Posts made by Dragon D. Luffy

@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.

I think Vegapunk is the perfect set up for a morally gray character.

Someone who thinks they are making the world better through their sicence, and who is about to face a harsh reality.

I'm here trying to understand why kind of parallel universe is this where people still discuss Carrot in 2022.

Don't quote me on this since I don't remember if the one who said it actually knew their stuff or not, lol.

I don't remember where I read that (if it was from greg or somewhere else), but I recall someone say Jinbe was always going to be the strawhat, it's just that originally he was going to have a "villain is defeated then joins the hero" story. Then, as the plot developed, Oda decided to fit him into the Marineford storyline, and it made more sense for him there to be a heroic character from the start.

@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.

Re: next crewmate.

It's Vivi or nobody.

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).

@Ivotas

TIme to spend another 5 years arguing whether Carrot will join the "offboard crew" or not.

(Cuz I think she doesn't)

Supernovas are a bonus feature. They are characters Oda made up overnight just to fill up Sabaody's cast, and the main story as he originally planned functioned just fine without any of them. Yes, even Law, because the Dressrosa arc could have been done without Law (it would have probably been worse, though).

So based on what we got, I think for the most part Oda got way more mileage from them than the average reader, or Oda himself, probably expected.

Law is the obvious winner here, he became one of the strongest non-SH characters in the series. Some people dislike him for the "generic coolguy" type, but even then I think he's written better than most such characters in shonen manga. In Wano he wasn't amazing, though. But he gets not to be amazing in Wano because Dressrosa exists.

Kid is weird because Oda wants us to buy he is a major rival to Luffy but he didn't get the power boost, and most importantly, the character development, to justify that. So he feels half baked. He is a very entertaining character though, and I want to see more of him.

The other supernovas have even less expectations from them since they aren't even portrayed as big rivals (they all capitulated to yonkou or marines one way or another). So for the most part I'm fine with them. I don't really think Oda had any obligation to make Hawkins, Drake or Apoo deliver more than they did. While Killer delivered more than he had to, and Capone was another big winner, being a really cool character who enhanced the arc he was in. And he was one of the supernovas I expected the least from when introduced.

Finally, Bonney and Urouge haven't really had proper screentime yet, and I hope Oda at least elevates them to where he took Hawkins and Apoo, because leaving just two supernovas in the dust would be weird.

I don't really like Hancock's chances. First, Oda passed on adding her to the cast when she was actually in the story, and the idea of her joining didn't even come up (heck, the only thing she's interested in Luffy is marrying him, and she said no). And her appearances have been slim ever since. The same could be said about Vivi, but at least Vivi was shown wanting to join the crew on panel and bonding with all of them. Hancock joining is a purely fandom notion that the manga doesn't seem to be setting up at all.

She also doesn't seem like someone who would get along with the crew except as a means to get closer to Luffy. She'd butt heads with the other women for being threats to her love, and possibly with Zoro and Jinbe for being strong people who wouldn't really obey her, while weaker members like Usopp and Chopper would obey her out of fear (and Sanji out of lust, ofc).

And she's kind of... evil? I mean, so was Robin, but we were explained why Robin did what she did (survival, and her dream). Hancock casually turns her subjects to stone just because she feels like it, and her backstory didn't actually justify that. She doesn't care about anyone in the world except Luffy, Rayleigh and her sisters, and doesn't seem interested in caring. Sure, she can be a sympathetic character sometimes, and works fine as an anti-hero, but I feel like she would need A LOT more character development to get along with the protagonists without that feeling forced.

Why is there a 0 in my name now? it wasn't there before the forum downtime.

I also agree not everything that logically needs to happen always ends up happening, but there are a couple things that together feel very weird not to happen, which I would expect Oda to at least have thought about so he wouldn't miss them:

1- Kaido/BM either having a hidden awakening, or at least mentioning that they don't (made weirder that Kaido actually stopped to talk about Luffy's awakening but said nothing about his)
2- The final attack accomplishing something the island or the protagonists need so it has a cathartic effect, other than just KO'ing the villain.
3- The strawhats leaving this "theres no way we can lose" state they have been in all arc and actually feeling despair for a while so their resolve can be tested.
4- Yamato getting an arc that changes her perspective about something, either leading her to join the strawhats or not to join them. Either way, that decision needs to be based on an arc.
5- Luffy having a moment where he reaches a new level of resolve and surpasses himself by sheer willpower in order to win, other than just getting a power up.
6- Usopp getting a moment of growth and test of his courage.

