One Piece

Also, Mars remarks that other than the decoy, all the transponder snails on the island are ordinary ones. So everyone who guessed the signal was coming from a different island, take a bow!

Mi hai frainteso. I meant that Oda will double down and INDEED make this even better than it is now.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

Most likely the Kamabakka Queendom, that was probably what Shakas call to Dragon at the start of the arc was about.

Edited by uncertanSearcher on Apr 29th 2024 at 9:51:03 PM

Aaaah ok, ho capito

There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up

Do you think, before they lost their minds to their Awakened forms, the "Demon Guards" of Impel Down knew how to use Haki?

I just got to wondering if Awakening requires a combination of the Devil Fruit compatibility & expertise AND Haki.

Chopper is definitely a wrinkle in this theory if we assume Monster Point is him cheating to reach his Awakening, but considering he needs a drug to do it and it has very debilitating effects (In fact, with 30-minute monster point, his debilitating effect isn't entirely dissimilar to Luffy's), I don't know if its that much of an issue.

Mind you, this is just a WMG theory, its not something I've given much though to.

Actually, I'd prefer for that not to be the thing. My theory is that after pretty much the whole post-time skip era of being heavily focused on developing Haki, with the reveal's about the Gum-Gum Fruit and now some of the things that have come about in the Egghead arc, I think we're going to see a shift the other way for this Final Saga and have Devil Fruits take center stage back from Haki as the heavily focused power system again. And on that note, when we hopefully finally get a better explanation of how Awakening works, I would prefer it to have basically no relation to Haki at all.

Edited by diddyknux on Apr 29th 2024 at 6:25:41 AM

I mean. Has it not been feeling like the Devil Fruit side of things has returned to the forefront? Or at the very least we're at a transitional period.

Robin: Don't ever ask me to dock with you again. Serious...

Wano kind of did both in pretty equal measure, I feel. So yeah, the transition.

Luffy got three huge power-ups in Wano: Invisible Armor, Internal Destruction, and Gear 5. The first two are Haki, Armament and Supreme King, and the third is Devil Fruit Awakening.

Egghead does seem to be putting a focus more on Devil Fruits, with the Green Blood, Lucci and Kaku Awakening, Stussy and Bonney, and the Elders, but Haki hasn't been forgotten. When the Elders were showing up, Oda had other characters say over and over again that they have insane Haki.

I think Elbaf is probably going to be a more Haki-focused arc, since it's an island allied with Shanks and we haven't seen any Elbaf Giants with Devil Fruits.

Okay, remember that "History of Zoro's One-Sword Style" post I mentioned I was making? I just discovered something hilarious while working on it. Every time Zoro does a One-Sword Style move with Kitetsu III, it fails. At least Pre-Timeskip, I haven't gotten to Post-Timeskip yet.

THE CURSE IS REAL.

Does the 36-Pound Phoenix he does to break out of the chimney at Water 7 during Aqua Laguna count? That worked, and was with Kitetsu, wasn't it?

I dont remember the troper but I want to add to the Zoro is the first haki user in the crew and the manga, I want to point out swords curses were revealed to be strong haki coating that rejects unworthy weilders. That was a terrific move by oda and one of the first haki displays.

Edited by AegisP on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:07:45 AM

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

Okay, but Kitetsu III wasn't about to screw Zoro over when it came to a battle against a chimney.

Edited by Ego-Man25 on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:08:36 AM

Robin: Don't ever ask me to dock with you again. Serious...

... I completely forgot about that one. I was counting the 36 Pound Phoenix he used on Ohm, the slash he tried on Lucci after Lucci threw Luffy away, and the Lion Song he used on Kuma as the 3 Kitetsu failures.

I'm of the school of thought that aside from Conqueror's, Haki was a late-ish addition to the story because Oda needed a universal shutdown for Logias. There's plenty of things that could easily be taken as Haki retroactively, though - the Breath and Voice of All Things, Nami's nigh-supernatural weather forecasting abilities, Luffy "instinctively" finding the correct Mr. 3 among the wax doubles...

