Hey, the site is finally back!

Had to make a new account (formerly just Kizuchan) because of having an old e-mail I had no access to (and notreally using Discord), but good to see APforums isn't gone just yet.

So instead of giving thoughts about One Piece I start by giving thoughts about Dragon Ball:

-The Granolah arc ended up a boring mess. I really liked everything up to Bardock's flashback and from there, Bardock was boring and all the villains were boring.

This version of Bardock undermines a bunch of what I find interesting in Goku and the Saiyans and I wouldn't even mind that if it gave something I find interesting in return but in my eyes it doesn't.

-Really liked Super Hero, but now I'm really starting to feel the repeat tropes.

Yes, technically it's revealed at the end of the movie, Gohan has been training, but it still has that annoying framing in it where, it says, hey look isn't it cool how special it is that Gohan got back into fighting the third time?

And I think I'm really, really starting to feel the transformation burn out. As recolour-y as Ultra Instinct or Super Saiyan God or even Blue might have been, they had at least some principle behind them.

I was okay with them up to Ultra Instinct, too. But then we got dark blue Vegeta and then we have green Broly again and now purple Vegeta in the manga and then add these forms in Super Hero.

I love how Gohan, Piccolo, Pan are handled in the movie and I love the Gammas and Hedo, tho.

I think the characterisation itself is fantastic. I think it's very Toriyama in the best of ways. The Gammas strike me as peak of getting the comedic vibe of Toriyama's stuff.

Also, that final chapter before the hiatus of Freeza just showing up, beating up everyone and leaving was fantastic because the arc was really bad before that.

Hey, the site is finally back!

Had to make a new account (formerly just Kizuchan) because of having an old e-mail I had no access to (and notreally using Discord), but good to see APforums isn't gone just yet.

So instead of giving thoughts about One Piece I start by giving thoughts about Dragon Ball:

-The Granolah arc ended up a boring mess. I really liked everything up to Bardock's flashback and from there, Bardock was boring and all the villains were boring.

This version of Bardock undermines a bunch of what I find interesting in Goku and the Saiyans and I wouldn't even mind that if it gave something I find interesting in return but in my eyes it doesn't.

-Really liked Super Hero, but now I'm really starting to feel the repeat tropes.

Yes, technically it's revealed at the end of the movie, Gohan has been training, but it still has that annoying framing in it where, it says, hey look isn't it cool how special it is that Gohan got back into fighting the third time?

And I think I'm really, really starting to feel the transformation burn out. As recolour-y as Ultra Instinct or Super Saiyan God or even Blue might have been, they had at least some principle behind them.

I was okay with them up to Ultra Instinct, too. But then we got dark blue Vegeta and then we have green Broly again and now purple Vegeta in the manga and then add these forms in Super Hero.

I love how Gohan, Piccolo, Pan are handled in the movie and I love the Gammas and Hedo, tho.

I think the characterisation itself is fantastic. I think it's very Toriyama in the best of ways. The Gammas strike me as peak of getting the comedic vibe of Toriyama's stuff.

I've straight-up hated this arc for the last few chapters.

Since the entire subplot with Bardock became the focus, this arc has been an absolute bore for me.

Bardock's relevance and the attempt to make me care for him really hard doesn't work for me because the fundamental ideas behind his character are done in the most uninteresting way possible.

Goku's supposed character arc about accepting who he is was done much better 30 years ago with a single line.

And it's all pushing Bardock really hard and as I said trying to make me care really, really hard.

I defended the end of the ToP arc and Moro and the first leg of this arc, but this is just back to the manga just being awful.

This was okay.

I'm reserving to judge what happened here fully for now because it feels incomplete. Most of the Kaido fight so far has been a blast, even.

I enjoyed pretty much all of the fights in this section of the story, but if this truly is the end, pretty much all of them had more interesting character writing backing them.

This needs more substance to land.

A big complaint about this arc has been that Luffy keeps getting up without much downtime, but I don't care because One Piece kills and makes characters struggle in very specific circumstances and ways anyway. It absolutely wouldn't surprise me if Pedro popped up again.

The meaning was backed with stronger plotting pre-timeskip, but it doesn't break the story for me.

But if there is no substantial meaning to latch on to, it's just generic shounen #135679 and I can enjoy that, but I think as people above said OP has been more than that to me.

I disliked how Doflamingo was defeated because of this, too because I thought Doflamingo deserved more due to all of the depth he was given (but at least he doesn't seem to be completely gone, so I think we could still get more on him). Hody's defeat had more meaning than any of this.

As said just based on this chapter, it feels okay and as also said, I very much want to wait before I fully judge because it feels incomplete. Could be fun if this deviates from formula a little which I feel you could do with this.

So, I love classic cartoon humour, even when it isn't my personal favourite thing. Having gotten a little closer look, I even think the base Gear 5 design looks strange in not necessarily the best way (though I still take it over Gear 4).

But, again, this power is so much fun.

And, again, to have this 'legendary' element of this story that has been treated so seriously so far just be embodied by classic cartoon humour is a blast to me.

And also again, very in-character for OP.

But it certainly is very unique if you look at manga/anime in general.

It's a little hard for me to find the phrasing for the issues I take with the base design because being wierd and wacky is the point, but the other example I have Hodi's crew and again Gear 4. I think there is a threshold where things get a little too busy?

But in all other aspects I really continue to like this power.

Also it totally is a more indirect tribute to Super Saiyan than we usually see, or even how Carrot's Sulong was to SSJ3.

It's probably that Luffy's mastery of the fruit also caused this.

