Ever since the start of the One Piece series, Zoro has endeared fans with his badass attitude and incredible strength. Spurred onwards to become the strongest swordsman in the world due to a promise he made to his best friend Kuina, he has worked harder than most other characters in the series, honing his swordsmanship to the point where he became one of the Worst Generation’s most notorious pirates.

In all of his combat engagements in the series, Zoro has gone up against some of the greatest threats in the setting, from agents of the World Government to the right-hand-men of Emperors of the Sea. His resilience and determination to defeat his enemies have made him one of One Piece’s most beloved and important characters, so let’s take a look at why Zoro is such an important and prodigal fighter.

Related

One Piece: The Gods Knight’s Secret Ally On Elbaf, Explained

The Gods’ Knight’s plan seems to work far too perfectly, so here’s how they could have had a secret ally on Elbaf who helped them with it!

The Strength Of The Pirate Hunter

Why Zoro Is So Powerful

Zoro holds a special place in Luffy’s eyes as well as in the Straw Hat crew in general. Due to being the first person to join Luffy’s crew before they even had a ship, Zoro is the longest-serving member of the Straw Hats, which also makes him Luffy’s most trusted crewmate, who often acts like the captain of the crew at times when Luffy is not thinking straight or is being overly emotional.

What originally endeared him to Luffy’s side was his incredible strength, as he could take on multiple opponents at once due to his mastery of the Three Sword Style. Since Zoro joined the crew, most arcs of One Piece tend to unravel in similar ways, in the sense that no matter how different or unique an arc is in its entirety, the final battle within it usually has Luffy going up against the main villain while Zoro takes on the villain’s second-in-command, Sanji takes on the third, etc.

However, despite this trend, many argue that while Luffy fights the most powerful antagonist in every arc, he and Zoro are not very different in terms of their overall strength. This is especially true pre-time skip, when Luffy hadn’t yet realized the full potential of the Nika fruit with his Gear 5. Although the villains at this stage of the story whom Luffy faced were stronger than their subordinates, it should be noted that Zoro would always have far less trouble putting them down than Luffy did.

In fact, this still rings true at this point in the story. Though this trend can be seen in almost every story arc, notable examples of this are Zoro’s fights against Daz Bonez, Ohm, and Kaku from before the time skip and Pica, King, and the agents of CP0 after the time skip. While none of these were easy fights for the Pirate Hunter, one common trend between them is the fact that Zoro defeated his enemies more easily than Luffy did.

Of course, easy is a relative term here, since all these fights were incredibly taxing on him, particularly against King, which brought Zoro to death’s door. However, when compared to Luffy’s fight against Kaido, which saw the Straw Hat lose multiple times and even die once, Zoro did far better. This shows that while Luffy is undoubtedly the strongest member of his crew, the difference between him and his right hand isn’t great.

Of course, the reveal of Luffy having the Nika fruit changes everything. With Gear 5, Luffy can essentially manipulate reality in a way, so the strength difference between him and most other characters in the series is huge. Still, though, Luffy and Zoro went up against the Gorosei in the Egghead Island arc, where both were surprisingly able to keep the Elders back to an extent, with Luffy taking on both St. Saturn and Kizaru at once, and Zoro managing to clash swords equally with St. Nusjuro.

Related

One Piece: The Gods Knight’s Devil Fruits Can Pose The Greatest Threat

The Devil Fruits of the Gods’ Knights seem to be incredibly overpowered, so let’s see how they could pose such a great threat to Elbaf!

The Strength Of The Monster Trio

How They Rank With One Another

Everything that was previously stated about Zoro can apply to Sanji as well. Just like Zoro, Sanji has always gone up against the third of the enemy group that he is facing, but even here, he manages to put them down at the end with a similar level of ease as Zoro, with both of them struggling significantly less than Luffy does. This shows that while there is a difference in their strength, it isn’t too much, especially when considering Sanji’s fight against Queen, where he had virtually no trouble against the All-Star once he activated his Germa powers.

This dynamic of the three main fighters of the Straw Hats is incredibly important for the future of the series. This is because the only other crew that had a similar dynamic of there not being too much of a difference in the strengths of the 3 main members was the Roger Pirates, who were the only crew in history to achieve the title of crew of the Pirate King. It shows that this kind of structure for a pirate crew is the perfect one for the King of the Pirates.

One Piece can be streamed on Crunchyroll.

MORE

Dragon Ball: Mastered Ultra Instinct vs. Mastered Ultra Ego

With Goku and Vegeta each unlocking their Divine Techniques, how would a fight between their perfected versions look like?