Will go from relatively intact, to fucking run over by the Mememobile. There may be some characters that I’ve missed, but in general, these were the most noteworthy ones (for better or worse).
The Legends (i.e. Roger, Whitebeard, Garp, etc) – tbh, the main reason they’re at the top is because their appearances are few and far between, thus giving Oda fewer chances to really ruin them. That’s not to say they escaped the TS unscathed; thankfully though the main problem I had with them mainly centers on one certain individual, it was still infuriating to see them fall down in worship at Eiichiro Oden’s feet. Only other issues I had with the Legends were the Rocks retcon, especially if it’s revealed that Blackbeard is Xebec’s son, and the fact that we will most likely never really see them in action, which is a fucking travesty. How awesome it would have been to see the adventures of Roger, Whitebeard, and Garp in more detail, to see the full might of the brawler who used mountains as punching bags, the man who could create tsunamis with a single swing of his bisento, and the pirate who overcame all odds and became Pirate King…fortunately, Oda makes up for that by showering us with thousands of joyless soul-sucking teary eyed side characters and royals. But at least whenever we do see or hear about the Legends, it’s often a highlight, and Oda won’t be giving them the full Meme treatment any time soon.
The Admirals – I’m not expecting greatness from them at the EoS, but for now, I’m still fairly certain Oda won’t humiliate them, or at least, not to the extent as Meme. They suffered some damage with Fujitora; while I could see the arguments for him at first, the problem was that Oda kept him out of the action for far too long, and turned him into a Luffy fanboy. That said, I would happily pick him over the likes of the King of the Hostages and the Queen of Meme, who fall hilariously short of the C3’s performances, and I'm still interested to see what else Oda has in store for him now that he accomplished his goal of abolishing the Warlord system. And luckily, it’s always a treat to see the Admirals whenever they appear, wish we could get an entire spinoff focusing on their daily lives and duties.
Law and Capone – the two best Supernovas for me. Law started climbing up my list at the end of Pre TS when he showed up to save Luffy, and was one of the stars of the Doflamingo saga with his many moments, feud with the former World Noble, and brilliant flashback with Corazon, while Capone was a glorious jewel standing his ground against a raging sea of shit in WCI, as he did what we all wanted to do and plotted the demise of the sentient mound of lard that is Big Meme. That being said, there was some damage with Law for me, I didn’t like how he gushed about Luffy towards the end, and Capone had the worst cover arc to date. Regardless, they were some of the most enjoyable parts of the TS, and I’ll always appreciate them for that.
Now for the more damaged characters…
Zoro – despite everything, still my favorite M3 member, and he has had some moments however brief, even if it mainly regards his latest attacks. And unlike others, imo he hasn’t been ruined yet, thankfully, just neglected. Unfortunately, what he makes up for in wowing scenes like the seppuku knife feat, and cutting apart Pica’s golem, he lacks in character. He went from a swordsman who fought on against all odds, to a dull one-line spewing goon who keeps steamrolling most of his foes. Zoro’s role in Wano just rubs more salt in the wounds. Should he get a more interesting subplot? Maybe we can build up a rivalry with a Wano opponent or high ranking Beast Pirate? Nah, fuck that shit, he can play babysitter to Snot, that’s something fans have clamored for since the start of the series. Even the plot point with Ryuma’s sword was resolved fairly quickly. I’ll give him this though, he’s not Luffy or Sanji, nor did he consider making some sake to make Kaido faint.
Doflamingo – in some ways, he remains the most disappointing villain, if only because I lowered my expectations for future villains so low that they pierced the planet’s core. I hated how Oda had him go from a chaotic Joker type to Crocodile 2.0 and his final fight was nothing short of a massive failure. Either way, he was still usually entertaining to watch, played a big part of what made Law’s flashback was great alongside Corazon, and despite everything, Meme and Kaido still don’t have an ounce of his charisma.
The Supernovas – they started out as one of the highlights of Sabaody, and I was eager to see more of their clashes with each other and the SHs in the New World…too bad Oda thought the likes of Rebecca, Snot, and the other turds were more worthy of his attention and effort. They have had some moments, like the Drake being a secret agent, and Apoo shitting on Luffy, but for the most part, they’ve been utterly wasted. Kid and Killer especially, fucking lol, the former was once a contender for one of Luffy’s biggest rivals, instead got shunted to the background for the likes of the Scabbards, alongside his first mate, who was force fed a defective SMILE and lost to a handicapped Zoro. We should have gotten to see more of them, their journeys in the New World, relationships and rivalries, interactions with one another…instead we got this. They deserved so much better.
