Discussion Wano, an arc filled with mistakes

[Buckfutter]

Am i the only one who thinks that wano is full of mistakes?
The roger flashback pretty much butchered whitebeard's character. It makes no sense that with his strength, him being younger, stronger and healthier, he still didn't attack kaido in revenge for Oden.
The fat old ninja lady, making momo into an adult? That's such bs that makes no sense, if he doesn't go back to being a kid then him even going 20 years in the future is just stupid. Now he'll be old, mentality of a kid with no experience and useless in a fight.
The mistakes with this war, zoro would never care about king's race tbh and him having mentioned that in the fight was far too stupid and out of character. He doesn't have an expansive knowledge of races in the world so even if he knew what race king was it would make no difference.
Sanji's weird powerup makes absolutely no sense for it to just come out of nowhere and it's so incredible overpowered that without haki he managed to take a full on attack to his neck and it did nothing. Even worse is him taking out queen as if it was nothing.
Nami and Usopp should have taken on those siblings but they weren't even given a chance and now it feels as if the 2 years of training for them gave them almost no real progress.
All of those can be forgiven but the one thing that absolutely can't is how idiotic it was that Kidd and Law actually beat big mom, by far the stupidest thing ever. Law in truth didn't do any real dmg to Doflamingo and Kidd was forced to run away fighting cracker without ever even getting to see big mom.
If not for the birdcage, with how the battle was going, luffy wouldn't have needed G4 for doflamingo and he only used it to speed up the fight so that he could save everyone and yet cracker was tanking and fighting easily against G4. That's just to show the difference between doflamingo and a commander.
Law randomly awakening his power was just bs to make a useless and incompetent character be helpful in this fight, he has a broken OP skill and that's the only reason he's alive after all of this.
The strength and what's been shown or said about both Kidd and Law so far, they should at MOST be able to take on the commanders if they fought together but should have no chance whatsoever against a damn yonko. It would have made much more sense if it was the strawhats crew that took on big mom than those 2 trash characters, because let's face it, after all that's been said and shown about those 2, they are fodder characters just like their crew while Zoro is now able to coat his weapon with and use king's haki to attack.
To top it off, we have an immortal Orochi and a near immortal Kanjuro who just wouldn't die no matter what happens. A hydra has been said it will die if all of his heads are cut off at the same time which was what had happened before and yet here he is still alive.
I have been reading, watching and buying both the mangas and animes of one piece since the year 2000 and i will continue to do so but wano was the arc filled with the most mistakes, so many that it feels as if it isn't even Oda writing it.


Done with the rant that's been bothering me for a while. I'd like to know what other people think about the situation of it right now.

 

[Uriel]

Am i the only one who thinks that wano is full of mistakes?

Probably not.

But let's go by parts:

The roger flashback pretty much butchered whitebeard's character. It makes no sense that with his strength, him being younger, stronger and healthier, he still didn't attack kaido in revenge for Oden.

This article has some reasons for it, but you're free to think that it makes no sense.
For me, it's kind of sloppy but we do have a lot of stubborn characters that prefer making things their way instead of just being practical.

The fat old ninja lady, making momo into an adult? That's such bs that makes no sense, if he doesn't go back to being a kid then him even going 20 years in the future is just stupid. Now he'll be old, mentality of a kid with no experience and useless in a fight.

We have some weird Devil's fruit out there, huh. A fruit that can jump time into the future! Such a silly thing.
Anyway, I think that's the point of this: We have someone that has to step like a real adult being actually a kid, and having a legacy that is a burden. The metaphor here is that people want someone to save them and that person, that symbol, is just a kid. Against the status quo, the old, the strong.

It's a poetic contrast, which Oda usually draws from a lot in many characters, making them two sides of the same coin.

The mistakes with this war, zoro would never care about king's race tbh and him having mentioned that in the fight was far too stupid and out of character. He doesn't have an expansive knowledge of races in the world so even if he knew what race king was it would make no difference.

I don't think Zoro has shown any particular interest in King's race. As an opponent, maybe. The exposition on King's race is for us, when the character is being shown. Not so different than any other flashback that we had for other enemies. Thinking on Hody Jones, Arlong and even Crocodile.

Sanji's weird powerup makes absolutely no sense for it to just come out of nowhere and it's so incredible overpowered that without haki he managed to take a full on attack to his neck and it did nothing. Even worse is him taking out queen as if it was nothing.

We had a long setup for this one, though. Since Whole Cake Island and the Germa 66. You could argue that even before that with the "only alive" in his wanted poster.
AND the Invisibility fruit comments, being SANji, nicknamed Black Leg, and a lot of things.
For sure, you could argue that it makes no sense but all the clues were there.

Nami and Usopp should have taken on those siblings but they weren't even given a chance and now it feels as if the 2 years of training for them gave them almost no real progress.

The manga is not finished, and the fight is not over. Even so, I do agree I would have liked to see them fighting. More than other fights we have seen. At least I saw Nico Robin having a cool fight.
Franky, Brook, Nami, and Usopp didn't get a chance to shine. Hoping that Elbaf has some cool stuff for them.

