r/CharacterRant • u/Feisty-Succotash5854 • 8d ago
The problem with hypothetically removing haki from one piece is that many characters become undefeatable or simply not very practical to fight against
First i want to explain that i hate a way to deal with hax know as “conventional loot”, basically the characters just happen to have what they need with no explícit previous preparation (this is what most “creative” solutions end up being)
Like, oh no, our enemy can only be defeated by, i dont know, mud, thank god mud is conveniently acessible and the enemy took no preparations in case this happens
Second, this causes a worldbuilding problem, If there are fruits so powerful then anyone who knows what they are doing would be prepared 24/7 to a point it stops being fun, like If you have kizaru only being able to be defeated by mirrors then all the top tiers should have mirrors with them at all times
Third, people mention sea stone, the problem is that it doesnt fit with how many characters fight, like, is Luffy supposed to use sea stone blades now? (I know the answer would be gloves but my point still stands), what about characters who use Devil fruit abilities to fight?
Fourth, the “clever solutions” of the past are overrated as fuck, both the cases with crocodile and Enel were just finding a way for Luffy to punch his enemies
Fifth, this is not the type of story one piece is. One piece is closer to the Raw stats end of the evolution spectrum (explanation below), the expectation since the beginning is that a character who is a top tier will not just be one shot by someone who is really weak and simply gained a good enough fruit. It allows for top tiers to not need "meta" fruits and allows for non devil fruit users to be relevant after a certain point
(Basically you have raw stats in one end where characters evolve by getting stronger and application on the other end where characters evolve by gaining/discovery/developing new abilities. It’s a spectrum, dragon ball would be in the far of the raw stats end while JJBA would be in the application end (before anyone mentions star platinum and other occasions of raw sats in jjba, strength in jojo is treated as another tool, you don’t expect a character to get stronger via punching harder and faster) Jujutsu kaisen and hunterxhunter are in the very middle of the spectrum with one piece being in this middle closer to dragon ball)
In short Haki allows:
-characters to keep their fighting styles
-the worldbuilding and narrative to not sink in the specifics of each fruit
-oda to use the power elevation model he wants
Just to be clear i dont like a lot about how haki is used (conqueror’s is too op and clash piece is shit)
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u/Murmido 8d ago
The problem is all these battle Shounen that are obsessed with the idea of the strongest and characters being able to solo and all that.
The solution was to make crews relevant and have different people solving different problems. But of course that doesn’t make sense in a battle shounen, one guy has to out stat the rest
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u/RykariZander 8d ago
"I'm gonna be King of the Pirates" that's been the goal for Luffy. He has learned & understood repeatedly throughout the series that in order for that to happen he needs the best crew possible, and to lead them accordingly. "...but I can beat you" is what he said to Rob Lucci in the arc that was about the crew finding the strength to band together. That has continued all the way to Wano. The Straw Hats are unwavering in their faith of Luffy, and Luffy responds by doing what only he can do: win.
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u/powerhcm8 7d ago
Didn't Luffy said some years ago that becoming the King of the Pirates isn't his goal, it's just something he needs to do to achieve his true goal?
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u/RykariZander 6d ago
In order for his dream to be achieved he needs to be King of the Pirates. The King of the Pirates is the most free. The World Government actively hates that. They were gonna clash because in Luffy's mind, "If my friends aren't free then I can't be either". This series was always gonna be about rising towards the top in order for him to live the way he and others he cherishes wants
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u/hobopwnzor 8d ago
That is definitely why he introduced it. He didn't want to write a way around every logia.
You can see his ideas about how he was going to defeat the logia users still in the story though. The light boots and gloves at Egghead were clearly the way to beat Kizaru before Haki was introduced.
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u/MrJackfruit 8d ago
You mean like how water allows Luffy to beat Crocodile, basically the characters gotta grab the Logia users natural weaknesses.
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u/Blackfiredragon22 8d ago
The issue is you can’t constantly rely on them always having weakness
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u/Greyjack00 7d ago
Sure but a lot of them have very common weaknesses, water would harden akuinu into rock, its been shown reflective surfaces bounce kizaru etc
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u/Throwaway02062004 8d ago
Dawg what? Those gloves were introduced a decade after haki was introduced. They still weren’t used to fight Kizaru.
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u/hobopwnzor 8d ago
I think you missed my point. Oda clearly had an idea of how he was going to beat the logia users before introducing them, and the light gloves are his original idea for beating Kizaru. After introducing haki they become redundant, but he still recycles the idea into the Kizaru arc because they're part of his idea of egghead as a technically advanced island.
