Is there any character that can seriously challenge Roronoa Zoro's loyalty towards
his captain Monkey D. Luffy? The first mate of the straw hat pirates that stood side by side
with the future king of the pirates against the strongest creature in the world. That was willing
to sacrifice his life and dream at multiple occasions. Swearing his allegiance and resolve
to become the strongest swordsman in the world to Luffy while almost bleeding to death. A man
so powerful, that he was able to cut Kaido, a feat that only Kozuki Oden,
the strongest of the samurai of Wano was capable of doing, and a user of conqueror's Haki,
usually a sign that a person is meant to lead and rule, and not follow another man. By the way,
not the only thing, that he has in common with the dark king Silvers Rayleigh, another absolute
legend of the story, who was the right hand man of Gol D. Roger, the first pirate king.
So how is it, that Zoro is willing to sacrifice so much for Luffy? To the point
where his loyalty to his captain is an even more respected and inspiring part of his character
than his skills as a swordsman, his discipline or his determination.
I strongly believe, that Zoro is as respectable and awesome as he is,
is due to his change and growth throughout the story. If he had simply been loyal and
trusting to Luffy right from the start, it just wouldn't have had the same impact.
Because when Luffy first meets and frees Zoro and basically bribes him into joining his crew,
Zoro is very much a lone wolf type of character, that hunts pirates on his own,
following his own path. You can very easily see why Zoro has the will of
a king and could have become a immensely powerful leader on his own if he never had met Luffy.
At the beginning of their journey, I think it's fair to say, that
Zoro sees joining Luffy as a useful step towards reaching his goal of finding
and defeating Mihawk and becoming the strongest swordsman in the world.
These are the five major moments in the story that turned Zoro into one of the
most, if not the most loyal and respectable characters in all of anime and made him my
personal favorite character in all of one piece.
Being completely humiliated and almost killed by Mihawk at the Baratie. HIs
objection to Usopp returning to the crew on Water 7. His sacrifice on Thriller
park. Swallowing his pride and begging to train under Mihawk during the time skip.
And pushing himself to the brink of death during the raid on Onigashima.
Getting to face off against Mihawk so early into their journey, before even
reaching the grand line was the best thing that could have happened to Zoro. His humbling defeat
against Mihawk changed his perspective on the world. He was far from being the strongest,
but at the same time proved his potential and more importantly his determination to us for
the very first time. He would rather die for his value of being an honourable swordsman, than run
away. Not only did he get recognised by Mihawk, but more importantly, Luffy was not only more
worried about his health than his skills, but also shoed unwavering faith in Zoro's ambition
and dream. Having seen Luffy risk his own life for his friends a number of times now,
it changed Zoro's view and made him respect Luffy for both his strength and his willingness to die
for the right cause and values, remember the two things that are most important to Zoro.
This feeling of respect keeps on building up, with Luffy saving Nami on Arlong park,
reaching the grandline, freeing Drum island and finally Alabasta from the rule of one of the seven
warlords. Luffy has fully earned Zoro's respect at this point, proving himself as powerful enough
to be his leader. Zoro is probably more aware of the hierarchy and his position in the crew
at this point that any other straw hat. Because by accepting Luffy as his captain, LUffy also
carries Zoro's personal pride and honor. So when Usopp disrespects Luffy and wants to rejoin the
crew without an apology, Zoro sees this insult to Luffy as an insult to him personally. Discipline
and respects towards those who are stronger than you are the two major things he took away from his
Wano-training in Shimotsuke village, which we have seen a lot in during the wano arc as well. I would
say that Zoro is both right and wrong here at the same time. He rightfully teaches Luffy a valuable
lesson about being a good leader and warns him that being a pirate isn't a game, a lesson that
Luffy later has to learn the hard way by losing his crew and failing to save his brother Ace.
At the same time however, Zoro also hasn't fully understood yet, what makes the straw hat crew
so special. The fact, that everyone feels more or less equal and is free to express who they
are and what they think freely. Only during their invasion of water seven, when he fights
together with Usopp and sees his determination and willingness to fight and overcome his cowardice,
does Zoro understand how Usopp has felt and why he left the crew in the first place. All while
Luffy is proving for the first time, that he will do anything to get a member of his
straw hat family back. Even though Robin also left the crew theoretically. Just as
Luffy would do later with Sanji. So Zoro has now become a very important anchor for Luffy,
teaching him to take things seriously and become a better leader overall, while at the same time
learning to appreciate the love and care the crew has for each other. That is actually something
I feel some people tend to overlook here, and just another reason that makes Zoro so awesome.
