Thats another thing that didn't pay off. The theme of Trust & Betrayal. We were literally told that Pirate Alliances always end in betrayal and didn't get to see much of that contrasted in Big Mom & Kaido vs Luffy & Law. Even though it was heavily implied that Big Mom was ready to betray Kaido and he was even expecting it. So that went nowhere.
Nidai Kitetsu is another plot point that was dropped. It was a very blatant piece of foreshadowing/chekov's gun that went nowhere. Sure you could argue that it wasn't important to the grander plot, but why introduce it like that? The Kitetsu Blades already seem to have some relevance to Zoro just based on how Oda writes them. Someone else pointed out the strangeness of their first introduction at the beginning of the series which is basically: Guy who uses 3 swords and is looking for new ones "very conveniently" learns of exactly 3 legendary cursed swords that no one is using. He finds the first one and it immediately chooses him as it's wielder. Then we meet the second blade, and whats the first thing Oda does with it after introducing it? He has Luffy bring it right to Zoro. When these blades come up it's only in relevance to Zoro for some reason. But it he doesn't let Zoro touch it. The second time we see it it's only to once again mysteriously dangle it outside of Zoro's reach. Oda does this not once but two times. Isn't that weird? It's like the author was telling the story and was like: "So the characters got the equipment they need for the raid *cough* Nidai Kitetsu *cough cough* so anyways heres how they'll take down Kaido...." Then just continued on with the story. Again, isn't that weird? I mean if it's not supposed to be relevant then why even tell us about it? If nothing is supposed to come of it then why even mention it here? If something truly isn't relevant then you don't include it in the story. Yet it seems like for Oda it was very important to specifically let Zoro know that the blade exists and that it's here in Wano. ......And then the plot point is dropped. Never to be addressed again. It just adds to the pile of things Oda very blatantly ignored.
Yeah, the way it was handled doesn't make narrative sense, if it's just a red herring, for what purpose? The details of Zoro not getting to handle it and the cursed blades in general makes it seem that there's more to that. Maybe for the Sandai Kitetsu instead of the Nidai.
Oda is still dodging the question of whether or not Yamato joins the crew. It's been a few chapters and it hasn't even been brought up. Toss all of that on top of the fact that the Dawn didn't come, the borders didn't open, no Kaido backstory(not a real one anyway), and all the other dropped stuff. It just makes it feel like for Wano we didn't get a payoff for anything. Not a single thing that was setup ever payed off.
There's going to be a purpose on the borders not opening, so it's not a fair complain (the real problem is that the conclusion of the battle was so sudden that it left the impression that everything is over). It still depends on how Wano finishes.
It's gonna be a while before I can watch this because the ending to Wano is so unsatisfying. For now I'll leave a comment and a like for the algorithm.
Yeah Hawkins is definitely not dead. Just him having a death scene makes it all the more likely he survived. Oda does this weird thing were he will give characters dramatic death scenes but they don't die. But when it comes to other characters deaths they just die off-screen. It's really bizarre.
Everything about this ending just seems like a deliberate step DOWN from Oda's usual storytelling. Anti-Climactic punch, with anti-climactic villain, anti-climactic backstory, combined with all the dropped plot threads and unresolved themes. I almost can't belief it's Oda who wrote this. I'm convinced he's been replaced with a clone or a replicate or something because this ending is just so NOT Oda. All the cop-out excuses people are giving for "why its actually good" just sounds like copium. This is a BAD ending to Wano. If this is the actual ending then Wano isn't even a story. It's just a mess of stuff happening that don't have any real meaning whatsoever. And thats just depressing considering Oda has been doing the exact opposite of that for 20 years only to suddenly fall off out of the blue like this on his biggest project. It's like watching someone make straight A++ for most of their life then out of nowhere they get a D. You can't help but wonder what the fuck happened. I never in my life thought we've ever see One Piece decline...but here we are.
I believe this is Oda again wanting to keep the mysteries artificially, because he didn't want to show us Rocks' crew, which it probably contains the most relevant details of Kaido's backstory. Although at the point that is revealed, Kaido won't probably be the focus.
*"This is the most cringest manga chapter ever"* Okay I believe it, *it's so ridiculously funny, and when it comes to the anime episode version animated scenes here it's so much funnier* Lol. *Now are you guys satisfying? Smacked at Momo's face* Lmao Lol. *The "Son of Kozuki Oden/Oden's Son" and "Daughter of Kaido/Kaido's Daughter" are get along so well. The chemistry of Momonosuke and Yamato are so cute funny "Okay I'm already simp ship them long ago and right now, their notable parallels similarities and contrasts differences between the two are so fitting, and I don't care what Most One Piece fans say.* XD *Wait* I just realize that *"New Ryuma/Zoro Greatest World Swordsman"* and *"New Oden/Momo Greatest Wanokuni Samurai"* are *living at the very same era current present timeline right now.* XD *But there's also a dark heartbreaking sad part* that's *"Ashura's and Izou's deaths." Rest in peace great brave loyal retainers... Chapter 1054, the "Beginning of the End/Final Saga"..... Prepare, everyone.* So the *fans did guess theorize correct* right? The *"Admiral Greenbull" power* is about the *"forest flowers plants and trees," "self photosynthesis"* so *he doesn't need foods to survive....*
This comment has spoilers for 1053. I think I may have gotten a bit excessive with the length of the comment but unsurprisingly with a chapter like this there's A LOT to be said and honestly it would easy for me to make the comment twice as long. There's basically three parts: a response to the video, an analysis of whether or not the Wano arc was rushed/had more and whether it was planned out well and the last part is just some stuff about it I wanted to get off my chest. The last part doesn't need to be read by anyone and I wouldn't really reccomend anyone other than Straw Hat Jedi read the rest. Your attempt at patching the Nika-Nika plotholes makes no sense. Yeah this kid is just the brother of Ace, son of Dragon, grandson of Garp, has the last survivor of Ohara on his crew, Conqueror's Haki, took out two Shichibukai, punched a Celestial Dragon in the face and stormed and survived Marineford. No need to worry about it. If this is actually the logic, and I use that word loosely, Oda is going for then the Gorosei are going to be even more underwhelming as villains than Kaido. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if Imu just kills them off so Oda doesn't have to spend time individually characterizing them. I already feel like they're constant portrayal as being bumbling idiots in Wano has kind of murdered their mystique so I honestly wouldn't mind at this point. Basil Hawkins characterization has no consistency with his previous characterization. The guy in the Killer fight doesn't seem especially concerned with honor, loyalty or pride and he sure as hell doesn't seem to think the Beast Pirates are going to lose or that he is going to die. He is shocked when he pulls the Tower Card at the end of the chapter. He literally says Killer's side has no chance of winning this battle! Killer's whole monologue in the fight is about how they bet on themselves despite impossible odds, the entire theme of the fight was just bullshit! Not to mention his entire gimmick is doing what his cards suggest is the best possibility to survive and his entire ability is based on using other people's lives as a shield for his own. This was a retcon that didn't even need to be in the story. Also him wandering around just to find Drake and monologue to him is awkward as fuck. Hawkins being punished for his "betrayal" while the actual traitor Apoo gets to sail away free of consequences is the cherry on top. Even beyond the obvious retcons I don't see how anyone can say this is a good ending for Hawkins. On paper I think it's kind of OK as a unique idea to explore with his character but it really suffers from being a retcon. Even beyond the "what the fuck" feeling for anyone actually paying attention to the story, the fact that it was so last minute means there was no real time to buld-up to the scene or really explore Hawkins as a character and what this means for him. It's like having a 2 page short story randomly inserted into some massive narrative, it falls about as flat as it possibly can fall. Also the idea that Hawkins was the least important of the supernovas is bullshit, he had the second highest bounty after Kid among them. I would still put Law ahead of him given the trio fight after the auction but other than that I don't see how you wouldn't put him third. Bonney, Bege and Killer had the lowest bounties and least amount of screentime in Sabaody, not to mention according to an interview Hawkins was originally considered for being a Shichibukai by Oda. And please god do not give his Devil Fruit to someone else. Stripping the Devil Fruit of his other dynamics with the cards determining his abilities and seemingly use of Future Sight (? how do his powers really work anyways?) would just expose how much more boring any character who uses it is compared to Hawkins. Wano has just completely butchered the Supernovas as a group in general. I feel like people often point to Naruto's use of the Konoha 11 as some of the most underwhelming use of side characters in a long-running shonen series but that's just insulting, the Konoha 11 blow the Supernovas out of the fucking water. The reason people complain about them is because they all have incredibly strong introductions and roles in Part 1 only to completely fall to the wayside after that. The Supernova have cool character designs and sustained build-up across 14 years in the story but that is pretty much all they have. They look cool and they feel like they have a lot of potential, they are essentially like having nine different Shinos. Except with a lot of hype and a lot more justified expectation with they were consistently portrayed in the story. You could write all of them out of Wano and the story wouldn't really have to change at all. You would just need to name-drop Sword during the Reverie or something instead and write Big Mom out of the story, which would be a big improvement considering she ultimately added nothing other than being a widely hated plot device. The only Supernovas with anything resembling fleshed out characterization are Law and Bege, which unfortunately set the bar far too high for me to excuse Oda crawling under it for the rest of the series. I could deal with some of them dropping out and not having much of an impact if it happened during the Post-War arc or right around the beginning of the timeskip but having followed the series weekly since the very chapter they were introduced in and having constantly been teased with them across a decade plus of chapters I'm ultimately left with the very unsatisfying feeling of realizing that Oda has just been yanking my chain for fourteen years. All of this bullshit about how these guys are the future major players and we need to constantly see what they're up to and how they will impact the world, only to just go "idk who cares" and move on at the last moment. I now fully expect the next time we see Urogue he's being defeated by Blackbeard or joined Buggy or some ultimately inconsequential shit. I just want to plead with Oda, please drop Kid. I can't take watching him regress into this flat tsundere character, he's basically the poster child I visualize when I think "the supernovas are such a disappointment". I guess this is a good time to talk about the bounties, which is easily the dumbest thing to come out of 1053. The fact that after everything Blackbeard has done in the series, Law and Kid just surpassed his bounty for hitching their wagon to Luffy and barely etching out a bullshit victory against Big Mom is just insulting. It feels like Oda really likes the idea of a shonen rivalry but absolutely refuses to spend any time fleshing it out, treating it like an actual rivalry or giving continuous individual spotlight to the other two to make sure the readers can take them seriously as rivals. Law at least had character development so I can look at him for what he is instead of what he isn't but Oda keeps pretending he is. Kid has literally nothing to him as a character other than being a much worse version of Luffy with half the strength and 1/10 of the accomplishments, so without any other character development I can't see him and think anything other than "what's this loser going on about?". Honestly he's not just a poster boy for the decline of the Supernova, along with Kaido and Big Mom he's the first image that pops to my head when you say "the decline of One Piece". Damn I never typed that phrase until now and it's fucking depressing to put it into words.
