Why Wano Didn't Have Stakes (And Every Other Arc Did)

For me it's the length. Wano was so long that things had to work out because it needed to finnish. Also the build-up was so long i didn't care about it

Orochi was the most disappointing villain ever. Even worse than Foxy in that regard, because Orochi's existence was misleading. We were lead to think there was a reason for him being the leading figure, there was potential for a plot; but in the end this was not resolved, whereas at least Foxy never had potential from the start so we had lower expectations.

And don't get me started on his several deaths. Worst $hit ever written! What a stupid thing that was to even attempt. Of course it was gonna diminish the impact of the "real" death! Of course it was gonna erase any and all stakes regarding him!

Why didn't Kaido just lead Wano from the start? We never got the answer. One day he just decided to get rid of Orochi because "f*ck you, reader, that's why; consume and don't ask questions"

With all due respect you don't understand shit take care 😅

I disagreed with maybe 35% of the things in the video. But still every point you made was understandable and not far-fetched at all. Really interesting, great idea, great video.

Kaido is not crocodile, he wasn't there for power or weapons, blud was having a party and some crashers came in, so he dealt with them. Giving him an agenda just breaks the arc. Orochi was the one with agenda , messing up okobore town, and revenge etc.
Kaido wanted a good fight and he had one.
this aside croc and doffy were in town when the stakes kicked in as BOMB and BIRDCAGE, kaido was out there chilling, tf was he supposed to do threaten some rookies with cheap tricks lmao

Anime tried covering the hollow story with stellar animation. 🤣

Love people like you who can see through Oda's rare a**pulls. Subbed!

Basil Hawkins isn't confirmed dead.

I think kaido going on a rampage would be great.
Causing each straw hat to get seriously hurt and the only way of winning is luffy coming back and beating the shit out of kaido

I don't really get the " luffy got to strong after getting knocked off the island" thing.
Yes he did get haki bloom but he wasn't really doing that good agaisn't Kaido when he came back, or atleast he was doing about as good as he was doing prior.
The slightly better performance can be explained easily by Kaido simply being worn down and luffy learning how to better use ACOC, and Kaido was still obviously way above luffy.

wano did have stakes, the stakes just didn't feel like stakes because the consequences would fall on other characters than our group of protagonists

I think you hit the elements of stakes correctly. Villains progressing creates so much tension

It was too dense, just a wall of text, the character stories weren't that personal or compelling, it was more like reading a dictionary. One Piece had always shined with its deeply personal stories, like with Nami's deeply personal story, the moment with her arm and the tattoo, the grief everyone felt experiencing her loss, the hope that Luffy brought to free her from her chains. It resonated. That was one of the most epic and heartbreaking moments in One Piece, the thing that most got me interested in the story was the focus on characters like that. It was the same for Zoro, for Chopper, they had great personal investment. edit: and for Robin (especially), for Vivi, so on and so forth.

I feel like the Wano arc drifted from it. However, in the new arc, he brought it all back, with Bonney and Kuma's story. Justice for Bonney! Bring down the World Government!

Yeah the one problem is kaido every other villain is way more interesting then kaido they just set him up as strong asf but nothing else they underdeveloped him

Honestly never realized a big reason why the raid on onigashima felt so never ending and kinda boring sometimes was just the lack of a change of scenery, the roof piece of it all,

also just the incomprehensibility of kaido’s goals, “create a world of violence where only the strong survive?” That’s arguably already the world you live in bro, “become pirate king?” What are you actively doing to achieve that? when do you have enough weapons and devil fruit soldiers to make a move? You seem pretty content to just rest on your laurels and stay in wano, it’s been like 20 years and you’ve done nothing

Idk he just feels like an incomplete villain, like maybe there was supposed to be more to him that never made it in or got developed due to how much other shit was going on that arc

I honestly like orochi more as a villain despite how annoying he was and how much I hate his voice

It doesn't feel like locations are changing because Onigashima is just freaking massive. It's the same size as Mount Everest. That's why it took the entire Akaza 9 fight before Luffy finally got to the roof. It's not like every fight is just a hallway apart from each other. It took multiple episodes and an entire country's worth of rainwater from an elephant that is three Mount Everest's tall in order to douse the flames spreading through all the floors of Onigashima.

While I don’t disagree with every point in this video my main issues personally being the fake out deaths and lack of deaths in a war as big as wano and for a conclusion of a final saga I think more impactful deaths were necessary and would’ve been easily able to happen given we had so many characters that ultimately didn’t do much
However some of ur criticisms to me comes from ur mischaracterization of kaido there’s a lot more with the character that i think many people glaze over because Oda didn’t straight up spoon feed u information on him

With the Kinemon thing people said its an effect of Law Devil fruit and he never reattached his limbs

Someone needs to take his apron and lock him out the kitchen 😂

yamato's fight with kaido is one of the most important fights in all of One Piece. because it debunks kaido's belief in fatalism.

