It's been a while since I've watched, but holy cow, that fight scene felt like a different anime all together!
Latest posts made by PirateHunter
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RE: 933: ''Gyuukimaru! Zoro Duels On Bandit Bridge''
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RE: Chapter 908: The Reverie Begins
@Daz:
Another thing is, I really don't see how World King declaring to have some pirate killed is going to make stuff substantially different. I mean, lets say s/he calls out for Luffys head: How does that change the WGs current approach? Does it imply that they haven't really been trying up till now - despite Luffy being a D, beating up several warlords, decalring war on the government directly and so on and so on?
What if the King called for Blackbeard to be killed? Would the elder stars just shuffle their feet embarrasedly, or are we supposed to believe an emperor can be killed by the whim of the World Pope?
I am enjoying the mystique, but I definitely agree that this new dynamic requires substantial fleshing out.
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RE: Chapter 900: Bad End Musical (Break)
I'm not in the habit of complaining about breaks, but damn! What a cliffhanger.
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RE: Chapter 900: Bad End Musical (Break)
There's no way they escaped because there's still too much to resolve, right? It has to be a dream? That still seems like such a stretch…I guess it could just be a standard doomsday-comeback transition.
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RE: Chapter 896: The Last Request
I experienced most of the pre-timeskip content first through the anime, so the pacing issues were characteristically different. What's the significant difference between Luffy vs. Lucci and Luffy vs. Katakuri (focusing on narrative structure/pacing and not, for example, the difference between Lucci and Katakuri as characters, or the vastly superior setup of Enies Lobby)? Does it just feel more clunky because this wasn't the conclusion of a sequence of battles?
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RE: Chapter 896: The Last Request
@Count:
In the midst of Big Mom being the central antagonist focus, I don't think making Katakuri less redeemable as a character. Especially when his redeemable traits redeemed the character's generic stoic edgy appearance foe me after his appearance in the wedding.
I think the answer is making Katakuri's internal conflict and influence feel as memorable as Franky vs. Señor Pink with the latter's flashback, but on the scale of a climactic Luffy fight. Which Oda tried do, and did a tolerable job of. But it suffers from all of the setup starting during the fight and the fight being segmented all over the place to disrupt the pacing, and thus disrupt how much we care about the fight. Better buildup and tragedy on that front which amounts to more than "I'll disappoint my shallow siblings" and Luffy himself being more invested in the fight somehow. Like Luffy consciously proclaiming to prove Katakuri's principles of molding his life based on his family's expectations wrong, and that's why he has a better relationship with his crew/family, rather than that being something he does incidentally because Luffy is only interested for getting stronger.
Basically, Luffy needed more of the thematic weight he had when knocking out Bellamy's ass in Jaya to avenge his friends and prove the value of dreams, while Katakuri needed more consistent and compelling internal conflict build-up on the tension level of Señor Pink's flashback. But for what Oda did do for these character's motivations, it's still tolerable.
It's certainly tolerable, but I think you've hit the salient points. I had forgotten that characters like Katakuri and Tamago play the much-needed role of balancing the dysfunction that plagues the rest of the crew (including Big Mom).
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RE: Chapter 896: The Last Request
Would it have been better if Katakuri were a less redeemable villain? Oda spent a lot of time softening his edges; there probably would have been better (and more appropriate) drama if Katakuri were more consistently ruthless.
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RE: Chapter 896: The Last Request
I enjoyed this more than I thought it would. Glad this arc is coming to a close.
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RE: Chapter 884: Who
! What is the point of saying these Yonkou control large territories if we're not going to get even a glimpse of it, if it's all going to stop at Wano? It's a waste of an opportunity, to say the least (yes we can still see them but without the looming threat it loses the excitement of that). And it doesn't need to be climactic having them fight through his commanders to get to him, it's when they finally do get to him that it should be climactic, which is the point when he's the big boss of that crew, isn't it? Caesar Clown (loser) being beaten was hardly climactic at all but when we got to see Doflamingo fall, damn if it wasn't ultra climactic. Since Big Mom's not going down (in a fair fight, at least), there's no need for, or expectation for, this arc to be climactic. But the more buildup we get, the more satisfying the payoff, I would say. So having this preview of what it's like to futz with a Yonkou in what amounts to a prison break is the perfect starting point for an actual mission to dethrone a Yonkou once they've got a better plan than Bege's lame one, for example.
