Arlong Park Forums

A fair point. Individual arcs/islands shouldn't be immune to criticism; I just think it's strange that's the first place this fanbase goes for subdividing and critiquing the story. And I feel some arcs can get some unfair spite just because their context in a larger story isn't being fully considered. We should be starting with the bigger picture and working down to the smaller ones within it, not starting small and forgetting half the time that the big picture exists at all.

Arc's should never be adding to the bigger picture. For example; Arlong Park arc doesn't really have much to do with the void century plot, but it still doesn't stop it from being one of Oda's best work.

I hate EL, but it has nothing to do with it's relevance on the story. I hate it simply because it's Oda's weakest, and most unimaginative arc in the entire series. It may be "good" by shonen standards, but it's mediocre by comparing it to Oda's previous, and future arc's in terms of villains, location, wacky-action, and huge lack of creativity, and imagination where Oda more than any other manga-artist succeeds with flying colours.

People are free to criticize Dressrosa, but at least that arc had shit ton of creativity, and imagination, along with some of the best side-characters in the entire series, and best-written-villain-character thus far.

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@Count:

It's not the concept for the abilities that bothers me at all. I love the idea behind Gear Second being fast burning rubber and Sanji using friction to light his feet on fire for a cooking/spices/devil theme. I just wish it had a better timeframe. People tend to argue that it would be boring to see main characters train to get abilities like that, but I completely disagree since they can show off lots of memorable struggles both internally and externally and plenty of quirky fun and suspense. However, training scenes don't really fit with the pacing of Water 7/Enies Lobby at all. But the fact that Oda never shows training at all unlike, say, Naruto, My Hero Academia, or Hunter x Hunter (besides brief flashback explanations) indicates that he just likes skipping straight to the action all of time.

I just hope that when Luffy eventually learns Awakening that it feels more organic since it's being built-up as a general Devil Fruit concept skilled users can learn.

I also don't mind Sanji improvising Diable Jambe since it's simply making heat from spinning friction, which is why I didn't mention it alongside Gear Second and Asura's timeframe absurdities. I get copying Soru to get super speed, but figuring out that it can be executed by pumping your body to speeded your blood flow to produce heat is a whole other matter. Especially for an idiotic, instinctive brawler like Luffy. In contrast, I can buy a moment like how Luffy learned to do Gomu Gomu no Pinwheel from seeing Genzo's pinwheel hat because it's just Luffy taking advantage of his surroundings. Which he's always been naturally proficient with.

Oda could have come up for something inspiring Luffy to come up with Gear Third if really tried. Like giving somebody a quirk relating to blowing balloons or something like Genzo's pinwheel hat.

Training arcs are easily the most generic, and laziest ways of "padding" story without any real effort. It's like how Naruto came from a 3 years of training only to have another training arc after that, only to have another training arc after that simply because Kishimoto didn't have any other way of showing the character's growth in ability thus pointlessly doing redundant shit while absolute killing the entire flow. You, as the reader, don't learn anything new by seeing the same redundant training.

MHA is also guilty of this where the writer shoves training arcs between story arcs just because he can't really find a more unique way of showing the character's growth, and it becomes redundant, and boring to read.

Gear-second reveal is something that makes sense for the character, and the story. It shows the growth of a character without having to stop the entire flow, and are pretty damn impactful moments. I very much prefer seeing the struggle of a character in the moment rather than to have redundant scenario's of the same repetitive training sequence.

Count Mario

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Count Mario

That's how I saw Dressrosa's issues. Not sacrificing the present in favour of the future, but overdoing things in an attempt to surpass what came before. If you were cynical, you might say Oda was trying too hard. But I prefer not to discourage the act of trying, so I'll say he was trying in the wrong ways, and that's probably why the unique structure of Zou came as such a breath of fresh air.

But see, that's the thing. There was no real need to make Dressrosa another Marineford in terms of chaos. Primarily because that is how Wano Country has been building, which is going to pretty much be his magnum opus arc of One Piece prior to Raftel after all of the build-up it's had throughout the years and is a testament to how much Oda likes Japanese culture (which is evident in several color spreads and the Ryuma one-shot story before One Piece was published). It was mainly a struggle between two things. The first was living up to all of the Doflamingo hype after building him up for so long since Jaya. Which connected to the Celestial Dragons, CP0, Law, and the Riku Family.

But then there's the second part. Building characters and plotlines for the rest of the New World. Because think about it. Right after Doffy falls, the Yonko become the main focus of the story. The big scary Emperors, who have widespread territories and allies all over the place. In order to combat those factions, Luffy had to start getting those assets in the New World. But if Oda spent the time individually giving focus to each source, than the New World was likely to become very dragged out and feel like a rinse and repeat of how the Straw Hats visited islands built up future allies for the Final War pre-timeskip (who can't be relevant yet at this part of the story for obvious reasons). Not only that, but connecting the Revolutionaries to the Straw Hats and revealing Sabo was also pivotal so that they can be organically connected to future events involving the Straw Hats. And not only that, but we had to get more teases towards all three other Yonko crews to build-up their future relevance and plotlines. AND we had to introduce a new Admiral so that the story could start giving focus to how the Marines have changed since the timeskip due to Kuzan leaving and Akainu rising to his Fleet Admiral position. ANNNNNNNNNNND that last point has to connect to the abolishment of the Warlord system that has been subtly building up since Crocodile as well as promote further tension within the ranks of the Marines that will inevitably lead to a Marine Civil War in the endgame of the series, as we can plainly see with the mindset of altruistic Marines who defy orders to pursue benevolent justice like Smoker and Coby. Not to mention give a bit of relevance to the Samurai to segue over into Zou and Wano Country.

So Oda was tasked with not just having to juggle Doflamingo, the Donquixote Family, Law (whose crew can't even be bothered to be relevant), the Riku Family, and certain World Government connections, but also had to shove in Burgess, Sabo and the Revolutionaries, the Grand Fleet, a Big Mom cameo, Kaido's introduction and SMILE plotline build-up, Gear Fourth so that Luffy can have the necessary power to tackle with the Yonko, Fujitora, and Kanjuro/Samurai antics. I mean, just look at the Water 7 saga. You could easily argue that it's pretty much all one big arc that is over a hundred chapters long like Dressrosa. But pay attention that in such an arc, all Oda had to focus on was CP0 and the World Government, Robin, Franky and Water 7 characters, and Usopp. Those were all major things, but still, just those elements took up over one-hundred chapters to get a satisfactory amount of panel-time dedicated to their plotlines and future build-up. Now look at Dressrosa and the corner Oda unexpectedly put himself in with having to juggle so much stuff. And guess what? It not only all takes place in one day due to all of the Tarantino timeskip shenanigans along with one island unlike how the Water 7 saga was split up between Water 7 and Enies Lobby to give steady pacing, but Dressrosa still has LESS than the amount of chapters the Water 7 saga had (Water 7 Saga: over 120 chapters including Aokiji's scenes in Long Ring Long Land, Dressrosa: 102 chapters).

The Straw Hats had to split up so that Oda wouldn't have to worry about giving screen time to half of the Straw Hat crew. He managed to make it work to his favor by having Sanji, Nami, Chopper, and Brook play major roles in Totland, which is great. But even then, you can see how he has to resort to having Straw Hats leave off to other islands like with the Wano Country gang in order to get the plot rolling a it faster and more conveniently due to having deal with this whole entire mess of plot, plot, and more plot. Even with Law, despite how much focus as he had in Dressrosa, he's bound to have more major focus in Wano Country due to the other Worst Generation Supernovas that are print there. We even have explicit confirmation from Oda that the Dwarves were to supposed to have their own island/arc, so you know that Oda had to shove all of these plotlines together for the sake of the plot later on in the story. It was arguably necessary and benefits One Piece immensely long-term, but it still makes Dressrosa understandably wonky. ESPECIALLY in a week-to-week reading basis.

Just look at how Wano Country is most likely going to be as long or even longer than Dressrosa, but has so much build-up already prepped for it so that it doesn't have to deal with introducing as many elements as Dressrosa had to introduce to the story. What was supposed to be the epic Doflamingo arc we all waited a decade or more for ended up having to become a sacrificial lamb for the rest of One Piece. It wasn't a climax arc, it was most definitely a build-up arc. WANO COUNTRY, Kaido's base of operations, is supposed to be the climax arc of this second act in One Piece's overall narrative due to all of the build-up Kaido has had since Punk Hazard and even beforehand in Fishman Island since Big Mom, at the end of the day, is meant to complement Kaido's saga than having anything much beyond her own arc. That is where Luffy is building up forces to attack another huge antagonist force with various factions on each side like the conflict between Whitebeard and the Marines at Marineford.

