I've really enjoyed the teamwork in these episodes.
Robin could have attacked Moria the second he was revealed but she only thought to once she learned he was the main power source of Oars. The way she tried to snap his neck cleanly like that with no hesitation is a testament to her brutality, it gave me Robin vs Yama vibes. But, Moria not only revealed his ridiculous power to control people's shadows to morph their bodies but also his crazy ability to switch places with his shadow. It led to an awesomely tense scene where Robin risked it all hoping that if she killed him his shadow would disappear, before having that not occur with the shadow still standing, and her shadow being stolen. However, this is the first time where I need to just accept a devil fruit power like this.
It's so ridiculous but it's cool and leads to an interesting fight so it's whatever... I'll just accept its ridiculousness and not think all that much about it since he did explain what he was able to do so luckily it doesn't feel like he can pull anything out of nowhere with his power. Plus, since shadows are their own thing in the One Piece universe we cannot say they just "don't work like that", where other characters have powers that we can infer would work certain ways, the fact that shadows are nothing like we understand means we can't just extrapolate what they are capable of and it makes me much more lenient to what's going on!
I suppose the way Moria made it into Oars was by sending his shadow into the cockpit and then switching places with it!
Brook's "there is no greater pain than being unable to repay a favour" was wonderful, that line says a lot about him. It can be seen with him wanting to repay the Straw Hats and specifically Zoro for getting his shadow back, but it can also be seen with the seriousness of him keeping his promise to Laboon. What a strong character. And of course, the attack itself was great.. even if after when he as attacked by Oars I'd imagine he'd be broken into little bits.
Chopper showed more teamwork by climbing on top of Oars and inspecting him for weaknesses while Oars and the others were distracted leading to him and Sanji working together to hurt his arm! I love the visual damage being done, the hole and the hoove impact mark are wonderful.
The way they're using teamwork to whittle down a seemingly impossible monster that cannot feel pain is just awesome! It's really like Moria is riding in a giant Luffy themed mech suit and to get to him they have to break it piece by piece by using incredible resolve and teamwork.
My favorite part was definitely the Robin scene I touched on earlier but the way this fight is nothing like anything before it makes it pretty darn cool. Thinking further, I have to wonder how they'll take Moria down. I had thought they could(or more likely Luffy could) get his body and his shadow and get him, so to say, between a rock and a hard place, otherwise he could just run away or deceive them further. But, to do that, Luffy will need to overcome brick bat and be able to manhandle that shadow of his. Perhaps he could just do what he did the first time and trick him into leaving himself open and hit him really hard, maybe even geared up so he can take him down in one clean blow. That said, they need Moria himself to give up and return the shadows so I really think we can't raw power through this and instead Moria will have to have his doppelganger taken out of the picture. |