Dressrosa Arc - Final Thought
Quality wise, this arc is still...subpar, even when compared to Thriller Bark. It is quite strange and unfortunate since the villain of this arc is Doflamingo, the supposedly most interesting member of Shichibukai who also move quite a lot within the world's narrative beside Blackbeard, Crocodile, and Kuma. The final confrontation falls very flat even when compared to the anti-climactic final moment against Enel. There isn't any feeling that the SH wins a big stake against him whilst narratively there are a lot of things on the table here.
I think the biggest falling of Oda here (and pretty much any arc after the timeskip) is that he overstretched the plot too much by introducing too many named characters and subplot related to them. Beside the main plot of Law and Luffy taking down Doflamingo (and ultimately Kaidou), we have King Riku and Dressrosa true sovereignty, Kyros and Rebecca relationship, Law's old feud with Doflamingo and many other subplots that I can't particularly remember. This caused the narrative lose its focus, making many named characters pushed into irrelevancy despite their power and their position within the world. In the case of the villains, we only have two who feel really memorable: Doflamingo himself and Senor. The former is obvious, but even then there are so many wasted and unexplored potential due to unfocused nature of this arc while the latter actually have enough screen time.
With how Doflamingo handled and his relation to the overall Dressrosa plot, Oda try to make him the mastermind of everything, of something bigger only to failed miserably. Since Smoker said it himself that what happened to Dressrosa similar to what could happened with Arabasta, perhaps Oda should reread Arabasta Arc that much better in many way possible.
Will Oda return to his form? I don't know. One Piece grand plot getting bigger and involved even more fucktons of characters. It might become better but it also could become even worse. But even then, Whitebeard War Saga that also involved a lot of named important character feels much better, more focused, and better execution overall. Oda need to cutdown the fats of his subplot or his future arc will ended up jumbled mess with flat final confrotation.
And oh, someone really need to tell his worsening same face syndrome. Koala first appearance had her with the full, cheeky face and now she share the same face with Nami. And don't get me started with Tashigi since that makes my yodium level skyrockted hard.
(((((