! And if you're correct about the scale of this gargantuan alliance, cramming it all together at once is going to be nightmarish. For one thing, it's already a bit irritating that the crew has to split up like this so frequently now, and if they're going to toss a huge amount of people together at the same time it's going to be like some of the worst parts of Bleach (although to be fair, we'll know most of these OP characters, whereas in Bleach they threw dozens of strangers at us in a short duration.) What makes the most sense narrative-wise is to parse it out, gain allies jumping in little by little, getting closer and closer to where Kaido's downfall will take place, have everyone positioned wherever they need to be (maybe have a ship offshore waiting to fire weapons, and the main force attacking directly, etc.) One place having all this happen is going to look like a wasteland by the time they get done tearing it all apart. It's not usually Oda's style to completely devastate a place once the fighting is over (at least not friendly places; to hell with Enies Lobby after that Buster Call) so it would be more expected of him to have a smaller skirmish occur in Wano and, regardless of where they go in pursuit of the conclusion of this crusade, end in Kaido's stronghold where he not only gets beat but watches his castle crumble all around him.
! For the sake of Oda delivering a cohesive string of events, he'll have to pace it if he's going to continue to impress us as he's done for over a decade now. I mean, does this not sound like something that could work out nicely?
1. Wano, reunion with SH, Law crew and alliance with native Wano peeps, fight off Kaido's Zoan blokes and let them see just how serious these worst generation punks are firsthand
2. Second island in getting closer to Kaido's stronghold, meet up with Kidd/Apoo/Hawkins alliance, build a veritable armada of supernova crews, maybe get sidetracked looking for something the new guys have their eye on that can help turn the tide
3. Get interrupted by X Drake, fight him and convince him to switch sides, maybe he wanted that all along and just needed to be convinced he could find others who were strong enough to actually accomplish the feat
4. Get to Kaido's stronghold, have trump card of Luffy's armada from Dressrosa show up to help in the last stand to make a path to Kaido for the main fighters while the remaining Zoan SMILE guys are beaten back
! A lot cleaner than trying to cram all of that into Wano, no?
! And I forgot to address this before, when I criticized Brook, my main issue with him is being a swordsman really steps on Zoro's toes and I'm not too keen on that. I actually like him a lot as a character but I wish he'd use musical instruments as weapons instead of a blade. Or even using a violin bow as an improvised sword would be better, IMO, just so Zoro would be the unique swordsman in the group. Just a tad bothersome but whatevs, he hardly gets any screen time anyway. But at this point I'm prone to get extremely irritable with people who've argued that Kinemon or another samurai will be joining the crew for that reason.
! I wouldn't have known that. I'm not that up to speed on the folklore of Japan itself, just what's adapted into their stuff now and whatever little tidbits I hear about as DVD extras or on forums like this.I agree with most of what you've said, but if, for example, Greg is right about Wano being composed of four different islands, I think the scopes fit. In other words, we can have the necessary progression/separate-but-eventually-joining storylines without feeling crammed. To me, the extreme of what you're describing is Oda taking us on a 10-year journey through increasingly significant islands in Kaido's territory (which again, may be less substantial since he doesn't seem like the most enterprising yonko) culminating in some grand finale. I do think that's too much investment for this conflict, or at least I can easily imagine Oda doing something less substantial. There's still so much that needs to happen. Given that Oda has already toiled with the disparity between Kaido and Luffy, it's more likely that he is saving a lot of that progression for future conflicts (with Blackbeard, the WG, etc.).
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RE: Chapter 884: Who
His HQ is shaped exactly like Onigashima from the most famous Japanese folktale located on what is probably a wlnter island of what will probably make up Wano's 4 seasonal islands.
Aha, actual insight.