One of the worst things about the timeskip has been Oda’s bizarre sense of priority when it comes to what to focus on. Supposedly important events like the RA vs the Blackbeard Pirates and later CP0 were so insignificant and vague Oda shouldn’t have bothered putting it in the series at all, while he devotes entire chapters to running, annoying characters, unfunny gags, etc. The biggest missed opportunity, for me at least, is how the world views the World Gov’t/Marines since Akainu became the Fleet Admiral, and of course Reverie, Oda offpaneling that in favor of Luffy stomping yet more fodders is unforgivable. Imagine if Oda had bothered to explore those things. Like what are the populace’s thoughts on the WG since the Absolute Justice zealot took over? Are they pro-Akainu, for taking a more aggressive stance in a world that is gaining more problems with pirates and the like? Anti-Akainu, if he and the Marines performed more horrific actions on par with what they did at Ohara? What do the Marines themselves think of their new boss? Besides the abolition of the Warlords, what else was discussed at Reverie? How do the ruling members of the world get along with each other, who are allies or enemies with who? Why didn’t we get to see Fujitora and Green Bull vs the RA onscreen, especially since it’d be a good way to showcase Green Bull’s powers and character? I don’t know, because Oda can’t be assed to focus on such trivial matters when he could show more O-tama the plot device convert more Beast Pirates to the SHs cause.
Speaking of which, even not counting Wano, there is so much fat and unnecessary events and characters that never needed to exist. Weevil, the final Warlord so lazy and disgusting a filler team wouldn’t touch him with a ten meter cattle prod. The Scabbards and Kanjuro getting cut down only to get back up a thousand times. Bringing such a pointless and little known background character like Izo to Wano. The reveal that Kaido has a daughter who is an Oden cosplayer and an Ace/Luffy fangirl. And it goes on and on. Sheer madness. Personally, I think at least in part some of this is due to the fact Oda wants to pretend so many exciting and well done battles and events are taking place, when in reality he focuses the bulk of what happens onscreen on this trash, as if he prefers a progress report over actual progress because he’s too lazy to show us what we actually want to see.
As for the plot, both in terms of individual Post TS arcs, and the overall timeskip…it is another strange beast. Oda gradually revealing more of the Void Century, the World Gov’t, etc has been interesting, it is nice to see how the OP world is reacting to the events that are helping to as Law put it “bring about the destruction of the gears,” and what little we got of Reverie and Akainu trying to deal with troublemakers like Fujitora was a real treat. But the same can’t be said of the arcs themselves. Compared to Pre TS arcs like Alabasta, Water 7, Enies Lobby, Marineford, and so on, the Post TS arcs fall flat on their face. As I mentioned earlier, Oda puts too much stuff into his arcs, that he can’t properly deliver on the majority of them.
Wano’s plot in particular was an absolute failure for me on every level. Perhaps it’s just me, and hopefully I’m wording it right, but the plot felt both at the same time non-existent and weak, yet also completely convoluted and ridiculous. Did anyone care about the Witching Hour Boy plot that went nowhere? What about Shutenmaru’s grudge towards Momo and the others, only to get resolved over what happened to Toothless? If not, then at least we have the asinine nonsense that was what set all of this drivel into motion: the Kozuki plot. So, this random Wano resident that was never brought up Pre TS (might have been worth mentioning him to Robin when you were talking about the Poneglyphs, huh Rayleigh?) is actually so loved people worship the ground he walks on, from garbage like Kinemon to beloved fan favorites like Roger and Whitebeard. He’s so super awesome and badass that Oda forgot to show why he’s so awesome and badass; I’ve seen planks with more personality and charisma than this Zenigata knockoff, yet despite it being his fault Wano wound up as Kaido and Orochi’s territory for over twenty years, everyone loves him regardless. But the coup de grace of it all was when Oden accepted Orochi’s “deal.” Why? Why are you trusting this man? Why do you think he’s going to live up to his end of the bargain? Why don’t you try and make contact with the several powerful pirates and characters that love you so much, or at least have the Scabbards try to undermine Orochi while you danced like an idiot in the streets? Nope. He deadass believed that Orochi was going to keep his promise, only to learn Orochi broke it anyway, and Kaido had no intention of leaving Wano. 4D chess player indeed. Also, why did Oda introduce time travel into this? Why? It would have been simpler and made more sense if Kaido took advantage of Whitebeard’s death chose to invade Wano during the timeskip and kill Oden then, but naaaaaaaaaah. Bonus points for not only having Toki possess all the personality of a block of Styrofoam, but for choosing to keep her daughter in the past to only survive through sheer dumb luck, instead of sending her with Momo and the others into the future. Probably because Oda needed a hot princess for his arc, I suppose.
