Summary
- Zoro’s Nine-Swords Style: Asura combines illusion with real nine-sword cuts, fueled by inhuman speed.
- Asura’s demonic appearance is just an illusion, tricking opponents’ brains with intense demonic aura.
- Zoro rarely unleashes Asura but uses it strategically against powerful enemies pre-time skip, showing increased strength.
Despite living in a world dominated by guns and devil fruit powers, Zoro carves out a name as one of the strongest swordsmen on the seas. With his unique three-sword style, Zoro has defeated everybody from a low-level Marine soldier to the top executive of one of the Four Emperors of the Sea.
With three swords at his disposal, Zoro has so many options to attack his opponent. From no sword at all to using three swords at the same time, he can adjust his technique according to the opponents or his objectives. And just like the rest of the Straw Hats members, Zoro also became stronger after the two-year time skip. But what is his strongest attack before the time skip? The answer is the Nine Sword Style: Asura, and this is all you need to know about it.
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Nine Sword Style: Asura
Zoro’s signature technique is his three-sword style. He holds two swords with each hand and bites the last sword with his teeth. A full-powered, simultaneous attack from these three swords is usually enough to send the enemy flying. But when a strong enemy comes along and Zoro’s three-swords style is not enough to defeat them, well, he triples the swords and unleashes the most powerful technique, the nine-swords style: Asura.
The Illusionary Demon
When he is in his Asura stance, Zoro appears to have three heads and three sets of arms, which makes it seem like he has nine swords in total. In this state, he looks like the incarnation of the demon god Asura, who also has three heads and nine arms.
Many people will be understandably shocked and intimidated by this demonic appearance, but it is actually nothing more than an illusion. Zoro doesn’t suddenly grow new sets of arms and heads out of nowhere. The sheer amount of demonic aura and bloodlust that he projected during Asura tricked the opponent’s brain into seeing this ungodly form.
“What just happened? For a moment there, he looked like a Demon God with Three Heads and Six arms.”
Nine Deadly Slash at the Same Time
Although the three heads, six arms, and nine swords are mostly illusions, the attack is certainly real. Asura is indeed a technique that can deliver nine simultaneous cuts to the opponents. So how does Zoro achieve such an unbelievable feat? The answer is inhuman speed.
You see, Asura is actually a rather straightforward attack. Zoro simply rushes towards his opponents and unleashes nine heavy slashing attacks. The most fearsome part of Asura is the fact that all of those things happen in a fraction of a second. In the blink of an eye, Zoro cuts his enemy nine times. He can cut them in nine different places, but he usually focuses all of those nine cuts in one or two spots, which creates a grave injury that will threaten the lives of even the most hardened warriors.
Asura in Action
Interestingly enough, compared to his other techniques, Zoro rarely uses Asura. The reason is most likely because he hardly ever feels the need to use such a powerful move against his opponents. This is true both before and after the time skip. Here are a handful of times when Zoro unleashes the devastating nine-swords style: Asura, before the time skip.
Against Kaku of the CP9
The first time we get to see Asura in action is when Zoro fights against one of the CP9 members, Kaku the Giraffe. Zoro has a hard time dealing with Kaku’s flurry of attacks, but for the most part, they are pretty evenly matched. But since Zoro is in a hurry to get the key out of Kaku so that he can save Robin, he decides to end the match as quickly as possible. So he uses Asura.
Kaku doesn’t just stand there and eat the attack either. When Zoro is preparing to launch Asura, Kaku also powering up his strongest move, a high-powered Rankyaku that can easily slash apart a massive tower. They both unleash their strongest attack at the same time, but Zoro turns Kaku’s Rankyaku into a mist and delivers a super-fast slash onto Kaku’s giraffe body. Needless to say, Zoro wins.
Against the Pacifista PX-4
When Luffy punches the insufferable World’s Noble, the World Government deploys their greatest military might—an Admiral and several cyborg clones of Bartholomew Kuma called the Pacifista—into Sabaody Archipelago. The Straw Hat pirates engage in a fight with one of these Pacifistas, specifically the PX-4.
Although the PX-4 is just a mindless machine, it is still an incredibly tough opponent to defeat. It takes the combined power of Luffy’s 3rd Gear punch, Sanji’s Diable Jambe, and Zoro’s Asura, along with relentless attacks from the other Straw Hat to take down PX-4. Sure, Zoro was heavily wounded at the time, but even at his peak condition, he wouldn’t be able to beat PX-4 alone with Asura. So while Asura is certainly an incredibly deadly technique, it is not invincible.
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Asura Beyond One Piece
Now that we’ve talked about what Asura is and some of its greatest highlights during the pre-time skip One Piece, it’s time to take Asura beyond the pages of this legendary series. The first part is about the existence of “Asura” in real-world mythology, while the second part is about the sword technique that is similar to Zoro’s Nine-Swords Style: Asura.
Asura in Real-World Mythology
In Buddhist mythology, Asura is the name of powerful beings with superhuman strength. Despite their monstrous strength, however, Asura is lower in spiritual development, especially compared to beings who sit at much higher levels than them, such as the Devas. Furthermore, Asura are prideful, envious, and wrathful beings, which is why they often wage wars or engage in combat. Asura is often portrayed with three heads and three pairs of arms, just like the one that we can see whenever Zoro is in his Asura stance.
Nine-Sword Style in Other Anime
What makes Zoro’s Asura so devastating is the fact that Zoro unleashes nine simultaneous slashing attacks on his target. While that is certainly mind-blowing, Zoro is not the first swordsman to have such an attack. Himura Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin also has a similar attack. The technique is called Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū: Kuzuryūsen. Just like Asura, Kenshin also performs super fast slashing attacks that allow him to land deadly cuts simultaneously at nine different spots. Unlike Asura which utilizes Zoro’s three-swords style, however, Kenshin only uses a single katana.
That’s all you need to know about Zoro’s Nine-Swords Style: Asura. By the way, even though this article talks about Asura as Zoro’s strongest pre-time skip technique, it is arguably still Zoro’s most powerful technique now. In fact, with his much-improved strength, sword technique, and understanding of Haki, Asura is certainly way more powerful than ever. Looking forward to seeing this deadly technique in the future.
One Piece is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
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