Lets talk about Garp: The anime might cause some people to move Garp up, but I don't think this is justified, especially if you had him at a good spot already.
The best argument I think you can make for Garp, in comparison to the other old heads, is that unlike Rayleigh for example, who is retired and a pirate and is rusty (He said this himself when facing Kizaru), Despite old age which is the obvious factor, within that factor lies a distinction between Rayleigh and Garp, in that Garp has been active in the marines this whole time. Training, doing whatever marine stuff he does, he's still an active marine, and has been this entire time.
You can then say that Garp has more grounds for having much better stamina, despite being old, and when stamina is the main thing holding these top tiers back, this is a pretty strong argument.
We already know he can pull off admiral level attacks just fine, but that itself people have to realise is not enough, because the question that remains is, just how long can he keep that up? Having attacks/ ap relative to admirals is not enough to take down an admiral, unless you can pull that off for a prolonged period of time. How do we know this? the most simple answer is Aokiji fighting Akainu 10 days straight, throwing their most malicious attacks at each other until Aokiji finally cracked. We can safely exclude the strawhats from this because, due to the nature of nika fruit and Zoro being a swordsman with coc, their attacks combined with conquerors haki is going to be on another level altogether, by the time Zoro fights an admiral for example, so it can end with 5 named attacks for example and make sense, although Aokiji lasting against the magma fruit for the time he did is incredible as it is, and can be the reason why you put Aokiji above the other admirals, along with Akainu, both could have been fleet admiral after all.
If you aren't insane, you would agree that the thought of Garp fighting Akainu or any other admiral for 10 days straight is absurd, in a case VS Akainu what's also important to note is he doesn't have a logia/zoan devil fruit to rely on, to take the brunt of or avoid these attacks. At some point he is going to have to go blow for blow with Akainu, and that can only be a bad trade for Garp. In regards to the admirals, this is a similar outcome, although in different ways, Kizaru will laser him through the heart eventually, Fujitora will slice him with gravity blade, and greenbull would eventually suck him dry (P a u s e , but it's true) To summarise this point, Garp, despite having Admiral level feats and capabilities, won't be able to keep up at that pace, due to his age, and he'll eventually crack.
This goes in line with every time he's mentioned his old age, and when it's brought up throughout the series, like what Akainu said to Whitebeard, you can't defeat old age. If you really wanted to wank Garp you could say in terms of stamina specifically, he might be able to last 5 days instead of 10, which would be very impressive for his old age. With that being said Garps feats when he's fresh, and his portrayal matches up with Admiral level. Even his bounty (And sure bounty doesn't have to indicate strength but in this case..) given by cross guild is equivalent to that of an admiral, and since Cross guilds bounties are more so about an individual marine rather than dealing with a crew/ allies/territory, it can be argued the threat level is more so about individual strength. So the portrayal is all there.
This argument I'm making of Garp initially being at admiral level, but slowly fading as a fight goes on, begs the question of where exactly Garp is. I mentioned him having great stamina for being old, due to being active, who else has good stamina that we know of? Law.
Law proved his stamina in his fight against Big mom and on the Rooftop. Being able to take haki punches from big mom repeatedly, to tanking a bagua , there is no reason why Law can't withstand Garps attacks, especially with using Curtain for example (Using df defensively) , and can do so for a prolonged period of time, due to having the stamina/endurance to do so.
Another thing you have to factor in, is although say with Shiryu, the pirates were surprised Shiryu impaled "iron garp" that's just his reputation (although garp was caught off guard) we know he could have coated himself with coc armanent against that attack if he was aware. However I'd argue in the case of Law, he could just bypass that durability altogether, because he's already shown to have bypassed Big mom with Kroom, while she was using CoC, so unless you believe Garp has significantly better haki than Big mom for this not to happen, the probability of this being the case I'd argue is low. Therefore I would argue Garp vs Law is a tough fight for both sides, and would go extreme diff. Garp would be at the level of having Admiral level feats (possibly higher in some aspects) , but not quite being Admiral level all round.
Some might argue that because Garp straight up caught Aokiji, and Aokiji didn't react to it, this is ground to say that Garp's feats are above that of an admiral or something in this manner. I would say that yes, although Aokiji got caught in this instance, this doesn't necessarily mean you are so much better than your opponent, especially in regards to a prolonged fight. Again, I said "so much" better, so I am acknowledging how monstrous Garp is.
Aokiji for example lost his leg to Akainu somewhere within that 10 day period, Akainu got the better of him in that instance, yet despite this it was still and extremely close fight until the end. People will also make arguments to essentially downplay Garp, saying Aokiji was mentally nerfed etc, I don't want to tread on those grounds because, I think what happened was literally fair and square, Aokiji wasn't budging from his position, in terms of his own justice, and was willing/chose to fight. I don't like this idea of having to make excuses for a former fleet admiral candidate.
Same with Kizaru in that, I do not believe in the instance he got caught by Luffy, he was having flashbacks about his friendship with Vegapunk, or was necessarily worried in that regard at that moment, he was focused on what luffy was doing, and was clearly confused about luffy spinning around in G5 (Which I believed served to mask the attack, in the goofy fashion of g5), Kizaru even had his arm up and covering his body, showing his guard was up at this moment, yet he still got caught, because Luffy's attack literally hooked around Kizaru's arm, and caught him in the dome.
So no excuses. When I think about Garp, I believe he could don the cape of an admiral if he wanted to even now and do just fine, which might sound contradictory to the argument I'm making, but it just fits with everything shown, I just think he falls short compared to the admirals because of old age. And Law is just a hax user so it would make a very difficult fight for Garp.
