Zoro vs. King: Who Would Win in a Fight?
One Piece is an anime that certainly has its fair share of strong and powerful characters. And while its protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy, has most often been featured in our One Piece-related comparisons, this one is not going to focus on Luffy at all. Namely, the protagonists of this comparison are going to be Zoro, a member of Luffy’s crew, and the powerful Lunarian, King. In this article, we are going to analyze the two, as we are going to pit Zoro against King to finally determine who the stronger of the two is.
King has fought Zoro in Wano Country and ultimately lost to the swordsman from Luffy’s crew. It was a very difficult battle in which Zoro had not been given much chance due to King not only being very powerful, but also a Lunarian. Still, against all odds, Zoro managed to defeat King and has thus proven that he is the stronger of the two.
The rest of this article will further elaborate on the above-given answer, as we are going to compare Zoro and King in more detail. Through several categories, you are going to see who the stronger of the two is and why our answer is like it is, i.e., why Zoro was ultimately able to defeat King when they fought.
Physical powers
Zoro is one of the physically strongest characters in the series. He demonstrates the strength of him when he was fighting Daz Bones, he easily lifted a building despite the injuries he had. He is seen training on the Thousand Sunny with ton weight dumbbells. His strength is surely equal to or greater than that of a giant as he was able to parry a direct hit from Oars with his swords.
After the time skip, Zoro greatly increased his strength. Proof of this is that he was able to defeat a Pacifista with a single attack when before the timeskip he and all his companions joined forces to defeat one, he was able to cut a pirate ship with a single cut, he was also capable of defeating and seriously injuring Hody Jones, a Fish-Man with physical strength above the average of his race when he was underwater and with several Energy Steroids consumed.
One of his greatest feats was defeating Pica in his gigantic form without a single scratch, though he had to turn to Orlumbus to gain mobility and momentum. Zoro has also shown to be very agile and fast. An example of this is that in the Whiskey Peak arc he took on a large number of Baroque Works agents, slipping through their ranks so quickly that they didn’t notice him until he spoke.
King has shown great strength, launching Shinobu towards a tower with enough power to affect the place and damage it, or blocking a powerful kick from Sanji using his own leg and while the pirate used his raid suit. In a single slash with his sword, King was able to slice off one of Marco’s phoenix wings.
Aside from his physical strength, King is quite resilient even in his human form, taking a direct attack from Roronoa Zoro’s Rengoku Oni Giri and being simply thrown to the ground, taking no discernible damage. He also appears to be extremely fast despite his size, leaping across a great distance in an instant.
Although Zoro may not look it, he is one of the physically strongest people in the series. King, we know, looks far more powerful than Zoro in this aspect, but from what we could gather, Zoro actually wins this category.
Points: Zoro 1, King 0
Devil Fruit
Roronoa Zoro is a very powerful character. He is known as one of the most powerful characters in the series and one of the series’ best swordsmen; he is, by all means, probably going to surpass even Mihawk in the future. Now, Zoro’s powers and feats definitely merit a conclusion that he has consumed a Devil Fruit, but is that really true? It’s not – namely, Roronoa Zoro has never eaten a Devil Fruit.
This makes Zoro one of a very small number of characters (the most notable other one being Shanks) who are extremely powerful, but have not actually consumed a Devil Fruit; most of the other powerful characters have to thank their Devil Fruits for their individual reputations.
King consumed the Ryu Ryu no Mi: Model Pteranodon, a prehistoric Zoan-type Devil Fruit that allows him to fully or partially transform into a Pteranodon. This fruit gives him the ability to fly, and he can unleash extremely powerful aerial attacks, as shown when he attacked the Queen Mama Chanter, a gigantic ship, with enough force to knock down Charlotte Linlin.
It also gives him enough strength in his beak to cause Sanji pain by punching him in the stomach. When he is in his beast-human form, he can launch powerful flying slashes from his wings. These slashes can deal massive damage and you can launch them one after another.
