In one strike he dealt far more damage to Garp than Kuzan did, and the excuse of him using piercing damage making it easier to do so is null and void because the ex Admiral can form ice blades of his own and coat them in Haki:
Also Shiryu shouldn’t be able to be flash frozen and he is not shown neg’d like all the other Titanic Captains when attacked by Kuzan.
Oda deliberately keeps Shiryu in the background barely able to be seen or completely absent in order to hide his true strength.
Shiryu is either equal or superior to Lucci who’s haki exceeds that of even Sentomaru someone trained by Kizaru, the difference is so immense well we saw:
Sentomaru with his reknown defenses could hold his own against Kizaru’s lasers for a bit, even recover to save Bonney but was completely neg’d and left near death by Lucci’s armament.
Supreme King Haki is the greatest and our favorite Ciphor Pol cat is holding his own against King of Hell rn, that puts him in the upper echelons of haki usage considering what we know of Zoro’s power:
It’s not unheard of for top tiers to be exceeded by commanders level foes in certain categories. Katakuri has better CoO than any shown top tier, Doffy awakened unlike some Yonko, Beckman implied to have flat out better haki than any Admiral already:
I can’t envision Oda cucking Zoro out of a real swordsman fight before facing Mihawk, my hope is that Shiryu is the real deal as the manga is lacking real swordsman vs swordsman fights.
It’d be cool if Shiryu dropped the fruit to fight Zoro straight up, showing swordsman pride as he owns a meito and was considered a monster almost equal to Magellan (say what you want about pre-ts portrayal but Oda made a clear narrative that the wardens were legit threats even to Warlords)
I believe there will be more to Shiryu than just turning invisible. Why is he called “of the Rain”? We have already seen invisibility enough and no way is that ability alone pushing Zoro to his limits.
The only other route is for him to be devastating with a sword and for that to happen he needs to have a Hakiman degree.
Impel Down had a bit of a hell theme, even Magellan had his own demon themed mode/ attacks. Shiryu must have his own special technique to counter KoH Zoro and his Asura.
