Aaaaand I'm back! What a shiny new site, looking good. I've missed having an actual forum around, as opposed to commenting on articles on various sites where discussions have a shelf like of like, a few hours tops.

Now, to try and restrain myself so that I won't spend too much time on pent-up critical analysis.

Though I very very much wouldn't object to scenes of the SHs showing an active interest in what each other are doing/have been doing, I can mostly accept that OP is just not the kind of series that allots time for that, and roll with the straw hats as good friends just because. What sometimes break that perspective are the instances where newer SH's show complete ignorance to their crewmates prior adventures -being casual and living in the moment is one thing, but living together for months on end and apparently not having any conversations about things that happened in the past (the quite recent past!) just feels bizarre to me, considering what a close-knit, familial unit they're supposed to be. Like they don't need to sit down and have sould-searching conversations while they look into each others eyes, but it sometimes feel as if questions akin to "so, how did you spend your weekend?" or "what did you do for your summer vacation?" don't exist on the sunny

I find it really hard to interpret Hiyoris retort being about Orochi and only Orochi given the context of the conversation, where the pun is a clapback to Orochi evoking the grudge of his clan at large. Going "screw YOU Orochi, and just you!" would leave the grudge of the clan at large unadressed, and wouldn't really work as a blow so devastating that it dispels the evil specter of Orochi in despair, considering that he is specifically evoking a curse bigger than himself on the land.

Also if Tama is actually canonically a Korozumi, the omission of any juxtaposition of her with Orochis clan subplot is downright bizarre.

Regarding WCI, I'd need a minor essay to go over my various hangups with the arc, but I don't think the chase is an issue, and theres tonnes of arresting, cool rollercoaster moments throughout. The arc also benefits from having a (comparatively) restrained cast. But theres all sorts of choices and resolutions (or lack thereof) that just bug me.

• A lot of plot beats/character repositionings are really sweaty in order to work (for example Wadatsumi and the boat), with several characters popping into existence to bluntly facilitate a certain outcome - like Katakuri fangirl Flampé, latecomer nonentity Streussen suddenly being supremely important, or worst of all, random eggplant guy sleeping in Sanjis bed (the amount of hoops needed to get Sanji and Luffy to meet back up is something else)
• The Vinsmokes are initially executed well as hateable assholes, but I find them and Sanjis new backstory very conceptually jarring, and them being positioned as "COOL" near the end is pretty maddening.
• The resolution to Sanjis handcuffs and the Zeff hostage situation feel very flat, and trading those stakes for "Sanji needs to save his Just Introduced Family of Supreme Assholes (Because Zeff cares deeply about honoring your blood ties?) feels like a major step down.
• I remain the only person on the internet who's totally bothered by the "Lets use CC warcrime rockets to assasinate Big Mom" scheme no matter how many times I hear rebuttals of "Moral greyness" and "end justifies the means" because the story itself expresses zero awareness of it being supposedly "Morally grey". As fun as Bege is, working with him after his attempted murder of Pekoms, and a big speech from Jinbe about how he betrays people for fun, also seems like something that there should be some textual awareness of, but not really.
• trying to wring sympathy for King Baums "sacrifice" also feels tone deaf, considering he was forcibly roped in against his will
• I wish Pedro wasn't so boring, considering his sacrifice.
• the Katakuri fight has a lot of cool imagery and has interesting characterization for Katakuri, but it has some issues- Luffy landing hits on Katakuri due to the latter being flustered doesn't carry forward in the fight, neither does it feel like Luffys CoO upgrade does -the fight ends up going so long - both in terms of chapters and in universe time -that it ends up feeling as if Luffy is "allowed" to keep going until he wins. Which you can say about many fights, but theres a balance to strike to make it believable, and I think Luffy v Katakuris balance is off, where it feels like save for a few hits Luffy is on the back foot for like 12hrs plus of continuous fighting, until he suddenly wins. And as said Katakuris characterization is interesting, but the beat of him murdering his subordinates to protect his image ("The thing Luffy hates most") feels completely forgotten by the end where we're supposed to find him sympathetic, and where Luffy even helps protect his image. I like the idea of "Perfect Big Brother is a bit tired of being perfect", but I think this moment goes too far into standard OP villainy mode for how otherwise "honorable" the fight ends up as.
• The arc ends feeling like theres a lot of shoes waiting to drop with Big Mom, that still haven't dropped post-defeat and might not ever. And even if there was never supposed to be any further follow up with Sanjis whole cake-baking business, I don't feel the callback to his "I'll feed anyone!" mantra fully works - with Gin he earns his respect by feeding him out of the kindndess of his heart with nothing to gain, but with Big Mom the cake is a means to deflect the wrath of someone he's just tried to have assasinated, not really something he does because Big Mom is starving, or for the sake of her children or something.

