One Piece Has A Problem 

I was under the impression that Armament Haki was always invisible but was shaded black so that we, the readers, could detect when it was in use. Not sure who or where I learned this from but I subscribed to that idea.

The nun joke was so underrated it flew beneath the radar

I like to think the reason we couldn't see Armament Haki pre-timeskip is because none of our PoV characters (Mainly Luffy) had Observation Haki, which can be headcanoned to be needed to visually see Haki.

One thing I wished you had mentioned was doctor hiroluk's description of what a pirate is to chopper. The whole eyes of an eagle, body like stone, voice that tears the sky thing. Either amazing foreshadowing or another example of how Oda takes existing ideas and makes the new info fit into a cohesive whole.

Luffy has shown us that you don't need haki to beat a haki user. Armament haki is an invisible armor, and like any armor it will break if enough kinetic energy is applied. Also, I think Law's awakened ability broke through Big Mom's defenses simply because it was strong enough to do so. Unlike his normal powers.

I kinda figured haki only became colored in when we, the readers, became aware of it through Luffy. Also kinda figured the 6 powers were just low level haki abilities. Physical enhancements using very basic haki control

I actually thought, Haki was mentioned as early as Skypia, when Shanks met with Shirohige and all the mantra was happening. On the note, that we couldn't see haki, only post time skip, it's because we are seeing the world thru luffy's eyes, and with no observation haki, he couldn't tell. To support that theory, the 3 admirals deflected Shirohige wave attack using only hands and a gesture 🙌, this makes a lot of sense if their hands were covered with haki but it was invisible to us, in retrospective.

To be fair, CP9 could have been using a primitive version of armament haki. Remember Jabra specifically says he is the only one capable of moving while using the tekai technique. This could have been the next step to armament haki and CP0 could only accept those that have made the jump. Expectation is that at that stage nobody should be able to beat Lucci, not that he would never lose to anyone.

I see it as there being a difference between "having haki" and "using haki" or "using haki well" You can have strong muscles, but techniques that utilize that strength is a different thing, and advanced techniques can be learned by people that are not very strong to boost their capabilities even with low strength.

I figured that the lack of haki before timeskip was because our viewpoint characters weren't trained in its use. You can only see the black coating when you have haki of your own. Also, I've long thought that Crocodile and Moria literally got the haki beaten out of them - they lost their ambition, after all. They settled for lesser seas and got lazy and soft. So they can't coat stuff or see into the future anymore. Could be even Buggy had haki back in the day and just decided not to put in the effort anymore and so lost it. As for the CP9, they're perfectly sufficiently trained to function on five out of six seas of the world, which, when you take the protagonist-centered goggles off, is almost entirely all of it. Haki only really shows up in the crazy-ass New World. And for that you have CP0. Maybe CP9 agents get promoted if they ever manage to pick up haki.

Devil fruits just fit the vibe of the story so much more, I love it when the series tries to stick to the pirate elements. The idea of these exotic tropical fruit evokes the image of an untamed world (Grand Line) like the Caribbean or Indian Ocean in the time of pirates, with sailors and explorers finding cool new fruits that are unexplainable. Haki is just magic or Chi which is far more prevalent in Asian cultures, which makes it far more common in most animes.

Strong haki negating devil fruit powers is my breaking point for me figuring out a fruits weakness and countering it was peak. just spending alot of haki to undo it is so lame Garp and kuzan punching battleships without haki was so refreshing. I think the limit to haki should have been what we saw up to the begging of time skip.

The one Reason for Laws powers working on Big mom later is that the silence-room doesn't affect Big Mom directly, but the Air around her to nullify sound. Only the Powers directly affecting you can be blocked by Haki, not Areas of Effect.

Kaido did say that Haki is the ultimate power where people like Roger, Garp, Rayleigh and Oden beat strong Devil Fruit users with Haki.

Honestly i think one of the most interesting aspects of haki is the way that it interacts with devil fruits. Like upon introduction one of its main benefits was providing a way to damage logia users. Now that we know that it can also act as an automated defense against paramecia abilities (specifically the ones that don’t do material generation or body manipulation), it calls into question a lot of devil fruit user’s capabilities when fighting at higher and higher levels.

