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No. 28121
I don't think this is a bad arc by any stretch, but I do feel like this arc's greatest weakness is that it's very busy and there isn't a lot of emotional connection here. And what little there is, is buried under a lot of different events that're having a lot of different interactions with little payoff thus far.
I'm not asking for every arc to be a Water 7, but this arc reminds me, if anything, of Skypia. Mostly in that we have a lot of different factions and events going around and the Straw Hats seem to more or less just be in the middle of it with little more than a tangential relationship to what's at stake.
I mean let's just sit down and put this arc into bullet points. - The Straw Hats arrive at an island that is divided into a land of fire and ice - There's a dragon there, which turns out to have been a creation of Vegapunk, at least at first - There's a pair of legs and half a torso that're not attached to anything - The Marines arrive with Smoker and Tashigi hot on the Straw Hats trail - Half the Straw Hats are captured - It's revealed that the dragon wasn't made by Vegapunk but by a crazy apprentice of his named Caesar Joker - He's keeping a bunch of giant [?] kids locked up - Trafalgar Law is involved and he winds up taking Smoker's heart, then he does a body/mind switch on a bunch of the Straw Hats for... reasons - It's revealed that an Ex-Marine named Virgo is working with Ceasar and him and Smoker have a beef with one another - Ceasar Joker is a gas-gas man who has plans to create a super-weapon he's going to sell - Law meets up with Luffy and tells him he wants to fight Shanks, so Luffy agrees to team up with him - The Straw Hats who got their bodies mixed up run away with the kids and realize they're in different bodies - Comedy ensues - It's revealed the kids aren't giants at all but regular kids who've been given addicting drugs that make them crazy and strong - All the while this is going on, a lone Samurai from a Not-Japan nation had his body cut up by Law, found by the Strawhats, put back together and apparently has Tanuki like powers. He wants to find his lost son. - This lost son is apparently a dragon now - The Yeti Cool brothers show up, defeat some strawhats, capture others, cause some havoc, etc - Ceasar reveals he's been creating a giant Axolotl made of gas that can explode and seal people in a horrible gas explosion - AGAIN while all this is going on, Smoker, Tashigi and the Marines have been fighting and either getting their butts whopped or are trying to figure out just what the hell's going on - Law meets up with some of the Strawhats who got bodyswitched, switches them back into their proper forms (except for Sanji IIRC) and eventually puts Sanji and Nami back into their respective bodies. Thus making the entire point of that...? - The Straw Hats get captured along with Law and Smoker, where it's revealed that Ceasar, Virgo, and the weird Harpy woman is working for Don Flamingo. - Don Flamingo is apparently sending two subordinates there to FURTHER complicate things. - The Straw Hats escape and proceed to go out to fight Ceasar and company. - Sanji fights Virgo for a second, but fails and Virgo goes off to get Law - Smoker and Virgo are about to fight - Luffy gets into the thick of battle against Ceasar on several occasions but is distracted and held back both times - Law may or may not be doing something evil with a super-weapon in the middle of Ceasar's base. It's unclear.
Now. If I MISSED ANYTHING THERE? I hope that merely serves to reinforce the point that a WHOLE FREAKING LOT IS GOING ON and... well simply put, there really isn't a lot that the Strawhats are actually putting at stake here. This isn't like W7 where Robin and Usopp were leaving the crew, or even like Thriller Bark where a lot of it revolved mostly around Moriah and those effected by him.
I dunno. I just feel like this arc's biggest weakness is that TOO much is going on at once. I know this is a common thing to do in One Piece, and there's nothing saying the Payoff to all this won't be worth it, but I think this just goes to show that the process of having to read this thing weekly rather than having the luxury of plowing through it kinda hampers the experience.
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