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Since the debut of Gear 5 in recent weeks, the Boruto and One Piece fandoms have seemingly been in a non-stop online war over the former's debut and animation quality. Part of the reasoning for this stems from the fact that Boruto also revealed a new post-time-skip character design for its titular protagonist around the same time.
Naturally, this started the beef between the two fandoms, with comments like how Boruto’s new design clears that of Luffy’s Gear 5. While this is a subjective matter, One Piece fans have nevertheless been suckered in by the bait, preferring to defend their series instead.
In an unsurprising response, the Boruto fandom has continued to attack Gear 5, and after these initial criticisms and prods, the One Piece fandom proved to bear fruit. However, fans of the former series have taken their games too far with the latest criticism of Gear 5’s anime appearance, which disrespects the hard-working animators at Toei.
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The Boruto fandom's latest prod at One Piece’s Gear 5 has fans criticizing Toei animators
The latest joke from the Boruto fandom has been the One Piece anime’s rendition of Gear 5, which focuses on the latest episode of the anime series. Here, fans saw a brilliant team of animators collaborate on one of the most significant episodes that earned the approval from the fandom.
However, one X user of Boruto, @dasiennn (Dasien), shared a clip of the episode online, going as far as to accuse Toei Animation of using AI for animation. The tweet had an undertone of disrespect since AI animation technology is still considered inferior to hand-drawn animation, which is still the industry standard.
As the industry standard, it’s what Toei Animation may have used for their production of one of the greatest moments in the entirety of One Piece’s history. But Dasien and other Boruto fans continue to assert that Toei has put out a disappointing final product, which is least comparable to the work done by AI.
Dasien and others have called the episode “mid” and a “waste of hype” for One Piece fans, who built it up as a hallmark moment for anime in general, let alone the series. While the scene is animated in a style that likely generates different subjective responses from viewers, it’s still a well-animated scene that is clearly above the level of AI generation.
This is further supported by One Piece fans in the replies, who highlight Dasien and other Boruto fans' comments that the specific scene is animated by Ohira Shinya. Shinya is considered one of the most talented and recognized animators, with plenty of exciting credits to his name, ranging from Studio Ghibli films to the classic Akira movie, television anime, and more.
In fact, One Piece fans are now more defensive of the scene, Shinya, and other Toei animators than they are of the series itself. This is highlighted by the overwhelming number of responses focused on the mockery Dasien has put forth by allegedly asserting the scene to be AI animated. One person even posted a montage of Shinya’s work, showcasing that the style of the scene in question is Shinya’s own and not the work of subpar AI animation.
Be sure to keep up with all One Piece anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.