She’s right up there with Big Meme and Judge for parent of the year. That or the people of the Void Century are so stupid that they make Luffy look like Crocodile.
But then came the recent revelation…the teeny tiny bit of information that casually turned the entire plot of OP into mozzarella powder. The Gomu isn’t actually the Gomu, it was Joy Boy’s DF, but the coup de grace…was that the Elders knew about it THE WHOLE TIME. THEY WERE AFRAID OF IT FOR CENTURIES AND WHEN A ROOKIE APPEARS WITH ITS ABILITIES THEY SIT ON THEIR ASSES AND ONLY TOOK IT SERIOUSLY IN THIS ARC. Which reminds me:
That’s pretty rich coming from you old farts after you fucking forgot about an empire ending DF. Oh and said G5 is pure nightmare fuel that almost makes me miss G4 Tankman’s design. The over the top cringeworthy Looney Tunes antics that come with it don’t do it or the tension/stakes any favors either. It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the writers from Disney are helping Oda write this garbage.
And as for the Void Century…I’m getting very concerned about it for several reasons. First, what the characters themselves will be like. If what is essentially Oda’s homage/love letter to the most iconic part of his country’s history is full of shitters like Momo and Oden, will the Void Century’s be even worse? Second, how well is it going to be written? One possible silver lining is that Oda has had far more time to work on this since it’s his endgame, but after Dressrosa, WCI, and Wano, I’m worried it’ll turn out to be more of the same. And thirdly, the Chosen One bullshit. Ever since it was revealed that Imu has a giant straw hat in the basement, red flags the size of the Eiffel Tower started kicking up for me. And then Oden’s execution happened, and Oda added more fuel to that growing dumpster fire, telling his people that a chosen one/reincarnation (can’t be assed to look up the exact words) would appear in two decades, the reveal with Luffy’s DF, etc. Oda’s handling of Luffy has been horrific even without us knowing about the prophecy, can you imagine how bad it’ll get once Oda goes full throttle into it?
Only other thing I can think of before going into the characters is the fights. Not counting Roof Piece, what was the last exceptional fight? Law vs Smoker? Law vs Vergo? Only other fights in this arc that I enjoyed were Jimbei vs Who’s Who, Zoro vs King, and Robin vs Black Maria. The rest of the Post TS fights ranged from average, to disappointing, to downright awful. Excluding Luffy vs Lucci for obvious reasons, I can remember several Pre TS fights that I enjoyed, and I haven’t reread Pre TS in years. Zoro vs Daz Bones, Zoro vs Mihawk, Sanji vs Gin, Luffy vs Magellan, Franky vs Fukuro, the SHs vs the Pacifista, Ace vs Blackbeard just to name a few. What does Post TS have? And speaking of Ace vs Blackbeard, there’s no doubt in my mind that if that event took place today, it would get the same treatment as the RA vs Blackbeard Pirates, or Admirals vs the Commanders. I am genuinely worried about how Oda is going to handle the fights Post Wano, like the SHs vs their Blackbeard Pirate counterparts, and it’s even more concerning when one remembers how Oda was all too happy with throwing one of Blackbeard’s crew (Burgess) to the wolves purely to glorify Ace 2.0.
