User blog comment:Kaido King of the Beasts/Chapter 896: After Beating the Mochi, Pop into the Oven/@comment-91.140.88.149-20180302233337/@comment-24850639-20180303151919

Every main character in any story has some form of plot armor. That's not the issue here. A character can have plot armor and still win their fights in a way that makes complete sense. People are complaining, myself included, because Oda didn't follow his usual formula of how Luffy usually comes away with a win in these impossible situations. Luffy has fought several opponents that have had advantages over him in power, speed, DF Ability, what have you, and then Oda gives Luffy some kind of power up that evens the score, or tips the balance in his favor. Once Luffy straight up dominated Doffy in G4, it thus made since for G4 to be Luffy's path to victory. Once it was shown that Cracker hated pain and preferred to hide behind his biscuit soldiers rather than directly engaging Luffy in G4, again it made sense that G4 still made Luffy the stronger fighter, albeit in a different form that used Cracker's own biscuit soldiers against him. The instant Katakuri could fight with a clear head, he absolutely dominated Boundman. And even when Luffy activated Snakeman, Katakuri still held the advantage. He even countered a couple of Luffy's attacks and landed some major damage, which was something that Luffy still didn't manage to do in Snakeman. So again, when you add the fact that King Cobra barely looked like a jab to the stomach, it just makes the outcome of this fight harder to believe. Oda could have EASILY remedied this by just including more panels of the fight where Luffy had the advantage, but he did not. It was just a very anti-climactic ending, and people are letting how much they loved the scene of Luffy covering Katakuri's mouth overshadow the ending of the fight.