General & Others Is Oda a bad powerscaler?
- Thread starter Shiroyru
- Start date
Nah. Most of the issues with power scaling is just reading comprehension related, as well trying too hard to be scientific about shit, and along with fans own bias and perception of how a character should end up as.
Some people flip flop on powerlevels the moment a character even takes 1 step.
In the end interpretation is one hell of a thing.
Some people flip flop on powerlevels the moment a character even takes 1 step.
In the end interpretation is one hell of a thing.
"Good story writer" or "doesn't give a damn about it" doesn't mean he can't be a bad powerscaler. Actually the second argument supports that he's bad at it.
Here are examples of his bad powerscaling:
1. Luffy can tank more than 50 of Katakuri's attacks, yet in next arc he got one shotted by Kaido
2. Kanjuro can escape from the alliance despite the abilities of alliance members
3. Weak Trio clowned Big Mom. Brook speedblitzed her and Chopper tanked her attack while moments before the duo just got stomped by Perospero who is not even a Sweet Commander.
4. Zoro was portrayed to be Endurance Beast since beginning of story but now he fainted after 1 stab for the sake of plot.
Here are examples of his bad powerscaling:
1. Luffy can tank more than 50 of Katakuri's attacks, yet in next arc he got one shotted by Kaido
2. Kanjuro can escape from the alliance despite the abilities of alliance members
3. Weak Trio clowned Big Mom. Brook speedblitzed her and Chopper tanked her attack while moments before the duo just got stomped by Perospero who is not even a Sweet Commander.
4. Zoro was portrayed to be Endurance Beast since beginning of story but now he fainted after 1 stab for the sake of plot.
No not really, he's made his mistakes (namely Crocodile and trash tier execution of haki in general), but he's generally very careful with (especially with non strawhat related) power scaling during any given "current" point of the manga. You'll see mismatches and what not but hardly anyone doing something they shouldn't be capable of doing. Most issues people have is their own interpretations of scenes, most recent example would be the WBP and Roger pirates friendly loot session, and even still Oda was careful enough to never show Rayleigh engaged in battle, the entire thing was off paneled and the few hints we got (WB not even using his gura fruit) paints a pretty clear picture of what kind of battle that was.
And he clearly cares for it, unlike the opinions being parroted on here. It's just that there are lots of factors to consider in a world filled with all sorts of abilities, hax is involved, mismatches, knowledge etc. If Oda didn't care for disrupting the powerscale he wouldn't constantly be setting up specific conditions to even the playing field in the arcs, and leaving things ambiguous like he does. It's precisely because he cares about how characters are perceived in the powerscale that he sets up so many conditions.
Recent examples, Doflamingo being weakened (Gamma knife among other things), Law being weakened (tag teamed by Fuji, tag teamed by Trebol), Zoro (2 swords) etc. if these characters were to perform much better now, you can always go back and find excuses for weaker performances in the past, it's because the plot demanded it, yet he will set up those conditions and not just downright make someone look bad without a reason (for example, Zoro very likely beats Arlong, but plot demanded it's Luffy's role, so the condition was Zoro was fighting with a life threatening injury). Enies Lobby was one of the rare hard to justify ass pulls Oda has ever pulled, hadn't done it before that, hasn't done it since.
One Piece (ignoring the obvious atrocious planning of haki resulting in pre skip almost being filler like) is among the best in terms of power progression, Luffy doesn't magically move up tiers, it's a slow grind. After defeating Doflamingo, he still couldn't solo Cracker, after defeating Cracker and Doflamingo, he was still getting low diffed by Katakuri, after defeating Katakuri he got put to bed by Kaidou with minimal effort. Even then Luffy's victories don't come without a question mark, he finds ways to nerf his opponents in order to have Luffy catch up as well as powering up, if he didn't care for the power scale there would be no reason to weaken guys like Katakuri, simply have Luffy become stronger than him, but even that isn't enough to fill the gap so Oda works his magic to further hinder him (this is proof in and of itself of the respect Oda has for the power scale). Having said that, one consistent flaw of Oda's (and this is by design because of the entire theme of One Piece), he tends to lean too heavily on willpower, sometimes enough is enough, and Oda doesn't know when to stop with this concept, to the point where the reader requires willing suspension of disbelief. This is why the non SH related power scale is more consistent.
