After so many years we will finally see Nico Robin back on literal action!
Nico Robin was introduced as a cold-blooded assassin and an officer within Crocodile’s organization. Oda has maintained that she’s a powerful combatant, it just isn’t something we’ve had the opportunity to see for a very long time. She was in seastone handcuffs, unable to participate in the action on Water Seven. Thriller Bark was more about the team battle against Oars. The crew was disbanded on Sabaody and when they reunited, the first set of opponents they faced were the weak New Fishman Pirates. On Punk Hazard there were only 3 real opponents (Caesar Clown, Vergo, and Monet). Robin was not present on Whole Cake, so really the only ‘missed’ opportunity for her to get a fight was on Dressrosa where only Luffy, Robin, Usopp, Franky, and Zoro were present.
I like that Oda brought out her ‘demon child’ side again. Robin is one of my favorite characters when she’s in the spotlight, which is unfortunately not often.
She tends to fall into the background of scenes due to her reserved nature, which don’t me wrong, I love the little gags Oda works in – but there’s another side to her character we don’t often see. Typically, when we have seen this side of Robin it has been when her past has come back to haunt her, so I love that it’s drawn out here instead to protect her friends – the ones who fought to protect her way back on Enies Lobby. We also see Robin display a range of emotion here, also warmly thanking Sanji for trusting her. I thought it was touching just how appreciative she was here.
A lot of us are wondering how much Robin improved after the timeskip because we rarely see her go all out on battles or have a 1v1 fight.
All we know as of now is that she can sprout more limbs which is evident by her Gigantesco Mano and Shadow Clone Jutsu.
Personally, it didn’t bother me at all that she is not getting enough fight scenes because we all know that Robin’s specialties are assasination, infiltration, and intel gathering which where the Revolutionaries excel except the assassination I guess… but I can’t also stop wondering how the Revolutionaries trained her to improve her combat abilities.
There are a lot of theories out there about Nico Robin’s post timeskip abilities such as:
• ARMAMENT HAKI – The probability that Robin can use Armament Haki is high because we saw during the Dressrosa arc that Sabo can use it and probably other higher ranking officials of the Revolutionaries can too. Robin can sprout her limbs anywhere and infusing it with Haki would be really cool. She could deal a lot of damage and logia users would have a low chance of escaping her grasp.
• ROKUSHIKI – The most suitable Rokushiki for Robin is the Finger Pistol. We also saw a variation of this, the Flying Finger Pistol when Stussy used it on Du Feld during Whole Cake Iisland Arc. So imagine Robin sprouting more arms on her main arm to have multiple finger pistols and that’s not where it ends because she can even infuse her Haki!
And finally there is the possibility of Awakened Hana Hana no Mi. For the awakened ability, I just had this mad idea when i saw the Chapter 1005. Oda doesn’t shy away on putting religious references in One Piece, probably the most we know is the hindu god slayer Asura which is one of Zoro’s badass sword abilities. My mad idea about Robin’s awakened devil fruit ability would be the that she can sprout infinite number of limbs instead of affecting the environment around her where things get turned into limbs.
• 100 HAND GUAN YIN BODHISATTVA – I thought about this awakened ability because there are variables that will come into play with her battle with Black Maria.
Black Maria is a tall ass woman, with Robin’s awakened ability to sprout infinite number of limbs she can make a giant clone of herself to even it out. Black Maria’s devil fruit makes her a spider which grants her extra pair of legs for combat so it would be wise for Robin to sprout more arms on her giant clone to even it out also.
Robin’s devil fruit resembles a lotus (even though sakura petals appear whenever she use her ability) for me and lotus have a significant meaning on Buddhism and Kannon is a buddhist god.
*Theory by nonpeelable_kiwi / StrawHatJedi
