I think the big issue here is that when it comes to kaido the strawhats won't face the entirety of kaido's might. It won't be a conflict as in marineford where WB showed up with 14 commanders, 1600 crewmembers and then 50 something allied crews. The most likely scenario IMO is that the wano arc will show the strawhat grand fleet vs essentially kaido's main crew and perhaps several other allies. Then we will see the grand fleet chip away at kaido's immense strength commander by commander until kaido himself falls. Of course, this will still be a gargantuan effort that will require at least more miracles and luck than we have seen in the current big mom arc. I am sure marco will eventually show up and he will perhaps ally himself to luffy however I don't see his presence as necessary for luffy to actually defeat kaido. Kaido is already going to be a coordinated effort and odds are very few people are going to get individual fights against kaido's commanders.
If Kaido is going down so should his entire crew.
In fact captain must be the last one to go down.
I dont think that taking down of commanders will be offscreened.
No one in the Grandfleet seems to be yonko commander level (maybe 1 or 2). It makes more sense if Grandfleet takes on their equivalent Beast pirate allied crews. Clash of NW captains allied with Luffy and those allied with Kaido.
Zoro will have his hands full with shogun.
Imagine 2 >=katakuri level guys (king and queen calamity)+ jack .
Jinbei , sanji , 2 dukes are far far from sufficient to take on the 3 calamities.
Not even the Grandfleet can help much with against the 3 calamities.
All the 3 calamities are much above Joker. Sanji will get stomped by any calamity. That leaves only Jinbei and 2 dukes and i highly doubt they would suffice vs 3 calamities.
Too much luck and miracle will ruin the story IMO.
Luffy is gaining allies right and left and the addition of WB commanders would make SH + WB commanders + Grandfleet Yonko level in strength and size.
If Kaido is going down so should his entire crew.
In fact captain must be the last one to go down.
I dont think that taking down of commanders will be offscreened.
No one in the Grandfleet seems to be yonko commander level (maybe 1 or 2). It makes more sense if Grandfleet takes on their equivalent Beast pirate allied crews. Clash of NW captains allied with Luffy and those allied with Kaido.
Zoro will have his hands full with shogun.
Imagine 2 >=katakuri level guys (king and queen calamity)+ jack .
Jinbei , sanji , 2 dukes are far far from sufficient to take on the 3 calamities.
Not even the Grandfleet can help much with against the 3 calamities.
All the 3 calamities are much above Joker. Sanji will get stomped by any calamity. That leaves only Jinbei and 2 dukes and i highly doubt they would suffice vs 3 calamities.
Too much luck and miracle will ruin the story IMO.
Luffy is gaining allies right and left and the addition of WB commanders would make SH + WB commanders + Grandfleet Yonko level in strength and size.
Well, of course important people are likely not getting off screened. That would be plain bad writting. And indeed, no one in the grand fleet seems to be quite at that level. The most competent fighter there would appear to be cavendish and sai so far and sai seems to be a bit of a one trick pony with his kick.
How I think things will happen is that barring a few individual fights the bulk of kaido's crew will be defeated via ganging up on them. Basically each commander gets taken down by 2 or 3 people with a couple exceptions for luffy and zoro to get a chance to shine.
Well, of course important people are likely not getting off screened. That would be plain bad writting. And indeed, no one in the grand fleet seems to be quite at that level. The most competent fighter there would appear to be cavendish and sai so far and sai seems to be a bit of a one trick pony with his kick.
How I think things will happen is that barring a few individual fights the bulk of kaido's crew will be defeated via ganging up on them. Basically each commander gets taken down by 2 or 3 people with a couple exceptions for luffy and zoro to get a chance to shine.
The pairings for the fights are pretty clear i think:
Luffy, Law, Kid (+ maybe Apoo, Hawkins & Drake) vs Kaido
Zoro + samurais & Killer (if alive) vs Shogun
The Dukes vs Jack
Marco vs 1 calamitie
And if Drake isn't a calamitie and traitor to Kaido:
Other Crewmembers of Worst Generation vs last calamitie
I don't even think the Grand Fleet will appear that soon. They should use the time to get stronger for WG or Blackbeard fights.
The pairings for the fights are pretty clear i think:
Luffy, Law, Kid (+ maybe Apoo, Hawkins & Drake) vs Kaido
Zoro + samurais & Killer (if alive) vs Shogun
The Dukes vs Jack
Marco vs 1 calamitie
And if Drake isn't a calamitie and traitor to Kaido:
Other Crewmembers of Worst Generation vs last calamitie
I don't even think the Grand Fleet will appear that soon. They should use the time to get stronger for WG or Blackbeard fights.
