< One Piece

One Piece/Awesome


Straw Hat Pirates

Luffy:

  • Luffy's sole reason for becoming a Pirate, going after One Piece and becoming the Pirate King: Because it would be an interesting adventure, and that the Pirate King has the most freedom in the sea. Heck, even when Rayleigh offers to tell the crew where the One Piece is, Luffy loudly declines and says he'll quit being a pirate if he knows where it is. Why?

Luffy: I don't want to go on a boring adventure like that!

    • You can't leave that out, while on his adventure to become the Pirate King, he will gladly die in the process, because if he dies on the way he died for what he lived for. He himself states this from the very first episode on.
  • During the Thriller Bark Arc, when the Rolling Pirates give him his first shadow power-up (episode 370), they ask him "Can you use a sword?" He replies "No, not one bit." Then they toss a sword towards him, he catches it and then slashes an entire tree to splinters so quickly we can't even see it. Also counts as a CMOF when he realizes what just happened.
  • Luffy's fight against Krieg. Krieg fires stakes at him, which he simply runs straight through, getting impaled. Krieg then covers himself with a spiked cape... which Luffy simply PUNCHES THROUGH, hitting Krieg in the face.
    • Don Krieg then attacks him with a spear that creates an explosion on impact. Luffy could dodge it easily, but instead he chooses to punch the spearhead repeatedly, meaning his fists were subjected to constant explosions, and the spear breaks before Luffy does!
    • Another one in the Kreig Arc: Don Krieg spent the entire arc trying to get the Baratie ship and the log. This log contains a complete description of Red Foot Zeff's travels in the Grand Line, which would be essential in traveling through it. After all is said and done, Zeff offers to give the log to Luffy. Luffy outright refuses. That means Luffy could have gone into the Line, more prepared then any other pirate was, definitely with the upper hand. And he chose not to. Hell. Yes.
  • The Walk to Arlong Park.
    • Four Words: "Which one is Arlong?" Luffy didn't even know who Arlong was. He was going into that fight completely blind.
    • Five More Words: "You made my navigator cry!" Luffy's sole reason for even challenging Arlong in the first place.
    • Additional Words: "Nami! You'll always be my friend!"
    • It's easy to overlook, but notice when they first enter Nami's room: Luffy grabbing Arlong's sword and Arlong finding it impossible to move. It's the first time Luffy's been truly angry. And it makes him terribly strong.

Luffy: You keep jabbering on about how much better Fishmen are and how much you need those sea charts. I don't understand anything about that stuff, but I finally figured out how to save her. This room isn't anything but her jail cell. There's only one way for Nami to escape. I gotta tear this place apart.

    • Trashing the map room Nami had been held prisoner in for most of her life as a slave mapmaker, and then finishing off Arlong by literally curb-stomping him so hard that he put Arlong through five stories of floors, from the top to the bottom of Arlong Park. Then it collapsed on top of him.
    • The thing that really sold me on that walk, before the fight started, was the two Pirate Hunters refusing to let anyone in Arlong Park. "We're waiting for those guys. Those guys will change the future."
  • Of course, there's also when Luffy climbs a mountain... during a blizzard in freezing temperatures while having no ventilation... with his bare hands and feet... while carrying two of his crewmates, one of whom is in his teeth.
    • You forgot the Lapahns. And avalanches. And saving a little lapahn from an avalanche. And that the 'mountain' was a literal pillar hundreds of feet high with no hand holds, and completely smoothed by gale force winds. Oh, did I mention he is frostbitten to the point where his muscles were freezing? Not that wussy 'frost-bite' frozen, but frozen to the point of actually cracking apart.
    • Then taking a direct hit from a mortar shell defending Dr. Hiriluk's jolly roger from Wapol. Cue "Luffy Gets Angry" mode.

Luffy: This flag isn't something you can break while laughing foolishly!

    • And his recruitment of Chopper. He doesn't care that Chopper is different. Very few times will you find a moment that is Awesome, Funny, Heartwarming AND a Tear Jerker at the same time.
  • The final defeat of Sir Crocodile. He is punched through the solid stone roof of an underground chamber so hard an entire city block above him basically explodes. In the anime this happens while Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" 4th movement plays. The recap movie changes the exploding city block to Crocodile being propelled vertically through a massive tower and rocketing out the top.
  • Luffy and Zoro have a chance to be awesome without beating anyone up on Jaya Island. In fact, it's awesome specifically because they didn't beat anyone up while taking ridicule from Bellamy and the rest of the bar. I'm sure I'm not the only one that was reminded of Shanks during this scene.
    • In addition to that, when Luffy DOES fight Bellamy later on, it's wall-to-wall (to turn a phrase) Crowning Moment of Awesome. "Do I know how to throw a punch?" indeed.
  • Luffy fighting Eneru might seem relatively tame by now, the beginning of the fight is epic. Eneru hits him with his strongest attack. Luffy is still standing, not even scratched. He figures he must have missed, so he sends a giant electric monster at him, which swallows Luffy whole but doesn't even leave a scratch. Then Eneru hits him with at close range with everything he's got. And then... Luffy hits him. A full page of the manga is given just to show the shock on Eneru's face.
    • And then after Eneru has to visibly collect himself and manages to barely fight off Luffy, Luffy yells at him that even if he gets past Luffy and onto the Blue, he will still have to contend with the 'hundreds of rubber monsters' down there. Given that Eneru has never heard of rubber his entire life and has no clue what's down in the blue seas is terrified.
  • How about when Luffy leads the Straw Hats against the Franky Family to get revenge for Usopp? "Don't leave a single bone unbroken."
  • And don't forget Luffy's fight against Rob Lucci on Enies Lobby, where he initiates Gear Third: using his Devil Fruit powers to blow up his arm like a balloon and inflates it to a ludicrous size. He then punches Lucci, and knocks a huge hole in the tower to boot!
    • When Luffy first uses Gear Second, and hands Blueno his ass.
    • Speaking of the Enies Lobby arc, Luffy has a great Crowning Moment of Awesome when he storms the Marine headquarters and proceeds to beat down hundreds upon hundreds of guards by himself. With his bare hands. And it is stated that of all the guards taken down, Luffy took down at least one thousand of them.
      • Furthermore, at least 500 of them were taken down in five minutes.

Enies Lobby Guards: Hey, Straw Hat Luffy... How many dozens of people did you bring? Ha ha ha... Enies Lobby's forces are ten thousand strong!!!
Luffy: Yeah... and I'm alone. Now step aside!!!!

    • "ROBIN! SAY YOU WANT TO LIVE!"
    • Luffy essentially told the world government "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT SHES DONE!! YOU GIVE HER BACK RIGHT NOW OR I WILL COME UP THERE AND GET HER MYSELF!!" And he proceeded to do just that.
    • Luffy's defeat of Rob Lucci. What makes it so awesome isn't just that Luffy's finishing move, Jet Gatling, was the result of Gomu Gomu no Gatling being voted the most popular attack of the series, it's that the final blow is as much crushing to Lucci mentally as it is to him physically. Lucci realized that not only did he not win, he could not win - Luffy would never stop fighting to protect Robin.
      • The look of utter disbelief on Lucci's face when Luffy gets up again, after taking his strongest attack to his heart, while screaming bloody murder really cements that moment's awesomeness.
  • One recent Crowning Moment of Awesome came in the end of the Thriller Bark arc, where Luffy absorbs the shadows of a hundred powerful warriors and becomes Nightmare Luffy, developing crazy power, speed, and resilience. The catch? The shadows only stay inside his body for ten minutes. Luffy wipes the floor with Oars, until the time is up. Oars still isn't beaten. Then he leads the all of the Straw Hats to kick his ass anyway.
    • The sole reason that Zoro decides he has to beat Oz instead of distract him? Well, he knows that by dawn if they don't get their shadows back, he, Sanji, and Luffy will be useless for fighting in the sun. So he has to defeat Oz to give Luffy his shadow back, because he knows that Luffy is the most powerful member of the crew. This coming from the guy who only ever lost one fight on-screen, and is planning on beating up the murderous giant with Luffy's entire skillset, but he knows Luffy is their best bet.
  • Luffy doing the in-universe unthinkable: walking up to a World Noble - a descendant of the twenty kings who oversaw the World Government's creation, and the only ones above their laws and must never, ever offend lest you want to go to toe-to-toe with an Admiral - and punching him square in the face.
  • "I TOLD YOU TO STOP!" Luffy just shouting this at Sandersonia and Marigold, managed to knock out a large portion of the audience instantly. The ones that weren't commented on him having "the king's disposition", which even scared Boa Hancock (and she has very impressively demonstrated the same ability). This moment was raw (and to Luffy, unintentional) awesomeness.
    • How about being able to resist Boa Hancock's, er, charms?
    • There's an even earlier hint of Luffy having "The King's Disposition" or "Haki". During the Duval encounter, he stopped Duval's Motobaro without flinching and said "There's no point in us fighting!". Haki activates unconsciously and Motobaro goes the opposite way before collapsing. In the manga, Motobaro was foaming at the mouth!
  • Just recently in the Impel Down arc, Going Gear Second and giving the Chief Warden Magellan a speech on why he's not giving up his plan to save Ace, then proceeding to give him a Gomu Gomu no Jet Bazooka. To give you an idea, Luffy basically smacked a man whose body is coated with an armor of corrosive poison. And his hands are starting to feel it. That's pretty hardcore.
    • And that leads into another Crowning Moment of Awesome / Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, though not from Luffy. Unfortunately, Magellan defeats Luffy and he's carted off to Level 5 of Impel Down. Back on Level 4, Mr. 2 gathers Mr. 3 and Buggy back together and says that they need to rescue him immediately. When Buggy demands to know why they should go to certain death for him, and Mr. 2 replies "Because he's a friend!! I don't need any other reason!!!
      • Luffy gets another one here... Yes, Luffy was beaten and not only taken down to Level 5, the "freezing hell", but he was also covered in a mixture of so many poisons that the doctors said he could not be cured. Imagine, that would have been absolutely agonizing. And yet, Luffy is still trying to get up and save Ace. When Mr. 2 drags him into the forest in search of "Iva-San", whom he believes can cure Luffy, he is attacked by vicious and powerful wolves - and then Luffy gets up, stares one in the eyes, and makes the entire pack (which may have been at least 20 of them) collapse purely through using the the king's disposition, despite his absolutely horrifying condition that, by all rights, he shouldn't even be standing from. Absolutely incredible. And you know what I just realized? As more chapters come out, by the time the Impel Down arc ends, the CMOAs will be numerous.
      • Here we go again. Luffy, amazingly, asks Iva-sama to help Bon Clay, despite his horrifying condition, which makes Bon Clay look like he merely got a scratch. This request was more than enough for Iva-sama to help him and Bon Clay.
        • Luffy did the same thing in the Drum arc, asking Dr. Kureha to save Nami and Sanji when he himself was on the verge of freezing to death after the above-mentioned mountain climb.
      • Will the awesome never end? Luffy is subjected to an absolutely agonising process to heal his body that will take days, and relies on his willpower. Everyone in the Okama Paradise comes up to his cell to cheer him on. Seven Twenty hours in - the first ten of which Bon Clay had spent in dead sleep while he recovered from his injuries - the screaming stops, and Iva-sama declares Luffy dead. Then Luffy slams his fists on the door with full force, never mind that he was tied up in several layers of huge chains, screaming "FOOOOOOOODDDD!" Iva-sama is naturally astounded, not even a day had passed since it began!
      • Somehow, Luffy has managed to pull together a kick-ass team well worth reckoning with. Who's on said team? Crocodile, Jinbe, Ivankov, and Inazuma. Of course it's likely the other Baroque pirates will stay by Luffy's side with Crocodile involved. Add on Buggy and Hancock, and you have three Warlords of the Sea, two high ranking Revolutionaries, and two crews at Luffy's command. WG beware.
      • The caption at the end of the chapter just makes it all the better: This is one crazy team!
  • Luffy should get one just for falling from the sky above Marineford, while Whitebeard had came from below the ocean earlier in chapter 556.
    • Oh, it gets better... In the next chapter, he effectively challenges Whitebeard while standing by his side. And, if the smile is of any indication, earned the old man's respect. The reactions of quite a lot of the bystanders are priceless. The entrance itself is pretty awesome, with the team shot, and the resulting mix of surprise, relief and Oh Crap from various characters.
      • And the chapter after that... After quickly chatting to Whitebeard like they were equals, Luffy bounds off to rescue Ace. This is a combined Crowning Moment of Awesome, mind you - first, he's saved from Kizaru by Ivankov, then Jinbe makes Moria's zombie-raising powers useless through using salt water from the ocean itself (remember, he can THROW THE SEA), and then, Luffy's response to Ace's urging him to flee? Punch out a GIANT (made even more awesome by the fact that he did it with a technique that made his fist even bigger than the giant's whole body) and then say, "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! I'M GOING TO SAVE YOU EVEN IF IT KILLS ME! The kicker? Whitebeard then effectively orders Marco to protect Luffy. Now Luffy is cutting a path through the Marines towards Ace, and one of Whitebeard's finest, as in, the guy who blocked an attack from Kizaru, is protecting him. This is going to get real interesting.
    • And that epic punch up there is made even more epic by the fact that it was done in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann style. So it looks like a Giga Drill Breaker.
  • Luffy now stands In front of ALL THREE ADMIRALS seconds away from Ace's execution. If this isn't a holy shit moment, nothing is.
  • Luffy, after getting badly Worf'ed by the Marines' higher ups - especially the Admirals - came back roaring. After getting beaten up by Kizaru et al and having his body run out on juice on him, he begs Ivankov to inject him with Vigor Hormones again and, upon seeing the decapitation about to take place, yells out a very familiar STOP IT ALREADY! Luffy's haki finally unleashes itself, knocking out Ace's executioners along with many other Mooks in the vicinity. Sengoku and Ace are both left speechless, Aokiji's surprised, Ivankov's amazed, and Whitebeard just thinks "that little snot-nosed..." That's how you prove yourself, Luffy.
  • Sixteen bells. SIXTEEN BELLS.
    • Basically, Luffy sneaks back into Marineford, steals a Marine ship, sails around the area once, fights his way into the Plaza, goes and rings a sacred bell, throws a bouquet of flowers down, gives a solemn moment of silence for Ace and everyone else who died in the war, and escapes. Sure he had Jinbe and Rayleigh with him, but still.
  • We all knew it was gonna happen, but still, it was great to see Luffy showing off his new skills by taking out the impostors in one go. Right after dodging a bullet at point blank range. Then again, a bullet wouldn't have hurt Luffy anyway because of his rubber powers; he probably just did it to avoid attention.
    • 600 leaves with a tease that he might be doing even more of this in the next chapter, to the same guys.
      • He doesn't end up doing anything to those guys -- they get taken out by Pacifistas instead in chapter 601.
  • In 601, Luffy curbstomps a Pacifista, the same thing it took the entire crew to beat the first time.
    • [[spoiler: He didn't just beat the Pacifista. He beat it with one punch.
    • What's doubly awesome about this is how Luffy treats it. The Pacifista tries to shoot him with a laser. Luffy quips "Slow." while barely moving his head, activates Gear Second just by flexing his arm (he had to do the leg-pushing pose to activate it before), and comes down on the Pacifista without missing a beat. Bad. Ass.
    • Here's another thing; those beams that the Pacifista use? They're based on Kizaru's ability. The same Kizaru who totally wiped the floor with the crew on their first encounter.
    • Remember the Pacifista that were beaten by Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji? They were the same ones the Straw Hats encountered before Kuma appeared.
    • Even more Badass on TV. Luffy punches the Pacifista so hard, he makes a crater under it!
  • After seeing Luffy get the crap kicked out of him by Foxy, it was very satisfying to see him turn the fight around in one punch.

