Well, initially I was quite disappointed to hear that Xebec was considered a swordsman, but now, from the most recent spoilers, it seems that's yet to happen. Because the narrator talks about the style, but he talks about it as if it were an earthquake, a shock wave, which is exactly my explanation from years ago, which I used precisely to explain why I didn't believe Roger could leave a scar on Kaido. And this isn't because he was weaker than Oden, who's the only one who left one, but simply because Roger and Shanks, as a result, don't do any cutting damage, which is the same thing you see against Eustass.
The problem is that this was widely mocked by Mihawk fans, who went so far as to claim it wasn't true, expecting Shanks to actually deal slashing damage, the same for Roger. They also cite an SBS where Oda says that swordsmen actually do damage when they do this slashing damage. And actually, this very expression by Oda makes me think. So does Rox fall under the definition of a swordsman? There's the term swordsmanship. Swordsmanship is mentioned in the chapter, the narrator uses it; we'll see when the chapter comes out.
But if it's just how he uses the sword that's explained, but never called swordsmanship, I don't consider Rox, and consequently Roger and Shanks, to be swordsmen. Let's say that at least my vision of the type of damage Roger inflicted turned out to be accurate, especially since I made an edit several years ago where I showed precisely the type of damage I imagined Roger would inflict on Kaido. And there was Roger simply attacking, obviously with his sword, and Kaido actually getting hit in the stomach and spitting blood.
Because that's the kind of damage I expect Roger to do. So, a shockwave that obviously wounds Kaido from the inside, but doesn't leave external scars, because that's not the kind of damage Roger does. So I was right on that score. However, I may have taken a huge hit in not considering this swordsmanship, swordsmanship, or something that doesn't fall under the swordsmanship category. I was right on the characters' fighting styles, but I may have been wrong on that score.
Now with Harald, we definitely have a clearer idea of his strength, and I must say that, from the hints, therefore the clues, the gifs, before the spoilers were announced, I had already guessed that the reconqueror, that the clash was with Harald, therefore between Harald and Rocks. And I myself had commented that Harald's conquering king haki is absurd, and it seems I wasn't wrong, because apparently it is. And apparently their clash surpasses that of the normal emperors; it just seems visually stronger.
And this is interesting because, in truth, Harald's strength shows how powerful Shanks is and how, among other things, the gap between Gaban and Roger, narrow as it is, isn't all that plausible. In fact, Oda gave us a power cliff, as I argued, and now I'm absolutely convinced. Since we've seen Harald be on a level far superior to that of normal emperors, it's not absurd to argue that Gaban, at his peak, in his prime, was on Kaido's level. Personally, I think he was at least a little stronger than him. I conclude by saying that, from Xebec's words, the somewhat fanciful idea of this all-powerful Kong is also disproved.
I always told a friend of mine to include Harald in his top 50
also because in my opinion it had received more hype in the chapters than anything a character of Kong's caliber had received, who instead is often placed in user rankings, but I don't see real, concrete evidence, phrases or statements or the like that could place it at a certain level. We already knew Harald fought Loki and Loki was already implied by Gaban to be above Kaido.