All of those can be forgiven but the one thing that absolutely can't is how idiotic it was that Kidd and Law actually beat big mom, by far the stupidest thing ever. Law in truth didn't do any real dmg to Doflamingo and Kidd was forced to run away fighting cracker without ever even getting to see big mom.

Well, Luffy learned how to (better) use Haki in prison and I don't think it passed a week.
For me, I just did not care about that fight because I don't care about Law or Kidd but I know there are some fans of them so that did not bother me at all. We're a HUGE fandom after all!

If not for the birdcage, with how the battle was going, luffy wouldn't have needed G4 for doflamingo and he only used it to speed up the fight so that he could save everyone and yet cracker was tanking and fighting easily against G4. That's just to show the difference between doflamingo and a commander.
Law randomly awakening his power was just bs to make a useless and incompetent character be helpful in this fight, he has a broken OP skill and that's the only reason he's alive after all of this.
The strength and what's been shown or said about both Kidd and Law so far, they should at MOST be able to take on the commanders if they fought together but should have no chance whatsoever against a damn yonko. It would have made much more sense if it was the strawhats crew that took on big mom than those 2 trash characters, because let's face it, after all that's been said and shown about those 2, they are fodder characters just like their crew while Zoro is now able to coat his weapon with and use king's haki to attack.

It passed quite some time from Dressrosa tho. Oda is allowed to use offscreen growth for some characters.
And again, we saw Luffy do the same thing: He level up in prison and learned in battle. As we usually see him.
IIRC, this happened for G2, G3, and G4 as well!

To top it off, we have an immortal Orochi and a near immortal Kanjuro who just wouldn't die no matter what happens. A hydra has been said it will die if all of his heads are cut off at the same time which was what had happened before and yet here he is still alive.
I have been reading, watching and buying both the mangas and animes of one piece since the year 2000 and i will continue to do so but wano was the arc filled with the most mistakes, so many that it feels as if it isn't even Oda writing it.

Oda has an aversion to killing characters XD

 

[Australopithecus]

Oda has an aversion to killing characters XD

Lol. I believe that Orochi had a hidden head somewhere. Maybe he does not fully transform into his full form, as shown through some Zoan users like Drake. In this chapter, we see only one remaining head in his transformation.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 22, 2022, Original Post Date: Apr 22, 2022 ---

The fat old ninja lady, making momo into an adult? That's such bs that makes no sense, if he doesn't go back to being a kid then him even going 20 years in the future is just stupid. Now he'll be old, mentality of a kid with no experience and useless in a fight.

It is a healthy thing to express your personal views about the disappointing points for you in this story.

It made sense to me. The fruit makes things age insofar as they wither away and die but was used on a human boy to a small extent that he became a 28-year-old adult. It is true that he will retain the mentality of a kid, but I do not see that as a problem. Not only has the character of a kid in dragon form been funny to me, but it will also not matter after this fight ends. He is surrounded by so many wise and pure-hearted characters to advise him to rule a country well that his age will not matter. The kid is intended to be the renaissance of the Kuzuki clan as was mentioned by his mom in this chapter. Concerning fights, I do not see that as a problem given that peace will apparently reign over Wano after this fight. Regardless, he is important in other ways aside from a fight. Not all issues in the story can be solved via fights.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 22, 2022 ---

Sanji's weird powerup makes absolutely no sense for it to just come out of nowhere and it's so incredible overpowered that without haki he managed to take a full on attack to his neck and it did nothing. Even worse is him taking out queen as if it was nothing.

In addition to what Uriel said regarding this point, I would like to also remind you that Sanji has been using haki, just invisibly though. His use of haki to defeat Queen was shown in this panel (on the left) right before delivering the conclusive blow.

 

[Fox666]

Law and Kid are now stronger than before. Unfortunately, like the Straw Hats, they simply got many times stronger the moment the rooftop battle started.

It wasn't even when the raid started, it's literally the moment Luffy and the others stepped on the rooftop.

Luffy needed Gear 4 to take down the Numbers, got knocked down by Apoo, and couldn't get past Ulti (who got one-shot by Yamato). A few minutes later, Luffy is fighting 1-on-1 with Kaido.

There are clear examples of this with the other characters too...

 

[grey matter]

Am i the only one who thinks that wano is full of mistakes?

I think as well, but not for many of the reasons you mentioned here.

The roger flashback pretty much butchered whitebeard's character. It makes no sense that with his strength, him being younger, stronger and healthier, he still didn't attack kaido in revenge for Oden.

This is explained.

Whitebeard didn't go because Oden was already dead. Yes, he could've won against Kaido, but many of this men, who he considers as his 'children" would die over it.
He would've done it, like he did for Ace, if ODen was still alive and imprisoned. But he saw no point in doing it for revenge without any gains (i.e Oden's freedom) to it

The fat old ninja lady, making momo into an adult? That's such bs that makes no sense, if he doesn't go back to being a kid then him even going 20 years in the future is just stupid. Now he'll be old, mentality of a kid with no experience and useless in a fight.