Luffy: "HELL YEAH!!"

  • A combined C Mo F for Luffy in the Enies Lobby arc. Luffy approaches the Marines standing outside the gates to Enies Lobby. The Marines ready their weapons and prepare to stop him... then Luffy stops, bows his head and asks them politely to let him in. The Marines are actually stunned. Then they tell him that asking politely won't work... and what Luffy does next probably made them wish they had just let him in when he asked.
  • ELEPHANT GUN. An armament Haki-infused Gear 3rd technique that Luffy uses to knock out a Kraken.
  • Pfft. Is that all? The most recent chapter shows that Luffy has tamed it. Davy Jones, eat your heart.
  • Chapter 618. Luffy's tied up and there's a crazy man gunning towards him. Luffy one-shots him and then knocks out a giant with one punch.
    • To elaborate: Luffy, who's tied up, manages to lodge the Flying Dutchman captain Vander Decken in the ground in one single go. Then he deals with Decken's Giant Mook (who, mind you, is probably one of the hugest creatures in this setting) by punching out his front tooth with a Gear Second attack.
  • We all knew it was coming, but after Hody gloats about his evil schemes, poised to slice off King Neptune's head, Luffy exits from Megalo's mouth and gives Hody a Gear 2nd kick right in the solar plexus.
    • And after that, the citizens of Fishman Island are confused as to where the Straw Hats' allegiance lie. Luffy simply answers:

Luffy: Whether we're friend or foe... is up to you to decide!

  • Then Hody tries to send his army of 100,000 men at Luffy's mere crew of ten... and Luffy drops 50,000 of them with one burst of Haki.
    • Made all the more awesome by Zoro's reaction: "That's what I expect from a guy who calls himself my Captain."
  • Luffy reclaims Surume, the Kraken, through the power of friendship. Then sitting on its back laughing as it totally destroys Hody's men.
  • When Luffy finally starts fighting Hody, it's an utter Curb Stomp Battle. Luffy just kicks his ass with almost no real effort. This is after Hody got that huge drug induced power boost.
  • The Water 7 arc as a whole was probably one of Luffy's greatest Crowning Moment of Awesome. When you look back at the series, Luffy has hardly ever taken any real initiative as captain. IN fact, almost all of his decisions as captain of the crew were recruiting new members. Any important decisions were mostly agreed upon by the crew as a whole, so when you see Luffy deciding to part with Merry, and his duel with Usopp, it reminds the reader that Luffy is, in fact, captain of the crew.
  • Chapter 644: Gomu Gomu no... RED HAWK! It should be noted that the kanji that make up the attack name are the exact same ones as Ace's Fire Fist.
  • Chapter 645: Say it with me, Elephant Gatling!
  • Chapter 647: Luffy is so goddamn badass that he wins the respect of the motherfucking SEA KINGS, the most powerful sea monsters in the world.
  • Chapter 651: Luffy ate several tons of candy at the banquet not knowing that it was the monthly fee Fishman Island paid to Big Mom (who is homicidal enough to burn an entire island into the ground because they didn't give her candy) for defending it from other pirates. But when she hears the news and threatens to demolish Fishman Island Luffy first tries to bribe her with the treasure they got back from Caribou (knowing that Nami might rip off his balls for it), and when that fails he PERSONALLY takes the blame for the whole incident, and challenges BIG MOM (who's one of the Four Emperors and probably on the same level as Shanks and the late Whitebeard) saying he will go to the New World, kick her ass, AND PROTECT FISHMAN ISLAND HIMSELF AFTERWARDS BY MAKING IT HIS OWN TURF. After all, he is going to become the Pirate King, what other protection do you need?
    • The look of shock on Big Mom's face is priceless. It becomes Fridge Brilliance later on when one takes into consideration who was the protector of the island before. That's right, Whitebeard. He's essentially pulling a Whitebeard. That must have really been quite the surprise for her.
  • There is a nice one for Luffy in chapter 661. Not that he does something, but when Brownbeard finally realizes who he is, he and his centaur lackeys shat their collective pants. It really shows how infamous Luffy has become.
  • Then, in Chapter 667, Luffy shows off a new move that enables him to absorb an enemy's attack and return it with twice the power.
  • Chapter 670, Luffy continues to show off his Haki skills by effortlessly grabbing Smoker's arm and pinning him to the ground, the same way Smoker stopped him waaaay back in Loguetown. Granted, Law's ability switched Smoker and Tashigi's bodies, and he was really fighting Tashigi. But it shows growth.

Zoro:

  • That whole part where he fights Kuma. Especially the part where he takes all of Luffy's pain into his body. Pure unfiltered awesome.
      • That was so much pain, it inverted the colors of the show.
    • "Realization of a man!!"
    • And in anime. I don't care what else is on the list: this one not only wins for Zoro, but quite possibly the entire series.
  • This troper thought Zoro got his Crowning Moment of Awesome much earlier, when fighting Buggy the Clown's second mate. After cutting open his own wound to show what a Badass he is, he gets kicked around a bit by Cabaji. Finally, he complains that he's tired, knocks Cabaji off his unicycle, and, when Cabaji rushes him, Zoro takes him down with one strike. Keep in mind that this is Zoro's second fight scene.
    • I still find when he fights Mr. 1. Come on, he had pity for the guy he couldn't defeat. Because when he would be able to do it, he was going to be the man capable of cutting steel.
    • Little-known but still awesome scene: in the manga only, against Hatchan, the octopus fishman, when Zoro collapsed before him, the guy began punching apart a pillar and tried to have it fall on top of him. Zoro then gets up and pushes him into the path of the collapsing pillar, stating "why don't you take it yourself?"
    • How can you count out the end of Zoro's first fight with Mihawk? First, he gets stabbed in the chest nearly to the heart with the Mihawk's knife, but refuses to step back because he'd rather die than lose and break his promise. Then, he goes on to continue to fight Mihawk, only to have two of his three swords broken. He accepts his defeat and faces Mihawk so Mihawk can deliver the final blow to the front of his body because,"It's shameful for a swordsman to be hit from behind." This whole scene is what turned this troper from a Luffy fan into an obsessive Zoro fan.
    • Chapter 51 against Mihawk. When preparing his Three Thousand Worlds technique, there is a bead of sweat by Mihawk's eye. It is true that Mihawk effortlessly defeated Zoro regardless, but I think that it was at that moment that Mihawk saw that Zoro would be the one to surpass him.
      • His sheer determination also earned Mihawk's respect, to the point that Mihawk clearly wants Zoro to be the one to surpass him as the world's greatest swordsman someday. Of course, it helps that he's suffering from a serious case of Victory Is Boring disease.
  • During the conclusion of the Little Garden arc, Mr. 5 (a bomb-man) is about to kill Usopp by detonating his entire body. Suddenly, Zoro leaps out, and defeats Mr. 5 with one attack. While on fire.
    • And right before that, when he was still trapped, he actually started to CUT HIS OWN FEET OFF to escape.

Nami: "How did you think you were going to escape after cutting off your feet?"
Zoro: "You've got it wrong, I was cutting off my feet so I could fight them, not escape."

    • On top of that, while waiting for Luffy to come and free them from the wax, Zoro poses with his sword. Nami asks what is he doing and he replies with "In case we become candles, I have a nice pose."
  • His speech to a crying Chopper during the Davy Jones Games, being the only one who didn't panic about Chopper being taken by Foxy, also deserves a mention here.

" Shut your mouth, Chopper! You are disgraceful! It was your choice to get a life on the sea. Dead or alive, the choice was yours alone. Don't blame it on others. We accepted the challenge. Usopp and the others tried their best. In the pirate's world, tears won't get you anything. If you are a man, then sit tight and quietly watch the game!"

