 This swordsman is no man. This swordsman is a demon, a D-man, if you will. Although that would make him a man, thus kind of contradicting what I just said. Doesn't matter. What I want to know is if this D-man has access to the rarest brand of Haki in this world. So today we are going to discover once and for all whether or not Zoro is a user of Conqueror's Haki. Hello and welcome to the Grand Line review source for everything one piece. And today it is time to tackle one of those big general questions that have popped up ever since the word Haki was first added in the series. And that is the idea of Zoro being able to develop or unleash Conqueror's Haki. Also known as Halshoku, color of the Supreme King and even Conqueror's spirit, depending on what, if any, translation you are reading or watching. That's not all though, because I myself am simply not capable of deciding this issue on my own. In fact, I don't think anyone is. So we're going to have to settle this whole Zoro Conqueror's Haki situation through the finest process of arbitration that this Western world has access to and that is a game show. So welcome to You've Got Haki. And today our contestant is one, Rourin or Zoro. Throughout this video, I will be making my case as to why Zoro may have access to Conqueror's Haki and why he may not. But ultimately it will be up to our three judges to take in this evidence and deliver a final verdict. These three judges are the only people in the series who have ever dared to define Conqueror's Haki and as so, they are our resident experts, although that's mostly by default. Before we reveal our judges though, just a quick message from our sponsor which today is the subscribe button for the Grand Line review. The pressing of which will grant regular one piece of content uploaded straight into your YouTube feed. Regular intake of this content is scientifically proven to raise your intelligence, lower your stress and even combat a rectile dysfunction. So hit that button today and please do say hi in the comments below if you are a new member of the Grand Fleet. Welcome. Though we're going to begin this exploration with a very important question. What is Conqueror's Haki and does Zoro meet its basic criteria? Which is actually two questions. That's a pretty sneaky move by me. But to answer our first question, let's introduce our judges starting with Trebel. And according to Trebel in chapter 782, Conqueror's Haki is a sign that you have the quality of a king and also a sign that you have been chosen by the heavens. A very almost religious style definition from Mr. Snot Monster, but there you have it. Turning to our second judge, we have Daisy of the Kooja tribe who defined Conqueror's Haki in chapter 519 as the Haki of the chosen ones. Only one in a million has that spirit. So a very similar belief to that of Trebel except Daisy was bold enough to put a number on it in terms of the odds of being blessed with said Haki. And as for our final judge, we have the much more familiar and significantly more significant, Silver's Rayleigh who has a more in-depth explanation of Conqueror's Haki from chapter 597, which is the power to overwhelm the color of the Supreme King. Most people who have made a name for themselves in this world possess this power. Though you can control the color of the Supreme King, you can't train it to become stronger directly. It is the embodiment of the spirit of the user. The only way to make it stronger is for the user to grow stronger. And quite notably Rayleigh makes no mention of needing to be born with this ability as if it was some sort of divine gift. However, it is undeniable that the large majority of canon Conqueror's Haki users have gone on to dominate a certain aspect of existence. Whether it be ruling their own kingdoms, empires or organizations, or just possessing the ambition to one day do that thing. And these three explanations give us three broad categories to define a Conqueror's Haki user by. So we are going to begin by examining Zoro with our first category, the quality of the king. Does Zoro possess this factor? Well, something immediately going in Zoro's favor is his overall dream. His ambition is second only to that of Luffy, really. And Zoro is dead set on becoming the world's greatest swordsman, a task that is much easier said than done because it currently involves defeating one and tricking me hawk, man who used to casually duel against an emperor of the sea. But more so than that, this desire indicates a core drive to stand atop of any individual who would dare label themselves as a swordsman. This dream does present a distinct drive for dominance which is very classically kingly, I do say. Although it's not so much that Zoro wants to rule or do anything, you know, literally king-like, but he does want to stand atop the world, which is pretty strikingly similar to the ambitions of those known to possess Conqueror's Haki, many of whom have had the direct desire to become the Parrot King, an unrelenting quest to stand at the top of the world in their own way. Now a potential counter argument to the whole quality of the king business would be Zoro's subservience to