Oda can't write back n forth fights anymore. He tries it for Luffy and then sometimes cooks up something decent, but for Zoro and Sanji it's nonexistent. Snakeman is by far the most exciting mode for Luffy.
Zoro suggests at the end of Zoro vs King that he’ll be able to hurt him with KoH.
Zoro says on Egghead that with the flame they are almost/practically invincible, depending on translation.
Key word is the almost/practically. Meaning there is something that Zoro thinks can be done against them- attacks on the level of Zoro’s KoH- but everything else is useless.
Keep in mind he’s talking not just to Luffy, but to Lucci and Kaku. Lucci and Kaku have zero chance of doing damage to a flame on Lunarian. And Zoro hasn’t actually seen G5, and only a bit of Luffy vs Kaido with ACoC.
I think this is partly the truth. The whole truth may be, zoro has no clue what ACoC is. To him, its simply KoH. Same with observation being "mantra" to skypieans. He cant say "you need advanced conquerors coating", because he doesn't know what the hell that is.
The problem is that there isn't really a reason for either Luffy nor Zoro to not use CoC. Especially when Luffy used G5 which far depletes his Stamina when he could have double tapped Lucci with G4+CoC
The answer is not in the story but outside.
In shonen characters don't go full power at the beginning of every right . If they did the authors wouldn't be able to stretch plots as they like.
Why Luffy didn't use G4 and wiped Hody, why Zoro didn't Ashura in every single fight ?
The answer is simply plot must be expanded so the author will limit them until plot needs no more expansion.
The answer is not in the story but outside.
In shonen characters don't go full power at the beginning of every right . If they did the authors wouldn't be able to stretch plots as they like.
Why Luffy didn't use G4 and wiped Hody, why Zoro didn't Ashura in every single fight ?
The answer is simply plot must be expanded so the author will limit them until plot needs no more expansion.
Wouldn't King being afraid of what Zoro could do, be all the more reason for him to not turn off his Lunarian defense?
And it's not even like he turned it off in favor of a speed based attack. He turned it off in favor of using an attack for Zoro to meet head on, using the same strength King is supposed to be afraid of.
So why would King, whose scared of Zoros strength , purposely try to match it?
Do you not see where this gets pretty choppy?
Scarred or not, he was doing just fine with his defenses up. Purposely turning off his defense, to meet the strength he's scarred of, makes no sense.
King: "Your strength is scary, I should turn off my defense, and try to overpower it."
No not if Oda is low key telling us by kings actions that it doesn’t matter if he is in flame on/off mode anymore also King had no idea Zoro would meet that attack head on and cut through his flaming dragon zoro never used flame rend once to cut through any flames of king you have to look at kings reactions man I don’t get why so many are not doing that.
King was absolutely dominant that entire fight with flame on mode up until adv coc haki, then Oda has king acknowledge zoro as a threat ,mind you he also has zoro admit to king out loud that he does not have much time left himself. How does Oda have king react to the news that zoro has admitted to him that he has a time limit? (Most assume he should/would stay in flame on mode for rest of battle and call him dumb for not doing so ) but Oda paints a different narrative he has Zoro uses KOH oni giri and king dodges with flame on mode for the first time this is Oda starting to establish that lunarian defense does not hold up to adv coc , I also think the few panels of kaido hyping up kings endurance and the test they put him through and kaido himself calling him strong and naming him king is significant and often not even talked about here because again this is kings first dodge moment with flame on. Zoro then says:(going off of his prior knowledge of how kings body works) his flames are on no use in attacking now. So another question how does Oda have king react to zoro now that he views him as a threat even in flame on mode??? we skip forward to king acting totally different he is blocking zoros attacks and zoro calls him out on it now we see king scared so what does king do he flies backward to create space as fast as he can (flame off) and launches his final attack from range (this should make the most sense as again he is scared of what zoro could do he does not want him to cut him up), and king should also be going off his previous use of the attack on zoro (1035) , zoro choose to dodge the attack instead of face it( zoro proceeds to jump to close that gap and does something he had not done the entire fight he cuts through the flames with flame rend (sure he didn’t say it but are u gonna sit here and argue Zoro didn’t use the technique to cut fire when he has it ) please acknowledge that we see kings shocked face at zoro doing this he never knew zoro could cut through the flames and then the attack connects and it’s over.