  • Then, his team-up with Sanji in the Groggy Ring. Despite the two of them initially bickering and arguing, they made one fine team at the end, beating the Groggy Monsters.
  • Luffy and Zoro have a chance to be awesome without beating anyone up on Jaya Island. In fact, it's awesome specifically because they didn't beat anyone up while taking ridicule from Bellamy and the rest of the bar. I'm sure I'm not the only one that was reminded of Shanks during this scene.
  • How has this gone on so long with no one changing it? What about the time, in Whiskey Peak, where Zoro takes on the entire town by himself. Only to then have to fight Luffy.
  • The first time Zoro does his "Phoenix Slash" against Braham. As seen here
    • Then, when against Ohm, Zoro does the three-style sword Phoenix Slash, right through a wall and hitting Ohm, despite not knowing where Ohm was.
  • While out sword shopping Zoro is about to make a purchase, but is warned by the shopkeeper that that particular sword is cursed to give its owner bad luck. Zoro proceeds to test out this curse in an awesome fashion by throwing it up into the air and seeing if it will come down on his arm blade-first. It doesn't. That's right, when Zoro goes sword shopping, he doesn't fuck around.
  • I thought his entire fight with Hatchan needed to be mentioned here.
    • First of all, Zoro was burning up with a fever and hampered by his previous injuries from Mihawk and yet he still fought. Arlong himself was shocked and amazed that he was still able to stand.
      • Oh, it was more than that. Arlong, probably the single largest human racist in the series, has a complete and utter belief that no human can ever match up to a fishman. Upon seeing the wounds Zoro had been fighting with, it took him all of three seconds to decide that he was too dangerous to be left alive. To put this into perspective: Arlong, the first true Big Bad of the series, was more afraid of the unconscious, half-dead swordsman than anyone else.
    • Then, he caught Johnny and Yosaku's swords that were thrown to him from behind.
    • And then, he dodged all six swords from Hatchan in close combat and while dodging, managed to cut Hatchan across the chest.
    • While a semi-conscious Zoro was tossed in the air, Hatchan began spinning his six swords like windmill, so that when Zoro fell back down, he would be sliced mercilessly by the rapidly spinning blades. For a minute, it looked too late for Zoro to dodge them. Only for him to land safely to the ground, as he cut up Hatchan's hands in midair, spinning his body so that it matched the rotation of Hatchan's swords.
      • Zoro reminded Hatchan when they met again right before Sabaody that he wasn't able to touch him in their previous fight.
    • Just his Tatsumaki attack.
  • Tossing an ENTIRE BUILDING off of himself in Alabasta. Keep in mind he is a normal human with no special power other than raw badassery.
  • What about him and Luffy cutting and punching through a tidal wave through sheer determination?
  • Cutting cannonballs out of the air in Water 7.
  • And sea trains.
  • Zoro exudes awesomeness simply because in every main fight he has ever been in, he has always had a disadvantage. Captain Morgan and marines- starved for 9 days; Cabaji- previous stabbing wound and reopens the wound; Meowban Brother- outnumbered and not hypnotised into super strength; Mihawk- him being a Warlord of the Sea AND the world's greatest swordsman; Hatchan- recovering from Mihawk's attack and outnumbered in terms of swords (6 to 3); Baroque Works @ Whiskey Peak- outnumbered 100 to 1, going against guns and 4 single digit officers, and trying out two new swords; Mr. 5 @ Little Garden- hacked through his ankles with his sword AND on fire; Mr. 1- Cannot cut though steel (but learns how to by the end of the fight); Braham- Blinding guns; Ohm- Ohm's Mantra ability and his iron cloud sword; Groggy Ring- No swords and having to team up with Sanji (this is harder than it sounds); Kaku & Jyabura- Handcuffed to Sogeking; Kaku- He's a Devil's Fruit user and user of Yontouryu (Four Sword Style, using his kicks from his legs as the two other swords); Ryuuma- Lost one of his swords; Bartholomew Kuma- Warlord, cyborg, AND just finished defeating Oars; Flying Fish Riders- injuries from Kuma; PX 4- cyborg and injuries from Kuma; Admiral Kizaru- he's an admiral, DF user, AND injuries from Kuma
    • Now that we think of it, has Zoro EVER fought a battle where he was physically 100%?
      • Yes, Mr.1, Braham, Kaku, Ryuuma. Most of the Straw Hat's fights are with them at a disadvantage. Zoro's stand out because he ALWAYS takes an absurd amount of damage, given that it's almost always swordsmen he fights, and still wins.
  • His whole fight with Ryuuma was undeniably amazing. From exchanging cuts and slashes that completely destroying the room they were in, to fighting up on top of the tower and finishing it with an aerial fight.
    • The best part of this fight was this quote from Ryuuma just before the destruction began:

Ryuuma: It feels as if I am about to fight a titanic creature... It even sends shivers down my body. What a feeling! Yohohoho!

    • - This guy, an undead samurai with Brook's entire moveset and an excellent sword, was scared of Zoro!
    • And directly beforehand, when they first met face to face, and Zoro smugly announces that he's going to defeat Ryuuma and take his sword. Brook actually faints from his coolness!
  • Let's not forget his fight with 100 assassins at whiskey peak. To clarify, he fights 100 different assassins and 4 baroque works agents. And with the assassins he not only has a massive laugh attack the whole time, but easily breezes through all of them in the most badass way possible, for an entire chapter.
  • It finally happened. Zoro pulled off a Mihawk and cut a ship in half. And then he decides to up the ante by cutting a Pacifista. And a Kraken.
  • Zoro taking the entire Ryugu Palace hostages, and improvisation upon the situation. And being completely non-chalent about it. To one of the three princes.
  • His Badass Boast when asked what he could possibly do against Eneru:

"By the time I'm done with him... this 'god' is gonna bow before me! I don't believe in him anyway. What do I care about pissing him off?"

  • Chapter 617 Yes, he has just took on Hody Jones, a Great White Shark Fishman with enough brute strength to crush down a whole wall with his grip. What's so special you ask? He's fighting underwater, where Hody's strength is ten times stronger.
    • Even better, in Chapter 618, Zoro totally owns Hody Jones. Underwater. With one slash.
    • And the damage caused by that one slash was so severe that Hody has been OD'ing on Energy Steroids just to keep standing.
  • 635 He creates a tornado of blades that one mook likens to a reaper's scythe. When asked how long the tornado will continue to chase them, this is his response..

To the ends of Hell.

  • In chapter 642, Zoro cuts Hyouzou's swords in half. Lengthwise.
    • And in chapter 646 He procedes to one-shot the deadly poisonous merman, with but what looks to be a variation of a simple move, while quoting a line from his battle with Mihawk. (thats what the whole frog thing was about)
  • Chapter 656 ZORO DECAPITATES A DRAGON!
    • Fridge Brilliance sets in when you realize it's this feat that made Ryuuma, who's sort of like a prototype of him, legendary.
  • Chapter 669: Zoro cuts a mountaintop in half with one hand, effortlesly, while half asslep.

Sanji:

  • Sanji's cooking deserves a mention here. After all, it managed to hunger an ENORMOUS sea cow-monster to a crazed state from SEVERAL MILES AWAY and send said sea monster into a high speed pursuit after the Straw Hat's replacement ship (see episode 31).
  • Kicking Fullbody's ass and then delivering a couplet "Offending a chef at sea, is one mistake you should never make. Especially when that chef is me, Sanji."
  • That's just the start of Sanji's awesomeness. Later in the Arlong Arc, he kicks Kuro-Obi's ass through Arlong Park, after taking the pain of fighting him underwater, and taking the pain of rapid water pressure increase crushing him.
    • "The chances of you surviving are... ZERO!" "COLLIER! You said my chivalry was naive? EPAULE! That I can't protect anyone, huh? COTELLE! SELLE! POITRINE! GIGOT! MUTTON SHOT! Guess you don't... need dessert."
  • And even later at Enies Lobby, he heats up his leg and beats down Jabra with his burning leg.
    • This is the best description you can give? To be more precise... Sanji spins spins spins at a ridiculous speed, heating up his leg until it is GLOWING red, practically on fire.
  • Or in the Skypiea arc, where Sanji kicks Usopp out of the way of a gigantic lightning blast and takes it himself. To say the shot of his silhouette fading as the lightning rushes toward him is awesome would be a complete understatement.
  • Despite being only part of a filler episode and not showcasing Sanji's excellent martial skills, This Troper found Sanji's impersonation as a Marine chef to be one of his finest moments. After being challenged by the Marine base's staff, who thought that he and Luffy were snobby chefs from Mariejois, Sanji showcases not only his fine culinary skills in preparing 100 delicious meals but also his resourcefulness and understanding of cooking with the unused parts of the ingredients previously used by the kitchen staff. Definitely one of the highlights of the G8 Arc!
  • This troper personally found Sanji's fight with Wanze awesome, especially when he took out the knives and chopped up Wanze's noodle armor, as well as having all those cut up noodles land neatly on a plate.
    • The G8 Arc itself is a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the anime as being one of the only filler arcs that was actually good.
    • Sanji then decided the best way to finish the fight would be to beat him ugly. Of course, Wanze's face looking like it did, this didn't leave Sanji with much to do. Not one to be denied, Sanji then took the logical step of beating him pretty before proceeding to beat him ugly again.
      • And then when he met Duval it was established that beating somebody pretty is one of his special abilities.
  • "Ordeal of Love." After Luffy, Usopp and Sanji spend a fair amount of time having trouble with one of the bad guys in the Skypiea arc, Sanji beats him by himself (with help from Luffy) while equating the beatdown to preparing a meal, complete with a line about "tenderizing the meat...brutally".
  • It's amazing that these two words are not to be found on this page until now: Mr. Prince
  • It's also amazing these two words are not to be found on this page until now: The Hunter... dude Sanji has the best entrances EVER.
  • Not to mention shutting the Gates of Justice at Enies Lobby, destroying a HUGE Buster Call ship and disorienting the rest, allowing the Straw Hats to escape the supposedly inescapable Buster Call.
  • Post time skip, Sanji breaks a Pacifista's neck with a single kick. The last time he tried that he only managed to break his own leg. Damn.
  • Four words: Anti-Manner Kick Course. And yes, anytime he says those words, it is awesome.
  • In Chapter 605, he used Diable Jable (which, to be clear, lights his legs on fire) UNDERWATER to deal massive damage to a ship-eating KRAKEN! Bien Cuit: Grill Shot! He also runs fast enough that he is said to be as fast as a Fishman.
  • 635: Running from the Okama's didn't just allow him to run underwater, it also allowed him to run IN THE SKY!
  • 646: Just by remembering his two years in Hell, Sanji can heat up enough to set Wadatsumi aflame just with a kick.

Usopp:

  • Usopp in Thriller Bark. Four words: "I am already negative!"
    • And then he tops that later in the fight by being a coward: "Somebody save me! Save me...SOGEKING!!!"
      • Immediately after that, he defeats a ridiculously strong zombie bear by shoving his arm down it's throat in order to get it to swallow salt (the zombies weakness).
    • And when all the other Straw Hats just stand around gawking in horror as Oars is about to smash the unconscious Sanji it is a clearly-terrified Usopp who actually does something about it: firing at Oars's head and turning the giant's attention towards himself.
  • This troper would like to add to Usopp's arsenal of awesomeness: One, shooting down the World Government flag with a really awesome firebird move thing. Two, sniping Marines on top of a tower from an unheard of distance even with all that pesky wind. With a slingshot.
    • Also, turning the giants Kaashi and Oimo back against the marines.
    • Burning the world government's flag is really more a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the whole team.
      • Usopp still deserves special mention, not just for the fact that he shot the flag down, but that he did it without hesitation. The most audacious thing he had ever been asked to do, and he did it without flinching.
  • He got another in the Sabaody arc: dropping down from the ceiling and flattening the most sickeningly evil character we've seen thus far. With his butt.
  • Let's not forget the entire crew gained CMOAs throughout the whole Enies Lobby Arc.
  • This troper feels that Usopp's real Crowning Moment of Awesome came all the way back in the Arlong arc where, after successfully deterring Arlong's henchman off his trail and coming up with all sorts of stories to tell his crewmates to excuse his escape, he says to himself 'this is shameful', gets up and fights. It's the point where he turns away from being a true coward.
  • I'd have to say that the aforementioned Thriller Bark moment was too humorous to count, and that His defeat of Perona was far more awesome. Defeating someone referred to as "The Ghost Princess" by making her faint from fear using nothing but adhesive, toys and a giant balloon?I find that hard to top.
  • Sogeking's theme song. 'Nuff said.
  • In his and Chopper's fight with Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas, Usopp takes a blow from a multi-ton metal bat. To the face. While being dragged at thirty miles an hour. And. Kept On. Fighting.
  • This troper feels that Usopp's biggest Crowning Moment of Awesome came during the Water 7 Arc when he fought Luffy and held his ground with clever tactics and balls-to-the-wall determination. He may have lost, but he got actual blows in, against Luffy.
    • Usopp vs. Luffy? This should have been said from the beginning. You'd expect this small, weak, cowardly guy to just die right from the start, especially considering he was just mugged down by a street gang, but he still manages to plan out how to beat his foe, and actually get close to doing it. Luffy eventually says, "It stings... It burns... It hurts...!" THEN Usopp traps him in an explosion.
    • And why is he doing this? So he can win the ship he loves.
      • Even more so because he knows that his captain is right, and he's still willing to fight to the death for it.
      • Which makes it all the more heartbreaking that he isn't around when it's finally time to say goodbye.
    • Lets not forget that during that fight it took two shots from Luffy to bring him down, and both were pretty devastating blows, plus Usopp got the crap beaten out of him already earlier that day.
  • Ahem, Usopp cheering Luffy on folks.