Tô be honest, I would prefer if Haki was saved to very few characters. The reason why people say that Haki is a post time skip thing is mostly because now everyone seems to have it, and if you don't, you lose. While pre time skip, fight seemed more creative, since strength alone wasn't the only deciding factor

The thing about haki is that people think of it as a power level (or 3 different ladders of power), when it's actually an intangible thing that can be used to develop techniques. Now, those techniques have power level, but being good in one does not mean you are good in all. Like, some characters have stronger "hardening" technique, but others may know how to harden their whole bodies, and others learn how to make it flow as a shockwave into an opponents' body. Look at what Don Sai could do back in Dressrosa with his shackwave techniques. Luffy only learned something similar in Wano, but no one would think Sai was stronger than Luffy. So, when people think X character has "stronger observation" than Y character, it's not always the case. X may know a technique that Y doesn't, like future sight, but Y still can know their own techniques. What the strongest characters have is not stronger haki, but more techniques of how to use it. Still, some opponents may still show up with new techniques we never known before. In short: haki is composed of 3 "skill trees", with each skill having its level. Not a power level for each type of haki.

Cant expect Oda to have a story of this magnitude figured out 100% from the start. This series has been going for longer than half its fans have been alive...

I always thought Haki was invisible from the get-go, and we only see the visual effects as a representation of it, so we, as the audience, know someone is using it. Like Crocodile was using Haki, it was just not shown that he was. Also it's crazy to think that the 1st opponent Luffy faces with Haki like powers is Kuro (Who looks like he uses one of the Six Powers)

One of my main issues with haki as it is in the OP verse is how random it seems who has managed to be able to access it is. Like some characters are shown to have been training in various types of fighting or doing actual battle for years without ever being able to access it while others just randomly seem to have a lot of mastery over it. A lot of characters that are regularly involved in battle also seem to just have no interest in trying to learn to use it despite how much of a power boost it gives for some reason.

I feel like Haki is mostly meant to serve as a counter to overpowered Devil Fruits. Because without Haki there’s like, nothing stopping from someone like Sugar walking up to Kaido, booping him on the nose and erasing all memory of him from the face of the planet

Didn't Luffy use Haki against the waterbull that the Sanji lookalike was riding? That happened just before Sabaody arc and the crew make a big point of how strange the event was. Luffy looked angrily at the creature and it fainted. Just like Shanks made some of WB crew faint when he got on board.

Haki is represented by the following squiggles is so disrespectful and made me laugh so goddamn hard. Well done.

I always thought Lucci's Rokuogan technique was haki-infused, as it bypassed Luffy's devil fruit. It would make sense as Lucci was probably the most likely of CP9 to develop haki naturally.

I love the English translation though. “Ambition” just fits so well mentally, especially with “Conqueror’s Ambition” or “King’s Ambition”

I think haki, while a little more complicated than people think, is still easy to understand. The biggest thing is that Devil Fruits and Haki coexist. When Law pierced Big Mom, I believed his awakened Devil Fruit power was stronger than her Haki, since Devil Fruit awakenings are known to change reality around the user. I do agree that Conqueror’s Haki has overtaken Armament. I kind of wish Conqueror stayed as “If you’re weak enough, you’re instantly taken out of the fight.” It was a good way to show a person’s power as well as getting rid of the people who weren’t even worth fighting. A good way to easily get rid of the small fries. Good video as always!!!

For me Haki was always manifastation of willpower. So in my head-canon everyone can use haki in some way depending on their fortitude and willpower. I think that is what was shown with Ussop when he used observation Haki on Dressrosa. He focused his willpower because he wanted to save Luffy and in this moment he gained the ability to use what we perceive as observation Haki. But I would not say, that this power is just like a level up. It's gradual. Ussop was always super-human in his ability to focus on his target by just wanting to hit them. So for me Crocodile and Moria for instance have some kind of Haki, but they haven't trained it to just use it when they want so in a fight against Luffy their willpower was not stronger than Luffys. I find it's all a bit more sensible when you don't see Haki as discrete power level, but as a continium and at some point you see concrete evidence of their improved willpower.

What I found most confusing about haki was how it compared to the 6 powers. I thought the 6 powers were a form of haki but weren't animated the same way because the characters couldn't tell what was happening. Especially iron body. When I learned that people still used finger pistol without any armament haki appearing, it stopped making sense to me.

Haki makes sense to me. It is one's will imposed upon reality. It allows a person to strengthen themselves in various ways, from someone's body's and tools to one's senses and presence. It is fueled by one's ambitions and willpower, it is strongest when the characters using it are confident and when they really want something to happen. That is at the start and end of a fight. It is one's willpower transformed into something physical. It is an emotional force that affects reality, really Shounen-like. You can argue that Crocodile and Gecko Moriah couldn't muster their Haki because their willpower was crippled by their defeats at the hands of Whitebeard and Kaidou. It is a power that strengthens with strong belief in yourself and overall delusions that you can do anything. They had their wills broken, their dreams shattered by the New World. Because of that, their Haki was crippled, they couldn't believe in themselves properly. It took Crocodile some time in the locker thinking how mr. crackhead got one over him and see him doing the impossible like three times to notice that. That's how I see it. Edit: 15:31 yeah, the silence bubble is a bit different from the teleport, don't you think? One affects an area around a person, the other affects the person directly, no?

