One Piece - Manga Spoiler Thread (Untagged Spoilers)

Pretty sure Wano is considered one of, if not the best arc in the series so not sure what that last comment is about.

One Piece is not without its flaws, but this would be one big ball for Oda to drop. It would very much go against the core theme of the entire story. Given that he's still mostly pulling it off, that the cracks are relatively small all things considered, and the sheer size and scale of such a storytelling gaffe, I think we can afford to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Edited by Potman on Mar 25th 2022 at 6:10:10 AM

Personally I'm not too big a fan of the reveal, would rather Nika just had the awakened Gomu Gomu as well, not this weird Zoan stuff.

That aside, here's a lil joke pic from /a/, about Luffy's true peers.◊

No no, everyone was saying it was not a Logia.

And it is not a Logia.

I predict the battle is going to leave Onigashima and end up in the capital below.

Just because Luffy now possesses the edge he needs to defeat this arc's main villain, doesn't mean said villain is a pushover. They never were, in One Piece. So either he's going to punch Kaido off the island and to the land below, or the other way around, either way the capital's people will realize what's going on.

And it's going to look silly as all hell. The thing about awakened devil fruits is that they can spread their effects to things around them. We've already seen some toonification in Kaido as well, and in the following chapters he's going to go full-on Wile E. Coyote. Forced to play along with Luffy's antics until no one is able to take him seriously ever again. Gradually, the citizens of Wano see their fear fade away, no longer feel intimidated by their tyrannical overlord... and of the lot of them, Toko is the very first to laugh at the sight of it. The rest soon follow. The whole city will laugh as Kaido gets smacked around like a big scaly clown.

So the prophecy will be fulfilled. Luffy will have brought laughter to the land. Their wishes fulfilled, the true joy has returned.

I'd also love to see Luffy needing to eat a bunch of meat before this final stage, receiving a very Popeye-like power-up from it... and the whole thing ending with Onigashima wobbling and almost falling, only for Luffy to catch it from a distance, by employing Perspective Magic, then gently landing it back to the sea. Good old cartoon shenanigans.

@Pokesamus

Wano is a very divisive arc with many considering it the worst post-timeskip arc after Fishman Island, and I think the arc shows many of Oda's weaknesses as a writer.

@Potman

While it's definitely a big blunder, giants like Kishimoto and Isayama also screwed-up some of their bigger themes and definitely missed the landing (and I say that as someone who considers 95% of Attack on Titan a masterpiece). And let's not forget the travesty that Go T season 8. Does it mean Oda will screw up? Of course not. But I think many One Piece fans have to abandon the notion that Oda cannot do wrong and One Piece can't have a bad ending or mishandle its themes "because he is Oda". Should one still hope for the best? Definitely. But should one at least be somewhat cautious? I at least think so.

Is it divisive? I was under the impression was generally well regarded, give or take some Arc Fatigue.

Yeah this is the absolute first time I’ve heard someone called it divisive.

Yea absolutely nobody I follow at any part of the internet has said this arc is divisive. The fact that people are still excited this far into it kind of disproves it.

Sounds more like a small group of dissenters who don't really make up the majority of the fanbase.

For clarity of argument, this assumes "divisive" is defined as close to even split a la Broken Base.

Which is why I'm making a point to be specific and nip the most likely "a small group of dissenters is still a group of dissenters" counter-argument in the bud.

Edited by sgamer82 on Mar 25th 2022 at 9:45:42 AM

Literally everything in existence is divisive. To what extent is what varies.

@BlackYakuzu

Nine? I thought Gear 4th was revealed 2015, so wouldn't it have been seven years ago?

Oh god imagine if the anime they use the budge for once to have Luffy move and act like a toon. Instead of two episodes a year that get any budget.

Wano is not divisive, I have a few problems with the arc but it's still more or less loved by most fans and websites like Twitter are extremely reactionary to how they rate the arc based on chapter to chapter rather than looking at it as a whole

The only parts from Wano that are divisive a la 50% fine with 50% hate are the whole Kin'emon surviving, offscreening fights, and how Big Mom has been handled this arc. The only people who actually do not like Wano are ZKK theorists (aka hardcore Zoro fans who wanted him to kill Kaido and be the centerpiece of the arc)

And as to Luffy "underdog" status. The moment we learned Luffy has Conqueror's I sort of stopped caring about it, because Luffy is not meant to be wholly an underdog but the embodiment of freedom. A man willing to defy the world's ruling powers, acts without thinking, wanting to be the freest man in the seas, and now a warrior whose powers are only limited by his imagination. And he got his DF powers out of chance and his will to live is what activated its latent powers of imagination. And even then Luffy has gotten his ass beaten repeatedly by multiple antagonists, and it's taken 1000+ chapters for him to finally be on par with an Emperor

Naruto phobia has some people reacting badly to this, OP is a different story with different themes for its MC

My own thought is that if there is a prophecy, the one thing that should happen is Luffy never learns of it. That way Luffy's reactions remain his own and the prophecy just becomes a good guess.

