Ch. 1058 was probably the best chapter Zoro/Mihawk fans had since last year. Mihawk's bounty was a nice surprise. However it looks like some of us are getting over-excited over this little crumb and Jinbei being inserted in between Zoro and Sanji.
No matter how much we try to rationalize the decisions by Oda, he has majorly fucked this fraction more than once. Oda has:
The reality will be:
So, inflating expectations over this chapter will definitely come back to bite us in the ass.
No matter how much we try to rationalize the decisions by Oda, he has majorly fucked this fraction more than once. Oda has:
- Intentionally brought up and discarded Zoro's lineage plot line.
- Made Ryuuma and Luffy parallels
- Kept Sanji's bounty really close to Zoro's.
- Narratively emphasized Kid and Law over Zoro.
- Gave Zoro quite a small bounty.
- Unnecessarily used "skills" last chapter, leading to the current nonsensical debate that we are having.
- Rarely tried to bring a real swordsman as Zoro's opponent (Daz Bones, King both denied outright being swordsman, only Ohm and Kaku considered themselves swordsmen).
The reality will be:
- Shiryu will also deny being a swordsman
- Shanks will be given amazing feats and portrayal while Mihawk does nothing
- Sanji will somehow remain close to Zoro in bounty and in the opponents they beat till EoS.
- Keeping Luffy fans happy (the biggest fraction)
- Keeping Sanji fans happy (the third biggest fraction; they have given up trying to reach Luffy, they will be satisfied if they remain close to Zoro and fangirls will be making yaoi about them)
- Keeping Yonkou fans happy (massive fanbase, they don't want Zoro to ever reach Yonkou levels)
- Keeping Shanks fans happy (massive fanbase, they don't want anyone but Luffy reach his level)
- Pissing off literally no other fanbases
So, inflating expectations over this chapter will definitely come back to bite us in the ass.