"Even though it's been blackened by explosions, we can still see the sky! We can still see the sea! This place... This place isn't like hell!

  • No one's mentioned the Little Garden arc? It's not the most substantial arc in the world, but it's Usopp, and not Luffy, that ends up being the hero. Luffy's kick to Mr. 3's spinning candle of doom only managed to make things WORSE, in that it caused the wax to coat Zoro, Nami, and Vivi that much quicker. Not only this, but he also got himself snared by Miss Goldenweek's painting. Usopp, on the other hand, was the one who managed to exploit the wax's weakness by setting the whole thing on fire.
  • "RUBBERBAND OF DOOOOOM!"
  • Post-timeskip, Usopp got ten times more badass. When the fake Straw Hats are harassing Nami, he shoots them with a "Pop Green", a tiny seed which instantly grows into a man-eating plant. Then, when he finally shows up in the panel, he is absolutely ripped from his training.
  • 635: Usopp drives Franky's new Dino Tank into battle. Yes, Usopp, the incredibly accurate sharpshooter, is driving a tank.
  • 636: Apparently Usopp's arsenal of Pop Greens include bamboo plants that grow fast enough to stab/impale enemies, and in a recent chapter, we have EXPLODING SKULL GRASS..
  • 643: Usopp's fighting against Daruma, with what seems like no effect, until he suddenly says: "I've just finished laying out my trap. 1...2...3... In three moves you will be sniped by me. IT'S OVER!" When he gets called out on this he replies with this truely magnificent reply.

Usopp: "It's true... I've detoriated. I used to lie a lot more... Now I can actually do these things!"

  • And in chapter 646, he makes good on his claim.
  • In 661, Usopp manages to keep BOTH Luffy and Robin afloat in freezing water while Zoro goes to work on a group of sharks.

Nami:

  • Nami's taken down her share of bad guys, but certainly her most stylish moment was leaving her villiage...and stealing everyone's wallets in the process.
    • Nami's true crowning moment of awesome comes when she navigates the Going Merry UP a Knock Up Stream, which is capable of tearing up small islands. Anyone can kick ass, but only Nami can predict weather on the Grand Line and sail a ship onto a sky island.
    • Nami and Vivi easily achieve theirs in the Little Garden arc by finally taking out that laughing hyena Miss Valentine.
    • Nami gets another one during her fight with Miss Doublefinger, where she has her foot impaled on a spike but says that the pain is nothing compared to Vivi's, before finishing off her opponent.
    • During the Davy Jones Games, the referee clearly acted "dumb" to allow cheating for the Foxy Pirates and let them get away with pretty much everything, while penalizing Zoro and Sanji with every chance he gets. When finally, Sanji kicked one of the players at him to get even, he tried to give Sanji a red card ... only to find his cards and whistle were missing. Guess what? Nami stole them.
      • Then, at the end of the game, when Zoro and Sanji won, Nami gave the semi-conscious referee his whistle back and reminded him blow the whistle. With Sanji's red card the only thing in mind, he quickly blew the whistle to signal Sanji's foul ... only for the announcer to proclaim that there was the whistle, making the victory official. The referee could only look on dumbfounded while Nami cheerfully thanked him.
    • Nami, when she BRINGS DOWN A FRIGGIN' THUNDERBOLT in the middle of a melee. This prompts the mooks to say, "I thought she was one of the weak ones."
      • What about Nami's fight with Califia? Breaking Califia's soap powers with rain, casting illusions, and finishing the whole thing off with a delayed lighting bolt to the chest. And to think that the Clima Tact was originally designed as a party trick.
  • Post-timeskip, Nami is drinking in a bar where the fake Straw Hats are hanging out, treating the impostors as if they weren't even there. She doesn't even flinch when the fake Name holds a gun to her head. After Ussop shows up and they leave the bar, Nami leaves behind a gaggle of weather balls which turn into a thunderstorm, filling the entire bar with electricity.
  • During the Arlong arc, when Nami pretends to stab Usopp but really stabs her own hand.
  • Post-timeskip, Nami's Mirage Tempo can now turn her invisible. Making her an even better thief than before.
  • In chapter 636, she effortlessly and calmly dodges an attack from behind before shooting the guy at point blank with a concentrated wind blast.
    • And in 640 she takes down even more people with what seems to be a thundercloud melee weapon!

Chopper:

  • Why is there no love for Chopper here? Seriously? Examples of his awesome include defeating two of Wapol's top men in 3 minutes, finding a GIGANTIC crab and piloting it for a getaway vehicle, and almost getting himself killed to get a plant he thought would save lives.

Chopper: NOW I'M A PIRATE TOO!

    • Water 7 has him saving Nami from falling rubble AND bursting out of the building as it burned with 2 more rescues, not including a mouse.
  • Chopper protects the Thousand Sunny from a Kraken attack with his Guard Point form!
  • KUNG-FU POINT.
  • 635: Chopper commanding Franky's huge Dino Tank. and then we get a little 'raaaawwwwrr', which is mostly interpreted as 'Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my hooves'.
  • 636: Chopper reveals that all but one of his seven transformations can be activated without a Rumble Ball. He's also able to go after Tunnel King Daruma on even footing.

I'm not a self-conceited bastard. I'm a self-conceited monster.

  • 645: Chopper can now control Monster Point

Robin:

  • Nico Robin gets hers when she uses her power to put Frankys "treasure" in a vice grip.
    • This troper found Robin's steadfast refusal to go through the gates of justice, including holding onto a wall with her teeth and then having to be dragged along to be even more awesome then any time she fought.
    • Credit also needs to be given to her awesomeness when her Adventurer Archaeologist and Badass Bookworm kick in as she takes on and defeats Yama, Chief Enforcer of Eneru's forces, after he destroys ancient ruins of Shandora. Even saying, 'Even if you choose to repent, I won't forgive you." for what he did to the ruins. And subsequently whips his ass via swinging him into a tree, sending him to crash into another tree, having his own Axe Dial belt used against him, turning down his pleas of mercy, hurdling him off of a cliff, and breaking his back before he even hits the ground after falling off of said cliff. I think I speak for everyone when I say: DAMN!
      • And I think I speak for everyone when I say that Robin snapping Spandam's spine like a twig is even greater than that. After seeing this spineless coward beat the shit out of her while she was completely defenseless for nearly 50 chapters, after learning the sheer spirit-crushing sadness of her backstory...we needed to see this. And DAMN, was it ever satisfying!
      • It also makes a nice bookend to the arc, which began when she tried unsuccessfully to do the same to Aokiji, but he just turned to ice and rematerialized like nothing happened.
  • Robin finally gets a chance to display a small piece of her training in 629. She can create clones of herself, and move fast enough to intercept Jimbei's and Luffy's attacks and ask them to stop.
    • Albeit, given the nature of the Hana Hana no Mi, the clones are likely just able to sprout up wherever Robin chooses to make them (within her range). Still a very fast reaction either way.
  • Robin takes Curb Stomp Battle to a literal extreme in 635. She uses her powers to create gigantic legs to stomp (it's actually the name of the attack) her opponents into the ground.

Franky:

  • As for Franky it comes when he tries to stop a train and then rebuilds himself into a cyborg.
    • Later he takes an iron bar to the head without flinching and the bar bends to the shape of his head.
    • "JUST EXISTING CANNOT BE A CRIME!"
    • Then there's when he inflates his butt and fires it. 4 words: greatest fart joke ever!
    • Franky's definitive Crowning Moment of Awesome was right after Robin's flashback, where he manages to effectively ruin Spandam's long, drawn-out plan of acquiring the blueprints for Pluton that lasted for five years... by simply burning the blueprints and then declaring he's going to fight on the Straw Hats' side in front of the whole of CP9.
    • Franky's defeat of Fukurou. After blasting him from the air straight into the ground with his Coup de Vent, with so much force it causes a giant crater, what does Franky say? SUUUUUUPAAAAAAA! :D
  • When Franky went up against the Spider-monkey. He really wanted to try out his nunchucks, but the Spider's too big for that. So he finds a couple of the castle's pillars, and attaches them to the nunchucks, and begins to wail on the spider-monkey. In a panic the spider-money manages to web up the super-nunchucks, and as he laughs in relief, Franky just glares at him for spoiling his fun and shoots him.
  • Any time Franky busts out his mad building skills. Whether he makes an unusually ornate bridge in less time then it takes somebody to notice, or he's building a staircase in mid-battle so he can punch a giant in the face.
    • YMMV, His post time-skip apperance. I't's just so completely ridiculous - the giant arms that are the size of industrial crates, the ridiculously huge shoulder-pauldrons, and his nose is now a button that controls his hair.
      • It gets better than that. He has a nose-button that controls his hair, mechanical hands inside his large ones, a ROCKET LAUNCHER, and NIPPLE LIGHTS.
        • Not only does he have smaller hands inside his large ones but he has a tool box inside one of his arms. It was around this point that Franky's new look became awesome.
  • Franky using the Sunny to Gaon Cannon the hell out of Hody's crew!
  • In chapter 635, Franky reveals TWO new creations for the soldier dock system. #4 is a Steel Rhino Bike, while the new number 5 is a FREAKIN DINO TANK!
    • And they combine into a giant robot!
      • This is made even more awesome for Oda because it's revealed that this is a result of the special alloy that Wapol invented and the page on the cover for that chapter was Drum Kingdom.
  • How does Franky start his fight with Ikaros Much? He's just searching for a strong enemy in his giant mech and he randomly punches Ikaros.
  • In chapter 646 Franky reveals his ultimate weapon. A frikken LASER BEAM!

Brook:

  • During the Thriller Bark arc, two of the Straw Hats had been cornered by a giant zombie monkey spider which, like the other zombies, had no known weakness. Cue a quaint little song being sung from the unseen rafters, and suddenly the abomination is freaking out; turns out, he remembers this song. The music stops, Brook attacks, and as he's walking away his Diagonal Cut kicks in and the enemy gives up the ghost. Brook wouldn't have batted an eyelash... even if he had any left. Ladies and gentlemen, the musician has arrived.
  • Another for Brook is his zombie's fight with Zoro. Ryuuma's body may be stronger than Brooks and that Zoro was a sword down but still, Brook was a close match he might not be able to beat Kaku, but he would still hold his ground.
  • He gets another when he slices through and purifies an entire corridor of zombies while still singing. What makes it so awesome is that the zombies start to panic and run JUST from hearing his song in the distance.
    • It should be noted that he only took about four seconds to hand the whole group their collective asses.
  • Post time-skip: Brook turned what could have been a lifetime in captivity as a sideshow freak into a successful 2 year music career as BROOK, KING OF SOUL MUSIC!
  • And the very next chapter: The Marines have figured out Brook's the same one on his wanted poster and a Straw Hat and want him arrested. His managers sold him out because he was going to make this his last concert, ruining them financially, so they want to take him down with them. Totally unafraid (for good reason, bullets aren't the best choice of weapon against him), he announces to the world that Luffy is alive and plays one more song. The fans are so elated that they restrain the Marines so he can play. The whole crowd cheers with him: "NEW WORLD!"
  • It's revealed in chapter 629 that Brooke can separate his soul from his body and move around like a ghost!
  • You know how Brook previously said that music is his ally during the concert? Well, he can now use it to make people think they're at a festival, allowing him to destroy them without their knowledge. Even better, unlike his humming move which is just distracting, he actually convinces his victims to fire their cannons into the air harmlessly rather than at their intended target.
  • In chapter 643, Brook reveals the true power of the Yomi Yomi Fruit, the power to be effectively immortal by manipulating the energy of the soul and also channel the cold of the underworld through his body and sword. Talk about Creepy Awesome.
  • This Badass Boast in 645, when the ark Noah is threatening to crush the entire island:

Our captain, "Straw hat Luffy", is the man who will one day become Pirate King! If we truly believe that, what is there that could possibly frighten us?

  • After Zeo brags about his Instant Death Radius, Brook does his thing.
    • Leading up to that, when Zeo was making light of death, Brook gets pissed, and responds by absolutely owning Zeo. Thus leading up to the above CMOA.
  • What about when he saved Luffy's group from the centaur patrol on Punk Hazard by freezing the barrels of their guns, causing them to blow up.