Do you understand my point now? Just because an arc has to complement the narrative structure surrounding it does not excuse it from not successfully balancing their own individualized story merits as well. Wano Country is supposed to be the next Marineford. Dressrosa just ended up being bloated enough to ironically look like the sequel when, really, it was just building up necessary chess pieces to fall into place with Kaido's downfall. There was no need to for Oda to "test himself" with Dressrosa because it's literally only the SECOND island in the New World. The island right after Luffy formed his alliance with Law, that was made for the purpose of taking down Kaido (even though Law was probably just using that as an excuse to only take down Doflamingo for sure, but its purpose is still meant to play into Kaido's defeat in an objective narrative perspective). Yes, there has to be substantial momentum and stakes kept to make post-timeskip feel like it doesn't automatically revert back to square one like the start of the Grand Line in a redundant fashion. Oda did sacrifice the present for the future, and he really had no choice in doing so. Which is why I don't judge him too hard for it. Besides how the hypocritical pacifism philosophy of the Riku Family, Rebecca's character journey theme, and the Tontattas were dealt with. Those are justified by the rest of the are issues and are just ew lol.

Even with Zou, while it was a breath of fresh air, was just an arc literally focused around exposition for the sake of exposition meant to build-up future plot events. Unlike Jaya and Sabaody Archipelago, which were "breather" arcs that still successfully balanced their own unique non-formulaic arc narratives to be some of the most impressive in One Piece alongside with planting ambitious seeds to be explored for future story events that kept up on our toes waiting for payoff in years to come. Which is why, unlike most others of the forum, Zou doesn't really wow me all that much. Because almost everything that is supposed to grab you about in Zou is, well, everything that doesn't specifically tie into Zou as an individual island with the Sanji/Big Mom, Wano Country/Kaido, Marco/Blackbeard, and Road Poneglyph plot reveals lol. Which is really awkward because Zou was only built-up as a place to pick up the Swirly Hats, the Heart Pirates, and Raizou to then head straight for Kaido.

Dressrosa still has BUNCH of lovably memorable moments, but it's not perfect. And it was never meant to be perfect. Whether or not Oda could really do something about that.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

@HeartOfDarkness:

Training arcs are easily the most generic, and laziest ways of "padding" story without any real effort. It's like how Naruto came from a 3 years of training only to have another training arc after that, only to have another training arc after that simply because Kishimoto didn't have any other way of showing the character's growth in ability thus pointlessly doing redundant shit while absolute killing the entire flow. You, as the reader, don't learn anything new by seeing the same redundant training.

MHA is also guilty of this where the writer shoves training arcs between story arcs just because he can't really find a more unique way of showing the character's growth, and it becomes redundant, and boring to read.

Gear-second reveal is something that makes sense for the character, and the story. It shows the growth of a character without having to stop the entire flow, and are pretty damn impactful moments. I very much prefer seeing the struggle of a character in the moment rather than to have redundant scenario's of the same repetitive training sequence.

I wholeheartedly disagree. And Naruto's timeskip relate to issues that are on their own unique class of disorder. I'm talking about arcs such as the Stain arc in My Hero Academia. Where both plot progression is balanced in relation to Stain and Shigaraki, as well as character development and introspection when it came to Deku forming a bond with Gran Torino while learning Full Cowl along with Iida and Todoroki getting developed. I would also like to mention how Deku learned to be less of an All-Might fanboy and find his own identity in the beginning of the Hero License Exam arc by learning to focus on kicks instead of punches in Shoot Style. It doesn't become redundant, it's still entertaining. I would also use Naruto's Rasengan training as a compelling training arc due to how it bonded him with Jiraiya and Tsunade as well as showcasing his willpower and genius through hard work (aside from how it awkwardly shoves the rest of the main cast aside suddenly and the direction the plot takes after the arc).

No. It was shortcutting for the sake of shortcutting. And only because the Straw Hats had to be nerfed in order to generically make CP9 seem intimidating and on a whole other level to build-up hype for the rest of the arc rather than give credit to how strong the Straw Hats already are with suspenseful action where they aren't completely helpless. Training sequences do not and should not be the same or redundant. They can be balanced effectively with plot progression. All Gear Second did was only keep the focus on the plot and give a middle finger to training as if it can only be boring and waste time rather than give great insight into character dynamics, interactions, and growth. Seeing how characters earn their abilities rather than just giving them with half-assed explanations engrosses the audience that much more and makes characters all the more deep and charismatic. Training shouldn't only be about physical development, but also emotion/mental/philosophical development simultaneously. That is compelling. And it would be extremely superficial of you to claim that the potential for that is uninteresting compared to have the plot progress rather than getting meaningful built-up and rushed pacing.

KageKageKing

@Count:

Seeing how characters earn their abilities rather than just giving them with half-assed explanations engrosses the audience that much more and makes characters all the more deep and charismatic.

Personally I never felt engrossed, tarnished, humiliated, trolled, betrayed, backstabed, kicked sand on the face, punched in the gut, dishonored or slapped in the face with that.

Count Mario

@KageKageKing:

Personally I never felt engrossed, tarnished, humiliated, trolled, betrayed, backstabed, kicked sand on the face, punched in the gut, dishonored or slapped in the face with that.

You realize that the word "engrossed" means to get someone to invest interest in something, as if they become immensely mesmerized and entertained when they see something cool and can't look away, right? It doesn't mean turning other people off from the story like the rest of the terms you used, as if it means something is literally gross lol. I was giving credit to how productive it can be to showcase characters training and earning their abilities. It's not just the destination that gives meaning to the story, but the journey itself in seeing how struggles both internal and external are overcome. Training isn't just about getting stronger for the sake of getting stronger, but allowing downtime to see how characters process their recent wins/losses, amass new relationships/forces, gain new perspectives, learn all new things that you normally don't get through just focusing on the action, and provide more suspense and immersion for when the action finally does start after being hyped up with much more figurative support. Isn't that interesting to see?

HeartOfDarkness

@Count:

I wholeheartedly disagree. And Naruto's timeskip relate to issues that are on their own unique class of disorder. I'm talking about arcs such as the Stain arc in My Hero Academia. Where both plot progression is balanced in relation to Stain and Shigaraki, as well as character development and introspection when it came to Deku forming a bond with Gran Torino while learning Full Cowl along with Iida and Todoroki getting developed. It doesn't become redundant, it's still entertaining. I would also use Naruto's Rasengan training as a compelling training arc, aside from how it awkwardly shoves the rest of the main cast aside suddenly and the direction the plot takes after the arc.

But that is something that can be done in any other arc. The training itself didn't help Deku, and that old man bond. It was Deku's, or in other word shonen trope, spirit that made the old man warm up to him. You can literally remove the training aspect, and put that into any other context, and it still will be the same thing. That's what i mean by stopping the narrative to have training arcs that can literally be implemented in the story-arcs.

You are essentially saying that the character-work that comes outta training arc is what you like. And i am not disagreeing with that. I am just saying that the training arcs themselves aren't what makes the character-stuff good or unique, and can be done in numerous other ways.

No. It was shortcutting for the sake of shortcutting. And only because the Straw Hats had to be nerfed in order to generically make CP9 seem intimidating and on a whole other level to build-up hype for the rest of the arc rather than give credit to how strong the Straw Hats already are with suspenseful action where they aren't completely helpless. Training sequences do not and should not be the same or redundant. They can be balanced effectively with plot progression. All Gear Second did was only keep the focus on the plot and give a middle finger to training as if it can only be boring and waste time rather than give great insight into character dynamics, interactions, and growth. Seeing how characters earn their abilities rather than just giving them with half-assed explanations engrosses the audience that much more and makes characters all the more deep and charismatic.

But there is an explanation for it. Luffy lost to Aokiji, and Cp9, and therefore developed a technique. I don't think we needed more explanation for that simple idea. And to me it's good that Oda didn't have Luffy train to be like "i will protect my friends" when it's something that you can see in the arc itself. It's one of the aspects that i really love about the series that it doesn't stop for the training, and instead showcases the growth during the battles.

Oda himself doesn't really like to stop the flow unless it's extremely important for the context such as the flashback of Norland to give much much more weight to Luffy ringing the bell or stopping right in the middle of the punch to provide context for Chopper's backstory.

Count Mario

@HeartOfDarkness:

But that is something that can be done in any other arc. The training itself didn't help Deku, and that old man bond. It was Deku's, or in other word shonen trope, spirit that made the old man warm up to him. You can literally remove the training aspect, and put that into any other context, and it still will be the same thing. That's what i mean by stopping the narrative to have training arcs that can literally be implemented in the story-arcs.

You are essentially saying that the character-work that comes outta training arc is what you like. And i am not disagreeing with that. I am just saying that the training arcs themselves aren't what makes the character-stuff good or unique, and can be done in numerous other ways.

But it wasn't just Deku's attitude. It was how he applied it towards training and learning Full Cowl. That's why it was so charismatic for Gran Torino as well as plenty of readers like myself. Removing the training aspect would just make it some generic coincidence that feels too easy, unearned, bland, and cliche. You can talk the talk all you want, but seeing how characters apply themselves is what can really give a testament to the mindset, principles, and growth they represent. What you're suggesting by cutting the training that tests Deku' resolve enough for Gran Torino to get impressed by is this:

!

