Oda Has Already Decided The Strongest Character In One Piece History

One Piece is a phenomenal story with mind-blowing world-building, character writing, and phenomenal lore. Oda, the author of the series, has made sure that the story keeps delivering quality year after year, and his consistency is absolutely incredible. 27 years after the beginning of the serialization of the manga, it is safe to say that One Piece is only getting better, especially now that the series is headed deep into the Final Saga.

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It is here that Oda will go on to reveal the most complex plotlines, and at the same time, have the strongest characters gather. Luffy, the protagonist of the series, continues to go from strength to strength, and although he’s quite strong right now, he still has ways to go. There are old characters who are known to be far stronger, and there are those who sail the seas currently, holding a higher level of strength, as well as those who are hidden in the shadows with tremendous power. Among all these incredible characters, only one can stand at the very top, and Oda has already decided who it is going to be come the end of the story.

The Current Strongest In One Piece

• Among the Pirates, Shanks Is The Strongest
• Imu Is The Overall Strongest At The Moment

There are quite a few mighty characters in One Piece, and, undoubtedly, the Four Emperors are among them. There are also powerful Marine Admirals and also members of the Revolutionary Army who stand at the very top. However, even among all these characters, there are some who stand out from the rest. The likes of the Revolutionary Army have Dragon as their strongest, but his true strength hasn’t been seen in the story so far, and he has no strength to show for himself. The Marine Admirals are quite powerful, but right now, in the Final Saga, they’ve already been overpowered. The Seraphim are still very young, which means that the strongest characters are most definitely among the Yonko. Within this bunch, the one who, quite clearly, stands out the most is Shanks, and it is fair to state that on the seas, Shanks is the mightiest character in One Piece right now. His strength is absolutely immense and he possesses enough power to rival even Joy Boy in terms of Haki. Anyone with that pedigree and skill is undoubtedly the strongest in the world.

While Shanks is the strongest on the seas, there are also characters who don’t sail the seas and have their identity hidden. Among them, the one who is the strongest is, by far, Imu. Overall, Shanks and Imu can be considered to be the two strongest characters in One Piece, but when comparing the two, it is quite clear that Imu is likely the superior one. This is simply down to the fact that Imu is the ultimate antagonist of One Piece and a character with power great enough to defeat even Joy Boy. With the skill to give and take immense powers from others and the ability to rule the entire world which is greater than even the Five Elders, Imu is undoubtedly the strongest.

Why Luffy Is Destined To Be The Strongest

Luffy Has To Defeat Imu

While Imu is the strongest in the world currently, Oda has already decided on who the strongest of all time will be, and that’s none other than Luffy. Fans know Luffy to be the man who will become the Pirate King, and right now, he’s among the Four Emperors of the Seas. Luffy is already incredibly powerful, and his overall strength is comparable to the other Yonko, although he most certainly isn’t the strongest of the bunch at the moment. That said, Luffy is far from his peak right now. He still has a lot to learn about Haki as well as the applications of the Nika fruit, which means that Luffy’s strength and skill will only go higher.

In the Egghead Arc, Oda set a level for Luffy to reach himself, and that alone basically confirmed to the fans that Luffy will go on to reach a very high level in the future. When Luffy was fighting against the Elders, Oda purposely showed the fans that none of his attacks were working. Yet, when Emet unleashed Joy Boy’s Haki, the Elders took damage, and four of them were warped back to Marijoa. Clearly, Joy Boy’s Haki level is where Luffy must be when he fights Imu, and he most certainly will be, because Oda himself used the moment to show Luffy where he needs to be in terms of power.

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Then, one needs to consider the fact that while Luffy reaching Joy Boy’s level is a given, he needs to get even stronger and surpass Joy Boy, if anything. Without Luffy surpassing Joy Boy, he cannot do what Joy Boy couldn’t. Luffy needs to go beyond all those who came before him and become even stronger than Joy Boy to defeat Imu for good, and in the process, liberate the world. As such, it is quite clear that at the end of One Piece, the one who will be the strongest of all is none other than Luffy, the Pirate King himself.

Can Anyone Rival Luffy In One Piece?

A Select Few Would Be In Luffy’s League

There is most certainly going to be no equal to Luffy at the end of One Piece, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t have people in the same tier as him. Fans already know that Shanks and Imu belong to that tier already, and there is absolutely no doubting the fact that Blackbeard is going to be on that level as well. He’s one of the biggest One Piece villains after all, and he’s definitely going to get even stronger than he is currently.

More than that, Oda has also recently hinted that Zoro and Sanji will be in the same league as Luffy, although they’ll definitely be weaker than him. As such, they’re going to be around the same tier of strength as well. Perhaps, the characters closest to Luffy will be Imu and Joy Boy themselves, but at the end of the day, it matters little because Luffy is most definitely going to be the strongest of them all.

Still, at the moment, Luffy is not the strongest and he has many areas to improve in before he gets to that level. Luffy’s training continues as he aspires to become even greater.

One Piece is available to read via Viz Media. The series can be read by the fans officially and for free on the Shonen Jump and the Manga Plus apps. The release date for the next chapter of One Piece, One Piece 1140, is set to be February 23, 2025.

One Piece

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

• 

  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

• 

  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)