That's false.
Stabbing and gripping are two different things.I can poke my eye and keep it, but if I stab it it's gone. Doctors can grab a heart, but not kill the patient. If they flat out stabbed the heart they'd die.
That's not actually true wrt being stabbed in the heart. A stab wound to the heart isn't necessarily fatal; with treatment roughly 33% of victims IRL survive it. So Monet being stabbed wouldn't even necessarily be fatal even if she wasn't a trained fighter in a shonen manga.
I just love how this shows that Oda is more creative than Kishimoto. I mean Kishi's shout out was basically drawing the Strawhat Jolly roger. Oda on the other hand makes it a cool little mystery that isn't completely obvious but shows enough effort to show that he means the sentiment. I love this man.
The really neat thing is that the whole "taking the first letter from a bunch of words to make a sentence" thing was part of the code that Jiraiya left Naruto. It's a really neat inclusion that shows that Oda reads Naruto.
That this not a counter argument to my point though.
If I need to wait until Blackbeard centered final for him to get a proper development, then arguing that him being established as a final villain that much early in the series because of the need for said development was entirely necessary is simply untrue, wouldn't you agree.
Sigh I might as well talk to the wall.
That's not really the case, though. Blackbeard is being developed as a growing threat. The depth of his character and the whys and the hows of his character can and will be developed later when the story starts to focus more and more on the Luffy vs. Blackbeard conflict, but given that our protagonist is a pirate that's assaulted all three of the Government's key strongholds in the Grand Line, it's important that Blackbeard be developed as someone that's even more of a threat than Luffy is. By systematically building Blackbeard up throughout the course of the story as an escalating threat to the safety and security of the world at large, Oda's showing us why this confrontation is inevitable, even though Blackbeard and Luffy are cut from the same cloth as dreamers. It's like with the Baroque Work's saga – Oda revealed who the boss of Baroque Works was almost immediately and then built-up the threat from there, only specifically focusing in on Crocodile and most of his Officers once they'd reached Alabasta. With Blackbeard, when we first meet him, he becomes a threat fairly quickly, but it's not until the end of Enies Lobby and the start of the Paramount War stuff that Oda really starts to develop and hammer home why he's such a threat.
That's what needs to be developed. Oda's style with One Piece is to focus in on specific locations and locally-contained plots while slowly moving along the greater, overarching plot. That's starting to change as the Straw Hats become entangled with the Four Emperors and other big names, but when you consider everything that the Straw Hats have done and the level of strength and influence of the people that they're currently tangling with, it's far more satisfying to gradually build the climax of the series in some observable, appreciable ways rather than completely holding everything back for the sake of making it more surprising.
Wouldn't him being a well known criminal be a good point in his case. It's not like he has a real reason to make that up and at least they would investigate.
Telling the Marines that Vergo is a spy isn't really all the helpful with regards to Law's plans to start with. Like right now, Law is the only person who isn't an executive in Doflamingo's family that knows that Vergo is one. If the Marines suddenly find that bit of information out and believe it enough to act on it, Doflamingo's probably going to figure out where it came from. Whatever Law's up to after Cora-san dies, it's pretty clear that taking revenge on Doflamingo is one of his prime objectives. Tipping off the Marines isn't going to do much on it's own wrt Vergo. It hurts his operations somewhat, but it's also going likely going to put Law back on Doflamingo's shit list, so it's actually better to bide his time and wait until he's in position to actually do some damage to Doflamingo and his family, which is what he does.
….how the hell did Soma get ranked beneath Naruto? Crazy TOC this week.
Not necessarily. If she loses, that loss can have that much more impact since we know what she's fighting for. ChouChou's backstory comes to mind as something done similarly. Nami's flashback too was told right before her money was stolen.
My two cents is Rebecca's role can expand beyond the confines of the tournament. If anything, since the Revolt/attack on the factory is about to happen, her time in the tournament could be limiting her since at this point it looks like the raid on the factory will be happening around the time the 4 winners face the Doflamingo family.
Given Doflamingo's line to Law and the Vice Admiral's query about why no participants have left, presumably something sketchy is happening to the losers. I'm not saying Rebecca should be a damsel in distress, but at least she'd possibly be closer to the action and the Toy Soldier that way.
