Yes, Eiichiro Oda created characters who were simply too strong to be defeated by opponents who were still far too weak. He spent so much time trying to figure out a convincing way for Luffy to beat Kaidou, for Zoro to beat King, and for Sanji to beat Queen that he basically wrote himself into a corner. In the end, he couldn’t find a satisfying solution and just started throwing things at the wall.
What I mean is that none of the one-on-one fights in Wano ever felt truly fair or honest.
Let’s start with the nonsense of how Sanji vs Queen was resolved, and why Queen losing to Sanji does not necessarily mean Sanji > Queen.
Just look at how Queen lost.
Sanji vs Queen:
The guy was completely invisible while Sanji was pushing himself through an insane amount of physical effort just to stay invisible from Queen. All Queen had to do was stand still, wait for Sanji to exhaust himself and stop moving, and the moment Queen spotted him, he could have blasted Sanji’s head open with a laser. Queen had basically 100% control over the situation, and the worst part is that he fucking knew it.
So what actually made him lose?
Was it the difference in strength between him and Sanji? Was Sanji simply stronger? NO.
It was just some of the dumbest writing in the entire series. Sanji did absolutely nothing in that moment to prove that he was superior to Queen. The wooden floorboards literally gave away Queen’s location after he decided to go after some random woman he could have dealt with later.
So no, Sanji did not win that fight because he clearly proved himself superior to Queen. He won because an external detail as stupid as a wooden floor happened to expose Queen’s position at the most critical possible moment.
Nobody is going to convince me that Sanji was clearly superior to Queen when such garbage, incredibly situational, and straight-up stupid writing is what decided the fight. Sanji did not win because he simply proved himself stronger than Queen. He won because the circumstances handed him the perfect opportunity at the exact moment he needed it. “Oh, what amazing writing. Let me have Queen walk around on a wooden floor chasing after some woman he could literally kill at any point after finishing his fight with Sanji. Let me completely lose focus while I have 100% control of the fight I’m in right now...”
CREAK... CREAK...
Zoro versus King.
The whole issue with King’s flames and his invincibility is still something that has never been properly explained. The guy was basically invincible while his flames were on. There was no conventional way to beat him except maybe through a battle of endurance, and even that would only matter if King somehow decided not to keep his flame mode active. Zoro literally told him to his face that if things kept going like that, Enma was going to drain all the life out of him. At that point, it was just a matter of time. And seriously, what better way could King possibly have had to stall for time than simply keeping his flames on, the very flames that made him practically invincible?
And Zoro knew there was absolutely no point in attacking him while his flames were ON.
Recapping:
I wait for him to die because of his own sword. I beat him in a battle of endurance. I keep my flames on and tank everything he throws at me.
And what does Eiichiro Oda write instead?
Turn off your flames against Zoro, King. Throw away every advantage you have and lose the fight. I know this would not exactly be the most honorable way to win, but King would still be winning by relying entirely on something that belongs to him, a racial ability, his own power. Not because of some fucking wooden floor making noise and exposing his position because of something completely outside Queen’s control.
Big Mom vs Kid & Law.
The madness already starts with the fact that this was never even a one-on-one fight. It was a straight-up 2v1.
And honestly, it wasn’t even just a 2v1. At the most decisive point of the fight, Kid and Law also received help from their crews and from random fodder around them.
Look at the image above. Why didn’t Kid and Law die right there? Because the fight was already unfair enough as a 2v1, and then Big Mom still had to get distracted by their crews at such a critical moment?
She completely dropped her guard and basically forgot to finish the two of them off.
Did Kid and Law actually knock Big Mom out? No. Was Big Mom truly defeated by the two of them through their own power? No.
Were Law and Kid’s final attacks enough to put Big Mom down? No. What happened was the same thing we had already seen in the previous fights. External factors stepped in and helped decide the outcome. In this case, it was Kaidou’s massive explosives. This is Big Mom after taking the strongest attacks Kid and Law had to offer, still fully conscious and with enough physical strength left to set off those explosives herself:
Even after some of the bombs had already exploded, meaning damage that came from neither Kid nor Law but purely from an outside plot convenience, Big Mom STILL remained conscious.
She was only finally taken down after even MORE bombs went off.
This is easily the least deserved victory out of all of them. Kid and Law together were never shown to be stronger than Big Mom, especially when their two strongest attacks failed to even knock her unconscious.
Inuarashi versus jack and Neko vs Perospero.
Now look at how Jack lost... Both were in similar circumstances. Inuarashi had already taken a beating from Kaido, while Jack had already been beaten down by the Sulong Minks, including Sulong Nekomamushi and Inuarashi.
