This thread is meant to be a full analysis on why Wano arc has been a total failure--disclaimer this is super long lol so I don't blame yall if you don't read it. For those who agree and wish to add more, I will like to hear your arguments so please comment below. This thread will focus on the first two acts and I will post act 3 later. Also, there are a lot of things I could not discuss but would have liked to but this turned out to be longer than I thought so I could not add them here.
Let me first begin by saying Wano arc is unlike any other arc. This claim is made due to the sheer amount of volume used strictly for set up. No arc had as much set up as Wano. Oda pushed the narrative that Wano is the most significant arc of the story. This narrative is not something the "fans" created instead this is something Oda himself created. The very beginning set up for Wano was in Thriller Park with Moriya and Ryuma. Then we had Punk Hazard, Dressrosa, WCI and Zou being used as set up for Wano. Wano arc set up stretches over a decade and across five arcs. No other arc in One Piece comes close to the sheer amount of set up therefore why "Wano arc is unlike any other arc".
So what are the main significant events we knew about Wano before Wano started? We knew that Wano is closed off for a reason unknown, the marines are scared to go into Wano, Kaido's strength is something that Luffy has never encountered before, that the supernovas are there so they must play a significant role, a "great samari" Oden was defeated, Kaido wanting to create the strongest army by building a Zoan army, Neko and Inu wanting revenge with Jack, and that Carrot wanting revenge with Perospero. So these have all been set up and are the main points and challenges that the Straw Hats and Co are going to face going into Wano.
I am going to start off with story structure and I will make the bold claim that Wano arc is filler and serves no purpose to the story other than power ups. By that I mean, if you remove Wano arc from the story, the reader will know as much information about the One Piece, void century, Will of D, ancient weapons, World Government i.e. the subplots that are central to the story of One Piece. If a main arc doesn't divulge information or progress the story on these central plots then by definition it is filler and can be removed from the story without any loss of information.
- Story structure Act 1 and 2:
Plot of Wano quickly starts off with a very questionable decision by Oda. First, it was told to us many times that Wano is closed off from the rest of the world thus making it very difficult for outsiders to enter. This is a topic that Oda has pushed and hyped, and what happens? Luffy and Co, Zoro and Co, Big Mom and Co, Zou and Co, World Government and Co are all able to enter Wano without any difficulties. Why waste the reader's time stating how difficult it is to enter Wano and then you write the story having all these characters entering Wano without any difficulty? So immediately the reader starts questioning the author's decisions and rightfully so.
Then we start off with the scene of Marco giving Nekomamushi a note to send to Luffy. Here is a perfect example of Oda not doing his homework nor planning. You would expect a veteran in writing like Oda would have better planning skills but this event of the note turned out to be completely pointless and served absolutely nothing to the story. This is clear evidence that Oda did not plan this arc ahead of time and is writing on the fly even with several years used for set up.
So let us move on, as the Wano story unfolds, we are given a lot of chapters devoted to setting up the backstory of Wano i.e. its people and territories. We are given in depth chapters of the territories: Left over town, Ebisu, Onigishma, flower capital and more. I still have no idea why Oda decided to introduce us to all these territories for? In Impel Down we are given a couple of panels to showcase the infrastructure of Impel Down but in Wano, Oda has every character go to different towns to highlight them. Why does the reader need to know this? Why create this massive tour of the island for if it serves no purpose? Why do we need five different territories for? And the apparatus used to introduce us to all these territories is via fodders. Immediately in act 1 we have Zoro fighting fodder, Luffy fighting fodder, Tama fighting fodder, so many people fighting fodder throughout all these. Act 1 is 16 chapters long and basically about 6-7 chapters are LITERALLY devoted to Luffy and Co fighting fodder! I am not joking, a lot of time spent on fodders. Efficient use of time is a concept Oda is getting worse and worse over the years.
