Analysis Thread:
In this thread I would like to talk about Akainu.
In my eyes he was the Mvp in Marineford and Oda made every effort to portray him as the most dangerous and strongest character.
In this thread we will talk about Akainu Portrayal (strongest character in Marineford), his actions and feats.
Portrayal:
Oda set up Marineford based on the dangerousness of its characters, the most dangerous were the admirals, followed by the Shichibukai. Garp and Sengoku were wildcards who only helped in times of need, but apart from that didn't get involved much in the war.
Let's go in order: As in a game, you first have to defeat and clear the stages one after the other so that you can level up until you reach the final boss, which you have to defeat to finish the story and end the game.
Marineford was designed so that you had to work your way forward step by step to get to Ace (final mission to save him).
Level 1:
First, Oda set up fodders:
100,000 elite navy soldiers (including giants, many vice admirals and other ranks), battleships and cannons.
These are the fodder enemies in a game, they are in a dungeon that you explore, they are easy to defeat but quite difficult in number if they all attack at once. The level is literally referred to the number of marines here. These 100,000 navy soldiers are tough to take and the number makes it very difficult to fight them...
This is the first level that Whitebeard, Luffy and their allies had to overcome.
Level 2:
Mind bosses, the 7 Shichibukai: These are really tough, you have to overcome these bosses to get to the final stage. The 7 Shichibukai are above all 100,000 navy soldiers, these 7 are very strong pirates who are way above a normal vice admiral level.
This was also clearly shown in the manga, as soon as the war started, the 7 Shichibukai were there and a strong threat to Whitebeard and co.
This line comes after the fodder navy soldiers fail to stop the Whitebeard pirates. And that's exactly what happened, Navy giant soldiers were easily defeated by Oz, the vice admirals seemed powerless, then the Shichibukai intervened and defeated Oz with ease, strong commanders and veteran pirates or people like Ivankov or Jinbe were needed to fight these Shichibukai, normal pirates had little chance.
In a game, the Shichibukai (with Mihawk as the strongest Shichibukai) would be the midbosses, you have to defeat them to get to the final stage.
Stage 3: Final bosses - The admirals
The final bosses, the strongest unit, the enemies that come at the end of a game, that you have to defeat to bring the story to an end. Oda's portrayal made it clear that the admirals were the strongest unit in the arc, the biggest threat to Luffy and Whitebeard in their quest to free Ace, the strongest threat that had to be overcome. The admirals were used as a counter to Whitebeard, even his strongest commanders (Marco/Jozu) could only evaporate time but hardly do anything against them, only the Yonkou (Whitebeard) was able to class on equal terms with the admirals.
They were at the center of the incident, the strongest unit to stop everything so that Ace could not be saved, right in front of his execution platform.
This is the level structure that Oda saw for MF arc:
Level 1: 100,000 soldiers (giants, vice admirals)
Level 2: Shichibukai
Level 3: Admirals
This was pretty much the portrait that Oda had for Marineford arc, a clear structure for the arc. Like in a game, the protagonists in the arc had to climb these levels step by step.
Main characters: Luffy and Whitebeard (his crew). The arc was structured like a game, Luffy was like a protagonist from a game who had to reach each level. This was also shown by Oda step by step. First he had to fight against level 1 opponents, then came the Shichibukai and then the admirals. Oda deliberately chose the line-up from the weakest to the strongest level.
Level 1: Luffy against fodder navy soldiers:
Here you can also see the structure, from weak soldiers to Smoker (who was one of the stronger navy soldiers). Oda clearly uses a structure system where Luffy has to work his way up from strong opponents to the strong ones.
Simple allies of Whitebeard or normal pirates were enough to support him in the first stage. With Smoker (final phase of level 1) Luffy needed the help of a Shichibukai (Boa) to overcome the level.
Allies level for level 1:
Allies of Whitebeard or normal pirates(mid tiers)
Level 2: Against Shichibukai:
The same thing again: Here you first meet Moria, probably the weakest Shichibukai, before you then meet Kuma and Doflamingo, the stronger Shichibukai, who were overcome with the help of Ivankov. The final stage in level two is the strongest Shichibukai, Mihawk. He gets particularly long scenes against Luffy in order to clearly show the final phase of level two how strong these characters actually are.
At level two Luffy needed the help of Commanders (Vista and Ivankov) or Shichibukai like Jinbe to stand up to the Shichibukai and progress. Without them Luffy would never have progressed because his level was simply too low.