Look at the situation: Jack and Perospero were winning. Nekomamushi and Inuarashi had lost their Sulong forms because the moon was covered by clouds, putting both of them at a clear disadvantage. Jack and Perospero didn’t cause the clouds, but they also didn’t depend on them to create some artificial opening in the fight. They simply took advantage of the situation as it was, and they were about to defeat their opponents.
The question is: how did Neko and Inu turn the situation around? They didn’t.
They didn’t figure out a way to fight without Sulong, they didn’t overcome Jack and Perospero through strategy, skill, or intelligence, and they didn’t force their opponents into making some kind of mistake. Nothing that changed the course of the fight came from them.
Luffy and Kaido, in a completely different fight, split the sky. The clouds disappeared, the moon became visible again, and purely as a consequence of that external event, Nekomamushi and Inuarashi regained their Sulong forms. Only then were they able to defeat Jack and Perospero.
And that is exactly why I think this ending is so bad. Jack and Perospero were not defeated because their opponents surpassed them; they were defeated because an event completely outside the control of all four fighters gave the Minks back the transformation they needed to win.
Jack couldn’t stop Luffy and Kaido from splitting the sky. Perospero couldn’t either. They didn’t make some absurd mistake that justified their defeat, nor were they outsmarted by some brilliant strategy from Neko and Inu. They simply had their advantage taken away from them by an external event.
So yes, what an impressive victory for the Mink rulers: they were about to lose, they found absolutely no solution to their own disadvantage, and at the perfect moment, two people who weren’t even part of their fight literally opened up the sky and gave them their power-up back.
If that isn’t a fight being decided by external convenience, then I genuinely don’t know what is.
Usopp & Nami vs. Page One and Ulti.
It was basically a negative-diff fight for Page One and Ulti. They were completely destroying them and winning with ease.
They got a lot of help, but let’s skip to what really matters: Page One was defeated by Big Mom, and Ulti was weakened by Big Mom after being critically pierced by her attack.
Look at Nami getting completely dominated by Ulti again and nearly being killed if it weren’t for Big Mom’s interference.
Ulti took a critical hit, was knocked out, and when she returned to the fight, she no longer had the same level of stamina she had before. Why? Because Nami did that to her? No. Because Big Mom did.
And later, Nami defeats Ulti when she’s already on her last legs...
I’ll edit the thread tomorrow and add more to it, including Kaidou vs Luffy, Ulti vs Nami, and a few others.
But for now, that’s it.
And she still needed Usopp’s help to pull it off.
@Erkan12 @Elder Lee Hung @Veku @nik87 @Shimotsuki Fenaker @Blazing Lion @GeneralP123 @Luffy is the mc @comrade
What I mean is that none of the one-on-one fights in Wano ever felt truly fair or honest.
Let’s start with the nonsense of how Sanji vs Queen was resolved, and why Queen losing to Sanji does not necessarily mean Sanji > Queen.
Just look at how Queen lost.
Sanji vs Queen:
The guy was completely invisible while Sanji was pushing himself through an insane amount of physical effort just to stay invisible from Queen. All Queen had to do was stand still, wait for Sanji to exhaust himself and stop moving, and the moment Queen spotted him, he could have blasted Sanji’s head open with a laser. Queen had basically 100% control over the situation, and the worst part is that he fucking knew it.
So what actually made him lose?
Was it the difference in strength between him and Sanji? Was Sanji simply stronger? NO.
It was just some of the dumbest writing in the entire series. Sanji did absolutely nothing in that moment to prove that he was superior to Queen. The wooden floorboards literally gave away Queen’s location after he decided to go after some random woman he could have dealt with later.
So no, Sanji did not win that fight because he clearly proved himself superior to Queen. He won because an external detail as stupid as a wooden floor happened to expose Queen’s position at the most critical possible moment.
Nobody is going to convince me that Sanji was clearly superior to Queen when such garbage, incredibly situational, and straight-up stupid writing is what decided the fight. Sanji did not win because he simply proved himself stronger than Queen. He won because the circumstances handed him the perfect opportunity at the exact moment he needed it. “Oh, what amazing writing. Let me have Queen walk around on a wooden floor chasing after some woman he could literally kill at any point after finishing his fight with Sanji. Let me completely lose focus while I have 100% control of the fight I’m in right now...”
CREAK... CREAK...
Zoro versus King.
