It surpassed my expectations personally. At the time, reading it weekly, most people understood that Oda wasn't going to show full blown fights between Doflamingo and Joz or Mihawk and Vista. At the time these men were way higher in tier than Luffy, so it made sense for Oda to hide these battles.
The biggest tease we got was Whitebeard Vs. Akainu, which was done extremely well for the 4-5 pages we got of it. Whitebeard was able to show everything he had, even as a dying man. Akainu clearly has more to show, but I was genuinely surprised Oda let Whitebeard trash a likely future villain after introducing him 20 chapters before.
Now, as for "power scaling"? I honestly think its entirely fine. You see Vista facing Mihawk nicely. If Marco/Joz weren't distracted, they likely wouldn't have been "beaten" by the Admirals as quickly. I think the power level has been relatively similar if you think about it. Perhaps Katakuri, like Marco, could stand up to Kizaru for a time before being beaten, if we assume all top Yonko Commanders are of similar strength (which they probably aren't). I think the biggest argument FOR Whitebeard is he had 16 division commanders, unlike the 4 Sweet Commanders or the 3 Calamities. Blackbeard has 10 titanic captains. We don't truly know the power scaling for each character yet.
As for the Marines, I think it was played out just fine. Vice Admirals were owning Luffy at the time, New World captains were fighting Vice Admirals properly, Whitebeard adequately was able to hit Akainu twice by sacrificing half his face..... It entirely worked for me.
Now I know what most people are going to complain about here, and that is panel time and offscreening. I have a firm belief that Oda offpanels higher tier characters with the effort to eventually show them off in the future. Now, higher tier characters like Aokiji/Kizaru owning the small fry? Different. They aren't trying. But the:
- Summit War
- Payback War
- Akainu v. Aokiji
- Sabo v. Fujitora
- Sabo v. Fujitora/Ryokugyu
- Kaido v. Big Mom
fights were mostly offscreened to prevent people from seeing the max potential of these characters too soon. Ace vs. Blackbeard happened because:
1. Ace was destined to die. His growth stops there.
2. Blackbeard becomes a monster beyond his Darkness powers.
NOW, if Wano's War pulls the same stunt instead of showing off the full might of:
- Kaido and his forces
- Big Mom and her forces
- Whomever Nekomamushi recruits (Former Whitebeard Pirates/Former Roger Pirates?)
- The Strawhat Crew and Supernovas.
THEN we have a right to be disappointed. But, I think this will be a very full and complete war when compared to Marineford.
Tl;dr: Marineford was perfect for what it was. A taste of what is to come and still is to come. Wano's War is about closing a huge chapter in the manga, hence why it needs to show off the full might of every character taking part in it.
