I for one am happy theres a really strong character in the story
I will not comment on this part, at least not here, but I'm more then welcome to discuss this in my DM.
perfectly comfortable with having someone who he thinks will be capable of challenging his status in the future and is perfectly comfortable in allowing them to grow to be able to do that.
regardless of whether that person is zoro or not.
Hardly a reason to love a character! But ok...
Well, we come back to Zoro again: Mihawk's obsession with Zoro is precisely because he's one the chosen ones, he's amongst the main characters. Do you really think that in the one piece world filled with billions of people Zoro is the only child who can surpass Mihawk? Especially with his own personal training, how many people had the luxury to be trained by the WSS!? I doubt there were many. Coby thanks to Garp's personal training has progressed so much, I'm sure that someone as talented as Zoro would do the same shit. But Mihawk doesn't care about other talented children, he cares about Zoro, why? The same reason why Rayleigh and Shanks care so much about Luffy and don't give a shit about their captain's son Ace, who was literally crying on the gad damn screen while Rayleigh was watching it live just few meters away from him and never even came to help. Lol. Luffy is the chosen one, Zoro is the chosen one, the strowhats are all the chosen ones. Mihawk would have long picked up someone and trained him so that he could surpass him, hell he can always go back and start challenging people if he cares so much about it. I'm sure Fujitora and Greenbull are good competitors, they are strong, why doesn't Mihawk want to challenge them? Oh, they are not amongst the chosen ones, I'm sorry, I forgot. At the end another Zoro reason!
oda made him the strongest swordsman and he has barely got the chance to show why,
Yeah, exactly, I wonder why.
its the same way I was excited for garp, for BB end of the story , for akainu etc
Akainu fought Whitebeard on screen, Blackbeard fought Sengoku on screen, we've seen some of his powers already. Garp fought–although off screen–against Roger in his prime and Rocks, also in his prime.
Who did Mihawk fight? Shanks before his prime sometimes 12 years ago and Vista. Ham. So much excitement! (No tralling by the way).
am not going to argue he isnt a fan favorite because of an mc in the same vein shanks is cause of luffy but yeah but yeah I like him without having that weird attachment to one of the main characters. again not everyone sucks off the strawhats.
Regardless of the amount of people who love Shanks because of MC, do you really think Shanks would be less popular with so many cool moments even if he had nothing to do with Luffy?
Shanks clashes With Whitbeard himself and splits the skies, Kaido acknowledges him as a worthy opponent, he stops the war by his presence only, the Gorosei respect him, he scares the shit out of a facking Admiral. In the movie red Shanks makes two other Admirals sweet, and in Whitebeard's ship he has the coolest moment ever.
Even if Luffy wasn't part of Shanks' character, he wouldn't even lose 1% of his popularity, Shanks is officially the most hyped up character in one piece. So much so, that even Oda himself has said that in terms of personality Shanks is the closest to him.
There are so many badass reasons for people to love Shanks, zero for Mihawk.