Whats crazy to me is how personally hyped i was pre-TS for them, because you let your imagination run wild with these monsters when they all showed up at Marineford.
But what was weird was how since Dressrosa, Oda has sort of hurt them in terms of portrayal and I dont understand why. I get scaling just had been upped by Doflamingo, Kata and Kaido, but I kinda wished his crew was kept a little more consistent to being above other contemporaries or at least maintained a level of danger save for key points
- Making Jesus look powerful at first, but then a joke against Sabo. His new power is cool though, if a bit uninspired.
- Giving Shiryu invisibility to go along with his cunning guile is fine, but when all you have killed is fodder by tricking them, its weird.
- Catarina's is fine, but really just Bon Clay's power but better. We'll have to see what other powers her mythical has. I disliked that Hancock made her and Shot into Jokes.
- Doc Q and Auger are appropriate id say, and Auger's power is more complementary like Shiryu's might be too (to amplify their sniping and swordsmanship), but just "look" underwhelming so far
- Wolf's is fine too, its been known for years and works for him, but he hasnt been shown to do anything yet as the worlds biggest human.
- Avalo's is cool, but need to see more. Vasco's implied to be unique but again, same issue.
- Dont know what Laffite even is.
- Aokiji is Aokiji, but he froze like half the crew lol
When account for not being able to take Hancocks power, or the fact that Law got away, and compare that to someone like Shanks' portrayal onscreen in similar scenarios, its just blatantly off.
But...theres also the fact that they are also purposefully underestimated and comical, similar to Luffy. I get this for sure.
However, even if you compare Blackbeard to Shanks to Akainu, I really dont think any stack up to the "enigmatic" portrayal of Imu and the Gorosei last chapter. We still arent 100% sure they are THAT strong (just enough to significantly hurt Sabo as a logia), but I have a big feeling they will be, especially after how Dragon singled out their subordinates (God Knights)
Lolda's biggest problems are two.
Firstly, he wants his readers to do the characters hyping for him. He did this to justify "Narratives > Everything" mindset, which is unendingly stupid to begin with because this means he can justify Woop Slap soloing the verse if his so called "narratives" require it. He kept making the BBPs job by arguing "Oh, well, they will be strong when the SHs face them, anyway" without even thinking, if any Tom, Dick, and Harry can beat the BBP members, the SHs doing it later will not be as impressive as it's supposed to be.
Secondly, his thinking is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too inflexible. This is true with all Yonko crews so far. Instead of making the powers of the Yonkos and their top officials frightening too boot, he kept choosing to stick with his limited creativity.
Big Mom's soul power literally requires people to be afraid of her, thereby nullifying its effectiveness against many, many named characters right off the bat. A limitation like "She has to be able to touch you directly to take your soul" makes more sense because this means she can steal your soul whether or not you are scared.
Kaido's dragon power should have been dark matter instead of generic fire. His YCs DFs are all fucking stupid and irrelevant.
This is also true with Teach. Okay, maybe Gura Gura has limited use, but using Yami Yami simply for "Absorb, pull, and nullify" is in itself stupid. Yami Yami should have allowed Teach to control dark element itself, including shadows like Moria but stronger, like being able to move through the shadows or to hurt you directly by attacking your shadows (imagine if his opponent evades his quake punch only for him to aim another shot at their shadows and kill them by destroying their shadows) or creating a dark world/zone where staying too long in it will cause you to be absorbed by the dark world/zone (and eventually by Teach himself). But all he's doing with it is Kurouzu.
His crew, as you said it, was already fucked by Lolda even before this arc started. Shiryu should have had the Diamond DF, Wolf should have been our first giant Logia (something like Mineral/Crystal DF would have been cool), and Pizzaro should have had a saber-tooth DF. I don't know what kinda alcohol Vasco can do, but it's bound to be stupid.
It's like, damn, Lolda is making
@Blackbeard's crew looks fucking underwhelming on purpose.