I wouldn't call the brainwashing of children addressed so much as hand-waved. The idea that you can overturn twenty years of brain washing by changing a teacher is so comically simplistic that I don't even understand the point of including it in the first place. This chapter also doesn't address tons of things about Wano that were brought up and then completely dropped in the story. The class system from Act 1 was just never mentioned again, presumably because it makes many citizens of Wano complicit with the decline of the nation instead of just being victims. The Flower Capitol was built up originally as the last bastion of wealth in Wano, implying that it was the place where Wano's upper class lived and ignored the struggles of the surrounding areas. Don't even get me started on the "Kaido is regarded as a Guardian Diety" shit. Clearly somewhere between Act 2 and Act 3 Oda reduced the citizens of Wano from actual characters in a story with issues they needed to overcome to plot devices to artificially raise the stakes. He mines well have just made every town in Wano Ebisu Town from the start. The worst thing about this arc though is honestly the Kurozumi clan plot. Oda wrote a family who was the victim of perseuction and basically genocide, who then became the villain due to being the monster that Wano created. Instead of concluding the arc in a way that acknowledges what the citizens of Wano did was terrible, honing in on regular themes in the series like the sins of the parent aren't the sins of the child or being born isn't a crime, Oda just had them finally kill off the last one. After all these years, they finally murdered the rest of those filthy Kurozumi clan members. What a beautiful ending. I unironically think that Wano doesn't deserve it's freedom. I'm happy to see you acknowledge the need for closure in this Kurozumi plotline. It's one thing to just kind of lose sight of a plot thread or underwhelm the readers by fumbling an aspect of the story, these things happen (usually not to One Piece though...). It's another thing entirely to craft and conclude a plot-line in a way that completely contradicts with some of the core themes you've been building up in your series for 1,000+ chapters. If there is nothing else about the Kurozumi clan this is straight up the absolute WORST writing in the entire series, inarguably in my opinion. That said what can there be done from here? Tama already had seemingly normal parents (the people saying their graves said Kurozumi are full of shit it's far too blurry to read) so I think that theory is out. Even if we said that Tama did end up being casually mentioned as being a Kurozumi, is throwing it in there at the last minute right before the arc ends really such a strong conclusion to the plot? That's basically guaranteeing it has no space to actually impact the plot and explore the characters/themes of the story. To me it's not a matter of if the damage is done to the story, just a matter of how much damage is done to the story. I'm not entirely sure where to put what I want to say about Hitetsu being Sukiyaki as I have two main issues with it, though I suppose they could be heavily interlinked. In an arc so filled with things going nowhere it is a little refreshing to see such a minor part of Arc 2 being addressed but my real question coming out of it is...why? Why was Sukiyaki locked up instead of killed? How did he escape? What the fuck has he been doing all these years? It seems like he mad no active effort to help any rebel forces rise against the Beast Pirates and isn't going to reveal his identity to anyone (why the fuck did he reveal it to Robin then? I think he just really wants to talk about it? Very rude of Robin to basically just tell him to shut up and show him Pluton) so what point is there to him being alive? Honestly this kind of builds on my point of the people of Wano being pieces of shit that don't deserve freedom, guy was playing with dolls and swords and the best he could muster was telling a little girl about an old promise everyone already seems to know. Of course a lot of these things could be solved as early as the next chapter but that kind of brings me to my other critique about it. The pacing of Act 3 has been trash. It feels like you're watching a kid with a severe case of ADD and a massive box of toys constantly jump around from one thing to another, Oda picks up one plot threads, plays with it for a bit and then throws it to the wayside and starts playing with another toy. Only sometimes he seems to look lovingly at the toy on the ground and then pick it up to play with it again for a brief moment before he tosses it aside again. The result is pacing and structure that isn't very good on re-read, like I just re-read Act 3 and I can say that chopping up Sanji vs. Queen and Zoro vs. King served no purpose other than fucking up the momentum of the fights. At it's worst though, which I would definitely consider 1052 to be a peak example, it basically encourages knee-jerk reactions and makes it extremely difficult to read the series weekly. With all the stuff that gets off-screened or dropped or pointlessly shuffled around in this arc it's understandable that someone might be concerned about that happening in these kind of situations, yet at the same time you can't engage in critical discussion about it without being shut down and told to "wait until the arc's over" or in your case "wait until this completely hypothetical Return to Wano arc is over" or just wait until the series is over. While my point about the pacing and the fandom isn't over yet I want to stop and criticize some things that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I can now criticize. Any potential connection to the Dawn of the World doesn't excuse the stupidity of the seven day timeskip. The dawn was frequently brought up in connection to ending the reign of Orochi and Kaido so it's a bit silly to act like it's not something specific to Wano. Moreover the dawn is symbolic, and I don't mean to the story of One Piece, it's symbolic of Oda just straight up speed running the entire epilogue of Wano. The amount of things that have been casually off-screnned in these last few chapters is fucking absurd. Kinemon reunion with his wife? Off-screened. The dawn breaking through after the massive battle for Wano? Off-screened. Any epilogue for any of the villians or knowledge on what happened to them? Off-screened. Hiyori and Momonosuke reunion? One-panel. Ame no Habakiri? Off-screened. Kiku mourning her brother? Off-screened. The most built-up to banquet in the series after the longest arc and saga in the series? The least time spent on any banquet in the entire series. Zoro visting Yasuie's grave after not getting revenge for him? Better to take a bath with Yamato instead. I feel like in any other past One Piece arcs these things would have been been resolved with a lot of care and detail, probably spread across a few chapters. 1052 would have shown Hiyori and Momonosuke talking, the Beast Pirates being rounded up in Sea Stone and taken to Udon, the Straw Hats reflecting on how far they've come and how far Luffy will go and end with Kin'emon and his wife reuniting as the new dawn breaks on their silhouettes embracing. Something that really sells the emotions of what this country has gone through in the last twenty years. 1053 could have the mourning of Ashura Doji and Izo, which really should include Kiku and Usopp. I don't evenk now what to say about Usopp, I might mention him later but...man it's bad. Combine that with Momonosuke accepting Ame no Habakiri in a more ritualistic fashion and you could have a great chapter with a message on the responsibilities of those who survived and the wills they inherited, maybe ending the chapter with Hiyori and Momo at the graves of their parents surrounded by the Scabbards who are still around combined with photos of the fallen Ashura Doji and Izo. You could even have Kin'emon reflect on what drove Kanjuro to his choice and vow to build a Wano that far exceeds Oden's Wano, giving a bit of lip service and closure to the Kurozumi plot. I could go on and on, having half a chapter with more detailed accounts on what exactly Sukiyaki has gone through these past 25 years or so and ending with the revelation of Pluton being in Wano. Having the majority of a chapter being a festival, inline with all previous One Piece arcs, but still having the same ending. Etc, etc. I think I made my point. The sad thing is I'm not using fan fiction here, I introduced no new ideas to the story. I merely re-iteriated on the plot and themes that Oda built up and framed them in a generic way they could have a conclusion. I don't think any One Piece fan can read what I wrote above and not think it would be 10x better than what we got and is much more in line with how Oda used to write the story. But apparently now writing the story fast is more important than writing the story well.
Well you skipped over the Ryuma line....I mean what is there to be said? What in god's name happened to Zoro in this arc? His storyline in Act 2 and his storyline in Act 3 are completely disconnected from each other and it feels like he really suffered from Oda's decision that the people of Wano shouldn't play apart in their own story...after going through the trouble of building up so many ways they could. Still man Oda could have easily duck-taped these things together to make it harder to complain about, like after saying he would get revenge for Yasuie he NEVER ONCE mentions his name again in all of Act 3? Are you fucking serious? You couldn't just have King insult the people of Wano, a brief flashback of King helping take over the place, maybe even revealing him killing the Shimotsuki Damiyo after Yamato's flashback and then have Zoro cut him down while saying a line about the samurai and validating both him inheriting the Shimotsuki will and getting revenge for Yasuie? Is Zoro really yelling "You seem scared now!" better than that? Oda just casually upending Zoro's entire lineage and getting absolutely nothing out of it may just be the weirdest thing about this arc. I don't even know what to say about the Grim Reaper man...like seriously what the fuck was that? I've seen some people try to defend it by saying it's just a Grim Reaper! Oda was just trying to tell us Zoro was really hurt, no need to look into it too much! This baffles me as I've never seen any series casually show a person is hurt by having them screaming while crawling away from a Grim Reaper and then never mention it again, would really like to know exactly what these people have been reading. I honestly think this might be the most emotionally manipulative thing in the entire series, at least Pell had a proper climax. With this Zoro shit you had Oda drumming up the horrendous side effects of Mink Medicine, how damaged he was from the roof battle, had him crawling away from a Grim Reaper, had Franky barely catching him and yelling he better not be dead, had Chopper desperate to find him...only to result in him yelling for booze after sleeping it off. If you want to make a point about how poorly planned and haphazardly written the Wano arc is, there is no better example than Zoro. Oda really just spent an entire arc going on about Zoro's similarities to Ryuma, upending his heritage and bonding him with samurai...only to have him beat the second in command in a generic fight and go "you know Luffy and Ryuma really are similar". At least for me this line kind of crosses over into the so bad it's funny category, where most other things just depress me. I'm not sure where to start with the Big Mom and Kaido stuff. From watching your videos I feel like you're suggesting that Kaido will awaken and fight Momo in a future arc...like do you realize how bad that would be from a writing perspective? To have the most hyped up villain in the entire series to date pull out his trump card not against the protagonist but against a side character hundreds of chapter after being defeated by the protagonist? Also given Oda's writing style I think it's a safe bet that there's only a couple of months left in-story time before the series ends. The idea that Momonosuke could surpass Kaido in those couple of months by staying in Wano is straight up laughable. I suppose it could work if he joined the crew, but even then my other criticism would remain. Also where the fuck do you think an in-depth Kaido backstory would fit into the story after he's been defeated and his arc as it ended? Seriously I need you to lay out this fan fiction you're writing more clearly because it makes no sense as is. The sea stone shit you're pedelling is 100% not happening. It's cute but convoluted, without any prior build-up (which there hasn't been any) it would feel like it came out of nowhere and be a terrible conclusion to their presence in Wano. It has the same massive logical hole of your "but the Volcano really beat Kaido" theory, it ignores how Oda writes everything else in the story and that he writes the story with teenage boys in mind. The series always has and always will be bombastic not subtle. You need to remember that when theorizing. Also Kaido and Big Mom DO NOT have important unresolved threads. Kaido's suicidal tendencies have not been mentioned once since 795. His entire characterization in Wano has more played up the idea of Warrior values and a Warrior death, while I would agree that whatever messages Oda wants to say in regards to death and honor hasn't been remotely well realized - this is not a Kaido thing this is a Wano thing. It's not at all exclusive to his character, and please don't tell me Usopp was right in his speech. That's the same bullshit Usopp always peddles and his big moments involve him standing his ground and ignoring those words that go through his head, doing everything you can to survive no matter what is not the right way to live. Both Yamato and Hyogoro give speeches after this speech that directly contradict this with no resolution afterwards as well. Anyways my point being after a certain point maybe you just have to consider that Oda did a bit of a soft retcon and made it to where Kaido is obssessed with dying a warrior's death in battle instead of just being obsessed with death/depressed in general. The alcoholic thing just feels like a gag instead of character insight, it sucks but it is what it is. You keep saying we don't know why Kaido said Wano was special but this is bullshit. You just don't like any of the multiple answers Oda has given in the series so you're holding out hope for something else. Wano has Pluton. Wano is an impenetrable fortress that keeps out even the World Government. Wano seems tied to the Ancient Kingdom and the secrets of the Void Century. Wano is the land that Joy Boy is prophesied to return to. Wano is rich in natural unique resources like Sea Stone. Does Wano need to be the Mary Sue of One Piece nations before you can finally go "maybe Wano is special"? As for Big Mom the only big hanging plot thread is how many times Oda drummed up the idea of her fighting against Luffy. But I mean what's the point now? Big Mom is around the same level as Kaido and Luffy just beat Kaido in a 1 vs. 1 without having Gear 5 the whole time or being experienced in using Gear 5 and while still learning the ropes in regards to Conqueror's Haki and getting used to it in regards to stamina. Not sure how invested there is from a power scaling level to be in Luffy fighting Big Mom a few weeks from now. Saying that there is no closure to her relationship with Mother Carmel or some shit is ultimately pretty minor and you could aim that critique at so many fucking things in Wano. I don't like using the phrase "character assassination" as it's pretty overused online but I don't know what else to call Big Mom in Wano. She served no role from a plot perspective, other than distracting Kid and Law who also served no role from a plot perspective and basically shifted between being embarrassed and being annoying through out the entire arc. Her credibility is shot both in real life and in the fictional One Piece universe, she's already been a major part of two arcs in a row, she's no longer that credible of a threat for Luffy and most of the stuff you're clinging on to proving her role in the rest of the story is very minor and wouldn't affect the story going forward much if dropped. Most importantly though Kaido and Big Mom just aren't the type of characters you can have hanging around in cover stories. Both of them are natural conquerors who can destroy pretty much anyone in the entire universe, it would completely contradict their very nature as a character to have their life and plans so disrupted and not force themselves into being the center of attention. They are problems that need to be dealt with at ANY POINT in the story. If Kaido was still alive he could straight up invade Wano solo and take the entire place back. They are not characters than can just be left to roam on pretty much any level you look at it. I will say it's a crime against humanity that we don't get to see the glorious Looney Tunes-ness of Awakened Big Mom vs. Awakened Luffy. Also I feel like G5 Luffy slamming around an awakened Kaido would make him look like the Pokemon Druddigon, would have loved to see that. Add it to the massive list of disappointments in the arc.