I feel like it there's a strong enough attack from a non Haki user, it could still in theory be able to hurt a confirmed Haki user. Or at least that's the idea I got from Luffy fighting Hancock's sisters and I feel like it could help with cases like Robin and Franky's fights on Wano. Although while I see that it was necessary to fight Logias without their elemental weakness just conveniently lying around, I still have a couple issues with it. Namely that having a strong enough level of it just cancels out Devil Fruit powers all together, and the widely accepted idea that regardless of individual strength, a non Haki user can never defeat a confirmed Haki user. Although I do think it's funny that up until Wano, Conquerer's Haki was deemed useless by many, and now look how things turned out.

I think the black coating is more like a visual thing which also serves as a reminder that the characters now know how to use it. For example, pre timeskip, Blackbeard after a small clash with Luffy in Impel Down comments that "(Luffy's) haki has improved". So it was definitely a thing back then, but it wasn't visualized most probably in purpose.

Wano having Ryou makes perfect sense. They are an isolated island that is not “under protection” by the marines. They have been isolated since the void century. It’s actually a brilliant detail that might not have been done on purpose.

I think Haki is more like a multiplier. If you are strong enough to overpower someone who is using Haki, you dont need to use Haki. The different forms of armament Haki have different properties like piercing or blunt damage and conquerers has an overall larger multiplierer + maybe a stun effect, explaining why people without strong willpower lose conciousnes.

In my understanding, the reason law couldn’t use his powers agaisnt big mom in the beginning of the fight was due to his haki/willpower being weaker than big mom. He was intimidated. Then, as the fight progressed, they noticed their attacks had an effect on the seemingly invicible big mom. But also remember what rayleigh said, that haki blooms in the heat of battle. As you face somebody stronger, if youre not defeated, your haki will grow stronger. Also, the other main villains who fought luffy did use haki, if not, they wouldn’t be able to hurt rubber. Similar to garp’s love fist, no coating/armament, still hurt luffy. Rayleigh also “plain kicked” redirected kizaru’s beam. We just couldn’t see it because we weren’t “taught” about it by oda. That’s why after time skip we can see the coating of armament. It’s oda’s way of saying “the eye can only see what the brain knows”

I've never understood the Crocodile and Moria confusion; the two characters who we're shown had their dreams and ambitions crushed into dust somehow can't use the willpower abilities. HMMM I wonder why that could be? I'm sure those explanations came as a result of that Haki confusion, but at this point I feel like Oda's given us a really sensible answer to that question

16:13 This is something I’ve been saying for a while when I mention directing in anime, and someone on Reddit called me an idiot for thinking you had to direct an anime, because you’re just copying the manga which acts as a storyboard… But Manga and Anime are so different that a direct adaptation with no skilled direction would be almost unwatchable! A lot of the things people hate about anime are a result of manga… like super drawn out fights, because it’s easy to draw cool poses and add basically as much dialogue as you want and a few flashback panels thrown in… and it can keep pace just fine… but in animation someone actually has to say all of that dialogue… mid punch. Those single panels need to become a full flashback scene because you can’t just put up a still image over 30 seconds of dialogue… you need a director to make it interesting somehow. Another one is the Naruto “Tree Flying” sequences where it seems like they just fly through the trees for 50 miles, and occasionally hop slightly and fly again for 10 seconds… because again, you can just draw an image of a character jumping through the trees and add a ton of dialogue, but that just doesn’t work in animation! The odd back and forth still image with mouth flap dialogue is a victim of this too… a good director will add in new angles and shots to make it interesting but a bad director will just keep cutting back and forth to awkward still images with mouth flaps. It gets much more tricky when you’re trying to adapt action and fights for the same reason, you have the same issues but just on a faster pace. A good animation team and director will make it their own and make the action more fluid, dynamic and add new shots and angles to the fight, but a bad director makes fights feel like an awkward series of poses with jerky animations in between, because they’re just copying the exact poses and images from the manga and then awkwardly connecting them without trying to understand the intent of the artist and understand the fight itself to make it work. When you look at really good fights like JJK, Demon Slayer, or cool shots like the ODM gear from AoT… etc. it shows that directing really does matter when it comes to adapting manga. You really have to add and change a bit to make it work, and a good director will bring the story to life by following the wishes of the Mangaka getting what’s in their brain, onto the screen. One Piece is a mixed bag because sometimes the directing is great and fluid and others it’s an absolute mess. Sometimes it has all of the marks of great directing like interesting dialogue sequences, fluid fights and well timed emphasis on panels or splash pages… but other times it commits every awful anime sin! Personally I’m looking forward to the anime remake, and I hope they cut out all of the filler, and use more than 8 sound effects. If I ever hear that damn robot footstep sound fat people make I’m gonna flip. The sound design is so awful on OP and whoever is in charge needs to be fired! The whole audio department must have a single 2gb flash drive that they share, because the show has like 30 sound effects, and 8 songs… that’s it. Wano brought a bit of new stuff, but not much. You still have flying birds that sound like jet engines, people walking on grass, dirt, snow, wood, and more and they all sound like a horse tap dancing on a marble floor… they still use that horrible screeching sound for all haki, electricity, and power up, they use the same weird leather crunch sound for fists, and the same jangling for Zoro and his janky loose jangly swords! His swords sound cheaper than the crappy flea market swords I bought as a kid! Why do they jingle jangle so much?! They also sound like lasers when they cut anything… so idk. I give up lol

