In the Harley there is a moment in the First World where we see a number of haloed people going down to extract what can only be "forbidden sun" or what we tentatively call the perfected/complete Mother Flame.

Whatever that sun did is out of the question now, though it is wholly distinct from the Sun God, Nika.

What I want to ask around about though is that now that we have two "gods" sharing the signature halo, Imu and Zaza, what do you think is most likely to be true?

• a god or multiple gods bestowed halos, like Imu's Omen for the people extracting the forbidden sun?

• a halo was a signature mark of the old world's power system and what made these gods special was the domain of their powers, and those people would "touch the forbidden sun"?

Either way, in these assumptions these halos should play an important role in harnessing whatever that flame is, only that the importance can range from "particular power boost to do the exploration" to "involved in the process itself".

As a suggestion, the Earth God could give people Halos so they mine and feel the earth better. Giving those to slaves would force servitude and better allow for the job, like a stimulant slave collar, they work down there harvesting the "forbidden sun" forever and ever.

Or alternatively only those that mastered their powers and wills can capture the forbidden sun and bring it out of wherever it is, though the value of a mastered "tiger" power is clearly lesser than that of a "devil" power, so a hierarchy forms, and lesser powers can only submit to greater ones, so a distinction of "demon" and "god" appears.

Of course, all of that happens until the Sun God comes in and changes everything. How he did it, no one can really say, but his powers are intrinsically related to this "forbidden sun". I have exactly one idea, but that's not the point of this post.

In both cases I believe that a symbolism of hell and heaven would fit. Heaven is where the Gods live, Hell is the burning underground where slaves or demons are to work forever.

Haki is the bread and butter of One Piece’s power system. In a world built upon ruins of ruins, it stands out as a method to the madness that’d otherwise be the most power expression in the story. I wouldn’t be surprised if Haki was the key to a mystery more than 800 years in the making, but this is not a post speculating what could be, but what currently is in the story. I trudged my memories, consulted the wiki and even got a peek at the original translation of the story to make a post that’s more research practice than anything. It’s good to revisit the basics of frequent discussion topics sometimes.

Haki, the standard power system of One Piece, is an existing word in Japanese vocabulary meaning Spirit/Drive/Vigor or Ambition/Aspiration. Colloquially it is used as a word for Willpower. It is composed of the characters 覇 (spelled “Ha”) and 気 (spelled “Ki”). Being Kanji, the meaning of each symbol is inherent and together they combine into the word Haki.

Isolated, “Ha” means Hegemony, Leadership/Supremacy/Victory while “Ki” means Spirit/Mind/Air/Mood/Atmosphere. It is the same word used in Dragonball for its own Ki, in fiction and esoteric practices, it is a special vital energy, deriving from one’s own breath and existence.

Combined, “Ha” and “Ki” become a summation of their meanings, a sort of driving spirit, a spirit that leads one to an objective of victory, something a person wants to do, thus ambition or ambition as previously explained. This is the basic context present every time someone reads Haki in Japanese. You can translate it as will as well, because willpower does share similarities and the word “will” naturally has the meaning of “what someone wants to do”.

Haki, the power, is the ambition of a person, physically manifested into superhuman capabilities. Rayleigh stated in Luffy’s training:

>"Haki" is a power that lies dormant in all the world's creatures... "Presence", "fighting spirit" and "intimidation"... It is not different from the things that humans can naturally sense such as these... 'The act of not doubting'. That is strength!”

Haki is acquirable through training, mid-battle awakening and sheer talent.

The most important part in using and growing is being aware of it. Without awareness of it and preferably a guide to teach them, a person can only fumble blindly as they figure out their own capabilities. Talented people can learn particular applications by observation or being taught that the observed/tutor spent years training and honing in short period of time (as seen by Luffy learning Ryou, Future Sight and Supreme King’s Haki infusion).

Haki is an ability of one’s spirit, not body.

A person’s body can change (as seen when Sanji used Haki in Nami’s body back in Punk Hazard), a person could be possessed (as seen when Imu used his Haki through Gunko by possession) or the body could deteriorate (as seen is Hyogoro) and the Haki could still be used regularly, to the proficiency they have reached. Where the knowledge of Haki comes from is not clear, and different civilizations have discovered and developed it differently, with different nomenclatures and focuses.