The SHs – do I even need to go into serious detail? Apart from Brook in WCI, the SHs might as well have not even been in the TS, Wano in particular has been laughable so far. What did they actually do that mattered? Only thing I can recall was Robin getting the info, Brook and Franky shitting on Meme, and that’s it. Other than that, gone are the characters who we journeyed with throughout Pre TS, now they are simply Luffy cheerleaders like most of the other side chars, and as a result, a lot of charm and soul the series had is now absent.
And gosh, we’ve already reached some of the biggest sources of our misery and contempt for Post TS OP. That didn’t take very long.
Sanji – character-wise, he may have gotten a worse deal than some of the others on this list, but main reason he’s last is because I’ve never liked him, so he wasn’t as disappointing or infuriating to me as the rest. That said, he had been taking a fair amount of damage for a while, first with the infamous nosebleed on Fishman Island, then continuously getting used as a hype tool by other characters, with his character assassination ultimately coming to completion at WCI. Everything about his “arc” there was awful, his painfully generic backstory with the Vinsmoke Family doesn’t even come close to how excellent his original flashback with Zeff was. The rest wasn’t much better, such as his fucking awful romance with Pudding (I actually winced when she fell for him), to his forced drama with the SHs, and definitely his part in the Great Cake Chase. Oda cranking his pervert gag to over 9000 hasn’t helped either.
The other antagonists – I genuinely believe that the Whitebeard War saga must have traumatized Oda, that’s the only reason I can think of for the abysmal antagonists he’s given us in the timeskip. Thankfully, we at least got Vergo, who was an excellent brutal no-nonsense enforcer for Doffy, but after that, it was all downhill. It’s hard to say who was the worst, there’s just so many of them, I thought Doffy’s crew were bad enough, but then the Meme Team came along to give them some serious competition. We will never get any Pre TS level villains again.
Most female characters – Smoothie, Black Maria, Compote, Rebecca, Shirahoshi, Snot and Snot Sr (Hiyori and Toki), Pudding, etc. I say no more.
Kaido – oh man, where do I even begin with Kaido? He had some of the best buildup in the series, there was such an air of mystery, intrigue, and suspense around him, from Gecko Moria building him up as a real nightmare, to all the hints and references that even for one of the strongest current gen pirates, Kaido wasn’t normal or natural. Even though we didn’t get to see him fight Kid, Kaido’s intro more than delivered, despite how bad Dressrosa had been, I was excited to see more of Kaido, and I will always enjoy watching him putting the rubber brat in his place in Act 1. But alas, Oda had to have him fade away so he could focus on Wario’s charmless cousin, gave Kaido little to no characterization, and then casually eviscerated Kaido’s hype with the Oden incident and later having him get humiliated by the likes of Kinemon, Kiku, and Raizou. To send him even deeper into the grave, Oda had Kaido wanking Oden along with everyone else, moaning that there was nobody like that obnoxious Gary Stu after Kaido put him out of our misery. After all of the hype and effort Oda put him into him, I had hoped that he would turn out to be a brutal charismatic conqueror, but instead, the Ambush Artist turned out to be a generic, brainless, boring goon who was about as threatening as a decaf soy latte. Kaido was fucking ruined.
The Nine Scrubbards – not including the Dukes for this one ofc, but I have to admit, they’ve been damaged somewhat for me lately thanks to this ridiculous Oden wank. I guess if I’m being generous, some of the ideas for them are there, but Oda’s execution hasn’t worked. I was initially won over by Shutenmaru, since I found his cynicism refreshing…but then Toothless got shot, and he’s all buddy buddies with them again. Denjiro being a spy could have been fine, but after the reveal, it effectively ruined the credibility of the antagonists from Orochi’s side. Ignoring the obvious too many characters problem, there are plenty more issues for them. Besides the Oden wank, the Scrubbards are severely lacking character-wise, I can’t think of a single trait that makes the likes of Kiku memorable, and even after how many years with Kinemon, he is generic at best. Oda skimming over their history and interactions with Oden hasn’t done them any favors in this regard. But the biggest issue for me currently is with Kaido. On the one hand, I personally was looking forward to a conflict between the SHs, SNs, and Kaido, since they were the characters I cared about, not Kinemon or the others, despite Oda trying to get me to do so with the Oden flashback. But on the other hand, just as was the case with Law and Doflamingo, this does not feel like Luffy’s fight, since Oda has spent so much time building up the feud with Kaido and the people of Wano. As others have said, it really feels like the Oden plot should have been in a different series, here it’s simply Oda biting off way more than he can chew. In any case, if Oda actually does kill a few of them off, I'd applaud Kaido for his heroic achievement, because they very well could be the worst group of SH allies thus far.