Man I don't know where you're coming from about Izo. After seeing them beat Apoo + Drake + 2 Numbers so easily I think having them fight to a draw in a 2 vs. 1 with Izo actually brings them down a bit. I suppose it depends on where you rank Izo, we really don't have much to go on so it's pretty much random. More importantly though this is the worst death in the series because, aside from being literally just a few panels, it was completely pointless. I'm not sure why you're talking about how Usopp would be no match for CP0, Izo saved them from random Beast Pirates not CP0. CP0 strolled in afterwards and were completely ignoring Izo, Izo just refused to let them go because they said they were targeting Robin (or Luffy? Can't remember if the Luffy order was right before or right after). Let's say they did go though...what would happen? They would succeed and Luffy would lose to Kaido...which is exactly what happened. And then Kaido would have wiped the floor with both of them. Izo's death was literally pointless. The death scenes are the weirdest thing about this chapter though, it legitimately feels like Oda's editor pointed out the lack of deaths and Oda just looked at the characters and decided who could die based on the last scene he wrote them in. He wrote legitimate death scenes for Kiku and Kin'emon, even going so far as to have Kiku give a death speech, but revived them for no real reason. Ashura Doji he kind of gave a death scene to but it was so short that I don't remember anyone thinking he was dead. I have no idea where you're coming from about Ashura Doji having the least screen time, compared to chumps like Raizo and Kawamatsu he had plenty of time. Also while Kiku may have had more screen time, he had an actual character arc. Seriously what the fuck does Kiku even bring to the story? Like Kawamatsu is shallow as fuck but he at least has one thing he clearly accomplishes (gathering weapons) and represents an idea of loyalty, as shallow as it is. Kiku I can't think of anything she really brings...coupled with the fact that she was also indirectly responsible for Ashura Doji's death and her not mourning either of them in 1052 makes her one of my least favorite characters in One Piece. Shame I liked her in Act 1. If Oda did this at the last minute in order for people to be able to take his future fake-outs seriously, I don't think he succeeded. To me it was always pretty easy to tell in One Piece in regards to death. The fake-outs usually happened very quickly, no real epilogue speeches or anything, and didn't really accomplish much in ways of plot. The real deaths were usually highly dramatic and felt like the culmination of the character. It was always obvious to me that Pedro was dead and it was always obvious to me that Kin'emon was alive because I carefully read the story and saw these things in those death and fake-out scenes. There are only really two exceptions pre-Wano: Pound and Pell. With Pell I have no defense, it's bad. With Pound however we always lacked confirmation of what his injures really were, so it didn't really break anything for Oda to shift it from death scene to tremendous display of character. Kiku crosses a line for me, as she straight up gives a dramatic speech after being given a "fatal wound" but somehow just survives for no reason and doesn't accomplish anything with it. That means I can't even head cannon any consistency with the deaths, so now when Oda writes a "death scene" I'll have to constantly go "is this a death? is this a fakeout" and it'll harm my ability to be emotionally invested in the scene. Just terrible, terrible writing. The fire festival is over, please stop with the dumb ghost shit. It doesn't make any sense for Toki to not jump to the point in time she sent Momonosuke and all this big shit was going down. Toki showing up at a later point in the story will never have as much emotional weight as her showing up during the Wano arc. Also when so many things are left vague or underdeveloped....idk man maybe that's like a problem with the writing in the arc? Do you understand how dumb it is to build up to an arc for 10 years, hype it to the fucking moon and then off-screen all the important shit for some hypothetical 2.0 arc after 150 chapters? You do realize not a single arc in One Piece has been written this way right? The way Oda structures the story is one of it's biggest assetts, I see no reason to believe he suddenly changed it up here of all places. I am curious though...exactly how many chapters does Oda have to go without mentioning any of these things for you to finally give up and criticize it? Speaking as someone who went through this "it can't end like this! Oda is too good for that!" through out the entire last year, I speak from experience when I say give up the ghost. The longer you drag out these feelings in the face of increasing evidence to the contrary, the more depressing it is when you eventually have to cave-in. Also no mention of the CP0 stuff being a clear retcon? So the Gorosei ordered a bunch of CP0 ships to go to Wano with the explicit order of annexing Wano IF Kaido and Big Mom were defeated. They then proceeded to be shocked that they were defeated and decided to leave because...the borders are closed? What intel did they have that suggested the borders were open? Were they just not aware of what Wano Country looks like? Between this and apparently never trying to do anything despite knowing about Luffy's devil fruit the Gorosei are looking insanely incompetent for some of the central villains of the series. If you have some head cannon you are using to wait and criticize it for I'd be interested in hearing it. Just seems like more garbage to me. I have no fucking clue what's going on with Yamato. I don't think there's any way she would not join the crew after how hard Oda has drummed that shit up but dear god what the fuck is the point of her? What's her role on the crew, what's her goal going forward? Why did Oda spend all of her time on Wano developing her with Momo instead of having her interact with the crew? I think it would be absolutely horrible writing for her to just give up on this twenty year obsession just because Luffy says so so I sincerely hope that isn't the case. That is not resolving a plot line, it's waving it away and hoping no one cares. Also I gotta say, I've thought this ever since you didn't change anything about your thoughts on the arc after 1049, but you seem like a very stubborn person. It's over man, you gotta give up on Carrot. She could have been a great Straw Hat but it's just not meant to be. Legit question: does Hiyroi have any actual role in the arc? If you just re-wrote the story and removed Hiyori would it have any impact on the arc at all? I liked her in act 2 but after seeing her go nowhere in act 3 then just having her be thirsty about Zoro in 1052 something inside of me kind of broke and she ended up on my least favorite characters list. This has been a common trend in Wano where characters that seem really interesting ended up being trash because of negligence. Kaido, King, Queen, Jack, Who's-Who, Ulti & Page One, Drake, Apoo, Hawkins, Kid, Hiyroi, Perospero, Orochi, Kanjuro, most of the scabbards, Yamato, etc. so many characters who had strong introductions/moments but just ended up going nowhere or having conclusions so underwhelming they undermined the entire character. I feel like Kin'emon and Momonosuke are the only characters who came out well, and I still feel like both of them could have been handled way better. The Momo speech was great in isolation but if he actually had his big moment with Onigashima? Would have been twice as good. If we had more time to explore Kin'emon's pscyhe and what he's been through and actually see his reunion with his wife? Would have been five times the character. Nothing hurts as much as Big Mom, who came in as an already great character but now has been irreconcilably damaged as a character after all this shit. Also lmao are you implying some "grim reaper will come in in two hundred chapters trust me bro" shit when Oda couldn't even circle back a ton of things from this arc alone? I think I made fun of that earlier in my writings but I can't remember. Starting to feel like the Sanji germa transformation plot was just an excuse for Oda to hand-wave Sanji getting a power-up from Germa technology. I'm not expecting it to go anywhere at this point. I wasn't sure what to make of Sanji's use of the raid suit after Whole Cake Island and initially gave Oda the benefit of the doubt but after this chapter I just felt like Oda turned him into a hypocrite and dragged his character development in a circle.
