 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. And even though once again, there was no chapter this week, that's not an issue at all for us. Or at least for me because my mind is still on Wano and with the action well and truly kicking into gear, I think it's time to talk about some potential Wano matchups. And for our first all important matchup, we have you versus the subscribe button for the Grand Line Review. And it would be incredibly embarrassing if you were to lose this fight against an inanimate digital button, especially when it gets defeated in one click. So just hit it and watch it go from vibrant red challenger to gray defeated shameful husk. Plus as a result, you'll also receive regular one piece content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. Also let me know if you managed to defeat the button in the comments below, I believe in you. But getting back to real fights between fake 2D characters, we have a fair bit to consider here today and the system I'm going to be using will be analyzing the key figures of the Beast Pirates. My reasoning being that all of them need to be defeated whereas not every member of the Alliance necessarily needs to have their own dedicated fight. Because in this day and age one piece, yes it is entirely possible that we come out of Wano with characters like say Robin or Chopper, not really having had dedicated fights, especially when we have so, so many other characters to focus on. So I feel like going through the antagonist is a more efficient way to go about this. With that said, just a bit of a warning for anime only, watchers or those not caught up with act three, this video will be making extensive use of information that you may or may not consider spoilers. I assume you probably do. So there's your warning, but with that out of the way, we are going to begin with the Oniwabanshu, as well as quite specifically Fukurokuju. Now I do have to admit, I more often than not actually forget about these guys entirely because they were relevant for about a second, way back in act two, and they haven't really done much since, but they do indeed exist and are a theoretical threat. However, in this effort, I would like to focus exclusively on Fukurokuju for reasons that I'll explain in a bit, but going up against him, there is one very strong candidate who would be Shinobu. Narratively, this is fun because Shinobu used to serve as part of the Kozuki Oniwabanshu, whilst Fukurokuju now leads the Orochi Oniwabanshu, which may need to be renamed now, but it just so perfectly sets up not only a clash of ninja, but also a clash of ideology. Shinobu representing Odin, and Fukurokuju representing Orochi, question mark, maybe Kaido. Old Wano versus new Wano, that or present Wano versus future Wano. Either way, I don't currently see a better person to go up against Fukurokuju. I mean, I very did briefly consider Hyogoro because of the whole old man versus another old man aspect, but he actually has his own Fukurokuju to deal with, and only his name is Hote, captain of the Mima Warigumi, aka Samurai Police Squad, which seems to be entirely ideologically opposed to Hyogoro's beliefs of what samurai should be. Plus that would make this particular battle a police versus Yakuza conflict, so that just seems to fit nicely. Boss Hote is a minor enough antagonist that it is conceivable that Hyogoro could pull Laoji, you know, power up to the level of bulky old man and deliver a swift yet satisfying KO. Now, when it comes to the rest of the Orochi Oniwabanshu, as well as the Mima Warigumi, they're either going to be irrelevant or another interesting option is that they switch allegiances after the defeat of their leaders because Oda does like to do that sort of thing, and that's something I want to explore much more with our next subject matter being the numbers. Now, I need to credit Greg on Twitter for bringing my attention to this undeniable truth of one piece when he wrote, all supernova as well, sooner or later, fight on the same side as Luffy. If this is true and Apu falls on the sooner side, the numbers can easily be made into friendlies before the end of this via the power of music. Oda loves having gigantic Deus Ex Machina stock characters and Greg is absolutely correct. One of the key features of turning the tides in massive battles in one piece is making an alliance with Deus Ex Machina characters. The most comparable one that comes to mind would be Oimo and Kashi during any sobie. The very simple addition of those two giants changed everything, but I would also place the Colosseum fighters of Dressrosa in this kind of category as well. So it's a very standard Oda thing to do. And with that, I am becoming increasingly convinced that the numbers will turn into allies. However, before then we will likely see a few more if not all of them defeated. One matchup that seems set up right now would be Frankie versus Hacha, but someone else who would be quite perfect to face off against a giant would of course be Chopper. One of if not the smallest member of the alliance versus the biggest members of the beast pirates. And of course I'd love to see