Oda is famous for often off-screening his fights, Aokiji vs Akainu is a prime example of a fight people would’ve wanted to see happen on page, yet Law’s fight with Blackbeard is seemingly being shown to us. Why is that? Well, Oda doesn’t purposefully skip fights to save time and effort; he purposefully shows them.
A YouTuber made a video where he reviewed BLEACH, he made an observation that rarely any manga reader does. He pointed out that while BLEACH has tons of enjoyable fights that develop characters and show us more of them, those fights don’t push the plot forward and as such often feel like filler. He also gave a great example of what a fight that “pushes the story forward” looks like in the form of a fight from Dragon Ball between Vegeta and one of the Frieza’s minions, Zarbon. This is a simple fight that establishes a mechanism of Saiyans growing stronger after almost dying. This mechanism is then used multiple times in the future by multiple characters (including Goku).
Basically, a new piece of information is revealed that would impact the plot in some way moving forward. So what information is Oda going to reveal in Blackbeard’s fight with Law?
What the Fight Is NOT About
First I wanted to go through the things I think this fight is not about as a way to show how I came to my eventual conclusion through the process of elimination:
1. It’s NOT to show us Law is strong – We already saw he is in his fight with Big Mom and we already saw everything he can do, including his Awakening, which is why we aren’t spending much time on his arsenal. His 3 Billion berries bounty also reflects this.
2. It’s NOT to show us the strength of Heart Pirates – While it’s nice to see the Heart Pirates be useful in battle, there are hardly worth spending time on as I don’t think they will play a big role in the Final War.
3. It’s NOT to show us Blackbeard is strong – If Oda wanted to use this fight to show Teach is strong, he would’ve waited for after it was finished to raise Blackbeard’s bounty to 4 Billion berries. We already saw and were told he is strong by Rayleigh during that whole deal on Amazon Lilly.
4. It’s NOT to show us Blackbeard has Poneglyph rubbings – I can easily see a lot of authors use this fight to establish this information but not Oda. This could’ve easily be revealed after Chapter 1063, where we cut away from the fight and once we return to it we see Law defeated with Blackbeard gloating about taking the Poneglyph rubbings, yet Oda decided to continue the fight in Chapter 1064.
No, there is something more important that is so important it simply has to be shown and I think the answer lies in Blackbeard’s crew.
