Luffy has more narrative reason to face Akainu than he does anybody else in OP aside from Blackbeard. Let’s dig a bit deeper:
- Akainu is the personification of absolute justice, so Luffy as a pirate will have to face him
- Luffy received a trauma from Akainu, lost his brother to him, received a scar and doubted his PK path
The debate should have ended right here tbh, no other character in OP history has made Luffy
literally give up on his dream to become the Pirate King. But we continue lol.
Luffy is not the prototype pirate Akainu opposes, since Luffy seeks freedom more than anything else
The guy who spent the latter half of the Marineford War trying to incinerate Luffy’s corpse doesn’t oppose Luffy specifically?
Akainu opposes all Pirates, that is his justice. Absolute, Thorough Justice. He murdered all of the citizens of Ohara to prevent the possibility of one scholar being among them.
Akainu is not like Aokiji or Sengoku, who recognize that not all Pirates are bad and not all Marines are good. Akainu ideologically believes all Pirates are evil, and that evil must be eliminated without a trace. I’m not sure where this notion of Akainu’s sense of justice having nuance comes from.
The Marines are just the public face of the WG, Akainu's face, according to the Gorosei, has value less than zero
What does that matter towards the question of whether Luffy will fight Akainu or not? Like Luffy will only fight you if he thinks your face has some value to the world?
No. Luffy will fight anybody that the plot has been constructed around him fighting. Akainu is one such character.
- As such, Luffy, who represents freedom (Joyboy), will face the WG (Im) that represents order
- Luffy overcame his trauma regarding Akainu,
Firstly, Imu does not represent order, for one. Imu represents the grand hypocrisy of the World Government, about how the idea of the WG not being interested in power and exists to maintain the peace, is a lie.
This is what the “Empty Throne” symbolizes. Publicly, the throne is empty because it represents the government and all her kingdom’s vowing to never try to take power for themselves. But in secret, Imu sits on the throne, thus embodying the grand hypocrisy of the Government.
Imu, ideologically, is a fool to Dragon, not Luffy. Dragon’s character is all about how he recognizes all of the Government’s flaws, with Imu being that ultimate representation. This is why we met Dragon when Sabo (a Celestial Dragon) foresook the Government as a child, and why Dragon states that he doesn’t want to fight the Marines, but the World Nobles. Imu represents concepts that Luffy knows nothing about, but Imu is the
perfect foil for Dragon, who very likely knows the true nature of the Government for himself. Imu even threw Luffy’s wanted poster aside, he has little to no interest in Luffy.
Second, Luffy never overcame his trauma from Akainu. If you were dating someone, and then that person dumped you, and then you rebounded and immediately started dating someone else to protect your emotional state, you did not recover from the first breakup, you simply rebounded as a distraction.
Luffy never overcame Ace’s death, he simply found another reason to resume his dream of becoming the Pirate King. Luffy will overcome his trauma when he fights Akainu in the future.
Then we have Blackbeard as the antithesis to Luffy, who represents chaos and destruction
Blackbeard is not the antithesis to Luffy, he is a dark parallel to Luffy. He is similar to Luffy in fundamental ways (both are Pirates, both want to be pirate king, their journeys are mirrored), but different from him in the grand scheme of things.
Akainu is Luffy’s true antithesis. He and Luffy have absolutely nothing in common and are opposite to each other in every way.
It's also questionable whether there would be a need to face Akainu after beating Kaido, who is superior portrayal.
Assuming Kaido > Akainu true,
Imagine someone told you Luffy never needed to face Hody or Caesar because Luffy defeated stronger opponents than them pre-timeskip.
Oda does not have Luffy fight opponents for the sole sake of surpassing them, this is one of the biggest and dumbest myths propagated in this fandom. Oda has Luffy fight opponents based on ideology and narrative, and as far as both of these things go, Akainu is by far the most significant opponent for Luffy to face.
