Mihawk is undoubtedly the strongest/greatest swordsman in the verse, it's a clear cut statement that's been made clear throughout the story numerous times and this is a clear goal for Roronoa Zoro to aim for within the series, being one of the main characters.
So what does this mean for Mihawk? well uh, what does it mean? I mean I guess he's the best at what he does and he must be pretty strong overall so.. yeah. Now this would pretty much be the answer given this is a Shonen manga that probably shouldn't be read into too much however given the fact that this manga also has a ton of information inside it it's only natural to ponder within different subject matters regarding characters, hence why I'm typing this essay on Black blades.
So to start of we know that only 2 Black blades exist so far within the entire gigantic world of one piece, which shows how rare this is, I mean there are a whopping 12 Supreme grade blades of the highest quality (granted we have only 3 confirmed) but there only exists 2 Kokuto. So the ratio of top tier blades compared to black blades is kind of a wide ratio.
Now of course we saw Shusui kind of early on in the series and it's accompanied Zoro all the way to Wano, where the sword originally resided before it was stolen. It is clear that the people of Wano worship Ryuuma as the "Sword God" and Shusui is infact a National Treasure, so great that Hiyori was willing to part with a memento of her late father Oden, being Enma which is a "Great Grade" blade which there are 21 in the whole world. Despite Enma being the same grade in terms of quality I guess you could say, Shusui is viewed as on a whole other level, atleast the people of Wano view it that way.
It's also important to mention that Shusui was a "Skillful Grade" sword before it even became a Black blade, which is still pretty good but there's a reason why these blades are being distinguished by tiers of quality. Now some people might think that because Shusui was made black it is now the same quality as enma, so enma must be as good as shusui, if not better because of it's special ability, which is honestly fair, it's not arguable that enma isn't a power up per-se because it's allowing Zoro to draw out more of his own haki and unleash devastating attacks.
However there must be a reason why Shusui is so much more valued over Enma, despite it's ability. We know that Kokuto have distinct qualities, one is hardiness, and another is heaviness. These are positive traits for a blade to have, because it's designed to kill in the first place. So the way Im seeing this is, although Shusui and Enma are the same tier, Shusui still has qualities like heaviness, that Enma just simply doesn't have, so Shusui possesses higher traits in some aspects, ya know, besides the whole sucking out haki thing.
I guess because of this Kokuto are in their own type of distinct grade which is separate to what the actual quality of the blade was forged as. Now if you take just some standard sword, that isn't of high quality, it's not even ranked, and it becomes a black blade. Is it better all the other blades that are higher quality than it?, honestly, I don't fucking know. You could say it still has distinct better qualities other blades don't have, however grades should still matter because we know when you make a black blade it rises in quality, so there's that to think about.
Another subject matter regarding black blades would be, is it a feat, and if so how big of a feat would making one be. And this ties back to the original question of whether it's important that Mihawk should have made it black or not. We see top tiers, a lot of other top tiers, basically every other top tier besides mihawk, not possessing one of these bad boys. So why is this important? well it's important because if "forging" (which is the term used in Wano) a black blade is an amazing feat, you would expect people like Roger, or Whitebeard to achieve this feat given how strong they are.
Now what some people might say to this is "nahh duude, they weren't one with their sword brah.. you gotta be one with your swooord it's gotta be one with you maaan, they werent about that life, they werent REAL swordsmen so" ok cool, but given what we're learning about haki and armament haki, and the fact that we now know that there is an extra layer of armament being Conquerors haki that you can actually apply and use which could be the key to a black blade, which was literally what Roger and Whitebeard were doing, and they have obviously had countless battles, How in the fuck where they unable to make one. Is it because they didn't use that technique enough times? I mean we know Roger and WB have run into each other multiple times, but we also know it could be years of gaps before they actually do, so maybe they didn't have it for most of their life, or just didn't feel the need to use it until someone super strong came along.
Anyway, you get what I mean. If Zoro makes enma a black blade this arc for example, which has been alluded to, does this mean he's just a better swordsman than Roger at that point?, I guess so? it might make some sense. Roger and Whitebeard were pirates in the truest sense at heart, Mihawk still is a pirate obviously but he obviously doesn't feel the need to make a crew and venture out everywhere since his goal was becoming the strongest swordsman specifically, and he achieved that. It kinda makes sense that when you try to actively attain something that relates to achieving a black blade, you're going to have a better chance of doing it than someone who just puts CoC on his sword for fun when he meets an old rival.
Also the reason I'm assuming it has to do with Haki is because of the simple fact that Mihawk clearly states that you can "temporarily" make a black blade with armament haki, which also leads into another subject matter, so lets move on shall we?