Others/Group:

  • When the Strawhats fought Oars together. Highlights include: Zoro using Franky's heavy nunchuks, Franky making a staircase mid-fight so he and Chopper can punch him in the face, Usopp's giant-sized Pheonix Star, Brook's electric arrow attack, and managing to pin him to the gourn with his own horns for a while, so they can all start wailing on him.
  • A recent moment was claimed by the Thousand Sunny, the Straw Hats' ship. Two words: Gaon Cannon! In Zoro's own words, it's a little TOO awesome.
    • For those of you who want to see, the Gaon Cannon attack has been animated. And yes, it's exactly as awesome as many figured it would be.
  • This troper believes that the first ship, Going Merry, deserves a mention as well. Turning up in time to rescue them from Enies Lobby which was about to be pounded out of existence by cannon fire guided only by the spirit of the ship and despite having a keel that had snapped in half. Then of course we get one of the biggest tearjerkers in the series.
  • Let's not forget the tenth movie Strong World or more specifically the scene when the Strawhats sans Nami crash Shiki's meeting with the pirate captains (all in dress clothes, mind you) with their guns over their shoulders.

Luffy: Nami didn't come here as a sacrifice. She came as a vanguard !!

  • Straw Hats get their guns out.*

Luffy : Brace yourself, Golden Lion Shiki. We are the main force !!!

  • Straw Hats start firing*
  • Chapter 633. The crew and the ship get a Big Damn Heroes moment. Franky flies the ship and lands it right in the middle of the square, using the Gaon Cannon to break up the assembled New Fishman Pirates. Luffy is regurgitated by Megalo and takes out Hody. Nami literally appears out of nowhere, having stolen back the letter the queen worked so hard to get, Robin frees all the prisoners and Neptune's whale takes them to safety, which is all topped off by the entire crew (Zoro and co have freed themselves) lined up and ready to kick ass. Beatdowns will ensue.
  • Chapter 636. Luffy, after promising to protect Surume's brothers whom Hody threatened to kill if he does not listen, calmly walks towards Hodi as two New Fishman Pirates officers attack him simultaneously. Unfazed by the assault he simply keeps walking. Zoro and Sanji jump in to protect their captain, each respectively taking down an officer in moments. It becomes an even greater Moment of Awesome after Luffy disappears and suddenly appears again, knocking down Hodi yet again with a single kick. His gaze is filled with fury as he is fully aware of how painful losing a brother can be. The best part? He's not even using Gear Second.
  • Chapter 646 can be seen as a single huge moment of awesome composed by the many, above-mentioned moments that merge in a gargantuan one. Is also the chapter with the greatest number of double pages in a row so far.
  • YMMV, Chapter 654: In the last two pages, we have this. Straw Hats surfacing into the New World.

Usopp: The weather is terrible!!
Brook: Yohoho~~ The sky is pouring!!
Robin: The wind is blowing strong!
Franky: The sea is crashing!!
Nami: The compass' needle is all over the place!!
Chopper: The sea looks red!!
Sanji: A surging sea of flames!!
Zoro: It looks like the entrance to hell.
Luffy: PERFECT!!!!

    • Really, the best part about this exchange is that most of them are smiling when they say this.


Villains

Even the bad guys get some of their own.

  • Buggy? Blowing up his own henchman with a cannon for making fun of his nose (or so he thought).
    • Rescuing his crew from the Bear Claw Tribe, especially since he had recently gotten his Butt Monkey status cemented. And of course, he ends it by firing a Buggy Ball into the village, completely obliterating it.
    • Another one for Buggy: breaking out of his cell in Impel Down. Granted, the Marines weren't aware of his Devil Fruit power, or even that he had one, but given that this is the Marines' top prison, that is still awesome.
      • And if that doesn't wet your pants, this will: Luffy+ Buggy teamup.
      • Hell, the entire Luffy/Buggy/Mr. 3/Mr. 2 teamup is a Crowning Moment of Awesome, especially at the end of chapter 532 when they all work together to take down a minotaur.
  • Kuro? Effortlessly sneaking behind the rebelling Siam and Buchi and threatening to kill everyone if they can't get past Luffy and Zoro in the next five minutes.
  • Krieg? Lifting the Mackerel Head (the Baratie's battleship) out of the water with one hand and tossing it towards the Baratie itself.
    • No, Krieg's true Crowning Moment of Awesome came when he opened fire on Hawkeye friggin' Mihawk. After the swordsman had cut his flagship to ribbons and easily taken out Zoro, he still had the cajones to fire at the man who could deflect bullets with his blade, without a moment's hesitation.
  • Arlong? Choosing one is hard, but this troper thinks that it would be when, pissed off by Luffy's antics, his eyes go into a lizard-like state. He then proceeds to kick Luffy's ass around for a little while with a BFS (the "S" can stand for both "saw" and "sword").
    • This troper thinks his real Crowning Moment of Awesome was when a Marine ship fires a cannon ball at him, and he simply opens his mouth and DESTROYS IT WITH HIS GODDAMN JAWS.
    • In his flashback: After Tiger's infamous death he went in a berserk rage and it took Vice Admiral Borsalino (the future Kizaru) himself to knock him down. He surely has balls.
  • Crocodile? Revealing just how beautifully he manipulated all of Alabasta, and handing Luffy his first and second total defeats.
  • The Seven Warlords of the Sea nearly always do this. Mihawk's is when he slices the Dreadnaught Sabre in half without even touching it, Doflamingo's is when he commands Sarquiss to (apparently) hack Bellamy's legs off, Kuma and Teach when they reveal their Devil Fruit powers, and, well, picking just one moment for Moria? Certainly impossible.
    • Also, Mihawk attacking and giving chase to Don Krieg's massive crew of over 5,000, with his four inch knife, just because they disturbed his nap. He also sails the seas alone in a little raft. The same seas that are frequently described as being chocfull of freaky weather, (200 foot tall or more waves,) extremely powerful individuals, and giant monsters. Mihawk has more awesome crammed into him than most powerful crews have put together.
      • Mihawk nails another one in the most recent chapter, topping his first Crowning Moment of Awesome by ten-fold. You know those huge waves Whitebeard created, that Aoikiji froze? He cut the ENTIRE TOP HALF OF ONE CLEAN OFF, AND IT WAS JUST A MISSED ATTACK AT LUFFY!
  • Rob Lucci cumulates this with his Moral Event Horizon when he kills a pirate crew and 500 hostages at only 13 years old.
    • Incidentally, killing those 500 hostages was Lucci's way of resolving a hostage situation.
  • And give one of the most popular villains in One Piece, Kaku, his due. He used rankyaku in his half-Giraffe form to cut the Tower of Justice at Enies Lobby in half.
  • Reread that last spoiler: Magellan is a Crowning Badass of awesome. He's fought those opponents without even coming close to losing.
    • To be clear, he defeats the entire Blackbeard crew without breaking stride. So much as daring to stand against Magellan is considered bad ass.
  • Vice Chief Hannyabal, who was presented as the Starscream of the Impel Down arc, recently had a CM of A when he tries to take on Straw Hat Luffy and is beaten bloody as a result, but refuses time and time again to get out of Luffy's way and has a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when he explains why he can't let Impel Down fall, as the weak and ordinary citizens of the world who fear pirates depend on Impel Down to keep them safe. Mind you, this was the guy who considered letting two pirates escape so as to pin the blame on his boss and get his job.

Hannyabal: I said you shall not pass... and you shall not!!!

  • When it comes down to it, the entire Blackbeard Pirate Crew can be said to live, breathe, drink, and, in Teach's case, eat this trope. Whether it be sneaking into one of the most heavily defended buildings in the world (presumably after climbing the Redline to get there; alternatively, he may have flown), throwing a two-story building at an opponent, shooting a target that's over the horizon, testing fate with exploding apples, or even just walking down the street, almost everything they have done to date falls under this trope.
    • Blackbeard: "Ace, your body is fire, right? I am... darkness." Swiftly followed by sucking an entire town into a black hole, THEN blasting it back out, THEN defeating Ace despite having a sun essentially thrown at him. This troper firmly believes he'll be the final Big Bad of the series just from this.
  • Give Sentoumaru some credit; post-timeskip, he responds to the fake Luffy's claim to be the real Straw Hat Luffy by slamming his axe on his head with enough force to bury him half-way into the ground. And why? Because The real Luffy isn't a piece of trash like this guy. He then has the Pacifista reveal the impostor's true identity, totally destroying what little cred he had left. Yet another example of how even the villains are cool in this series.
  • 603: Kuma of all people gets one - he makes a deal with Vegapunk so that his human weapon body protects the Thousand Sunny untill The Straw hats get back. When Franky finally finds it, two years later, his body is completely wrecked and can barley function. What is Kuma's reply to this? 'Mission complete' - Cue slow limp away without a word, and the reveal that the Thousand Sunny is absolutley spotless.
  • New Villain Vander Decken IX gets one. He's a fishman with a fruit ability... that involves throwing things accuratly at a target. His current target is the Mermaid Princess. So what does he go and do with this ability? Apart from throwing weapons at the love of his life, he allies with the other fishman villain of the arc, Hodi, who is basically Arlong 2.0, and then throws Hodi's strongarmed human pirate captives as human artillery to invade the Palace and open it from the inside.
    • Chapter 632 shows just how powerful his ability is. He "throws" the Noah, a gigantic arc, towards Shirahoshi. It's half the size of Fishmen Island.
  • Chapter 638: Hody Jones' trident meets Decken's innards.
  • Chapter 650: Aokiji, the only Admiral in the marines who exercised moral justice, fought against Akainu, arguably the strongest and most ruthless man in the Marines, for ten days. And when he lost, not wanting to be Sakazuki's underling, he LEFT THE MARINES.
    • Later on, we get to see the island where those two fought. Half of it is perpetually on fire, the other half frozen solid. Their battle was so intense it permanently altered the climate.


Others

Coby: You're the most... ugliest thing on the sea!! [...] I'm leaving and I'm gonna join the Marines! Then I'm going to spend the rest of my life beating up dirty pirates like you. [...] I'm gonna do what I want. And no one's gonna stop me! And when I join the Marines, [...] I'm gonna catch your lousy ass first!!

