One Piece - Chapter 553 (manga)

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

Magellan needs to show up at Marineford and use his "Hell's Judgement" technique to fatally poison Whitebeard. Anything to hasten the old man's time of death is good by me .

I just wish he had poisoned Ace before he left ID, and for what it's worth he can posion all the WB pirates.

[cheese4u]

Sorry if this has already been said, but did anyone else notice that the pirate at the bottom of page 8-9 looks exactly scratchman apoo?

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by cheese4u

Sorry if this has already been said, but did anyone else notice that the pirate at the bottom of page 8-9 looks exactly scratchman apoo?

You're not the only one . Whoever that is, he's probably from the same tribe as Scratchman Apoo.

Oh yeah, do you remember that discussion we had quite some time ago regarding the strength of Whitebeard's division commanders? You were of the opinion that as the division numbers descend, the weaker the commanders are. I'm getting the impression already that commanders 4 - 12 are definitely weaker than Jozu, Ace and Marco. The thing is, as I'm sure you know as well, Ace only received the position of 2nd Division commander since it was vacant at the time. Now, compare him to 3rd division commander Jozu. Do you believe that Ace is the stronger of the two since he is the 2nd division commander, especially when knowing that Jozu is a diamond man who intercepted Mihawk's slash towards Whitebeard with no injuries whatsoever? In all honesty, this would be difficult to answer since we haven't seen Jozu go all out. But it just goes to show that vertical power scales (i.e. 1st division commander > 2nd division commander > 3rd division commander) don't always apply in One Piece.

[cheese4u]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

You're not the only one . Whoever that is, he's probably from the same tribe as Scratchman Apoo.

Oh yeah, do you remember that discussion we had quite some time ago regarding the strength of Whitebeard's division commanders? You were of the opinion that as the division numbers descend, the weaker the commanders are. I'm getting the impression already that commanders 4 - 12 are definitely weaker than Jozu, Ace and Marco. The thing is, as I'm sure you know as well, Ace only received the position of 2nd Division commander since it was vacant at the time. Now, compare him to 3rd division commander Jozu. Do you believe that Ace is the stronger of the two since he is the 2nd division commander, especially when knowing that Jozu is a diamond man who intercepted Mihawk's slash towards Whitebeard with no injuries whatsoever? In all honesty, this would be difficult to answer since we haven't seen Jozu go all out. But it just goes to show that vertical power scales (i.e. 1st division commander > 2nd division commander > 3rd division commander) don't always apply in One Piece.

Crap, I was hoping you forgot about that. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Although I will say, even though it seems the numbers really don't have anything to do with strength, my reason for opposing the notion was because it seemed that people were demeaning ace's strength and significance based on very little evidence. No offense to you, but it seems that's still the case with those who believe that Jozu is stronger simply because he stopped one attack from Mihawk. It feels like ever since he lost to Blackbeard people have been getting the idea that he's somehow not in the upper class of pirates.

Just to put things into perspective:

1. Back when Shanks had two arms, him and Mihawk were rivals (More or less equals)

2. During this time Blackbeard was able to harm Shanks even without his darkness fruit

3. Ace fought Blackbeard (with his darkness fruit) and put up a good fight before eventually losing.

4. By comparison Jozu (at least so far) has only been able to stop one of Mihawks attacks.

5. Where as Ace (as stated in number 3) was able to fight on par with a man who hurt a full strength Shanks, and what's more BB was much stronger than the time he fought/encountered Shanks due to the fact that he now has a logia ability, which by his estimation is the strongest of all the fruits.

So only time will tell where Ace falls in strength amongst the WB crew, but Ace to me has made a much better case than Jozu up until this point as far as who's stronger.

[lonewolf777]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

He would only be doing Whitebeard a favor. The quicker he dies, the less punishment he has to take from the marines and shichibukai. Better to put him out of his misery sooner, don't you think ?

Haha, maybe, if that's his inevitable fate, though I'm not completely convinced just yet. I mean, they all seem scared enough of him, and I'm sure that's gotta merit some kind of realistic threat to them, after all.

[SMASHERJACKSON]

rly hope we get 554 spoilers soon, withdrawal symptomns beginning to emerge....

[Lightmgl]

WB's former Division 2 commander was killed by Blackbeard with no darkness fruit right? Even a complete sneak attack should not make the guy a pushover.

