Didn't stop them from doing it in Alabasta with "Hey, lets pair off and have a bunch of duels when we're supposed to be preventing this war" or in Enies Lobby of "Hey, lets pair off and have a bunch of duels when we're supposed to be breaking Robin out of imprisonment."Originally Posted by Sentenal
Each of those arcs had their own set of circumstances that dictated that they break up into small groups. Additionally, neither one had the Straw Hats actually fighting in the war (at Alabasta, their duels were done separately against Baroque Works, and only actually fought in that war at the very end). In short, pairing off to have a bunch of duels was how they were trying to stop the war. And breaking off into pairs was how they were supposed to be freeing Robin.
But here at Marineford, it is literally a battlefield. Its a war. And Luffy is actually directly fighting in it. Wars aren't fought in duels. The situation is completely different from both of your analogies.
The situation was exactly the same in those other two situations. The only difference is the plot carried the main characters away from the battle so that they could have their duels.
In Alabasta, the strawhats arrived early to have their duels before the Rebels and the Royal guard clashed. In Enies Lobby, the strawhats basically burst through the Marines to fight duels with the main villains while Galley La and Franky House had a huge battle with the marines behind them.
The exact same thing should have realistically happened here as well. The most powerful members of Whitebeards crew should have blown right through the marines to engage the Admirals and Shichubuki behind the marines front line.
Instead, we basically had the entire battlefield have their entire focus on Luffy for the entire attack. Every single powerful enemy would end up standing in Luffy's way one to get intercepted by one of the equally powerful good guys.
That's the point at which a duel SHOULD have happened. But it never does, instead, character end up squaring off, only to separate for no reason seconds later. I lost count of the number of time Jinbei would jump on some admiral, and then, a short time later, jump in against another enemy. It's like the admiral he was fighting and Jinbei just went "Well, Luffy's past us, spotlights not on us anymore, guess we'll just go our separate ways".
So to try and pass that kind of crap as "realistic war" is just ridiculous. Yes, people totally let enemy commanders walk off while you have them engaged in a fight all the time.
And it's not just because the anime is pacing it wrong or whatever. That shit is all there in the manga too.
Sorry, if you think the situation for Enies Lobby and Alabasta was the same as the War at Marineford, you must be watching/reading a different anime/manga than me.
Enies Lobby they broke into small groups in order to search for Keys, and to find Robin. CP9 split up to force the Strawhats to split up to slow them down. When the group splits up into pairs or fewer, you get duels. Alabasta had other reasons that dictated them splitting up.
There was no reason for people to split up like this at Marineford. Instead, we get a frantic free-for-all. And no, the entire battlefield isn't focusing everyone on Luffy. You don't constantly see all 3 Admirals, all the present Shichibukai, and all the Vice Admirals breathing down Luffy's throat. The story follows Luffy through the battle, but the story isn't telling all of the battle.
Like for example, Luffy is running through the battle, and Smoker appears. Its time for a duel right??? Oh wait, no, this is a huge all out free-for-all war, with tons of different characters running around fighting whoever they want, and Hancock comes and attacks Smoker. The story moves on with Luffy, and doesn't even focus on Smoker vs Hancock. Same with stuff like Crocodile vs Don Flamingo.
So, we see this happening to Luffy alot, that people will intercept his enemies, and we accept these as valid reasons as to why Luffy isn't having a hundred different all out duels. Why then do you assume that the people who intercept those enemies immediately abandon their fight, or abandon their fight for no reason? Any number of things could happen off screen, but you assume that "If it isn't shown, nothing happens"? Their own fights could have gotten interrupted for any number of reasons, one person could have retreated, one person could have been temporarily incapacitated, etc etc.
And yes, it is that the anime pacing isn't what it should be. Don't try telling me that all those Hancock-fantasizing-about-Luffy jokes, or Buggy-being-Buggy jokes do anything other than mess up the pacing.
I understand you think Enies Lobby and Marineford are completely different, but the fact is that the setups for these two arcs is almost IDENTICAL. And the only reason they progress differently is because Oda writes the characters to react differently(and in my opinion, less believably in Marineford).
If CP9 had rushed out to meet the Strawhats at the courthouse, then Enies Lobby would have progressed just like Marineford. If the Admirals and Shichubuki had taken Ace and withdrawn inside the Headquarters, then Marineford would be progressing just like Enies Lobby. The difference isn't the situation, it's the characters actions.
I just take issue with this idea that "There aren't duels in Marineford because it's a REAL war." But they are both the same. There aren't duels going on because Oda is writing the characters differently, not because Marineford is somehow "more warish".
And that's the problem. The fact that none of those things are being shown. It'd be one thing if two characters ended up squaring off ended up not being shown again until the battle was over. But when you have those characters continually popping up in the middle of the battle again, with no explanation of how they went from fighting who they were before, to being where they are now, that's bad writing!
Yes, they could have been interrupted for any number of reasons, but if you don't show any of them, the audience is left to think characters are just behaving stupidly.
And this is what I mean when I say the manga is TOO fast, and frantic in places like this arc. Because things like what caused Boa and Smoker to stop fighting, or Ivan and Kuma to stop fighting, or Don Flaminco and Crocodile to stop fighting are things that should be getting explained.