One one those things being missed is strange and makes the arc feels like an exception. All of them feels like something went really wrong. And that's before you add the little things like momotaro and 9 shadows which don't NEED to happen but it's weird if they were hinted to happen but don't.

I gotta say I was leaning on thinking the arc is over after reading this chapter but after seeing Mr. Morj AND Greg say they think it can't be over my belief almost took a 180.

Nothing like the voices you respect say exactly what you want to hear.

@Joy:

It’s clearly over. What is the point of getting back?

If you think the arc is ruined unless it continued, then you already have your answer to why it needs to keep going.

The point is to make the manga good, ofc.

@Daz:

The whole Korozumi thing is definetely weird, and reminds me a lot of Doflamingo where great pains were taken to give him a sympathetic villain origin story only for Corazon to go "no, Doflamingo was totally born evil".

If we're getting any resolution to the Korozumi plotline at all (which is not certain), it might be the speculated Tama Korozumi reveal which would provide an easy out of "see, they're not all bad! We forgive them! Yay us!" Which would be a bit of a cheat considering Tama has never shown any awareness of her heritage, and has spent the entire preceding arc being as helpful and sympathetic as possible. I just don't see any room for actual lesson learning, not when we're given a conga line of decapitation moments to cheer for with the person who actually suffered at the hands of Korozumi persecution.

I mean Dofla's thing worked because Rocinante was given the exact same origin, so the point was that backstories aren't the only thing that shape people. Dofla had a lot of chances to be decent and he just wanted to be an asshole, for his entire life. While Rocinante went through some horrible stuff and kept wanting to be as decent as he could be.

I think it's a general point in OP that people decide whether their bad experiences shape them one way or another. A different example is in Fishmen Island: Arlong, Hodi, Jinbe, Fisher Tiger and Otohime all experienced racism and chose to deal it in different ways, with varying levels of goodness and evilness.

Orochi could have tried to make something better out of it. Instead he decided to stage the world's biggest and most elaborate torture session, by making an entire country suffer as much as possible for decades.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

Re: Act numbers.

I stopped caring about those when an youtuber (Ohara) read the Japanese wikipedia and said they can have any number of acts from 1 to 9.

Like, the 5 act one is just one type so there's zero guarantee Oda is using that one.

@Greg:

The suicide hobby is pretty straightforward and the Oden fb made it moreso.

Kaido remarks that WB 'knew how to do it' and of course he means 'die like a (so-called) man'.

After his loss/win to Oden, Kaido has somewhat been emasculated. He knows he didn't earn it and that death would have been a great death tha would have put his name in legend for having been killed by a legend. He's searching for a way to die that will put him in history.

As for why he has no problem dying, it's very likely he's just bored. I recently platinum'd Elden Ring and when I did, I immediately deleted it because I was bored, exhausted, and had nothing left to prove. Kaido has platinum'd 'strength' and he wants to delete the world now. He's the strongest being and he lost the stronges 'man' who had the greatest chance of taking him out and leaving his name in legend.

The only question is…why does Kaido equate dying awesomely as a way of putting his name in history? It's a damn fine good chance that this is related to how/why Rocks went down(?) and the impression that and a possible betrayal of his hopes/trust established in him. Think about it. The world knows how Roger died, but so little is commonly/publicly known about Rocks. I think it's a safe bet that had an influence on him.

(Theory coming soon to your favorite YouTuber)

Pretty sure I have seen that theory float around at least once in youtube.

@Dany:

Scopper Gaban? He's got nothing on Rayleigh- literally the vice captain of his crew. Zoro is officially the combatant and Sanji the cook so you can't really say Zoro is above Sanji, but Rayleigh as the vice captain would be second only to Roger.

Also, the boost Oda gave to Sanji to put him above Jinbe was not random. Oda made a whole arc around it. Very doubtful that happens again.

I don't know, I take the gold-silver-cooper reference pretty seriously.

People have been trying to kill the M3 since Robin joined.

That will never happen. Anyone who joins will be automatically weaker than Sanji, even if Oda has to give random boosts to Sanji to make it work.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

@Shiebs:

I mean doesn’t each Yonko have there top three subordinates, the sweet trio for Big Mom, the All Stars for Kaido, Ben Beckmen, Lucky Roo and Yasopp for Shanks and Marco, Ace and Jozu for White Beard

So Luffy needs at least one more person

That being said Oda wouldn’t have just made the whole wings to the pirate king a thing if he planned to immediately undo it

There is one legendary pirate that apparently had two top subordinates instead of three, though: Roger.

