Questions: 1. Does my interpretation accurately describe what makes you feel stakes? 2. If not, what do you think makes you feel stakes? Is it a factor I failed to consider? 3. How much does this affect your enjoyment of Wano, if at all? This video has been cooking in my head for almost a year, and I've worked very hard over the last few weeks to get it made. If you think it's interesting, I'd appreciate sharing it around to anyone else who might find value in it. I know it's overall critical of Wano, but I think within that comes a lot of praise of how well One Piece usually works, and I'm hoping that message can spread around the community, at least a little.
What you didnt mention in the case of luffy getting oneshot by kaido for the first time, I felt no stakes for this scene not really! sure kaido showed off and that was impressive, but neither the crew or luffy took this loss seriously at all, the tone was so nonchalent and still happy, compare this to crocodile vs luffy.
I think that your analysis of the stakes is great, and it’s really clearly articulated. Personally, the stakes in Wano didn’t really affect my experience of the arc since it still has, in my opinion, the best character writing for the Strawhats out of any arc. It’s a problem, but the good parts of Wano really outshine the bad.
Hey, I just wanted to say this was a really informative video on part of what is required of story-telling in general. Good job. Would you ever consider doing videos on narrative story-telling in general?
Wano was a BAD arc. Period. Fans believe it was ONLY roof piece 😂😂 It was a 4,5 years arc that ended in a weird way and it s still unfinished. Oda failed 💯. And the funny part is that he needs BreAkS 😂
I think the biggest missed stake you didn't mention, and the one that, in my opinion, a lot of the bad things that happened in this arc is pinned on, was Zoro getting mink medicine and just coming back to the fight with no problem. Think about it, Zoro, effectively for the first time, went with luffy to fight against the BBEG of the arc, and got every bone in his body broken. He was helpful and important, but he basically exhausted himself completely. How are we going to deal with it? Without zoro in the fight, there is no one to fight queen. Oda threw the original order of things out of the window. Number two challenged BBEG and got trounced. Will sanji need to fight king? who will fight queen then? so many questions arise from that decision by oda to move zoro to the roof, so many opportunities to do something interesting and weird and new, away with the formula, similarly to thriller bark. And when presented with the question of what to do next? He decided to remove all stakes, ignore what he already established and deus ex machina zoro's ass back into the well used formula. Which is a shame. Personally, I would have reshuflled so many of the fights in wano. So many of them are either irrelevant, or make no god damn sense as match ups. Anyway, I am new to this channel and this is the only video i have seen so far, but I see that you mainly focus on paneling. I am of the opinion that Oda breaking down all of the fights in wano to tiny bits that he peppers throughout the arc, and only after many chapters coming back to finish each fight creates a bad layout. He is essentially relegating the majority of the fight to the offscreen area of us imagining how it went based on the small panels and bits we saw previously, and then coming back just to show us the final chapter of the fight, and sometimes only the last page or two of the fight. i am not entirely sure if this is your expertise, but do you think that oda should have focused the fights more instead of spreading them out?
Well yeah of course Wano didn't have any steaks. We were in a place that represented edo period Japan. Thus the food was mostly focused on traditional Japanese cuisine rather than steaks.
A guy walks into a bar, and sees a bunch of pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling. He asks the bartender what's the deal with those. The bartender says, they have a promotional challenge going on: You get one try to jump high enough and slap one of the pieces of beef with your palm. If you hit it, you get free drinks for the night. But if you miss, you have to buy everyone in the bar around on you. The bartender asks the guy if he wants to give it a shot. The guy looks up at the pieces of meat, thinks about it, and says: Nah, the steaks are too high.
Because of the Kinemon fakeout, I didn't even Blink when Ausra and Izo died. I just thought to myself "Another fakeout, goddamit Oda" and just moved on. Only when I saw their literal Tombstone did I realise they actually died and all I could say was "Oh" but by that point it was meaningless cause Oda rushed off the island to end the arc and now those deaths feel like pandering; like he heard soneone say "They are fighting Kaido and not a SINGLE person from the Good guys side died?" and just killed 2 randos to prove them wrong. There's nothing that breaks continuity, character, world building about their deaths but I simply didn't care cause I Never believed they even died.
Kinemon should have died after all the damage he took and the fact that he was in a Critical state, Asura and izo death are some of the worst in wano because both characters were never that important even in their samurai group,Oda killed them just because
@sakura5sango6 true but I never for a second went "Oh this could be fake" cause of all the story and emotional setup and payoff when I read it (Yasue and Pedro's death) Sure if I sat and thought for 10 min it might be a thought in the back of my mind but it wasn't instant. I wasn't expecting the Kinemon one to be a fakeout because of the emotional work at the scene but because of that I just didn't believe any other death afterwards for the rest of the Arc. On a similar case, I'm slightly annoyed (3/10) at the Vegapunk's fakeout deaths BUT it was somewhat setup in the Arc with the themes and story points of "What does death even mean to someone like Vegapunk?"
Wano had a pretty complex, interwoven structure that makes it so "fixing" one issue would narratively break the arc in two. I'm not Oda so I'm simply unable to tackle these problems, cause that would mean making a new, slightly different Wano, which a normal person like me would fail tremendously at.
I agree. There isn’t one thing wrong with Wano, there are a lot of interlaced problems that combine to drag the arc down. People have said it’s Oda at his worst and Oda at his best, I’m inclined to agree. All of these issues have existed before and just reached a critical mass in Wano because, IMO, he was trying to do too many things at once. You can’t just point to one thing and say it’s a silver bullet. With regards to conversations about stakes and losses, I think it’s noteworthy that some of Luffy’s setbacks primarily existed to serve the character arcs of Yamato and Momo while ALSO buying time for the rest of the arc to wrap-up
I actually don't really agree. A lot of wano's problems aren't about wano, but about onigashima. The first two parts of wano were pretty good all things considered, and most issues appeared later on during the raid. I think shifting the structure of the raid, and switching some of the fights would go a long way towards fixing the arc, alongside letting the characters more room to breath and evolve. Oda clearly had a few themes he wanted to explore and things he wanted to happen, and I think it is mostly lack of foresight and him being too used to certain story structures that damaged the arc so badly.
I think an important thing to consider is "how?". Everyone knows Luffy's gonna beat Kaido. Everyone knows Zoro's gonna beat up King and Sanji's gonna beat up Queen, and for that matter that Luffy is gonna beat up Crocodile eventually. I think what makes stakes in a story like this is when you don't know how they're gonna do it. Compare the bomb in Alabasta to Onigashima. When you hear about the bomb, nobody even knows where it could be, and then once they figure it out nobody knows how they could get up there with how injured they are, and then nobody knows how they're gonna shut off the bomb so fast, and so on. With the island you know practically immediately that Momo's gonna overpower Kaido's clouds and carry it. I think this is a lot of what effective failure brings to the table, the question of "so if Luffy lost last time what can he possibly do here?"
@@benarabnazim672 What mattered is that the sacrifice felt real. And its important that we only knew he was alive only at the very end of the arc. Or Pound. Or Saul. Kinemon's sacrifice felt like a joke because he was shown to survive even though the fight is still on.
Also supporting this point is the fact that they had an insanely in depth plan of attack going into this conflict, and rather than something different happening or the alliance having to improvise... it kind of just worked 100 percent in the exact way we were told it would. The plan going wrong and what results is what is supposed to be entertaining (plot wise, anyway). Any plot intrigue in any kind of media is based on wondering, "where is this going to go?" Here, it just kind of happens exactly as described but excruciatingly slowly over two years of time.
8:00 just to clarify something the reason behind luffy defeat was not only because he was weaker but in the same page is was stated by kaido that he get workup . in another word kaido is always holding back and you can see that in the way he likes to tank all coming attacks even tho he has future sight. when kaido saw luffy great progras he thought that he can finally go all out but luffy was defeated instantly .
Except we have seen Kaido started dodging Luffy's attacks even before he developed ACoC. The reason fight was more even was because Luffy grew accustomed to using CoC
Yeah, if your suggestion happened, it would've been ANOTHER parallel to Thriller Bark. That arc was littered with Wano foreshadowing, so taking one of the best scenes and giving it a callback would've been awesome. Seriously, they fought a Red Oni, now they would be facing a Blue Oni. The Strawhats would've been using all sorts of combination attacks which would've felt so impactful since this is the first arc they all finally been reuinted so we can see the Strawhats at full force Post Timeskip.
I was looking forward to the Strawhats teaming up against Kaido so much, I was so disappointed when it never happened. Zoro and Sanji didn't even get to go dinosaur hunting in a 2v2 with King and Queen.
@BobtheX dude would be so cool if we got a 2v2 of zoro sanji vs king queen to their first competitive fight in little garden but this time they team up
Capturing Robin after beating Luffy would’ve been a great consequence because she’s the key to achieving One Piece but Kaido’s longing for a strong opponent who can go toe to toe with him was his desire all along. It was NEVER the One Piece to begin with. Getting the One Piece was more of a thing that he would like to get because why not? At the end of the day, his goal was always been to fight. He’s different from other villains because he’s already the strongest. He wanted the challenge so he kept fighting people. And he enjoys it.
I think the problem with Robin being captured is just that the readers at large are probably not interested in an Enies Lobby rehash. The grass might seem greener on that side from our perspective, but it really would feel repetitive, and like it's defining Robin too much by getting captured rather than her own agency. Still, I do see how it could have benefited the arc.
@@Werb I'm not saying that she should get captured in the arc but Kaido making an effort to actually capture Robin would be a better response. Getting another Enies Lobby situation is a little bit too much. But Kaido didn't do any of that, because again, his interest on the One Piece treasure was secondary compared to getting a legendary fight and a legendary death. I do agree that Luffy's jump in power was a bit too much when he came back in the rooftop, but I'm just glad that even after all of that, Kaido was still matching him. Even when Luffy Awakened, the dude was continuously adapting.
I think other arcs "with stakes" made you really invested in the antagonist; typically by making you both fear them and love to hate them. Enel, Crocodile, Lucci, Doffy, etc. Wano had two primary antagonists: Orochi and Kaido. Orochi was despicable, but couldn't be taken seriously. Kaido was a real threat, but he didn't have enough characterization for the audience to enjoy hating him. That is what made "the stakes" feel lesser to me.
OHHH, I see your point. I have to agree, I don't think Kaido is a bad character, BUT.... as an enemy, I still kept feeling like he was sooo "meh" to me... I-I literally didn't care, even when this guy has done COUNTLESS HORRIBLE THINGS... I don't know if that had to be with his relationship with Luffy or with what you say: Oda not giving him more than a little flashback and, as Werb says, a flexible (for the plot) plan either. Could be a bit of everything, really. But, no matter how many people says they think this is one of the best fights... I'm not denying it isn't, but it just didn't *feel* like that too me. Which is kinda sad because this was the fight where Luffy's DV got awaken, it's such an important moment that changes literally everything we knew so far :(
huh? this doesn't make any sense. Kaido is one of the deepest and most complex antagonists in fiction. where did the "didn't have enough characterization" came from ? it is such a bizzare take lmao. and Kaido shouldn't be hated at all. He is literally luffy in the mirror. he is luffy's friend and luffy saved him. why would you hate him ?
Great video. Two thoughts about some points you made throughout. Luffy being late to the roof, as a result of Yamato forcing Luffy aside at the worst time, and Luffy being unable to team up with and protect his friends, particularly Kin'emon and Kiku, who he bonded with a lot, hit very hard for me. It was a team up I was greatly looking forward to, and seeing Luffy apologize for being late was a big emotional moment for me. With Luffy as the heavy hitter for the Scabbards, I think him and all of them could have defeated Kaido. Them being unable to team up is the consequence there for me. And Luffy later challenging Kaido alone, after the Supernovas leave, and being thrown off Onigashima, leading Momo to have to give up most of his childhood, was a big consequence that Luffy was once again, unable to prevent.
Also think it's worth considering that Kaido already succeeded in taking over Wano, where Crocodile had not yet fully taken over Alabasta, when the Straw Hats arrived at both places.
I think a deeper issue is that Kaido himself is kind of underdeveloped. This is why soo many people cried out for a backstory and flashback. As is we got much more on Oden than we ever go for Kaido, making people using headcanon for his motivations. I think that there was interesting stuff hinted at like his knowledge of Joyboy and him being suicidal(?) but without the conecting tissue we are left with a big angry strong guy. Comparing him to a character like Arolong they have a lot in common but Arlong is much more cloesly conected to the arc that he is in and as a integral part of Namin´s character and backstory. He is the embodyment of all her woes and is someone that needs to be defeated for her to grow as a person and rise above her horrific past, saving her village in the process. Wano is underdeveloped to, we are almost asked to care about people that the story itself refuses to characterize. Dropping Onigashima just feeels like a new time bomb but without anyone important being there we are just supposed to care but do we really? It would be horrific but not very emotional at all. It also feels pointless as the bad guys plan, like, why is that the approach? What could Kaido possibly gain from killing his own enslaved subjects? Is he just stupid and evil? Thats boring. Crockodile hade a larger plan with his bomb and we cared for the people fighting and the consequences of that fight. This arc is undercooked.
Frankly, I think Kaido _is_ stupid. His thought process has a lot of "leaps in logic". The thought that he could become JoyBoy just by dying and the only reason he sought to do that was because JoyBoy was connected to the One Piece. By that rationale, everyone who has actually died in the series would be JoyBoy. There isn't really anything that would logically give him the the idea that he could just come back to life as this historic person from nearly a millennium ago. He doesn't even live up to the literal name, we rarely see him being joyful. He's just a grumpy brute.
Kaido as a villain is truly mediocre due to it's lack of character development and interesting personality,dude is willing to put his own Daughter in Prison but never shows another side of him. We Also Saw that kaido isn't really invincible so why did he want to die if other people in the One piece universe can be worthy opponents to him?
Sadly this is the truth, Kaido was sacrificed because Oda deemed it too early to reveal certain details. I assume the Rocks flashback will inadvertently answer a lot of questions with Kaido.