You know one of the things I really dislike about this arc while reflecting on half-paying attention to the bounty section (I didn't want to skip in case you made an interesting point but it is after 1053 and all) is the portrayal of Yonko. Big Mom's portrayal in Zou/WCI did a fantastic job of building her up as a literal emperor, this kind of mafia like boss who controls vast swathes of land, a literal army and has eyes and ears everywhere and can eliminate any one just like that. Oda did not do this with Kaido at all. He just feels like a souped up version of Doflamingo/Doffy Pirates/Dressrosa, honestly this arc just feels like a bloated Dressrosa with a bad ending. Even down to stealing the finish of Dressrosa. I assume Oda just nerfed what it means to be a Yonko in order to have the alliance believably win, but I still feel like there was a massive missed opportunity in developing Luffy more as a leader. In the end all we really got was the Udon speech, which while pretty cool, is way too small scaled. Other than that it just feels like Luffy makes big punch even bigger against even bigger guys. I still don't feel like Luffy is a Yonko and I don't feel like Kaido is one either. That brings me to the Buggy twist...I'm not really sure what to think about it honestly. I love Buggy and I love the falling upward gag but I think this was horribly timed. The reason Big Mom was still replaced as an emperor instead of just abolishing the system was because Oda wants to call Luffy a "yonko". Yet having Buggy be a Yonko just makes you take the entire title less seriously, so ultimately I think it just ended up backfiring. I didn't feel anywhere near as much emotions hearing Luffy called the new emperor as I did hearing him called the fifth emperor, which I think is a mix of things. One is just having him called a Fifth Emperor may have been jumping the gun too much on Oda's part, especially in English where it's just "emperor", feels like Oda is trying to get hype out of the same scene twice. Of course the other is unlike Whole Cake Island Wano sucks ass, so it's hard to feel much emotional resonance after such an underwhelming finale. Doesn't feel earned enough with how low the tension was during the raid. Ultimately I think Big Mom should have remained alive/emperor/not come to Wano to have her character ruined and Buggy should have replaced her after she was defeated in Elbalf, thus giving us time to relish in "Yonko Luffy". I do hope that there is something dramatic to explain why Buggy become a Yonko though. Considering Hajrudin was one of this top earners Buggy as he knew him earlier doesn't seem even remotely close to being Yonko. Still I prefer Oda making a joke while making the Yonko into a joke over the alternative of him asking us to take Beop as YC1 and Shachi/Penguin as YC2 seriously. I don't understand why I'm supposed to be hyped about Green Bull. Not sure what he could even do to the Alliance, feels like we're already facing the negative consequences of Oda completely destroying any logical sense of power scaling in the series. I do really like that his character seems to be something along the lines of "chaotic justice" but I am legitimately worried he's just going to get his ass beat in the next couple of chapters. And if he doesn't get his ass beat that just doesn't make any sense considering the line-up he's going against. Side note but I really dislike how Oda used King and Queen. King was implied to be so mentally traumatized from being on the run his whole life that he killed his own allies that saw him without even thinking about it, feels unnecessarily cruel to have him meet his end in such a way. Not to mention it raises a bunch of questions about what they've been doing for the past week? So much for ancient zoan recovery rates, can't match up to fucking Zoro's ability to escape the grim reaper. Also do you realize that Kaido being defeated means we probably won't ever see an Awakened Zoan in the series again? What kind of hellish reality have we slipped into where the Impel Down Jailers are our only glimpses at the peak of one third of the power system in the series? Anyways having Green Bull just stomp them like that feels really cheap. It further cracks apart the power scaling that Oda had previously been very careful about building through out the series. I'm not saying that Marco was on Ao Kiji's level but he was clearly capable of putting up a decent fight with him for an extended time. Yet King seems stronger than Marco as Marco had to tag out after running out of stamina fighting him. Yet Green Bull is able to 2 vs. 1 two different Marco level fighters in the blink of an eye? What the fuck? This feels very cheap third rate shonen style writing and I'm disappointed to see One Piece finally fall into using, even more so when it's used so abruptly. At least wait until the next arc to treat the arc villains like a joke Oda! Also I really need some answers to some shit. You're telling me that people like Fujitora and Green Bull were just laying around ready to be taken up in some draft? You're telling me that information so secret that anyone who knows it will be killed was told to Who's-Who by a completely random prison guard? Where the fuck did he learn that shit? Oda's really abusing these contrived conveniences and it's undermining his carefully crafted world building. Also on a side note god damn was being a Lunarian wasted on King. Honestly makes me question if they're really going to be that important to the plot. Hopefully they are. The year zero thing was something that fascinated me for a long time and your video on it is by far your best work. I'll be pretty annoyed if that isn't addressed at all in the story, as it contradicts the government's tendency to cover up history. Why are you pretending that Kabuki plays have four acts? Fourth acts in Kabuki plays are usually heroic rise and action resolution. Also lmao please show me a Kabuki play that speed runs it's entire finale, no story structure that becomes an honored tradition would do something that stupid. The five act stories aren't anywhere near as bloated as Wano so they can afford a quicker ending. It feels like you're trying to use this reference where you hide half the relevant information to make Oda speed running the story look like part of some broader plan, or at least a reference that excuses how shitty it is to read. Pleas stop this nonsense. Also Luffy willingly being captured is so out of character, though so I suppose it's no longer worth mentioning considering how off-base the assumption of Green Bull's character was. Seems like Wano will wrap up in a couple of chapters but the break's timing was dictated by the live action starting filming. I guess they just didn't want to miss the marketing chance, especially since Wano will probably have a swift ending with the way Oda's speed-running the epilogue.
So I re-read Wano recently, specifically right before Chapter 1051 came out. I basically came to two conclusions reading it, both of which would probably be an unpopular statement to make to One Piece fans: 1. that Oda is a garden writer instead of an architect writer and 2. that the ending of Wano isn't the originally intended ending. I'm going to try to work my notes into a semi-cohesive essay arguing these two statements, but given how long I spent just reacting to your video I'm going to avoid trying to shove in every random oddity I took note of. I'm actually surprised that people think Oda is as much of a planner as most people seem to. He's given multiple interviews where he's out-right stated that he winged large portions of the story weekly like the Shichibukai or Supernova (god you can really tell on the last one). I think most people get it confused because he has such amazing attention to detail and was always careful to wrap everything up in a nice bow with previous arcs, but I think this is about as blatant as possible in Wano. While that retroactively makes the other arcs much more impressive, I think the scale and size of Wano really pushes the limits of what is possible on a weekly publication schedule. One of the issues with arguing about Wano's plot is the counter-argument that it'll be answered later. While I think that overlooks many worthwhile aspects of the argument, like does that make for a satisfying arc in regards to Wano and is later a better time to answer it, it is an understandable response given the series tendency to carry plot lines over long stretches of chapters. While there are a few things that I think are very Wano specific that can't be argued weren't abandoned (Queen vs. Who's-Who, Apoo/Kid dynamic, Wano class system, Zoro's storyline) I'm going to avoid arguing about anything that falls into that category and instead focus on very Wano centric stuff with poor execution. I wanted to write about these more in-depth but I'm going to kind of speed run them since I was so long-winded with the above stuff: -Kanjuro was "killed" in 1014 only to be brought back to make a flame demon that had no impact on the plot what so ever. It distracted Yamato but she just stood around and cheerleaded Momonosuke afterwards, meaning she didn't really need to be given something to do. The bombs in the basement were introduced in 1027, three chapters before hand. I suppose you could argue it helped spread the flames quicker but it wasn't a noticeable enough difference that the reader wouldn't just buy Orochi's flames having spread that quickly. It did separate CP0 and Robin but you could have just had the castle collapsing from the flames do that since it only distracted them for a moment before they met Apoo/Drake. And lastly it did not kill Orochi or really have any effect on him at all and after being revived from a decent death scene/final speech Kanjuro just quietly dies off-screen. -Also connected to that the flames that Orochi set had no real impact on the plot, other than creating a moment for Raizo. I already critiqued that moment on your chapter review of that but I'll point out that it's not like every Scabbard had a moment, Kawamatsu didn't get shit, and I don't think anyone would miss this moment if you removed it. Orochi being betrayed by Kaido likewise didn't really feel like it impacted the plot. -There's a lot of little stuff like this. For example when Drake/Apoo teamed up in 1036 I remember thinking that was a really cool twist but re-reading it you're just left thinking "what the fuck was the point in this?" I guess Apoo and the numbers in general are also something that belongs on this list as they serve no real role in the plot and just get randomly shuffled around with no direction by Oda. -Tama's promise with Ace has no real resolution. Do Luffy and Tama ever even interact past Act 1? Ace being in Wano was foreshadowed all the way back in Marineford so I expected him to have some major role in the arc, potentially even being the Ace in the Beast Pirates, but in the end he seems to have just been used as a plot device to befriend Luffy to Tama and Yamato quickly. I was always kind of hoping for some resolution to Ace's storyline, something like Luffy surpassing Ace and doing the things that Ace left unfinished, and I was always hoping that Tama's promise would lead into that. It doesn't necessarily have to be Tama getting aged up like Momo or Luffy promising to come back to Wano and take her away when she's older but I guess I was envisioned some scene of Tama looking at Luffy and seeing Ace beside him. Also just in general to me Tama feels like kind of a plot device with little character development. Like why does she have a devil fruit? Oda is usually very careful about the distribution of devil fruits and they are usually held in lock-down by people with power/pirate crews, not just randomly sitting around for kids to eat. Why did the Beast Pirates put so much effort into capturing her in Act 1 only to forgot about her existence in Act 2? If Oda really wants to hammer home the idea of Nami being in a motherly role I think it would have been nice if the Beast Pirates continued hunting her in act 2 with Nami protecting her, giving more time for them to develop before their relationship culminates in act 3. I don't think Tama just casually saying "I wanna be a bewitching Kunoichi like you!" in the bath is really something you can call a resolution to this plot thread. It's more like an attempt to hand wave it away, I can't imagine this was Oda's end goal when he introduced Tama. Nothing about her arc really feels complete and I think she's one of the strongest arguments for Oda introducing ideas without knowing where he's going with it. -Yamato in general is just the most bizarre case this arc, I believe I already touched on it earlier but man her relationship with Kaido is so underdeveloped that they barely feel related at all. That's not even mentioning how weirdly late her placement is in the arc and the fact that their is no resolution to her story with Kaido. The last thing he said was yelling about her fate as an Oni is being rejected, yet the next thing we see is just her casually partying without anyone questioning her as an Oni or doubting her because of her heritage. She has dialogue that actively sets up some scenario where she needs to win people over, against their prejudices (a very common reoccurring unaddressed problem of Wano citizens) and instead she just never interacts with them. -As I mentioned previously it feels like there's a theme around death in Wano but Oda never really did anything to tie it together or make it into a cohesive statement. We constantly get contradictory statements on it up until the end of the raid. I do think one of the most interesting ones that hints at their originally being more to the arc planned was Yamato's speech to Momonosuke. We have this whole big dramatic speech about how it's better to die fighting for freedom than live without it, yet Momonosuke never gets to respond to it as Luffy's awakening cuts him off. I really don't think you can argue this away as something for hypothetical Wano but Actually Good arc in three hundred chapters. It would be much more natural to have a different speech delivered at that time than cut back to such a minor moment from years and years ago. -I wanna say it's hilarious that after Kaido spent so much time calling the Samurai out as cowards and weaklings that he just ended up being right. They did literally nothing at all, certainly nothing that could prove him wrong.
Thats another thing that didn't pay off. The theme of Trust & Betrayal. We were literally told that Pirate Alliances always end in betrayal and didn't get to see much of that contrasted in Big Mom & Kaido vs Luffy & Law. Even though it was heavily implied that Big Mom was ready to betray Kaido and he was even expecting it. So that went nowhere.
Man that BCS clip caught me off guard. I was already thinking about how he was like THAT EXACT CLIP when you showed it. Well done lol
So is Oda just going to do absolutely NOTHING with the Numbers after hyping them up before the Raid? I still can't believe I'm reading this.
