Yeah, but if Ryouma has Brook's swordsmanship in combination with his own legendary skills, he's going to be a pretty amazing combination. Like two super swordsmen combined into one.

Now if Brook's DF lends him other abilities, Ryouma won't have those of course, but his swordsmanship will be insane. If Zoro takes him on and wins, especially if he takes him with only two swords, then it should pretty much settle any swordsmanship discussions between Zoro and Brooke as far as the reader base is concerned.

Although I honestly feel that Brooke's "singing" sword techniques and Zoro's Asura stance will more than signifigantly differentiate their fighting styles. There's plenty of punching and kicking from the other one peice crew members, and they are a long ways from equal, but they get by. I see no reason we can't have two swordsmen if their skills have signifigant visual differentiation.

I don't know about Kaku and Jyabura, but going off the strength of the upgrades, I'd have to say Zoro's Asura is for sure the stronger

It took Sanji two attacks with his upgrade to finish off Jyabura, and he took an injury (5 fingers) to the chest while doing it.

Zoro basically vaporized both Kaku and his giant wave in one shot with his upgrade, ending the fight practically instantaneously

I honestly think the upgrades actually further seperated Luffy and Zoro from Sanji. Not that Sanji didn't take a big leap forward, but Luffy and Zoro's upgrades seem to be far more powerful.

Well, but Zoro's Ashura is not a mere "stance", it's a swords style, like Santooryu… It's Kyuutoryu, the 9 swords style... And there are more mover than Ichibugin for sure...
I think we'll see that Ashura is not waeker than Gears at all…

My opinion as well - Zoro's next big fight with a third sword will tell the tale though, but IMO, I think it's fairly obvious that his Asura stance will have upgraded versions of practically all his old moves the same way Luffy does with Gear 2 and 3.

Honestly, I'm hoping the guardian is Gecko Moria

I'm also wondering if perhaps the reason his laugh is the same as Brooke's (if he is the guardian), is if they aren't brothers or relatives of some kind, and they had a feud or some kind of struggle over Cindry.

The sword screams that the guardian will fight Zoro and he will get that sword, but I cannot see Zoro defeating a Shichibukai while he himself is down a sword. Especially not one whose bounty is frozen even higher than Luffy's.

At any rate, the presence of a 300+ (frozen, and possibly quite a bit higher) Shichibukai on this island has thrown the whole thing off the predictable course. The presence of a member of the world powers has made this alot more tense.

It's not that it isn't interesting, there just isn't much to discuss yet - everything's still way too vague here and the possibilities are so open ended that there isn't a whole lot of meaningful discussion to add other than "wait and see"

I do wonder if he won't see our very own multiple DF user here. If Hogback stitches creatures together, we could get some kind of monster made out of several animals (or people!) that has multiple devil fruits!

It would be totally dependent on the DF - it'd have to be something that made him more powerful, but also requires a great power to use so it balances out for his character. Sort of a "This is a crazy weapon but you have to be crazy powerful to even think about using it" sort of thing

That being said, Zoro's ability to project his aura in the Asura stance is just as crazy of an ability as any devil fruit, and more than does the job. With an ability that awesome and crazy, a DF would just become redundant.

I'm still interesting the most in the Asura stance because to me, it's the one powerup we still don't know the limits of.

Luffy's Gear 2 and Gear 3 we saw in depth and had really good explanations of.

But we saw so little of the Asura stance and what it can do - the first time it was used, it cut through Kaku's super move and Kaku himself effortlessly, and instantly ended the fight.

In other words Zoro's not going to object to Luffy fighting the strongest opponents because a) He has full confidence in Luffy's ability to beat any opponent no matter what (in fact he maintains the most confidence in Luffy of ANY crewmember). b) He has no reason to fight the main opponent unless it is a swordsman, in which case he would object and Luffy would concede and let him fight the man (because Luffy has full confidence in Zoro).

Completely agree here.

So much madness in one issue that it boggles the mind

Also Who cares if Hawkeye's has the Strongest swordsman title, Obviously Shanks don't care because he knows that title means nothing when they duel!

Phenom, man, you realize what bad logic that is?

Freaking Zoro in East Blue challenged Mihawk to a duel. Saying Shanks is equal to Mihawk because he wanted to fight him while he was drunk is awful logic.

Rivals doesn't mean equals, and we don't even know they are rivals still, just that they were in the past. Obviously if it's a rivalry still, its one-sided, as Mihawk couldn't care less about fighting Shanks.

Anyways, the compromise I was proposing was more due to the tools than the skills of the users. Mihawk tells Zoro that his sword, the "Black Sword" is the strongest sword in the world. So perhaps Mihawk's superiority over Shanks comes from him acquiring this especially powerful blade. The skills being equal, but the sword makes Mihawk superior.

Who says they are equals? They were equals sure, but still are?

WHEN they were rivals is how the quote is given. WHEN. That implies that … you know what, screw implies. That states that the rivalry is past tense. It no longer exists. They are rivals no longer.

Mihawk couldn't care less about dueling Shanks. There isn't any rivalry going on anymore. The man is number one, he knows it, and he's proud of it.

Not to say it wouldn't be a great fight - if Shanks is the #2 swordsman in the world, I'm sure he could give Mihawk a great battle. But he's still the runner up.

I have my own theory as to why Mihawk is greater that may also satisfy Shanks fans, but I need to double check something first. It may not be a skill difference at all.

Originally Posted by Le Lawliet
_Allow me to rephrase that.

In order to rival Hawkeyes, doesn't Shanks need to be in the same general area as Hawkeyes? Like equal?_

Ya, but Oda states the rivalry in past tense. So while we know they were roughly equal in the past, it doesn't tell us how they fare against each other in the here and now, aside from the obvious indicator that Mihawk is the strongest swordsman in the world.

Look at how interested Mihawk is in Zoro - he's practically waiting day and night just for somebody, anybody, to give him a run for his money with the title. He's not refusing challengers, he just can't find anybody he thinks could beat him, but he sees the potential in Zoro. He wants a challenging fight that pushes him to his limit. He wants to be surpassed.

But he doesn't care about dueling Shanks, nor encouraging Shanks to fight him. They've probably fought a hundred times, and by this point, Mihawk probably knows if they were to fight a 101st, exactly how it would end.

At the end of the day though, we know Mihawk wants somebody to take the title from him, and we know he could care less about fighting Shanks. We know he can evaluate strength differences from a glance, and we know back in the day he and Shanks were rivals. And we know Mihawk considers himself to be the uncontested greatest swordsman in the world, bar none, and he will retain that title no matter how long it takes Zoro to reach him.

Wether it is an inch or a mile, everything points to Mihawk not only surpassing Shanks, but losing interesting in battling with him. Shanks simply isn't the person to surpass him, and Mihawk knows it.