@@isidorodaviddoro1920 I have the feeling people like you didn’t really read the manga. It was explained why Kaido wants to die. The comment above didn’t understand it either but it was literally stated in the manga that he wants to die a glorious death because he thinks that death completes a person. And it is true in the One Piece story. It literally is stated in his introduction and later that he is envy about how whitebeard, oden and roger died. And again Kaido didn’t want to drop Onigashima. He wanted to place it on the capital city. This is also literally explained in the manga when Yamato says that it will only be really devastating if Luffy wins, because then Onigashima will drop and explode. So it was a gamble that even momonosuke mentions a lot and first he even says that they should stop Luffy. Kaido expected everyone in the capital to run away. It wouldn’t even make sense for him to drop Onigashima, because he really likes this place. Then again he didn’t even cage his daughter for nothing. He wanted to make her though and make her realize the weight of her words when she says that she is a samurai, because samurai have to endure and he hates the new samurai, because they aren’t like Oden. He even wanted to make Yamato shogun. I have the feeling Wano was so long people will just remember some key parts, but Kaidos character is showing through dialogue more than any other character in One Piece
I think you did a really excellent job here capturing this problem that a ton of people have had and that a ton of other people have misrepresented in my opinion. Back when this discussion was going on, most counters would have people listing out plot elements that happened. Like, "these are several trials that were overcame, therefore, there are stakes." Problem is it does not come down to plot detail. I can be told that Luffy was KOed off screen or witness a fight between Nami and Ulti, but if those events aren't succeeding in making me feel invested in the conflict, that is how they can lack "stakes" to me personally. Sure it's true that Luffy is beaten down multiple times here, but how does the story treat these temporary defeats? You can definitely argue that it's barely even acknowledged in the story as something that holds weight. The problem is immediately solved by Yamato picking up the slack, but more importantly I'd argue, characters are shown still being 100 percent confident. There's no instilled sense of doubt as a result of this event, or a heightened sense of danger, it just happens for the sake of... extending the conflict I guess? And that opens up an entirely different problem here that I'll touch on at the expensive of going on way too much lol. You asked if there were something not touched on here that makes me feel stakes. I'll answer that here, because I think it is another one of the huge issues holding this arc back. Quite simply, I think that it is easier to find yourself invested in the plight of characters when you are actually allowed time to spend with those characters. Maybe it sounds weird, I mean, it's the longest arc in the story, how was there no time spent with these characters? But the problem is, there are such an insane amount of characters here that the cast feels as wide as an ocean but as deep as puddle. I know the excess of characters is a huge complaint in post time skip One Piece in general, but in Wano, it feels like an entirely new level. So many characters exist and have to be shown doing what I would honestly consider is nothing but "existing" for often times single panels at a time with chapters between there last and next appearances. They are all competing for space so much that it wasn't unlikely to see a chapter during the raid have a particular set of character barely even finish a dialogue exchange by the end because of everything going on around them. This means essentially nobody can have sufficient focus, like, it's both the slowest possible pacing and also every character interaction is as rushed as possible. To better explain why this is a problem relevant to the issue at hand: say we trim down the cast, maybe have Kinemon represent the entirety of the Scabbards and hold the weight of all of their plights, lose the pointless numbers villains, take away basically all alliance fighters beyond Law, Luffy, and Kid's crews (Obviously this is hypothetical, I don't mean for this to be perfect). Suddenly, there is more time for characters to actually be characters. Now, because we have taken the time to choose who to focus on, we have more time to watch characters interact as individuals. Where the Straw Hats conflicts here were largely a drop in the bucket compared to the full run time, we can slow it down a bit to focus on character moments rather than speed past that aspect and get to the next plot point. This builds engagement to me. Not to mention, this doesn't "slow the story down" in the literal since of making it last more chapters, it slows down in terms of allowing it become character focused rather than plot focused. We're not gasping for air trying to fly to the next instance of the plot creaking forward, we have time to breath and live with these characters and their personal experiences, getting a better understand of what it means to them and how it effects them. And heck, trimming the fat would also allow for this focus to be given to characters that a number of people were underwhelmed with in the arc, rather than it being wasted on 1000 characters that have no depth. A lot of people think that Eustass Kidd is essentially a waste of space, and the reason for this is he is set up as a "rival" to Luffy that is outclassed in every way. Devote more time for him and his plight and this could have potentially been alleviated. But not just him. Stick to just these groups of characters would have given way to develop their individual crew members as well, which as they stand, (save Killer) are some of the most anemic and useless characters in the entire conflict. I mean heck, we've been with Law for years, wouldn't it be interesting to see what his crew actually is and what it's capable of instead of see them... almost fail to perform basic CPR on Luffy and that be their only purpose the entire time. Dynamics could be built, comparisons could be made between the crews, and ideals of those particular crews could be shown, all serving to make these people's conflicts as individuals more convincing/realistic and make them more satisfying to witness to boot. I could go on with more examples, but the point is this: with more time for character focus, when we eventually see a point of failure and how those characters respond to it, it would be more impactful than when they are basically just being repositioned every several chapters to move the plot the next place. As it stands, not only is there a lack of individual character focus, but we don't even get much of a meaningful response to the tides of the battle changing to begin with.
SPOILER WARNING: if everyone could survive the goresai and the world goverments most devastating buster call yet, then at this point we all making it to laugh tale
Oda is so averted to killing characters I'm full-time expecting Stella to just pop in front of Dragon any second now. Like, how tf are the other satellite still alive ???? It made more sense for Lilith's comment to mean that all of their memories and consciousness still existed somewhere in Punk Record so her and York could still access them, but no they just straight up lived ....... I have zero hopes of there ever being stakes in One Piece
The truth is egghead didn’t have stakes either. There were 5 Gorosei and yet the strawhats didn’t suffer any losses. No one was captured and Vegapunk still said his entire speech. It’s the final saga where the strawhats are supposed to be tested the most, not have cake walks every arc. There was a time where yes they had plot armor but the situations felt more tense and made you really think “how are they supposed to get out of here?” I felt that way when Katakuri was beating Luffy to death, and outdoing him in every way possible. To make matters worse Big Mom was on the strawhats tail and Luffy wasn’t there to protect them. That’s how you establish tension and stakes. What frustrates me most about Oda, is that he can write if he wants to. But he refuses to do so. Egghead is just the most recent example but you also see it in wano, a lot. I doubt Oda will ever write an arc as good as Whole Cake ever again.
I think it's because you're not looking at it the way Oda is. There are tons of stakes in these arcs but they're more about character growth than clear obstacles. Also we've reached the point where the villain being the system more than the individuals isn't just inbetween the lines anymore.
what a sick video. Really refreshing to hear such a thought out and well presented set of arguments. Subscribed no question. Also the umineko soundtrack was a very welcome surprise lol, can probably pick so many OSTs from it for section like that. I fully agree with all the things you said, can't wait to see more!
For me, that’s the point where Wano feels so victorious and "without stakes." After their biggest failure in the Paramount War Saga, the Straw Hats regrouped and made a promise to never let something like that happen again. They started their new journey with the goal of proving that Luffy is the king, and that they are the crew of the king. The whole journey from Fishman Island to Wano was a path to a place where Luffy could prove that he's the king of this generation. In Wano, everyone is sure that Luffy is the man who will become king of the pirates, so they keep believing in him. The feeling of the arc is triumphant, the biggest triumph paralleling Luffy's biggest failure in Marineford. I think it's the best thematic choice. I also find it cool how Oda uses the Kabuki structure: The Scabbards are the main heroes, and in Kabuki, the main hero's journey traditionally ends in tragedy in Act 3-and so it does for the Scabbards. But then Luffy comes and changes the whole trajectory, proving that he's the king, and breaking the typical structure with Act 3 not ending in tragedy but in triumph.
I can definitely see how for some people, this is what you want out of the arc. I'm ultimately just not sure that concept lands with me - at least from my perspective, Kaido is the hardest villain Luffy ever faced, and should come with an appropriate level of challenge. I'm also not sure this is what the arc was going for, because to me, Wano has the vestiges of the mechanisms that create stakes the way OP normally does, yet is missing elements. But ultimately, that's getting into nitty gritty things that we're all going to have a different view on the intentions behind. Thank you for your perspective on the arc!
@@Werb BTW, it was very interesting to see you stepping out of your usual format and doing this type of video. I hope to see more stuff like this in the future!
Kaido gaining Pluton is the simple solution To add stakes. Droping Onigashima on the walls of Wano and opening it to start a war which threatens Wano more so than Kaidos forces would work.
Geurnica didn’t even die, and death came for Zoro only for him to be fine straight afterwards. Sanji had an existential crisis for like two chapters and then proceeded to walk all over Queen. Maybe there would’ve been more stakes if Kaido dragged Onigashima through Wano, showing the impact and vulnerability on Wano when the fight is prolonged. After all the raid on Onigashima felt pretty disconnected to Wano entirely and none of the citizens really knew of anything.
I think the thumbnail is hilarious because the main antagonist fake out kills the hero 3 times and causes the fake out death of one of the kings most trusted advisors In both arcs
I think I agree with your reading and how stakes in One Piece are usually aided by the villain's advancing goals. I think what makes the arc so hard to judge under that lens are the goals of the villains; Kaido and Orochi. With Orochi his goals are a lot more closely aligned with a lot of other villains in the series and like those villains, a majority of the conflict came about from his specific goals. Where with Kaido, his goals being furthered are almost a consequence of Luffy's growth itself. While the bomb in Alabasta is a contingency and the Birdcage is a last resort, the threat of Onigashima is the beginning of Kaido's self pronounced goal, and it never really gets started. But because Kaido is a very layered character, his actual goal advances as he fights Luffy and as Luffy starts filling the role of Joyboy. However, that kinda guts the standard One Piece form of stakes. While Orochi's goals have been the source of the conflict in Wano up to this point, once his partnership with Kaido ends all of them have pretty much no weight. And while Kaido definitely poses the biggest threat, his goals don't advance as a result of the protagonist's shortcomings. These aspects of Orochi and Kaido's characters are pretty integral to the themes of this arc so I really don't know that they can be changed. And to people other than myself, it might not even need to be fixed. But regardless, these are my feelings and I wanted to share them.
Oda could’ve had Kaido hunt for Pluton and eventually find it under the capital after he defeated Luffy the second time. It would’ve changed the setting of the battle, increased the stakes, and paid off the Pluton hype/setup of the Alabasta and Water 7 sagas.
i've always thought that halfway during wano, oda realised how much he had set up, how long it would take to tie up all of it, and quickly restructured it midway through the arc, to finish quicker, leading to some really notable jank with wano, especially considering he was having multiple health issues at the time, (completely speculative, but there is a chance oda was thinking about his mortality and how if he just kept following his every whim, he may not even get to finish one piece.) and had likely taken on feedback, especially after dressrosa that he was wyling a bit with the length. oda said in an interview that he has to think up a way for luffy to beat kaido, because the readers won't be satisfied if he just uses a big punch, and yet... as a result, big mom and kaido's defeat both didn't really feel earned, likely because of the lack of stakes mentioned in the video, but also maybe because for the first time, luffy just got a power up that would help, as the main reason for winning, which is way more egregious than enies lobby, because there tbh the main purpose is more like that power ups in big battles are cool bc none of them were "necessary" to tie up the plot, whereas here its the most important plot aspect to concluding the arc.even if it was "foreshadowed" some. speaking of which, that who's-who speech is some of the jankiest, shoehorned "foreshadowing" i've ever seen in the series. on god, pre- onigashima and onigashima almost feel like two different writers completely in plot points and stakes/themes. never before has he introduced so many story elements and left them so clearly hanging before ending the arc, especially considering he had been building up to wano since punk hazard. what was the point in the oniwabanshu? the seeming random nature of izo and ashura dying... like, why? it did nothing and didn't even feel like the way oda writes. i'm still not convinced they're actually dead. and toki's fruit?? actually, speaking of toki's fruit... my idea for how the end of the arc would have gone ideally would have surrounded that fruit. oden took everything on his own shoulders, even with devote followers and died for it. luffy is the opposite when it comes to his crew. and toki was the one preaching about how the dawn works come. how would she know? because she wild hop forward in time and ensure it, especially considering we never actual saw her die. her fruit is way too powerful to not be addressed before the series ends!! i think luffy should have given it his all, got knocked out and then toki with her awakened fruit, sends kaido a short time period into the future (plot can dictate how long and for what reason) when he lands in the future, everyone is recovered some, and ready to take him out. decide to fight him properly instead of just send him 10,000 years in the future because luffy. and bc he'd just become someone else's problem. everyone gives their all, still a couple people die valiant deaths but eventually luffy gives the final blow. could even awaken gear 5 still but not be able to go all out yet, but joyboy, like luffy knows how to rally people. there are probably many many issues with my idea from a world building ashes maybe even character stand point, but it at the least would have felt more epic to me, and given more weight to the strength of both kaido and big mom, and the strength of the army that had to come together and beat them. luffy could train more after that if need be to be ready for upcoming challenges. i could probably go on but this has already got lengthy so i'm gonna pause there 😂
This is probably exactly what it is….you remember that interview Oda had I think either right before Wano started or right when it had?? Mans was going in about how he saw himself being done with the story in 5 years *Wano alone was a four year Arc*
Agree, I think the structure of onigashima was abyssmal. The worst thing is, I do believe the raid could have accomplished more, while being significantly shorter, if he just wrote things ahead of time and had an editor help him out with the structure. so much page time is wasted on repeating glimpses of fights, so much is used for things that do not lead the plot forward, etc. At these times we must remember that one piece is, fundementally, the first draft of this story. While he planned ahead so many things, he still makes things as he goes. Yamato was initially supposed to be on the side of kaido and against oden, and he decided to switch that characterization pretty late into the arc. Even when it comes to things he planned ahead years ago, actually penning them and drawing them is something that he basically has to get perfect on the first try. Just because you know how a fight is going to look like in your mind doesn't mean what you'll draw will actually make sense, hence why edits and redrafts are so important.
You're absolutely right. He most likely planned for 150 chapters but set up so much that you would need way more than that to resolve all plot points in a satisfying way
When kaido wasnt fighting anyone, maybe we could've just had him fanning the island, speeding up the travel process immensely bringing it closer and closer to destroying the flower captial.
For an arc as long as Wano, it felt really rushed in a loooot of places. I wanted more of Kaido for example. To me he falls flat, especially after Doffy, Big Mom and Katakuri, with his buildup even more so.
I talked about this problem here already, but to make it brief: the arc is both horribly bloated and rushed at the same time. It's rushed in terms of character focus. We are spending almost no extended time with any rock solid group of characters to grow attached to, instead, we spent ions of watching 100s of characters be positioned and essentially just exist. In the raid, it was unlikely to have an exchange of dialogue between two particular characters be finished by the end of a chapter because of all of this stuff happening around them. This character stuff is "quickly" wrapped up in that not much of impact actually occurred in that time. Thus, the character focus is incredibly rushed and engaging time spent with those characters is pushed aside in favor of allowing the next plot point to occur (usually repositioning characters).
This is an arc where I feel oda sensei had amazing ideas but execution wise it didn’t worked. Not only that his involvement in movie red and live action made it worse. There are arcs like fish man island and dress rosa that felt dragged too and this is where is feel that oda sometimes really needs to take monthly breaks to cut down and really plan out for such ambitious arcs.
Some would argue that the lack of consequences is precisely why the raid will fail. It's easier to believe than the conclusion of Post Timeskip simply having no consequences... especially when the characters themselves are joking about how they cannot possibly fail...
8:42 "Luffy falling off the roof doesnt have consequences" as if it didnt cause the single worst thing to happen in all of Wano. Luffy falling made Caribou plot relevant, how much worse are those consequences supposed to get?
Just wanted to say your analysis and editing is extremely high quality! You do a great speaking voice as well, makes the videos very easy to watch. You rule!
Thanks for the compliment! I don't deserve the credit for editing on this one, though - for bigger video projects I hire McIce to do it for me. He's the reason this looks so polished and professional.
It doesn't feel like locations are changing because Onigashima is just freaking massive. It's the same size as Mount Everest. That's why it took the entire Akaza 9 fight before Luffy finally got to the roof. It's not like every fight is just a hallway apart from each other. It took multiple episodes and an entire country's worth of rainwater from an elephant that is three Mount Everest's tall in order to douse the flames spreading through all the floors of Onigashima.
Not to mention just the Onigashima fight alone is bigger than the entire Arabasta saga. And the Wano Saga also started all the way back in Punk Hazard.
This is also why many people wanted RWF to happen, since a loss that big with Kaido fully taking over and everyone needing to regroup and take back Wano could've moved things in an interesting way (though it would've had to happen pretty early into the raid since really redoing everything after the Tobi Roppo startd to go down would've been too much) The anime did a really cool thing with the offscreen loss. While they didn't really give extra consequences for it since that'd change the story, they fully showed the fight and gave a great characcter moment for Kaido with him starting to hallucinate he's still fighting luffy when he already knocked him out.
yamato's fight with kaido is one of the most important fights in all of One Piece. because it debunks kaido's belief in fatalism. Kaido is a complicated character. a very complicated one. for all of his traits to be fleshed out. He needs to be put in different situations. Losing himself against Luffy and fighting yamato were essential. the story as a whole falls apart without them.
also the consequences of Luffy's death is how kaido relapsed and will project more cruelty to cope with his depression. Kaido because closer to his goal by defeating luffy. his goal which will include enslaving wano. the people that we as a readers developed a deep connection with. Kinemon's fake death is definitely a flaw. but the highs of the arc are some of the highest in all of fiction. this dip won't make it any less of a masterpiece.
I don't really disagree with what you're saying but also the idea of Wano's people starving was enough for me (for the stakes), like I agree that Kaido should of had more to do after he defeated Luffy multiple times, however I have no clue on how to fix that problem without rewriting Kaido's character motivation but even so it never even occurred to me that stakes were a problem cuz Tama starving was a scary enough image for me, I guess I'm soft lol 😂
I think you are probably very right about what causes stacks but I also always thought it was things like Luffy reaction shots you talked about before where he reacts to being hit by an attack or like in a Jackie Chan movie any time he gets hurt to make him feel like a more human person so we get invested in him as a character. But what do I know. Thanks for the vid I thought it was very interesting
I fully agree with you. Personally, I didn't mind the lack of stakes as much because narratively Kaido was such a great antagonist. The way that he parallels Luffy is great of course, but what makes him compelling for me is how he parallels legends like Garp and Whitebeard. He's someone that could have been joyboy but the world broke him. So he wants to create Joyboy by imposing the same conditions he went through on the people of Wano, and ultimately the world as a whole. Very similar to the experience Garp had except Kaido wants to cultivate the next generation by drowning it in his despair. But stuff like the kinemon fakeout really killed the tension that kaido up to that point had brought, and it really felt like the strawhats had an "easy" time getting through 2 yonko. Like Jimbei/franky/robin destroyed their opponents and once zoro/sanji dealt with their personal conflicts they destroyed king/queen. The only fight where it felt like a dogged struggle was law/kid vs big mom as they had to empty everything into her just to get that ringout.
