I started playing One Piece Odyssey recently despite having almost no prior experience with One Piece.
Mostly, I just figured I might as well broaden my horizons. I like anime and manga, I just don't know it all that well. I grew up with Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, and Digimon, and as an adult I've dabbled with the popular stuff, like My Hero Academia, Sword Art Online, and Attack on Titan. I read some Shonen Jump as a kid and a few volumes of Berserk as an adult.
Outside of that, I've seen most of the Ghibli movies, but not much else. Hayao Miyazaki's movies appeal to me because they're entirely self-contained. I like what I've seen of Dragon Ball, and would love to check out Naruto, but I'm overwhelmed by the length. (This is not entirely an anime problem; it's the same reason I've never done a proper deep dive on The Simpsons). There are already so many series and movies I want to watch that it's easier to ignore most anime and manga than it is to commit to a lengthy series.
But, I want to change that, and One Piece Odyssey seemed like an okay place to start. Though Odyssey obviously stars familiar characters like Luffy, Zoro, and Nami, it's set on Waford, an isolated island, and, so far at least, seems to be mostly disconnected from the manga or anime's ongoing story. There's definitely stuff I'm missing as someone who isn't up to date on One Piece, but I can still follow the story.
I like, but don't love, Odyssey. ts turn-based combat system is interesting, but it’s so easy you never have to dive deep into it, and unfortunately almost all of the gameplay is centered around the combat. But the game is doing the job a standalone piece of a larger franchise should, ideally, do. It's making me want to get into One Piece. I like Eiichiro Oda's signature art style. I generally like stories involving pirates. I like the jaunty soundtrack. I like the tropical vibe of Waford. In fact, the game has me wondering if maybe I've been missing out all these years by not keeping up with Luffy's adventures.
So, I've started checking the manga out from my local library. Outside of reading a story or two in Shonen Jump when I was in elementary school — the image of Shanks losing his arm seemed very familiar when I saw it in the first volume — this is my first time experiencing Luffy's story. I'm having a great time and have made it through the third volume. I'm currently smack dab in the middle of the manga's introduction of Usopp.
Though I like most stories involving pirates, a little bit of magic goes a long way toward getting me invested. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is the platonic ideal of a pirate movie, with a sprinkling of dark magic in a bright, breezy adventure story. One Piece seems to have something similar going on, and the Devil Fruit's offer of incredible powers with frightening drawbacks is as compelling to me as a crew of pirates transforming into skeletons by moonlight.
I don't know if I'll finish One Piece Odyssey. But I'm grateful it led me to One Piece.