That's not compelling at all. It would also make Gran Torino a less likable character and have less depth. And it would also inhibit Deku from facing meaningful struggles that make him a charismatically flawed protagonist who has a lot to learn on his way to the top. Obviously, it's way too easy. It's better than, say, some coincidence where Gran Torino happens to get attacked by a villain before they meet or after Gran Torino might refuse to train Deku, Deku conveniently saves the day, and Gran Torino is thankful. That's just so cliche and uncreative. Not that training is the ONLY way to get the results of Deku and Gran Torino's relationship, but that doesn't mean it should be disparaged as a method that is easily expendable from a narrative point of view.

You're trying to say that I think training in and of itself is what makes characterization compelling, but I think there is a misunderstanding. I'm trying to argue that what training and downtime can LEAD TO in testing and informing the characters involved both tangibly and mentally can be great. It's how training arcs can be utilized by creative and passionate writers that makes me view them in a good light.

I think that we're kind of agreeing on the same thing, but getting confused on semantics. And I apologize if that's the case.

But there is an explanation for it. Luffy lost to Aokiji, and Cp9, and therefore developed a technique. I don't think we needed more explanation for that simple idea. And to me it's good that Oda didn't have Luffy train to be like "i will protect my friends" when it's something that you can see in the arc itself. It's one of the aspects that i really love about the series that it doesn't stop for the training, and instead showcases the growth during the battles.

Except that the timeframe doesn't work at all. It's still shortcutting. It's just Oda using one or two vague instances/statements to justify a surreal power that is too complex conceptually to be executed on the fly. I don't mind there being growth in the battles, like with Zoro versus Mr. 1. But that doesn't mean there can't ever be effective growth outside of them either.

Oda himself doesn't really like to stop the flow unless it's extremely important for the context such as the flashback of Norland to give much much more weight to Luffy ringing the bell or stopping right in the middle of the punch to provide context for Chopper's backstory.

And you're right about that. But those aren't really good examples because they are literally in the middle of battles, rather than in-between plot/action-heavy arcs or before the arc reaches the standard chaotic third act where everybody is fighting.

I mentioned this before to someone else, but I don't really fault Oda for introducing Gear Second the way he did because there's hardly any room for training in how Water 7/Enies Lobby is paced. And we at least have Luffy mentioning that he learned a new technique and well as CP9 showcasing their techniques. But I'm still not going to give it a free pass as something that's admirable to do as a storyteller. It's something that Oda should learn from the next time he introduces a completely new ability for Luffy that he can't just rely on a convenient preceding timeskip to explain like Gear Fourth. It's about the execution, not just the concept or inspiration.

This is the challenge he faces in introducing Awakening. Although he'll probably have Luffy learn it on the fly or gradually like with Conquerer's Haki and Zoro learning to cut steel. Which I don't mind at all. I'm just saying that it's not the only proficient way to handle such growth, and it's often good to switch things up.

KageKageKing

@Count:

You realize that the word "engrossed" means to get someone to invest interest in something, as if they become immensely mesmerized and entertained when they see something cool and can't look away, right?

Wasn't harassed that I said it. I was pretty sure it was. My bad.
@Count:

Training isn't just about getting stronger for the sake of getting stronger, but allowing downtime to see how characters process their recent wins/losses, amass new relationships/forces, gain new perspectives, learn all new things that you normally don't get through just focusing on the action, and provide more suspense and immersion for when the action finally does start after being hyped up with much more figurative support. Isn't that interesting to see?

Somehow that just don't work with One Piece in my perspective. It worked with Hero. It worked with Hunter…But I just don't see that with One Piece.

Count Mario

@KageKageKing:

Wasn't harassed that I said it. I was pretty sure it was. My bad.

Somehow that just don't work with One Piece in my perspective. It worked with Hero. It worked with Hunter…But I just don't see that with One Piece.

I understand. But to be fair, Oda's never bothered to try. If Zou wasn't so exposition heavy, it could have made for a decent training arc. Or seeing Luffy travel to wherever Marco is before One Piece to get in some work before pursuing Kaido. It's tricky to get any sort of on-panel training done with typical arc villains due to arc pacing. But with big figures like the Yonko and Admirals that are built up for a dozen or two arcs, yeah, I think Oda could try it and find some form of success if he really wanted to deviate from his typical formula. It's just that we typically don't really think of Luffy and training hand-in-hand because of how he's not an everyman or part of a ranking system like Naruto and Midoriya are with the ninja and Pro-Hero systems. He always seemed a cut above the rest back in East Blue and only struggles against antagonists most of the time because of cheap tricks or plot devices that are needed to defeat them. But the likes of Kaido are a different story, where he's clearly outmatched as seen with how he fought against Doflamingo and Cracker.

I doubt it's ever going to happen. I'm just trying to say that training portions and arcs aren't pointless or just plot padding/diversions. They could work if Oda even slightly cared them. But he obviously doesn't.

ARTEMlS

Dressrosa's biggest problem was its lack of real tension in its second half. I agree with everything Count says regarding Dressrosa, however, a lot of these points wouldn't be such a big problem if only Doflamingo were written in a way to be better to this actual scenario. Instead of the birdcage and its resulting hostage scenario, I would have prefered to see more of his scheming abilities as well as his charisma which was praised multiple times. Besides, we saw his charisma effectively used in flashbacks, whereas it basically was non-existent during especially the second half of Dressrosa. I mean he was supposed to be a great underworld broker yet we didn't see any good negotiation skills. For example he could have made some kind of alliance with Blackbeard/Burgess. That could have created tension which DR deliberately needed at its climax. But what did we get from Burgess instead? Randomly storming at Luffy AND with Sabo right at him - killing any possible tension just instantly.

We really had needed more tension - instead we got the birdcage which basically screamed that Doffy was screwed at the arc's midpoint. Relying on a ridiculously overpowered fruit instead of actually decent smarts and leadership skills in order to build and maintain his empire also was a really stupid and lame move narrative-wise. If Fujitora hadn't had his own scheme as well, Doffy just were done for immediately and we had 50 chapters less instead of this dragged out mess. (Of course, we wouldn't have a proper climax as well.) However, Fuji especially towards the end felt not only too less integrated in the plot when he appeared in front of Riku and Violet, he also gave away his overall scheme in a boring fashion - again killing tension.

A villain better suited for the task to deal with the points Count mentioned and therefore creating better tension would have caused miracles…

The Tenth Strawhat

All these problems people have with Mingo just helps give me more reasons for why I like Croc more as a villain and a character. If only we knew more about his past though.

K. Kira XXIII

If Oda would ever do a training arc, I would assume it would be for a really important event. However, if even the 2 year time skip was skipped….then it would have to be for either a first emperor take down, which we still have a chance to see before Wano if the current confrontation with Big Mom ends up gauging the gap between the Strawhat crew and an emperor's crew. The other case is the final war.

I like Oda's approach, whenever someone acquires a new tool, technique, at first it is hard for them to control. The only time we did not see this was in Fishman Island, for evident reasons. Nami's climatact, Zoro's sword among other examples. They learn through practical experiences, and then during their downtime during traveling we see them all working on their craft, while others are enjoying themselves. Maybe not full chapters, but it is there. Here is where they are growing. Just imagining getting all those extra pages makes me thinking we would just be getting to Punk Hazard.

Even if Doffy had teamed up with Burgess, what is there to say he would not have done the same thing. They were basically teamed up, because we did not really see Burgess fighting against the Mingo family. That would have only made Sabo and him fight earlier, Koala reported to Sabo that is why he was able to help, because he was aiding civilians that call would have come earlier. Even if Doffy manipulated Burguess to do his will, with parasite or by offering a batch of devil fruits. I could only imagine muscle dude hussling to get paid first, maybe pinning him against each other. Okay, Doffy accepts, what is Burguess going to do? Hunt the wanted men, which, he was doing.

The Birdcage was the signal that Doffy screwed. His 10 year plan had just blown back in his face. By the God. That must affect your ego.

Daz

A fair point. Individual arcs/islands shouldn't be immune to criticism; I just think it's strange that's the first place this fanbase goes for subdividing and critiquing the story. And I feel some arcs can get some unfair spite just because their context in a larger story isn't being fully considered. We should be starting with the bigger picture and working down to the smaller ones within it, not starting small and forgetting half the time that the big picture exists at all.

I could'nt disagree more. The "smaller pictures" are the flesh and blood of the series, and the reason its been going for so long. The bigger picture is just the framework Oda can hang all the smaller stories on, and if they don't work, the series doesn't work. The Drumm arc is not fondly remembered for its brief introductions of Ace and Blackbeard to the Bigger Picture. Alabasta is not a masterpiece because Croc freed up a Warlord seat for Teach, and so on.

