I am genrally pretty meh about the fights we got. I just liked that one chapter where Sanji crushed the germa suit.
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Chapter 1,049: The World That Should Be
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Aside from the 5 vs 2 Rooftop Battle there wasn't any fights I super enjoyed. Robin vs Black Maria had some cool moves, Sasaki vs Franky was hilarious, but the only one that landed some form of emotional impact was the last chapters of Law/Kid vs Big Mom. Bullshit powers aside, that was a fun fight and the kind of tag team action I wish we'd see more of in the series. Ulti was by far the most fun villain. I loved every panel of her. It's a shame she had to go down like that.
Speaking off, we better get a cover story for Ulti and Page 1. They'd be perfect for it.
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I still love the Law and Kid Vs Big Mom fight and is one of my favourites despite disliking the entire notion of two of them taking her down. There was little to no screen switching/jumping around and the screentime was limited to and resolved in that few chapters.
They also didn't have a long "staredown" where they stand around and not be serious for a long time like the other fights. Well, except for the Kid's thing. the fight was an "we encountered each other and threw all we had at each other". It just felt so right and so good as compared to Sanjis and Zoros which had below average finishers and the scene was jumping here and there and their opponents also never felt like they pushed themselves to the point that big mom did. -
I don't know if you were referring to my post or commenting generally.
But I feel that Nami's fight was severely derailed by Oda's realization that with Big Mom on-site, Zeus obeying Nami over her is still unjustified, that relationship had to be built for Nami to "earn" her weapon.
The Ulti fight is bad if you view it as a shonen fight, but as set-up for Nami finally getting the upgrade locked-in no matter what Big Mom does, it's actually more enjoyable than expected. P1 essentially had his fight with Sanji in Act 2, so I don't mind .
I think all of those are fair enough points, and I appreciate how much time Oda dedicated to forming an actual bond and relationship between Zeus and Nami instead of letting him just be something Nami stole from Big Mom. All that was well done! The problem is: there is absolutely no reason Oda had to have Big Mom step in and deal Ulti such a brutal blow, which in turn cheapened Nami finally defeating her (thankfully she at least got to do that). So, the animosity between Ulti and Nami was really well-developed, probably better than it was for any other enemies Nami fought. Ulti was totally fixated on Nami after she dared to defy her and Nami was completely pissed at Ulti after she hurt Tama. Great! Setup for their fight well done!
What had also been established was that Nami could hurt Ulti, but wouldn't be able to actually defeat her with her current power set, which also makes sense, since we had Zeus as an incoming, well-deserved power-up all setup, and that's what power-ups are for after all. This all works pretty well but where Oda fumbled was by having Big Mom actually hurt Ulti. That never should have happened. Is it believable and in-character for Big Mom to attack her after she hurt Tama? Certainly.
But there would have been such a super easy way too avoid the whole thing: just have Nami land a powerful wind attack on Ulti that blows her far away for a while! This way, she would be out of the way so Big Mom couldn't quickly get to her and attack her even if she wanted, too. And then, after we've gone through the whole "Zeus apparently gets eaten" shtick, Ulti could resurface to attack them once more, like she eventually did anyway, for the two of them to have their final showdown. It would have been great, and the way things actually happened were simply unnecessary.
EDIT: Oh btw, since I'm currently reading Volume 100 for the first time: the setup for Robin and Black Maria's fight is so amazingly well-done. Robin just appearing and slapping the shit out of Black Maria and then later asking her "were those your last words?"…one of my favorite Robin moments of all time:wub:
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You know what would be threatening since Kaido's out of the picture and everyone alive doesn't feel like a threat to Luffy? By having every not alive character to be reintroduced as villains of course.
Just have Blackbeard revive his father Rocks with Moria's fruit and we can get the 4th ninja war.You mean five seconds after he got it? Two years ago?
Isn't the whole point being that he might be acquiring more devil fruits towards the end game and that would be a significant power boast which I'm saying, it won't because just eating them doesn't make him proficient at it. Sure, he got the quake and darkness fruit now and 2 years is a fair to say he would be good at it, but you see how all this would be a threat before Luffy just sent Kaido flyin- I mean, plummeting him to the ground. BB is not a Kaido, Whitebeard or a Rayleigh battle type character that favor hard work and mastery over being a scum as shown from him camping on a ship to sneak kill a crewmate.
