#chapter 1010

OH MY GOOOOOOD RORONOA ZORO THE MAN THAT YOU ARE

HEY KAIDO THATS MY CAPTAIN YOU GOT THERE OH MY GOOOOOODDD

and ASURA IS BACK ASURA IVE MISSED YOU

HELL HAKKEI LETS GOOOOO AND THIS IS NOT EVEN THE BEST

ZORO WITH CONQUERORS HAKI AND HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW IT OH MY GOD THE DAY HE UNLEASHES HIS FULL POTENTIAL I WILL LITERALLY START CRYING

AND THATS NOT EVEN ALL BEVAUSE LIFFY!!!!!! LUUUUFFFFYYYYY

Had someone ask me in DMs so in case anyone else was wondering about the Japanese for Law’s attack here --

The kanjis are 抗菌武装 wherein the first word means “antibacterial” and the second “armament” (same word as the one in “armament haki”, to give you an idea of the meaning). So antibacterial armament. And the furigana is カーテン which is the English word “curtain”. For me it refers to the type of curtain in an sanitized operating room/hospital, that type of thing, which is the theme of his attacks in general. 

[Addendum in case anyone’s new to this – Jump is aimed at a readership of younger boys (shonen), so all mangas printed in it have furigana, which are little characters on top of kanji that indicate their pronunciation. That way younger kids who may not know many kanjis can still read it. Sometimes mangakas get creative with those, however, usually for attacks which need to have fanciful ~cool names~. For example they’ll use romanized foreign words with the furigana indicating the pronunciation like they would for kanji (this is the case for Law's "Room"). Or they'll do the opposite and use kanjis but they’ll assign them furigana that spell out a foreign word instead of the kanji’s usual pronunciation. The implication is the character is saying foreign words and the kanji they’re attached to is the meaning of those words. It’s like reverse subtitles. Think of, like, an hypothetical attack that uses the kanji for sword, 刀, but with furigana on top spelling out “espada” -- that would be the name of the attack, but thanks to the kanji it’s attached to, a reader unfamiliar with Spanish (in this case) would know that it means “sword”.

Does Mihawk know about Asura?

Like, considering he trained Zoro, one would assume so. But let's run through some facts;

Unless he showed it during training, Mihawk would have no way of knowing about Asura(everytime it was used, it was in isolation, or in front of a character that wouldn't/couldn't mention it to anyone else)

Zoro's ultimate goal is to beat/kill Mihawk. You don't show your Trump card(Zoro in 1010 specifically calls it his strongest move) to your opponent like that, even if you train under them

Mihawk knows what Conqueror's Haki looks like. Even in the unlikely scenario that he doesn't have it, himself, he knows Hancock and Shanks, and knows they both have it. By that logic, he would almost certainly be able to recognize it

We assume that Zoro did improve his Asura technique over the timeskip. As mentioned above, he calls it his "strongest move", so he would be insane not to at least try improving it

Given all of the above, does Mihawk actually know about it? We're left with a few possibilities:

Mihawk knows, it is Conqueror's, but he didn't recognize it as Conqueror's because it was so unique

Mihawk knows, and it isn't Conqueror's, so he didn't say anything about it

Mihawk knows, and it is Conqueror's, but he didn't say anything for some reason

Mihawk doesn't know, and Zoro somehow trained in secret, so he couldn't say anything

I LOVE how Oda gives mid battle power-ups. Cause Luffy doesn't gain ‘flow’ from pure determination or a ex machina, he just changes how he thinks. He has all the pieces, and Zoro and Kaido helped him put them all together.

Luffy was under the impression that ‘flow’ was armorment haki that was controlled in a certain way to cause internal damage. That’s what made sense to him and Hyogoro because they thought only armorment haki could do that. But when Zoro attacked and was able to scar Kaido with his attack and Kaido CONFIRMED both Kings haki and the scar Luffy suddenly understood. SInce he had been training the technique, just with the wrong Haki he was able to do it perfectly on his first try as well.

I absolutely love it when Zoro defends his captain.

Okay, so, some people who read the latest chapter are saying that they don’t want Zoro to have Conqueror’s Haki because it takes away his hard work and ordinary origins. And they are completely entitled to have that opinion. However, I think Zoro should have CH. Because think about it; yeah, people with CH are born with the ability, but it is also said that they have to awaken it, or otherwise it’ll just remain dormant. So in a sense, it is an ability you have to achieve rather than just have.

Luffy had to awaken his, and he did so at 17. Can you imagine 5 year old Luffy using CH? No, because he followed his brothers without hesitation, rather then led them. You wouldn’t think that kid Luffy would grow up to get CH. He had to achieve his Conquerors, he had to put in his will to command others.

Zoro, in a sense, is the same. He had to achieve his, and he chose at the moment he slashed Kaido, at the moment he accepted to responsibility of First Mate of the Strawhats, that he would have to command and lead, and at times put his will over others. He awakened it through strength of mind and willpower. And we can see that non-Ds and people who weren’t born special achieve CH. In particular, Rayleigh was just an ordinary guy with balls of steel before Roger asked him to join, like Zoro.

So basically, you do need to put in hard work and change in order to gain Conqueror’s. It’s part gamble part pure willpower and work.