Definitely agree with this. Compare to their Alabasta fights (especially Zoro vs Mr. 1), or to Luffy vs Katakuri. Every fight here should've been AS bad for the straw hats as Katakuri was for Luffy (of course, it couldn't be as long, but yk)
To this day I still think Big Mom should not have been brought in and Kaido should have been a straight up Raid Boss. Have everything up to Luffy getting to the rooftop play out as normal…..Then have Luffy, Kidd, Law, Zoro and Killer fight Kaido. Zoro still gets injured and scars Kaido, so he has to leave the fight……Kidd starts getting hurt mid fight, Killer realizes it has to be Hawkins, so he leaves the fight to find him This Leaves Luffy, Kidd, and Law. Kidd gets the opportunity to figure out Ryou by seeing Luffy and Kaido use it. Law and Luffy go about business as they already did. Luffy gets knocked off the island, Law and Kidd have to stall with the help of Yamato….we get their awakenings…..Luffy comes back on Momo Base Luffy and Awakened Kidd and Law start dominating Kaido……Kidd and Law run out of stamina…….we get base Luffy v Kaido for a bit……CP0 comes in……Luffy dies…….Gear 5
Great video, man. I share most of your viewpoints, that said, I still have some trouble with Wano overall, and sadly affected my enjoyment of the arc. I think one factor missing was the apparent insignificance of a Kaido & Big Mom's victory / defeat (I'll try to keep it short) Most citizens of Wano were never aware of what was at stake at Onigashima: Kaido was just gone the next day. This didn't happened at Cocoyashi Village, Arabasta, Skypiea, Water 7, Marineford, Fishman Island, Dressrosa, Zou, Whole Cake... The WG took the most events of Wano as inconsequential (mildly concerned about a two yonko alliance), their mayor concern ended up being Luffy/Nika. I mean, Kaido & BM openly stated their intentions to search the One Piece and start a conquest campaign; imo, combining both Roger's and Whitebeard's past threats (and even Shiki's). Whitebeard's abscence and the Shichibukai's abolition felt more important that the defeat of 2 yonkos. "Yeah, they're gone, here you have Luffy & Buggy as replacements, move on". I mean, Beast pirates were just arrested (?), what happened to their territories?, and no significant change has happened in Tottoland yet (except incursions by two Blackbeard crewmembers), not even a family conflict for the throne. Finally, imo, some plot points could've been addressed better: Wano remains closed (contended); Yamato neither joins the crew nor the Straw Hats's fleet; Kurozumi and Kozuki aren't reconciled (Hiyori's play, Orochi's backstory). Ace's message at Marineford isn't directly delivered to Otama, Yamato, or Marco. The Gorosei and Imu continue to ignore both the Road Ponegliph and Pluton, whereas the Marines haven't done anything about Wano (not even sending an envoy), despite having intel about the waterfall, and state of the land (X-Drake and Cypher Pol 0)
Here's how I would address the issue of stakes, and making the villain advance in Luffy's absence, without changing the story: As Luffy is dead, Kaido is now free to wreak havoc. He's lost his last chance at a good fight and all that's left is to take Momo's head and destroy the flower capital. Instead of hanging around blasting aimlessly for a few minutes until Bugs Bunny pulls him back up to the roof, we could flesh that part ouf into a longer section: - Kaido's last words to Luffy before killing him is that the victor needs no epithet. The nature of a samurai is finding honour even in defeat, being completed through it, something Kaido himself deeply wishes for but is never able to do, resorting to being lonely at the top and ruling with an iron fist, the only law he knows, the one of the jungle - the king of the beasts. And yet, nameless samurai will keep throwing themselves at him, making miniscule progress, only stalling the inevitable. - Kaido makes an advance on paper through this, but is challenged philosophically; "why" he wonders, "why do all these no-name fodders keep fighting? I've killed their one chance to win and they refuse to submit, they'd rather die. No one will remember you, you're already ghosts to all of Wano, no one knows about your expedition to this island, and it'll stay that way as I crush you and make Wano the base of my empire. So why?" - Kaido staggers, easily taking out our heroes, who nevertheless face certain death. Their leader dead, perhaps even Momo steps in and is no-diffed by Kaido, irked by how long this futile resistance is taking. But no one is discouraged still. Effectively, the villain already any% cleared his goal. And yet no one cares. His victory is practical, but a meaningless one, and he knows it, just like 20 years ago, when Oden died. But it doesn't matter anymore. A solemn Kaido is about to initiate the fall of Onigashima onto the capital. - And then a giant arm pulls him back up. Arc continues normally. I feel like there is a way to tackle the issues of the arc without changing what Oda was going for - just reinforcing it through better execution in order to draw more satisfaction and catharsis out of the reader. The idea that for a villain as powerful and effective as Kaido, able to 100% clear his goal, to be so flawed philosophically that it's undone anyway through Luffy's resurrection, is narratively a wonderful idea. I just wish Oda managed to dedicate one more chapter to it for us all to "get it".
Just wanna say that the reasons Luffy lost the second time were 1.He was weakened by his injuries from the Rooftop 5 battle and the food gave him his strength back(Momo in 1012 says that Luffy was weakened but still fighting) and 2.Luffy’s previous use of Haoshoku Infusion was not up to par, Kaido called it crude and clumsy(likely due to first time use and injury) and the sky split is probably supposed to tell us his usage is far better now. Just wanted to clear that up
Kaido is not crocodile, he wasn't there for power or weapons, blud was having a party and some crashers came in, so he dealt with them. Giving him an agenda just breaks the arc. Orochi was the one with agenda , messing up okobore town, and revenge etc. Kaido wanted a good fight and he had one. this aside croc and doffy were in town when the stakes kicked in as BOMB and BIRDCAGE, kaido was out there chilling, tf was he supposed to do threaten some rookies with cheap tricks lmao
Few things so im break it down into 3 separate sections: 1: For you criticism of luffy losing but came back seemingly better, I agree it was kinda fast but I interpreted this similar to luffy 2nd and 3rd battle with crocodile where there wasn't much change in physical strength but luffy did better the 3rd time mainly because what I conclude his determination was reinvorgorated. Like he says in the 1020-1028 somewhere between there he says as long as I'm alive I have infinite chances. It not the perfect explanation lol but it mine. 2. For your section of kaido I think it kinda hard to compare him to other villains because unlike kaido they had a plan. Kaido defeat was through a raid he wasn't planning anything people just jumped onto his island and decided to rumble which is kinda exactly what kaido wanted. Kaido whole thing was wanting to fight and specifically a fight that will push him like only a few could have which he believed could only be accomplished in wano as joyboy will arrive there. Kaido didn't have a plan because that wasn't his intention he just wanted to rumble as he pretty much a raid boss. So when it came to progression for other villains compared to progression with kaido it really hard to compare that in my opinion. 3. I think a consequence I haven't seen you mentioned is momo losing his years and being aged into a adult because of luffy 1st failure on the roof. Im unsure if this would've still happened if luffy never failed on the rooftop as he needed momonosuke to fly him back there. I think this was a really big moment that lead to other important things like momo gaining his confident by biting kaido or him becoming this like actual big guardian of wano. (I know someone gonna ask why didn't luffy just fly himself back up with g4 but I think it obvious he'd be tired out and essentially vulnerable/unable to fight kaido properly) Lastly I wanted to say this video is amazing and kinda sums up my feelings on wano as well as it was entertaining but there was always a feeling felt that more could've been done even though so much has happened in this already long arc.
Fair points! I don't think Luffy's jump in power is too serious, really. I mostly included that bit for fun. But I do think that it works more awkwardly than some other cases in the story. After Round 2 against Croc, Luffy mostly just had to avoid letting Croc cheese him with that same drying out technique again. It's more about caution and awareness of what to look out for. Which I think is similar to why he did better against Blueno in EL than in W7 - if you look closely, you can see that Blueno blocked weaker, faster attacks in W7. But come EL, Luffy knows how CP9's defenses work, so he breaks through with a slower, heavier attack. But against Kaido, it's really just a pure difference in strength/haki. I'm not calling it a plot hole or anything; it just feels a bit more thin, y'know? Like, the story gave itself a little less wiggle room for us to rationalize it with. Still, not actually a big deal though. I definitely agree you can't directly compare Kaido to every other villain because he's passive, not active. It goes by a little fast, but that's why I compare him to Doflamingo, who's also passive, and compare Onigashima to the Birdcage. I think the Birdcage does a much better job of escalating the stakes. And ultimately, while there should be some variance in villain characterization, I think if a villain works worse because they're passive, then, well, they work worse because they're passive. That depends on whether you think it was worse at all, of course. I talked about Momo being aged up a bit in a reply to another comment already. But another thing I'll add is that the story ultimately isn't really focused on the emotional consequences to Momo. I don't know if it's because Oda wasn't interested in that, or because he had to rush, but either way it's not really a priority, and because of that I don't think it really works as stakes. It's ultimately more of a tool for Momo's self-actualization reaching an endpoint, than it is a negative consequence for him.
@@Werb I agree with everything you said, hopefully if we do get the rocks flashback in the near future oda can kinda add more context to kaido as a villain for why kaido was so passive as unlike doflamingo who kinda had everything kaido was still seeking more in the world hence why he teamed up with big mom.
I think the real problem with wano is the villains, idk what oda is thinking by building up all the powerhouse in kaido's sleeves Early wano, we still feel the stakes with luffy oneshot by kaido zoro clashed with kanjurou (then revealed as a denjirou), and sanji clashed with pageone But the problem occurs in onigashima, we still get the stakes with ulti going toe in toe with luffy and then oda choose to give them to usopp and nami and makes them run and have a boring fight (when i think yamatou should help nami and usopp defeat pageone and ulti so that yamatou didn't feels stronger than sanji or zoro to be put in straw hat crew), Im okay with jimbe vs who's who because we get the lore Jack be offscreen a lot King and queen at first seem like very strong opponents, but after zoro and sanji power up, they just low diff them Maybe, the plot armour is the problem here And i think we still dont understand much about kaido to care about his character, his flashback feels short. We know he wants to die badly,and that's the reason for making the world of violence.. and yeah i agree with the video that kaido achieve nothing in wano arc
lemme offer a counter arguement: i felt plenty of stakes with just one question. How are they going to beat kaido. at the time of the first half of the raid, i was excited because i didn’t know where luffy was gonna get the fire power imperative to defeat kaido. i knew he wasn’t strong enough going in, so waiting to see the reveal of gear 5 for the ultimate takedown was immensely satisfying. i honestly knew everything about kaido off his design and how he talks alone. i think a character like kaido really speaks for himself. we know just enough about him to know how threatening he is and i thought personally that he was a great roadblock for luffy.
To answer your question: plot armor. There you go. Yes kaido was a good roadblock, but he was built to be more than that. He no niffed most people on the rooftop but… he wasn’t even able to kill kinemon with a COC infused bonk to his fuckin head??? He wasn’t able to kill ANY of the scabbards?? He literally beats luffys ass 3 or 4 times (the last time he literally kills Luffy) but still ends up losing the “true” final fight when Luffy attains plot ar- I mean gear 5. Stakes WOULD have been there if Oda wouldn’t have made kaido look like an idiot who forgot to confirm his kills every damn time.
Great analysis. One more thing you could’ve mentioned is how Luffy’s first defeat to Kaido didn’t feel like a major low point because of how the strawhats reacted. It was literally a joke reaction from all of them. Same with his defeat in 1014, they were never doubting their victory for a single moment (except the first half of 1043) which means there is no tension for the reader.
You're totally right about failure needing to have consequences. I think one of the main issues is that the alliance never had to face true consequences throughout the first two acts. Imagine if when Kaido one-shotted Luffy, the plans for the raid leaked at the same time, compromising the alliance. That would've made the story way more exciting
I’d like to interject with the fact that unlike all major vilains thus far, Kaido has been specifically introduced to lose. We were told in his very first moments that he was looking for a way to die. The guy has done it all. He doesn’t want anything.
I cannot disagree more. After reading acts 1 and 2 I was incredibly invested in the awesome climax of act 3. However, I can totally see that reading/watching week to week, people are gonna forget WHY they were invested in the first place as act 3 keeps going on. That's the price of reading weekly or watching the anime at all - the pacing is gonna be shit.
I think the second Luffy defeat is narratively necessary (as you mentioned Momonosuke needs Luffy to be with him) but I agree that my biggest issue with it is that Luffy should have been shown to either A. not got ACOC until after coming back, or B. push Kaido to a good limit (maybe enter 4th gear so that the defeat feels natural in that he NEEDS momos help to fly back up). For the fake-out death at the end, I like the idea of a Straw Hat vs Oars rematch type thing (especially considering many were in solid fighting condition) and low key maybe give Usopp a Conquerors hint at the moment before Luffy wakes up? Im not sure tbh but I really enjoyed this video! Keep up the great work!
I really didnt mind the missing stakes at all. What annoyed me greatly though, is the end of the arc. It left too many open ends, and even opened things more. To me it didnt feel like Shanks and Green Bull had to be there. The realization that Momo cant rely on the SH for defense anymore and how Yamato stays for protection couldve been brought up some other way, without that weird fight against Green Bull. It felt so out of place to me. What i expected and wanted to see was some kind of resolution with the rest of the Beast Pirates, especially King. I hope Oda just saved that one for later, maybe in the current cover story.
I think the purpose of this arc was to show that they were all on the same level as an emperor. So I think the lack of stakes actually did a good job of showing that. if there was too much struggle then that would push the idea that they're still quite far below that level because it was 3 crews vs 2. the 3 winning with relatively low stakes did a good job showing how far they're come
i think my main issue was just that i had really high expectations. It really bothered me that none of kaido's crew had awakenings and that kaido and big mom didn't really have a confirmed awakening either.
The thing is you could do this exact video with every One Piece Arc. And I think it’s the reason why people don’t watch One Piece because the stakes are so high. Besides that I also don’t really understand how people get this feeling of fear that a character might die. If I feel something when consuming media especially manga it’s either joy or sadness. As an example it’s the reason why I find this chapter in Berserk with the flower elf more emotional than the eclipse
Kaido was literally going to drop Onaginshima on top of the flower capital and re-enslave the entire population. I feel like those stakes are pretty high. The whole town was starving, 20 years of failure and you have people who came back from the past into the future to accomplish this task. Odin's backstory provides all the stakes.
I think the issue is that the Straw Hats, as Shōnen protagonists, simply cannot lose. Every situation they encounter, they will triumph over. Until Sabaody, that's when the story became real for me personally. I wanted the series to feature moments in which the SH don't get complete victories, and must chase and earn their victory, like Big Mom surviving Whole Cake Island and them hunting her. I want more complex resolutions than just Kaido is dead, all is well. Such as him having people who took after him, people who are still out there. These complex scenarios force the characters to deal with ever evolving situations, and allow the writer to better flesh out the dead character in question and better understand their motives. The possibilities are endless when there's more than just the bad guy being slain and all his subordinates surrendering/dying. Unfortunately, it seems like the series regressed a bit. It feels especially bad because the alliance didn't even take the raid that seriously, they were joking about how they couldn't possibly fail (probably to set up the jovial theme of Gear 5). It just feels so bad... and clunky and forced and incongruent. It's as if the story fully embraced that the Heroes cannot possibly lose, so whatever. It's clearly an issue with G5's themes not blending well with writing concepts like stakes and tone.
@@snowarmth There are still "stakes" even though you know they are going to win. They have lost plenty of times in the short term. None of the villains even die either, this has always been the show. There have never been life and death stakes in One Piece with the exception of Ace. But the entertainment of the story comes from slowly revealing the larger mystery. And when has One Piece ever had a fully serious episode? It's always essentially been a comedy at its core. Also Luffy being exceptionally lucky and winning in the end in situations he has no business winning has always been the story. The real drama and nuance comes from the world lore, the Straw Hat backstories, characters like Odin and Katakuri and Big Mom. It's just a good story with interesting characters and big action it never tries to be something it's not.
