Let's talk about immersion and time. Reading an anime-based fanfic is a whole act of translation in your head, especially with something as stylized as 'One Piece'. I'm constructing voices, the bounce in Luffy's walk, that specific hue of Nami's hair. It's an active, private creation where Zoro's grunts and the Thousand Sunny's creaks exist exactly as I imagine them.
Watching is passive, but the anime's soundtrack floods it. Hearing 'We Are!' kick in during a fan-made AMV of a hypothetical reunion hits a nostalgic nerve reading can't quite touch. But I lose control—my version of Robin's quiet sarcasm gets replaced by Yuriko Yamaguchi's performance, which is brilliant but not mine. In the end, I crave that internal silence of reading for serious, long-form AU explorations, but those short, punchy tribute videos with perfect music cues offer a different, quicker emotional payoff.