Still There

I caught One Piece on RTL II in the afternoons, back when you’d watch anything to put off whatever you were supposed to be doing. The show lived in my head—the Grand Line, Nami, all of it. That’s what happens when you watch something like that consistently at a young age. It roots itself deep.

Then they moved it to Tele 5, late night, and the rhythm broke. The manga kept coming, the recaps started blending with new episodes, and I just kind of drifted away. Not suddenly. Just gradually, the way you lose touch with people you used to see every day. One Piece went on. I didn’t.

I tried again years later in Tokyo, watching a remake that reanimated the early arcs. Twenty minutes in I knew I couldn’t find my way back. Not back into the story, just back into caring about it the way I used to.

The characters still land somewhere though. That’s what watching something obsessively when you’re young does—it doesn’t disappear just because you stop. Nami still means something. The whole thing does. I’m not going back to it, but I’m grateful it was there when I was paying attention.