User blog comment:Kaido King of the Beasts/Chapter 902: I Don't Wano More Cake/@comment-24850639-20180424214425

It's been very hard trying to objectively judge this chapter as a standalone, as opposed to taking into account the fact that it's the final chapter of an arc this monumental. In other words, I'm still struggling to judge the individual strengths/weaknesses of this chapter, rather than docking it simply because it didn't provide closure on plot point X for the entirety of the arc. No guarantees. Here goes:

Sanji - Seeing him be pensive about Pedro's death stirred a feeling of hope in me for a second. When Pedro first made his sacrifice, Brook made a comment about being frustrated because the crew was not strong enough to keep everyone alive. I understand that Carrot initially lied about Pedro to Sanji so that they could focus on more important things, but now I'm hoping that Sanji is taking this time to truly realize that he needs to get his shit together combat-wise. Seeing the parallel with Zeff at the end was cool as closure on who Sanji truly sees as his father, but that isn't the kind of closure I was hoping to see Sanji get at the end of this arc. Sure, we always knew that Sanji saw Zeff as a dad, but Oda used this arc to hammer home precisely why: because his "REAL" dad is quite an asshat. A reaffirmation of something we already knew doesn't feel like character growth. Sanji's care for Zeff, his compassion to still not want to see his family get killed, his concern Nami & Carrot, his culinary skills......we knew these things already. And since they weren't expanded upon in any kind of meaningful way, just confirmed, I can't call Sanji a better character as a result of the things he went through in this arc. That's quite a shame, considering this was coined the "Year of Sanji". Notice that a combat feat was not one the things I mentioned as necessary for me to feel like he's grown, but it sure as shit would have been nice. When even the epitome of his culinary skills at this point in the series ended up falling short, it's hard to not feel like Sanji straight up got trolled.

Big Mom - I refuse to accept all these "Big Mom pt. 2" expectations as some kind of damage control for the shit that we didn't get to see this arc. First of all, plot points being resolved in a later story arc DOES NOT give a free pass to the arc in which they started. Leaving things like Pekoms' fate, Smoothie's combat prowess, Moscato's sudden reappearance, the escape of Mont D'Or's prisoners, etc completely open just because there's a possiblity of seeing this antagonist again later in the story does not fly in my books. This is especially true of Big Mom herself, the amount of unexplained occurences surrounding her is next to unforgiveable. Is she ever going to find out about Mother Carmel? Were all these husbands who fathered these kids truly of absolute no story consequence whatsoever aside from Pound? What are the origins of Prometheus, Zeus, and Napoleon? Who's soul powers the Queen Mama Chanter? Are her cravings and subsequent rampages going to be resolved? Is Katakuri's defeat going to change the way she manages/structures her crew? What actions will she take upon learning of the Straw Hat's escape? Upon learning of how her name will be sullied with "Big News" Morgan's escape? The Whole Cake Island Arc will be one of the few, if only arcs that ends without the main antagonist being defeated and/or jailed. Since it's presumed that we're not sticking around the island to get this closure, one can only assume Oda will either forget it completely, or address it later. The "later" option doesn't sound appealing at all.

Pudding - All this buildup, and she ultimately just ends up being a girl who fell in love. You can't be surprised anymore when Oda doesn't give a woman a satisfying combat-based persona, but we've known about Pudding since Fishman Island. I will admit that her being the daughter of a Yonko created some potentially unfair expectations combat-wise, but I certainly do believe it was fair to expect more from her than to just be a girl fawning over Sanji's culinary expertise. I mean with her role this arc, Pudding constantly remained someone of importance. And with all the acting flip-flops, I certainly found her a rather interesting character to follow. But when she went from being one of the most duplicitous and complex characters the series has ever seen to just being a raving fangirl, I became extremely letdown from the waste of potential. I figured Oda was going to do something unexpected, or at the very least interesting with the personality flips leading up to the climax, but this side of her got deeper and deeper on the backburner as Sanji made more progress. I can understand that Sanji caused a change in her for the better, and she feels guilty because of what she did, but to have her act on that by just giving him a kiss that he won't even remember.....boy was I disappointed. If the kiss inspired Sanji to go do something epic, or Pudding took advantage of the fact that so much of Sanji's untapped potential is based on traumatic memory, I would have been happy with that as the resolution of the Sanji-Pudding story. But no.....she just cries for the foreseeable future. She's not even gonna tell anyone that Sanji made the cake most likely.