Judging arcs based on assumed future Big Picture connotations can be problematic; many excused the underwhelmingness of Fishman Island with the assumption that the Big Mom arc would deliver the dramatic payoffs. And now, 200 chapters later, not only is it hard to care about the leftovers from an arc five years prior, it also turns out that Fishman Island (and Jinbe) is an extremely minor part of the Big Mom arc.
Plus, we've now reached a point where the Bigger Picture is the whole picture. It needs to stand on its own, on the merits of the chapters themselves, and not the chapters years into the future. I know I am alone on this, but I really do believe that Zou suffered tremendously because of this. The Lore Dump is tantalizing in the moment, to be sure, but it leaves the arc with very little replay value. The Big Picture squashed the adventure.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

@FolhaS:

And Luffy, in that panel, say's he's going to try something out.
He spent the last few days just thinking about how to get stronger, so he gets the ideas for the gears and tries them out in Ennies Lobby.
You can argue that it's pretty convinient that all those new techniques they tried worked ok on the first tries but that's why the StrawHat's are the protagonists, their stuff tends to work so their the best story to follow around.

I don't see anyone complaining about Enel restarting his heart. What? Do you think that had happened before?
No one had even came close to kill him in his life, and he was pretty arrogant since he thought himself to be untouchable. It's not that likely that he had a back up plan.
But he tried it and it worked.

This is pretty much in line with my thinking. I've never minded the "power ups" that much, because they didn't represent major character shifts (like say, Naruto taming his inner Kyuubi). They were more techniques than transformations, and though they were conveniently powerful, I don't feel they needed that much more context than the Pound Cannons, Gum Gum Storm or whatever.

The only one that feels off is Zoros' Asura, because its the most radical shift from his fighting style, and doesn't ever get a pseudo-logical explanation.

Count Mario

Plus, we've now reached a point where the Bigger Picture is the whole picture. It needs to stand on its own, on the merits of the chapters themselves, and not the chapters years into the future. I know I am alone on this, but I really do believe that Zou suffered tremendously because of this. The Lore Dump is tantalizing in the moment, to be sure, but it leaves the arc with very little replay value. The Big Picture squashed the adventure.

Actually I've said at least a couple of times in this thread that I share the exact same opinion about Zou. Anything that's cool about Zou is… anything that doesn't have to specifically do with the island or inhabitants. And it's even more awkward when Zou wasn't really hyped up that much at all compared to Dressrosa, Whole Cake Island, or Wano Country besides a couple brief mentions about needing to pick up the Swirly Hats, Raizou, and the Heart Pirates. Which makes for all of the major reveals to be pleasantly surprising, sure, but also makes something as huge as the first Road Poneglyph being there feel too convenient.

Daz

@Count:

Actually I've said at least a couple of times in this thread that I share the exact same opinion about Zou. Anything that's cool about Zou is… anything that doesn't have to specifically do with the island or inhabitants. And it's even more awkward when Zou wasn't really hyped up that much at all compared to Dressrosa, Whole Cake Island, or Wano Country besides a couple brief mentions about needing to pick up the Swirly Hats, Raizou, and the Heart Pirates. Which makes for all of the major reveals to be pleasantly surprising, sure, but also makes something as huge as the first Road Poneglyph being there feel too convenient.

Ah, I see, I hadn't gotten to that yet. Your posts take time to process, Count! Regardless, Ho! A kindred spirit! I might've known, we seem to have quite similar storytelling preferences.
Reading Zou on a weekly basis was weird; it had so much potential for adventure, and every week people assured each other that the adventure was just around the corner…and then the arc ended!

Count Mario

Ah, I see, I hadn't gotten to that yet. Your posts take time to process, Count! Regardless, Ho! A kindred spirit! I might've known, we seem to have quite similar storytelling preferences.

Sorry about that lol. And I've noticed that as well! Just means great minds think alike, I suppose.

Reading Zou on a weekly basis was weird; it had so much potential for adventure, and every week people assured each other that the adventure was just around the corner…and then the arc ended!

I remember all of the Jack hype. Then he just gets the rug pulled under him by Zunisha lol. Not that I minded the twist at all, it was a really epic scene. But it's just… nothing happened. It was almost like Oda was so determined to make this arc have a bunch of red herrings towards the typical One Piece formula, like the Straw Hats fearing that the Minks were going to hate them due to a misunderstanding like on a few of the other islands, a villain dramatically return to the island who oppressed the land similar to Wapol, and Nekomamushi and Inurashi hating each other and the arc looking like we would get some big flashback dedicated to their relationship issues and have some big cathartic moment where they work together again.

But those tropes all got turned upside down on their heads. Which, like I said before, is pleasantly surprising (the Minks revealing that they were protecting Raizou was a bit heartwarming to see). But it also makes the arc feel like one big bag of nothing. Just resolutions without build-up to get invested in and LOTS of future hype. The Nekomamushi and Inurashi flashback is probably beings aged for their fight against Jack in Zou, similar to Pedro's rivalry with Tamago. And, like you said, the arc just ended. Zou's build-up is cool, but it was a prime example of putting the overall narrative over the individual integrity and quality of an arc. It definitely doesn't make it into my top five list of One Piece arcs. Maybe not even the top ten.

Daz

Dressrosa's issue, as I saw it, was trying to be a bigger climax than what had come before, the next step up from Marineford. The Fishman Island saga came first, yes, but that had a focus on showing off the post-timeskip Strawhats, expositing what when down in the last two years, and wrapping up a few story and character threads there wasn't time for before the timeskip. So Dressrosa was the first big, serious battle of the New World. Oda knows enough about narrative structure to know that you have to keep escalating these kinds of things, so he tried to make the story and the battle bigger. But using lots of characters. Doflamingo's crew turned out to be huge, new characters were introduced en masse at the colosseum, then the Revolutionary Army had people on the ground, and there was a Marine Admiral there, civilians to worry about, Jesus Burgess, and that's only counting characters who stuck around for the battle. I haven't run the exact numbers, but I would venture to say the Battle of Dressrosa had as many, if not more, named participants than the Battle of Marineford. ..
On Dressrosa, we saw a greater variety of motivations, and a more complex conflict in the early stages as different characters threw their hats in with Luffy's side or Doflamingo's for different reasons. Oda was, I thought, trying to top himself.

And he kinda failed. He didn't create a bigger story than Marineford than he did create a wider one. Stuffing more into the plot turned out to be a poor match for Marineford's enormous emotional stakes. Not even pulling out is old faithful "nuke whole island" trope could bridge the gap.

Lots of great points here. And I actually did the math regarding the bolded part once; counting named characters with at least a few pages of screentime, Dressrosa is more dense with characters than any other arc in the series. And as you allude to, the fact that there were so many different motivations, such a wide range of seperate character dramas is in stark contrast to the crushing simplicity of Marineford.

That's how I saw Dressrosa's issues. Not sacrificing the present in favour of the future, but overdoing things in an attempt to surpass what came before. If you were cynical, you might say Oda was trying too hard. But I prefer not to discourage the act of trying, so I'll say he was trying in the wrong ways, and that's probably why the unique structure of Zou came as such a breath of fresh air.

However, I will say that a lot of this clutteredness comes from trying to build up so much while at the same time trying to pay off so much -it had to pull double duty. Oda says that he fused several arcs into Dressrosa, and kept adding more ideas, and it really shows. Spreading the buildup of admirals, emperors, the Straw Hat fleet and the revolutionaries across several sub-arcs (Baroque Works style) would've solved a lot of Dressrosas problems.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

@Count:

Sorry about that lol.

Don't be! It just means you have lots of stuff on your mind, and since its interesting stuff, its all good. Besides, I can relate - its taken me years to erode down my brick-wall posts, and they still end up rambling.

@Count:

But those tropes all got turned upside down on their heads. Which, like I said before, is pleasantly surprising (the Minks revealing that they were protecting Raizou was a bit heartwarming to see). But it also makes the arc feel like one big bag of nothing.

Thats exactly it. I could have rolled with the instant friendship with the minks, the "full moon" plotpoint going unused, the samurai fakeout, Dog and Cat making peace, and Jack getting one-shotted…but not everything at once. It felt like the arc was constantly in fits to get started, with dramatic concepts alluded to, but not really fulfilled.

I've never been able to rank the OP arcs beyond a consistent #1 (davy back fight), but I think its safe to say that I wouldn't rank Zou particularly high; as you mentioned, it lacks the same internal entertainment value seen in Jaya and Sabaody.

Razh

I see the same warning signs from Dressrosa in Totland as well. Too much buildup, too little payoff. I hope I'm wrong and Oda can keep it focused and to the point.

Count Mario

Don't be! It just means you have lots of stuff on your mind, and since its interesting stuff, its all good. Besides, I can relate - its taken me years to erode down my brick-wall posts, and they still end up rambling.

Thanks. I hope to adapt my writing style to trimming out plenty of the fat its known for while still staying concise like your posts tend to be.

Thats exactly it. I could have rolled with the instant friendship with the minks, the "full moon" plotpoint going unused, the samurai fakeout, Dog and Cat making peace, and Jack getting one-shotted…but not everything at once. It felt like the arc was constantly in fits to get started, with dramatic concepts alluded to, but not really fulfilled.

