I think 1039 was good chapter. Kid and Law are some of my favorite characters and they finally got a massive win by defeating a yonko. Its everything I wanted, thanks Oda.
But I just can't help but feel deeply dissatisfied with this. Not only how linlin fell but how the wano arc as a whole went out.
It appears very evident to me that Oda did not have very good vision for how the emperors would be defeated. He said as much in an interview a few years back, when he said that he did not know how Luffy would beat kaido and that it wouldn't be satisfying to him to just punch harder. Yet that's exactly what's happening. Oda had Luffy jump powerlevels in 1010 and 1026 where Luffy went from being 1 shot material to fighting on par with kaido.
Linlin's treatment is even worse. Oda literally shits on any tension her alliance with kaido creates by perpetually defeating her by plot. In WCI she had a mental breakdown at the tea party and subsequently lost her shit over a wedding cake. In wano she gets knocked off the waterfall by king and gets amnesia. Nobody is worried about her presence in wano because Oda could literally have her slip on a banana peel and die, and this would be 100% consistent with his writing of her character.
Despite the good feats from kid and law, their fight with big mom wasn't good imo. Linlin is a major antagonist with hundreds of chapters of build up, and yet most of this fight was off-screened. 1030 and 1038 mostly just focused on kid and law getting their hits in without giving much attention to the actual fighting or whatever linlin was doing. Oda confirms that Linlin is an ACoC user, yet he completely ignores this part of her arsenal in the fight. What about the fact that linlin can make multiple homies with her own soul? he skips past that.
Then Kid and Law break her bones. You'd think she'd start busting out the big guns now, right? Nope. When Law is about to hit her with his strongest attack, she just hits him with CoA punches. No ACoC. No homies. And then she gets wrecked.
Kids attacks clearly do serious damage to big mom. In 1038 her arm wasn't broken, in 1039 it is. She acknowledges this and goes out of her way to block Kid's bull this chapter. Yet why was she willing to block that attack, but not block Kid's ultimate attack? The bitch deadass just tried to tank it. Linlin can use a laser beam of her own, it would have been pretty cool to end the fight off with a clash and show Kid actually beating her at her own game, right? nope, she loses her braincells , decides to just tank it, and is defeated.
All in all, I feel massively underwhelmed by this. I've been really invested in this series for a long time. I remember being a teenager and watching big mom's introduction in Fishman island and theorizing on how Oda would deal with her. It really infuriates me that Oda has time to give shine to utterly pointless characters like yamato, but not enough time to flesh out a villain who's been set up since enies lobby.
A perfect example of this done right was the penultimate fight in demon slayer, with the demon slayers vs upper moon #1. If you read that and compare it to this, I think you can understand why some people honestly prefer demon slayer to one piece.
And what about kaido? He's been fucking absent for most of this arc. We've only seen bits of his backstory through the eyes of other characters. He honestly seems like a video game final boss who just stays in his castle until you get there. Would have been nice to see more interactions between him and yamato/big mom, or even know his origins from the start of the arc.
I think the avengers movies are a good analog to this. Like Kaido, Thanos is this big overpowered villain who's been built up for many arcs. Yet imo the MCU dealt with thanos much better than Oda is doing with kaido. Thanos was almost like the main character of infinity war. He didn't just sit on his planet until the avengers showed up, we got to see his journey to achieve his dreams and even the sacrifices he had to make along the way. His strength was also given justice by the amount of deaths in the movie, which weren't just retconned in the next one.
Then in the final movie he is beaten in a logical and believable way that didn't include braindead asspull power ups
*****************************************************************************************************************
Anyways thank you for reading through my exorbitantly long, self indulgent thread. I think this will be the last one for some time. I've been pretty disillusioned with this series, which I had been so invested in earlier. Jesus christ, I need to get my life in order and stop spending so much time on weeb forums. Its been fun, but there's more to life than half assed japanese cartoons. Toodles.
But I just can't help but feel deeply dissatisfied with this. Not only how linlin fell but how the wano arc as a whole went out.
It appears very evident to me that Oda did not have very good vision for how the emperors would be defeated. He said as much in an interview a few years back, when he said that he did not know how Luffy would beat kaido and that it wouldn't be satisfying to him to just punch harder. Yet that's exactly what's happening. Oda had Luffy jump powerlevels in 1010 and 1026 where Luffy went from being 1 shot material to fighting on par with kaido.
Linlin's treatment is even worse. Oda literally shits on any tension her alliance with kaido creates by perpetually defeating her by plot. In WCI she had a mental breakdown at the tea party and subsequently lost her shit over a wedding cake. In wano she gets knocked off the waterfall by king and gets amnesia. Nobody is worried about her presence in wano because Oda could literally have her slip on a banana peel and die, and this would be 100% consistent with his writing of her character.
Despite the good feats from kid and law, their fight with big mom wasn't good imo. Linlin is a major antagonist with hundreds of chapters of build up, and yet most of this fight was off-screened. 1030 and 1038 mostly just focused on kid and law getting their hits in without giving much attention to the actual fighting or whatever linlin was doing. Oda confirms that Linlin is an ACoC user, yet he completely ignores this part of her arsenal in the fight. What about the fact that linlin can make multiple homies with her own soul? he skips past that.
Then Kid and Law break her bones. You'd think she'd start busting out the big guns now, right? Nope. When Law is about to hit her with his strongest attack, she just hits him with CoA punches. No ACoC. No homies. And then she gets wrecked.
Kids attacks clearly do serious damage to big mom. In 1038 her arm wasn't broken, in 1039 it is. She acknowledges this and goes out of her way to block Kid's bull this chapter. Yet why was she willing to block that attack, but not block Kid's ultimate attack? The bitch deadass just tried to tank it. Linlin can use a laser beam of her own, it would have been pretty cool to end the fight off with a clash and show Kid actually beating her at her own game, right? nope, she loses her braincells , decides to just tank it, and is defeated.
All in all, I feel massively underwhelmed by this. I've been really invested in this series for a long time. I remember being a teenager and watching big mom's introduction in Fishman island and theorizing on how Oda would deal with her. It really infuriates me that Oda has time to give shine to utterly pointless characters like yamato, but not enough time to flesh out a villain who's been set up since enies lobby.
A perfect example of this done right was the penultimate fight in demon slayer, with the demon slayers vs upper moon #1. If you read that and compare it to this, I think you can understand why some people honestly prefer demon slayer to one piece.
And what about kaido? He's been fucking absent for most of this arc. We've only seen bits of his backstory through the eyes of other characters. He honestly seems like a video game final boss who just stays in his castle until you get there. Would have been nice to see more interactions between him and yamato/big mom, or even know his origins from the start of the arc.
I think the avengers movies are a good analog to this. Like Kaido, Thanos is this big overpowered villain who's been built up for many arcs. Yet imo the MCU dealt with thanos much better than Oda is doing with kaido. Thanos was almost like the main character of infinity war. He didn't just sit on his planet until the avengers showed up, we got to see his journey to achieve his dreams and even the sacrifices he had to make along the way. His strength was also given justice by the amount of deaths in the movie, which weren't just retconned in the next one.
Then in the final movie he is beaten in a logical and believable way that didn't include braindead asspull power ups
*****************************************************************************************************************
Anyways thank you for reading through my exorbitantly long, self indulgent thread. I think this will be the last one for some time. I've been pretty disillusioned with this series, which I had been so invested in earlier. Jesus christ, I need to get my life in order and stop spending so much time on weeb forums. Its been fun, but there's more to life than half assed japanese cartoons. Toodles.
