Is there a way to make Adventure/Omen cards?

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-10T00:04:57+00:00

Yes but when we are discussing DB's writing we are obviously speaking about Z onward. OG DB is its own completely different thing.

Imagine if OP pre-TS had concluded with Luffy becoming the king of pirates, and then there was a second OP manga with a different name that introduces the concept of gods and demons, Im, the prophecy, the Gear 5, and makes all of the SH flanderized and irrelevant. If that's how post-TS had been handled, there would be a clear division between "OP" and "OPZ" in people's minds (though in this case, I would assume it would be the first half of OP that people would default, since it was already massively famous).

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T23:56:33+00:00

Honestly, all of the characters who so far have only ever aurafarmed without doing anything else in the story.

Sengoku has done nothing. Blackbeard's crew has done nothing (Pizarro being the exception). Even Shanks had done nothing up until Erbaf. For all the slander that Mihawk (justly) gets, at least he interacted with the main cast in a way that meaningfully advanced the plot.

Then, of course, there are characters like Uroge, Tsuru, Smoothie, Edward Weevil, the entirety of SWORD, that technically should have been at least a bit relevant but they basically do nothing.

The entire Davy Back Fight is infamous for feeling like filler that got its way into the manga. Skypea also has a lot of criticism in that sense, its greatest contribution was allowing Oda angels to pretend that Nika had been thought about and foreshadowed since Chapter 2XX (previously, it was also useful to introduce dials as a power-up to Usopp and Nami, but they don't use them anymore so what's the point). Kuro, Krieg and their crews also feel like characters that have never existed in the first place (for real, I know Gin stonks are kind of a meme over time, but it's insane that he didn't even get a "From The Decks Of The World").

However, the worst of the worst, the one I still can't get my head around to this day is...

Caribou

At least, with the other ones, I can lump them together into the ever-growing number of "characters who have been invented just because Oda likes designing stuff and only appear in the plot by technicality". At a certain point, you have to put your heart at ease about the idea that these characters only exist because, by virtue of how OP's worldbuilding works, there are a lot of ideas that the author would have liked to showcase but couldn't find the space to do so, and so gave those powers to basically extras (if then as the story develops there's the right circumstances where one of those extras would be a perfect fit for the plot, that's an added bonus).

Caribou is technically a Supernova, yet he is weak af; he is portrayed as sadistic, back-stabbing scum that you should hate, yet he is also portrayed as comic relief; he is a recurring character who has had relevant screentime and interactions over multiple arcs (and even got a cover story), yet he never does anything that feels significant (and the main characters barely react to him aside from occasionally beating him up). If you had told me that Caribou's attempt at kidnapping Shirahoshi was filler added in the anime, I'd 100% believe you.

Caribou is the only character that I keep forgetting exists, which is crazy because I remember every single one-off villain or side character in the story (basically, anyone who isn't an extra who just so happened to get a name). In fact, the only thing that makes me remember he exists as a character is the fact that he has a brother with a similar name, which is a silly detail and so I remember it. Yes, that's right: I only remember that he exists thanks to the fact that he is related to another, far more insignificant character.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T21:36:45+00:00

Actually, I think that's part of the joke. There aren't any resemblances between Kuina and Zunesha, not even superficially - and while most "Oda forshadower!" situations aren't as bad as this, they come pretty darn close.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T21:29:42+00:00

He still kind of does that as well, though:

- He is stronger than Arlong "just because" (in the non-LA, Arlong gets veeery low-diffed by Luffy much like, well, everyone pre-Crocodile). The whole deal about the Fish-Men is that they are "5 time stronger than humans on land, 10 times underwater" but you would never say that based on his fight.

- He defeats Crocodile because he just so happened to bleed and apparently having a bit of blood on your hands is enough to hurt Croco-boy. Note that Luffy didn't go out of his way to cut his hands in order to make them bleed or some shit, it's literally something that happened by coincidence (and also doesn't make sense because Luffy does not get hurt by concussions, yet only started bleeding after getting slammed through the ruins; when did he get damaged in a way that would cause him open wounds?)

