Paramythia doesnt sound too bad.
It did bug me when Robin said 'Real Poneglyph' instead of Rio Poneglyph.
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Chapter 1,045: Next Level
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Imagine if we HADN'T gotten that cutaway to the elder star info dumping this and we were just as in the dark as everyone else, and Kaidou was the first one to notice it was weird and like a zoan. If we'd been able to see and put together the pieces ourselves and have a mystery of the fruit being "weird" before someone later info dumped the true lore of it.
Learning its a renamed Nika fruit might have landed better later on, when say, Vegapunk was info dumping all sorts of fruit stuff. Ah well.
Viz uses "mythia" instead of "mecia". Its been that way since the start. They made a lot of odd choices early on that we're still stuck with now decades later. Poor Elbaf and Loguetown and Zoro.
Eh, I think the majority would have just brushed what Kaido said aside by saying “Eh, Kaido doesn’t seem that informed. Of course it’s just a rubber fruit, because it’s doing more due to being awakened, so it can’t possibly be Zoan.” The Elders prob give it more credibility since the government was hunting it for the longest time.
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Eh, I think the majority would have just brushed what Kaido said aside by saying “Eh, Kaido doesn’t seem that informed. Of course it’s just a rubber fruit, because it’s doing more due to being awakened, so it can’t possibly be Zoan.” The Elders prob give it more credibility since the government was hunting it for he longest time.
Maybe so, but it would have firmly planted the clue instead of being completely out of left field.
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My theory is that it was Oda throwing a bone for the readers who didn't think the reveal makes any sense (like me!). That or making fun of us, either way's fine.
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Considering he doubled down on the freakshow, it´s either a cry for help cause he´s only surrounded by yes-saying underlings or a big FU to everyone just cause he knows he can do whatever he wants with his work.
If it´s the latter, I guess that´s pure freedom of art and I respect that.
But art is subjective and I felt no excitement while reading this chapter.
At least compared to last week I wasn´t completely caught off guard and angry.
Looking forward to chapters without G5 Luffy.
Good luck and have fun.Nah, he's probably having the time of his life finally allowing Luffy to go full Looney Tunes.
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Has Bigmom even showed her awakened fruit ?
Every nation gets the government it deserves.–-- Joseph de Maistre
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My theory is that it was Oda throwing a bone for the readers who didn't think the reveal makes any sense (like me!). That or making fun of us, either way's fine.
Or that it is perfectly normal for serial stories to reveal things gradually.
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Or that it is perfectly normal for serial stories to reveal things gradually.
Look, guy. Don't step on my theory, man, it's a good one. I worked on it for hours.
But totally appreciate telling me how serial stories work, that's all new info! Gradually, huh?
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Has Bigmom even showed her awakened fruit ?
If Awakening is indeed achieved by a near-death experience, that would explain why Kaido and Linlin never made it, since they both are unkillable.
Newgate wouldnt be interested.
The new generation certainly is taking things to the next level.
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I love how giant Luffy just got wrecked like every other giant in one piece. Anyways, now we just need Marco on the roof for the Momotaro trio to be complete. Kaido should awaken and wreck them, and then Luffy will finally get serious and wreck Kaido.
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The only thing I'm not super into is this all white design. I guess the idea is that Luffy is shining as white as the Sun. Anyway, I still haven't seen a fanart that makes me love this colorization, so I'm waiting for the official colored/anime version.
It's funny how Gear 5th is a 'new level' while doing a bunch of callbacks of Luffy's early attacks and Gears. I love the Gear 2nd pose to restart the heartbeat, and Gigant Luffy is one of my favorite pages ever in One Piece. Btw, these callbacks only reinforce my perception that previous Gears were preludes to the Awakening of the DF, techniques that allowed Luffy to push the limits of his body and find the key to unlock Gear 5th.
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The only thing I'm not super into is this all white design. I guess the idea is that Luffy is shining as white as the Sun. Anyway, I still haven't seen a fanart that makes me love this colorization, so I'm waiting for the official colored/anime version.
I'm assuming in the anime he will be drawn like a literal manga character
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
If Awakening is indeed achieved by a near-death experience, that would explain why Kaido and Linlin never made it, since they both are unkillable.
Newgate wouldnt be interested.
The new generation certainly is taking things to the next level.
How do you know that? They didn't reach to where they are now without going throughout near death experiences.
