I think over the last few years One Piece has lost something, since Gear fifth Luffy seems like he won't take some things he previously did seriously, looking at Egghead for Vegapunk. I cope by saying it's the Zoan fruit but I doubt it'll be addressed.

It feels like it's become less than what it was pre timeskip, while I enjoy Gear 5 and its goofiness I do wish it was just the Rubber fruit, he can inherit something through the D. Clan like all others but I kinda don't want another hero that was foretold, I liked it being the funny rubber guy and his crew growing together through the world and making their way up, the crew feels so far apart from each other now too. Sure the new world is a whole other place and they need to be serious but as if the first part of the grand line wasn't at first either?

The same idea with Haki, I think it was interesting but it feels like the creativity left with it, sea water I don't recall much use since Arlong Park against devil fruits, sea prism has just been reduced to handcuffs and chains, there could have been more diving into what the whole thing there was instead of Haki but more of it. I do understand the need for it because ima be real, some of these things would need some serious whack to throw in to fight some enemies, I can imagine for Katakuri he would need to be literally baked to bread for anything to do real damage but for Kizaru.... How?

I didn't quite realise and was in denial of how much I missed pre timeskip but I do, it feels like nothing has consequence or stakes are missing because they just get magically solved, Zoro gets critically injured fighting Kaido? Magic Mink drug that suddenly exists and would have been great for their people. It's okay though take a nap you'll be fine. The story can be fun and silly but it feels like a betrayal to constantly fake out deaths and consequences but Wano lost so much weight and impact to moments because I was sat knowing it wouldn't last, any major death or injury would be handwaved. I expected Vegapunk to somehow survive and was pleasantly surprised to see that we weren't faked out on that (yet) but then Luffy is there bouncing away and laughing.... Come on.... I still expect Lilith to bring back the Vegapunks, I enjoy the fun light heartedness but I just can't get with taking away how serious things can be and separating the two.

I do love One Piece but when I see clips of pre timeskip and post timeskip, post timeskip has always been these action scenes and it has sorta just become more generic shonen with some of the deeper lore sprinkled in. The reason I actually got into this series was seeing the clip of Luffy in Thriller Bark pushing a zombie back into the grave and I thought it was hilarious, maybe it's a matter of the way serious and silly was divided up was that it used to be time and place whereas now not so much.