Allies level for level 2:
Yonkou commander level or high tiers.
Level 3: The Admirals
Luffy has to overcome these as the final stage to save Ace, if he doesn't succeed, he loses the game and the story doesn't end well:
For the final stage against the admirals Luffy really only got the help of Whitebeard (Yonkou) or Marco. Anything else would have made no sense because no one in Whitebeard's crew was able to fight the admirals, they would end up just like Luffy.
It always had to be Marco or Whitebeard and Luffy's side so he could overcome these three and save Ace.
Allies level for level 3:
Yonkou level, Firstmate level(only for short time and with help with others).
As you can see, Oda structured the arc, step by step Luffy had to overcome obstacles to get to Ace. This is the Portrayal/Power level ranking for Marineford written by Oda.
The structure of the power level is clear here and it was shown in several scenes that this comparison with Marineford - an RPG game - is quite accurate.
The main characters were also well portrayed by Oda, Luffy and Whitebeard (Yonkou), who were the protagonists in the arc. As for Akainu's portrayal, he was the final boss of Marineford, as Portrayal like in a game he was Luffy and Whitebeard's final opponent to free Ace, if you don't defeat him, the mission fails and it's game over.
He was clearly portrayed at the beginning as the main counterpart to Whitebeard.
Akainu was the main opponent of Luffy and Whitebeard. The final boss in the Marineford arc for Luffy and Whitebeard.
Akainu was even portrayed as an enemy above Kuzan and Kizaru, the last stronghold that had to be overcome to save Ace:
This is all too portrayal.
Now we come to the next point of the analysis.
Actions:
Actions: As mentioned above, he was Sengoku's secret weapon to fight the pirates. He was the leading force in the plan to destroy the pirates with a meteorite attack:
He also showed his inventive cunning tricks, for example he manipulated Squardo into attacking Whitebeard:
He also was the one who gave Whitebeard his fatal wound:
The final part:
The end of Ace, game over, the end of the mission.
Akainu killed Ace and gave Luffy the worst physical and mental injury he had ever received.
The importance of Akainu for this arc, his portrayal of how dangerous but clever he is and the final phase, as the final boss, he killed Ace and ruined Luffy's game of saving Ace. Akainu's actions were extremely important to this arc, so important that they changed the future enormously. He was the main antagonist who did everything to prevent Luffy and Whitebeard from achieving their goal.
So much for his actions, all of these were of great importance and had a massive impact on what happened in the arc.
Now we come to the last part of my analysis.
Feats:
He was the only one in the arc who was able to stand up to Whitebeard's Gura power (which was hyped by all characters (Sengoku/Flamingo)) in direct combat.
Easily overpowered Ace:
It took Jinbe,Marco and Vista to stop him for shorttime:
Was hit twice by rage Whitebeard with his strongest attacks, was back on his feet shortly afterwards, as a comparison Oden was down after an offguard club hit from Kaido... Even melted half face of Whitebeard in a single move...
Easily defeated Ivankov (Dragon's strongest commander after Sabo):
Easily defeated Jinbe:
Fought against Marco and Crocodile and the entire Whitebeard pirates and even had the upper hand:
Akainu's feats clearly show that apart from Yonkou level characters, high tiers were not even able to fight him for long. His AP is at Gura level, which clearly shows how strong Akainu is. He was the only character in the arc who fought against a Yonkou and significantly injured him. stomping a Shichibukai, stomping a top commander and then fighting against a whole Yonkou crew + Crocodile and was still in top shape.
His feats were above all other characters in the arc.
This brings all three points together and shows clearly:
He was the MVP of this arc, he killed Ace, was the only one to defeat many high tiers and was able to clearly push back the strongest protagonist (Whitebeard) in a 1on1 fight. Akainu's actions, portrayal and feats are clear, the MVP of Marineford, the strongest character on the island. It was clear that Oda wanted us to see this too, Akainu was the strongest character on Marineford, the strongest boss that Whitebeard and Luffy had to overcome.. His actions in this arc changed the future.
He is the character who killed Luffy's brother, he is now the Fleet Admiral with a bounty of 5B. His fight in Punk Hazard was a main event in timeskip. Luffy's scar hurts just of mentioning Akainu.
He will also be the Navy's main antagonist for the future, if you think that's all Akainu can do then you are completely wrong, Oda has big plans for this man and he will continue to push forward as a main villain alongside Imu and Teach, he is one of the final bosses for Luffy.
Thanks for reading.
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