One Piece: Luffy and Zoro vs Scopper Gaban, explained
The latest One Piece chapter featured a brief but thrilling fight as Monkey D. Luffy and his right-hand man Roronoa Zoro took on Scopper Gaban, the former number three of the Roger Pirates. Now a retired old man chilling in Elbaph, Gaban tested Luffy to determine if he was ready to confront Loki, the highly dangerous “Accursed Prince” of Elbaph.
Luffy wasn’t looking for a fight, as all he wanted was the key to free Loki. So, he took Gaban lightly. Once the third greatest pillar of the Pirate King’s crew alongside Gol D. Roger and Silvers Rayleigh, Gaban used his axes to unleash a powerful attack on Luffy that made him regret his casual approach. It was then that Zoro stepped in, blocking Gaban’s devastating technique to shield Luffy.
Gaban’s ferocious attack served as a wake-up call for Luffy and Zoro. Enraged, the two Straw Hats prepared to retaliate with their real strength. However, Gaban suddenly yielded, silently acknowledging their might before handing them the keys to Loki’s shackles. Gaban then calmly left the scene while remembering how Shanks had encouraged him to trust Luffy when the time came.
Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers from the One Piece manga up to chapter 1141.
The latest One Piece chapter saw Luffy and Zoro put to the test by a legendary Roger Pirates member
The fight in the One Piece manga
After Luffy and Zoro ignored his warning about freeing Loki, Gaban grabbed the key to the latter’s shackles and challenged them to take it. Luffy asked Gaban to just hand over the key, telling the old man that they didn’t want to fight him, but Gaban taunted him once again. So, Luffy took the bait and used his Devil Fruit ability to stretch his hands towards Gaban in the attempt to take the key from him.
However, Gaban easily avoided Luffy’s stretched limb and continued to dodge without any problem even when Luffy reiterated the attempt. As Luffy tried to approach Gaban, the old pirate imbued the key with Armament Haki and used it as a mace to smash Luffy into the ground.
As an annoyed Luffy emerged from the resulting rubble, Gaban jokingly called Shanks a cheapskate for letting Luffy hold his straw hat instead of giving it to him permanently. Unaware that Gaban once was a former comrade of the “Red-Haired,” Luffy told him not mock Shanks when he knew nothing about him.
Luffy tried to grab the key again, but Gaban swiftly avoided his attempts. He then shoved part of the key in Luffy’s mouth before pulling out a pair of axes. As Gaban gathered his energy, Zoro sensed the incoming threat and yelled at Luffy to move away immediately.
Realizing the danger, Luffy gasped in amazement as Gaban performed a technique called “Yasotakeru” to unleash a barrage of devastating flying slashes. Zoro quickly jumped to Luffy’s aid and used his swords to block Gaban’s attack.
The deflected blow ended up destroying one of Aurust Castle’s giant-sized towers. Seeing Zoro’s intervention, Gaban silently acknowledged his worth as a good comrade for Luffy.
Annoyed with Gaban’s behavior, Luffy decided to fight for real. He activated Gear 5 while Zoro began to emit Conqueror’s Haki from his three swords. Just as the pair went to attack, however, Gaban suddenly conceded the fight, leaving Luffy and Zoro in disbelief. The two angrily told him to come at them, but he just said that there was no need to fight as the key was in their possession.
Luffy, Zoro, and Nami were still unaware that the old man before them was Scopper Gaban, but when Road tried to reveal this, Gaban himself urged him to stop. He then told Luffy and Zoro to visit him again when they would leave Elbaph, but the two vehemently refused to see him again. With an evident smile, Gaban then left the scene, thinking back to when Shanks spoke to him about Luffy as he walked away.
Gaban wasn’t Roger’s number three just for show
After the previous chapter unveiled Gaban’s reputation as the “Mountain Eater” who once used his two axes to defeat over a hundred pirates while reducing an entire mountain to a treeless wasteland in the process, One Piece chapter 1140 showed off even more of what the former number three of the Roger Pirates can do.
Gaban demonstrated his prowess by toying with Luffy, dancing around him with remarkable agility. To be fair, however, Luffy never really intended to fight Gaban, not using any form of Haki or Gear transformation until the very end of their confrontation. In fact, Luffy never even launched a full-fledged attack, but limited himself to try to snatch the key.