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The only thing I'm not super into is this all white design. I guess the idea is that Luffy is shining as white as the Sun. Anyway, I still haven't seen a fanart that makes me love this colorization, so I'm waiting for the official colored/anime version.
It's funny how Gear 5th is a 'new level' while doing a bunch of callbacks of Luffy's early attacks and Gears. I love the Gear 2nd pose to restart the heartbeat, and Gigant Luffy is one of my favorite pages ever in One Piece. Btw, these callbacks only reinforce my perception that previous Gears were preludes to the Awakening of the DF, techniques that allowed Luffy to push the limits of his body and find the key to unlock Gear 5th.
I imagine Oda went with white, as say yellow would draw instant Super Saiyan comments.
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How do you know that? They didn't reach to where they are now without going throughout near death experiences.
That'll depend on the scale of how close you were do die.
Luffy was disecated by Croco-Boy and bathed in posion by Magellan, but those didnt kill him enough.
I suppose Kaido and Linlin never reached that point of death-enough-your-fruit-takes-over moment.
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I love how giant Luffy just got wrecked like every other giant in one piece. Anyways, now we just need Marco on the roof for the Momotaro trio to be complete. Kaido should awaken and wreck them, and then Luffy will finally get serious and wreck Kaido.
The pheasant might be Hiyori, who has had a bird theme on a lot of her Kimonos, and actually… has a real connection to the arc? Her, Momo, and Yamato (all three coming from Oden in some way) all being in the final confrontation makes a LOT more sense than say, Dogstorm and Marco. And since she just finished her stuff with Orochi...
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The pheasant might be Hiyori, who has had a bird theme on a lot of her Kimonos, and actually… has a real connection to the arc? Her, Momo, and Yamato (all three coming from Oden in some way) all being in the final confrontation makes a LOT more sense than say, Dogstorm and Marco. And since she just finished her stuff with Orochi...
I really wish Oda didn't do her dirty by having Denjiro not train her to be a onna busha and instead be just an Oiran.
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You're more likely to be killed by an Oiran tho.
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You're more likely to be killed by an Oiran tho.
A reference to Shogun Total War 2, perhaps?
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I'm assuming in the anime he will be drawn like a literal manga character.
I honestly doubt that.
I imagine Oda went with white, as say yellow would draw instant Super Saiyan comments.
I don't think Oda would care about that though.
And it's not like drawing it yellow would make it a copy of Super Saiyan since everything else feels different.
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Reading the english scan with the sound effects translated always make it much more enjoyable for me. I fully recognized Luffy was casually bouncing around the skull dome in the opening this time around. I then noticed that when Luffy was hammered into a soup can the ground turned to rubber(probably lessening the blow), which allowed Luffy to launch off like that. Very cool.
My favorite portion was Luffy like "Who says I'm at my limit?! Huff, huh?! Oooh…" There is this old gag in the Loony Tunes where someone like Yosemite Sam would be laughing or talking confidently, slowly they realize the danger of their situation and just end with a "ooooh" I wish I could find a clip. Had me laughing out loud. Granma Luffy also gave me a little chuckle.
Also on that page seeing Kaidou take a knee complete with the sound effect "slump" was very satisfying. The clouds dissipating told us Kaidou was feeling it but this sells that much better. Him shouting "Who are you?!" and that stuff about telling tales of their battle was also really nice. Between all that and Kaidou trying to figure out what the heck is going on, I'm starting to enjoy him much more as a character.
Oh and that last page of Nika Luffy and his arm curved with Kaidou on his back? Man that's some good One Piece!
It's interesting that Luffy quotes Bink's Sake. Maybe that song is actually important to the story, after all.
I've been waiting for that ever since I joined this forum. When Oda mentioned it would be important that was around the time I stopped lurking and joined proper. It was always intriguing and maybe this is the 1st or 2nd sprinkle leading to the song being some major component to the ancient history or Laugh Tale or both fully wrapped up with Joyboy.
Imagine if we HADN'T gotten that cutaway to the elder star info dumping this and we were just as in the dark as everyone else, and Kaidou was the first one to notice it was weird and like a zoan. If we'd been able to see and put together the pieces ourselves and have a mystery of the fruit being "weird" before someone later info dumped the true lore of it.
Learning its a renamed Nika fruit might have landed better later on, when say, Vegapunk was info dumping all sorts of fruit stuff. Ah well.
Yeah I think that would have been better. Well we here now.
