8 swordsmen better than Roronoa Zoro

Famous as the pirate hunter, Zoro is the beloved swordsman of the Straw Hat pirates, and he is also one of the crew's strongest fighters. Over the years, Zoro has grown tremendously in the field One Piece series, but he has not yet reached his peak and his ultimate goal to become the world's greatest swordsman is still unfulfilled. Zoro is clearly strong, but he is still outclassed by many skilled sword users, such as Shanks who he may never even surpass.

Mihawk

The world's strongest swordsman

Mihawk is known as the world's strongest swordsmanand he is the ultimate target for Zoro. Zoro has always wanted to defeat Mihawk and take his title, but at the moment he is far from his level.

Mihawk's skills and powers with Yoru still surpasses the Straw Hats' swordsman, but he gets closer to his goal with each new arc. Zoro vs Mihawk is a long-awaited battle in the final saga, and it is approaching as Zoro reaches new levels of strength.

Fujitora

A naval admiral

Among the marines, the new Admiral Fujitora is a character that stands out especially when it comes to swordsmanship. Selected through the World Military Draft, Fujitora is known to be a monster. He wields a powerful Saijo o Wazamono blade, called Yakuza Kasenexcept for his gravity devil fruit. Zoro may be close to him in power, but he has yet to surpass him.

Ryuma

God of the Blade

Mihawk is called the world's strongest swordsman, but there is a title that is even more impressive in One Pieceand that is to say Ryuma's title of the God of Blades. If Mihawk is the current strongest swordsman, then Ryuma was the strongest swordsman of all time.

Zoro's target is Mihawk, but he may have to grow and surpassing his own ancestor, Ryumaeventually. Zoro may become known as the god of the new blade by the end of One Piece.

Rayleigh

Pirate King's right arm

Rayleigh was part of the legendary crew of the Pirate King, Roger Pirates. That's him Zoro's parallel in Roger Piratesas both are one of the Pirate King's Wings.

Despite his old age, Rayleigh is still a much better swordsman than Zoro. At the moment, Zoro doesn't have a very good control over Haki, and he can't hurt immortals, while Rayleigh, even before his prime, could take them on.

Shanks

The redheaded Yonko

Shanks is currently, the strongest Yonko of One Piece. His skills are on a whole other level, and he has achieved all of this without a Devil Fruit.

Shanks is a swordsmanand in pure swordsmanship he may be below the level of Mihawk. But Shanks is overall a much more skilled fighter, especially as he uses the technique of Rock's D. Xebec. He is a character that Zoro will probably never surpass.

Stones

The Legend of One Piece World

Rocks is one of the biggest legends in the One Piece world. He was a big mystery since he was first mentioned, but recently he has been explored in more detail during the Elbaf flashback.

In this flashback, fans discovered that Rock's D. Xebec actually wielded a sword, and with that sword, Rocks displayed massive destructive capabilities and was able to hit his enemies with hammer-like attacks.

Roger

The Pirate King

Roger is the most legendary man in One Piece who became the Pirate King. He undoubtedly was one of the most powerful sword-wielding individuals in the story, although his fighting style was a bit more peculiar than people like Mihawk.

Just like Rocks and Shanks, Roger uses his sword differentlyand perform more smashing attacks than slashing. Roger is still on a completely different level than Zoro and would definitely destroy him for now.

Nowjuro

One of the five elders

One of Imu's strongest, Nusjuro is one of the strongest swordsmen the world government has to offer. He is one of the five elders and seems to be the most skilled with the sword.

He and Zoro met Egghead for a moment, and it was clear that Zoro was vastly superior. Zoro must first master his Conqueror's Haki to even stand a chance against this overpowered monster.

One Piece Chapter 1162 is out next week. As usual, One Piece will be released on Sunday. In Japan, One Piece will be released at 12pm JST on Monday. However, the vast majority of international readers will see the chapter available on October 12th. The official release date of One Piece Chapter 1162 is October 12, 2025. Fans can read the chapter for free on Manga Plus.

Release date

October 20, 1999

Network

Fuji TV

Directors

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou

Author

Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda

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  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

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  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)