Drake a calamity? even luffy barely matches up to the big mom equivalents... Drake is not going to be a calamity unless he is by far the strongest supernova. As for the people you mention the grand fleet should appear for... Kaido is at least as big a threat as either. Luffy needs every ally he can get for this and he will still be the underdog. Barring marco appearing though I still say there is no hint of such a thing happening. And still, marco is a bit of an endgame character even if he has kept a low profile. Even the gorosei acknowledged him.
Since the TImeskip Oda takes breaks constantly every 4-5 Weeks.
Also: I dont think its WCI Arc that will stretch that far. WCI will be over half year from now max!
I think its another mini arc in between and then a lot of preparation.
Drake a calamity? even luffy barely matches up to the big mom equivalents... Drake is not going to be a calamity unless he is by far the strongest supernova. As for the people you mention the grand fleet should appear for... Kaido is at least as big a threat as either. Luffy needs every ally he can get for this and he will still be the underdog. Barring marco appearing though I still say there is no hint of such a thing happening. And still, marco is a bit of an endgame character even if he has kept a low profile. Even the gorosei acknowledged him.
Kairo is for sure not a big threat as Blackbeard and World Goverment. Those two are the final enemies and Kaido just a step towards them.
To the point of Marco, Nekomamushi is searching for him and will mostlikely find him. Also Marco isn't the kind of guy, who wants to get the fame for beating a Yonkou like the Worst Generation captains, who have deeper reasons than just helping friends. (Taking on Blackbeard would be different)
- Law & Luffy planned to take on Kaido
- Kid (+ Apoo & Hawkins) wants Revenge
- Drake had surely more Intentions than just becoming an subordinate (He is a Worst Generation captain, they don't bow down to others without reason)
To the strength of Drake: we don't know much about it, only that he did the most damage to a Pacifista pre timeskip, that he had two years to rank-up in Kaidos Crew and has a similar DF to Jack.
And don't forget Urouge who was stronger than a sweetgeneral. Also i didn't that he is surely a calamitie, but he is an option.
GOOD indeed.
I was under the impression that the story rushed too much after the timeskip: for me it was too early to see Doffy's defeat, it's too early to see Luffy exchanging blows with Big Mom, and it's unrealistic to think that the current SHs will defeat Kaido and his crew.
So, there will be an arc where everyone will grow strong enough to be able to face this next challenge.
I'm not talking about a timeskip, I think about something like "Luffy meeting Marco and Crocodile to defeat Edward Weevil".
Marco has to settle the Weevil issue before thinking about helping in the Wano revolution, and Crocodile will show up and join the party because... he has his reasons.
So, before starting a fight against someone already strong as Whitebeard in his prime, those two will need to explain to Luffy something about how awakening works, plus there will be some traning.
If by the time Luffy reaches Wano his strenght is 1/3 of Whitebeard's strenght in his prime, then he'll have some chances against Kaido.
That doesn't say whole cake island will take that long though, it just says it's going to be a while until wano arc. The current arc could very well be near it's ends. There are several possibilities as to what could happen.... Luffy and co would still have to get to wano meaning there could be an arc in the middle. Or alternatively oda could go to focus on what zoro and the others have been doing, perhaps they wan into an adventure on the way to wano. Still, it is well possible there is that much left to the current arc... Still, it would be unspeakably cruel on oda's part to not give us anything from the other strawhats in such a long time.
I hope he learned from Dressrosa to not sideline half the crew for too terribly long. I always thought the Curlyhat Pirates' adventure to Zou should have been more fleshed out while we were focused on Dressrosa and not just barely bookend the massive arc. For Oda to shelve them for the entirety of WCI and another arc seems like way too much.
Bonus prediction: Surprise! The Mosshat Pirates somehow ended up marooned on Elbaf on the way to Wano! Then the Curly-Strawhats go through a HUGE secret mirror hidden in BM's throne room... cue Elbaf arc with a whole SH crew to coincide with Reverie on the other side of the world!
Then the whole Strawhat crew books it to Wano to bail out the Heart/Mink/Samurai/Ninja portion of the Alliance
If Reverie is going to be one of those nice small arcs (like Sabaody/Zou which are right up there as my fave OP arcs) then we're talking 20-25 chapters, so that's around the 30 week mark give or take. If it's slightly longer, then Reverie itself is nearly a year. WCI wrapping up within 10 chapters can make it the full year.
