Future Events Poll: Who is the EoS opponent of Luffy based on your predictions for the final arc?

Who is Luffy's final opponent?

  • Akainu

  • Blackbeard

  • Imu


Results are only viewable after voting.
#66
I personally think that Akainu and Blackbeard are personal fights that Luffy has to get through at some point and I think the chapter that presented Akainu and BB as the new biggest threats for Luffy was foreshadowing that.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, the amount of buildup (on every level) for Luffy taking down these two is enormous. Those fights are pretty much set in stone.

Regarding Luffy vs Akainu, I don't know about the timeline. However, if it happens in the final war with Luffy already being PK, I don't think that Luffy will start as an underdog. Luffy being the underdog is a formula that Oda has employed a lot but, for what I believe the PK is meant to represent, I don't think that this will be the case.

If they fight in this context, I see them fighting as equals. With Luffy barely edging him out at the end. I also see this fight as one of the ultimate showings of two iron, relentless wills clashing and Luffy showing this strenght of his.
 
#67
Blackbeard for me, Im the second choice. I see no opportunity for Sakazuki being the final villain, he’s irrelevant to the main mysteries of One Piece- the Will of D, Laugh Tale and the One Piece, the Void Century, Im, Joyboy, and the Ancient Weapons.

I’ve always thought it would be Blackbeard- the reveal of Rocks just confirmed that. You have a guy- a D nonetheless- that was so dangerous, that Roger and Garp had to team up to defeat, defending the Celestial Dragons in the process? This means Rocks was someone who made the Celestial Dragons look like the lesser evil? And Blackbeard has taken his island, named his ship after him and tried to do what he did by gathering a bunch of famous pirates under his name? How can people not see what is happening here? I wouldn’t be surprised if Rock’s had the darkness fruit originally, given Blackbeard’s obsession with him. Blackbeard looks very much to have inherited his will, and that means, like i posted yesterday, him aiming to place his fat ass on the Empty Throne.

Also as an aside, not only is Blackbeard the next coming of Rocks, he’s also an evil version of Whitebeard. Father and “son”, the person who killed WB, stole his DF and his Yonko place. His crew is set up in the same ways as having “divisions”. I think that Whiebeard’s old WSM title will be resurrected for him. Even their epithet’s are mirror images of each other- White and Black Beard.

One Piece is the story of Luffy and Blackbeard’s rise. Two D’s who are tearing down the Balance of Power and the established order, freedom vs anarchy. Look at the story as a whole. East Blue, a long prologue of sorts (hence Loguetown being the last island there) introducing us to our hero. Then comes Part One, Paradise, where Luffy and Blackbeard’s parallel rise is entwined with each other. Just look at the story.

-Blackbeard murders Thatch, setting Ace into the New World and panicking Shanks
-Blackbeard wrecks Drum, which leads to Luffy going there and saving it, getting a crewmate
-Luffy meets up with Ace who is hunting Blackbeard, and Luffy defeats Warlord Crocodile. This puts Luffy, Blackbeard and Ace on a collision course and has massive repercussions for the rest of the series. As an aside, Shanks plans to meet Blackbeard
-Jaya, Luffy and Blackbeard first meet, have an instinctive recognition that something is special about the other. Man’s dreams never end. Blackbeard applies for the role in the Warlords that is open because of Luffy, and decides that he’ll capture him. We see Blackbeard’s crew mirrors Luffy’s in many ways
-Ennies Lobby. Luffy and Blackbeard announce themselves to the world. Luffy defeats CP9, Blackbeard captures Ace and becomes a Warlord. Shanks meets Blackbeard solely to talk about how worried he is about Blackbeard, revealing that he was the one who scarred him.
-Thriller Bark and Saobody, it’s revealed that Blackbeard’s capture of Ace has resulted in him being in line to be executed, with a war between Whitebeard and the Warlords planned
-Impel Down, Luffy and Blackbeard’s first fight, where the two fight fairly evenly. Blackbeard meets his own powerful swordsman. There’s mention of some infamous, powerful pirates who’s very existence the World Gov has hidden.
-Marineford, Luffy‘s attempt to free Ace, breakout of ID, relationship to Dragon and CoC reveal all make him stand out. Blackbeard reveals his new, full crew, that he’s the only person in the world with two DF powers and kills Whitebeard.