Tldr I guess, if people actually believe the panels that Oda provided , how king started the fight using flame on(dominant), kaido hyping king up(strong), how king reacted to adv coc with flame on(scared) as it couldn’t handle adv coc anymore then there are no issues with the zoro and king fight it flows quite well imo at least, but alas I feel confident Oda will show us the truth soon unless he chooses to retcon something.
It maybe nonsensical by HxH's standards but we're talkin about post-TS Oda here. At least Zoro vs King had some badassery, Luffy was literally dragged by Oda for 3949574 chapters comprised of 5802 rounds against Kaidou and said are you having fun Kaidou even before G5's wacky theme is revealed...
King was pretty cool, the anime has made him look better but Oda really did waste his character.
Since Oda admitted Kaido took only King when he went to Marineford, this would have been perfect to hype up King somehow but Oda still wont even tell, never mind show us how Shanks stopped Kaido from going to MF too.
King hasn't felt like a YC1 to me tbh, Katakuri was far more of a threat and presence and Oda hid Kings identity for too long too. Since Luffy never faced him and Jack too, it didn't help either character get potential hype by being his opponent temporarily either.
But in defense of King too, even as a Zoro stan, I found it absolutely awful writing tbh, (like peak Erza Scarlet tier writing with 99% of her bones broken or w/e destroying a meteor), when Zoro with 30 broken bones after tanking hakai, just took mink steroids and was able to mid diff King after a major CoC powerup too.
King not having CoC himself was the icing on that shitty cake too.
King deserved much better and the fact he's not even involved to see his race being disgustingly weaponised post humously/post genocide of said race, as child android soldiers or w/e is just staggering too.
Oda put so much effort into Kings design both before and especially after the reveal if his face and race but squandered him a lot.
I enjoyed the parallel of him and Zoro with their loyalty and respect for their captains but the fight felt forced and rushed.
Didn't feel like a Yonko Commander fight, especially a YC1 and this was the 1st SH aside from Luffy ofc, to fight a YC solo and win too especially.
I don't need morj to tell me that, I already know that fight sucked. Mainly with the explanation of King's powers, final chapter dropped the ball big time, barely used his zoan in that chapter too in an effective manner. It was good until we knew nothing about King's body rules, everything after that made little sense.
- Him being invulnerable to damage - why the hell would he sacrifice that for his increase of speed to make himself vulnerable - meaning zero explanation how or when those flames go on and off.
Zoro just finding out he has CoC and in a moment he learned CoC coating (can't get anymore bullshit than that)... only to still use it when King's flame was off in his back anyway.
Even in choreography it sucked.
Instead of convoluting his powers like that without proper explanation I would have had him simply be an awakened ancient zoan user for insane regen and his race having the power to burst into flames, so that way his zoan integrates into his fighting style. This was the arc for ancient zoans, should have had at least one awakened too who else other than King.
The lack of awakened Zoans in a Beast Pirate themed Yonko is crew is truly unforgivable.
Not a single ancient zoan awakening either ffs as you said too.
I'm vainly coping Drake will get one but I doubt it too.
if this guy is so analytical he should have realized that oda is old as fuck and hasn't given a fuck about drawing fights since thriller bark
if it was up to him even the main luffy fights would get off-paneled
he probably still can, he just can't be assed
i forgot in what interview but a relatively recent one (maybe the one with detective conan author?) he said that drawing fights became boring for him as he aged, and that's why he off-panels more and more
he fell for the "OP is good for the plot" meme
This is what u get when u think an ability over night barely explain it
Oda just wanted to be done with those fights
There was no effort put in the calamity fights.He wanted to get to Lufy and write 10+chaps with 10 double spreads and move n
Crazy how garbage fights in that arc were when I go from jjk that actually explians shit and not fans making things for the author. And the fights don't jump around. This fight was rushed and mediocre.
I usually don't comment on fighting topics, but the fight between Zoro and King was plot- and analytical-wise in my opinion heavily influenced by the (future) story and what Oda wanted us to know.
