Shonen Jump

One Piece is the oldest of the Big 3 (Naruto began in 1999, not counting the one-shot pilot, and Bleach began in 2001) and the only one to still be running (Naruto ended in 2014 after 15 years and 1.7 months, and Bleach ended in 2016 after 15 years and half a month). It has also sold more tankobon volumes than both of the other two combined. It also had the earliest anime (Both the Naruto and Bleach anime series started over three years after their respective manga).

I'm sure all of you are aware of the infamous escalation problem in shonen anime, where the protagonist gets a new power-up that's usually never mentioned or hinted at just to take down a more powerful foe who's threatening to destroy the entire world as oppose to relying on the skills they already possess and overall throwing away the training they did for several episodes.

Most anime fall victim to this trope, from Naruto, to Bleach (easily the biggest offender with this problem), to Dragon Ball (the one that pretty much started all of this).

But not all of them do though. There have been several animes that have subverted from this trope such as JoJo's Bizzare Adventure, Hunter x Hunter, My Hero Academia and One-Punch Man (the latter of those mentioned anime was a satire and commentary on this problem).

Despite being one of the big dogs of shonen anime, I don't see too many people bring up One Piece. So I wanted to know where do you guys think One Piece lands.

In my opinion, I feel like One Piece falls in the middle. While the characters do get power-ups over the course the series, there seems to be two major differences with this trope. 1. These power-ups seem to enhanced their natural abilites as oppose to giving them completely new abilities, and 2. These power-ups seem like they're kind of a rare thing when compared to other animes that fall victim to the escalation problem. Speaking of which, the villains of One Piece don't seem to fall to escalation problem. They're not like Cell and Kaguya, who are bent on destroying the entire world, they're just pirates who at best, are trying to conquer an entire land or even a section of the world.

Also, the Straw Hats getting power-ups, while essential to the story, also feels essential to the overall goal of Luffy. When compared to Goku, Naruto and Ichigo, Luffy's goal is much more bigger-and that's to become king of the pirates! But over the course of the series, we find that's there many powerful pirates out there, some of which who want to find the legendary treasure of Gol D. Roger for themselves. Because of that, it kinda makes sense for these power-ups story and goal-wise since Luffy's not gonna let anyone stand in his way, no matter how powerful they are.

I don't know, this question still seems kinda tricky. What do you guys think?