Kaido is a complicated character. a very complicated one. for all of his traits to be fleshed out. He needs to be put in different situations. Losing himself against Luffy and fighting yamato were essential. the story as a whole falls apart without them.

also the consequences of Luffy's death is how kaido relapsed and will project more cruelty to cope with his depression. Kaido because closer to his goal by defeating luffy. his goal which will include enslaving wano. the people that we as a readers developed a deep connection with.

Kinemon's fake death is definitely a flaw. but the highs of the arc are some of the highest in all of fiction. this dip won't make it any less of a masterpiece.

I haven't watched the video, just gonna say this, Kin'Emon should've died when Luffy reached the roof

The wano literally only lacked stake if you didnt pay attention while reading. Thats it. The issue most people have with wano is that its much much more nuanced in its writing, which is not something OP fans needed all that much in the past, so if they do their typical braindead "zoro is the coolest and strongest" bullshit (heavily stereotyping here, could be any of the more prominente retarded takes) and then have to think about something and dont get their will they just call it bad

And your point in regards to stakes is also just because you presumably want to misunderstand it. We all know there isnt ever any "real" stakes since luffy wont die. And as for the "what happens when you make a mistake and the villain wins" ..... we literally have JUST that with modern day wano. We see the 20 years after the villain has won. That is the stakes. And its only gonna get worse if he does again.
You cant just sit there and pretend like it isnt a real threat what kaido says because he "never killed anybody" when hes literally enslaving, starving and killing an entire country for 20 years, on a very methodical level. Thats just ignorance and inability to think about what you read

I agree Kaido was not the absolute best villain but you should not have cooked

Do you know why Kaido have nothing to do after defesting luffy multiple times? His plan doesnt invovle wano anymore. He already conquered wano. Dropping onigashami is just part of the celebration.. all the stakes that you are looking for are outside wano.. Kaiso is just partying it just that the strawhat crashed it..

Wano had tbe most good guy deaths in any arc. More than Alabasta, more than Skypeia, more than Dressrosa. So it has significantly far higher stakes than any of them. Its so ironic you show Alabasta, Crocodile killed more of his own people than the enemies side. What a trash video, "its a matter of reading comprehension" - Oda

Lmao how did Alabasta did it right? What a horrible point that "Luffy lost to Croc that made Crocs plan one step further so it's more stakes". Kaido's overarching goal is joining Big Mom and going for the One Piece. So what you saying? Kaido should suddenly sail out to sea and go for the OP as soon as he defeats Luffy? Thats your absurd logic, also by that logic every time Kaido beat Luffy, Onigahima would be one step closer. So technically Kaido succeeded far more than Croc. Wano had far more "failure" than Alabasta, literally no one died in Alabasta, more people died in Wano, that automatically made it a bigger failure than Alabasta. Also from this absurd argument, so you want the exact same plot every arc? You want the exact same scheming villain like Croc whereas Kaido is a character who likes to fight? Why judge characters based on arc structure. Idiot wants Kaido to suddenly become a 500 IQ villain and wants Kaido to make a 100 step plan. What a dog shit video

Heisuten literally debunks this entire video and shows how stupid it is

"what steps would Kaido take during the raid" are you honestly this dumb? THE RAID WASN'T PART OF HIS PLAN. IT'S TO START THE WORLD OF VIOLENCE AFTER HE WOULD WIN. It was dependant on him beating everyone in the raid ane THEN doing the "world of violence" moron thinks Kaido would suddenly send all his pirate crew across the world and commit atrocities while his mansion is getting attack? Lmfao

Luffys second loss = momonosuke lost 20 years of his life…

L yap

I dont agree, I like Wano ( im manga only) I am the person who always say Kinemon not gonna die because I thought he gonna join the crew and Yamato wont join since she never travel around wano so those issue im really fine with. The thng like the least in Wano is Bigmom lost memory, I thought it will go somwhere more but it didnt. However Wano is really greate arc for me only reason why you dont feel the stake is because Luffy and the gang didnt help the citizen of that country , He them before it even happen. This is why I like about it if it a normal onepiece arc Onigashima will arrive at flower capital and we will have thrid act fighting there. Alabasta have more stake because it happen in between the conflict while Wano story happen pior the conflict and the arc that have story happen after the conflict is Enieslobby. I think if you cannot imagine what happen to Wano or the world in general if Kaido success you will not see the stake Wano have. Wano is super unique to me because We dont realy see this type of arc have story written ths way. If i list all your criticisim and rewrite wano to have The whole raid to fail then Kaido succeed, you see a hand on stake of Citizen suffereing from pollute environment , people in the whole country either become slave or draft in a military it might be really redundant to the pior story arc. Wano is a story about foriegner force try to takover Japan and make them ruled by Foriege Dictator. That the whole point of it. If you say Wano already rule by dictator, Yes it s but it co- ruled by Local and foreigner governor not just Foreigner govern which Kaido hope it to be. Orochi might not be a bad guy but he still wano badguy, he stlllike rhe look of his country even half of it already turn in to Kaido viaion. Lastly i say Kaio back story work better than any pretime kip villian have. The most useless backstory is Lucci killing hostage back story but kaido bck story have a purpose, it tellyou exactly about Kaido goal. I feel the disspointment of you want to see kaido character but it to tie to Godvalley stuff. but his back story showing how he become " Pirate king Gate keeper" ,Since he were young he have no interest in onepiece or King of the pirate He live with out pirpose like Ace and thru out the years he been try to find his role in the world. He wont admitt it but his role in this world is being a guard dog to King of the pirate throne. That why we saw him have heart to heart talk with king saying that " I know who is gonna be king of the pirate, it person who gonna beat me" ( which villian have a freaking Heart to heart talk with his subordinated, how can he not appealling,i dont get it). I like Kaido mre than Croc because if Kaido kaido come back he gonna be a totally dofferent character . Unlike Croc or Lucci or wny one else who if they come back they will just be the same person nothing change.