Nidai Kitetsu is another plot point that was dropped. It was a very blatant piece of foreshadowing/chekov's gun that went nowhere.
Sure you could argue that it wasn't important to the grander plot, but why introduce it like that?
The Kitetsu Blades already seem to have some relevance to Zoro just based on how Oda writes them. Someone else pointed out the strangeness of their first introduction at the beginning of the series which is basically: Guy who uses 3 swords and is looking for new ones "very conveniently" learns of exactly 3 legendary cursed swords that no one is using. He finds the first one and it immediately chooses him as it's wielder.
Then we meet the second blade, and whats the first thing Oda does with it after introducing it? He has Luffy bring it right to Zoro. When these blades come up it's only in relevance to Zoro for some reason.
But it he doesn't let Zoro touch it. The second time we see it it's only to once again mysteriously dangle it outside of Zoro's reach. Oda does this not once but two times. Isn't that weird?
It's like the author was telling the story and was like: "So the characters got the equipment they need for the raid *cough* Nidai Kitetsu *cough cough* so anyways heres how they'll take down Kaido...."
Then just continued on with the story.
Again, isn't that weird?
I mean if it's not supposed to be relevant then why even tell us about it? If nothing is supposed to come of it then why even mention it here? If something truly isn't relevant then you don't include it in the story. Yet it seems like for Oda it was very important to specifically let Zoro know that the blade exists and that it's here in Wano.
......And then the plot point is dropped. Never to be addressed again. It just adds to the pile of things Oda very blatantly ignored.
Yeah, the way it was handled doesn't make narrative sense, if it's just a red herring, for what purpose?
The details of Zoro not getting to handle it and the cursed blades in general makes it seem that there's more to that. Maybe for the Sandai Kitetsu instead of the Nidai.
Oda is still dodging the question of whether or not Yamato joins the crew. It's been a few chapters and it hasn't even been brought up. Toss all of that on top of the fact that the Dawn didn't come, the borders didn't open, no Kaido backstory(not a real one anyway), and all the other dropped stuff. It just makes it feel like for Wano we didn't get a payoff for anything. Not a single thing that was setup ever payed off.
There's going to be a purpose on the borders not opening, so it's not a fair complain (the real problem is that the conclusion of the battle was so sudden that it left the impression that everything is over). It still depends on how Wano finishes.
It's gonna be a while before I can watch this because the ending to Wano is so unsatisfying. For now I'll leave a comment and a like for the algorithm.
Much appreciated and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Yeah Hawkins is definitely not dead. Just him having a death scene makes it all the more likely he survived. Oda does this weird thing were he will give characters dramatic death scenes but they don't die. But when it comes to other characters deaths they just die off-screen. It's really bizarre.
Prepare yourself for when Oda decides to have the character actually dying when he really looks like he's dying.
Everything about this ending just seems like a deliberate step DOWN from Oda's usual storytelling. Anti-Climactic punch, with anti-climactic villain, anti-climactic backstory, combined with all the dropped plot threads and unresolved themes. I almost can't belief it's Oda who wrote this. I'm convinced he's been replaced with a clone or a replicate or something because this ending is just so NOT Oda. All the cop-out excuses people are giving for "why its actually good" just sounds like copium. This is a BAD ending to Wano. If this is the actual ending then Wano isn't even a story. It's just a mess of stuff happening that don't have any real meaning whatsoever. And thats just depressing considering Oda has been doing the exact opposite of that for 20 years only to suddenly fall off out of the blue like this on his biggest project. It's like watching someone make straight A++ for most of their life then out of nowhere they get a D. You can't help but wonder what the fuck happened. I never in my life thought we've ever see One Piece decline...but here we are.
Dude Oda's not gonna delve into Kaido's history. It's over. None of it ever mattered. Thats what Oda is clearly showing us.
I believe this is Oda again wanting to keep the mysteries artificially, because he didn't want to show us Rocks' crew, which it probably contains the most relevant details of Kaido's backstory.
Although at the point that is revealed, Kaido won't probably be the focus.
@@didack1419 Thats impossible though because Rocks is clearly at the core of Kaido's motivations.
@@emperorluffy6001 what is impossible?
I mean that when the Rocks' backstory is revealed, the main focus will be on Rocks, not on Kaido.
@@didack1419 Oh I thought you were suggesting Kaido wouldn't be focused on *at all*. My bad. lol.
@@emperorluffy6001 Nah, my wording was a little bit off
*"This is the most cringest manga chapter ever"* Okay I believe it, *it's so ridiculously funny, and when it comes to the anime episode version animated scenes here it's so much funnier* Lol. *Now are you guys satisfying? Smacked at Momo's face* Lmao Lol. *The "Son of Kozuki Oden/Oden's Son" and "Daughter of Kaido/Kaido's Daughter" are get along so well. The chemistry of Momonosuke and Yamato are so cute funny "Okay I'm already simp ship them long ago and right now, their notable parallels similarities and contrasts differences between the two are so fitting, and I don't care what Most One Piece fans say.* XD *Wait* I just realize that *"New Ryuma/Zoro Greatest World Swordsman"* and *"New Oden/Momo Greatest Wanokuni Samurai"* are *living at the very same era current present timeline right now.* XD *But there's also a dark heartbreaking sad part* that's *"Ashura's and Izou's deaths." Rest in peace great brave loyal retainers... Chapter 1054, the "Beginning of the End/Final Saga"..... Prepare, everyone.* So the *fans did guess theorize correct* right? The *"Admiral Greenbull" power* is about the *"forest flowers plants and trees," "self photosynthesis"* so *he doesn't need foods to survive....*
This comment has spoilers for 1053. I think I may have gotten a bit excessive with the length of the comment but unsurprisingly with a chapter like this there's A LOT to be said and honestly it would easy for me to make the comment twice as long. There's basically three parts: a response to the video, an analysis of whether or not the Wano arc was rushed/had more and whether it was planned out well and the last part is just some stuff about it I wanted to get off my chest. The last part doesn't need to be read by anyone and I wouldn't really reccomend anyone other than Straw Hat Jedi read the rest.
Your attempt at patching the Nika-Nika plotholes makes no sense. Yeah this kid is just the brother of Ace, son of Dragon, grandson of Garp, has the last survivor of Ohara on his crew, Conqueror's Haki, took out two Shichibukai, punched a Celestial Dragon in the face and stormed and survived Marineford. No need to worry about it. If this is actually the logic, and I use that word loosely, Oda is going for then the Gorosei are going to be even more underwhelming as villains than Kaido. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if Imu just kills them off so Oda doesn't have to spend time individually characterizing them. I already feel like they're constant portrayal as being bumbling idiots in Wano has kind of murdered their mystique so I honestly wouldn't mind at this point.
Basil Hawkins characterization has no consistency with his previous characterization. The guy in the Killer fight doesn't seem especially concerned with honor, loyalty or pride and he sure as hell doesn't seem to think the Beast Pirates are going to lose or that he is going to die. He is shocked when he pulls the Tower Card at the end of the chapter. He literally says Killer's side has no chance of winning this battle! Killer's whole monologue in the fight is about how they bet on themselves despite impossible odds, the entire theme of the fight was just bullshit! Not to mention his entire gimmick is doing what his cards suggest is the best possibility to survive and his entire ability is based on using other people's lives as a shield for his own. This was a retcon that didn't even need to be in the story. Also him wandering around just to find Drake and monologue to him is awkward as fuck. Hawkins being punished for his "betrayal" while the actual traitor Apoo gets to sail away free of consequences is the cherry on top.
Even beyond the obvious retcons I don't see how anyone can say this is a good ending for Hawkins. On paper I think it's kind of OK as a unique idea to explore with his character but it really suffers from being a retcon. Even beyond the "what the fuck" feeling for anyone actually paying attention to the story, the fact that it was so last minute means there was no real time to buld-up to the scene or really explore Hawkins as a character and what this means for him. It's like having a 2 page short story randomly inserted into some massive narrative, it falls about as flat as it possibly can fall.
Also the idea that Hawkins was the least important of the supernovas is bullshit, he had the second highest bounty after Kid among them. I would still put Law ahead of him given the trio fight after the auction but other than that I don't see how you wouldn't put him third. Bonney, Bege and Killer had the lowest bounties and least amount of screentime in Sabaody, not to mention according to an interview Hawkins was originally considered for being a Shichibukai by Oda. And please god do not give his Devil Fruit to someone else. Stripping the Devil Fruit of his other dynamics with the cards determining his abilities and seemingly use of Future Sight (? how do his powers really work anyways?) would just expose how much more boring any character who uses it is compared to Hawkins.
Wano has just completely butchered the Supernovas as a group in general. I feel like people often point to Naruto's use of the Konoha 11 as some of the most underwhelming use of side characters in a long-running shonen series but that's just insulting, the Konoha 11 blow the Supernovas out of the fucking water. The reason people complain about them is because they all have incredibly strong introductions and roles in Part 1 only to completely fall to the wayside after that. The Supernova have cool character designs and sustained build-up across 14 years in the story but that is pretty much all they have. They look cool and they feel like they have a lot of potential, they are essentially like having nine different Shinos. Except with a lot of hype and a lot more justified expectation with they were consistently portrayed in the story. You could write all of them out of Wano and the story wouldn't really have to change at all. You would just need to name-drop Sword during the Reverie or something instead and write Big Mom out of the story, which would be a big improvement considering she ultimately added nothing other than being a widely hated plot device. The only Supernovas with anything resembling fleshed out characterization are Law and Bege, which unfortunately set the bar far too high for me to excuse Oda crawling under it for the rest of the series.
I could deal with some of them dropping out and not having much of an impact if it happened during the Post-War arc or right around the beginning of the timeskip but having followed the series weekly since the very chapter they were introduced in and having constantly been teased with them across a decade plus of chapters I'm ultimately left with the very unsatisfying feeling of realizing that Oda has just been yanking my chain for fourteen years. All of this bullshit about how these guys are the future major players and we need to constantly see what they're up to and how they will impact the world, only to just go "idk who cares" and move on at the last moment. I now fully expect the next time we see Urogue he's being defeated by Blackbeard or joined Buggy or some ultimately inconsequential shit.
I just want to plead with Oda, please drop Kid. I can't take watching him regress into this flat tsundere character, he's basically the poster child I visualize when I think "the supernovas are such a disappointment". I guess this is a good time to talk about the bounties, which is easily the dumbest thing to come out of 1053. The fact that after everything Blackbeard has done in the series, Law and Kid just surpassed his bounty for hitching their wagon to Luffy and barely etching out a bullshit victory against Big Mom is just insulting. It feels like Oda really likes the idea of a shonen rivalry but absolutely refuses to spend any time fleshing it out, treating it like an actual rivalry or giving continuous individual spotlight to the other two to make sure the readers can take them seriously as rivals. Law at least had character development so I can look at him for what he is instead of what he isn't but Oda keeps pretending he is. Kid has literally nothing to him as a character other than being a much worse version of Luffy with half the strength and 1/10 of the accomplishments, so without any other character development I can't see him and think anything other than "what's this loser going on about?". Honestly he's not just a poster boy for the decline of the Supernova, along with Kaido and Big Mom he's the first image that pops to my head when you say "the decline of One Piece". Damn I never typed that phrase until now and it's fucking depressing to put it into words.
