The amount of people saying “it’s good that he’s weaker now” are really missing the fact that this absolutely kills the utter wall that Crocodile feels like when Luffy runs into him.
The protagonist who has been a lot like a force of nature (he did struggle against a couple of enemies but powered through with sheer willpower) losing decisively TWICE to Crocodile gives him the gravitas befitting a Pirate Warlord. The sudden momentum stop from Luffy hitting this wall makes the man stick out so much more.
As it is now, him losing to Crocodile is not going to be a shocking event, it’s going to be kind of expected.
This is beyond “shonen powerscaling” like so many seem to wave off like that isn’t a valid way to tell a story, this is trying to pump up other villains for the sake of “stakes” at the cost of minimizing the stakes of running into the big bad of the whole things. You’ve traded a peak for a plateau for no reason, because there were plenty of stakes in the manga before these changes.
The changes feel unnecessary and jarring to anyone who watched the anime or read the manga, and if you say “who cares, this is for the newbies” the the newbies can experience the same plot beats in this different medium so we all can start discussions of it off on the same foot.
This isn’t about power scaling like so many people try to strawman. The heart of the argument is that it’s altering stuff that didn’t need to be altered, because I’m pretty sure that the Alabasta arc is still highly regarded as one of the best arcs in One Piece.
Imagine if they did similar things to Eines Lobby and reduced the peaks of that arc in such a manner. That’d be an even greater travesty.
4. Maggie Rogers, as an unknown music student at NYU, showing her unfinished song 'Alaska' to Pharrell (who can visibly tell it's going to be a massive hit within about 15 seconds)