Since Ace fought BB with the darkness fruit and actually inflicted some damage to him I would say it is safe to say that the current Ace is pretty damned strong whether he is stronger than the other division commanders or not. It seems fairly likely that he is stronger than the former division 2 commander and he must be pretty freaking powerful if WB really sought to make him the next king.

Also Ace and Jinbei fought for how many days? Jozu shrugging off a single attack from Mihawk is meaningless compared to that.

Theres so much to speculate about anyways. What interested me was seeing a Shichibukai and an Admiral both take a shot at Whitebeard in that order and both were stopped by top commanders. It is hard to determine but right now they are placing Mihawk and Kizaru against top WB commanders so the power discrepency cannot be that big between an Admiral and a Shichibukai (Otherwise you'd think Marco would have just stepped in and just utterly destroyed Mihawk instead of letting the weaker commander do it). If the VAs end up going after the lower commanders then it'll be pretty safe to assume that the Shichibukai are above the VAs and approaching or equal to the admirals which would put Luffy and Ace up pretty close to Admiral level soon....

I find that all hard to believe though, I was expecting Luffy to give his grandfather a beating at some point and if hes really that powerful there wouldn't be much point putting him against a VA now.

[idont]

when does this adventure end (not the arc but this adventure). like with the adventure with crocodile it started at ep 60 something and went all the way to episode 130 before they started on a new adventure. how many more episodes before they're all back together, dealt with the bad guys and start on their next adventure.

[lonewolf777]

Your guess is as good as anyone else's. ^

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by cheese4u

Although I will say, even though it seems the numbers really don't have anything to do with strength, my reason for opposing the notion was because it seemed that people were demeaning ace's strength and significance based on very little evidence. No offense to you, but it seems that's still the case with those who believe that Jozu is stronger simply because he stopped one attack from Mihawk. It feels like ever since he lost to Blackbeard people have been getting the idea that he's somehow not in the upper class of pirates.

You make an excellent point here. Many people do the same thing with characters like Crocodile and Moria. They believe that since they lost they are no longer up to par with the rest of their peers (other warlords) who have yet to lose. It's the mentality of subsequent villains always being stronger than the ones that preceded them, which is simply not true all the time in this manga.

As for the strength comparison between Jozu and Ace, we'll have to see what Jozu is fully capable of before we can make any assessments. My argument before was that just because 2 > 3, it doesn't mean that 3 should automatically be dismissed as being weaker. Oda does deviate from the hierarchical structure of power commonly found in many other shonens, which I think is a good thing. As we saw in Chapter 553, Jozu stopping one of Mihawk's slashes completely unharmed is no joke.

[AddiKtioNn-BlaCk]

Originally Posted by Lightmgl

Theres so much to speculate about anyways. What interested me was seeing a Shichibukai and an Admiral both take a shot at Whitebeard in that order and both were stopped by top commanders. It is hard to determine but right now they are placing Mihawk and Kizaru against top WB commanders so the power discrepency cannot be that big between an Admiral and a Shichibukai (Otherwise you'd think Marco would have just stepped in and just utterly destroyed Mihawk instead of letting the weaker commander do it). If the VAs end up going after the lower commanders then it'll be pretty safe to assume that the Shichibukai are above the VAs and approaching or equal to the admirals which would put Luffy and Ace up pretty close to Admiral level soon....

When you dealing with One Piece Rankings are not reliable when determining strength. Just because Marco stopped an Admiral and Jozu stopped Mihawk, doesn't necessarily mean that are on they're level. Its just happen that they are able to fight on par with them because of their Devil Fruit ability. The same thing applies when dealing with Vice-Admirals, you can't say Luffy and Ace are anywhere near Garp's level, regardless of Garp being a Vice-Admiral. Garp fought the Pirate King to death numerous times, the World Government (or at least Sengoku) values his strength so much that they are willing to ignore the fact that his son (The Revolutionary Dragon) is the World's Most Dangerous Man and his grandson is notorious pirate that committed multiple offenses towards the World Government. So regardless of him being a Vice-Admiral, he is the league of Whitebeard, Roger, and (possibly) Sengoku.

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

You make an excellent point here. Many people do the same thing with characters like Crocodile and Moria. They believe that since they lost they are no longer up to par with the rest of their peers (other warlords) who have yet to lose. It's the mentality of subsequent villains always being stronger than the ones that preceded them, which is simply not true all the time in this manga.