    • He gets another one when he sees Luffy and Zoro off after they defeat Morgan. He salutes them in respect, and then suddenly, from right behind Coby, all of the Marines Luffy and Zoro just liberated from Morgan join in the group salute. Let's think about this: Marines are saluting pirates. This is so far the only time the Marines ever gave such a form of respect to Luffy and his crew.
  • Everyone who charged into Enies Lobby defeating a force of 15,000 strong,with approximately hundred people, mainly shipwrights.
  • The Mooks of Enies Lobby have one, when a bunch of marines and government agents chase Luffy. He escapes to a rooftop when surrounded. But do the mooks give up the chase? No. They toss each other up to the roof. And this is while chasing a guy who has repeatedly escaped them and taken out hundreds of them with his bare hands. You've gotta hand it to the Marines: They've got balls.
  • One word:... HAKOKU!!!
  • After an arc of being beaten soundly by every villain she encountered, Vivi finally gets her moment when she sends two villains, Mr. 7 and Miss Father's Day, single-handedly careening off the side of a clock tower in one hit, after she deliberately missed with her first attack so she could catch them off guard with the second. Not to mention that these were villains that, when Vivi was still on their side, outranked her by quite a few positions.
    • What, nothing about Mr. 9's Heroic Sacrifice to help Vivi escape? "Bye bye, baby."
      • Of course, we find out later - about two years later - that he did indeed survive, as did Miss Monday, who performed a Heroic Sacrifice shortly afterwards. The two are currently living at Whiskey Peak, a married bounty hunter couple with a son.
  • No love for Jaguar D. Saul? During his attempt to protect Robin from the Buster Call, he lifts an entire Buster Call-level battleship And. Throws. It.
    • "I've got no idea what is right, so I'll just protect my friend!"
  • And no one mentioned the glory of Luffy, Trafalgar Law, and Eustass Kid walking out to brutally Curb Stomp a Marine unit responding to Luffy's little diplomatic incident on Shabondy. Three pirate captains, shoulder to shoulder, in a world where rank is a BIG DEAL.
  • Enies Lobby is a font of CMOAs, my favorite being Luffy's order to Burn down the flag of the world government, essentially declaring war on the entire world
  • Hiriluk. Oh God, Hiruluk- and it's made arguably more awesome by being his last words. "Sooner or later, I will die anyway. But a man does not die when he is shot. Nor does he die to disease, nor to eating a poison mushroom! He does not die due to a sword! A man dies when he is forgotten!"
    • Not to mention that it mirrors perfectly with Gold Roger's own death, right down to the philosophy on death.
    • Oh, and he goes out by drinking something that makes him explode. He may have been a quack, but he got style.
  • Tom the Fishman standing up, with a huge harpoon in his chest, and outlining his personal philosophy to a bunch of Knight Templar government agents.
  • Captain Smoker: TELL THEM (his superiors) TO EAT SHIT!
    • The dubbed version, while not as vulgar, is just as powerful: "Tell them I said go to hell."
    • He says this twice. Once when he went after the Straw-Hat pirates without orders, and then after being offered a reward by them simply because he was there when the Straw-Hats saved their bacon and they need to reward somebody. Apparantly, he'd previously turned down a promotion, and one imagines he turned them down with those same words.
  • The Sabaody Archipelago Arc upgraded Gold Roger's dying words into a full blown Crowning Moment of Awesome by revealing some key information about his death. He wasn't captured, he turned himself in; he didn't care about being executed, as he had a deadly illness and was going to die anyway.; and the day before his execution, he spoke to his former first mate, and told him: "I won't die, partner." What did he mean by this? Simple. With his last words, he both ensured his place in history, and changed his own execution from a chilling warning to all aspiring pirates, to the event that sparked the Golden Age of Piracy, the World Government's worst nightmare.
    • It was also one of the most awesome callbacks ever, as it ties in with Dr. Hiriluk's dying speech, where he asserts that a man only dies when he is forgotten. With his last words, Roger ensured that the world would NEVER forget him.
  • A moment from the Amazon Lily arc, detailing the background of Hancock. A fishman, by the name of Fisher Tiger, climbed up the Red Line, bare-handed, and defied the Celestial Dragons, essentially a death sentence that has only been done twice, once by Tiger, once by Luffy, and raged through the city to free the Fishmen enslaved there. And not just the Fishmen, as he freed anyone who was a slave. Pretty goddamn high Awesome Quotients from the fishmen in general.
    • While this troper doesn't care all that much for Hancock he has to admit that after doing the math based on the figures we were given, becoming a Warlord of the Sea at 16 (roughly) years of age is a pretty extraordinary thing. Let me repeat that: A sixteen year old, teenage girl was appointed to a group of seven world-class pirates.
    • Something else about Hancock caught my attention. After a single campaign, she got herself a bounty of 80, 000, 000. No one - not even any of the Straw Hats - got that kind of bounty from their first act of piracy. From just that, the Government quickly and cautiously approached her and offered her the position of Shicibukai.
  • Ace, Jinbe, and Crocodile get one off-screen. Namely, when prisoners are brought to Impel Down, they are stripped, boiled on an iron kettle, tossed into water reaching a hundred degrees, and "baptized". According to one of the officers, they went through all that without lifting an eyebrow.
  • I fail to see why Wyper hasn't been put here yet; he got 30 million volts and an El Thor head-on, and uses a Reject Dial, a device known to destroy a man's body after two uses, to kill off Shura, actually kill Eneru (though Eneru amplifies his heart to revive), and blasts a gigantic beanstalk so that Luffy and Nami can confront Eneru. ALL. WITHOUT. DYING.

Wyper: ENERU!!! Don't take my name in vain!

"I am a Guardian Deity of Alabasta. The Falcon! It is my duty... to destroy the enemies of the Royal Family!"

    • Not to mention the fact that he survives an explosion capable of wiping out an entire city, at POINT BLANK RANGE!
  • Bon Clay has been on a roll since his loss in Alabasta. Not only did he get himself captured to save fellow former Baroque Works members, but in the Whitebeard arc he teamed up with Luffy and has since helped take out the fearsome (but oddly adorable) Minotauros, impersonated the Vice-Chief after regretfully leaving Luffy to fight Magellan alone, and to atone for running away went down to Level 5, the Freezing Hell, where he rescued Luffy from his cell and fought off killer wolves, that had been too bloodthirsty for the upper levels,while half-naked and bloody!
    • Wanna know how he assumed the appearance of Hannyabal, the man who curb stomped Buggy and Mr. 3 (granted, it is Buggy and Mr. 3)? Beat him to a pulp? Oh no no no. Used his shapeshifting powers to become Nami and used the good ol' hot, sweaty girl wants to remove her clothing gambit, resulting in the vice warden being Bound and Gagged in a storeroom wearing nothing but his own boxers.
    • This couples as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: as soon as Bon Clay learned that Luffy's healing process depended upon his willpower and that it would take over two days, which would cause Luffy to be unable to rescue his brother, he refuses to eat or sleep and stands in front of Luffy's locked recovery room and begins to cheer him on. The other okamas, including even the cynical Iva, join in after seeing his resolve and spend eight hours yelling encouragements to Luffy as he goes through the painful healing procedure.
      • And now he appears to have pulled a Heroic Sacrifice, staying behind while the others escape so he can imitate Chief Warden Magellan to open the Gates of Justice. Magellan comes and confronts him too late to stop him. Just as Luffy realises what he's done and contacts him. The whole thing is a Crowning Moment of Awesome, Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and a bit of a Tear Jerker.
        • This is the whole of episode 451 in the anime. As the music surges, Bon Clay throws off his diguise, and faces down Magellan. "Do you have any last words?" To which Bon Clay responds, with a smile, "SATISFACTION!" Magellan's fist comes down, the screen goes white, and a single rose petal falls to the water.
      • In this tropers mind, this was the single greatest Crowning Moment of Awesome in One Piece to date. Let us restate this just to get the impact in. Bon Clay impersonates the Chief Warden of the most impenetrable prison in the world, enables the first successful escape of this place in history, and then after being caught by the Chief Warden himself- and let us take note that the Chief Warden Magellan singlehandedly defeated Luffy, Luffy & Mr. 3 & CANNONS, Ivankov, Inazuma and THE ENTIRE CREW of the Blackbeard pirates without even breaking a sweat. Bon Clay simply grins at him and gets into his fighting stance.
        • "SATISFACTION!!!!" Really, there is nothing else that needs to be said on this matter.
        • Yes, there is. Recent artwork shows that BON CLAY IS ALIVE AND THE NEW QUEEN OF THE PRISONERS INSIDE OF IMPEL DOWN! HE WAS ONE OF THE KEYS TO THE BIGGEST PRISON ESCAPES IN HISTORY, IF NOT THE BIGGEST, WHICH CULMINATED IN HIM BEING FACE TO FACE WITH A MAN WHO EXCLUDES HAZARDOUS VENOM FROM HIS SKIN, AND TWO YEARS LATER HE IS ALIVE AND STILL IN THE PRISON'S SECRET PASSAGEWAYS, PRESUMEABLY GIVING THE WARDENS ALL OF HIS MIDDLE FINGERS! Also, after the time skip, we see Magellon has one of his wings broken and a scarred face. It's probably too early to assume anything, but the last person we saw him fight was Bon Clay. Satisfaction indeed.
  • And now there is Emporio Ivankov, the retired Queen of Kamabakka Island. Don´t let him fool you guys. He may look like a parody of a Drag Queen, but he can repell a CANON BALL BY BATTING AN EYESLASH! And then he turned the poor guy, who attacked him, into a woman!
    • In the Marineford arc he's shown that that eyelash thing isn't just a joke. He uses a More Dakka version of it to beat the shit out of Kuma.

Ivankov: Galaxy Wink!

    • Then we learn in chaper 560 that he/she knows Kuma...somehow. And Kuma apparently was afraid of him/her. When it turns out Kuma doesn't even recognize them anymore, he/she delivers this ball-bustingly awesome line;

Ivankov: I don't care if your memories have been erased or vat! If you EVER forget your fear of me....I'LL JUST POUND IT BACK INTO YOUR BODY! PREPARE YOURSEEEEEEELF!

    • How about in 547 when Ivankov SMASHED THROUGH A SOLID WALL WITH HIS FACE?
    • And his underling, Inazuma, when he uses the powers of the Choki-Choki Fruit to cut up the floor and manipulate it like cloth to block an oncoming wave of knockout gas.
  • I think that we can safely say that the entire Impel Down Arc is made of Crowning Moments of Awesome, with MR. 3, OF ALL PEOPLE getting one as well, when he blocked Magellan's highly poisonous Hydra attack with his Candle Wall, despite being only a quick sprint away from complete freedom, urging Luffy and company to escape.

Mr. 3: I'll be damned if I'll stay in your debt, Straw Hat!

  • This one isn't for a character, but for Toei's decision to take away 4Kids's rights to dub the anime. And then gave those rights to FUNimation, who pretty much revived the franchise in the US despite being Screwed By The (Cartoon) Network.
  • Here's ten for Luffy, his greatest punches up to his first shown use of Third Gear called Luffy's Greatest Hits. Unfortunately, Youtube edited out the soundtrack...
  • A huge Crowning Moment of Awesome for Silvers Rayleigh, he not only blocked a kick/laser beam, he cut a logia user and made him bleed.
  • Jinbe the Fishman is pretty much showing himself to be a walking Crowning Moment of Awesome.
    • Evidence 1: He knocked out multiple enemies at one time by PUNCHING THE AIR!
    • Evidence 2: HE THREW THE SEA! Yeah, you read right! HE THREW THE GODDAMN SEA WITH HIS BARE HANDS! And no, he doesn´t possess a Devil Fruit power! He´s "just" a Fishman and simply THAT GOOD!
    • Evidence 3: HE SUMMONS A SCHOOL OF WHALE SHARKS!
      • In short, he's the One Piece version of Aquaman.
      • Namely, the UBER BADASS one from the DCAU.
      • Aquaman in a universe where Aquaman is absolutely deadly.
    • Evidence 4: His reaction to a Zombie Apocalypse? Wash it away, of course.
    • Evidence 5: Moria realizes his zombies are useless against Jinbei's command over the salt water surrounding the area. He pulls out some of his hidden shadows and absorbs them, dramatically increasing his size before he goes after the Fishman with his gigantic pair of scissors. Jinbei one-shots him.
    • Evidence 6: He blocks an attack from Akainu. This guy blocks freaking lava.
  • Bon-chan gets a combined CMOA/CMOH when he stays behind at Impel Down so that Luffy and the prisoners can get away. An entire ship is shouting at him to come with them, Magellan is ready to kick his ass, and all the guy does is drop into a fighting stance while the "Okama Way" song plays. Bad. Ass.

Magellan: Do you have any last words?
Mr. 2 Bon-Clay: I have no regrets.