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Bink's Sake reads quite literally as the history of One Piece from the point of view of the 'free people' of the world. There are some good analysis out there.
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I feel like now that the big reveal's done, Oda's just trying to see how far he can push this thing - and it's so fun! I don't think we've seen this much creativity in the way Luffy's body changes shape in literally years. What can you say except that there's nothing in the world quite like One Piece. Although, I'm curious to see how this whole sequence holds up on a reread. Without having to wait a week for each chapter, things are going to swing extremely fast from an optimistic move into the final stage of the fight, to the surprise KO and Luffy's apparent death, and back to the lightest and funniest things have been since the raid begun. What are future readers going to think of the tonal yo-yo at the end of volume 103?
The painted look on the Jump cover is pretty cool, but I was hoping to see Gear Five in full colour. We're told in the chapter that Luffy's hair and clothes have turned white - but does that include his shorts, sandals and the sash at his waist too, or only the shirt that's the only thing to have visibly changed in the black and white version? The colour spread is a tad understated, but still has a few cute details like half the crew chasing Luffy's hat while Robin grabs it effortlessly, Zoro seeming to sit cross-legged while actually hanging off the side of the truck, and an extra stylish new kimono for Jinbe.
Kaido noticing that some of Luffy's abilities aren't typical to the stated nature of his fruit and spelling it out very clearly is the kind of detail I would have liked to see more of before the reveal. One Piece is so generally goofy and so flexible with the definitions and limits of its powers that it was too easy to dismiss unexplained special moves as just part of Oda's style and move on.
It is amazing how quickly the weather's been changing over the course of this fight. When Luffy got beat, it was overcast. Last week, the sky was totally clear. On page three of this chapter, there's a few clouds circling, and by page six, it's completely overcast with flashes of lightning. We did see back in Act One of Wano that Kaido's dragon form tends to bring its own storm as it flies around, but Oda's definitely just doing whatever he thinks will be most dramatic. It wouldn't be a problem if the Minks' Sulong hadn't made the changing amounts of cloud clover a big plot point several times already. (Marineford went from clear skies to all clouds over the course of a chapter but no one would notice or care because no part of that arc draws your attention to the sky - except maybe debates about whether people whose shadows Moria took during the battle should have died right away in the sunlight)
Luffy going Giant and falling from the sky is an amazing spread and will definitely go down as a defining moment for this arc and the future of the series. Whatever your opinion on the latest chapters as a whole, that's not a panel anyone's going to forget anytime soon.
What I think is interesting about the whole Giant sequence is how Oda manages to mostly avoid showing the straw hat while Luffy's big. The best we get is a scribbly silhouette while he plays jump rope with Kaido (seen below) but it's too vague to say if it's grown to fit him or not. Why's that important? Well, a few years back there was that one really big hat that might just fit on the head of a guy Giant Luffy's size. But on the other, the rest of his clothes grew along with his body no problem, so we don't have that much reason to think the hat wouldn't too. Oda must know what he's doing making it so ambiguous.
I like that Oda gives us a moment of calm in the middle of all the fighting, and a bit of downtime from the silliness. Luffy runs low on energy, but so does Kaido, grunting and panting and leaning on his club for support. It's such a small thing, but it speaks volumes about how far Kaido's been worn down already. The difference in the two fighters' philosophies is great too. Death completes a man, but wouldn't you rather be an incomplete man than a complete skeleton? It reminds me of Usopp's speech on Bushido a little while back. An ideology of life and doing well with your time on the earth, not just your ending, trumps a desire to simply die every time.
I'm a tad worried for Luffy after this fight. Not only has his body been abused worse than we've ever seen, it's pretty likely that Gear Five has some severe consequences. Gear Two burned his lifespan more quickly. Gear Three shrunk his body after use. Gear Four burned out his haki. What fuels Gear Five, and is it connected to Momo noticing Luffy's voice fading when he slips out of gear during the reprieve?
I haven't written about the actual beat by beat action of this chapter much because what can you say? It's some of the most creative and visually unique fighting to ever grace a shonen manga. I've never seen this kind of playful rubber hose cartooniness mix with a series as story-drive as One Piece before. But it is a tad difficult to analyse by any existing metric. Luffy obviously feels pain from the huge blow that reshapes his head, but it's harder than ever say how much damage and of what kind it really is. Taking one of Kaido's swings head-on is never good, but I have no idea if it's still as capital B Bad as it when we first arrived on the roof.