With his desire to create a world of war and his attempt to joined the Paramount War, I think it makes the most sense for Kaido to try to recreate that conflict. Perhaps by kidnapping Coby, this involving both the Marines and Luffy (and his grand fleet) in the war.
I think my biggest issue with the arc’s sense of stakes is how Kaido, in comparison to other One Piece arc villains(especially Crocodile) just seems so passive. In Alabasta, Crocodile was on the move after Rain Dinners, actively trying to overthrow the country, causing sandstorms and killing royal soldiers. He always seemed to have a backup plan, outsmarting and outmaneuvering the Straw Hats until Pell finally gets rid of the bomb and Luffy defeats him. He’s an imminent threat and every moment he’s on the loose puts the entire country at risk. Compare that to Kaido, who spends much of his time drinking on Onigashima without any direction or plans. He doesn’t really do anything until he’s forced to. He FINALLY does something proactive with moving Onigashina to Wano, but spends most of the raid fighting a defensive battle until Momo pretty easily deals with the island and he’s punched thousands of feet beneath under by Luffy.
Stakes for Luffy were higher in Wano than Alabasta Luffy's loss in Alabasta lessened the sakes for me And the stakes of Onigashima crushing the capital felt higher than the bomb
Having an arc focussed on war but also having 35 characters to write engaging stories and fights for takes the force out of anything that happened for me. The Oden flashback was great, but everything after that was just a straight line towards Luffy beating Kaido for me. Which is fine. Can't always have huge winners.
It just felt like a regular raid arc where we know what fights will happen and who will win.....One Piece fights is more about the character development and storytelling (like Luffy v Katakuri) which was heavily lacking in Wano...also for how cool Gear 5 was it made the ending unserious compared to previous fights. Lastly, no one gave the slightest shit about the scabbards. 2 of them died LOL.
Luffy has always been able to recharge with food and had to fight his way up to Kaido as well as participate in the 2v5 earlier. Luffy being better off after returning to the roof makes sense with everything established by One Piece. The loss when Kaido dropped Luffy was Momo sacrificing 20 years of his life to get Luffy back up. Had Luffy not been dropped, Momo may have not needed to sacrifice his lifespan. I feel the idea that the consequences must only be connected to the main villain despite the consequences regardless being due to his actions is odd. Onigashima changes the stakes because there is no escape no way to warn the mainland and seemingly no way to stop it. I also find the suggestion of the Strawhats fighting Kaido interesting but flawed. They alone can’t fill the time imo without the arc feeling padded out without much being accomplished. Overall I don’t really agree with this video much at all. It was an interesting watch but I do not feel this really encapsulated stakes in One Piece well. It focused on stakes solely related to the main villain’s actions after Luffy’s failures, but it didn’t focus on any other ways the villains actions could lead to loss outside of their personal plans. I don’t think this is from lack of reading comprehension but just a perspective difference.
Definitely think this perspective is valid. Ultimately, as said in the video, I can only describe my own experience, and I think we'll all understand the arc better if we can compare how it made us feel. I will reply to this point, however, because it's not one I thought of while making the video: I don't think Momo having to age up works for me personally. It feels like it probably would have happened anyway, because either way he needed to become an adult to carry Onigashima, whether or not he had to help Luffy. It also feels like, as I said in the video, something in parallel to Vivi's role in Alabasta, which is totally fine, but doesn't feel like it covers everything the arc needs in terms of stakes; it's too limited to its own subplot. It's also ultimately something that helps the heroes, rather than something that sets them back. Also, I definitely agree my idea for fixing it is flawed. The whole point of that section is that I don't think I, or anyone really, is capable of coming up with some simple idea that would fix it. Although I would personally prefer a version of Wano that was longer in general; I think it was too rushed in its pacing from start to finish. Which, hey, is another factor that can affect the feeling of stakes too.
I don’t think it would track that Momo would do it on his own since Luffy was the push that made him come to said conclusion. I also feel people get lost in parallels often to the point they expect too many similarities. Parallels are nice but they aren’t the main objective a writer usually goes for. More so a side objective to enrich something, but they can also be intrusive. I am thankful for the dialogue though.
Oh yeah I def don't mean it's intentionally parallel in any kind of thematic way. More that I think they're just fulfilling the same structural role - it happens in a lot of arcs. I think Sniper King saving Robin from a distance in Enies Lobby could also be called a pretty similar role. So I think Vivi is a good comparison point for what exactly this kind of plot point contributes, and what it doesn't, but it's not a "parallel" in the typical sense the fandom talks about. Appreciate the fair response from someone who disagrees!
@@Werb the thing is Oda built a connection between the reader and the people of wano. especially toko and the other okobore people. This fight is a revenge for years of enslavement. maybe you forgot to talk about it but the stakes of this arc is build upon the existence of Kaido himself and how it caused suffering to people for 20 years.
I think a good, simple fix would have been to move Yamato vs Kaido to the main battlefield. Have Kaido try to kill the samurai and have Yamato try to stop him. That creates chaos for all sides and could give us some more meaningful interactions between Kaido and his crew.
I think a very big part of feeling the stakes is, that we are around with this story for 25 years and can predict certain things and where the story needs to go. Crocodile „killing“ or defeating luffy felt different because it never happened, in Arabasta I felt for Pell before he came back… Wano repeated a lot of stuff and we all knew what was going to happen. We knew luffys next step was defeating an emperor and that he was going to do it in this arc after he would lose a few times, because thats how its always done, so no shock when he was one shotted, even though it was cool and not the problem, the problem was that it was too dragged out in the end. Kinemon „dying“ made me feel absolutely nothing because i suspected him to come back and the other deaths failed to deliver or I didnt have feelings to the characters in the first place. To the topic of deaths: Kinemon should have absolutely have died there, we spent multiple arcs with him and this would be really impactful. Also I think at least one of the mink leaders should have died because I think they are beloved in the fandom and 1 of them should be enough to continue the story. Izos death was anticlimatic but a good decision, I wish though he would have had at least one cool moment in Marineford(like Marco, Vista, Jozu) so he would not only have been the female looking commander from whitebeard. Ashura never clicked with me from the beginning and his death was laughable. Kanjuro und Orochis deaths were milked so much that it made me just want to skip the scenes, I get that they had personal business with several characters but letting every side character kill them at some point was just annoying and it always got placed between actual interesting stuff
In my opinion, Kaido should have been fighting to open Wano's borders, same as the Scabbards. The difference is why -- Kaido wants to open the borders in order to use Wano's military might to start his world war while for Oden & the Scabbards, it's to welcome the return of Joy Boy. Kaido's line about Wano being a natural strongholds with his large walls was good, but had he been driving to tearing them down during the climax as Onigashima flew to the Flower Capital, it would have given him something concrete to work towards while Luffy's out before Yamato stalls him. Why does Yamato stall? 1. Because she's the gardian diety of Wano as per her fruit, 2. she knows from Oden's journal that Wano should not be opened until Joy Boy's return. You can even have the fight take place elsewhere off Onigashima. Kaido talked at the start of the battle aout obtaining the Ancient Weapons; well, go have him retrieve Pluton so he can use it to destroy the walls and open the borders. Write it so that Yamato is the only one who knows his plans, since Kaido planned on having her replace Orochi, and so she stalls him. Meanwhile, adult Momo flies Luffy to the new location before swapping Yamato out and leaving to go back to Onigashima and stop it. At the end, still have Momo keep the borders closed. Why? 1. Yamato's convinced him, and 2. He's lacking the full context that Oden had (Laugh Tale) but still have it ultimately be the correct call since the Government can't invade.
Oda couldve maybe made it so the battle between luffy and kaido was straining for kaido, which slowed or weakened kaidos ability to move onigashima. If you shortened the timer of how long until Onigashima was over the capitol but also made it so that every minute luffy fought kaido, it extended that timer just a bit, it makes it so every time luffy or anyone fails to take down kaido it is actively accelerating the death of the people at the flower capitol. Making that ability a purely background ability with no emphasis on how much power or strength it takes makes it feel so weird, like if kaido could do all this while lifting the entirety of onigashima then what does that ability even cost if anything at all?
A major problem I had with Wano is that I never really cared about the Nine Red Scabbards. Don't get me wrong, most of them are good characters and I liked Kin'emon, Kiku, Kawamatsu etc., but for all the stuff that happened in the first two acts of Wano, none of it really got me invested in the Scabbards. Ever since Punk Hazard, the goal to take down Kaido was established, both through Law's and Kin'emon's ambitions. Pretty much all that early Wano did was show more and more reasons to complete the goal we already have - yes, the people are suffering under Kaido, but we don't need 70 episodes to show that. Nothing would've changed about the Raid if the first two acts of Wano never happened, aside from us having less allies to have random side battles. And the Scabbards are the best example of that, their involvement in those first two acts is pretty much "oh look at how much these people have suffered and want to kill Kaido". It doesn't make you care about them. The Raid was never about saving the country of Wano. It was about Luffy, Law, and Kid wanting to take down a Yonko.
0:25 I'm surprised no one hasn't mentioned this, another big reason why Wano wasn't a good arc was because of Kaido himself. Kaido was more of a stepping stool for Luffy rather than a villain. His whole character revolved around the fact he's strong. King felt more of a villain and an impactful character than Kaido. It's crazy how many years have passed since Wano started and Doflamingo is still the most iconic villain in the franchise and it should've been Kaido.
No kaido is interesting, he is not just strong, re read, its Just sublitle, like his dépression, his dream of wanting to be joyboy, his war childhood etc and oda is hiding one big part of his stroy, his relationship with xebec when he was in the rocks, i think there is more, i hope oda Will show us in the future
I feel like with Kaido he wasn't a normal One Piece villain since he himself was motivated to be pushed beyond his limits. He clearly doesn't actually care about enslaving the people of Wano, or the war, or thew weapons factory. He only cares about a fight that he feels he can lose because he is so jaded by everything and needs excitement again. Kaido is essentially depressed and looking for a challenge just like Saitama in One Punch Man. And a big reason why Luffy was closing the gap is because Kaido was treated more like a raid boss. You had multiple team members swap out to slowly chip away at Kaido as Luffy was able to rest and recover. Kaido himself never actually got a break from fighting and was in combat nonstop from when the Ayazaka 9 got to the roof until Luffy defeated him. As this battle is going on Kaido is being worn down, he's taking more damage, wounds are being opened up, as Luffy gets to pause, rest, and rethink his approach to the fight. I feel like this was supposed to show more of the accumulation of Luffy building up his crew and friends to take on this challenge of beating such a legendary opponent, than truly weighing the result of the fight off of Luffy's actions alone like in the other arcs.
I’d argue that Thriller Bark had the biggest stakes to the Strawhats because like Zoro said, Gecko Moria and the his crew are masters of trickery. Which is a hard counter to someone like Luffy. Some of them were also met with the threat of dying to sunlight from not having their shadows. Imagine if Usopp saying what he had to say to wake Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji didn’t work. And what if Usopp wasn’t there at all to counter Perona. Then here comes Barthalamew Kuma…..“Nothing Happened”
I feel the same as you in the fact that the luffy's defeat falling from onigashima could be skipped or changed. Wano tries to be this giant battle arc where a ton of characters are involved but I don't care for most of them. In alabasta, ennies lobby, dressrosa, etc. Every strawhat having a 1v1 was really cool. But wano gives more importance to other characters that are not as interesting: the samurais, x drake, the cp0 agents, even Yamato falls for this. As I was reading the arc I found weird how rushed yamatos inclusion was. And it was time that Oda could give to the stawhats. I know people like Yamato a lot, but I enjoy one piece because of the strawhats, not the last second character that is somehow strong enough to hold kaido
It did feel like failure was never an option in Wano. While meta wise, yes we know a Shonen manga will always have the heros win in the end. But it can still feel tense and uncertain in the moment, but never felt that uncertainty in Wano.
The idea that the Straw Hats should've fought Kaido instead kinda feels like it reduces them to being Luffy's backup dancers. The reason they each have their own fights while Luffy fights the bbeg is because the person they are fighting usually has something to say about their character. This goes for Yamato, the Scabbards, Momo, and any other character. Good video. Made me think 👍
I disagreed with maybe 35% of the things in the video. But still every point you made was understandable and not far-fetched at all. Really interesting, great idea, great video.
Honestly, as soon as you mentioned the lack of a true goal from the villain... I felt that deeply. That's exactly it. I stopped caring about what happened in individual chapters because i felt it was going nowhere. It kept bouncing back. It felt like it was all just oooooone big tournament arc where it's the same people against the same foe over and over and over again without consequences. You put it into words in a way i never would've thought of. And i think the big fix that would help the arc is... giving Kaido a more developed goal with clear steps that need to be accomplished for him to get closer to winning. And i have no idea what that would be.
Whaou, I think your analyse of what wano (the onigashima part only) miss is really good🧡🧡🧡 And even if you didn't tell it, it's not only luffy/kaido who didn't move during the war. Exemple : Yamato follow momo but left to fight kaido then "came back" to tell momo how to fly to push the island, yamato left him to freeze the bomb and finaly come back to him. The same can be tell for kanjuro who lose against the akazaya to follow them and lose again and before dieing send a burning ghost who officialy accelerated the burn of the castle but didn't strart it but for us did nothing With a friend, we thought only on how to change the fight to make it less muddled like for exemple a battle royale between mugiwara and tobiropo instead of moving to different place. But that wouldn't change the absence of consequences
Questions:
1. Does my interpretation accurately describe what makes you feel stakes?
2. If not, what do you think makes you feel stakes? Is it a factor I failed to consider?
3. How much does this affect your enjoyment of Wano, if at all?
This video has been cooking in my head for almost a year, and I've worked very hard over the last few weeks to get it made. If you think it's interesting, I'd appreciate sharing it around to anyone else who might find value in it. I know it's overall critical of Wano, but I think within that comes a lot of praise of how well One Piece usually works, and I'm hoping that message can spread around the community, at least a little.
What you didnt mention in the case of luffy getting oneshot by kaido for the first time, I felt no stakes for this scene not really! sure kaido showed off and that was impressive, but neither the crew or luffy took this loss seriously at all, the tone was so nonchalent and still happy, compare this to crocodile vs luffy.
I think that your analysis of the stakes is great, and it’s really clearly articulated. Personally, the stakes in Wano didn’t really affect my experience of the arc since it still has, in my opinion, the best character writing for the Strawhats out of any arc. It’s a problem, but the good parts of Wano really outshine the bad.
Hey, I just wanted to say this was a really informative video on part of what is required of story-telling in general. Good job. Would you ever consider doing videos on narrative story-telling in general?
Wano was a BAD arc. Period. Fans believe it was ONLY roof piece 😂😂 It was a 4,5 years arc that ended in a weird way and it s still unfinished. Oda failed 💯. And the funny part is that he needs BreAkS 😂
I think the biggest missed stake you didn't mention, and the one that, in my opinion, a lot of the bad things that happened in this arc is pinned on, was Zoro getting mink medicine and just coming back to the fight with no problem.
Think about it, Zoro, effectively for the first time, went with luffy to fight against the BBEG of the arc, and got every bone in his body broken. He was helpful and important, but he basically exhausted himself completely.
How are we going to deal with it? Without zoro in the fight, there is no one to fight queen.
Oda threw the original order of things out of the window. Number two challenged BBEG and got trounced. Will sanji need to fight king? who will fight queen then? so many questions arise from that decision by oda to move zoro to the roof, so many opportunities to do something interesting and weird and new, away with the formula, similarly to thriller bark.
And when presented with the question of what to do next?
He decided to remove all stakes, ignore what he already established and deus ex machina zoro's ass back into the well used formula.
Which is a shame.
Personally, I would have reshuflled so many of the fights in wano. So many of them are either irrelevant, or make no god damn sense as match ups.
Anyway, I am new to this channel and this is the only video i have seen so far, but I see that you mainly focus on paneling.
I am of the opinion that Oda breaking down all of the fights in wano to tiny bits that he peppers throughout the arc, and only after many chapters coming back to finish each fight creates a bad layout. He is essentially relegating the majority of the fight to the offscreen area of us imagining how it went based on the small panels and bits we saw previously, and then coming back just to show us the final chapter of the fight, and sometimes only the last page or two of the fight.
i am not entirely sure if this is your expertise, but do you think that oda should have focused the fights more instead of spreading them out?
