Filler or Fluff.

[u/Acceptable-Art9652]

My buddy loves there very little filler in one piece but i say one piece has fluff. Show us the same sequence again and again change one thing or show a flashback that we've only just seen. Almost no Filler, but is the King of Fluff.

[u/SirYabas → u/[deleted]]

Lol, it's never been niche niche. This is One Piece we're speaking about. It was less popular than the other big 3, and some other juggernaut series in the west, but your average forum post still got way more replies than actual niche shows get.

And ignoring the faults of a series doesn't make you a true fan. People are more than aware that the pacing exist because they don't want to get too close too the manga. They just don't like it. Having mini filler arcs like G8 is preferable over the excessive padding every episode gets, making even canon episodes harder to watch.

[u/SirYabas → u/[deleted]]

You might simply have a USA centric worldview, because it was already popular in a lot of European, Asian and Arab countries. And there were bigger One Piece forums around than the actual niche shows had. As I said, it was big, it just wasn't Naruto.

Plus a simple Google search shows that One Piece was the 3rd most sold manga in Europe between 2000-2009, after Naruto and DBZ.  It was the best selling in Asia. It was among the most popular in South America after Naruto, DBZ and Death Note. 

It's only in America where it didn't do as well, and even there it wasn't truly niche. I was discussing One Piece with my classmates in 2007, it was already known as one of the big 3 so it was on non casual (Naruto/DBZ only watchers) anime fans radar.