Oda May Have Revealed Zoro’s Elbaf Opponent

The Elbaf arc of One Piece is absolutely massive, and just by looking at the first few chapters of the arc, fans can already tell that it’s more akin to the likes of Dressrosa and Wano than, say, Zou. Arcs that big usually come with their own set of fights, and fans absolutely cannot wait to see what the Straw Hat Pirates will face in the land of the Giants.

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When speaking of One Piece fights, there is one character who fans always love to see involved in battles, and that’s the swordsman of the crew as well as the Number 2, Roronoa Zoro. Undoubtedly, Elbaf is going to be absolutely massive for the Straw Hat Pirates and it’ll give them major battles, especially with the enemies slowly making themselves known one by one. For Zoro, the opponent might already have been revealed by Oda, and it is quite an intriguing fighter, to say the least.

Zoro To Face The Wrath Of Loki

• Zoro Is In The Underworld
• Oda Will Hype Up Loki Soon

Zoro hasn’t enjoyed any major battle in Elbaf yet, and he hasn’t even had a good skirmish with anyone powerful either. However, all that will change soon enough as Zoro and Luffy are currently on their way to the Underworld of Elbaf. They recently secured the key for Loki’s chains and decided to go to the Underworld to free him. Now, it is inevitable for Loki to be free again. As is clear already, Loki has been chained up for about 6 years now, which means that it is time for him to be out, finally. Having been hailed as the destroyer of the world, and the man who only Shanks could’ve stopped in the past, Loki is an absolute menace.

Right now, fans are itching to see Loki fight, and it is only a matter of chapters before he shows his true strength to the readers. It must be noted that Loki isn’t entirely a bad guy. Even though he’s done some bizarre things in the past, and even caused large-scale destruction, in his own way, Loki is simply trying to be Nika, who can either be the God of Liberation or God of Destruction. In Loki’s mins, he’s to destroy the whole world, but fans know that he’s got a soft side. Regardless of that, however, Loki will fight against the Straw Hat Pirates, at least in a skirmish. This is absolutely necessary for the plot because Oda wants to show the strength of Loki, and that only means one thing—Zoro will fight against Loki soon enough.

As Luffy and Zoro free Loki, he will most likely attack them, or at the very least, challenge them to a fight. These two will inevitably clash against Loki, which means that Zoro will get the chance to show what he’s all about. Based on how Oda has hyped up Loki, there is absolutely no way that Zoro will be strong enough to take Loki on in battle. However, that doesn’t mean he can’t hold his own. Zoro will most definitely take a secondary role in this battle, while Luffy fights Loki head-on. This battle is most certainly not going to be Zoro’s big battle in Elbaf, but it will be the first major fight that he will engage in. It will most certainly give Zoro an idea of what Loki’s power level is like, and at the same time, what’s expected of him if he’s to truly reach the very top of the pecking order in terms of strength. Zoro will most likely take some heavy hits in this fight, and unfortunately, he will be used to hype up Loki even more, because that’s just how Oda has built up Loki so far.

Zoro’s Big Elbaf Opponent — Saint Sommers Of House Shepherd

Saint Sommers Vs Zoro Will Be The Bigger Fight

While Zoro will most certainly have a very exciting battle at hand when it comes to Loki, it is most definitely not going to be his biggest battle. This is simply down to the fact that Zoro is going to take a background role in the first fight, but that’s not going to be the case going forward.

As has already been established by Oda, the main villains in the arc are going to be the Holy Knights, which means that Gunko, Killingham, and Sommers are going to be at the forefront of things. Shamrock could potentially be involved as well, but if he truly goes back to Marijoa, there is absolutely no way that he’ll be fighting anyone in Elbaf.

Zoro’s main fight, when it comes to the enemies in Elbaf, is most certainly going to be Sommers. Saint Sommers was introduced recently in the story, and it was quite clear to see that he’s a force to be reckoned with.

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As a member of the Holy Knights who stands side-by-side with even the likes of Shamrock, he’s going to be strong. Fans should already have an idea of how strong Sommers is going to be.

For one, Shamrock is likely stronger than Loki. Meanwhile, Shamrock stated that Gunko was strong enough to bloody Loki in battle even if he was unchained. This clearly implies that Gunko is, at the very least, in the same league as the Admirals of the One Piece world. At the same time, if Sommers is anywhere close to Gunko in strength, then Zoro has an admiral-level opponent at hand, which means that it’ll be his strongest enemy in the story yet, aside from Dracule Mihawk, of course. Sommers wields a sword as well, as was seen recently, and he most likely has an overpowered fruit at hand too. This means that Zoro Vs Saint Sommers will be a massive battle the likes of which fans haven’t seen the Straw Hat Swordsman fight before.

Will Zoro Be Ready For Mihawk After Saint Sommers?

Zoro Should Be Admiral Level After The Fight

Right now, Zoro isn’t as strong as an Admiral, which is the plain truth, despite some fans wanting to twist the narrative. However, that doesn’t mean that Zoro won’t get to that level. He’s the man who has to one day beat Mihawk, which means that Zoro has to get stronger. If Sommers truly is comparable to the Admirals of the One Piece world, then Zoro should be worthy of a bounty closer to 3 billion berries post-Elbaf, regardless of whether he gets that reward or not.

Given that Mihawk has a bounty of 3.590 billion berries, this only means that Zoro will be in the same league as him, and at the same time, that he will be finally ready to face Dracule Mihawk in the Final Saga.

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 1141, is set to be March 2, 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)