Chopper wants to cure every disease in the world.

I think Jinbe's goal is easier tbh.

Luffy is going to ride Zunesha into battle.
We now know Gear 5th allows Luffy to turn into a giant. It's also practically confirmed Joy Boy had the same devil fruit as Luffy, and therefore, the same abilities, based on what Zunesha is saying. Finally, we know Zunesha was Joy Boy's crewmate.

So Joy Boy could have become huge enough to ride Zunesha, and therefore, so can Luffy. I predict we will see that at some point, likely at the final war.

The only issue is Luffy's ass would crush the mink tribe to death, but I'm gonna guess they will probably build some kind of machine that hides their city safely inside Zunesha's saddle or something. Franky can probably build it in a weekend.

@Greg:

1. It's the internet.
2. They're posting material sent to a finite number of monitored outlets.
3. Third/fourth/fifth-party posters plaster their names all over them.

No snitching involved, they megaphoned in their relationships. There's an entire office dedicated to piracy and although it moves in increments of years, it does move. I don't expect much to change during OP's lifetime beyond what it already has (take-down of mangamura, pursuing international law, providing manga free weekly in multiple languages) but it will change over the next 10 years or so.

Implying One Piece won't last another 10 years.

I'd say 5 full chapters of fighting plus whatever interruptions we get, which I'd give another 5 chapters to at least. Then another 10 for victory party.

@statu:

And that one instance means that every time someone is eaten the other person gets their fruit? Just to keep an open mind here and not jump conclusions here we actually don't know if that is the reason BM got Carmels fruit. It is possible for instance that after Carmel got eaten her DF respawned and BM ate it then.

I don't know, that's why I used a question mark in my first post. You are the one who told me it's highly unlikely based on nothing, so I'd say it's not me who am jumping on conclusions.

@FatDogForMidTerms:

My theory is that it was Oda throwing a bone for the readers who didn't think the reveal makes any sense (like me!). That or making fun of us, either way's fine.

Or that it is perfectly normal for serial stories to reveal things gradually.

@statu:

No, since IMO it's reeeeaaalllly unlikey that he would get Luffy's DF that way

I mean the current statistics for "do you get someone's DF if you eat them" is 100%.

Something I saw in another forum.

If Kaido had actually managed to eat Luffy last chapter, would he end up absorbing Luffy's DF and then die because he has two fruits?

My preferred scenario is Zoro beats Mihawk, then goers to fight Shiryu, and no it's now longer about proving himself as the greatest swordsman, but prove the way of the swordsman actually matters against an incredibly dirty and pragmatic opponent, and never mind helping his captain become Pirate King, which by this point we know is as important to Zoro as his own dream.

The King fight highlighted that what Zoro means as swordsman isn't anyone who fights with a sword, but a specific type of fighter. It's possible for him to reach the top of that group but still be beatable by other people who have swords.

@JDub:

Emerging from my lurking cause I've been sitting on my feelings on the Gum Gum Fruit also being the Nika Fruit, and the developments of the past 3-4 chapters for a little while and I think I've got some thoughts settled.

I was very concerned about the direction Oda would take all of these developments when we started getting the info dumps from Who's Who about the government going after the Gum Gum Fruit, the namedropping of Nika and the visual call backs to Luffy at the Skypiea parties, and the Elders discussing a "legendary" fruit with a different name. I, like a lot of people, (especially older sections of the fanbase) do not like the idea of the "chosen one" narrative with all the special powers and destiny and whatnot. Like I'm watching through Naruto for the first time, and my motivation to watch has dropped significantly now that I'm at the part of Shippuden where it leans hard into Naruto's parents, the seemingly genetic nature of chakra as a power system, and the very on-the-nose "chosen one" stuff. I'm not going to sit here and be like "Naruto used to be about hard work vs. talent" (because quite frankly I don't agree with that, the biggest theme in the series is the idea of "strength through bonds"), but I do think it does ultimately undercut earlier moments and established character dynamics from earlier in the series that were effective.