Luffy. It can be difficult to be a king when you do serve the desires of another. One may even say impossible. And furthermore, Zoro has been shown on multiple occasions to be willing to give up on his own personal aspiration in favor of furthering that of Luffy's, which, yes, initially is a bit of an awkward thought until one realizes that two things can be true at the same time. A person can both have the quality of a king whilst currently serving another. And there is precedent for this in almost every canon Conqueror's Haki user that we've met to date. Think about all of our biggest, bestest names, the original four emperors, Whitebeard, Big Mom, Kaido and Shanks, all of whom are Conqueror's Haki wielders and all of whom have served under another at some point in their lives. The first three were convinced to serve under Roxy Zabeck and Shanks himself was a member of the Roger Pirates. Elsewhere, we have the only Marine known to possess Conqueror's Haki at this point in time, Sengoku, and he spent the large majority of his career serving his superiors. Even as Fleet Admiral, he served directly under the world government. And we can also cast our gaze to all of the sea, Bola Hancock and Del Flamingo, who have acquiesced and served the world government at different points in the series. As of right now, there are only three characters with this brand of Haki who have never served another. One being Monkey D. Luffy, another being Eustace Kidd and another another being Goldie Roger. The latter of which was the captain of our judge, Silver's Ray Lee, a man with the epithet of Dark King, but one who still acknowledged another as his captain. So when it comes to the whole quality of a king thing, I think of it as more of having the potential of a king rather than literally needing to meet that position of absolute dominance. But when it comes to this first category, the quality of a king, what do our judges think? Does Zoro have it? Oh, let's find out. And as it turns out, two are for it and one are against it. That one against it being Treble, who I imagine doesn't believe that a demonic presence like Zoro would be one chosen by the heavens. Which is fair enough, I suppose, but that kind of overzealous belief doth not necessarily a conqueror's Haki user make. So let's move on to the second piece of criteria identified by our judges, Ray Lee specifically, I suppose, which this time is the power to overwhelm, quite specifically by force of will alone. And before we do properly examine this, I do need to draw a distinction between the anime and the manga portrayals of Zoro. In the Wano era of the anime especially, there have been moments here and there where it is heavily hinted that Zoro is invoking some kind of conqueror's Haki through sheer force of presence alone, which is usually how it's invoked elsewhere as well. But one example of this is episode 899, which features a scene of Urashima being intimidated by Zoro's aura, which in some was kind of like a watered down conqueror's Haki style effect. However, this scene was not in the manga, although Urashima does make mention of Zoro's quote, strange intensity in chapter 915, which conqueror's Haki or not is a trademark Zoro feature that goes hand in hand with his shockingly tangible demonic aura. And really I'm not sure what to actually call it at this stage because it has no in-world explanation. It's not simply a narratively artistic expression of what Zoro makes his opponents feel. At this point, it is quite literally a manifestation of what has been referred to as Zoro's killing intent and just raw power, which has a very similar effect even if it does not fit the uniform representation of conqueror's Haki. And a well-known example of this would be Zoro's fight against Monet. In chapter 687, Zoro commenced his attack with a menacing glare, which is exactly how almost all expressions of conqueror's Haki begin. Although the effect is different, where conqueror's Haki seeks to dominate the will of another, what Zoro does is more akin to paralysis via fear, which to be fair still meets Rayleigh's vague criteria of conqueror's Haki being the power to overwhelm, which Zoro has shown to varying degrees. Whether it be scaring off weaker combatants like Hiroshima or completely dominating stronger opponents like Monet. Stronger than Hiroshima, that is, not stronger than Zoro. Ha, ha, you're not stronger than Zoro, no one is. So it could very well be that Zoro is already a conqueror's Haki user in moments like these, but it's a variation that we haven't seen before. One that is aimed at producing a more violent style effect. And if you're a hunter-hunter fan, this idea should be quite familiar to you because it would be the equivalent of using your aura to engage in Wren. And if you had a particularly violent will when you were doing so, then that would create the bloodlust phenomena, paralyzing opponents via fear. In any case, before I fall down the nen rabbit hole, we now turn to our judges. Does Zoro meet the criteria of having the power to overwhelm? Oh, let's find out. And similarly to our last vote, we have two in favor of this and one against it. Treble is