I won't always have so much to say about other series as I had to say about Clannad. Nevertheless, it's obvious this project is going to take a while, because there's a lot to praise about the remaining 79 entries as well.
2. One Piece: If Clannad weren't the greatest story ever told, One Piece probably would be. This is rather humorous, because the stories are so completely different. One Piece isn't about modern day life, love, or tragedy. It's a sweeping epic adventure where a single man through his force of character, Luffy D. Monkey, gathers a crew of close friends who together, through their own sense of justice, go about changing the world while enjoying themselves and pursuing their incredibly ambitious personal goals. It is an age of pirates, marines, and war. Tyrants and criminals are everywhere, disturbing the peace and warping the world away from its righteous, happy course. But wherever Luffy and his nakama go, these paths are bent back towards justice and happiness, because they put themselves on the line to change it, because they simply can't stand to bow before 'might makes right' necessity. The crew isn't strong enough to do it on their own, the inspiration of their example, however, almost always leads to support from the wider community. Powerful allies always come to their aid, people they have convinced through their words and actions to join the fight, and together they take down whatever local evil is plaguing the world.
One Piece isn't done. It doesn't even feel nearly done. Only the author knows how long the story will continue, or how exactly it will end. Nevertheless, it can never surpass Clannad, because it simply doesn't deal with the more important topics that Clannad handles. Even so, One Piece has already broken all previous records. It is the most popular manga of all time, having sold hundreds of millions of copies, and there simply aren't any Japanese who don't have at least some passing knowledge of it. Men and women, children and adults, Japanese and gaijin, everyone loves One Piece. It has reached the pinnacle of the anime world, outstripping older classics like Dragonball by leaps and bounds.
One Piece has a unique art style that you can only grow to like over time, but is extremely expressive, and thus a good tool to convey the vast variety of characters such a decades long epic is sure to produce. It is hard to boil down such a long story to a plot. The plot, sailing around the world in search of adventure and treasure, is just a means to tell several smaller short stories, as Luffy's crew comes into contact with all the island subcultures of the world and their unique travails. But the wondrous nature of one piece is that the short stories are not episodic -- each one leads to the next, in a causal chain, and the events of the past still have a dramatic impact on the events of the future. The characters grow and change from where they were in the beginning of the series, due to the experiences and relationships they have grown from previous short stories. One Piece is like a river -- it's never the same river when you step into it. It hasn't repeated, and it hasn't become disassociated from itself, despite its size and scope. This feat is simply masterful.
Luffy's crew, which is also his circle of friends, currently stands at 9. The captain, Luffy, the cook, Sanji, the first mate, Zoro, the musician, Brooke, the doctor, Chopper, the navigator, Nami, the gunner, Ussopp, the shipwright, Franky, and the archaeologist, Robin. ((Sort of like the naturalist Darwin on his voyages among the crew of HMS Penford)). Each of them has an epic backstory that explains how they became the people they are today, many of which still have loose ends that entangle the crew in their actions of the present. This crew has gone through several major settings -- starting with East Blue, whose final boss was Arlong and his fishmen crew at Arlong Park -- then proceeding to Arabasta, whose final boss was Crocodile and his army called Baroque Works -- then moving on to Jaya, whose final boss was Eneru and his priests -- then moving on to Water 7, whose final boss was Rob Lucci and his CP9, then moving on to Thriller Bark, whose final boss was Gekko Moria and his three lieutenants -- then moving on to the Great Whitebeard War, whose final boss was the assembled Marine army.
Luffy and his crew had one every fight with every previous boss, but the assembled Marine army proved too much for them, and left them scattered, wounded, and defeated. The plot has picked up again, two years after this loss, with the crew reassembled and once again trying to get across the Red Line and into the New World. The manga currently has them entangled with an underseas coup in a sunken merman city that's the only path to the other side of the Red Line.
To explain why these fights, and these characters, are so compelling is simply too hard for a story that has gone on so long. Instead, I will choose particular scenes that represent One Piece at its best.
The first incredible scene in One Piece comes from Arlong Park. Nami has made a faustian bargain, that simply keeps getting worse all the time, with her captain, Arlong, in the hopes of saving her home village from their terror. When Arlong has betrayed their bargain one last time, Nami collapses into the dust of her village's street and starts shouting, "Arlong, Arlong, Arlong, Arlong, Arlong!" while stabbing herself in rhythm to each pronouncement in the arm where her pirate-allegiance-tatoo to Arlong lies. Soaked in blood and tears, her pride which has kept her a loner all of these years finally breaks, and she makes a pitiable, quiet cry for help to Luffy, who has been standing and watching her this whole time: "Luffy, save me." Luffy takes off his straw hat, which is his greatest treasure, and stuffs it on her head, and shouts, "You're damn right!!!!" After that, his whole crew marches to war, risking almost certain death, against the Arlong Pirates, with a look of pure righteous fury and absolute determination that rivets the soul. Needless to say, despite the hardships of the fight, Luffy defeats Arlong, takes Nami as his ship's navigator, and saves her village. But that scene just leaves itself forever impressed in your memory.
