User blog:Fliu/Opinions on the Wano Arc so far

First of all, I like how the Wano Arc started, with Luffy kicking butt like nobody’s business. This is much better than how the Whole Cake Island arc started, with Luffy's stupidity putting the Sanji Retrieval Team in a food shortage crisis. After his victory over Katakuri, I don't expect anyone below the Three Disasters to be a problem for Luffy unless they have some tricky abilities like Hawkins. May as well enjoy watching Luffy win some easy fights before the next hard one comes. I'm also glad that Zoro's first appearance in this arc was him cutting down a scumbag in a badass fashion and walked away like he doesn't give a damn. Still, I hope that the Revolutionary Army's declaration of war will be shown in story and not happen off-panel and be revealed in the news or in small flashbacks. Good thing that Luffy thought of using one of Tama's dangos on Speed. Now Tama knows that her dangos can be used on SMILE users. If Tama is going to have any role in the upcoming battles, I guess that she'll appear riding on Speed's back, using her dangos to convert foes into allies. I hope that Oda doesn't choose to make her a damsel in distress again.

I am having negative opinions with Kiku's performance during the confrontation at Bakura Town. First she acted cool by cutting off Urashima's topknot and then in the following chapter, she turned a 180 and acted terrified and needed Luffy to come to her rescue. And then later on, she needed Zoro to tell her what to do. “What should I do? Should I cut them?” Was she really serious? She grabbed a sword and entered enemy territory. What did she expect to do with the sword she's carrying? Luffy may be an idiot sometime but you never see him asking dumb questions during a fight. Once he knows who he needs to fight, he goes beat them up, plain and simple. Kiku's indecisiveness makes me cringe even more than the time Rebecca went after Doflamingo during the Birdcage game, thinking she actually had a chance of fighting him, only to cry some more. I hope Kiku can pull her own weight in future battles. My respect for her would have gone way up if this scenario happened instead. When Urashima gets angry after his topknot is cut off, Kiku draws her sword and points the blade at his throat and says “I’m not some weak woman who will be pushed around and I’m not going to take anymore of your bullshit so back off or the next thing that will fall is your head”. Even though she doesn’t plan on killing Urashima, she should at least try to be intimidating. However, if Kiku was just acting and actually planned on having Luffy defeat Urashima, then I’ll forgive her. But in the worst case scenario in which Kiku disappoints in the end, I swear I won’t get hyped by positive first impressions again.

I didn't expect time travel to be a thing in this series but I suppose anything is possible. After all, this is a world where a five-year old child could lay waste to a village of full grown giants. Toki specified that people cannot travel to the past. Or is it that Toki would not travel to the past? If it's really true that Toki's powers cannot be used to go back in time, then that would be a relief of some sort. That means we won't have to worry about anyone drastically altering history. It would be terrible if an enemy of the Straw Hats use this power to stop the crew from forming. And the last thing I want is a plot that involves correcting the past and fixing the present.

It's nice to know when the alliance is planning to strike, but if I were Kin'emon, I'll start coming up with backup plans because there are bound to be complications. I doubt the wild cards are going to stand still for 2 weeks. It’s also nice to see Zoro getting lost again. Now I’m curious to see what kind of big lie Usopp is going to come up with.