One Piece - Chapter 651 [manga]

[noktown]

Originally Posted by marvelB

That's only partially true. The main reason Luffy lost against Crocoboy those first two times was due to inexperience. Case in point: Notice how he was STILL outclassed by Croc during their second fight, despite knowing his weakness at that time. Luffy managed to beat him during their third match because Crocodile mainly focused on fighting him at close range instead of mummifying him again (plus, he was also relying on the poison to finish him off). Basically, Luffy lucked out during those battles.

I don't see what experience you are talking about ?Crocodile didn't even look like a person who had experience in combat without his devil fruit(at least to me),he was relying on his DF too much.Despite Luffy knowing of his weakness in their 2nd fight he still had that water absorbing technique(thanks to his DF of course) that saved him,other than that Luffy beat the crap out of him in the 2nd fight,it's pretty hard to fight when you have to worry about always keeping that barrel of water safe/stomach full of water especially in Luffy's case.

Luffy did luck out against him,but experience,i haven't seen any in Crocodile.

Originally Posted by marvelB

BZZZZZTTT, wrong. Moria was pretty much a similar case as Crocodile. Maybe he didn't outright destroy Luffy to the extent that Croc did, but he still gave him and his crew a rough time. Look at how effectively he was able to control zombie Oars once he got serious. Really, if Luffy hadn't gotten the nightmare power-up, he and the others would have all lost against Moria and had all their shadows stolen. Really, Moria's only mistake during the fight was using Shadows Asgard. If he was calm and fought the smart way like he did while controlling Oars, he could have easily won against Luffy (remember how he pulled all those tricks like switching places with his Doppelman right before Robin clutched him? Call him lazy and goofy all you want, but he's definitely no fool in a fight).....

Why did i say a "joke" in the first place ?
You say that Luffy lucked out in this....got broken power-up in there...What about Moria who had basically a whole Island/Ship set-up for fighting an enemy ?And he just happened to have a Giant to attach Luffy's shadow to...
And how stupidly laughable it was how all straw-hats got captured and lost their shadows ?And how Luffy was chasing Moria and tried fighting him not even using Gear 2nd until the Moria+Giant combination ?

It was thanks to Luffy's shadow that this Arc was even slightly challenging.

He depends on a lot of set-ups to win,leave him on the field empty-handed against someone as Luffy even before the time-skip,I'd want to see the result,although I DO know that this is not his style of fighting,but take Thriller Bark away and look at how easily Donflamingo dealt with him.

Originally Posted by marvelB

Strength is not the issue here, but experience. We've pointed out multiple times that Blackbeard was a veteran of Whitebeard's crew (he's been under his wing for at least 20 years), yet some people seem to want to ignore that particular fact. It doesn't matter that Teach was weaker than Newgate if he had the necessary wisdom and experience to take him down (just because he's cowardly doesn't mean he's stupid, after all). Hell, the reason Ace was killed by Akainu was due to lack of experience. Believe it or not, power isn't always the deciding factor in a fight, even in One Piece.


Now I'm not the one looking down on Luffy and co. The fact that they're a supernova crew already means that they're no bottom-of-the-barrel rookies. Rather, it seems guys like you and grey_1960 are overestimating the Straw-Hats. Yes, they've become a lot stronger over the skip, but that doesn't automatically mean they're already capable of conquering the New World. That's why I've been saying all along that they should gain a little experience at a few NW islands first before taking on any of the big fish.....

I think you're giving experience too much credit.And what kind of experience are you even talking about ?Just curious.
And what advantages in your mind does an experienced user have ?

Originally Posted by Randrak42

I never even implied they were doomed to be rookies forever...Ace wasn't a rookie and I don't consider Luffy and his crew to be Rookies any longer. Guys like Caribou are rookies, Luffy isn't but he's still not a veteran either.

In my honest opinion Luffy is now in the mid tier (possibly high mid) of the world in terms of combat ability. It's not so simply as to put it in just High, Mid and Low tiers but still Luffy isn't at Yonkou/Admiral level yet I believe...

My post wasn't necessary aimed at your post,but i don't see why some people are against them winning vs an emperor.
I don't see any other outcome in this other than winning,since Luffy has to act quickly to make Fishman Island his turf or the Island will be in danger.

