|
Pureauthor posted:Nika is definitely an outlier in how Oda has done foreshadowing and world building this far in the series. The general method is that they will first drop exposition with a big signpost that 'This Thing is Important' and then gradually peel back the layers and give us more insight into Why This Thing is Important. Examples include the Will of D, first mentioned by Kureha (along with Roger's real name reveal) long long before the concept of D being the enemy of the Celestial Dragons and Imu, and the God Valley incident, first told to us in a briefing at Marine HQ and with flashbacks gradually revealing more and more of what happened. See, I tend to think of Nika as the revelation of connective tissue for other things that were foreshadowed, like the Sun Pirates and the void century in general, and themes of freedom vs oppression. It's not like they suddenly said "oh yeah there was a completely unrelated secret history that we've never mentioned before, and that's where Nika comes from" or whatever. It's in line with the previous worldbuilding and hints, it's just an additional element. For the connection to Luffy's fruit, that was foreshadowed way back in Enies Lobby when Lucci says that Gear Third makes no physical sense. There's been very little hard information on devil fruits in general, evenh now, so this revelation doesn't really contradict anything that's happened in the past.
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 13:51 |
|
|
I think its cool that Oda is making all the Skypeia haters pay, personally
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:06
|
|
|
imagine hating the arc where Robin becomes a straw hat, couldn’t be me
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:19
|
|
|
Augus posted:imagine hating the arc where Robin becomes a straw hat, couldn’t be me People generally like Enies Lobby
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:22
|
|
|
I think introducing new elements to the story this late in the game will always have fans accusing them of being rear end-pulls. I was like that with the God's Knights at first (though I've come round on them since then, especially after Kuma's flashback.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:24
|
|
|
Waffleman_ posted:People generally like Enies Lobby Alternatively, who's the dumbass hating on Alabasta?
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:25
|
|
|
And honestly, almost all long-term serialized fiction is gonna be flying by the seat of its pants at some point, so I'll forgive the occasional asspull over nearly 30 years.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:25
|
|
|
Waffleman_ posted:And honestly, almost all long-term serialized fiction is gonna be flying by the seat of its pants at some point, so I'll forgive the occasional asspull over nearly 30 years. Sabo amnesia is like the one stupid thing I can't forgive
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:50
|
|
|
Honestly one of Oda's best skills is his ability to tie new ideas into older ones pretty seamlessly. I'd call it an underrated strength of the comic but I think the only reason people don't talk about it so much is that he's good enough at it a lot of people are convinced he had everything planned out 25 years ago from the jump.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 04:53
|
|
|
It's a lot easier to tie in new ideas close to seamlessly when you've taken the time to fully plan out the skeleton of the plot. He probably also keeps a list of places in the story that he could build off of. Like Shanks staring down the King of the Coast works for Haki because the core of the plot point there is "actually, Shanks is a super badass".