As well as Mihawk saying it, the vivre card also mentions you can temporarily create a black blade with haki (if you take that) so it's clear than you can indeed make one through your own haki. Mihawk tells Zoro that he could not drink until he mastered this feat, and he's obviously drinking now, so he can indeed temporarily make one, which he does numerous times of course. But the problem here is, if you can just turn on your haki when you're fighting, and temporarily make one, then simply just turn it off again, is there really a need in making a permanent black blade?. Because, I'd assume that if you can temporarily make one, that means it's quality, temporarily increases, and it temporarily gains quality, like hardiness and heaviness, Which we already know hardiness because Mihawk also says if he did that when they first met, those two other swords he had wouldn't have broke, and the reason Wado didn't break was because of it's quality im guessing. Heaviness would also make sense, because you're literally imbuing a blade with your own haki, so it makes sense it would increase in weight as well.
Now before you go ahead and say "nah thats not true, you can't do that" well how the fuck would you know?. It honestly, logically makes sense that if you temporarily make a black blade, it would temporarily gain these qualities, and therefore be raised in quality, temporarily of course. Maybe it only raised in grade when it's permanently a kokuto?, but even if that were the case, you're still getting the benefits of a black blade by applying your haki to it. And it's not like with a black blade, you wouldn't need to apply your haki to it, it's not like a black blade is always covered in haki, because there's a reason we have techniques like ryuou, which essentially project/flow your haki in different ways to inflict damage on your opponent, despite the hardiness, or quality of the blade itself. You do indeed apply armament to increase those qualities though. To have the same qualities a black blade has without someone pouring their will into it. So this comes to a case where, perhaps stacking your own armament on a black blade, increases it even further, and this and that and blah dee blah and so it's just better and stronger overall, and you're better of having a black blade then not having one.
Because at the end of the day Zoro's teacher says that the strongest blade protects what it wants to protect, and destroys what it wants to destroy. So if having a black blade increases the chances of that, then that's all that really matters. Ryuuma in the Wanted one shot says, that a battle isn't won by what you gained, but by what you protected, or something like that I'm paraphrasing. Also you can relate Yoru being the Strongest black blade, to zoro's teachers statement, makes sense for Mihawk to have the strongest blade and can do whatever the fuck he wants with it.
Okay so now that I have indeed have rambled a lot, I want to get into the subject matter of, Mihawk creating his own Black blade being important. Now, given the connotations of "Yoru" literally meaning "night" and knowing that the supreme grade blades where "forged" into that quality, it makes sense that Yoru was just Forged as a Kokuto, but also something to note is that as I said previously, the term "forge" has also been used in connotation with black blades, it's something you forge over countless battles, as Ryuuma did. So here's the thing, if Yoru was called Yoru the moment it was forged, it makes sense that it was already black by the time it was forged, and could have been forged into a Kokuto by someone else. If this is not the case, then it could have started to be called Yoru, by the time Mihawk forged it into a black blade.
Of course, because it's safe to say that Forging a black blade is indeed a feat, if Mihawk didn't do this to Yoru, Mihawk haters would of course continue to call Mihawk a "fraud" even more so than they already are, because the worlds strongest swordsman didn't forge his own black blade, which Ryuuma did, when he was the strongest of his time (which actually can just be used to say Mihawk did or is deserving of one, because it would be something the strongest person of their eras would have in common) . Well first off even if this were the case, I could just argue that Mihawk is still benefitting from the blade being black, so it really doesn't matter if he forged it or not, He's still able to do more damage because it's a Kokuto , and also it is not like doesn't need to apply his own haki to the blade when he fights, he still needs to be strong enough to wield the sword, and have strong enough haki to use in conjunction with the sword, he's still has to use his haki at the end of the day and I would argue that even if Mihawk didn't have CoC it just means he's so strong he can compete with CoC users without it, it only makes him look stronger.
Because honestly, if Mihawk is a fraud for not forging it, then Zoro's a fraud, because enma is allowing him to let out more haki than he usually can EVEN THOUGH it's literally his own fucking haki, just like with Mihawk, and Rogers a fraud, and so is Whitebeard, because their blades clearly aren't black, even though they can use Conquerors haki at extreme levels, which Kaido says something only the strongest can do, which honestly makes it even more likely Mihawk has CoC because of his Worlds Strongest Title. So if CoC is how you make it, it just comes down to whether Mihawk has CoC and if he doesn't it doesn't take away from Mihawk, Because he's trained ruthlessly to be deserving of a black blade in the first place, which would allow him to compete with the strongest guys in one piece, Hard work beats talent as they say, even if Mihawk wasn't blessed with CoC, he worked incredibly hard to be worthy of the Strongest Black Blade and benefit from it, just like how zoro is benefitting from Enmas ability, by being strong enough to wield it in the first place, which only Oden has done besides himself or how Zoro benefitted from Shusui by earning it through beating Ryuuma.