What I like about this is what I speculated after previous chapter:

You could have some fun character stuff done with Luffy because he's always been about freedom and at this point he's sort of semi-possessed.

But I also like that despite his fruit now being recontextualised as a mythical Zoan, this doesn't remove the learning component of his devil fruit. Basically, the story just renamed the fruit for plot and theme purposes and expanded the limits it can do, but I think Luffy still has to be the one to come up with the uses.

Obviously there's the Nika element, but I think this chapter was still just mostly Luffy being Luffy and the story acknowledged that in distinguishing Luffy and Nika, which I think sort of also at least delayed the 'fated hero' thing for now, too. Nika and Luffy are separate.

If you plainly hate the principle of this entire thing, you'll probably hate this, but I think it dodged the bigger issues for now.

And all of these aside, this power lines up with One Piece's identity incredibly well. For so long Joyboy has been this serious figure and I think we'll still get that Void Century flashback, but I love that it's just revealed to be classic cartoon comedy.

Dunno about the design with the burning head, just like with Gear 4, but I like Gear 5 in concept much more. It's just going full classic slapstick comedy in a very organic way to OP.

Really, I think this final aspect is probably the best element of this.

The fight in this chapter between Kaidou and Luffy was a blast.

The Bardock subplot is the worst element of this arc.

I like Granolah. I like the Heeters. I found Goku to be a lot of fun in this newest chapter.

But anything involving new Bardock has zero emotional impact for me.

Minus was so easy to ignore because it was a punch line with throwaway characters for an entirely different manga – Jaco the Galactic Patrolman.

But if you play it straight, it has zero emotional weight to it. It's pretty clear the story can now actually give an arc to Goku about not overdoing it with his martial arts because he remembered his parents being nice to him and I've been pretty indifferent about Minus, but now that the story tries so hard to paint it as powerful and impactful, I'm much more negative on it.

Goku's parents being nice and his mission not actually being to destroy Earth just isn't that interesting. The the old contrast is so much more narratively interesting even if I have issues with that Special, too.

I've been okay with it because there are so many possible details to it: Raditz was still pretty horrible, technically all Saiyan babies sent away were meant to conquer a the planet they were sent to and we still see Bardock be a warrior, but that's not the framing and focus.

The intention of the story is so crystal clear now and to me that's just boring.

I feel like aside from this not really changing Luffy fundamentally character-wise, it's also obvious he's not dead because all of this shock around him 'dying' is a pretty typical story device to build tension.

Building tension around characters being dead means very little because there is basically no death in OP unless it serves some sort of specific thematic point in this specific way (Ace, Whitebeard, the many other flashback deaths etc). I fully expect everyone who has been presumed to be dead to turn out fine by the end of the arc.

We have Roger's hat, but that still works from Shanks' perspective because he was his former captain. I really think the whole fate thing won't be as egregious as the most surface reading of it seems like. It's too simple and too seemingly contradictory to Luffy as a character.

Luffy's strongest values are about having his own freedom and choosing his own fate, essentially. I think it'll absolutely relate to that idea and I think you can do something pretty cool with it depending on execution.

I actually lean towards the spirit of the fruit mattering because that's a thing we've actually known from much earlier on (basically since we learned each fruit can only be eaten once/by only one user), not just the Joyboy teasing since FI.

I think getting Luffy's victory over an Emperor has always kind of uneasy for me because they've been set up as such a wall. Big Mom being weakened because of luck was clumsy and even Luffy just clumsily getting up many more times in a shorter span of time than any enemy is clumsy, but at least there is some sort of sense of narrative progression to it all. And even if Luffy's fruit turns out to be more special than we thought, that doesn't mean he still won't have to figure it out or it is actually as special of a power-up as it seems.

I like being hopeful because even in the worst writing moments (which I consider the mess that is Law's devil fruit), there is still at least some sort of logic to it. Law's a doctor, so all of his moves are themed around that, clumsy, but still principled. Even when Donflamingo became kind of a worse copy of Crocodile by the end of Dressrosa, there were some basic principles behind it. I still don't like Gear 4 that much because it feel like Hodi Jones of power-ups: yeah there is some thought in it, but in execution it's derivative in a pretty clumsy way. Gear 2 and Gear 3 do a much better balance of fun/goofy/creative, but Gear 4 still adheres to some logic and you can argue it's something that could still be refined.

Haki in general has really vague boundaries, too. I feel you could invalidate devil fruit powers with it at any moment and the only thing preventing this not to happen is Oda's own choice of trying to still keep DF powers still relevant and keeping Haki an enhancement.

And most importantly, I think doing something with your main character is a bigger deal than any specific arc villain or side character, especially something this major should have more thought put into it than just the very surface element.

I have more faith for this to work out than I don't, I guess.

I get the feeling this at least won't fundamentally change Luffy's character.

OP hasn't really done this with any main characters, at least. The closest I can think of is actually the shift between Ms. Wednesday and Vivi, but she was still a side character and we barely knew her character back in Whiskey Peak.

And maybe Robin, but that's similar to Vivi where we didn't get to know her that much before she 'changed'.

I actually think if Joyboy is another entity, the narrative can go the direction where Luffy actually doesn't like it since freedom is so important to him. Make this whole 'fate' thing something to be fought against.

Also, you don't have to redeem the Gorosei to give them understandable motives. You can have villains with more nuanced views than that, but still keep them as villains. 'Cool motive, still evil' and all that.

They might think there is no other way to what they are doing, but that doesn't automatically have to redeem them.