Despite not being a real physical resource, it is limited, and a person can run out of Haki.

Signs of Haki exertion so far are like getting physically exhausted, to the point of being helpless and unable to move at its most intensive uses. Rest recovers consumed Haki and persistence in a fight seems to enable drawing and growing Haki beyond the usual individual’s limits, though if it is a consequence of rapid and repeated exertions in prolonged clashes and brief lulls in battle allow for enough recovery for more use or if it truly reflects one’s mental state is unknown.

Haki can be used unconsciously, be it without awareness of it or without consciousness.

...Though these cases all involve intense emotions (Luffy unconsciously using Conqueror’s) or general preparedness from the user (Whitebeard using Observation in his sleep against Ace).

Senescence influences the ability to use Haki, though the precise effects are not known.

Old people are seen capable of outputting truly impressive showcases of Haki, but are apparently unable to keep the pace at prolonged fights, or to repeat feats of strength they were once able to do at the same level of their past condition. That Haki seems to physically exhaust the user might be a cause of this, as age tends to deteriorate a person, and certain types of Haki are directly related to someone’s power.

Lastly, Haki seems to have a nullifying effect on devil fruit abilities.

One of Haki’s most practical and common uses being to affect otherwise immune devil fruit users, it has also been shown that Haki can be used to resist or directly nullify an ability applied to an individual, though the precise conditions and scales have not been discovered as of yet.

As of now, we know three main branches of Haki, three “colors” to Haki.

武装色の覇気 (Armament Haki):

Armament Haki is the translation of the most common name for this application of Haki. The original name, as written in Japanese, uses the characters of “Weapon/Military/Chivalry/arms”(Bu), “Attire/dress/pretend/disguise/profess”(So-), “Color”(Shoku), the Japanese possessive particle (No) and Haki, explained earlier. Bu and So- together mean arms, armament, taking up arms, not arms as in the body’s arms but arms as in weapons, instruments of war.

All characters taken together, they more literally mean something in the lines of: “Armament Colored Ambition”. The full official translation is “Color of Armament Haki”.

With Armament Haki, a person can coat their own body and tools.

This coating is sort of sometimes invisible armor made of Haki that hardens the surface of the coated object as well as enabling it to affect devil fruit users that’d otherwise be invulnerable.

It makes things both more resilient and more powerful.

On impact, it seemingly expands the impact area while also imparting more energy, arrows that’d normally fail to or barely pierce stone will explode a rock that was attacked. A punch that’d normally just affect the area of the fist can release an explosion of energy strong enough to wipe out part of an island, making a considerable crater. It apparently multiplies the momentum and area of impact of attacks without necessarily manifesting in the realm of regular thermodynamics.

On the receiving end, Armament Haki can reduce an otherwise powerful attack into something that can’t even pierce skin. Characters like Big Mom cannot be ordinarily struck unless they are emotionally shaken and unstable, with special all-out attacks being unable to damage seemingly regular non-hardened skin. Surprise attacks also seem to work, though the window for it is pretty much the one of an instinctual reaction for people skilled in Armament Haki.

Armament Haki has several Basic and Advanced Techniques practiced by fighters all over the world, new applications have been discovered as recently as mid to late Wano Country Arc.

Basic Applications:

Hardening: Hardening is when the user covers a part of their body in an invisible to black color coat of Haki.

Coatings can change colors between users, with Luffy’s having a dark red tint, Katakuri a light blue one, Zoro’s green though normally when used to cover a limb or the whole body, it takes on a purple tint. Though likely a stylistic choice, it does work with the play in the words of the term itself.

Hardening is the most basic use of Armament Haki.

Hardening allows for greater attack and defense power, and the user can coat their body at will with as much or as little Armament Haki as they want, though a larger area and a thicker coating will expend more energy.

In a few characters, Armament Haki takes a flame-like pattern when very concentrated. This is only seen so far in Luffy and Katakuri when using their finishers as well as Big Mom one time.

