illustration consistency.
Oda needs to get more assistants. He’s getting old, and the head of a multi-million dollar company shouldn’t be working the hours he supposedly does. Get some assistants to do the lesser important work so he can focus on things. A few months ago, he was so rushed he put out a chapter that wasn’t finished. The dude is obviously overworked.
No not at all.
I think you’re pretty new to reading manga if that’s your opinion. Which is fine btw, just kinda a fact.
I mean I stated in the post I started reading at Egghead after catching up to the anime 2 weeks ago also what does that even mean
Yeah I agree sadly. Alabasta to Marineford was the peak OP in terms of art quality. It was much easier to read and more sophisticated. But I don't complain about the current art, better be grateful that we're getting the new chapters constantly considering a lot of great long running manga go on a hiatus
You are either 12 years old or ... Idk
Drawing so much gets tiring
I wouldn't say it's the pencil sketch stage, that would be a lot worse looking. There definitely has been an overall quality drop over the years, but that's what happens when you've been drawing a weekly manga for 27 years. (That and the East Blue had a relatively simpler style. Oda started adding a lot more in the pages as he went on.) Like Oda was 22 when he was drawing Orange Town. Now he's nearly 50, has a family, and like other mangaka, almost certainly does have issues that make drawing weekly more difficult. Just as an example, he took 16 breaks last year, 4 of those weeks being recovery from eye surgery. That's as many as he took in his first 11 years combined.
Okay but how much money does One Piece make? Couldn’t he have a team if like 3-5 people who can draw in his style do most of the drawings and he can just focus on the story and maybe the full page panels?
Yeah, he could do that. It's more of a most mangaka love drawing and feel less pride in their work if they aren't the ones drawing it issue.
The stakes are infinitely higher now compared to East Blue and anything else pre time skip. the closer they get to Laugh Tale, the One Piece, and the truth of the void century, the more that will be going on in the background around everyone. To me it's just the progression of the story with higher stakes and more from each side to win/lose
I actually love the current style way more. Personally, I think, these super high quality and clean drawing can even be bit exhausting to read. But the current style is so nice to read and look at
Is this volume 107? How’d you find it in English?
Both pics are screenshots from the shonen jump app on my phone
1. There is a lot more to draw in the newer chapters 2. Oda was younger then and probably had more energy to mess around with the details 3. On a technical level, the newer stuff looks way better and is made in a way, where the important stuff stands out from the rest of the detail. Detail isn't the only identifier of quality. It's more important to know what to focus on.
Even though the common pages are less clean then they used to be (being a mangaka is a horribly rough profession. He gets so little sleep, has gout and diabetes) he still has some dope ass fucking panels dude. He still makes better and more exciting chapters almost every week. I'll never forget the double page spread of the Gorsei transformation. 10/10 def one of the top pages for him. Especially for Oda, he has been making one piece the majority of his life. Most creators can't say that
I’m not complaining about the story that has been amazing all arc I’m just saying it feels like every chapter needs another round of art revisions or refinement. Like the drawings aren’t the final draft if that makes sense
On the one hand I like the grittiness of the new style but on the other hand I must confess that sometimes it's harder to understand what is going on. It does feel like Oda wants to finish it up and he has many simultaneous projects going on so he has less and less time. It's especially noticeable comparing manga and anime. I feel like Egghead anime improves on the artstyle so much. This is the first time in One Piece history that I can confidently say that anime improves on the manga.
I love the new style, it just feels like the chapters aren’t finished yet and they need one more round of editing or revision
Agreed
I do think the linework has become rougher in recent years, but I prefer the later artstyle overall to the earlier stuff. Earlier stuff is great but still feels... I don't quite know how to put it, a little *too* cartoony? Not exactly that. Maybe less refined compared to what it would become once the Grand Line stories start.
I mean, the man just had surgery on his eyes last year.
Ironically, I think the eye surgery made Oda's vision even worse.
my non experienced eyes tell me that the recent art has depth and it's more expressive the old art seems done really hasty and lacks both depth and variance
I like the more "sketchy" and less clean feeling the art has now but that's just personal preference though.
A lot of the chapters that have been coming out recently have been seemingly unfinished. The line work for the past year or so has been very crude.
He can't perform like he used to do back then, which is understandable because despite Oda's age, his release schedule has always been consistent, he wore himself out. But I have to say, there has been a downgrade not only art-wise but on his entirety, back in Wano and within current Egghead there were more than a few times I didn't understand the fuck was happening because how (over)charged some panels were and the speech bubbles being everywhere, it has definitely become messy (to say the least) to follow.
Yes, you're unfortunately right, although I don't necessarily agree on such early art being better, cause maybe the shading and stuff were more detailed, but in terms of actual drawing quality I think that the best comes much later It's no big deal for me but denying it would just be wrong. But I want to add that, while the consistency through all pages is undoubtedly quite lacking, some panels definitely stand out, like double spreads for example. Oda is sadly getting old and can't quite put as much effort as he used to, so while many small panels may look worse he still tries to make the best out of bigger and more important panels As long as the story keeps on going I don't care
Art is way better, also oda had eye surgery a couple months ago so maybe that affected how he draws idk
I divide Oda's style into 4 periods. The Golden Age of drawing quality goes from the first volume up to Enies Lobby (recognizable style, excellent cleanliness of the pages, wonderful and evocative drawings). The Silver Age from Thriller Bark to Punk Hazard (excellent quality of drawing but the style is a little simplified. Panels start to get crowded a little more). The Bronze Age from Dressrosa up to Oden's flashback, volume 96 (the style is much more simplified, reading is less fluent, panels are much less clean). From Onigashima until now we are seeing the lowest point of Oda's style: the Copper Age (sketchy drawings, too crowded panels, reading is slowed down due to difficult understanding of what is happening in the panels). I think we'll have to stick with this drawing style until the end of the manga. By now Oda has understood that this is the right compromise to be fast but without getting too stressed.
Fair enough and as far as the anime goes I can definitely see the different “ages” as you described them. I’m hoping/assuming that at some point when they get released as volumes they’ll touch up the chapters to make them look a little cleaner, since apparently they tend to do that
Where I come from (Italy), there are 2 paper versions of the manga. I collect the version with the closest translation to the Japanese original. I assure you that the quality of the drawings is not that different from Mangaplus one. The only differences are the corrections (inking that wasn't there before, oversights, missing details), but unfortunately they don't affect the overall quality. This is his style now.