Since I don't feel like rehashing the ancient endlessly argued point…. Here. Have an ancient post from me from back in the day.about death in One Piece.
Its one thing for a hero character to fight till they drop, bloodied and wounded, having given it their all, and then get up later. That's shonen, and its perfectly fine for killer snow bunnies to do so in Drum, or for Zoro to take in deadly ammounts of pain from Kuma and survive, that's just shonen endurance.
Its not the death itself thats a problem. If it was just death, whatever, the slaughter of Brook's entire crew is plenty. Oda once used to use it surgically and well, and he would imply deaths offscreen, and every now and again, have a flashback with some hrribly traumatic violent murdering. I'm not bloodthirsty, its that Oda himself has gone to great lengths to undo any and all deaths in the course of the series, gradually more and more and more, to the point he's undermining his own drama.
Vivi whined and complained about people dying in her kingdom, and Luffy had a great speech about how "People die!" and that was great, except none of that was felt or shown. As far as we saw, that entire Alabasta war went off without a single casualty, despite all the talk about them. Pell was the perfect symbol for the cost of the war. Just ONE guy, who we'd never see again after the series left that area anyway. Just ONE guy…who took a NUKE TO THE FACE... any symolized all the costs of loss and sacrifice and tragedy and pointlessness of war, and was all that was needed to play fair on the drama of the entire arc... but he survived.
Every single last person on Skypedia that Enel killed... was fine after he was beaten. They'd just been hit by bolts of lighting, but they were fine, even the random schlubs who had been hit at the start of the arc, were fine, 80 chapters later. Everything was 100% hunky dory. Basically, if the strawhats hadn't shown up, Enel would have gotten on his ship, left for the moon, and nothing would have changed at all. Which, okay, fine.
But then he "killed" the Franky Family. Except by then already no one believed it, we all knew they'd be fine in a chapter or 2, which took out the drama, but we still sort of went "Oh hey, is Oda actually killing in real time? Nah, they're fine."
But then he "killed" that peasant at Sabondy, had a collar explode around his neck, shot, and then a dog peed on him. but we still sort of went "Oh hey, is Oda actually killing in real time? Nah, they're fine."
But then he "killed" a trickster pirate who bit off his own tounge rather than be a slave, and Sanji even commented, "He would rather die than be a slave". And we still sort of went "Oh hey, is Oda actually killing in real time?"Except, NEXT chapter, the guy is running around in the background shooting guns.
Etc. etc, insert a couple dozen more examples here including all the villains getting pleasant coverstories after their horrible crimes.
The problem is NOT that Oda doesn't kill, I'm not bloodthirsty and obviously the story doesn't need it to be good, and many action series have countless violent acts but with no actual death and the drama remains intact. The problem is that Oda uses death as a dramatic device, but then takes the drama out of it by backing out and saying "No, they're fine!", which undercuts things. There's no sense of risk or drama or achievement if any random shmuck on the street can survive the same kind of brutal beating that a main shonen hero can, and it takes the teeth out of villains and the sense of accomplishment away from the heroes.
Bon Kurei? No way Magellan killed him. Its POSSIBLE we'll never see him again and we can assume he's dead, but I entirely expect to see a cutaway in 30 chapters after the arc is over that shows him dancing in the new Okama Hell, and he even let lufy say "No, I think Bon is going to be fine!" . Oars? Gonna get a giant peg leg and be just as happy about it as his hat. that runaway marine that got hit by lava? Just got a suntan. Boa is even turning soldiers partially to stone and breaking parts of them off, but no fatal attacks yet. We're all EXPECTING Whitebeard to fall, and maybe thats dramatically and symbolically what Oda has been saving up for deathwise, as a major realtime death, but at the same time, I really half expect him to win the day then die of a disease after, accompanied by a long dramatic speech. Which is cool, which is fine, but it also cuts away any feeling of danger of the moment.
And at this point, the consistency of non-death after using death as a storytelling device, its built up to the point where we activley doubt what any character does, which makes the characters weaker, and the story less impactful. And if it were a goofy comedy series from the start, it wouldn't be an issue. But for the first 5 or 7 years, it DID have those costs and risks and expert usage of death, so that at this point it seems like pussyfooting. Thats where the problem lies.
Oda, by promising a certain level of emotional honesty, then not delivering, has, over time, affected his overall storytelling ability. Its a legitimate flaw. If he DIDN'T pretend characters actually died and then pull back on it, it would be fine. Fighting until you collapse while bleeding heavily, then getting up later is legit and works. Having a character commit suicide, have others mourn and comment on the tragedy of it, and then go "just kidding!" it loses its touch. Its not a desire to see blood or death or any feeling that would make the series better, its a matter of honest storytelling. Its the reason Dragonball stopped playing drama on characters dying. After Krillin bought it the second time on Namek, it was magic wish resurrection free for alls, and characters started dying by the dozen with no real lasting consequence, and as a result, Toriyama stopped having characters mourn about it, it became a minor obstacle used just to remove a fighter from combat, but he didn't treat it like a tragedy anymore either. (Bulma even made jokes about it when they thought Goku died on Namek.)
For the one flaw to be there, that didn't USED to be there, amongst all of Oda's other brillance and great execution and inventive ideas and mostly excellent storytelling, is just slowly but surely jarring. Bon Kurei's sacrifice got me heavily the first time or two, then it sank in that "No, he's not REALLY sacrificing anything. He'll be fine and dancing off camera in no time." Either treat death as a legitimate cost and threat, or don't, the story works fine EITHER way. Its that akward middle ground that mucks it up.
I may or may not still stand by what I said 3 years ago. Ace and Whitebeard have died since then after all.
For the record, I've come to grips with Pell surviving, partly because it was so long ago, and was 100% right about Bon living.
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