Well yeah of course Wano didn't have any steaks. We were in a place that represented edo period Japan. Thus the food was mostly focused on traditional Japanese cuisine rather than steaks.
Joke was a little forced but at least you tried 😂
A guy walks into a bar, and sees a bunch of pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling. He asks the bartender what's the deal with those. The bartender says, they have a promotional challenge going on: You get one try to jump high enough and slap one of the pieces of beef with your palm. If you hit it, you get free drinks for the night. But if you miss, you have to buy everyone in the bar around on you.
The bartender asks the guy if he wants to give it a shot. The guy looks up at the pieces of meat, thinks about it, and says:
Nah, the steaks are too high.
@@Werb ok yeah there ya go
touche kraator57 touche (e with an accent aigu [accute accent])
this corny ass joke made me laugh lol
I think the issue with Wano was that it felt like Oda treated it as another training arc instead of the climax of a long saga.
Training arc for final war
😂😂😂 you here????
Luffy topdecked raigeki against Kaido e😂
@@NorbertNahumEvreuklovic maxx c'd and ash blossomed his ass
@@fishonmydish7774its at 2 on ocg now😹
Because of the Kinemon fakeout, I didn't even Blink when Ausra and Izo died. I just thought to myself "Another fakeout, goddamit Oda" and just moved on.
Only when I saw their literal Tombstone did I realise they actually died and all I could say was "Oh" but by that point it was meaningless cause Oda rushed off the island to end the arc and now those deaths feel like pandering; like he heard soneone say "They are fighting Kaido and not a SINGLE person from the Good guys side died?" and just killed 2 randos to prove them wrong.
There's nothing that breaks continuity, character, world building about their deaths but I simply didn't care cause I Never believed they even died.
Kinemon should have died after all the damage he took and the fact that he was in a Critical state, Asura and izo death are some of the worst in wano because both characters were never that important even in their samurai group,Oda killed them just because
And egghead now is even worse.
Comparing that with Yasu's and Pedro's ones really hit differently, TBH
@sakura5sango6 true but I never for a second went "Oh this could be fake" cause of all the story and emotional setup and payoff when I read it (Yasue and Pedro's death)
Sure if I sat and thought for 10 min it might be a thought in the back of my mind but it wasn't instant.
I wasn't expecting the Kinemon one to be a fakeout because of the emotional work at the scene but because of that I just didn't believe any other death afterwards for the rest of the Arc.
On a similar case, I'm slightly annoyed (3/10) at the Vegapunk's fakeout deaths BUT it was somewhat setup in the Arc with the themes and story points of "What does death even mean to someone like Vegapunk?"
Had the same effect but with Pedro, I figured he could survive the dynamite...
Wano had a pretty complex, interwoven structure that makes it so "fixing" one issue would narratively break the arc in two. I'm not Oda so I'm simply unable to tackle these problems, cause that would mean making a new, slightly different Wano, which a normal person like me would fail tremendously at.
5 likes
I wish the Wano Arc had 5 Acts
@@SunGodNika-bi2jr it wouldn't change much.
I agree. There isn’t one thing wrong with Wano, there are a lot of interlaced problems that combine to drag the arc down. People have said it’s Oda at his worst and Oda at his best, I’m inclined to agree. All of these issues have existed before and just reached a critical mass in Wano because, IMO, he was trying to do too many things at once. You can’t just point to one thing and say it’s a silver bullet. With regards to conversations about stakes and losses, I think it’s noteworthy that some of Luffy’s setbacks primarily existed to serve the character arcs of Yamato and Momo while ALSO buying time for the rest of the arc to wrap-up
I actually don't really agree.
A lot of wano's problems aren't about wano, but about onigashima. The first two parts of wano were pretty good all things considered, and most issues appeared later on during the raid.
I think shifting the structure of the raid, and switching some of the fights would go a long way towards fixing the arc, alongside letting the characters more room to breath and evolve.
Oda clearly had a few themes he wanted to explore and things he wanted to happen, and I think it is mostly lack of foresight and him being too used to certain story structures that damaged the arc so badly.
This me xD
I think an important thing to consider is "how?". Everyone knows Luffy's gonna beat Kaido. Everyone knows Zoro's gonna beat up King and Sanji's gonna beat up Queen, and for that matter that Luffy is gonna beat up Crocodile eventually.
I think what makes stakes in a story like this is when you don't know how they're gonna do it. Compare the bomb in Alabasta to Onigashima. When you hear about the bomb, nobody even knows where it could be, and then once they figure it out nobody knows how they could get up there with how injured they are, and then nobody knows how they're gonna shut off the bomb so fast, and so on. With the island you know practically immediately that Momo's gonna overpower Kaido's clouds and carry it.
I think this is a lot of what effective failure brings to the table, the question of "so if Luffy lost last time what can he possibly do here?"
But at the end the bomb was joke and couldn't even kill pell
@@benarabnazim672his mythical zoan model the biggest bird hits different and will parallel his sacrifice for Vivi
@@justxsquiet242 he has a normal zoan not mithycal
@@benarabnazim672 What mattered is that the sacrifice felt real. And its important that we only knew he was alive only at the very end of the arc. Or Pound. Or Saul. Kinemon's sacrifice felt like a joke because he was shown to survive even though the fight is still on.
Also supporting this point is the fact that they had an insanely in depth plan of attack going into this conflict, and rather than something different happening or the alliance having to improvise... it kind of just worked 100 percent in the exact way we were told it would. The plan going wrong and what results is what is supposed to be entertaining (plot wise, anyway). Any plot intrigue in any kind of media is based on wondering, "where is this going to go?" Here, it just kind of happens exactly as described but excruciatingly slowly over two years of time.
8:00 just to clarify something the reason behind luffy defeat was not only because he was weaker but in the same page is was stated by kaido that he get workup .
in another word kaido is always holding back and you can see that in the way he likes to tank all coming attacks even tho he has future sight.
when kaido saw luffy great progras he thought that he can finally go all out but luffy was defeated instantly .
Hundred Beast "I want the smoke but I actually don't want the smoke" Kaido
Except we have seen Kaido started dodging Luffy's attacks even before he developed ACoC.
The reason fight was more even was because Luffy grew accustomed to using CoC
Yeah, if your suggestion happened, it would've been ANOTHER parallel to Thriller Bark. That arc was littered with Wano foreshadowing, so taking one of the best scenes and giving it a callback would've been awesome.
Seriously, they fought a Red Oni, now they would be facing a Blue Oni. The Strawhats would've been using all sorts of combination attacks which would've felt so impactful since this is the first arc they all finally been reuinted so we can see the Strawhats at full force Post Timeskip.
I was looking forward to the Strawhats teaming up against Kaido so much, I was so disappointed when it never happened. Zoro and Sanji didn't even get to go dinosaur hunting in a 2v2 with King and Queen.
@BobtheX dude would be so cool if we got a 2v2 of zoro sanji vs king queen to their first competitive fight in little garden but this time they team up
Capturing Robin after beating Luffy would’ve been a great consequence because she’s the key to achieving One Piece but Kaido’s longing for a strong opponent who can go toe to toe with him was his desire all along. It was NEVER the One Piece to begin with. Getting the One Piece was more of a thing that he would like to get because why not? At the end of the day, his goal was always been to fight. He’s different from other villains because he’s already the strongest. He wanted the challenge so he kept fighting people. And he enjoys it.
I think the problem with Robin being captured is just that the readers at large are probably not interested in an Enies Lobby rehash. The grass might seem greener on that side from our perspective, but it really would feel repetitive, and like it's defining Robin too much by getting captured rather than her own agency. Still, I do see how it could have benefited the arc.
@@Werb I'm not saying that she should get captured in the arc but Kaido making an effort to actually capture Robin would be a better response. Getting another Enies Lobby situation is a little bit too much. But Kaido didn't do any of that, because again, his interest on the One Piece treasure was secondary compared to getting a legendary fight and a legendary death. I do agree that Luffy's jump in power was a bit too much when he came back in the rooftop, but I'm just glad that even after all of that, Kaido was still matching him. Even when Luffy Awakened, the dude was continuously adapting.
@@Werbi agree with you argument because we don't need a damsel in distress among the crew 😂
@@isidorodaviddoro1920they r all
thank god yall aint writing one piece lmfao
I think other arcs "with stakes" made you really invested in the antagonist; typically by making you both fear them and love to hate them. Enel, Crocodile, Lucci, Doffy, etc.
Wano had two primary antagonists: Orochi and Kaido. Orochi was despicable, but couldn't be taken seriously. Kaido was a real threat, but he didn't have enough characterization for the audience to enjoy hating him.
That is what made "the stakes" feel lesser to me.
OHHH, I see your point. I have to agree, I don't think Kaido is a bad character, BUT.... as an enemy, I still kept feeling like he was sooo "meh" to me... I-I literally didn't care, even when this guy has done COUNTLESS HORRIBLE THINGS... I don't know if that had to be with his relationship with Luffy or with what you say: Oda not giving him more than a little flashback and, as Werb says, a flexible (for the plot) plan either. Could be a bit of everything, really.
But, no matter how many people says they think this is one of the best fights... I'm not denying it isn't, but it just didn't *feel* like that too me. Which is kinda sad because this was the fight where Luffy's DV got awaken, it's such an important moment that changes literally everything we knew so far :(
Super accurate point, explains a lot of the problems.
huh? this doesn't make any sense. Kaido is one of the deepest and most complex antagonists in fiction. where did the "didn't have enough characterization" came from ? it is such a bizzare take lmao.
and Kaido shouldn't be hated at all. He is literally luffy in the mirror. he is luffy's friend and luffy saved him. why would you hate him ?
@@wwe12153bro what
@@elijah4621 is there a problem?
Great video.
Two thoughts about some points you made throughout.
Luffy being late to the roof, as a result of Yamato forcing Luffy aside at the worst time, and Luffy being unable to team up with and protect his friends, particularly Kin'emon and Kiku, who he bonded with a lot, hit very hard for me. It was a team up I was greatly looking forward to, and seeing Luffy apologize for being late was a big emotional moment for me. With Luffy as the heavy hitter for the Scabbards, I think him and all of them could have defeated Kaido. Them being unable to team up is the consequence there for me.
And Luffy later challenging Kaido alone, after the Supernovas leave, and being thrown off Onigashima, leading Momo to have to give up most of his childhood, was a big consequence that Luffy was once again, unable to prevent.
Also think it's worth considering that Kaido already succeeded in taking over Wano, where Crocodile had not yet fully taken over Alabasta, when the Straw Hats arrived at both places.
We got Werbs Wano video before Morjs Wano Analysis 😭💀
He's still thinking the raid will fail so he's waiting til then
And even then, there's a higher chance Morj dropped Egghead analysis BEFORE Wano vid
@@ShatteredGlass916 Morj did exactly that lol
Damn beat me to it
JAJAJA pense lo mismo
I think a deeper issue is that Kaido himself is kind of underdeveloped. This is why soo many people cried out for a backstory and flashback. As is we got much more on Oden than we ever go for Kaido, making people using headcanon for his motivations. I think that there was interesting stuff hinted at like his knowledge of Joyboy and him being suicidal(?) but without the conecting tissue we are left with a big angry strong guy. Comparing him to a character like Arolong they have a lot in common but Arlong is much more cloesly conected to the arc that he is in and as a integral part of Namin´s character and backstory. He is the embodyment of all her woes and is someone that needs to be defeated for her to grow as a person and rise above her horrific past, saving her village in the process. Wano is underdeveloped to, we are almost asked to care about people that the story itself refuses to characterize. Dropping Onigashima just feeels like a new time bomb but without anyone important being there we are just supposed to care but do we really? It would be horrific but not very emotional at all. It also feels pointless as the bad guys plan, like, why is that the approach? What could Kaido possibly gain from killing his own enslaved subjects? Is he just stupid and evil? Thats boring. Crockodile hade a larger plan with his bomb and we cared for the people fighting and the consequences of that fight. This arc is undercooked.
Frankly, I think Kaido _is_ stupid. His thought process has a lot of "leaps in logic". The thought that he could become JoyBoy just by dying and the only reason he sought to do that was because JoyBoy was connected to the One Piece. By that rationale, everyone who has actually died in the series would be JoyBoy. There isn't really anything that would logically give him the the idea that he could just come back to life as this historic person from nearly a millennium ago. He doesn't even live up to the literal name, we rarely see him being joyful. He's just a grumpy brute.
Kaido as a villain is truly mediocre due to it's lack of character development and interesting personality,dude is willing to put his own Daughter in Prison but never shows another side of him.
We Also Saw that kaido isn't really invincible so why did he want to die if other people in the One piece universe can be worthy opponents to him?
Sadly this is the truth, Kaido was sacrificed because Oda deemed it too early to reveal certain details. I assume the Rocks flashback will inadvertently answer a lot of questions with Kaido.
@@isidorodaviddoro1920 I have the feeling people like you didn’t really read the manga. It was explained why Kaido wants to die. The comment above didn’t understand it either but it was literally stated in the manga that he wants to die a glorious death because he thinks that death completes a person. And it is true in the One Piece story. It literally is stated in his introduction and later that he is envy about how whitebeard, oden and roger died. And again Kaido didn’t want to drop Onigashima. He wanted to place it on the capital city. This is also literally explained in the manga when Yamato says that it will only be really devastating if Luffy wins, because then Onigashima will drop and explode. So it was a gamble that even momonosuke mentions a lot and first he even says that they should stop Luffy. Kaido expected everyone in the capital to run away. It wouldn’t even make sense for him to drop Onigashima, because he really likes this place.
Then again he didn’t even cage his daughter for nothing. He wanted to make her though and make her realize the weight of her words when she says that she is a samurai, because samurai have to endure and he hates the new samurai, because they aren’t like Oden. He even wanted to make Yamato shogun. I have the feeling Wano was so long people will just remember some key parts, but Kaidos character is showing through dialogue more than any other character in One Piece
@@g0stqed193 if the anime isn't going to tell the full story, than it shouldn't even begin
I think you did a really excellent job here capturing this problem that a ton of people have had and that a ton of other people have misrepresented in my opinion. Back when this discussion was going on, most counters would have people listing out plot elements that happened. Like, "these are several trials that were overcame, therefore, there are stakes." Problem is it does not come down to plot detail. I can be told that Luffy was KOed off screen or witness a fight between Nami and Ulti, but if those events aren't succeeding in making me feel invested in the conflict, that is how they can lack "stakes" to me personally. Sure it's true that Luffy is beaten down multiple times here, but how does the story treat these temporary defeats? You can definitely argue that it's barely even acknowledged in the story as something that holds weight. The problem is immediately solved by Yamato picking up the slack, but more importantly I'd argue, characters are shown still being 100 percent confident. There's no instilled sense of doubt as a result of this event, or a heightened sense of danger, it just happens for the sake of... extending the conflict I guess? And that opens up an entirely different problem here that I'll touch on at the expensive of going on way too much lol.
You asked if there were something not touched on here that makes me feel stakes. I'll answer that here, because I think it is another one of the huge issues holding this arc back. Quite simply, I think that it is easier to find yourself invested in the plight of characters when you are actually allowed time to spend with those characters. Maybe it sounds weird, I mean, it's the longest arc in the story, how was there no time spent with these characters? But the problem is, there are such an insane amount of characters here that the cast feels as wide as an ocean but as deep as puddle. I know the excess of characters is a huge complaint in post time skip One Piece in general, but in Wano, it feels like an entirely new level. So many characters exist and have to be shown doing what I would honestly consider is nothing but "existing" for often times single panels at a time with chapters between there last and next appearances. They are all competing for space so much that it wasn't unlikely to see a chapter during the raid have a particular set of character barely even finish a dialogue exchange by the end because of everything going on around them. This means essentially nobody can have sufficient focus, like, it's both the slowest possible pacing and also every character interaction is as rushed as possible. To better explain why this is a problem relevant to the issue at hand: say we trim down the cast, maybe have Kinemon represent the entirety of the Scabbards and hold the weight of all of their plights, lose the pointless numbers villains, take away basically all alliance fighters beyond Law, Luffy, and Kid's crews (Obviously this is hypothetical, I don't mean for this to be perfect). Suddenly, there is more time for characters to actually be characters. Now, because we have taken the time to choose who to focus on, we have more time to watch characters interact as individuals. Where the Straw Hats conflicts here were largely a drop in the bucket compared to the full run time, we can slow it down a bit to focus on character moments rather than speed past that aspect and get to the next plot point. This builds engagement to me. Not to mention, this doesn't "slow the story down" in the literal since of making it last more chapters, it slows down in terms of allowing it become character focused rather than plot focused. We're not gasping for air trying to fly to the next instance of the plot creaking forward, we have time to breath and live with these characters and their personal experiences, getting a better understand of what it means to them and how it effects them.
