I think it's best if you watch the whole thing, focus on canon episodes. You can search on list on what you should watch. The stories behind are very very great and it would be a waste if you skip on them.. well i dont know your preferences tho. I just watched/read One piece, and was able to catch up to the latest event. I regret that I didn't start on it way back; it was heavily recommended by a lot of people, for it is such a real piece of work. Truly great.
Ah, thank you. Hey, I'd like your opinion. How would you rate the characters compared to Naruto? So far, Luffy, Nami and Zoro, while very entertaining, is not very different from what I've seen in Naruto. So are there more varied characters introduced later on?