My turn to rant about OP 550
I do a lot of bitching here.
But first, the good:
GECKO MORIA SO FUCKING AWESOME!!!!
How is it that the one with the goofiest, cartooniest (and most interesting) design still manages to come off as such a vicious, crazy and badass motherfucker. And this is on top of the surprisingly sympathetic backstory hinted at. Moria managed to elicit more of an emotional response from me in that one panel where he recalls his crew with a maddened stare, than Hancock did for all her tears and shame over the span of an entire chapter.
Seriously. One of Thriller Bark's greatest flaws was not giving that guy anywhere near enough screentime. Alabasta did a great job of highlighting Crocodile and his actions, but I felt TB came up short with regards to Moria. A bit unsatifsying that the end of the arc would leave me still anxious to see more of him.
So yeah, very happy to see him back in action. Though he likely won't get much attention in the upcoming events, even a few pages would be great.
:ahem:
Akainu is also looking pretty badass. As the long-anticipated "evil" admiral, I hope he won't disappoint whenever he gets his time to shine. I don't think it'll be now, but it was still cool to see him.
Lots of tension built up here. Even with Luffy's all-star crew, I have no idea how he's going to get through that many top-ranking marines. Even if the rest of the Straw Hats miraculously show up in the heat of battle (which I am guessing they will), I don't see any plausible way it can be won. You'd need Whitebeard's forces, the rest of the Emperors, AND Dragon's revolutionary army all participating or providing distractions to make me buy a successful Ace-rescue.
This chapter did a perfect job hyping up what's to come. But then. THAT DUMB ASS REVELATION.
Oda, if you seriously intend to KEEP this.. "tidbit" of information factual and NOT a lie on Sengoku's behalf or some other explanation that would let it be stricken from the record, then I don't think I will ever be able to take this series seriously again. Since Amazon Lily I found the quality has taken a plunge. It only recently seemed to be getting back on track.. But a 20-month pregnancy? REALLY?
A baby is not shit, you can't just "hold it in" for that long without repercussions. And strong will or not, a baby doesn't "stop" developing, Ace would have well out-grown the womb. BOTH of them should be dead. Or are we going to get some silly "Haki" reasoning. Because Haki explains everything. :eyeroll:
But even ignoring the ridiculousness of this twist, it still makes no damn sense. If the marines really searched every newborn and expecting mother, are they SO incompetent that they could miss a woman whose belly would have been stretched to gargantuan proportions with a nearly two-year old fetus? And if they were that incompetent in their search, why couldn't it have been written that Portgas gave birth and the baby was hidden? While contrived, retconning Ace's age would STILL be preferable and have logic to back it up rather than this stupid ass plot element.
No matter the explanation, even if one does come up that manages to win me over, this all can't help coming off as a ham-handed cover up in Oda's attempt to shoe-horn Ace into the role of "Roger's Son". It sucks.
I also don't really like how it works out phsyically. Luffy looks like Roger, and Ace looks like Garp and Dragon. And yet the relations are reversed.. But this is small potatoes in comparison. Same thing for Luffy and Ace's biological bond. Almost every Straw Hat comes from an adopted family and we did the whole "even if we don't share blood we're still family!" thing with Nami and Nojiko already. Can't we have some biological siblings for a change?
It's also more than a little annoying that we finally have the first revealed female "D", and so far her purpose was to give birth and die.
And to think, I was finally starting to like Ace a bit after his heart-to-heart with Garp. The knowledge that he did not recognize Dragon as his father gave a bit of character depth and it was refreshing to finally see a negative response directed at one of the many dead-beat parents of One Piece. It is NOT cool to abandon your children and they should disown you by every right. And yet, we had never seen that kind of reaction from any of the neglected children until then. (That was one thing that always annoyed me about Usopp.)
But no, that scene was set-up as a red herring and it turns out he's not Dragon's kid so everything is A-OK!
Well there goes my theory on Roger being Robin's dad. That would've made sense. The timeline, the "late husband" remark and his mysterious work, the black hair.. Eh, but this just means there's going to be another shocking celebrity parent revelation when the identity of her father comes up.