And well, the fight for the Devil Fruit seems to be a spectacle unrelated to the rest of the arc. Bartolemeo and Burguess definitely have nothing to do with the arc's happenings. Just think keeping Rebecca there as well doesn't have to be the only role she will play in the arc, though her going all Gladiator could be intriguing
Normally, I would probably agree with you, but both Nami and Chou-Chou's flashbacks led to situations that had near immediate solutions. Nami's flashback leads to her money getting stolen which leads directly the march on Arlong Park, a classically strong moment that resonates in the minds of most readers. Similarly, Chou-Chou's flashback has a near immediate response when Luffy bests Mohji and Richie. If there was some sort of easily resolvable situation or action that Luffy could take, I might agree with you, but even if Rebecca loses to Cavendish, he's not really part of the internal workings of Dressrosa. Luffy beating up Cavendish doesn't really solve Rebecca's problem or resolve any of her plotline, so this really doesn't strike me as a flashback where we're specifically learning about someone's motivation and resolve to make their defeat that much more resounding. Plus, considering the way Oda's written this arc, we'll very likely be switching focus over to the Green Bit side and/or the Tontattas and/or the Thousand Sunny crew before D-Block is fully resolved. I think that if Oda specifically wanted to expand upon Rebecca's motivation prior to her defeat, he would've skipped the flashback, left in the part regarding her getting booed and the prisoner gladiators explaining to Luffy why that's happening, and then revealed her motivation in the middle of the bout, right before a climatic moment.
We really don't know whose gonna win, there just isn't concrete evidence as to who is the superior fighter until we see either of them in an actual fight. But I guess anyone whose dead set on one of them winning won't change their mind till it happens anyway at this point…
It's not solely about knowing who's stronger, but understanding how Oda likes to structure his stories. Oda tends to use his flashbacks as a way of adding more impact and weight to a particular scene. Chopper's flashback occurs as Luffy's in mid-punch, the Calgara-Noland flashback precedes Luffy's final bout with Enel and ringing the bell, and Robin's flashback is a precursor to Sogeking shooting down the flag and the "I wanna live" moment. There are others, but looking at the placement of this flashback sequence - as she's marching to fight in her preliminary bout - makes this a strong moment for her character. It would be something completely different if this flashback was placed in a later scene, but it's not. Rebecca steps into the colosseum and it's her versus nearly all of Dressrosa, but thanks to the impact added by her flashback, it's a stronger, more powerful moment and it's meant to demonstrate both her resolve and her strength as a person. This isn't going to be undercut by Rebecca suddenly being defeated by Cavendish, whose main connection to the storyline is his hatred for Luffy.
So this next chapter is going to be the last one for two weeks?
Probably not. The next chapter, which would normally be released on the 16th in Japan, should be out Tuesday. Likewise, the chapter after that, which would come out the 23rd in Japan, will be leaked online on the 17th, assuming Oda doesn't announce a break in this week's Jump.
why are we getting the chapter early?
Cuz redon or someone else said we getting chapter early, so next chapter illegally comes out on Tuesday instead of Wednesday and legally comes out on Saturday instead of Monday.
To expand, next Monday (the 16th) is a holiday in Japan, as is the Monday after that. Jump is released on Saturday instead of Monday when Monday's are public holidays and, because of that, we get the leaked version of the chapter a day earlier than normal or so.
Ippo's never really been the sort of fighter with overwhelming belief in himself, though. His style has always been to put his faith in his training and he's never really had much of a champion mentality. Most of his early title defenses had him take on the challenger mentality. No matter how much training he's done, Ippo's just not a guy who would have the kind of certainty that he's the only one who could beat Ricardo, for instance, so I don't think we'll ever really see that. Kamogawa has hinted that he believes that may be possible, especially once the Dempsey Roll takes on its final evolution.
And I actually think strengthening his basics is a sign of progress more than anything. When Takamura sent his challenge to the world, it wasn't by beating his opponent with a big attack, but by calmly dismantling his opponent with nothing but his left. And in Ippo's match with Karasawa, he calmly and methodically backed him into a corner and picked him apart, which led to Kamogawa believing that he was ready for the next level.
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