Controversial The "he was holding back" problem

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HerreraIsBack

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#1
#1
So it is a common thing when debating the story and specially when power scalling for people to come up with the "he was holding back" argument to justify a certain character (usually his favorite) looking bad or not that good in some situations.

I thing the first example of this would be Marineford where Admiral fans stated that marines were holding back to not destroy Marineford since it was the "home"(?) of a lot of marines and therefore they couldn't let that place being destroyed. And they use the example of Aokiji vs Akainu 10 days fight at Punk Hazard as a result of what Marineford would've become if they went all out. Although I could agree some aspects of marines not going all out from beginning I don't think when Kizaru, Aokiji, Akainu were truly fighting that they were being careful about not destroying Marineford. Specially after reading this line of their commander Sengoku:



When Teach said he would sink Marineford that's when Sengoku truly engaged on fighting saying he wouldn't allow that to happen saying that the Fortress could be rebuild but if the Island was gone that would cause a huge impact to the people of the world who trust on marines and fear pirates. So destroying Marineford was never an issue as long it doesn't sink. And Akainu and Aokiji fighting all out with each other wasn't able to sink Punk Hazard. Probably just Whitebeard's DF is able to such thing. And now Mother Flames too.

The other case would'be the recent Egghead arc where Kizaru was giving a mission that went in conflict with his feelings. Although Kizaru succesfully managed all the orders he was giving to at the end of the arc we could see how devasted he became about doing all that:



(By the way didn't realized before that Akainu called him brother. Are they truly brothers or just close friends?)

Giving Kizaru's natural troll tone through the series and sunglasses we couldn't be sure till this panel if he was affected by all that situation or not. But even with that said we can't be sure about that affecting his fighting capabilities since only at the end of the arc he let his emotions going out.

So this is coming about probably the biggest fan of Kizaru (alone not all Admirals) that puts him as top 1 of the verse simply because of his DF.In Marineford there doesn't seem to have any reason to justify him being holding back. In Egghead there is an argument to be made why he is SUBCONSCIOUSLY holding back but we can't be sure since at the end he still do what it is needed to. Oh and of course let's not forget the feeding Luffy plot...



After fighting with Kizaru and hitting him in the head making him incapable of fighting for sometime while he himself was at the limit of his G5 transformation also unable to fight for sometime (and in need of some food) somehow someone delivers him a lot of food to allow him to recover and a big theory is that Kizaru conflicted about himself was the one responsible for this hoping Luffy could save Vegapunk from him and Saturn. But there are many issues with that theory the first one being that Kizaru still tried hard to kill Vegapunk after that and succeeded (his aim was always the main body not the other ones). And the other issue is the right next page after that one of Luffy getting feed:



Kizaru is shown still visible "drunk" after receiving Luffy's last attack in the head. Like he had a knocked down if they were fighting in a boxing ring and the judge was counting to 10. So it is very unlikely that Kizaru would be able to do that even giving his light speed because of his condition and even doing it without Saturn, who most likely has CoO, noticing. Instead there is a much more likely possibility that holds coheresion that people don't talk about (or at least I don't remember seeing anyone talking about it) that would be this:



Van Augur having the teleportation Devil Fruit would fits here much better than Kizaru that despite his light speed people would still see a bright light deliverying food to Luffy. We don't know exactly what the blackbeard pirates mission was but is easy to assume that having Luffy recovered to fight and distract marines, and specially Saturn, would surely a lot benefitial for their goal.

I think with that we could close the case of Kizaru holding back while fighting at Egghead.

Now going outside of One Piece manga we also have the most controversial fight between Gojo vs Sukuna where many claims that Sukuna was holding back because he wanted to learn how to counter Gojo's infinity and because he knew he had to save energy to fight a lot of people after Gojo.

Well first of all Sukuna never said such thing for people to assume he wanted to learn how to counter infinity before killing Gojo. If that was true it would make no sense to try to kill Gojo with his domain expasion way before that. The second guess would've make sense but still out be kind of stupid if he couldn't even defeat Gojo first just because he was holding back thinking in after fights...

And something that I just heard recently people talking and makes totally sense is that Gojo had much more reason to hold back while fighting Sukuna because he wanted to save his student Megumi. And that could've be used to justify Gojo actually being stronger.

But at the end of the day all we have are Gojo's (aka authors) own words declaring Sukuna stronger. And nothing of that bullshit holding back crap.

We can find many cases of holding back arguments in a bunch of other animes/mangas. I'd say Dragon Ball would be the biggest one giving how since the very first saga of DBZ the main characters already have the power to explode the planet if they want to and the power creep till the end of DBZ is... I don't even have words to describe it. It is fully absurd. And therefore everyone could say that Z warriors were holding back to not destroy Earth and bla bla bla.