I'm ambiguous about it.
Let's wait and see how Oda handles it.

The mistakes with this war, zoro would never care about king's race tbh and him having mentioned that in the fight was far too stupid and out of character. He doesn't have an expansive knowledge of races in the world so even if he knew what race king was it would make no difference.

Completely agreed.
Oda should've just had him say something like "I need to figure out this dude's abilities"

Sanji's weird powerup makes absolutely no sense for it to just come out of nowhere and it's so incredible overpowered that without haki he managed to take a full on attack to his neck and it did nothing. Even worse is him taking out queen as if it was nothing.

Agreed here as well.

Nami and Usopp should have taken on those siblings but they weren't even given a chance and now it feels as if the 2 years of training for them gave them almost no real progress.

Nah, Nami and Ussoop are fodders in combat. It makes no sense for them to take down the siblings, who were as strong or stronger than beginning of Wano Sanji (without Raid Suit)

Their utility is in the other things they do. Not everyone needs to be a fighter or super strong.

All of those can be forgiven but the one thing that absolutely can't is how idiotic it was that Kidd and Law actually beat big mom, by far the stupidest thing ever. Law in truth didn't do any real dmg to Doflamingo and Kidd was forced to run away fighting cracker without ever even getting to see big mom.

The strength and what's been shown or said about both Kidd and Law so far, they should at MOST be able to take on the commanders if they fought together but should have no chance whatsoever against a damn yonko. It would have made much more sense if it was the strawhats crew that took on big mom than those 2 trash characters, because let's face it, after all that's been said and shown about those 2, they are fodder characters just like their crew while Zoro is now able to coat his weapon with and use king's haki to attack.

Current Luffy is leagues superior to Dresrossa Luffy.
If Luffy could grow so much, the it makes sense for the other two supernova captains to grow relatively as well, considering they have been somewhat portrayed alongside him since Shabody

I dislike all this rapid growth in power level, but it's consistent with how much stronger the Strawhats in general has gotten since Dresrossa.
If you have a problem with how much stronger they have got, you should have it with Luffy growing even stronger relatively as well.

To top it off, we have an immortal Orochi and a near immortal Kanjuro who just wouldn't die no matter what happens. A hydra has been said it will die if all of his heads are cut off at the same time which was what had happened before and yet here he is still alive.

Agreed.

 

[Franz]

It makes no sense that with his strength, him being younger, stronger and healthier, he still didn't attack kaido in revenge for Oden.

This can be explained: Newgate is not stupid enough to risk putting himself and his men in danger to avenge a dead man.

Completely different from Ace, who was still alive and above all with a now dying Whitebeard who had nothing more to lose.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 23, 2022, Original Post Date: Apr 23, 2022 ---

Kidd was forced to run away fighting cracker without ever even getting to see big mom.

We don't know who faced Kidd. We only know that he injured one of the Sweet Commanders. Stop.

 

[Prince13333]

Oda was very realistic with the scaling of the Nami and Usopp fight, No way could he have people who clashed with Luffy and Sanji get defeated by Nami and Usopp. Sanji has been having easy Mid Diff fights since 2005, Idk why y'all are acting brand new....... His powerup does make sense and actually explains the mechanics of how original DJ worked. I agree with everything else tho.

 

[Uriel]

I think as well, but not for many of the reasons you mentioned here.

I want to know. :O

I dislike all this rapid growth in power level, but it's consistent with how much stronger the Strawhats in general has gotten since Dresrossa.
If you have a problem with how much stronger they have got, you should have it with Luffy growing even stronger relatively as well.

To be fair, Oda has never been consistent in terms of power level. You just know there are people on the top and the rest is fuzzy.

 

[Lord Traffy Law]

I wouldn’t say it’s an arc full of mistakes
But it’s a very clumsy arc by Oda
We can all say Wbs reasoning which I get but for a man willing to take on the far superior WG forces to save ace , it’s kinda sad how He made it in regards to his so called brothers homeland

oh let me not even get into toki , she confuses me with the recent chapter , so she was clearly alive but just kinda left her two kids to their own devices ? She wasn’t fatally wounded it seems and just said she’ trusts them ? Eh neither are older than 11 , kids need their mums lmao , unless there’s a realsn

also what the hell was hiyori plan to finish off orochi , her plan so far seems incredibly stupid even with the luck she needed to get it done , no bladed weapon to kill orochi and relying on kazenbo to kill him ?


Zoro COC journey : for this one is easily my disappointed with Oda’s writing , Zoro on panel never used basic COC heck he doesn’t even know he can use it after his fight with kaido and like legit suddenly he can cloak his blade in it , we aren’t even sure Zoro can use flow , maybe oda had to skip some things but it’s so damn unsatisfying especially when you compare it to zoro’s journey to first cutting steel or luffy learning it ,built up with great payoff , sure Zoro was always hinted at being a king but this is like if ussop from the jump started using future sight !?! Zoro learning it is great but man Oda could have at least given us some active use before not straight to mastering a technique that only few can use . Heck with oden the previous user of the blades they gave us more than enough to give us reason , him having flow and him seeing roger and whitebeard use advanced COC and him wondering about the technique . For me the Zoro COC aesthetically amazing, thematically and narratively satisfying , not in the least.

