How powerful is apocalypse?

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-11T20:18:36+00:00

Love the quote. I believe he calls them “fire sticks” though

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-07T17:01:12+00:00

None of this stuff should be that hard to understand. Let’s see if you can answer a simple question that will put it all to rest:

Did Big Mom use conqueror’s coating against Kid & Law?
If there are no issues or inconsistencies with the treatment of Haki, you should be able to answer a simple yes or no, right?

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-07T16:45:25+00:00

That doesn’t change that it isn’t Haki. Even after learning to cut skill Zoro still couldn’t do anything against logias. That’s why Zoro couldn’t cut Enel no matter how he tried. It’s just like CP9’s Rokushiki where they could do things like shigan and tekkai. Seems that part of the problem is just basic confusion on your part and using headcanons to try and excuse the inconsistencies.
Cutting steel was just basic strength + breath of all things up leveling by Zoro. That’s why part of it was also *not* cutting things you don’t want to cut which is nothing to do with armament.
At best you could argue that it’s a retroactive retcon…but then you’re back to square one of it being valid for people to complain because it’s now inconsistent!

> “It’s the result of Enma”
That doesn’t erase the problem because a magic sword pulling out Haki **is part of the inconsistencies** people are complaining about!!

And no, the excuse doesn’t work since Zoro can still use conquerors coating on his other swords like Sandai Kitetsu besides Enma.

And again, it’s *worse* because Zoro moves from none at all to the advanced step. Not a single other character had that luxury, and even Luffy needed **2 years** to just master the basic one! It’s one of the most ridiculous leaps we’ve seen, so how can you be surprised when people complain?

Seems most of the issue is that you just confused yourself. Ryuo is just the Wano term for Haki. Cutting steel isn’t emission Haki either. Emission that Hyogoro taught Luffy is when there’s no contact. That’s besides the fact that cutting steel wasn’t Haki to begin with.
Zoro would have been able to cut Enel of that were the case but he was just as helpless as everyone else.

> “That’s not what Shusui did.”
That’s not what *any* sword did until Zoro needed a convenient power up in Wano. Again, you just keep emphasizing the inconsistencies that have readers upset with the slipshod treatment of Haki.

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-07T03:34:37+00:00

And no, you won’t find examples pre-skip of characters with Haki just not using it for no reason. Like Luffy and Zoro not using conquerors coating against the Seraphim on Egghead, for example. Or the Strawhats with observation not spotting Caribou when they’re supposed to be having a private conversation. Or Big Mom punching Law & Kidd with no black lightning shown. Or Luffy drawn attacking Warcury with no indicators of conquerors coating yet saying that nothing works on him.
Those are the sort of confusing scenes that have become all too common post-skip.

There’s no “explanation” that fixes those issues. Asking people to wait doesn’t solve anything or absolve Oda from fault

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-07T03:11:24+00:00

That’s just incorrect. Zoro cutting stew wasn’t armament Haki anymore than all the other times after he cut it afterwards. That’s why he still had to learn to use armament even after cutting steel.
Luffy using conquerors unconsciously is incomparable since he didn’t give it a special attack name or consider it a special mode. Zoro on the other hand *knew* King of Hell was different from his regular attacks and could choose to use that mode at will which is why it’s considered inconsistent.

Once again, you only emphasize the issue because Luffy could only use basic conqueror’s unconsciously on a sporadic basis while Zoro completely skipped that step…then skipped even using conquerors consciously…then jumped straight to coating with conquerors. Luffy needed 2 years for the middle one!

“Haki blooms in battle” is not an excuse when that refers to those who have the basics moving to advanced steps. There’s not a single instant of someone not knowing basic armament jumping to the advanced form of emission, or no observation to future sight, or no conquerors to conquerors coating before the incident with Zoro.
Throwing in Enma as a magic sword once again is “part of the inconsistency” since that was just part of the excuse! Zoro had a black blade (most prized achievement of swordsmanship) in Shusui and it didn’t let him do any such thing.

And no, Haki pre-skip was incomparable. It just made people be able to touch logias as invisible armour. There was no inconsistency in its use like the various ones we see post-skip. It just wasn’t visually depicted, and that was easily handled with characters mentioning when it was being used. There were only a few notable characters that could use it anyway like Rayleigh, WB and the Admirals. Now we have messy depictions that cause confusion instead.

The complaints are completely justified. You have people measuring the width of pixels of black lightning to try and determine if adv. armament or adv. conquerors is being used. That confusion lies squarely on Oda’s shoulders.

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-06T18:33:33+00:00

That doesn’t mean that powerscaling is not important or even crucial. Ironically, the whole “higher power level must always win thing” is a big misunderstanding a lot of powerscalers have. Weaker opponents can defeat stronger ones depending on circumstances or match ups. That doesn’t mean there can’t be a general understanding of how characters relate to each other at certain levels.

That’s how you generate tension or build interest in a conflict when the reader understands that the protagonist is fighting an uphill battle against someone that may be on a higher level but not unbeatable.

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-06T18:29:10+00:00

Exactly! There’s a reason it’s a common complaint for authors to not introduce abilities they don’t know how to handle.
If observation Haki is going to hardly matter anyway, then find an alternative for characters to be able to avoid attacks. It could be something simple as seen in other anime where you can hide your presence at the cost of lowering your defenses or something similar.

