User blog comment:Kaido King of the Beasts/Chapter 896: After Beating the Mochi, Pop into the Oven/@comment-24850639-20180302165349/@comment-24850639-20180303131742

First of all, don't give me these simple ass explanations as if I can't understand what's happening in the panel right in front of me. No shit Luffy's attack hit and Katakuri's didn't. My point is that the elements of story that Oda sets up in these scenarios were not as prevalent, or non-existent this time around. Gear 3rd and Gear 2nd were explained during Luffy's fight with Lucci. Luffy explained Gear 3rd himself, and Lucci explained Gear 2nd to the audience as he observed Luffy. Doflamingo explained Gear 4th to the audience as he observed it, as well as Luffy explaining the circumstances that caused him to develop Boundman in the first place when he activated. Yes Luffy technically used Gear 2nd and 3rd before they were explained in detail, but it was still the same arc. More importantly, as I've said before, Gears 2-4 immediately changed the dynamic of the fight in Luffy's favor. Lucci was a tough opponent, but Gears 2 and 3 caused significant damage to him. Gear 4th absolutely annihilated Doffy. Cracker couldn't stand up to Tankman. But Oda showed us very clearly that Katakuri still handed Luffy's ass to him in both forms of Gear 4th, which was unprecedented. Jet Culverin, Black Mamba, all those attacks did very minimal damage to Katakuri, and he even countered some of them. Also once again, King Cobra landed and barely made Katakuri's body MOVE, if it all, so nothing about the attack landing made it seem definitive as a finishing blow. I'm not sitting here yelling "plot armor", I'm not sitting here ranting about how "lucky" Luffy always is. All I'm saying is that Oda did not make it convincing in the least that Luffy was actually the stronger, better, smarter, or faster fighter at all in this fight, until the very last blow, which didn't even seem to do major damage. Don't feed me this BS of "Oh Katakuri's letting him slide because he knows he's coming back", or "Katakuri was just too tired and didn't want to fight anymore" SO FUCKING WHAT? Since when has Oda ever ended a fight without a DEFINITIVE winner? Especially with the stakes this high?