Honestly, compared to other "creative solutions" in fights some Shonen mangaka pull (Sakamoto Days,ahem) , the ones that Oda pulls at least still make sense story wise.
One Piece powerups are mostly driven by character development.
DBs for example are more like a powerup in the heat of battle after a "training" arc.
Do I think Queen vs Sanji was a good matchup? No. But I am happy about the outcome.
The way Sanji defeated Queen does not prove in any way that he is necessarily stronger than Queen. Imagine waiting an entire arc to finally see how your favorite character is going to defeat and surpass a Yonko commander, only for that to never really happen in the end. Sanji wins, but through such a situational conclusion that the victory itself does not convincingly establish that he actually surpassed Queen in strength.
I don’t know about you, but I definitely wasn’t expecting the one-on-one between Sanji and Queen to end because Queen suddenly got hit with a wave of stupidity in the middle of the fight, threw away the advantage he had, dropped his guard to go after a prostitute, and at the exact same time had his position exposed by a wooden floor to a guy who was literally burning through his stamina because he had no idea where Queen was.
I dont think he wanted to bait us at all.
He was fully commited to it...
...but then popularity poll happened.
I didnt believe this back then but now I cant rule it out that he changed his mind bcs of something like that.
You might say I am coping but look what Zoro vs King is, basically a ZKK stripped off all its fame.
Gave all Kaido's attributes to King, made him even better in most stats but removed all narrative from it. Still wrote off Kaido by tossing him in the same element he just bathed himself in, willingly...
There's nothing wrong with a writer intentionally creating a red herring or a situation where the readers makes the wrong presumption. Not having certainty is often a fun part of the reader's process.
There is a problem when a writer goes twice as fast in the last tenth of a story to wrap it up. If Oda wanted to create a Luffy parallel with Ryuma it was definitely possible to do it better and not even have to write that one line from the random Wano citizen to drive it home
I try to remove most of Wano from my memory outside the major plot beats. I can’t believe Oda wrote that shit for the conclusion of the Yonko saga lmao.
"noooooo dude there were external factors fuuuuck I can't believe Oda-san would do this to us.... its a shonen fight bro they're supposed to say 'lets fight somewhere empty' and then go run off to a wasteland somewhere, how dare the various circumstances and other currently running plotlines of the arc affect my glorious beautiful 1v1s???"
The moment your opponent knows your position and that's enough to KO you, and send you flying- you're already inferior to the other person. It's one thing to say if Queen had kept hidden and not move at all, he could've won the fight but superior? Not at all.
Further Queen was clumsy and he wasn't scared enough to sit in one corner while Sanji kept moving at invisible speed. Probably underestimated Sanji haki and made the mistake. Lazy writing - i can agree with that.
I dont think he wanted to bait us at all.
He was fully commited to it...
...but then popularity poll happened.
I didnt believe this back then but now I cant rule it out that he changed his mind bcs of something like that.
You might say I am coping but look what Zoro vs King is, basically a ZKK stripped off all its fame.
Gave all Kaido's attributes to King, made him even better in most stats but removed all narrative from it. Still wrote off Kaido by tossing him in the same element he just bathed himself in, willingly...
Idk, if it was a spontanous thing, Zoro vs King wouldn't even happen. Their fight started in Chapter 1023 (?) and was finished in Chapter 1035 where Zoro surpassed his limits to tame Enma and to beat King. It also didn't help the ZKK agenda when Zoro got 30 bones broken and received a medicine which heals him 100% at a short period of time, only to double the damage afterwards.
The moment your opponent knows your position and that's enough to KO you, and send you flying- you're already inferior to the other person. It's one thing to say if Queen had kept hidden and not move at all, he could've won the fight but superior? Not at all.
Further Queen was clumsy and he wasn't scared enough to sit in one corner while Sanji kept moving at invisible speed. Probably underestimated Sanji haki and made the mistake.
I try to remove most of Wano from my memory outside the major plot beats. I can’t believe Oda wrote that shit for the conclusion of the Yonko saga lmao.
Nah, even without her using ACoC, she ate Law and Kid’s two strongest attacks, and they were completely out of energy after that. Meanwhile, she was still totally fine. She even had enough endurance to survive the initial bomb explosions, and only after that was she finally taken down by another massive explosion. It was something completely random.
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:
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.
So what do I do?
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.
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.
To be fair, most Beast Pirates have incredibly low battle IQ.
I kinda disagree about Queen, he had problems with breaking through Sanji's durability, so if he fired a laser at Sanji, he'd just cause almost meaningless damage and would reveal his position.
The moment your opponent knows your position and that's enough to KO you, and send you flying- you're already inferior to the other person. It's one thing to say if Queen had kept hidden and not move at all, he could've won the fight but superior? Not at all.
Further Queen was clumsy and he wasn't scared enough to sit in one corner while Sanji kept moving at invisible speed. Probably underestimated Sanji haki and made the mistake. Lazy writing - i can agree with that.
Read it again. The only reason Sanji, who was at a complete disadvantage just like Queen himself said, burning through all of his energy to maintain the super speed that made him invisible, managed to find Queen was because a scientist with a higher IQ than Sanji decided to go after some random prostitute in the middle of the fight, and the wooden floor gave away his position because of the noise.
Are you seriously trying to argue that a genius comparable to Vegapunk is somehow stupid? A scientist who rebuilt his entire body and turned it into a weapon is somehow dumber than a cook. Absolutely insane writing.
To be fair, most Beast Pirates have incredibly low battle IQ.
I kinda disagree about Queen, he had problems with breaking through Sanji's durability, so if he fired a laser at Sanji, he'd just cause almost meaningless damage and would reveal his position.
A scientist comparable to Vegapunk who enhanced his entire body, developed invisibility, lasers, and all kinds of advanced technology somehow has a lower IQ than a cook. How cool.
And no, he wouldn’t have revealed his location. Otherwise, there would’ve been no reason for Sanji to keep burning through all his stamina just to remain invisible if he could simply dodge whatever Queen threw at him.
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. It's one thing to say if Queen had kept hidden and not move at all, he could've won the fight but superior? Not at all.