Exactly. Everything related to the Minks had one big neon sign blaring out, "TO BE CONTINUED IN WANO COUNTRY. STAY TUNED."

I've never been able to rank the OP arcs beyond a consistent #1 (davy back fight), but I think its safe to say that I wouldn't rank Zou particularly high; as you mentioned, it lacks the same internal entertainment value seen in Jaya and Sabaody.

I also liked the Davy Back Fight arc. I would love Totland so much more if Luffy and Big Mom settled the debacle over who Sanji and Jimbei belong to with a Davy Back fight, so that seemingly arbitrary plot point actually became relevant since Big Mom loves games. But this point, it's too late. Especially with Wano Country around the corner.

Jaya and Sabaody forever. Especially the former. So pirate-y it's beautiful. Sums up why I love how Oda saves typical pirate tropes for special characters and locales. Hopefully the Reverie is entertaining, even though I'm sure that it's going to be split up before and after Wano Country.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

Dressrosa's biggest problem was its lack of real tension in its second half. I agree with everything Count says regarding Dressrosa, however, a lot of these points wouldn't be such a big problem if only Doflamingo were written in a way to be better to this actual scenario. Instead of the birdcage and its resulting hostage scenario, I would have prefered to see more of his scheming abilities as well as his charisma which was praised multiple times. Besides, we saw his charisma effectively used in flashbacks, whereas it basically was non-existent during especially the second half of Dressrosa. I mean he was supposed to be a great underworld broker yet we didn't see any good negotiation skills. For example he could have made some kind of alliance with Blackbeard/Burgess. That could have created tension which DR deliberately needed at its climax. But what did we get from Burgess instead? Randomly storming at Luffy AND with Sabo right at him - killing any possible tension just instantly.

We really had needed more tension - instead we got the birdcage which basically screamed that Doffy was screwed at the arc's midpoint. Relying on a ridiculously overpowered fruit instead of actually decent smarts and leadership skills in order to build and maintain his empire also was a really stupid and lame move narrative-wise. If Fujitora hadn't had his own scheme as well, Doffy just were done for immediately and we had 50 chapters less instead of this dragged out mess. (Of course, we wouldn't have a proper climax as well.) However, Fuji especially towards the end felt not only too less integrated in the plot when he appeared in front of Riku and Violet, he also gave away his overall scheme in a boring fashion - again killing tension.

A villain better suited for the task to deal with the points Count mentioned and therefore creating better tension would have caused miracles…

Sorry for not noticing this earlier. Yeah, there were plenty of more flaws regarding Dressrosa than just panel time issues. I would have loved to see Doffy scheme in a scenario like what you propose. The Birdcage is just… Ugh. That and String Clones. That, and Doffy didn't feel connected to most of the people who hated him. The antagonism outside of Law and the Riku Family (and even for the latter we should have seen Doffy interact with them more in the present) was just a bland case of everybody sharing a bully without much depth or uniqueness relationship-wise. Especially when the most we get on that front is Doffy and Violet apparently knocking boots off-panel. It's not like how we actually saw Crocodile and Enel interact with the people they manipulated and traumatized. Doffy's just monotonously above it all, and thus above any profound connection to most of his victims outside of flashbacks that's memorable.

ARTEMlS

However, I will say that a lot of this clutteredness comes from trying to build up so much while at the same time trying to pay off so much -it had to pull double duty. Oda says that he fused several arcs into Dressrosa, and kept adding more ideas, and it really shows. Spreading the buildup of admirals, emperors, the Straw Hat fleet and the revolutionaries across several sub-arcs (Baroque Works style) would've solved a lot of Dressrosas problems.

I'd say even one more island before DR would have helped a lot. Maybe separate the dwarfes and Sugar out of DR. Speaking of Sugar, she's also handled exceptionally poorly. There's so much potential wasted by making her such a low-grade enemy. Instead she could have been the main antagonist of that dwarf island. And instead of getting her abilities explained by blatant telegraphing and thus killing basically all tension, we should learn about them more by her doing stuff. Like she actually gets more and more Strawhats which results not only in interesting character interactions between the remaining ones, but also creates a lot of tension as we still have to figure out what the fuck actually goes on there. Seriously, why revealing a mindfuck inducing power before any actual mindfuck to the protagonist is done?!

Maybe also introduce Rebecca and Kyros earlier then as their backstory (actually the only thing about Sugar's powers which is somewhat good executed) is so heavily tied to Sugar. And then better give Rebecca a better character arc as well.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

@Count:

Sorry for not noticing this earlier. Yeah, there were plenty of more flaws regarding Dressrosa than just panel time issues. I would have loved to see Doffy scheme in a scenario like what you propose. The Birdcage is just… Ugh. That and String Clones. That, and Doffy didn't feel connected to most of the people who hated him. The antagonism outside of Law and the Riku Family (and even for the latter we should have seen Doffy interact with them more in the present) was just a bland case of everybody sharing a bully without much depth or uniqueness relationship-wise. Especially when the most we get on that front is Doffy and Violet apparently knocking boots off-panel. It's not like how we actually saw Crocodile and Enel interact with the people they manipulated and traumatized. Doffy's just monotonously above it all, and thus above any profound connection to most of his victims outside of flashbacks that's memorable.

The only one whose antagonism was properly developed was Law and even their dynamic suffers hard from the lack of a proper Doflamingo scheme. Especially good to see at that point when Doffy lets Law choose between #1 you're fucked anyway, but please make me immortal and #2 you are fucked and I as well.

Both Doffy (and Trebol) as well as narrative seem to think and want us make to believe that there's even a slight chance that Law might decide to do the operation. However, it just doesn't work. Instead, the scene just is awkward and Doffy appears like a complete moron without any real villain credibility left.

Shobu Yoruichi

@Razh:

I see the same warning signs from Dressrosa in Totland as well. Too much buildup, too little payoff. I hope I'm wrong and Oda can keep it focused and to the point.

Dressrosa lacked too many points that Totland has, the former was just about defeating the villain, while the latter it's just fleeing. While it keep that core, anything is fine.

ShinigamiKing

There doesn't need to be training arcs.

All that's needed is a good timeframe for a new attack.

Or an explanation.

Why? Because when you have attacks like Asura, it begins to remove some of the real suspension of disbelief/stakes from future fights. It becomes Fairy Tail all over again.

When I was watching Thriller Bark (after a long break from consuming One Piece), I kept on getting worried that the Strawhats were gonna pull out a random asspull attack when the going got rough. Thankfully it didn't happen; Zoro's fight was good, Nightmare Luffy was hype, and the strawhats actually lost several times.

One poster mentioned a movie that made Luffy activate his gear second. That could have worked.

Or hell, just do what they did in alabasta/Arlong: surive long enough to figure the opponent's weakness and/or create new attacks in the middle of the fight.

I just won't ever accept randomly getting 2x as strong with no time or opportunities whatsoever.

! @KageKageKing:
! > 0)How did those pirates stole those shadows? How did they know that people could absord shadows? What is the Will of D at all?
1)The same could be said to the entire 2 year training each that were of the SH took it. We should demand an entire year of arcs like that.
2)A few days ago is quite enough time to be honest.
3)They introduced an assassination fighting style at an appropriate time. Nothing wrong at all.
4)You saying giving the keys to the most powerful local killing machines is a bad security decision?
5)I am afraid you have to re-read Kaku's fight because you missed quite a lot.
6)That is like what? Half to 3/4 of the arc?
! 0) I haven't read the arc in a while, but wasn't established that you could touch and hold shadows by Moriah?

lol really? c'mon now.
They're better off at least acknowledging that in-story. Zoro saying that "we've gotten stronger every fight" doesn't reall justify them getting an exponential powerup with no opporunity to do so. The only way they could have done that was if they learned those attacks after skypeia and just never used them…
It was kinda useless. It's not a serious problem or anything though, it's just kinda "meh", espeically since other high-ranking marines don't use it.
No. It's just dumb to even risk giving them the keys. Like, if you give them devil fruits, that alone is a sign that you think the strawhats can beat them. So why put the keys in their hands if you have no confidence in them succeeding in the first place? Why even risk it?
Outside the Kaku fight, is more accurate. I don't know, he just randomly kinda changed. Just compare him in the Skypeia arc. He seemed like a normal dude. He was fine in the Kaku fight tho.
The fighting portions of the arc were long.

K. Kira XXIII

Asura's does not need any more explanation than Rurouni Kenshin's Kuzuryusen, which hit 9 vital points simultaneously in a manga way less fantastical than One Piece. (Note: Oda worked with the author which is a nice coincidence). Asura seems to be the incarnation of such a technique, where the user uses speed to create the illusion of multiple afterimages, however the speed is so great it still feels like you are being hit by many swords, or all at once.

Where did it come from? Zoro had started to improve his swordmanship during Skypeia, immediately after the gang was defeated by an admiral, tiers above their strength level. They were frozen, to combat such a thing, the Monster Trio all developed their own way to counter that. I am not saying this is the explanation, but one could connect storylines like this.

