So I've finished Ennies Lobby (will start Post-Ennies Lobby next week). And I have to say, the whole CP9 saga (excluding post-ennies lobby) was a fun read, but the ennies lobby portion was noticeably not as strong as that of other arcs before it despite having a lot of epic moments.
Zoro's fight with Kaku and Sanji's fight with Jabra literally left me shaking me head. One of the great things about previous One Piece fights were that Oda made sure he compensated for the fact that the characters didn't train by having them struggle like hell, or use wits - or even both. Sanji and Usopp's batttles in the Arlong Arc are perfect examples of them trying hard as hell to beat their foes and survive against opponents that may have been tougher than them.
But it's like Oda ran himself into a hole with the ennies lobby arc, because he hyped up the CP9 agents so much, but didn't really focus on how the strawhats were gonna defeat them logically, so he just started pulling this bs "we've gotten stronger with every fight" crap (which may be true…), for the sake of justifying an asspull powerup (which is bad). It just establishes a bad precedent that just ruins everything.
Even when Luffy finally defeated Lucci was similar. It was basically a friendship powerup, quite literally. I expected that shit in Fairy Tail, not One Piece! You're telling me Luffy is just gonna will his way through that because he got reminded of Robin? Don't get me wrong, Sogeking taking off his mask was pretty awesome and definitely would provide a wake up call, but I don't like the idea that Luffy would all of sudden just defeat him Lucci like that. I mean, what, why even struggle in any future battle? Why not just have an asspull/friendship power up?
It felt like Chopper was just there during the saga. Franky was awesome though, and Usopp/Sogeking had the best moments of the arc by far.
Robin's backstory was incredible, and I also really enjoyed Franky and Iceburg's stories too - but I didn't really like how they handled the whole identity thing. I mean Franky looks just like Cutty Flam, and he even told Kalifa that his name wwas Cutty Flam when he requested to see Iceburg 4 years before the start of the story... I mean I don't know, couldn't CP9 - the government intelligence group - have figured that out? couldn't they have gone to the warehouse? I didn't like how that was handled.
I also didn't like how Luffy easily nuked the marines when he arrived in Ennies Lobby. I mean Ennies Lobby is supposed to be the big shit, y'know? Why are there just fodder marines there? I mean it can obviously be justified by the fact that Ennies Lobby usually holds prisoners - in sea-stone handcuffs - because it's a judicial island, and thus situations like that which happened with the Strawhats aren't ever likely, but still. (This one I'll just chock up to my expectations, I wouldn't call it an actually flaw in the story).
Luffy's motivation for beating the pigeon guy felt weak and basic to me as well. I'm not sure why. The whole core of them saving Robin felt more childish than in any of the other arcs, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the lack of interaction and range that we saw the crew have with Robin? I mean for instance, it was epic when Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, and Chopper avenged Usopp in Frnaky House because the viewer/reader could tell how much he meant to them - we saw the happy moments, the funny moments, the iritative moments, the near-death moments, etc. It felt like the strawhats barely knew Robin - not in terms of backstory, but in terms of normal interaction.
I liked the theme with absolute justice, but the arc seemed to disregard that as it went on, to a point where Lucci saying stuff like "dark justice" at the end just felt vague and forced.
I just couldn't feel the emotions of the Merry's death. Maybe it's because Usopp was the only one who actually cared about the damn thing for a majority of the story? As late as Water 7, the crew was criticizing Usopp because they considered it to be an inanimate object. Maybe it's because we never really saw the whole "ship is our comrade" thing with other pirates I guess? someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Overally, I'd give the saga (up until post-ennies lobby) a 7/10.