Oh yeah, the other thing that brings down the fights and the story as a whole is the tension, which Oda masterfully handles with all the subtlety and grace of a drunk elephant on an ice rink. While not on par with other series, and even Pre TS Oda had some infamous fake out deaths, here he’s taken it to the next level. I can’t remember the last arc that had this many supposed deaths and unsurprising revivals. The Scabbards and Kanjuro have gotten back up how many times now? Why bother bringing up that “dark Sanji” drama if he’s going to gut it not long afterwards with the reveal Queen was responsible for it all? And it baffles me that even after everything Luffy has done, people continue to heavily underestimate him. Doflamingo? He said he wouldn’t, did it anyway. The Meme Team? Well not even Roger can escape from them. Kaido? Refuses to properly finish Luffy off or enrolls him in Queen’s fitness program. The Five Elders and CP0? Ah, they have no chance, Robin is in all likelihood in their custody already, and the 85th time is the charm, Luffy will be dead for sure now, mwahahaha! If I were Oda’s editor, I’d tell him to just stop it already, he clearly can’t write proper tension or drama anymore (or better yet, let someone else write this series). And thanks to these fakeout deaths, by the time we get (supposedly) actual deaths like Ashura and Izo, the impact is either lessened or entirely absent, and it’s all Oda’s own fault (doesn’t help those two were trash tier characters anyway).
Finally…we’ve arrived at the characters. It’s harder to say which ones escaped unscathed from Oda’s writing, the majority were destroyed with such surgical precision that not even the Ope Ope no Mi could replicate it. I will go from relatively intact, to fucking run over by the Mememobile. There are some characters that I’ve missed/left out, 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 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 (if it were only Laido and Meme in Xebec’s crew, fine, but throwing WB and the others in was too much), 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 to the extent as Meme…whether they’ll escape damage entirely thanks to Toon Luffy, idk. They already 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. Anyways, it’s always great 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 sewage 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, along with Oda making him way WAY too hax, and Luffy got the credit for Capone’s plan and had the worst cover arc to date. Regardless, they were some of the most enjoyable parts of the TS, and Law helped beat Big Meme, so 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.
The Revolutionaries – I only just remembered that these people even exist in the manga…which isn’t a good sign for them already. Maybe I’m in the minority, but even back then, I felt like these guys didn’t fit in the series, or at the very least, felt like a third wheel/were underdeveloped. Compared to the likes of the Warlords and other groups, they’ve barely made much of an impact on the story. They at best have Kuma, Koala, and maybe Dragon on a good day. Fuck the rest, especially Sabo and the so called great commanders, why Oda even made a literal cheerleader DF powered character like Betty is beyond me.
The Supernovas – main reason they’re above the RA is because I was actually looking forward to 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 Hawkins 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. Even if he did get some moments in the climax, Kid felt extremely lackluster and underused…oh well, at least he helped beat Meme. And as for Hawkins, he had a very good start putting in work in Act 1, but after he got jumped in the prison, he kept getting shat on, culminating in his asinine defeat by kind of forgetting that Kid lost his arm. Don’t think I’ve forgotten Drake, when it comes collecting Ls among the Supernovas, he’s in a league of his own. Got his cover blown, did nothing of note, and proceeded to lose over and over again. As for Killer, he didn’t have a great start, what with getting force fed a defective SMILE and losing to a handicapped Zoro, but at least he got more time to shine than his own captain did in the raid. Regardless, we should have gotten to see more of the Supernovas, their journeys in the New World, relationships and rivalries, interactions with one another…instead we got this. It’s so satisfying to see that after years of buildup, wondering what roles they could play in the New World, these incredibly interesting and creative pirates ended up as Luffy cheerleaders, or amounted to nothing. Fuck you, Oda.
The SHs – do I even need to go into serious detail? Apart from Brook in WCI, the SHs have all but ceased to exist. Wano in particular has been laughable so far, with Usopp being a particularly egregious case, to the point where he might as well have not been in the timeskip at all. What did they actually do that mattered? Only thing I can recall was Robin getting the info, Brook and Franky shitting on Meme, and a couple of decent fights in the raid. 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. Part of me wonders if Kizaru should have killed them at Sabaody, it would have been even more impactful, and some of them would have avoided the damage/humiliation Oda inflicted on them Post TS.
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 genuinely winced when she fell for him), to actually ripping off Robin’s CP9 plot (including her “I want to live” quote), and definitely his part in the Great Cake Chase. Oda cranking his pervert gag over 9000 hasn’t helped either, nor did him repeating his Kalifa moments when he got captured by Black Maria.
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 and the adventures of Chopper’s plot device, 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. And even worse, 100+ chapters into his arc, Kaido’s personality has been so underdeveloped and inconsistent. 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 charisma vacuum who was about as threatening as Elmer Fudd, and whose flashback was outshone by the likes of Buggy, Kuro, Wapol, and so many others.
