Character Discussion I can't bring myself to like any of the Straw Hats post skip

#1
Its like Oda just does nothing with these characters. 90% of the stuff that keeps people watching one piece is lore and hype, I swear to god. And like its fine if you like that, I like that(to a degree) as well. But looking back on the timeskip, I just find Oda's writing off these characters to be insufferable.

I feel like Oda almost always fails to give them compelling story arcs. If I do look forward to a straw hat moment, its entirely because of fights. And I think that's true for most people here. When you see a zoro fan on this site, how often do they talk about zoro's character? Its almost always a wankfest of how many feats he has and how strong he is. And its not even just him, all of the straw hats fall flat post skip. Oda doesn't want to take risks, he doesn't want to shake the boat too much. One piece is a best selling series and so he likes to just do what he's been doing for the past 20+ years.

After a point, its just not interesting.

I honestly feel like Luffy is something of a mary sue. He faces no real struggles as a character. He doesn't have flaws, he's overpowered, he learns high level techniques with utter ease. He's a chosen one who is blatantly portrayed to be the next joyboy/Roger. For a guy who wants to be the world's greatest pirate, I wish Luffy would honestly act like an asshole sometimes, I wish he'd steal something or occasionally kill someone. Just add anything to his character that stops him from being "perfect".

And like yeah, kaido's much stronger than him. But you know he's going to keep coming back until he beats him, possibly with the power of plot on his side.

Ultimately, I feel like the repetitive arc structure is wearing down the quality of the story. Whereas pre-skip, you had a story intimately connected with the straw hats, post skip just doesn't seem to be that anymore. There are so many side characters that more often than not, these side characters get a bigger spotlight than our main cast.
 

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#3
You hit the nail on its head. Here I am wondering if the next arc(s) after Wano will be justice for some of the Straw Hats (such as Usopp in Elbaf, Nami navigating to Laugh Tale, Robin deciphering the poneglypths etc). I am a sucker for lore and I guess to an extent, hype, but I agree that it becomes insufferable to see the beloved Straw Hats be cast aside because suddenly post TS is meant to be a significantly more serious series of sagas.

I know that Oda is capable of making compelling story arcs for the chars, but the four emperors saga so far with all the plotlines seems to have made it rather overwhelming for him.
 
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#4
only Zoro acts like real pirates, he's the only one in the crew who actually killed people and doesn't show mercy in fights.
Killing makes you murderer not pirate, a pirate is someone who steals, betrays people when interests won't match, doesn't give a shit about innocent people, disloyal.....and Zoro does show mercy lol......examples are tashigi and monet....
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Luffy does have flaws, one of the biggest flaw is that he charges at enemy without testing the waters.....that is the reason he gets clowned so many times.....besides, all the so called high level techs he learnt but he is still not as proficient as others....for example, he can't use FS like Katakuri and his usage of CoC is still crude according to Kaido...so when you say Luffy can use easily, please think twice....
 
#6
A good example of this is how Oda treated Jinbei. Oda off screened the Jinbei Big Mom pirates fight at the end of WCI to create this illusion of hype, then he brings back Jinbei to only shaft him for a maximum of 15 total panels. Like what was the point of brining back Jinbei? It is just false hype. The fanbase were hyped that Jinbei came back even though he has no role to play other than some stupid match up. And yet the fanbase still eat this up. Tama had more screen time than all the straw hats combined.
 
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#7
Killing makes you murderer not pirate, a pirate is someone who steals, betrays people when interests won't match, doesn't give a shit about innocent people, disloyal.....and Zoro does show mercy lol......examples are tashigi and monet....
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Luffy does have flaws, one of the biggest flaw is that he charges at enemy without testing the waters.....that is the reason he gets clowned so many times.....besides, all the so called high level techs he learnt but he is still not as proficient as others....for example, he can't use FS like Katakuri and his usage of CoC is still crude according to Kaido...so when you say Luffy can use easily, please think twice....
my point was Zoro is the one closest to irl pirates just because he killed some of his enemies.
And you point about rushing without testing waters is false, proof that Luffy held on his G4 vs Doflamingo and only used it after exhausting him with Law.Luffy being KO'd multiple times is his attempts on testing the waters
 
#9
I like Luffy's character even more after ts. What I don't like so much is his fighting abilities, G4 time limit and the inconsistencies of the 10 minutes that follows it, him learning FS but Oda forgetting how OP that is supposed to be and some other stuff like that.
I like Zoro and Sanji a bit more before pre ts but that's because Oda separated them for 2 arcs. Their dynamic was something that made One Piece funny and moving forward with their banter, the way they used to compete, etc...

Overall I think one of Oda's mistake is that he wanted to please the minorities and gave too much panel time to side characters.
I want him to give panel time to straw hats, it's their relationship and interactions that made me like One Piece, I don't give a shit about Kidd and Killer, Drake or these others SN fodders that will be Luffy's cheerleaders anyway.
 
#10
I guess most of the fans agree with you. He introduce too much of side characters while in fact, for me, 2-3 side characters in an arc that are given some depth is better. Like for example Vivi - Karue, Wyper - Ganfall, Iceburg.. I honestly felt their depth way more than all of the scabbards, momo, tama, even Yasuie combined together. But maybe its too soon to judge since the arc isn't finished yet. Anyway i honestly feel that those side characters are meant to be as a dragging tool.

Also, i usually reread every arc so many time, but i find it hard to reread any post ts arc more than twice, while pre ts arcs, i still enjoy rereading them up to this point.
 