[marvelB]

Originally Posted by noktown

I don't see what experience you are talking about ?Crocodile didn't even look like a person who had experience in combat without his devil fruit(at least to me),he was relying on his DF too much.

Originally Posted by noktown

Why did i say a "joke" in the first place ?
You say that Luffy lucked out in this....got broken power-up in there...What about Moria who had basically a whole Island/Ship set-up for fighting an enemy ?And he just happened to have a Giant to attach Luffy's shadow to...


It was thanks to Luffy's shadow that this Arc was even slightly challenging.

Now see, I think I discovered what the problem here is: It's this "pearls before swine" mindset that a lot of people tend to have about devil fruit users. It's like they look down on certain people with DF powers because those users apparently seem to rely more on those supernatural powers than their own inherent skills. They don't seem to want to think of DFs as something like a weapon that can be honed with years of practice, like there's no skill or discipline involved in using them. That's a very wrong train of thought. Simply put, if Croc and Moria hadn't made use of their abilities as effectively as they did, they wouldn't survive very long in the Grand Line, would they? That's the kind of experience I'm talking about. You look down on them, but fact is, the both of them are veteran pirates for a good reason. I mean, do you feel the same about Whitebeard? Because when we saw him fight in the war he was chiefly relying on his quake powers. Do you believe that even the (former) world's mightiest pirate is undeserving of a magical fruit's powers to boost his own abilities? If not, there should be no reason to look down on the two former warlords (and any other future enemies with powerful DF abilities).....

[C.A.]

A Devil Fruit is simply a weapon and fighting style, this is further emphasized by Oda using Haki to level the playing field.

A Devil Fruit ability to a user is like a sword to a swordsman, a gun to a gunner, a fist to a brawler.

And all of these weapons need experience to master and can kill everyone else with, especially with Haki.

Whitebeard seems to have a powerful ability, a great bisento along with his strength, but all he is doing is wielding two weapons with his immense strength gained from experience. His fighting style is earthquake plus bisento, just two weapons, even Zoro has three weapons.

[paradox13]

Simply put, if Croc and Moria hadn't made use of their abilities as effectively as they did, they wouldn't survive very long in the Grand Line, would they? That's the kind of experience I'm talking about

And yet they were beat by an 'inexperienced' pirate like Luffy.

Experience is overrated.

And Luffy isn't 'inexperienced' either.. he has more experience in a year than Moria in 10 years.. considering how Moria just stayed in the Florian Triangle not really doing very much. Its not just the quantity of time you've spent pirating but also the quality.

[noktown]

Originally Posted by marvelB

Now see, I think I discovered what the problem here is: It's this "pearls before swine" mindset that a lot of people tend to have about devil fruit users. It's like they look down on certain people with DF powers because those users apparently seem to rely more on those supernatural powers than their own inherent skills. They don't seem to want to think of DFs as something like a weapon that can be honed with years of practice, like there's no skill or discipline involved in using them. That's a very wrong train of thought. Simply put, if Croc and Moria hadn't made use of their abilities as effectively as they did, they wouldn't survive very long in the Grand Line, would they? That's the kind of experience I'm talking about. You look down on them, but fact is, the both of them are veteran pirates for a good reason. I mean, do you feel the same about Whitebeard? Because when we saw him fight in the war he was chiefly relying on his quake powers. Do you believe that even the (former) world's mightiest pirate is undeserving of a magical fruit's powers to boost his own abilities? If not, there should be no reason to look down on the two former warlords (and any other future enemies with powerful DF abilities).....

But what part of that experience is Luffy missing ?Did he not develop his devil fruit from being totally useless to being so destructive ?

The only reason i look down on Croc is because the guy is totally useless if you take his fruit away,while i get your point about mastering his fruit,this brings us back to the "Luffy couldn't deal with Logia users back there" argument.And i don't really think that Croc had such a hard time surviving in the Grand Line.

Croc was "so experienced" that he couldn't even deal with some rookie carrying a barrel of water,let alone a Haki user,which proves that he had an easy time in the Grand Line.

And i still don't understand what you're trying to tell me about Moria,as i said and as it was proven in Marineford,he is not strong,he is smart but that's it,while you might have discovered "my problem" in your mind,you don't see your problem overrating something that shouldn't be.


And the only fact that should matter,that in the end Luffy was the winner,so experience is not everything.

[upiro]

Lots of discussions about Luffy’s strength. But, is no one interested in speculating about the 3-eyed girl that we meet this chapter?