All that said...It's definetely among the best Post Skip arcs. Probably the best. Like much of Post Skip I feel like some things could have used more time, some things are real sweaty, some things are glossed over...but it also feels more streamlined and cohesive than other post-skip arcs, and as said, more character-focused. Comparing the last chapter of Whole Cake feels like a world of difference to the last chapter of Wano, though Whole Cake arguably gains a lot by leaving the threat of Big Mom for the future to deal with.

Also, It's gonna be rough revisiting the Vinsmoke scenes, knowing that in the end all judges genetic tampering did take, and was even beneficial.

@BellisarioFaith said in Chapter 1057: The End:

Also gotta say: what is with this weird thing of trying to push Law as "totally definitely Luffy's rival now for real!"? Like, Luffy has had way more of a "rival" dynamic with Kid all this time, so the whole attempt at "Luffy and Law and Kid are three-way-rivals and equals like they originally were at Sabaody" is just not really believable after Luffy and Law have been allies for nearly 400 chapters (almost 40% of the entire story by now) and acted more like vitriolic friends when it was just the two of them around without Kid. And hell, it's not even just Law; I always kinda liked that One Piece averted the whole "stock Shonen rival" thing by having the closest thing to a rival for Luffy be his main enemy Blackbeard, so trying to force this whole rivalry thing now with even Kid, let alone Law, this late in the story just feels hard to take seriously. Meh, sure, whatever.

The trajectories -or lack thereof - of Law and Kid over this arc feels so underwhelming to me. Their rapport doesn't feel like it has meaningfully changed, it doesn't feel like the feat they just accomplished together has really sunk in. It's just "Well, back on the road again, see ya chumps!", but as you say, Luffy and Law have been allies for 400 chapters at this point (more if you go back to Marineford), over the course of which Luffy brought down Laws bitter archnemesis, they've accomplished the goal Law laid out in Punk Hazard, you can have him be a little grateful, show a little bit of a pride and satisfaction in their feat.
And Kid entered this arc totally bitter and mistrustful of the whole alliance concept, but ended up helping bringing down two Emperors through the power of Teamwork, in an arc all about gathering allies to pull off the impossible, so you could have a beat of him showing begrudging respect to Luffy.
Like still have them bicker and macho-posture if you want, but it'd be satisfying to see a depiction of a changed relationship to Luffy, like how usually happens. I can only assume its down to them being fan favorites slated for reappearances later, rather than more arc-specific characters, but it still leaves the arc resolution flat for them, especially considering how personally invested they were.

@Zar I may not've written full-fledged reviews but I've written a lot of criticism of manga over the years.
It's hard to nail down a specific "approach"; it starts with a gut feeling of "is this satisfying?" Like, does [moment] nail the emotion its going for, does it earn its payoff with clear setups, is there a buildup to the resolution or is it entirely offscreen? Is the moral/thematic point, if any, cogent and consistent?