Luffy: Gear Second, extreme speed.
Zoro: Asura, seemingly creating the illusion of being guarded from three different positions.
Sanji: Diable Jiambe, fuego, just FUEGO.

If how these techniques were developed is a question, one could go and recount each experience. I won't. But Luffy in Jaya fought Bellamy, and we know that the Strawhats grow from their fighting experiences. Bellamy was using his spring fruit to move really fast, Luffy applied that spring effect to his bloodstream. Anyways, I'll leave it at that.

–---

@ShinigamiKing:

It was kinda useless. It's not a serious problem or anything though, it's just kinda "meh", espeically since other high-ranking marines don't use it.

A lot of high tier marines have used it. From Vice-admirals and from my point of view: every ranking officer goes through the type of training these Assassin's go through. Maybe it is toned down, but we have seen instances of Soru outside CP-9. It makes more sense to say it is part of high ranking officers training. I am sure Garp knows it, but what does it matter if he can just obliterate anything with his punches. Other users like admirals tend to have over powering devil fruits which give them more mobility.

No. It's just dumb to even risk giving them the keys. Like, if you give them devil fruits, that alone is a sign that you think the strawhats can beat them. So why put the keys in their hands if you have no confidence in them succeeding in the first place? Why even risk it?

So what other option are you proposing? Just keep all the keys? Then the Strawhats would have arrived way sooner than they did. Without the CP-9 members buying time for Spandam, then the Strawhats would have done what Nami suggested, get Robin and then look for the key.

Why is the key important, it doesn't hinder Robin's ability to read, so why don't just throw the key away? It is very rare to take a prisoner and throw away the key. And as much as it would have been really interesting to see how Robin, or the crew could cope with Robin being limited, it wasn't something that Oda wanted to explore.

Spandam gave them devil fruits way before he knew that the Strawhats were coming. It was a reward for completing their mission. Not anything to do with him thinking if they could win the fight or not.

CP9 was the strongest faction available in the island, the only other feasible option would have been to make Funkfreed eat the damn keys and have the CP9 delay the crew. But we all know that the Strawhats would have made the elephant poop it out of fear.

Captain M

@Count:

A whole lotta text.

Slightly less text.

Ahh I really feel like I made my initial point (about arcs/sagas) poorly here. Possibly with poor timing also. It might have been better made in response to a post like this one in the current chapter discussion thread, that tries to rank every individual arc, including the East Blue ones that are only a handful of chapters long, out of context. It's nonsense, and it's only gonna get more and more ridiculous to try doing as the series gets longer. Going arc by arc sorta puts the early mini stories on an unfair footing, separates ones like Skypiea and Ennies Lobby from Jaya and Water Seven, even though the latter two are essential for the story and emotional impact of the former, and I can't imagine anyone is actually ranking either of the former as a standalone, without considering the setup of its precursor. And it meets with issues like deciding whether the sea train chase counts as an arc, or whether the infiltration and the battle of Dressrosa could be separate things (the switch to the battle is a huge change in tone, stakes and style, and thanks to Pica even comes with new geography to learn, as a separate arc might). It feels akin to taking a series like Harry Potter and trying to rank it by chapter instead of by the complete books. You can do it, sure, but it's awkward and clunky. And not doing it doesn't exempt us from critiquing individual chapters or saying which ones we liked more either.

My point is that I find it odd that we use arcs as our go-to unit of story measurement than the broader, simpler and more encompassing one of sagas. Sorry if that didn't come across clearly.

–-

Now regarding Dressrosa. Count Mario argues that there was no reason for it to challenge Marineford as a large battle. I think you made a lot of good points about how it's burdened with setting up the future, and I may have understated in my post how much it did set up, but I completely disagree about it not needing to be a big battle. There had to be something going down in the New World ahead of Wano, there just had to. Can you imagine the fallout if the Strawhats had Kaido's crew as their first significant encounter of the New World? Fishman Island's fighting was all showboating with low tension, Punk Hazard focused on its building flooding with poison set piece than fights. Zou had the Strawhats uninvolved in its biggest fight, and also made it a flashback, and with Totland being an infiltration mission with only half the crew, there are been no other truly major battles in this half of the story. If the Strawhats' first real, serious, fighting-focused battle of the New World had been with an Emperor, I guarantee people would have lost their shit over it. Dressrosa was poorly handled, but it did need to happen.

The other reason it needed to be big is rising action. The most bare bones principal of storytelling. Each complication has to feel bigger and more drastic than the previous ones. Marineford topped the last big, complex battle sequence at Ennies Lobby, which itself topped the last large conflict at Alabasta. For the action to keep rising, Dressrosa had to try to be bigger again. It's just a shame Oda tried to do this by throwing more characters at it and engaging in cheap, tropey stakes-raising tactics like an island nuke button instead of moving laterally and raising emotional and thematic stakes instead. I always thought it was an utterly wasted opportunity that the story never lingered over Doflamingo's ability to really challenge Luffy's promise to protect everything. His birdcage made death and destruction inevitable, and he manipulated Bellamy in such a way that Luffy was forced to personally knock down someone he considered a friend. A simpler battle that fixated around Luffy struggling with his one great conviction he had for the New World being broken or shaken by Doflamingo's manipulations would have been a lot more memorable.

Alas, we get what we get.

It's also worth noting that in his sagas Oda tends to alternate between ending them with big battles like Alabasta/Ennies Lobby/Marineford/Dressrosa/Wano (inevitably) and stories with more exploration of new places ending with a more intimate fight with a single enemy crew instead of a large force like Arlong Park/Skypiea/Thriller Bark/Fishman Island/Totland (depending on how things go). Of course Oda is the author and can break the pattern he made for himself at any damn time, but alternating between sagas that focus on adventure and ones that focus on increasingly large battles has been the standard thus far. It's a good way to keep either style of story from getting stale, and if the Pirate Alliance Saga had been made to end as another lower-stakes exploration-y one, it would have made three back to back with Fishman Island and Totland, and again, forced Wano to be the first real fight of the New World, which would have created a whole lot of backlash.

(My theory is that we'll look back on Zou and Totland as part of their own saga, separate from Wano. The magazine might have hyped it as the Four Emperors Saga as a marketing thing, but that's a marketing thing, and it's hard to imagine Wano flowing stylistically or thematically on from Totland as part of the same storyline.)

So that's it. Dressrosa needed to be something big. To fit Oda's pattern, to keep the escalation going, and to give the Strawhats a pre-Kaido battle for the sake of build up. Oda had good ideas for Dressrosa and its characters, but bloated and crippled the story by making it too big to handle. (And its reputation was damaged further for weekly readers by his illness and all the breaks stretching it out longer. I imagine readers who go through it for the first time as a finished story will be less bothered by its flaws.) Worse yet, it did, as has been pointed out, have double duty to pull being its own climax and setting up a ton of future things. With the promised importance of the Grand Fleet and the additional Kaido setup we got, plus advancing the World Government, Marines, Reverie, Blackbeard and Revolutionary plots in at least small ways, its hard to point out anything that could fairly have been cut. I'm just gonna agree with the posters saying that a couple more islands with smaller stories should have been worked in to shoulder some of that weight, more Baroque Works style.

Count Mario

Ahh I really feel like I made my initial point (about arcs/sagas) poorly here. Possibly with poor timing also. It might have been better made in response to a post like this one in the current chapter discussion thread, that tries to rank every individual arc, including the East Blue ones that are only a handful of chapters long, out of context. It's nonsense, and it's only gonna get more and more ridiculous to try doing as the series gets longer. Going arc by arc sorta puts the early mini stories on an unfair footing, separates ones like Skypiea and Ennies Lobby from Jaya and Water Seven, even though the latter two are essential for the story and emotional impact of the former, and I can't imagine anyone is actually ranking either of the former as a standalone, without considering the setup of its precursor. And it meets with issues like deciding whether the sea train chase counts as an arc, or whether the infiltration and the battle of Dressrosa could be separate things (the switch to the battle is a huge change in tone, stakes and style, and thanks to Pica even comes with new geography to learn, as a separate arc might). It feels akin to taking a series like Harry Potter and trying to rank it by chapter instead of by the complete books. You can do it, sure, but it's awkward and clunky. And not doing it doesn't exempt us from critiquing individual chapters or saying which ones we liked more either.

My point is that I find it odd that we use arcs as our go-to unit of story measurement than the broader, simpler and more encompassing one of sagas. Sorry if that didn't come across clearly.

