After the latest chapter, lots of people believe that Luffy will beat Kaido with his next attack. However, in my opinion, there are a few things about this “final attack” that strike me as odd, especially when compared to earlier arcs and the common patterns in other final blows.
1. It’s one-sided
A consistent pattern when it comes to the final attack is that it’s often in the form of a clash or a trade of blows, it’s never been a completely one sided attack like we see in this chapter. Examples include: Lucci’s Tekkai vs Luffy’s Jet Gatling, Crocodile’s Desert Espada vs Luffy’s storm, Doffy’s God Thread vs King Kong Gun or even Krieg’s steel net vs Luffy’s gavel. The villain is never just doing nothing in their final moments.
The antagonist is always resisting defeat in some way.
However in the latest chapter Kaido is just watching it happen… Which is weird especially with what he said about “winners needing no rationalizations”. He’s the one character who would give it his all.
2. Wano is still unaware
Similar to the first point, a very common pattern throughout One Piece is that when the big bad is defeated, people are there to see it happen, usually these are the people that need to be liberated, eg the Navy soldiers under Morgans or Kuro’s crew. In other cases like against Lucci, the battle still ends in a way that everyone can see he’s defeated.
This goes double for island liberation arcs like Skypiea or Dressrosa. Sometimes the people get involved in some way to help Luffy beat the big bad.
Civilians helping with the birdcage
I guess you could consider the samurai as the “people”, however even among these arcs, Wano has a specific reason for requiring the people of Wano to know about their liberation: The prophecy.
The last line is the important one. Bearing in mind that the prophecy is addressed to the people of Wano, this prophecy requires them to be aware that Luffy is their “dawn”. However currently we have an issue. Onigashima is still some way away from the capital.
This means that Luffy’s attack isn’t in a position to beat Kaido in a way that allows the citizens to see it as his attack is aimed downward which in turn means that this attack can’t be the finishing blow.
There is one more major reason that I’d like to discuss and it’s probably the most obvious.
3. It isn’t Dawn yet
The moon is still up!
Considering all of the “dawn of the world” etc dialogue we have gotten since Zou, I think it would make a lot of sense if Luffy, the dawn of Wano, the Sun God, the one who will end the 20 year night, beat Kaido after the sun rises. It would also be a nice Thriller Bark parallel.
*Theory by Oggy5050
