G
Lmao thats nutty that even in that encounter, we learned nothing
I was also really looking forward to a dialogue with Kidd and Shanks where the former is arrogant, hot headed, bitter and especially gunning to kill Shanks now (as usual but more so) and Shanks humbling him, especially with pure haki like Gildarts did to Natsu too.
Would have been a great interaction to see their values and personalities clash but Loda sigh.
Blackbeard being so dismissive of taking Law's fruit especially given its extreme value, utility, power etc was extremely annoying too.
The only things I like about the Shanks and Kidd encounter is Dorry and Broggy showing up and doing their combo attack again, Shanks looking amazing as usual now and having FS confirmed as well as Rogers signature technique and Oda paying off on the decades of waiting to see Shanks snap after hearing he has the most unstoppable, terrifying wrath and power when angered and thus also when his friends are hurt or threatened or w/e.
I really adore that aspect of Shanks even though I wanted him to be more of a pragmatic, anti-hero type character (which he still is somewhat ofc)or even a designated or even possibly deliberate villain too.
Getting to see him do a named attack and fighting was absolutely peak despite it not being a new attack unique to him and especially who he used it on and its fatal consequences literally.
Even though I slander him a lot now, I still love Shanks a lot and he's one of my OG faves and reasons why I loved and got into OP too.
I actually wished/wanted to be more like him especially, just like Kakashi or Isshin Kurosaki for example, I adore these type if characters.
The only other thing I could criticise about Shanks is I want to see more of thar ruthless side from him and his crew like we did in the beginning, where they use guns when necessary only and thus will execute someone to make a point/as necessary only again too.
I expected a moment like this with him and Kidd somehow too, especially given Kidd was targeting and killing others, crucifying them too literally ofc.
But then again we did get that with Kidd stupidly trying to wipe out Shanks allies, who we know were extremely weak/vulnerable and thus cared for and protected by Shanks and Shanks saw their brutal deaths via FS and he took down Kidd immediately with no mercy but in a more hands on, direct, destructive way himself too ofc.
Another thing I really like is that despite having the power to easily obliterate the Victoria Punk, Kidds ship, (we even saw him casually wrecking parts of Whitebeards Moby Di-er ship with seemingly nonchalant haki flexing too), he just focused his haki and strength to only target Kidd and his weapon and crew, only targeting what was necessary again and sparing the ship even though a haki god like him should have easily and immediately nuked it instead.
Shanks has that sort of ironic take on the gentle giant trope, where he's a titan in the story except in size and he stands equal with literal titans/giants, being seen as a hero, close friend, great man etc by actusl giants but also standing equal if not even superior to the strongest pirates alive and even history depending, despite being only an "ordinary human", missing an arm, not some kind of freak of nature durability and strength wise like Big Mom especially nor no devil fruit, especially an extremely OP one too.
In a way Shanks is like the Hercules, Achilles, Leonidas or whoever of the giants, their hero who us like an ant compared to them but immensely respect, adore and admire him regardless.
It's such great writing/characterisation.
I don't blame Shanks for what happened to Kidd despite all my "ironic" meming and slander of him now (I slander Mihawk another absolute OG goat and one of my most fave characters a lot now too) l, I just blame Oda as he's the author and its his bad decision making and fault if anything lmao.
I really liked the Shanks vs Kidd dynamic and if Shanks is really related to Garling and thus maybe his son (Garling apparently another so called hero of the gods valley incident too), then that not only makes Shanks an even more nuanced, complex, compelling and gray type character but since Kidd is n anarchist/"Punk" and openly despises the WG, especially the Celestials as his speech from his intro at Sabaody revealed, then this could have played amazingly well into the Shanks vs Kidd dynamic.
I still have faith Kidd will return and either face against Shanks and contribute to his defeat (not a death though) of Shanks OR he will return and learn of Shanks having Celestial heritage somehow potentially and discover not all Celestials are scum and also Shanks is more if a good, honourable and benevolent person than he realise and that Kidd and Shanks have more in common too than they realise beyond their hilariously, coincidental, matching aesthetic features.
Kidd really cares for his crew and friends immensely and is ride or die, Shanks is very similar at least so under different circumstances or if they got to know each other better, they might actually grow to respect one another and maybe Shanks could even mentor Kidd, help him train and compensate for his lack of haki prowess, his major weakness, help him to learn to fight without a DF and just 1 arm better too and so on.