Absolutely no other villain has any build up even slightly comparing to that. That’s a story that has been built up carefully throughout the entiroety of Paradise, intwined with Luffy. Now, Blackbeard’s had to take a but of a lesser role in the New World while Kaido and Big Mom get dealt with, but that’s just because the best is being saved for last. Look at the tidbits we’ve had about him since, it’s all leading up to great things. There’s the already mentioned Rocks parallels, but in addition to that we have

-the Worst Gen. That is literally only a thing to put Luffy and Blackbeard in the same generation. Nobody in-series refers to the Supernova anymore, it’s all Worst Gen.
-going into the New World, Blackbeard’s rise (and the fact he’s hunting DFs) being one of the two big changes
-Chinjao says he’s the only one with potential
-Aokiji has joined Blackbeard
-Blackbeard destroys Baltigo
-Blackbeard won the Payback War
-Im seems to consider Blackbeard and Luffy equal threats
-the little tidbit in Oden’s flashback about Blackbeard never sleeping
-Blackbeard is off to do some mischief after what happened in Reverie, he’s ready to hit the limelight again.

And Shanks’ warning about a ”certain pirate” to the Gorosei, even if its not about Blackbeard directly, almost certainly ties into him in some way since the two are always linked.

And in addition to Blackbeard himself, just a smaller mention- no other organistion has a crew that is so perfectly matched to the Strawhats as a whole. The Marines don’t, the Gorosei are by design a homogenous blob of soulless bureaucratic stagnation. In the Ten Titanic Captains you’ve got the perfect evil mirrors of the Strawhats lined up- that’s why they were the only other crew where each members position was revealed initially. They’ll hunt down DFs that perfectly oppose the crew. Every one of them is real, nasty, evil piece of shit, with a great, unique design.

There’s this arguemnt that persists that somehow Blackbeard is some sort of gatekeeper villain to be dealt with before the final war and it honestly just baffles me. Why would Oda be casting this unique, longrunning villaim aside before the endgame? The final war is meant to be the one that makes Marineford look small (not Wano, which i see people saying a lot), why exactly would Blackbeard not be involved in that? Because Whitebeard said he wasn’t Joyboy, basically? Yeah, that’s no surprise, was anyone reading One Piece and thinking “I bet Roger was actually waiting for Blackbeard instead of Luffy.” Because Luffy needs to “challenge the world to a fight?” Sorry, is Blackbeard some sort of alien that doesn’t count as a part of the world (actually maybe, depending on the people from the moon), but anyway, Blackbeard on the Empty Throne as King of the World like Rocks wanted would fulfil that regardless.

Im, I see the argument, I don’t think it would be as good (that doesn’t mean it’s bad, but Im would have a hell of a lot to do in a short time to catchup with Blackbeard) and I don’t think it’s were the story is going. Mostly because of the glory of Blackbeard, but also because I’m 99% certain Im is a woman- Oda does not have powerful men relaxing with butterflies in a room called the flower garden, and that really looks like a dress with a train that Im is wearing. Im being the Final One Piece Princess, wouldn’t surprise me at all.

That was a lot longer than I thought it would be
 
#68
hé must be slightly older than them.

And being as strong as current Garp/Sengoku/Ray is good but not that strong for someone like Dragon.
Yh but he might have a DF , that's not affected by age , i'm expecting Sun Wukong Mythical Zoan from him .

Ya i actually never expected Kong to push Dragon to extreme diff , Kong will go down after a respectable high diff fight .
 

RayanOO

Lazy is the way
#69
Yh but he might have a DF , that's not affected by age , i'm expecting Sun Wukong Mythical Zoan from him .

Ya i actually never expected Kong to push Dragon to extreme diff , Kong will go down after a respectable high diff fight .
Why not, but it would make more sense to directly fight the one who is handling the darkest deeds of the world (CD , CP0 leader).
 
#70
If Dragon fights someone it will probably be the one of the Gorosei, they act as Imu's personal guards, the closest ones to him. They all have scars, one of them carrying a weapon, don't see Dragon fighting CP0 personally.

Marines might even have their own ideology clash with the WG judging by Akainu's conversation with the Gorosei, and how little the WG cares about the Navy, seeing them merely as the outside face of the WG. Military going against their Government.
 
#73
Imo the final villain has yet to appear

I think I am confident now that One Piece as a serie is a Jrpg game in manga form, every trope you'll find in a jrpg exist in OP

therefore the final villain will be someone in Marijoa who was sealed and waiting for his powers to return , yet the child of destiny ( Luffy) will stop him

there's many strong hints in the manga that suggest this will be the plot of the final arc too

I think along with Im there's two other characters on the same lvl as she or even stronger , one of the three is the true final villain

the number 3 is important and prevalent in the story a lot, so it make sense the final villains are a group of three

in the reverie it was said there was three routes one lead to where CDs lives along with the gorosei and Im, strange how this was highlighted and the number three make it even more suspicious, what I got from this is one route lead to Im who rule the world, the other two lead to the other two characters who has yet to be revealed

finally I think post TS OP is recycling what happened pre TS but on a much bigger scale, I could write an essay about the similarities in post TS and pre TS events even up until now, so am done thinking thats not what Oda planing to do until EoS

the final arc will be MF at much bigger scale and the final villains will be the equivalent of the three admirals, one of them is Im
 
#74
Since imu was introduced I already thought he/she was the EoS opponent.

