Veteran One Piece fans slam Eiichiro Oda over the pacing of the Elbaf arc

A thread in the Hupu ACG community has put Eiichiro Oda at the center of one of the harshest criticisms he has received in years. The post, which has surpassed seven million views, brings together complaints from readers who have been following One Piece for decades and who today do not recognize the pacing of the work.

The original text pulls no punches. It talks about the Elbaf arc, the current one in the manga, and describes it as a parade of problems: forced flashbacks, jumps between scenes that cut the tension, and a plot that does not move forward. It also mentions the pause in which Luffy appears playing baseball with his eye changed, something the thread's author interprets as a total break from the world Oda built.

There is a detail that sums up the tone of the protest: readers ask about the whereabouts of a pending plotline, that of Whitebeard's son, and accuse Oda of having forgotten it. It is not a new complaint, but it is striking that it comes from those who present themselves as lifelong followers.

From disappointment to "I want to save you"

The thread does not just list flaws. Its title, "I want to save Eiichiro Oda," marks a distance from gratuitous attacks: there is frustration, but also a kind of lament. The author of the message acknowledges Oda's weight in Weekly Shōnen Jump for more than 25 years and the impact he has had on readers around the world.

The criticism points to two fronts. On one hand, the drop in quality of the manga. On the other, Oda's public life, with mentions of parties alongside celebrities and an attitude that readers perceive as a lack of commitment. The contrast the thread poses is direct: other veteran mangaka closed their works on time and went down in history, while Oda, according to this view, stretches the series without direction.

The harshest line in the text sums it up: they fear that One Piece will end as a stretched-out work, with a disappointing finale and readers drifting away.

The discontent goes way back

In the comments collected by the news article itself, a similar idea appears. A reader who defines himself as a fan of years says he no longer follows the series regularly, that he only comes back from time to time. It is not an isolated case within the thread, but the general tone.

What makes this episode different is that the criticism does not come from haters or new accounts. It comes from readers who identify as part of the base that kept One Piece going for years. That does not make their arguments true, but it does explain the thread's reach.

The Elbaf arc, which in theory should have been one of the great moments of the final stretch, has become the trigger. The readers writing on Hupu are not asking for the series to end tomorrow. They are asking for it to recover the narrative tension that, according to them, has been diluted among pauses and strange decisions.

Nobody knows if Oda will read any of this. There is no official response for now either. But seven million views is a figure that, at the very least, makes it clear that the discontent is not just a handful of people.