User blog comment:Samium/Oda's 2017 New Years resolutions .... I wish/@comment-27923483-20170208064417/@comment-24769684-20170208155323

a. Yeah the entire point was that the enemies would be stronger. What good would the series be if every battle was a curb stomp one? We've seen a ton of change in the Straw Hats' fighting styles. For Luffy alone, he overcame the drawbacks of Gears Two and Three, and developed Gear Four.

b. They're the same as usual.

c. No he hasn't, and the places we've seen before the New World haven't been entirely original either. Sand kingdoms, islands on the clouds, and giant haunted houses/forests have been seen in all sorts of media. Oda's creations have always taken many inspirations from literature, film, even artwork (Zou is based on one of Salvador Dali's paintings, for instance). It's never been that he's come up with entirely new ideas, it's been that he takes a base idea and lets his creativity flourish from there.

d. Last I checked he was still the main character who was Dressrosa's hero that beat Doflamingo. Neither Law nor Sabo can lay claim to that.

@Keekian: Clone soldiers was not George Lucas' idea. And last I checked Oda's not using the clones as a grand army of the Republic developed by a despot to get into power, so he's definitely not using anyone else's ideas. He's just using tropes as he and every other author does.