Second the ice Oni stuff , felt like a waste of time , just padding and unneeded section it did allow chopper to shine but the arc would have lost nothing if you cut it out

Yamato, while I do enjoy Yamato , everything from their introduction and wanting to be oden(though that’s starting to wear it’s welcome) , I don’t know I feel strongly that Oda could have introduced Yamato way better , someone of this significance (Lmao also hilarious that any of the flying 6 thought they could capture them )

Gahdamn kanjuro need I say more , the first death where he got taken down was great and emotionally resonant the 2 other fake outs sucked like crazy and this kazenbo stuff is just dragging it out

Personal pet peeves that aren’t necessarily bad but not to my personal taste : - the flying six kinda being underwhelming compared to their hype. - some of the sanji stuff , I get the trusting teammates stuff with Robin but didn’t work for me - udon was necessary but it dragged on quite a bit for me .

i think the proof in how clunky one piece has gotten is how much we need to defend and explain Oda , the best op arcs alabasta , marineford , ennies lobby/water 7 , dressora ( even with the pacing issues ) didn’t feel this clumsy

 

[Demonspeed]

Biggest problems of Wano IMO:

• Kaidou can't kill/Oda being too shameless about Luffy's allies plot armor.
• Terrible pacing.
• The Beast Pirates were overhyped.
• Very disappointing fights overall.

I also think Oden's backstory and he as a character really suck but he is more popular than I thought.

 

[grey matter]

I want to know. :O

Some points.

1. Consistency in powerscaling
I know some people don't like the powersaling discussion at all, but powerscaling plays an integral role in the series. This is a battle shounen. Even for people who don't specifically care about powerscaling, they instinctively know and understand it. That is the reason, there is "hype" for characters such as Yonko, admirals, right hand men etc.
And in this arc, one of the things specifically Oda wants to show Luffy's growth, from him going from being fodder to Kaido, to eventually fighting as his equal.
Well, I think Oda went way overboard with that one shot, cause he's later on taming down on it. Considering characters in the raid have been tanking hits left and right from Kaido

2. Massive powerspike amongst the "good guys"
Yeah, characters get stronger all the time in shounen. But this extend to which the jump happened in this arc........this is some dbz level shit.
Luffy went from being low diff material to Kaido, to fighting as his equal within a few hours in the raid. Law went from being far below Doflamingo in Dresrossa arc, to tanking hits from Kaido and BM, and collectively with Kid to solid Yonko level. I can go on here, but a similar story applies to many good guys in this arc.
At least in dbz, "zenkai boost" was given as an excuse, wonder what's the excuse here.

3. Plot devices
Every arc has some character, whose main or sole purpose is to be a plot device.
But Tama is by far the worst plot device in the series. She has an ability tailor made to mind-control/enslave the smile users of beast pirates against Beast Pirates, And the typical sob story to get Luffy invested in fighting BP. And the whole tie up with BM and her "mother mode"
It's quite amazing how not a single BP can take out this little kid.

4. Disappointing villains and fights
The Tobiroppo are absolute wasted potentials. The all stars were disappointing as well. BM was shit too, but she deserves a special section.
Tobiroppo:
- Two of them got taken out by characters with zero haki, nothing suggested Franky and Robin were powerful enough to fight them 1v1 even disregarding haki.
- Jinbe basically mid diff'd arguably the most powerful Tobiroppo.
-Two of them got stomped by BM due to ridiculous "mother mode" shit. At least feed them to Scabbards or something? What was the point of this nonsense, when we already know that BM can stomp these two?
- Drake got stomped off screen by CP-0. He got up, backstabbed the dude and again got stomped. Lol. I get that it hypes CP-0, but this shat on Drake too much.
The all stars:
- Jack was fine, all things considered.
- King and Queen had very short fights, once Zoro/Sanji got their powerups.
Yes, I understand that Zoro and Sanji won't get the focused and drawn out fights that Luffy gets. But this was the main fight both these characters were getting, post timeskip. At least with Zoro, he got a few minor fights since timeskip, but for Sanji, this was really his first true 1v1 post timeskip.
King and Queen were also inept.
- King was strong, had good combat skills and powers. But his decision making skills in the fight was quite bad. It wouldn't take rocket science to figure out that Zoro was on a timer, especially once Enma started acting up. All he needed to do was fly around in his speed mode, spamming ranged attacks, instead of attacking Zoro even AFTER knowing that Zoro's attacks could now hurt him.
- Queen is, all things considered, an absolute clown in combat. The dude doesn't know how to fight at all. Vast majority of the panels involving him were basically him getting smacked non stop, with him unable to defend (first by Marco, then by Sanji even before the Germa bio awakened). He's basically a brawler relying on his durability and gadgets. Yeah, people argue that his gadgets are precisely his strength, he could've solo'd using virus if not for MArco etc; but we all had some expectations of combat considering he's a commander. Nobody is denying his prowess as a scientist, but as a fighter he sucks, considering hiss rank/hype. Add to that all his CIS (firing on himself, going after a prostitute while invis etc), this dude by far is the biggest disappointment amongst all commanders

5. Big Mom
She was more a negative than an ally for Kaido here. The usual "amnesia" plot point, helping breaking out Luffy & co from prison, the "mother mode", taking out two allies (Tobirroppos).
Her fight in rooftop, and against Kid + Law was decent tho. Hopefully she's done for good.