But what's wrong about listing preferences in terms of arcs? They help highlight the types of things we like and don't like to see in the series, especially when arcs can cover a whole array of topics, locales, and characters with varying execution. It's not like we're comparing completely different genres. This is still one big series that always has some form of consistency thematically and characterization-wise. Sagas are WAY too broad to critique, especially when the arcs (despite them linking together some plot threads) are meant to still stand on their own qualitatively in so many regards. Just because a part of a saga is needed for the saga to function does not mean that we still can't have the opinion that said part of the saga was bad or that it could have been done better. Trying to evaluate Alabasta's quality only in the context of acknowledging every other island in the saga is a bit ridiculous with the varying degrees in quality and focus. Arcs should be re-readable on their own without needing other arcs to be sequentially read for them to have merits. Which, unfortunately, is Zou's flaw (which Daz pointed out). Why can't we judge by both story arc and saga perspectives individually? It doesn't have to just always be one or the other.

–-

Now regarding Dressrosa. Count Mario argues that there was no reason for it to challenge Marineford as a large battle. I think you made a lot of good points about how it's burdened with setting up the future, and I may have understated in my post how much it did set up, but I completely disagree about it not needing to be a big battle. There had to be something going down in the New World ahead of Wano, there just had to. Can you imagine the fallout if the Strawhats had Kaido's crew as their first significant encounter of the New World? Fishman Island's fighting was all showboating with low tension, Punk Hazard focused on its building flooding with poison set piece than fights. Zou had the Strawhats uninvolved in its biggest fight, and also made it a flashback, and with Totland being an infiltration mission with only half the crew, there are been no other truly major battles in this half of the story. If the Strawhats' first real, serious, fighting-focused battle of the New World had been with an Emperor, I guarantee people would have lost their shit over it. Dressrosa was poorly handled, but it did need to happen.

The Straw Hats struggling in some sort of fashion in the New World had to happen. The execution of it needing to result in a Marineford-scale war made up of newly introduced characters left and right from so many different factions is what didn't need to happen in the context of Dressrosa alone. But it did because Oda wanted to put the long game ahead of Dressrosa's qualitative integrity as an individual arc. Thus making it a sacrificial lamb like I said earlier.

The other reason it needed to be big is rising action. The most bare bones principal of storytelling. Each complication has to feel bigger and more drastic than the previous ones. Marineford topped the last big, complex battle sequence at Ennies Lobby, which itself topped the last large conflict at Alabasta. For the action to keep rising, Dressrosa had to try to be bigger again. It's just a shame Oda tried to do this by throwing more characters at it and engaging in cheap, tropey stakes-raising tactics like an island nuke button instead of moving laterally and raising emotional and thematic stakes instead. I always thought it was an utterly wasted opportunity that the story never lingered over Doflamingo's ability to really challenge Luffy's promise to protect everything. His birdcage made death and destruction inevitable, and he manipulated Bellamy in such a way that Luffy was forced to personally knock down someone he considered a friend. A simpler battle that fixated around Luffy struggling with his one great conviction he had for the New World being broken or shaken by Doflamingo's manipulations would have been a lot more memorable.

I REALLY don't think it's wise to judge sagas by story pyramid progression. Because each arc is supposed to have those narrative elements. Every beginning of a new arc is mostly meant to be a clean slate despite the loose threads that may tie into other arcs that are seen previously or afterwards. I like what you're saying on the subject of Luffy's convictions getting pushed to the edge by Doflamingo. Which is why I wish Bellamy died at the hands of Luffy, so that Doffy would have pushed Luffy to a breaking point where he had no choice. But that type of thing is never going to happen in a series written by Eiichiro "I detest death" Oda.

It's also worth noting that in his sagas Oda tends to alternate between ending them with big battles like Alabasta/Ennies Lobby/Marineford/Dressrosa/Wano (inevitably) and stories with more exploration of new places ending with a more intimate fight with a single enemy crew instead of a large force like Arlong Park/Skypiea/Thriller Bark/Fishman Island/Totland (depending on how things go). Of course Oda is the author and can break the pattern he made for himself at any damn time, but alternating between sagas that focus on adventure and ones that focus on increasingly large battles has been the standard thus far. It's a good way to keep either style of story from getting stale, and if the Pirate Alliance Saga had been made to end as another lower-stakes exploration-y one, it would have made three back to back with Fishman Island and Totland, and again, forced Wano to be the first real fight of the New World, which would have created a whole lot of backlash.

Except that Dressrosa did not need to be a full-on war for it to have reasonable stakes. It just needed to be akin to Alabasta and Enies Lobby in terms of chaos and named players/factions.

(My theory is that we'll look back on Zou and Totland as part of their own saga, separate from Wano. The magazine might have hyped it as the Four Emperors Saga as a marketing thing, but that's a marketing thing, and it's hard to imagine Wano flowing stylistically or thematically on from Totland as part of the same storyline.)

That doesn't work at all. Whole Cake Island, as focused as it seems to be towards Big Mom, is really meant to gear up the difficulty and narrative importance of Wano Country. Especially since the purpose of why Luffy went there is to rescue Sanji, and will come back with Jimbei in tow to help with the war in Wano Country. Barely any arcs flow stylistically. I fail to see how an island with prehistoric dinosaurs and a snowy mountainous island connected to a desert country. Their only links were having Baroque Agent antagonists (aside from Drum. It doesn't connect at all with Alabasta aside from Vivi having a cool moment of showing off her diplomatic ability needed for becoming a ruler). And that is what ties Zou, Totland, and Wano Country together (along with Dressrosa, Punk Hazard, and even Fishman Island). The Straw Hats having to constantly juggle between Big Mom and Kaido. Not to mention the links that those two characters share in both of them wanting Caesar Clown to realize their dreams and having some sort of mysterious connection to Giants.

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It doesn't get more obvious than that. Oda himself doesn't really give a clear outline as to exactly when an arc ends or begins, and I doubt he does the same for sagas. If anything, you can look at Totland as the Drum Island of this saga in how it seems contained, but it still meant to noticeably build-up to a bigger arc in how it gains forces in the form of a new Straw Hat.

So that's it. Dressrosa needed to be something big. To fit Oda's pattern, to keep the escalation going, and to give the Strawhats a pre-Kaido battle for the sake of build up. Oda had good ideas for Dressrosa and its characters, but bloated and crippled the story by making it too big to handle. (And its reputation was damaged further for weekly readers by his illness and all the breaks stretching it out longer. I imagine readers who go through it for the first time as a finished story will be less bothered by its flaws.) Worse yet, it did, as has been pointed out, have double duty to pull being its own climax and setting up a ton of future things. With the promised importance of the Grand Fleet and the additional Kaido setup we got, plus advancing the World Government, Marines, Reverie, Blackbeard and Revolutionary plots in at least small ways, its hard to point out anything that could fairly have been cut. I'm just gonna agree with the posters saying that a couple more islands with smaller stories should have been worked in to shoulder some of that weight, more Baroque Works style.

Except that we didn't need a whole "practice" war for the war in Wano Country. If anything, not having Dressrosa be such a huge warzone and much more contained while still maintaining high struggles and stakes for the Straw Hats would have helped make Wano Country feel more unique and dynamic in the plot. But I'm glad you agree on those points though. It should have worked more akin to the Baroque Works style. And that;s sort of what Oda was trying to do by having Punk Hazard star Vergo and Monet as well as directly leading into Law holding Doflamingo at bay with a ransom for Caesar. But we could have gotten more than that. Especially if Oda was willing to let Doflamingo not be restricted solely to Dressrosa just because. I mean, the dude can fly.

ShinigamiKing

! @Tamiel:
! > Asura's does not need any more explanation than Rurouni Kenshin's Kuzuryusen, which hit 9 vital points simultaneously in a manga way less fantastical than One Piece. (Note: Oda worked with the author which is a nice coincidence). Asura seems to be the incarnation of such a technique, where the user uses speed to create the illusion of multiple afterimages, however the speed is so great it still feels like you are being hit by many swords, or all at once.

Where did it come from? Zoro had started to improve his swordmanship during Skypeia, immediately after the gang was defeated by an admiral, tiers above their strength level. They were frozen, to combat such a thing, the Monster Trio all developed their own way to counter that. I am not saying this is the explanation, but one could connect storylines like this.

Luffy: Gear Second, extreme speed.
Zoro: Asura, seemingly creating the illusion of being guarded from three different positions.
Sanji: Diable Jiambe, fuego, just FUEGO.

If how these techniques were developed is a question, one could go and recount each experience. I won't. But Luffy in Jaya fought Bellamy, and we know that the Strawhats grow from their fighting experiences. Bellamy was using his spring fruit to move really fast, Luffy applied that spring effect to his bloodstream. Anyways, I'll leave it at that.
! I hear what you're saying, but it doesn't fully match the point I'm trying to make.
! The issue isn't the actual attacks themselves, or the science behind them. It's just how they came about. The presentation of them (as crazy new abilities) and the overall large powerboost that came from them was the issue. It sets a bad precedent, and it undermines so much of the tension involved. It felt like forced parity, y'know?
! And I still hate how Zoro just randomly used Asura at the end of the fight - at least with Gear 2nd, Luffy used it early, so it felt less tacky. Why couldn't Zoro do it before? It felt like a slap in the face. Kaku suddenly get shook and start saying "whoa why's he a three-headed demon god? whoa". The whole thing ended on a whimper.
! > So what other option are you proposing? Just keep all the keys? Then the Strawhats would have arrived way sooner than they did. Without the CP-9 members buying time for Spandam, then the Strawhats would have done what Nami suggested, get Robin and then look for the key.