undoubtedly for it because he is crapping his pants at the very thought of Zoro. Daisy is just, oh, she's just happy to be here. And I imagine that Rayleigh is voting against it because Zoro does not have the power to overwhelm him specifically. That's very, very harsh judging from you, Rayleigh. I guess that's my fault for hiring you. But our final category to examine here is our third identifiable criteria being the embodiment of spirit. Both Rayleigh and Daisy have made specific mention of this word spirit, which very much applies to Haki as a whole, whether it's conquerors, observation, armament, or actually that's it. But Haki is a direct manifestation of spirit, which can also be quantified as willpower, which just FYI, because I get this question a lot. This is the reason why we can say without a doubt that the CP9 members when not Haki uses pre-timeskip. Techniques like Tekai have a similar effect to say armament Haki, but they are purely physically achieved. Whereas Haki involves converting your willpower into a tangible effect, which is very different. In any case, Haki is tied directly to the spirit of the user. Although there are rare circumstances where someone is just an innately good user through natural means, such as Issa from Skypea, who is probably one of the better observation Haki uses that we've ever met. And it has very little to do with her own willpower. She's pretty much in aberration though. And what we need to do for this category is tie Zoro's overwhelming effect to an embodiment of his sheer spirit, which honestly, I feel like we kind of already have done because Zoro has been demonstrably capable of making his feelings and intentions known to others through this effect. Although that may not be the most accurate way to put it because what Zoro does is create more of an illusion of that feeling. Zoro very rarely makes good on these demonic intentions as he has far more of a sense of mercy than he leads his opponents to believe. And I don't want to dwell on this too much but there is also the potential of another force at play here. Something Zoro has access to that nobody else does through the power of one of his swords or some theory along that line. And a very popular one is Zoro's demonic style aura comes from his cursed blade, the Sander Kitetsu, which is a pretty funky idea. However, Zoro's aura phenomenon actually predates his use of the Sander Kitetsu. And the very first mention of this phenomenon is actually way back in chapter three where Kobe makes mention of Zoro's reputation throughout East Blue as a demonic beast, which is actually what sells Luffy on trying to recruit him, funnily enough. But unless this aura is the result of the Wadawichi Monji specifically, Queen's Form of Blade, then I currently have no choice but to assume that this demonic presence is emanating from Zoro himself, which to me definitely satisfies that criteria of embodiment of spirit. Zoro certainly has that going on whether it's conqueror's Haki or not. But on this particular occasion, it's not up to me. Let's turn to our judges now. Does Zoro satisfy our third category being the embodiment of spirit? Let's find out. And once again, it is another two-to-one vote. Rayleigh and Treble both agree. However, Daisy's upbringing on Amazon Lily has led her to believe that men are incapable of doing anything of use, much less embodying willpower. So, hmm. But this does land us as the ultimate question. Does Zoro have conqueror's Haki? Well, our judges may not exactly agree on all of the specific categories and technicalities, but they have all resulted in a very positive outcome. According to Selective Democracy, Zoro meets the three identified criteria by possessing the quality of a king, even if he currently serves another. He also 100% has the ability to overwhelm and furthermore, that power is a direct result of the embodiment of his spirit. As things stands, I actually think that conqueror's Haki is the simplest explanation for Zoro's presence in One Piece. Anything else requires pretty giant leaps of logic, such as being affected by the power of a sword, while having some sort of connection to a demonic force himself, which really does delve into the realm of magic and the supernatural far more than One Piece itself has ever really been comfortable doing. But as much as I have my conclusion and the judges have theirs, the final decision is going to be left up to you. Yes, you. Because I put up a poll in my community section asking you Grand Fleet members whether or not Zoro has conqueror's Haki. So let's see the final verdict. And wow, it looks like just over 70% of you believe that Zoro either has conqueror's Haki or will be able to access it in the future. So I guess that settles this issue and if you don't like the outcome, then you have no one to blame except yourselves. And if you'd like to see some more fun discussions and please do feel free to check out my top 20 worst Double Fruit users video, lots of spicy stuff in there, but please leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join the discussion on my Discord server. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time.