Edited by HamburgerTime on Apr 29th 2024 at 10:25:14 AM

See, my thoughts are similar but opposite. I think Haki was always a planned part of the series, except for the "able to hit Logias" part. I think that's the only major element of Haki that Oda didn't plan from the start, and which he added to Haki between Enies Lobby and Sabaody.

I think tons of Pre-Timeskip moments were 100% meant to be Haki foreshadowing, and the only inconsistency is that sometimes a character who should have Haki isn't able to hurt Luffy or hit a Logia.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:37:48 AM

Heck, it was introduced in the very first chapter. Remember when Shanks scared off the Sea King with a stare?

Disgusted, but not surprised

Yeah, that was Conqueror's. No dispute that was intended all along.

The one I really wonder about is Armament. Blackbeard makes a huge deal of the fact that the Dark-Dark Fruit is able to hit Logias, and the first character explicitly stated to be an Armament user (Sentomaru) first shows up two arcs later. Observation also seemed to be exclusive to Sky People at first.

I'm also inclined to agree that Haki, as we know it, is a late addition to the setting. There's stuff that fits with it retroactively, as mentioned, but I think it was convenient to wrap those incidents up under a single umbrella than have each one be its own, unique thing.

My main reason for thinking this is that Haki tends to be largely cosmetic outside of a handful of battles (Logias, Katakuri) and tends to suffer Syndrome Syndrome: A fight between two Haki users is, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from a fight between two non-Haki users. Armament Haki's primary function, in my opinion, is to act as a common Kryptonite Factor for powerful characters that any other character could potentially exploit.

That said, I do believe Conqueror's Haki was intended from the start. If we assume, as stated , Shanks staring down the sea monster at Luffy's village was intended to foreshadow it, it was cooking in Oda's head from day one. It definitely was by the time we got to Shanks meeting Whitebeard post-Water Seven, the first unambiguous reference and demonstration of it. I believe Conqueror's Haki serves a similar function to Devil Fruit, a source of great power that gets increasingly common the higher you get in the power scale.

This is actually one reason I had an old, now debunked theory, that Blackbeard couldn't use Haki at all, and sought out particular Devil Fruit to compensate. It's always stuck out to me that Blackbeard was the first character we ever saw seeking a specific fruit.

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:57:17 AM

The one I really wonder about is Armament. Blackbeard makes a huge deal of the fact that the Dark-Dark Fruit is able to hit Logias, and the first character explicitly stated to be an Armament user (Sentomaru) first shows up two arcs later.

Armament does more than just hit Logias. I think Armament was always planned (Luffy used Armament to break Arlong's saw sword, Zoro used Armament to cut Mr. 1, all of CP9 use Armament with Iron Body and Finger Pistol) but it originally didn't have the "hitting Logias" property.

Armament Haki's primary purpose is to allow human skin to break and block metal. Hitting Logias is a secondary purpose Oda tacked on.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 29th 2024 at 9:08:29 AM

My take is that Haki is a retcon, Luffy was the first member of the crew to learn it, and everything people try to claim as Haki..isn't. Mantra isn't Observation Haki, Rokushiki isn't Armament Haki, etc.

These are the questions I wish people would ask Oda in the SBS.

Rayleigh explicitly says Mantra and Observation are one and the same, and the anime has Luffy connect Shanks staring down the sea monster with Conqueror's

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 29th 2024 at 9:19:45 AM

The first explicit mention of Conqueror's is supposedly in one of the infamous "Loguetown deleted scenes" that got adapted into a light novel. I've never seen it myself though.

In Jaya, Blackbeard literally says that Luffy's Haki seemed too strong for a bounty of 30M, and 100M feels more accurate.

Like, that was literally a line Blackbeard said.

And then later in Impel Down, Blackbeard says that Luffy's Haki is stronger than it was in Jaya, confirming the intent of the first line.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 29th 2024 at 9:31:26 AM

x3

Citation needed on the Mantra thing but personally if the Luffy connecting Shanks scaring the sea beast away thing is only mentioned/show in the anime I wouldn't consider it canon. Same as how I don't consider stuff only mentioned in SBSes and other outside materials canon.

Edited by Chariot on Apr 29th 2024 at 12:34:54 PM