This chapter marks the first possible end point for volume 103, which is going to be one hell of a meaty volume for big plot developments. That said, I do want to see what the next chapter looks like before I call this volume spoken for. The cartoon fight and Giant Luffy make for an incredible climax, but I think we could go for a bit more drama for a final panel.
While I still obviously have a couple of reservations about the big Gum Gum development, a week to stew on it and this chapter's incredible visuals have gone a long way for my appreciation of what it is and what Oda is trying to do with it. Luffy is still Luffy. This is just a Luffy with his strength, flexibility and control over his body amped up to the absolute maximum (hey, could he have achieved similar results with Cipher Pol's Life Return technique?), plus a wave of euphoria that definitely has something to do with Joyboy, but also that you can imagine anyone feeling if they suddenly got a second wind and burst of strength after being beaten as soundly as Luffy had just been. (Point of comparison: Luffy smiling, jumping around and clapping after Kuma took his pain, even though his last conscious memory should have been an overwhelming enemy bearing down and the whole crew's survival had not yet been confirmed.) Different interpretations and fan translations that exaggerated the influence of Luffy's imagination to make him feel like an actual reality warper really muddied the waters last week, but this chapter goes a long way to make clear what Luffy's current powers are and where his influence ends. The value of waiting and seeing.
I think next week we're going to start seeing the setup for the Momotaro scene everyone's been anticipating for. The fight is definitely not over yet, no more than the Doflamingo fight was when Luffy completely dominated him with Gear Four for two chapters. Kaido's probably going to start adapting to Luffy's new way of fighting and making his final push (or find some other way to raise the stakes back up, like revealing that Onigashima is in place over the capital and ready to drop), which should ease the minds of those complaining that he doesn't feel like a threat anymore. Whatever happens, I'm strongly looking forward to it, as always!
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Imagine if we HADN'T gotten that cutaway to the elder star info dumping this and we were just as in the dark as everyone else, and Kaidou was the first one to notice it was weird and like a zoan. If we'd been able to see and put together the pieces ourselves and have a mystery of the fruit being "weird" before someone later info dumped the true lore of it.
Learning its a renamed Nika fruit might have landed better later on, when say, Vegapunk was info dumping all sorts of fruit stuff. Ah well.
This sounds like it would have been a smart choice in hindsight. At the very least not having the "imagination" line to influence how we're looking at the awakened/extra-flexible shenanigans and let us reach more reasonable conclusions would be a net win. I'd be very interested to see how different the fan reaction is in alternate universe where this happened. Even just holding off until Wano's epilogue could have made a big difference.
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Thinking about how we are around the end of Act 3 and we still don't have any hints about Onis.
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Kaido noticing that some of Luffy's abilities aren't typical to the stated nature of his fruit and spelling it out very clearly is the kind of detail I would have liked to see more of before the reveal. One Piece is so generally goofy and so flexible with the definitions and limits of its powers that it was too easy to dismiss unexplained special moves as just part of Oda's style and move on.
Well, I don't think Kaido could have said anything like this before because Luffy's DF operates as a Paramecia 99.9% of the time, otherwise we should have seen comments about its Zoan traits since pre-TS. The only moment which the DF acts partially as a Zoan is when it awakens because Luffy transforms, but even then it is still behaving partially like a Paramecia by rubberizing the surroundings.
But it is a tad difficult to analyse by any existing metric. Luffy obviously feels pain from the huge blow that reshapes his head, but it's harder than ever say how much damage and of what kind it really is. Taking one of Kaido's swings head-on is never good, but I have no idea if it's still as capital B Bad as it when we first arrived on the roof.
I think that over time we stopped to feel Luffy's body as rubber like we used to back in East Blue and the Grand Line, when impact attacks were almost ineffective against him because his rubber body could absorb/disperse most of the damage. And we're now confronting this fact again now that Luffy's rubber body was strenghtened and is more elastic. Now the blows won't be 100% effective since Luffy's rubberness will shape itself according to the impact instead of Luffy's tissues and organs being destroyed.
However, Haki is still a thing, and Haki damage was always "abstract", since Haki itself doesn't nullify DFs, but rather bypasses it to hit… the spirit? I don't know. It's abstract... but it hurst and deals damage.
Besides that, despite the fact that Luffy's body can minimize the damage by adapting to the blows, we can still assume that a powerful physical blow like Kaido's is still painful. For example, Luffy is rubberizing Kaido's own body when Luffy punches him now, but Kaido is taking damage anyway.
