Wano vs Enies Lobby isn't close, and it sucks because it should be
Enies Lobby had everything good about One Piece and what it was building up. Unfortunately, the creator refused to expand on that and it shows. The constant flanderization of the characters, the lack of growth, fucking everything Wano and beyond has been nothing but "demons now, hope the sun god shows up eventually to destroy them which they will". Holy fuck, Enies Lobby was good because it gave the characters everything they needed to overcome the odds, Choppers Monster Point, Franky, Nami's intuition when faced with an opponent even stronger than they are and with a new power to boot. Sanji's gentleman nature that prevented him from fighting an opponent he couldn't, but instead taught her how to make tea and he bounced back fighting one of the strongest CP9 members and coming up with a new way to counter his specific fighting style. Zoro awakening Asura out of a need to protect a friend in danger because they were done wrong by the world, all of that is gone. What did Wano do to top that? Well, nothing. Sure, Wano had an awesome moment with Robin accepting her image and using that as her own power to overcome Maria. Zoro got a backstory where he met the creator of the swords he weilds and gains the knowledge of cursed blades. Sanji has his moment of accepting his reality and newfound powers to absolutely destroy Queen. And Franky, well he just keeps balling as usual. But the emotional impact on Wano is not nearly as good as it was on Enies Lobby, Luffy learned how to use his powers to fight and overcome Rob Lucci out of necessity for their survival, Chopper in that same arc acknowledges this. And Luffy fights really hard to achieve that goal for his crew. What did Wano do for Luffy? Made him train and get stronger and learn new haki techniques, great. But after that, all of a sudden it turns out he was a goddamn god of liberation. Wano could have easily made the fight with Kaido more real and with the same emotional impact of Enies Lobby where if Luffy fails, everyone dies. But it didn't, Luffy failed and thus awakened a fucking Sun God. Enies Lobby will forever be one of One Piece's best arcs because that arc is a climax of what One Piece has been building up for years. Wano and post timeskip just seems like a drawn out attempt to make the series longer than the series should have been, on top of Oda being an absolute piece of shit pedophile who can't stop drawing underage characters for his own sake. Ironic that the final boss is a demon, because holy shit Oda is that demon who couldn't even finish his own story much less be an actual human
Posted Mar 8, 2026, 8:04 PM UTC