So I say all of that to say that I sympathize with (some of) the criticisms I've seen over the past few weeks, cause I've also been really concerned of One Piece falling into that same fate as Naruto. While there are some, uh, extreme reactions imo, I think there are a lot of fair points to be critical of. But to be honest, now that we're here on the other side of 1044, I personally feel content with the direction the series is going, and I think Oda's landed this well enough to earn my trust going forward. I think "Joyboy" being seeded early post-timeskip, and the sun/dawn association being present from pretty much day 1 help this land for me in terms of the buildup to these developments. I do think the Who's Who exposition dump is clumsy storytelling that takes away from giving Jimbe a better encounter and more time to shine. But I also think the combination of the Joyboy/Sun/Dawn stuff and it being pretty easy to contextualize why we're getting this erased history and confidential information from this source (a former secret government agent turned high ranking member of an emperor's crew) at this late point in the journey bring me to terms with it, even if the presentation of information is a bit sloppy. I accept that this has probably been in the cards for a while, even if some specifics weren't ironed out until recently (which we can only speculate on to begin with).

I'm very relieved with how he's handled the power itself. Because really the only thing that has changed here is the classification of the fruit. It doesn't really touch the abilities of the fruit. Luffy is still, at the end of the day, a rubber human who must rely on creative applications of his abilities to not only hold his own but to unlock to true nature of the fruit. Like it didn't imbue him with special hidden powers from the outset that have quietly been working in the background undercutting the legitimacy of Luffy's past accomplishments. I think there's been a lot of jumping-to-conclusions based on the way things like scans have translated and framed these new developments. Like Luffy is not literally a god, and he doesn't have the ability to warp reality. He's got the powers of someone who lived in the past who was a rubber person, who has the epithet of a "god". I never bought that Nika is a literal "sun god", not in the same series that delivers an arc like Skypiea in which our protagonist punches someone with a god complex, and there's a flashback that opens with illustrating a conflict between religious tradition and scientific rationalism. Oda has to stick the landing on what exactly Devil Fruit are, how they work, where they come from, how they're made, etc. But I also buy Greg's idea of it being a mixture of both a Paramecia and a Zoan, and if Nika is just a Lunarian with rubber (Paramecia) abilities, who was then used as the basis of a Zoan fruit, I can see that landing fine. Again again, he's still a rubber person and been a rubber person. It's that the ability is only limited by the creativity of its user, and for someone as off-the-wall and free as Luffy, it's the perfect fruit. Luffy being who Luffy is, possessing the personality traits he does and having the experiences he's had, is what's allowed him to get here using this fruit. And while I can understand the criticism that this power-up feels unearned/comes out of nowhere… Idk it's pretty hard for me to understand perspective without thinking about how Luffy just suddenly comes out in Enies Lobby with both Second and Third Gears, after no build up or explanation of how Luffy came up with or developed these abilities what-so-ever. It's sudden then, and it's sudden now, but it also didn't bother me that much then, and it's not really bothering me much now. In large part because...

I'm having an absolute blast with Gear 5. I love these powers, I love the goofy ass Looney Tunes/Popeye aesthetic and all the visual gags. And just reading week-to-week for the past 10 years, this is to me some of the funniest, most exciting content in the whole series. Kaido's eyes popping out as Luffy's arm drags him away kills me. Seeing just how creative Luffy can get with these abilities is fun! I know some aren't happy with how goofy it is, I see a lot of comments about this robbing the fight of "tension" and being some tonal whiplash, which you know, to each their own. But for me, I also feel like I just got some of the most tense content I've read in the series week-to-week with Kaido's finishing blow on Luffy, and then the narrator box declaring "Winner: Kaido, King of the Beasts". One of One Piece's biggest strengths is its ability to pull these tonal shifts, and while I definitely agree that this is easily one of the most extreme cases, it works for me. I feel you if you think this is too rapid of a shift. But I think for me though the ping-ponging between absolute despair and joyous laughter works because it's so extreme. The idea of Luffy bringing genuine laughter to the people Kaido has robbed that from through his tyranny and the effects of SMILE sounds so satisfying, but for that to work I feel like you have to juxtapose those two ends of the spectrum here at the climax. To me it's not One Piece without stuff like this. And look, at the end of the day I'm just having fun with this. Luffy's out here doin some Tex Avery shit! Give me funny, goofy, cartoony One Piece that doesn't hold back in both how serious and how silly it all is.

This is a very high quality post.

Also hard agree in the last part. I think the message that Luffy is the one bringing the sun, the smile, to an island who has known incredible pain for 20 years is pretty symbolic. Yes it's dumb that he is able to laugh in this situation, but that's the point. He is liberating the place by bringing happiness to it again.

Loved it and it was probably planned from the start.

I mean it couldn't be more of a natural evolution to Gum Gum if you tried. The idea is that Luffy just made effort and kept pushing through over and over, stretching and stretching longer each time, until he broke the natural limits of rubber and earned the ability to stretch indefinitely. It is thematic perfection.

