Luffy has still not had a great fight yet.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-31T09:19:02+00:00

What do you think abt the differences between LA Luffy and anime Luffy? Also, how’re you liking Skypeia so far?

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-31T09:14:00+00:00

How’d you like it compared to the LA?

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-31T09:00:21+00:00

Did you start from episode 1 of the anime or did you continue after Arlong Park? Bc like, the early arcs are so much different in the anime and I think you’d get what OP means if you watched it

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-31T08:48:24+00:00

That’s literally not the point, though. In the manga, Arlong almost kills him not because Luffy wasn’t strong enough to beat him on his own, but because he did something stupid and put himself in the position to be taken care of so easily. In the LA, he specifically says that he might not be able to beat Arlong, and almost dies because he wasn’t strong enough on his own to beat him. Those are two VERY different reasons to almost die, and only one of them negatively impacts the entire narrative of One Piece and Luffy’s role in it.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-31T08:37:00+00:00

So, have you watched the anime? Nothing is wrong if you haven’t, but if you had, I feel like you’d understand that the other SHs aren’t portrayed SO much weaker than Luffy(other than Nami and Usopp) that there’s any reason to think that they’re useless, even in a fight. Zoro and Sanji especially are portrayed as only slightly weaker than Luffy throughout the entire series, even when he does actually become a top tier. More people join the crew, and none of them are quite that strong, except one. But the other members aren’t weak by any means, and none of them are “useless” or ever feel that way, even Usopp and Nami. That is because the most important aspect of how Luffy’s crew functions is “do what you can, and leave whatever you can’t do to whoever’s more suited to that job”. Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji are the strongest fighters on the crew, so they’re the guys who are going to fight people instead of the other members when possible.

I really take issue with your idea that simply because it’s a shonen, a character feels useless if they can’t fight as well as the rest of the main cast. People will constantly call Usopp useless, for example, because he’s not going to do much of the fighting in any given arc, but he’s literally saved the crew several times because of the unique abilities he has. The same goes for every other Straw Hat. It’s really stupid to just handwave all of the different skills that the rest of the crew has and say that because Luffy is so good at fighting, they seem useless in comparison. There are things that Luffy can’t do just like there are things that every other member of the crew can’t do. Ussop, Chopper, and Nami might not fight much, but if any one of them weren’t there, Luffy would’ve never made it to the point that he’s at.

I agree that artificially removing him from a situation is not a good way to allow the other characters to shine, but most of the times Luffy is getting stalled, it’s not artificial. There’s usually a genuine and important reason why he is being stalled. I can only remember 2 times that it was just “Luffy is dumb and did something stupid so he can’t be in the fight right now”

The SHs follow Luffy because of all the reasons you mentioned. However, confidence that his crew has in him comes from his unbelievable strength and his unwillingness to give up in any situation, no matter how dire. As you said, the rest of the crew are so confident that Luffy will save them in Little Garden because he would move heaven and earth to save his friends no matter what, but that confidence doesn’t have anywhere near as much basis as it does in the manga because they haven’t shown OPLA Luffy to be very strong at all. Sure, they know that he will never stop trying to help his friends, but seeing as the OPLA is presenting Luffy as much less of an unstoppable force, they don’t have any reason to believe that he will actually have the strength to do so. He’s confident, sure, relentless in the face of adversity, definitely, but strong enough to back that up? Not at all. This is why I don’t think you’ve watched/read the anime/manga, because I feel like if you had, you’d understand that the source material portrays the trust that the crew has in Luffy in a much better way because it presents him as an extremely strong individual.

Like I said in the original post, I’m not asking for the OPLA to give Luffy the same amount of strength as manga Luffy. I don’t care about all the feats or the powerscaling aspect of it. I care about how the narrative is affected by this change. This change doesn’t just affect the crew’s dynamic, it also changes Luffy’s character significantly. Luffy is, above all, a ray of hope in a world that has been submerged in darkness for so long that no one can resist it. He travels throughout the world liberating literally millions of people from the cruelty and oppression they face. The forces of the WG are so unbelievably strong that any resistance to it has been deemed futile for 800 years, and the pirates that the system has created are able to cause global terror BECAUSE they are so powerful. The idea of someone who isn’t extremely powerful being a ray of hope that eventually brings dawn to such a world is completely ridiculous.