BB - BB should be the fight for PK where luffy is about to accomplish his dream. When luffy fights BB he likely isn't gonna be pk. On top of this luffy needs to do stuff as pk to surpass roger and he learn about the history of op. So I highly doubt the story ends with "and luffy became pk by beating BB the end".

Akainu - taking down akainu does nothing to the WG. The marines are simply the face of the WG and can be rebuilt. It would be like if the us army was taken out but then acting like the entire us military was taken out. No you only took out a branch same with the marines. Beating akainu only topples the marines and does nothing for all the problems the WG has made and will make.

Imu - I think imu is the tip of the spear. Beating he/her unlike akainu would topple the entire WG structure. On top of this it would be more relevant since imu would pool all the WG resources to stop luffy and allies instead with akainu pooling all the marines. I highly doubt luffy with the sh + sh grand fleet, revo's, wano samurai, minks, marco, rayleigh etc would be stopped by the marines alone. This is a force that the entire WG would be needed to even think of stopping them.
 
#75
Blackbeard for me, Im the second choice. I see no opportunity for Sakazuki being the final villain, he’s irrelevant to the main mysteries of One Piece- the Will of D, Laugh Tale and the One Piece, the Void Century, Im, Joyboy, and the Ancient Weapons.

I’ve always thought it would be Blackbeard- the reveal of Rocks just confirmed that. You have a guy- a D nonetheless- that was so dangerous, that Roger and Garp had to team up to defeat, defending the Celestial Dragons in the process? This means Rocks was someone who made the Celestial Dragons look like the lesser evil? And Blackbeard has taken his island, named his ship after him and tried to do what he did by gathering a bunch of famous pirates under his name? How can people not see what is happening here? I wouldn’t be surprised if Rock’s had the darkness fruit originally, given Blackbeard’s obsession with him. Blackbeard looks very much to have inherited his will, and that means, like i posted yesterday, him aiming to place his fat ass on the Empty Throne.

Also as an aside, not only is Blackbeard the next coming of Rocks, he’s also an evil version of Whitebeard. Father and “son”, the person who killed WB, stole his DF and his Yonko place. His crew is set up in the same ways as having “divisions”. I think that Whiebeard’s old WSM title will be resurrected for him. Even their epithet’s are mirror images of each other- White and Black Beard.

One Piece is the story of Luffy and Blackbeard’s rise. Two D’s who are tearing down the Balance of Power and the established order, freedom vs anarchy. Look at the story as a whole. East Blue, a long prologue of sorts (hence Loguetown being the last island there) introducing us to our hero. Then comes Part One, Paradise, where Luffy and Blackbeard’s parallel rise is entwined with each other. Just look at the story.

-Blackbeard murders Thatch, setting Ace into the New World and panicking Shanks
-Blackbeard wrecks Drum, which leads to Luffy going there and saving it, getting a crewmate
-Luffy meets up with Ace who is hunting Blackbeard, and Luffy defeats Warlord Crocodile. This puts Luffy, Blackbeard and Ace on a collision course and has massive repercussions for the rest of the series. As an aside, Shanks plans to meet Blackbeard
-Jaya, Luffy and Blackbeard first meet, have an instinctive recognition that something is special about the other. Man’s dreams never end. Blackbeard applies for the role in the Warlords that is open because of Luffy, and decides that he’ll capture him. We see Blackbeard’s crew mirrors Luffy’s in many ways
-Ennies Lobby. Luffy and Blackbeard announce themselves to the world. Luffy defeats CP9, Blackbeard captures Ace and becomes a Warlord. Shanks meets Blackbeard solely to talk about how worried he is about Blackbeard, revealing that he was the one who scarred him.
-Thriller Bark and Saobody, it’s revealed that Blackbeard’s capture of Ace has resulted in him being in line to be executed, with a war between Whitebeard and the Warlords planned
-Impel Down, Luffy and Blackbeard’s first fight, where the two fight fairly evenly. Blackbeard meets his own powerful swordsman. There’s mention of some infamous, powerful pirates who’s very existence the World Gov has hidden.
-Marineford, Luffy‘s attempt to free Ace, breakout of ID, relationship to Dragon and CoC reveal all make him stand out. Blackbeard reveals his new, full crew, that he’s the only person in the world with two DF powers and kills Whitebeard.