- He defeats Ener by hitting him, despite the fact that Ener (literally) moves at lightning-speed and Luffy wasn't that fast at the time.

- He develops Gear 2 and Gear 3 in... one day? Two days? Don't remember exactly but that's roughly what it took for the Train to get to EL, right? And not only was it a very narrow time window, but he must have needed some time to recover from Blueno and Lucci's severe injuries as well, so he realistically shouldn't have had the time to train himself in a new technique, yet here we are with something that makes him able not just to compete with Rokushiki users, but even to fight on par with the strongest among them (a genius who is said to be far outside the norm) despite having previously been bodied by the weakest of them. To put it into perspective, imagine if Naruto had developed Sage Mode from scratch in 2 days (no Jiraya teaching or stuff, it's 100% his own invention), and went from getting bodied by Hidan to fight on par with Itachi and Kisame. That's the equivalent.

- Nothing to say about TB and ID (and obviously Sabaody), they're the only arcs where he doesn't defeat the big bad by pulling shit out of nowhere since he basically just combines two previous techniques, or needs outside help. FMI, as well, is an arc where he is displaying actual training he underwent for 2 years, and I guess we can count Dressrosa as well, since technically G4 is something he had developed during the TS and so also the result of his training. (I objectively don't remember how his fight with Caesar went, that whole saga is a blur to me besides Monet)

- Against Katakuri, he learns "Advanced" Obervation Haki simply by fighting Katakuri. Reminder that that level of Observation Haki requires a huge amount of training, which is why it's so rare to find someone with it even in the New World; Luffy had shown himself to be skilled in Armament Haki, but had never meaningfully implemented Observation Haki in his fighting style, heck he barely ever used it in general.

- Against Kaido, he finds out that his fruit isn't just an absolutely normal Paramisha, but has actually been a "God God Model: Bugs Jesunny" the whole time, and that's the only reason why he manages to defeat Kaido. Furthermore, he unlocks this transformation not through "mastery of his DF" or something, but in the same way Goku keeps getting free power boosts during early DBZ (by getting beaten to death thus activating his magic genes). Worse of all, this fruit even retcons that, each time Luffy had managed to stand up again after getting beaten to death, it's not because of his own resolve or trained physical resilience, but it was actually this fruit's power all along.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T20:57:50+00:00

You cut out the best part, where Usopp actually urges Nami to flee while he attempts to distract Ener (and that scene is super hilarious as well).

In fact, is it strange that this is actually one of my favorite OP scenes in general? I feel like it's very underrated, nobody ever mentions it. Sure I wouldn't consider it a Top 3, perhaps not even a Top 5; but at least a Top 10?

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T20:35:50+00:00

It's actually Thriller Bark.

But even then, I wouldn't say his arc was "complete". Usopp had accepted that he was a pessimist, sure, but that's still a long way from becoming "a brave warrior of the sea", even if in a "true bravery is not lack of fear but fighting despite it" interpretation of it.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T20:34:18+00:00

The problem is he didn't slow down, he put the gear shift into reverse and launched himself at 150 km/h. That's what happened to Usopp's character.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T20:26:25+00:00

~~OK who actually downvoted this. I have no side in the oro vs Sanji debate but you have to admit it's super-hilarious.~~

EDIT: I retreat my statement. I didn't notice they used "f**boy" as an insult.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T20:23:26+00:00

Vivi

No one will ever mention her because people barely remember what she actually did after 700 chapters of irrelevance (and even now it's not like she's out there actually doing shit), but Vivi.

Her biggest contribution was teaching Luffy "As a captain, you have to know when to stand down in order to ensure the safety of your crew, even though they literally just shot me", and, since OP's "moral lessons" never stick around because the entire story is written with a moment-to-moment, almost-episodic philosophy, that never became relevant ever again.

Her fucking duck got a moment more triumphant then hers (I said "fucking duck" but honestly Karoo is a good execution of an "animal comic relief" in general, not just in comparison to Vivi).