6. Zoro getting advanced conqueror's haki
Yeah, most of us knew he was a conqueror, him eventually getting advanced conqueror's haki would've been fine. But the dude awakened conqueror's haki in rooftop fight, and within a few hours is using advanced conqueror's haki against King.
Yeah, Enma "trained" him and all, but this was too soon when he didn't even know he had conqueror's haki until the ending of fight against King. He skipped like a couple of steps here lol, you should have proficiency in basic conqueror's haki usage before jumping to advanced version.

7. Raid suit destruction and Sanji's "germa" bio awakening
The raid suit was a subplot which was built up well for years, had symbolisms beyond being just a powerup - a slow reconciliation with his estranged family, him realizing one of his two main dreams (invis) due to his said family etc.
And he destroyed it. Over what? A false flag lmao, he didn't even hit the woman.
This "germa" bio awakening came out of nowhere. The entire point of the flashback in WCI arc was to show that his mother successfully prevented at least one of her sons from being biologically engineered. People argue "it was merely dormant and his RS triggered/modified his body to awaken". Well, nothing suggests that the RS was affecting his biology at all. It is merely a suit on his body. It allows him to turn invisible through camouflage, allows him to fly through air pressure/pump, it's hard just due to the material it's made it, etc. Nothing ever suggested it changed his biology, or had functions beyond being an external suit

8. Nami/Zeus plot
Cringe and vomit inducing. Nothing more to be said here.

9. Plot armour/conveniences
Plot armour: Scabbards all got spared by Kaido. Kaido sparing Luffy a couple of times instead of taking his head (mistake by his own admission), Kin'emon getting stabbed by Kaido and his survival basically chalked upto "Law didn't fit me right", most things Tama related etc
There are way too many conveniences in this arc even by OP standards, by conveniences I mean things happening just a moment before x events happens. Some of them: Marco arriving at the right moment to prevent thousands of soldiers from turning into Ice Oni (right ability, right timing). Tama/Hihimaru arriving just before Ulti was about to kill Nami. BM arriving just when Ulti and Page One cornered Nami and Ussop. etc

10. Kanjuri not dying for the nth time
The dude keeps getting cut down, presumably dying. Yet somehow he just doesn't die.
The same applies to Orochi as well at an extend, but at least he has a DF which justifies it. Though it's getting tiresome to say the least.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 25, 2022, Original Post Date: Apr 25, 2022 ---

To be fair, Oda has never been consistent in terms of power level. You just know there are people on the top and the rest is fuzzy.

Yeah, but this arc went way too inconsistent for my taste.

 

[Core D. Roy]

The roger flashback pretty much butchered whitebeard's character. It makes no sense that with his strength, him being younger, stronger and healthier, he still didn't attack kaido in revenge for Oden.

Oden's inclusion on Whitebeard's ship was a clumsy addition to the story, but honestly that flashback was such a high point in the story I can forgive the handwaving for why Whitebeard didn't openly declare war on Kaidou. The context of Whitebeard going to Marineford for Ace was that he probably felt intense regret for not tackling Kaidou right away and didn't want to make the same mistake.

The fat old ninja lady, making momo into an adult? That's such bs that makes no sense, if he doesn't go back to being a kid then him even going 20 years in the future is just stupid. Now he'll be old, mentality of a kid with no experience and useless in a fight.

Eh... lots of arcs have plot plot devil fruit. I think a bigger problem is that Wano has not one but two, and both are especially weird. The mature fruit is basically a lame version of Bonney's fruit, and Tama's fruit is... problematic, to say the least in a story and especially arc about the concept of slavery. I guess slavery's okay when it's the bad guys being mind-controlled, presumably for life?

The mistakes with this war, zoro would never care about king's race tbh and him having mentioned that in the fight was far too stupid and out of character. He doesn't have an expansive knowledge of races in the world so even if he knew what race king was it would make no difference.

Lol that's the least of my problems with Zoro. Contrasted with Sanji's arc in WCI, Zoro's character development in Wano has basically been non-existent. Even his anger at the injustices with Yasuie and the people of Ebisu town felt kinda out of character. He's not the crewmember to typically get enraged at social injustices. His interactions with Hiyori felt so incredibly shoehorned. Kawamatsu only noticing during the raid he's inexplicably identical to the past Shimotsuki daimyo. Flipping Onimaru NOT NOTICING AT ALL. So many problems with him.

Sanji's weird powerup makes absolutely no sense for it to just come out of nowhere and it's so incredible overpowered that without haki he managed to take a full on attack to his neck and it did nothing. Even worse is him taking out queen as if it was nothing.