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So One Piece become Bobobo or Mashle now?
Yeah sure, dont be surprised when Luffy dumpstered Blackbeard, Shanks, Akainu and Im in the future…
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What a fun fight.
I'm not sure how it will all work out for the rest of the series but while reading this chapter I didn't really care either.
Made me laugh out loud a few times and really felt like Oda enjoyed drawing this. -
This chapter and the feels is insane man, jump rope with kaido and the way luffy got to reshape his body in response to the uncoming blow is incredible or was it more along the line of his body reshaping after the impact. But all the excitement aside, was momo's haki always this good before we got to see him use it on onigashima…his feat of being able to feel the previous rooftop battle to the extent he did and its range considering which floor he was on is right up there with the very best...yamato could nt tell what was going on, on the roof, even sanji had to ask how luffy was doing when he got broken bones zoro from law. Now recently we saw Marco, law, hyogorou nt sure the spelling, sanji and again momo feeling luffy heart beat..the kid is great, plot wise what ever happens from here or even when the climax and impending doom arrives right before kaido is put down for real, the resolution of what he chooses to do will be such a fascinating turn to his characterization.
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This is the second time Kaido try to eat Luffy, I have never seen anyone on the forum think this is a weird thing to do. I wonder if he ate somebody already, it seems normal to him.
If Luffy can turn the ground into is gatling gun attack, while doing jet gatling with his own harm that would be a devastating finisher Kaido can't dodge. I hope next chapter he uses his awakening like Danflamingo and Katacuri.
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Well, I don't think Kaido could have said anything like this before because Luffy's DF operates as a Paramecia 99.9% of the time, otherwise we should have seen comments about its Zoan traits since pre-TS. The only moment which the DF acts partially as a Zoan is when it awakens because Luffy transforms, but even then it is still behaving partially like a Paramecia by rubberizing the surroundings.
I think that over time we stopped to feel Luffy's body as rubber like we used to back in East Blue and the Grand Line, when impact attacks were almost ineffective against him because his rubber body could absorb/disperse most of the damage. And we're now confronting this fact again now that Luffy's rubber body was strenghtened and is more elastic. Now the blows won't be 100% effective since Luffy's rubberness will shape itself according to the impact instead of Luffy's tissues and organs being destroyed.
However, Haki is still a thing, and Haki damage was always "abstract", since Haki itself doesn't nullify DFs, but rather bypasses it to hit… the spirit? I don't know. It's abstract... but it hurst and deals damage.
Besides that, despite the fact that Luffy's body can minimize the damage by adapting to the blows, we can still assume that a powerful physical blow like Kaido's is still painful. For example, Luffy is rubberizing Kaido's own body when Luffy punches him now, but Kaido is taking damage anyway.
Yeah, it's easy to say I wanted stronger foreshadowing, a little harder to say exactly how it could have fit in naturally. Maybe Doflamingo or Katakuri could have found a place to comment on his transformations. Katakuri in particular might have had the perspective to say it isn't natural to maintain such a drastic shape change with the substance your paramecia turns you into, or something like that.
You've echoed my thinking pretty well on the abstract damage of haki. Until pretty recently there wasn't a need to think too deeply about how that damage plays with Luffy's impact absorption - it was enough just to know that major opponents had a way to wear him down - but now that we see Luffy adapting to blows in this new way I can't help wondering how much of a difference it makes over the way his body took blunt hits before. If it was mostly haki doing the heavy lifting for damage, what changed?
Not that it would benefit the story at all to assign RPG-style damage numbers to different attacks to measure them, that level of specificity absolutely would not work, I'm just curious about it.
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If Luffy can turn the ground into is gatling gun attack, while doing jet gatling with his own harm that would be a devastating finisher Kaido can't dodge. I hope next chapter he uses his awakening like Danflamingo and Katacuri.
I hope not.
I like this limitation that Luffy can't mind control his surroundings like Katakuri and Doffy do. It's better that Luffy needs to stretch things by force.
And if Luffy could mind control the environment, this would be really weird considering he can also rubberize his enemies….
--- Update From New Post Merge ---
You've echoed my thinking pretty well on the abstract damage of haki. Until pretty recently there wasn't a need to think too deeply about how that damage plays with Luffy's impact absorption - it was enough just to know that major opponents had a way to wear him down - but now that we see Luffy adapting to blows in this new way I can't help wondering how much of a difference it makes over the way his body took blunt hits before. If it was mostly haki doing the heavy lifting for damage, what changed?