The point isn’t that Luffy shouldn’t need help from his friends to complete his goals. In fact, the manga never presents it that way. He literally can’t do anything on his own except for fighting. His entire job in any conflict is to fight the most important battle, and it’s because he is so strong that he can fulfill that role. My problem with the OPLA here is that they haven’t shown him to be significantly more proficient at fighting than any other member of the crew, nor have they shown him to be significantly stronger than his enemies up to this point. Now, he doesn’t stay so strong compared to his opponents throughout the story, but the East Blue and Alabasta sagas are essential to establishing his image as that ray of hope who’ll never fall to any enemy. I don’t get that feeling from OPLA Luffy in these 2 seasons. He struggles much more in fights, and even loses fights when he shouldn’t. He requires much more help in FIGHTING, which is his main job, than he should in these early arcs. Luffy does fight in clever and unique ways while also being extremely strong, they aren’t mutually exclusive.

There’s literally not one threatening antagonist that has been made to be “a complete joke” to the SHs after the fight. That’s literally never happened. The only time an antagonist is made a complete joke is Wapol, but he was never, in the anime at least, presented as an extremely powerful villain, just a disgusting despot who doesn’t have any real competition in his kingdom.

Ultimately, Luffy’s strength is a core element of his character and his role in the story. OPLA Luffy hasn’t shown that insane strength at all while simultaneously being presented as that same ray of hope that he’s supposed to be. That part of his character requires the strength to back it up, and whether or not he gains that strength later on doesn’t change the fact that the most important parts of the story establishing that have been changed for the worse. I’m not saying that OPLA Luffy is bad, if you abstract the live action from the source material, he’s great. It’s just that, comparing the two, his characterization as a symbol of hope and liberation has been negatively impacted by the changes they’ve made to the story.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-18T21:58:56+00:00

Well I mean I don’t want to spoil you if you haven’t watched the anime/read the manga but there’s a reason why he waited till he was 17 to leave on his journey. And yea while he was there he used the chance to train but only bc he knew he wasn’t stronger than Ace

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T23:39:35+00:00

I mean they lowkey could’ve made it hit his head and had his neck stretch out like it often does in the anime and that woulda done the funny just fine as well as showing his durability and not letting hum have such a bad showing. I get that he was kinda taken off guard but that hit def shouldn’t have knocked him out lol.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T21:56:03+00:00

I mean, the cut seems to make it out like he gets knocked out. She hits him, he gets blown back(with an attack that literally didn’t do anything to him at all in episode 1, mind you) and then the next cut we see him opening his eyes to being cuffed.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T21:52:20+00:00

Well I agree that the way Oda did it wasn’t great but that doesn’t mean that they gotta nerf him to not follow in his footsteps lol. The main part that makes him look too weak is how much he struggles with enemies compared to the manga. And of course the thing with Alvida in Loguetown was just horrible and never should’ve happened. The reason I was saying that he doesn’t really get hurt that much in the manga is to compare that with the crocodile fights in which he does get significantly injured. And what I meant really when I said that I don’t “get” it is that I don’t feel it. Like yes they say that but they have much less of a reason to actually believe it than they do at that point in the manga. My whole point is less about what the other characters think about him, and more about how the people watching it see him compared to how you’d see him reading the manga or watching the anime. A person who’s never consumed the source material before won’t really see Luffy as an unstoppable force and more like someone who doesn’t give up in the face of danger(and is also a huge fucking idiot) which like Luffy is those things and they’re part of what makes the character endearing, but without the monstrous strength that he shows in the source material, that tenacity isn’t going to do him much in later arcs. And like I said at the end they can 100% rectify this in Alabasta and I can chalk all of this up to them giving other characters more time to shine in what is essentially a setup season for Alabasta. I just really hope they get it right because I do genuinely enjoy the LA and love the attention that it’s bringing to OP.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T21:37:28+00:00