Still, I'm hoping these projections are erroneous and we have to wait less than 1 year of Wano. I'm putting a lot of hopes into that arc, so my opinion here is biased towards that belief. Also looking forward to the Reverie as Oda does those informative chapters well. We can move on from WCI soon, I don't really want anything from it atm.
If Reverie is going to be one of those nice small arcs (like Sabaody/Zou which are right up there as my fave OP arcs) then we're talking 20-25 chapters, so that's around the 30 week mark give or take. If it's slightly longer, then Reverie itself is nearly a year. WCI wrapping up within 10 chapters can make it the full year.
Still, I'm hoping these projections are erroneous and we have to wait less than 1 year of Wano. I'm putting a lot of hopes into that arc, so my opinion here is biased towards that belief. Also looking forward to the Reverie as Oda does those informative chapters well. We can move on from WCI soon, I don't really want anything from it atm.
I'm the complete opposite. There's been almost nothing about Wano I care to learn more about. If we made a grand list of everything we know about Wano, it'd be less than what we knew about Elbaf hundreds of chapters ago. Things to look forward to in Wano that we know of:
Political revolution- come on that's literally every single big arc in some way.
Samurai and ninja- biggest thing to be excited about, and they're just job descriptions.
Law actually being a captain and living past what he was sure was going to be a suicide mission. Wonder how his crew feels about that.
Swords, swords, swords and more swords. Cool.
Zoro-focused arc. Little faith in him being interesting. I can count the number of times his character has impressed me on one hand: sword-buying at Loguetown, his loss to Mihawk, and his grand moment at the end of Thriller Bark. I can't think of a single fight of his that I enjoyed as much as an average SH fight, especially post-timeskip.
There's just so much other more interesting stuff. I have near-absolute faith in Oda but I'm looking forward to Wano being put off until there's more actual build up.
I'm the complete opposite. There's been almost nothing about Wano I care to learn more about. If we made a grand list of everything we know about Wano, it'd be less than what we knew about Elbaf hundreds of chapters ago. Things to look forward to in Wano that we know of:
Political revolution- come on that's literally every single big arc in some way.
Samurai and ninja- biggest thing to be excited about, and they're just job descriptions.
Law actually being a captain and living past what he was sure was going to be a suicide mission. Wonder how his crew feels about that.
Swords, swords, swords and more swords. Cool.
Zoro-focused arc. Little faith in him being interesting. I can count the number of times his character has impressed me on one hand: sword-buying at Loguetown, his loss to Mihawk, and his grand moment at the end of Thriller Bark. I can't think of a single fight of his that I enjoyed as much as an average SH fight, especially post-timeskip.
There's just so much other more interesting stuff. I have near-absolute faith in Oda but I'm looking forward to Wano being put off until there's more actual build up.
Hmm, I'm not sure we're at opposites - we're on different wavelengths here to begin with.
It's not that I want Wano to be informative or learn about thing there - I want an a major arc that delivers for the first time since the timeskip. An arc with big fights, tension, something significant, anything. Since the timeskip arcs have offered small doses of that (WCI had a sugar high for a while but now it feels like we're gonna crash). I think most of us agree Wano will be the first time Luffy takes a Yonkou down, and that the SH's will be pushed to the brink in every fight. If just for that Wano can be something to look forward to. Personally, Wano doesn't have to be magnificent to beat WCI/Dressrosa/PH/Fishman... a 7/10 would get it done.
The world building and lore in OP are still the most appealing part, however these take up less time in the manga. What keeps it going is a conflict at a destination - that's the fights, tension etc. We need those to keep going. And I'm starving. Some of the reason I believe I go crazy for Katakuri is out of hunger.
I understand you're not looking forward to Zoro moments though.
What build-up are you looking for, if you don't mind me asking?
I'm the complete opposite. There's been almost nothing about Wano I care to learn more about. If we made a grand list of everything we know about Wano, it'd be less than what we knew about Elbaf hundreds of chapters ago. Things to look forward to in Wano that we know of:
Political revolution- come on that's literally every single big arc in some way.
Samurai and ninja- biggest thing to be excited about, and they're just job descriptions.
Law actually being a captain and living past what he was sure was going to be a suicide mission. Wonder how his crew feels about that.
Swords, swords, swords and more swords. Cool.
Zoro-focused arc. Little faith in him being interesting. I can count the number of times his character has impressed me on one hand: sword-buying at Loguetown, his loss to Mihawk, and his grand moment at the end of Thriller Bark. I can't think of a single fight of his that I enjoyed as much as an average SH fight, especially post-timeskip.