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 06:17
|
|
|
Gyges posted:It's a lot easier to tie in new ideas close to seamlessly when you've taken the time to fully plan out the skeleton of the plot. He probably also keeps a list of places in the story that he could build off of. Like Shanks staring down the King of the Coast works for Haki because the core of the plot point there is "actually, Shanks is a super badass". one thing oda does pretty well is just come up with a stupid excuse or joke to close a mystery and frankly its hard to tell if he just wrote himself into an easily dismissable corner or had the joke planned the whole time
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 06:23
|
|
|
Irony Be My Shield posted:There's some foreshadowing to Nika as an idea, but its direct connection to the gum-gum fruit was a last minute decision I think. It's so clever and in line with what Oda personally enjoys that I would be floored if it wasn't something he went into the series knowing. I forget where, but early someone asked why Luffy was given a rubber power, and he mentioned it was because he knew it would make the fights funny and enjoyable if nothing else. It's a swerve, but I also don't know if it should have been seeded more directly sooner. The surprise was such a fun way to end the brutality of the Wano fight. Ultimately, lord knows. But this feels like something simple enough "I'll say he's a rubber boy but he's actually a cartoon boy" that I'd be surprised if it wasn't something decided early on. It is a plothole that the World Gov didn't just Buster Call Luffy the second a rubber boy was detected - but I'm willing to overlook that as the Navy certainly has been a presence around them from the get-go. They even encounter an admiral fairly early, but everyone either becomes an ally, gets indebted to them, or is defeated by them. It can be hand waved that the Five Elders assumed at least one of these groups would have stopped the Straw Hats, what with them even in Wano expressly putting their fingers on the scale in Kaido's favor.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 06:27
|
|
|
You can tell Oda is a genius because some of his first worldbuilding tidbits were "do his dick stretch" and "do his dick come off" and potentially other non-dick related plot points
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 06:28
|
|
|
The Sun/Liberation stuff goes back to Arlong Park- we see all those sun tattoos all the way back then. That wasn't an accident. Oda was thinking about tattoos and symbols a lot during that arc. Explicitly with Nami's Arlong tattoo. Jimbei was name dropped before we met Arlong and we see a version of him in the old concept art of the whole crew. The story of the Fishmen, which we still don't have a full picture of, is clearly related to everything else, and the sun being a symbol of escaped slaves is right there at the start of it all. Was Oda imagining Luffy's power made him the reincarnation of Nika back then? Who knows, probably not, but the fundamental world building was clearly in his head already.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 06:30
|
|
|
Luffy's power was also meant to make every fight he was in "like a cartoon" according to Oda. So the direct Nika stuff who knows, but the cartoon superpowers is absolutely always been planned.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 06:34
|
|
|
kuma probably always had a sick daughter because that explains his entire mysterious backstory, but that daughter probably wasn't always bonney. oda came up with the supernovas on short notice, so any relevance to the plot they had was necessarily created later. then he built up the ones he liked and neglected the rest. bonney had some dangling plot hooks to pick up later, but she may never have been actually relevant if not for fitting into the kuma's daughter role.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 06:46
|
|
|
The WG not stomping Luffy the second he mentioned he was made of rubber is explained. You've got to be careful with how you kill a rubber dude, otherwise you'll turn him from a simple rubber man to the incarnation of Nika.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 07:07
|
|
|
DeadBonesBrook posted:I think introducing new elements to the story this late in the game will always have fans accusing them of being rear end-pulls. I was like that with the God's Knights at first (though I've come round on them since then, especially after Kuma's flashback.) I don't mind the DK that much since they probably aren't going to be too relevant for a good long while; they seem like something that won't really come into play until the crew gets around to dealing with Mary Geoise, and the plot seems pretty fixated on Elbaf/Pirate Island/getting the last Poneglyph at the moment. Let them simmer in the background for a while accumulating a nice heap of atrocities so we can really mark out when Luffy punches the moon-head guy into the stratosphere. Also apropos of nothing but I was killing time in the local library earlier today and it turns out they had a few tankōbons of East Blue stuff on one of the shelves. It was honestly a bit surreal, all my experience with OP has been from reading the manga online or catching random clips from the anime. I don't think I've ever actually sat down and read the series in its original medium before.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 07:08
|
|
|
I kind of get "nika wasn't foreshadowed". I think it's irrelevant but I get the stance. I've never understood the people who don't like Luffy having cartoon powers. He's literally a rubber hose animation character, he swings his arm in big circles to hit harder from moment 1.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 07:19
