To get to the point: Luffy vs Katakuri is the most special fight right now in the New World. It shows off certain Haki feats in a fight, to a much higher extend that we had at Doflamingo vs Luffy or Don Chinjao vs Luffy. This is very important to predict the curse of dueling in One Piece! Let’s start!
The fight Luffy vs Katakuri is a very special one, in the beginning at Katakuri’s introduction, we got first insights in his Haki feats. It was a superior Colour of Observation we were confronted with.
But let’s take a look at some early scenes and build up to te fight Luffy vs Katakuri.
As we see in the picture above, we got alot of comparison between Luffy & Katakuri. One of this over and over comparisons about their abilities with the devil fruits.
In the curse of the fight Luffys devil fruit was shown to be inferior to the powers of Katakuri.
No the raw power of Luffys devil fruit is not enough, what Katakuri knows since beginning of the fight. Do you believe in what I say?
Katakuri is challenging Luffy on a level to fight with Haki. All the fight Luffys devil fruit powers were blamed. Luffy first had to figure out, that this is battle that does not involve this power of him, but instead he needs the Haki feats.
Let us jump forward to the recent chapter.
Here we have the flashback of the recent chapter, one that shows us how Rayleigh teaches Luffy the Colour of Observation. Unconsciously is the term here.
There was a reason Luffy was matched with Katakuri, and exactly with this flashback Oda showed it to us. Activating a higher consciousness with Haki!
With Rayleight teaching it Luffy, we know one thing for sure: Haki is important in duels, Haki is needed to fight on captain level in the new world.
This directly tied in, in Luffy using Katakuris future sight dodge ability.
By beeing beaten K.O. almost Luffy subconsciously realized about the Colour of Observation, that’s why the flashback happened to enlight us the purpose of this fight.
This panel is a very important one again. Oda shows us the importance of the duel aspect.
Flampes interfering lead into Katakuri balancing the fight out on a respect level. He damaged himself. Both Luffy & Katakuris respect in the duel was triggered by Flampe.
This in the end triggers the full-conscious using of Conquerors Haki!
Both duelists used a shockwave of Conquerors Haki!
Now we can argue if this is real what it is to be a “captain level”-like fight.
It was revealed to us that Katakuri has the Conquerer Haki feats and well if you look at that point of aspect: yeah Katakuri is a “captain classed” character.
While for example the fight with Doflamingo was a captain classed fight, but the focus was the duel power between 2 devil fruits that’s why LUffys power up was the Gear 4th.
So there is certain conclusion we can make out of the last panel of this chapter:
1.
Remember how Katakuris disrespected Luffy troughout the whole battle? After the Haki feats Katakuri says the following: “I no longer think, that you’re below my level!”
Guys, the devil fruits have nothing to do anymore with this fight. Katakuri saying this is a result of the Haki feats and this Haki feats are very essential for a duel.
All others been taken out, the spectators.
2.
Based on 1. and on the editors words: “Fist versus fist in a one on one!”, based on this we can make an assumption: Luffy won’t use Gear 4 anymore and the devil fruit of Katakuri won’t have huge impact on the fight anymore.
No guys the devil fruits will be left out from this power scaling completely!
Oda will show us the first fight in the New World, that will fully show feats of CoC, CoA and CoO. That’s why it will be a fist vs fist battle! Both are exhausted and only their will, or otherwise seen, the “Haki” keeps up this fight.
So I make a prediction out of this: Luffy will beat Katakuri on a level of Haki without considering the level of devil fruits. In the end both will be beaten, the duel will end as even!
Why? Because that is the way Oda will show us,m how Luffys Haki level improvedas captain. Still the respect level of Katakuri & Luffy won’t be broken and can be kept up in the future.
What does it mean for future fights?
To be honest, I believe Oda already showed us for what Luffy will need this skills he just obtained.
In order to duel on a captain level! And this will also mean to duel on Yonko level.
Until Luffy meets Kaido, he still has chance to improve his Haki feats and he can come up with a new plan:
Not just using the devil fruit feats like in the fight with Doflamingo, but also use it combined with the Haki feats he obtained from the fight with Katakuri.
Luffys next power up will be based on:
-Devil fruit
AND
-Haki feats
Thanks for reading this theory, in the end I think that this is the very former introduction of captain classed fights, especially now on Haki level, which will become more and more important in future. Which also shows us a possibility to counter Blackbeard in the very end.
*Theory by Rej Discussions