And not being AS tanky as Kaidou is fine, we've gotten the brick wall fight now, something else is more fun. Fromt he moment BB's fruit was introduced it even had the caveat that he takes more damage because of it, so him taking hits worse than Kaidou was a given over a decade ago.
His being able to turn off powers and wreck islands from miles away, plus any third ability or ancient weapon he might get, make him crazyh.
You see, I would be inclined to agree with you if not for the fact that Oda has repeatedly proved that he only goes the route of escalation with his villains. He also has shown that he likes to upscale attacks and the size of things so you can see, based on how he concluded roughly 99% of his climatic fights, that I do not believe any endgame battles is going to end on a strategy with Luffy having lost his powers…or any strategies at all. I do agree with your wreck islands from miles away being a huge possibility but I really, really do not want to see it happen because we all know how interesting giant beams and bombs can be. This entire escalation to attacks the size of nukes in shounen endgame is a conversation i'm sure you had a lot of times and also have regarding how it's detrimental to the series.
Regarding BB being tanky, your premise bank on the fact that BB is somehow more tankier than Luffy, despite this entire fight with Kaido and even way back then with every other villains showing that he IS the tankiest and STILL punches harder. Okay, so we got the main character that's a tank but the end game villain is a greater tank! But how do we convince our readers of that? By making sure they forgot all the moments that luffy has shown godlike stamina prowess and bank on that few panels of Blackbeard tanking a half dead whitebeard's attack, that will surely hype him up as a threat! Sure, it can go that road but Luffy actually did survive a fully powered and healthy Kaido so the sense of belief is almost non-existent if that happens.
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I think Blacky will be an interesting combination of strength, toughness, offensive abilities, defensive abilities and brains. He's not as tough as Kaido but he's more than tough enough, he's not as destructive as red dawg but he can still dish out more than you can take etc etc. Instead of thinking how will he outshine each individual big player in their specific field it is more interesting to think of him as for instance Kaido but without Kaidos limitations
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Yeah, Sasaki is really undercooked when it comes to the elites. I did find his fight with Franky entertaining. It's just that the guy himself has nothing going for him outside the fight. He's the guy that you'd just shove in a corner somewhere drinking at a post-arc party. Or he's like Suleiman who just goes "Yo, I'm joining up with Cavendish, k bye."
Pay Pay is also lacking, but to be fair, I'm fine with calling him a Mr. 4 to Ulti's Miss Merry Christmas. They're a great duo, it's just a shame we didn't get to see them doing any combo attacks or really working together. I can imagine the rest of the elites up and about and interacting with other characters. Personally still expecting a little recruitment drive in the post arc where some of the beast pirates are fighting over whether to join Law, Kidd, or strike back out on their own. Law especially needs some more goofy characters forced onto him (Ulti and Pay Pay) and Kidd should get a bone thrown to him too.
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No point having Beasts Pirates join the Supernova when a point was made clear throughout the arc about true loyalties.
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Blackbeard is fine. Luffy is OP thanks to his powers and Blackbeard take away powers.
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Franky vs Sasaki was fine, it just didn't have that extra oomph for me to call it amazing.
The other fights were fine but definitely left me wanting.
NAMI and Usopp… I refuse to acknowledge that one. Ulti got done dirty
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Comparing Page1 and Ulti to Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Xmas is a fkin joke. The latter actually gave us fun and awesome fight with the totally iconic Usopp moment. But Page1 and Ulti are just a setup fodder for Big Mom. We COULD had one awesome tag time moment between good ol' partner Usopp and Nami but nooo… imo one of the most embarassing moment in Wano.
Looking back, the fight I enjoyed in Onigashima were Robin vs Black Maria and Kid & Law vs Big Mom. Overall the Beast Pirates are a joke. For a supposedly strongest Yonko crew they lost without many difficulties. Last time we fought a Yonko crew, we almost get wiped out and two of the commanders alone gave Luffy himself such a hard time, even fighting him for HOURS.
"No more shall man have wings to bear him to paradise. Henceforth, he shall walk.." - Venat
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This post is deleted!