The zoan thing feels like just a convoluted way to make it work. I really don't mind it.

@Greg:

Not a retcon.

Might not like it. Might not feel it fits. But it's been the plan for a looooong time.

I know you don't watch OP videos but it fits this discussion like a glove so I'm posting for anyone interested.

Basically the theory is that Oda originally came up with the Nika fruit as Luffy's power, then turned it to Gomu Gomu as a "nerf" for early One Piece power levels.

This is also because Nika fits Luffy as it is the most ridiculous power (which Oda intended from the start) and represents freedom the most (with fits with his character themes). The guy argues the Nika fruit is even a better fit for Luffy than the Rubber fruit. Though he also highlights the rubber fruit has a theme of willpower (rubber always bounces back), which fits for someone who wants to become the freest man in the sea, which now that Luffy has Nika, he can finally be.

So in that case it wouldn't be a retcon, it's the power Oda created from the start, and he just waited 25 years to finally unlock it.

Another point is that as Luffy's powers evolved, they became less and less restrictive, so the Nika fruit just feels like a natural conclusion to Luffy's ability.

@FatDogForMidTerms:

But…. he did rename it? Right?

"The other name of the Gum-Gum fruit is the zoan type human-human fruit mythical type, model Nika"

How is that not renaming it and repurposing its type? Oda gave it a new name and clarified that instead of paramecia it's a zoan.

"Aha! But you see, it's actually two different fruits in one" yeah okay, maybe that's cleared out in the future but if we go by just this latest chapter he totally changed the fruit.

I don't know about you but to me "other name" means there is more than one allowed name. But English isn't my first language so maybe there's something I'm missing?

@Alfiere:

There is one thing I honestly can't understand how anyone could possibly like,.and it's how completely undeserved this ultra mega awesome powerup feels.
I really feel like I'm missing something here. Luffy went completely over his head and had everyone bet their life on him beating Kaido, and was beaten fair and square three times (yeah, i don't buy your sad excuse of bowler hat's interference, you supposedly worked on your observation for that reason buddy), and for that… He's rewarded with God Mode without even an input of his own. He wasn't even experimenting with the fruit powers, he was just going all in on the new haki bullshit.
Each of the previous gears came from a place of insight and creativity, this... Just from the fact that the protagonist can't die.

If the new Pokémon game introduced a mechanic making so that when your last mon faints it automatically regains full hp, full pp and an instant megaevolution, I don't think many would find it satisfying.

Not gonna lie, last week I was way more excited about the tension a victorious Kaido was bringing than about the Joy Boy scene in the last page. I totally appreciate the importance of dramatic tension and Luffy rising right after doing down seemed to kill it.

But that feeling kind of disappeared somewhere between the Gorosei guy saying that's the most ridiculous fruit in the world and Luffy deflecting Kaido 's boro breath while laughing.

The way this happened is so cartoonish, so ridiculous, I can't bring myself to hate it. It's like Luffy is breaking the 4th wall and declaring the arc's plot structure over just because he can. It feels deliciously dumb. It's like some of the funnest parts of early One Piece, the kind of silliness I didn't know I missed.

I don't know if this magic will last. Maybe Oda will need to build more tension. Or maybe the clownish stuff will juat keep working. I have no idea and that feels refreshing.

Oh wait the argument was about Yamato? I clicked the wrong thread lol

@Blowfish:

By that logic Luffy should be more concerned with freeing slaves like Tiger because he's Nika, or overthrowing the World Government like his Dad.

Come on guys we are in mental gymnastics territory now.

Yeah it's not like Luffy has been freeing islands from opression over and over for one thousand chapters and 25 years, and he definitely didn't declare war against the most opressive government on Earth.

I think reading a pirate story and not expecting alcohol and drunkeness to be prevalent is a bit silly

@HeartOfDarkness:

It's interesting how last two chapters brought on the interesting discussion of whether some people actually understood the type of story Oda was writing or they read the story thinking it was one way when Oda was saying it was another way. Like there are actually some people who thought that Luffy, who has always been painted by the narrative as a special person, is now suddenly believed to have been representing average joe and his journey being about a random kid? Especially when Luffy's behavior, views and characteristics were always conveyed to be one-of-a-kind which is also the reason why he got his crew and started this entire narrative in the first place?

I don't get the strong dislike or people making assumptions and then using those assumptions to create even more assumptions about where they think the story is going. Didn't people in this place, in particular, hate that very thing in the New Nakama threads? So what's the difference here?