While I said before that Haki damage is "abstract", I also think there's a physical component to Haki which enhances the physical strength of attacks – and it's the physical aspect of attacks (strength + Haki) that really causes critical damage to the organs and tissues of the characters, which are much more serious than the abstract pain of Haki by itself.
So, before, when Kaido hit Luffy, Kaido was also cutting and destroying Luffy's body -- you could see Luffy spitting blood and stuff like that, serious medical damage, because Kaido's sheer power (strength + Haki) surpassed the natural resilience of rubber. Even pre-TS when Haki was not a factor, Luffy could still take a lot of damage from powerful physical blows despite his natural resistance, just remember Rob Lucci and how much damage he did to Luffy with punches and kicks.
What changes now after Awakening is that Luffy's body is even more resistant to physical damage than before, because of the superior elasticity and "greater physical strength" of Gear 5th (as the Gorousei mentioned), so Luffy's brain and heart won't be smashed by Kaido's kanabo as easily. Btw, you can see that Luffy didn't spit blood after any of the attacks in this chapter. Not that this means that Luffy is 100% immune – it's just more resiliance than before.
So Haki still hurts and wears Luffy down since it bypasses the body too, but the physical damage is decreased, which is the most important part.
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Yeah, it's easy to say I wanted stronger foreshadowing, a little harder to say exactly how it could have fit in naturally. Maybe Doflamingo or Katakuri could have found a place to comment on his transformations. Katakuri in particular might have had the perspective to say it isn't natural to maintain such a drastic shape change with the substance your paramecia turns you into, or something like that.
He DID have old fire guy comment "he looks just like a deity!" and then Yamato's transofrmation has the same smoke halo that Gear 4 has. So that visual clue was there at least, but the subterfugre was good. It was a small detail we didn't bother paying attention to because it just seeemed like symbolism or artistic flare rather than.. plot.
"Oh, I guess Oda just likes doing that design element now. That tracks."
Heck, Carrot (and all minks) was an all white transformation, Yamato is maybe an all white transformation (we don't know what its actually like in color) and the characters are saying THIS is an all white transformation…
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Heck, Carrot (and all minks) was an all white transformation, Yamato is maybe an all white transformation (we don't know what its actually like in color) and the characters are saying THIS is an all white transformation…
I lost quite some faith in the Vivre Cards, cause they kinda come with tons of mistakes, but Yamato's VC says she turns into a white Wolf.
I wanted it to be Golden, cause the crew is lacking a shiny Pokemon.
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Based on every other Zoan, I'd say Yamato's hair color stays intact.
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The chapter is indeed very fun. And Luffy has fun too. It is quite strange, he is usually more on the serious side during his fight. The goofiness is more something from Oda than Luffy.
When he stole Arlong teeth or when he did Water Luffy, Luffy was extremely serious. Well, maybe he had fun too but I don't recall he said it. When Kaidou drunk himself, Luffy was quite pissed about it whereas Kaidou was having fun. Well, i guess he has fun seriouslyAbout the art style, I have only 2 complaints:
- The eyeballs gag is a miss for me. The empty orbits on heavily wounded people is very disturbing.
- I also don't understand the last attack. It is drawn as if Luffy is piercing Kaidou's face but it does not.
The scene where Gear 5 runs out tells us a bit more how it works. It is no more based on a haki limit. There is no cooldown like Gear 4. Instead, it sounds like it is fuel by his friends spirits. Well Nika is supposed to be the god that restore hope so I guess it makes sense. In most mangas, gods powers/existence comes from their believers and a forgotten god dies.
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He DID have old fire guy comment "he looks just like a deity!" and then Yamato's transofrmation has the same smoke halo that Gear 4 has. So that visual clue was there at least, but the subterfugre was good. It was a small detail we didn't bother paying attention to because it just seeemed like symbolism or artistic flare rather than.. plot.
"Oh, I guess Oda just likes doing that design element now. That tracks."