First, I think there were many factors, which were underlying the fight: One is Zoro learning COC - thas was relevant for Zoro as a character to develope his strength. But also important was us learning how King looked and how he can be defeated. Because if you are now looking to Egghead, Zoro can convey this info to everyone. And this is of utmost importance for everyone to know, since most of them have already fought once or twice and are at least a little drained. And with Kizaru and the 100 battle ships coming to Egghead, their fight is not over, yet.
Those two things were most important for the next arc - and that is why Oda focused on them so heavily. Unfortunately, it seems that some fans are not happy with the handling of the fight ... . I can understand that it could seem like a letdown.
But do you want to hear something good? Because, Oda is maybe not through with King: An indicator for this is how Greebull was defeating the Beast pirates in the prisoner mine. Look closely - everyone is being "drained" and is looking more withered than anything else. Except for King. He is looking like usual and now I am wondering, why Greenbull is refraining from doing it. If we add that to the fact that the WG used to experiment on him and that a "withered" test-subject might not be, what they need - because they want him healthy to begin their tests - then we can already deduce how he is going to end up after his capture. And when the SHP are going against the WG, then there could be a high possibility that they were to encounter a bound King within the WG's research facilities again.
By the way, an indicator that Oda is investing more in the character and may be bringing him back is the way he was shown to being concepted in chapter 153.2. Look at how Oda is drawing him way more detailed than everybody else of Kaido's crew. And yes, even with Kaido the main villain of the arc, Oda was not as exact as with King's concept. King sticks out here like a sore thumb, hinting that it is more likely we will see him again, soon.
King joining the side of the SHP could also be a factor, why Oda wasn't focussing on the fight more - because King was already going to switch sides later on. And going through the work of making him seem antagonistic wasn't worth the hastle: Zoro got COC, King's secret was revealed - that were the most important things.
Again, bad that you didn't get what you wanted, but plot interfered here highly with the fight.
In my head Zoro unlocked COC coating to pierce King flame on defense (otherwise it doesn’t make sense)
But the main problème was King flame off mode lol : once Zoro discovered the gimmick that mode because fucking useless and King became weak as hell with it.
King went super speed and barely landed a kick on Zoro before being countered. During the CQC clash no highlighting with the speed etc.
King should have used his hybrid + speed lot more often to blitz Zoro and land attacks.
The speed mode was a joke during the second part of the fight.
Overall, yeah the gimmick was great at all
But frankly Queen having Germa powers and the whole Osome situation wasn’t great either
Because if you are now looking to Egghead, Zoro can convey this info to everyone. And this is of utmost importance for everyone to know, since most of them have already fought once or twice and are at least a little drained.
But see All the Vegapunk’s also know how the lunarian durability works… a they all simply kept quiet about it and let the strawhats waste time because Oda wanted them not to say anything so that Zoro can have any relevance whatsoever here
Shaka and company could’ve literally told the strawhats 10 chapters ago how the Seraphims can be beaten
I also think this was poorly done in this fight. Because Oda didn’t clarify how Enma affects this and never gave Zoro an actual character arc to match it
Notice how every other CoC user we see develop their CoC develops it at a turning point in their character.
Luffy developed CoC after Ennies lobby where his test as a Captain was first done and then Sabaody where he suffered his biggest loss yet and had to think as a captain for the first time when he told his crew to retreat…. then from then on Luffy was using CoC sporadically throughout Amazon lily impel down and Marineford
Doffy and Ace were shown developing CoC in the points they both decided their character arcs. Doffy got CoC when he swore to destroy everything when he got strung up with his family… Ace developed CoC when he decided to protect Luffy and be his big brother
and when did Zoro get CoC? The accompanying dialogue for Zoro getting CoC is him repeating everything we already knew, kuina and Luffy and whatever… Same exact shit… No character arc or even a specific character moment… Zoro just gets CoC when the story randomly decided he needs to to win a fight
And the other problem is that it’s tied to Enma. It is a problem that MAJORITY of the fans believe Zoro can’t even use CoC without a sword… Its bad that Zoro is the only CoC user in the series who is so bad at it that he needs exterior items to help him do it
this is a bad fight in and of itself but I think it’s bad even when it comes to supposedly setting things up for the future or whatever you think CoC matters to Zoro in this situation
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