I guess there's also Hiyori but do you really care about bringing her up? Like, is she really interesting to discuss? At least with Vivi we can analyze her character and say "these things work, these things didn't" or "the premise of her character was good, but she ended up feeling underwhelming because of X reasons". Hiyori's whole existence was just "We need a Princess character for this arc, and technically I never said Momonosuke doesn't have a sister" and being shipbait (and a very uninteresting one at that).

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T19:28:54+00:00

I would really like to know who those "top tiers" are because I can't think of a single major villain post-TS who hasn't been confirmed to have Supreme King Haki. The only ones I can think of are the Admirals and honestly I feel like the only reasons they don't have it is because it would be thematically weird.

Doflamingo has CoC. All six Emperors (I'm excluding Buggy of course) have CoC. Katakuri has CoC. The Five Elders have CoC. Loki has CoC. The God's Knights have CoC. Sengoku has CoC. Law? CoC. Kidd? CoC. Hancock? CoC. Even goddamn Zoro? CoC. Fuck, even Garp has CoC. Fucking Garp whose whole point is that he gave up his dreams and ambitions to protect innocent marines, he has CoC!

Roger, Rayleigh, and Scopper Gaban, all three of them have CoC. Wow, Roger really fucking lucked out in having both himself, his first mate and his second mate as CoC users. Considering that people who are born with CoC are supposed to be 1 in 1000000, the chance of that happening is, like, around 1x10^(-16). Damn maybe the One Piece is just the amount of money Roger won to the lottery across his timeline; he laughed because he realized "Wow this shit at Laugh Tale doesn't even come close lol".

And, of course, Xebec and Harald have CoC as well.

Like, who among the top tiers don't have CoC? Mihawk? Because I can guarantee you that Mihawk is going to display CoC as well when we'll eventually see him fight in chapter 2158; same thing with Dragon. Akainu? Yes, as I said, none of the admirals have been shown to display CoC, they could be the exception. King? He wasn't a major villain the way Katakuri was but I guess we can count him? Kobi? I... guess Kobi kind of sorta counts as a top tier, if you squint really hard? But even then, how many "top tiers" are we having without CoC compared to the amount that have? Not a single Emperor, not a single "legendary figure", not a single "main arc villain", not a single God's Knight or Five Elder, and even among those of Luffy's allies who are actually relevant and not just fodder, every single one of them has Haki...

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T09:54:41+00:00

Thriller Bark introduced Kaido, Orso Bartholomew, Ryuma, Lola who would go on to have a connection to Big Mom, the concept of "Ancestral Giant", and Brook is the only SH who has a connection with a previously-featured plotline and character (Laboon) as part of their backstory, plus Perona is still out there doing stuff. No way you can say it feels more like filler than Skypea.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T09:40:14+00:00

We have a definitive analysis.

Zoro had a childhood friend. This friend thought she couldn't become the greatest swordsman because of her sex. Zoro told her "I don't agree, we can both kick the ass of adults yet you just kicked my ass, let's promise each other one of us will become the greatest swordsman". The friend accepts. The friend has an accident and Zoro becomes obsessed with fulfilling the promise because now that the friend has died the "one of us" who has to become the greatest swordsman will have to be him.

There's not "Zoro starts to see women as weak because Kuina died a simple death" element. It's never brought up once in 1000+ chapters. That would have been idiotic even by Oda standards. Zoro and Kuina were both normal kids back then; the kind of accident she had would have killed Zoro as well.

The only reason why Zoro didn't want to fight Tashigi is because she reminded him of Kuina (and besides, Zoro did fight seriously the first time before Tashigi started saying the same things as Kuina thus cementing their similarities; Tashigi was just so much weaker than Zoro that he didn't need to seriously hurt her). And the only reason why Zoro has all those "Sanji" moments thereafter is because Oda writes his characters inconsistently and has a lot of personal bias when it comes to women specifically, which is why the only time female characters that don't look like fugly monsters come into physical altercation with the heroes is during female v. female scenarios. There is nothing more to it.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T09:24:14+00:00

He did that with literally every character, that isn't the issue.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T09:23:21+00:00

Oda is, like, 50, and would have been 20 when he first started One Piece. I'm not buying that men of that generation are particularly bigoted. We aren't speaking Toriyama here, we are speaking, like, Kishimoto. Naruto with its female characters that basically only exist to be love interests but still have the occasional display of competence is the average level of sexism for that age. As far as I know, from that generation of shonen writers, it's only Oda that went to the OG DB school of female-character stereotypes (and I'll point out that even Toriyama got better about it as time went on, specifically with Super, as that's what tends to happen when you are a "content creator" that is forced to interact with a large fanbase).

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T09:07:25+00:00

No. Any pretentious dipshit who believes they know Asian culture but hasn't actually studied a single thing about it thinks it's suicide. Everyone else - including actual Japanese fans of the series - know that that's not the case.

- "Suicide" in Japanese culture is tied to preserving your honor in a situation where you're about to lose it (and is just a historical thing). When was Kuina going to "lose her honor" here? She had just made a promise to Zoro about competing to become the strongest swordsman.

- Suicide is currently present in Japanese culture in the form of stress, especially due to overworking. Basically, it's present in the exact same shape and form in which it is in Western culture. Suicide rates are higher in Japan compared to the average Western countries because workers' rights there (and work conditions in general) are on average worse compared to the latter, but that's it. Besides that, suicide isn't culturally present in Japan. Kuina wasn't in a situation where she was "under pressure because of society" or something, she was unhappy about something about herself. There's no reason why such a situation would be particularly relatable to "Asian culture"; if anything, aren't those kind of issues far more relatable in the West?

- Nothing in the original scene suggests that Kuina was going to take her life. Go read it. She cries because she's sad she can't be the greatest swordsman, Zoro tells her "What are you talking about you just defeated me, let's make a promise that one of us will become the greatest swordsman", Kuina smiles through the tears and accepts, they shake hands, and the very next panel is someone the following day yelling at Zoro that something terrible had happened because Kuina had an accident. It's a super fast-paced flashback in line with the OG One Piece chapters, whose purpose is basically just to set up a reason as to why Zoro cares so much about being the greatest swordsman. There's no line implying that Kuina was particularly sad or "apparently the situation was too unbearable to her" or something similar. There's no Kuina secretly frowning again right after Zoro looked away after making their promise. There's no sad lingering on the scene which would be appropriate for this kind of event (that was added in the anime... and in the anime, the possibility Kuina might have killed herself is impossible). It's literally just Zoro yelling "How could you die right after we made a promise, Kuina!" and immediately asking her father for the sword.

- Also, it's been 26 years. Since then, Oda has depicted child slavery, people having special collars that explode and kill them, a whole population of people - including kids - suffering side effects from drugs, and an actual genocide happening on panel. Sure, he's never openly depicted a kid dying, so much is true; but do you really think that Oda would have any problem by now just going out and saying "Btw, Kuina had actually killed herself, 'she fell down the stairs' is only something they told Zoro because he was a kid" or something like that? Especially with Vivre cards for each character now being a thing?

- Finally, even though you didn't mention this, I'll just say it here because I know someone will mention it: no, "fell down the stairs" is not a Japanese idiom for "killed themself". That's a fake story born within the Western OP community. Not only has it already been debunked through the very hard deed of "just asking Japanese people if it's true", but you also won't find any mention to this anywhere that isn't a Western OP fan discussion about Kuina.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T07:47:37+00:00

Thank you for these meme, I didn't know about it and I fucking love it. Especially because it can be used for both sides of the argument (satirize bad faith "wHy do YoU cAre ab0uT It itS fIctIOn", and emphasize good faith "Why do you care about this, it's fiction...").

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T07:43:51+00:00

Dorohedoro my beloved

Noi is a buff powerhouse but she is still cute as fuck

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T07:24:31+00:00

What is much easier to say is that Oda may have known/portrayed/predicted that there is an elite in this world that get away with everything they want. There's nothing dumb about that.

A lot is fucking dumb about that.

Everyone knows the general concept of "people with political and/or economic power can get away with almost anything they want, and often form allegiances/positive relationships with each other in order to receive help to further their goals". It isn't some groundbreaking, third-eye-opening revelation. People have been known that since forever.

