Honestly, I want to be around here more often, but since this forum is heavily centered around discussing One Piece and basically the firsthand source of (confirmed) spoilers for most big one piece communities it's hard to stay out of the weekly drama around the story. I honestly enjoy being out of the loop of waiting for the new chapters each week now as it allows me to do other things now and be more relaxed while doing them and in general. I'll probably drop in from time to time though to see if One Piece is worth picking up again, hoping that for some unknown reason the quality has miraculously improved. lol.
I really was/am just burned out from the constant drama and (empty) hypetrains build around OP, but working on my own story has helped me to elevate that draining feeling a little. Writing my own stuff is like having a grip on something I enjoy again versus helplessly watching how a story I loved for 20 years is getting destroyed on its last meters more and more each week. Also spending some time doing other things and turn my brain off for a couple of hours per week was good. I wasn't expecting anything or anyone to really notice I was gone (so don't worry!), but if you want to chat dm me any time! I am always happy to chat with you! :)
I totally agree with you here, especially the Zoro-Ryuma-plotline being totally dropped. This plotline was the whole reason I looked forward to Wano so badly for years and endured all the other terrible post ts arcs beforehand. But nothing... Zero. Just dropped in the middle of the arc. Even Zoros fight against King lacked pretty much any emotion, despite the many throwbacks to Zoros past, some new elements with the old man and the questionable enma power up. (I'd have rather seen Zoro keep Shusuui or earn it back and for Zoro to turn Wado black than this magic Enma nonsense.)
I was also annoyed by
- the over the top Gary Stu Oden wanking
- the huge drama and waste of panel space with Yamato only for her not to join
- the whole raid highlighting mostly boring stuff (while the real highlights and potentially interesting fights were offscreened)
- the constant fake out deaths (especially the scabbards) during the raid + how nobody cared about the real deaths afterward
- the handling of the Yonkous (especially Kaidos messed up past/flashback and Big Mom being Big Meme for the whole arc)
- the huge drama around Sanji (again! - after this being an extensive topic in Zou, WCI and now Wano)
- zero emotions and tension from the moment Luffy turned Gear 5th until the end of the arc
- the unnecessary influence of the film red that was shoved into the story (pacing, plotlines, shanks appearance, the Uta panel, etc.).
- the stupid drama about the bounties
- the wano bath scenes (both were extremely questionable! :/)
- Green Bull
- Hiyori and the portrayal of Wanos people in general (with the million mini flashbacks of the same 3 side characters and but not building any impact for the big players or the arc in general)
- all the plotlines á la "I am going to do X in Wano/in the future" that turned into "I changed my mind last minute offpanel and did not do this thing in Wano/in the future." (e.g. Zoro taking revenge for Yasui on Orochi and killing Kaido, Zunesha aiding Joyboy, Momo opening Wanos borders, Shanks appearing on the shore of Wano, Greenbulls agenda, Luffy defeating Big Mom, etc.)
- all the hundreds of plotlines that were started/hinted at and went nowhere
... and ...
**Massive rant mode on**
... ultimately the literal end with Luffy being a total ass - as he has been the whole arc:
After watching Drizzt video I remembered again how I felt so dissappointed after WCI about what he have seen Luffy actually do (barely win against 2 commanders thanks to a ton of luck and namis support in the cracker fight) versus him being hyped up to a Yonkou due to Morgans misinformation about what has been (not) going on. Even Luffy fans already hyped Luffy up to be a Yonkou at this point as well - despite better knowledge (from reading the actual events in the manga). Even Luffy himself did this to himself. There really was a extremely huge cognitive dissonance going on at the end of WCI (both in inverse as well as in the fanbase) between what Luffy achieved in WCI and what he was hyped up to be after WCI. (Also how the difference was between how Luffy and Sanji were portrayed in WCI versus what their actions actually said about them. Drizzt really pointed that out well in his WCI video.)
And in Wano this dissonance became even worse:
Luffy went into wano and the first Kaido fight cocky as hell as if he had taken down Big Mom and her crew by himself last arc (when in fact he was actually chased out of her lands by her or would have died otherwise). Therefore I was glad, when Kaido gave Luffy an instant reality check. But like all the other tragedies before (e.g. Ace death) Luffy stays the same cocky bastard without a shred of humbleness afterwards. Infact he becomes even more selfish and insufferable after each of these events. (Not to mention the people seeing the Pirate Jesus, Roger, Ryuma and Joyboy and probably many other famous and godlike people of the past in him - including his fans.) Luffy even downright bullied the hell out of Momo the whole time they have known each other (as it was highlighted again in the last chapter and sold to the audience as "tough love"). And if Momo (the shogun of Wano!) would have never lowered himself to run after Luffy in the last chapter of wano - to Luffy, who left without saying goodbye on purpose - Luffy could have never "graciously" handed over his flag to Momo and call him a bitch one last time. It just wouldn't have happened and it just makes Luffy look so bad. He is not humble at all. He acts like he is now the most important person that people have to go to and ask for his grandiosity. Luffy also rides on his Yonkou status to an annoying extent for someone who is "always humble about his achievements" (e.g. when he had a fight with Kid over the bounties and said something along the lines of "... but I am a yonkou and you are not.") Just like Luffy pretends to be "humble" by not "being mentioned as the saviour of wano" or acting "humble" at the prison or surprised about his bounty or whatsoever. Let's face it! Luffy clearly enjoys all the attention he gets and what he does about it is nothing but humble bragging and to pretend to be a better person than he really is despite his cocky, selfish asshole behaviour all the time, which again is typical for not only selfish but downright narcisstic people.
Then there was the Gear 5 Retcon Nika Fruit bullshit.