Armament Haki is not impenetrable, and although it is especially effective towards non-coated attacks, it can be brute forced.

Imbuement: Armament users can imbue their hardening into any object they touch, and give it the same benefits coating their own body would provide.

It can be used to protect and add power to weapons, imbue into projectiles like arrows, bullets and flying sword slashes and in the case of Devil Fruit users, detached body parts and objects that share a physical connection with the power user. Some objects are even capable of actively draining a person’s Armament Haki, as seen in the case of the blade Enma.

Advanced Applications:

Emission: A user may learn how to let their own Haki flow in a certain way that allows them to emit it for a short distance.

It becomes an invisible, focused attack that will affect the area the emitter targets with strong force, to the point of inflicting direct internal damage to a structure. The user can attack and defend without making contact. This technique seems to showcase better results than simple Hardening in most situations, Sentomaru uses both offensive and defensive applications of this emission to great effect.

Destroying objects from the inside is an even more involved application of emission.

It is the most destructive application of pure Armament Haki yet. So far, only Luffy and Rayleigh have proved the capability to do this.

Advanced emission techniques seem to be represented as bright colored auras in the anime exclusively. In the manga, successful applications look just like normal hardening before the impact.

Special Applications: Certain users can sometimes combine their other abilities with Haki.

Most notably for Armament Haki is Luffy’s Gear 4^(th) (Muscle Balloon) that necessitates a full body coating to greatly upgrade their bodily functions and maximize its rubbery properties.

In Gear 4^(th) Luffy was able to stretch way more than normal as well as bend and manipulate his stretchiness to achieve flight, compress his strength and even bend his limbs multiple times besides becoming stronger and faster.

The exertion caused by this technique is capable of fully immobilizing Luffy until he has a short period of rest if he overuses this technique.

Fabled applications: There are a few of teased yet not proved usages of Armament in the story. That comes to mind, only the black blade myth comes to mind, where a true master swordsman can turn their blade black permanently.

Training Armament Haki is possible and very practical, as the stronger Armament Haki usually dictates the winner of a duel. When awakening Haki, a person might awaken Armament spontaneously first, in that case, they need to train to consistently be able to use the ability and its applications.

The best-known way to strengthen Armament Haki is through constant usage and exertion, especially against equally capable or stronger foes.

Luffy has shown to grow vertiginously by virtue of repeated clashes with a stronger opponent like Kaido before he ever knew how to use his other powers to their fullest.

Armament Haki does not correlate with direct body strength and toughness, as a user of one of the Marine’s Six Powers do not necessarily have Armament Haki, and someone without that bodily training can use Armament Haki. The abilities of the Six Powers and other possible bodily abilities and Armament Haki can be used together, and it is a natural development of one’s martial abilities.

見聞色の覇気 (Observation Haki):

Observation Haki is the common translation of the most conventionally useful application of Haki.

In Japanese, it’d be spelled “Kenbunshoku no Haki”, the new characters here are “Ken” for see/hopes/chances/idea/opinion/look at/visible and “Bun” for hear/ask/listen, the two characters together mean observation/experience/knowledge/information. Taken all together, it becomes something like “Observation Colored Ambition” or “Information Colored Haki”. The official translation is “Color of Observation Haki”.

Observation Haki is wildly different from Armament Haki. It applies to sensory perception.

With Observation Haki, a person can learn how to sense all sorts of things related to the living.

A user may sense living presences, sense strength, sense emotions and even see the future.

This is wildly useful for lots of different situations, a person can dodge attacks coming from what would normally be a blind spot, they can find hidden animals and plants, they can even acquire true empathy.

Observation Haki by itself is not visible, and it has its weaknesses.

Observation Haki necessitates concentration, otherwise a user may become overwhelmed and be unable to parse through to the exact result they want.

A person that awakens Observation Haki may suffer from this, and they’re recommended training to remedy the sensory overload. A natural born Observation Haki talent like Aisa do not seem to suffer such problems, as the augmented perception is a natural part of their lives, like any other sense they were born with.

As a sixth sense, Observation Haki is independent from the five other senses.

