@Maju:
yeah,but this is an SBS
how much time and thought do you think oda puts in answering those questions?
if there's a place where we should not expect any kind of effort in overcoming this habit of is..is in 2 quick sketches made for an SBS
of course he could have just made her like her child self but bigger..but at that point it would be kind of useless to draw her in the first place..he had to came up with 2 designs in 1 minute and defaulted to the usual…for Oda standards they are even different enough from the usual namiface.
! To clarify, when I made that comment in reply to other users in this thread, the conversation geared away from solely the Big Mom SBS to the overall conundrum of repetitive faces and body shapes for women throughout the series. If we got varied female characters but the Big Mom SBS still occurred, I would only think it looks it looks a bit random/weird and move on. But when it is at least the fourth time Oda has gone with "this old lady used to be a generic hot lady in her youth" drawn with the same repetitive hourglass shape and a face that looks almost nothing like them, SBS gag or real answer, it gets old. Especially when that idea of "beauty" is typically executed with the same type of Nami/Robin clone face and body shape.
! And even then, it's not even really about just that either. Because I'm used to how females are portrayed in this series, so I'm surprised at myself that I got pushed to make a reply like that which is very redundant at this point. But it was moreso specific statements other people said that boiled down to condoning artists only varying up the designs of a certain human demographic with different clothes and colors than actually altering their shapes/bodies, or that "they're just side characters so it's fine to make them look generic with minor superficial differences", "male characters have clone faces too even though they are much less common and bound to happen in a series as huge as One Piece", "there are a couple arc anomalies where Oda makes unique female designs so it's fine to be repetitive for the rest of the entire series", or that it's okay to let an artist's flawed/repetitive biases in representing a certain demographic go uncriticized just because it's difficult to grow out of.
! I might be able to tolerate Oda's art-style for the most part, but I'm never going to agree with such low standards like that trying to defend his overall artistic portrayal of women (let alone how he writes them in action scenarios). I'm not even an artist myself (although I do work with one almost every day), yet I have so much respect for art-styles as surreal and versatile in designs and emotional contexts as Oda's. So to see him purposefully make a choice not to branch out with one gender's designs while he does so all of the time for the other out of a shallow view on beauty, even though he has made varied females for two arcs, is nothing but ridiculous to me. We as fans should not have to make excuses for an author's petty biases and/or laziness, end of story. And something just really, REALLY grinds me about how I have seen plenty of artists humbly admit their own biases and are willing to put their personal comfort and pride aside for qualitative standards while Oda basks in it without a hint of regret unless he risks repeating making a whole cast of clone faces like he did as an assistant that one time as his phobia.
! If you're fine with Big Mom's SBS designs, that's cool. I don't really agree with the reasons people put out since I can't see a pirate mob boss who forces children/allies into following her whims like Big Mom ever caring about how she looks or having the willpower to make herself thin unless she paid a call to Ivankov or any Ope Ope no Mi users lol, but I can respect your opinion and see where your reasoning comes from. But talking about Oda's OVERALL portrayal of women is something else entirely lol, even if he fortunately writes them better than plenty of other mangaka. I don't want to kickstart this discussion topic again because I have already made my points here in this thread and the spoiler thread, and we can move onto much more productive discussion than beating a dead horse like Oda's portrayal of women in this series. This might be a manga for teen boys, but I wish that I had more favorite female characters as a kid who both looked and acted cool.
But yeah, 28 year old Big Mom's face is somewhat different from Robin and Nami's faces. But it still looks nothing like her child or adult self. Her 48 year old appearance on the other hand actually does look like her, and also actually attractive in her own unique way without needing to look stereotypically thin.
well the point is that logia are supposed to be natural phenomemons related,and mochi isn't a natural phenomenon…so i'm kind of pleased with the change.
as per the problem with ichiji's attack,oda can just modify the panel showing ichiji just attacking him without splitting him in 2..in fact i didn't even notice that was the case the first time i read the chapter.
The point of Logias is that they are both natural phenomenon themed and can't be hurt by attacks not imbued with either an elemental weakness of Armament Haki. And I would declare the latter element being more important since it is a function that is frequently prevalent in the plot rather than being solely an aesthetic like the nature theme.
I hope he does modify the panels, but I'm going to keep my expectations low since completely redrawing the panels where Katakuri gets shot by Bege and split in half by Ichiji are changes that are more drastic than the usual "I forgot to draw Sanji's beard or this character's wounds".
@garonne:
luffy and trebol are different types of paramecia tho. trebol is more like doffy, they can create the substance, not become it; similar to mr 3.
this actually doesn't bode well for plot holes. calling it a special paramecia may save it, but the fact that he can turn himself into the substance and also create it and detach it by giving mochi ear plugs is a first of his kind. Him being a logia would also be first of its kind. either way this may not have been thought about and was just a cool idea that he wanted to implement.
I know they are different types, but Luffy is an anomaly that doesn't really have anybody like him besides maybe Daz Bones. Meanwhile, Trebol, Magellan, and Galdino are alike. Katakuri being a Logia would be the first of its kind, but at least it functions exactly like a Logia would. I just barely prefer it being Paramecia, but I hope some of Katakuri's intangibility panels are changed to clear all of this up.
