Honestly, all in (current) review of this raid, it could have been FAR worse than people realize:
- Oda could have not only fully offscreened Jack and Peros, but not even give them finishing blows
- He could have pulled a Dressrosa on nearly every F6 member, instead he only did it to P1 and Ulti where only a few blows are shown onscreen and the fights are resolved in 1 chapter. At least WsW, Black Maria and Sasaki all had more than a chapter of fighting (Sasaki and Franky had additional fighting in 1004)
- Queen and King could have gotten short, 1 chapter fights. Instead Oda extended many scenes between 1022 and 1035.
- BM could have been made irrelevant in one chapter, but he gave her 3 dedicated chapters, more if you include 1029-1031.
- He could have fodderized the red scabbards, instead he used practically every single one in major scenes (except Kawamatsu....why didn't he also do some Fishman water technique stuff with Raizo's water at least?)
- Luffy vs Kaido could have ended in 1042. Oda "could" have made Kaido lose to Gear 4 and only left AdvCoC as the big powerup this arc.
- In some ways, the rooftop fight made things slow as shit, but it also helped give the Yonkos the initial onscreen fighting they needed to justify just how strong they are. Imagine not getting it and only getting what we got after the fact?
Sure, there are things I wanted (BMP, all strawhats to fight along with Yamato getting a matchup, as well as Bepo), but man for a 75 chapter fight sequence, it's shocking how many good doublespreads there are, or how much we actually got in retrospect. Not all of it is "good", it just could have been far worse.
- Oda could have not only fully offscreened Jack and Peros, but not even give them finishing blows
- He could have pulled a Dressrosa on nearly every F6 member, instead he only did it to P1 and Ulti where only a few blows are shown onscreen and the fights are resolved in 1 chapter. At least WsW, Black Maria and Sasaki all had more than a chapter of fighting (Sasaki and Franky had additional fighting in 1004)
- Queen and King could have gotten short, 1 chapter fights. Instead Oda extended many scenes between 1022 and 1035.
- BM could have been made irrelevant in one chapter, but he gave her 3 dedicated chapters, more if you include 1029-1031.
- He could have fodderized the red scabbards, instead he used practically every single one in major scenes (except Kawamatsu....why didn't he also do some Fishman water technique stuff with Raizo's water at least?)
- Luffy vs Kaido could have ended in 1042. Oda "could" have made Kaido lose to Gear 4 and only left AdvCoC as the big powerup this arc.
- In some ways, the rooftop fight made things slow as shit, but it also helped give the Yonkos the initial onscreen fighting they needed to justify just how strong they are. Imagine not getting it and only getting what we got after the fact?
Sure, there are things I wanted (BMP, all strawhats to fight along with Yamato getting a matchup, as well as Bepo), but man for a 75 chapter fight sequence, it's shocking how many good doublespreads there are, or how much we actually got in retrospect. Not all of it is "good", it just could have been far worse.