One possible take is that Luffy isn't meant to be an everyman, but rather a non-standard type of hero.

Luffy has been a weird deviation from the concept of pirate since the start. He has always been happier and sillier and funnier than everyone else. Somebody people don't take seriously at first glance.

But he has never felt like an underdog to me, partly because he was the strongest person in every arc until Crocodile showed up. He was always something else, a big talent, something people learned to respect quickly. An undersog is someone like Naruto, who doesn't win a single fight for multiple arcs. And I remember noticing the different between the two mains when I started watching OP.

The last chapter states he has the most ridiculous power in the world. Not the strongest or most OP, but most ridiculous, and dangerous because of that. Luffy could never actually be the physically strongest bt he may turn to be this unstoppable force of freedom that' can't be contained. And the theme here isn't that he is the underdog, or the most talent, but that he is so unique and creative that he can do what others can't

@Nectar:

Toon Physics Luffy. I'm down with it.
Not sure about his devil fruit being super special awesome, though. It's a lot to take in. Is it a soft reboot? Was it planned from the start? Does it matter? Gonna need more time to process.

Like with almost everything, chances are Oda had some idea about this early on but worked the sppecifics recently.

Like, Luffy has been the physical embodiment of freedom since chapter 1. His final form being the one where ha has the most freedom feels like a natural conclusion. The relation to Joy Boy does too, since it connects to the main plot of OP which Oda planned from the start (although it's possible the name Joy Boy was only decided on later on). The connections to sun, skypiea, are also things that seem likely to have had early planning since hints for that have been dropping for ages.

The mythical zoan is probably more recent, because I don't think Oda had devil fruits design to that depth at the start. Awakening is also a fairly new concept. Hito Hito probably didn't exist before Chopper.

Point is, I don't think its as simple as declaring Oda mapped all of this chapter's details in 1997, nor saying that he came up with that during this arc. It has probably been a long and gradual process.

@Joy:

So Greg my question stands once again. How does Kaido reply to this ? Where is his awakening ? How will he react knowing that Luffy is Joy Boy ? Where do we go from here ?

After this chapter, I'm starting to think Kaido's dragon form is his awakening.

Because the Fish Fish fruit evolving into a dragon is the closest parallel we have to the Nika fruit in the manga, and it just so happens that both of them are mythical zoans.

I don't think Nami and Robin got late development just because they were female, I think that happened because of their character type: secretive, roguish people who are used to infiltrating organizations and betraying them. Which means both had arcs later where Luffy and the other strawhats got to show how they actually cared despite a recent betrayal and prove their friendship.

I feel like it happened to both females because Oda isn't super fond of giving women combat roles, so he designed both of them with thieving and infiltration roles.

But Yamato is a huge oni who fights with a club, says everything they are thinking and openly challenges their yonko father. They are actually a pretty refreshing character since they are the first female strawhat (or female a birth, depending on your gender stance) designed for a combat role. And they don't feel like someone who is holding big secrets or planning to later betray the strawhats, because their personality is very straightforward. So the kind of plot used for Nami and Robin would be harder to apply here.

The thing is, most strawhats get further developments after their joining arc, but aside from Nami and Robin, all of them have a full story in their joining arc where Luffy helps them heal somehow, by defeating someone or something who was holding them back and offering a chance to finally pursue their dreams by joining Luffy. So the pattern is that Yamato needs that kind of resolution, and unless Oda finds a different way to do it later (and that way has to be very satisfying, possibly warranting another full arc), I think it's hard to pull off. It's more likely Oda is still doing it in Wano.

(and before you say, well he's beating Kaido. Yes, that's part of it, but it still needs to be a heavy character moment for Yamato)

Imo one thing that causes disagreement on Yamato is that one one hand, they are the best strawhat candidate we have gotten since Jinbe, no competition. On the other hand, they are still below what we are used for strawhats, in terms of character arc, a well developed motivation and interaction with the crew and even with Luffy.

I think what is hard for people to grasp is just how high the bar for someone to join the main cast of this story is. The fact Yamato is closer to the bar than the other options doesn't mean they have cleared it. it just means options like Carrot are so ridiculously far from clearing the bar they make Yamato look good.

However, there goes the sentence I say in most of those discussions: the arc is not over. There is still plenty of time for Yamato's character arc to develop. And looking at the story from outside, it seems painfully obvious Oda wants them to join, so chances are that arc will happen. I mean, Yamato said they want to join the crew, how often does that happen? It seems more likely to me Oda will do a lousy job at developing Yamato but still let them in, than not letting them in, at this point.