|
|
|
gimme the GOD drat candy posted:kuma probably always had a sick daughter because that explains his entire mysterious backstory, but that daughter probably wasn't always bonney. oda came up with the supernovas on short notice, so any relevance to the plot they had was necessarily created later. then he built up the ones he liked and neglected the rest. bonney had some dangling plot hooks to pick up later, but she may never have been actually relevant if not for fitting into the kuma's daughter role. I'd be surprised if Bonney's age powers didn't come with at least a vague idea of where she fit into things.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 08:22
|
|
|
Most likely he came up with all the other Supernovas, and just merged planned story beats into them afterwards. Which is why we're still waiting for the ballad of Urogue.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 10:33
|
|
|
CatstropheWaitress posted:It is a plothole that the World Gov didn't just Buster Call Luffy the second a rubber boy was detected We don’t know when the news reached the gorosei but you could assume the earliest possible point would be defeating Arlong and they would be guaranteed to know about it when he frees Alabasta. At this point he is already a bigshot pirate. Soon after that is Enies Lobby where they did, in fact, buster call him - it just didn’t work. But there is also a tactical reason not to focus him at all except with CPx agents. It is to keep the secret. The gorosei have presumably been doing this for 800 years. What would happen if, every time a little rubber minipirate pops up in Ghetto Blue, the world government sends 500 boats and a meganuke to level the entire city? People would figure out there’s something with the fruit, that’s what. The gorosei’s ultimate goal is the grab the fruit in between hosts and store it in a freezer. The fruit already seems to have a will of its own making it very hard to catch, and if people find out about its importance, your problems just became 10x bigger. So their best play is to keep the info from all marines, take No Action At All vs Nika users unless they get close to awakening it, and patiently hope to grab it whenever its host dies every 20-30 years. It almost worked too! They had the fruit on a boat finally on the way to Marejois, when suddenly it got raided by some random pirate named Shanks. Bisse fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Dec 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 11:03
|
|
|
Also it’s only dangerous if awakened, which apparently no one has managed for hundreds of years
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 11:07
|
|
|
Oda definitely had planned to reveal Luffy as having the hito hito no mi model nika in chapter 1043 when he was writing chapter 1
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 12:33
|
|
|
Oda does it again
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 12:40
|
|
|
Luffy’s being Anime Popeye is the entire reason for Oda’s art style so yeah, he knew from the start.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 13:18
|
|
|
Eiba posted:The Sun/Liberation stuff goes back to Arlong Park-
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 14:40
|
|
|
The problem with "Just Buster Call Luffy" is that the Strawhats are never ANYWHERE for more than a few days. The month they spent on Wano is the longest they ever spent in one place I believe.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 14:51
|
|
|
Gyges posted:Alternatively, who's the dumbass hating on Alabasta? It's me - I skip both Alabasta and Skypeia on re reads 
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 15:12
|
|
|
Immediately nuking anyone who gets the Gum Gum fruit would kinda give away the fact that the government sees the Gum Gum fruit as a huge threat
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 15:14
|
|
|
Augus posted:Immediately nuking anyone who gets the Gum Gum fruit would kinda give away the fact that the government sees the Gum Gum fruit as a huge threat I mean, you can always make up some bullshit that isn’t true, like how an eight year old sunk a fleet of Navy ships. I guess Luffy being the grandson of a legendary hero might impede that a bit though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 15:23
|
|
|
You can't blithely nuke the Gum-Gum Fruit user because it just respawns and someone else gets it
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 15:31
|
|
|
Wachter posted:You can't blithely nuke the Gum-Gum Fruit user because it just respawns and someone else gets it I feel like nobody beyond the Gorosei made the connection between the Gum Gum Fruit and Nika until someone made it to Laugh Tale. It might be the case that Roger’s actions motivated the World Government to start actively guarding it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 15:44
|
|
|
Well, like I said I don't disagree it isn't a huge plothole, but I don't think it's not there. We just had a chapter where the government sanctioned mass murder of a whole kingdom, not to mention another chapter where a kingdom was vaporized completely. Point being, they already aren't subtle. Following Alabasta, you send two admirals out to arrest the kid. Maybe have a Celestial Dragon set sail along the same path as him to explain the extra strength detail, idk. Lock him away in Impel Down, boom don't have to worry about the fruit for however long he survives down there. That would be a much less fun story, and I think Oda navigated it well enough.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 15:46
|
|
|
CatstropheWaitress posted:Well, like I said I don't disagree it isn't a huge plothole, but I don't think it's not there. Ahaaa. So it's a "mystery sentence"!
