Okay so, I do believe we had like a 4 episode spread that reminded me of the assault on Enies Lobby. Episodes of what felt like nothing happening but inches of progress made forward. I feel like the escape from Level 6 up has been similar until these last two episodes and it made me realize that, sure it's for money reasons, but I also think by extending these assaults and escapes with so many parties at play it gives the illusion that a lot is happening even when its not when you look at it all together. It makes these Enies Lobby or Impel Down assaults feel more impactful than they otherwise would be. I don't think it's a good practice to do that, but I don't it is an absolute failure, especially since when we get to the substantial, chilling, and meaningful moments it does them so well like these last episodes have been. That said, I would have preferred fast and frantic pacing leading to these chilling slower moments.
I've touched on it before but I adore that Oda made Blackbeard suck up so much damage. He's not like an Eneru, or a Crocodile, or a Lucci who can take so many hits without feeling much at all. I know in the end Lucci took on a ton of pain, but until then he felt pretty impenetrable. So, to have what seems like the big bad of the series wince and show so much pain after a single hit, and then suck in Luffy and force him into a world of pain is such a breath of fresh air. Further, his power is awesome and he's fascinating. I wouldn't be surprised if Blackbeard ends up as one of the greatest One Piece villains.
I was expecting Luffy's encounter with him to become a gang war. It definitely would have without the more leveled headed people to act as his crew normally would and calm him down. But, it's clear he's not here for Luffy or the others so Jimbei did the best thing he could possibly do. He held Luffy back and forced him to face the dilemma that he was approaching, save Ace or get revenge, what's more important. Instead of what I predicted would be an escalation stopped by Magellan we got de-escalation by Jimbei. All of that made Luffy's slow walk past the man who's responsible for all of this feel pretty gross, especially since he told him he's capable of anything, something I presume Blackbeard guides himself with too.
Plus, like Blackbeard said, everything has been a part of a plan. To get this power by any means necessary, aka joining Whitebeard and killing a crewmate, to become a Warlord of the sea by any means necessary, handing in Luffy or his brother, and now to use the panic and chaos Luffy's created to create an event that will shake the entire world.. What could he be doing here? And, this is on top of the war that's going on. In this one arc we're facing a war of the two strongest forces in the world, the impregnable prison getting turned upside down, and the insanely scary Blackbeard creating an event by throwing away his Warlord title to shake the entire world...
I had expected Magellan to intercept Blackbeard and be defeated by him actually but it seems like Luffy isn't getting a free ride out yet. I'm assuming Blackbeard can just suck up the poison that got all over them with his power. Now we have Magellan right on Luffy's tail, so they'll have to deal with him somehow. Do we have any powers that would counter him? Can you poison steel, like with Mr. 1? And Crocodile is sand so couldn't he just turn himself in sand and have all the poison fall through him and stuff? I guess we'll find out.
I really like every force in this situation. Magellan showed some respect for his fallen men and he showed that he was quite proud of Hannyabal and that he's prepared to die for his job. With so many corrupt and selfish notions of justice being used in this series, I think Magellan and Hannyabal are two of the most pure versions of it, along with Coby and those sorts, even if Magellan's means are cruel and imperfect. They are genuine in their efforts when push comes to shove. I've said before but Luffy's group is entirely consisting of people working together for different reasons, all rich, colorful and interesting. Then we have Mr. 3 and Buggy who are just trying to escape on their own and by doing so helping create diversions and riots. And finally Blackbeard's crew who is here, not for any of these characters it seems, but for his own goals and if people don't want to fight him he'll happily have discourse with them and continue on. It's like, everyone can be rooted for and everyone here is doing some wrong, even Luffy freeing all of these people to go create havoc in the world. Something I like about Blackbeard is that he does selfish things and follows his dreams without care of how he has to do them, he mocks the idea of justice yet his means for pursuing his ends reminds me of the world government's, the only difference is they use justice as a excuse rather owning up to it like Teach does!
Lastly, I found it quite awesome how Jimbei calmed Luffy down. I hadn't thought about it, but now that the story has gotten caught up in trying to prove Luffy has a long way to go, that he's a rookie and there's many like him out there and many many far above him, perhaps this is a path it will take. A path of wisening Luffy up, calming him down so he doesn't try and fight every person he hates when there's better means around it like Jimbei reminded him here. I'm sure he'll always do what he believes and keep his always moving forward mentality and always do the impossible, and I'm sure he'll always be emotional, but perhaps he'll learn to channel that into more effective means as the story goes on rather than the most straightforward and direct means. I'm not sure if it will really do that, but I think it may very much happen due to how much Luffy has been losing due to his ordinary practices! So, that's interesting to me. It was at least nice to see him funnel his rage into Minotaurus when he couldn't put that into Teach..
I seriously think these last two episodes have been some of the most exciting in One Piece. There's so many powerful people interacting at this intersection to events that may change the world. |