I've actually written multiple scenarios (well via AI I mean) of Kidd and Shanks and Shanks could at least play a similar role to Kidd like Kaido did to Luffy and Mihawk to Zoro and help Kidd to get stronger and accomplish something they both want too (assuming they both want to take down the WG at least. I feel Shanks is trying to do it in his own enigmatic, pragmatic, chess master type way too).
The only other thing I could criticise about Shanks is I want to see more of thar ruthless side from him and his crew like we did in the beginning, where they use guns when necessary only and thus will execute someone to make a point/as necessary only again too.
I expected a moment like this with him and Kidd somehow too, especially given Kidd was targeting and killing others, crucifying them too literally ofc.
But then again we did get that with Kidd stupidly trying to wipe out Shanks allies, who we know were extremely weak/vulnerable and thus cared for and protected by Shanks and Shanks saw their brutal deaths via FS and he took down Kidd immediately with no mercy but in a more hands on, direct, destructive way himself too ofc.
Another thing I really like is that despite having the power to easily obliterate the Victoria Punk, Kidds ship, (we even saw him casually wrecking parts of Whitebeards Moby Di-er ship with seemingly nonchalant haki flexing too), he just focused his haki and strength to only target Kidd and his weapon and crew, only targeting what was necessary again and sparing the ship even though a haki god like him should have easily and immediately nuked it instead.
Shanks has that sort of ironic take on the gentle giant trope, where he's a titan in the story except in size and he stands equal with literal titans/giants, being seen as a hero, close friend, great man etc by actusl giants but also standing equal if not even superior to the strongest pirates alive and even history depending, despite being only an "ordinary human", missing an arm, not some kind of freak of nature durability and strength wise like Big Mom especially nor no devil fruit, especially an extremely OP one too.
In a way Shanks is like the Hercules, Achilles, Leonidas or whoever of the giants, their hero who us like an ant compared to them but immensely respect, adore and admire him regardless.
It's such great writing/characterisation.
I don't blame Shanks for what happened to Kidd despite all my "ironic" meming and slander of him now (I slander Mihawk another absolute OG goat and one of my most fave characters a lot now too) l, I just blame Oda as he's the author and its his bad decision making and fault if anything lmao.
I really liked the Shanks vs Kidd dynamic and if Shanks is really related to Garling and thus maybe his son (Garling apparently another so called hero of the gods valley incident too), then that not only makes Shanks an even more nuanced, complex, compelling and gray type character but since Kidd is n anarchist/"Punk" and openly despises the WG, especially the Celestials as his speech from his intro at Sabaody revealed, then this could have played amazingly well into the Shanks vs Kidd dynamic.
I still have faith Kidd will return and either face against Shanks and contribute to his defeat (not a death though) of Shanks OR he will return and learn of Shanks having Celestial heritage somehow potentially and discover not all Celestials are scum and also Shanks is more if a good, honourable and benevolent person than he realise and that Kidd and Shanks have more in common too than they realise beyond their hilariously, coincidental, matching aesthetic features.
Kidd really cares for his crew and friends immensely and is ride or die, Shanks is very similar at least so under different circumstances or if they got to know each other better, they might actually grow to respect one another and maybe Shanks could even mentor Kidd, help him train and compensate for his lack of haki prowess, his major weakness, help him to learn to fight without a DF and just 1 arm better too and so on.
I've actually written multiple scenarios (well via AI I mean) of Kidd and Shanks and Shanks could at least play a similar role to Kidd like Kaido did to Luffy and Mihawk to Zoro and help Kidd to get stronger and accomplish something they both want too (assuming they both want to take down the WG at least. I feel Shanks is trying to do it in his own enigmatic, pragmatic, chess master type way too).
Typed a MONSTROUS essay as usual lmaoooo sorry but yeah that encounter was frustrating as hell for different reasons @Paperchampion23 .
At least we learned more about Shanks with Film Red but holy hell was that film a shameless bait too in some ways. Still glad for parts of it though like Shanks amd his crew getting wank, screen time, characterisation and some canon info as well a lot of misleading non canon info revealed frustratingly.
You, @ArturCantSpeakJapanese and MarcoTheOPTheorist have my favourite ideas and theories about Shanks by far too. Even if they're not gonna be true potentially, the amount of detail, thought, effort and interesting characterisation and "lore" they give for him is really something else too.
I really adore reading these kind of bond, character redefining theories, that make you see, know and thus understand them differently or better/more too.
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:cheers:
