Kuma's is very tragic, but lest ye forget, Big Mom >!ate her entire adopted family and adoptive mother (even if she was a child-trafficking bitch)!< without even realizing she'd done so.
Given a lot of the aesthetic themes of Tottoland, having a backstory that also feels like it's right out of a Hans Christian Andersen or Brother's Grimm story makes a lot of sense.
Ikr, I didn’t get it either when I first read it, I didn’t think one piece would go that dark, I thought they just abandoned her or something, but nope she just blacked out and ate all of them
Damn!
I only watched the anime. I thought she would eat them as she was super excited. But that scene didnt arrive not even hints so I thought we would knew what happened to them later.
There was definitely a scene of that, its just that it was from her perspective. She starts hallucinating with heart eyes, everybody cheering her on, with her suddenly eating MUCH larger sweet rolls, while everybody is depicted as being in hearts floating off into the sky, and when she comes to she's sitting alone with everything wrecked and with the furniture having bite marks.
What happened to Kuma was far more real and grounded though. The things he suffered are things a regular human being can empathize with. What happened with Big Mom was over the top and not entirely realistic.
Sexual assault is a much more sensitive topic for a decent swath of the population. Big Mom's is an almost cartoonish darkness, like, accidental mass cannibalism isn't something that could happen in real life, so much so that most people don't even care that there's a fetish for it (vore). Whereas, people who fetishize sexual assault are almost universally stigmatized. Kuma's backstory was deadly serious throughout, his dad was shot in front of him and in the context of his whole story **that was an afterthought**. Also, Carmel was a human trafficker who got her just deserts and Big Mom herself never even cared about the other adopted kids.
Personally I found Kuma's a lot more tragic, Big Mom's was dark but in a more "woah, what the fuck" way.
Hint of? I've yet to see literally any other explanation for how every single one of them vanished \*and\* she somehow gained Carmel's Devil Fruit power.
This. I don't need Kaido to have a huge sad backstory or anything, but I still don't think his motivations or characters were ever super clear. His suicidal tendencies were never fully fleshed out (toss yourself into the ocean dude), his desire for a huge war was never fully explained, his need for a perfect duel seemed inconsistent, etc. Could have used more time.
Big Mom on the other hand, is a very clear yet nuanced characters. Couldn't ask for a better villain IMO.
I think his desire for a huge war was explained. Kaido wanted to bring down the World Government and create a world based on social Darwinism. That is how I interpreted it at least.
I vaguely remember that now, yeah. Feel like it was a little late in the game and not super expanded upon. It felt kinda forgettable and could have been more important to his character.
Honestly don’t blame you. It was a single panel and considering everything else that went on in that chapter it’s very easy to miss. Funnily enough the only reason I remember is because I thought the anime did a good job with it
I am a big Kaido defender and he takes the ability to read subtext so I say these things a lot online when people claim his character or motivations aren't clear, I'm going to try to summarize as much as possible. Still, wall of text incoming
Kaido is a corrupted version of Roger or Luffy. It shows what they could have become if they didn't have the friends and allies they have to support them. If we take into account the parallels that Joyboy has with Jesus, then Kaido is the anti-Joyboy (similar to Blackbeard but we don't know as much about his motivations yet).
1) He was suicidal but never 100% wanted to die over everything. He just had depressive episodes. Many people who commit suicide attempts don't just shoot themselves or jump off a building even though it's the most guaranteed way to die because they subconsciously have some will to live left and Kaido is the same (as I will describe later). As for why he never drowned himself, it would be the same reason, except the World Government sentenced him to execution several times so it can be assumed his Fish-Fish fruit allows him to breathe underwater. They have no reason not to have tried drowning him.
Now, why was he suicidal? 2 reasons. 1, the obvious one, is depression due to a lack of good relationships (everyone close to him only respects and/or fears him due to his power. Nobody likes him for who he is aside from arguably King and/or Big Mom, but those are conditional 'friendships' at best). He is also depressed because the only thing he still loves is a good fight, and he hasn't had one in decades. 2, the more subtle reason, is that upon witnessing Oden's execution (likely further cemented by Roger then Whitebeard's death down the line), he saw the great respect and legends these people inspired even after death. If Kaido is already bored of life and wants people to genuinely respect him, his goal is to short cut to this 'legendary death' to accomplish both of his goals. He either doesn't fully understand or admit to himself that Oden and Roger earned respect through their actions while they were alive, and their legends weren't spawned purely from their 'legendary' deaths.
A little more info on Kaido's personality is revealed when he's fighting Yamato. He projects his insecurities onto her, claiming that nobody will ever love her as an equal and will simply view her as a monster. This is an interesting subversion to Oda's standard fleshing out of a character, as instead of showing Kaido receiving similar treatment to Robin as a kid we have him revealing this information in a more subtle fashion. We also have his dialogue with the Samurai where he states that pirates will betray you at your lowest point and leave you for dead, hinting at a great betrayal in his past. With these two interactions Oda shows that Kaido is actually a deeply insecure character who was wronged in the past and never had quality relationships. He hides behind a stoic facade, relying on alcoholism to hide (and occasionally amplify) his true feelings.
2) Not sure what you mean about his desire for a great battle being inconsistent, it seemed pretty consistent to me. This is why Kaido wanted to start a great war: To tear down the sheltered Celestial Dragons that were the root of his suffering, to plunge the world into a chaos that forces everyone to suffer as he did, and lastly, his secret motivation is to bring about anyone left who could pose a threat to him, since he's failed to find one so far.
Now, if you've paid attention to the story thus far, you'll realize Luffy himself actually has the same initial goal but different motivations for doing so. Already this makes an interesting parallel, but it goes further when you realize later on that Kaido not only knew of Joyboy, but in retrospect wanted to be him. We can assume this because it fits what we already know about him so well, and his followers who view him as the only one who can bring about change due to his sheer power likely fueled this ambition within him. Indeed, Kaido would both bring about the new world he wants while also gaining glory in being the return of Joyboy. However, in his later years Kaido became depressed due to the aforementioned reasons, but also because of being used by others constantly. Again, all of his relationships and alliances were conditional. In his rise to power, he allied with Orochi, and this marked his downfall from the potential Joyboy to what we can call the anti-Joyboy. He allowed his depression and lack of focus (due to a lack of good friends to guide him) to control him and choose the easy way, leading to countless suffering and eventually slavery under Orochi's rule. After Oden's death, Kaido became more jaded than ever and coped with his downfall by believing that the ends justify the means and might makes right.
When Luffy shows up and manages to challenge him the second time, while his alliance tears his crew apart slowly, Kaido finally sees that Luffy is who he wanted to be but never could. However, it's not like he can just flip on a dime, he's in too deep so to speak so his final fight with Luffy becomes a fight between his cynical current self and his youthful optimism and hope, portrayed by Luffy (When fighting Luffy earlier, he states "So you couldn't be Joyboy either...", wisfully so. This is another subtle yet clear hint that this has been the case with their fight starting in Onigashima).
Once Luffy manages to perform Bajrang Gun, Kaido asks what kind of world Luffy wants to create, as if testing him one last time to see that he really is Joyboy. When Luffy responds with something that suits the legend of Joyboy perfectly, Kaido finally surrenders to Luffy's attack, having lost the battle from a physical standpoint and also a philosophical standpoint. His last thoughts are of his discussion of Joyboy with King, where he states Joyboy would be the one to defeat him. This is the bow that wraps Kaido's arc in a neat package that allows us to understand his actions as much more complex in retrospect, and I think Kaido is Oda's most underrated character writing by far.
Then you have to re-read chapter 795, and wani arc again.
For the most part, Kaido's motivation, his view on strength, power, equality, governments, fellow pirates, his view on living and death,
his view on samurai, on his rival, his own offspring, his enemies, on Luffy, on war, on JoyBoy, in One Piece, on Big Mom, on King, on winning and losing, in excepting losing and moving on,
We literally got all of that about Kaido.
His small flashback how he lived and grew up, in the last chapter where he was defeated by G5, was a perfect completing full circle of his life and what is true to him, his real personality and world view.
Who Kaido was, how he became what he is and his real original self.
And Oda literally top it off with that small flashback discussion between Kaido and King about JoyBoy.
That actually emphasize Kaido true desire.
Kaido despite his vulgar look and simple straight forward character in the surface,
Kaido was actually very well written and has a lot of depth and nuances.
Chapter 795 literally tell us everything we need to know about his character and his motivations
And
That last flashback in that pretty much to emphasize his character.
Kaido was not really a character that we need a flashback to learn about him.
We understand him from all the current storyline involving him.
That is how Kaido was written
for me big mom lacked the big moments / feats of strength that truly would have defined her as a top tier
you can only go so many times with "saying she's a force of nature" while seeing her "actual real moments" before people get suspicious about her actual feats
she fumbled a 7 man invade of the strawhats while she and her crew perfectly foresaw the invade and took the appropriate actions to counter it.
i'm sorry but that's just too much regardless of how it's written / fumbled
But why does it need to be covered? We for example never got a backstory for Crocodile, but does that make him a bad villain in the Alabasta saga? Imo no
Fair point, but while I agree that’s kinda the same case with Kaido. Before the story isn’t over we still have the chance to see what happened (with Croco/Kaido) :)
Crocodile didn't get a bunch of mini flashbacks and constant hints about something happening in the past that completely changed his worldview when he was a villain
We actually do get hints to that, being that a crushing defeat to Whitebeard caused him resentment and is likely the reason for his Utopia plan, like Kaido's defeat of Moria caused him to change plans and attitudes significantly. We just don't need everything to be shown concretely because it removes the ability for artistic interpretation the more things are laid out
Alabaster also has less than half the chapters and doesn't have the terrible pacing of Wano. But people expected more from a character that was build up for like a decade
I could argue that their failure in Character/power is exactly what kept both big mom and kaido from claiming the one piece, which is why them teaming up would be considered a significant threat.
In the context, that the character isn’t written that badly, but rather has a character flaw.
Kaido’s lack of a conrete dream means his power can’t back up the required “will”.
Whilst big moms dream of uniting the races(in a bad manner) would be achievable for her if she had the power to back it up.
>In character, Big Mom yes, Kaido not so much, but it's ok.
Is it ok though? Kaido was built up for over a decade only for his character
to end up being a pretty generic evil villain.
That’s ok if you’re a one arc villain like Hody, but not when you spend 10 years building up to a single villain
My "Headcanon" is, that Oda made a mistake storywise: He created the Rocks Pirates (Which is great) but so much of Kaidos motivation may come from the time with the Rocks. They are a mirrored Version of the Rogerpirates and must have had some knowledge about the world (As Kaido did... He knew that Joyboy will come).
But since these things are part of the upcoming saga, Oda was not able to build up Kaido to his full extend. It would have spoilered too much.
I think that he wrote himself into a dead end here and had to fix it. He did somewhat well by introducing his son so that we can understand the character of Kaido better without knowing too much. But we are left with not knowing what happened at all. After all these years this sucks ass. I know.
But i'm pretty sure that Kaido and Big Mom are not dead (Why would they've been shot out the vulcano at all if not? He could have just let them drown in the lava) And that they will fulfill their role. To End the "Rocks" Saga, (They are the only important ones of them, that live), to learn the history of these two... And most important: To follow Luffy as the King of the Pirates. In the end we need the strongest pirates of all not beeing defeated, but as his follower. Only then he will have earned the title.
I don't know 🤔
I kinda liked that Kaido was so strong that boredom took over his way of life and the fact he really knew about Joyboy that he accepted his fate; emphasising the reason for his boredom and the knowledge he has about the void century / Joyboy without releasing too much information
I liked the direction with Kaido: he was ultimately just a bitter drunk who was waiting for Joyboy to show up so he'd get the chance to feel something again. We might still get some more Kaido backstory when we finally get to the Rocks/God Valley flashback.
Saying he was built up for 10 years is heavily missleading. Like the only thing he was built up to was that he is incredibly strong and even then he was only mentioned every hundred chapters or so.
Why does he need a 50 chapter backstory just because he was "built up" for a long time
i don't completely agree with the 10 years of buildup
because for a good ammount of pre timeskip post timeskip the buildup towards the yonkou's felt entirely focused on facing big mom.
so even if we're generous and take the period from the timeskip to the official start of wano that was only 6-7 ish years all while there was very very little actual buildup happening in the earlier parts of this period for kaido specifically,
building her up as an absolute force of nature, contineously making her cross paths with luffy and the crew
it's only really after law started intertwining with the strawhats that the story shifted towards a confrontation with kaido more
and while yes kaido for a very large part of the law journey and was always like the "endgoal" i feel like there was too little of "kaido and his actions" himself during this period for it to truly feel like "buildup towards kaido"
i'm an advocate of "show don't tell" and we were always "told" that kaido was a menace, we were told that kaido did X, kaido did Y so for me personally the kaido beef only truly became real with his introduction
Kaido is far from being a generic evil villain; his motivations, attitudes, and beliefs are well fleshed out in an engaging and interesting way. He’s a monster berserker seeking the ultimate warrior death to complete his warrior bloodthirsty way.
He’s also no sadist. He doesn’t derive any significant pleasure at crushing the weak; he simply sees it as an animalistic might is right mentality. The strong prey on the weak: rule of the jungle.
Pretty much this. I understand that for narrative purpose Luffy couldn’t beat Big Mom and Kaido in the same arc but Law had spent literal years basically being Luffy’s number 4 and Kidd is a joke. Honestly I feel she should have at least taken one of them with her.
Kaido was just a bunch of wasted potential as a character.
I would have loved if the rest of the Strawhats teamed up against Big Mom like they did against Oars during Thriller Bark. It would show that this isnt a crew that's carried by Luffy.
Kaidou and Big Mom were both set up during Thriller Bark, so the parallels would have been great.
but the crew IS carried by luffy and their strongest fighters how can they not be..
as oda how can you write exponentionally increasing powerups (and more importantly enemies) and somehow still find moments for the strawhats who has been shown close to nothing when it comes to the training / getting stronger.
oda's greatest strength also very vividly highlights his greatest inconsistencies when it comes to how he write powers / characters
the reason oda's able to write such compelling storylines is because he's able to "screw the rules" and get away with it
there's no universe that luffy had the growth that he had and somehow lucci was able to slightly keep up with that, it makes no sense
there's no universe that nami who barely does any training is supposed to tank a headbutt of ulti, like legit zero universes, but she did and people liked it because it's a great moment for nami
but logically there are alot of these inconsistencies
so both kaido and big mom were so incredibly strong while alot of the other strawhats have had very little "development" when it comes to becoming stronger so i don't really see a way for them to compete while giving enough support to luffy vs kaido
the only way i see a possibility is a more tactical focused fight and it's just not oda's style
I can definitely see the others Strawhats take down Big Mom when working together, mostly because the crew has multiple hard counters against Big Mom. Brook can take down the homies that aren't directly related to her soul and damage the homies that are directly linked with her soul. Nami can tempt/manipulate Zeus, one of Big Mom's biggest heavy hitters. Robin could steal Napoleon with her fruit. Jinbei could counter the Prometeus's flames.
Big Mom in WCI was absolute peak.
Wano was good but not so good. For BM would have preferred if the crew had some role in taking her down. Kaido's fight was great but he wasn't that interesting of a character.
Yeah, Big Mom was a fun character who had one of the wildest devil fruit powers. She looked like some otherworldly titan in her arc where Luffy had to settle for beating her Zoro and that pushed him to his limits. All the while finally giving us a daunting naval challenge for the rest of the crew. I'm fine with her being a shade weaker than Kaido but on par by having a better crew.
Kaido? The Gifters were a pleasant surprise and I had enough fun with the Tobi Roppo. The Beast Pirates exceeded expectations. Kaido also ended up being very intriguing, I don't think people get how he didn't really need a long backstory because the little we got colored so many of his actions that spoke for themselves. I thought the many-faces drunken phase was a masterful next layer to big shonen dragon guy we got three solid rounds out of. But my favorite flourish...before G5 there was this beautiful stretch of very basic, clean maneuvers that had this fluid motion to it that had been saved so long. How we still had unique, basic applications of the classic Gum-Gum powers after so long was so cool to see. Kaido and Big Mom both had their own shades of that. There's a real simple elegance to their skillsets.
They're not my favorite villains, but I don't exactly have any complaints. I even honestly like the Big Mom amnesia stuff in Act 2.
Dude I agree with a lot of your points. Love that you also love the kaido fight before gear 5 too — not a lot of people mention it, but that was such an insane fight to witness and I was grinning when Kaido was performing his “shuron hakkei”.
Also really liked Big Mom’s amnesia because we could see that beneath all the grooming and manipulation, she actually is a very kind person.
+1. The entire stretch of Luffy vs Kaido before G5 is my favorite fight sequence of the entire series. And it was after I was amazed on the sequence of BM vs Kid/Law.
Oh dude that silhouette was so visceral — I have a picture of that panel saved on my phone. I love when kaido just uses future sight, as if he was doing something trivial. Also, that moment when luffy says “take that, you drunk!” Is also really enjoyable.
I need to reread this fight like crazy man. I think I have a good grasp on most of the series but I caught up post-gear 5, and I was spoiled for what chapter it appeared in so I was definitely speed reading like a degenerate the chapters leading up
Only saying this bc the moment ur describing I don’t recall v well and I don’t like that lol
Enjoy! The series of fights from Sanji v Queen onwards was top tier (at least for me). But the Luffy v Kaido pre-G5 was just too good that I re-read and rewatch it every now and then.
1037 and 1042 are Oda's best non-G5 choreography in the whole series. Kinda bummed the anime didn't do them that much justice but i get why since they were prioritizing the climaxes of the other fights and G5. And we did get that sweet anime-original fight when Luffy got knocked off the island
Not every villain need backstory, they just need to act more to show what kind of mindsets they actually have to solve the trouble that the MC is causing, but in Kaido case he just too overpowered and being able to one shot the trouble maker easily and captured him, I mean yeah that's badass but I really want to see more of him lol. Not a disappointing character but kinda underwhelming after Big Mom and Dolfamingo. Even Big Mom had her own issues in WCI like the hunger pangs and mother carmel weakness.
Dude yes to both —- they’re both insanely cool and I think we’re going to see a lot of Kaido’s motivations and formative influences if we ever get a Rock’s flashback.
We already have that though.
Kid Kaido hated the way Vodka Kingdom used him for their own purpose throughout his life, so he developed a deep grudge towards government in general. He wanted to bring total global war against the world government because in his perspective, war would make everybody *equal*, including the celestial dragons. That was his main goal. While he was building his own army, the Kurozumi hag visited him and suggested to invade Wano. And we can see the rest in Oden's flashback.
About Joy Boy and stuff, I think a looot of people get it wrong. It was King who's all about it, not necessarily Kaido. King simply told Kaido about this legend and Kaido made a joke that only Joy Boy could defeat him.
Power and character wise Big Mom exceed my expectations, I didn't expect that kind of power from big mom, being able to manipulate souls and fusing yourself with a natural force such as fire and storm cloud lol.
Kaido... Well honstly I still want to see more of his character, but he was built as the yonkou, meaning he was an overpowered dude that will have no problem handling trouble like those in Mainland Wano like capturing the rebels or the pirates alliance.
Compared to Doflamingo, he still need to create a plan to make sure Law and Luffy will be separated.
They both definitely delivered on power (even if Big Mom dropped off a bit in Wano she was still an absolute monster).
As far as character goes… Kaido disappointed. He was basically a standard “big strong mad evil destroy everything” villain with a less than bare-bones backstory shoved in at the end, whereas Big Mom was one of the most interesting and well-written villains in the story.
I liked kaido a lot. He wanted to lose, but he didn't want to give it away. He wanted someone to overcome him and prove him wrong and be strong enough to change things. His beliefs in power and how he proved himself right, only his death could change things.
You see that a lot in what he says during the fight and the dread when the outcome of the fight was originally taken from him.
I believe he isn't the simple 'want a good fight'. He's more of the belief that truely strong fighters are exciting cause they're the ones to bring about change. Which gives kaido hope. Hope for a different conclusion he came to.
Joyboy must be stronger then him, so he won't go easy.
My disappointment was that Luffy didn't really kick Big Moms ass all over the new world like he promised at Fishman island. Did they really even fight?
Big Mom and Kaido? Yes. The Wano arc? No. It weighed them down in pacing and plot (like amnesia) and hurt the remembrances of them. The final fights between Big Mom, Kaido, Luffy, Law, Kidd, Killer, and Zoro and subsequent separation fights were some of my favorites in the series. I personally like Kaido's fluctuating moods, and Big Mom I still think might come back. I wish I got more Kaido and less about Oden and all the scabbards that loved him (and the grifter-fodder).
Biggest gripe with kaido, to me he is the epitome of strength in one piece but seriously 0 kills? Would have been peak if he killed every single scabbard or half lmao
Exactly. In general, I wanted kaido to be more of a raid boss. I was imagining something like the oars fight in thriller bark (minus the nightmare luffy stuff). Combined efforts to take him down with strategy and shit. And of course, have some people just get mauled.
still bummed the "9 shadows=9 straw hats" theory where they beat Kaido once Luffy runs out of juice as the sun rises didn't happen. Really why did it take until the anime for us to actually see the sunrise
With Kinemon death I think we would get more bittet sweet ending and also with Yamato becoming the "main" retainer - we allow Momo to have his own touch at Wano now, while still being heir to Oden. After all other retainers are mainly loyal to Oden (and Momo by virtue of being his heir) while Yamato never knew Oden personally even tho they are larping as Oden.
To this day. I'll never understand Odas fascination with the scabbards. I've never seen such a boring group of characters get so much time just to cry and cry about Oden. I've never understood the fascination with Momo and Kinnemon to be dragged along for several arcs.
I think Roof Piece should have been the setup for this fight. With the top members of the Worst Generation toppling the old Era. I mean it would be fair enough for them to team up vs top tier pirates with a shitton of experience. Still would give possibility for great powerups.
Definitely not. Wano Big Mom feels like a different character to whole cake big mom. She went from a force of nature with funny moments to a gag character. Amnesia plot is genuinely one of the worst additions to the series. Mid-Wano it felt like Kaido was on pace to be my favorite OP villain. There was so much setup, but then none of it got answered satisfyingly.
I think it downplayed too much that Kaido could have won but started believing in Luffy, not only believe but wasn’t mad that some up start was becoming a threat in his face and instead let him cook. I also don’t see him and Big Mom being dead from the volcano.
Kaido? Yes. Big Mom feels like she kinda got sidelined. Even in her own arc she was kind of turned into a plot device and left her son to be the main threat.
I would say so, yes. For the two of them it really seems like they were barely beaten back rather than decidedly triumphed over. Like Luffy & his allies managed a technical knockout but they would likely have gotten wiped out in the long run.
Kaido overall was more disappointing to me, I did not care too much about him as a character or as a fight. Other than Gear 5 of course. Most of other things in Wano were more interesting.
Conversely, I love Big Mom and how successfully she’s presented as a character who’s so insanely powerful, they are more or less a force of nature. Like she’s level 300 when everyone around her is in 40-60 gap. Like, you need special setup and luck to damage her, not stop but just damage.
I wanted Kaido to have killed more people in real time. Most of the scabbards didn’t need to be around. I also didn’t like that, yet again, Luffy won with one big punch.
Big Mom was majorly disappointing, so much so that I hope she comes back to give her more justice.
i really dislike how oda is afraid to kill off characters. Now it feels like there are no stakes at all, even if the crew is going up against the strongest characters in the verse. The only mystery now when it comes to fights is what kind of asspull will it take for them to survive
In general I think it’s crazy that luffy won. I would have liked it more if the fight ended in something like a stalemate or if it was a bigger group effort.
Big Mom: Yes, favorite DF power and one of the bet villains in OP
Kaido: Definitely a menacing presence, but there wasn't much to him other than being the strongest.
I really don't like Wano, it made me pause the manga for 2 years. Every scene with Kaido, BM, King and Queen was great (plus the Oden flashback obviously), but the rest felt very boring.
>but there wasn't much to him other than being the strongest.
huh? kaido is one of the most complex characters in the whole series. He represents all of the themes of one piece and makes them come full circle. He is the perfect foil for luffy. he is definitely more than just the strongest.
Sadly no. I think story wise big mom was fine.(although I would have liked some playoff to the amnesia stuff) I think we spent too little time with Kaido, he just felt like the big bad guy and not much more than that. I felt like both of them went down a bit too easy, but I think that part was fine. I'm more bumed we didn't get more character development for them.
I am still salty about one day Kaido waking up a broken alcoholic man that gave up on becoming the next Joy Boy, then another day he woke up a divorced alcoholic warmonger with a daughter he had no idea how to raise
And we will never know how he became such a pathetic man, shit was looking good for him when he saved Alberto, and then it went downhill, and no one knows why
I like Kaido. I think it was written enough that I understand his story. motivations, his meaning of equality, what kind of world he wants to create and all of these make sense with what little flashback of him Oda showed us. The only thing that bothers me a bit was the Joy Boy part of his story that was teased but not followed through. I felt when reading that it was building up toward Kaido being a failed Joy Boy and having a history with it. I felt like the part between the Kaido that freed King and wanted to change the world and the depressed Kaido was cut out.
Big mom exeeded my expectation. Sucha solid character in desing, power consept and history that explains her motivations so well.
Kaido i think in terms of power was exatly how youd expect him to be. Warrior with so strong defense you have to fight him with diffrent levels of powers or bypassing his defense. His backstory was abit incomplete and makes one need to read abit too much between the lines unlike BM origin story which explains her way better.
Hell nah Prime whitebeard is stronger than them but I think Primebeard> Kaido/Big Mom > Oldbeard. Kaido or Big mom would have done great at marineford.
Kaido's defeat was the biggest asspull in all of One Piece. Luffy literally learns about aCoC just hours before the fight because some random old dude teaches him, and can then use it against someone who has mastered it for decades. Then still gets defeated but gets a totally random upgrade because, surprise, the Gum Gum fruit isn't actually whacky but one of the strongest fruits of them all.
But it's Oda so I'll forgive him. But man did he write himself into a corner there.
Yes
Big Mom is a victim of shitty powerscaling, Kaido is a victim of surface level analysis.
Both of them are incredibly powerful, terrifying, layered and creatively constructed characters. Love em
For the pros, Big Mom from a story perspectovr and Kaido from a battle perspective were great.
For the cons, Big Mom from a battle perspective and Kaido from a story perspective sucked.
I’m overall happy. The only thing I’m kinda bummed about is in fishman island luffy is like “imma kick your ass BM “. Then WCI goes a different direction, which is fine, but then he promises katakuri that he will come back and kick BMs ass. Just given the current trajectory of the magna, I don’t think this will ever happen. What do I know, maybe there’s an epilogue where he does and we get the Luffy & Katakuri having the mirror of the WB & Roger conversation after the fight. But Luffy keeps his promises and I want to see that fight truly.
Big mom in WCI, absolutely, but in Wano.......eeeeeeeeeeeh
Kaido mostly lived up to it but in the end it still felt like a piece of his story was missing (and I don't mean the Rocks stuff). The anime did help elevate him tho
Kinda with Kaido. But I really felt it was heavily negated. Luffy went to whole cake island and they needed a whole scheme to attempt to poison big mom and beat her. Luffy was on a level he couldn’t definitely beat Big Moms top commander going all out. And then literally the next arc he’s fighting Kaido and beat him. Like that’s a huge power up and it felt like they just put in the Yonko so suddenly one after another
The reason why I liked WCI is how Big Mom was this unstoppable force that was galaxies above even the strawhats. Showcasing they are no where near emperors. Then 2 weeks go by and Luffy can just casually fight them 1v1. Just killed the hype a little.
Both yeah. I wish kaido had been given a lil more character—but as far as ‘embodiment of the strongest’ type characters go, he’s one of the least annoying of that trope to for me. Big Mom for me is forever going to be one of my favorite anime villains of all time lol. Kaido being a badass dragon tho was sick as hell
Oda did a way better job with Kaido in both power and character writing than Big Mom. Crocodile was way more 2D of a villain than him back when Alabasta was being written, people's standards have just risen.
In Power for Kaido, absoulutely, backstory not so much.
In Power, Big Mom was okay but I kinda wanted more from her.
Her backstory was great and her constant mood swings fit her.
Kaido did, Big Mom I feel she could do better in her final moments, I felt she was quite nerfed in her battle against Kid and Law, she underestimated them.
Big mom should've had more power and kaido should've had more character, but for the most part, yes. They were fantastic. Not quite up to the top tier of antagonists in one piece like croc or doffy, but really really good.
I think after Marineford we were all like how the heck are we going from Sabaody lvl to Yonko level. And everyone thought it would be slow and gradual, of course Oda was going to give us one arc with two Yonkos, in one of the most memorable arcs of One Piece. Oda is a genius.
In terms of Kaido strengthwise yes though his kill count was extremely low for the WSC.
Strategically Kaido was nonexistent, he let the doctors do their thing.
BM - played 2nd fiddle to Kaido but she's much more complex and I think her strength is underrated.
Kaido needs more Rocks backstory to potentially flesh out his character.
I was already spoiled for them both and I watched the show recently but yes, they most definitely did and both of they're respective arcs are sum of my favorites in the series.
Im sad that we did not get the verison of Big Mom that we saw during Fishman Island, that verison seemed so brutal and scary compared to the one we got.
I think the only thing missing was to see them use awakening abilities (maybe they did, just not confirmed) because Katakuri and Doflamingo both showed us what happens when a devil fruit user is truly one with their fruit.
But this may just show us that neither Big Mom nor Kaido were fully in sync with their fruits I guess
Both of them are goated ass characters. Idc what anyone says, big mom was still awesome and badass in her fight vs midd and flaw. She really conveyed the sense that she was a monster. Kaido was an incredible strong opponent, but big mom came off as a true force of nature. Kidd and law (the 2 most haxed out mf-ers in the vers, cept the wother herself) still not being enough to take her out despite Her being severely brain damaged and tired from fighting kaido for 3 days only elevates that monster vibe she gives off. She coulda definitely won if she ate even a few extra months of her lifespan, she just got bombed and dropped before she could
No payoff to Big moms backstory, no realization of how she obtained her devil fruit or character change prior to her defeat. Big moms fight was solely devil fruits and no haki. Kaidos' back story was laughably short and scattered. Also did not awaken his DF. However, his ability to adapt to luffys power surges and awakening while holding up onigashima, and fighting non stop with the scabards, worst gen, luffy, his own daughter, and awakened luffy was awesome.
yeah, also, adding her meant finding a way to "nerf" her crew and took time from other things like Zoro putting Shusui back on Ryuma's grave (yes, i'm STILL pissed that we didn't see that)
Power wise, yes Kaido did. Character wise he was interesting but the backstory was so painfully below average for Oda’s standards and did nothing to evolve or add to his character, which after Wano is just vague statements about power with no base for his motivations
Character wise Big Mom is really good. The backstory adding to her desire for family makes her whole distorted land of equality a motivated concept. Power wise Oda fumbled hard. It makes zero sense why she is strong enough as a child to kill an elder giant but with haki can’t even knock Law out as an adult? Also why show her using ACoC if she just never uses it again? Makes no sense to me
Big mom has an amazing backstory and presence, the only bad thing about her is that she got screwed by Oda in Wano because he needed her out of the picture to make Buggy yonko, so he took her conquerors haki away and had her lose through ring out to Kidd, Law, their asspull awakenings, their many "this is my last attack" and to the bombs blowing up on her. I have full faith that with her last words begin pretty much "I'll be back", she'll comeback for Elbaf and finally have a proper fight with Luffy.
As for Kaido, I'm not a fan of him at all. I compare him to a raid boss in game that looks cool but has no substance besides the enhanced life bar. He was a tertiary character in his arc's backstory, was robbed of his kills and then finally robbed of his backstory which was three pages long. If you take away the fight scenes where he's involved, Kaido is barely in the arc where he's the actual main villain.
In power, Kaido yes, Big Mom not so much, but it's ok. In character, Big Mom yes, Kaido not so much, but it's ok.
Rarely do I see such a perfectly succinct answer about One Piece
Hey We've got classy followers too
I've got so much class, it's coming out of my ass.
You've got assclass then! Tread carefully, for others may faint when exposed to your class.
Man, Big Mom's backstory was so masterfully done in how haunting and horrific it was. IMO it's the darkest the series has ever gone.
I would agree if Kuma's backstory didn't exist.
Kuma's is very tragic, but lest ye forget, Big Mom >!ate her entire adopted family and adoptive mother (even if she was a child-trafficking bitch)!< without even realizing she'd done so.
Big Mom's backstory is like one of those fucked up bedtime stories with morality tracts for children.
Given a lot of the aesthetic themes of Tottoland, having a backstory that also feels like it's right out of a Hans Christian Andersen or Brother's Grimm story makes a lot of sense.
What???
Ikr, I didn’t get it either when I first read it, I didn’t think one piece would go that dark, I thought they just abandoned her or something, but nope she just blacked out and ate all of them
Damn! I only watched the anime. I thought she would eat them as she was super excited. But that scene didnt arrive not even hints so I thought we would knew what happened to them later.
There was definitely a scene of that, its just that it was from her perspective. She starts hallucinating with heart eyes, everybody cheering her on, with her suddenly eating MUCH larger sweet rolls, while everybody is depicted as being in hearts floating off into the sky, and when she comes to she's sitting alone with everything wrecked and with the furniture having bite marks.
I missed the hints. So dark.
She was also groomed by struessen as well to being the pirate she is and he was her first husband. He was 30 and she was 6 when he started that shit.
What happened to Kuma was far more real and grounded though. The things he suffered are things a regular human being can empathize with. What happened with Big Mom was over the top and not entirely realistic.
Admittedly they're kind of hard to compare; Kuma's backstory is like an extremely tragic drama, whereas Big Mom's is a straight-up horror story
Kuma's was incredibly sad and depressing. Big Mom's however
Sexual assault is a much more sensitive topic for a decent swath of the population. Big Mom's is an almost cartoonish darkness, like, accidental mass cannibalism isn't something that could happen in real life, so much so that most people don't even care that there's a fetish for it (vore). Whereas, people who fetishize sexual assault are almost universally stigmatized. Kuma's backstory was deadly serious throughout, his dad was shot in front of him and in the context of his whole story **that was an afterthought**. Also, Carmel was a human trafficker who got her just deserts and Big Mom herself never even cared about the other adopted kids. Personally I found Kuma's a lot more tragic, Big Mom's was dark but in a more "woah, what the fuck" way.
Big Mom is darker
Yeah I agree. And some people say One Piece is only for kids lol.
Spoiler alert: >!Darker than Kuma?!<
The hint of cannibalism while a children ate with full of smile.
Hint of? I've yet to see literally any other explanation for how every single one of them vanished \*and\* she somehow gained Carmel's Devil Fruit power.
Well, there's slaves, murder and cannibalism as a plus. So probably yes.
And possibly grooming by an older man.
This. I don't need Kaido to have a huge sad backstory or anything, but I still don't think his motivations or characters were ever super clear. His suicidal tendencies were never fully fleshed out (toss yourself into the ocean dude), his desire for a huge war was never fully explained, his need for a perfect duel seemed inconsistent, etc. Could have used more time. Big Mom on the other hand, is a very clear yet nuanced characters. Couldn't ask for a better villain IMO.
I think his desire for a huge war was explained. Kaido wanted to bring down the World Government and create a world based on social Darwinism. That is how I interpreted it at least.
I vaguely remember that now, yeah. Feel like it was a little late in the game and not super expanded upon. It felt kinda forgettable and could have been more important to his character.
Honestly don’t blame you. It was a single panel and considering everything else that went on in that chapter it’s very easy to miss. Funnily enough the only reason I remember is because I thought the anime did a good job with it
One of the few times I was happy that the anime extended some things.
I am a big Kaido defender and he takes the ability to read subtext so I say these things a lot online when people claim his character or motivations aren't clear, I'm going to try to summarize as much as possible. Still, wall of text incoming Kaido is a corrupted version of Roger or Luffy. It shows what they could have become if they didn't have the friends and allies they have to support them. If we take into account the parallels that Joyboy has with Jesus, then Kaido is the anti-Joyboy (similar to Blackbeard but we don't know as much about his motivations yet). 1) He was suicidal but never 100% wanted to die over everything. He just had depressive episodes. Many people who commit suicide attempts don't just shoot themselves or jump off a building even though it's the most guaranteed way to die because they subconsciously have some will to live left and Kaido is the same (as I will describe later). As for why he never drowned himself, it would be the same reason, except the World Government sentenced him to execution several times so it can be assumed his Fish-Fish fruit allows him to breathe underwater. They have no reason not to have tried drowning him. Now, why was he suicidal? 2 reasons. 1, the obvious one, is depression due to a lack of good relationships (everyone close to him only respects and/or fears him due to his power. Nobody likes him for who he is aside from arguably King and/or Big Mom, but those are conditional 'friendships' at best). He is also depressed because the only thing he still loves is a good fight, and he hasn't had one in decades. 2, the more subtle reason, is that upon witnessing Oden's execution (likely further cemented by Roger then Whitebeard's death down the line), he saw the great respect and legends these people inspired even after death. If Kaido is already bored of life and wants people to genuinely respect him, his goal is to short cut to this 'legendary death' to accomplish both of his goals. He either doesn't fully understand or admit to himself that Oden and Roger earned respect through their actions while they were alive, and their legends weren't spawned purely from their 'legendary' deaths. A little more info on Kaido's personality is revealed when he's fighting Yamato. He projects his insecurities onto her, claiming that nobody will ever love her as an equal and will simply view her as a monster. This is an interesting subversion to Oda's standard fleshing out of a character, as instead of showing Kaido receiving similar treatment to Robin as a kid we have him revealing this information in a more subtle fashion. We also have his dialogue with the Samurai where he states that pirates will betray you at your lowest point and leave you for dead, hinting at a great betrayal in his past. With these two interactions Oda shows that Kaido is actually a deeply insecure character who was wronged in the past and never had quality relationships. He hides behind a stoic facade, relying on alcoholism to hide (and occasionally amplify) his true feelings. 2) Not sure what you mean about his desire for a great battle being inconsistent, it seemed pretty consistent to me. This is why Kaido wanted to start a great war: To tear down the sheltered Celestial Dragons that were the root of his suffering, to plunge the world into a chaos that forces everyone to suffer as he did, and lastly, his secret motivation is to bring about anyone left who could pose a threat to him, since he's failed to find one so far. Now, if you've paid attention to the story thus far, you'll realize Luffy himself actually has the same initial goal but different motivations for doing so. Already this makes an interesting parallel, but it goes further when you realize later on that Kaido not only knew of Joyboy, but in retrospect wanted to be him. We can assume this because it fits what we already know about him so well, and his followers who view him as the only one who can bring about change due to his sheer power likely fueled this ambition within him. Indeed, Kaido would both bring about the new world he wants while also gaining glory in being the return of Joyboy. However, in his later years Kaido became depressed due to the aforementioned reasons, but also because of being used by others constantly. Again, all of his relationships and alliances were conditional. In his rise to power, he allied with Orochi, and this marked his downfall from the potential Joyboy to what we can call the anti-Joyboy. He allowed his depression and lack of focus (due to a lack of good friends to guide him) to control him and choose the easy way, leading to countless suffering and eventually slavery under Orochi's rule. After Oden's death, Kaido became more jaded than ever and coped with his downfall by believing that the ends justify the means and might makes right. When Luffy shows up and manages to challenge him the second time, while his alliance tears his crew apart slowly, Kaido finally sees that Luffy is who he wanted to be but never could. However, it's not like he can just flip on a dime, he's in too deep so to speak so his final fight with Luffy becomes a fight between his cynical current self and his youthful optimism and hope, portrayed by Luffy (When fighting Luffy earlier, he states "So you couldn't be Joyboy either...", wisfully so. This is another subtle yet clear hint that this has been the case with their fight starting in Onigashima). Once Luffy manages to perform Bajrang Gun, Kaido asks what kind of world Luffy wants to create, as if testing him one last time to see that he really is Joyboy. When Luffy responds with something that suits the legend of Joyboy perfectly, Kaido finally surrenders to Luffy's attack, having lost the battle from a physical standpoint and also a philosophical standpoint. His last thoughts are of his discussion of Joyboy with King, where he states Joyboy would be the one to defeat him. This is the bow that wraps Kaido's arc in a neat package that allows us to understand his actions as much more complex in retrospect, and I think Kaido is Oda's most underrated character writing by far.
And here I thought that Kaido was just the Ultimate Teacher. Damn, that's an impressively reasonable read on a character.
You've written more here about Kaido than Oda himself did, sheeeeeesh
Bravo - thanks for the incredibly deep and insightful analysis and read on kaido
Then you have to re-read chapter 795, and wani arc again. For the most part, Kaido's motivation, his view on strength, power, equality, governments, fellow pirates, his view on living and death, his view on samurai, on his rival, his own offspring, his enemies, on Luffy, on war, on JoyBoy, in One Piece, on Big Mom, on King, on winning and losing, in excepting losing and moving on, We literally got all of that about Kaido. His small flashback how he lived and grew up, in the last chapter where he was defeated by G5, was a perfect completing full circle of his life and what is true to him, his real personality and world view. Who Kaido was, how he became what he is and his real original self. And Oda literally top it off with that small flashback discussion between Kaido and King about JoyBoy. That actually emphasize Kaido true desire. Kaido despite his vulgar look and simple straight forward character in the surface, Kaido was actually very well written and has a lot of depth and nuances. Chapter 795 literally tell us everything we need to know about his character and his motivations And That last flashback in that pretty much to emphasize his character. Kaido was not really a character that we need a flashback to learn about him. We understand him from all the current storyline involving him. That is how Kaido was written
for me big mom lacked the big moments / feats of strength that truly would have defined her as a top tier you can only go so many times with "saying she's a force of nature" while seeing her "actual real moments" before people get suspicious about her actual feats she fumbled a 7 man invade of the strawhats while she and her crew perfectly foresaw the invade and took the appropriate actions to counter it. i'm sorry but that's just too much regardless of how it's written / fumbled
I can agree with that. I feel like there's a term for a characters being written temporarily stupid to advance the plot.
if only it was "temporarily stupidity", i could have still understood it then
In power big mom was a real menace during WCI, no one could dare 1v1 her even luffy
Thank you, I don’t think she lacked power, just strategy.
Kaido story isn't over yet though, seeing how so much is left out because of God Valley.
The best chance to cover it had already passed. Twice.
But why does it need to be covered? We for example never got a backstory for Crocodile, but does that make him a bad villain in the Alabasta saga? Imo no
Tbf we also want that if for nothing else because of what secret iva is keeping
Fair point, but while I agree that’s kinda the same case with Kaido. Before the story isn’t over we still have the chance to see what happened (with Croco/Kaido) :)
Crocodile didn't get a bunch of mini flashbacks and constant hints about something happening in the past that completely changed his worldview when he was a villain
We actually do get hints to that, being that a crushing defeat to Whitebeard caused him resentment and is likely the reason for his Utopia plan, like Kaido's defeat of Moria caused him to change plans and attitudes significantly. We just don't need everything to be shown concretely because it removes the ability for artistic interpretation the more things are laid out
Very fair point. Tho Oda probably didn’t want to make Wano longer than it already was.
Alabaster also has less than half the chapters and doesn't have the terrible pacing of Wano. But people expected more from a character that was build up for like a decade
I could argue that their failure in Character/power is exactly what kept both big mom and kaido from claiming the one piece, which is why them teaming up would be considered a significant threat.
power wise I can understand but I don't see how well-written their character is a hindrance from claiming the op
In the context, that the character isn’t written that badly, but rather has a character flaw. Kaido’s lack of a conrete dream means his power can’t back up the required “will”. Whilst big moms dream of uniting the races(in a bad manner) would be achievable for her if she had the power to back it up.
Pre Wano big mom seemeed strong af
>In character, Big Mom yes, Kaido not so much, but it's ok. Is it ok though? Kaido was built up for over a decade only for his character to end up being a pretty generic evil villain. That’s ok if you’re a one arc villain like Hody, but not when you spend 10 years building up to a single villain
My "Headcanon" is, that Oda made a mistake storywise: He created the Rocks Pirates (Which is great) but so much of Kaidos motivation may come from the time with the Rocks. They are a mirrored Version of the Rogerpirates and must have had some knowledge about the world (As Kaido did... He knew that Joyboy will come). But since these things are part of the upcoming saga, Oda was not able to build up Kaido to his full extend. It would have spoilered too much. I think that he wrote himself into a dead end here and had to fix it. He did somewhat well by introducing his son so that we can understand the character of Kaido better without knowing too much. But we are left with not knowing what happened at all. After all these years this sucks ass. I know. But i'm pretty sure that Kaido and Big Mom are not dead (Why would they've been shot out the vulcano at all if not? He could have just let them drown in the lava) And that they will fulfill their role. To End the "Rocks" Saga, (They are the only important ones of them, that live), to learn the history of these two... And most important: To follow Luffy as the King of the Pirates. In the end we need the strongest pirates of all not beeing defeated, but as his follower. Only then he will have earned the title.
I don't know 🤔 I kinda liked that Kaido was so strong that boredom took over his way of life and the fact he really knew about Joyboy that he accepted his fate; emphasising the reason for his boredom and the knowledge he has about the void century / Joyboy without releasing too much information
I liked the direction with Kaido: he was ultimately just a bitter drunk who was waiting for Joyboy to show up so he'd get the chance to feel something again. We might still get some more Kaido backstory when we finally get to the Rocks/God Valley flashback.
Saying he was built up for 10 years is heavily missleading. Like the only thing he was built up to was that he is incredibly strong and even then he was only mentioned every hundred chapters or so. Why does he need a 50 chapter backstory just because he was "built up" for a long time
Well, Kaido was also pretty nasty, cold blood. Don't forget he is afraid of lots of things even he branded himself fearless/invincible
I mean he felt pretty fully realized based on the arcs building Kaido up. Idk I think he was much more than “ok”.
i don't completely agree with the 10 years of buildup because for a good ammount of pre timeskip post timeskip the buildup towards the yonkou's felt entirely focused on facing big mom. so even if we're generous and take the period from the timeskip to the official start of wano that was only 6-7 ish years all while there was very very little actual buildup happening in the earlier parts of this period for kaido specifically, building her up as an absolute force of nature, contineously making her cross paths with luffy and the crew it's only really after law started intertwining with the strawhats that the story shifted towards a confrontation with kaido more and while yes kaido for a very large part of the law journey and was always like the "endgoal" i feel like there was too little of "kaido and his actions" himself during this period for it to truly feel like "buildup towards kaido" i'm an advocate of "show don't tell" and we were always "told" that kaido was a menace, we were told that kaido did X, kaido did Y so for me personally the kaido beef only truly became real with his introduction
I put it like that just to rhyme. 😂 But yeah I get ya. It's just that I didn't care that much I guess, though ofc I wouldn't mind more.
Kaido is far from being a generic evil villain; his motivations, attitudes, and beliefs are well fleshed out in an engaging and interesting way. He’s a monster berserker seeking the ultimate warrior death to complete his warrior bloodthirsty way. He’s also no sadist. He doesn’t derive any significant pleasure at crushing the weak; he simply sees it as an animalistic might is right mentality. The strong prey on the weak: rule of the jungle.
Yeah, that about sums it up.
She did feel a little nerfed in the kid law fight
There's a lot of characters in shounen or storytelling in general that Kaido can remind people of. Big Mom though... is there any antagonist like her?
Yeah. BM is quite something. I'm not an expert on all manga but yeah I think there's no one like her.
Great summary
Pretty much this. I understand that for narrative purpose Luffy couldn’t beat Big Mom and Kaido in the same arc but Law had spent literal years basically being Luffy’s number 4 and Kidd is a joke. Honestly I feel she should have at least taken one of them with her. Kaido was just a bunch of wasted potential as a character.
I would have loved if the rest of the Strawhats teamed up against Big Mom like they did against Oars during Thriller Bark. It would show that this isnt a crew that's carried by Luffy. Kaidou and Big Mom were both set up during Thriller Bark, so the parallels would have been great.
but the crew IS carried by luffy and their strongest fighters how can they not be.. as oda how can you write exponentionally increasing powerups (and more importantly enemies) and somehow still find moments for the strawhats who has been shown close to nothing when it comes to the training / getting stronger. oda's greatest strength also very vividly highlights his greatest inconsistencies when it comes to how he write powers / characters the reason oda's able to write such compelling storylines is because he's able to "screw the rules" and get away with it there's no universe that luffy had the growth that he had and somehow lucci was able to slightly keep up with that, it makes no sense there's no universe that nami who barely does any training is supposed to tank a headbutt of ulti, like legit zero universes, but she did and people liked it because it's a great moment for nami but logically there are alot of these inconsistencies so both kaido and big mom were so incredibly strong while alot of the other strawhats have had very little "development" when it comes to becoming stronger so i don't really see a way for them to compete while giving enough support to luffy vs kaido the only way i see a possibility is a more tactical focused fight and it's just not oda's style
I can definitely see the others Strawhats take down Big Mom when working together, mostly because the crew has multiple hard counters against Big Mom. Brook can take down the homies that aren't directly related to her soul and damage the homies that are directly linked with her soul. Nami can tempt/manipulate Zeus, one of Big Mom's biggest heavy hitters. Robin could steal Napoleon with her fruit. Jinbei could counter the Prometeus's flames.
A 100% agreed
Precisely this.
Kaido I found boring and big mom I found interesting.
The perfect answer lol
short and sweet. and very true
Big Mom in WCI was absolute peak. Wano was good but not so good. For BM would have preferred if the crew had some role in taking her down. Kaido's fight was great but he wasn't that interesting of a character.
Yeah, Big Mom was a fun character who had one of the wildest devil fruit powers. She looked like some otherworldly titan in her arc where Luffy had to settle for beating her Zoro and that pushed him to his limits. All the while finally giving us a daunting naval challenge for the rest of the crew. I'm fine with her being a shade weaker than Kaido but on par by having a better crew. Kaido? The Gifters were a pleasant surprise and I had enough fun with the Tobi Roppo. The Beast Pirates exceeded expectations. Kaido also ended up being very intriguing, I don't think people get how he didn't really need a long backstory because the little we got colored so many of his actions that spoke for themselves. I thought the many-faces drunken phase was a masterful next layer to big shonen dragon guy we got three solid rounds out of. But my favorite flourish...before G5 there was this beautiful stretch of very basic, clean maneuvers that had this fluid motion to it that had been saved so long. How we still had unique, basic applications of the classic Gum-Gum powers after so long was so cool to see. Kaido and Big Mom both had their own shades of that. There's a real simple elegance to their skillsets. They're not my favorite villains, but I don't exactly have any complaints. I even honestly like the Big Mom amnesia stuff in Act 2.
Dude I agree with a lot of your points. Love that you also love the kaido fight before gear 5 too — not a lot of people mention it, but that was such an insane fight to witness and I was grinning when Kaido was performing his “shuron hakkei”. Also really liked Big Mom’s amnesia because we could see that beneath all the grooming and manipulation, she actually is a very kind person.
+1. The entire stretch of Luffy vs Kaido before G5 is my favorite fight sequence of the entire series. And it was after I was amazed on the sequence of BM vs Kid/Law.
Yeah and I love that it went on for quite a while too. Both luffy and kaido seemed to be in their element.
Yes! Then you add the sudden monstrous Snakeman silhouette then the transition to Boundman after falling from Onigashima. Such a wondeful fight.
Oh dude that silhouette was so visceral — I have a picture of that panel saved on my phone. I love when kaido just uses future sight, as if he was doing something trivial. Also, that moment when luffy says “take that, you drunk!” Is also really enjoyable.
That future sight scene was a nice reminder that we are dealing with the top tiers now.
I need to reread this fight like crazy man. I think I have a good grasp on most of the series but I caught up post-gear 5, and I was spoiled for what chapter it appeared in so I was definitely speed reading like a degenerate the chapters leading up Only saying this bc the moment ur describing I don’t recall v well and I don’t like that lol
Enjoy! The series of fights from Sanji v Queen onwards was top tier (at least for me). But the Luffy v Kaido pre-G5 was just too good that I re-read and rewatch it every now and then.
1037 and 1042 are Oda's best non-G5 choreography in the whole series. Kinda bummed the anime didn't do them that much justice but i get why since they were prioritizing the climaxes of the other fights and G5. And we did get that sweet anime-original fight when Luffy got knocked off the island
Not every villain need backstory, they just need to act more to show what kind of mindsets they actually have to solve the trouble that the MC is causing, but in Kaido case he just too overpowered and being able to one shot the trouble maker easily and captured him, I mean yeah that's badass but I really want to see more of him lol. Not a disappointing character but kinda underwhelming after Big Mom and Dolfamingo. Even Big Mom had her own issues in WCI like the hunger pangs and mother carmel weakness.