Heck, Carrot (and all minks) was an all white transformation, Yamato is maybe an all white transformation (we don't know what its actually like in color) and the characters are saying THIS is an all white transformation…
I think ideally I would have wanted puzzle pieces for every part of the Nika equation in play before we saw the answer. Associations between Luffy and the sun? Sure, the symbolism's there once you know what you're looking for. Deification of Luffy? Not as much, but there's definitely a bit of it, as you said. Suggestion that there's more than paramecia stuff in Luffy's powers? No, I can't think of any theory that made it sound reasonable before it actually happened, even in hindsight. It might have been cool if one of the Gear Four forms had played with the white colour thing to get that transformation association going. (I will concede that Snakeman's super saiyan hair and addition of flames to its smoke halo makes it feel now like an incomplete version of the final Nika form, which is cool.) But that's just my personal taste for how I'd like a reveal this big to be handled.
While I said before that Haki damage is "abstract", I also think there's a physical component to Haki which enhances the physical strength of attacks – and it's the physical aspect of attacks (strength + Haki) that really causes critical damage to the organs and tissues of the characters, which are much more serious than the abstract pain of Haki by itself.
So, before, when Kaido hit Luffy, Kaido was also cutting and destroying Luffy's body -- you could see Luffy spitting blood and stuff like that, serious medical damage, because Kaido's sheer power (strength + Haki) surpassed the natural resilience of rubber. Even pre-TS when Haki was not a factor, Luffy could still take a lot of damage from powerful physical blows despite his natural resistance, just remember Rob Lucci and how much damage he did to Luffy with punches and kicks.
What changes now after Awakening is that Luffy's body is even more resistant to physical damage than before, because of the superior elasticity and "greater physical strength" of Gear 5th (as the Gorousei mentioned), so Luffy's brain and heart won't be smashed by Kaido's kanabo as easily. Btw, you can see that Luffy didn't spit blood after any of the attacks in this chapter. Not that this means that Luffy is 100% immune – it's just more resiliance than before.
So Haki still hurts and wears Luffy down since it bypasses the body too, but the physical damage is decreased, which is the most important part.
It's interesting that Luffy is even more resistant to physical damage than ever (definitely agreed on that point) and also, according to Kaido this week, using both CoA and CoC consistently while fighting. How many layers of resistance is every attack passing through now? And yet, he's still obviously in pain and taking some kind of damage when Kaido gets a hit in.
Luffy said a few chapters ago that Kaido's haki has been getting even stronger as the fight goes on. Kaido's defensive haki compounds with the toughness of dragon scales, Luffy's defensive haki compounds with the durability of rubber, so everyone has to push harder and harder on their offense to keep up.
Haki mechanics being as vague as they are, there might have been a totally invisible haki arms race happening this whole fight that we haven't been privy to.
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Imagine if we HADN'T gotten that cutaway to the elder star info dumping this and we were just as in the dark as everyone else, and Kaidou was the first one to notice it was weird and like a zoan. If we'd been able to see and put together the pieces ourselves and have a mystery of the fruit being "weird" before someone later info dumped the true lore of it.
Learning its a renamed Nika fruit might have landed better later on, when say, Vegapunk was info dumping all sorts of fruit stuff. Ah well.
I think spreading out the reveal a bit more would've worked wonders. Like instead of Kaidou mentioning it just a couple of chapters ago, what if, when Luffy's Snakeman form first appeared, we had Katakuri saying something like "He's evading my Future Sight by changing the direction of his punches in mid-air? Impossible! That's not how rubber works!". Just makes it feel more planned out and less last minute.
I may not be happy with how we got here, but I am loving what Gear 5 brings to the fight visually. Only problem is that it's hard to tell now if either side is actually being hurt, Luffy especially is giving me Blackbeard vibes where you get this really exaggerated reaction, but you kinda feel like he's faking it.
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I think spreading out the reveal a bit more would've worked wonders. Like instead of Kaidou mentioning it just a couple of chapters ago, what if, when Luffy's Snakeman form first appeared, we had Katakuri saying something like "He's evading my Future Sight by changing the direction of his punches in mid-air? Impossible! That's not how rubber works!". Just makes it feel more planned out and less last minute.
Katakuri DID say that… just not as explicitly. Doflamingo did too.
Oda put that clue there but he obscured it SO much it didn't register as an actual mystery or clue. Like I get he was trying to hide the surprise and that's his prerogative, but it would be nice if we could with hindsight go "oh, it was obvious! We just didn't know to look!" rather than "Well, I guess he sort of did it there... kind of."
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Katakuri DID say that… just not as explicitly. Doflamingo did too.
Oda put that clue there but he obscured it SO much it didn't register as an actual mystery or clue. Like I get he was trying to hide the surprise and that's his prerogative, but it would be nice if we could with hindsight go "oh, it was obvious! We just didn't know to look!" rather than "Well, I guess he sort of did it there... kind of."
