I really love how there’s just no clear cut “good guys” or “bad guys” in One Piece, characters don’t band together just because they are both “good guys”, and they don’t fight each other because one is a good guy and the other is a bad guy. It’s pretty much a conflict of interests, and the last 2 chapters really affirmed that, it reminded us of how chaotic and fun the One Piece World is after 150 Chapters in Wano where all the good guys teamed up to take down the evil Kaido and Big Mom.
With the Cross Guild, I love how they are just a combination of guys with different moralities. Mihawk doesn’t seem too evil, he seems more honorable and not too treacherous, then you get Crocodile who was pretty much an evil mastermind and mafia boss, and you got Buggy who is this greedy clown, you wouldn’t think they’d be best friends, and they still aren’t best friends, but the way the alliance was created made so much sense.
Mihawk and Crocodile just teamed up simply because it was in their best interest team up against a common threat, nothing more, nothing less. Mihawk didn’t suddenly just become a bad guy who wants to conqueror/destroy islands, he didn’t suddenly become interested in the Ancient Weapons or gaining powers, it still made sense for his character for this team up to happen. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Mihawk taking down someone like Fujitora in the future without it feeling out of character for him.
And with the Chapter 1059 a lot of theories about Hancock and Koby teaming up because they both simp for Luffy were completely laid to rest. Koby is a marine who was sent to capture her, and the marines created so much havoc on her own island, so it wouldn’t make sense for Hancock to go: but at least you are a Luffy stan. She was just about to turn this man into stone and Koby tried to make peace with her not because of Luffy, but to minimize casualties on both sides; it makes sense for both of their characters. Just because two characters like or are allies of one person, doesn’t mean they should like or ally with each other.
A completely different aspect I also liked: I love how the characters all felt competent, no character was fed to another to cheaply hype up their strength (with the exception of Vice Admirals which have always been jokes anyways).
First we got the Seraphims destroying the island and countless Blackbeard fodders, then we got Blacbeard blocking the Mihawk Seraphims attack with Haki and absorbing him, while both being surprised by how strong the Seraphim is, but still being competent and taking care of him effectively, proving he is an Emperor. then Hancock proceeded to just petrify all the Marines and even Catarina Devon and Vasco Shot, which you would think Oda would protect until characters like Robin or Brook defeat them, but there’s no shame in losing against a strong character like Hancock.
And Teach trapping Hancock in a stalemate made them both look strong too. Then Rayleigh showed up to prove he still got it, but also made sure to admit Teach could be too strong for him right now. I love how Oda wasn’t afraid to use Teach to hype up other characters, while also hyping up Teach himself, the entire chapter felt natural rather than giving some characters plot armors to make them look strong ahead of future arcs where they are actually relevant.
So huge respect to Oda on both aspects, making the strong characters actually feel competent, making all these unexpected alliances and incidents that don’t feel out of character at all for the characters, and defying expectations by not going with the expected trope.
*by nouratef
