Shitty Introduction[]
Fat lady
Axe Hand
Clown
Scissor Fingers
Guy with lots of shiny stuff
Flippers
The Guillotine
Some bounty hunters
Wax Dude
Enter Sandman
Should-have-definitely-been-a-kangaroo-DF-villain
Thunderbuddy
- Really? (Foxy)
- Wasted Tax Money (aka, the government) - seriously, he just lost here
The World, oops - I mean Lucci
Vampire Eggplant of Darkness
- Separation (because only physical pain isn't enough)
- Future fiance's sisters
Poopy pants
- ACE!
Boom! New World!
Filler boss
The second clown
The fashion designer
-elephant SMASH
Katakuri *smirk*
Ok.
That's about it. This is a half-assed list of all the main story arcs and who Luffy had to face in them (- marks arcs without a main antagonist). To skip through with the East Blue Saga, Luffy just got into fights and Arlong was only ever the real threat. He didn't really grown much, but was demonstrating his existing abilities.
After that, only a few names stand as former walls that Luffy had to break through in order to grow:
Crocodile, Enel, Lucci, Moria, Magellan, Hody, Caesar, Doflamingo and Katakuri.
Luffy definitely got lucky with Crocodile and Enel. He showed huge growth with Lucci. With Moria, I personally do not remember much development. After Magellan, his poison resistance got really high, but also a bit of a boost. Boom - timeskip training by Rayleigh. Beats Hody quite easily - Caesar was also not beyond his abilities.
Then - trump card emerges - Gear 4. Defeats Doflamingo, also within his abilities. And now, after so damn long - Luffy finally had one opponent which proved more difficult and to which he was really evenly matched - Katakuri. But will that be enough?
Actual Discussion[]
As outlined above, Luffy has grown significantly over the past 20 years of our lives and will surely not stop anytime soon. What I am concerned is that he will not grow fast enough in the next 10 years or so, in order for us to receive a satisfying Grand Finale when he becomes Pirate King and I will explain why.
But first, I will hpothesize that when Luffy faces a main antagonist, said antagonist must be or at least appear initially beyond Luffy's abilities. In that way, there will be a struggle, a tension, a risk, which will make the end-result gratifying. At the same time, Luffy must also not be so weak that a surge in strength (without proper tactics at least) will be necessary so that he will be able to defeat his opponent. Luffy's willpower and persistence have been some of his greatest assets in achieving unreasonable victories against stronger opponents, but never did it feel that Luffy was completely out of his league and that the result was completely impractical.
After this last chapter, I, and most likely everyone else, would agree that Luffy stands no chance against Big Mom. In front of a Yonko, he would lose 100 times out of 100, unless exploiting some unsolicited weakness. But even then, Big Mom seems absolutely impenetrable. Kaido does too with those stories of his invincibility. In front of admirals, Luffy would also be a lost cause - like an amateur trying to beat a professional.
That brings us to the situation at hand. I would like to open a debate on this theme: Luffy will not become strong enough to face off against a Final Boss-type character in the last arc of the series and offer us a gratifying ending. If that was to be his final challenge before assuming the title of Pirate King, 10 years might simply not be enough for us, as the story unveils itself.
There are three main indicators for Luffy's improvements in strength and skills:
- Defeating a stronger opponent
- We can see this recently as Luffy clearly became stronger than before when facing Katakuri - Big Mom's strongest soldier
- It's not a most reliable indicator, but symbolically, it is the equivalent of a wall surmounted and we can rationalize it sufficiently as 'Luffy got stronger'
- Tactical or Ability-wise
- Still with Katakuri, but with also other occasions such as with Rob Lucci or after the Timeskip, Luffy has improved his arsenal of abilities to invoke in order to take down opponents - Haki, Gears - the final remaining piece is Awakening his Devil Fruit
- Defeating Croc with his blood, Enel with being rubber or even being injected with hormones or infused with shadows would count as sufficiently good, although situational, they might leave a longer-term impact on Luffy's development; However - we could only hope for such a "boost" to be available in the final battle
- Training
- The final indicator of course is spending time honing one's skills. Luffy hasn't done much of that. He's a natural talent for fast growing, however the period before Romance Dawn and even during the time-skip were essential times for Luffy to improve on his general strength and (2.) abilities
But technically. Since the timeskip began, Luffy has not grown much. He deployed Haki and Gear 4 which he developed during the 2 years, but only in the most recent arc did Luffy see significant growth in the form of his Kenbunshoku Haki - seeing a bit into the future.
His incredible speed and nimbleness had always been advantages when fighting stronger opponents, but as we move closer into the realm of the titans who are so vastly superior that they could defeat mature giants in their preteens, it seems to me absurd that a (though talented) nobody such as Luffy could hope to gain a victory.
