General & Others Luffy vs Kaido is the worst fight in One Piece

Maybe my first serious post, don't judge me.

I like Luffy vs Kaido because it brings the Manga to its roots, when One Piece didn't take itself too seriously. I always disliked Dressrosa because of Doflamingo.



This type of panel did nothing for me. I remember back in the day everybody was wetting their panties in forums about how badass and dark Doflamingo is but to me it was just edgy and cringe.
Oh, I'm about to disagree fundamentally here. First of all, One Piece has never been too serious. Not today, not yesterday, not since chapter one, not ever. Even in an arc as serious and grounded as Dressrosa, there were still plenty of gags and ridiculous moments. Just look at Bartolomeo peeing in the coliseum.

Doflamingo isn't just built up to be a "badass cool," because reasons. Thematically, he is Luffy's ultimate enemy. Doflamingo's motif is manipulation. Manipulation and control of others. Luffy is supposed to represent freedom and liberation. So thematically, they are mortal enemies.

What made me fall in love with Luffy's character were arcs like Arabasta, Skypiea and Arlong Park, where Oda cleverly built up the villains through the eyes of their victims, so they always seemed terrifying to us, but then radically changed the tone when Luffy met them face to face.

Take Arlong, he comes from the superior race originating from the Grand Line. At first, the Mugiwaras are dicking around in Kokoyashi without a worry. Oda hypes up Arlong up in our imaginations by showing his underlings sinking Marine ships effortlessly, by showing Arlong terrorizing Usopp and lifting houses (it's more terrifying if it's Usopp), we hear about how Fishmen are 10 times stronger than humans, Arlong's shark teeth etc.

Then as the arc developped it starts becoming personal. Arlong's invincibility aura grows more in Nami's flashback, but so does his ruthlessness as he murders Bellemere and enslaves the entire village.

Through this build-up we take this villain super seriously, we fear for Luffy. And this is why I think One Piece managed to conquer the hearts of children, teenagers and adults all over the world; After so many chapters of people jobbing to Arlong, being terrified of Arlong, etc., Luffy finally meets Arlong face to face and he doesn't care.



He isn't scared, he doesn't respect him, he goofs around and mocks him. Arlong is just some dude to him. Oda builds all this illusion of the invincible foe through the perspective of powerless people, but when Luffy gets there, this illusion is shattered.
Luffy isn't scared and doesn't respect the majority of deplorable opponents he faces. He can be carefree, goofy, and downright clueless to their deceptive schemes, yet he also takes the threats these opponents make to his friends, his morality, his idea of freedom, very, very seriously. There has always been a balance. Luffy became deathly serious with Arlong, too, when Arlong suggested Nami was just a means-to-an-end tool.



He punches Charlos, the weakest guy physically, but the strongest from a political and influence perspective, for the same kind of reason. Because he humiliated a friend.

Luffy's character was too fucking cool. No matter how serious the situation was, he would make us laugh and never changed his relaxed/carefree attitude. Enel, the omnipotent God who was one-shotting everybody in Skypiea, looked silly trying to stab Luffy's Gomu Gomu no Baka.



tl;dr: One Piece is different from edgelord shit like Bleach (if you are a Bleach fan put your money where your mouth is and drink Bleach please) because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Oda manipulates the readers into hyping up the antagonist in their imaginations, only to have Luffy reminds us that they're just human.
The thing that is cool about Luffy's character, or at least has always been to me, is that he can read the room. He's always known the things that are worth taking seriously. Through Luffy we see what is valuable and what is not. Things like greediness, ego, so-called "genius," exploitation, power, etc. mean nothing to him. But the lives of others, the dignity of friends and family, the value of happiness and life, exploration and adventure, those are things he has historically taken INCREDIBLY seriously throughout One Piece.

So, the fact that Luffy takes someone like Doflamingo who threatens his beliefs completely seriously, to the point where he screams "You're suffocating me!", is not only not edgy, it also makes 100% thematic sense and is in fact REQUIRED. Luffy's love of freedom actually necessitates that he hate the things which not only oppose freedom, but attempt to end it.