And heck, trimming the fat would also allow for this focus to be given to characters that a number of people were underwhelmed with in the arc, rather than it being wasted on 1000 characters that have no depth. A lot of people think that Eustass Kidd is essentially a waste of space, and the reason for this is he is set up as a "rival" to Luffy that is outclassed in every way. Devote more time for him and his plight and this could have potentially been alleviated. But not just him. Stick to just these groups of characters would have given way to develop their individual crew members as well, which as they stand, (save Killer) are some of the most anemic and useless characters in the entire conflict. I mean heck, we've been with Law for years, wouldn't it be interesting to see what his crew actually is and what it's capable of instead of see them... almost fail to perform basic CPR on Luffy and that be their only purpose the entire time. Dynamics could be built, comparisons could be made between the crews, and ideals of those particular crews could be shown, all serving to make these people's conflicts as individuals more convincing/realistic and make them more satisfying to witness to boot.
I could go on with more examples, but the point is this: with more time for character focus, when we eventually see a point of failure and how those characters respond to it, it would be more impactful than when they are basically just being repositioned every several chapters to move the plot the next place. As it stands, not only is there a lack of individual character focus, but we don't even get much of a meaningful response to the tides of the battle changing to begin with.
SPOILER WARNING: if everyone could survive the goresai and the world goverments most devastating buster call yet, then at this point we all making it to laugh tale
This is what our second buster call robins 3rd 😂
Oda is so averted to killing characters I'm full-time expecting Stella to just pop in front of Dragon any second now.
Like, how tf are the other satellite still alive ???? It made more sense for Lilith's comment to mean that all of their memories and consciousness still existed somewhere in Punk Record so her and York could still access them, but no they just straight up lived ....... I have zero hopes of there ever being stakes in One Piece
@@Renz0K yeah I forgot about enies lobby call that is crazy, 3 calls lmao
@@sephikong8323 yea them frankensteining together was a bigger cop out then Paulie saving the franky family at enies lobby with his rope
@@Renz0K It's just another Tuesday for Robin lol
The truth is egghead didn’t have stakes either. There were 5 Gorosei and yet the strawhats didn’t suffer any losses. No one was captured and Vegapunk still said his entire speech.
It’s the final saga where the strawhats are supposed to be tested the most, not have cake walks every arc. There was a time where yes they had plot armor but the situations felt more tense and made you really think “how are they supposed to get out of here?”
I felt that way when Katakuri was beating Luffy to death, and outdoing him in every way possible. To make matters worse Big Mom was on the strawhats tail and Luffy wasn’t there to protect them. That’s how you establish tension and stakes.
What frustrates me most about Oda, is that he can write if he wants to. But he refuses to do so.
Egghead is just the most recent example but you also see it in wano, a lot.
I doubt Oda will ever write an arc as good as Whole Cake ever again.
I think it's because you're not looking at it the way Oda is. There are tons of stakes in these arcs but they're more about character growth than clear obstacles. Also we've reached the point where the villain being the system more than the individuals isn't just inbetween the lines anymore.
Egghead could be the calm before the storm you know
Dude what ? The whole cake arc is the worst
what a sick video. Really refreshing to hear such a thought out and well presented set of arguments. Subscribed no question. Also the umineko soundtrack was a very welcome surprise lol, can probably pick so many OSTs from it for section like that. I fully agree with all the things you said, can't wait to see more!
Please more videos like these. The One Piece community needs more analyzers
They’re cult members.
I recommend you real One Piece fans (used to be) who criticizes Wano’s inconsistencies Mystic D Chimp and Drizzt.
@@chrispolo25Drizzt is a clown
@@chrispolo25 drizzt does not like one piece, werb actually does hence why his analysis is and exudes more genuine criticism.
@@chrispolo25 mystic d chimp is a comedy channel lmao
No thanks, dog shit video
For me, that’s the point where Wano feels so victorious and "without stakes." After their biggest failure in the Paramount War Saga, the Straw Hats regrouped and made a promise to never let something like that happen again. They started their new journey with the goal of proving that Luffy is the king, and that they are the crew of the king. The whole journey from Fishman Island to Wano was a path to a place where Luffy could prove that he's the king of this generation.
In Wano, everyone is sure that Luffy is the man who will become king of the pirates, so they keep believing in him. The feeling of the arc is triumphant, the biggest triumph paralleling Luffy's biggest failure in Marineford. I think it's the best thematic choice. I also find it cool how Oda uses the Kabuki structure: The Scabbards are the main heroes, and in Kabuki, the main hero's journey traditionally ends in tragedy in Act 3-and so it does for the Scabbards. But then Luffy comes and changes the whole trajectory, proving that he's the king, and breaking the typical structure with Act 3 not ending in tragedy but in triumph.
I can definitely see how for some people, this is what you want out of the arc. I'm ultimately just not sure that concept lands with me - at least from my perspective, Kaido is the hardest villain Luffy ever faced, and should come with an appropriate level of challenge.
I'm also not sure this is what the arc was going for, because to me, Wano has the vestiges of the mechanisms that create stakes the way OP normally does, yet is missing elements. But ultimately, that's getting into nitty gritty things that we're all going to have a different view on the intentions behind. Thank you for your perspective on the arc!
@@Werb BTW, it was very interesting to see you stepping out of your usual format and doing this type of video. I hope to see more stuff like this in the future!
i agree,, it feels like a victory lap fr
Act3 didn't end... Where did you see it?
@@NorbertNahumEvreuklovic bro are you from the past?
Great video. Wano is one of those arcs that more fun to discuss and analyze than to actually read imo
Kaido gaining Pluton is the simple solution To add stakes. Droping Onigashima on the walls of Wano and opening it to start a war which threatens Wano more so than Kaidos forces would work.
Geurnica didn’t even die, and death came for Zoro only for him to be fine straight afterwards. Sanji had an existential crisis for like two chapters and then proceeded to walk all over Queen. Maybe there would’ve been more stakes if Kaido dragged Onigashima through Wano, showing the impact and vulnerability on Wano when the fight is prolonged. After all the raid on Onigashima felt pretty disconnected to Wano entirely and none of the citizens really knew of anything.
Guernica was confirmed dead in a Vivre Card.
Yeah zoro should of stayed dead, great narrative choice
"and death came for Zoro only for him to be fine straight afterwards." I really hope you're not saying what I think you're saying...
I think the thumbnail is hilarious because the main antagonist fake out kills the hero 3 times and causes the fake out death of one of the kings most trusted advisors In both arcs
I think I agree with your reading and how stakes in One Piece are usually aided by the villain's advancing goals. I think what makes the arc so hard to judge under that lens are the goals of the villains; Kaido and Orochi. With Orochi his goals are a lot more closely aligned with a lot of other villains in the series and like those villains, a majority of the conflict came about from his specific goals. Where with Kaido, his goals being furthered are almost a consequence of Luffy's growth itself. While the bomb in Alabasta is a contingency and the Birdcage is a last resort, the threat of Onigashima is the beginning of Kaido's self pronounced goal, and it never really gets started. But because Kaido is a very layered character, his actual goal advances as he fights Luffy and as Luffy starts filling the role of Joyboy. However, that kinda guts the standard One Piece form of stakes.
While Orochi's goals have been the source of the conflict in Wano up to this point, once his partnership with Kaido ends all of them have pretty much no weight. And while Kaido definitely poses the biggest threat, his goals don't advance as a result of the protagonist's shortcomings.
These aspects of Orochi and Kaido's characters are pretty integral to the themes of this arc so I really don't know that they can be changed. And to people other than myself, it might not even need to be fixed. But regardless, these are my feelings and I wanted to share them.
Oda could’ve had Kaido hunt for Pluton and eventually find it under the capital after he defeated Luffy the second time. It would’ve changed the setting of the battle, increased the stakes, and paid off the Pluton hype/setup of the Alabasta and Water 7 sagas.
Another certified Werb classic
100% correct
Manga authors need to learn that for war arcs to "work" characters from both sides have to die.
Great video man. You took a step out of your comfort zone (paneling) and you nailed it!
i've always thought that halfway during wano, oda realised how much he had set up, how long it would take to tie up all of it, and quickly restructured it midway through the arc, to finish quicker, leading to some really notable jank with wano, especially considering he was having multiple health issues at the time, (completely speculative, but there is a chance oda was thinking about his mortality and how if he just kept following his every whim, he may not even get to finish one piece.) and had likely taken on feedback, especially after dressrosa that he was wyling a bit with the length. oda said in an interview that he has to think up a way for luffy to beat kaido, because the readers won't be satisfied if he just uses a big punch, and yet... as a result, big mom and kaido's defeat both didn't really feel earned, likely because of the lack of stakes mentioned in the video, but also maybe because for the first time, luffy just got a power up that would help, as the main reason for winning, which is way more egregious than enies lobby, because there tbh the main purpose is more like that power ups in big battles are cool bc none of them were "necessary" to tie up the plot, whereas here its the most important plot aspect to concluding the arc.even if it was "foreshadowed" some. speaking of which, that who's-who speech is some of the jankiest, shoehorned "foreshadowing" i've ever seen in the series. on god, pre- onigashima and onigashima almost feel like two different writers completely in plot points and stakes/themes.
never before has he introduced so many story elements and left them so clearly hanging before ending the arc, especially considering he had been building up to wano since punk hazard. what was the point in the oniwabanshu? the seeming random nature of izo and ashura dying... like, why? it did nothing and didn't even feel like the way oda writes. i'm still not convinced they're actually dead. and toki's fruit?? actually, speaking of toki's fruit...
my idea for how the end of the arc would have gone ideally would have surrounded that fruit. oden took everything on his own shoulders, even with devote followers and died for it. luffy is the opposite when it comes to his crew. and toki was the one preaching about how the dawn works come. how would she know? because she wild hop forward in time and ensure it, especially considering we never actual saw her die. her fruit is way too powerful to not be addressed before the series ends!! i think luffy should have given it his all, got knocked out and then toki with her awakened fruit, sends kaido a short time period into the future (plot can dictate how long and for what reason) when he lands in the future, everyone is recovered some, and ready to take him out. decide to fight him properly instead of just send him 10,000 years in the future because luffy. and bc he'd just become someone else's problem. everyone gives their all, still a couple people die valiant deaths but eventually luffy gives the final blow. could even awaken gear 5 still but not be able to go all out yet, but joyboy, like luffy knows how to rally people. there are probably many many issues with my idea from a world building ashes maybe even character stand point, but it at the least would have felt more epic to me, and given more weight to the strength of both kaido and big mom, and the strength of the army that had to come together and beat them. luffy could train more after that if need be to be ready for upcoming challenges. i could probably go on but this has already got lengthy so i'm gonna pause there 😂
This is probably exactly what it is….you remember that interview Oda had I think either right before Wano started or right when it had?? Mans was going in about how he saw himself being done with the story in 5 years
*Wano alone was a four year Arc*
Agree, I think the structure of onigashima was abyssmal.
The worst thing is, I do believe the raid could have accomplished more, while being significantly shorter, if he just wrote things ahead of time and had an editor help him out with the structure.
so much page time is wasted on repeating glimpses of fights, so much is used for things that do not lead the plot forward, etc.
At these times we must remember that one piece is, fundementally, the first draft of this story.
While he planned ahead so many things, he still makes things as he goes. Yamato was initially supposed to be on the side of kaido and against oden, and he decided to switch that characterization pretty late into the arc.
Even when it comes to things he planned ahead years ago, actually penning them and drawing them is something that he basically has to get perfect on the first try.
Just because you know how a fight is going to look like in your mind doesn't mean what you'll draw will actually make sense, hence why edits and redrafts are so important.
You're absolutely right. He most likely planned for 150 chapters but set up so much that you would need way more than that to resolve all plot points in a satisfying way
When kaido wasnt fighting anyone, maybe we could've just had him fanning the island, speeding up the travel process immensely bringing it closer and closer to destroying the flower captial.
ah yes, the long awaited wano analysis! wait what channel is this??
lmao its morjin time
This reminds me of og mr morj videos, which are my favorite one piece vids. Nicely done
For an arc as long as Wano, it felt really rushed in a loooot of places.
I wanted more of Kaido for example. To me he falls flat, especially after Doffy, Big Mom and Katakuri, with his buildup even more so.
I talked about this problem here already, but to make it brief: the arc is both horribly bloated and rushed at the same time. It's rushed in terms of character focus. We are spending almost no extended time with any rock solid group of characters to grow attached to, instead, we spent ions of watching 100s of characters be positioned and essentially just exist. In the raid, it was unlikely to have an exchange of dialogue between two particular characters be finished by the end of a chapter because of all of this stuff happening around them. This character stuff is "quickly" wrapped up in that not much of impact actually occurred in that time. Thus, the character focus is incredibly rushed and engaging time spent with those characters is pushed aside in favor of allowing the next plot point to occur (usually repositioning characters).
This is an arc where I feel oda sensei had amazing ideas but execution wise it didn’t worked. Not only that his involvement in movie red and live action made it worse. There are arcs like fish man island and dress rosa that felt dragged too and this is where is feel that oda sometimes really needs to take monthly breaks to cut down and really plan out for such ambitious arcs.
There being no consequences should have been a sign the raid would not fail
Some would argue that the lack of consequences is precisely why the raid will fail. It's easier to believe than the conclusion of Post Timeskip simply having no consequences... especially when the characters themselves are joking about how they cannot possibly fail...
8:42 "Luffy falling off the roof doesnt have consequences" as if it didnt cause the single worst thing to happen in all of Wano.
Luffy falling made Caribou plot relevant, how much worse are those consequences supposed to get?
Thank you I liked wano but something always felt off. I think what you said perfectly explained what was off. Great vid!
Just wanted to say your analysis and editing is extremely high quality! You do a great speaking voice as well, makes the videos very easy to watch. You rule!
Thanks for the compliment! I don't deserve the credit for editing on this one, though - for bigger video projects I hire McIce to do it for me. He's the reason this looks so polished and professional.
I agree Wano needed more deaths, mainly in the sense of characters being declared dead or staying dead when they’re killed the first time.
A very great analysis!
It doesn't feel like locations are changing because Onigashima is just freaking massive. It's the same size as Mount Everest. That's why it took the entire Akaza 9 fight before Luffy finally got to the roof. It's not like every fight is just a hallway apart from each other. It took multiple episodes and an entire country's worth of rainwater from an elephant that is three Mount Everest's tall in order to douse the flames spreading through all the floors of Onigashima.
Not to mention just the Onigashima fight alone is bigger than the entire Arabasta saga. And the Wano Saga also started all the way back in Punk Hazard.
This is also why many people wanted RWF to happen, since a loss that big with Kaido fully taking over and everyone needing to regroup and take back Wano could've moved things in an interesting way (though it would've had to happen pretty early into the raid since really redoing everything after the Tobi Roppo startd to go down would've been too much)
The anime did a really cool thing with the offscreen loss. While they didn't really give extra consequences for it since that'd change the story, they fully showed the fight and gave a great characcter moment for Kaido with him starting to hallucinate he's still fighting luffy when he already knocked him out.
Rwf?
@@chrisg3678 Mr Morj's "Raid Will Fail" theory
Right, I remember once the first Tobi Roppo was defeated knowing that RWF would never happen.
Oh yes and make once piece 2-3 years longer 😂 wano was already a massive ark I don’t understand how anyone thought the raid could fail
yamato's fight with kaido is one of the most important fights in all of One Piece. because it debunks kaido's belief in fatalism.
Kaido is a complicated character. a very complicated one. for all of his traits to be fleshed out. He needs to be put in different situations. Losing himself against Luffy and fighting yamato were essential. the story as a whole falls apart without them.
also the consequences of Luffy's death is how kaido relapsed and will project more cruelty to cope with his depression. Kaido because closer to his goal by defeating luffy. his goal which will include enslaving wano. the people that we as a readers developed a deep connection with.