So what does this mean for Mihawk? well uh, what does it mean? I mean I guess he's the best at what he does and he must be pretty strong overall so.. yeah. Now this would pretty much be the answer given this is a Shonen manga that probably shouldn't be read into too much however given the fact that this manga also has a ton of information inside it it's only natural to ponder within different subject matters regarding characters, hence why I'm typing this essay on Black blades.
So to start of we know that only 2 Black blades exist so far within the entire gigantic world of one piece, which shows how rare this is, I mean there are a whopping 12 Supreme grade blades of the highest quality (granted we have only 3 confirmed) but there only exists 2 Kokuto. So the ratio of top tier blades compared to black blades is kind of a wide ratio.
Now of course we saw Shusui kind of early on in the series and it's accompanied Zoro all the way to Wano, where the sword originally resided before it was stolen. It is clear that the people of Wano worship Ryuuma as the "Sword God" and Shusui is infact a National Treasure, so great that Hiyori was willing to part with a memento of her late father Oden, being Enma which is a "Great Grade" blade which there are 21 in the whole world. Despite Enma being the same grade in terms of quality I guess you could say, Shusui is viewed as on a whole other level, atleast the people of Wano view it that way.
It's also important to mention that Shusui was a "Skillful Grade" sword before it even became a Black blade, which is still pretty good but there's a reason why these blades are being distinguished by tiers of quality. Now some people might think that because Shusui was made black it is now the same quality as enma, so enma must be as good as shusui, if not better because of it's special ability, which is honestly fair, it's not arguable that enma isn't a power up per-se because it's allowing Zoro to draw out more of his own haki and unleash devastating attacks.
However there must be a reason why Shusui is so much more valued over Enma, despite it's ability. We know that Kokuto have distinct qualities, one is hardiness, and another is heaviness. These are positive traits for a blade to have, because it's designed to kill in the first place. So the way Im seeing this is, although Shusui and Enma are the same tier, Shusui still has qualities like heaviness, that Enma just simply doesn't have, so Shusui possesses higher traits in some aspects, ya know, besides the whole sucking out haki thing.
I guess because of this Kokuto are in their own type of distinct grade which is separate to what the actual quality of the blade was forged as. Now if you take just some standard sword, that isn't of high quality, it's not even ranked, and it becomes a black blade. Is it better all the other blades that are higher quality than it?, honestly, I don't fucking know. You could say it still has distinct better qualities other blades don't have, however grades should still matter because we know when you make a black blade it rises in quality, so there's that to think about.
Another subject matter regarding black blades would be, is it a feat, and if so how big of a feat would making one be. And this ties back to the original question of whether it's important that Mihawk should have made it black or not. We see top tiers, a lot of other top tiers, basically every other top tier besides mihawk, not possessing one of these bad boys. So why is this important? well it's important because if "forging" (which is the term used in Wano) a black blade is an amazing feat, you would expect people like Roger, or Whitebeard to achieve this feat given how strong they are.
Now what some people might say to this is "nahh duude, they weren't one with their sword brah.. you gotta be one with your swooord it's gotta be one with you maaan, they werent about that life, they werent REAL swordsmen so" ok cool, but given what we're learning about haki and armament haki, and the fact that we now know that there is an extra layer of armament being Conquerors haki that you can actually apply and use which could be the key to a black blade, which was literally what Roger and Whitebeard were doing, and they have obviously had countless battles, How in the fuck where they unable to make one. Is it because they didn't use that technique enough times? I mean we know Roger and WB have run into each other multiple times, but we also know it could be years of gaps before they actually do, so maybe they didn't have it for most of their life, or just didn't feel the need to use it until someone super strong came along.
Anyway, you get what I mean. If Zoro makes enma a black blade this arc for example, which has been alluded to, does this mean he's just a better swordsman than Roger at that point?, I guess so? it might make some sense. Roger and Whitebeard were pirates in the truest sense at heart, Mihawk still is a pirate obviously but he obviously doesn't feel the need to make a crew and venture out everywhere since his goal was becoming the strongest swordsman specifically, and he achieved that. It kinda makes sense that when you try to actively attain something that relates to achieving a black blade, you're going to have a better chance of doing it than someone who just puts CoC on his sword for fun when he meets an old rival.
Also the reason I'm assuming it has to do with Haki is because of the simple fact that Mihawk clearly states that you can "temporarily" make a black blade with armament haki, which also leads into another subject matter, so lets move on shall we?
