Let me start by saying that I'm not someone who supports the whole ZKK thing. We'll just have to wait for the story to unfold to see if that has any merit or not.
Anyway, I came across a Twitter thread yesterday discussing Zoro's recent declaration: that he will be the one to cut Kaido. One person said that there's no build-up that points to Zoro doing this and that the story wouldn't make sense for Zoro to be the one to beat Kaido since everything points to Luffy as the one to do it. I agree with that point, but then he said that (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Oda has made a liar out of Zoro this whole arc and I won't be surprised if he makes a liar out of him again with this statement". He's basically saying Oda had Zoro make this statement with apparently zero plans of following through with it, in essence betraying Zoro's character.
Now, we can look at this arc or even post-TS and probably think that makes sense, but I think most people are forgetting this one particular scene: "I will never lose again!". I think a lot of people would agree that this scene is one of the greatest scenes in pre-TS One Piece. Unfortunately, if we follow the same criticism people are throwing out today, then this epic scene would've been a lie. Zoro made a declaration, not unlike what he recently made, that before he beats Mihawk, he will NEVER lose again, and since then, how many times has Zoro lost?
Some of you might argue that "Of course it wouldn't make sense in the story if Zoro NEVER lost at all" and I would agree. The problem is when you declare that Zoro's Wano declaration, if not satisfied, is a betrayal of Zoro's character while you are perfectly fine with his declaration pre-TS. I have never seen anyone criticize this pre-TS moment and Zoro's succeeding loses afterwards. I know this since I'm 32 and I've been following this series half of my life and I remember thinking to myelf during Ennies Lobby "How many times has Zoro lost now? Didn't Zoro make that sweeping declaration of never losing again?".
All I'm saying with this is that people tend to put pre-TS on a pedestal and slandering post-TS by comparing the two without acknowledging the fact that when most people got into One Piece, most of pre-TS was already done and that the tone and direction of post-TS is completely different from pre-TS. The brilliant Marineford arc? If you read that week-on-week you'd know that felt like a mess sometimes plotwise. I loved it of couse because of all the epic moments, but that's how it felt at the time. As a completed arc though? It's majestic.
Thanks for reading.
Anyway, I came across a Twitter thread yesterday discussing Zoro's recent declaration: that he will be the one to cut Kaido. One person said that there's no build-up that points to Zoro doing this and that the story wouldn't make sense for Zoro to be the one to beat Kaido since everything points to Luffy as the one to do it. I agree with that point, but then he said that (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Oda has made a liar out of Zoro this whole arc and I won't be surprised if he makes a liar out of him again with this statement". He's basically saying Oda had Zoro make this statement with apparently zero plans of following through with it, in essence betraying Zoro's character.
Now, we can look at this arc or even post-TS and probably think that makes sense, but I think most people are forgetting this one particular scene: "I will never lose again!". I think a lot of people would agree that this scene is one of the greatest scenes in pre-TS One Piece. Unfortunately, if we follow the same criticism people are throwing out today, then this epic scene would've been a lie. Zoro made a declaration, not unlike what he recently made, that before he beats Mihawk, he will NEVER lose again, and since then, how many times has Zoro lost?
Some of you might argue that "Of course it wouldn't make sense in the story if Zoro NEVER lost at all" and I would agree. The problem is when you declare that Zoro's Wano declaration, if not satisfied, is a betrayal of Zoro's character while you are perfectly fine with his declaration pre-TS. I have never seen anyone criticize this pre-TS moment and Zoro's succeeding loses afterwards. I know this since I'm 32 and I've been following this series half of my life and I remember thinking to myelf during Ennies Lobby "How many times has Zoro lost now? Didn't Zoro make that sweeping declaration of never losing again?".
All I'm saying with this is that people tend to put pre-TS on a pedestal and slandering post-TS by comparing the two without acknowledging the fact that when most people got into One Piece, most of pre-TS was already done and that the tone and direction of post-TS is completely different from pre-TS. The brilliant Marineford arc? If you read that week-on-week you'd know that felt like a mess sometimes plotwise. I loved it of couse because of all the epic moments, but that's how it felt at the time. As a completed arc though? It's majestic.
Thanks for reading.