Kin’emon was able to independently operate his body parts despite being chopped up in Law’s ROOM.

This ability also appears to benefit from the user’s own affinities for certain applications.Sanji developed a “Woman Radar” ability that allows him to notice and distinguish the presence of specifically women in a wide radius, and to home in on a specific (female) target with a little bit of attention and Orihime could sense hidden emotions inside the hearts of her Fishmen people.

Basic Applications:

Presence Sensing: the most common use, it lets the user sense the presence of other people.

Mastering it would allow a person to see people who are otherwise concealed and too far to sense through natural senses.

Seeing through this sense, a person will only be able to sense a person’s aura, a distinct colored silhouette in an otherwise dark background (though silhouette is a vision biased descriptor, Observation is fully independent from it).

Curiously, it seems to not be able to detect presences inside others, as Luffy was invisible to Enel, a great Observation Haki user, when he was eaten by a giant snake, being inside another creature also limits Observation Haki into its insides only.

Sensing one’s presence also allows a user to know the basic life status of presences they can sense, by how clearly they can “hear” said presence. A presence may temporarily disappear only if the person detected is able to resurrect in some way.

Strength Sensing: a person can measure the strength of powerful auras they sense, allowing them to single out powerful people.

This application can be used to measure another person’s Haki and even to sense particular weapons and their threat level (as did Big Mom in Wano), although due to the weapons in question being special Graded Blades, it is unknown if it works on regular weapons.

Emotion Sensing: this application lets someone become an empath to a degree. They can sense people’s emotions.

Things like one’s nature, the feelings deep in one’s heart like suffering, resentment and fury can all be detected through this particular way of using Observation Haki.

This ability is one that can be trained against.

Certain characters have shown the ability to mask their own emotions to even capable Observation Haki users like Whitebeard and Sanji.

A character that awakens Observation Haki may suffer greatly from sudden empathy due to the absorption of extreme emotions, as seen through Coby in Marineford, a good user capable of emotion sensing needs to have great mental fortitude to resist such influences.

Intent Sensing: a user can perceive another’s conscious intent. This allows them to react seconds before an action happens.

The bigger the killing intent, the easier it will be to notice.

This is a greatly useful ability in combat, as it allows someone to evade and deal with various attacks, even in seemingly impossible situations.

This ability depends on conscious intent, so subconscious moves, as well as inanimate objects like the ocean are not predictable. This ability also needs focus to be properly used, and moves that are faster than a person can react in the timeframe of sensing it cannot be evaded.

 

Advanced Techniques:

Future Vision: A skilled enough Observation Haki user can see several seconds in the future, they can mentally picture several seconds ahead of present time.

So far, this ability covers regular senses as well, in that they “see” and “hear” what would be. It requires concentration and their image of the future is limited to their regular senses. It is also not absolute; the user is unable to predict what their own changes would bring and with someone with knowledge of this ability can reassure themselves through the reaction of the user.

This ability can be negated through advanced use of Supreme King Haki.

Special Applications: Certain users can sometimes combine their other abilities with Haki.

Enel could use his own Observation Haki along with his electricity powers to greatly expand the effectiveness and preciseness of his Observation Haki by using electroreception. This allowed Enel to be nigh omniscient in the Sky Islands, able to listen and track the actions and presence of every living being in Skypiea. He also used this to remotely guide attacks far beyond a reasonable range.

Bloodline Synchronization: only seen in Film Red, it allowed two Observation Haki users of varying degrees of proficiency to communicate and coordinate in two different realms of perception by sharing one’s eyesight leveraging their blood relations, in the only example so far, between the real world and Uta’s dream realm.

Bloodline Synchronization was seen only happening between Yasopp and Usopp.

Fabled Applications: There are abilities in the world that are only speculated to be part of this branch of Haki.

Voice of All Things: A very small number of people have a talent to listen to the “Voice of All Things”.

They are able to listen to and understand all living things and even certain objects like Phoneglyphs. A person capable of this can eavesdrop on and speak to beings otherwise impossible to talk to, as well as understand the memory and objectives of certain objects, most useful in understanding the contents of Phoneglyphs without ever having to know how to read them.