As well as Mihawk saying it, the vivre card also mentions you can temporarily create a black blade with haki (if you take that) so it's clear than you can indeed make one through your own haki. Mihawk tells Zoro that he could not drink until he mastered this feat, and he's obviously drinking now, so he can indeed temporarily make one, which he does numerous times of course. But the problem here is, if you can just turn on your haki when you're fighting, and temporarily make one, then simply just turn it off again, is there really a need in making a permanent black blade?. Because, I'd assume that if you can temporarily make one, that means it's quality, temporarily increases, and it temporarily gains quality, like hardiness and heaviness, Which we already know hardiness because Mihawk also says if he did that when they first met, those two other swords he had wouldn't have broke, and the reason Wado didn't break was because of it's quality im guessing. Heaviness would also make sense, because you're literally imbuing a blade with your own haki, so it makes sense it would increase in weight as well.
Now before you go ahead and say "nah thats not true, you can't do that" well how the fuck would you know?. It honestly, logically makes sense that if you temporarily make a black blade, it would temporarily gain these qualities, and therefore be raised in quality, temporarily of course. Maybe it only raised in grade when it's permanently a kokuto?, but even if that were the case, you're still getting the benefits of a black blade by applying your haki to it. And it's not like with a black blade, you wouldn't need to apply your haki to it, it's not like a black blade is always covered in haki, because there's a reason we have techniques like ryuou, which essentially project/flow your haki in different ways to inflict damage on your opponent, despite the hardiness, or quality of the blade itself. You do indeed apply armament to increase those qualities though. To have the same qualities a black blade has without someone pouring their will into it. So this comes to a case where, perhaps stacking your own armament on a black blade, increases it even further, and this and that and blah dee blah and so it's just better and stronger overall, and you're better of having a black blade then not having one.
Because at the end of the day Zoro's teacher says that the strongest blade protects what it wants to protect, and destroys what it wants to destroy. So if having a black blade increases the chances of that, then that's all that really matters. Ryuuma in the Wanted one shot says, that a battle isn't won by what you gained, but by what you protected, or something like that I'm paraphrasing. Also you can relate Yoru being the Strongest black blade, to zoro's teachers statement, makes sense for Mihawk to have the strongest blade and can do whatever the fuck he wants with it.
Okay so now that I have indeed have rambled a lot, I want to get into the subject matter of, Mihawk creating his own Black blade being important. Now, given the connotations of "Yoru" literally meaning "night" and knowing that the supreme grade blades where "forged" into that quality, it makes sense that Yoru was just Forged as a Kokuto, but also something to note is that as I said previously, the term "forge" has also been used in connotation with black blades, it's something you forge over countless battles, as Ryuuma did. So here's the thing, if Yoru was called Yoru the moment it was forged, it makes sense that it was already black by the time it was forged, and could have been forged into a Kokuto by someone else. If this is not the case, then it could have started to be called Yoru, by the time Mihawk forged it into a black blade.
Of course, because it's safe to say that Forging a black blade is indeed a feat, if Mihawk didn't do this to Yoru, Mihawk haters would of course continue to call Mihawk a "fraud" even more so than they already are, because the worlds strongest swordsman didn't forge his own black blade, which Ryuuma did, when he was the strongest of his time (which actually can just be used to say Mihawk did or is deserving of one, because it would be something the strongest person of their eras would have in common) . Well first off even if this were the case, I could just argue that Mihawk is still benefitting from the blade being black, so it really doesn't matter if he forged it or not, He's still able to do more damage because it's a Kokuto , and also it is not like doesn't need to apply his own haki to the blade when he fights, he still needs to be strong enough to wield the sword, and have strong enough haki to use in conjunction with the sword, he's still has to use his haki at the end of the day and I would argue that even if Mihawk didn't have CoC it just means he's so strong he can compete with CoC users without it, it only makes him look stronger.
Because honestly, if Mihawk is a fraud for not forging it, then Zoro's a fraud, because enma is allowing him to let out more haki than he usually can EVEN THOUGH it's literally his own fucking haki, just like with Mihawk, and Rogers a fraud, and so is Whitebeard, because their blades clearly aren't black, even though they can use Conquerors haki at extreme levels, which Kaido says something only the strongest can do, which honestly makes it even more likely Mihawk has CoC because of his Worlds Strongest Title. So if CoC is how you make it, it just comes down to whether Mihawk has CoC and if he doesn't it doesn't take away from Mihawk, Because he's trained ruthlessly to be deserving of a black blade in the first place, which would allow him to compete with the strongest guys in one piece, Hard work beats talent as they say, even if Mihawk wasn't blessed with CoC, he worked incredibly hard to be worthy of the Strongest Black Blade and benefit from it, just like how zoro is benefitting from Enmas ability, by being strong enough to wield it in the first place, which only Oden has done besides himself or how Zoro benefitted from Shusui by earning it through beating Ryuuma.
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