Powers & Abilities Power Creep and Story Inconsistencies

There is no power creep.

Kaido's durability and needing Ryou to injure him is pure PIS bullshit to begin with. An excuse for Luffy to lose the first fight without de-hyping Kaido.

His real durability shines through when you can use ryou and it ain't shit
Kinemon who has always been fodder to Luffy/Zoro can injure him.

Luffy hasn't gotten 10x stronger. He just got the one thing that allows him to attack and damagr Kaido normally.
There’s no actual evidence that Luffy used ryou with Red Roc, since we already know that Red Hawk does internal damage without it.
 
There’s no actual evidence that Luffy used ryou with Red Roc, since we already know that Red Hawk does internal damage without it.
It doesn't really matter if he used it or not, all I'm saying is the gap between Luffy and Kaido was never as big as the first fight implied it to be.

Luffy was YC1 when he turned up to Wano. If he has improved since then there's nothing surprising about him beating a Yonko while tagteaming him
 

Doggo

Welcome to the House of Hope
Luffy trained in Udon and still got swatted away like a fly by Big Mom.
The real difference between pre Udon Luffy, and post Udon Luffy, is the new magical haki he got.
Apparently, that's enough. We'll see though. Maybe he uses another gear 4 form.
 
Yes. Considering that over 90% of the fan base thinks Yonko are at the top, you must think Oda is a really shitty writer. Generally, when your story makes the vast majority of readers think the wrong thing, it’s poorly written.
Oda keeps a manga in a very competitive magazine for 23 years. Luffy learns a skill and punches kaido in just one chapter,then suddenly Oda is a very shitty writer.
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It sucked then, and it sucks now.
It’s also quite a bit worse here. There was an in universe explanation that the SHs were shaken up by Robin leaving at first. We have no equivalent explanation here.
Same overreaction when Squardo stabbed whitebeard, scabbards stabbed Kaido
Nothing new here
 
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Doggo

Welcome to the House of Hope
Oda keeps a manga in a very competitive mamgazine for 23 years. Luffy learns a skill and punches kaido in just one chapter,then suddenly Oda is a very shitty writer.
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Same overreaction when Squardo stabbed whitebeard, scabbards stabbed Kaido
Nothing new here
Luffy learns "MAGICAL NEW HAKI POWER" and then punches Kaido. That's different.
Oda is not shitty, but he is far from being Top tier. He is YC1 level of writing at best.

Kidding. He is a good writer, but One Piece is a shounen with more than 20+ years of writing, and STILL Oda appeals to shounen cliches, more after the time skip and before. The old "get stronger the more you get rekt" during Katakuri fight, the "new technique that for some reason the character didnt use sooner" cliches, etc.
I think that's because he is physically and quite possibly mentally exhausted. So hanging to these cliches makes the job easier. Not a sin at all, dude's work is life consuming. But still these cliches are quite boring and predictable.
I just hope he doesnt start doing the "out of nowhere" plot twists cliches. Because these make the story absolutely a shit show.
 
Luffy learns "MAGICAL NEW HAKI POWER" and then punches Kaido. That's different.
How is internal haki "new' and magical?
Internal haki was shown literally 500 chapters ago.
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Oda is not shitty, but he is far from being Top tier. He is YC1 level of writing at best.
He's a great writer from a shonen standpoint. And releasing chapters weekly for 23 years and keeping your manga relevant in the competitive shonen jump magazine throughout those years is a very great achievement. Literally no writer has done it before
 

Doggo

Welcome to the House of Hope
Because he should have learned it with Rayleigh.
Instead Oda decided to keep these "advanced haki" as trump cards, to keep the "power ups" every arc to keep coming.
Show power X.
Explain power X.
Rayleigh says he is gonna teach power X.
Suddenly, Luffy instead learned power Y, and now needs another teacher to teach him power X he should have learned before.
the "NEW" is ironic exactly because this Haki is not new. He should have it since timeskip.
At least the Future Sight one makes sense.
You are so good at predicting and sensing people, that you can basically see into the future, because you are perceiving everything around you far ahead. That's pretty good as an upgrade. Makes sense.
 
Because he should have learned it with Rayleigh.
Haki blooms during Battle. If Oda made it that a noob with no experience in fighting can be on an island and learn all advanced forms of haki in 2 years, it wouldn't make sense that Doflamingo, katakuri and every relevant top tier doesn't have it.
Yes People would be complaining if luffy learnt it with Rayleigh 500 chapters ago.


And if this internal haki can hurt a top tier kaido then luffy should have one shotted all his opponents till he meets kaido. Good luck keeping your fans interested in a story like that (Saitama is built different)
 

Doggo

Welcome to the House of Hope
When Rayleigh first explains CoA, he says it's like an invisible suit of armor that, if strong enough, can be used to attack.
He uses it against the elephant. He pushes him back without touching him directly, which is the Wano technique. He then says that it can be imbued to weapons, like what the Kujas do. (here we already see that the the wanot technique is nothing new. actually the very core of CoA). Sentoumaru used the "Ryou", Rayleigh used, basically everybody used this form of CoA. No black stuff.
Suddenly this "it blooms during fights" and "advanced CoA" crap comes along.
The basic became the advanced. For no reason except keep inventing power ups.

The CoO upgrade made sense. The CoA didn't. Should have been like this since the beginning.
 
After chapter 1000, I’m entirely convinced that One Piece is going down the same route as Dragon Ball and Naruto where the power creep for the main characters gets way too out of hand.

Am I overreacting or are my concerns legitimate?
Explain what you mean first. Because characters getting powerful isn't necessarily a detriment to the story.
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Power creep doesn’t just refer to the strength of the verse as a whole subtly increasing over time.
Thats not power creep at all thats just normal power progression.

Power creep can also refer to an individual character becoming more powerful in a way that seems contrived and/or due to plot. In this sense,
No it can't because thats also not power creep.

I think One Piece almost definitely shows signs of power creep. Luffy damaging Kaido with G3 (and potentially no ryou) when just two weeks earlier king organ did nothing is a bit much.
Again none of that is power creep. Thats normal for shounen protagonists.
 
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0 evidence of power creep. I told people since WCI you've underestimated everyone who's not part of a Yonko's crew.

You guys have to relook at those Katakuri/Cracker fights, because they're messing with your fucking heads. You're way overestimating Cracker, and you're massively underestimating Katakuri.

I think it's quite clear that all of Luffy, Law, Doffy were either = or > YC1 (although YC1 is very broad), and Zoro/Sanji YC2-4. Kinemon easily YC4/Tobi Roppo/>= Izo too.
I like this outlook, specially if you forget about all the YC# bs
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There is no power creep.

Kaido's durability and needing Ryou to injure him is pure PIS bullshit to begin with. An excuse for Luffy to lose the first fight without de-hyping Kaido.

His real durability shines through when you can use ryou and it ain't shit
Kinemon who has always been fodder to Luffy/Zoro can injure him.

Luffy hasn't gotten 10x stronger. He just got the one thing that allows him to attack and damagr Kaido normally.
Yeah this is what I think. People went crazy on the scabbards vs kaido but really they're still just as weak as they've always been. We've similar situations when WB got gangbanged by a bunch of marine officers. Luffy simply gained advanced ryuo, so now he can hurt kaido pretty bad. Simple as that Ig.
 
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90% of the OP arcs are structured more or less like that. That's fine for a shonen of course,
You say it like that makes it "lesser" or something. All stories/genres have formulas. Most authors in general have writing patterns. Just because you can point out one of One Piece's formulas doesn't somehow mean it's of "less" quality than anything else.
 
I didn’t say either of these things lmao.

Luffy damaging Kaido with Gear 3 after two weeks of training despite pounding him non-stop with Kong Organ...looks a lot like power creep to me.

Law, Zoro, and Killer competing with Yonko... looks a lot like power creep to me.
It's just that Luffy didn't have the means to hurt him before i.e ryuo. It's been made clear that just normal attacks don't affect him, idk why ppl think the problem was physical strength...
 
From looking at this thread it seems like a lot of people seem to think that "power creep" means "overpowered".

Those are not the same thing.

A series becoming "really powerful" IS NOT the same as power creep. Thats just normal power progression.

Some kind of "we have to save the world from some planetary threat" plot is common at the end of every shounen. If One Piece did the same that wouldn't be power creep.

Power Creep is when a series goes beyond its pre-defined limits. With One Piece there was never any such predefined limits. The power ceiling was always only ever "hinted" at. Never shown. Hence why Oda himself implies that Marineford will be cute during Wano and that by the Last Chapter Marineford will be nothing. The point being that, in his mind he hasn't really shown us anything yet.

It's not like Naruto or Dragonball where we already knew the limits of the verse and then they just kept endlessly sailing beyond it.

Characters getting stupid powerful is normal for shounen. Thats not power creep. It's only when the increase in power completely breaks the balance of the combat in the story that it becomes an issue. Thats power creep. It's things like Naurto's Chakra Cloak or the Super Saiyan Variations. Things whose very existence demand that you either have it, or you're worthless. Theres no power like that in One Piece.

Haki doesn't qualify as that because you can not have it and still be strong. Someone who has it can still lose to someone who doesn't. It's just more practical to use it and it's mitigated by the fact that everyone has access to it. The same thing can't be said of things like Super Saiyan Blue.
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and STILL Oda appeals to shounen cliches,
Cliches aren't inherently a bad thing. They don't automatically equate to "bad" just for existing in a story.

It's how they're used that matters.
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When anyone say One Piece has great writing, they are always refering to those two aspects of the series lol.
No.

Theres actually a million and one other things that Oda is doing really well as a writer.

It's just that most casuals don't know about those things so they just default to phrases they're familiar with like "WoRlD bUILdiNG".

I've read thousands of manga myself and I'd still put One Piece way up there near the top. It excels both as a story and as a graphic novel.
 
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From looking at this thread it seems like a lot of people seem to think that "power creep" means "overpowered".

Those are not the same thing.

A series becoming "really powerful" IS NOT the same as power creep. Thats just normal power progression.

Some kind of "we have to save the world from some planetary threat" plot is common at the end of every shounen. If One Piece did the same that wouldn't be power creep.

Power Creep is when a series goes beyond its pre-defined limits. With One Piece there was never any such predefined limits. The power ceiling was always only ever "hinted" at. Never shown. Hence why Oda himself implies that Marineford will cute during Wano and that by the Last Chapter Marineford will be nothing. The point being that, in his mind he hasn't really shown us anything yet.

It's not like Naruto or Dragonball where we already knew the limits of the verse and then they just kept endlessly sailing beyond it.

Characters getting stupid powerful is normal for shounen. Thats not power creep. It's only when the increase in power completely breaks the balance of the combat in the story that it becomes an issue. Thats power creep. It's things like Naurto's Chakra Cloak or the Super Saiyan Variations. Things whose very existence demand that you either have it, or you're worthless. Theres no power like that in One Piece.

Haki doesn't qualify as that because you can not have it and still be strong. Someone who has it can still lose to someone who doesn't. It's just more practical to use it and it's mitigated by the fact that everyone has access to it. The same thing can't be said of things like Super Saiyan Blue.
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Cliches aren't inherently a bad thing. They don't automatically equate to "bad" just for existing in a story.

It's how they're used that matters.
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No.

Theres actually a million and one other things that Oda is doing really well as a writer.

It's just that most casuals don't know about those things so they just default to phrases they're familiar with like "WoRlD bUILdiNG".

I've read thousands of manga myself and I'd still put One Piece way up there near the top. It excels both as a story and as a graphic novel.
Well, power creep can also mean simply updating characters to the newly established power limit without sufficient explanation, which is what i think is the main point of criticism behind this thread.
Which in this case is not true since we had the training over 2 years as basis precisely to prepare them for these power-ups.
So Zoro and Luffy are already out. Law´s ability has always ignored durability, so it does not apply to him remotely.

Which leaves Kid and Killer, and we have not seen anything yet how Oda will justify their participation.
 
Well, power creep can also mean simply updating characters to the newly established power limit without sufficient explanation,
Thats more of a symptom of power creep and not really power creep in itself.
Which leaves Kid and Killer, and we have not seen anything yet how Oda will justify their participation.
This isn't even an issue. We have no clue how strong Kidd & Killer really are. We've never seen their full strength.

So theres not really anything to justify.
 
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