All you have to do is compare One Piece to most of its contemporaries in the same genre to see that it is leagues above them in terms of consistency in the power scale. Naruto, Bleach, FT, DB, just to list a few were either god awful off the bat or became god awful somewhere down the line.
And he clearly cares for it, unlike the opinions being parroted on here. It's just that there are lots of factors to consider in a world filled with all sorts of abilities, hax is involved, mismatches, knowledge etc. If Oda didn't care for disrupting the powerscale he wouldn't constantly be setting up specific conditions to even the playing field in the arcs, and leaving things ambiguous like he does. It's precisely because he cares about how characters are perceived in the powerscale that he sets up so many conditions.
Recent examples, Doflamingo being weakened (Gamma knife among other things), Law being weakened (tag teamed by Fuji, tag teamed by Trebol), Zoro (2 swords) etc. if these characters were to perform much better now, you can always go back and find excuses for weaker performances in the past, it's because the plot demanded it, yet he will set up those conditions and not just downright make someone look bad without a reason (for example, Zoro very likely beats Arlong, but plot demanded it's Luffy's role, so the condition was Zoro was fighting with a life threatening injury). Enies Lobby was one of the rare hard to justify ass pulls Oda has ever pulled, hadn't done it before that, hasn't done it since.
One Piece (ignoring the obvious atrocious planning of haki resulting in pre skip almost being filler like) is among the best in terms of power progression, Luffy doesn't magically move up tiers, it's a slow grind. After defeating Doflamingo, he still couldn't solo Cracker, after defeating Cracker and Doflamingo, he was still getting low diffed by Katakuri, after defeating Katakuri he got put to bed by Kaidou with minimal effort. Even then Luffy's victories don't come without a question mark, he finds ways to nerf his opponents in order to have Luffy catch up as well as powering up, if he didn't care for the power scale there would be no reason to weaken guys like Katakuri, simply have Luffy become stronger than him, but even that isn't enough to fill the gap so Oda works his magic to further hinder him (this is proof in and of itself of the respect Oda has for the power scale). Having said that, one consistent flaw of Oda's (and this is by design because of the entire theme of One Piece), he tends to lean too heavily on willpower, sometimes enough is enough, and Oda doesn't know when to stop with this concept, to the point where the reader requires willing suspension of disbelief. This is why the non SH related power scale is more consistent.
All you have to do is compare One Piece to most of its contemporaries in the same genre to see that it is leagues above them in terms of consistency in the power scale. Naruto, Bleach, FT, DB, just to list a few were either god awful off the bat or became god awful somewhere down the line.
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No, it's just fanboys want to cherrypick panels and create headcanons instead of looking at the end result. I.E. Apoo (and WCI before him).
If Oda makes Luffy beat Cracker, it's because he thinks Luffy is stronger than Cracker. If Oda thinks Luffy is strong enough to beat Katakuri, he'll make him beat Katakuri. If Oda thinks, Kaido is stronger, he'll knock the fuck out of Luffy. Same thing with Doflamingo but that was an alliance effort, so you can't scale individually. But you can say Law/Luffy > Doflamingo. That's all there is to it.
If Oda makes Luffy beat Cracker, it's because he thinks Luffy is stronger than Cracker. If Oda thinks Luffy is strong enough to beat Katakuri, he'll make him beat Katakuri. If Oda thinks, Kaido is stronger, he'll knock the fuck out of Luffy. Same thing with Doflamingo but that was an alliance effort, so you can't scale individually. But you can say Law/Luffy > Doflamingo. That's all there is to it.
