The post turned out to be long since I like talking about stuff like this. I hope it isn't too long lol
@Shanks
To me, it seems like Oda wants Mihawk to not involve himself directly in the PK race but he's subtly cementing Mihawk's place as a Yonko lvl threat by giving him a higher bounty than 3 Current Yonkos with the only exception being Shanks, an established Yonko with an empire.
And frankly, that's exactly the case why this crew even got so much recognition in terms of threat lvl. Look at how long & what it took Yami + Gura BB after the Marineford exploits to cement his place as an Emperor.... he needed to gain territories & overwhelmingly crush Marco & the WB remnants to even get into the conversation. And after 2 years, he still has a meagre 2.2 Billion despite having a crew full of Impel Down Lvl 6 monsters & Shiryu who are also growing stronger.
Ill explain more as I tackle the Influence/Territory part in the next reply.
I wouldn't say Crocodile is a loser, he was a Shichibukai and was frankly done dirty pre-TS due to Oda underestimating the overall scale of One Piece (he expected OP to end in 5 years back then).
And Oda made many amends in return, Crocodile was placed in Lvl 6 Impel Down (alongside Ace, Jinbe, Shiryu etc,.) while Gears Luffy was thrown into Lvl 5 (indicating that Croc is still stronger).
IMO, Oda wants us to think that Croc is really, really strong. I wouldn't downplay Croc.
Yeah here I disagree.
The Marines basically threw Buggy into Impel Down Lvl 1 after he was hauled in by Smoker. Meaning they know how weak he is. His connections & information about who he actually was, were revealed later on, giving him great infamy & clout. Even though he isnt powerful on his own, he can more than compensate that through his Impel Down recruits & he became a Shichibukai due to the amount of clout he could pull and influence that he had. His personal organization made waves in the Underworld later on.
However, I again reiterate that his influence is nowhere near a Yonko's Influence. Just look at how Law described the Yonko splitting up the New World between each other and exerting their dominion over entire groups of Islands. Buggy is nothing compared to that, even if you add Crocodile's influence as a Pirate Captain in, it doesn't come close to a Yonko's who have huge armies & entire Nations worth of manpower & resources behind them.
Like Kaido in Onigashima alone had close to 40k troops and that's without considering the Wano Samurai who would also fight for him in normal scenarios & Big Mom has an entire Archipelago worth of Influence and look at the Sheer Number of Pirate Crews & troops that Whitebeard had under him. This is why Oda gave Luffy the Strawhat Grand Fleet as well.
You think Cross Guild can achieve that much within a 2 Weeks or so after formation? They were even recruiting members into their Guild through Newspaper Pamphlets lol, that alone is an indicator that they are gaining Man Power.
Again, they aren't wrong in thinking that these are 3 Warlord big names who allied up. But the nuances of Storytelling exist imo.
I'm not sure honestly. I'm waiting for the full Chapter Leaks to explain the part.
Most likely, Mihawk's bounty is the same after the Warlords were disbanded while Buggy's & Crocodile's bounties are boosted due to their Association to the Guild & Mihawk. No other explanation makes sense at this point.
Nah, all Warlords are definitely given New Bounties once they become Active Pirates again. There isn't really grounds to argue otherwise as well.
As I said, the 4 B behind an Emperor not only represents his individual PL, it represents his entire crew, his entire allies, his influence, his territories and everything that he can control.
Like Luffy barely beat Katakuri in WCI but yet he got a 1.5 Billion bounty due to him having a crew, allies, Grand Fleet & having a sphere of influence when he was called 5th Emperor.
And I'm pretty sure Mihawk would get 4B bounty if he has those with him & that any current Emperor won't have their 4 Billion bounties when they don't have the other factors that I talked about.