Monster Chopper tackle a large threat as well. With the numbers though, a lot of them can just be beaten incidentally like what's already happened with a couple of them. They could just be in the way of primary characters and get brought down, but I do think that they will all eventually switch with Apu which brings us to Scratch Menapu. So I'm obviously at this point not convinced that he will be beaten like a traditional antagonist and that he will flip as soon as he sees a real chance to defeat Kido. Although if he were to have a real fight, then you would think that kid, killer or both would be the natural opponents. But yeah, I'm not sure because kid already got in that satisfying shot of revenge. And because I'm banking on Apu becoming an ally, I just don't think he'll do anything but continue to lightly skirmish until then. And I'll say the same for Hawkins as well, except he seems even less likely to actually skirmish. I mean, if he did have a natural opponent set up then I would say that would probably be law because those two do have a strange connection going, but at the same time, we've kind of been there and done that. So just like Apu, I don't think Hawkins is relevant to analyze as a current antagonist, at least not when we're looking at fight speculation. So that will take us to the Tobi Ropo or the remaining members anyway. At the time of this recording, it would seem that Ulti and Page One have been paired up with Nami and Usopp. This may or may not be the final matchup, but I do completely support the idea. The two strong meat headed fools of the Tobi Ropo versus the physically weak but overwhelmingly intelligent Straw Hat duo. The other members of the Tobi Ropo, however, are probably the most difficult characters to judge at this stage, though. Sasaki and Husu in particular seem like opponents that are just too powerful to be dealt with by instant characters that I haven't brought up as of yet, by which I mean, say, Carrot, for example. However, a very good remaining Straw Hat opponent exists within Jinbei, or a delicious candy-based wildcard could even be thrown in with Paris Barra. The remaining Tobi Ropo just sit in a bit of a weird space, though, and I'm not entirely unconvinced who's who won't betray the Beast Pirates as well, or at the very least turn his efforts towards bringing down an All-Star. With that said, Black Maria is still the biggest question mark of the bunch, and I can't help but assign her to Robin if indeed she does have a fight at all, by which I mean both Robin and Black Maria, actually. Beautiful women in one piece just traditionally don't get dedicated fights in the New Old Era, and if they do, it's usually against another of said women, so, yeah, there's that. However, Wano has shown signs of changing that and I hope it continues to do so. All-Star time though, and starting with Jack at the time of this recording, there's every chance he's already been defeated by the combined efforts of Sulong, Inorashi, and Nekomomushi. That isn't to say he's definitely out for good, but Kairu did tell him to have his wounds tended to and that he had done enough. And as much as people might not like it, his role could well and truly be done here. If Jack does return, I find it unlikely that he'd be given a dedicated fight, although who knows, if this night is long enough, then there is still every chance. As for Queen, now we're getting into the top tier realms, and my obvious thought currently would be Queen versus Zoro and Drake, but that is purely because of the most recent encounter at the time of this recording. The two of them were left facing Queen, but things on Wano can change rather rapidly. However, I will say that I do really enjoy the idea of a Zoro-Drake team up, but there's also the potential to add Kid and or Killer into the mix as well, because Kid in particular does have quite a grudge against Queen. My strongest thought though is that neither Queen nor King will be taken down by a singular entity. For this whole Wano climax, teamwork seems to be the name of the game, and I doubt that any of the truly big players are going to be defeated one-on-one. Which does, of course, bring us to King, and an absolutely perfect team to take him on would be Sanji and Marco. King seems like a much clearer opponent to me because of his flying devil fruit. To be able to meet him in efficient combat, one would probably need to possess a similar ability, and obviously we do have Marco, but our very own Sanji is also fluent in the art of skywalking. I mean, I suppose you could make a similar argument about King being a swordsman, so that points him in the direction of Zoro, but that does also clash with King's own form. As a Pteranodon King, more than likely can't use his fancy sword skills, although I guess most so and users prefer the human beast hybrid form, which kind of takes that away. Whatever the case at the moment, King seems more suited to Sanji and Marco than anybody else, in my opinion. But finally, for the main event, we have a very intriguing situation. So currently Kaido is engaged in combat with the vassals, and it is generally assumed that they