As someone who has not consumed any Devil Fruit in his life, Zoro actually loses this one; namely, King has not only consumed a Devil Fruit, he has also consumed a powerful one, which is why he gets this points.
Points: Zoro 1, King 1
Haki
Zoro is one of the few people to possess all 3 forms of Haki. Zoro possesses the Royal Haki, the rarest Haki, whose users are said to possess the qualities of a King. He is first mentioned to hold this power by Kaido after Zoro’s nine-sword attack. During his fight against King, he uses the Royal Haki to coat his sabers, a very advanced form, and at the same time members of the Hundred Beasts Crew are seen fainting around.
He didn’t use the Haki offensively against Monet but still managed to beat her as she thought he was going to use the Haki and therefore she was going to die. The fear that Monet felt at that moment completely destabilized her. He has learned to imbue his sabers with Haki to make them more effective against Haki or Devil Fruit users.
He also used the Armament Haki on Pica to slice him which means his Haki is more advanced than Pica’s. Using the Haki also allows him to counter Devil Fruit powers, as he did to temporarily stop the Birdcage.
He first uses the Observation in his fight against Nuru, a Fishman capable of blinding his opponents thanks to the lantern on his forehead, even telling him that he only used his eyes to to see and that was why he was weak; he made use of it again to find Caribou in the palace. He also uses it during the Arc Dressrosa, to find where the one who stole his saber is but also to find Pica during his fight against him.
King can use two of the three types of Haki. King is able to use the Observation Haki, stating that he could sense Sanji even when he was invisible. He is also able to use the Armament Haki, as we can see him harden his katana to take on Zoro. The only Haki King cannot use – ironically – is the Royal Haki, as he does not possess the power of a king.
Since Zoro is a rare user of all three forms of Haki, there is no doubt that he wins this point. King is a powerful Haki user, but Zoro beats him in both quantity and quality in this category.
Points: Zoro 2, King 1
Weapons
In the beginning of his journey as a pirate, Zoro only mastered the Santoryu, his conventional fighting style; but over time he began to master techniques from other schools, such as Nitoryu, Ittoryu, or even Mutouryu. Currently, Zoro and the rest of the crew have improved their abilities to face the New World.
Zoro is known to be able to cut through a Pacifista the caliber of those found in the Sabaody Archipelago, so it follows that Zoro can relatively easily cut through materials even harder than steel without using any Shishi Sonson-like moves, very probably because he has learned to use busoshoku haki.
King carries a large katana on his right hip, commensurate with his size. This one has a smooth round gold tsuba, matching gold kashira and kojiri, with dark orange tsuka-ito forming diamond-shaped recesses to show off the light orange hilt. It is sheathed in a saya of the same orange color as the tsuka-ito, and underneath are two red cords with dangling ends, and with additional red bands around the bottoms of the saya.
The blade of the sword has notches on the underside of it, forming angular teeth along the edge with which King can catch enemy swords, keeping them lodged between the notches and then plucking them from the enemy’s clutches.
Also, King’s suit itself seems to be designed to make close combat easier, such as having spikes coming out of her gloves when King hits someone. King was seen, while attacking Marco, launching a barrage of bullet-shaped projectiles at the latter, apparently from his pteranodon wings.
Knowing how skilled and powerful Zoro is as a swordsman, there is absolutely no chance that King would be able to defeat him when their swordsmanship skills are in question.
Points: Zoro 3, King 1
Roranoa Zoro vs. King: Who wins?
We could, actually, give you a proper analysis of the things we have written above but that wouldn’t really do the trick when compared with what we have decided to go with. Namely, as Zoro and King have, indeed, fought in the manga, we thought that it would be better for us to just recap these fights to confirm what we have said above.
Before King and Queen were able to finish Marco off, a recovered Zoro and Sanji charged at them with their respective attacks, King being sliced ​​by Zoro. Although he was knocked to the ground by said attack, King was unharmed and, like Queen, got up quickly. As Sanji and Zoro argued, King took the opportunity to draw his sword and attack an unprotected Sanji, which Zoro blocked.