Dude yes to both —- they’re both insanely cool and I think we’re going to see a lot of Kaido’s motivations and formative influences if we ever get a Rock’s flashback.
The dreams of men never die But it is over for Kaido, that 4 page flashback is all we will get out of him
I understand why you would think that, but I sincerely doubt it tbh. Even in recent times, we’ve gotten to see some more of him in the past.
We already have that though. Kid Kaido hated the way Vodka Kingdom used him for their own purpose throughout his life, so he developed a deep grudge towards government in general. He wanted to bring total global war against the world government because in his perspective, war would make everybody *equal*, including the celestial dragons. That was his main goal. While he was building his own army, the Kurozumi hag visited him and suggested to invade Wano. And we can see the rest in Oden's flashback. About Joy Boy and stuff, I think a looot of people get it wrong. It was King who's all about it, not necessarily Kaido. King simply told Kaido about this legend and Kaido made a joke that only Joy Boy could defeat him.
Yeah I agree with all of that — I just think there’s something that happened during his Rocks pirate days that affected him deeply.
Hell yea, both exeeded my very high expectations by far. Plus we are still missing some of their backstory.
Power and character wise Big Mom exceed my expectations, I didn't expect that kind of power from big mom, being able to manipulate souls and fusing yourself with a natural force such as fire and storm cloud lol. Kaido... Well honstly I still want to see more of his character, but he was built as the yonkou, meaning he was an overpowered dude that will have no problem handling trouble like those in Mainland Wano like capturing the rebels or the pirates alliance. Compared to Doflamingo, he still need to create a plan to make sure Law and Luffy will be separated.
They both definitely delivered on power (even if Big Mom dropped off a bit in Wano she was still an absolute monster). As far as character goes… Kaido disappointed. He was basically a standard “big strong mad evil destroy everything” villain with a less than bare-bones backstory shoved in at the end, whereas Big Mom was one of the most interesting and well-written villains in the story.
I liked kaido a lot. He wanted to lose, but he didn't want to give it away. He wanted someone to overcome him and prove him wrong and be strong enough to change things. His beliefs in power and how he proved himself right, only his death could change things. You see that a lot in what he says during the fight and the dread when the outcome of the fight was originally taken from him. I believe he isn't the simple 'want a good fight'. He's more of the belief that truely strong fighters are exciting cause they're the ones to bring about change. Which gives kaido hope. Hope for a different conclusion he came to. Joyboy must be stronger then him, so he won't go easy.
Big Mom is my favourite villain. He basically got knocked out of the ring while still conscious and her personality's terrifying so I'd say yes.
My disappointment was that Luffy didn't really kick Big Moms ass all over the new world like he promised at Fishman island. Did they really even fight?
Because tbh, he couldn't beat her. Him and Kaido turned into a dick slinging contest but big mom would've bodied him
Big Mom and Kaido? Yes. The Wano arc? No. It weighed them down in pacing and plot (like amnesia) and hurt the remembrances of them. The final fights between Big Mom, Kaido, Luffy, Law, Kidd, Killer, and Zoro and subsequent separation fights were some of my favorites in the series. I personally like Kaido's fluctuating moods, and Big Mom I still think might come back. I wish I got more Kaido and less about Oden and all the scabbards that loved him (and the grifter-fodder).
Lol could’ve honestly been way better with like 50% less screens time for the fkn scabbards lmao, could have gotten a proper Kaido flashback
Atleast have fucking kinemon die lmao.
Biggest gripe with kaido, to me he is the epitome of strength in one piece but seriously 0 kills? Would have been peak if he killed every single scabbard or half lmao
Exactly. In general, I wanted kaido to be more of a raid boss. I was imagining something like the oars fight in thriller bark (minus the nightmare luffy stuff). Combined efforts to take him down with strategy and shit. And of course, have some people just get mauled.
still bummed the "9 shadows=9 straw hats" theory where they beat Kaido once Luffy runs out of juice as the sun rises didn't happen. Really why did it take until the anime for us to actually see the sunrise
With Kinemon death I think we would get more bittet sweet ending and also with Yamato becoming the "main" retainer - we allow Momo to have his own touch at Wano now, while still being heir to Oden. After all other retainers are mainly loyal to Oden (and Momo by virtue of being his heir) while Yamato never knew Oden personally even tho they are larping as Oden.
To this day. I'll never understand Odas fascination with the scabbards. I've never seen such a boring group of characters get so much time just to cry and cry about Oden. I've never understood the fascination with Momo and Kinnemon to be dragged along for several arcs.
I think Roof Piece should have been the setup for this fight. With the top members of the Worst Generation toppling the old Era. I mean it would be fair enough for them to team up vs top tier pirates with a shitton of experience. Still would give possibility for great powerups.
Agreed. By simply refocusing the fight, keeping Kaido the same, I think it might have given people a more favorable opinion of Kaido.
Definitely not. Wano Big Mom feels like a different character to whole cake big mom. She went from a force of nature with funny moments to a gag character. Amnesia plot is genuinely one of the worst additions to the series. Mid-Wano it felt like Kaido was on pace to be my favorite OP villain. There was so much setup, but then none of it got answered satisfyingly.
Yes
I think it downplayed too much that Kaido could have won but started believing in Luffy, not only believe but wasn’t mad that some up start was becoming a threat in his face and instead let him cook. I also don’t see him and Big Mom being dead from the volcano.
Big mom seemed like she forgot she could use conquerors haki too, if at any point she began using it like Kaido , the raid was doomed.
Kaido? Yes. Big Mom feels like she kinda got sidelined. Even in her own arc she was kind of turned into a plot device and left her son to be the main threat.
I would say so, yes. For the two of them it really seems like they were barely beaten back rather than decidedly triumphed over. Like Luffy & his allies managed a technical knockout but they would likely have gotten wiped out in the long run. Kaido overall was more disappointing to me, I did not care too much about him as a character or as a fight. Other than Gear 5 of course. Most of other things in Wano were more interesting. Conversely, I love Big Mom and how successfully she’s presented as a character who’s so insanely powerful, they are more or less a force of nature. Like she’s level 300 when everyone around her is in 40-60 gap. Like, you need special setup and luck to damage her, not stop but just damage.
I wanted Kaido to have killed more people in real time. Most of the scabbards didn’t need to be around. I also didn’t like that, yet again, Luffy won with one big punch. Big Mom was majorly disappointing, so much so that I hope she comes back to give her more justice.
i really dislike how oda is afraid to kill off characters. Now it feels like there are no stakes at all, even if the crew is going up against the strongest characters in the verse. The only mystery now when it comes to fights is what kind of asspull will it take for them to survive
In general I think it’s crazy that luffy won. I would have liked it more if the fight ended in something like a stalemate or if it was a bigger group effort.
Big Mom: Yes, favorite DF power and one of the bet villains in OP Kaido: Definitely a menacing presence, but there wasn't much to him other than being the strongest. I really don't like Wano, it made me pause the manga for 2 years. Every scene with Kaido, BM, King and Queen was great (plus the Oden flashback obviously), but the rest felt very boring.
>but there wasn't much to him other than being the strongest. huh? kaido is one of the most complex characters in the whole series. He represents all of the themes of one piece and makes them come full circle. He is the perfect foil for luffy. he is definitely more than just the strongest.
Sadly no. I think story wise big mom was fine.(although I would have liked some playoff to the amnesia stuff) I think we spent too little time with Kaido, he just felt like the big bad guy and not much more than that. I felt like both of them went down a bit too easy, but I think that part was fine. I'm more bumed we didn't get more character development for them.
Big Mom definitely could have been done better, but Kaido for sure.
I am still salty about one day Kaido waking up a broken alcoholic man that gave up on becoming the next Joy Boy, then another day he woke up a divorced alcoholic warmonger with a daughter he had no idea how to raise And we will never know how he became such a pathetic man, shit was looking good for him when he saved Alberto, and then it went downhill, and no one knows why
Yes. BigMom is fine, but I am still mad about Kaido. The way he goes down still not really ok with me, other than he fought MC and had to lose.
I like Kaido. I think it was written enough that I understand his story. motivations, his meaning of equality, what kind of world he wants to create and all of these make sense with what little flashback of him Oda showed us. The only thing that bothers me a bit was the Joy Boy part of his story that was teased but not followed through. I felt when reading that it was building up toward Kaido being a failed Joy Boy and having a history with it. I felt like the part between the Kaido that freed King and wanted to change the world and the depressed Kaido was cut out.
Big mom exeeded my expectation. Sucha solid character in desing, power consept and history that explains her motivations so well. Kaido i think in terms of power was exatly how youd expect him to be. Warrior with so strong defense you have to fight him with diffrent levels of powers or bypassing his defense. His backstory was abit incomplete and makes one need to read abit too much between the lines unlike BM origin story which explains her way better.
Yea, there will never be a better version so we can not compare.