Absolutely no other villain has any build up even slightly comparing to that. That’s a story that has been built up carefully throughout the entiroety of Paradise, intwined with Luffy. Now, Blackbeard’s had to take a but of a lesser role in the New World while Kaido and Big Mom get dealt with, but that’s just because the best is being saved for last. Look at the tidbits we’ve had about him since, it’s all leading up to great things. There’s the already mentioned Rocks parallels, but in addition to that we have

-the Worst Gen. That is literally only a thing to put Luffy and Blackbeard in the same generation. Nobody in-series refers to the Supernova anymore, it’s all Worst Gen.
-going into the New World, Blackbeard’s rise (and the fact he’s hunting DFs) being one of the two big changes
-Chinjao says he’s the only one with potential
-Aokiji has joined Blackbeard
-Blackbeard destroys Baltigo
-Blackbeard won the Payback War
-Im seems to consider Blackbeard and Luffy equal threats
-the little tidbit in Oden’s flashback about Blackbeard never sleeping
-Blackbeard is off to do some mischief after what happened in Reverie, he’s ready to hit the limelight again.

And Shanks’ warning about a ”certain pirate” to the Gorosei, even if its not about Blackbeard directly, almost certainly ties into him in some way since the two are always linked.

And in addition to Blackbeard himself, just a smaller mention- no other organistion has a crew that is so perfectly matched to the Strawhats as a whole. The Marines don’t, the Gorosei are by design a homogenous blob of soulless bureaucratic stagnation. In the Ten Titanic Captains you’ve got the perfect evil mirrors of the Strawhats lined up- that’s why they were the only other crew where each members position was revealed initially. They’ll hunt down DFs that perfectly oppose the crew. Every one of them is real, nasty, evil piece of shit, with a great, unique design.

There’s this arguemnt that persists that somehow Blackbeard is some sort of gatekeeper villain to be dealt with before the final war and it honestly just baffles me. Why would Oda be casting this unique, longrunning villaim aside before the endgame? The final war is meant to be the one that makes Marineford look small (not Wano, which i see people saying a lot), why exactly would Blackbeard not be involved in that? Because Whitebeard said he wasn’t Joyboy, basically? Yeah, that’s no surprise, was anyone reading One Piece and thinking “I bet Roger was actually waiting for Blackbeard instead of Luffy.” Because Luffy needs to “challenge the world to a fight?” Sorry, is Blackbeard some sort of alien that doesn’t count as a part of the world (actually maybe, depending on the people from the moon), but anyway, Blackbeard on the Empty Throne as King of the World like Rocks wanted would fulfil that regardless.

Im, I see the argument, I don’t think it would be as good (that doesn’t mean it’s bad, but Im would have a hell of a lot to do in a short time to catchup with Blackbeard) and I don’t think it’s were the story is going. Mostly because of the glory of Blackbeard, but also because I’m 99% certain Im is a woman- Oda does not have powerful men relaxing with butterflies in a room called the flower garden, and that really looks like a dress with a train that Im is wearing. Im being the Final One Piece Princess, wouldn’t surprise me at all.

That was a lot longer than I thought it would be

thats actually a cool theory of im being a woman
 
#78
The final antagonist has to be whoever sits on the Empty Throne. Blackbeard could very well usurp Im-sama, but so could Akainu. I know it doesn't really answer the question but I believe that when the time comes it will seal the deal.

I'm more interested in the emotional weight and impact a final fight would have because to me that's one of One Piece's strongest suites.
Luffy vs Akainu would be the best in that regard followed by Luffy vs Blackbeard. I know a lot of the fanbase is still powerlevel obsessed but the best fights are the most emotional ones to me.

Im-sama despite currently sitting at the top of the world just doesn't have the same weight that Blackbeard and Akainu do, but there is still time for more build up.

The matter is made more complicated because there's also Dragon's opponent to consider. Both Im-sama & Akainu work in that regard, but I lean towards the former because the Navy isn't Dragon's object ire.
 
#80
Akainu will be defeated after Blackbeard. And blackbeard might be defeated sooner than we think since we are in the Yonko saga. Plus we have Odas comment about how the series main plot (Pirateking) is gonna end in less than 5 years.

Take or leave. Akainu being weaker or less of a challenge than blackbeard is speculation without any back up tbh.

@Garp the Fist

Also something that I read... Garp and Roger didn't Team up to defeat 1 pirate, but a crew. The reason why they protected the celestial Dragon is not that they looked like the lesser devil but rather the consequences that messing up with them might bring, ultimately Gorosei and I'm taking action, erasing all people involved from existence.

Not even Garp and Roger think can be able to overthrown the WG. However they're > Rox Pirates, so Rox didn't stand a chance in the big picture and would just cause troubles, somethint like Oharas massacre or whatever...
 
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