When Queen mentioned that Sanji’s flaming leg was an inexplicable ability for a normal human like him, who wasn’t from the Lunarian tribe, King took the hint. After that Zoro tried to attack him, but the headliner blocked his swords with his notched blade, then threw them into the distance and delivered a powerful punch to Zoro’s face, which also loosened the sword from Zoro’s mouth.
Zoro questioned King about his fighting style, to which King replied that it was not necessary to follow traditional fighting styles. As their duel continued, King was seen kicking Zoro out of the air. Later, Zoro broke off a piece on the top left of King’s mask. Irritated by the damage to his mask, King began attacking everyone around him indiscriminately using his hybrid form.
Manifesting his Pteranodon wings to use as makeshift blades, he unleashed aerial slashes in a burst fashion that damaged foes and allies alike, and hit Zoro with such force that he was thrown a considerable distance, all the way into the central corridor of the tower, where Franky was. King quickly flew towards the swordsman to hit him again with one of his wings. Though his mask sustained further damage from Zoro’s subsequent counterattack, King outmaneuvered him and sent him flying even further, causing him to break through the outer wall of the skull dome.
With a third attack, King was about to blow Zoro off of Onigashima, but Zoro managed to get back to the outskirts of the island, where King was. When Zoro commented that King should at least use his sword to deal a finishing blow, since anything else was disrespectful, King (now with more face visible) pointed out that he would ask Zoro for the same.
At that moment, Zoro’s sword Enma began to excessively drain Zoro’s Haki. King took the opportunity to approach Zoro, but without actually attacking. Confused, Zoro stabbed into King’s stomach area with his sword, which King simply recognized as a direct hit before unexpectedly going off, causing a massive explosion.
Zoro managed to narrowly avoid the damage by putting up a defensive Haki and as the smoke cleared he noted that King was unharmed by his own blast. Wasting no time, Zoro used Shishi Sonson to directly damage King but was unable to deal any damage. King then started his attack a second time.
Due to Enma’s “rebelliousness”, King’s head managed to graze Zoro, while he blew up much of the rocks that lined the shore of Onigashima. As Zoro tried to maintain control of his falling blades, King kicked the enemy swordsman to the ground before using his barizodon attack to keep up the pressure. Flying straight at Zoro, King used his wing to push the swordsman through the ground and into the lower floors of Kaidou’s castle.
After briefly lying on the ground reminiscing about his past, Zoro grabbed Enma, convinced that he now knew how to wield the sword, and used his Haki to knock out the watching Beasts Pirates. Zoro’s next attack successfully slashed King, shattering his mask. Zoro sensed that, with the flames on King’s back extinguished, King had gotten faster but his defense weaker, so King was vulnerable.
King then stripped off the remains of his mask and exposed his face to his nearby subordinates, who immediately recognized his features as those of a Lunarian. Zoro attacked King with his Rengoku Oni Firi, but immediately realized that the attack had once again caused no damage due to King’s fire returning.
At that moment, King launched a fire dragon at Zoro, who dodged it, after which they collided with his swords. Just like before, King tried to use his Swordbreaker to take Zoro’s swords away, but Zoro sent King flying with his Haki. Afterwards, noticing King speeding up again, Zoro reacted quickly by using his Yakkodori technique to slice through King’s now vulnerable body in an instant, just as the latter was kicking him in the face.
When Zoro pointed out how King had begun to block his attacks and no longer seemed so invincible, King proclaimed that a human could never stand against his kind and if anything, King would simply remember Zoro as a decent swordsman, Zoro denied this. and said that he would personally make sure that King would remember him if King managed to survive.
King then created an even larger flame dragon and headed towards Zoro. The latter unhesitatingly jumped on the attack and, using a powerful attack with his Santoryu, split the dragon apart while sending a concentrated slashing wave towards King, damaging him squarely in the chest, severing part of his right wing and destroying his sword. Zoro won the battle at this moment.
