I would imagine you and Red Admiral are the Ouki and Renpa of this forum lmao.
Long term rivals but hold deep respect for each others.
Kingdom is actually a really good analogy for old Gen vs mid Gen vs new Gen.
In Kingdom the old Gen is looked back upon with the mythical respect one would expect of the old legendary era. You have Ouki and Renpa who achieved over 100 victories for their states and their own eras are looked back on with a heavy reverence.
Then you have the mid Gen. Mid Gen in Kingdom would be characters like Ousen and Moubu. Nobody really knows what these guys are fully capable of but initially even Ouki is like “not one of these guys is worthy of the old era.” However as the manga goes on and figures like Ouki see the mid Gen in action, opinions change to “holy shit these guys might even be above our generation…” and as time goes on it’s pretty Fucking clear to everyone that the mid Gen might even just be straight up better than the old Gen.
And then the new Gen comes about and achieves what both the old and new gems were unable to achieve.
This also applies to One Piece, except in One Piece your average reader has the IQ of a monkey so nobody really understands this. Lol
What’s the source for this tho
The same magazine interview where Oda said Akainu would become the Pirate King in less than a year.