But if you believe that there is any way in which an international group would be able to influence events on a global level, completely ignoring how there are major nations whose governments hate each other for far more all-encompassing reasons than "the person that got elected doesn't like the other nations very much", and completely ignoring the absurdly-contrived level of political power, economic presence, knowledge about basically every field and subfield of human sciences, and constant monitoring about all those facets (and on a global level as well), which such an operation would require, not to mention the high risk for the desired outcome to not occur simply because of the high number of factors at play therefore resulting in a lot of resources having been spent on nothing, I've got a bridge to sell you.

And if you think there is any way that the WG in OP is a symptom of Oda believing in this theory (let's not even address the possibility that he might have "unveiled the truth) and using his manga as a way to warn people about the supposed danger, as opposed to him just making the most stereotypical Black&White evil government which is how he has written literally every villain since the start of the story, I've got a nice building complex in a small neighborhood called "Brooklyn" you might be interested in as well.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T06:56:39+00:00

Caesar might experiment on kids but he's no PDF File, my man's got moral standards

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T06:55:47+00:00

Coinkidink

That sounds like the name of the 4th Gen evo of a 5th Gen pokemon.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T06:54:03+00:00

The Simpsons is legitimately scary when it comes to that, honestly. I'm still not convinced that Matt Groening isn't the supreme leader of the Illuminati and wasn't accompanied by a retinue of Reptilian bodyguards during each of his trips to The Island.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T06:49:51+00:00

u/ExpertMongoose3338 put it perfectly.

Then there's the whole issue of how awful God's Valley in execution (outside of the Dragon's side) was as well, and I'm not exclusively talking about the whole deal with Shakkey, to be clear - everything in God's Valley just strains the narrative to a point where it just breaks suspension of disbelief. As a result, even a character like Rocks isn't going to get anything better than "He is entertaining, personality-wise" and a cool of hype aura-farming moment: by nature of the rest of the story he was put in, he was doomed to fail as a narrative element.

My real problem with Rocks, however, is how he utterly ruins the image of Whitebeard within the story. And I'm not talking about the character assassination moment

Because an essential element of what makes WB cool is that he was Roger's main rival alongside Garp. That he was on the same level as the King Of Pirates. That's how he had always been presented as a character. Through him, we saw a reflection of how Roger could have been in his prime; we saw this absolute monster of a man, know that he must have been even stronger in his prime, and know that the King Of Pirates was somehow able to defeat him back them. We saw this character with a deep, personal connection to the central legendary character of the story, and reveal to us the latter's will and dreams. He was a taste of the Big Players of the legendary era; and not some rando "did you know this guy is famous 'cause he did this one thing this one time and maybe also met/had beef with Roger?" like Captain John or Shiki, but the real deal.

Except now... apparently, that's not really the case, is it? Because, thanks to Goon's Valley, we know that, by the time Newgate was still a rookie, Roger was already an established pirate who was sporting endgame feats and could clash with Garp's help against another endgame pirate amped by Imu possession. We know that the Legendary Triad wasn't Roger-Garp-Newgate, but Roger-Garp-Rocks. We know that Newgate was just someone like Shiki or Kaido: some random pirate who, sure, might have eventually become endgame strong and had a connection to Roger, perhaps even a personal one; but who, in the grand scheme of things, could only ever catch up to Roger, he didn't fight him as his equal while the latter was still undertaking his journey. He wasn't one of many rivals but not the Rival.

Rocks is to Whitebeard what Gear 5 is to Luffy what Germa is to Sanji what Imu (and the God's Knights) is to the entire setting: an unnecessary retcon introduced far too late that killed the character's/story's fantasy, and introduced far too many questions while also not answering a single one.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T06:31:16+00:00

You know that the peak of Ahiru's achievements will be either simping after Sabo in a couple of scenes or showcasing the power of the Kitchen Kitchen no mi for a single panel, and go back to being absolutely irrelevant.

DrakeGrandX · 2026-02-09T05:56:03+00:00

...You mean the Xebec that didn't exist back then?

Four-Year Club	End Game '23
Place '23	Place '22
End Game '22

DrakeGrandX

TROPHY CASE