One thing I've arrived at over the years is that I'm almost entirely interested in whats on the present page. Forget about speculating about how hypothetical future events might radically redeem things, what matters more is are things working as intended now. Similarly in terms of things being satisfying/earned I have little patience for grand character developments being left offscreen, leaving me to headcanon in all the lacking buildup and infer the connective tissue - I'm not here to puzzle out a story, to go "Oh that happened? Well, if we look back at X Y and Z I guess we can infer that it makes sense", I'm here to experience a story told by a narrator, to hopefully go "Amazing! Of course that is what happened, that is a satisfying payoff"

Also, where have you been reading reviews? Most discourse I see on One Piece (or anime in general) seems more concerned with summaries or playing the prediction/theorizing game than evaluation of pros and cons and such.

Starting off with Drake, I’ll join the chorus that he has so much wasted potential. To start off with, he’s a marine mole who’s infiltrated an Emperor crew, and we’ve seen him make the effort to join this crew specifically as far back as two years ago. And yet we never learn what his mission is, nor do we really get to see him do any real subterfuge or undermining of Kaidou from within. The closest is when he lets Law, a guy who’d shown up a few days ago, out of jail, but we have no sense of what he’s been doing for the past two years, or what he was hoping to do.

In terms of integration into Wano itself he feels lacking, which I feel is a major problem for all the supernova – going along with Drake being a largely inqonsequential mole he never seems to really care about the people of Wano. In fact quite the opposite, as he helps the Beast Pirates out at Yasuies execution and the Pivotal Soba Stand Raid, and very pointedly was the one to raze Tamas village to the ground, something that is absolutely NEVER brought up again. You could’ve so easily done some beats of Drake gradually coming to sympathise with the plight of the Wano residents which informs his switchings of sides, perhaps even have him go against his orders to do so, but instead he just joins Luffy when his cover is blown and a “Coby told him to trust Luffy” flashback materializes. And then at the end, Luffys whole alliance just forget abouts him and he’s left forgotten and beaten up inside Onagashima, lol?

Drake also expresses another problem of some of the other Supernova in Wano, in lack of follow through on his various interactions and connections. Like mentioned before the Tama connection goes nowhere. He tangoes with Sanji in act 2, but don’t interact with him after that. He rescues Law, but I can’t recall them ever getting a moment after that. He’s betrays Hawkins and is betrayed by him in turn, but ends up fighting…Apoo, whom he out of nowhere declares that he has a deep grudge against. Then suddenly, CP0 enters from stage left.

Like I said Drake had a lot of potential for interesting development, but he’s just left a bowl of sprawling, undercooked plotline noodles.

Also, he has the worst looking hybrid form in the entire series, which doesn’t help matters.

@Ivotas I feel similarly, but then again one of my overall qualms with current One Piece is the apparent very deliberate and blunt overusage of "Mysteries! Answers pending! Stay tuned and speculate!". This in turn feels like it has resulted in somewhat of a divide in the fans, at least here, where old-timers (including myself) are aggravated that things feel incomplete and resolutions seemingly get punted to the ineffable future, where other readers are more willing to give adopt the "wait and see" approach where things getting payoffs 200, 300 or more chapters down the line is as fine as getting payoffs in the context of the arcs themselves.

The biggest issue with the "Lingering Mysteries!" now is, as you allude to, that the things that go unanswered are deeply integral to the arcs themselves - I just can't get over how "opening Wanos borders" was at once an absolutely crucial bit of character motivation, and also left completely inscrutable

@Xelloss Yeah, I agree with this - the major, crucial difference between Vivi and Yamato is that Vivis ultimate choice was set up as a choice in the text right at the end, and hung explicitly over the last four chapters of the arc. The Straw hats were waiting for the answer as much as the readers were, and when the awaited answer comes it makes not only total character sense but is delivered with great cathartic fanfare - even if Vivi doesn't join, the scene still works like gangbusters. Also, Vivi hadn't spent Alabasta talking about how much she wanted to sail with the crew afterwards.