Pre time skip and for much of Post time skip, Oda isn't manipulating anything. He's flat out telling you through Luffy what matters. What are praiseworthy ideals and what are not.

My problem with what is happening in Luffy vs. Kaido is that Luffy seems to be bucking all of that for the most part, only to instead have a good time with Kaido now that he has awakened the Nika fruit. Luffy's not really reading the room at all, (except for the one comment he made when he returned to base about Pedro, Momo, Kin, etc.). In fact, in the Nika form, he's actively making things sillier, though things are clearly dire. In Gear 5, he's almost like a caricature of himself, instead of actually himself. And even Kaido is acting strangely. I don't like it too much, personally. It could be going somewhere, but I feel that Oda has become a little too self-aware for his own good in his writing recently.
 
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This fight is so utter garbage. I cannot believe we waited so many years for this. You know, I respect Oda, but some of his writing decisions are just inexcusable.

Why have Luffy be defeated multiple times in a single battle, and then have him get a power up every single time he is defeated. This is literally kills all tension. Most fights in OP have a point of absolute low(where the villain is winning) and a point of absolute high(where the hero is winning). This is a common story structure.

Zoro gets his ass beat by king(1)
Zoro awakens ACoC and learns to control enma(2)
Zoro beats king(3)

But Oda basically shits on this by repeating step 1 and step 2 over and over to the point to where any new development in the fight has little to no impact because we've already seen it before. Every time kaido fucks up Luffy, there are no consequences and it only makes Luffy stronger, so why care? Why care when Luffy gets a power up as well because even after getting multiple power ups, Luffy has still been defeated?

Literally nothing that happens in this fight has any impact because Oda basically wrote himself into a corner with kaido. On one hand, he made kaido insanely powerful to where he could only really be defeated in a team battle with ample strategy and planning. On the other hand, Oda wants to end one piece soon so he wants Luffy to leave wano near PK level.
So instead of just keeping the rooftop 5 vs yonko fight ongoing, Oda decides to split everyone up and have Luffy 1v1 kaido by any means necessary.

Unless Oda has the balls to do something drastic(which I doubt), there's no saving this fight from being one of the absolute worst in OP.
Its true
Now all power level is not making any sense anymore
Just plot armor
Maybe
Someday, they will reveal that imu is luffy mother and luffy is Gol D Roger Incarnation, he soon will possed the power of joyboy And and zoro is a sword himself, he just doesnt know yet..
But whatever happened i know for sure
Ussop still weak !
 
its just my opinion if you like it good for you i wish i was like you guys

5 SN vs 2Y was fire until they separate Kaido and Bm
luffy vs kaido begin it was some what good in start but become mid until luffy begin to use rock attacks and latter g4 and we saw different drunk mods when cp0 and defeat happened it make it more interesting i hoped we see kaido vs others at least for 1-2 ch but DF change and G5 happened i didn't liked it at all and round X happened fight was funny but mid in some parts just because of giant luffy and being funny and meh in other parts giant punch vs fire dragon kaido was cool but for an end of fight its mid at best for and kaido flashback i will just say that i would prefer no flashback over that garbage that we get

if thats the end overall i will say for me it was a mid fight and between main fight for me its better than franky vs sasaki and neko/inu vs peros/jack and worse than other main fights
best fight for me was zoro vs king and it was somewhat good (7.5/10)
 
What do you mean this is the worst fight

It's the best fight ever... Luffy trains... clearly inferior... awakens adv CoC... then clearly inferior... recovers after Kaido casually throws him off a cliff by... you guessed it eating... then loses... again... then becomes Joy Boy and the fight turns into a cartoon and Luffy beats Kaido

How is that not Luffy's best written fight
 
Drunken mode Kaido vs Base/G4 Luffy is good fight and is well choreographed. G5 Luffy vs Kaido sucks because it lacks tension and impact. Before drunken mode it is barely a fight. All we get it one panel of clash here and there

Before that on rooftop its not only luffy vs Kaido
 
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