My biggest problem with Haki is how it made most Devil Fruits almost pointless. Most of which are the Logia fruits. I miss when they were super strong and you needed specific tactics to counter them. I like Haki just fine, I just wish it wasn't a counter to Devil Fruits so they could still be somewhat relevant.

The nun thing was crazy

Just a few thoughts you might have missed, when Luffy and Zoro first clashed due to Luffy being tricked and fed food, The moment they both clash you see a spark in the air foreshadowing Luffy and Zoro both having Conqueror's haki very early on. Also when Arlong was introduced, people had questions on how Fishmen can damage Logia users and his answer was Fishmen have something called Blue Haki. The next example I can think of prior to the timeskip was when Garp knocked Marco down as well as imo the main give away which was when Whitebeard fought Akainu. Everyone says Whitebeard was able to hit Akainu via his DF but if you go back there were a good amount of fight scenes where Whitebeard is just punching Akainu left and right with just his fists. In my opinion Haki has always existed only they added the color effects to showcase it after timeskip as well as expanding what Haki can do. Enel definitely showed immense observation haki and he probably has Armament as well by now.

I think Sanji was the first to use Haki. On Little Garden, he uses his Observation Haki and says he thinks he heard Nami screaming. It wasn't intentional, and he brushed it off because of the hunting tournament with Zoro. My point is, if Sanji's ability to hear distressed women is observation haki, he did it before Alabasta

Honestly I think moving the reveal of Haki from Sabaody to Enies Lobby would make a lot of sense. Having it be luffys first clash with haki and even if he can’t tap into it there it’s in own will to win that let’s him overpower it. As for crocodile and moria, crocodile didn’t really have a use for it against luffy till it was too late. Luffy already couldn’t hit him so there was no point in using haki there, and by the time luffy could hit him crocodile couldn’t really get in anything edgewise cause he had already severely underestimated him. And for Moria he’s the shining example of a knob who’s become excessively reliant on his devil fruit to the point where haki is probably something he could do but over time it’s diminished to being basically useless compared to just jacking the body of an ancient beast and throwing himself in it like a messed up gundam.

I feel like a lot of people over think haki and that's what makes it so confusing. haki at its core is simply the willpower of the person made "real". so even if someone doesn't have actual training in the 2 normal forms of haki they can still force their will out into the world, they just can't control when and how it happens i.e. it wasn't luffy's blood that let him beat crocodile so much as it was the first sparks of his haki infusing that blood with the idea that it could hit crocodile. that also applies to things like a haki user losing to someone that "doesn't" have haki, it is still a battle of wills so if the person that has haki has a weaker will to win they can be overpowered by the other person. the robin fight perfectly shows that idea, where the sheer force of her determination to win overpowered black maria. in a strange way haki is just the "generic shonen power boost" explained in universe. also ive never really considered conqueror's haki to be a 3rd unique type with its own special techniques so much as its the result of a will so insanely powerful that in its raw form it can crush weaker wills. I sort of think that conqueror's haki is more like a "buff" to the other types where you can use conquerors to make your normal types better. so its not like you can either use armament or conquerors to make your punch stronger, instead you use your armament then infuse your conquerors on top of it to make it 10x more powerful because of the sheer overwhelming force of your will but the draw back is it takes much more mental energy to do it. that also somewhat explains the reason why law couldn't just insta win against big mom at the start of the fight but could use his fruit against her at the end of the fight, by the end of the fight she was mentally and physically exhausted to the point that her will was weak enough that she simply couldn't force enough haki out to just shrug off the attack