#11
I guess most of the fans agree with you. He introduce too much of side characters while in fact, for me, 2-3 side characters in an arc that are given some depth is better. Like for example Vivi - Karue, Wyper - Ganfall, Iceburg.. I honestly felt their depth way more than all of the scabbards, momo, tama, even Yasuie combined together. But maybe its too soon to judge since the arc isn't finished yet. Anyway i honestly feel that those side characters are meant to be as a dragging tool.

Also, i usually reread every arc so many time, but i find it hard to reread any post ts arc more than twice, while pre ts arcs, i still enjoy rereading them up to this point.
Take out the SN from this arc and he can go deeper with the scabbards. Or reduce the scabbards number.
Kinemon is a good character. I'd rather have more panel time of him than Kidd or Drake for example. Because he seems more tied to the story.
If Oda didn't bring Big Mom and the other SN in Wano it would have been a far better arc
 
#14
Take out the SN from this arc and he can go deeper with the scabbards. Or reduce the scabbards number.
Kinemon is a good character. I'd rather have more panel time of him than Kidd or Drake for example. Because he seems more tied to the story.
If Oda didn't bring Big Mom and the other SN in Wano it would have been a far better arc
Yea, and its not just Wano, but Dresrossa and WCI as well. I kinda understand for FI and PH as it was meant to be a built up arc which is normal to be quite boring.
 
#15
luffy now is just shaking with anger, screaming the villain name and punching his face. manga luffy became movie luffy.
he doesn't have fun anymore and he is not fun to watch. he was one of the best shonen main character but he became a dragon ball character that just exist to be strong and punch.

Luffy does have flaws, one of the biggest flaw is that he charges at enemy without testing the waters.....that is the reason he gets clowned so many times.....
characters make fun of him for that but that is not treated as a flaw by oda since it always proves luffy was right
 
#17
my point was Zoro is the one closest to irl pirates just because he killed some of his enemies.
no, like I said..it is not closest....it just have different meaning....if that is the case, almost everyone from strawhats is closer to pirate....Nami steals which is also a pirate characteristic....Usopp lies, Luffy steals food....etc.
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luffy now is just shaking with anger, screaming the villain name and punching his face. manga luffy became movie luffy.
he doesn't have fun anymore and he is not fun to watch. he was one of the best shonen main character but he became a dragon ball character that just exist to be strong and punch.
kinda agree with the first statement but he was like this even in pre timeskip....but I haven't seen him screaming at Kaido and he still has his goofy moments in serious situations post skip like intentionally taking fire attack from bigmom, eating mochi, eating softened biscuits, G4 boundman is goofy form......and you are wrong about another thing....literally only once Luffy won against his opponent because his punch being strong and that is against doflamingo...I still remember chapter 949 how he dealt situation perfectly......
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Luffy is the worst currently. Mr “Child of Prophecy” lol
Inherited will is the inherent theme of one piece since chapter 1.....don't tell me you read 1000+ chapters without knowing that?....
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Luffys character post time skip is straight up cringe. How many Luffy hero moments are we going to have.
How many we had? let me guess....one with doflamingo, one with hody in FI...."cringe" is highly sophisticated term for someone who didn't have any proper arguments....
 
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#18
no, like I said..it is not closest....it just have different meaning....if that is the case, almost everyone from strawhats is closer to pirate....Nami steals which is also a pirate characteristic....Usopp lies, Luffy steals food....etc.
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kinda agree with the first statement but he was like this even in pre timeskip....but I haven't seen him screaming at Kaido and he still has his goofy moments in serious situations post skip like intentionally taking fire attack from bigmom, eating mochi, eating softened biscuits, G4 boundman is goofy form......and you are wrong about another thing....literally only once Luffy won against his opponent because his punch being strong and that is against doflamingo...I still remember chapter 949 how he dealt situation perfectly......
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Inherited will is the inherent theme of one piece since chapter 1.....don't tell me you read 1000+ chapters without knowing that?....
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How many we had? let me guess....one with doflamingo, one with hody in FI...."cringe" is highly sophisticated term for someone who didn't have any proper arguments....
I will listen to the argument against Luffy when they will make sense. Because in 99% of the cases, it's just people being mad that their favourite didn't shine enough.
They are fine when their character act like Luffy, for instance when Zoro acts cocky, you won't see anybody saying anything, it's called being badass, when it's Luffy, it's him being arrogant because plot protects him (plot also protect Zoro though), when Sanji says "leave that Dino to me", I couldn't see any critics but when Luffy says "leave Kaido to me", it suddenly turns out to be wrong.
Since when being the MC and fight the main villain became a problem?
 
#19
I don't know, how many did we have so far? What are these hero moments exactly so I can answer you properly?
Ugh it literally happens every other chapter. Most recently, “go ahead I will definitely defeat Kaido”. Or when Luffy took that poison in Udon so that he can “inspire” the enslaved samurai. Luffy hero moments happens all the time.
 
#20
Ugh it literally happens every other chapter. Most recently, “go ahead I will definitely defeat Kaido”. Or when Luffy took that poison in Udon so that he can “inspire” the enslaved samurai. Luffy hero moments happens all the time.
Him saying he will defeat Kaido wasn't a hero moment, the Udon thing was but isn't he the MC, I don't see what the problem is with him doing that kind of stuff.
Every string character inspires people in their own way, Kaido with his strength, Roger inspired Oden with his words, Oden inspired his scabbards through his actions, WB through his motivations, BB through his ambitions, etc...
So Luffy should just stay a fodder in the background and let others shine for you guys to like him lol.
He is the MC, after 1000 plus chapter, you'd think people would have accepted it already
 
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