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I've genuinely enjoyed most of the fights so far. The dinosaur gags have been great and the rooftop showdown was full of incredibly impressive art and had a great sense of scale. Onigashima has been great for Sanji after a long period of stagnation. It might not have been exactly how I would have written it, but having him confront his uselessness against women opponents by first asking for help and putting faith in his crew, and second doing a self-assessment of which version of him helps Luffy more is leagues ahead anything I'd previously helped for. Robin's spotlight moment was also long overdue, and it was great seeing Chopper get to do some doctoring during the actual climax of the arc.
A few of the fight endings did fall short though. Nami and Usopp having their opponents mostly just swept up by Big Mom sucks really hard, and I was pretty underwhelmed by King's fight building up a big mystery about how his powers and racial traits work only for it to not really matter. I don't dislike how Luffy vs Kaido ended, but it's definitely not the series' best villain KO moment, but maybe with the size of the arc it needed to cap off, expectations were too high for it to ever fully live up.
Oda's biggest win of Onigashima is definitely Onigashima itself. The look and atmosphere of it are both breathtaking. He's made obvious effort to map out the interior in great detail and keep consistent where everyone is, what direction they're going, and which parts are getting damaged and set on fire. It feels like a real, functional place, not just an arena backdrop, and that's made it all the more joyful to see it gradually get torn apart by the battle. It really is something else.
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Comparing Page1 and Ulti to Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Xmas is a fkin joke. The latter actually gave us fun and awesome fight with the totally iconic Usopp moment. But Page1 and Ulti are just a setup fodder for Big Mom. We COULD had one awesome tag time moment between good ol' partner Usopp and Nami but nooo… imo one of the most embarassing moment in Wano.
Looking back, the fight I enjoyed in Onigashima were Robin vs Black Maria and Kid & Law vs Big Mom. Overall the Beast Pirates are a joke. For a supposedly strongest Yonko crew they lost without many difficulties. Last time we fought a Yonko crew, we almost get wiped out and two of the commanders alone gave Luffy himself such a hard time, even fighting him for HOURS.
I think that Oda realized Nami and Usopp weren't strong enough to beat them, but he should have had one of the Samurai come to help fight them off instead of Big Mom. I think had one of the Oyabuns or a Scabbard or whoever helped, it would have been better.
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I've enjoy the arc so far,and it seems to me that some of the complains you all have might as well be by design, we know the world goverment battleships are waiting outside, and will probably attack now that the pirates are weakened from fighting, with all the top fighthers down it would be up to the weaker crewmembers to hold down the attacks until they stand back up. This way we can see the tension and despair some people seems to want,have Ussop do some serius sniping, maybe see the new weapons that have been mention multiple times since the timekip, and better finishing moves in the fights.
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Comparing Page1 and Ulti to Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Xmas is a fkin joke. The latter actually gave us fun and awesome fight with the totally iconic Usopp moment. But Page1 and Ulti are just a setup fodder for Big Mom. We COULD had one awesome tag time moment between good ol' partner Usopp and Nami but nooo… imo one of the most embarassing moment in Wano.
Looking back, the fight I enjoyed in Onigashima were Robin vs Black Maria and Kid & Law vs Big Mom. Overall the Beast Pirates are a joke. For a supposedly strongest Yonko crew they lost without many difficulties. Last time we fought a Yonko crew, we almost get wiped out and two of the commanders alone gave Luffy himself such a hard time, even fighting him for HOURS.
I wasn't comparing them for their fights, god no, the Alabasta Duo completely blow Ulti and Pay Pay away on that quality. It was just a point to say that it doesn't matter that Pay Pay has little characterization like Sasaki, cause at least he's attached to Ulti much like Mr. 4 was in the Alabasta duo. They're different types of duos, but the basic traits are still there.
It's not hard to call Maria as Robin's Kalifa. They carry enough similar beats and characterizations.
Sasaki is ultimately like a Braham from Skypiea. Forgettable and just kinda around. Sasaki at least has the amusing Triceratops moment to try and be memorable, but we'll see if anyone even remembers him in a year.
Haven't really thought of a comparison for Who's Who yet…. hmm... maybe Jabra? Casual racism vs. bad wolf lying poking the hornets nest to trigger people and fairly amusing trolls all around.
And yes, I expect all of these beast pirates to be awake and active for some moments of personality and amusement in the post-arc. I don't expect anyone to just get shuttled off to the government ships unconscious to be forgotten except maybe Jack.
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