That nun joke was gold😂 this is why youre my favorite

I always interpreted that haki is invisible to anyone who doesn't have observation. Like a lot of other power systems in anime except instead of being a explanation of why civilians can't see the magic powers it's an excuse for the characters and audience not being able to perceive it pre time skip

i think the strength of haki is determined by how concentrated and how strong his will is.. if the user is tired and bruised and hungry the capacity of haki varies. its not just on and off. if someone like big mum fights long enough and becomes hungry and tired etc she might be weared down enough so someone like law can actually use his powers on her despite she having her haki active. much like weapons and armor in most rpgs where the maximum dmg and absorption can be worn down if you dont repair your stuff regularly.

iron body "coating" moonwalk "emission" sky slicer "emission/imbuement" finger pistol "focused coating" paper art "observation/movement reading" Shave....maybe imbuement into interior of leg with coating to outside of leg to withstand pressure of so many quick successive steps.

Black lighting is a necessary condition for the Conqueror's Haki, but not a sufficient one. If Conqueror's Haki is used → Black Lighting = ~Black Lighting → ~Conqueror's Haki But Black Lighting → ??? We just don't know. It could be Conqueror's Haki, or Armament Haki, or some other power system Oda decided to come up with.

By the way, Haki never became visible, it’s only visible as ‘black’ after the time skip because Oda wanted to make it clear when someone was using it and thought ‘Now that Luffy can since Haki, the readers should be able to know as well.’

My original impression of conqueror's haki was that while having its own branch, it also aided the other two and amplified their strength, rather than replacing them (specifically in the case of armament haki)

I think all (or most) of the Straw Hat crew should be given some form of Haki at some point. Like it would make sense with how tough enemies are getting and could explain some of their Wano battles. It would make sense for Franky to be able to use basic armament. It would make sense for Usopp to have advanced observation since he’s the sniper (although I think this has been hinted at). It would make sense for Nami to be able to use observation to better detect weather changes. Robin using armament would make sense too given what we saw in Wano. Like it would fix some of the Straw Hat post-timeskip issues of Oda came out and confirmed that more of the Straw Hats could use some basic trivial form of Haki. It would make matchups against tougher enemies easier too, as he wouldn’t have to write as many work arounds or actively ignore his own established rules.

thats the one thing thats bothered my for quite awhile since you brought up mantra, like the one aspect of haki you could use to detect/foresee attacks for example, and everything worked out fine unnnnntil oda brought in katakuri where somewhere along the way, the ability to see 2 seconds into the future, or future sight was a totally new concept but at the same time has bin established for a long time now.

I can argue that conquerer haki always existed in Oda mind. But armament was created because logias where way too strong, writing a way to defeat a logia user would come to bulshitery at some point. Remember that to defeat Enel, Luffy had to go through soo many hoops that he basically became a circus artist.

14:15 Mmmm not necessarily. Yes pekoms rocked caribou with Haki, but it wasn't a matter of, "pekoms had stronger Haki. Therefore he oneshots." It was more that carribou was a wimp who was used to not being hit. Meanwhile Pekoms is a yonko officer who can hit him and can hit pretty hard.

bro your editing is awesome

I was always acting under the impression that Haki was invisible unless you had observation Haki, at which point you can see it.

Don't think this is in any way canon or Oda's super secret plan, (I recall haki being shown as something to do with animators demands rather than Oda's idea being mentioned?) but I always liked looking at it from the Straw Hat's point of view. They didnt know of/understand Haki, so they didnt see it. Post-Timeskip, theres a greater understanding so they can "tell" when haki is being used, and that translates to us as the readers/viewers.

Back when One Piece was starting, I was sure that the answer to "How would Zoro/Sanji/Mihawk/Shanks defeat a logia?" would simply be Seastone, like a Seastone-coated Sword, or shoes, or gloves or brass knuckles, etc. I kinda still wish that was the case, because the idea of "how do we put someone like Kizaru in seastone handcuffs before he kills us all" still sounds more interesting of a fight than simply punching harder, as fun as that last one has proven to be.

Dr. Hiruluk made the first solid comment foreshadowing haki which I think is when oda decided he wanted to implement another power system later on

haki could make jibberish jabberish sense and one piece would still be EPIC

i feel like the fight between big mom and the law and kid showed the haki problem the most. It seems like against kaido bm has acoc and on the roof she showed good haki proficiency. But suddenly, she didn't use haki at all against them or wasn't drawn for whatever reason which made it harder to scale powers. the same problem occured with admirals pre-time skip which only led to fans speculate and scale to remain consistent with the story.