  • Hell, One Piece in itself is a Crowning Moment of Awesome. The in-series CMOAs, real life ones - the series should just be renamed Crowning Moments of Awesome with pirates.
  • From the "0th" chapter, Gold Lion Shiki tries to get Gold Roger and his crew to join Shiki's massive fleet of ships, as well as get the information on one of the ancient weapons. Roger's answer is "I'm going to crush you all!" Now one might suspect this suicide, as Shiki has an entire fleet, whilst Roger has one ship, the Oro Jackson. However despite this - and with a bit of help from the weather - Roger's crew destroys half of Shiki's fleet, with Shiki himself getting a part of a (presumably his ship's) helm stuck in the back of his head. The battle was declared a "draw", we here at tvtropes call that a Curb Stomp Battle.
    • Apparently, Garp turned down a promotion to ADMIRAL! Which means he isn't just merely as strong as a Vice-Admrial; he's probably one of the few men who can fight Whitebeard one-on-one!
      • Shiki deserves many praises as well. It takes the current Fleet Admiral Sengoku and Vice-Admiral Garp to take him down, and their battle destroyed half of Marineford! In order to escape from Impel Down, he proceeds to CUT OFF HIS OWN FEET, and then escape! Afterwards, he ties the swords he used to use in battle onto the stumps of his feet. He then uses these to walk around on. To top it off, he is creating a plan he is going to put in motion 20 years from then ie. the present day, which will create HELL ON EARTH! This Omnicidal Maniac is one to NEVER be underestimated!
  • A good three-fer from One Piece Film Strong World.
    • First naturally, we have Luffy, filled with righteous fury and with a little help from the weather, managing to defeat Shiki, a legendary pirate who fought Gold Roger himself. Even Shiki can't believe that he'd been bested by someone from the world's weakest sea, East Blue, not once, but twice.
    • Then there's Nami, who works to sabotage Shiki's plans by destroying the beast repellent Daft Green, despite the fact that exposure to the toxic substance poisons her, and Shiki poisons her even further when he discovers what she's been doing. Even after this, she feeds his men false information, so that his floating base gets caught in a giant storm, destabilizing things even further.
    • Finally, there's Usopp, who during the crew's second meeting with Shiki, channels his Water 7 self and scathingly chews Nami out for leaving them and joining Shiki's crew and how Luffy wouldn't forgive her, despite the fact that Shiki has a gigantic boulder over his head. Granted, he didn't know her real motivations yet, but coming from Usopp, who's usually comic relief and had left the crew in the past himself, this is a pretty gutsy thing for him to do. Not to mention that he helps set up Luffy's final attack.
  • And again from the 10th movie, we can't forget the utterly Badass, Determinator, awesome as hell scene where the entire Straw Hat crew, dressed in classy suits, storms Shiki's stronghold. It was at that point that this Troper, personally, started cheering her lungs out.
  • Whoah! How has nobody mentioned Shanks here yet? The whole saving-Luffy-as-a-child thing complete with LOSING HIS ARM to a sea king and then scaring it away with a GLARE definatly counts, right?
  • Sabo has practically gone and given the world nobles the middle finger, raising his pirate flag and setting sail on the day they were meant to arrive.
  • Rayleigh gets more support for his Badass Grandpa credentials. His ship sinks in stormy weather when he tries to find Luffy on Amazon Lily. What does he do? He swims from the Grand Line, through the Calm Belt, and fights off a Sea King. Damn.
  • The "New World" itself gets this the first time we see it, along with the possible Nightmare Fuel it brings. What do pirates in the New World call the first half of the Grand Line? "Paradise".
    • Namely, Basil Hawkins sails to Brownbeard's island, defeats one his men, then calmly sits down on him and does his tarot card thing, then politely asks Brownbeard to repeat what he said as Brownbeard prattles about his relatively low bounty, then muses that he thought his name was so stupid, he misheard him as muses he doesn't like jokes, and he sees Brownbeard's death as morphs into his Scarecrow form and unsheathes the sword. Not bad.
  • The cover to Chapter 597 shows Gold Roger and Whitebeard posing back to back.
  • Silver Rayleigh's very first appearance.
  • I think Eiichiro Oda deserves a little special mention here. He created one of the most awesome manga I have ever read, and upon closer inspection, I learned that he seperated the Straw Hat pirates for two years IRL, and seperated them for two years in-story. THIS MAN IS A GENIUS.
  • In 602; everyone the Straw hats were with over their two years of training helps the Straw hats escape in their own way. Points awarded to Heracles-n for summoning giant bugs from nowhere to take on marines, and to Silvers Rayleigh for style - he drew a line in the ground with his sword and politely advised the marines not to step over it. Oh, and Hancock once again outright defies the marines... and promtly gets away with it, again.
  • Neptune: "Merman Combat... ULTRAMARINE!!!"
  • This troper thinks Iceburg deserves a mention here. What did he do? He patched up a ship that was at the end of it's rope to the point where it could safely set off. By himself. IN THE MIDDLE OF A FREAKING HURRICANE.
  • Queen Otohime. Slapping an adult, large fishman in submission? Seen a thousand times. Doing that when you have brittle bones and a frail body? Now, That, is something.

Otohime: The children are watching.

    • Not only did Otohime manage to convince the Sunny Pirates to spare the Tennryuubito that they had once been enslaved to, she went with the Tennryuubito to Mariejois and convinced the Celestial Dragons, the most tyrannical and villainous nobles to ever be depicted, to sign a peace treaty with Fishman Island!! She is definitely one of the the most Badass Yamato Nadeshiko ever!
    • And it looks like Shirahoshi takes after her mother, seeing as she kept the fact that Hody Jones was her mother's killer secret because she was afraid that if people learned about it, they'd get angry at Hody, and it would break her final promise with her mother, which is "to not bear any ill will to the assassin".
  • The Three Princes when they charge into the Plaza King Neptune is being held in. Most of Neptune's Army have been stomped by the Sea Beasts (who've been given the strength drugs). These guys? These guys take out ALL OF THEM. While giving a speech.
  • Jinbe has one when The now-monster Hody Jones attempts to kill the gigantic mermaid princess Shirahoshi with one of his water shots, that can go as far as the edge of the island. Jinbe blocks it with one of his own.

Jinbe: I don't pretend to know where you got your power...but your amature Fishman Karate pales in front of mine.

  • Chapter 637: Shirahoshi is basically committing a heroic sacrifice in order to stop a colossal arc from destroying the island.
  • Chapter 638. Jinbe does a roundhouse kick that would make Chuck Norris proud. It effortlessly deflects the fist of a giant.
    • Quickly followed by Sanji bashing Wadatsumi's skull with a kick and joining forces with Jinbe to take down the colossus.
  • First the citizens in the square in chapter 642, and then all the rest in chapter 644 decide to stay. Live, or die, they will share the same fate as the Strawhats. That takes guts.
  • 646: Jinbe hit the now colossal Wadatsumi so hard that the blow came out the other side. He's the size of a freaking palace and Jinbe manages to puncture him on the opposite end.
  • 647: Shirahoshi successfully summons the Sea Kings to stop Noah. She even gets in the way of Luffy's Elephant Gatling to stop his assault.
  • 648: Jinbe giving blood to Luffy in full defiance of Fisman Island's laws. When pointed out, he has this to say.

Jinbe: "I'm a pirate."

    • In the same chapter, it is revealed that Gold Roger could also understand Sea Kings.
  • In 651, it's noted that the Kid Pirates destroyed two of Big Mam's ships. Just to reiterate, they attacked and destroyed two ships belonging to one of the Four Emperors, and this one is known for razing countries if slighted. This being the second example of such an attack, clearly the Supernovas are either fearless or insane, possibly both.
  • Caribou, after getting beaten up by Luffy, realizes that Pekoms now has the treasure he stole. He foolishly attacks Pekoms, only to learn very quickly that the lion-man is not to be trifled with. Like all his battles thus far, Caribou goes down like a chump.
  • As of Chapter 659, Law is now one of the Seven Warlords. How did he get the position? Sending the hearts of 100 pirates to the World Government. Brutal.
    • And at the end of Chapter 660, he flips over a FREAKIN' MARINE SHIP with his devil fruit power!
    • He cut out Smoker's heart. Smoker is a Logia with Haki, and Law cut his heart out. Damn.
  • Vice-Admiral Jonathan Drake. Despite being the main antagonist of a Filler Arc, he proves himself to be a Badass. How? He nearly captures all the Stawhat Pirates without fighting once. Just using careful deduction and being an overall Chessmaster, he figures out where each pirate is. Even better, Sanji notes that no one can be that relaxed without having a few tricks up his sleeve. This is before we learn that Haki is required to become a Vice-Admiral. When standing face-to-face to Luffy, he cares more about trying to figure out why the hell they'd come to his base and the endless puzzle that is what they had to gain for the Alabasta incident. And finally, when is said and done, he merely notes that, dispite losing, it gave the men something to do. He isn't even that upset when he lost. Awesome. He probably would have captures them if Smug Snake Commandeer Shepherd didn't get involved.


The Marineford Arc

Let's face it, this whole arc is a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Oda. From start to finish, this arc is pretty much pure, distilled awesome.

  • Portgas D. Rouge, Ace's mother, gets one for carrying him inside for twenty months. Why does she do that? To hide the fact that Ace is GOLD ROGER'S SON!
  • Whitebeard gets his by bringing his entire fleet to the Marines doorstep and onto the execution grounds of Marinford, especially with sneaking the four main ships of his armada into the bay from under the water. He then shows that when one wins the Superpower Lottery, they really win BIGTIME. Three words: Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
    • How awesome is Whitebeard? When he punches the air, it cracks.
      • Not to mention a freaking ADMIRAL states that "That man...holds the power to destroy the world!
        • Not just an Admiral. Sengoku, the freaking FLEET ADMIRAL, was the one who said that.
        • Whitebeard taking out a marine Vice Admiral (who is also a giant) effortlessly with a single punch.
    • How awesome is his crew? Jozu can turn into diamond so strong, he can block a slashwave from Mihawk and nearly kill Crocodile with a single punch. Marco can turn into a blue-flame phoenix that can block beams from Kizaru and effortlessly recover and even hurt Kizaru.
      • And remember, Mihawk and Kizaru are two people the Straw Hats haven't even managed to hurt yet, let alone defeat.
        • Forget about his crew, his allies are even more awesome. "Go Get em Oars JR!". Of course Kuma, Moria and Doflamingo all get a collective one for taking him out as soon as he showed up.
    • Chapter 557: Luffy meets Whitebeard, who is, again, THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD, and after being talked down to, promptly tells Whitebeard to shut up, because he's going to be the Pirate King. And then they team up. Best arc ever .
    • Chapter 559: Whitebeard shows his tactical awesomeness as well. Recognizing that the escaped pirates from Impel Down being led by Buggy (most of whom have grudges against Whitebeard) could be a dangerous wild card, he skillfully manipulates the convicts' mistaken belief that Buggy is powerful, along with Buggy's own combination of ego and fear, to turn them into expendable fodder against the Marines. And seconds later, sees through an as yet unspecified trap Sengoku had set by redirecting his attacks from the Marine base to the surrounding battleships. Whitebeard keeps on showing us that it's far more than just personal strength that's made him the world's most dangerous pirate for the last two decades.
    • Chapter 563: After being stabbed through the chest by one of his allies, Squardo, who was tricked into thinking that Whitebeard had betrayed him in a secret deal with the Marines...Whitebeard kneels down to hug Squardo and say that he forgives him. He then creates massive quakes to destroy the ice walls that were trapping his allies, and says anyone who wants to flee can do so while those who are willing to risk their lives can follow him. With his inner thoughts making it clear that he expects to die, Whitebeard then leaps forward to join the battle in person. "I am only one man, with one heart..." This arc just keeps piling on the the Crowning Moments.
    • Chapter 564 Whitebeard pretty much proved he could do this himself at this point with the amount of damage he's done regardless of silly things like being stabbed though the heart or health problems. It took even more so that all the three admirals to stop his attack. The said attack? Earthquake on the island and sea around him to the point where the sea itself was splitting like rocks.
  • Donquixote gets one in the Marineford Arc after helping to kill Oars Jr. and setting the invading captains against their crews. He gives a massive Genre Savvy Hannibal Lecture on how flimsy and warped the ethics of the world are, and almost Breaking the Fourth Wall by noting how the roles of good and evil in regards to the marines and pirates are always shifting:

The one's who stand on the top determine what's wrong and what's right!!! This very place is neutral ground!!! Justice will prevail, you say!? But of course it will!!! Whoever wins this war will become Justice!!!

