Oh, I've been waiting for this a long time. I've been letting my frustration build up for a while and Wano sure didn't disappoint.
All of my slander, in all of my heart for this arc. So let's go over some of the most egregious parts.
Tama's power being the most plot convenient thing in existence was annoying and it's a solution for an even more annoying nonfactor that is the utter waste of crew members that the headliners were. They actively make the SMILE aspect of Dress Rosa so utterly pointless that it makes Dress Rosa worse retroactively
The Beast Pirates, top down are a complete mess of an organization and antagonist group. Headliners are worthless, Numbers are worthless, the Flying Six and All Stars get basically no time to flesh themselves out (It's especially bad with the all stars besides Queen cause they were around for years unlike the Flying Six who only popped up in the last act). It's astonishing how forgettable a Yonko crew can be. King and jack are actively erasing themselves from my mind at the very moment they got defeated. I bet I won't even remember what they look like a year from now.
Kaido has all these vague gestures to more important things like who the oni are, why he's torturing Wano, why he's awaiting joyboy and then the backstory is... WOW IT'S FUCKING NOTHING. What was Onigashima's old name, Kaido? Why'd you pick up the Numbers Kaido? What's so important about the Oni, Kaido?
Hawkins was a bum worth nothing with a mess of a fruit who talks cryptically to only reveal "Oh, I was the actual 1% man..." NOBODY CARES, HAWKINS, STOP TAKING UP SPACE. and the same goes for Drake, but it's doubly so cause there was at least expectations with Drake. a bum's bum. SWORD aint matter a damn in this whole back and forth
Toki gotta be the most useless flashback character ever with a power so specifically "This needs to exist for the narrative to happen" power that she's less of a character and more of a plot device. You're gonna give me a woman from the void century and... she just exists to give Momo a reason why he's not an adult? No context for why she's here, nothing to hint at? She just has one of the rarest fruits (it's been 20 years since she died, where is that fruit by the fucking way?)
There was essentially zero reason for the BMP to be in Wano outside of big Mom herself and I guess Perospero and the only reason Linlin was there is to be a plot convenient get out of trouble card for the Heroes. It's lazy. Hell, where the god damn hell are the rest of the Big Mom pirates? Did Oda just forget after the 3rd "kicking you off" gag that Smoothie and company should still be a fucking round asking where the god damn hell their Mother is?
Hey, you wanna talk about Zoro? Let's talk about Zoro. Let's talk about us having the greatest chance to give google maps over here some well deserved depth after just making the cool stoic guy with nothing much to say for the last, oh I dunno, ten years. Oh? Zoro's calling out the corruption of the government Oh? Zoro's befriending the SMILE village? Oh? Zoro vows to avenge Yasui? Oh? There's swords with great amounts of cultural relevance in Wano? Oh? Zoro's the strawhat befriending the princess of the arc? Could we actually be seeing the makings of a captivating storyline for one of the strawha- oh zoro fought the bondage guy and then passed out screaming at grim reaper and never even saw orochi... ok
Hey Momo, you're a young kid who's trying to put on a brave face and walk in your father's shadow despite being too young to truly do anything physically... how about we conveniently age you up so that you can actually matter cause who needs kids without skills, yeah?
The scabbards suck. No need to beat around the bush, they suck. And those that don't suck are so shallow as to be virtually indistinguishable from the ones that do suck. Only Kinemon and Kiku get something approaching a character arc. If you don't count Dog and cat undercutting Carrot's character arc.
And speaking of Carrot. Let's talk about the "potential nakama"
The problem with both "Strawhat candidates" is that oda didn't do anything substantial with either of Carrot or Yamato. Carrot's character arc is a fucking mess. Like how do you have a character whose core thing is avenging their mentor... and have them not take any real part in putting down their killer and go a step further and have the killer mock them, whilst putting his defeat in the hands of a Mink who doesn't have the emotional investment? On the other side of things, Yamato's character arc just goes nowhere. I don't give two fucks who becomes a crewmate. But if the intention wasn't there. Then build up the decision to stay behind rather than go "Oh yeah, I'm staying behind" and expect us to be like "oh yeah sure" That also goes for Carrot becoming leader of Zou. SHIT COMES OUTTA NOWHERE. And that decision would still be shit if it's actually "This is why carrot sneaks on board." like just garbage either way.
I dislike this arc. I might even hate this arc. It's not good. It's not even not good by One Piece standards, It's not good by regular shonen standards, and a lot of regular shonen is subpar trash.
And I'm not gonna talk about the Hiyori shit, cause that alone deserves its own post, cause that shit undermines so much of One Piece ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh, y'all don't even know
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