For someone who received significant amount of screen time, she received no introduction, spoke no dialogue, and was left a mystery. Yet, we have little hints thrown at us. For example, she’s sitting on a throne similar to Big Mum’s. She didn’t seem intimidated (and may have even showed passive disapproval though it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking) when Big Mum was chewing on those people (or anthropomorphic cakes as someone speculated). She’s situated close to where Big Mum is but none of those crew members acknowledged her presence when they reported to Big Mum.

So, who is she? My guess is that she’s First Mate of the crew. In other words, her position is similar to that of Marco and Whitebeard, Ben Beckman and Shanks, Rayleigh and Roger. That means that she’s extremely powerful and if Marco, Rayleigh and Beckman are any guides, she’s as powerful, if not more, than the Admirals. However, it’s possible that her relationship with Big Mum is more distant or formal than the other Captain-First Mate relationships that we’ve seen so far. If so, it’ll be interesting to see what ties them together and what sort of history they share.

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by noktown

My post wasn't necessary aimed at your post,but i don't see why some people are against them winning vs an emperor.
I don't see any other outcome in this other than winning,since Luffy has to act quickly to make Fishman Island his turf or the Island will be in danger.

It's been explained numerous times not just by me but by other people as well why Luffy shouldn't beat an emperor right now.

In any case, Big Mom might not even be a boss battle for the strawhats. While the current situation leads many people to believe this, it doesn't necessarily have to happen. Maybe something will come up that prevents Luffy and Big Mom from having a serious fight. And their encounter doesn't have to happen any time soon either. Luffy may meet her a few arcs from now giving him time to grow stronger and get more experience.

[Shingai-san]

Actually the more I've think about it Marvel, the more I think you might be onto something. I predict there will be an entire island of the talking animals. Luffy and co. will go there. Chopper will love it, and the people of the island will ask him to stay. Blah blah blah. Chopper will say yes, but when Luffy is leaving he will run to him. Chopper will finally get his crew number.

[noktown]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

It's been explained numerous times not just by me but by other people as well why Luffy shouldn't beat an emperor right now.

In any case, Big Mom might not even be a boss battle for the strawhats. While the current situation leads many people to believe this, it doesn't necessarily have to happen. Maybe something will come up that prevents Luffy and Big Mom from having a serious fight. And their encounter doesn't have to happen any time soon either. Luffy may meet her a few arcs from now giving him time to grow stronger and get more experience.

"Because they're not a top-tier material" is not really a good reasoning.

I'm not one of them fanboys who wants to see the Straw-hats conquer the new world easily,but I don't think that at this point they can be measured by anything,in the Grand-line you could easily say that Straw-hats need a miracle to beat a Logia,after the skip you can't.

So saying something like "I don't think they're as strong as XXX/YYY person yet" is not a good reasoning,since you only measure by experience,experience does not equal win.

And as i said before,IT IS obvious that Big Mom is not going to be the first stop for Straw-hats,but i don't expect more than 3 arcs for her.

[marvelB]

Originally Posted by paradox13

And yet they were beat by an 'inexperienced' pirate like Luffy.

Experience is overrated.

And Luffy isn't 'inexperienced' either.. he has more experience in a year than Moria in 10 years.. considering how Moria just stayed in the Florian Triangle not really doing very much. Its not just the quantity of time you've spent pirating but also the quality.

Actually, Luffy's not entirely exempt from the point of my rant because we already know he had years of harsh training from Garp (a marine veteran). Now I do agree with you about the quality of experience being an important factor as well, but it's also true that Luffy won against two superior opponents through more of a combination of determination and luck rather than experience (not that I'm belittling our rubber friend in any way, either.... just sayin'! ).

Originally Posted by noktown

But what part of that experience is Luffy missing ?Did he not develop his devil fruit from being totally useless to being so destructive ?

Originally Posted by noktown

The only reason i look down on Croc is because the guy is totally useless if you take his fruit away,

Uh.... is it just me, or do these two parts seem to contradict each other?


But as you yourself said, Luffy went through lots of training to develop a seemingly "useless" power into a surprisingly destructive force, did he not? So why can't the same be said of Crocodile and Moria's powers? I mean damn, Croc had even lectured Luffy about how many DF users don't make the most of their powers in battle! So really, there isn't any need to complain about how "useless" X character would be without their power because it is their main weapon.

