@Skewt:
So what exactly is the point of this argument? That Crocodile despite ultimately losing to Luffy, is still stronger? Seems kind of moot, he had his chance, he failed to come out on top.
Your perception of Luffys ability is completely shaped by Oda's storytelling style. He doesn't like the one and done final fight. So Oda made his main character quite fallable in that his first response to any enemy is to just punch it till it falls down which typically serves him well. Then he introduces villians that are either not affected or can overcome his typical come out swinging response.
Crocodiles arrogance was his undoing, but at this point Luffy has become strong and fast enough that I think a rematch would be pretty one sided. Luffy still knows how to hit him, and now he hits that much harder.
I still believe at the moment that Crocodile can defeat Luffy, altough not easily, like with in the other matches.
If it was that easy for a Supernova to destroy a Shichibukai without help and luck, the balance is pretty much fucked up.
@robbybevard:
Luffy beat Moria with sheer tenacity and willpower. Luffy was completley unconscious at the end of the battle, and in terms of actual power, skill, setup, and actually winning the fight, Moria had won. If Luffy had set out 5 seconds later or a cloud had shifted just a little bit, Luffy, Zoro, Robin and Sanji would all have been killed by the sun. If Luffy hadn't been granted 100 shadows power up, Odz likely would not have been defeated. (The other TB victims all said they could only hold a few shadows themselves, Luffy was the first to hold that many.)
But. Luffys sheer will and determination to not give up won the day. At the end, its what pissed Moria off and made him use that final desperation move, when Moria really, REALLY didn't need to. The fight had been won. Moria could have hidden for a couple minutes and the sun would have finished the job. But Luffy's sheer ass-kickerness tenacity pissed Moria of, showed Luffy to be the better class of person, to the point Moria started fighting stupid, because his ego was broken by this little upstarts' sheer tenacity. Same thing happened with Croc, whod killed Luffy twice already! Luffy's determination to beat him pissed him off so much that at the end, Croc said "Screw it, we'll fight man to man and I'll prove this once and for all."
On a normal day, against any other rubberman, either Croc or Moria (or even Enel for that matter, even with the weakness in play) should have been able to beat Luffy, especially with their home team advantage setups. They have broken, sheer overpowering POWER, But Luffy defies odds because he's LUFFY, he's got that much WILL. (Even with Enel, a lesser rubberman might have given up after being knocked off the flying ship, as opposed to running up a giant beanstalk with a huge gold ball on his hand. It wasn't JUST the rubber power that had luffy win that one.) Same thing is happening with this poison. He doesn't beat his opponents with luck. He doesn't beat them will skill. He doesn't beat them with strength. He uses all those things, yes, but ultimatley, he beats them down with his determination to keep going and never stop, his AMBITION of a KING, if you will.
(NOT a haki raference and leave it as "ambition of a king". that sounds way more badass and face it, in the contet I'm using, its what I mean.)
Agreed!!!
I don't feel the need to argue with you, Brennen.exe, Robby's argument was enough, but fine…
@brennen.exe:
I'm suggesting Luffy is stronger than some damn Spider Monkey's. There's absolutely no way he would have been captured so simply if he were taking matters seriously. But Oda needed a setup for Luffy to have his shadow stolen. In cases like this, it's simply a matter of how Oda wanted to write the story. For instance, add Nami to that scene. Nami is getting beaten to a pulp by someone. Would Luffy break free and save her? Yes. Would we believe it? Yes. Did he break free though? No. Did we believe it? Sure, why not?
You're going through big possibilities, the fact is that Spider Monkey's wait in the shadows and in less than 1 second, drive one guy to Moria.
Luffy, serious or not, wouldn't be able to escape unless he was all the time in Gear 2/3 or looking at everywhere, which is impossible for Luffy.
Yes it was. "The fight with Moria is already won. Moria wants to use his insane powers to use up the time we have left."
If Moria ran away instead of trying to show Luffy that he had the capacity of using 1000 shadows, he would've won.
In this argument you pretty much have no chance.
Luffy never used Gear 2nd (as an example) against Moria directly (until the end). Think about when Luffy fought Sandersonia with Gear 2nd. She could predict his movements, see what he was going to do before he did it, yet she couldn't defend from him. Why? Because he was too fast. Had Luffy used that against Moria right off the bat he could have done some serious damage to Moria. And that's not all Luffy has at his disposal. Again, it all just comes down to how Oda wanted to write the story. The point in the end was that Luffy's resolve and willpower was greater than Moria's. Where Moria gave in, ran away, and relied solely on others, Luffy and co. showed that they are willing to do what it takes, together.
We will never know if Moria's shadow is able to get in him or not.
Let's base ourselves on the facts we have, ok?
> Location:
Thriller Bark was full of traps that were used to seperate, confuse, and disarm the crew. Eliminate those traps and tricks of location and the crew likely wouldn't have been separated and lost their shadows.
Numbers: General Zombie's, Fantastic Four, Oz, Ryuma, Moria, Cindry, Taleran, and Fodder make up numbers greater than "9". They were outnumbered. I didn't say they were outclassed, just outnumbered. Eliminate those traps and tricks of location and the crew likely wouldn't have been separated and lost their shadows.
Shadows: Had Moria not managed to steal the Strawhats shadows and acquired a huge amount of powerful zombies and shadows, there would not have been nearly the same amount of a challenge. Of course, this is really just a combination of "Numbers" and "Plan", but it is still a factor that gave Moria an advantage.
Plan: First off, Moria had been planning to go back to the New World with his new power. That planning had him pretty much at the final step. So essentially he already had an army ready to be mobilized. When Perona's ghost network found the Strawhats, they made a plan to steal their shadows. They invited them in, caught them off guard, and proceeded to disarm and capture them. This was largely in part to their location, giving them the chance to make a plan. That is a huge advantage for Moria vs the Strawhats going onto an "island" blindly and then running into confusing impossible zombies and such.
Fine, you're right… However...
That's part of Moria's ability, to use the intelligence to defeat them.
Moria would never go to Luffy's place, so the only way to have Luffy VS Moria would be in his place.
Thus, Moria would defeat Luffy.
Moria was completely unconscious near the end of the battle before Shadows Asgard. In terms of actual power (Gear 3rd, natural, doesn't rely on others' shadows), skill (Fighting style, Gear 2nd, Soru, Etc.), and actually winning the fight, Luffy had won. If Luffy had set out a little bit earlier he would have made it to the fight while his crew was still up and at it and could have broke Oz's back sooner and still had time with Nightmare Luffy to cut Moria into shreds rather than just punch him in the face. Hell, Luffy had a sword, if he had just stabbed Moria when they fell down it would all be over. Not like he didn't have the chance to stab him. Luffy's "Nightmare" version did essentially nothing. Why? Because Oz was a zombie. Yes, that's right, that means after all that beating Nightmare Luffy gave Oz, Oz got back up as if NOTHING ever happened. Essentially, Oz was still at ~100%. AFTER that loss of strength from the tiring use of 100 shadows, Luffy and co still managed to cripple Oz (who, need I remind you, was at 100%). So yeah, Oz still would have been defeated. In fact, I would bet he would have been defeated even easier since Luffy wouldn't have been out of strength from the 100 shadows.
Moria runs away, Luffy loses.
What's so hard to see in this fact?
If Moria took Luffy seriously, Luffy would be dead by now.
Is it really that hard to see?
Once again, I quote…