I hate to compare high art like Dark Souls to shit like One Piece but I think this is a pretty apt comparison:
So in Dark Souls 1, one of the first bosses you fight is the Taurus Demon, it is this giant monstrous demon bull that can fuck your shit up when youโre a low level. It is a big challenge early on that is quite imposing.
As you approach the mid/late game though, you reach a point where the game throws literally like 6 Taurus Demons at you all at once, but by that point, your character is so powerful and youโve gotten so good that you pretty much just roll over all 6 at once. The Taurus Demon(s) serve to illustrate how much you have grown as a player, what was at first a giant and overwhelming challenge later just becomes a mild hindrance (there are many other โprogressโ enemies like this in from games but just a quick example).
Lucci is the Taurus Demon. He was a powerful pre timeskip enemy that Luffy had to unlock multiple new Powerups to beat, but post timeskip he gets Tom and Jerry diffed to show us how far Luffy has come.
Do I like it? I donโt like really anything about One Piece, but I at least understand what Lolda is trying to do. I imagine if I were stupid enough to be a Luffy fan, this would be a great chapter.
@Seth