Craziness. They've both been great arcs.
Did you forget Fishman Island?
I'd say right now is the best the manga has been since Marineford.
Elaborate. Because I can't even tell if you're trolling or not.
Nope, I've been consistently talking down on One Piece since the end of Dressrosa.
Zou had nothing for me, no peaks, no thematic value on par with other arcs, no interesting interactions, and a meh climax as far as i'm concerned, it was "talking: the arc", which shouldn't be a problem for me because I typically love One Piece dialogue, but seeing the Strawhats walk across the elephant meeting with various Meeks was the opposite of interesting, I have no idea how people can compare this to incredible Mini Arcs like Jaya, I've re read it four times and all I get is the same feeling of absolute nothing and degraded plotting from Oda.
Did it have less flaws the each of the previous post-timeskip arcs? Yes, but that doesn't mean much to me when I feel it doesn't do much at all, I also don't care one iota about the greater mystery in the series, the only time I talk about the void century/poneglyphs is when I'm trying to figure out Oda's thematic goals with the WG/Marines/Blackbeard/Luffy and wondering about the past of the Gorosei and why they became so obsessed with maintaining the status quo, so that did nothing to bump it up in my estimate.
Nothing in the arc compares to the initial Violet/Sanji interactions, Fujitora's introduction, the build up of the blocks, nothing matches Cavendish's character, nothing comes close to touching Oda's amazing work with Bellamy, nothing comes close to the initial climax of all the plot threads with Sanji going at Doflamingo coupled with Law getting punked and then the Big Mom pirates come in, and the list just goes on and on.
And Zou started One Piece on the trainwreck of Whole Cake, where now the series feels like some island hopping video game nonsense rather than the excellent story I know it as.
Whole Cake man, Whole Cake is just bad, it's like if you took every flaw from Fishman Island-Dressrosa and upped it by ten.
With worse art that leads to worse sequencing, which leads to worse paneling, worse action, and a degraded atmosphere compared to previous arcs.
I'm boggled at how anyone can complain about Dressrosa or Punk Hazard when each villain we've seen so far has had duller character than the Yeti Cool Brothers (not that the Yeti Cool Brothers are bad, I love them/have all of their pages downloaded and was incredibly disappointed with how Oda took them out), worse action than the Yeti Cool Brothers, and has been handled even worse/more haphazardly.
The Pekoms/Tamago fight was pathetic.
The entire Chopper/Carrot escape was a masterclass in diminishing hype/erasing quality character designs, and the gag ending to the Luffy fight was ridiculous (and no I have no issues with gags, I love gags in most fights, I just think that was handled poorly especially with the skipping around).
This arc has been dragged out worse than the running on PH as well, no villain matches up with Vergo or Monet, and Big mom doesn't come close to touching Ceaser Clown in effectiveness and in intimidation.
-No mysterious build up/epic reveal
-No style
-No callousness displayed as effectively as Ceasers (in fact, I kind of hate how blatantly disgusting Oda's made Big mom in comparison to his treatment of the male Yonkou)
-No suffocation or gaslight moments
-No worthwhile dialogue thus far
-Doesn't even have half of the intimidation of Hancock
She doesn't even touch don Kreig or Kuro as far as i'm concerned, at least Don Kreigs thematic value was off the charts.
There's no moment in this arc I would even call equivalent to Law/Smoker's initial confrontation.
Mocha/Chopper>>>>>>>anything here.
This feels more like Oda trying to write One Piece than Oda just writing One Piece, especially with the characters.
It's taken Oda's pattern of giving characters individual moments that while not being big in terms of character change allow for them to get a cool line off and boiled it down to it's simplest essence, while showing even less (like with Brook vs Big Mom) than he would shown before.
Brook's moment's this arc pale in comparison to his fight with Zeo or even the moment in Punk Hazard where he froze the guns on the centaurs and cause the blowback, or his cool moments with Kinemon.
And the wackiness feels more like forced wackiness than actual One Piece whimsy (not to mention the whole Island being a bootleg Thriller Bark).
Tension feels more forced than anything I've seen in this series, and I don't know how anyone could tolerate it being drawn out like this and then complain about the running on PH.
I also don't buy into the notion that Sanji needed any change, nothing here feels as genuine or heartfelt as his dynamic with Kinemon or the children as far as i'm concerned, and none of his character moments are on par with what we saw there/neither is his badassery (same goes for Dressrosa Sanji), all of this for Luffy too.
And I hate that at this point I still can't find the thematic core or one thematic point in this arc, well I can but it involves stretching and trying to ignore poor links by Oda, ugh and so much more, I've written it out better than this, but I'm just venting my frustration at the state of my favorite manga.