I think that haki and devil fruits could actually be the same thing. If devil fruit abilities come from desire, and haki is the embodiment of ambition, basically both of them are powers that develop and evolve because someone wants to achieve something really much. That is why haki beats devil fruits in general, but there are times that devil fruits prevail.

The intro summary lined up with why haki can come across as a clumbsy retcon. Haki was probably intended to be clarified very late in the series, possibly right before the end. But haki became important with a lot of story to go, which is why it feels so weird a lot of characters from earlier don't have it.

it is so invisible, its visible, but only when its necessary.

I think Zoro was just using basic armament against Mr.1 if anything. He just made his sword hard/sharp enough to cut steel.

i think while robin and franky might not have hockey, they both have other forms of power. so while haki tends to be the better or stronger power in general, something like a devil fruit or technology can also "trump" haki. this is potentially backed up by Luffy learning adv stages of haki just to fight kaido but still needing gear 5 to actually finish him off.

That nun line had me stopped in my tracks 😂😂😂

There's a phrase from what recall that differentiates the black lightning clashes. When garp was fighting there's a specific kanji that's around that's not with koby. I think artur did a video on it because of the confusion at the time.

Concerning advanced conquerer's Haki, I always felt like it kind of reinforced Armament Haki. All effects of advanced CoC can be explained by boosting different Armament applications. So Zoro was using imbuent of Armament into his swords and reinforced it with Conquerers. Meanwhile Luffy, Kaido, Whitebeard and also used Emission Armament and therefore the no touching effect happenend. Also Conquerers infusion into Armament may add the typical Conquerers effect of overhelming opponents, kind of adding psychological or mental damage to the physical one. Therefore Luffy was koed by Kaido with one hit because he was not only dealing physical damange with massive strength and Armament but also by a overhelming him mentally with infused Conquerers.

Mate that quip at 0:18. Nearly clean as. I had to do a double take on that pun

A good indicator for ACoC is black lightning when a character "charges" their attack. Though it happened sometimes during Luffy vs Katakuri, which contradicts it, but it's a good indicator during Wano.

never thought of it like this. and with it being invisible i kinda figured it was a perception thing, only once youve learned it can you perceive it (mostly with armament) and with das bones i thought it was normal armament, he use a not so black, black blade to cut steel it is manifested willpower, so it can be a little mercurial while still having a defined foundation, which is nice with dedvil fruits being so strange and varied but in the end its a system that makes sense within the world, just dont look at it TOO hard, nothing hurts more than going into dragon ball levels of issues

i'm curious on the lore and relation between haki and devil fruits. Both are obviously closely related to each other. If cursed swords (and black swords) are manifestations of the user's haki and obtain a will of their own, could this extend to other objects, like a ship for example? Could this be the case of the going merry, where it would a manifestation of the haki of the SH crew? Could devil fruits be byproducts of haki users from the past (fruits being imbued with haki)? How does tie in with Vegapunk's research on devil fruits? I don't remember him ever mentioning it, which is odd and i hope he gets to it at some point.

Haki is basically aura,energy, chi, fighting spirit , whatever you want to call it. Normal Haki means application of normal aura, conquerors Haki means you are born with a monstrous high level aura and advance conqueror means application of the said high level aura. And yes those cp9 guys are using Haki and the strawhats like Zoro and Sanji can use it unknowingly a bit too but they can't control it proficiently yet. All those with superhuman capabilities like cp9 are all basically using Haki

What i think about the haki nullification of df is that some powers that involves the target willpower or desire can be nullified by haki. For exemple, Shambles, its for changing things using teleportation, if the target haki is higher enough than the Ope user he can just nullify it, since his desire is to not be swapped. Other powers that might get in this nullification are Perona's ghosts and Sugar's toy touch. Idk if i explained it well enough, but thats what i think.

I think the first time haki was thought out as a concept was when Dragon grabbed Smoker.

I think franky would easily be able to use haki (as he filled with so much self confidence and willpower,) yet no one wants to teach him :(