Individuals with the ability of the Voice of All Things, or the talent to acquire it will sometimes listen to the voices of ancient beings if in their presence, they also seem uniquely talented in judging people’s character. Members of the Three-Eyed Tribe are said to be able to unlock a similar ability through training and luck by awakening their third eye.

Acquiring Observation Haki seems to be a less involved and more involved process at the same time. A person that did not awaken it naturally and has basic Haki training needs to go through a very involved training program of closing off one’s other senses and home in on Observation Haki and grow it through effort and time.

People that awaken it naturally, be it by talent or in stressful situations seemingly do not share those issues, they are exposed to this new sense and use it in the capacity they’re able to, further training to filter incoming information or better those sense is possible, of course, and recommended for people that awakened it naturally.

Because Observation Haki is not necessarily a combat ability, training does not necessarily mean using it in combat.

Some very talented Observation Haki users are remarkably not combatants, especially those that master abilities in the line of Emotion Sensing.

Training through combat is however a very effective method, and by the words of a master like Rayleigh, the best way to acquire advanced abilities like Future Sight.

Regular training otherwise requires using these newfound senses as much as possible for ever so broader and more precise use cases.

覇王色の覇気 (Supreme King’s Haki):

In Japanese, there’s really only one character I need to explain here, because the “Ha” character in Haki repeated itself. 王 is spelled “o-“, and it means “king/rule/magnate”, so “Hao-shoku no Haki”. “Hao-“, the two characters together is a word for “Supreme Ruler/autocrat/dynast/high king/hegemon”.

This is a charged term, this term for king comes from Confucianism (Confucianism is an important eastern philosophy/religion that pervades most of Asian culture and governance structures today). It refers to a type of “overlord”, that rules from beyond the regular the feudal order through the use of military and roguish means, a direct opposition to the “way of the king”, that is when a ruler rules by winning the hearts of the ones he rules over, being benevolent and stuff. It is a chaotic and power-driven type of order that is considered inferior in Confucianism and not poised to last. Not necessarily a despotic and tyrannical rule though.

So, together it’s something like “Overlord Colored Ambition” or “Autocrat Colored Ambition” or “High King Colored Ambition”. The official translation coined the term “Color of the Supreme King Haki”, and in the Funimation anime translations, “Color of the Conqueror’s Haki”, a term that has stuck with the community.

Supreme King’s Haki is remarkably different from the other two types of Haki.

While Haki is said to dwell inside all living things, Supreme King’s Haki is extremely rare, present in an estimated 1 in millions of individuals and only possible to those that possess the qualities of a “king”.

They don’t need to be royalty, and not all kings in current day have it, but it seems to appear more often with people in places of power, leaders and the sort, it has also been suggested that this type of Haki runs in the blood, mostly due to certain families having bigger concentrations of users of Supreme King Haki, like the Monkey D. family where three consecutive generations got it.

All Supreme King Haki users and dangerous and influential people in the world, and someone who awakens it is poised to leave their mark on the world.

Supreme King Haki users are always very charismatic, and people seem to admire and follow them naturally, Supreme King Haki users are not always the leaders of their groups, but if they follow anyone, it will always be another Supreme King Haki user. Whether it is the Haki itself that gifts them those traits or if those traits are what enable Supreme King Haki is unclear, so far it’s a chicken or egg situation.

This ability allows a person to assert themselves over the will of other people, dominating them.

This is used a way to intimidate and subjugate others, and huge enough power disparity will straight up lead to a target fainting outright, instantly suffering from symptoms like the loss of consciousness due to shock, extreme emotion or stress. It is possible for a not experienced individual to confuse the effects of Supreme King Haki with other moves as well as confuse the source of the Supreme King Haki.

Besides being used to instantly deal with many weaker individuals or deal with specific weaker targets, it can also be used to intimidate and stop wild beasts and the like.

In  regular battles, the intimidation factor can work wonderfully against other opponents, as Haki is best used in those with no doubts, an ability that can intimidate others is instantly valuable. At advanced applications, a person can layer Supreme King’s Haki on top of their moves, countering other types of Haki and possibly even infusing Supreme King Haki in an object for later use.