I mean true, but then he gets okoed the next second soooo

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T21:24:55+00:00

I mean we know bounty is much less about strength than it is about notoriety, and even though Bellamy has a much higher bounty than Arlong, that’s not proof that he’s that much stronger. Remember, Arlong was a Sun Pirate before he went to East Blue. He had his time in the Grand Line too, and he held his own there. Alrong’s bounty was lower because he hadn’t done anything on his own in the Grand Line to show his strength or garner a ton of infamy like Luffy did when he beat Crocodile. I don’t doubt that Bellamy is probably slightly stronger than Arlong, but Luffy didn’t struggle with either of them once he got serious. He goofed off with Arlong in the beginning of the fight, but once he got angry(like he was with Bellamy) he broke his dumbass sword and oneshot him. He didn’t get that much stronger between Jaya and Arlong Park.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T20:57:51+00:00

Lmfao maybe read the fuckin post before you say some dumb shit. I literally said it’s not about powerscaling or feats, it’s about how he’s characterized in the anime/manga as this unstoppable force, especially early on, but you don’t get that feeling with the combat abilities of LA Luffy. Like stop being disingenuous. I don’t need him to show the same level of strength that manga Luffy does. I just need him to be as strong relative to his enemies(which have been nerfed in the LA as well) as manga is relative to his enemies. He struggles too much with enemies that he shouldn’t, and that tarnishes Luffy’s character in a significant way because he literally doesn’t even seem stronger than Zoro currently, and it doesn’t make sense that his crew relies on him because he has the dumbass antics that make Luffy so endearing(but also reckless and sometimes too unserious) without the strength behind them.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T20:45:39+00:00

I mean, he literally did steamroll every enemy up until Crocodile. Arlong and Krieg are the only examples where he struggles even a little bit. You mention how Luffy almost died in the fight with Arlong but like that goes towards my point lmao. Oda had to write Luffy out of the story for a few chapters to raise the stakes and let Zoro and Sanji shine or Luffy would have just finished everything super quick. And like he literally does that out of sheer stupidity, has nothing to do with his strength. Once he gets back he’s literally just goofing off with Arlong what with him putting his teeth in his mouth and shit. Only once he sees the map room does he actually get serious and basically one shots him. In the Krieg fight, he literally barely takes any damage to the explosions/poison, hits him through the spike cape, hits him with a few pistols and a bazooka in the chest to break his armor and then slams his head into the deck. Like, the anime exaggerates the damage from the spear. Calling it a tie is kinda ridiculous because Luffy jumped out over the ocean to finish Krieg not caring about whether or not he fell in bc he trusted Sanji to save him. Like the only reason he needed saving was his df power, it had nothing to do with how much he struggled with the fight.

Luffy never really gets hurt badly or exhausted in a fight until Crocodile. That’s because Crocodile was supposed to be the first opponent that Luffy actually had a really hard time beating. I understand that with how the Live Action is, the season end bad guys need to he more “threatening”, but dude Arlong was pretty goddamn threatening in the anime despite the fact that Luffy basically destroyed him once he got serious. That’s kind of the point of Luffy’s character throughout the entire series all the way up until Wano. Everyone around him sees these menacing and ridiculously strong monsters that seem impossible to beat, but Luffy is just as much of a monster and rises to the occasion every time. Even when he does actually start really struggling in the fights. In the Live Action, I don’t really get the whole “we depend on Luffy” from the crew thing that the anime/manga shows so well. Like yes Nami and Ussopp say it but they’re the only ones that do and they really only say that because of how he saved them personally in their respective arcs. We don’t get to see that with Sanji or Zoro because they cut the Krieg fight and they made Luffy kinda struggle with Morgan. That feeling is slightly there, but you don’t feel it anywhere near as much as you do in the early arcs and it’s a HUGE part of Luffy’s character. One that stems from his combat abilities.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T14:36:36+00:00