I love it whenever I see Liam post a new video

So I like a lot of what you said but there's some things I think of differently. First of all, Zoro vs Mr. 1. I think haki is a blend of typical battle anime tropes. Intimidating auras, ki, honed perception, etc. So Oda basically took all those things he used as standalones earlier and melded them into his haki system. So in hindsight, Zoro did unconsciously tap into principles that would become haki. Add that to what Blackbeard said about Luffy, and you can argue that the Straw Hats were filling their wells of haki before they knew how to consciously draw from them. So against Mr.1, Zoro being near death (when haki blooms) tapped into powers beyond his understanding. If you apply this to other situations pre-timeskip, it's easier to reconcile. Crocodile and Moria had their spirits broken in the New World. They came back to Paradise to basically do government-sanctioned bullying to rookie pirates while they lick their wounds and accumulate power. I think using modern haki techniques requires training and the right mindset. Moria got fat and lazy, and Crocodile having a logia made him over-reliant on the fruit and thus neglecting his haki. As for CP9, perhaps they, like the monster trio, had it but had yet to refine it and train it specifically. Half of them were also undercover for 5 years. Kuma didn't mean Lucci was invincible, because by the time he said that we knew about Whitebeard, Shanks, Kaido, Aokiji, and Garp. I think he meant Lucci was a prodigy like Who's Who mentions later and that he was on that kind of trajectory. Obviously they wouldn't send him to missions in the New World where he'd get worked. You also don't need haki to beat someone with it. Kid implies as much vs Big Mom. Everyone is born with haki (spirit), some with the potential for Conquerors. The fact that Conquerors can't be trained lends itself to the idea that haki in some form is present from birth, but at least in the other forms can be trained if someone is strong enough in spirit. Franky and Robin are very strong, but have not formally trained to refine it into techniques like hardening or their perception isn't good sharp enough like Usopp's. Concerning devil fruits, I think when we know their true nature, we will understand why and how the interact with haki in the way they do. Law does not have strong enough haki or ability to chop up Big Mom, but his awakening was strong enough to get through. Just like if someone physically much stronger than an opponent's haki, armament won't be enough. That's why post timeskip Cipher Pol agents still use rokushiki techniques but augment or boost them with haki. It is a convoluted system, but I think partially the fanbase also overthinks it.

I use to love it when luffy use to say '' bashoshok kuga '' when he uses haki .. now no more he says it 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

Zoro was the first to use haki for the Strawhats and against Mr. 1 Zoro used observation to focus and feel his surroundings this dodging the objects unconsciously and then used armament (which was invisible in Pre-TS) to harden his blade for more offense, since armament haki is great offense and defense, and his observation to perceive a vulnerable target to pierce the Iron Body of Mr. 1

Haki as a DF equivalent for unique ambition abiltiies would support the theory that DFs are peoples imagination. Hence, they arent so different. One comes from the devil, the other from oneself. Id have honestly liked that more than what we've got. Id also make so much more sense why Kaido said only great Haki can be KotP. You have to manifest your own power, instead of eating the power other people imagined. Omg, pls make a deep dive into this dynamic.

For some reason i feel like the concept of Haki was introduced during Alabasta when Ace was explaining the different fruits. Didnt he or someone during that arc mention that logia arent all powerful or that something could affect/hurt them? Could just be Mandala effect, but that thought tickles my brain.

Another somewhat statement was from Garp. His "Fist of Love" when punching Luffy was a Haki Punch. Happened pre-timeskip

There’s something that a lot of people don’t catch onto. Big mom when she isn’t in overprotective mum mode barely used haki. On Onigashima Big mom only used Haki to smack page 1. She never used it as any other point. I think this is related to her split personality. I’d argue nice big mum is stronger than when she uses haki too. Evil big bum was over reliant on her devil fruit.

I think that Haki is supposed to be mysterious, especially Conqueror's Haki, that is, at least for now. It's kinda like the awakening of devil fruits, which we do not really know of that much, especially logia awakenings (Kizaru is probably the main reason behind this question). It feels like Haki is basically something to rival Devil Fruits so as devil fruits aren't completely explained, even Haki isn't completely explained as of now. Another thing I wanted to mention is that Moria probably knew Haki, but as it is the manifestation of willpower, Moria just couldn't use it as he himself exclaims that he had become lazy after he lost his crew against Kaido and so was using other people's shadows to do his work. His willpower extended to the shadow creatures, but I don't know if haki can be extended to shadow creatures like that. I also have an interesting theory for Crocodile. He probably knew Haki when he fought against Whitebeard, but then after suffering a crushing defeat against Whitebeard, most likely due to Whitebeard having the superior haki, including conqueror's, he probably thought that he would stop using haki as he could never reach the level of WB's haki and will try defeating Yonkos some other way. Like it makes sense as he is a really cocky person, and if he couldn't defeat him in one way, then he feels like the person who would try something entirely different, completely forgetting about what he previously used.

I think haki just requires refinement. People might be able to use it subconsciously or without knowing and to a high degree but with minimal control, lack of ability to use on demand, and lastly who knows what for a cool down. Then refining and training your haki allows for control and repetitive use. There are many ways to express and train it and you can just make it invisible at a cost. I think this explanation works. As for the warlords and Co who should have it, but don't either they didn't use it either willfully or didn't refine it enough to control it and just got their status with other means or in moments when it counts they had a raw burst.