Hell, after Ennies Lobby, and arguably even Alabasta, Luffy's no longer really an underdog and becomes a major player in the World Government's eyes. And with how a newspaper article named him the unofficial fifth emperor, it's became clear that Luffy's climbed out from being an underdog a while ago.

Man, I am not looking forward to the anime's interpretation of this thing. Or maybe I am, but not in the way that'd make for any good story.

Think about it. This sort of toons are very fast-paced, rapid-fire comedy, often spending mere minutes with a single issue. If this whole raid was a cartoon made some seventy years ago, the whole thing would've lasted half an hour at most, and it would've been hilarious. Instead we're probably going to see that half an hour spent into these few pages alone. It'll be stretched as if the anime had the now-freed Gum-Gum Fruit and had mastered its use beyond what Luffy ever could do. It will be torture to sit through.

I would say there are quite a few divisive elements in Wano, and I wouldn't say that it is just a small segment that voices those. Just to name a few: The general lack of tension during the raid, the lack of characterization for the vast majority of the Hundred Beast Pirates and Samurai, the cast overbloat, the sheer number of skipped or interrupted battles, the general performance of the Tobbi Roppo and Jack and their fights (minus Robin vs Black Maria and maybe Who's Who's fight); Sanji's attitude towards women, yet another time bomb, whether Oden is the best or the worst, Hawkins, Appoo, and Drake, the sheer number of Contrived Coincidence, etc. Mind you, most points are issues that One Piece has in general, but I think they are the most obvious in Wano.

Genuine question. Why do you think there might not be a prophecy? We know there is one. Rodger talked about it. Oden talked about it. Momo and Yamato talked about it. It's the reason why Toki sent the Scabbards exactly 20 years into the future. It was prophesied that Joyboy will return in 20 years and do something alongside Neptune as well as something else in Wano that will require it to open the borders. As for whether Luffy will find out, that much is guaranteed as the prophecy is part of the One Piece.

Edited by bandersnitch on Mar 25th 2022 at 10:38:06 AM

Are you sure you're not just projecting your own feelings onto everyone else to justify them.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 25th 2022 at 1:51:36 PM

'Cause I forgot. Not that it changes my point that Luffy should stay ignorant of it

Nah, I would have listed other points, though I agree with some of them. I listed points that were posted quite often in forums and the subreddit and caused rather lengthy discussions and debates.

"As for whether Luffy will find out, that much is guaranteed as the prophecy is part of the One Piece"

I wouldn't say it guarantees anything. Luffy is so dense and short-sighted that I could easily see him coast right through the whole thing without ever learning much of the greater implications at play. Even if they did try to tell him, it wouldn't be the first time for him to flat-out refuse hearing important information.

Ya'll must not be on Reddit because I don't see how you can say Wano isn't divisive otherwise.

That being said, while the Nika reveal and ensuing fight was fun I don't think this chapter "completely recontexualizes the entire story" like I saw people saying it does. Yes, Luffy's basically a god now but his actions and fights were still his own even if his Devil Fruit is a different one than what we were told.

Speaking of, Oda got me good. I was totally onboard with the idea that the Devil Fruit being talked about was Zunesha's and not Luffy's. Doesn't help that I disliked the idea of Luffy's Devil Fruit not being the Gum-Gum fruit. While I still would've prefered if Luffy's Devil Fruit wasn't the one with the changed name, I'm willing to see things out before I declare the change a bad thing.

Just because an arc has divisive elements doesn't mean it's divisive as a whole

The real divisive arcs of One Piece are Thriller Bark, Long Ring Island, Syrup Village. Wano is by no means as controversial/hated as those arcs

Didn't know Syrup Village was divisive. That said, I'd also say Fishman Island, and to a lesser extent, Dressrosa were pretty divisive arcs as well