User blog comment:Hawkinz340/Three Cards and Three Teams!/@comment-53539-20131205123118

This is the second arc in a row I haven't enjoyed One Piece's plot.

I did make a point of how let-down I felt the previous arc was because the island two admirals happen to have chosen to do their duel on was the first island Luffy and co landed on... The arc feels like a giant mess. Too many elements happening to remember, caused me to have to re-read this chapter twice to understand a few points here and there.

Suddenly the little pink dragon boy is as important to keep safe as Ceaser is to keep safe when in the previous arc he wasn't as important other then being a random samurai's kid. The samurai's also want to go to Zou anyway... Come on... Send them to a different island or have them go because they have no choice, don't make them just want to go there, it makes things feel forced.

Big Mom's going after Ceaser feels kinda forced too. Its like Oda couldn't think up a way to force the SHs to have to go to Zou. Oda had them heading back to the island their comrades are on, but suddenly their doing a full 360 away as if Oda changed his mind about having them head back to the island.

I have lots of other issues, but they are nitpicks, though because of how many there are of them they add up into one lump which leads me to think the whole current storyline is just a giant mess.

Overall, I'd left Big Mom out of this, if she was going to be a plot point there is the issue of she could have taken Ceaser much sooner since honestly... A Yonkou should have been able to easily walk on to Punk Hazard and just take him. What Oda should have stressed before Big Mom went after Ceaser was that Kaido was the one who stopped her, which would have showed two yonkou and how they prevent each others' goals and progresses from being carried out. This was stressed before how the Yonkou were stuck in deadlock, but hasn't really been explored beyond the apparent demise of one person from any of the 3 big powers. While little conflicts are not so important as grander schemes, they develop and flesh out scenario's in the One Piece world.

If going after Ceaser was important, why not have her enter the fray sooner, causing the crew to have to valued the situation BEFORE they came to dressrosa, to avoid Big Mom following them there and putting a damper on the conflict. Big Mom could have shown up again about now. This would have lead to the SH's revealing that Ceaser heading to Zou was a back up plan to keep him safe, and would have felt more fleshed out and less forced for doing so.