It was impressive for Gaban to avoid all of Luffy’s attempts, but that’s a far cry from getting the upper hand over Luffy in an actual fight. That said, Gaban demonstrated to have exceptional attacking power, as his signature attack—Yasotakeru—was strong enough to destroy an entire tower of Aurust Castle, a structure larger than Elbaph’s mountains, which are already much larger than normal mountains.
A much weaker Zoro incarnation than the current one—three arcs and one huge power-up ago—only needed one sword and a casual flick of his wrist to block the flying slashes from Kaido’s Demolition Gust. In comparison, the current incarnation of Zoro used all three of his swords to block Gaban’s Yasotakeru.
With this in mind, Gaban’s technique looks significantly stronger than Kaido’s. However, it must also be noted that the Demolition Gust’s barrage of flying slashes is an entry-level attack within Kaido’s repertoire, and Kaido specializes in other things, while Yasotakeru is one of Gaban’s serious moves, and Gaban himself is specialized in cutting through targets with his axes.
In any case, Gaban’s Yasotakeru stands out as a move with the power to easily cut through mountains. One Piece author Eiichiro Oda emphasized the force of Gaban’s attack by having Zoro react to it like Big Mom did to Zoro’s own attack during the Onigashima Raid. At that time, Zoro launched a Haki-enhanced slash so powerful that Big Mom became worried and yelled at Kaido, the intended target of the move, to dodge it absolutely.
Zoro’s attack ended up bisecting one of Onigashima’s giant horns, which are clearly mountain-sized. Likewise, in One Piece chapter 1140, Zoro yelled at Luffy to look out for Gaban’s attack, having sensed its insane force. Zoro even felt the need to step in and protect Luffy from Gaban’s move, which is another proof of how strong it was.
Zoro is ready to enter the top tier of One Piece’s powerscaling
The same circumstance undeniably solidified Zoro’s status as an insane powerhouse. The green-haired swordsman blocked a mountain-destroying attack performed by the number three of Gol D. Roger’s crew and did so without any problem, without using a move of his own or his best Haki forms.
The same attack was considered powerful enough to seriously hurt Luffy—who can defend himself with advanced forms of Haki, including the Color of Conqueror—and pushed Luffy to enter Gear 5 after seeing it.
Zoro’s feat is even more impressive considering that, even after witnessing Gaban’s might, he didn’t feel the need to activate Asura or the King of Hell Style, but merely raised his power output by unleashing some Advanced Conqueror’s Haki.
Zoro’s Observation Haki and physical speed were also staggering, as he sensed the power of Gaban’s technique—and perhaps even foresaw a glimpse of its dangerousness—before Gaban even launched it. He then intercepted the attack with lightning-fast quickness, moving to meet it head-on even if he was positioned at Gaban’s side before the latter swung his axes.
When Luffy entered Gear 5, he and Zoro rushed at Gaban to attack him, moving so fast that their dashes morphed into streaks of energy. This not only proves that Zoro is fast enough to match Gear 5 Luffy’s speed, but also cements these two as some of the fastest characters in the series, with their movements being so rapid that they look like energy beams crossing through the battlefield.
Gaban initially harbored doubts about releasing Loki but grew confident in letting Luffy and Zoro do so after witnessing their power. Therefore, Gaban acknowledged the two Straw Hats as first-class fighters, capable of handling a threat as formidable as Loki.
Gaban praised Zoro for blocking his Yasotakeru attack and later recognized Luffy’s Gear 5 transformation, which suggests that the Roger Pirates knew about the true nature of the Human-Human Fruit Model: Nika. The captain and second-in-command of the Straw Hat Pirates are soaring into an electrifying future, with Elbaph being the stage for them to reach new heights.
As for Gaban, he lived up to his reputation as a legendary pirate, showcasing strength and wisdom. He tested the younger generation to gauge their skills, stepping back from combat as soon as his curiosity was satisfied. Had the battle continued, it’s doubtful that Gaban could have won against either Luffy or Zoro, much less both. Still, that doesn’t diminish the strength of the “Mountain Eater,” just highlights the sheer power of the top two Straw Hats.
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