Literally Taking on all of Luffy's pain without so much as a second of hesitation on Thriller Bark
then is probably still my favorite moment in the entire story up to this point. It's just argh. So
much raw emotion. Like legit, whenever you feel like you need a good cry, just rewatch this scene.
In case you forgot, Zoro is already pretty much unable to stand up himself, when he blocks Kuma's
path to an unconscious Luffy. He bargains for him to let Luffy go in exchange for his own life. Kuma
takes him up on that offer and using his unique devil fruit powers extracts all of the damage and
pain that Luffy has accumulated during his fight and gives Zoro a small taste of it, which brings
him to his knees. He then lets him know that taking in the rest will kill him. Quick side note,
since Kuma was actually not an enemy, I suppose he made sure that Zoro would not actually die,
but he didn't exactly hold back either. Zoro does not know this of course. And yet, without so much
as a moment of hesitation, he steps right into the bubble. Which leads to this most epic moment of
all time, where Sanji finds him standing there, bleeding, telling him that nothing happened.
Now this is of course the ultimate sacrifice he is willing to make there for luffy. He puts the dream
of his captain and the way he is able to change the world above his own dream. Zoro has completely
left behind the idea that Luffy is merely a stepping stone for himself. Luffy's dream is
now also his dream. But it gets even crazier. Remember how Zoro knocked out Sanji, who was
willing to sacrifice himself as well? Zoro not only is prepared to give his life for Luffy, but
for every single member of the crew. Including of course Sanji, despite all their brawls. It shows
that Zoro has at this point fully internalised that the straw hats are not only a crew, but a
family. And as Luffy's right hand man, it's his responsibility to step in and give his everything
to protect the crew as a whole. The crew has become the most valuable thing in his life now.
But it gets even crazier when Zoro is sent to Mohawks island after Sabaody. Because after seeing
that Luffy lost ace during the war, he throws away his honor and begs Mihawk to train him. At first,
Mihawk is absolutely disgusted about this. He thinks that Zoro is simply too weak to leave the
island on his own and that he has lost all pride as a swordsman. Only when he finds out that Zoro
defeated all the mandrills and decided to stay behind anyways, does he see the truth.
Zoro has made Luffy's dream part of his own. He wants to make LUffy the king of the pirates.
He wants to be strong enough to help his captain get there and protect his crew from ever having to
suffer through something like on Sabaody again. He is willing to throw away his personal honour
as a swordsman, because his honor as the vice captain of the straw hat crew is now
more important to him. I have made an entire video about Mihawk explaining his
crazy character development during and after the war, if you want the whole story. But in short,
Mihawk has learned Luffy's crazy power and potential during Marineford, a man
who got the respect of both shanks and whitebeard, and thus ends up
training Zoro and acknowledging him as a worthy swordsman. Mihawk sees how much Zoro has grown.
Not only does it turn Zoro into one of the strongest people in One pIece, but also earns
him a crazy bounty of 320.000.000 berries. Which I'm honestly really jealous of. I have
580.000 subscribers, which if it were $ and converted to Berries, would be a 58.000.000 berry
bounty. For comparison, even Trebol, a man that consists of 99% slime has a bounty of 99.000.000.
So please help me overtake Trebol by subscribing to the channel and raising my bounty.
Which brings us all the way to Wano, an arc that coincidentally mirrors a lot of the
events during Thriller bark. So it might or might not have been surprising to find out,
that Zoro once again has pushed himself across his limits for Luffy and his crew. He has faced off
face to face with Kaido himself, side by side with his captain, something we all wanted to see,
and dealt some real damage to the YOnko, earning his respect and revealing his
conquerors haki to us, still one of the most hype moments of the entire raid. and after
taking some heavy damage in the process, once again did not hesitate for even a second to take
the wonder drug of the minks that would come with devastating consequences for his health.
Without batting an eyelash though, Zoro took it and went off to take down King,
Kaido's number two in command and one of the most powerful characters in the entire story.
And once again, Zoro has now been pushed to the brink of death, where he actually saw
death himself with his cloak and his scythe, though who knows
what that might actually be all about in the end.
However, if you want to dive even deeper into Zoro's fantastic character arc and the fantastic
secret how he convinced his biggest rival Mihawk
to become his mentor, you really can't ignore this video right here.