Last arc, we were led to believe what separates the strongests from the rest is advanced conquerors haki. You'd think someone who has it wouldn't need help defeating someone who doesn't when they're serious. Seems awfully convenient.
The second "awakened" zoans were introduced in Impel Down I knew it was a mistake. One Piece is at its best when the powers are wacky and creative. Having zoan awakenings all be the same exact thing, that can only be used to EXTEND FIGHTS in a manga that already has a huge problem with pacing long fights... just didn't bode well. And now Luffy has the exact opposite problem
Lucci Black shows up randomly at the end of a completely unrelated arc and just demolishes the main villain everyone struggled with. Zoro activated.
I wish we'd get some dialogue from Vegapunk about awakening. It's really inconsistent so far. Kaido never did anything to indicate he was "awakened" beyond being really tanky in general, but that's likely just his fruit's innate durability. That said, he immediately recognized when Luffy had awakened, and even cited how awakening an ability is achieved (when your ability and body sync up or whatever). To me it's weird that the "strongest creature" who has been a pirate for nearly 40 years hasn't awakened his ability. The same goes for Big Mom. Then you get Luffy who wasn't even alive when Kaido "beat" Oden, and he awakens his ability. I honestly think Oda made some abilities too innately strong and chooses the best option is to ignore the existence of awakening, and/or be ambiguous about it, in those circumstances.
I think his final form was his Awakening. Awakening is supposed to be a transformation, I find it hard to believe an Emperor wasn't Awakened.
It's weird because I remember being in the vast minority with Coby predictions too. I had him and Lucci WAY higher than most people (just above what less powerscalers call "YC1") because they're both "keep pace with the protagonist" types of antagonists. It was natural to assume they'd gained in relative power just as much as Luffy had.
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My best headcanon for that so far is that Kaidou's different modes near the end of that fight were analogous to Luffy's G4 modes- something like a "partial awakening". His mind/spirit/whatever was never in sync with the devil of the Azure Dragon so it was just impossible for him to achieve awakening based on personality alone, his amount of experience was basically irrelevant. We know from a few examples- especially Luffy and Lucci- that an awakening seems much more natural when the user's personality is more in sync with the zoan devil's. Hell Lucci himself was the first mention of a zoan devil fruit benefiting from having a user whose personality matches (predator with a killer instinct). Which makes Kaku's awakening like twice as funny.
Definitely don't think he personally sides with WG and agree that he does what he does so he has legal excuse for violence. The point for me is that in itself leaves room for Lucci to be an antihero of sorts. Like imagine instead of working for the WG, he worked for the RA as an assassin being sent to take out bad Kings/Queens or other corrupt WG officials. He'd definitely be excessively violent and enjoy the killings but I don't think we'd straight up label him a villain. At least in that scenario I'd think of him as a violent psycho who works for the good guys so he'd be an antihero. Oda has left this type of room for him so post WG downfall I could see him changing allegiances to continue doing what he does now just for someone new, and likely better.
I think some of the crew would definitely kill enemies like Zoro & Robin def fit that bill. Luffy might in dire circumstances similar to Goku but generally not be a killer. I think Sanji would be an actual player that sleeps around similar to Miroku (maybe Franky & Brook would be too but not sure). Some of the characters like Usopp & Chopper I think would fit the bill for potential deaths. They are non combatants that tend to rely on pure luck to survive extreme circumstances and they don't appear to play a huge narrative role in the end game of the story but would also serve as serious emotional losses if they died. If OP had dragon balls I'd place Usopp, Chopper, Nami in the same category as characters like Krillin, Yamcha, & Tien (all died & resurrected more than once) all of whom had core roles early on but were relegated to essentially side characters with some moments to shine later on.
I'd like to think that Luffy's combat style would also be a bit different (not sure exactly what it'd be, but I'd love to see more choreo in his combat), I say that because his current fighting style really suits the element of a goofy pirate Shonen manga.
As of now there is nobody who has shown to be faster than Kuma to date.
First of all Zoro would really kill people instead of slash-knocking them out lol…
I think a lot of you guys overestimate kizaru and take the light speed to literal. If kizaru can literally move like you guys are saying or implying he wouldn’t have gotten hit by luffy.. TWICE, would have gotten the mission done etc.
I want to believe it was an awakening, too. My only hangup with doing so is that Oda has made a huge point of outlining awakening any time it's happened.
That’s not how light works though plenty of things absorb light, that are “invisible” frankly almost every organic compound absorbs UV light
I look at it like Haki, I am not going to question if Mihawk is capable of Haki, I'm just going to assume because he's the strongest.
Luffy hit with Haki, that's the only explanation why, we see on marineford that he can't be hit by something that won't imbued with Haki