The other antagonists – at this point, I 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 and his crew were disappointing enough, but then the Meme Team came along to give them some serious competition. Oda having them stay stuck at the bottom of a waterfall for over a hundred chapters was a complete writing catastrophe, possibly his worst failure as a writer, and that’s saying a lot. WHY did he bring them to Wano if he was going to humiliate them like this? Why why WHY? As for the Beast Pirates…I’d say they’re better, barely, and that’s only because we got some decent fights and performances from a few, like Who’s Who and a few of the Flying Six. King took some damage for his baffling inactivity during the Raid, and for getting humiliated by Marco, but he came back somewhat once Marco went down, and when he fought Zoro… plus, he will forever have over 9.6 billion points for annihilating the Meme Team. But no such luck for his peers; Jack continued to job, and Queen was a self sabotaging buffon that Dick Dastardly wouldn’t hire, I’m surprised Queen didn’t flat out offer Luffy to help beat Kaido’s crew. As for the SMILE users, after that impressive silhouette of Zoan users in Punk Hazard, I’m glad that Oda took a leaf out of Rian Johnson’s book and subverted our expectations by having them be a pack of useless monstrosities. We will never get any Pre TS level villains again.
The Nine Scrubbards – not including the Dukes for this one ofc, but I have to admit, even they’ve been damaged somewhat for me 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, but after how much time he and his team took away from the characters I wanted to see, on top of butchering Kaido’s hype, Kinemon can literally fuck off. I also actually forgot that their temporary member Izo was part of this arc. Oda skimming over their history and interactions with Oden hasn’t done them any favors in this regard. But the biggest issue for them imo lies 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.
The side characters – for real, fuck these characters, seriously, just fuck them. For every gem like Senor Pink, Vito, Gangster Gastino, etc, we get a truckload of useless rejects who either flood the earth with snot and tears, eat up screentime from characters we actually want to see, are insufferable annoyances, or a combo of them all. It’s hard to say who was the worst; the countless princesses needing rescue, Toki who alongside her time powers straight up should never have existed, or Momo and O-tama. Those two characters are fucking unthinkable. Momo spent the most time with the SHs out of an ally that I can think of off the top of my head, but not only failed to reach the levels of previous companions like Vivi, he got a completely undeserved power up that Oda had to reach into the deepest crevice of his rear end to pull out for him. Sorry Oda, but just because he’s stronger now isn’t going to make his character any better, nor will it erase the previous scenes where I wanted Kaido to put him out of our misery. His last minute attempt to praise him as “the greatest shogun ever” also fell flat. Just because you tell us something does not make it true. And O-tama…I was floored with what a lazy and overused plot device Oda had created. How convenient that the literal first Wano resident Luffy came across, was not only someone who had met Ace, not only had a DF that could control animals, and not only could control SMILE users, but even Big Meme randomly took time out of her day to help protect her. We can only hope Akainu, Blackbeard, and the other villains go to town on these shitters. Seeing them drown in a sea of lava, or decimated by laser showers, earthquakes, black holes, etc…it would be glorious.
Not to go too in depth, but imo these three final candidates are not only the worst characters of the timeskip, they represent almost everything that’s wrong with modern entertainment.
Oden – I thought he’d be an enjoyable flashback char, but instead, Oda managed to get me to dislike Oden before we even met. Truly an impressive feat. When we finally did meet him, he wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before from the other flashback chars (minus their positive qualities), and he 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). If Oden had at least acted like he was accepting Orochi’s deal, but at the same time was trying to get his vessels to sabotage Orochi’s plans, and/or try and get a message to their allies, we can at least say he tried to do something…unfortunately that was not the case. But to try and defend his beloved Oden’s moronic decision, 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, who pined for Oden decades after he did the universe a service and put the Hero of Wano out of our misery. 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. In some ways, he’s still the same character, but that’s also a major problem. Over a thousand chapters into the manga, Luffy hasn’t changed at all, which makes for an incredibly boring MC. And on the other hand, 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 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 off 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, no longer was his DF a random one that he had to work for in order to make it a good power up, even his hat most likely belonged to/was inspired by Joy Boy’s. And after his “awakening,” Luffy is now the literal second coming of (the undoubtedly shit tier) Joy Boy. Ironically, in Oda’s attempt to make Luffy the BesTEsT evAr, he only succeeded in taking away anything that made Luffy special. After all, in the words of Syndrome:
Big 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, Oda’s favorite punching bag, and the plot device of the SHs pet. I had gone into her arc with my expectations so low, hoping Oda had learned from his mistakes…only for him to nonchalantly desecrate her character and threatening presence with one chapter (the Brook rescue comedy). And then Wano came along, and Oda doused what was left of it with jet fuel, set it on fire, and then had a team of sumo wrestlers dance a conga line across her grave.
