To me the Titles help hype the characters and makes it clear we can expect a lot out of them. Where they start to lose literal meaning is when using the Title as a feat since they are relatively vague. For example would you say that Luffy is now the World's Strongest Creature? Technically he is a Creature of some sort and is the closest individual to have beaten the previous WSC title holder in a fight. Or do you think the title WSC is now gone? Same with WB. Technically from MF War, Akainu delivered the fatal injury to WB (despite what BB & crew did WB was a dead man walking after his last bout with Akainu). Would you argue Akainu should have title of Worlds Strongest Man?
If in order to arrive at a conclusion for the above questions you need to use feats from the actual characters, put context into fights they have been in, etc then the argument is no longer based on Titles. It is back to normal power scaling question of is A stronger than B using the feats we have seen or expect based on narrative. The titles are cool and all but we actually don't have our debates using them since they aren't real substance in of themselves.
Regarding Kaido.
"Creature" here IMO refers to anyone other than man, i.e human. So oni, ogre, fishman etc. Luffy is a human and doesn't count, but anyway Kaido is still stronger IMO
Regarding Whitebeard, the narrative in Marineford was simply that he was no longer WSM.
- Crocodile: the man I lost to can't be this weak
- Marco: he has gotten weak (flashback to him removing the meds some days ago), he would've dodged any such sneak attacks in the past
- Whitebeard: they call me a monster, but I am just a man. I cannot be strongest forever, if I can help a young pirate achieve his destiny, isn't that enough?
There is simply no WSM anymore after WB. Because its more debatable. While with (healthy) Whitebeard, the answer was pretty clear and hence he was WSM.
The title here matters, because if Mihawk isn't WSS, then Zoro should be chasing after someone else (in this case Shanks). It's pretty simple really.
This is why official materials say he is WSS in both title and
ACTUALITY.
My point simply is that, until feats prove
otherwise the
default should be to go based on portrayal/statements.
Let me ask you this. Would Zoro not in ACTUALITY become the WSS after defeating Mihawk? Or will there still be some secret swordsmen who are actually stronger than Zoro and EoS Zoro will be a fraud too?
The point of the above examples is that it forced you to do standard power scaling assessment of comparing A to B. You could not use the title WSS as a blanket win. And without the blanket win of WSS you have to rely solely on narrative expectation of Mihawk is top tier to make your case against Yamato. So when dealing with characters that are for sure not "swordsman" all you've done is subsituted WSS with Top Tier title. You said Mihawk is Top Tier, Yamato is not Top Tier so Mihawk > Yamato.
You didn't force me to acknowledge anything that I didn't know or acknowledge before.
Comparing swordsmen to WSS is logical, comparing non-swordsmen to WSS needs more context for obvious reason
Top tier is a fanmade term, but we understand that's the ballpark where Yonko, admirals and other strongest in the world reside. Mihawk vs Yamato isn't debatable for the same reason Rocks or Dragon vs Yamato isn't ddebatable.
One only need to read the story properly to conclude this
But technically if going by WSS title, since Coby is not a swordsman the corollary must be true. And when using feats to make your case for Mihawk being stronger than Coby all you are left with his hype since 0 feats have been shown for Mihawk since Marineford!
Man......I just don't know what to say here.
It's like we're thinking on completely different wavelength here
Let me make it clear:
- for swordsmen comparison, it's easy and we can use WSS
- for non swordsmen comparison, we need more context, like their overall level
It isn't that is someone isn't a swordsman, corollary must be true.
NOBODY thinks like that.
It's more of, if someone isn't a swordsman, then WSS can't be used by default and we need to use the context. Just like how if someone isn't a man (I presume it means human here as is common in literature), that just means for non humans comparison to (healthy) Whitebeard we need to use context since we can't default to title of WSM.
This is the part I only semi agree with. The unbiased view is that Shanks fans need to wait and cannot conclude how Shanks stacks against Mihawk. The unbiased view is that Mihawk fans need to wait and cannot conclude how Mihawk stacks against Shanks. The title/portrayal places Mihawk in this top tier but without feats cannot be used to conclude much else.
Unbiased view is also that the title and narrative holds
SOME MEANING, and by default we have to accept them until proven otherwise.
Like I said, at the end of the day it's upto what you value.
- if your position is that ONLY feats matter, then obviously yeah. I for such people, I would say keep the same energy for others like Rocks, Garp, Dragon etc too.
- if your position is that narrative and statements are to be taken by default until disproven by manga (my position), then you default to the title.
But Kaido isn't trained in the way of the blade nor does he honor it he's by all means a barbarian can we truly call him a swordsman?
Are swordsman for you guys anyone that wields a blade? So Say Luffy could use a blade in a fight and win would that then just qualify him to be a swordsman?
Me personally I feel that one needs to have the same dedication as the likes of Mihawk, Vista and Zoro in order to be truly classified as a swordsman, but hey ho it all falls down to personal interpretation.
If Kaido sticks to his base/hybrid mode, and stick to using a sword while not using blast breath and so on. Then yes, that particular Kaido would be a swordsman.
Yes, if Luffy sticks to using a sword in a fight, that would be Luffy a swordsman in that particular fight.
No. This is the classic reduction of swordsmanship to like 3 dudes in the entire series I'm talking about.
If you fight with sword without using some ability that clearly falls outside of swordsmanship, then you're a swordsman. Roger, Rayleigh, Oden and Shanks are all swordsmen, they just fight with swords and have no DF.
I don't understand not calling them swordsmen. Roger valued his sword so much that he named his son after it. All we've seen Rayleigh fight is with his sword (except for training purposes for Luffy). Everything Shanks has done in the series so far is with his sword. Oden valued his swords so much that it was his only inheritance to his children
Mihawk clashing with Vista is something that fans have to ignore.
We always knew that Mihawk's powerlevel would be plotholish.
It's not different from Crocodile you know the rest.
At some level, I do understand this. Even aside from agendas and all.
Because the OG admirals getting stalled by WB commanders were their biggest source of downplay
FOR A DECADE.
But now we know that they are clear and solid top tiers. The logical thing to do here is to assume WB commanders (the main ones) were a cut above the Kaido/BM commanders, and that the admirals/Mihawk weren't going all out during their fight in MF (admirals cause they need to worry about collateral damage, Mihawk cause he couldn't give a fuck)
They ignore it because its an inconvenience for them and makes their beloved Mihawk look weaker than he should be. Mihawk vs Vista isn't the same as Crocodile vs Mihawk.
I can see Mihawk being Admiral level
I don't ignore anything lol. I just think it's pointless responding to you, since all you care about are feats with no value on narrative or statements. We're simply going in circles at this point.
We all know who will look bad once Mihawk start getting actual feats
. Actually no, maybe you don't, I do think you actually believe what you say. For what it's worth, you don't come off as someone agenda driven at least to me
Eh, I just think Mihawk is overrated, and that he's likely being overhyped not by his own fans, but by Zoro fans to make Zoro look better than he is for when he beats Mihawk.
Maybe. But if we are calling out agenda, it's also Shanks fans and Zoro haters that downplay Mihawk too
Regardless, I would argue that the unbiased view is to go by what is reiterated in manga and official materials multiple times over years - that Mihawk is indeed WSS, that there is no secret WSS in the shadows until proven otherwise in the manga
Overall power level