How you come tagged me? lol. Was it something I said earlier?
But yeah to respond to what you said anyway, I do agree with it too. Oda seems to like to fuck with his pacing, to make certain things happen at certain moments, to do his massive chapter number play fetish and parallesl and such. Also just to drag things out as you were talking about too.
I am so sick of Luffy and others saying he's gonna be Pirate King too. It feels like Fairy Tail or even Bleach with Ichigo's Getsuga spam and Orihime's "Kurosaki-kun!" spam or with Naruto and Sakura spamming "Sasuke!" with the former spamming Rasengans (even in the most literal extreme way later on) and "Dattebayo!"
I feel like OP has taken some steps forward post TS but some steps backward too. In some ways it's matured, but other ways it's regressed and acts a lot more childishly. I did mention flanderisation before recently and some of most extreme and worst flanderisation includes the crying faces, the nosebleeds and the shocked/disgust faces, Usopp and Sugar being the WORST offenders for this at Dressrosa. Oda was trying so damn hard to be "funny" when he's already naturally hilarious, so I'm not sure why he has to draw such extremely disgusting and exaggerated cariactures.
But yeah, we had a lot of these chapters of padding/stalling and thus filler too. Page One and Ulti chasing Nami and co for ages, Tama scenes and chapters and as you said, Luffy having to back to the Rooftop again. I know Oda likes to make Luffy lose a few times and go back up, it feels very reminiscent of Alabasta and Luffy vs Crocodile especially too.
God knows things really slowed down before 1000/Rooftop Piece happened and then again after it, it was frustrating. But chapters like Robin's fight, Zoro and Sanji vs the Calamities, the extra development for Zoro and Sanji involving the lore and the actual reveal of Ushimaru and some other samurai as well as Yamato's childhood and such are really making things a lot better/more enjoyable for me personally.
Post TS has become very artificial, very shallow, very soullless ironically (despite the extreme emphasis on souls post TS) and I feared this would happen after all the other major series ended and their fans flocked over to and focused on OP solely or mostly to compensate. Also with OP just getting far bigger in popularity and the story meant to be getting more focused, serious, complex, darker, mature etc. OP has really gone mainstream like MHA has and Naruto suffered for that especially imo, Shippuden ruined Naruto MASSIVELY imo, started off amazing but went downhill so fast, it was like a perfectly rounded/smooth boulder covered in grease being pushed down a hill covered in perfectly flat, smooth ice solely and somehow an extremely strong wind is pushing the boulder down the hill too, after Hercules himself pushed it from the top!
You can tell I really HATED the final third of Shippuden can't you? LMAO! Don't get me started on Bleach either, we'll be here for a while for sure!
But yes I do understand anyway, this weekly pacing and the abundance of breaks really aren't helping. That's also why we've had so many chapters in a row without an Oda break too and Oda didn't even get his own break when it was due earlier, because of the Olympics! So I do fear that we will get more Oda breaks in the near future to compensate and give him a much needed breather or worst case scenario, Oda is pushing himself too hard again and risks getting hospitalised again or worse. After Miura especially, this should be getting taken MUCH more seriously too by him and his staff.
We haven't had the full summary and pics either and usually when they come out, the chapter does improve a lot too, you can only get so much from a brief summary and first impression and I've seen a lot of people change their minds once they get a lot more details and get to see the panels. When the chapter does come out too, that's bound to make a huge difference too for some people at least? Or at least a small difference at minimum?
But yeah I am enjoying the sound of this chapter so far, I'm focusing on certain moments/reveals too which helps a lot more ofc but honestly I'm seeing so much complaining, criticism and cynicism here lately, it is getting overwhelming too. I stopped following Drizzt for these reasons too. As much as I really like him as a person, the constant negativity about OP can and does get too much, just like others who ironically do the opposite and wank off Oda and One Piece all the time ofc.
The providers do tend to overhype the chapters but maybe they are hyped for similar things to me? They have their own personal prefernces and beliefs after all ofc , I don't think they're doing it maliciously/to troll but they do seem to like to troll us with the hints and in the spoiler waiting room so maybe I'm wrong? LOL! Considering how people were pedestalling them, worshipping them (I even played along recently with Lebrent out of desperation for info lol), its very easy for their egos to get inflated and for them to take advantage and want to mess with us.
There are definitely lacklustre moments happening in these chapters too and there is a lot of forced/inorganic stuff too. I am so tired of Luffy being wanked in the story and even by the community too. Especially given his actions and attitude post TS despite what's happened to him just before the TS ofc and the fact he's taken on not 1 but 2 fucking Yonkos who are working together against him!
He has small improvements ofc but not enough by far.
But yeah massive ramble/rant/essay/Ted Talk over now anyway lmao.
ew, just no.