I wouldn't call the brainwashing of children addressed so much as hand-waved. The idea that you can overturn twenty years of brain washing by changing a teacher is so comically simplistic that I don't even understand the point of including it in the first place. This chapter also doesn't address tons of things about Wano that were brought up and then completely dropped in the story. The class system from Act 1 was just never mentioned again, presumably because it makes many citizens of Wano complicit with the decline of the nation instead of just being victims. The Flower Capitol was built up originally as the last bastion of wealth in Wano, implying that it was the place where Wano's upper class lived and ignored the struggles of the surrounding areas. Don't even get me started on the "Kaido is regarded as a Guardian Diety" shit. Clearly somewhere between Act 2 and Act 3 Oda reduced the citizens of Wano from actual characters in a story with issues they needed to overcome to plot devices to artificially raise the stakes. He mines well have just made every town in Wano Ebisu Town from the start.
The worst thing about this arc though is honestly the Kurozumi clan plot. Oda wrote a family who was the victim of perseuction and basically genocide, who then became the villain due to being the monster that Wano created. Instead of concluding the arc in a way that acknowledges what the citizens of Wano did was terrible, honing in on regular themes in the series like the sins of the parent aren't the sins of the child or being born isn't a crime, Oda just had them finally kill off the last one. After all these years, they finally murdered the rest of those filthy Kurozumi clan members. What a beautiful ending. I unironically think that Wano doesn't deserve it's freedom.
I'm happy to see you acknowledge the need for closure in this Kurozumi plotline. It's one thing to just kind of lose sight of a plot thread or underwhelm the readers by fumbling an aspect of the story, these things happen (usually not to One Piece though...). It's another thing entirely to craft and conclude a plot-line in a way that completely contradicts with some of the core themes you've been building up in your series for 1,000+ chapters. If there is nothing else about the Kurozumi clan this is straight up the absolute WORST writing in the entire series, inarguably in my opinion. That said what can there be done from here? Tama already had seemingly normal parents (the people saying their graves said Kurozumi are full of shit it's far too blurry to read) so I think that theory is out. Even if we said that Tama did end up being casually mentioned as being a Kurozumi, is throwing it in there at the last minute right before the arc ends really such a strong conclusion to the plot? That's basically guaranteeing it has no space to actually impact the plot and explore the characters/themes of the story. To me it's not a matter of if the damage is done to the story, just a matter of how much damage is done to the story.
I'm not entirely sure where to put what I want to say about Hitetsu being Sukiyaki as I have two main issues with it, though I suppose they could be heavily interlinked. In an arc so filled with things going nowhere it is a little refreshing to see such a minor part of Arc 2 being addressed but my real question coming out of it is...why? Why was Sukiyaki locked up instead of killed? How did he escape? What the fuck has he been doing all these years? It seems like he mad no active effort to help any rebel forces rise against the Beast Pirates and isn't going to reveal his identity to anyone (why the fuck did he reveal it to Robin then? I think he just really wants to talk about it? Very rude of Robin to basically just tell him to shut up and show him Pluton) so what point is there to him being alive? Honestly this kind of builds on my point of the people of Wano being pieces of shit that don't deserve freedom, guy was playing with dolls and swords and the best he could muster was telling a little girl about an old promise everyone already seems to know.
Of course a lot of these things could be solved as early as the next chapter but that kind of brings me to my other critique about it. The pacing of Act 3 has been trash. It feels like you're watching a kid with a severe case of ADD and a massive box of toys constantly jump around from one thing to another, Oda picks up one plot threads, plays with it for a bit and then throws it to the wayside and starts playing with another toy. Only sometimes he seems to look lovingly at the toy on the ground and then pick it up to play with it again for a brief moment before he tosses it aside again. The result is pacing and structure that isn't very good on re-read, like I just re-read Act 3 and I can say that chopping up Sanji vs. Queen and Zoro vs. King served no purpose other than fucking up the momentum of the fights. At it's worst though, which I would definitely consider 1052 to be a peak example, it basically encourages knee-jerk reactions and makes it extremely difficult to read the series weekly. With all the stuff that gets off-screened or dropped or pointlessly shuffled around in this arc it's understandable that someone might be concerned about that happening in these kind of situations, yet at the same time you can't engage in critical discussion about it without being shut down and told to "wait until the arc's over" or in your case "wait until this completely hypothetical Return to Wano arc is over" or just wait until the series is over.
While my point about the pacing and the fandom isn't over yet I want to stop and criticize some things that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I can now criticize. Any potential connection to the Dawn of the World doesn't excuse the stupidity of the seven day timeskip. The dawn was frequently brought up in connection to ending the reign of Orochi and Kaido so it's a bit silly to act like it's not something specific to Wano. Moreover the dawn is symbolic, and I don't mean to the story of One Piece, it's symbolic of Oda just straight up speed running the entire epilogue of Wano. The amount of things that have been casually off-screnned in these last few chapters is fucking absurd. Kinemon reunion with his wife? Off-screened. The dawn breaking through after the massive battle for Wano? Off-screened. Any epilogue for any of the villians or knowledge on what happened to them? Off-screened. Hiyori and Momonosuke reunion? One-panel. Ame no Habakiri? Off-screened. Kiku mourning her brother? Off-screened. The most built-up to banquet in the series after the longest arc and saga in the series? The least time spent on any banquet in the entire series. Zoro visting Yasuie's grave after not getting revenge for him? Better to take a bath with Yamato instead.
I feel like in any other past One Piece arcs these things would have been been resolved with a lot of care and detail, probably spread across a few chapters. 1052 would have shown Hiyori and Momonosuke talking, the Beast Pirates being rounded up in Sea Stone and taken to Udon, the Straw Hats reflecting on how far they've come and how far Luffy will go and end with Kin'emon and his wife reuniting as the new dawn breaks on their silhouettes embracing. Something that really sells the emotions of what this country has gone through in the last twenty years. 1053 could have the mourning of Ashura Doji and Izo, which really should include Kiku and Usopp. I don't evenk now what to say about Usopp, I might mention him later but...man it's bad. Combine that with Momonosuke accepting Ame no Habakiri in a more ritualistic fashion and you could have a great chapter with a message on the responsibilities of those who survived and the wills they inherited, maybe ending the chapter with Hiyori and Momo at the graves of their parents surrounded by the Scabbards who are still around combined with photos of the fallen Ashura Doji and Izo. You could even have Kin'emon reflect on what drove Kanjuro to his choice and vow to build a Wano that far exceeds Oden's Wano, giving a bit of lip service and closure to the Kurozumi plot.
I could go on and on, having half a chapter with more detailed accounts on what exactly Sukiyaki has gone through these past 25 years or so and ending with the revelation of Pluton being in Wano. Having the majority of a chapter being a festival, inline with all previous One Piece arcs, but still having the same ending. Etc, etc. I think I made my point. The sad thing is I'm not using fan fiction here, I introduced no new ideas to the story. I merely re-iteriated on the plot and themes that Oda built up and framed them in a generic way they could have a conclusion. I don't think any One Piece fan can read what I wrote above and not think it would be 10x better than what we got and is much more in line with how Oda used to write the story. But apparently now writing the story fast is more important than writing the story well.
Well you skipped over the Ryuma line....I mean what is there to be said? What in god's name happened to Zoro in this arc? His storyline in Act 2 and his storyline in Act 3 are completely disconnected from each other and it feels like he really suffered from Oda's decision that the people of Wano shouldn't play apart in their own story...after going through the trouble of building up so many ways they could. Still man Oda could have easily duck-taped these things together to make it harder to complain about, like after saying he would get revenge for Yasuie he NEVER ONCE mentions his name again in all of Act 3? Are you fucking serious? You couldn't just have King insult the people of Wano, a brief flashback of King helping take over the place, maybe even revealing him killing the Shimotsuki Damiyo after Yamato's flashback and then have Zoro cut him down while saying a line about the samurai and validating both him inheriting the Shimotsuki will and getting revenge for Yasuie? Is Zoro really yelling "You seem scared now!" better than that?
Oda just casually upending Zoro's entire lineage and getting absolutely nothing out of it may just be the weirdest thing about this arc. I don't even know what to say about the Grim Reaper man...like seriously what the fuck was that? I've seen some people try to defend it by saying it's just a Grim Reaper! Oda was just trying to tell us Zoro was really hurt, no need to look into it too much! This baffles me as I've never seen any series casually show a person is hurt by having them screaming while crawling away from a Grim Reaper and then never mention it again, would really like to know exactly what these people have been reading. I honestly think this might be the most emotionally manipulative thing in the entire series, at least Pell had a proper climax. With this Zoro shit you had Oda drumming up the horrendous side effects of Mink Medicine, how damaged he was from the roof battle, had him crawling away from a Grim Reaper, had Franky barely catching him and yelling he better not be dead, had Chopper desperate to find him...only to result in him yelling for booze after sleeping it off. If you want to make a point about how poorly planned and haphazardly written the Wano arc is, there is no better example than Zoro. Oda really just spent an entire arc going on about Zoro's similarities to Ryuma, upending his heritage and bonding him with samurai...only to have him beat the second in command in a generic fight and go "you know Luffy and Ryuma really are similar". At least for me this line kind of crosses over into the so bad it's funny category, where most other things just depress me.
I'm not sure where to start with the Big Mom and Kaido stuff. From watching your videos I feel like you're suggesting that Kaido will awaken and fight Momo in a future arc...like do you realize how bad that would be from a writing perspective? To have the most hyped up villain in the entire series to date pull out his trump card not against the protagonist but against a side character hundreds of chapter after being defeated by the protagonist? Also given Oda's writing style I think it's a safe bet that there's only a couple of months left in-story time before the series ends. The idea that Momonosuke could surpass Kaido in those couple of months by staying in Wano is straight up laughable. I suppose it could work if he joined the crew, but even then my other criticism would remain. Also where the fuck do you think an in-depth Kaido backstory would fit into the story after he's been defeated and his arc as it ended? Seriously I need you to lay out this fan fiction you're writing more clearly because it makes no sense as is.
The sea stone shit you're pedelling is 100% not happening. It's cute but convoluted, without any prior build-up (which there hasn't been any) it would feel like it came out of nowhere and be a terrible conclusion to their presence in Wano. It has the same massive logical hole of your "but the Volcano really beat Kaido" theory, it ignores how Oda writes everything else in the story and that he writes the story with teenage boys in mind. The series always has and always will be bombastic not subtle. You need to remember that when theorizing.