With Yamato there is never any indication that he needs to make, or even considers a choice, and the revelation that he has changed his mind offscreen at the last moment based on nothing in particular is a footnote in the chapter. Every bit of glorious dramatic juice was wrung from Vivis decline over several consecutive weeks, whereas Yamatos just lands with a limp thud at the end.

The whole Green Bull thing baffles me, thematically. The Wano arc, and the saga as a whole, is all about gathering allies, about beating impossible odds by banding together as opposed to going at it all alone, yet I feel the Green Bull coda goes against this. Like, I “logically” get Momos idea that Wano should be able to defend themselves to some degree, but it feels kinda superfluous and at odds with the massive gathering of allies who just saved the nation. Lack of military might wasn’t the reason Wano fell to Kaidou in the first place either. The final capper of the arc is even Luffy giving Wano his flag, which could tie back into the allies having Wanos back, and bring up the failed attempt to repel Green Bull, but this doesn’t really happen.

The whole Samurai stand against the admiral feel performative rather than necessary- if Luffy and the others had been out cold and recovering after the battle the encounter could’ve had some weight, but Luffy et al does not just seem fully recovered, but also fully aware of the fight. It feels like they’re “allowing” Momo and the others to try and handle it, which robs the sequence of stakes – I simply don’t believe a solitary Green Bull would stand a chance should Luffy and friends decide to get off their asses. But on the other hand, the whole thing makes Wanos security seem more compromised than it should, considering the whole thing is solved by a random, unaffiliated external force. You just get the impression that Green Bull could show up tomorrow when Luffy and Shanks aren’t around, stomp on the Straw Hat flag, raze the country and annex it into the WG.

I think a more elegant way to have squared this whole plotline thematically would’ve been to have Green Bull not repelled by Shanks, but the overwhelming ambition musk coming from Luffy and all the other allies, looking down from the capital plateau. This would underscore that Isolationist Wano is now under the protection of more than the Samurai, be a nice capper to the whole international alliance angle. I’m sure I’ll be told several reasons why this specific idea definitely couldn’t work, but my overall point is that I’d prefer a resolution not reliant on completely external Shanks, and that I think the thematic throughline on “Isolationist, self reliant Wano” vs “Part of international alliance Wano” could’ve been stronger, especially if you HAD to strike Green Bull off the to do list here, rather than in an upcoming arc.

Anyway, aside from all that, I find Green Bull himself underwhelming. The original admiral trio had very defined and contrasting personalities, but Greenie really does feel like simply the bastard child of Lucchi and Akainu. His assholiness doesn’t seem distinct, his various fascist declarations seem pretty stock, more befitting of a throwaway WG zealot character than a full on admiral. His introduction at the prison is also weirdly disjointed from his mission – why is he there? Why is he beating up restrained Beast Pirate prisoners? I mean, it’s to establish his fearsomeness prior to an encounter he ultimately bails on, but still, the lack of justification makes the scene seem pointless. Like, you could’ve had him at least capture King or show ANY sort of interest in him considering what Zoros fight established about the guy, but theres’ no specificity to what Greenie is doing. And yeah yeah yeah we’ll see the guy again and maybe probably surely we can infer and speculate that 141 chapters from now there might be a payoff to the prison scene, but within this arc it still feels like a waste of space. Him growing greenery in a desolated country could’ve been something, could’ve even been a joke when he leaves (“Hey, thanks for reforesting the region” “SHUT UP, FILTHY BARBARIANS!”), or even a bit of characterization – he might be a fascist shouty jerk, but he can’t help himself but grow plants in a wasteland…but the text doesn’t capitalize on the “bad dude, grows flowers” dichotomy in any way.