Kinemon's fake death is definitely a flaw. but the highs of the arc are some of the highest in all of fiction. this dip won't make it any less of a masterpiece.
Arlabasta had stakes because Haki wasn't invented yet.
I don't really disagree with what you're saying but also the idea of Wano's people starving was enough for me (for the stakes), like I agree that Kaido should of had more to do after he defeated Luffy multiple times, however I have no clue on how to fix that problem without rewriting Kaido's character motivation but even so it never even occurred to me that stakes were a problem cuz Tama starving was a scary enough image for me, I guess I'm soft lol 😂
I think you are probably very right about what causes stacks but I also always thought it was things like Luffy reaction shots you talked about before where he reacts to being hit by an attack or like in a Jackie Chan movie any time he gets hurt to make him feel like a more human person so we get invested in him as a character. But what do I know. Thanks for the vid I thought it was very interesting
if the crew had to fight kaido like u suggested the battle would'v been 100x better oml
I fully agree with you. Personally, I didn't mind the lack of stakes as much because narratively Kaido was such a great antagonist. The way that he parallels Luffy is great of course, but what makes him compelling for me is how he parallels legends like Garp and Whitebeard. He's someone that could have been joyboy but the world broke him. So he wants to create Joyboy by imposing the same conditions he went through on the people of Wano, and ultimately the world as a whole. Very similar to the experience Garp had except Kaido wants to cultivate the next generation by drowning it in his despair.
But stuff like the kinemon fakeout really killed the tension that kaido up to that point had brought, and it really felt like the strawhats had an "easy" time getting through 2 yonko. Like Jimbei/franky/robin destroyed their opponents and once zoro/sanji dealt with their personal conflicts they destroyed king/queen. The only fight where it felt like a dogged struggle was law/kid vs big mom as they had to empty everything into her just to get that ringout.
I agree with you completely I think kaido should of had more on screen kills
Definitely agree with this. Compare to their Alabasta fights (especially Zoro vs Mr. 1), or to Luffy vs Katakuri. Every fight here should've been AS bad for the straw hats as Katakuri was for Luffy (of course, it couldn't be as long, but yk)
To this day I still think Big Mom should not have been brought in and Kaido should have been a straight up Raid Boss.
Have everything up to Luffy getting to the rooftop play out as normal…..Then have Luffy, Kidd, Law, Zoro and Killer fight Kaido.
Zoro still gets injured and scars Kaido, so he has to leave the fight……Kidd starts getting hurt mid fight, Killer realizes it has to be Hawkins, so he leaves the fight to find him
This Leaves Luffy, Kidd, and Law. Kidd gets the opportunity to figure out Ryou by seeing Luffy and Kaido use it. Law and Luffy go about business as they already did.
Luffy gets knocked off the island, Law and Kidd have to stall with the help of Yamato….we get their awakenings…..Luffy comes back on Momo
Base Luffy and Awakened Kidd and Law start dominating Kaido……Kidd and Law run out of stamina…….we get base Luffy v Kaido for a bit……CP0 comes in……Luffy dies…….Gear 5
Also still salty asf that Luffy just made a big fist and beat that dude
Kaido's character was so underdeveloped that you are going out of your way to create headcannon.
Agree with everything else.
Great video, man. I share most of your viewpoints, that said, I still have some trouble with Wano overall, and sadly affected my enjoyment of the arc.
I think one factor missing was the apparent insignificance of a Kaido & Big Mom's victory / defeat (I'll try to keep it short)
Most citizens of Wano were never aware of what was at stake at Onigashima: Kaido was just gone the next day. This didn't happened at Cocoyashi Village, Arabasta, Skypiea, Water 7, Marineford, Fishman Island, Dressrosa, Zou, Whole Cake...
The WG took the most events of Wano as inconsequential (mildly concerned about a two yonko alliance), their mayor concern ended up being Luffy/Nika.
I mean, Kaido & BM openly stated their intentions to search the One Piece and start a conquest campaign; imo, combining both Roger's and Whitebeard's past threats (and even Shiki's).
Whitebeard's abscence and the Shichibukai's abolition felt more important that the defeat of 2 yonkos. "Yeah, they're gone, here you have Luffy & Buggy as replacements, move on".
I mean, Beast pirates were just arrested (?), what happened to their territories?, and no significant change has happened in Tottoland yet (except incursions by two Blackbeard crewmembers), not even a family conflict for the throne.
Finally, imo, some plot points could've been addressed better: Wano remains closed (contended); Yamato neither joins the crew nor the Straw Hats's fleet; Kurozumi and Kozuki aren't reconciled (Hiyori's play, Orochi's backstory). Ace's message at Marineford isn't directly delivered to Otama, Yamato, or Marco.
The Gorosei and Imu continue to ignore both the Road Ponegliph and Pluton, whereas the Marines haven't done anything about Wano (not even sending an envoy), despite having intel about the waterfall, and state of the land (X-Drake and Cypher Pol 0)
You perfectly explained why the tension was lacking. good video
Here's how I would address the issue of stakes, and making the villain advance in Luffy's absence, without changing the story:
As Luffy is dead, Kaido is now free to wreak havoc. He's lost his last chance at a good fight and all that's left is to take Momo's head and destroy the flower capital. Instead of hanging around blasting aimlessly for a few minutes until Bugs Bunny pulls him back up to the roof, we could flesh that part ouf into a longer section:
- Kaido's last words to Luffy before killing him is that the victor needs no epithet. The nature of a samurai is finding honour even in defeat, being completed through it, something Kaido himself deeply wishes for but is never able to do, resorting to being lonely at the top and ruling with an iron fist, the only law he knows, the one of the jungle - the king of the beasts. And yet, nameless samurai will keep throwing themselves at him, making miniscule progress, only stalling the inevitable.
- Kaido makes an advance on paper through this, but is challenged philosophically; "why" he wonders, "why do all these no-name fodders keep fighting? I've killed their one chance to win and they refuse to submit, they'd rather die. No one will remember you, you're already ghosts to all of Wano, no one knows about your expedition to this island, and it'll stay that way as I crush you and make Wano the base of my empire. So why?"
- Kaido staggers, easily taking out our heroes, who nevertheless face certain death. Their leader dead, perhaps even Momo steps in and is no-diffed by Kaido, irked by how long this futile resistance is taking. But no one is discouraged still. Effectively, the villain already any% cleared his goal. And yet no one cares. His victory is practical, but a meaningless one, and he knows it, just like 20 years ago, when Oden died. But it doesn't matter anymore. A solemn Kaido is about to initiate the fall of Onigashima onto the capital.
- And then a giant arm pulls him back up. Arc continues normally.
I feel like there is a way to tackle the issues of the arc without changing what Oda was going for - just reinforcing it through better execution in order to draw more satisfaction and catharsis out of the reader. The idea that for a villain as powerful and effective as Kaido, able to 100% clear his goal, to be so flawed philosophically that it's undone anyway through Luffy's resurrection, is narratively a wonderful idea. I just wish Oda managed to dedicate one more chapter to it for us all to "get it".
Buddy wrote a whole ass fanfic
I can't believe I went to this mf to get accurate data on the number of deaths in each arc
(love you Chris)
I'm not your buddy, friend
this is so weird. why are you acting like this is an alternate scenario when it is just what happened in the arc 👽
Just wanna say that the reasons Luffy lost the second time were 1.He was weakened by his injuries from the Rooftop 5 battle and the food gave him his strength back(Momo in 1012 says that Luffy was weakened but still fighting) and 2.Luffy’s previous use of Haoshoku Infusion was not up to par, Kaido called it crude and clumsy(likely due to first time use and injury) and the sky split is probably supposed to tell us his usage is far better now. Just wanted to clear that up
Kaido is not crocodile, he wasn't there for power or weapons, blud was having a party and some crashers came in, so he dealt with them. Giving him an agenda just breaks the arc. Orochi was the one with agenda , messing up okobore town, and revenge etc.
Kaido wanted a good fight and he had one.
this aside croc and doffy were in town when the stakes kicked in as BOMB and BIRDCAGE, kaido was out there chilling, tf was he supposed to do threaten some rookies with cheap tricks lmao
Few things so im break it down into 3 separate sections:
1: For you criticism of luffy losing but came back seemingly better, I agree it was kinda fast but I interpreted this similar to luffy 2nd and 3rd battle with crocodile where there wasn't much change in physical strength but luffy did better the 3rd time mainly because what I conclude his determination was reinvorgorated. Like he says in the 1020-1028 somewhere between there he says as long as I'm alive I have infinite chances. It not the perfect explanation lol but it mine.
2. For your section of kaido I think it kinda hard to compare him to other villains because unlike kaido they had a plan. Kaido defeat was through a raid he wasn't planning anything people just jumped onto his island and decided to rumble which is kinda exactly what kaido wanted. Kaido whole thing was wanting to fight and specifically a fight that will push him like only a few could have which he believed could only be accomplished in wano as joyboy will arrive there. Kaido didn't have a plan because that wasn't his intention he just wanted to rumble as he pretty much a raid boss. So when it came to progression for other villains compared to progression with kaido it really hard to compare that in my opinion.
3. I think a consequence I haven't seen you mentioned is momo losing his years and being aged into a adult because of luffy 1st failure on the roof. Im unsure if this would've still happened if luffy never failed on the rooftop as he needed momonosuke to fly him back there. I think this was a really big moment that lead to other important things like momo gaining his confident by biting kaido or him becoming this like actual big guardian of wano. (I know someone gonna ask why didn't luffy just fly himself back up with g4 but I think it obvious he'd be tired out and essentially vulnerable/unable to fight kaido properly)
Lastly I wanted to say this video is amazing and kinda sums up my feelings on wano as well as it was entertaining but there was always a feeling felt that more could've been done even though so much has happened in this already long arc.
Fair points!
I don't think Luffy's jump in power is too serious, really. I mostly included that bit for fun. But I do think that it works more awkwardly than some other cases in the story. After Round 2 against Croc, Luffy mostly just had to avoid letting Croc cheese him with that same drying out technique again. It's more about caution and awareness of what to look out for. Which I think is similar to why he did better against Blueno in EL than in W7 - if you look closely, you can see that Blueno blocked weaker, faster attacks in W7. But come EL, Luffy knows how CP9's defenses work, so he breaks through with a slower, heavier attack.
But against Kaido, it's really just a pure difference in strength/haki. I'm not calling it a plot hole or anything; it just feels a bit more thin, y'know? Like, the story gave itself a little less wiggle room for us to rationalize it with. Still, not actually a big deal though.
I definitely agree you can't directly compare Kaido to every other villain because he's passive, not active. It goes by a little fast, but that's why I compare him to Doflamingo, who's also passive, and compare Onigashima to the Birdcage. I think the Birdcage does a much better job of escalating the stakes. And ultimately, while there should be some variance in villain characterization, I think if a villain works worse because they're passive, then, well, they work worse because they're passive. That depends on whether you think it was worse at all, of course.
I talked about Momo being aged up a bit in a reply to another comment already. But another thing I'll add is that the story ultimately isn't really focused on the emotional consequences to Momo. I don't know if it's because Oda wasn't interested in that, or because he had to rush, but either way it's not really a priority, and because of that I don't think it really works as stakes. It's ultimately more of a tool for Momo's self-actualization reaching an endpoint, than it is a negative consequence for him.
@@Werb I agree with everything you said, hopefully if we do get the rocks flashback in the near future oda can kinda add more context to kaido as a villain for why kaido was so passive as unlike doflamingo who kinda had everything kaido was still seeking more in the world hence why he teamed up with big mom.
I think the real problem with wano is the villains, idk what oda is thinking by building up all the powerhouse in kaido's sleeves
Early wano, we still feel the stakes with luffy oneshot by kaido zoro clashed with kanjurou (then revealed as a denjirou), and sanji clashed with pageone
But the problem occurs in onigashima, we still get the stakes with ulti going toe in toe with luffy and then oda choose to give them to usopp and nami and makes them run and have a boring fight (when i think yamatou should help nami and usopp defeat pageone and ulti so that yamatou didn't feels stronger than sanji or zoro to be put in straw hat crew),
Im okay with jimbe vs who's who because we get the lore
Jack be offscreen a lot
King and queen at first seem like very strong opponents, but after zoro and sanji power up, they just low diff them
Maybe, the plot armour is the problem here
And i think we still dont understand much about kaido to care about his character, his flashback feels short. We know he wants to die badly,and that's the reason for making the world of violence.. and yeah i agree with the video that kaido achieve nothing in wano arc
lemme offer a counter arguement: i felt plenty of stakes with just one question. How are they going to beat kaido. at the time of the first half of the raid, i was excited because i didn’t know where luffy was gonna get the fire power imperative to defeat kaido. i knew he wasn’t strong enough going in, so waiting to see the reveal of gear 5 for the ultimate takedown was immensely satisfying. i honestly knew everything about kaido off his design and how he talks alone. i think a character like kaido really speaks for himself. we know just enough about him to know how threatening he is and i thought personally that he was a great roadblock for luffy.
To answer your question: plot armor. There you go.
Yes kaido was a good roadblock, but he was built to be more than that. He no niffed most people on the rooftop but… he wasn’t even able to kill kinemon with a COC infused bonk to his fuckin head??? He wasn’t able to kill ANY of the scabbards?? He literally beats luffys ass 3 or 4 times (the last time he literally kills Luffy) but still ends up losing the “true” final fight when Luffy attains plot ar- I mean gear 5. Stakes WOULD have been there if Oda wouldn’t have made kaido look like an idiot who forgot to confirm his kills every damn time.
Great analysis. One more thing you could’ve mentioned is how Luffy’s first defeat to Kaido didn’t feel like a major low point because of how the strawhats reacted. It was literally a joke reaction from all of them.
Same with his defeat in 1014, they were never doubting their victory for a single moment (except the first half of 1043) which means there is no tension for the reader.
You're totally right about failure needing to have consequences.
I think one of the main issues is that the alliance never had to face true consequences throughout the first two acts. Imagine if when Kaido one-shotted Luffy, the plans for the raid leaked at the same time, compromising the alliance. That would've made the story way more exciting
I’d like to interject with the fact that unlike all major vilains thus far, Kaido has been specifically introduced to lose. We were told in his very first moments that he was looking for a way to die. The guy has done it all. He doesn’t want anything.
I cannot disagree more. After reading acts 1 and 2 I was incredibly invested in the awesome climax of act 3.
However, I can totally see that reading/watching week to week, people are gonna forget WHY they were invested in the first place as act 3 keeps going on. That's the price of reading weekly or watching the anime at all - the pacing is gonna be shit.
This videos music choices are top tier.
I think the second Luffy defeat is narratively necessary (as you mentioned Momonosuke needs Luffy to be with him) but I agree that my biggest issue with it is that Luffy should have been shown to either A. not got ACOC until after coming back, or B. push Kaido to a good limit (maybe enter 4th gear so that the defeat feels natural in that he NEEDS momos help to fly back up). For the fake-out death at the end, I like the idea of a Straw Hat vs Oars rematch type thing (especially considering many were in solid fighting condition) and low key maybe give Usopp a Conquerors hint at the moment before Luffy wakes up? Im not sure tbh but I really enjoyed this video! Keep up the great work!
I really didnt mind the missing stakes at all. What annoyed me greatly though, is the end of the arc. It left too many open ends, and even opened things more. To me it didnt feel like Shanks and Green Bull had to be there. The realization that Momo cant rely on the SH for defense anymore and how Yamato stays for protection couldve been brought up some other way, without that weird fight against Green Bull. It felt so out of place to me. What i expected and wanted to see was some kind of resolution with the rest of the Beast Pirates, especially King. I hope Oda just saved that one for later, maybe in the current cover story.
I think the purpose of this arc was to show that they were all on the same level as an emperor. So I think the lack of stakes actually did a good job of showing that. if there was too much struggle then that would push the idea that they're still quite far below that level because it was 3 crews vs 2. the 3 winning with relatively low stakes did a good job showing how far they're come
True! This was my biggest problem with act 3
i think my main issue was just that i had really high expectations. It really bothered me that none of kaido's crew had awakenings and that kaido and big mom didn't really have a confirmed awakening either.
