One Piece

Would it be any more of a copout than Croc (Luffy would've died if he hadn't got the antidote) or Moriah (where the falling mast arguably contributed just as much as Luffy)?

I can't recall where Gilphon said it, but he made up a name for the hypothetical MacGuffin; I think it might've been "Emerald Pillar" if that helps you find it. All he ws saying was the defeats of the strongest opponents should be more situational.

edited 21st Apr '14 7:39:38 PM by HamburgerTime

No, but that doesn't do anything to defend it. That just points out the series already has a horrible problem with doing that.

Situational victories could be ramped up to cleverness, though. Even the most book dumb of the Straw Hats are fairly innovative Combat Pragmatist types. You don't need a cop-out win, or to make the Straw Hats overpowered necessarily.

Also cool: Doffy slices the building in half with the air from a spinning kick.

And apparently cloned himself.

Kaku have done that already. Not that, though.

edited 21st Apr '14 9:56:44 PM by Adannor

It seems to be some sort of puppet. It can fight as well as the real thing, too - the headless Doffy slices Luffy's back with his strings, then the not-headless Doffy caves in his face with a Haki-infused punch.

@Saiga: I can't help you find the post, but I think I can help put it in context a bit more; it was prompted by the specific situation of how Croc turned out, and me musing on how, if a future antagonist is implicitly just as strong as the present antagonist, we won't have needed to buy the future antagonist as a credible threat.

I mean, yes, it's always possible to just dial up the hype for the next antagonist, but that just means it's that much harder to build the appropriate hype next arc.

So, my suggestion was to make Kaidou's defeat due to migrating factors so that the 'just as strong' label implicitly strengthens Big Mam and BB instead of weakening them, and makes such measures unnecessary in the future.

So I guess that's the main bit HT left out; that I never intended that to be applying to all antagonists, just the intermediary ones.

Thanks for the context, Gilphon; honestly forgot that part.

I can't help but feel Robin should be able to use haki. I get her little side adventure with the Revolutionaries was probably mostly spent learning new things, but we've seen she's also developed new techniques. It just fits well.

Armament Haki with her attacks would probably hurt really badly.

The problem with Robin 's power is that it's very one sided. If she can break your spine, she win the fight (and it isn't a very interesting fight, because it's too short and devoid of suspense), if she can't, she is either beaten or forced to use tactic. Giving her armament haki would give her an edge against nearly everyone in the series (unless she doesn't have enough of it, but in that case it's pointless to give it to her), thus reducing the number of opponent who can provide an adequate amount of challenge for her. Thus, I doubt she will show that kind of Haki before the end of the series.

I'm trying to think of who in the Straw Hats will likely have Haki by the end. Usopp could definitely benefit from Observation, especially if Van Augur turns out to have it, and there's some pretty convincing theories that Nami has unconscious Amament and/or Observation. I don't think Franky or Brook would benefit much, though.

I'm kind of hoping they all have haki in the end except Franky and Nami, I don't see what good it would do them with there styles, especially Franky.

edited 22nd Apr '14 1:33:33 PM by KBSL

Robin and Brook both could go well with observation haki. Robin needs to know where the enemies are to attack them, and can't afford to get hit. Brook is already a master of emotion, and being able to cut targets before they realize it, and before they're even there, would be incredible.

Oddly enough though, most of the characters who don't have haki already have some other skill that mimics it to some extent. Nami has her instincts, Brook is already lightning quick, Robin can use her Eye Flowers to observe the enemy from different angles, etc.

Also, a little random, but I'm beginning to think Oda had bigger ideas with Chopper that were ditched in the writing process, namely giving him a power set that revolved around drugs other than the vague Rumble Ball, and scrapped because he didn't to convince his young audience that a young, cute, mascot character doing drugs was a good way to achieve your goals. Just a random thought.

edited 22nd Apr '14 3:16:44 PM by HeavyDDR

Franky should have Conqueror's, for shits and giggles.

If you could hypothetically have one of the 3 types of haki, which would it be? I would probably choose armament.

observation here.to track down those pesky summer roaches.

Observation. By far the most practical in the manga or the teal world.

Observation, only because I can't of fun things to do with Conqueror.

@ Heavy: It'd be interesting to see which is faster - Brook's You Are Already Dead techniques or the reflexes of an Observation user.

An observation user has a vision, then looks at where Brook is going to be, and says "I am already dead. HIDEBU!" Just because they see it coming doesn't mean they can stop it.

Conqueror. It would make commuting to work a snap (though all those folks falling unconscious at the wheel could lead to... difficulties).

Observation.

edited 6th Nov '16 11:47:36 PM by Savaget1337

Observation would have so many uses. You'd never lose anything you owned, you could find the best routes to take when going anywhere... hell, I'd probably use it to find loose cash anywhere I went!