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 16:00
|
|
|
Cat Machine posted:I feel like nobody beyond the Gorosei made the connection between the Gum Gum Fruit and Nika until someone made it to Laugh Tale. It might be the case that Roger’s actions motivated the World Government to start actively guarding it. We just saw Kuma watching Luffy do a rubber attack while screaming the word rubber in the same chapter we see Kuma telling Bonney that Nika had a rubber body, there’s a good chance Kuma figured it out. That scene was so weird and contrived, it’s like Oda forgot to add those details earlier or realized he had to add them for the timeline to make sense.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 16:01
|
|
|
if the world government killed luffy at any point prior to wano, garp (the hero of the navy and probably the strongest non-devil fruit individual in the world) would probably have joined his son in the revolutionary army…..talk about putting the cart before the horse
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 16:10
|
|
|
When the Gorosei are first talking about the Nika fruit they say even they consider it a legend: So I guess it had just been so long that even they had forgotten the true importance of the fruit until Luffy awakened it. Given how hard the Gomu Gomu no mi is to use in the first place, possibly there were centuries of nobody ever achieving anything notable with it until Luffy came along. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Dec 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 16:27
|
|
|
scary ghost dog posted:the sun has also been drawn to closely resemble the straw hat many, many, many times as well Lol gently caress the Giant Hat on Imu's possession is actually the first Nika's/Joyboy's I'm calling it Nephthys posted:When the Gorosei are first talking about the Nika fruit they say even they consider it a legend: That does put the kibosh on the Gorosei being immortals or coming from the Void Century then. Plutonis fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Dec 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 16:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 13:51 |
|
|
I agree with all the posts about how the themes (freedom, sun gods, Luffy being a cartoon even with things like milk regrowing his teeth and meat healing massive wounds) have always been there. This honestly feels less like Oda going "oh poo poo I forgot to put this in, let me add this in a hastily done exposition scene real quick" and more like him trying to make things much more explicit, and maybe even moving some revelations up as he tries to get everything in to actually move more intentionally toward the finale. I could very well imagine an alternate version of Wano where Luffy awakens "Gear 5" but it's just a weird thing he does, and then in a later arc someone sees his form and explains the connection to Nika, maybe even on Egghead or Elbaf, but maybe Oda/his editor was like "wouldn't the Gear 5 revelation hit harder if we knew what it was in advance?" To me the only really contrived thing is having the Gorosei all of a sudden knowing exactly the moment that Nika was about to awaken and giving those instructions to CP0 to make sure Kaido won, but it also ups the stakes a bit, and doesn't introduce a potentially third KO after Luffy's awakened Nika, which would be super anti-climatic. Wii Spawn Camper posted:We just saw Kuma watching Luffy do a rubber attack while screaming the word rubber in the same chapter we see Kuma telling Bonney that Nika had a rubber body, there’s a good chance Kuma figured it out. That scene was so weird and contrived, it’s like Oda forgot to add those details earlier or realized he had to add them for the timeline to make sense. Similarly here, imo this is more about using the same chapter to make it clear that Kuma made the connection while also having Bonney know the hints and also manifest the "Nika-ish Future". Realistically Kuma could have found out any time after that point but reading in the newspaper about Luffy, he certainly already knew by the time of Thriller Bark, and we know that Kuma's communications with Bonney were already being monitored so it's not like it needed to make sense that he told her about it before her attack. But to have a chapter where Bonney uses that attack in the final shot, it's more impactful to show us Kuma finding out about Luffy in that same chapter, rather than continuing the flashback after this and having him read about a rubber boy in Alabasta. Bonus is that you have Kuma cross paths with Luffy which is more impactful than a dialogue bubble where he says "Eureka!" or whatever
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2023 16:49
|
|