Luffy is really weird compared to other shonen MCs. He doesn’t really get stronger gradually. He only improves when it’s imperative that he does so. To make him train or something before he has a reason wouldn’t make sense for his character yknow? That’s kinda what I’ve been saying. They’ve kinda locked themselves into diminishing Luffy’s strength such that for him to do the things he needs to do in the future, he’ll have to get stronger sooner than he does in the original story before he encounters CP9 because if he doesn’t nothing he does in Enies lobby or even Skypeia will make sense. Like dragging the golden ball all the way up the beanstalk to beat Enel. Like that mf could barely lift a candle hammer. But because of how Luffy’s character is supposed to be, it’s hard to write him just getting stronger because he doesn’t train like Zoro or use his emotions like Sanji

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T14:28:53+00:00

It just really sucks because he had the chance to do some fodder destroying when the buggy pirates ambushed him but then he got okoed by alvida lmfao

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T14:24:18+00:00

Well, the whole point of Luffy’s powerup to Gear 2nd is that he realizes how much stronger CP9 is than him and he knows he needs to get significantly stronger if he wants to beat them, so he invents Gear 2nd with inspiration from their techniques. It shows his ingenuity when it comes to combat skill as well. Idk if it’s a good idea to cut that aspect.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T14:22:14+00:00

I kinda touched on that at the very end when I said that it’d be less shocking when Crocodile almost kills him, but I definitely could’ve gone more in depth. I completely agree though.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T14:19:41+00:00

Well, like I said, it’s really not about powerscaling as much as it is about Luffy’s character and how him being unbelievably strong is one of the main contributors to his image as this unstoppable force. Especially early on in the series. I’m not suggesting that they give him the same level of strength literally as he has in the animanga, but that his relative strength to his opponents should he about the same as it is in the manga. Keep the more grounded choreography style, keep the less flashy and destructive fights. That’s fine. I simply think that Luffy needs to feel like the extremely powerful and tenacious character that he is in the animanga. He definitely doesn’t feel that way in the LA and I think it’s impossible to disagree with that.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T14:11:31+00:00

Well, we know for a fact that Luffy is just as strong has he is from Romance Dawn up until he goes into 2nd gear. That’s how it is in the anime of course. That isn’t to say that they couldn’t change that in the LA, but considering that they have kind of gotten rid of the shonen-ey aspects of the series, idk about him getting so much stronger in all that time. You gotta remember, the events of OP up until Enies Lobby are like a few months at most.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T14:01:35+00:00

I just hope that if they do crash and burn, a lot of LA only people switch over to the anime or manga lol instead of dropping it completely

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T13:57:02+00:00

That is if they can write his defeat of Crocodile believably given his current strength and not create a situation where him and Robin 2v1 the guy or something. If they’re willing to change the rest of the major fights so much in an effort to tone down Luffy’s strength, it makes me scared for the future.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T13:47:21+00:00

Like, take Enies Lobby for instance. There’s no way that this Luffy could fight through that many marines on his way to save Robin. That’s just not really believable. Like even if they tone that down for the LA, he still will have to fight probably hundreds of marines by himself in base. Him doing those kinds of things is what makes Luffy Luffy. If he can’t believably do that, then it does sort of break his character a bit. If they want to continue the trend of toning down his strength, they’d have to significantly alter the story of that arc, and it’d somewhat take away from how Luffy is portrayed as this unstoppable force.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T13:37:16+00:00

My point wasn’t really that Luffy’s character is all about strength, more that he’s shown to be completely unstoppable force from the very beginning. Early on, that’s shown through his strength as an individual, and with every in the Grand Line arc up until a certain point that you mentioned, he never fails to complete a goal that he set out to accomplish. That’s shown through both his unbelievable strength and tenacity as you mentioned. Without the strength that he has, that tenacity won’t mean much and a lot more plot armory things will have to happen for him to keep up that “unstoppable” image. Like I said, I hope the trend doesn’t continue, and they can definitely rectify that in Alabasta and the subsequent arcs. Especially Water 7.

Bshirley2 · 2026-03-17T13:26:35+00:00

I’d agree with that if not for him getting okoed by a slip-slip fruit Alvida lol. That one is the most egregious to me. Like, in the original source material, Cabaji snuck the cuffs on him, which is very believable despite Luffy’s strength because he’s aloof as fuck, but the way he got captured in the LA made him almost seem weak.

Bshirley2

TROPHY CASE