The main point of this (probably confusing) thread is that people should stop to say characters are holding back without concret evidence inside the manga because if you don't have that the only thing you have is your own headcannon.
 
kurwa

kurwa

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#5
#5
Normie redditor came out of his shithole to write bunch of nonsense
Gonna entertain after skimming it for 4 seconds.

1.
Van Auger's powers don't work like that, dumbass. Once he teleports he is SEEN by everyone the moment he teleports to the location. He's not fast.
Only SPEED cannot be seen even if you look at it, as Sanji did with Queen.

2.
Kizaru gave Goofy an opportunity to save opposes him and stop Kizaru from completing his mission of killing his friend and maybe even saving bonney and sentomaru.
Saving Goofy doesn't mean Kizaru will stop doing his mission, you mentally challenged person.
 
D

Dragon777

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#7
#7
HerreraIsBack said:
Is not that much. Has some cool manga pages too. Last paragraph would be a TL TR or whatever it is called
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Wouldn't say that since a good chunck of that It's a wall of cope made for the sole reason of denying even Oda's own words.
Not only It was clear It was Kizaru, but Oda even had to come out and say It and still people still deny It.

Luckily It's a minority.

Not to mention the "Marinedford argument" about which one just have read EH to see how much Admirals were restraining themselves.
 
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Ven437

Ven437

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#8
#8
HerreraIsBack said:
Now going outside of One Piece manga we also have the most controversial fight between Gojo vs Sukuna where many claims that Sukuna was holding back because he wanted to learn how to counter Gojo's infinity and because he knew he had to save energy to fight a lot of people after Gojo.

Well first of all Sukuna never said such thing for people to assume he wanted to learn how to counter infinity before killing Gojo. If that was true it would make no sense to try to kill Gojo with his domain expasion way before that. The second guess would've make sense but still out be kind of stupid if he couldn't even defeat Gojo first just because he was holding back thinking in after fights...

And something that I just heard recently people talking and makes totally sense is that Gojo had much more reason to hold back while fighting Sukuna because he wanted to save his student Megumi. And that could've be used to justify Gojo actually being stronger.

But at the end of the day all we have are Gojo's (aka authors) own words declaring Sukuna stronger. And nothing of that bullshit holding back crap.

We can find many cases of holding back arguments in a bunch of other animes/mangas. I'd say Dragon Ball would be the biggest one giving how since the very first saga of DBZ the main characters already have the power to explode the planet if they want to and the power creep till the end of DBZ is... I don't even have words to describe it. It is fully absurd. And therefore everyone could say that Z warriors were holding back to not destroy Earth and bla bla bla.

The main point of this (probably confusing) thread is that people should stop to say characters are holding back without concret evidence inside the manga because if you don't have that the only thing you have is your own headcannon.
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Bro what. Sukuna was outright stated to be holding back by the peanut gallery LMFAO

 
Kair0s1

Kair0s1

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#9
#9
Kizaru goes to Egghead to kill Vegapunk.
If Luffy hadn’t been there, would he have killed Vegapunk without hesitation? Yes.
Luffy fights Kizaru.
Was Kizaru actually trying to defeat Luffy during that fight? Yes.
Was he holding back because he wanted to find an excuse not to kill Vegapunk? Absolutely not. He actively avoids Luffy several times just to kill Vegapunk. He was his main target.

Then *Star Gun*. Both Luffy and Kizaru are down.
This first part isn’t up for interpretation. This is what happens.

Then Saturn arrives and tries to kill Bonney.
At that point, food magically appears near Luffy, helping him recharge.
Oda gives no explanation in the manga, and then months later just drops this in an SBS:


If it was Kizaru who brought the food, would it change anything about the earlier fight? Not really. He did it so that Luffy could save Bonney.

From a character perspective, it would actually make sense. Kizaru is spineless. He's a pathetic man who would tolerate any injustice just to keep his job. Lacking the courage to save Bonney directly, he uses Luffy as a convenient way to ease his conscience without openly defying his masters.

But we know for a fact that he gets back up minutes after Luffy’s final hit, while Luffy stays down.
And if we take what Oda suggests at face value, he even managed to do whathever he wanted without anyone noticing. Pretty impressive.

From that point on, Kizaru’s out of it. Saying “he was holding back” doesn’t even cover it.
He’s clearly not thinking straight. He occasionally snaps back into action and tries the bare minimum to fulfill his mission, but fails constantly and reacts way too slowly.
The only time he succeeds is when he rips Vegapunk from Sanji’s arms and kills him.
But by that point, his will to fight was at rock bottom.



None of this is headcanon, it’s just what happens in the story.

During the first half of the arc, in the fight between Luffy and Kizaru, neither of them was holding back.

