Interestingly enough, Mihawk would have remained as irrelevant as you suggest if not very many fans having a problem with his mere existence as the “Strongest swordsman”
like imagine if Shanks was a brawler like Garp, and the “legendary duels” between Mihawk and Shanks were the Roger vs Garp clashes of Swords vs Fists. Bascially imagine if you complete removed shanks from this equation completely
mihawk does everything the same as he does now but Shanks is a brawler. Would there exist even 10% the number of Mihawk threads across the entire fandom as exists now?
Mihawk given the same amount of “irrelevance” as you say he does but this time with no relation to Shanks whatsoever. What would happen?
See you problem isn’t with Mihawk or how irrelevant he is. Your problem is that Mihawk is “irrelevant” and yet stronger than your best boy. This is all that matters.
None of this discussion about how well he is written or what he means to the story or any of this “intellectual” discourse would even exist if both for the mere notion that He is the Strongest swordsman and your best boy is also a swordsman
You dialed up the wrong number, I am no Shanks fanboy lmao.
Its just a fact that in a manga were barely any of the top tiers seem to get clean wins, World's strongest titles are empty words. Oda's reliance on tell not show is big and after decades has taken its toll.
Did we ever hear of someone competing with Zoro to become WSS for example ? Not even Tashigi the other sword nerd seems to care.
You can stay in denial, it doesn't change Oda mishandled the whole WSS storyline. We went to Wano and not so much as a mention of Mihawk.