Don't care what nobody says, Crocodile is still bad ass to me, I don't really care to much for Moria. You seem to like dark-themed characters. People who think that just don't realize that this manga there is no definite strongest.

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by AddiKtioNn-BlaCk

You seem to like dark-themed characters

I just happen to like villains a lot . They always spice things up and make things interesting. Basically, anyone who causes big problems will get my interest and liking towards them. That being said, you can see why I'm such a huge Blackbeard fan .

This is a completely irrelevant question, but may I ask why you write in different fonts sometimes?

[AddiKtioNn-BlaCk]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

I just happen to like villains a lot . They always spice things up and make things interesting. Basically, anyone who causes big problems will get my interest and liking towards them. That being said, you can see why I'm such a huge Blackbeard fan .

True! The only Dark-Themed character I like is Mihawk, which is because he reminds me of a Vampire. Moria reminds me of the Joker from Batman, am I the only one that thinks that?

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

This is a completely irrelevant question, but may I ask why you write in different fonts sometimes?

Absolutely no reason at all, lol.
I saw another User post in different font and thought it was a little cool, so I just started doing it just to do it. At times I dont be feeling like it though.

[.Lynx.]

Well, getting back to the past discussion...

I do think that the very Shanx persona is already inconsistent. He can be a weak or strong or anything just because Oda wants him the play a major part as one of the main story characters - and, as we can see, one of Oda's favorite pirate.

Shanx lost his arm to a Seaking. That does not sound really strong to me. If I recall it, the same Seaking was killer punched by Luffy even before he went off to his journey, right? Later on, we discover that Shanx is a Yonkou and can even mess with Newgate - which is, with no doubt, the strongest person in the world, the man closest to One Piece. How could such a man lost an arm to a Seaking if not by narrative inconsistency? He also used Hakki righ after the damn creature bited his arm off. All of this just to create an empathy towards the greatness of Shanx, both in personality as in strenght.

On the other hand, one could say that he got stronger after the Lost-an-arm event. Well, he used to duel Hawk Eyes, anyway. He was not able to win, but did not lose either. He was already plain strong. So how could we explain all this situation? He could fight Hawk Eyes but could not win; he was not able to save his arm from a Seaking bite; he can stop or endure a Newgates's move... As I see, we can't. Shanx must be stronger just because Oda wants to. I would go further and say that even Oda is decided about who is stronger. Shanx is one of his favorite and main characters, and duel Hawk Eyes just because this swordsman is baddass and too cool, so that Shanx can be an adult, stronger and more intelligent image of Luffy.

I do not really see the point of arguing about Shanx being a swordsman or not. The strenght of the One Piece characters does not follow a logic. We can see that no matter what, Hawk Eyes will be Zoro's last challenge (that's why he must be the World strongest swordsman, even if he cannot beat Shanx or Newgate). By pure logic, Luffy would not beat Crocodile or Moria, but he must grow so that the story can flow. The same thing with Shanx, Blackbeard and Hawk Eyes - these three, I would guess, need to fit someplaces along the narrative...

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by AddiKtioNn-BlaCk

Moria reminds me of the Joker from Batman, am I the only one that thinks that?

In a few ways, I can see that. They both have white skin, painted lips, and are always laughing their asses off when they cause nothing but misery and misfortune for whoever gets in their way.

[james0246]

@.Lynx.: Shanks sacrificed his arm to save Luffy. Specifically, Shanks had cast aside his weapons so that he could swim as fast as he could toward where Luffy was being held. So, he had no weapon in which to fight. Added to that, Luffy was literally a split second away from death. So, Shanks threw himself in front of Luffy, thus protecting the boy, but in the process his arm ended up being bitten off in that split second that Shanks had to act.

In other words, there's nothing really inconsistent about the encounter. It's the difference between pushing someone out of the way of a gunmen before they fire their gun, versus pushing someone out of the way as the gunmen shoots. In one instance, both protector and protectee have a high chance of emerging unharmed, but in the other instance, the chance of someone getting hurt rises dramatically. The Sea King was a loaded gun that had already fired. So, of course, someone was hurt.

[.Lynx.]

I understand that James. It was a narrative gesture of sacrifice.

My point is that just like Rayleigh (who stopped a full power light speed kick from an Admiral with his own skills), Shanx could've stunned or killed the Seaking first - just as Luffy did with the wolves. In fact, he did it afterwards.