Then we are introduced to Tama and are given a detailed backstory of Tama knowing Ace. I still question why Oda decided to create Tama and why she even needs a backstory. Remember one of the main subplots we knew before Wano started is that Kaido is building an army of zoan users and here Oda decided to create a walking deux ex machina in Tama to counter that. All that time wasted in Punk Hazard (50 chapters) and Dressrosa (100 chapters) was pointless if all Oda is going to do is create a character that completely nullifies them. That is lazy writing. Also, I question why Tama even was created or introduced and not Yamato? Isn't this a great opportunity to introduce Yamato instead of Tama and have Yamato being the one that knew Ace instead of waiting 90 chapters after Wano started to introduce Yamato? The Tama plot line could be completely removed from the story and it would not affect anything significant. Instead we could have focused more on Yamato and developed her since she is an important character for Kaido.
And here we learn about Toki. One of the great things Oda did with Wano was create the character Toki to be from the void century. But what does Oda do in typical Oda fashion? He completely shafts Toki which in turn completely shafts the void century, ancient weapons, world government etc you know the important things of One Piece and Oda then shifts the entire focus of the story to being about Oden, Orochi, Kaido and Big Mom. We still after 130+ chapters don't know anything about Toki other than her being a walking baby making machine for Oden.
Then here is where Luffy gets one shotted by Kaido but what confuses me is the subplot between Hawkins and Law. Hawkins for some odd reason is hell bent in capturing Law and even uses seastone nails (which hasn't been used in Wano since). Like why create this subplot for between Hawkins and Law? Why even have Law be captured for, and why is Hawkins so obsessed in capturing Law for? Was this set up just in order for Drake to be caught being a spy even though there are thousands of other ways to do that without having to spend so much time in setting it up? I don't understand why this subplot is necessary. But whatever, this is the end of act one.
So the end of act 1 you clearly see the signs of Oda maxing out world building to such an extent that no matter what he does he won't be able to do justice with all these characters. We are introduced to Ashura, Kiku, Izo, all nine scabbards, OToko, etc. And large percent of those characters end up doing almost nothing relevant. This brings up the question why some of these characters were even brought into the story in the first place? Why do we need 9 scabbards for? Going into Wano we should know more about the Beast Pirates than we do, so we can either focus more on the Samurai side of things or expand on the characters of the chief Beast Pirate characters. Instead, Oda focuses on Orochi and his goons for the first two acts which led to nowhere. Not only do none of the characters have strong ties to the plot anymore, it made all that time wasted.
I want to also quickly point out that Oda is trying to run a 4 hour marathon in 5 minutes, so in order to do so he has to take short cuts and progress in unnatural ways. Oda simply added too many characters and story lines, now he has no idea how to maneuver through this mess and often just leaps past all of it in attempts to just make Luffy and Co win because well that is what needs to happen. Oda at this point seems like an author who has a check list of things that he wants to just x off one by one, offhanded explanations are not enough to make us care, so what does he do? Easy, just make it hype! "But Oda, Luffy just got one shotted 2 weeks ago" yes because it is hype, never mind how detrimental it is to current events. "But Oda, if it took Luffy 2 weeks to learn the basics of advanced armament how did he just use advanced kings?", hype! "But Oda, Big Mom specifically came to Wano to get revenge on Luffy and not go off on a tangent where she keeps getting distracted with shenanigans: fighting Kidd, motherly mode, or Franky and Robin fodderizing her, etc.", yes because it is hype to have two Yonkos! What Oda does is check off what he needs to write and improvise what is in between, writing for young boys is just make it look cool even though vast majority of the readers are in their 20s now. This is why the Tobi Robbo and commander fights were rushed because Oda clearly didn't plan ahead, he created all these characters and plot lines and then he finally realized "oh shit, I already have written 100+ chapters of Wano I need to end this quickly" so what he does is off screen Jack vs Ino/Neko, off screens Carrot vs Pespero and yet provides ample amount of detailed chapters on fodder fights. Remember Jack vs Inu/Neko and Carrot vs Pepesperro were central plot lines before Wano started that Oda spend a lot of time focusing and setting up. Which begs the question, why focus on them if you are just going to off screen them?