There's just so much other more interesting stuff. I have near-absolute faith in Oda but I'm looking forward to Wano being put off until there's more actual build up.
Well, another thing we can probably look forward in Wano is the history of the Poneglyps, since the people there built them and most likely info on the Void Century. But I also am not as exited for Wano as i am for the Reverie. What will happen there will probably be as big, if not even bigger than the fight against Kaido.
Hmm, I'm not sure we're at opposites - we're on different wavelengths here to begin with.
It's not that I want Wano to be informative or learn about thing there - I want an a major arc that delivers for the first time since the timeskip. An arc with big fights, tension, something significant, anything. Since the timeskip arcs have offered small doses of that (WCI had a sugar high for a while but now it feels like we're gonna crash). I think most of us agree Wano will be the first time Luffy takes a Yonkou down, and that the SH's will be pushed to the brink in every fight. If just for that Wano can be something to look forward to. Personally, Wano doesn't have to be magnificent to beat WCI/Dressrosa/PH/Fishman... a 7/10 would get it done.
The world building and lore in OP are still the most appealing part, however these take up less time in the manga. What keeps it going is a conflict at a destination - that's the fights, tension etc. We need those to keep going. And I'm starving. Some of the reason I believe I go crazy for Katakuri is out of hunger.
I understand you're not looking forward to Zoro moments though.
What build-up are you looking for, if you don't mind me asking?
That's a great point and now that you mention it I do look forward to Wano a bit more based on how you described your own narrative needs. Also solid pun; you just got like 36 zetsu points.
Something more than 'take down the yonkou and open the borders'. Even if FI and Dressrosa were lackluster (they were for me), the buildup to them was immense, as was WCI and Big Mom.
FI: Fishmen have been an integral part of the story since Arlong Park, we all knew they had to come from somewhere. We were all waiting forever to see under the ocean, and those few pages of exploration made up for chapter after chapter of fumbled tension in the arc as a whole. I still get goosebumps thinking about the doublespreads of the different levels of the ocean with the environmental danger getting more and more fantastic the deeper they got. The arc also wrapped up the whole fishman slavery plotline that had been sprinkled throughout the story.
PH/Dressrosa: I'm loathe to defend this arc in almost any way, but I was excited to learn more about Doffy, the mysterious underworld weapons dealer. What weapons did he make? How did he get to such a crazy position of power? We all knew this was going to be the first time Luffy was really pushed since the timeskip, so we were all hotly anticipating G4.
Zou/WCI: Oda went full-Skypiea mode while building up Zou. A legendary place where an isolated fantasy race lives in mostly-ignorance of the blue seas. And like FI this was another 'home world' for a beloved type of peoples. There was a lot to look forward to. A lot of people shit on Big Mom straight from the start, but I've always looked forward to it. For the first time we see a yonkou's territory in earnest. How they run it, how a crew that big controls territory, how a yonkou can rule with a singularly iron fist. The first time we saw her homies way back when she was a silhouette, I was excited to see if everything in her territory was an animated monster thing. Just based on what we know about him, but I don't think Kaidou's going to have anything half as interesting as 'taxes the very souls of her citizens'.
Wano: It's got a cool theme. Samurai and ninja come from there. Swords. It's an isolationist country. It's occupied by Kaidou.
I'm not saying Oda won't deliver, in fact it's pretty likely he is purposefully keeping everything about Wano a secret surprise. Just as it stands, I can barely find anything to pick off the bone of things to be excited for that we currently know about. But I do think Wano will require what PH did for Dressrosa or Zou did for WCI.
If not all we'll know about Kaidou going into Wano will be he's a suicidal drunk who is declaring war on the world because he's bored. His introduction was amazing, but it's STILL all we know about him. Compare to what we knew about Doffy before going into Dressrosa- pretty stark.
Well, another thing we can probably look forward in Wano is the history of the Poneglyps, since the people there built them and most likely info on the Void Century. But I also am not as exited for Wano as i am for the Reverie. What will happen there will probably be as big, if not even bigger than the fight against Kaido.
Oda's kinda dropped the ball on keeping poneglyphs relevant. I know we just had some reveals in Zou but I always end up forgetting they even exist. I don't like that they were turned into story-ending macguffins. I preferred when they were just fantastic history books that had knowledge of crazy weapons.
Was pretty obvious that it takes that long for Wano to start.
After WCI there will still be the Whitebeard Pirates/Marco arc. Not like they just meet him and then move on. This thing probably includes Weevil.