@Riddler:
I too think that Nightmare Luffy sort of came out of nowhere and was a little cheap, but I feel there were some very valid reasons for letting him save the day from a story perspective that make him an alright inclusion to me in this context. When Moria started to control and help Oars during his fight with the Strawhats that was actually how he was planning to beat Kaido, a freaking Yonkou! If any one of the Strawhat crew, even if they were all fighting together, would have been able to defeat Moria+Oars, Moria would have completely lost any credibility both as a villain and a force to be reckoned with. How the hell would this guy ever be able to defeat Kaido if even his strongest weapon would lose against this crew of rookies?? Or in turn, it would have made Kaido look weaker; if the Strawhats could beat Moria+Oars, who are planning to fight a Yonkou, this could leave the impression that the Yonkous aren't all that.
Now, obviously we don't know if Moria actually would have been able to beat Kaido with Oars or not; it doesn't matter because this fight is obviously never going to happen anyway. But Oda had to sell us, the readers, on Morias threat level.And he did so by depicting Moria and Oars together as a fighting combo that the Strawhat crew in their normal form would not be able to win against. Before Moria joins the fight, Oars is already a huge threat BUT the battle is very clearly slowly shifting and the Strawhats are gaining the upper hand. However, once Moria joins the fray and him and Oars work together, it becomes crystal clear that together they are leagues above the crews combined strength - our heroes don't stand a chance anymore, as they shouldn't.
Nightmare Luffy at this point becomes their only hope, a version of Luffy that is much, much stronger than his normal form (I'd say stronger than Post-Timeskip Luffy, too; I doubt he would be able to effortlessly stop a punch from Oars with just one hand! And it's not inconsequential that he doesn't end up beating Oars, because that is not his purpose: his purpose is not to beat Oars or Moria, but to separate them, so the fight becomes fair again. If he had actually beaten Oars, this would indeed have been a very anti-climactic Deus Ex Machina; the victory against Oars belongs to the Strawhat crew, who, after Moria and Oars get separated, swiftly proceed to work together and actually defeat him. This is much more satisfying than if Nightmare Luffy would have just come in and solved everything.
But there is even more to the fact that the Strawhats ultimately need something that pretty much is a Deus Ex Machina to be able to defeat their enemies in this arc: it shows us a situation where the Strawhat crew is incredibly close to defeat. If they wouldn't have had incredible luck in this situation and Luffy wouldn't have become Nightmare Luffy, they would have been done for. This neatly fits together with Morias speech at the end that they aren't ready for the New World and of course foreshadows their ultimate defeat in the very next arc, only a couple of chapters later.
I agree with you, but here is the one issue. The Straw Hat Pirates were already doing decently against only Oars just by themselves. If Moria needed to be thrown in with Oars to make the situation grim for the Straw Hats, then do you know what is the simple thing the story needed to do? Just reunite Luffy with his crew. Not a powered-up Luffy, just Luffy lol. Especially since I am sure we all think that Luffy can take Moria in a 1v1 fight if he doesn't have to worry about Moria trying to escape all of the time.
Nightmare Luffy never needed to be the hope of the Straw Hats, only base Luffy did. But because we had to get Nightmare Luffy involved, Moria gets knocked out and we end up getting Luffy and the Straw Hats versus Oars. Which is back to square one and makes me wonder why exactly we needed Luffy to be separated from the Straw Hats at all other than cheap suspense and a random cool-looking power-up?
If we stuck with the Straw Hats versus Oars and then escalated it to Luffy and the Straw Hats versus Moria and Oars, then the battle only keeps growing and growing in power and stakes without feeling like it needlessly backtracks. But instead, the first phase of the fight before the captains became involved looks pointless since the Straw Hats needed Luffy to beat Oars in the end anyways and not just with separating Moria from Oars. It does the crew a disservice in looking like they can't get much done without needing their captain around, even if he is understandably the strongest person in the group. One of the biggest complaints about Thriller Bark is how all of the Straw Hat versus Oars antics felt dragged out and pointless in the end before Luffy showed up. And we wouldn't have had to get Shadows Asgard Moria get embarrassingly one-shotted by Gear Second+Third Luffy right after ignoring that Luffy is immune to blunt attacks (even if they can break apart an island), which makes Moria still get made fun of as an underwhelming arc villain all over the internet. Moria getting defeated with Oars simultaneously only helps both of them get a unique arc fight and look intimidating.
Shadows Asgard was Oda's second attempt at having the "the arc antagonist has a secret advanced form but it turns that Luffy ain't having none of that so they're just getting one-shotted" after Enel's Raijin form in Skypiea. But it only worked the first time with Enel because it worked as payoff to Luffy overcoming both the huge golden ball attached to his hand and destabilizing Deathpiea. At that point, we were just sick of Enel and wanted that fool gone after overcoming both of those contingency tactics and knowing that Luffy is immune to electricity. But when Shadows Asgard Moria appeared, it had a different context because we were like "Wait, I just realized that we never saw how Luffy could beat Moria on his own, and now has a new form! How are the Straw Hats getting out of this?" and then Luffy knocks out Moria without breaking a sweat. Unlike Enel, Moria's endgame tactics of recovering from a losing battle looked underwhelmingly pathetic. Which makes us go from "How they can possibly get out of this?" to "Wow, that was really underwhelming and pointless."
And the whole "You aren't ready for the New World" message still works since the Straw Hats needed to team-up to just barely defeat Moria and Oars in my proposed scenario, just like they needed to rely on teaming up to defeat a Pacifista in Sabaody Archipelago before getting overwhelmed by Kuma, Sentomaru, and Kizaru. We thought that the Straw Hats defeating Moria and Oars was a big feat, but nope, we find out that they only managed to barely defeat glorified New World fodder and that Moria was totally right about them not being New World material. Meanwhile, Marineford Hancock, post-timeskip Luffy, post-timeskip Zoro, and post-timeskip Sanji can all one-shot Pacifistas.