Eh... at least the Sanji fight was visually fun and finally shut up a lot of the incredibly vocal minority of people that shit on Sanji's power level in literally every single One Piece thread every week.

Nami and Usopp should have taken on those siblings but they weren't even given a chance and now it feels as if the 2 years of training for them gave them almost no real progress.

Ussop I'm fairly disappointed in, he hasn't had a moment whatsoever since Dressrosa really. Nami on the other hand was one of the biggest MVPs of WCI and was the sole reason Luffy could beat Cracker and was by his side basically the whole time. She did successfully steal Zeus from Big Mom- truly living up to her Cat Burglar monicker. She's a true pirate, and stole an emperor's great weapon.

All of those can be forgiven but the one thing that absolutely can't is how idiotic it was that Kidd and Law actually beat big mom, by far the stupidest thing ever. Law in truth didn't do any real dmg to Doflamingo and Kidd was forced to run away fighting cracker without ever even getting to see big mom.

Yeah lol that was clumsy as shit and relied on a massive coincidence in Law's attack hitting the armory. I've had arguments with people that it wasn't the bombs, but Law's attack hit so hard under the crust that it caused a lava explosion. Lmfao that's more of a stretch than Law's actual attack.

If not for the birdcage, with how the battle was going, luffy wouldn't have needed G4 for doflamingo and he only used it to speed up the fight so that he could save everyone and yet cracker was tanking and fighting easily against G4. That's just to show the difference between doflamingo and a commander.

Waaaat no way, King Kong Gun was needed to beat Doffy. The only ridiculous part about that fight is that Luffy went out of his way to fart around not using his then-strongest attack right away. Idk, I don't think Cracker was above Doffy at all. He just had a perfect DF counter to generalized brawlers. Kidd didn't have no Nami assist to soften Cracker up for him.

Law randomly awakening his power was just bs to make a useless and incompetent character be helpful in this fight, he has a broken OP skill and that's the only reason he's alive after all of this.

Law and Kidd just casually revealing they got their Awakenings at... some point... felt like a big waste on developing those two characters more.

The strength and what's been shown or said about both Kidd and Law so far, they should at MOST be able to take on the commanders if they fought together but should have no chance whatsoever against a damn yonko. It would have made much more sense if it was the strawhats crew that took on big mom than those 2 trash characters, because let's face it, after all that's been said and shown about those 2, they are fodder characters just like their crew while Zoro is now able to coat his weapon with and use king's haki to attack.

See I'd be fine with them repelling Big Mom from Wano if it was WITH THE HELP OF THEIR CREWS. Su Long Bepo, Killer returning after messing up Hawkins, etc. But just the two of them constantly being on their last leg and having nothing left, only to make another attack, a cycle that repeats like 3 times? C'mon. Zoro discovers CoC and instantly figures out how to infuse it into his attacks mid battle, but Kidd doesn't display using it even once despite Kaidou himself mentioning that he has it early on? Just... ugh.

To top it off, we have an immortal Orochi and a near immortal Kanjuro who just wouldn't die no matter what happens. A hydra has been said it will die if all of his heads are cut off at the same time which was what had happened before and yet here he is still alive.

Naw, Orochi had one head left. He was never totally dead. Kanjuro on the other hand... good g'damn that's a true cockroach of a villain. Here's hoping he's finally dead.

 

[Uriel]

I agree with zetsu, Nami has stolen from an Emperor. You can't go higher than that. EXCEPT MAYBE IM-SAMA. I wonder what She will steal from them.

 

[JonWickk]

I admit Zoro being able to use aCoC was abit rushed. But as a Zoro fan, I’ll gladly accept this power up any day. You know why Oda gave Zoro this powerup? Because he was gonna give Luffy is awakening powerup. Zoro would be way too far behind Luffy if he did not receive it.

One of the most disappointing moments was Law and Kidd vs BM. I didn’t like it. Zoro taking on BM would be better. But I’m glad Law and Kidd didn’t get a proper victory over BM.

 

[Zehahaha]

For me, the most annoying things about this arc are:

• Kaido's initial clash with Luffy. Him fodderizing Gear 4 Luffy with a single Thunder Bagua was just bad. I don't think Luffy should've clashed with Kaido at that stage.

• Nika. I think Oda should've introduced Nika in the story way earlier. I am not against the development of the Gomu DF being actually a Zoan, I am just against the fact that we never were introduced to a deity who has a rubber body before. This can be explained by the WG making sure no one knows about this, but still. I don't think this would've ruined the surprised as most people would've assumed that Nika was just some guy who ate the Gomu DF before. Although I admit Oda started hinting that Luffy's fruit is odd since Gear 4 with DD's comments. It's basically a partial awakening.

• Oden being a retard. I really like Oden as a character. But him trusting Orochi and Kaido was just so bad, considering this is a guy who was in WB and Roger's ships and experienced the world. But then again, it's thanks to this that we are having this Wano arc.