So let us recap, four of the six important plot points that needed to be addressed as mentioned above were: Kaido wanting to create the strongest army by building a Zoan army, supenovas relevance, Neko and Inu wanting revenge with Jack, and that Carrot wanting revenge with Perspero. Two of those events were off screened and the strongest army was defeated by an 8 year old walking deux ex machina. While the supernovas have yet to be given any significant relevance to the story which begs the question why Oda hyped them and then have them in Wano if they aren't going to be significant role players. Is this what the end game arc is about?
So let us move on to Act 2. Luffy is captured and put in a yonko prison and barely anyone seemed to give a single care outside of making gag faces. Even Nami, despite the fact that they literally almost died in a yonko prison in WCI. And now we learned that the Samari have no weapons because Kaido took them and we have Nami and Shinobu spying. I don't understand why we have this plot point of them spying? Also, we have Franky and the Carpenter guy talking about blueprints for Onigishma where the Carpenter apparently pawned off and Franky goes around town asking for them for literally half a chapter. Why is this plot necessary? We have Robin, Nami, Shinobu spying for multiple chapters while Franky is looking for the blueprints. And it all turned out this whole sub plot was completely pointless because Kyshiro is Denjiro so he knew of everything the alliance needed and Ashura had the blueprints! Like Oda, dude, come on man, why did you waste this time for? This is why Wano is 130+ chapters long.
Now the bathing scene is what really frustrated me. So Nami, the character who has always been characterized as taking care of abandoned children, leaves a young orphan girl (Otoko) alone in the red light district after she witnessed Orochi promising death to Otoko because she finds it is more important to take a bath in the capital of the enemy in a middle of a war where their captain just got captured, like Oda where is the tension? And Robin, the supposedly most intelligent person in the crew, joins her because yeah sounds like a great idea. The samurai put their faith and hopes into this plot for 20 years and endured their suffering for this day and we have Oda writing fan service bathe scenes of Nami's boobs. This is how Oda operates now, if he is trying to get out of a difficult situation either write gags or create fan service, for example, Big Mom amnesia plot line. Oda wrote himself in a difficult situation of Luffy and Kid being captured so what does Oda have Big Mom do? She helps Luffy and Co escape Udon and then she conveniently takes a nap after Oda finishes using her as a plot device to help the straw hats. So for all future mangaka artists make sure you use gags or fanservice to get out of difficult situations because apparently the audience doesn't care.
Let us move on, here we have a scene of Orochi asking for Vegapunk. Why? We aren't told. You would expect that after 950 chapters and over 20+ years we will stop with the fake "mysteries" and be indulged in relevant information but nope just more false hype. Just keep introducing more and more mysteries into the story without addressing any of the previous ones. Oda's idea of creating a good story is just to insert fan service characters into the arc without having them do anything. Why even mention Vegapunk if you aren't going to elaborate on it? Then the following chapter we have Law stating, "even a single wound will hurt our chances for the war"....................sigh. Then majority of Udon chapters are focused in inspiring fodders to join which ended up adding zero importance to the story since they play no role in the story moving forward. Again why have so much detail for fodders and yet off screen the important things or keep things as a "mystery"? Don't you think it is more important to elaborate on Vegapunk role with Orochi than to have multiple detailed chapters of fodders?
So we are already 50 chapters into Wano and majority of the time was spent on set up. Remember Oda used Zou, Dressrosa and Punk Hazard for set up for Wano and yet Oda still needed 50+ chapters of more set up. One Piece post time skip is probably 60% set up, 25% fighting fodder, 10% fighting main antagonists and 5% story progression.
So I think I have talked enough of Act 2 which mostly consisted of useless plot points and training. I didn't even mention the PIS of Queen helping Luffy train because anyone should know the absurdity of that writing decision by Oda. And how Kidd specifically said he is after Kaido for what he did to his crew and yet that plot point gets completely shafted because now Kidd wants to fight Big Mom. So since I already wrote a lot, my next thread will continue with act 3, beginning with the most pointless flashback of Oden. Basically everything we learned in Oden's flashback we already knew from previous arcs as it was completely a redundant flashback. Also, power scaling, character regression will be discussed there as well. Act 3 and beyond turned out to be worse than the first two acts.