The whole issue with King’s flames and his invincibility is still something that has never been properly explained. The guy was basically invincible while his flames were on. There was no conventional way to beat him except maybe through a battle of endurance, and even that would only matter if King somehow decided not to keep his flame mode active. Zoro literally told him to his face that if things kept going like that, Enma was going to drain all the life out of him. At that point, it was just a matter of time. And seriously, what better way could King possibly have had to stall for time than simply keeping his flames on, the very flames that made him practically invincible?
- Zoro just told me that if this drags on for too long, his sword is going to kill him.
- Zoro just told me that attacking me while my flames are ON is completely pointless.
I wait for him to die because of his own sword. I beat him in a battle of endurance. I keep my flames on and tank everything he throws at me.
And what does Eiichiro Oda write instead?
Turn off your flames against Zoro, King. Throw away every advantage you have and lose the fight. I know this would not exactly be the most honorable way to win, but King would still be winning by relying entirely on something that belongs to him, a racial ability, his own power. Not because of some fucking wooden floor making noise and exposing his position because of something completely outside Queen’s control.
Big Mom vs Kid & Law.
The madness already starts with the fact that this was never even a one-on-one fight. It was a straight-up 2v1.
And honestly, it wasn’t even just a 2v1. At the most decisive point of the fight, Kid and Law also received help from their crews and from random fodder around them.
She completely dropped her guard and basically forgot to finish the two of them off.
Did Kid and Law actually knock Big Mom out? No. Was Big Mom truly defeated by the two of them through their own power? No.
Were Law and Kid’s final attacks enough to put Big Mom down? No. What happened was the same thing we had already seen in the previous fights. External factors stepped in and helped decide the outcome. In this case, it was Kaidou’s massive explosives. This is Big Mom after taking the strongest attacks Kid and Law had to offer, still fully conscious and with enough physical strength left to set off those explosives herself:
Even after some of the bombs had already exploded, meaning damage that came from neither Kid nor Law but purely from an outside plot convenience, Big Mom STILL remained conscious.
She was only finally taken down after even MORE bombs went off.
This is easily the least deserved victory out of all of them. Kid and Law together were never shown to be stronger than Big Mom, especially when their two strongest attacks failed to even knock her unconscious.
Inuarashi versus jack and Neko vs Perospero.
Now look at how Jack lost... Both were in similar circumstances. Inuarashi had already taken a beating from Kaido, while Jack had already been beaten down by the Sulong Minks, including Sulong Nekomamushi and Inuarashi.
Look at the situation: Jack and Perospero were winning. Nekomamushi and Inuarashi had lost their Sulong forms because the moon was covered by clouds, putting both of them at a clear disadvantage. Jack and Perospero didn’t cause the clouds, but they also didn’t depend on them to create some artificial opening in the fight. They simply took advantage of the situation as it was, and they were about to defeat their opponents.
The question is: how did Neko and Inu turn the situation around? They didn’t.
They didn’t figure out a way to fight without Sulong, they didn’t overcome Jack and Perospero through strategy, skill, or intelligence, and they didn’t force their opponents into making some kind of mistake. Nothing that changed the course of the fight came from them.
Luffy and Kaido, in a completely different fight, split the sky. The clouds disappeared, the moon became visible again, and purely as a consequence of that external event, Nekomamushi and Inuarashi regained their Sulong forms. Only then were they able to defeat Jack and Perospero.
And that is exactly why I think this ending is so bad. Jack and Perospero were not defeated because their opponents surpassed them; they were defeated because an event completely outside the control of all four fighters gave the Minks back the transformation they needed to win.
Jack couldn’t stop Luffy and Kaido from splitting the sky. Perospero couldn’t either. They didn’t make some absurd mistake that justified their defeat, nor were they outsmarted by some brilliant strategy from Neko and Inu. They simply had their advantage taken away from them by an external event.
So yes, what an impressive victory for the Mink rulers: they were about to lose, they found absolutely no solution to their own disadvantage, and at the perfect moment, two people who weren’t even part of their fight literally opened up the sky and gave them their power-up back.
If that isn’t a fight being decided by external convenience, then I genuinely don’t know what is.
Usopp & Nami vs. Page One and Ulti.
It was basically a negative-diff fight for Page One and Ulti. They were completely destroying them and winning with ease.
I’ll edit the thread tomorrow and add more to it, including Kaidou vs Luffy, Ulti vs Nami, and a few others.
But for now, that’s it.
@Erkan12 @Elder Lee Hung @Veku @nik87 @Shimotsuki Fenaker @Blazing Lion @GeneralP123 @Luffy is the mc @comrade
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