This seems to be the soap opera formula OP has been taking for awhile now.
But first, the good:
GECKO MORIA SO FUCKING AWESOME!!!!
How is it that the one with the goofiest, cartooniest (and most interesting) design still manages to come off as such a vicious, crazy and badass motherfucker. And this is on top of the surprisingly sympathetic backstory hinted at. Moria managed to elicit more of an emotional response from me in that one panel where he recalls his crew with a maddened stare, than Hancock did for all her tears and shame over the span of an entire chapter.
Seriously. One of Thriller Bark's greatest flaws was not giving that guy anywhere near enough screentime. Alabasta did a great job of highlighting Crocodile and his actions, but I felt TB came up short with regards to Moria. A bit unsatifsying that the end of the arc would leave me still anxious to see more of him.
So yeah, very happy to see him back in action. Though he likely won't get much attention in the upcoming events, even a few pages would be great.
:ahem:
Akainu is also looking pretty badass. As the long-anticipated "evil" admiral, I hope he won't disappoint whenever he gets his time to shine. I don't think it'll be now, but it was still cool to see him.
Lots of tension built up here. Even with Luffy's all-star crew, I have no idea how he's going to get through that many top-ranking marines. Even if the rest of the Straw Hats miraculously show up in the heat of battle (which I am guessing they will), I don't see any plausible way it can be won. You'd need Whitebeard's forces, the rest of the Emperors, AND Dragon's revolutionary army all participating or providing distractions to make me buy a successful Ace-rescue.
This chapter did a perfect job hyping up what's to come. But then. THAT DUMB ASS REVELATION.
Oda, if you seriously intend to KEEP this.. "tidbit" of information factual and NOT a lie on Sengoku's behalf or some other explanation that would let it be stricken from the record, then I don't think I will ever be able to take this series seriously again. Since Amazon Lily I found the quality has taken a plunge. It only recently seemed to be getting back on track.. But a 20-month pregnancy? REALLY?
A baby is not shit, you can't just "hold it in" for that long without repercussions. And strong will or not, a baby doesn't "stop" developing, Ace would have well out-grown the womb. BOTH of them should be dead. Or are we going to get some silly "Haki" reasoning. Because Haki explains everything. :eyeroll:
But even ignoring the ridiculousness of this twist, it still makes no damn sense. If the marines really searched every newborn and expecting mother, are they SO incompetent that they could miss a woman whose belly would have been stretched to gargantuan proportions with a nearly two-year old fetus? And if they were that incompetent in their search, why couldn't it have been written that Portgas gave birth and the baby was hidden? While contrived, retconning Ace's age would STILL be preferable and have logic to back it up rather than this stupid ass plot element.
No matter the explanation, even if one does come up that manages to win me over, this all can't help coming off as a ham-handed cover up in Oda's attempt to shoe-horn Ace into the role of "Roger's Son". It sucks.
I also don't really like how it works out phsyically. Luffy looks like Roger, and Ace looks like Garp and Dragon. And yet the relations are reversed.. But this is small potatoes in comparison. Same thing for Luffy and Ace's biological bond. Almost every Straw Hat comes from an adopted family and we did the whole "even if we don't share blood we're still family!" thing with Nami and Nojiko already. Can't we have some biological siblings for a change?
It's also more than a little annoying that we finally have the first revealed female "D", and so far her purpose was to give birth and die.
And to think, I was finally starting to like Ace a bit after his heart-to-heart with Garp. The knowledge that he did not recognize Dragon as his father gave a bit of character depth and it was refreshing to finally see a negative response directed at one of the many dead-beat parents of One Piece. It is NOT cool to abandon your children and they should disown you by every right. And yet, we had never seen that kind of reaction from any of the neglected children until then. (That was one thing that always annoyed me about Usopp.)
But no, that scene was set-up as a red herring and it turns out he's not Dragon's kid so everything is A-OK!
Well there goes my theory on Roger being Robin's dad. That would've made sense. The timeline, the "late husband" remark and his mysterious work, the black hair.. Eh, but this just means there's going to be another shocking celebrity parent revelation when the identity of her father comes up.
This seems to be the soap opera formula OP has been taking for awhile now.