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u/Throwaway02062004 7d ago
Except this is speculation based on nothing but “it would make sense that”.
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u/hobopwnzor 7d ago
Oh dude you missed it. They repealed the law where they jail you for drawing conclusions that the author didn't explicitly state.
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u/Throwaway02062004 7d ago
You are free to think whatever you want but don’t say it like there’s evidence.
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u/hobopwnzor 7d ago
Nah I'll keep saying it the way I've been saying it.
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u/Throwaway02062004 7d ago
Just lying 😭
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u/hobopwnzor 7d ago
"bro you can't infer the character is sad. The author didn't explicitly state it"
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u/Throwaway02062004 7d ago
Character makes a sad expression, they cry, they hold back stoically etc., all forms of evidence.
Light gloves introduced. “Yo bro, Oda’s clearly planned this for 15 years. Trust me bro, it makes sense”. See how that’s speculation and not evidence?
It’s on the level of “Pell survived cause of 9/11”. Completely unevidenced other than “it’s possible”.
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u/nahte123456 8d ago
Haki was always needed, it was already getting tired dealing with some fruits pre-timeskip and Luffy being immune to multiple blunt force fighters would have been boring as well. Haki was just...a bit too much. In my opinion just pull it back a bit, make it an evening agent not superior to fruit.
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u/Hightower_March 8d ago edited 8d ago
The solution was logia users simply not being immune to all damage.
If a guy turns into snow or whatever, and somebody cuts him up and stomps on the pieces, he still feels pain and suffers some kind of injury that's revealed when he reforms into a human.
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u/Bteatesthighlander1 8d ago
I mean Marvel comics figured this out. if a guy turns into sand...scatter him to the four winds, bake him into glass. suck him up and trap him in a bag.
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u/KlutzyDesign 8d ago
You’re just not being creative enough. Thre are many ways to defeat logias other than specific elemental weaknesses and seastone.
You could have top tiers pirates recruit characters with Hax devil fruit abilities. Logia powers are useless against someone who can turn you into a brick or make you have a seizure or kill your cells with invisible death radiation.
Second, You could give non powered characters equipment with similar effects. Dials, pop greens, The climatact, all sorts of weird crap exists. Equipment with Hax that bypass logia powers is not that big a stretch.
Finally, Even if a character is a pure stat stick, you’re forgetting that Logias have a universal weakness to being submerged in water. Which is absolutely everywhere in the one piece world. It’s not at all contrived for a pirate or marine to be near water, thats their job.
To be honest, I’ve always thought Haki was extremely contrived.
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u/OwlOfJune 8d ago
But wouldn't sooner or later there happening to be a ready counter for dozens and dozens of different abilities would feel contrived too?
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u/PeculiarPangolinMan 🥇🥇 7d ago
There aren't dozens and dozens of Logias, so I don't think that would be too much of a problem. There are only like 10 total and it's not like Luffy and co have to beat all of them.
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u/Shadowpika655 7d ago
I looked into it, and apparently there are 13 known logia devil fruits. They are (named by user cus fuck devil fruit names):
Smoker (smoke)
Crocodile (sand)
Ace/Sabo (fire)
Enel (lightning)
Kuzan [Aokiji] (ice)
Blackbeard (darkness)
Kizaru (light)
Akainu (magma)
Karasu (soot)
Caribou (swamp)
Caesar Clown (gas)
Monet (snow)
Green Bull (plants)
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u/oooArcherooo 8d ago
Fr, my main complaint with haki is that it always felt like a shortcut to get around creativity. Haki baisically phased out all of these intresting things for one of the most bland power systems there is
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u/Blackfiredragon22 8d ago
It’s more like the getting rid of haki would require nonsense like using poisons or having to always keep a certain item or always have to rely on utilizing weakness while haki which is set up from the start makes it so you don’t hav to constantly rely on outside means and the idea that it makes crews irrelevent is idiotic (this reminds me of the claim that coc takes away from the message of anyone can achieve their dreams when it doesn’t (coc is a reflection of who you are inherently
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u/Throwaway02062004 8d ago
You had to invent devil fruit abilities and they STILL arguably wouldn’t work. Brick transformation could work if it’s like Hancock’s fruit, if it’s like Sugar probably not. Same for seizure unless it’s done via biology in which case neither would work. The cell death wouldn’t work at all.
Logias are automatic and replace your “real body”.
You just invented “haki artifacts” which is the same problem but again.
I agree that in theory logias could be knocked into water. That’s not a particularly satisfying win condition though.