• Kaido and BM durability never really explained other than them being described as monsters. I think Oda should've given some explanations about that.

• Usopp and Nami not shining like the others

 

[catagon87]

Kaido and BM durability never really explained other than them being described as monsters. I think Oda should've given some explanations about that.

I got the vibe that Kaido's durability was from his ability, since Luffy specifically mentioned getting past his scales as a reason to learn Ryuo. Could also just be that whatever race him and Yamato hail from is naturally durable. At the least he seems to think it's more powerful than humans.

Am i the only one who thinks that wano is full of mistakes?

It's Oda's story. Like it or hate it they aren't mistakes. You're free to hate the plot developments, but he is writing the story how he wants to write it. It's his investment to write and ours to read.

The roger flashback pretty much butchered whitebeard's character. It makes no sense that with his strength, him being younger, stronger and healthier, he still didn't attack kaido in revenge for Oden.

This was explained. Whitebeard doesn't avenge the dead, he saves the living. He doesn't see it as being worth it to put Oden's whole country at risk for revenge. He knows Oden wouldn't want it, too. Also they found out way later due to Wano being closed.

The fat old ninja lady, making momo into an adult? That's such bs that makes no sense, if he doesn't go back to being a kid then him even going 20 years in the future is just stupid. Now he'll be old, mentality of a kid with no experience and useless in a fight.

The purpose wasn't so he could fight. It was so he could be of some assistance. He's currently pulling Onigashima so I think this was necessary.

The mistakes with this war, zoro would never care about king's race tbh and him having mentioned that in the fight was far too stupid and out of character. He doesn't have an expansive knowledge of races in the world so even if he knew what race king was it would make no difference.

I don't get the vibe that Zoro cared about King's race. I understood it that he realized King was special in some way, and it's probably related to his race, and that if he figures it out he could win.

Sanji's weird powerup makes absolutely no sense for it to just come out of nowhere and it's so incredible overpowered that without haki he managed to take a full on attack to his neck and it did nothing. Even worse is him taking out queen as if it was nothing.

Nami and Usopp should have taken on those siblings but they weren't even given a chance and now it feels as if the 2 years of training for them gave them almost no real progress.

This seems contradictory. Sanji is much stronger than Usopp and Nami, and Ulti was strong enough to make Luffy go straight to G4. Not every SHP is meant to be some insanely powerful haki using fighter. Some of them are support. Nami supported Luffy against Cracker, and gets them from place to place. Her role is not as a combatant. Usopp is a sniper, and he's had plenty of usage in the New World. He's turned most of the Pleasures in Kaido's army to their side with Tama's Kibi Dango.

All of those can be forgiven but the one thing that absolutely can't is how idiotic it was that Kidd and Law actually beat big mom, by far the stupidest thing ever. Law in truth didn't do any real dmg to Doflamingo and Kidd was forced to run away fighting cracker without ever even getting to see big mom.
If not for the birdcage, with how the battle was going, luffy wouldn't have needed G4 for doflamingo and he only used it to speed up the fight so that he could save everyone and yet cracker was tanking and fighting easily against G4. That's just to show the difference between doflamingo and a commander.
Law randomly awakening his power was just bs to make a useless and incompetent character be helpful in this fight, he has a broken OP skill and that's the only reason he's alive after all of this.

Law forced Doflamingo to take life-saving measures on himself with his ultimate attack in that fight. He also one-shot Trebol while pinned down with his arm cut off.

We don't know a lot about how awakening is achieved, but I don't think it's that far fetched.

The strength and what's been shown or said about both Kidd and Law so far, they should at MOST be able to take on the commanders if they fought together but should have no chance whatsoever against a damn yonko. It would have made much more sense if it was the strawhats crew that took on big mom than those 2 trash characters, because let's face it, after all that's been said and shown about those 2, they are fodder characters just like their crew while Zoro is now able to coat his weapon with and use king's haki to attack.

I think you're in a very small minority thinking Law is a trash character.

To top it off, we have an immortal Orochi and a near immortal Kanjuro who just wouldn't die no matter what happens. A hydra has been said it will die if all of his heads are cut off at the same time which was what had happened before and yet here he is still alive.
I have been reading, watching and buying both the mangas and animes of one piece since the year 2000 and i will continue to do so but wano was the arc filled with the most mistakes, so many that it feels as if it isn't even Oda writing it.

Orochi seems to have a head left. Kanjuro I have no explanation for, but Orochi makes sense. He's not immortal. He's just hard to kill.

 

[Core D. Roy]

It's Oda's story. Like it or hate it they aren't mistakes. You're free to hate the plot developments, but he is writing the story how he wants to write it. It's his investment to write and ours to read.

That logic doesn't track. So every story ever written doesn't have mistakes, because it's the author's story and that's how they wanted to write it? Authors aren't infallible, and neither is Oda. Sure there's a usually blurry line between opinion and objective error, but let's not deify authorial intent.

 

[catagon87]

That logic doesn't track. So every story ever written doesn't have mistakes, because it's the author's story and that's how they wanted to write it? Authors aren't infallible, and neither is Oda. Sure there's a usually blurry line between opinion and objective error, but let's not deify authorial intent.