The thing is you could do this exact video with every One Piece Arc. And I think it’s the reason why people don’t watch One Piece because the stakes are so high. Besides that I also don’t really understand how people get this feeling of fear that a character might die. If I feel something when consuming media especially manga it’s either joy or sadness. As an example it’s the reason why I find this chapter in Berserk with the flower elf more emotional than the eclipse
wano did have stakes, the stakes just didn't feel like stakes because the consequences would fall on other characters than our group of protagonists
Kaido was literally going to drop Onaginshima on top of the flower capital and re-enslave the entire population. I feel like those stakes are pretty high. The whole town was starving, 20 years of failure and you have people who came back from the past into the future to accomplish this task. Odin's backstory provides all the stakes.
I think the issue is that the Straw Hats, as Shōnen protagonists, simply cannot lose. Every situation they encounter, they will triumph over. Until Sabaody, that's when the story became real for me personally. I wanted the series to feature moments in which the SH don't get complete victories, and must chase and earn their victory, like Big Mom surviving Whole Cake Island and them hunting her. I want more complex resolutions than just Kaido is dead, all is well. Such as him having people who took after him, people who are still out there. These complex scenarios force the characters to deal with ever evolving situations, and allow the writer to better flesh out the dead character in question and better understand their motives. The possibilities are endless when there's more than just the bad guy being slain and all his subordinates surrendering/dying.
Unfortunately, it seems like the series regressed a bit. It feels especially bad because the alliance didn't even take the raid that seriously, they were joking about how they couldn't possibly fail (probably to set up the jovial theme of Gear 5). It just feels so bad... and clunky and forced and incongruent. It's as if the story fully embraced that the Heroes cannot possibly lose, so whatever. It's clearly an issue with G5's themes not blending well with writing concepts like stakes and tone.
@@snowarmth There are still "stakes" even though you know they are going to win. They have lost plenty of times in the short term. None of the villains even die either, this has always been the show. There have never been life and death stakes in One Piece with the exception of Ace. But the entertainment of the story comes from slowly revealing the larger mystery. And when has One Piece ever had a fully serious episode? It's always essentially been a comedy at its core. Also Luffy being exceptionally lucky and winning in the end in situations he has no business winning has always been the story. The real drama and nuance comes from the world lore, the Straw Hat backstories, characters like Odin and Katakuri and Big Mom. It's just a good story with interesting characters and big action it never tries to be something it's not.
Croc is my favourite one piece antag/villain so I’m very happy you used him as the template for comparison
With his desire to create a world of war and his attempt to joined the Paramount War, I think it makes the most sense for Kaido to try to recreate that conflict. Perhaps by kidnapping Coby, this involving both the Marines and Luffy (and his grand fleet) in the war.
I think my biggest issue with the arc’s sense of stakes is how Kaido, in comparison to other One Piece arc villains(especially Crocodile) just seems so passive. In Alabasta, Crocodile was on the move after Rain Dinners, actively trying to overthrow the country, causing sandstorms and killing royal soldiers. He always seemed to have a backup plan, outsmarting and outmaneuvering the Straw Hats until Pell finally gets rid of the bomb and Luffy defeats him. He’s an imminent threat and every moment he’s on the loose puts the entire country at risk. Compare that to Kaido, who spends much of his time drinking on Onigashima without any direction or plans. He doesn’t really do anything until he’s forced to. He FINALLY does something proactive with moving Onigashina to Wano, but spends most of the raid fighting a defensive battle until Momo pretty easily deals with the island and he’s punched thousands of feet beneath under by Luffy.
Stakes for Luffy were higher in Wano than Alabasta
Luffy's loss in Alabasta lessened the sakes for me
And the stakes of Onigashima crushing the capital felt higher than the bomb
I think you hit the elements of stakes correctly. Villains progressing creates so much tension
Having an arc focussed on war but also having 35 characters to write engaging stories and fights for takes the force out of anything that happened for me. The Oden flashback was great, but everything after that was just a straight line towards Luffy beating Kaido for me. Which is fine. Can't always have huge winners.
It just felt like a regular raid arc where we know what fights will happen and who will win.....One Piece fights is more about the character development and storytelling (like Luffy v Katakuri) which was heavily lacking in Wano...also for how cool Gear 5 was it made the ending unserious compared to previous fights. Lastly, no one gave the slightest shit about the scabbards. 2 of them died LOL.
„Gets cheesed by a logia“ cracked me up so hahaha
So accurate tho
Great video
Luffy has always been able to recharge with food and had to fight his way up to Kaido as well as participate in the 2v5 earlier. Luffy being better off after returning to the roof makes sense with everything established by One Piece.
The loss when Kaido dropped Luffy was Momo sacrificing 20 years of his life to get Luffy back up. Had Luffy not been dropped, Momo may have not needed to sacrifice his lifespan. I feel the idea that the consequences must only be connected to the main villain despite the consequences regardless being due to his actions is odd.
Onigashima changes the stakes because there is no escape no way to warn the mainland and seemingly no way to stop it.
I also find the suggestion of the Strawhats fighting Kaido interesting but flawed. They alone can’t fill the time imo without the arc feeling padded out without much being accomplished.
Overall I don’t really agree with this video much at all. It was an interesting watch but I do not feel this really encapsulated stakes in One Piece well. It focused on stakes solely related to the main villain’s actions after Luffy’s failures, but it didn’t focus on any other ways the villains actions could lead to loss outside of their personal plans. I don’t think this is from lack of reading comprehension but just a perspective difference.
Definitely think this perspective is valid. Ultimately, as said in the video, I can only describe my own experience, and I think we'll all understand the arc better if we can compare how it made us feel.
I will reply to this point, however, because it's not one I thought of while making the video: I don't think Momo having to age up works for me personally. It feels like it probably would have happened anyway, because either way he needed to become an adult to carry Onigashima, whether or not he had to help Luffy. It also feels like, as I said in the video, something in parallel to Vivi's role in Alabasta, which is totally fine, but doesn't feel like it covers everything the arc needs in terms of stakes; it's too limited to its own subplot. It's also ultimately something that helps the heroes, rather than something that sets them back.
Also, I definitely agree my idea for fixing it is flawed. The whole point of that section is that I don't think I, or anyone really, is capable of coming up with some simple idea that would fix it. Although I would personally prefer a version of Wano that was longer in general; I think it was too rushed in its pacing from start to finish. Which, hey, is another factor that can affect the feeling of stakes too.
I don’t think it would track that Momo would do it on his own since Luffy was the push that made him come to said conclusion.
I also feel people get lost in parallels often to the point they expect too many similarities. Parallels are nice but they aren’t the main objective a writer usually goes for. More so a side objective to enrich something, but they can also be intrusive.
I am thankful for the dialogue though.
Oh yeah I def don't mean it's intentionally parallel in any kind of thematic way. More that I think they're just fulfilling the same structural role - it happens in a lot of arcs. I think Sniper King saving Robin from a distance in Enies Lobby could also be called a pretty similar role. So I think Vivi is a good comparison point for what exactly this kind of plot point contributes, and what it doesn't, but it's not a "parallel" in the typical sense the fandom talks about.
Appreciate the fair response from someone who disagrees!
@@Werb the thing is Oda built a connection between the reader and the people of wano. especially toko and the other okobore people. This fight is a revenge for years of enslavement.
maybe you forgot to talk about it but the stakes of this arc is build upon the existence of Kaido himself and how it caused suffering to people for 20 years.
I think a good, simple fix would have been to move Yamato vs Kaido to the main battlefield. Have Kaido try to kill the samurai and have Yamato try to stop him. That creates chaos for all sides and could give us some more meaningful interactions between Kaido and his crew.
I think a very big part of feeling the stakes is, that we are around with this story for 25 years and can predict certain things and where the story needs to go. Crocodile „killing“ or defeating luffy felt different because it never happened, in Arabasta I felt for Pell before he came back… Wano repeated a lot of stuff and we all knew what was going to happen. We knew luffys next step was defeating an emperor and that he was going to do it in this arc after he would lose a few times, because thats how its always done, so no shock when he was one shotted, even though it was cool and not the problem, the problem was that it was too dragged out in the end. Kinemon „dying“ made me feel absolutely nothing because i suspected him to come back and the other deaths failed to deliver or I didnt have feelings to the characters in the first place.
To the topic of deaths: Kinemon should have absolutely have died there, we spent multiple arcs with him and this would be really impactful. Also I think at least one of the mink leaders should have died because I think they are beloved in the fandom and 1 of them should be enough to continue the story. Izos death was anticlimatic but a good decision, I wish though he would have had at least one cool moment in Marineford(like Marco, Vista, Jozu) so he would not only have been the female looking commander from whitebeard. Ashura never clicked with me from the beginning and his death was laughable.
Kanjuro und Orochis deaths were milked so much that it made me just want to skip the scenes, I get that they had personal business with several characters but letting every side character kill them at some point was just annoying and it always got placed between actual interesting stuff
the outer wilds background music is something i havent heard in a very long time
In my opinion, Kaido should have been fighting to open Wano's borders, same as the Scabbards. The difference is why -- Kaido wants to open the borders in order to use Wano's military might to start his world war while for Oden & the Scabbards, it's to welcome the return of Joy Boy.
Kaido's line about Wano being a natural strongholds with his large walls was good, but had he been driving to tearing them down during the climax as Onigashima flew to the Flower Capital, it would have given him something concrete to work towards while Luffy's out before Yamato stalls him. Why does Yamato stall? 1. Because she's the gardian diety of Wano as per her fruit, 2. she knows from Oden's journal that Wano should not be opened until Joy Boy's return.
You can even have the fight take place elsewhere off Onigashima. Kaido talked at the start of the battle aout obtaining the Ancient Weapons; well, go have him retrieve Pluton so he can use it to destroy the walls and open the borders. Write it so that Yamato is the only one who knows his plans, since Kaido planned on having her replace Orochi, and so she stalls him. Meanwhile, adult Momo flies Luffy to the new location before swapping Yamato out and leaving to go back to Onigashima and stop it.
At the end, still have Momo keep the borders closed. Why? 1. Yamato's convinced him, and 2. He's lacking the full context that Oden had (Laugh Tale) but still have it ultimately be the correct call since the Government can't invade.
Oda couldve maybe made it so the battle between luffy and kaido was straining for kaido, which slowed or weakened kaidos ability to move onigashima. If you shortened the timer of how long until Onigashima was over the capitol but also made it so that every minute luffy fought kaido, it extended that timer just a bit, it makes it so every time luffy or anyone fails to take down kaido it is actively accelerating the death of the people at the flower capitol. Making that ability a purely background ability with no emphasis on how much power or strength it takes makes it feel so weird, like if kaido could do all this while lifting the entirety of onigashima then what does that ability even cost if anything at all?
A major problem I had with Wano is that I never really cared about the Nine Red Scabbards. Don't get me wrong, most of them are good characters and I liked Kin'emon, Kiku, Kawamatsu etc., but for all the stuff that happened in the first two acts of Wano, none of it really got me invested in the Scabbards.
Ever since Punk Hazard, the goal to take down Kaido was established, both through Law's and Kin'emon's ambitions. Pretty much all that early Wano did was show more and more reasons to complete the goal we already have - yes, the people are suffering under Kaido, but we don't need 70 episodes to show that. Nothing would've changed about the Raid if the first two acts of Wano never happened, aside from us having less allies to have random side battles.
And the Scabbards are the best example of that, their involvement in those first two acts is pretty much "oh look at how much these people have suffered and want to kill Kaido". It doesn't make you care about them.
The Raid was never about saving the country of Wano. It was about Luffy, Law, and Kid wanting to take down a Yonko.
How does big mom and Kaido teaming up not equate to doom
0:25 I'm surprised no one hasn't mentioned this, another big reason why Wano wasn't a good arc was because of Kaido himself. Kaido was more of a stepping stool for Luffy rather than a villain. His whole character revolved around the fact he's strong. King felt more of a villain and an impactful character than Kaido. It's crazy how many years have passed since Wano started and Doflamingo is still the most iconic villain in the franchise and it should've been Kaido.
No kaido is interesting, he is not just strong, re read, its Just sublitle, like his dépression, his dream of wanting to be joyboy, his war childhood etc and oda is hiding one big part of his stroy, his relationship with xebec when he was in the rocks, i think there is more, i hope oda Will show us in the future
I feel like with Kaido he wasn't a normal One Piece villain since he himself was motivated to be pushed beyond his limits. He clearly doesn't actually care about enslaving the people of Wano, or the war, or thew weapons factory. He only cares about a fight that he feels he can lose because he is so jaded by everything and needs excitement again. Kaido is essentially depressed and looking for a challenge just like Saitama in One Punch Man.
And a big reason why Luffy was closing the gap is because Kaido was treated more like a raid boss. You had multiple team members swap out to slowly chip away at Kaido as Luffy was able to rest and recover. Kaido himself never actually got a break from fighting and was in combat nonstop from when the Ayazaka 9 got to the roof until Luffy defeated him. As this battle is going on Kaido is being worn down, he's taking more damage, wounds are being opened up, as Luffy gets to pause, rest, and rethink his approach to the fight. I feel like this was supposed to show more of the accumulation of Luffy building up his crew and friends to take on this challenge of beating such a legendary opponent, than truly weighing the result of the fight off of Luffy's actions alone like in the other arcs.
I’d argue that Thriller Bark had the biggest stakes to the Strawhats because like Zoro said, Gecko Moria and the his crew are masters of trickery. Which is a hard counter to someone like Luffy. Some of them were also met with the threat of dying to sunlight from not having their shadows.
Imagine if Usopp saying what he had to say to wake Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji didn’t work. And what if Usopp wasn’t there at all to counter Perona.
Then here comes Barthalamew Kuma…..“Nothing Happened”
I feel the same as you in the fact that the luffy's defeat falling from onigashima could be skipped or changed. Wano tries to be this giant battle arc where a ton of characters are involved but I don't care for most of them. In alabasta, ennies lobby, dressrosa, etc. Every strawhat having a 1v1 was really cool. But wano gives more importance to other characters that are not as interesting: the samurais, x drake, the cp0 agents, even Yamato falls for this. As I was reading the arc I found weird how rushed yamatos inclusion was. And it was time that Oda could give to the stawhats. I know people like Yamato a lot, but I enjoy one piece because of the strawhats, not the last second character that is somehow strong enough to hold kaido
It did feel like failure was never an option in Wano. While meta wise, yes we know a Shonen manga will always have the heros win in the end. But it can still feel tense and uncertain in the moment, but never felt that uncertainty in Wano.
The idea that the Straw Hats should've fought Kaido instead kinda feels like it reduces them to being Luffy's backup dancers. The reason they each have their own fights while Luffy fights the bbeg is because the person they are fighting usually has something to say about their character. This goes for Yamato, the Scabbards, Momo, and any other character.
Good video. Made me think 👍
I disagreed with maybe 35% of the things in the video. But still every point you made was understandable and not far-fetched at all. Really interesting, great idea, great video.
Good work, thought you had way more than 5k subs
There are only 3 sagas that really hd stakes for me in one piece. Cp9 saga, marineford saga, and whole cake.
Man when Kin survived the point blank attack that later killed a CP0 agent, I checked my expectations out of Wano.
Honestly, as soon as you mentioned the lack of a true goal from the villain... I felt that deeply. That's exactly it. I stopped caring about what happened in individual chapters because i felt it was going nowhere. It kept bouncing back. It felt like it was all just oooooone big tournament arc where it's the same people against the same foe over and over and over again without consequences. You put it into words in a way i never would've thought of. And i think the big fix that would help the arc is... giving Kaido a more developed goal with clear steps that need to be accomplished for him to get closer to winning. And i have no idea what that would be.
youre the machine
Whaou, I think your analyse of what wano (the onigashima part only) miss is really good🧡🧡🧡
And even if you didn't tell it, it's not only luffy/kaido who didn't move during the war. Exemple : Yamato follow momo but left to fight kaido then "came back" to tell momo how to fly to push the island, yamato left him to freeze the bomb and finaly come back to him. The same can be tell for kanjuro who lose against the akazaya to follow them and lose again and before dieing send a burning ghost who officialy accelerated the burn of the castle but didn't strart it but for us did nothing
With a friend, we thought only on how to change the fight to make it less muddled like for exemple a battle royale between mugiwara and tobiropo instead of moving to different place. But that wouldn't change the absence of consequences
It didn't have stakes because too much focus on literally anyone except THE MAIN FUCKING CHARACTERS.