Let me first begin by saying Wano arc is unlike any other arc. This claim is made due to the sheer amount of volume used strictly for set up. No arc had as much set up as Wano. Oda pushed the narrative that Wano is the most significant arc of the story. This narrative is not something the "fans" created instead this is something Oda himself created. The very beginning set up for Wano was in Thriller Park with Moriya and Ryuma. Then we had Punk Hazard, Dressrosa, WCI and Zou being used as set up for Wano. Wano arc set up stretches over a decade and across five arcs. No other arc in One Piece comes close to the sheer amount of set up therefore why "Wano arc is unlike any other arc".
So what are the main significant events we knew about Wano before Wano started? We knew that Wano is closed off for a reason unknown, the marines are scared to go into Wano, Kaido's strength is something that Luffy has never encountered before, that the supernovas are there so they must play a significant role, a "great samari" Oden was defeated, Kaido wanting to create the strongest army by building a Zoan army, Neko and Inu wanting revenge with Jack, and that Carrot wanting revenge with Perospero. So these have all been set up and are the main points and challenges that the Straw Hats and Co are going to face going into Wano.
I am going to start off with story structure and I will make the bold claim that Wano arc is filler and serves no purpose to the story other than power ups. By that I mean, if you remove Wano arc from the story, the reader will know as much information about the One Piece, void century, Will of D, ancient weapons, World Government i.e. the subplots that are central to the story of One Piece. If a main arc doesn't divulge information or progress the story on these central plots then by definition it is filler and can be removed from the story without any loss of information.
- Story structure Act 1 and 2:
Plot of Wano quickly starts off with a very questionable decision by Oda. First, it was told to us many times that Wano is closed off from the rest of the world thus making it very difficult for outsiders to enter. This is a topic that Oda has pushed and hyped, and what happens? Luffy and Co, Zoro and Co, Big Mom and Co, Zou and Co, World Government and Co are all able to enter Wano without any difficulties. Why waste the reader's time stating how difficult it is to enter Wano and then you write the story having all these characters entering Wano without any difficulty? So immediately the reader starts questioning the author's decisions and rightfully so.
Then we start off with the scene of Marco giving Nekomamushi a note to send to Luffy. Here is a perfect example of Oda not doing his homework nor planning. You would expect a veteran in writing like Oda would have better planning skills but this event of the note turned out to be completely pointless and served absolutely nothing to the story. This is clear evidence that Oda did not plan this arc ahead of time and is writing on the fly even with several years used for set up.
So let us move on, as the Wano story unfolds, we are given a lot of chapters devoted to setting up the backstory of Wano i.e. its people and territories. We are given in depth chapters of the territories: Left over town, Ebisu, Onigishma, flower capital and more. I still have no idea why Oda decided to introduce us to all these territories for? In Impel Down we are given a couple of panels to showcase the infrastructure of Impel Down but in Wano, Oda has every character go to different towns to highlight them. Why does the reader need to know this? Why create this massive tour of the island for if it serves no purpose? Why do we need five different territories for? And the apparatus used to introduce us to all these territories is via fodders. Immediately in act 1 we have Zoro fighting fodder, Luffy fighting fodder, Tama fighting fodder, so many people fighting fodder throughout all these. Act 1 is 16 chapters long and basically about 6-7 chapters are LITERALLY devoted to Luffy and Co fighting fodder! I am not joking, a lot of time spent on fodders. Efficient use of time is a concept Oda is getting worse and worse over the years.
