This chapter makes yamato staying somewhat better because unlike the previous motive, it has some set up/foreshadowing (Aramaki invading the island, Yamato's DF being the guardian deity, etc). The previous one was "I can't believe Oda wrote this", while now it's "ok it makes sense he wrote this but it's far from his best material".

The thing is Yamato did not get enough character development in Wano. So him joining vs not joining was just a trade-off between pay-off that wasn't earned vs a waste of time. And we got the later in the end. Feels like Rebecca all over again.

(Now to be fair, rereading Dressrosa made me like Rebecca's role in the story a little better, because it turns out it was all about Kyros, not Rebecca, and his arc is pretty damn good. it makes sense Rebecca never fights, because Kyros' arc is about not letting her inherit his violence, and in the end he achieves that. It's just the execution is a bit sloppy since Oda has to spend 50 chapters giving Rebecca random things to do instead. So I wonder if Wano will be better when I reread it in bulk. We'll see).

Re: next crewmate.

It's Vivi or nobody.

I feel like the raid suit is dead and buried since its existance opposes Sanji's character arc completely.

The only reason it existed for a while in Wano was to give Sanji some conflict, and set up the panel when he finally destroys it and breaks free from his family's influence for good.

@Shin10-Bukuro

I just checked, and we recently passed the point (chapter 1056) where the total amount of chapters since Jinbe first appeared has been longer than the amount of chapters that came before it.

As much as Jinbe may have joined late, Oda cared to introduce him much earlier and give him an important role in most subsequent arcs.

The same could not be said for any strawhat that joined now, or even during Wano.

@realtenchu

Feels to me like this is the same Luffy who fought Kaido. He is just hard to take seriously because he is so goofy. But he still beat Lucci in two chapters without taking any damage.

I feel like the raid suit is dead and buried since its existance opposes Sanji's character arc completely.

The only reason it existed for a while in Wano was to give Sanji some conflict, and set up the panel when he finally destroys it and breaks free from his family's influence for good.

You are technically right about Sabo but I didn't even remember it because it worked with how the story was framed.

Sabo was a character who was introduced very suddenly and whose existance didn't add much to Luffy's character that wasn't already being done by others like Ace and Shanks. So it makes sense his role in the flashback was to inform his character in the present, not Luffy's (Oda created Sabo likely with the intention of having be the protagonist of the revs down the line). Also yeah, it was hinted.

Saul being alive isn't too bad in isolation because mechanically it is possible and making Robin happy near the end of the series is cool.

However when in not isolation, it's another entry in a long series of fake outs, and now touching previously uncharted territory for the fake outs, the flashbacks.

Now all bets are off. Literally anyone could return. I don't think a lot more will return, but again, I don't know what is sacred anymore. If you ask me to name one character I'm 100% sure will not return, I don't have one. Not even Ace.

@theackwardstation

Yeah pretty much this. If it was just "Vegapunk makes science, someone uses science to kill people", it would be one thing. But from what I get he lives in a government island, where the WG comissions ways to kill people more efficiently and he happily provides them.

And I don't exactly agree with the "WG provides stability therefore it's justified" argument. Yeah I agree a decent WG is better than no WG, but the story has all but spelled out the current iteration of the WG is an absolute monstrosity that needs to be stopped at all costs. It killed an entire island for petty reasons 3 chapters ago, ffs. I'll take pirate induced instability over "death ray from heaven" any day.

The WG is not gray or neutral, the WG is the freaking sith empire, and the fact it could theoretically be worse is not enough to change that.

@Ivotas

His point was that people are not responsible for the consequences of their ccreations.

Nobel thought he was responsible so he dedicated the end of his life to atone for it.

I personally think the answer is something in-between tbh. You aren't guilty for things you can't predict, but you aren't devoid of responsibility either. But in One Piece's case, I find it hard to believe Vegapunk doesn't know what his inventions are doing.

(though this week's chapter seems to suggest there's more to that)

@zeltrax225

It's funny that you use the dynamite inventor (Alfred Nobel) as an example of all people.

Because the guilt he felt for the lives his invention took was so great, he decided to use his fortune to create the Nobel Prize, which to this day gives awards to people who make the world better, including in promoting peace.

He made that decision after a newspaper wrongly announced he was dead, and the headline was something like "the Merchant of Death is dead". He decided that was not how he wanted to be remembered when he actually died.

So the inventor of dynamite would greatly disagree with you.

@zeltrax225

I'll give it to you that you can't give a fair judgement to Vegapunk without knowing why they joined the WG. But I disagree with the idea people who work for the WG are free of guilty, unless they are completely unaware of the bad things it does (which most probably are, tbh).

But someone like vegapunk, who specializes at creating weapons of mass destruction and devices used specifically for genocide, can't be excused of blame for creating those weapons. I doubt he is fooolish not to know what they are being used for.

Haven't seem any films beside Strong World, which I enjoyed but wasn't particularly impressed about.

Luffy breaking Shiki does break immersion however you try to spin it, because even if he is old and unmotivated, the portrayal of Rayleigh and Whitebeard as absolute gods who should be able to solo the entire SH crew by farting on them makes that a bit too much of a stretch. I get trauma has an effect here, but it's like an ant beating an elephant. It just can't realistically happen. And post-TS power creep makes it even worse in retrospect imo. Well it doesn't quite ruin the movie but it makes it feel a bit cheap in the end.

Also the concept of anime movies hasn't appealed to me since I watched Naruto and FMA (first anime) movies back in the 2000s and they weren't really good either.

However, from this discussion, my take is that I need to watch both movie 6 and Z, because apparently they bothered to engage in unconvential storytelling and do controvertial things so they are most than just a long filler episode.

@Ivotas said in Chapter 1061: Future Island Egghead:

I've seen this point being brought up a lot since even before the chapter but I'm not sure I really get it. What exactly is it Vegapunk supposedly did by creating the Seraphim that makes him have questionable morals? Not saying there is nothing, but there's various ways one could see a problem here. So I'm curious what exactly is considered the big deal here.

Their technology is helping preserve one of the biggest and bloodiest dictatorships in fiction, one may have killed more people than all of real life's dictatorships combined, given its longevity and its pechant for large scale genocides.

@All-Fiction

It's the same problem Franky faces, tbh. Which is imo why he has gotten a fight almost every arc since he joined.