Man, I love this show. I'll probably be picking up some of the original manga as well.

This show has it all: pirates, humour, a large array of impossible attacks, a motley crew, villains with annoying laughs, good story tempo, swordsmanship, beautiful women and a cute little Chibi reindeer.

Of course, the US dubbed version from Toonami is nothing like the original. Scenes or even entire episodes are cut, guns are edited to look less realistic, all tobacco-related items are erased or substituted by lollipops... I can understand the reasoning behind it: the show is aimed at children, and hence needs to be adapted to what US society believes is appropriate, much like we try to do here on BZPower.
Still, the Japanese anime is aimed at all ages, so it's only natural that I prefer fansubs. (Fansubs are the original Japanese episodes, subbed in English by fans rather than professionals.)

I'm currently at the CP9 arc, which is one of my favourite ones so far. The adversaries of the crew are as good as unbeatable this time around, even moreso than during the Arabasta story arc, though I don't think they'll be as hard to beat as Enel from the Skypiea story arc. The members of Cipher Poll 9 are trained in martial arts that surpass human abilities, paired with Devil Fruit abilities, interesting and varied personalities with several funny characters among them... It's looking to be a tough one for Luffy and co, but right now he's putting up a good fight against Blueno, the only one who seems to do his job for the World Government out of a sense of duty rather than bloodlust.

Can't wait for episode 272... The fansubs have caught up with the series in Japan, so we need to wait a week or two for each new episode to be subbed. It's worth the wait, though, and I can't even begin to express my appreciation for the subber community, thanks to whom I can watch anime series not available in Belgium. Sure, there's DVDs in the few shops that provide anime and manga, but they're either in Japanese without subtitles or in English with Dutch subtitles. Not to mention the amount of money I'd need to invest in watching a show this way. At an average price of €20,- per DVD, that'd be a costly matter.

(Pssst... Poll C, hint hint.)