Shanx is not just a regular pirate captain. He is a Yonkou, a tremendous powerful man that has high abilities with Hakki. A simple "You shall not pass" would have made the Seaking bite his own tongue

That being said, I once again stand my point: Shanx, Luffy, Blackbeard... these are not common logical characters. They can change and adapt as long as the narrative demands to. It is inconsistent, but it is also a narrative tool, a way to put these personae above the others. That's why I think the discussion about who is stronger, who is a swordsman, who can defeat who is a debating point that even Oda is yet to settle.

[AddiKtioNn-BlaCk]

@.Lynx.: You make the mistake of thinking that Shanks is as strong and experienced as Rayleigh and he isn't. Even among the Yonkou they are no equals, some Yonkou may be stronger than others. When you compare Rayleigh, you're comparing a person that is in the class of The Pirate King Gol. D Roger, Monkey D. Garp, Sengoku, and Edward "Whitebeard" Negate. In terms of Power and experience, they outclass the other 3 Yonkou.

[.Lynx.]

Originally Posted by AddiKtioNn-BlaCk

@.Lynx.: You make the mistake of thinking that Shanks is as strong and experienced as Rayleigh and he isn't. Even among the Yonkou they are no equals, some Yonkou may be stronger than others. When you compare Rayleigh, you're comparing a person that is in the class of The Pirate King Gol. D Roger, Monkey D. Garp, Sengoku, and Edward "Whitebeard" Negate. In terms of Power and experience, they outclass the other 3 Yonkou.

I do not think that I am commiting a mistake at all. It is clear, by now, that these "power charts" are not like those in Dragon Ball, where we can measure the fighting skills and power level of a character. Things here, despise the natural knowledge of who the top fighters are, are much more relative and can modify along with the narrative tides.

You will remember that Shanx clashed weapons against Newgate himself. You will too remember that Marco also stopped some heavy light atacks from Kizaru - the same Kizaru that tired Gol D. Roger's First Mate in battle.

I'm still with the idea that Shanx is one of Oda's favorite, that's why we cannot know much about him.

In terms of power and experience, we do not know about each and every Yonkou. As we do not know about Sengoku's power. And Garp's power - we can only assume that they are really strong. How much? We are yet to see.

[AddiKtioNn-BlaCk]

Originally Posted by .Lynx.

I do not think that I am committing a mistake at all. It is clear, by now, that these "power charts" are not like those in Dragon Ball, where we can measure the fighting skills and power level of a character. Things here, despise the natural knowledge of who the top fighters are, are much more relative and can modify along with the narrative tides.

You will remember that Shanx clashed weapons against Newgate himself. You will too remember that Marco also stopped some heavy light atacks from Kizaru - the same Kizaru that tired Gol D. Roger's First Mate in battle.

I'm still with the idea that Shanx is one of Oda's favorite, that's why we cannot know much about him.

In terms of power and experience, we do not know about each and every Yonkou. As we do not know about Sengoku's power. And Garp's power - we can only assume that they are really strong. How much? We are yet to see.

Trust me, I know that the power charts are nothing like Dragon Ball, I mean that exactly what I pointed out on my post just before I responded to yours. But its not about power levels. You can (generally) measure a characters fighting skills when comparing another character that uses a similar skill (and sometimes that doesn't even haft to be the case).

Even though Shanks clashed blades with Whitebeard doesn't mean a thing, because it seems like you're trying to say Shanks is strong enough to rival Edward "Whitebeard" Negate's strength, which would be completely false. Marco stopping Kizaru's attack doesn't mean anything, he just means that Marco is able to fight Kizaru thanks to having an Devil Fruit that defend against Kizaru's light.

Regardless if we don't know about the power and experience of the Yonkou, we know that they aren't strong enough to rival Whitebeard, and Whitebeard only acknowledge those he sees as he equals (Sengoku and Garp). So while its true that we haven't seen what they (Sengoku and Garp) are capable be of, since Whitebeard acknowledged Sengoku its safe to assume his really strong. Garp, he fought to death numerous times with the Pirate King, so its safe to assume he's very strong to, being as though he's still alive.

[--And in that battle between Rayleigh and Kizaru, it was more like Rayleigh was overpowering Kizaru, depending on how you look at it--]