  • In chapter 560, Boa Hancock breaks Smoker's Seastone Jutte with a simple kick. Remember that Hancock is a fruit user. She broke a weapon made out of her Kryptonite Factor with a kick. Without a scratch. And afterwards can still look down on Smoker so far she's actually looking up. Bad. Ass.
    • Oh, and by the way it was stated before that seastone is as hard as diamond...
      • Only the tip of Smoker's weapon is made of seastone. The rest is presumably just some regular sort of metal. So, Your Mileage May Vary.
    • Not to mention, her stealing of the keys for Ace's cuffs. Damn, she's as good as Nami!
    • And in the newest chapter, she kicks a Pacifista in the face and it explodes!
      • Not only that, but she's later confronted by Sentoumaru for for destroying quite a few Pacifistas. Remember that it took the entire Straw Hat crew to bring down just one of these things.
        • Well, the Pacifista though were programmed not to attack her because she was their ally. Still shows she has a ton of raw power though, especially since her fruit powers are useless against emotionless beings.
          • You might want to tell that to the cannonballs and the jutte she petrified. They are not only emotionless, they are non-sentient! Thats right, she is so badass her power works on stuff that for all purposes should be immune!
  • Chapter 562 not only has the army of Pacifista turned the tides of the battle in favor of the Marines, but Whitebeard is betrayed by one of his own men and stabbed clear through his chest.
      • Whitebeard's reaction to this is definitely awesome. Despite having just been impaled by a BFS, he calmly asks what the attacker's problem was, and, after finding out it was due to a ploy by the Marines to turn his allies against him, he tells the guy that they are all his sons anyway, and gives said allies an escape route in case they really felt he was going to sell them out. He then turns around and attacks the Marines by himself, head on, completely ignoring the wound.
        • Not to mention Whitebeard actually hugs his comrade turned assailaint, saying that he'll always be one of his "sons".
  • Chapter 564...Sengoku wasn't kidding about Whitebeard being the strongest. He just tilted the ENTIRE FREAKING MARINEFORD ISLAND, AND THE SEA ALONG WITH IT!! And has also one-shotted another Marine Giant, by names of John Giant. He is the man!
    • The admirals also deserve credit. They somehow managed to prevent the platform Ace was on...are they Haki users too? And Akainu just began raining down a literal meteor storm of magma fists.
      • Yes the admirals are doing a fantastic job against the guy who had a fucking hole though his heart. Usually that supposed to kill people. Odd it took all three cheap logia ADMIRALS to stop Whitebeard's handicapped attack.
        • Yes and said admirals are still treating it like a tea party. The One Piece equivalent of the Armageddon is on full assault and they haven't batted an eyelid yet.
          • You have to remember that, according to Word of God, we are only about half way through the series. There has to be SOMETHING more then this later on.
            • And imagine how strong Roger was. He was on par with Whitebeard,probably even stronger AND managed to become the Pirate king.
  • Marco further proves why he is the 1st divison comander by kicking Aokiji in a way that would make Sanji jealous when he was about to finish Luffy off.
    • Kizaru effortlessly intercepting and kicking gear 2 luffy.
      • Fleet Admiral Sengoku and Garp preparing to fight. Yeah...someone is about to get rage stomped.
  • Whitebeard gets another one for concealing another freaking ship underneath the water, in case of anything.
    • That said, give Oars for being alive much less carry an entire ship smashing though a wall that whitebeard himself couldn't break though.
  • And what about Crocodile? If stopping Ace's head from being chopped off doesn't qualify, then how about purposefully defying Donquixote Doflamingo? Keep in mind; Doflamingo is the man with the highest bounty we know of in the entire series thus far, four times greater than Crocodile's bounty was. It goes to show just how Badass Crocodile can be, despite not even being the arc's Big Bad.
    • Doflamingo? That's not the crown of badassery, considering that Doflamingo's power comes from his manipulation ability. The way he dinks away Mihawk's BFS with his hook handed arm because he notices that Mr. 1 is"taking a nap" and because he's not in the best mood because he is disappointed that Whitebeard isn't STRONG enough, and then goes to only become important when needed, such as saving Luffy and stopping Akainu for pretty much no reason except that that Impel Down prison place was getting pretty boring.
  • What no CMOAs for the latest chapter? It's a huge Crowning Moment of Awesome for the World Government... and Luffy. Marco is defeated by Kizaru after a vice admiral puts seastone cuffs on him and Kizaru fires straight through him. Jozu is frozen solid. Whitebeard is on his deathbed impaled by several vice admirals and marines while his commanders and the pirates are getting cut down all around him. Coby and Luffy fight and Luffy one-shots Coby like it's nothing. Finally the biggest Crowning Moment of Awesome in the chapter, Ace is seconds away from being executed when Luffy screams out with his king's haki knocking out hundreds of marines and stopping them from beheading Ace.
  • The latest chapter is a huge Crowning Moment of Awesome. Luffy defeats Garp (though Garp actually threw the fight), Luffy tries to free Ace, Sengoku attacks Luffy whilst turning into a giant Buddha that effortlessly beat Gear 3 Luffy, destroying the platform. Luffy is then rescued by a now freed Ace!
    • And that would have been impossible without Mr. 3. Yeah, the wimpy Smug Snake actually disguised himself as one of the execution soldiers and crafted the key to Ace's cuffs. And then his Candle Wall managed to absorb the blow of Sengoku's Buddha punch. And why is he doing all this? To repay Mr. 2!

"If the reason I am here right now... was to avenge my fallen friend, would you laugh at me, hmmm?!"

  • Chapter 572. Whitebeard shouting his final order, and then prepares himself to fuck up the marines is simply the most badass thing he's done this whole battle.
  • Akainu mocking Whitebeard just so Ace will lose control and attack him, then Akainu nails Ace while telling him that fire can not possibly defeat magma.
    • Kinda dark, but he should get another one just for negating the series' infamously thick Plot Armor.
    • We really need a trope for something that's a combination of crossing the Moral Event Horizon and a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Crowning Moment of Monster?
        • Somebody mentioned Crowning Moment Of Evil. Maybe it'll work?
    • Akainu's refusal to allow Luffy to live even after being punched by Whitebeard; that man will only be stopped by killing him.
  • Oh Whitebeard, will you ever cease to amaze us? Despite every single hit he's taken. You usually fall over dead when half your fucking face is melted off by magma. Even then he still has enough force to not only smash the Akainu but as well as continued destruction of the HQ along with separating the marines from the pirates.
    • In one hit.
    • Earlier, Akainu made the statement of how he aimed to defend Marineford against tyrants like Whitebeard. So guess what Whitebeard does? He purposely directed attacks towards the buildings, destroying them, while mocking Akainu about protecting it. And after Akainu had killed Ace, in a brutal and calm fashion, Whitebeard smashed and utterly pounded Akainu to the ground in two blows and at the same time, he managed to split the entire island and everything in it in half. Don't mess with Whitebeard.
    • How about the arrival of Blackbeard and his new crew? Zehahahahahahahaha!
  • Whitebeard's death. He dies on his feet, never falling down, from 267 slashes and stabs, 152 bullets, 46 cannonballs, and half his goddamned face being melted off... without a single wound to his back. He never, EVER retreated.
    • I stand corrected. THIS is simply THE most badass thing that he did this whole battle.
      • That was after he made Blackbeard crap his pants in fear. After BB taunts him, Whitebeard starts beating the ever loving shit out of Blackbeard. Including a Quake to the face. And in the end it took Blackbeard's entire crew attacking all at once to take down GARbeard.
        • And his last words? "The One Piece is out there!". And they were being broadcast to the entire Shabondy Archipelago! Sucks to be Sengoku, as the world's pirates just had their ambitions jump-charged.
    • On the flip side of the coin, Blackbeard and his crew combine this and the Moral Event Horizon ala Akainu. Blackbeard took the head quake, a move that may have killed a Vice Admiral and leader of the Giant Squad and a Haki-infused slash to his aorta, and lures Whitebeard into a trap, where they kill Whitebeard like Sonny in The Godfather, and Blackbeard's laugh and lack of pain after the attack shows that he may be sneaky, dirty, and underhanded, but he just took two killing blows, and killed the World's Strongest Man.
  • In Chapter 577, Blackbeard makes the entire world reach for its brown pants when he manages to STEAL the power of the Gura-Gura Fruit from Whitebeard's corpse. That's right: Marshall D. Teach has broken the cardinal rule of "No one can have more than one Devil Fruit", thus becoming, in This Troper's mind, the most powerful man in the world. Seriously, earthquakes and darkness!
    • Also Jinbei pretty much tells Akainu to go to hell when he insists on killing Luffy. Mind you, this is a man made of magma vs a fishman. Followed shortly by Ivankov using his Hell Wink to get Akainu out of the way.
    • The true Crowning Moment of Awesome came when Blackbeard declared, "This is...my age!" So, pretty much for all technical reasons, he's declared himself to be Pirate King. God. Damn.
  • Sengoku telling Blackbeard where to shove his talk of sinking Marineford by hitting him with the Buddhist palm in his giant Buddha form, causing Blackbeard and his entire crew to spit up blood from the force of the attack. Do not fuck with Sengoku.
    • Blackbeard gets on in return for still being confident in his ability to win.
  • Akainu is still going at it. It seems nothing will stop this monster. Oh wait, CROCODILE!
    • Do you honestly think Akainu could be defeated by such a measly thing as a bunch of Whitebeard division Commanders and a Level 6 Prisodner? The man who can defeat Akainu doesn't have the strength yet.
  • Finally, Trafalgar Law pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment to rescue Luffy.
    • Along with what he says with it - though they may become enemies in the future, he'll be damned if Luffy is going to die today.
  • With the arrival of chapter 579, what sort of awesome will they pull off this t- JESUS CHRIST IT'S SHANKS! GET IN THE CAR!
    • Not to forget Coby's display of both courage and compassion defying Akainu because he wishes to stop the war and end this senseless violence since the Marines already completed their objective.
      • What's particularly epic about this is, if only for a few seconds, he stops the war. All of it. Pirates and Marines alike just stop dead in their tracks. Not just the grunts, either. He managed to get Blackbeard's attention. Now that is an EPIC What the Hell, Hero? speech.
        • Wanna know what's even more epic? Coby, according to Shanks, changing the FATE OF THE ENTIRE WORLD DUE TO HIS SECONDS OF COURAGE. Now that is awesome.
        • What's also awesome is that it goes to show just how far Coby has come ever since we first met him. He started off as a boy who trembled before Alvida and has become someone brave enough to stand up against someone as scary and ruthless as Akainu.
          • On a related note, it also shows how much Coby's stayed the same, having the same, "I have no regrets" attitude to almost being killed by Akainu as he was when he was gonna be killed by Alvida.
      • And as if it couldn't be any more amazing, several chapters later it's revealed that his defiance unlocked his Haki.
        • Let me restate that here. Coby has Haki. COBY. Has Haki. COBY. HAS. HAKI!
      • No no no, what is awesome by way of Fridge Brilliance is that it wasn't his defiance that unlocked his haki. Remember when during the war he froze, crying, since he could hear "voices" disappearing? And then a few pages later, shouts out like Luffy does and everyone freezes? He HAD haki at that point, and it manages to catch everyone's attention long enough to change the course of history. Coby, I salute you, for your absolute crazy suicidal courage and kind heart.
    • What, no love for Ben Beckman stopping Kizaru in his tracks (with a pistol, no less, something a Logia shouldn't even be concerned by) or the sheer Oh Crap look Akainu and other Marines had once Shanks showed up?
  • How do you end a war? If you're Shanks, you say it's over, and it is.
    • Not really he's one of the Four Emperors, extremely strong and has a crew with him. The Marines would be stupid to press on the attack.
      • Doesn't detract. He made a threat and put the war to a stop. With just one ship and one crew. Whitebeard had an armada of 46 ships behind him. Even taking into account the fact that they weren't at full strength, the Marines backed down to a single crew.
        • Said crew was also god tier strength (Roger had 1 ship but was King) and about to take on severely weakened Marines. If they could take down 2 of the Four Emperors, they would have done it long ago. Shanks showing up right after WB's death is bad news, not to mention they're all powerful fighters and he may have allies waiting to attack.
    • And on another note, Shanks doesn't just say it's over. He tells the Marines to stop, or he'll get involved personally. Cue the group shot of the crew. Bad. Ass.
  • Doflamingo, on the last page, is with a bunch of Kumabots and appears to be beating Moria for an undisclosed reason, though he mentions that Moria's death would be a cover up, him purported to have been killed in the Marineford battle. When Moria asks if Sengoku ordered it, all Doflamingo replies with is, "Try higher." ...so, pretty much...something's going on with the Gorousei/Five Elder Stars[1]. Something big. HELL. YEAH.
  • How does Blackbeard get 4 level 6 Prisoners to be his crew? By having ALL the Level 6 prisoners battle it out to the death, with the promise of the survivors being set free and allowed to join his crew.
  • Sengoku gets one for having some moral fiber. Upon hearing news that more Level 6 prisoners have escaped than just those in Blackbeard's crew, he immediately wants bounties issued so people will be warned. He is not happy when he learns the World Government is going to pretend the criminals don't exist.
  • And now, a cross between Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and Crowning Moment of Awesome when we're shown the crew's (sometimes tearful) realization of their own lack of strength. Usopp puts it best when he says that he's always thought somewhere inside that Luffy was powerful enough that he could just sit back and watch him just become Pirate King. And then watching their conviction and dedication to becoming stronger so that they can help Luffy as well. It brings a happy tear to this troper's eyes.
  1. ↑ The only known authority in the World Government that is higher than the Marines' Fleet Admiral. Yes, they are the same old men who were responsible for permitting the annihilation of Robin's country, Ohara, for its forbidden studies of the Blank Century.
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