Why is the key important, it doesn't hinder Robin's ability to read, so why don't just throw the key away? It is very rare to take a prisoner and throw away the key. And as much as it would have been really interesting to see how Robin, or the crew could cope with Robin being limited, it wasn't something that Oda wanted to explore.

Spandam gave them devil fruits way before he knew that the Strawhats were coming. It was a reward for completing their mission. Not anything to do with him thinking if they could win the fight or not.

CP9 was the strongest faction available in the island, the only other feasible option would have been to make Funkfreed eat the damn keys and have the CP9 delay the crew. But we all know that the Strawhats would have made the elephant poop it out of fear.
! My bad on the devil fruit part.
! But the key thing still wasn't handled well. I don't see what's wrong with throwing away the key if you're at risk of getting it taken by the straw hats.
! I was gonna say CP9 could have just been dispersed to attack the straw hats and wipe them out instead of waiting in the rooms - but of course, they needed to stall….
! ...So in that regard, how about you don't give any of fighters the real keys (Kaku had it, right?)? Lie that one of them has it - but actually make sure the real key is with Spandam - since you know, he's not gonna be fighting a strawhat (since the CP9 probably thought they'd beat the strawhats before they got the chance to even get near him).
! Or hell, don't let ANY of them have the real key on that island; after all, Fukurou himself said that they have no problem tossing the key into the ocean in the event that the strawhats get to Robin early.

–-
Anyway, I was reading one of the earlier posts in this thread and I gotta say that I really like the post about Oda being in "marineford mode". It was thoughtful.

As I"m about like 1/8th through my reread of Punk Hazard, I keep feeling this sense of detachment from it; it's just not as gripping as the other arcs, including FI. Maybe it's the redundancy of a snowy island? Or how it's another "hey, we have to save this person becuase we're good" set up (at least with Nami and Sanji's group). Or maybe it's the disjointed nature of it, and how long it took for the main pieces to get set up?

Overall, One Piece post timeskip is peculiar; it's both rushed and dragged out a little at the same damn time. It feels rushed when it comes to the character stuff, and dragged out when it comes to the fluff (attack panels, background characters dialogue (which starting becoming a problem slightly in early ennies lobby, but mostly new world)). The regular character reactions and sense of gravity settling in isn't as good I feel. I remember in Alabasta, the characters actually didn't really want to help Vivi out of their hearts until much later.
In thriller bark, they helped solely because they felt really bad for Brook (which I liked); it was their own agency. But in FI it feels like they just did just becuz.

K. Kira XXIII

@ShinigamiKing:

! I hear what you're saying, but it doesn't fully match the point I'm trying to make.
! The issue isn't the actual attacks themselves, or the science behind them. It's just how they came about. The presentation of them (as crazy new abilities) and the overall large powerboost that came from them was the issue. It sets a bad precedent, and it undermines so much of the tension involved. It felt like forced parity, y'know?
! And I still hate how Zoro just randomly used Asura at the end of the fight - at least with Gear 2nd, Luffy used it early, so it felt less tacky. Why couldn't Zoro do it before? It felt like a slap in the face. Kaku suddenly get shook and start saying "whoa why's he a three-headed demon god? whoa". The whole thing ended on a whimper.

Ah, that is much easier to answer then. I would have to relate it to sports, I assume martial arts is the same, but I have not practiced or studied any yet. But while you are playing, rarely do you go 100% all the time. Not only do you get into the tension and rhythm of the game you are warming up your body to perform movements you could do when you are in your natural state, but not with the same potency. Not only that, but you are playing/fighting with an opponent. They will also have their own arsenal against you. There is a lot of analysis when it comes to sports because of the replayability, on how to counter different strategies or players. In a fighting situations such as Zoro and Kaku, Zoro could use Azura from the get go, but, if the opponent dodge, or * because you do not know anything about them. Usually when you do a strong attack, it leaves you open. I play soccer tennis, I could do a scissor kick, but if the opponent is fast enough, maybe he could just hit it back with power to the side of the court I left open because I was on the ground. However, if I time it right, if I let my opponent think they have the advantage, like if they did a dropshot, and I lunged myself to do the kick, that surprise, hesitation costs them the point. You should also consider stamina.

This is not to say, that you cannot go 100% and finishes someone out with a one hit ko, but Kaku had being dodging quite a few of Zoro's attacks by perception and using other techniques besides Kekkai, Kamie.

But the key thing still wasn't handled well. I don't see what's wrong with throwing away the key if you're at risk of getting it taken by the straw hats.

I was gonna say CP9 could have just been dispersed to attack the straw hats and wipe them out instead of waiting in the rooms - but of course, they needed to stall….

This is exactly what they did, they dispersed and attacked them. They were going to wipe them out, and Robin had to taken out of there. There is also a bit of ego, you are the top assassins in Plebdise, what could they possibly fear.

…So in that regard, how about you don't give any of fighters the real keys (Kaku had it, right?)? Lie that one of them has it - but actually make sure the real key is with Spandam - since you know, he's not gonna be fighting a strawhat (since the CP9 probably thought they'd beat the strawhats before they got the chance to even get near him).

Then the same thing would have happened, Ussop and Franky would have made sure to save Robin after all the CP9 members were defeated.

Or hell, don't let ANY of them have the real key on that island; after all, Fukurou himself said that they have no problem tossing the key into the ocean in the event that the strawhats get to Robin early.

Yes, but usually keys and chains are stored together. Especially with such weak labelling "2" "3"…it just seems like extra management for no damn reason. The only point would be, why didn't they tell them, if you lose toss the key to the sea. This is just plain arrogance, they would have had admit they could lose AND in that case, still be able to move, not to mention all of the CP9 members were knocked out. Khalifa was electrocuted until she passed out, no one expected Monster point, big mouth guy did not have the key, kaku got decimated, wolf dude got cooked alive, door dude did not even participate in the game.

But in FI it feels like they just did just becuz.

Or, they wanted to help the man that saved Luffy's life during the war. Not to mention their connection through Arlong that put Nami and Jimbe in good terms.

HeartOfDarkness

@ShinigamiKing:

In thriller bark, they helped solely because they felt really bad for Brook (which I liked); it was their own agency. But in FI it feels like they just did just becuz.

One of the main characters was enslaved by the fishmens until she see's the overall situation, and instead decides to break the continuous chain of hatred…....... That to me is one of the strongest reasons for SH's to help Fishmen Island.

As for Luffy........ he helped a dog to get his owner's shop food in the beginning of the series....... That's all that needed to be said about it.

ShinigamiKing

@HeartOfDarkness:

One of the main characters was enslaved by the fishmens until she see's the overall situation, and instead decides to break the continuous chain of hatred…....... That to me is one of the strongest reasons for SH's to help Fishmen Island.

As for Luffy........ he helped a dog to get his owner's shop food in the beginning of the series....... That's all that needed to be said about it.

Yeah True. I guess I just forgot for some reason. Was embedded into the strawhat's dialogue?

Strooger

I'd say even one more island before DR would have helped a lot. Maybe separate the dwarfes and Sugar out of DR.

You probably already knew, but this was Oda's plan in the beginning. At the very least the part about the Tontattas being on their own separate island arc. Not so sure about Sugar, but given her context in the narrative I see few reasons for why Oda would place her on the Tontatta island, so far. But the idea of the Tontatta having their own, contained arc, where they later become involved in the Dressrosa storyline would be a lot better.

I remember questioning this idea a few months ago, due to me feeling like it would be almost RPG-like for the Strawhats to stop on one island, to complete on objective, to land on another, to get the mcguffin of success to finally face the last boss. But when considering just how chaotic and occasionally unbearable Dressrosa gets, it could have been a pretty good idea to make it feel a lot less busy. I would also say it would be for the better to put like Trebol's entire unit there, along with Sugar. That way we get an organic introduction to Viola, get Trebol taken out so he doesn't waste everyone's time with his fuckery in the final confrotation and Jora's fight doesn't just feel like a minor, meaningless footnote.

Speaking of Sugar, she's also handled exceptionally poorly. There's so much potential wasted by making her such a low-grade enemy. Instead she could have been the main antagonist of that dwarf island. And instead of getting her abilities explained by blatant telegraphing and thus killing basically all tension, we should learn about them more by her doing stuff. Like she actually gets more and more Strawhats which results not only in interesting character interactions between the remaining ones, but also creates a lot of tension as we still have to figure out what the fuck actually goes on there. Seriously, why revealing a mindfuck inducing power before any actual mindfuck to the protagonist is done?!

My guess is that Oda was afraid that he had constructed such an absurdly overpowered devil fruit, that he couldn't think of any better ways to give her abilities better wiggle room. But I definetly agree, her powers could have been used for so much more than just have her be a lever to pull for introducing anarchy.