Then we are introduced to Tama and are given a detailed backstory of Tama knowing Ace. I still question why Oda decided to create Tama and why she even needs a backstory. Remember one of the main subplots we knew before Wano started is that Kaido is building an army of zoan users and here Oda decided to create a walking deux ex machina in Tama to counter that. All that time wasted in Punk Hazard (50 chapters) and Dressrosa (100 chapters) was pointless if all Oda is going to do is create a character that completely nullifies them. That is lazy writing. Also, I question why Tama even was created or introduced and not Yamato? Isn't this a great opportunity to introduce Yamato instead of Tama and have Yamato being the one that knew Ace instead of waiting 90 chapters after Wano started to introduce Yamato? The Tama plot line could be completely removed from the story and it would not affect anything significant. Instead we could have focused more on Yamato and developed her since she is an important character for Kaido.
And here we learn about Toki. One of the great things Oda did with Wano was create the character Toki to be from the void century. But what does Oda do in typical Oda fashion? He completely shafts Toki which in turn completely shafts the void century, ancient weapons, world government etc you know the important things of One Piece and Oda then shifts the entire focus of the story to being about Oden, Orochi, Kaido and Big Mom. We still after 130+ chapters don't know anything about Toki other than her being a walking baby making machine for Oden.
Then here is where Luffy gets one shotted by Kaido but what confuses me is the subplot between Hawkins and Law. Hawkins for some odd reason is hell bent in capturing Law and even uses seastone nails (which hasn't been used in Wano since). Like why create this subplot for between Hawkins and Law? Why even have Law be captured for, and why is Hawkins so obsessed in capturing Law for? Was this set up just in order for Drake to be caught being a spy even though there are thousands of other ways to do that without having to spend so much time in setting it up? I don't understand why this subplot is necessary. But whatever, this is the end of act one.
So the end of act 1 you clearly see the signs of Oda maxing out world building to such an extent that no matter what he does he won't be able to do justice with all these characters. We are introduced to Ashura, Kiku, Izo, all nine scabbards, OToko, etc. And large percent of those characters end up doing almost nothing relevant. This brings up the question why some of these characters were even brought into the story in the first place? Why do we need 9 scabbards for? Going into Wano we should know more about the Beast Pirates than we do, so we can either focus more on the Samurai side of things or expand on the characters of the chief Beast Pirate characters. Instead, Oda focuses on Orochi and his goons for the first two acts which led to nowhere. Not only do none of the characters have strong ties to the plot anymore, it made all that time wasted.
I want to also quickly point out that Oda is trying to run a 4 hour marathon in 5 minutes, so in order to do so he has to take short cuts and progress in unnatural ways. Oda simply added too many characters and story lines, now he has no idea how to maneuver through this mess and often just leaps past all of it in attempts to just make Luffy and Co win because well that is what needs to happen. Oda at this point seems like an author who has a check list of things that he wants to just x off one by one, offhanded explanations are not enough to make us care, so what does he do? Easy, just make it hype! "But Oda, Luffy just got one shotted 2 weeks ago" yes because it is hype, never mind how detrimental it is to current events. "But Oda, if it took Luffy 2 weeks to learn the basics of advanced armament how did he just use advanced kings?", hype! "But Oda, Big Mom specifically came to Wano to get revenge on Luffy and not go off on a tangent where she keeps getting distracted with shenanigans: fighting Kidd, motherly mode, or Franky and Robin fodderizing her, etc.", yes because it is hype to have two Yonkos! What Oda does is check off what he needs to write and improvise what is in between, writing for young boys is just make it look cool even though vast majority of the readers are in their 20s now. This is why the Tobi Robbo and commander fights were rushed because Oda clearly didn't plan ahead, he created all these characters and plot lines and then he finally realized "oh shit, I already have written 100+ chapters of Wano I need to end this quickly" so what he does is off screen Jack vs Ino/Neko, off screens Carrot vs Pespero and yet provides ample amount of detailed chapters on fodder fights. Remember Jack vs Inu/Neko and Carrot vs Pepesperro were central plot lines before Wano started that Oda spend a lot of time focusing and setting up. Which begs the question, why focus on them if you are just going to off screen them?
