who is a swordsman and who is not?
a heated debate among the fanbase.
fans of Mihawk want to make everyone and their grandmother a swordsmen while fans of Shanks want to exclude people from this category so Shanks does not look inferior to a Shichibukai.
its a polarizing topic and debates usually end up very hostile.
here is my take on the issue with a bigger focus on inconsistent reasoning from either side.
lets start with an easy one. Law.
is Law a swordsman? yes, definitely. confirmed by the man himself, Oda. so far so good.
now there is a problem with this. as you may have guessed his DF. its not the fact that he has one, no. its the fact that he never uses anything else to attack.
Law was not using regular swordsmenship. all of his attacks relied on his DF. the only true swordsmanship hes done is blocking (if I missed some instances where he actually used real swordskills then bare with me. fact is, his DF usage far outweights it).
Law remains a swordsman though. period. there is no way arround that. wether or not he is using swords skills or not is apparently irrelevant according to Oda.
next up, Fujitora.
pretty much the same here. Fujis attacks were DF attacks. fact. raging tiger, the holes etc. all DF. nothing of that was swordsmanship.
he, same as Law, is a confirmed swordsman nontheless. and rightfully so. more on that later.
what does this imply?
it implies that it is completely irrelevant what additional abilities you possess alongside your sword. DF users or others (poisonous fishman etc.) are very much capable of being true swordsman in One Piece.
okay, but where to draw the line then?
this is where the debate picks up.
very hard to say. its not even certain if there has to be one. we could easily label anyone who ever used a sword a swordsman and be done with it.
I have seen this suggested aswell. let us take a look at the common argument for or against if someone is a swordsman or not.
addressing the arguments:
I suppose this is easier done in case by case examples from the most prominent cases.
"a swordsman is anyone who uses a sword".
this is one of the weakest definitions of the term there is. while you can technically say that is it true it is also very limited. too limited.
use a sword how? to open can? whip arround like a baseball bat? does Luffy flailing his arms with swords in hand now make him a swordsman?
no. simple as that. no. this definition of the term does not hold well against arguments at all.
by this definition, Aokiji is a swordsmen. this also covers the notion that characters who are versed at swordsmanship are swordsman.
"a swordsman is anyone who is their strongest when using a sword".
while this is slightly harder to debunk its still not very consistent or gives a clear definition.
stronger how? more attackpower? better defense? more DC? able to fight the stronger enemy (this in itself is very vague)?
the 2 most common examples here are BM and Kizaru.
its often argued that both of them are at their strongest while using a sword. as I want to leave BM for a later explanation I stick with Kizaru now.
we only ever saw Kizaru weilding a sword 1 time. 1 single small clash. with Rayleigh, granted, but only a very short amount of time nonetheless.
on the other hand we saw Kizaru going an entire war against the supposed strongest pirate crew in the world without ever drawing his blade.
odd. its possible to argue that the fight with Rayleigh was the most intense Kizaru has had in a long while and therefore tried to use his strongest moves, but I highly doubt this was the case. that reasoning only works if you believe that Kizaru jobbed all of MF. his fights with WB and Marco included. not very likely.
my explanation for Kizarus behavior is a more conservative approach.
Kizaru simply used a sword to fight a swordsman. period. its easier to block sword slashes with a blade then dodging them or taking them head on with haki. horse for courses so to say. all the other time we never saw Kizaru using his blade. could you imagine Fujitora or Law doing the same?
now to the arguments against. "XYZ does not rely on their sword and are therefore not a swordsmen."
first of all, this is very hard to proof. what does rely even mean here? we know for a fact that swordsman are also able to perform other attacks like kicks or punches.
Rayleighs first attack that we saw was a kick. Zoro kicked and punched people too. Law used countershock against Vergo. there are multiple examples of this.
the best example against this claim is Hyougoro in my opinion.
Hyougoro is able to perform one of the strongest haki techniques a brawler can have. his knowledge/mastery if good enough to teach and show Luffy. he also specifically states that this was taught to him by a swordmaster. this means that this technique (haki) does not care about which style it is used with. you can be able to perfrom barrier haki with your hands and STILL be a swordsmen. with the ability to use barrier haki does a character still RELY on their sword?
Rayleigh is capable of this aswell. while not completely confirmed I doubt there are many that do not accept Rayleigh as a swordsman.
bottom line. swordsmen can still be accomplished hand to hand combatants.
applying the same logic to both cases.
we know for a fact that swordsman can have additional abilities like haki or dfs and still be swordsmen.
should df users or brawlers not also be allowed to use a sword and not be swordsmen then?
if it works in one direction, why not the other?
I will leave that question hanging for the moment and show the inconsistencies of swords instead first.
there are multiple characters that make heavy use a weapons of any type in their fights.
Kaido uses a club.
WB uses a bisento.
BB uses guns.
Doffy used guns. a gun was given to him together with this DF.
Alvida uses a club. its part of her epithet.
why bring these up you may ask? cause, have you ever heard anyone call WB a bisentoman, Kaido a clubman, or BB a gunslinger?
there may be people out there who do, but this is not a generally accepted categorization used for any of them. not to my knowledge.
in comes BM.
BM, canonically, uses a sword homie.
and people are labeling her a swordsman. you see what is happening here?
no other weapon type is getting this treatment. only swords magically turn anyone into a swordsman no matter what.
this is one of the biggest inconsistencies in this debate. why should swords be special in this?
if you look at the way WB fought during MF. switching between bisento, gura, gura/bisento very frequently (note: enraged WB resorted to brawling, his most devastating attacks where purely DF attacks, no bisento) and compared that to how BM fought during WCI its quite easy to see that there is not much difference. WBs and BMs way of fighting is a complete mix of styles. swordsmanship, purely DF based attacks, brawling, you name it.
WBs does not get labelled a bisentoman. BM gets labelled a swordsman. not really fair in my eyes.
we are not much smarter now. all we now know is that each sides arguments are inconsistent.
I have said this in countless threads already. there is a waterproof definition that is very easy and straightforward.
it has to do with behavior.
the deciding factor is how a character behaves. Fujitora, Law, Zoro, Mihawk. what do they all have in common?
they all go for theie swords almost every time. there are a few exceptions to this, such as being incapable of using a sword or in Mihawks case vs Zoro, to mock him.
now, Fujitora and Law do not even use swordstechniques to attack and they both still go for their swords almost every single time.
on the other hand there are characters who do not behave this way. Kizaru and BM are the most notable ones here. characters like that do not ALWAYS go for their sword.
whats your definition then?
if a characters weapon of choice is a sword then they are a swordsman.
nothing more to it. thats it.
this definition allows swordsman to use DF, haki, kicks, punches or w/e and also allows other characters to incorporate swords into their fighting style without becoming a swordsman.
stay friendly, friends :cheers:
NOTE: I deliberately did not mention Roger. while Shanks is heavily implied to be a swordsman there are not enough panels of Roger to be certain in my opinion.
