One Piece Cliffhanger Puts Luffy's New Haki to an Extreme Test

One Piece's newest episode ends on a major cliffhanger that puts Luffy's new Haki to an extreme test. Ever since losing to Kaido in the first act of the Wano Country arc, Luffy has been using his time in Udon prison to master a new kind of Haki that he first saw Rayleigh using during his initial training with him. Even as Queen's deadly Sumo Inferno made things tougher for Luffy and new ally and Haki teacher Hyogoro, Luffy could not quite use this new Haki until their lives were in total danger.

Thus when seeing Luffy successfully use Ryuo for the first time and freeing both him and Hyogoro from Queen's exploding collars, Hyogoro decides to make the most of this moment by putting Luffy to the test one more time. Wanting to have Luffy successfully use Ryuo once more, Hyogoro now is tasking Luffy to protect him from Big Mom.

Episode 945 of the series continues Big Mom's tear through the Udon prison, and her rampage eventually knocks Luffy and Hyogoro far outside of the Sumo Inferno bounds. Luffy then taps into his Haki, and uses Ryuo for the first time to rip off the collars before they explode. Seeing this, Hyogoro goes and stands in front of the rampaging Big Mom.

Wanting Luffy to tap into this same feeling before he forgets, Hyogoro wants to make the most out of the fact that a moment of crisis will bring out Luffy's true power. Knowing that if he fails to do this, they both will die, Luffy then stands in front of Hyogoro and prepares to fill his arms with Ryuo as Big Mom charges in.

At this point, Hyogoro trusts in Luffy enough that he'll be able to use Ryuo successfully but there's still a huge amount of tension over whether or not Luffy will be able to pull of Ryuo at will as Big Mom rushes in. If he can do so, it can be a huge help against not only Big Mom but against Kaido for when they eventually have their huge rematch.

Do you think Luffy will be able to successfully master Ryuo from here on out? How do you feel about Hyogoro as a makeshift teacher in this intense situation? How do you like seeing Ryuo in action in the One Piece anime so far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!