Kotias

It's extremely Pratchett in its absurdism.

See the ridiculous angel/demon powers that we see in Good Omens?

Crank it up to a 1000, make it a significant part of the (soft) magic system, and you got One Piece.

The powers are stupidly funny and genius, and Oda loves to delve into absurdism and comic book humour to get a giggle- out of himself first and foremost, but preferrably out of his entire audience.

I'm talking about:

the main character having rubber powers and ending up looking like this in some actual, serious fights:

the first pirate antagonist being a goddamn clown and his circus:

This was a poll that went around a few years ago for people who don't know One Piece to answer to.

Spoiler: the voters got it wrong

This manga genuinely has the funniest gags I've ever encountered.

Yes, it's a silly manga about pirates, but it's all meant to lure you into a false sense of security for when the real drama begins.

Just like Pratchett likes silliness, and just like Good Omens, when not entirely written by G*iman, is quite silly in its nature with a background of drama, One Piece is going the same route.

Oda uses humour very intelligently to give some room to breathe during the high-drama moments of his story. He knows how to rip your heart out and make you laugh about it.

He is also not afraid to throw hands at real world politics. As the Piece Meal Podcast says, "Some authors use subtext, and they are COWARDS"

He very much makes a point of exploring very different themes, all centered around the supreme importance of freedom in a human being's life- not in the "American freedom conservative guy", but in the genuine "all people deserve the freedom and capacity of acting as they need for their happiness". He is staunchly and unequivocally against fascist oppression and international overreach.

He's making stories centered around the aggressive overtaking of a country by an overpowered individual and their ability to ally forces in that objective. He's writing about slavery, about state-sanctioned medical experiments, and generally about the darkness hiding behind the dream-like facade.

It's a silly manga about pirates, but it's the facade hiding a political piece, a philosophical piece, and a deeply militant story.

Queer identities, liberation and queer joy

The queer joy that we see in Good Omens is something I'm seeing quite a bit in One Piece.

Oda isn't... perfect in his way of presenting those topics. He's still a Japanese cishet Gen X man writing for Shonen Jump Magazine. However, there are two things I need to say: 1, he's genuinely getting better about it over time. 2, some of the most beloved characters in One Piece are queer characters.

As to not spoil the imagery and stories of those characters, I will not show pictures, but if you're curious, go look for: Bon Clay, Ivankov, Inazuma, O'Kiku, Yamato.

In terms of story, each of the non-background queer characters that we meet are amongst the closest allies that the Straw Hats gather almost without effort. Luffy himself is directly saved repeatedly by queer people, and his life is saved at some point by what I can only describe as The Queer Community.

Each of those people are brilliant in their own right, have rocks everyone's worlds big time, and are truly worth discovering within their own context.

Again, Oda isn't perfect in his representation, especially visually in the beginnings, but he puts a ton of effort keeping those characters from being purely "gag characters" (at least the ones having the most screen time, there are a few cases of poorly made gags involving more background characters). And he does get better with it.

What is also important: from the very beginning, from the very first introduction of an obviously queer character, queerness is presented as the almost peak of freedom of identity. Every character that is presented is shown to be free in their minds, which is a very important theme of One Piece.

The ideal of revolution with a goal of peace, happiness and liberation

There are several revolutions in the story; but most of them come with a large theme: the goal is to get back to a time of happiness before the oppression started.

It's a shonen manga, which means: there will be fighting involved.

But, it comes every time after the Straw Hats have made the observation that something is very wrong with the country they've landed on, and that the person they bonded with is not happy, and is oppressed/trapped in a way or another.

Anyways, all this to say:

Read One Piece. You're gonna have a good time.

And if the 1100+ chapters are scary (as they should be tbh): try the One Piece live action first. It's genuinely amazing, and gives a very good idea of what this world is.