When Magellan saw that Luffy and Mr. 3 had a great tactic against him and it finally got through to his head I think he decided it was time to bring out his ultimate technique. I had wondered, why not use this the whole time. But, this was his first time seeing the wax counter, he easily beat Luffy before, and further, we can assume 'Venom Demon' exhausts him like gears do and we saw it was literally destroying the prison, so those are great reasons to hold off on it. I think One Piece fights and powers are really awesome because of how loose they are, this can be a bad thing at times and I like the more grounded powers, but it still allows for moments like this, where I can wonder, why didn't he use this attack before, and then think about how he's just upgrading his poisons power and how he can always control it(like making Hydra's) so making a super crazy venom demon mech actually makes sense. I don't go, THIS IS DUMB, I go, HMMM I guess that makes sense, and I don't think I can do that in many anime. The way Devil Fruit are set up with such loose rules they still end up following gives them so many ways they can go and it makes fights feel like they can go in any direction, full of both characters fighting pulling out interesting new ways they can utilize their power. And, I don't see One Piece as an anime about its fights, I see its fights as a way to explore the characters and their resolves, strengths, weaknesses, personalities, problems, and they're a way to grow, so to have powers that are grounded enough to feel awesome and not asspull-ish which compliment that writing style is just mega cool to me!
I found it funny how Buggy played dead the entire ship assault. The notable thing in this scene for me outside of the way Croc indiscriminately killed a poor guy in an awesome manner, was Jimbei's strategy. He's constantly seen through Magellan's plan and countered it. He's the one who used the door as a boat, he's the one who wet the gunpowder, he's the one who called to the whale sharks and maybe even got the sea kings to go away. Going further back he's the one who realized Magellan's plan to get rid of the ships and he's the one who stopped Luffy from throwing away his life. Jimbei is an incredibly strong character, literally and metaphorically and he came out of nowhere. He's a nice surprise, one that without this would all be impossible.
I went from laughter with Luffy's "EVERYONE ARE YOU THERE?!?! YOU GOTTA RUN!!" to amazement with Jimbei's suggestion, 'get into the water'. And it was such a group effort, this was not easy and one single slip up would have been failure. Luffy and Mr. 3 worked together some more with that gear 3 push back, and Ivan brought Inazuma along with some energy hormones and sprinkled a bit of luck into this, coming in to use his giant head as a boat for everyone to escape on.
Talk about one crazy escape. I loved it. For some smaller things, Luffy's ability to trust Jimbei out of the few instances he's seen of him already and going back to the reason he freed him to begin with, because he's Ace's friend and he trusts Ace so much was awesome. Also, this arc has been killing SO many people! Prisoners kicked into lava(or boiling blood..), Crocodile dehydrating people into corpses, prisoners being drenched in poison. It's like, very overtly dark by One Piece standards.
P.S. I'm excited to see what will come of Magellan. Will he see the light and fight against the world government one day?! Let's find out.. With how corrupt they are I'm starting to see Whitebeard and the Revolutionaries as the 'good' factions in the world but we don't know enough about them yet to say for sure! I'm sure they will be as morally gray as the pirates and the navy are.
Strawberrycake48 said:Honestly, I think my favorite part about these last few arcs have been the whole combined effort thing-it's not Luffy's brute strength that lets him win (although he clearly has potential)...it's usually his connections and ability to sway people in his favour, so he always manages to scrape by.
If it wasn't for Mr. 3's wax, Bon-chan's honest friendship and Iva's abilities...Lufffy would be toast. Plus, Hancock is the whole reason he made it into Impel Down.
I think his charisma sets him apart from the other strong characters!
Yes! It's very awesome. I think it's both a mix of One Piece's tone changing drastically to show Luffy as a rookie instead of a legend, but I also think it works as a reminder that Luffy NEEDS his/a crew. If he didn't get this temporary crew he would have been toast.. I loved the teamwork and the fresh new group dynamics with these characters. :D |