This doesn't work for me because the reveal right now is that he IS rubber? So it all boils down to "We thought he wasn't rubber because of hints X or Y, but he IS rubber after all."
#Vergoshotfirst #Doflaisapunk
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About Luffy's fist going through Kaido's face:
I think people misunderstand what's happening here. Luffy doesn's punch through Kaido, but he punches so hard that Kaido's face stretches along with the fist (which can happen because of Awakening I presume)
The same happens with Kaido's eyes; Luffy doesnt go through his eyes, but he stretches them over his hand like a rubber glove (again, though being Awakened I guess). I think it's hard to see because of the black/white nature of manga.(I could be wrong of course, but this seems like the most logical explanation)
Edit: The some logic applies when Luffy uses his Gum Gum Balloon inside of Kaido. Kaido himself is even surprised by this and states: "Curses!! What's wrong with me?! My body isn't made of rubber!!"
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Remember when this was a key factor for defeating Kaido ?
a high level fight in one piece requires no physical touching just like Roger vs Whitebeard and Luffy vs Kaido in previous stages
now this chapter 1045 shits on all of that for sake of bland comedy that ruins the atmosphere of a crucial war
Luffy's awakening is the embodiment of ruination. Thanks to that I'm no longer excited for future fights against promising opponents
it's already been spoiled, win via joke.
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About Luffy's fist going through Kaido's face:
I think people misunderstand what's happening here. Luffy doesn's punch through Kaido, but he punches so hard that Kaido's face stretches along with the fist (which can happen because of Awakening I presume)
The same happens with Kaido's eyes; Luffy doesnt go through his eyes, but he stretches them over his hand like a rubber glove (again, though being Awakened I guess). I think it's hard to see because of the black/white nature of manga.(I could be wrong of course, but this seems like the most logical explanation)
Edit: The some logic applies when Luffy uses his Gum Gum Balloon inside of Kaido. Kaido himself is even surprised by this and states: "Curses!! What's wrong with me?! My body isn't made of rubber!!"
Yes but then the arm of Luffy should be drawn the same as Kaidou's skin not as Luffy's one
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Yes but then the arm of Luffy should be drawn the same as Kaidou's skin not as Luffy's one
I figure either the skin tone of Luffy’s arm is an error or Kaido became rubbery clay that Luffy punched through.
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Yes but then the arm of Luffy should be drawn the same as Kaidou's skin not as Luffy's one
Luffy's arm is drawn like it's covered by Kaido's skin. You can see the stretch marks behind Kaido's face, you can see the thick layer of mass on top of Luffy's fist, you can see that Luffy's hand is drawn without the knuckles, and you can see the trembling effect at the end of the punch showing the rubber resistance to snap back.
PS: Kaido's skin is drawn as white to in black and white.
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Hopefully the volume realease will add some scale design to it.
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Red circle: stretch marks at the back of the head.
Blue circle: lots of stretching stress.
Orange figure: no knuckles where it was supposed to be.
Yellow circle: trembling effects.
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I know what is supposed to have happened. But it wasnt conveyed well.
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It's interesting that Luffy is even more resistant to physical damage than ever (definitely agreed on that point) and also, according to Kaido this week, using both CoA and CoC consistently while fighting. How many layers of resistance is every attack passing through now? And yet, he's still obviously in pain and taking some kind of damage when Kaido gets a hit in.
Luffy said a few chapters ago that Kaido's haki has been getting even stronger as the fight goes on. Kaido's defensive haki compounds with the toughness of dragon scales, Luffy's defensive haki compounds with the durability of rubber, so everyone has to push harder and harder on their offense to keep up.
Haki mechanics being as vague as they are, there might have been a totally invisible haki arms race happening this whole fight that we haven't been privy to.
I think Kaido's Haki gets stronger only when he enters his enraged mode. Still, he's totally a monter. When I look at this fight as a whole, I see Luffy as the better "fighter" in terms of technique (he gets many more hits in), but Kaido always overwhelms Luffy with sheer strength. Kaido might be the hardest hitting character in One Piece even after the end of the series (maybe only matched by Akainu and Black Beard because of magma and earthquake). It's really impressive how much damage Kaido can still do to Luffy.
But Luffy is certainly a beast now too considering how much he can do. It just feels like endgame already, and makes you wonder how much Oda intends to escalate from here.