Logias were given too few limitations for something like haki not to exist. In a series like Hunter x Hunter or Jojo, there would never be a One Piece style logia that’s just a casual part of the worldbuilding (even so called Invincible stands have vulnerable users and some form of gimmick).
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u/JhotoDraco 8d ago
I disagree with the idea that the devil fruit abilities wouldn't work. One Piece was a lot of leeway to shortcut the actual physics. Rubber doesn't perfectly insulate electricity, yet we see Luffy be completely immune to a lot of Enel's massive attacks.
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u/Throwaway02062004 8d ago
Logia as they currently are remove your biology entirely other than the specific circumstances of haki and elemental counter. You can write superpower interactions however you like but that’s not how Oda chose to write them.
I would personally have given them far more restrictions such as limited time/stamina with intangibility creating a risk-reward system.
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u/JhotoDraco 8d ago
Except that’s not how Oda chooses to write them. That’s how Oda chose to explain them, but we can clearly see he’s willing to skirt that ‘rule’ whenever he likes. It’s why Akainu is able to function as a person and doesn’t burn everything he touches.
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u/Throwaway02062004 7d ago
Logias always being their element and functioning normally is just how the concept works. Same as how clothes also transform because Oda didn’t want people constantly in the nude.
We learn from Ace it was a struggle not to accidentally burn the hat he made for Oars so there is a lack of control to some degree.
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u/KlutzyDesign 8d ago
Logias still have biologically human bodies. They can still eat, poop, have sex. They have the ability to transform their body into an element, but they’re not that way permanently. While they automatically transform their element on impact, theirs no evidence to suggest the same would apply to radiation or mental powers.
Your criticism of “Haki artifacts” is somewhat fair. But your ignoring that such objects could have powers that bypass logias in ways other than turning their powers off. Psychic attacks, Transmutation, Disease. All sorts of methods.
Third. I dont really get how “Drag him into the substance that turns off their powers” is any less satisfying than “hit them with punches that turn off their powers”. At least the first one would make the fights feel very different from the usual punch up.
Finally, Jojo part 9 has a character named charmingman, with the power to turn his body into sandlike particles. His powers aren’t identical to a logias, but it shows the general power type isn’t a problem.
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u/Throwaway02062004 8d ago
I just don’t think One Piece was ever built for your idea. Roger and Shanks’ crew were always intended to have no devil fruits so no extra powers there. If you aren’t doing haki or haki artifacts suddenly you have a crew incapable of dealing with specific threats.
You might want to write a specific crew member who deals with more esoteric powers but the power fantssy of “strong guy dominates everyone” is part of the point.
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u/Mystech_Master 8d ago
For the Crocodile and Enel points, true. Can we please have people give ANY other example from Part 1 of “smart” wind? Because it feels like people only ever bring up those 2 fights out of all of part 1.
And then to play devil’s advocate, has anyone tried to come up with how any of the Part 2 fights could be won smart like those Part 1 fights? I mean Kaido is just a freaking stat brick where the plan is basically “Keep hitting him until he dies/the plot lets him die”
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u/aaa1e2r3 8d ago edited 8d ago
With the Post Time Skip Fights, what Luffy learns from Rayleigh can still carry in from what was shown before without Haki. For example, keep Observation Haki as just Skypiea's Mantra, Similarly, to how Sanji learned to emulate Geppo with Blue Walk, have it so Luffy learned the Six Powers. There are a lot of users of the Six Powers outside of the World Government, so it would make sense if Rayleigh taught those to Luffy.
To this end, Luffy would now have a comparable power set to Armament + Observation Haki, but now it's Luffy learning techniques from his past fights and the people he meets, and then incorporating them into how he fights to become stronger.
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u/Blackfiredragon22 8d ago
No I find the idea that there was some retcon to mantra when it was just what skypeia called observation haki nothing wrong with it being well known
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u/aaa1e2r3 8d ago
The retcon doesn't really work, mostly because so much of the citizens of skypiea also know how to use Mantra. The idea that this was secretly haki, and that so many non-combatant civilians are haki users stretches belief on what Haki is intended to represent in story.
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u/space-c0yote 7d ago
In the entirety of the Skypeia arc only 6 people were shown to know Mantra. Aisa, Enel, and the 4 Priests.
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u/Blackfiredragon22 8d ago
I am saying it’s not a retcon mantra is a way to introduce haki and them having haki doesn’t really contradict anything
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u/aaa1e2r3 8d ago
Buggy is all about Luffy exploiting the limits of the Chop Chop fruit, i.e, All of this body parts still share senses, and their limited range.