After the fight, when people like Bonney, Kuma and Sentomaru are about to die, and after witnessing Saturn’s cruelty and Vegapunk’s final words, Kizaru is at his lowest point. These are the objective facts to work from.

That said, the food is what allows Luffy to get back up and hit Saturn, who ends up right in the jaws of Catarina Devon and Van Augur. Based purely on how the action plays out, I still find it hard to believe that Kizaru was the one who brought the food to Luffy, and it's strange that Oda didn’t clarify this by the end of the arc with a flashback or something like that. He left too much ambiguity.
 
D

Dragon777

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#10
#10
Kair0s1 said:
Kizaru goes to Egghead to kill Vegapunk.
If Luffy hadn’t been there, would he have killed Vegapunk without hesitation? Yes.
Luffy fights Kizaru.
Was Kizaru actually trying to defeat Luffy during that fight? Yes.
Was he holding back because he wanted to find an excuse not to kill Vegapunk? Absolutely not. He actively avoids Luffy several times just to kill Vegapunk. He was his main target.

Then *Star Gun*. Both Luffy and Kizaru are down.
This first part isn’t up for interpretation. This is what happens.

Then Saturn arrives and tries to kill Bonney.
At that point, food magically appears near Luffy, helping him recharge.
Oda gives no explanation in the manga, and then months later just drops this in an SBS:


If it was Kizaru who brought the food, would it change anything about the earlier fight? Not really. He did it so that Luffy could save Bonney.

From a character perspective, it would actually make sense. Kizaru is spineless. He's a pathetic man who would tolerate any injustice just to keep his job. Lacking the courage to save Bonney directly, he uses Luffy as a convenient way to ease his conscience without openly defying his masters.

But we know for a fact that he gets back up minutes after Luffy’s final hit, while Luffy stays down.
And if we take what Oda suggests at face value, he even managed to do whathever he wanted without anyone noticing. Pretty impressive.

From that point on, Kizaru’s out of it. Saying “he was holding back” doesn’t even cover it.
He’s clearly not thinking straight. He occasionally snaps back into action and tries the bare minimum to fulfill his mission, but fails constantly and reacts way too slowly.
The only time he succeeds is when he rips Vegapunk from Sanji’s arms and kills him.
But by that point, his will to fight was at rock bottom.



None of this is headcanon, it’s just what happens in the story.

During the first half of the arc, in the fight between Luffy and Kizaru, neither of them was holding back.

After the fight, when people like Bonney, Kuma and Sentomaru are about to die, and after witnessing Saturn’s cruelty and Vegapunk’s final words, Kizaru is at his lowest point. These are the objective facts to work from.

That said, the food is what allows Luffy to get back up and hit Saturn, who ends up right in the jaws of Catarina Devon and Van Augur. Based purely on how the action plays out, I still find it hard to believe that Kizaru was the one who brought the food to Luffy, and it's strange that Oda didn’t clarify this by the end of the arc with a flashback or something like that. He left too much ambiguity.
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It's not that deep dude.

Vegapunk was a criminal, but It was also his friend and he didn't want to kill him.

He saw a chance with Luffy, thinking he could use that not have to kill Luffy and went as far as giving him food thanks to which he could defend Vegapunk.

This Is literally 1:1 level of writing I have to say.
 
Kair0s1

Kair0s1

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#11
#11
Dragon777 said:
It's not that deep dude.

Vegapunk was a criminal, but It was also his friend and he didn't want to kill him.

He saw a chance with Luffy, thinking he could use that not have to kill Luffy and went as far as giving him food thanks to which he could defend Vegapunk.

This Is literally 1:1 level of writing I have to say.
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Kizaru fully intended to kill Vegapunk. He took almost every opportunity to do it, especially at the beginning of the conflict. And in the end, he’s the one who actually does it.
He would’ve preferred not to, but once he accepts a mission, he follows through like an automaton. He just obeys.



The inner conflict comes later, as I already explained. And I agree, it's not hard to understand.
 
D

Dragon777

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#12
#12

Kair0s1 said:
Kizaru fully intended to kill Vegapunk. He took almost every opportunity to do it, especially at the beginning of the conflict. And in the end, he’s the one who actually does it.
He would’ve preferred not to, but once he accepts a mission, he follows through like an automaton. He just obeys.



The inner conflict comes later, as I already explained. And I agree, it's not hard to understand.
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Tbh you don't, since you said this another time.

Kizaru saw the chance with Luffy, and it was very clear because he barely even used named moves, used the sword only one time with his clones, etc.

This this was made further clear by Kizaru actually giving food to Luffy in the hope he could save Vegapunk.

Kizaru, on screen, said before all that he didn't want to kill him. On screen.
 
