I realized a lot of One Piece works on "punch the annoying mean guy in the face" logic, & that kind of simplistic storytelling just doesn't have much pull on me, but to many people that counts as really cathartic emotional pay-off & justifies having one-note repetitive bad guys.

I think there's a moment for pure, raw emotion like that and One Piece captures that often in a great moment like punching the Celestial dragon, but then it just keeps trying to mimic that same emotional beat in a lesser way and it just doesn't hit.

The series does the same with those moments like "You'll make enemies of the entire world government" or "You'll make enemies of Kaido one of the Yonko" & youre supposed to go "YEAH LUFFY IS SO BADASS" but it feels shallow when it always has to fall back on samey things like that

Like this is what I'm talking about