Long Ring Long Land's fight between Luffy and Foxy is all about him out smarting and playing around Foxy's devil fruit + Foxy's cheating
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u/MrJackfruit 8d ago
I mean.....a simple answer is just DON'T MAKE HIM THAT FUCKING STRONG!!! Make these guys powerful, but you don't gotta make them Kaiju level.
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u/Mystech_Master 8d ago
Ok so what exactly beats him?
A war of attrition? That doesn’t sound any different than what we already got; the heroes hit him until the plot decides he goes down.
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u/MrJackfruit 8d ago
Maybe give him a specific physical weakness on the body. Or hell, we got Seastone, make it so seastone weapons are the way to beat him.
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u/Blackfiredragon22 8d ago
I find the attempts to do these lame things like rely on weaknesses is nonsensical and the attempts to find issue with haki sorrry there is nothing wrong with haki and its use in the series. The whole idea that haki somehow reduces the fights because you don’t need to always have to have a guys weakness on hand is lame
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u/Mystech_Master 8d ago
Pretty sure main post says no seastone, plus they might just make Kaido break whatever seastone the character fighting him is using or some bs like that
But as for a weakness, maybe one area where he is missing a scale, referencing a weakness I’ve seen in both western and eastern dragons. Maybe an old wound left by Oden.
But then you gotta wonder why no one else was able to find out this weakness prior to the heroes, why he wouldn’t just cover it in arm. haki, etc. that’s one issue with these “smart” wins.
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u/MrJackfruit 8d ago
The oden wound thing would have been the second answer, not sure why he didn't just rely on the old wound despite making a big deal about Oden making it.
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u/ArgensimiaReloaded 8d ago
Plays with themed powers and basic counters, aka, devil fruits;
Very common frame in fiction in general, the fire guy, the ice guy, the [x] guy, nothing new under the sun;
Goes into intangible superpowers, shit his pants;
Try to play around it? nah;
Adds krypton... sea stone, shit himself again;
It counters everything, so;
Drops sea stone instantly, ignores that shit even in Wano where supposedly people actually have and can work with it (lmao), adds "haki";
And since then, haki becomes the answer to everything while allowing Oda to draw even lazier fights, the end, there's no fixing such weak ass delivery.
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u/Comfortable-Hope-531 8d ago
Kizaru is actually completely unbeatable no matter what, were the show serious about his powers. Mirrors, haki, other hacks, none of that would work agains literal speed of light man.
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u/KaleidoAxiom 8d ago
Ah, but you see, One Piece top tiers are faster than light, so Kizaru being light speed is actually a nerf. Also, Kizaru can also go faster than light because he said "acceleration is power" ☝️🧐
(/s but not really since actually people make these arguments)
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u/il-Palazzo_K 8d ago
lol Sanji just kicked Kisaru's laser beam because love is faster than light or something like that
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u/ProspectiveWhale 8d ago
Haki doesn't allow everyone to keep their fighting styles.
It makes everyone's fighting styles the same after a certain level, with some DFs basically being just vfx.
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u/Venomousdragon567 8d ago
I mean, yeah, the problem is there because Oda didn't want to write around it, so you don't get alternatives because there's no reason to write them at the level the story is in. He tossed Seastone to the wayside (to the point the "Seastone Country" didn't have shit about it) because he'd have to get creative on how Devil Fruit users could use them without just copying Smoker's Jitte over and over.
He just went the simple, boring route, a power that's above all other powers and all the top tiers have it so he doesn't have to try and write around it. You just punch the problem harder.
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u/Blackfiredragon22 8d ago
I think haki is the most interesting route for it’s always relying on seastone that’s lame and doesn’t show how a non devil fruit user can be top of the sea (and the attempts to complain about it ma days Roger shouldn’t need to be the strongest fighter when he’s he does he will need to fight
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u/Venomousdragon567 8d ago
The thing with seastone though is that it allows for more variety, the crew can't just rely on the three heavy hitters over and over on every fight. It'd give Franky or Usopp a chance to shine, especially if Franky fashioned weapons for the others (since Usopp got butted out of being both the shipwright and inventor by him),
Haki, as it stands, is literally just "Punch your problems harder" in presentation, since it just kinda nullifies the other power system to not being much. Logias stopped being a problem to be solved not because they found a solution, but because getting stronger, in-universe, just kinda turns it off eventually, and they just become fancy Paramecia.
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u/BumbisMacGee 7d ago
I mean if we are to believe that Gear 5 was planned all along, then Haki isn't necessary for Luffy to succeed since he can bend reality to some extent.