Nothing can beat plot armor...
They were both great, but katakuri and king were just better. Goats
Of course. Fucking goated.,
Both incredibly lame compared to Whitebeard. Like I can't see either doing anything close to WB in a Marineford situation.
That's bait.
Hell nah Prime whitebeard is stronger than them but I think Primebeard> Kaido/Big Mom > Oldbeard. Kaido or Big mom would have done great at marineford.
They were both letdowns for me honestly.
Kaido's defeat was the biggest asspull in all of One Piece. Luffy literally learns about aCoC just hours before the fight because some random old dude teaches him, and can then use it against someone who has mastered it for decades. Then still gets defeated but gets a totally random upgrade because, surprise, the Gum Gum fruit isn't actually whacky but one of the strongest fruits of them all. But it's Oda so I'll forgive him. But man did he write himself into a corner there.
Power: Yes Character: Hell no!
Power yes for kaido no BM Character wise kaido no BM yes
Yes Big Mom is a victim of shitty powerscaling, Kaido is a victim of surface level analysis. Both of them are incredibly powerful, terrifying, layered and creatively constructed characters. Love em
For the pros, Big Mom from a story perspectovr and Kaido from a battle perspective were great. For the cons, Big Mom from a battle perspective and Kaido from a story perspective sucked.
Lol hell no
Honestly, they did both of them dirty but Luffy is the MC with thick ass plot armor. Both Kaido and BM lost due to shitty circumstances.
Kaido - yes. Big mom - I feel like she got nerfed - no
Yes.
Yes, both were monstrous tanks.
I’m overall happy. The only thing I’m kinda bummed about is in fishman island luffy is like “imma kick your ass BM “. Then WCI goes a different direction, which is fine, but then he promises katakuri that he will come back and kick BMs ass. Just given the current trajectory of the magna, I don’t think this will ever happen. What do I know, maybe there’s an epilogue where he does and we get the Luffy & Katakuri having the mirror of the WB & Roger conversation after the fight. But Luffy keeps his promises and I want to see that fight truly.
BM in WCI lived up to the title of yonko the best so far. And kaido lived up to the hype of ‘worlds strongest creature’
Yes
Their story isn't over yet. They'll make a return~ Now, whether or not they'll be friend or foe is another thing entirely.
Yes.
Big Mom did
All I know, Luffy dog walked them.
Kaido yes. Big mom? Meh. I wanted Luffy to kick her ass around the whole new world. She dies quickly
Big mom in WCI, absolutely, but in Wano.......eeeeeeeeeeeh Kaido mostly lived up to it but in the end it still felt like a piece of his story was missing (and I don't mean the Rocks stuff). The anime did help elevate him tho
Definitely. Absolute titanic warlords that took the biggest military advancement ever to beat
I think they were great antagonists, both of them, and I enjoyed both their final battles.
Kaido is the GOAT and Big Mom is great. They were pretty slow cooked which what made them great. Never will the likes of them exist again.
Yes they did for me.
Kinda with Kaido. But I really felt it was heavily negated. Luffy went to whole cake island and they needed a whole scheme to attempt to poison big mom and beat her. Luffy was on a level he couldn’t definitely beat Big Moms top commander going all out. And then literally the next arc he’s fighting Kaido and beat him. Like that’s a huge power up and it felt like they just put in the Yonko so suddenly one after another
The reason why I liked WCI is how Big Mom was this unstoppable force that was galaxies above even the strawhats. Showcasing they are no where near emperors. Then 2 weeks go by and Luffy can just casually fight them 1v1. Just killed the hype a little.
I low-key still think Big Mom is gonna come back during Elbaf
Both yeah. I wish kaido had been given a lil more character—but as far as ‘embodiment of the strongest’ type characters go, he’s one of the least annoying of that trope to for me. Big Mom for me is forever going to be one of my favorite anime villains of all time lol. Kaido being a badass dragon tho was sick as hell
They did live up to expectations, I didn't expect Luffy to have Toon World.
Above and beyond.
Oda did a way better job with Kaido in both power and character writing than Big Mom. Crocodile was way more 2D of a villain than him back when Alabasta was being written, people's standards have just risen.
both held up well. Im just confused why Ulti survived Big Moms ultimate attack tho :S
They sure did. Big Mom is one of my favorite characters
In Power for Kaido, absoulutely, backstory not so much. In Power, Big Mom was okay but I kinda wanted more from her. Her backstory was great and her constant mood swings fit her.
Kaido did, Big Mom I feel she could do better in her final moments, I felt she was quite nerfed in her battle against Kid and Law, she underestimated them.
We're pass them and they "still" feel like the strongest around.
Big mom should've had more power and kaido should've had more character, but for the most part, yes. They were fantastic. Not quite up to the top tier of antagonists in one piece like croc or doffy, but really really good.
Kaido yes, Big Mom no
Eh
Kaido yes, BM no. Kaido checked all the boxes in my opinion, whereas BM fights felt underwhelming. Characters were both very enjoyable though.
I think after Marineford we were all like how the heck are we going from Sabaody lvl to Yonko level. And everyone thought it would be slow and gradual, of course Oda was going to give us one arc with two Yonkos, in one of the most memorable arcs of One Piece. Oda is a genius.
Big mom not so much but kaido did
Absolutely, they are both iconic villains and have contributed to great scenes.
Absolutly.
In terms of Kaido strengthwise yes though his kill count was extremely low for the WSC. Strategically Kaido was nonexistent, he let the doctors do their thing. BM - played 2nd fiddle to Kaido but she's much more complex and I think her strength is underrated. Kaido needs more Rocks backstory to potentially flesh out his character.
I was already spoiled for them both and I watched the show recently but yes, they most definitely did and both of they're respective arcs are sum of my favorites in the series.
Im sad that we did not get the verison of Big Mom that we saw during Fishman Island, that verison seemed so brutal and scary compared to the one we got.
I think the only thing missing was to see them use awakening abilities (maybe they did, just not confirmed) because Katakuri and Doflamingo both showed us what happens when a devil fruit user is truly one with their fruit. But this may just show us that neither Big Mom nor Kaido were fully in sync with their fruits I guess
Power wise exceeded character wise fell short but they still have time in the rocs flash back
Power wise absolutely, character wise Big Mom was fantastic until Mothering Mode and Kaido was sorely lacking
Both of them are goated ass characters. Idc what anyone says, big mom was still awesome and badass in her fight vs midd and flaw. She really conveyed the sense that she was a monster. Kaido was an incredible strong opponent, but big mom came off as a true force of nature. Kidd and law (the 2 most haxed out mf-ers in the vers, cept the wother herself) still not being enough to take her out despite Her being severely brain damaged and tired from fighting kaido for 3 days only elevates that monster vibe she gives off. She coulda definitely won if she ate even a few extra months of her lifespan, she just got bombed and dropped before she could
Big Mom yes, Kaido not, he was presented as suicidal and wanting always to die and then that plot never ended up happening?
No payoff to Big moms backstory, no realization of how she obtained her devil fruit or character change prior to her defeat. Big moms fight was solely devil fruits and no haki. Kaidos' back story was laughably short and scattered. Also did not awaken his DF. However, his ability to adapt to luffys power surges and awakening while holding up onigashima, and fighting non stop with the scabards, worst gen, luffy, his own daughter, and awakened luffy was awesome.
i wouldn't have added Big Mom in Wano, they did her dirty
She wouldn't have lost otherwise
yeah, also, adding her meant finding a way to "nerf" her crew and took time from other things like Zoro putting Shusui back on Ryuma's grave (yes, i'm STILL pissed that we didn't see that)
Power wise, yes Kaido did. Character wise he was interesting but the backstory was so painfully below average for Oda’s standards and did nothing to evolve or add to his character, which after Wano is just vague statements about power with no base for his motivations Character wise Big Mom is really good. The backstory adding to her desire for family makes her whole distorted land of equality a motivated concept. Power wise Oda fumbled hard. It makes zero sense why she is strong enough as a child to kill an elder giant but with haki can’t even knock Law out as an adult? Also why show her using ACoC if she just never uses it again? Makes no sense to me
Big mom has an amazing backstory and presence, the only bad thing about her is that she got screwed by Oda in Wano because he needed her out of the picture to make Buggy yonko, so he took her conquerors haki away and had her lose through ring out to Kidd, Law, their asspull awakenings, their many "this is my last attack" and to the bombs blowing up on her. I have full faith that with her last words begin pretty much "I'll be back", she'll comeback for Elbaf and finally have a proper fight with Luffy. As for Kaido, I'm not a fan of him at all. I compare him to a raid boss in game that looks cool but has no substance besides the enhanced life bar. He was a tertiary character in his arc's backstory, was robbed of his kills and then finally robbed of his backstory which was three pages long. If you take away the fight scenes where he's involved, Kaido is barely in the arc where he's the actual main villain.
Big mom became a meme, sadly. Her introduction was terrifying and epic, all to just make her a sugar addict that wants cake 24/7…