LUFFY'S GOT TO WANT TO GET BETTER! - One Piece #490

Oda writing on Government, piracy, freedom, and their extremes all in one arc is amazing. Extremes of the Government in hiding information from the public, absolute freedom is shown through Blackbeard and his willingness to declare everything in the world as his own... The difference between justice like Cpt. Magma vs Koby/Smoker.

Ali6B

Surprised do flamingo isn’t your favorite character now lol

Nate D.

I agree with 99% of this, except a reason to chase down the escaping pirates, I mean they are the navy, it's their job to capture or kill pirates for being pirates, escaping or not they are still pirates and a "general threat to the public" (In their eyes obviously the WB crew really wasn't). I guess maybe would have been better worded why they chose to prioritize their job over the lives of the injured.

Mike Burr

Governing your people 101: Control the media, control the mind.

DevilJynx

Here we see that the Fleet Admiral Sengoku has good motivations but unfortunately the government is corrupt. We can see the difference between the Navy (Military) higher ups and the Government’s higher ups. The Navy’s higher up been people like Aoikiji, Kizaru and even Aikainu who at least have good of people in mind or motivations to take down pirates and not harm citizens as much as possible to the Government’s higher up been the little bitches Celestial dragons.

GG17

Well... What was he thinking about?

Gigamac24

Mihawk was right about Luffy's charisma being his scariest ability, in just under 3 days he was able to earn the admiration and respect of the Queen of Kamabakka Kingdom, one current and two former shichibukai, all of the whitebeard commanders and Whitebeard himself.

Now that we're officially done with the war, i can voice my one issue with this arc. And its that the losses feel very unbalanced. Sure we can nitpick and say the arc suffers from OP's stretching issues at one point (Like for some stupid reason Sengoku never executing Ace by himself instead of just standing there like an actual statue of Buddah), but its the loss and casualties on the Navy's side that really strike out at me. The Navy didn't lose anything for such a large conflict. The pirate side lost Ace, son of the King of the pirates and 2nd WB pirates commander and Whitebeard himself, as well as a good portion of the pirates themselves. This effectively means that the WB pirates are finished, as without a captain and without Ace who was the only real candidate to continue on and be Pirate King they have no real purpose anymore. Furthermore, Luffy and Jimbei were critically injured, a lot of the New Kama were wiped out and we lost Bon Clay even before we got out of Impel Down. Meanwhile, what did the Navy really lose? A few thousand nameless grunts and a building? Both of which easily replaced, hell beyond Akainu none of the big shots even suffered any real injury, which with the likes of Whitebeard and the Commanders around seems too out of place. At worst the Navy lost a few, once again nameless, Vice-Admirals. Who lets be honest knowing One Pieces formula probably aren't dead, just knocked out. Overall this entire arc was amazing, but i gotta point out a flaw when i see one and the massive imbalance between losses on the sides, both realistically and story-telling wise just irks me. Personal opinion, Akainu should've died. And im not saying that just because i hate him for killing Ace, story wise it would've been a great plot point to put him up as the martyr that died to bring down the son of the worst criminal of all time, as well as cement the Navy as the 'good guys' in this war for the people, because obviously his methods would've been ignored in light of his achievement. This would also give a good reason for all the Marines to go bloodthirsty and start chasing down the escaping pirates, instead of just...what was the actual reason in the anime? they were corrupt? drunk with power? either way it would've fit in a lot better. At least one or two of the important, named Vice-Admirals should've died, and im just gonna throw in Kizaru getting bitch slapped really hard for good measure (that one in fact IS because i hate him). It would've made the 'war' feel more like an actual war, and the Navy's victory feel more hard won and earned, rather than them just getting a slap on the wrist

Lewd Angel

Man, I gotta feel sorry for the fodder Marines at some point. Thousands if not ten's of thousands died in that war & most of them probably had families, so what does the government do? Broadcasts propaganda to the civilians & other Marines (that didn't participate in the war) completely ignoring the lives of the Marines that fought in the war. Marines in general are just cogs in the machine. A machine called Justice.

Kakashi

I agree with the first part but I've gotta diagree with the last bit. The emperors are not united. So while it's the marines and warlords against 4 emperors, the emperors themselves are also at odds. The one thing the WG fears the most, after all, is for a team-up between two or more emperors. That's why they try to interrupt meetings between them (as seen when Shanks met with Whitebeard). Also there's little reason for the emperors to overthrow the WG - Shanks and Whitebeard certainly had no such ambitions. Anything more would be spoiling, so I'll leave it at that.

Aeco

It was pretty much a complete victory for the navy, and it a given that in war both sides suffer causalities. But not a single major character in the navy was lost. On the whole, the navy does keep peace but there are exceptions. We also see here that Sengoku wanted to warn the world about the level 6 prisoners who escaped but the "World Government" decided to hide the matter. Sengoku does appear to care about peace (where Akainu is all about "dark justice"). Theres also a difference in the two organisations: The military power (navy) vs the World Government (such as the celestial dragons etc) who are the ultimate leaders. And as mentioned, the power balance is: the four emperors, the seven warlords and the navy. I don't think Shanks could have taken on the navy: the 3 admirals, Garp, Sengoku, Mihawk, and the other warlords. Theres a reason why the Emperor's in their history haven't managed to team up and overthrow the World Government.

A

Not only that, but his devil fruit is literally perfect for him with the fact that it allows him to be as reckless as he is. With all of the hits he usually take he can completely ignore a lot of it due to not affecting his rubber body. How many more hits and damage would he take if maces/punches/kicks/gunfire also affected him. We saw how much damage and fatigue he can endure already with Zoro taking his pain on thriller bark (one of the most badass scenes for Zoro as well)

Mikestrike

Yea, really! Talk about some impossible shoes to fill!

Spaz Boys Comedy

When you stop and think about it, Luffy really has been the luckiest son of a bitch so far (it's just a saying so please don't kill me Dragon). If Law hadn't decided that Luffy was a worthy adversary, I'd imagine he'd be in even worse shape right now, if any shape other than a pile of molten goop. Mentally however, let's just hope it's not goop up there after that kind of trauma.

Johnny Kiehn

Curtis-“I’ve been thinking...” then my mega crashes... lol

Andrew Lolavar

Can’t even imagine what poor Marco has to deal with the next day being the first division commander that everyone would look up to. Having to wake up, remember everything, then face a Whitebeard-less crew who are all like “what now?”.

White Lightning