I actually know that the first mention of haki in all translations is when shanks got on board the whitebeard pirates ship and talk to whitebeard and started knocking people out on the boat, and jozu said “that mans haki is impressive”

I started to appreciate Haki. It seems to me to be inspired by the spiritual forces inside of humans our ancestors valued so highly they sometimes structured their communities or cultures around it. Call it Haki, Ki, Qi, Manitou, Prana, Mana, ... It is a transcendental spiritual energy which can influence the material world. You might see the influence, but you can usually not see the power itself, you have to sense it. Since Manga and Anime is visual you can try depicting it by some aura or sth. But because you can not see it and only sense it, because in real life every culture, religion etc. has their own words ... I started to love Haki, Mantra, Ryou, Rokushiki, ... I my self am interested in how Luffy has attributes of Maui of Maori mythology. This is something you could get into since you life in Australia Liam, but probably not since it would not fit into your video style. Probably do it myself I guess.

My head canon is that every Straw Hat has Haki, but most of them don’t know how to use it in the traditional sense. Because Haki is supposed to be the manifestation of one’s will, it honestly makes no sense to me why most of the other Straw Hats don’t have any forms of Haki, considering that they are some of the most ambitious people in the world. You shouldn’t need training to have Haki, it should just manifest on its own and be used however they choose to use it.

I think it's best not to think too hard about it. But I agree it's hard to do that. This is just what happens when you write a story for more than 2 decades now. It constantly evolves, which creates plot holes. I think this also helps Oda not burn out. Cos hard set rules are difficult to follow for such a long time.

haki isn't an invincible power vs non haki users. Luffy beat the boa sisters before he learned haki. Hodi Jones bit through Luffy's haki. Sufficient amount of force and speed will beat haki that is not powerful enough.

I've said this before, but if Oda had made advanced conqueror's any other colour of lightning besides black, E.g. pure red or even gold, there'd be a lot less discourse on matters such as whether or not Koby is a conqueror since those colours can remain white in the manga

I think Haki is one of those things that makes more sense the less you look at it. There are plenty of people looking to scale and analyze via black lightning and such, but I think it works way better if you look at the surrounding scenes, circumstances, and emotions behind the intent and willpower on display. The Robin example Liam used in the video is good because, even though we could look at the aura as a Haki thing (which I'm sure it's not), the scene and Robin's emotions make that aura read far more as a visualization of her mental and emotional state at the time. The colour choice was probably to disassociate that specifically from Haki, however, the animation team has chosen a tricky (albeit, kind of the only) option to showcase Haki, as auras have been used across anime for decades to visualize plenty of emotional states. Like, I can't think of a specific example, but I'm damn near positive you could go back into pre-timeskip and find a use of aura in a scene where Nami is threatening Luffy or Usopp gets a burst of false courage or something, and there was clearly no Haki intent there. Admittedly, showing the use of Haki becomes tricky because it is mostly an internal ability, and animation is primarily a visual medium, so displaying that power system in a way that makes sense is tough. The use of sound design helps (think the iconic *swshwshwsh* of your classic Super Saiyan ki flame), but there needed to be a surefire way to let viewers know Haki was in use in the event they're watching on mute. Same goes with the manga and the use of black lightning--it could mean just a heavy clash, and it could mean Haki use--just use the prior knowledge and weight of the scene to determine of Zoro is busting out ACOC on Lucci in Egghead, or if the two are just sort of going at each other in a fun little bout. Artistic choice becomes tough in a strictly black and white medium, so take it with a grain of salt and trust that Oda has seeded every actual Haki user prior so we don't need to deep-dive on whether Prince Grus is somehow a Conq. user.

GrandLineReview's jokes and charisma while doing a detailed, enjoyable analysis keep me returning to this channel for more. Stay awesome forever, and keep up the fantastic work!

conquerers haki is like using your willpower as a tool, observation haki is enhanced observation, but i cant explain where armament haki armor comes from

Sometimes i get this epiphany where all Haki makes sense and i remember how it was subtly used in marineford by admirals and you start getting everything and sometimes i just go back to square 1 Katakuri's fruit didn't help either Haki is not as well defined as we think it is but it's still a cool system I think Merphy Napier has a point it's all about how oda is feeling the winner is decided by the story not power scaling or haki

Usopp has unironically one of the best observation haki feats in the series, seeing sugar from that far away through multiple walls and knowing where to shoot to hit the target

0:15 I see what you did there with consistent 😂

I always just figured with laws attacks that the teleportation and the removing the heart those were high cost. Low reward moves that can only be done on like lower level people or can only be used on those kind of people if you can catch them off guard while they're not defending against it specifically

Everytime Liam speaks french, the video is automatically better