Why the One Piece anime's most important issue right now is keeping Onigashima afloat

In the latest One Piece episode, fans saw Yamato establish that the loss of power in Kaido’s Flame Clouds showed that the man was losing strength. In other words, the previously-thought invincible tyrant of Kaido is finally getting worn down following the plethora of fights he has been involved in thus far.

However, One Piece fans also saw Yamato explain the downside of this and Kaido’s expected eventual defeat. Once Kaido is defeated or fully out of energy and stamina, his Flame Clouds will disappear, causing Onigashima to fall out of the sky and crash into whatever is below it at that moment. As Yamato and Momonosuke point out, Onigashima’s current destination of Wano’s Flower Capital puts the people in mortal danger.

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One Piece anime establishes that Kaido’s defeat is meaningless if Onigashima’s fall isn’t prevented

The ultimate goal of One Piece’s Wano arc, as well as the arcs built into it, is the defeat of Kaido and the subsequent liberation of Wano and its people from his tyrannical rule. However, if the defeat of Kaido inherently signals the death of most of Wano’s population, the pyrrhic victory becomes meaningless.

This is the importance of keeping Onigashima afloat, which can only be realistically achieved by Momonosuke learning to use his new dragon form to create Flame Clouds of his own. These would both work against Kaido’s Flame Clouds to push Onigashima away from the Flower Capital and serve as a safety net for when Kaido’s Flame Clouds disappear.

Moreover, the One Piece anime emphasizes why Onigahsima can be so deadly in episode 1052. Here, Yamato tells Momonosuke that the Skull Dome’s basement is filled with various weapons and explosives, making Onigashima into a massive floating bomb, with the detonation trigger set to be the island’s eventual impact into the Flower Capital.

If Momonosuke and Yamato don’t find a way to keep Onigashima afloat, it makes the efforts, sacrifices, and struggles of all of their allies up to this point meaningless. The situation is dire, with Momonosuke being the only one who can prevent the death of the Wano Citizens in and around the Flower Capital.

There’s also the fact that everyone in Onigashima would die in the process, with there being no way to transport everyone off of the floating island quickly. As a result, not only are the people of Wano in mortal danger, but their saviors' lives are also in jeopardy.

That being said, fans can count on preventing the fall of Onigashima to be a major plot point in the upcoming episodes of One Piece. It's arguably of even greater importance than the battles of Luffy versus Kaido, Sanji versus Queen, and Zoro versus King. This is especially true considering all of these victories could be rendered meaningless if Onigashima isn’t kept afloat.

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