Originally Posted by noktown

while i get your point about mastering his fruit,this brings us back to the "Luffy couldn't deal with Logia users back there" argument.And i don't really think that Croc had such a hard time surviving in the Grand Line.

Of course that ALSO goes full circle back to my "winning by luck" argument as well, but I already brought that up in my response to paradox13, so no need for a repeat of that.


As for Crocodile, it was definitely implied that he went through his share of hardships in the past. Remember his former ambition to become pirate king? His implied secret past with Whitebeard and Ivankov? And it's not like his loss against Luffy belittled him at all. Notice that he was very much able to keep up with the warring marines and pirates at Marineford.....

Originally Posted by noktown

And i still don't understand what you're trying to tell me about Moria,as i said and as it was proven in Marineford,he is not strong,he is smart but that's it,while you might have discovered "my problem" in your mind,you don't see your problem overrating something that shouldn't be.

Moria may not have been that powerful, but he wasn't weak, either. Also, you seem to disregard that his cleverness was his greatest strength. I've already acknowledged multiple times that his laziness was a burden, but I'm pretty sure there's a damn good reason why he was considered to be a rival of one of the four emperors (part of the reason probably being that he wasn't so lazy at the peak of his career, but I think my point still stands).....

[Shingai-san]

I'm really hoping that Moria comes back bulked up and with a new sense of conviction/pride. It would be a pretty nice touch having him run rampant against the WG.

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by noktown

"Because they're not a top-tier material" is not really a good reasoning.

I'm not one of them fanboys who wants to see the Straw-hats conquer the new world easily,but I don't think that at this point they can be measured by anything,in the Grand-line you could easily say that Straw-hats need a miracle to beat a Logia,after the skip you can't.

So saying something like "I don't think they're as strong as XXX/YYY person yet" is not a good reasoning,since you only measure by experience,experience does not equal win.

Being able to contend with the elites is valid reasoning. And that's only one of the reasons I and others have mentioned.

Logia intangibility is irrelevant here. And obviously experience itself doesn't equal win. I never claimed that to be true.

It could work out like this:

1) Big Mom isn't as strong as anticipated, thus showing that the disparities between emperors are greater than originally thought.

2) After 2 years under the tutelage of Rayleigh, Luffy really has become so strong that he can be considered Yonkou level.

3) Something interrupts their fight leaving us to speculate who would have emerged victorious.

4) The Strawhats face their first utter defeat at the hands of an emperor.

It's all up to how Oda wants to write the story. There are different routes he can go concerning Big Mom and Luffy.

What people need to understand is that the 2 year training the strawhats underwent doesn't make them full-proof from losing anymore. Yes, the whole purpose of their separation was so that they could grow much stronger so that the Sabaody incident doesn't happen again. But that doesn't mean they won't come across adversaries who are superior to them. It happened in the past, and it'll happen again because Oda has to make the New World live up to its reputation. I brought up before in a previous chapter thread how Luffy invented the gears after his loss against Aokiji. His reasoning for doing so was so that he could protect his friends from that point on and so that he wouldn't be overwhelmed anymore by future adversaries. Well, we all know how that turned out. While the time-skip training is on a whole other level in terms of improvement, you get the idea (the concept is still the same).

IMO, Oda isn't going to make the same big mistake that Naruto's author Kishimoto made. Doing a time-skip and having the main cast already able to take on the biggest fish is implausible/unreasonable (bad writing, if you will). Oda has much better sense than that, as he's proven on numerous occasions in this manga. Who knows, I may be wrong about all this, and if I am I'll gladly concede that I was wrong. But until then, given Oda's writing tendencies and logicality in his work, I have valid reasoning that substantiates my claims.

[Mateus]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

It's been explained numerous times not just by me but by other people as well why Luffy shouldn't beat an emperor right now.

In any case, Big Mom might not even be a boss battle for the strawhats. While the current situation leads many people to believe this, it doesn't necessarily have to happen. Maybe something will come up that prevents Luffy and Big Mom from having a serious fight. And their encounter doesn't have to happen any time soon either. Luffy may meet her a few arcs from now giving him time to grow stronger and get more experience.

Or like you said something could happen and maybe force them to work together and she becomes impressed with Luffy's strength and makes a deal with him (since she's not just going give Fishman island away for nothing).

