Every mention of or reveal of a new Shichibukai was a godsend! The abolition of the Shichibukai system means we won’t get a new line-up, and that is slightly bad news to One Piece fans. The Shichibukai roster contains a lineup of One Piece’s most popular characters after all.
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This task of ranking them is like trying to pick who is your favorite child; hard to choose but definitely doable.
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We have seen the kind of destruction he can do every time we get a glimpse of him, so at least we know he is definitely deserving of the Warlord title.
Despite that, it is very hard to root for Gekko Moriah because of his incredibly out-of-place design, and annoying voice. Look at him, he looks like he is a Care Bears villain than a One Piece one.
The way the series consistently portray him as too weak to be a Shichibukai after Thriller Bark does not buy him any favors either.
What holds her back as a character is, while her tendency to look down on people to the point that she looks up to the sky, and her love for Luffy are funny jokes, it is getting old.
After her huge character development in her initial arc, there is nothing to do with her anymore but the running gags. Scholars call it the Brooke Syndrome. Yohohohoho.
Not to mention that the running gag of countless deadly pirates thinking he is a great pirate on the level of Whitebeard never gets old. First, he is a Shichibukai. One day he will be a Yonko. Maybe even the Pirate King.
Not even Luffy has a career trajectory as fast a Blackbeard. From having no reputation and bounty in the first time we met him, to a Shichibukai, to a Yonko with over a 2 Billion bounty in a span of 3 years.
He proved capable of manipulating both the Whitebeard Pirates and the full military force of the Marines. He might have the lowest bounty among the Yonkos outside of Luffy, but according to his past successes, he is just biding his time until eventually take the others’ crown.
The biggest achievement he has to the angry hating hearts of One Piece fans is that he is the one that captured Ace to hand over to the government for his own ends, so is indirectly responsible for his death.
If he is not high enough on this list, it is because much of who Blackbeard still remains a mystery including how he can use two Devil Fruits at once. Once we have more about him, maybe he can catapult to the top of this list as fast as he became a Yonko.
And now that he is part of the Straw Hats, there is so much more for us to get excited for. What will his chemistry with the other Straw Hats be? Who will be his best pairing? Is he part of the new Monster Trio? Just the thought that Luffy has landed a literal whale like a Warlord, gives the Straw Hats even more street cred as a pirate crew.
If he has a title like The Worlds Greatest Swordsman, and can almost kill Zoro with the smallest sword in the world, we can only imagine what kind of monsters the other Warlords are.
The irony is, despite being the first Shichibukai in the series, we see and know next to nothing about him, but unlike the other Warlords who have that weakness, not knowing much about Hawkeye only adds to his mystique.
Everything about him speaks badass - His Musketeer-like design with sharp eyes, the way he casually roams the rough seas of the Grand Line with just a small ship and no crew. If anything, knowing more about him is the path to ruining his character.
Here’s to hope that his inevitable duel with a certain three sword-waving individual will be all that’s hyped up to be.
Seriously, the Ope Ope no Mi might just be the most broken fruit in One Piece. There is absolutely no reason he cannot just slice Doflamingo in half. When Law was fighting Doflamingo in the sea, why not just teleport Doflamingo under the sea? The only reason the Yonkos aren’t beaten by Law is because of Haki, also known as plot armor.
With Trafalgar Law’s popularity and evergrowing broken power set, we are going to get more of Trafalgar D. Water Law. May he find what he is looking for.
All that mystery and large physique make him one of, if not the most intimidating villain in One Piece history. His powers may look and feel cute, but they can make the Straw Hats life a living hell. He can defeat all of the Straw Hats plus other pirates with them with no effort.
When the Pacifista showed up in Sabaody Archipelago., it took the Straw Hat’s combined strength and all they got just to defeat it, and yet that Pacifista was weaker than the original Kuma.
And then, Kuma made one of the best and most shocking moments in One Piece possible - He made the Straw Hats disappear one by one, making Luffy painfully hopeless for the first time in One Piece history.
When we finally arrived at that moment, he turns out to be the villain with the most depth. His philosophy and want to see the world burn are all justified by his tragic backstory.
Doflamingo just might be one of the evilest people in the One Piece world, yet every malicious act he takes can be understood with sympathy from the eyes of the viewers. Eiichiro Oda may have achieved the impossible - He made us sympathize with the devil.
Crocodile revolutionized what a One Piece villain can be. Every villain that came before him were all very simplistic one-off obstacles for Luffy to defeat, even Arlong, then here comes Crocodile who feels like a looming shadow throughout multiple arcs since the Straw Hats entered the Grand Line. He has a bounty four times bigger than any of the villains before. His title as the Shichibukai was the highest position of power in the One Piece world thus far.
The stakes suddenly got exponentially larger. When the villains before were terrorizing a small town and little villages, Crocodile was terrorizing an entire country, with multiple levels of planning that seems unbeatable. There were so many attempts for the Straw Hats to stop his plans for Alabasta only to fail every time. It was going to work, only for Luffy to expose Crocodile’s defeated body.
Then when Luffy finally faced him, he was literally untouchable. Beating him felt impossible, and it took Luffy trice just to finally defeat him. He was the most difficult villain for Luffy to defeat with the exception of Kaido, and just landing a single punch on him felt like a great victory.
Aside from that, he has a cool mafia pirate design and a hateable personality where he consistently laughs at the deaths of the people he causes while mocking the ideals of the heroes.
Crocodile changed the level of what kind of conflict we can expect from a One Piece villain and every villain that followed is in his shadow.