As for Shanks, he‘s just so blah at this point to me. The comparative goofball from chapter 1 seems long gone. Like Ivotas says he seems to exist mostly to pop into other peoples plotlines, and here he just feels so detached. And he needn’t be! We’ve already have reactions to Lufy being a “big pirate”, as far back as east blue even, but now his poster is literally the manifestation of the true nature of the DF Shanks made great effort to steal, how about a reaction to that? Shanks makes quick mentions of Momo and Hiyori existing, but maybe we could get a bigger reaction out of the fact that the home of former Roger crewmate Oden is now liberated, that former Rocks Member and Shanks peer/opponent Kaidou has fallen? It just feels again so unspecific, and the fact that theres no justification for why Shanks loitering around Wano, or how he literally projects his ambition musk into the country from outside of it, he can’t help but feel extraneous. And in a massive arc so starved for resolution time, extraneous feels gratuitous and wasteful.

FYI, They're also apparently remastering a Genesis Gargoyles game

They should just circumvent the issue and go all out and make myth-accurate portrayals of Zeus and Hera as full on shitheels

Do it Disney, I dare you

Throw in Zero to Hero anyway for maximum insane tonal whiplash

Beyond her having at least three modes of petrifying people that all works in totally different ways, the moment Hancock whipped out "Pistol Kiss" was the exact moment I decided I would never attempt to decode her powers.

Regarding the topic at hand I symphatize with Ivotas point that Hancocks supposedly biggest asset seems irrelevant after Teach grabs her, but maybe Oda figured that having her try to Seduce her way out of it would've made her look weak and pleading rather than defiant.
But then again, she's saved by macho man Ray Ray and rests her head on his lap afterwards anyway, so.

Apoos flightiness "makes sense", but I'd still have liked it to be a more overt part of his character and his usage -show people reacting to him through that lens, show his on-screen rationalization of his shifting allegiances. After Kid punches him Apoo goes "How could you ever think we would be able to topple an emperor? Thats unrealistic! Pirate alliances will never work!", but then later he's apparently bailed on Kaidou entirely, is proposing alliances, and at the end of it all he's just...there, no longer an enemy. I'd have liked some more explicit storytelling glue to bridge those beats more cleanly.

Apoo is a weird case in that he’s at once highly enjoyable to watch, yet he might also be the most herky-jerk messily handled of all the supernovas in Wano? Like, his personality is great, his design is great, his ability is great, it’s just fun to watch Apoo exist, but it also feels like Oda was constantly changing his mind on what Apoo should be doing.

Apoos biggest pre-existing character connection is to Kid, and indeed even though he arrives to the arc late we pretty much launch directly into a confrontation between the two after a fun showcase of Apoos powers. I don’t think the idea of “Apoo the backstabbing informant” gels perfectly with what we were shown during Kaidous introduction, but “Guy who joined Kaidou vs guy who wouldn’t break” is a fine enough basis for an encounter…But then they immediately disengage. The beef between them ceases to be a point of focus, and is not commented on when Apoo shows back up after the end of the raid. From this point on, his musical abilities also sort of fade away?

Apoo then becomes the centerpiece for the just established Ice virus plotline! Its a bit sudden, but the hunt for the antidote could lead to a fun chase and it’s a potentially fun spin on his just-established interplay with Queen…but then the antidote is recovered straight away.

Then its Zoro but mainly Drake vs Apoo, whom he has never interacted with before but announces to have "always hated" – and then Zoro but not Drake cuts Apoo down in a decisive manner, all cool like.

Wait no Apoo later lurches to his feet in order for Drake to transform and casually chomp him down in a big spread because he needed something to do as part of the "ancient Zoan" gang in the "ancient zoan spotlight" chapter. I guess this pays off their supposed beef? And concludes the stop-and-go handled antidote subplot? Is Apoo down now?
…
...
Drake and Apoo are now forming an alliance! No wait, they aren’t, wait, they’re teaming up after all to fight CP0 because Apoo has completely bailed on the whole battle offscreen and wants to sell CP0 pictures to Morgans, but then they disengage and Apoo just hangs around until after the battle where he’s offscreen become on good terms with the alliance, despite only Drake- who was just left to rot in the castle- witnessing his "turn" if you can even call it that.

