The latest chapter has been an absolute gold mine for fans of the Grandmaster. I'll chronicle Zoro's laudable accomplishments:
Vs Big Mom
After Kaido knocks Luffy down with Thunder Bagua, Big Mom hurries to blitz him with Heavenly Fire:
When she's about to make contact with Luffy, the Grandmaster begins his counterattack:
As we can see from this scan, there's considerable distance between Zoro and Big Mom/Luffy:
Faster than Big Mom or Luffy could perceive (let alone react), he blitzes Big Mom and cleaves Prometheus in two:
Prometheus is left temporarily unable to fuse back together:
Conclusion
This is an amazing speed feat for Zoro. He blitzed a Yonkou in the middle of their attack from point blank range with a considerable starting distance. The Grandmaster's attack speed once again impresses. This is one of the best speed feats in the series given that Big Mom's reaction speed should scale to other top tiers.
I love how Zoro could copy Kinemon's technique after just witnessing it, but I don't want to say more on it until we get additional details.
As a Firstmate
After saving his captain's life from the Yonkou Big Mom, Zoro chastises him not to let down his guard for a single second:
Vs Kaido
Zoro and Killer prepare their attack for Kaido, with Kaido noticing them and preparing to counter attack:
Kaido counterattacks but is unable to tag either of them and gets sliced cleanly with ryuo (but no hardening). We see Kaido grunt in pain ("UGH!!!") and specks of blood dislodged from his body:
In the following panels, we see Kaido visibly take some effort to recover, and he compliments them on their successful attack:
Zoro is left unsatisified with the damage he dealt and comments on how he has yet to fully acclimatise to Enma:
Zoro's feat is rendered all the more impressive by the fact that — unless I'm misunderstanding something —Zoro's Rengoku Oni Giri did more damage to Kaido than Luffy's Kong Gun:
Contextualising Zoro's Offensive Feat
That Zoro could damage Kaido with a Rengoku Oni Giri is especially notable, because Oni Giri is one of Zoro's low tier Santoryu attacks (and is probably his weakest). My reasons below:
- The first Santoryu attack he used.
- Preskip He used it to finish Axe Hand Morgan.
- Postskip He used the upgraded version to finish Hyouzou
- It's normally his opening Santoryu attack
- Against Mihawk
- Against Daz Bones
- Attacks probably stronger than Oni Giri:
- Ul Tora Gari
- Zoro used it to counter the massive Punk Hazard Dragon and pushed it back
- Yasha Garasu
- Gave Oars many wounds that drew blood
- Attacks definitely stronger than Oni Giri:
- Nigori-Zake
- Overpowered Kaku's Bigan and cut him
- Cut Oars fang
- Gyuki Yuzume
- Destroyed T-Bone's attack and oneshot him
- Tatsumaki
- Nearly broke Kaku's Tekkai
- 108(0) Pound Cannon
- Oars admitted it would cut him pretty badly
- Bisected Pica's Golem
- Rokudo no Tsuji
- Sanzen Sekai
- Zoro's final attack against Mihawk
- Badly cut Oars up
- Bisected Pica's Golem and set the top half floating up several hundred metres
Maybe Oni Giri is not the weakest Santoryu attack, but it's a low tier Santoryu attack. Powerscaling Santoryu attacks it would be something like:
- Top Tier
- (Ichidai) Sanzen (Daisen) Sekai
- High tier
- Rokudo no Tsuji
- Nigori-Zake
- 108(0) Pound Cannon
- Mid Tier
- Kokujo Ou Tatsumaki
- Gyuki Yuzume
- Low Tier
- Karasuma Gari
- Hyokindama
- Daibutsu Giri
- Yasha Garasu
- Ushi Bari
- Toro Nagashi
- (Ul) Tora Gari
- (Rengoku) Oni Giri
Furthermore, given that Zoro did not use hardening on his Rengoku Oni Giri, it could likely have been made a lot stronger.
Conclusion
Zoro once again blitzes a Yonkou (who was aware of him and actively trying to counterattack). Said Yonkou had himself just blitzed a Luffy that was using future sight. This is another demonstration of his insane attack speed. Furthermore, Zoro's attack power is further highlighted by the fact that a low tier Santoryu attack (and without hardening) was able to do some damage to Kaido and earn him compliments (more damage than was dealt by Kong Gun).
Addenda
While this week was indeed a treasure trove of Grandmaster greatness, Lord Zoro is just getting started.
- We have confirmation that he's going to get significantly stronger as the battle progresses.
- He has still not yet fully acclimatised to Enma.
- He has still yet to show Asura or anything else he learned from Mihawk
- Luffy left the time skip with a new Gear (Gear 4)
- Sanji left the time skip with an upgraded Diable Jambe and Hell's Memories
- Zoro may have upgrades/modifiers to his Asura
- His weakest Santoryu attack was able to damage Kaido
- Oni Giri is the first Santoryu attack Zoro used in the series and it's his Gomu Gomu no Pistol equivalent.
- We have confirmation that Zoro can copy sword techniques after witnessing them once.
- Big Mom right now is wielding a flaming sword and has quite a few techniques of her own.
- Zoro has expressed interest in a fire sword.
- Zoro can replicate the fire aspect with Kinemon's Fox Fire style.