I thought for a long time "yeh G5 is bad but it does not completely destroy the Manga" then I imagine base Luffy no G4/5 being the one reaching Yonko lvl and beating Kaido and I think to myself Oda did indeed ruin the Manga. Like look at Luffy pre G4 absolut badass, G4 was so fucking ugly and G5 looks alright but his personality is just atrocious.
but what I never understood is that the hate started with G5 and not G4, G4 is literally the most ugly, the most hideous transformation of all time. all the fights became "use G4 hide and run, use G4 again"
I think Oda has decided that finishing the story was worth abandoning the SH. You don’t follow the SH as characters anymore, you follow a story in which the SH are background characters. It has been this way since Egghead. How is it normal that we know about domi reversi before the SH ? This makes no sense for the story, now there is nothing that can surprise us in this arc.
I don’t have much against Egghead and Elbaph as arcs, but it’s still a shonen, and we should still be following Luffy's story. Except we do not.
He killed Luffy’s character, and the worst thing is, Luffy could have still been Luffy even in Gear5. Toonforce could have been the scariest thing ever just like it is in the anime sometimes. Oda doesn’t exploit that at all.
What we are left with is an half finished product, which I'm still enjoying, but I don’t know that one can be proud of a story where the main character is becoming as tame as room temperature water.