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H

HerreraIsBack

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#13
#13
kurwa said:
Normie redditor came out of his shithole to write bunch of nonsense
Gonna entertain after skimming it for 4 seconds.

1.
Van Auger's powers don't work like that, dumbass. Once he teleports he is SEEN by everyone the moment he teleports to the location. He's not fast.
Only SPEED cannot be seen even if you look at it, as Sanji did with Queen.

2.
Kizaru gave Goofy an opportunity to save opposes him and stop Kizaru from completing his mission of killing his friend and maybe even saving bonney and sentomaru.
Saving Goofy doesn't mean Kizaru will stop doing his mission, you mentally challenged person.
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Mermão primeiramente vai tomar seu nescau que sua mãe tá te chamando.

If anything you are the normie redditor here lil kid.

  1. We don't know fully how Van Augur powers works. Yes he is seeing he is not invisible speed like Sanji. But that doesn't mean he can warp in, drop the food and warp out before anyone noticing since they are busy with other things. From an eye perspective is more like you wasn't seeing something until you are able to see. Unlike Kizaru moving at speed at light where your eyes would get the perception of something moving, and specially the bright light of Kizaru. Is more likely Saturn not seeing Van Augur warping than Kizaru moving.
  2. Kizaru could be at the ground for the rest of the arc like he did after fulfilling his mission. If anyone here is mentally challenged that's you
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Ven437 said:
Bro what. Sukuna was outright stated to be holding back by the peanut gallery LMFAO

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Other characters saying such thing doesn't held as much value as the charcter itself. But sure it is what we have as cannon material.
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Kair0s1 said:
Oda gives no explanation in the manga, and then months later just drops this in an SBS:
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Classic Oda. Heavily implies it is Kizaru but we clearly saw G5 Luffy matching his light speed. And what is the closest thing equal to light speed (probably "faster") that the naked eye can't see? Teleportation.
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Kair0s1 said:
From a character perspective, it would actually make sense. Kizaru is spineless. He's a pathetic man who would tolerate any injustice just to keep his job. Lacking the courage to save Bonney directly, he uses Luffy as a convenient way to ease his conscience without openly defying his masters.
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I'd say we don't know him enough to come to such conclusion
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Kair0s1 said:
He’s clearly not thinking straight. He occasionally snaps back into action and tries the bare minimum to fulfill his mission, but fails constantly and reacts way too slowly.
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That's taking away Luffy's punch on him and pretend it was nothing. It is the similar to Luffy vs Lucci when time later after Lucci got hit by G3 he still charging at tiny Luffy (after affects of G3) and he is forced to stop because he feels the effects of such powerful punch.
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Kair0s1 said:
During the first half of the arc, in the fight between Luffy and Kizaru, neither of them was holding back.

After the fight, when people like Bonney, Kuma and Sentomaru are about to die, and after witnessing Saturn’s cruelty and Vegapunk’s final words, Kizaru is at his lowest point. These are the objective facts to work from.
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From a fighting perspective (aka power scaling) the first half is what's matter.

But your point about after fight I still have my doubts about it given how Kizaru's character is



We can't just believe everything Kizaru says is true. Marco let's that clear to us
 
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Kair0s1

Kair0s1

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#14
#14
Dragon777 said:

Kizaru, on screen, said before all that he didn't want to kill him. On screen.
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Yeah, that’s why Kizaru ends the arc crying. Because he accidentally killed Vegapunk, despite trying so hard to help him.
And when he tells Bonney to grit her teeth because he's about to give her and her father (two innocent people he knows personally) a quick death... He didn't really mean to kill them. He knew Luffy would jump in to save the day. If something went wrong, it’s just because Luffy turned out to be too weak compared to his expectations, right?
 
Ven437

Ven437

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#15
#15
HerreraIsBack said:
Other characters saying such thing doesn't held as much value as the charcter itself. But sure it is what we have as cannon material.
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Ok bro. How about the n1gga who been with Sukuna since Day 1 and knows him 1000x better than Pizzaru knows how to cry after getting flattened like a pancake

“Even bearing in mind his first battle (Gojo), it’s clear he has YET TO GO ALL OUT.”



Imagine using the worst example in a series for trying to prove some point of a character going all out LMFAO
 
H

HerreraIsBack

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#18
#18
Ven437 said:
Ok bro. How about the n1gga who been with Sukuna since Day 1 and knows him 1000x better than Pizzaru knows how to cry after getting flattened like a pancake

“Even bearing in mind his first battle (Gojo), it’s clear he has YET TO GO ALL OUT.”



Imagine using the worst example in a series for trying to prove some point of a character going all out LMFAO
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And yet he never did. He never went all out. He hold back against the only sorcerer capable of defeating him and we suppose to believe he would go all out against a bunch of weaklings he took last than a chapter to defeat each?
 
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