I mean, we knew it for a while, but good to get confirmation that Momo ate artificial copy of Kaido's fruit.

Anyway, yeah, there's no real argument that that's the real Oden, he'd be 20 years older lol.

@Luca:

Lol darth, i like how people on this forum come some go, some stay in history, i remember razh i used to discusss one piece or at least check his posts on mangahelpers, moved to orojackson for a bit to find him here and yellow, ahahah this forum is great.

I was on apforums a year before razh joined mangahelpers. I watched the rise and fall of orojackson from a distance. Thanks for making me feel old.

@wolfwood:

Always happy to play into the stereotype of the overly critical forumite. Just sayin it's the Michael Bay movie of the OP arcs. It's fine for what it is, at points even enjoyable in its pandering, but if it has suddenly been bumped up to the same lofty heights as Arlong Park then i'm quite out of touch with the general opinion

You are… definitely out of touch with the general opinion, yes lol. Arlong Park is often fondly remembered as "the arc that got many people hooked", but it's broadly not considered on even the same level as Marineford, much less Enies Lobby.

@chpollastrini:

I wouldn't go as much as say instant…

While I do remember there being nitpicking at the time (tbh I remember half of it being "when are we seeing the rest of the straw hats again, it's been forever"), in the chapter Ace died and the few after it, most fans were just going "Holy fucking shit this arc, what the fuck", and that is the impression people remember of the arc as a whole. So it was "instant", just not "from the beginning of it".

And yes, it was because Oda had never confirmed a kill before (outside of backstory). But that still made a huge fucking impression. Especially when Whitebeard died soon after. "Oh shit, we a serious manga now." That was roughly what happened.

Edit: I'll add that one of the chief complaints besides the lack of straw hats was that the stakes were fake because Ace wouldn't die after all of this buildup (to contrast, while most people assumed that the Straw Hats would succeed in Enies Lobby, they had just come off a series of failures from Luffy vs Ao Kiji in Long Ring Long Land and CP9 in Water 7, so it seemed at least conceivable that Robin would be taken away by the marines to be saved later, since the threat was not about execution, merely a sort of… enslaved imprisonment. Spandam really wanted the ancient weapon revived lol). People took Oda's "well I don't want to have some dumb revival mechanic so that's why I don't kill my characters off" answer to mean, before that, that he would never kill any character of importance at all. So Oda washed away those complaints and made them look downright foolish in retrospect, thus making those very people instantly gain a whole new respect for the whole arc. While I'm sure there were some complaints about pandering, I personally don't remember many at all, maybe just a couple of louder voices repeating the same point over and over again week after week.

@RevolutionaryOfThe6Paths:

I'm talking about filler that genuinely elavates the story and the characters. Early one piece has a lot of episodes/scenes like that.

None of One Piece has anything like that. The thing most people cite is how the Drum Island flashback was completely changed to make Hiriluk seem more sympathetic, but people only like that because they want him to be sympathetic. The reality of the matter is that Hiriluk was an absolute crackpot that Chopper tragically loved because he was a fucking reindeer that never knew anyone else who loved him like family. The story of the flashback is that he literally got what he deserved. He wasn't doing experiments-with-his-heart-in-the-right-place. I mean, on some level he did want to help people, but his actual actions were all abhorrent, he was just going around stealing money in exchange for quack doctoring. And then he died to quack doctoring because his basically-son only learned quack doctoring from him.

It's tragic for Chopper. It's not tragic for Hiriluk at all. And the anime tried to turn it into that. Why?!

Everything the anime added or changed w.r.t. the story in all of One Piece was less good than pure One Piece. The only One Piece anime I'm willing to consume are the movies that Oda himself personally wrote. While I didn't even hate G8 at the time, I think it still is just less good than all surrounding plot and should be completely ignored.

The One Piece filler added to Marineford weren't from Oda's notes, you know. It was just filler. And it was all worse than the manga. Ugh.

Im curious to see if they'll expand on some aspects

If they do "expand" on anything, it will be NON-CANON.

I'd personally love if Yamato joined, but… what purpose would she have?

I admit I didn't think of it before the first time Jinbe had piloted the Sunny, but having him be the helmsman makes a ton of sense, and in a way, I feel like the ship itself could never have been complete without him; Nami was always about reading the weather, not the waves.

But everyone on the crew has a clearly defined "purpose" (even if Zoro's is, you know, arguably not function-based but merely strength-based). We need someone who can give the straw hats something they really just don't have yet.

The only thing I've come up with is "scout". A scout would probably need to be able to fly. But if it's really necessary, Brook can fulfill that function alongside his basic function of "musician", so it goes back to me being unable to determine what is needed.

The crew seems complete with Jinbe. If someone comes along that has a unique talent that I truly can't imagine being replicated, that'll be awesome, but I wouldn't expect someone to join at this point to merely provide political power (or raw power). So I picked the last option but would be genuinely surprised if the final answer was neither that nor "other".

Though again, I'd love for Yamato to join already, that'd be sick--I just don't think it's realistic despite her attempts to become Oden and see the world with the pirate king.

@Blissed:

There's several characters with seemingly real horns though, including Black Maria. They can't have all eaten a Human DF.

There are confirmed half-giants like Wotans, and I see no reason that there can't be half-dragons, especially thanks to Kaido himself having a human form. I'm not suggesting Yamato also ate a human fruit, I'm suggesting that Yamato could be a half-dragon retaining mostly human features.

Again, not saying any of this is "likely", I just like it feeling possible.

My favorite part of this chapter is that Yamato's horn reveal leaves open at least the vague possibility of the theory that Kaido is originally a dragon who ate some type of human fruit.

Not that I think it's a super likely thing, but it would be so, so great if it happened. And yes, I realize that the kids Big Mom had with him make it that much more unlikely. But I just have a dream, and One Piece is all about dreams, right?

@Sengokusgoat:

I wouldn't take for granted that the flashback is over. The hour of legends took two chapters to actually happen and it seems appropriate to have the whole deal with the castle now since it's the scabbards having this flashback.

"Take for granted"? It was literally announced to us at the end of this chapter that we'd return to the present in the next chapter.

Thanks for giving in to popular demand I voted for Imu but I am not surprised to still see Blackbeard at the top of the list.

Personally I think Blackbeard will be the last fight before reaching Laugh Tale, maaaaaybe even a fight occuring on Laugh Tale itself, and Imu will be the one fight/war afterwards. Possibly even with Blackbeard as an ally, though I'm not sure Luffy will forgive him for capturing Ace (he definitely won't forgive Akainu for killing Ace, but Akainu will presumably be fighting for Imu).

Edit: also, who is voting for Dragon.

Regardless of people's opinions of Im, I really think this thread is in need of a 3.0 ever since we found out about a true king of the world government.

This thread still has votes that are over 5 years old. Many people will still vote for Blackbeard, of course, but I think the mysterious presence of Im is at least noteworthy and right now we only have "Other" to vote for. It's a big problem with the poll itself–not with the original creator, of course, but with the current state of the thread.