Imu-Sama Bears a Contract Mark — ‘Secret Mastermind’ Theory Emerges; 5ch: ‘Now They’re Even Ripping Off Naruto’

There's a Deep Sea Contract mark on his arm, so it looks like he's got someone he's contracted with.
pbs.twimg.com/media/HQbAhIZaUAABilL.jpg
pbs.twimg.com/media/HQdpFA6bEAAT0Bx.jpg

I mean, he was the weakest of the original 20 kings anyway.

That art looks like he couldn't be bothered to draw it properly. Feels like there's a war going on in Oda's head between 'I want to draw every little detail' Oda and 'I just want this to be easier' Oda.

So the big boss is rocking a tattoo that looks like a kid drew it?

Just wrap it up already, seriously.

If Imu is the Buddha, then of course there's a Great Buddha out there too.

>>13
Whaaat?! Now THAT'S a wild theory!!

>>13
There's already a 'Human-Human Fruit, Model: Great Buddha' in the story, you know. The Great Buddha is real!

>>13
So now, at this point, we're getting the 'Sengoku is the mastermind' theory?

Design looks like something Umezawa Fumio would sign off on (a TV personality famously mocked for his gaudy, tacky fashion sense).

This isn't what One Piece fans wanted — they wanted a battle with Blackbeard and the like.

Feels like even the author doesn't know what he's going for anymore.

So now they're even ripping off Naruto?

Ace… tell me that's fake?

>>32
Did they actually misspell ACE as ASE?

Wasn't it already 5 years since he said 'it'll be over in 5 years'? At this rate it's not gonna be over even 5 more years from now lol

>>34
Make that another 15 years.

>>34
That's 5 years on the in-story timeline. It's probably only been a few months so far.

Wait, is Kid just done showing up now? I liked him precisely because he's such an edgelord…

>>35
Same, I want to see the Heart Pirates again too, so I wish they'd hurry up and wrap the Elbaf arc already.

Imu = Buddha. So all that's left is Muhammad and Jesus?

>>50
This guy's surname is Nerona = God, so that one's covered too.

He won't listen to his editor, but the second readers start bashing him he randomly course-corrects — so you end up with the worst possible outcome: characters that are all over the place.

It'll probably end with him and Blackbeard just trading exhausted punches till it's over.

>>60
Both of them burn through their Devil Fruit powers and Haki, it turns into a bare-knuckle brawl, they each lose an arm, and then collapse after making a heart shape with their own blood or something?

So he's saying he'll blaspheme Christ, Abraham, every god there is? That's basically Kiryu talking (a delinquent-manga antagonist from Crows/Worst famous for vowing to take on everyone, gods included).

>>71
You bastard—!! There's no way Oda-sensei would pull some cheap 'Tough'-style sales stunt, huh—!? (mock-shouting in the exaggerated style of delinquent manga dialogue)

Feels like this is genuinely turning into Sword Master Yamato at this point (a manga infamous for dragging its plot on forever without resolution).

>>78
Ooh, you said it, you actually said it.

>>78
Though to be fair, Sword Master Yamato did wrap up all its foreshadowing and mysteries in one go by the end.

Feels like you guys are just bashing Oda nonstop, huh? I mean sure, One Piece isn't great right now, but… what, did people here actually have high expectations for it?

>>84
Jujutsu Kaisen was like that through its whole second half too. Once it ends, the complaints stop.

>>84
At the end of the day, people are still following the latest chapters. Well, I get wanting to complain though.

Honestly, it's been out of step with readers ever since the 'every pirate crew needs a musician lol' logic behind Brook joining. 20 years of this, and readers have gradually been filtered out to get where we are now. I wonder what percentage of the original readership is even left.

>>86
Thriller Bark started after the series' 10th anniversary, and even by that point the story really hadn't progressed much.

He's been one of the pillars propping up Jump all this time, warts and all, so the least they could do is let him reach his own ending instead of just cancelling it. They slapped the label 'Final Saga' on it, so everyone assumed it was actually ending and they held off making movies after RED — but now it looks like it's not ending after all, since they've started making movies again. If one's slated for a 2029 release, that means they're estimating at least 3 more years before it wraps. Which, in 'Oda math,' means it's got another 9 years in it.

>>101
Hard to say how the Jump editorial team actually feels about the dragging-on. If they're just grateful for the sales it brings in, they'd probably want it to run forever. But if they think it's become unsightly as a manga and that he should wrap it up already, then the trust between them is probably eroding.

Wasn't Kaido supposed to be the strongest creature alive? Is that getting 'Pell'-ed too? (a running joke referencing how side character Pell's death was quietly retconned, i.e. continuity getting silently ignored)

>>102
Best not to think too hard about consistency at this point.
Characters just talk about what they personally know. That's how it works in real life, right? It'd be weird if fiction worked differently from reality when reality is like that.
↑ The moment you start saying that about a work of fiction, it's game over.
Then what about stuff like stretching arms — things that are flat-out impossible in reality — what about that kind of creative license, huh?
It's precisely because it's impossible in reality that the audience has to imagine the world based on the information given within the story — if you reject that, they've got nothing left to go on.