I think a good, simple fix would have been to move Yamato vs Kaido to the main battlefield. Have Kaido try to kill the samurai and have Yamato try to stop him. That creates chaos for all sides and could give us some more meaningful interactions between Kaido and his crew.

Here before this video blows up

Comparing Wano, the arc with the most deaths to Arabasta with 4 deaths who were characters we met in the same chapter they died and only because they drugged themself.

It's wild to me that you defined "stakes" accurately then you just go on to talk about things that are irrelevant to stakes. Just say you didn't like the arc as much, it'll be be both more truthful and bait more people.

The stakes were the country of wana would die out and be squeezed of its everything, people were drugged, children starved, I think you mean the fight was too long and you got bored 😂😂

I think my biggest issue with the arc’s sense of stakes is how Kaido, in comparison to other One Piece arc villains(especially Crocodile) just seems so passive. In Alabasta, Crocodile was on the move after Rain Dinners, actively trying to overthrow the country, causing sandstorms and killing royal soldiers. He always seemed to have a backup plan, outsmarting and outmaneuvering the Straw Hats until Pell finally gets rid of the bomb and Luffy defeats him. He’s an imminent threat and every moment he’s on the loose puts the entire country at risk. Compare that to Kaido, who spends much of his time drinking on Onigashima without any direction or plans. He doesn’t really do anything until he’s forced to. He FINALLY does something proactive with moving Onigashina to Wano, but spends most of the raid fighting a defensive battle until Momo pretty easily deals with the island and he’s punched thousands of feet beneath under by Luffy.

Kaido was boring

The one aspect of stakes I feel is important, that you didn’t cover is believability of consequences. Onigashima falling, the bombs blowing everyone up or Kaidos overall goal breaks the story if they happen. So we know they won’t happen.

Most of the arcs especially pre TS the strawhats could’ve failed and it wouldn’t break the story. We’d have a drastically different series but the story could have continued on afterwards.

Which makes it more believable that failure is a possible outcome= Higher stakes

someone send this video to Morj so he has an easier time making his review, lol

Imma keep it real I completely disagree

It just felt like a regular raid arc where we know what fights will happen and who will win.....One Piece fights is more about the character development and storytelling (like Luffy v Katakuri) which was heavily lacking in Wano...also for how cool Gear 5 was it made the ending unserious compared to previous fights. Lastly, no one gave the slightest shit about the scabbards. 2 of them died LOL.

Stakes for Luffy were higher in Wano than Alabasta
Luffy's loss in Alabasta lessened the sakes for me
And the stakes of Onigashima crushing the capital felt higher than the bomb

Wano felt too much like a training arc... I mean, Luffy received 3 different power ups!
When the second defeat happened, we were already in the end game and by the third, I had seen this enough to know some power will be pulled out of nowhere

Preventing slavery isn’t a good enough reason

I personally feel the reason this feels like there is no stakes because Kaido has become too apathetic to his own cause that he is even down to ally with Big Mom and his dream is aside from claiming the One Piece all too vague on how exactly he needs to accomplish, all this while being an immovable object that he knows he is the strongest he can damn well take his time to do so since no one can stop him. We know Crocodile wants to acquire Pluton, we know Enel wants to go to the moon, we know Rob Lucci and Spandam has to prevent the Straw Hats from recovering Robin, etc. Meanwhile Kaido during the Fire Festival he wants to... Party? And decided to drop the island mid-battle?

Meanwhile, on Luffy's side, Kaido is just another obstacle that he needs to overcome. Anything else is just a bonus.

With his desire to create a world of war and his attempt to joined the Paramount War, I think it makes the most sense for Kaido to try to recreate that conflict. Perhaps by kidnapping Coby, this involving both the Marines and Luffy (and his grand fleet) in the war.

Questions:
1. Does my interpretation accurately describe what makes you feel stakes?
2. If not, what do you think makes you feel stakes? Is it a factor I failed to consider?
3. How much does this affect your enjoyment of Wano, if at all?

This video has been cooking in my head for almost a year, and I've worked very hard over the last few weeks to get it made. If you think it's interesting, I'd appreciate sharing it around to anyone else who might find value in it. I know it's overall critical of Wano, but I think within that comes a lot of praise of how well One Piece usually works, and I'm hoping that message can spread around the community, at least a little.