Oden – I thought he’d be an enjoyable flashback char, instead, he was not only insufferable, but also helped damage several other characters, from to a degree the Legends, but most of all Kaido. As if it wasn’t enough for everyone and their mother to fall over themselves to praise Oden, Oda had to have Kaido win via a fake hostage, causing the first (but certainly not the last) major blow to Kaido’s threat level. Then there was the incident with Orochi…the Wario clone had gone out of his way to present himself as someone who couldn’t be trusted and despised Wano, attacked Oden’s people and family, someone who possibly had a hand in the death of his father, so what did Oden do? Agree to his deal of dancing like an idiot for years while dooming Wano to twenty years of misery (not that Wano doesn’t deserve to be turned into hell on earth). But to try and defend his beloved Oden, even after all of that Oda went out of his way to paint Oden as a tragic, noble, charismatic hero who deserved to be praised and loved by all, even by his killer Kaido himself. Go fuck yourself Eiichiro Oden. I actually hope that when Kaido turned you into soup, he served you to the rest of Wano with extra Habanero sauce. That is how much I hate you.
Luffy – though he’ll eventually be King of the Pirates, Luffy wasn’t able to become the king of this shit pile, albeit barely. While he was never the most complex character, he was at least an enjoyable one, he was funny, he had some occasional surprisingly insightful points, and helped give us some of the best fights in the series. But as One Piece dragged on to its seemingly endless “only five years left” mark, Luffy experienced no character growth and showed he learned nothing from the Whitebeard War Saga. Instead, he got dumber and more reckless and hotheaded, and to make things worse, his plot armor became thicker than Smoothie’s thighs. Some of what made the villains so bad can be attributed to it; because Luffy charged in with no thought or strategy into the worst predicaments, Oda had to drain everyone’s IQ down into the negatives, and gave us some dreadful asspull saves to boot, the worst ones of the top of my head being the fakeout at the end of WCI and the convenient amnesia plot for Meme. It didn’t help that Oda kept handing Luffy powerup after powerup free of charge, and his Gear 4 was utter shit in terms of abilities and design. But perhaps the biggest nail in his coffin was the chosen one bullshit that was later introduced. No longer was he a rookie pirate, Luffy was now the literal second coming of (the undoubtedly shit tier) Joy Boy. I guess what someone said was true; your MC can either die an underdog, or live long enough to become the chosen one. Regardless, Luffy started out as a simple, funny, and wacky MC, and ended up a stagnant, boring, and irritating moron.
Meme – as if there was any doubt she’d be the clear winner. Charlotte “Double L” Linlin, Big Meme, the Queen of the Ls and the First Memes, Captain of the Meme Team, the Embarrassment Empress, plot device of the SHs pet. I had gone into her arc with my expectations so low, hoping Oda had learned from his mistakes…then he had a pod blue whales with explosive diarrhea take a dump on her character and hype. And then Wano came along, and Oda doused what was left of it with jet fuel, and set it on fire. Big Meme is everything that’s wrong with Post TS. An annoying character, incompetent antagonist, and legendary disappointment all rolled into one, who Oda can’t help but keep bringing back for more Ls and to eat up screentime that should have been used for better characters. The Great Cake Chase where Oda obliterated her and the Meme Team was bad enough, but bringing her to Wano was true insanity. Why would we want to see the Supernovas, Calamities, and Kaido when we could see her get shat on for the 9000th time. What the actual fuck was Oda thinking? She wasn’t the rival of Whitebeard’s that had been built up as a calculating and feared mob boss. She was instead a brainless, charmless, and embarrassing excuse for an antagonist, and will likely be remembered as the prime example of character desolation in OP.