But really, it should be getting explained in the anime. I've said it before, I think the manga is frantically fast paced on purpose so that when the anime writers stretch out a chapter into a whole episode, it doesn't end up feeling padded. The problem is, the anime writers are stretching the wrong things. They're rehashing the Boa and Buggy jokes over and over when they should be showing what's going on in these side battles instead. THAT'S where the stretching should be taking place.
P.S. I really hate the new board layout. The existence of multiple "post reply" buttons, one of which will eat your typed out post, has caused me to have to retype multiple posts now.
Last edited by DarthEnderX; Fri, 01-21-2011 at 01:37 AM.
@Darthender:
I don't see what your point is. It's not like the anime actually filled in those gaps left by the manga as to how each individual fight was resolved and how characters kept switching opponents. It took the exact same scenes from the manga and just lengthened them by introducing random pauses ,having the characters stand around alot, and devoting way too much time to the antics of Buggy. The only exception was the one fight between Luffy and Smoker.The crazy pacing in the manga is exactly what makes the plot work because its the only satisfactory way to explain how Luffy got by so many obstacles. If each of his enemies had plenty of time to engage him, I doubt he would have gotten far.
Also, please don't compare this war to Enies Lobby or Arabasta. The number of formidable characters on both sides is much higher here. Yes there's alot of cannon fodder, but there are also vice admirals, WB squad captains and reknown New World pirates, most of whom are stronger than Luffy. Chaos is alot more likely.
Edit: After reading your latest post, yeah I agree that there are better ways to slow the pace down. But I must insist that a faster pacing would have been much better than what we just saw, since it seems that they had no creative ideas on how to flesh things out.
Last edited by Splash!; Fri, 01-21-2011 at 02:01 AM.
But it is more "warish". Its a war. The Navy gathered almost their entire military strength at Marineford. Whitebeard came with all of the different Divisions under his command, in addition to MANY different crews from the New World. The Government amassed their army, and Whitebeard gathered what could be considered an army of Pirates. And then they fight in a free for all. How is this in any way just like what happened at Enies Lobby? Luffy and co running around a building looking for keys while fighting CP Agents is not the same as the Navy gathering its entire might to fight Whitebeard and his forces. Please explain this to me, because it seems entirely different.I just take issue with this idea that "There aren't duels in Marineford because it's a REAL war." But they are both the same. There aren't duels going on because Oda is writing the characters differently, not because Marineford is somehow "more warish".
No, it isn't bad writing. Bad writing is Kubo dedicating entire chapters in Bleach in having all these minor characters that no one cares about fight each other while the people we DO care about have to wait millions of years to get any focus. Bleach's equivalent of what One Piece did here was a crime against humanity. One Piece is the story about Luffy. It isn't about Crocodile, or Ivankov, or Jimbei, or Smoker. Therefore, it doesn't follow them. It follows Luffy. And what happens with Luffy. When it shows what they are doing off-screen, it is always for a reason (foreshadowing, or exposition of something that will eventually meaningfully impact the plot).And that's the problem. The fact that none of those things are being shown. It'd be one thing if two characters ended up squaring off ended up not being shown again until the battle was over. But when you have those characters continually popping up in the middle of the battle again, with no explanation of how they went from fighting who they were before, to being where they are now, that's bad writing!
Except Oda MAKES it about them when he keeps having those same characters interfere with Luffy over and over again. If they didn't matter, then they wouldn't keep showing up. But Oda keeps going out of his way to go "HEY! DON'T FORGET ALL THESE GUYS ARE HERE TOO!!" "HEY! CROCODILE FANS! I'M GONNA HAVE HIM SAVE ACE NOW EVEN THOUGH HE WAS FIGHTING LIKE 5 OTHER PEOPLE!! NO I DON'T KNOW WHERE THOSE OTHER 5 PEOPLE WENT!!"
It's like having a character in an exploding building, and then having him show up later fine and never bothering to explain how he survived the explosion.
I understand and agree with your point, but try to understand ours, that is exactly why the anime ended up dissapointing to many of us; instead of giving a natural flow to the fights by extending this "story-holes" the manga had, they decided to explain nothing and have half an episode filled with some random Buggy shit along with is quite possibly the most annoying theme song in history.
So instead of wondering "What happened with the Croc fight?", we wondered "What happened with the Croc fight? and why am i looking at this retard doing stupid shit on a camera?"
Last edited by UChessmaster; Fri, 01-21-2011 at 08:55 PM.
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. -Marie Curie
Yes, I understand that. I'm not saying the anime isn't fucking up where it's choosing to pad the story or that the Buggy/Boa scenes don't suck. I'm just saying that I prefer the anime's pacing to the manga's.
Maybe it's just cause I'm watching the anime first.
I don't think it'll be as bad as you think it is now during future viewings when you aren't waiting a week between each 15 minutes of show, and your skipping the openings, recaps, endings and previews(which One Piece DVD's awesomely let you skip automatically with its Marathon option).
They "matter" when they show up, because the vast majority of the time them showing up means they are interacting with Luffy in some way. Do you really want the story to constantly follow every single supporting character on the battlefield? This arc could easily be 3 times as long if it did so.
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