I am not going to be quick to judge, but this would seem a bit different from when he met Mihawk at the end of the East Blue Saga. Mihawk has been ever since then a force with which Luffy even today would have difficulty in defeating IF at all. And that was just with the Shichibukai, who had vastly different levels of strength and abilities.
Right now, we've been put face-to-face with the reality of how incredibly powerful a Yonko is. And there are three more. The one real exception here is Blackbeard though. His power lies not in his physical prowess or haki as it does with Big Mom, Kaido or Shanks, but with over-the-top devil fruit abilities. Two years ago he would have been taken out by Ace. Two years since, I could imagine him close or a bit above the abilities of an admiral. Not to mention if he awakened his two devil fruits.
Luffy cannot afford to be slow in his growth. There aren't gonna be 30-something arcs with 10-something antagonists. Oda will need to finish One Piece, if not for the sake of the series, for his sake at least. I would love to see the series ending before he has to challenge his health further. So Luffy doesn't have enough time to grow. He must demonstrate to us through those three indicators that he will be capable enough to take down the final-boss equivalent of at least a Yonko. I do not know how, but this must happen if One Piece will continue on its shounen-style manga storytelling.
A Paradigm Shift[]
But should it?
Should One Piece really be all about the power-level bashing path-dependency of its predecessor (Dragon Ball), until the point where the strength of some characters today would be so far from where they were before that the universe slowly becomes unrecognizable?
Why not change it? We've already seen how some arcs did not actually have an authentic main antagonist. Water 7's antagonist was hidden away and the main theme of the story then were secrets, betrayal and the hiding of truths from your friends. Franky was the antagonist, but under a different name - a diversion from the real antagonist for the Saga: CP9. Even the Robin question, which was so intriguing and which culminated with the declaration of war on the world government was absolutely beautiful.
It wasn't the fights that made Water 7 one of the best arcs in the series (and my personal favorite), but the way in which the narrative was built and how we as viewers and readers were misguided, surprised, shocked and quite honestly terrified... It was a time in which I felt that the Straw Hats could lose for real. Not to mention the conflict with Usopp and the story of Merry, which turned out to be one of the most touching moments.
With Sabaody's frustration of being separated from his nakama and the long journey to the depths of hell and the most deadly of war zones for his brother, it was not the conflict against Magellan, or for that matter Luffy's conflict with the marines that were at heart - but rather the struggle to save someone. I remember how I could not believe the fact that the straw hat pirates had become separated and that it was now all about Luffy and the secret mission to rescue Ace. All the comedy, the camaraderie, the secrets and yup - the awesome feeling of leading the first and only prison break from Impel Down drove the story to great heights.
And even now, deep inside Big Mom's territory there were small bits of incredible beauty from storytelling. I am unsure how appreaciated it was, but the deeply complex and creatively quirky romance between Sanji and Pudding was wonderful. I never thought that Oda could tie into One Piece's shounen narrative a bit of the theme of love. We've seen such amazing sights: Big Mom's obsession, Pudding's betrayal and quite ironically fit with Sanji (on which I could write an entire post about), Chiffon's entangled past and even the impressive dysfunctionality of the bureaucratic structure that formed underneath a disinterested absolute monarch.
While Luffy and Katakuri's fight was, by my standards, top-of-the line, nothing impressed, or rather affected me more than that goddamn singing. So eerie and creepy, especially knowing that it's coming from bits of human souls put into inanimate objects by an overgrown child which is also a cannibal...
One Piece's backbone are its backstories. Whenever a flashback begins, I am quite happy. Even some of the most boring ones are still quite interesting, and they uncover human stories that we can all relate to or to which we would never ever want to relate to. They are Oda's little door through which he can share with us the breadth and depth of the universe he's created, and show the deceits, misfortunes, values and sacrifices upon which the present is built. They're not about great fights, but moral conflicts. How harshly can we judge Kuzan for killing his fellow marine in those circumstances while letting Robin go and permitting her to face all the hardships she encountered? How could we discuss an idea with someone who seems as mentally-ill as Big Mom? Why did Doflamingo turn out like that when his brother didn't?
I honestly believe that Oda should think twice before supra-powering Luffy with abilities and strength to face a final boss. While situational boosts could be useful in a final battle kind of thing, they would never justify that Luffy took the crown through fighting. The criteria through which Luffy will obtain One Piece should not be by overpowering someone and imposing His will, but rather by a resolution, a soft approach and by convincing someone of a greater value. Luffy will need to fight hard to get there, but the treasure must not be the reward of battle.
For this reason, I believe that Oda will have to surprise us through an incredibly amazing story structure to provide a gratifying finale that is not the drop of a Final Boss Fight. I do not know what it is. I do not wish to imagine how it will turn out. Heck, we don't even know what One Piece is or what exactly "there" means.
Oda better have not been trapped into writing a standard satisfying ending from the first page of the story.