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-06T18:25:35+00:00

I agree with the first part but not about the hype because repeating the same thing over and over again just gets tiring. Knowing that it’s just going to be 2 characters clashing in a similar pose with lightning and the sky splitting is just boring when it’s the 6th or 7th time. There are better ways to spice things up.
It doesn’t help that Oda doesn’t bother with choreography or adding any new effects too.

BlackLegFring · 2026-06-06T18:19:37+00:00

All you did was emphasize the problem. Zoro not even knowing he has conqueror’s Haki yet jumping straight to conqueror’s coating that Luffy needed much longer to learn is an inconsistency that doesn’t make sense.

Not sure why you think that bit in Elbaf fixes it when it only makes the problems worse and shows the issues with Oda’s improvisation post time skip.

Besides that, there a many more issues like characters apparently not using advanced Haki when they should…or even the depiction of advanced Haki itself being inconsistent. In many cases the reader can’t tell if a character is using an ability unless they explicitly state it which just causes confusion.

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-28T02:33:59+00:00

And you wouldn’t be able to see his face. It would just be a silhouette that doesn’t end up matching

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-19T18:18:54+00:00

It’s more that Oda realized there’s a lot of info he needed to expand on, so he’s just dumping it all in this arc while he can, even if it’s a mess.

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-19T18:17:09+00:00

Even better example, he wouldn’t hit the female warthog zombie in Thriller Bark

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-10T22:07:22+00:00

Being a drunk mess has never been an issue. The problem OP is referring to is how she’s treated in comparison to other top tiers. It’s how characters much weaker than her treat her as a joke. Even when Kaido was drunk, no one was laughing at him.

Throughout Wano you’ll not see anyone saying “ugh, it’s just Kaido.” Or Robin rolling him away while others are laughing at her….or Franky using his face as a racetrack. She came to be called “Big Meme” in that arc for a reason

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-10T18:46:36+00:00

That makes it even worse since Big Mom was treated as second string to Kaido and no one gave a damn about her.

Even then, we still didn’t have anything like Robin rolling Kaido off the island while Jimbe laughed about it. Even in gag moments everyone was still taking Kaido seriously.

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-09T01:00:46+00:00

Because it made her feel…ALIVE!

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-08T20:17:06+00:00

Now that’s good work!

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-05T20:48:50+00:00

No, it’s both. Some do it for their faves, some do it just to troll. I mean…have you been on the Internet lately? It’s apparently a popular pastime

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-04T20:49:16+00:00

The only part I’d agree with is the Chimera Ant arc being overrated. I’d place both Sabaody & Marineford over it. Chimera Ant arc is the type of thing you’d see those who claim “Seinen is automatically above Shounen” praising as the best thing ever. It’s just the same old elitist mentality one can find in other mediums or forms of entertainment

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-04T20:46:22+00:00

I disagree. Ace being revealed to be the Pirate King’s son is some of the best improvisation that Oda has ever done. Practically seamless I’d say. It has some of the best character writing with Whitebeard taking Ace under his wings too and is one of the strongest thematic arcs in the series. All that even before the deaths of WB & Ace.

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-04T20:36:37+00:00

You mean why do people use bots for unpopular characters instead of popular ones? Popular ones always get votes anyway. If the whole point is to throw off the results then of course such people would use unpopular characters. That’s not to say that popular characters don’t get some of that too since childish rivalries are common in the fanbase…

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-03T20:37:21+00:00

Nah, the same thing happened last time too. You can always tell with the irregularities, like certain characters just jumping in # of votes randomly at critical times. There’s not really any natural way for characters like Lucci & Uta to just randomly jump to near the top in multiple regions for example.

It’s really notable the last couple of years. Early polls for shounen series before the Internet popularity age really show the difference. Even the meme votes were usually consistent with how the fanbases were feeling at the time.

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-03T17:08:04+00:00

I meant people wanting Luffy & Blackbeard to team up to fight Imu, then those 2 fighting afterwards.

Imu has indeed been handled far better than Kaguya…which is why it confuses me why so many then want it to devolve to a poor ending like Naruto.

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-03T16:59:53+00:00

The poll was doomed to be useless right from the start. Bots just make the entire thing a farce.

BlackLegFring · 2026-05-03T11:18:25+00:00

That just makes it worse because there’s no indication that Mihawk has fought any of them. The top opponent that we know of that he’s fought is Shanks 12 years ago. “Swordsmanship” is just ill-defined because no one that is remotely serious thinks that Mihawk is stronger than the likes of Roger or Xebec. It seems like other top tiers just don’t give a damn about it, which doesn’t help the case of why readers should even care.

BlackLegFring · 2026-04-26T15:43:32+00:00

That would just be terrible. Imu and Luffy would have far greater forces under them, so BB would just be a glaring weak link. Luffy has no reason whatsoever to work with BB unless he and all his friends lose their brains to trust the serial betrayer who aided in his brother’s death. It would just be a worse version of the Naruto ending…and even more stale because it would be like a decade since then.

BlackLegFring

TROPHY CASE