Also, Apoo is the commander of the Numbers because I guess they needed to tie into something, and it’s a neat idea, but it doesn’t feel like it amounts to much (because the numbers amount to so very little).

And the thing is, I like all of these ideas, they’re entertaining ideas, and if just half of them had been allowed to build properly I think we could’ve gotten some truly spectacular sequences out of it. Like a committed arc-long interplay with Drake, or a more elaborate Antidote chase involving the numbers as a deadly literally jazzed-up dance troupe or something. Or it the story could’ve leaned into Apoos later flightiness and make it more of an overt quirk, with the story explicitly highlighting his worminess. As is, while Apoos snippets are entertaining, they’re very messy and disjointed snippets.

And like pretty much all of the Supernova, Apoo is largely detached from the Wano-centric characters. He’s an “external” character who almost only bounces off other “external” characters. You could plonk him and Drake into onother scenario with very little trouble.

Also… it’d have been cool to see an extended battle for the Ice Virus Antidote in a burning castle between a musical goofball with a gang of dancing giants vs Straw Hat musical goofball who has unique immunity to the Ice Virus. It could be a battle of who can make the giants dance the most!

Sigh.

I finally wrapped up season 3 of amphibia.

I'm crying

I'm crying so much

I love these characters. This show was so good guys. Damn.

I eventually gave up on following the swordstuff in the Wano arc. You have Ryumas important sword which Zoro trades for Odens important sword (which i gues Momonosuke lets him keep?), Oden also had a less important sword, I don't know what happened to that, I remember he had them with him in jail somehow. And also theres a new kitetsu sword I think? And some were made by Odens dad (or did he just hold onto them?) and some were made by Zoro Village Wano Emigrant Guy? Too many swords.

Can anyone help me figure out how Zoro overcame Enmas haki-drainage? I never understood that. What change in perspective / approach did he get from his flashback? As far as I recall he just...pumped more haki juice into Enma? And then his other swords started smoking too?

@Zanze said in Chapter 1058: New Emperors:

I think it's fine that Onimaru didn't reappear in the raid. The character served his purpose, and he did reunite with Kawamatsu in the end.

He did? When did that happen? I totally missed that.

Heh, remember when we all thought the Oden clone was that fox thing, because no one figured "Oden Ink Clone" was on the table

Though I very very much wouldn't object to scenes of the SHs showing an active interest in what each other are doing/have been doing, I can mostly accept that OP is just not the kind of series that allots time for that, and roll with the straw hats as good friends just because. What sometimes break that perspective are the instances where newer SH's show complete ignorance to their crewmates prior adventures -being casual and living in the moment is one thing, but living together for months on end and apparently not having any conversations about things that happened in the past (the quite recent past!) just feels bizarre to me, considering what a close-knit, familial unit they're supposed to be. Like they don't need to sit down and have sould-searching conversations while they look into each others eyes, but it sometimes feel as if questions akin to "so, how did you spend your weekend?" or "what did you do for your summer vacation?" don't exist on the sunny

After more than four years and almost 150 chapters the Wano arc has finally concluded, as well as the larger “Big Mom/Kaidou” saga, spanning plotlines as far back as Fishman Island and Punk Hazard. Simultaneously, the forums were absent for a good while during this period of resolution. In short, theres a lot to look back on and discuss, and while we have “general Wano“ discussion for Macro arc takes, I thought it’d be interesting to have threads dedicated wholly to particular plotthreads.

One of the major antagonistic forces of Wano was Big Mom, coming off her own dedicated arc to be defeated in this one. Now that her storyline is – as far as we know- concluded, what do you make of it? Does it change how you view the more open-ended resolution to the whole cake arc? And even if you assume that we’re somehow not done with Big Mom just yet, what did you make of her integration into the Wano arc?