Manga: Chapter 759 (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS

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Summary
Jimbei saves a capsized ship filled with sailors. (Coverstory)

The Headcracker Soldiers that Sugar made returned back to being human.

Luffy and Law begin their battle against Doflamingo and Trebol.

Thoughts

The big fight between Doflamingo and Luffy has begun. We have waited a long time for this but it is proving to not be so easy. Doflamingo continues to act as the puppetmaster who hides backstage while letting others do his fighting. May it be his marionette: the Dark Knight or Bellamy under the control of his Parasite String. Either way, Doflamingo is refusing to get his hands dirty with fighting commoners. 

I guess it shouldn't be unexpected as this has been Doflamingo's style the whole time. Even back in Marineford, Doflamingo rarely battled himself and instead decided to ride around Jozu like a pony under the control of Parasite String. What we haven't seen before is Doflamingo's ability to control the emotions of his opponents as we saw in the first half of this chapter where he provoking Luffy into rushing in mad at him. This is exactly what Doflamingo wants because a Luffy without a plan is a Luffy that is bound to fail.

We have seen Luffy battle when he doesn't have a clear head and it usually leads to defeat. When Luffy has been given time to think then that is when we see Luffy at his best. A best example of this was Luffy in Alabasta. We saw him rush at Crocodile the first time. Luffy got his butt handed to him on a sandy platter during this battle. The second time Crocodile and Luffy battle, Luffy did better after figuring out Croc's weakness. Luffy may have lost this match but he bounced back with a better plan and gave it his all.

Doflamingo may have an idea of what kind of fighter Luffy is from past experiences. This is why he is trying to control the tide of the battle by keeping Luffy upset. That way Luffy doesn't have any time to think of a strategy to counteract Doflamingo's string based abilities. Doflamingo must have a weakness after all seeing that he hasn't advice further into the New World and has decided to stay as a Warlord. If Luffy can figure out a weak point in Doflamingo's ability and plan then that is all he needs to start striking hard at the feather boa wearing puppetmaster.

Though, this chapter had an awesome moment at the end where Luffy and Law did a combo attack to land a heavy hit on Doflamingo. Law was able to use his Op-Op ability to swap Doflamingo and his positions. That was just what Luffy needed to put Doflamingo in the line of his Red Hawk attack.

How sweet it was to see this!

That was an explosive attack! It had landed on Doflamingo and he was surprised by this little trick. The problem is that this is only a trick and we know that tricks often do not work twice. Now Doflamingo will be expecting this little antic later and can prepare for it. If anything, this means that Doflamingo should be targeting his attacks on Law as this may tire out Law or at least put an end of any future Op-Op switching tricks.

Another problem with this trick is that it all depends on Law. The Surgeon of Death has said many times during this arc that his ability takes a toll on his stamina. This means that Law can only use it a few times before his ability begins to tire him out. The problem is that Law isn't at top form right now so he isn't going into this battle with a hundred percent.

Lastly, it sounds like Law didn't want to pull this trick so soon. His tone, facial expression and words make it sound like this was suppose to be used later on in the battle. Maybe after Doflamingo was weaken a bit more. The only reason why Law did this was because Luffy had forced him to pull this trick. If Law didn't then he would have taken a Red Hawk to the chest like we saw Doflamingo did. So Law didn't have much of an option here when it came to using this trick.

Luffy and Law were able to land a good hit on Doflamingo but I doubt this will be enough to bring the great Warlord and ex-Celestial Dragon down. Doflamingo doesn't seem like a glass cannon and he has several tricks up his sleeve to turn the table. Just look at what he has: Trebol, Bellamy and a Dark Knight. So this means that Law and Luffy have to think of different ways to get around these three obstacles in order to land more great hits to bring Doflamingo down and raise Dressrosa out from this dark time.

 Poor Bellamy. Remember when we use to hate him?

One last thing to mention, it looks like we are entering a battle of ideals. Doflamingo is under the ideal that you are stuck in the position that you are born in. This is against Luffy's ideal where you fight for whatever position you want. There are several contrasts between Doflamingo and Luffy that it would be an entirely different article to list them all.  Doflamingo was born into royalty while Luffy was raised in the slums. Doflamingo has spent his adult life living like a king while Luffy has spent his childhood seeing how kings have messed with lives. Doflamingo sees people born into classes while Luffy has seen how classes can royalty ruin a person's life. So many things here and all of this coming from some small dialog about how Doflamingo claimed that Bellamy was born a thug and will always be a thug.

Either way, this will be a match that we all have been waiting for. Hopefully it won't be down to the wire for Law and Luffy. Until next time, true believers!