On that note, I think we need to address the elephant in the room. Big Meme’s grand list of accomplishments are failing to do anything worthwhile to Germa or the SHs, coming to Wano to get amnesia and become Luffy’s get out of jail free card, and then teamed up with Kaido only to get taken out by Law and Kid (but not before racking up more Ls ofc). Plus, there’s the cherry on top of her crew failing to get past a waterfall for over a hundred chapters. The only meaningful things I can think of is I guess being Lola’s mom, but it didn’t really amount to much, and the Caramel flashback where the WG got recruits from Caramel. So I have to ask…what was Meme’s purpose in this story? Why did Oda focus so much on her when he could and should have focused on more important and better characters than this lardball?
Because ultimately, Big Meme is everything that’s wrong with Post TS. An annoying character, legendary disappointment, and an incompetent antagonist that Dan Backslide would be embarrassed by, 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 was Oda thinking? Sanji may be the standout example of character assassination in OP, but Big Meme has to be the prime example of character desolation, and is one of if not the most horrifically handled character that I have seen in years. 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, a complete and utter fuckup, who everyone from a random Pteranodon to a blue nosed reindeer could humiliate. I hope you’re proud of your accomplishment Oda, turning a top 4 pirate into a laughingstock takes serious talent…or lack thereof, but I digress. At this point I just want Oda to go the distance and bring Big Meme back for Elbaf purely so she can get more Ls, it’ll be good for a laugh.
There are probably more flaws and issues with the characters and arc that I missed or didn’t cover (ex: the horrendous pacing, Orochi not realizing Hiyori was Oden’s daughter when she’s identical to Toki, characters constantly being teased in silhouettes when they don’t need to be, Oden’s dad was alive this whole time, etc), but I hopefully covered the biggest issues, because Wano’s writing is a death by a billion cuts. Were there any positives to this arc? Certainly. The chapters outside of Wano, for starters, even though a mediocre chapter would seem like a masterpiece compared to Wano. I enjoyed seeing the Marines interact with each other, Mihawk putting up with Perona was hilarious, Gecko Moria charging into Blackbeard’s turf was good, and even if I dislike the Rocks retcon, it was nice getting history about the OP world. Characters like Law and Jimbei were good, even if Law continues to be made too hax, they never fail to entertain, and it was satisfying to see Jimbei finally take his place in the crew. And recently we had Aramaki make his legendary debut. “Mere commanders.”
Apart from that…uh…well, Zoro had some cool moments. They lacked the impact/investment of past scenes like fighting Daz Bones and Kaku, taking Luffy’s pain in exchange for Kuma sparing him, but they were nice, I guess. A few of the fights like the Rooftop, Zoro vs King, Robin vs Black Maria, Jimbei vs WW were neat, as was Meme finally getting defeated by Law and Kid. Speaking of which, the memes we got at Big Meme, Laido, the Meme Team, and the Least Pirates expense were the stuff of legend. Oh, and the side characters were great…oh wait, no they weren’t. Well, Laido and Meme lived up to their reputation as terrifying pirates, especially Laido the “real nightmare” of the New World…oh wait, no they didn’t. Oda didn’t drag this arc like he normally has for Post TS arcs…oh wait, no he didn’t. Um…Oda put a lot of effort into the art? Maybe? Wow, seems the negatives hilariously outweigh the positives. Over a decade of buildup, along with delivering two of the other worst arcs in OP (Dressrosa and WCI), and this is the best Oda could do. Absolutely inexcusable.