The best argument I think you can make for Garp, in comparison to the other old heads, is that unlike Rayleigh for example, who is retired and a pirate and is rusty (He said this himself when facing Kizaru), Despite old age which is the obvious factor, within that factor lies a distinction between Rayleigh and Garp, in that Garp has been active in the marines this whole time. Training, doing whatever marine stuff he does, he's still an active marine, and has been this entire time.
You can then say that Garp has more grounds for having much better stamina, despite being old, and when stamina is the main thing holding these top tiers back, this is a pretty strong argument.
We already know he can pull off admiral level attacks just fine, but that itself people have to realise is not enough, because the question that remains is, just how long can he keep that up? Having attacks/ ap relative to admirals is not enough to take down an admiral, unless you can pull that off for a prolonged period of time. How do we know this? the most simple answer is Aokiji fighting Akainu 10 days straight, throwing their most malicious attacks at each other until Aokiji finally cracked. We can safely exclude the strawhats from this because, due to the nature of nika fruit and Zoro being a swordsman with coc, their attacks combined with conquerors haki is going to be on another level altogether, by the time Zoro fights an admiral for example, so it can end with 5 named attacks for example and make sense, although Aokiji lasting against the magma fruit for the time he did is incredible as it is, and can be the reason why you put Aokiji above the other admirals, along with Akainu, both could have been fleet admiral after all.
If you aren't insane, you would agree that the thought of Garp fighting Akainu or any other admiral for 10 days straight is absurd, in a case VS Akainu what's also important to note is he doesn't have a logia/zoan devil fruit to rely on, to take the brunt of or avoid these attacks. At some point he is going to have to go blow for blow with Akainu, and that can only be a bad trade for Garp. In regards to the admirals, this is a similar outcome, although in different ways, Kizaru will laser him through the heart eventually, Fujitora will slice him with gravity blade, and greenbull would eventually suck him dry (P a u s e , but it's true) To summarise this point, Garp, despite having Admiral level feats and capabilities, won't be able to keep up at that pace, due to his age, and he'll eventually crack.
This goes in line with every time he's mentioned his old age, and when it's brought up throughout the series, like what Akainu said to Whitebeard, you can't defeat old age. If you really wanted to wank Garp you could say in terms of stamina specifically, he might be able to last 5 days instead of 10, which would be very impressive for his old age. With that being said Garps feats when he's fresh, and his portrayal matches up with Admiral level. Even his bounty (And sure bounty doesn't have to indicate strength but in this case..) given by cross guild is equivalent to that of an admiral, and since Cross guilds bounties are more so about an individual marine rather than dealing with a crew/ allies/territory, it can be argued the threat level is more so about individual strength. So the portrayal is all there.
This argument I'm making of Garp initially being at admiral level, but slowly fading as a fight goes on, begs the question of where exactly Garp is. I mentioned him having great stamina for being old, due to being active, who else has good stamina that we know of? Law.
Law proved his stamina in his fight against Big mom and on the Rooftop. Being able to take haki punches from big mom repeatedly, to tanking a bagua , there is no reason why Law can't withstand Garps attacks, especially with using Curtain for example (Using df defensively) , and can do so for a prolonged period of time, due to having the stamina/endurance to do so.
Another thing you have to factor in, is although say with Shiryu, the pirates were surprised Shiryu impaled "iron garp" that's just his reputation (although garp was caught off guard) we know he could have coated himself with coc armanent against that attack if he was aware. However I'd argue in the case of Law, he could just bypass that durability altogether, because he's already shown to have bypassed Big mom with Kroom, while she was using CoC, so unless you believe Garp has significantly better haki than Big mom for this not to happen, the probability of this being the case I'd argue is low. Therefore I would argue Garp vs Law is a tough fight for both sides, and would go extreme diff. Garp would be at the level of having Admiral level feats (possibly higher in some aspects) , but not quite being Admiral level all round.
Some might argue that because Garp straight up caught Aokiji, and Aokiji didn't react to it, this is ground to say that Garp's feats are above that of an admiral or something in this manner. I would say that yes, although Aokiji got caught in this instance, this doesn't necessarily mean you are so much better than your opponent, especially in regards to a prolonged fight. Again, I said "so much" better, so I am acknowledging how monstrous Garp is.
Aokiji for example lost his leg to Akainu somewhere within that 10 day period, Akainu got the better of him in that instance, yet despite this it was still and extremely close fight until the end. People will also make arguments to essentially downplay Garp, saying Aokiji was mentally nerfed etc, I don't want to tread on those grounds because, I think what happened was literally fair and square, Aokiji wasn't budging from his position, in terms of his own justice, and was willing/chose to fight. I don't like this idea of having to make excuses for a former fleet admiral candidate.
Same with Kizaru in that, I do not believe in the instance he got caught by Luffy, he was having flashbacks about his friendship with Vegapunk, or was necessarily worried in that regard at that moment, he was focused on what luffy was doing, and was clearly confused about luffy spinning around in G5 (Which I believed served to mask the attack, in the goofy fashion of g5), Kizaru even had his arm up and covering his body, showing his guard was up at this moment, yet he still got caught, because Luffy's attack literally hooked around Kizaru's arm, and caught him in the dome.
So no excuses. When I think about Garp, I believe he could don the cape of an admiral if he wanted to even now and do just fine, which might sound contradictory to the argument I'm making, but it just fits with everything shown, I just think he falls short compared to the admirals because of old age. And Law is just a hax user so it would make a very difficult fight for Garp.