Supreme King Haki is usually showcased in two ways, the most obvious being the characteristic black lightning, the second one being a clearing of the panel in question, where a white space is reserved for the effect, as well as backgrounds, ignoring action lines and the like most of the time with the exception of the aforementioned black lightning. This second effect is translated in animation into suspense, mostly followed by a wave coming out of the character where the moment of impact lingers, how that moment is dealt with is open to the artist responsible.

Basic Applications:

Domination: A user can instantly intimidate and subjugate the psyche of others.

This was mostly seen in beasts, and a cowed animal can be easily tamed by the user then. This can also intimidate people, and has made them follow small orders instinctively, like in the Boa sister’s case or Greenbull. With a huge enough difference in will, a target can be struck unconscious.

Those with stronger wills, not necessarily Haki training, can resist this ability.

Experts can use this ability over a multiple kilometer radius around the target.

Incapacitation: Users can force weaker people into unconsciousness by greatly overpowering them with their Supreme King Haki.

It only works in those with significantly weaker will than the user.

People that are barely strong enough in will will be partially affected, and the use of this ability is detectable even to those not affected by it.

This ability’s greatest application is to deal with “cannon fodder”, taking out large swathes of an army by merely willing them to is great for saving time and energy. Luffy was able to take out 50000 fishman, half of the whole army amassed by Hody Jones.

Advanced Techniques:

Infusion: A user can infuse their Supreme King Haki into their attacks or defense, like Armament Haki.

This is a very rare usage of Supreme King Haki, only reserved for the most powerful people in the world that are skilled in Advanced Armament Haki.

This is an incredibly powerful tool allows a person to truly stand at the peak of the martial world of One Piece.

This coating is represented by the signature black lightning. The infusion of Supreme King Haki is often accompanied by the advanced emission technique, making a “contactless” clash occur.

Clashes containing infused Supreme King Haki are so powerful that they create waves, crater the earth divide the clouds and create a knock-on effect that incapacitates surrounding weak people and the resulting impact of an attack like this can affect areas multiple times larger than the attacker.

This ability can also be used defensively, enabling a person to directly face extremely powerful attacks and come out unscathed.

The infusion of Supreme King Haki is essential in dealing with super regenerating individuals like the God’s Knights, the Gorousei and Imu.

Special Applications:

Tying: Only seen once so far due to Joyboy, a person can infuse their Supreme Haki into a rope and tie it with a knot to store it for at least multiple centuries.

Undoing the knot releases the stored Haki, said Haki still carries the signature of its creator.

The specific conditions for doing this are currently unknown.

Observation Killing: a user can exert their Supreme King Haki in a way to conceal themselves, completely nullifying the ability of Future Sight from Observation Haki.

Only mentioned in One Piece Film Red, only known user being Shanks.

Unlike the other types of Haki, it is impossible to train Supreme King Haki into becoming stronger, it is necessary to become stronger themselves to get a stronger Supreme King Haki.

It is also impossible to train yourself into acquiring Supreme King Haki, all the people that have Supreme King Haki possess “the qualities of a King” in one way or another.

It is necessary to train the ability after awakening it to properly use it. Supreme King Haki is one of the best measures of power in the series, at least when it comes to spirit due to being directly related to one’s power.

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To sum it all up: Haki is an ambition based supernatural use of spiritual energy/life force in One Piece that every living thing can learn to use. It has three different “colors” or specializations.

One directly related to combat and physical activity use that can strengthen a person beyond mundane sense, the Color of Armament Haki.

The second is related to the use of one’s spirit as a sensory organ, enabling them to sense the life around them, up to an acquired true empathy and short-term clairvoyance, the Color of Observation Haki.

The third is a rare expression of a person’s imposition over other, the ambition of a king that can intimidate and subjugate others as well as elevate one’s own power expression to superhuman levels, the Color of Supreme King Haki.

If you guys like these posts, I might make other similar posts about other concepts of the story like devil fruits, geography, factions and history. It is a good and fun way for me to apply knowledge on how to study better and exercise my burgeoning Japanese.