First of all: Luffy, as we knew him from the time pre ts era, was dead the moment that fruit identity was revealed. There were so many things recontextualized with this reveal, that it destroyed the whole essence of all we believed Luffy and his journey were all about.
Second: I purposefully checked the one piece break notes about wano a few days ago, that were released during the one month break to get a clear picture about the fruit as it is now, but even those notes are completely inconsistent about what this awakened fruit is now capable off or not. In those notes it says: the user of the nika fruit can use the power of rubber but also has the power of imagination to do everything he wants (when in fact it looks like Luffy can just cartoonify what is available around him not create stuff out of thin air...so...?!) . Beside that there were only some nebulous quotes we all read in the story and a lot of fluff, that actually explained nothing at all. So it stays unclear what the fruit really does, how much influence it has on Luffy, why the hell Shanks went after it, why Who is Who was put in prison for loosing it, who Nika really was and when he lived and most of all: Why the hell was the WG so damn incompetent, when it had all the details about the fruit and its past for the whole time?!
Third: The whole demeanor when Luffy is in the Gear 5 form reminds me of someone who potentially escaped from a mental hospital not a an enlightened person. So I don't get how this form is supposed to be "The peak of luffys abilities.", when it is only the peak of his selfishness ... The peak of Luffy being a bully (again!) á la "Are you having fun, Kaido?!" with creepy staring eyes and the whole disrespectful fight that came after that. There was no fun in watching that at all, because the goofiness took the last bit of respect, honor and tension this arc had left and flushed it down the drain. Also: If you are in a truely enlightened state there is no interest in bullying people or laughing manically. (Or a way to get magically revived.) It's a peaceful flow state, where harming other is the last of all thoughts one has. Vagabond illustrates that really well with the elders and later Musashi, too. What Luffy considers his peak is the complete opposite of enlightment or peak ability states. And I am sorry for putting it this blant, but the people praising this "genius power up" and its "godlike status" really look uneducated at best and stupid at worst. Not to mention the "PEaK FiCTioN" claims, that have become a meme for good reasons. The absolute mental dissociation about it and how some people in the fan base passionately defending Luffy like he is some actual modern god at this point and not a fictional character is both sickening and frightening. I actually got some responses to luffy criticism á la "You can criticize Luffy! He is one of the top 3 most loved shonen heroes.". I mean... really?!
*takes a deep breath*
*breathes out again*
And my very last point of criticism is actually about Oda himself:
I was honestly downright shocked when I glimpsed over the recent interviews and letters to the audience yesterday (e.g. with Aoyama, the letters to his audience and other sources) where Oda openly admitted ...
- how he rushes the story now and cuts a lot of stuff out to rush to the end now after being so massively invested and caring about his story in the past
- how he thinks female readers only read his story because of the good looking men in it (uhm no...?!)
- how he invented the Germa to get his own daughters interested into his story again for some reason (I mean, look at how your females are portrayed in the whole story and you may get an idea, why your daughters dont have an interest in your story, Oda?!),
- how he draws stuff to please his own interest although it massively impacts his story ... his life work of 25 years for the worse (e.g. Gear 5. I am not even complaining here, that he doesn't care what his audience thinks anymore. That on it's own is sad enough. But destroying his own magnum opus just like that "For the fun of it." is ...brutal.)
- how he spits his readers in the face with all the empty hype vehicles, unanswered mysteries and cut short plotlines
- how he constantly gets back to the point of being rivals with other mangaka (in the recent Aoyama interview) and beats this point to death + a lot of humble bragging about how he works ofc ("Oh I guess I made my life harder doing this or that than I should, ahahah!")
- how he admits he micromanages everything related to this manga (even the poster for the films and stuff - which imo makes him sound horrible to work with considering the messy state the manga is in - to which he should pay attention first and foremost while letting other people do their respective job , which they get paid for as the professionals they are).
- how he casually admitted he married his wife because she is like Nami in a recent interview. (It sure is "great to know" you are being married for being like some fictional character, who is just seen as a weak and heavily sexualized poster girl, lol.)
If you add all this to this to how voice actors said in the past how Oda is like Luffy in real life and how Oda said about Luffy once that he is "his ideal child"... And if you look how Luffy behaves versus how he is perceived in the manga in recent years, I feel like there is a huge dissonance going on there, too. The same goes for about how Oda and his work are perceived as well. Of course many things are said and done for the marketing and the money. Now more than ever. But I thought Oda had at least his values sorted out well. Recently that seems not to be true at all - reflecting in both his work and his comments. And it also annoys me how the post ts story tries very hard to portray the "good" characters in a light, that actually isn't in line with what they actually do in the story and pretend to be. I guess, the same happens in public now, too, and Oda is too tired to keep up his "passionate hardworking mangaka who loves his audience" image at this point.
In other words, never get to know your role models. You'll be dissapointed.
Lesson learned.
Phew...!
**Massive rant mode off**
**gets some fresh air**
**comes back**
Yeah I noticed that in the WCI video and for the most part I agree with about ~93% of his points.. Let's see with the wano one... I can imagine he has a lot of beef to unpack one last time as catastrophic as this arc has been. He hinted at it many times in the WCI video already, when he referred to the Wano video a few times. I also assume he announced it specifically as his last video, because like many here, he is so f*cking done with the story and how blatant it has become, that he quitts it after Wano as well. I mean it downride punches its readers in the face and punishes them for expectations the author himself raised constantly with obvious hints and empty hypes. (e.g. Ryuma *cough* *cough*) So for the Wano video I expect it to be both a very critical analysis of Wano as well as an overall, final summary of how hollow and unashamed the storytelling has become and potentially the reasons that lead Drizzt to drop the series. I would estimate it takes a good 3-4 hours again. Speaking of it... I need to put wine, chips and popcorn on my grovery list for the best viewing experience. xD