Another example of how amazing One Piece can be is Luffy's final showdown with Crocodile. Princess Vivi of Arabasta has attempted, so far, to spare her country from a useless civil war and to oust Crocodile as the secret cause of all her country's discontent. But Crocodile always stays one step ahead of her, with even a bomb planted in her capital city that will take out the warriors of both sides of her country's conflict in one cataclysmic flash. When Vivi thinks all is lost and there's no way to stop the bomb, she cries out in pain, "How far will you go just to mock me, Crocodile??!!" When the bomb is foiled, but the civil war goes on, she keeps shouting out to her people, who can't hear her in all the sounds of battle, until her throat is entirely hoarse, but she keeps shouting anyway, no matter how futile it is, because she can't stand to watch and do nothing: "Everyone, please stop fighting." And when Luffy finally defeats Crocodile, accompanied by Djvorak's 4th New World Symphony as music, and the rain starts to fall again, pacifying the desert country, Vivi's smile is saved, the one thing Luffy was fighting for, which he got stabbed for, poisoned for, shriveled for, drowned for, and buried for. But it was all worth it, because Vivi was his friend.
Even though at this point of the story, Vivi has been a member of their crew for over half the story's length, she does not continue her journey with the rest of the crew. Instead, she makes a tearful speech at the shore while watching them leave, that she can't go with them, because she "loves her country," but she begs them to still consider her their nakama, their comrade, a part of their crew. Luffy and the others don't even respond in words. They just all silently keep their backs to her, and raise their arms as one, showing the 'X' mark they all wore, including Vivi, when fighting Crocodile. Vivi raises her own, in tears, and understands them completely. They will always be one, no matter how distant the seas between them. Their love was total.
In the country of Drum, a frigid wasteland of high mountain peaks, Nami is dying of a fever, and needs urgent medical care, but the only doctor remaining that operates outside of the control of Drum's evil tyrant leader lives on top of an isolated mountain. Despite the severity of the ordeal, the bitter cold, and Nami's ever-shortening lifespan, Luffy climbs the cliff, carrying the injured and sick Sanji and Nami on his back, without any ropes, in the midst of a howling blizzard, in nothing but shirt and shorts. He even slips, sliding down the cliff, desperately trying to stop his fall with bloody fingers and toes. This incredible effort finally prevails, just getting him to the top of the mountain, where the doctor awaits. When Chopper appears, he gives a simple plea, not for himself, a complete wreck at this point, but for his companions. "Please save them. They're my nakama." Luffy doesn't give any other explanation. He doesn't feel that there is any more to say.
In Water 7, Luffy and his crew have just been defeated by Rob Lucci and CP9, and a tsunami is sweeping in that will wipe them out unless they reach higher ground. Nami, though herself safe, rushes into the lower portions of town where her stranded trapped captain lies, throwing herself into the path of the tsunami, just so she can deliver a speech to him. She tells him something he didn't know up until this point, that Robin didn't betray them, she turned herself in to CP9 to spare their lives. Everything she had done up until this point was for their sake, but now CP9 was taking her away to torture and death, and only he could save her. Nami explains the situation in a loud shout to Luffy, who is many blocks away, and in tears. Hearing it, Luffy becomes enraged, redoubles his efforts, and pulverizes the two buildings he was trapped between. He then rescues Nami and himself from the crashing tsunami, that they outpace by mere inches.
A while later, the assembled crew stands at the top of a fortress, everyone having respectively won their fights, with a chasm between the straw hats and CP9, waiting on the other side, and Robin in their captivity. The crew stands boldly, confidently, despite having lost to CP9 last time. Their face off is an epic scene beyond words. It puts wild west shootouts to shame.
At Sabondy archipelago, a group known as the Tenryubuto are above the law, able to kill people at will, abuse and own slaves, and do whatever else they please. They are utter scum, delighting in their abuses of power, confident that they will never be challenged, because the full force of the Marine Government punishes any who dare to do so. Nevertheless, knowing the consequences, Luffy walks up and punches the Tenryubutto who offended him in the face, sending the man flying, with a look of absolute rage that would not be denied. This of course was the spark of his crew's being defeated and scattered across the world, because the Marine ire truly was beyond his ability to stop. Nevertheless, he defied the Tenryubutto. Sometimes you just have to draw a line in the sand.
There are many other good scenes in One Piece. For a story this long, with this many characters, it would be impossible for there not to be. There will be many more scenes like this to come. One Piece is simply magical. It can be watched and rewatched so many times, and you can always find more to love or appreciate about it. The characters feel endlessly deep and refreshing, no matter how well you know them, they are still new and exciting to talk to and hear from. Everyone lives life to the fullest, carrying their principles in their hearts and refusing to bend or break them, no matter the cost. They are the epitome of courage. They are a nightmare to the strong and a savior to the weak. They are avenging angels. Because of these scenes and more, One Piece is ranked #2.
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