Also Kaido and Big Mom DO NOT have important unresolved threads. Kaido's suicidal tendencies have not been mentioned once since 795. His entire characterization in Wano has more played up the idea of Warrior values and a Warrior death, while I would agree that whatever messages Oda wants to say in regards to death and honor hasn't been remotely well realized - this is not a Kaido thing this is a Wano thing. It's not at all exclusive to his character, and please don't tell me Usopp was right in his speech. That's the same bullshit Usopp always peddles and his big moments involve him standing his ground and ignoring those words that go through his head, doing everything you can to survive no matter what is not the right way to live. Both Yamato and Hyogoro give speeches after this speech that directly contradict this with no resolution afterwards as well. Anyways my point being after a certain point maybe you just have to consider that Oda did a bit of a soft retcon and made it to where Kaido is obssessed with dying a warrior's death in battle instead of just being obsessed with death/depressed in general. The alcoholic thing just feels like a gag instead of character insight, it sucks but it is what it is.
You keep saying we don't know why Kaido said Wano was special but this is bullshit. You just don't like any of the multiple answers Oda has given in the series so you're holding out hope for something else. Wano has Pluton. Wano is an impenetrable fortress that keeps out even the World Government. Wano seems tied to the Ancient Kingdom and the secrets of the Void Century. Wano is the land that Joy Boy is prophesied to return to. Wano is rich in natural unique resources like Sea Stone. Does Wano need to be the Mary Sue of One Piece nations before you can finally go "maybe Wano is special"?
As for Big Mom the only big hanging plot thread is how many times Oda drummed up the idea of her fighting against Luffy. But I mean what's the point now? Big Mom is around the same level as Kaido and Luffy just beat Kaido in a 1 vs. 1 without having Gear 5 the whole time or being experienced in using Gear 5 and while still learning the ropes in regards to Conqueror's Haki and getting used to it in regards to stamina. Not sure how invested there is from a power scaling level to be in Luffy fighting Big Mom a few weeks from now. Saying that there is no closure to her relationship with Mother Carmel or some shit is ultimately pretty minor and you could aim that critique at so many fucking things in Wano.
I don't like using the phrase "character assassination" as it's pretty overused online but I don't know what else to call Big Mom in Wano. She served no role from a plot perspective, other than distracting Kid and Law who also served no role from a plot perspective and basically shifted between being embarrassed and being annoying through out the entire arc. Her credibility is shot both in real life and in the fictional One Piece universe, she's already been a major part of two arcs in a row, she's no longer that credible of a threat for Luffy and most of the stuff you're clinging on to proving her role in the rest of the story is very minor and wouldn't affect the story going forward much if dropped. Most importantly though Kaido and Big Mom just aren't the type of characters you can have hanging around in cover stories. Both of them are natural conquerors who can destroy pretty much anyone in the entire universe, it would completely contradict their very nature as a character to have their life and plans so disrupted and not force themselves into being the center of attention. They are problems that need to be dealt with at ANY POINT in the story. If Kaido was still alive he could straight up invade Wano solo and take the entire place back. They are not characters than can just be left to roam on pretty much any level you look at it. I will say it's a crime against humanity that we don't get to see the glorious Looney Tunes-ness of Awakened Big Mom vs. Awakened Luffy. Also I feel like G5 Luffy slamming around an awakened Kaido would make him look like the Pokemon Druddigon, would have loved to see that. Add it to the massive list of disappointments in the arc.
Man I don't know where you're coming from about Izo. After seeing them beat Apoo + Drake + 2 Numbers so easily I think having them fight to a draw in a 2 vs. 1 with Izo actually brings them down a bit. I suppose it depends on where you rank Izo, we really don't have much to go on so it's pretty much random. More importantly though this is the worst death in the series because, aside from being literally just a few panels, it was completely pointless. I'm not sure why you're talking about how Usopp would be no match for CP0, Izo saved them from random Beast Pirates not CP0. CP0 strolled in afterwards and were completely ignoring Izo, Izo just refused to let them go because they said they were targeting Robin (or Luffy? Can't remember if the Luffy order was right before or right after). Let's say they did go though...what would happen? They would succeed and Luffy would lose to Kaido...which is exactly what happened. And then Kaido would have wiped the floor with both of them. Izo's death was literally pointless.
The death scenes are the weirdest thing about this chapter though, it legitimately feels like Oda's editor pointed out the lack of deaths and Oda just looked at the characters and decided who could die based on the last scene he wrote them in. He wrote legitimate death scenes for Kiku and Kin'emon, even going so far as to have Kiku give a death speech, but revived them for no real reason. Ashura Doji he kind of gave a death scene to but it was so short that I don't remember anyone thinking he was dead. I have no idea where you're coming from about Ashura Doji having the least screen time, compared to chumps like Raizo and Kawamatsu he had plenty of time. Also while Kiku may have had more screen time, he had an actual character arc. Seriously what the fuck does Kiku even bring to the story? Like Kawamatsu is shallow as fuck but he at least has one thing he clearly accomplishes (gathering weapons) and represents an idea of loyalty, as shallow as it is. Kiku I can't think of anything she really brings...coupled with the fact that she was also indirectly responsible for Ashura Doji's death and her not mourning either of them in 1052 makes her one of my least favorite characters in One Piece. Shame I liked her in Act 1.
If Oda did this at the last minute in order for people to be able to take his future fake-outs seriously, I don't think he succeeded. To me it was always pretty easy to tell in One Piece in regards to death. The fake-outs usually happened very quickly, no real epilogue speeches or anything, and didn't really accomplish much in ways of plot. The real deaths were usually highly dramatic and felt like the culmination of the character. It was always obvious to me that Pedro was dead and it was always obvious to me that Kin'emon was alive because I carefully read the story and saw these things in those death and fake-out scenes. There are only really two exceptions pre-Wano: Pound and Pell. With Pell I have no defense, it's bad. With Pound however we always lacked confirmation of what his injures really were, so it didn't really break anything for Oda to shift it from death scene to tremendous display of character. Kiku crosses a line for me, as she straight up gives a dramatic speech after being given a "fatal wound" but somehow just survives for no reason and doesn't accomplish anything with it. That means I can't even head cannon any consistency with the deaths, so now when Oda writes a "death scene" I'll have to constantly go "is this a death? is this a fakeout" and it'll harm my ability to be emotionally invested in the scene. Just terrible, terrible writing.
The fire festival is over, please stop with the dumb ghost shit. It doesn't make any sense for Toki to not jump to the point in time she sent Momonosuke and all this big shit was going down. Toki showing up at a later point in the story will never have as much emotional weight as her showing up during the Wano arc. Also when so many things are left vague or underdeveloped....idk man maybe that's like a problem with the writing in the arc? Do you understand how dumb it is to build up to an arc for 10 years, hype it to the fucking moon and then off-screen all the important shit for some hypothetical 2.0 arc after 150 chapters? You do realize not a single arc in One Piece has been written this way right? The way Oda structures the story is one of it's biggest assetts, I see no reason to believe he suddenly changed it up here of all places. I am curious though...exactly how many chapters does Oda have to go without mentioning any of these things for you to finally give up and criticize it? Speaking as someone who went through this "it can't end like this! Oda is too good for that!" through out the entire last year, I speak from experience when I say give up the ghost. The longer you drag out these feelings in the face of increasing evidence to the contrary, the more depressing it is when you eventually have to cave-in.
Also no mention of the CP0 stuff being a clear retcon? So the Gorosei ordered a bunch of CP0 ships to go to Wano with the explicit order of annexing Wano IF Kaido and Big Mom were defeated. They then proceeded to be shocked that they were defeated and decided to leave because...the borders are closed? What intel did they have that suggested the borders were open? Were they just not aware of what Wano Country looks like? Between this and apparently never trying to do anything despite knowing about Luffy's devil fruit the Gorosei are looking insanely incompetent for some of the central villains of the series. If you have some head cannon you are using to wait and criticize it for I'd be interested in hearing it. Just seems like more garbage to me.
I have no fucking clue what's going on with Yamato. I don't think there's any way she would not join the crew after how hard Oda has drummed that shit up but dear god what the fuck is the point of her? What's her role on the crew, what's her goal going forward? Why did Oda spend all of her time on Wano developing her with Momo instead of having her interact with the crew? I think it would be absolutely horrible writing for her to just give up on this twenty year obsession just because Luffy says so so I sincerely hope that isn't the case. That is not resolving a plot line, it's waving it away and hoping no one cares.
Also I gotta say, I've thought this ever since you didn't change anything about your thoughts on the arc after 1049, but you seem like a very stubborn person. It's over man, you gotta give up on Carrot. She could have been a great Straw Hat but it's just not meant to be.
Legit question: does Hiyroi have any actual role in the arc? If you just re-wrote the story and removed Hiyori would it have any impact on the arc at all? I liked her in act 2 but after seeing her go nowhere in act 3 then just having her be thirsty about Zoro in 1052 something inside of me kind of broke and she ended up on my least favorite characters list. This has been a common trend in Wano where characters that seem really interesting ended up being trash because of negligence. Kaido, King, Queen, Jack, Who's-Who, Ulti & Page One, Drake, Apoo, Hawkins, Kid, Hiyroi, Perospero, Orochi, Kanjuro, most of the scabbards, Yamato, etc. so many characters who had strong introductions/moments but just ended up going nowhere or having conclusions so underwhelming they undermined the entire character. I feel like Kin'emon and Momonosuke are the only characters who came out well, and I still feel like both of them could have been handled way better. The Momo speech was great in isolation but if he actually had his big moment with Onigashima? Would have been twice as good. If we had more time to explore Kin'emon's pscyhe and what he's been through and actually see his reunion with his wife? Would have been five times the character. Nothing hurts as much as Big Mom, who came in as an already great character but now has been irreconcilably damaged as a character after all this shit.
Also lmao are you implying some "grim reaper will come in in two hundred chapters trust me bro" shit when Oda couldn't even circle back a ton of things from this arc alone? I think I made fun of that earlier in my writings but I can't remember. Starting to feel like the Sanji germa transformation plot was just an excuse for Oda to hand-wave Sanji getting a power-up from Germa technology. I'm not expecting it to go anywhere at this point. I wasn't sure what to make of Sanji's use of the raid suit after Whole Cake Island and initially gave Oda the benefit of the doubt but after this chapter I just felt like Oda turned him into a hypocrite and dragged his character development in a circle.
You know one of the things I really dislike about this arc while reflecting on half-paying attention to the bounty section (I didn't want to skip in case you made an interesting point but it is after 1053 and all) is the portrayal of Yonko. Big Mom's portrayal in Zou/WCI did a fantastic job of building her up as a literal emperor, this kind of mafia like boss who controls vast swathes of land, a literal army and has eyes and ears everywhere and can eliminate any one just like that. Oda did not do this with Kaido at all. He just feels like a souped up version of Doflamingo/Doffy Pirates/Dressrosa, honestly this arc just feels like a bloated Dressrosa with a bad ending. Even down to stealing the finish of Dressrosa. I assume Oda just nerfed what it means to be a Yonko in order to have the alliance believably win, but I still feel like there was a massive missed opportunity in developing Luffy more as a leader. In the end all we really got was the Udon speech, which while pretty cool, is way too small scaled. Other than that it just feels like Luffy makes big punch even bigger against even bigger guys. I still don't feel like Luffy is a Yonko and I don't feel like Kaido is one either.
