You completely fail to realize the main reason why the only series I could honestly say has similar levels of depth when compared to Berserk was that the ability for a character to deem realized is heavily predicated upon how developed the world itself is.
The history, societies, communities, and overall world of OP is realized far better than series like lone Wolf and Cub or Vagabond. Oda has cultivated an entire planet to explore and hundreds of different characters to facilitate the overall exploration of the world.
Taking the time to give each seperate island and group their own identity and personality lends creedence to the overall perception that every single character is realized. That this place despite it wacky incongruities and whimsical nature is a real place with real breathing people. People who have change over time or don't. The static was of character does not solely determine the strength of a character.
Given the vastness of the world, it makes sense that is would feel this way. Go actually look at a page of One Piece, Oda is master, in my opinion, rivaled by no one in making a page of manga feel real. The way that actionsfacilitate themselves across a page, the layered structure of each character. The individuals actions pertaken by each person on each panel. They all react differently and boy Simaltaneously congruently and in opposition. Each scene of this world feels real. Each person has their conversations and reactions seperate from the bigger picture.
Oda also helps to make he world reel with just how much he shows to us and withholds. He allows us to infer about a cultures customs that created without inherently telling us. He also at the same time gifts us vast amounts of information on each page.
The long structure of OP also perfectly facilitate this form of storytelling. We know that truths and secrets will be revealed, because they are REAL. We know their real because the world itself feels REAL. A character driven story needs realized characters to push an event along, just as an event can push realized characters along.
That is what actual depth is.
http://www.ohio.edu/people/hartleyg/...haracter2.html
Read this little article on character development. The article mentions Toltstoy as a master of pushing a character driven narrative along through the physiologies and actions of its players. The consider that War and Peace and Anna Karenina takes please in our world. The world feels real not because Toltstoy has taken us to a made up and made it seem real, but because it is reality. Oda subverts the notion that characters need to be given depth through interaction and motivation (not that OP doesn't have this) through his inherent visualization of the narrative. It's mediums to portray similar actions. People talking and listening, giving and recieving, shoving their won ideals to whichever direction the wind blows them. Oda is a master not of the internal consistency and psychology and the portrayal of it throug words, but the realization of the overall structure of world. He guides your eyes across a page, just as Toltstoy does, just in a different manner. And I will sit here and say that the psychological and inner conflicts in OP are as complex as Toltstoys, as that is asanine, but that is also not to say that the complexity of a character or world fervently decided it's depth. Remember that OP is silly children's pirate manga, but that doesn't make it feel any more real.
What do you hold more rear the whimsical false reality of your youth or the ultimate acceptance of the actual reality of your adulthood.
I guess you wouldn't know side haven't experimented the latter.
Further evidenced by your completely witty and original use of my Autism. Quite profound friend.
Stick to reading your manga and prefererring them becuase they make you feel "cultured" and "complex".
Becuase no matter what you say, the world and characters of One Piece are as perfectly realized as anything you can come up with.
Why else would the vast majority of the demographic of the series be adults? I'm inclined to believe that it's becuase despite how absurd the world is, it still feels real.
Amd I think about 400 million others would agree with me.