Now my honest question is: what does this mean for him and his character?
- Does he accept his villain role here and continue to actually become a threat still? His VAs are still doing their jobs at least so thats...interesting.
- Does he mourn quietly until the end of the arc, preserving his role as Admiral for another arc (to me this is odd only because of all of the arc presense he had at first)
- Does he end up switching sides and sacrificing himself for Bonney, Kuma, Sentoumaru, etc? Could be post-VP broadcast obviously.
All 3 present 3 paths for the character and Im really not sure which one Oda might do.
The weirdest thing to me is Luffy not getting any form of customary win after fighting someone. He got an established VS. Chapter with Kizaru, to where he has kept fighting him multiple times after said chapter, also including a Jump cover which generally highlights arc villains.
Thats the part I cant reconcile with yet and I need to see how the rest of the arc plays out.