Polar bears!? Smoke monsters? Pfff.. Zoro is ready for anything.
Latest posts made by Smash_Lampjaw
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RE: Zoro vs Enel
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RE: Zoro vs Enel
http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg830/scaled.php?server=830&filename=godschurch9z7.jpg&res=medium
This is clearly a hot dog church, I don't know what it has to do with Enel.
Marimo Monsters are well known for loving hot dogs though:
Err.. vote Zoro!
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RE: Zoro vs Enel
Even Leo welcomes our new Marimo overlords:
What hope do you have?
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RE: Zoro vs Enel
Marimo Monsters love Grilled God:
Delicious!
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RE: Zoro vs Enel
Mutant Marimo vote Zoro…
…and so should you!
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RE: General 'Haki' Discussion
You make a very good point. Indeed some of the crew members are important to the crew more because of things unrelated to their fighting abilities. However, the point I'm trying to bring up here is that even if Luffy Zoro and Sanji becomes monstrously strong and become capable of defeating even the strongest opponents, one of the main themes of the timeskip was that the crew should become strong enough so that they don't have to rely on Luffy all the time. They all became stronger to be able to actually support Luffy, instead of always having to be saved by him, thus becoming more reliable crewmates, and not having to rely on luck anymore.
Obviously this doesn't mean that they will all become strong fighters, but for instance, having just CoO can help tremendously in a defensive way. If Nami had CoO it wouldn't necessarily make her a super strong fighter, however it would increase her defensive capabilities by a lot. Also, it seems to me like CoO is the 'easiest' form of haki one can obtain (the skypiea girl, coby, queen of FI), and thus it doesn't seem far-fetched that even the weaker members of the SH would be able to develop this.
Basically what I'm trying to get at is that I don't think that it's just going to be Luffy, Zoro and Sanji having haki by the end of the series. As LKratos pointed out, having haki doesn't necessarily mean that you are a strong fighter, but it certainly does help a lot, even if only used defensively (CoO). I'm sure that the whole crew is either aware of haki now, or will be aware of it soon, at which point they'll most certainly will strive to develop atleast one form, if they're serious about becoming stronger for Luffys sake. I'm thinking probably more than half of the crew will know atleast one form of haki by the end of the series, but as you pointed out it's not necessary that each and every one of them knows how to use it.
Regarding the "haki-spiral" thing, I agree with you that it does defeat its own purpose if it's just haki vs haki cancelling each other out (however I do think it will be more complicated than that), but still, for continuousy, given that in the OPverse today most strong fighters use haki, they should still conform to that.
The particular question here is how are we defining these strong fighters that we're talking about? Clearly, people that fight Luffy/Zoro/Sanji are going to be this type of fighter which is why most people believe that these three will have haki. Personally though, I'm not convinced that from here on out crews are going to be composed all of "strong fighters." I think it's just as likely that enemy crews will conform to the Strawhat model of a a small group of titans with some capable companions who aren't quite as legendary but still strong enough to be taken seriously. In other words, I lean towards the idea that these strong haki-type fighters compose the leader class of (most) opposing crews rather than populate the entire membership. In my mind this doesn't diminish Nami/Usopp/Chopper by making them seem less reliable then they ought to be after the timeskip. Instead, it maintains the tone of the series by continuing to present the Strawhats as an upstart crew getting by on the daring of their Captain and the grit of the crew. For me this feeling might be lost (or at least diminished) if everyone acquires haki and Supernova-like reputations too soon.
If we're talking about the very end of the series, then I don't mind so much because that is where we will be cementing legacies: Luffy will be the Pirate King, Zoro the Strongest Swordsman, etc. What I don't want to see is the bulk of the crew relying on haki to clear the obstacles along their journey between that point and this one. It's not so much about the specific powers that haki will grant the crew as these may be subtle (i.e CoO used defensively), but more about how the mere presence of haki begins to transform the Strawhats into overdogs. In the eyes of the world and the marines, the Strawhats should be viewed as reckless overachievers, they should not be greeted by serious people with quakes of fear like when the Red Hair Pirates showed up at Marineford.
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RE: General 'Haki' Discussion
Then again, considering that the SH crew are supposed to become the crew of the pirate king, and they only consist of 10 members, it is all the more important that each individual member is VERY strong. You can't compare the SHs to for instance the WB crew; the WB crew had a lot of strong people (with divisions and whatnot), so to become as strong as them (and probably even stronger) the requirement would obviously be that each individual member is significantly stronger. In the OP world, we learn that more or less all of the strongest people (who aren't logias) seem to know how to utilize haki in some form. Also remember that there was a small GIRL in skypiea who had a ridiculously strong CoO.
These two things make me believe that most, if not all of the SHs will be able to use haki (atleast 1 form) by the end of the series. Most of them will have already begun learning atleast 1 form by now (or atleast be aware of what it is), so that it would make sense that they learn it well later in the series, or it would belittle Luffy (who supposedly is a haki prodigy, and it took him 1 ½ year being taught by Rayleigh).
I don't think it's necessarily that important that the entire crew become monsters of strength. Robin, Nami, and even Franky and Chopper, are probably more important to the crew for their non-fighting abilities. Sure, in each arc they'll have some token enemies to fight, but Luffy isn't going to become the Pirate King because his crew can out-fight Whitebeard's remnants or the Red-Hair Pirates thus necessitating that everyone be "significantly stronger." Instead, Luffy is probably going to become the Pirate King through a combination of being in the right place at the right time, having knowledge that other contenders lack (thank you Robin), and having more determination than anyone else. He'll certainly have to fight some key battles against very strong opponents along the way, but, in most cases, Oda has left the strength of contending crews scalable to match whatever levels the Straw Hat power level requires.
Most crews that we compare to the Strawhats have a clear Number 1 and Number 2 for Luffy and Zoro to fight and a probable Number 3 for Sanji. After that you get to skill match-ups (like a Sniper's duel between Usopp and Van Auger), and a host of nebulous characters that can be matched to whatever level the Strawhats require. If characters like Vasco Shot are so strong that they require haki to defeat, aren't they also strong enough to have their own haki to counter? If that's the case, do we need this haki spiral at all? Oda could decide that we do, and eventually give it to all the Strawhats as a symbol of their determination, but if he doesn't then the non-monsters will just continue to out-duel their opponents the same way they always have up until now–some combination of luck, technique, and raw determination.
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RE: Fourth Round Discussion Thread, ayo!
I plan to vote for Zoro and Robin, I feel like this thread is telling me that there is something wrong with me.