[Randrak42]

See Oda! This is what happens when we don't get our weekly dose of OP, we start major discussions that...lead us nowhere and create tons of theories

[Undertaker]

It's new year, there should be one more double issue next month for the Lunar New Year. It the worse 2 month period for JUMP reader.

[Mateus]

Originally Posted by Undertaker

It's new year, there should be one more double issue next month for the Lunar New Year. It the worse 2 month period for JUMP reader.

Damn! I thought we were good to go until Golden Week

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

See Oda! This is what happens when we don't get our weekly dose of OP, we start major discussions that...lead us nowhere and create tons of theories

Oda has nothing to do with the fact the magazine his manga serializes on is on a week break.

One Piece ain't printed on air you know.

[BaKaBaKaOtaKu]

man, there's no OP this week yes?? what a sad week it's gonna be indeed DX

[Shingai-san]

There should be a chapter this week. Sometime around the 11th.

[noktown]

Originally Posted by marvelB

Uh.... is it just me, or do these two parts seem to contradict each other?


But as you yourself said, Luffy went through lots of training to develop a seemingly "useless" power into a surprisingly destructive force, did he not? So why can't the same be said of Crocodile and Moria's powers? I mean damn, Croc had even lectured Luffy about how many DF users don't make the most of their powers in battle! So really, there isn't any need to complain about how "useless" X character would be without their power because it is their main weapon.

It's funny how you don't get my point,or do you ?

It's simple,His Logia ability to take on every attack is broken for Grand Line,like i pointed it out before he's such a "Veteran" that he wasn't ready for an opponent who CAN touch him(this proves how much of a "hard" time he had in the Grand Line,like you said).
Very Experienced indeed.

About Moria,not sure i ever mentioned anything about his powers,i said that he needs a year of setting up(I'm exaggerating) to take on someone like Luffy.
Although i did mention how the arc was challenging only because of Luffy,but i could ignore that if the process of stealing the shadows wouldn't be so laughable.
It's not like he used his own powers to capture straw-hats and steal their shadows.

Originally Posted by marvelB

As for Crocodile, it was definitely implied that he went through his share of hardships in the past. Remember his former ambition to become pirate king? His implied secret past with Whitebeard and Ivankov?

I would leave his past alone until we actually know what happened.Those hardships could be the reason he crawled back to the Grand Line,unless he never left it.

Originally Posted by marvelB

Notice that he was very much able to keep up with the warring marines and pirates at Marineford.....

So did Luffy,your point ?

Originally Posted by marvelB

Moria may not have been that powerful, but he wasn't weak, either. Also, you seem to disregard that his cleverness was his greatest strength. I've already acknowledged multiple times that his laziness was a burden, but I'm pretty sure there's a damn good reason why he was considered to be a rival of one of the four emperors (part of the reason probably being that he wasn't so lazy at the peak of his career, but I think my point still stands).....

I actually mentioned it before in our argument that i do not ignore his cleverness,but I'm not sure if you can call Kaido demolishing him and his crew as "rivalry".

That's like saying that Mihawk was Don Crieg's rival.

=========================

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

Logia intangibility is irrelevant here.

Really ?I thought we didn't want anymore Luffy vs Crocodile fights ?

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

What people need to understand is that the 2 year training the strawhats underwent doesn't make them full-proof from losing anymore. Yes, the whole purpose of their separation was so that they could grow much stronger so that the Sabaody incident doesn't happen again. But that doesn't mean they won't come across adversaries who are superior to them. It happened in the past, and it'll happen again because Oda has to make the New World live up to its reputation. I brought up before in a previous chapter thread how Luffy invented the gears after his loss against Aokiji. His reasoning for doing so was so that he could protect his friends from that point on and so that he wouldn't be overwhelmed anymore by future adversaries. Well, we all know how that turned out. While the time-skip training is on a whole other level in terms of improvement, you get the idea (the concept is still the same).

I agree with everything you said,but you think that "I/We" don't understand that.
You seem to think that Emperor is an "untouchable" level in One Piece.

I'll say it again,defeating one emperor does not mean they have new world in their pocket,not even the other supernovas.

They MUST increase the level of the opponents they're fighting,they can't fight nobodies(/opponents for which they will still be treated as rookies) forever.





***WoW,I'm getting carried away with these arguments,definitely not my style