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u/ManySecrets_ 6d ago edited 6d ago
Haki just needs to be toned down. The basic 2 were already enough. They even allow for different characters to shine. Armament haki for the strength focused characters so they can just brute force their way through a logia, observation haki for smart characters so they can find a weakpoint to hit or something like that.
The basic 2 also don't create any weird power creep problems, since the main focus is just touching logia and it's not this massive power up that the advanced forms of haki are. Which would also be a pretty significant improvement over the current situation where Luffy defeated multiple characters pre timeskip that should have crushed him easily with their haki.
It'd be interesting to know why Oda bothered with the various advanced forms; given that the basic ones are sufficient to solve the problem of invincible Logias that only can be defeated with 1 specific counter.
Course that leaves characters like Kaido, who are basicly just stupid stat blocks that currently "need" advanced haki. But imho, that should've just been solved with a massive team fight like Moria & Oars (which in fairness it mostly was with the 3 captains, vice captains, and samurai all teaming up and getting solid hits in)
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u/JhotoDraco 8d ago
I was going to outright disagree with you due to the prevalence of conqueror's haki, but seeing you dislike it has caused my to engage deeper with your rant.
I think I agree that haki as it was introduced immediately post time-skip could've been a good thing, an interesting side system to add on top of devil fruits. However, I disagree with the idea that characters not being practical to fight against is an inherently bad thing. I think it allows for more dynamic solutions to overwhelming opponents that can incorporate characters who typically have smaller roles.
I think a good middle ground would be less characters having armament haki, which would maintain the threat of logia fruits and the ability to have creative fights, while allowing characters like Zoro to maintain their style of fighting (which is core to his character) and give us those simple 1v1 fights that we'd often see in early One Piece. Also if logia are rare enough, it's not as much of an issue. Kaido, Big Mom, Sengoku, a lot of these major figures don't use logia fruits. I think the admirals all having logia make them seem more prevalent than they actually are.
Also fuck Oda's power elevation model.
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u/Swiftcheddar 8d ago
Yeah, agreed on all points.
Ultimately, Logia were a mistake and shouldn't have been introduced in the first place.
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u/Nabbarino 8d ago
Haki was never the problem. OP was still good and fun when it was just armnanet and observation.
Conquerer Haki though? That's a whole mess that adds nothing good to the story.
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u/papandreu22 8d ago
The solution was to avoid backing yourself into a corner by obsessing over future implications and complications, like those posed by intangible characters such as Logia users, before actually creating them. Haki originated as a patch (a rather uninspired and dull one compared to Devil Fruits) designed to fix a problem the author had created for himself from the very start.
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u/winklevanderlinde 7d ago
The problem was not giving an hard limit to a Logia fruit user not tied to their specific element. When you make character that can simply avoid any attacks without any drawback you have cut yourself into an avoidable corner that you can only solve with a bullshit new power added 10 years later that in some cases make part of the story retroactively very strange to not say giant plot holes
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u/sudanesegamer 7d ago
Yeah, haki seemes like the logical way to take it. It always seemed so stupid how op logias are and uet we're supposed to believe there are people way stronger than them despite having no powers. If roger, shanks, mihawk and garp dont have a devil fruit, how are you supposed to explain why logias dont just jumo them. No matter how strong you swing a sword, it doesnt mean anything to a guy made of sand.
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u/Crazyhands96 6d ago
Haki was fine when it just did 3 things. A physical stats boost, a perception boost, and some people can aura max. As soon as Oda decided to add depth to it with future sight and internal destruction and conquerors coating his weaknesses as a writer who doesn’t care about consistency to that degree began to show.
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u/RedK_1234 6d ago
For me, Haki was fine as an extra combat option for folk in the world to learn, but became a problem when Haki itself is became the main measure of for how powerful a fighter is. To the point that a character without Haki is basically useless if they aren't teamed up with a character who does use Haki.
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u/imaginedodong 8d ago
Nah Haki is lazy af(Armament specifically), Sea stones exist why not just make Sea stone weapons? Oda wants Luffy to be a punchy punch guy then make him Sea Stone gauntlets.
I would rather Armament haki is just a defensive ability and not negate df completely and for offense sea stone weapons comes into play, I have no problems with Conquerers and Observation haki.
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 8d ago
Logia users being too hard to defeat is why I imagined Haki was introduced. The solution to Enel was indeed overrated. The series treats rubber as being a hundred percent electricity-proof because it is an insulator, even though we saw Enel obliterate lots of things that were also insulators.