are the nine shadows being cast in reference to Toki's prophecy. And that's all good and well because mathematically, minus one Kandro and plus one Iso still makes nine. But as nice as it would be for the whole Odin legacy thing, it's not these guys that are going to be defeating Kaido. We all know that, right? And I say that because there are just far too many people on this island who are personally driven to take down the emperor. One of which happens to be, you know, well, main character, and when he says he's going to do something, he generally does it. Luffy isn't the only one though, because rather incredibly and uncharacteristically, Zoro has expressed a direct interest in fighting Kaido. And coupled with this, he also happens to have an odd element of Odin's inherited will with Enma. So Zoro taking on Kaido as well is more than appropriate. And at this stage, I think is 100% guaranteed to happen. Even then, these are far from the only two candidates. So here's my proposal. The vassals put up a valiant effort but are ultimately overcome potentially in some kind of tragic Kinemon style death. And during this time, we see most of the other fights come to a conclusion freeing up a whole host of combatants for one final conflict where we see the true nine shadows stand up and face off against Kaido. These nine shadows include Luffy, Zoro, Kid, Killer, Law, Drake, Hawkins, and Scratchmanapu in the first mass team up of the worst generation that we have seen in this world. So it would quite literally be about one generation overthrowing another and it would lead to this worst generation group becoming the undisputed top of the piracy world following the collapse of the Emperor system. One problem you may have noticed though is that even if we did get Hawkins and Apu on our side, that leaves us with eight members, a very unfortunate number according to prophecy and there's very, very little chance of other members showing up which just as a recap would be Jory Bonnie, Mad Monker Rouge, Kapungang Beige, and of course Blackbeard. I think it's probably far, far too late in the game to be getting them involved but we do have another great option to fill that ninth slot being Yamato. And whilst Yamato is obviously not a member of the worst generation, he does work for a pretty amazing reason. Being that he is now somehow attempting to become a literal embodiment of Kozuki Odin. So in this fight, you would have the forcible inheritor of Odin's will as well as the current wielder of one of Odin's primary weapons as well as Mr. Luffy who at this point is all but confirmed to be the joy boy that Odin predicted the arrival of. And not only that, but with a series of other incredibly young members of the worst generation, you do have nine shadows cast woven together through the events of 20 years, culminating in each and every one of them ready and willing to take down Kaido. And quite frankly, this is the only way I currently see for him to be defeated that does not include either an enraged or amnesiac big mom. Luffy will of course get all the standard glory like the final hit and everything, but this potential team up is a thought that I relish. Odin so very rarely does big team fights which is such a shame because he's extraordinarily good at them such as the fight between the straw hats and ores on Thriller Bar. And this is a fantastic opportunity to take that concept to a whole new level as well as provide a sound playing field for Luffy to actually prevail in this conflict which is something I do not believe he can do one on one. And that's also another reason I have for the bigger combatants like King, Queen or Jack to not be beaten by a single character because that might take something away from Luffy's eventual team effort. If say Zoro or Sanji managed to take down King or Queen one on one. I just think that no matter what the matchups are we are looking at team battles right at the top here. Now this discussion obviously doesn't cover everyone and there is one huge gaping antagonist that I haven't really touched on which is big mom. The Beast Pirates are very much falling nicely into place but it is the presence of big mom that still makes this whole raid seem unachievable. And really I don't know who or what defeats her. At the moment it will take everything and more just to focus fire on the Beast Pirates. So barring the return of her amnesia and a sudden alliance with Olin that is a huge question mark that I don't have the answer to at this point. She will need to be beaten or subdued somehow though. And there are several other players that may or may not have minor relevance like say Caraba or the Heart Pirates but their roles are so versatile that they can fit almost anywhere on this one puzzle. So I'm just going to leave things like this for now. But what do you guys think? Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server. And if you'd like to see more videos like this then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious one piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feeds. But for now this has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time.