That brings me to the Buggy twist...I'm not really sure what to think about it honestly. I love Buggy and I love the falling upward gag but I think this was horribly timed. The reason Big Mom was still replaced as an emperor instead of just abolishing the system was because Oda wants to call Luffy a "yonko". Yet having Buggy be a Yonko just makes you take the entire title less seriously, so ultimately I think it just ended up backfiring. I didn't feel anywhere near as much emotions hearing Luffy called the new emperor as I did hearing him called the fifth emperor, which I think is a mix of things. One is just having him called a Fifth Emperor may have been jumping the gun too much on Oda's part, especially in English where it's just "emperor", feels like Oda is trying to get hype out of the same scene twice. Of course the other is unlike Whole Cake Island Wano sucks ass, so it's hard to feel much emotional resonance after such an underwhelming finale. Doesn't feel earned enough with how low the tension was during the raid. Ultimately I think Big Mom should have remained alive/emperor/not come to Wano to have her character ruined and Buggy should have replaced her after she was defeated in Elbalf, thus giving us time to relish in "Yonko Luffy".
I do hope that there is something dramatic to explain why Buggy become a Yonko though. Considering Hajrudin was one of this top earners Buggy as he knew him earlier doesn't seem even remotely close to being Yonko. Still I prefer Oda making a joke while making the Yonko into a joke over the alternative of him asking us to take Beop as YC1 and Shachi/Penguin as YC2 seriously.
I don't understand why I'm supposed to be hyped about Green Bull. Not sure what he could even do to the Alliance, feels like we're already facing the negative consequences of Oda completely destroying any logical sense of power scaling in the series. I do really like that his character seems to be something along the lines of "chaotic justice" but I am legitimately worried he's just going to get his ass beat in the next couple of chapters. And if he doesn't get his ass beat that just doesn't make any sense considering the line-up he's going against. Side note but I really dislike how Oda used King and Queen. King was implied to be so mentally traumatized from being on the run his whole life that he killed his own allies that saw him without even thinking about it, feels unnecessarily cruel to have him meet his end in such a way. Not to mention it raises a bunch of questions about what they've been doing for the past week? So much for ancient zoan recovery rates, can't match up to fucking Zoro's ability to escape the grim reaper. Also do you realize that Kaido being defeated means we probably won't ever see an Awakened Zoan in the series again? What kind of hellish reality have we slipped into where the Impel Down Jailers are our only glimpses at the peak of one third of the power system in the series?
Anyways having Green Bull just stomp them like that feels really cheap. It further cracks apart the power scaling that Oda had previously been very careful about building through out the series. I'm not saying that Marco was on Ao Kiji's level but he was clearly capable of putting up a decent fight with him for an extended time. Yet King seems stronger than Marco as Marco had to tag out after running out of stamina fighting him. Yet Green Bull is able to 2 vs. 1 two different Marco level fighters in the blink of an eye? What the fuck? This feels very cheap third rate shonen style writing and I'm disappointed to see One Piece finally fall into using, even more so when it's used so abruptly. At least wait until the next arc to treat the arc villains like a joke Oda!
Also I really need some answers to some shit. You're telling me that people like Fujitora and Green Bull were just laying around ready to be taken up in some draft? You're telling me that information so secret that anyone who knows it will be killed was told to Who's-Who by a completely random prison guard? Where the fuck did he learn that shit? Oda's really abusing these contrived conveniences and it's undermining his carefully crafted world building. Also on a side note god damn was being a Lunarian wasted on King. Honestly makes me question if they're really going to be that important to the plot. Hopefully they are. The year zero thing was something that fascinated me for a long time and your video on it is by far your best work. I'll be pretty annoyed if that isn't addressed at all in the story, as it contradicts the government's tendency to cover up history.
Why are you pretending that Kabuki plays have four acts? Fourth acts in Kabuki plays are usually heroic rise and action resolution. Also lmao please show me a Kabuki play that speed runs it's entire finale, no story structure that becomes an honored tradition would do something that stupid. The five act stories aren't anywhere near as bloated as Wano so they can afford a quicker ending. It feels like you're trying to use this reference where you hide half the relevant information to make Oda speed running the story look like part of some broader plan, or at least a reference that excuses how shitty it is to read. Pleas stop this nonsense. Also Luffy willingly being captured is so out of character, though so I suppose it's no longer worth mentioning considering how off-base the assumption of Green Bull's character was.
Seems like Wano will wrap up in a couple of chapters but the break's timing was dictated by the live action starting filming. I guess they just didn't want to miss the marketing chance, especially since Wano will probably have a swift ending with the way Oda's speed-running the epilogue.
So I re-read Wano recently, specifically right before Chapter 1051 came out. I basically came to two conclusions reading it, both of which would probably be an unpopular statement to make to One Piece fans: 1. that Oda is a garden writer instead of an architect writer and 2. that the ending of Wano isn't the originally intended ending. I'm going to try to work my notes into a semi-cohesive essay arguing these two statements, but given how long I spent just reacting to your video I'm going to avoid trying to shove in every random oddity I took note of.
I'm actually surprised that people think Oda is as much of a planner as most people seem to. He's given multiple interviews where he's out-right stated that he winged large portions of the story weekly like the Shichibukai or Supernova (god you can really tell on the last one). I think most people get it confused because he has such amazing attention to detail and was always careful to wrap everything up in a nice bow with previous arcs, but I think this is about as blatant as possible in Wano. While that retroactively makes the other arcs much more impressive, I think the scale and size of Wano really pushes the limits of what is possible on a weekly publication schedule.
One of the issues with arguing about Wano's plot is the counter-argument that it'll be answered later. While I think that overlooks many worthwhile aspects of the argument, like does that make for a satisfying arc in regards to Wano and is later a better time to answer it, it is an understandable response given the series tendency to carry plot lines over long stretches of chapters. While there are a few things that I think are very Wano specific that can't be argued weren't abandoned (Queen vs. Who's-Who, Apoo/Kid dynamic, Wano class system, Zoro's storyline) I'm going to avoid arguing about anything that falls into that category and instead focus on very Wano centric stuff with poor execution. I wanted to write about these more in-depth but I'm going to kind of speed run them since I was so long-winded with the above stuff:
-Kanjuro was "killed" in 1014 only to be brought back to make a flame demon that had no impact on the plot what so ever. It distracted Yamato but she just stood around and cheerleaded Momonosuke afterwards, meaning she didn't really need to be given something to do. The bombs in the basement were introduced in 1027, three chapters before hand. I suppose you could argue it helped spread the flames quicker but it wasn't a noticeable enough difference that the reader wouldn't just buy Orochi's flames having spread that quickly. It did separate CP0 and Robin but you could have just had the castle collapsing from the flames do that since it only distracted them for a moment before they met Apoo/Drake. And lastly it did not kill Orochi or really have any effect on him at all and after being revived from a decent death scene/final speech Kanjuro just quietly dies off-screen.
-Also connected to that the flames that Orochi set had no real impact on the plot, other than creating a moment for Raizo. I already critiqued that moment on your chapter review of that but I'll point out that it's not like every Scabbard had a moment, Kawamatsu didn't get shit, and I don't think anyone would miss this moment if you removed it. Orochi being betrayed by Kaido likewise didn't really feel like it impacted the plot.
-There's a lot of little stuff like this. For example when Drake/Apoo teamed up in 1036 I remember thinking that was a really cool twist but re-reading it you're just left thinking "what the fuck was the point in this?" I guess Apoo and the numbers in general are also something that belongs on this list as they serve no real role in the plot and just get randomly shuffled around with no direction by Oda.
-Tama's promise with Ace has no real resolution. Do Luffy and Tama ever even interact past Act 1? Ace being in Wano was foreshadowed all the way back in Marineford so I expected him to have some major role in the arc, potentially even being the Ace in the Beast Pirates, but in the end he seems to have just been used as a plot device to befriend Luffy to Tama and Yamato quickly. I was always kind of hoping for some resolution to Ace's storyline, something like Luffy surpassing Ace and doing the things that Ace left unfinished, and I was always hoping that Tama's promise would lead into that. It doesn't necessarily have to be Tama getting aged up like Momo or Luffy promising to come back to Wano and take her away when she's older but I guess I was envisioned some scene of Tama looking at Luffy and seeing Ace beside him. Also just in general to me Tama feels like kind of a plot device with little character development. Like why does she have a devil fruit? Oda is usually very careful about the distribution of devil fruits and they are usually held in lock-down by people with power/pirate crews, not just randomly sitting around for kids to eat. Why did the Beast Pirates put so much effort into capturing her in Act 1 only to forgot about her existence in Act 2? If Oda really wants to hammer home the idea of Nami being in a motherly role I think it would have been nice if the Beast Pirates continued hunting her in act 2 with Nami protecting her, giving more time for them to develop before their relationship culminates in act 3. I don't think Tama just casually saying "I wanna be a bewitching Kunoichi like you!" in the bath is really something you can call a resolution to this plot thread. It's more like an attempt to hand wave it away, I can't imagine this was Oda's end goal when he introduced Tama. Nothing about her arc really feels complete and I think she's one of the strongest arguments for Oda introducing ideas without knowing where he's going with it.
-Yamato in general is just the most bizarre case this arc, I believe I already touched on it earlier but man her relationship with Kaido is so underdeveloped that they barely feel related at all. That's not even mentioning how weirdly late her placement is in the arc and the fact that their is no resolution to her story with Kaido. The last thing he said was yelling about her fate as an Oni is being rejected, yet the next thing we see is just her casually partying without anyone questioning her as an Oni or doubting her because of her heritage. She has dialogue that actively sets up some scenario where she needs to win people over, against their prejudices (a very common reoccurring unaddressed problem of Wano citizens) and instead she just never interacts with them.
-As I mentioned previously it feels like there's a theme around death in Wano but Oda never really did anything to tie it together or make it into a cohesive statement. We constantly get contradictory statements on it up until the end of the raid. I do think one of the most interesting ones that hints at their originally being more to the arc planned was Yamato's speech to Momonosuke. We have this whole big dramatic speech about how it's better to die fighting for freedom than live without it, yet Momonosuke never gets to respond to it as Luffy's awakening cuts him off. I really don't think you can argue this away as something for hypothetical Wano but Actually Good arc in three hundred chapters. It would be much more natural to have a different speech delivered at that time than cut back to such a minor moment from years and years ago.
-I wanna say it's hilarious that after Kaido spent so much time calling the Samurai out as cowards and weaklings that he just ended up being right. They did literally nothing at all, certainly nothing that could prove him wrong.