One Peice got boring when chopper got introduced. >
Oh man, you have no idea just how much you're missing out on. They hadn't even gotten to Brook or Gecko Moria or Franky or even fleshed out the story of Nico Robin, you haven't met cyborg Franky or the Cypher Police 9, missed the awesome that was Enies Lobby where the Straw Hat pirates officially declare war on the World Government, you haven't even met Blackbeard or found out anything about Whitebeard and his position or relationship with Red Haired Shanks, you know nothing about the royal Tenryuubito and the incident on the Shabondy archipelago, where we also meet Silvers Rayleigh, first mate to Gol D Roger himself. You don't even know who half the Shichibukai are! You're also missing out on the continued evolution of the various allegiances of such characters as the former members of Baroque Works from the Alabasta arc. To top it all off you've just missed the biggest and baddest story arc of them all so far: the breach of the greatest undersea prison, Impel Down and the following war at Marinford, in which... well, incredible things happen.
Basically there are a ****load of characters in One Piece but what makes it so epic is that Oda goes to great lengths not to give many of them dimension with their own backstory which interacts with the broad picture in complex ways, but also develops them throughout and has many of them playing an evolving role as the situation updates. That's the kind of model I was hoping to emulate on a much smaller scale.
Okay, still haven't finished replying to the emails, but will do so in a few hours.