I wouldn't say they are infallible and it wasn't my intention to convey that. What I mean is that in this context the original poster's definition of a mistake are simply plot elements that they don't like and the majority of them are either a misunderstanding on the OP's part (Zoro caring about King's race, or Whitebeard not avenging Oden), or just pure preference on how they want character development to flow (hating that Law and Kidd beat Big Mom). It's fair to dislike content, but nothing I have seen is a "mistake".
Trust me, I don't deify authors. I dabble in writing myself and know how difficult it can be. It's just that I would think of a mistake in its purist form as something like where Kinemon said that Kaido demanded information about One Piece from Oden while he was boiled alive, but then that never actually happened when we saw Oda's past. It requires a retcon to "fix." Whereas saying something like, "I hate how Law awakened", while a fair criticism, doesn't mean that Oda made a mistake. Oda wrote that with the full intention of it happening. There's nothing in the plot that says it couldn't have happened, or that it shouldn't have happened; Some just don't like quick progression with respect to character growth. I would agree that it were a mistake if it were objectively stated somewhere that Law wasn't awakened and Oda somehow pulled it out of nowhere.

 

[kkck]

To me the biggest disappointment in wano... is probably the lack of samurai for zoro to fight. We got to wano and zoro has fought or defeated exactly zero samurai. He has had no interaction with samurais outside the scabbards. The only samurai around during the arc were orochi's samurai and they plainly sucked. They were off handedly foderized by a temporarily boosted hyoguro. Obviously there's a reason for the absence of samurai and how pathetic the ones left were but that only makes this more egregious. As in, we get to the land of samurai and these are basically non existent because orochi spent 20 years getting rid of them... The arc lost its teeth the moment the samurai arc lacked proper samurai and the capacity to exploit this with zoro. Zoro's connections to wano and even the shimotsuki being confirmed make this even worst. You'd think zoro being a shimotsuki grandson who looks identical to the shimotsuku plenty of characters knew would have some relevance...

Of course, there are other lackluster developments through the arc. Big mom arriving to the arc did not really help the story. Kaido seemed invincible enough on his own, the addition of big mom and her forces made this arc feel impossible to overcome. And what we got was a disappointing as it gets, we just kinda accept that law and kidd are YC1 level fighters or higher.

Kaido's crew is also... sad. The topo robbi seemed pathetic in spite of their bounties. They were so pathetic that two of them were soloed by franky or robin. Whom we have zero reason to think were worth their ink at that point in the story. Page one was a joke. Ulti got clowned. Whos whos got his privilege checked. Drake, a whole 1/6 of the topo robi defected immediately.

The numbers... were all fodder. Pretty sure half the strawhats could one shot them. Simultaneously...

The headliners seemed unremarkably.

Overall, kaido's crew should have felt like WB's forces at marineford. It didn't and the result is the strawhats playing this arc in god mode.

Jack never got any manner of justice as kaido's third strongest. In the manga we barely got a look at his hybrid form. Oda didn't quite get the balance right in between queen's gags and making him threatening. In spite of that oda made sanji's victory over him seem unearned. Sanji finally starts using the raid suit, then destroys it, then gets a power boost from his dormant germa genetics. Boring. In general, the strawhat crew did jack shit over the new world and now we see them besting yonko crewmembers out of nowhere. Sure, kaido's crew seems by all appearances weak by yonko standards but the strawhats didn't have the development to earn a victory against a weak yonko crew.

 

[Admiral Teach]

Wano is bad enough so far that I've basically abandoned One Piece. Which is bad for my career and is basically an existential crisis for me. I mean, I don't even bother commenting on chapters. I could go on for AGES and AGES until the next ReSeT about how Luffy being a Zoan and not a special Paramecia just... I mean ok, but why not make him Son Wukong? A Monkey King Zoan makes FAR more sense than this Nika smiling sunshine god.

Anyway... basically everything went wrong with it. I would actually say the portions with Yasuei were good, actually. But the ultimate usage of all the good pieces Oda had at his disposal were never utilized right and ended up being thrown together haphazardly, and that's the plot elements, character interactions, battles and humor that actually got used. There's plenty of building pieces left over.

It's like Oda, a master lego designer, had all the pieces, but was half asleep one night and dead tired, threw out all instructions and just blindly started connecting sometime right at Onigashima.

I won't go on. I can't go on. It can't go on, either. Wait.

Wait.

What... what happens if One Piece gets can-c-canceled. Zehahhah. That won't happen. Right? *Glances around furtively while biting nails* right?

What even happens to me if the manga goes? I... I've never thought about this before. No. Oda help us. Damnit! He's the one at fault here! The pen that I trusted to draw me has betrayed me! I can't pray with confidence anymore!! My god has disappointed me! Is this what Sousuke Aizen felt like?

*Smiles* But thankfully I actually DID think of what to do, and got the Yami Yami. I will wormhole myself here or somewhere else. And my winning smile will live on in your hearts forever, right beside Sogeking.