So let us recap, four of the six important plot points that needed to be addressed as mentioned above were: Kaido wanting to create the strongest army by building a Zoan army, supenovas relevance, Neko and Inu wanting revenge with Jack, and that Carrot wanting revenge with Perspero. Two of those events were off screened and the strongest army was defeated by an 8 year old walking deux ex machina. While the supernovas have yet to be given any significant relevance to the story which begs the question why Oda hyped them and then have them in Wano if they aren't going to be significant role players. Is this what the end game arc is about?
So let us move on to Act 2. Luffy is captured and put in a yonko prison and barely anyone seemed to give a single care outside of making gag faces. Even Nami, despite the fact that they literally almost died in a yonko prison in WCI. And now we learned that the Samari have no weapons because Kaido took them and we have Nami and Shinobu spying. I don't understand why we have this plot point of them spying? Also, we have Franky and the Carpenter guy talking about blueprints for Onigishma where the Carpenter apparently pawned off and Franky goes around town asking for them for literally half a chapter. Why is this plot necessary? We have Robin, Nami, Shinobu spying for multiple chapters while Franky is looking for the blueprints. And it all turned out this whole sub plot was completely pointless because Kyshiro is Denjiro so he knew of everything the alliance needed and Ashura had the blueprints! Like Oda, dude, come on man, why did you waste this time for? This is why Wano is 130+ chapters long.
Now the bathing scene is what really frustrated me. So Nami, the character who has always been characterized as taking care of abandoned children, leaves a young orphan girl (Otoko) alone in the red light district after she witnessed Orochi promising death to Otoko because she finds it is more important to take a bath in the capital of the enemy in a middle of a war where their captain just got captured, like Oda where is the tension? And Robin, the supposedly most intelligent person in the crew, joins her because yeah sounds like a great idea. The samurai put their faith and hopes into this plot for 20 years and endured their suffering for this day and we have Oda writing fan service bathe scenes of Nami's boobs. This is how Oda operates now, if he is trying to get out of a difficult situation either write gags or create fan service, for example, Big Mom amnesia plot line. Oda wrote himself in a difficult situation of Luffy and Kid being captured so what does Oda have Big Mom do? She helps Luffy and Co escape Udon and then she conveniently takes a nap after Oda finishes using her as a plot device to help the straw hats. So for all future mangaka artists make sure you use gags or fanservice to get out of difficult situations because apparently the audience doesn't care.
Let us move on, here we have a scene of Orochi asking for Vegapunk. Why? We aren't told. You would expect that after 950 chapters and over 20+ years we will stop with the fake "mysteries" and be indulged in relevant information but nope just more false hype. Just keep introducing more and more mysteries into the story without addressing any of the previous ones. Oda's idea of creating a good story is just to insert fan service characters into the arc without having them do anything. Why even mention Vegapunk if you aren't going to elaborate on it? Then the following chapter we have Law stating, "even a single wound will hurt our chances for the war"....................sigh. Then majority of Udon chapters are focused in inspiring fodders to join which ended up adding zero importance to the story since they play no role in the story moving forward. Again why have so much detail for fodders and yet off screen the important things or keep things as a "mystery"? Don't you think it is more important to elaborate on Vegapunk role with Orochi than to have multiple detailed chapters of fodders?
So we are already 50 chapters into Wano and majority of the time was spent on set up. Remember Oda used Zou, Dressrosa and Punk Hazard for set up for Wano and yet Oda still needed 50+ chapters of more set up. One Piece post time skip is probably 60% set up, 25% fighting fodder, 10% fighting main antagonists and 5% story progression.
So I think I have talked enough of Act 2 which mostly consisted of useless plot points and training. I didn't even mention the PIS of Queen helping Luffy train because anyone should know the absurdity of that writing decision by Oda. And how Kidd specifically said he is after Kaido for what he did to his crew and yet that plot point gets completely shafted because now Kidd wants to fight Big Mom. So since I already wrote a lot, my next thread will continue with act 3, beginning with the most pointless flashback of Oden. Basically everything we learned in Oden's flashback we already knew from previous arcs as it was completely a redundant flashback. Also, power scaling, character regression will be discussed there as well. Act 3 and beyond turned out to be worse than the first two acts.
