In a world where everybody but him uses subdermals, military prosthetics and neural enhancements Jetstream Sam from MGS Revengeance has almost no enhancements and goes toe to toe with all these bulls**t supermen. Sure he loses a couple of times but he is a friggin badass. He even uses proper Samurai fighting styles against enormous mechs and suchlike.
for me, it's be a title match between Ginji from Black Lagoon or Nameless from Jet Li's Hero. Ginji could cut a bullet in half like a gunslinger draw - sword in sheath at the exact moment the opposing bullet is fired. And Nameless deflected thousands of arrows that were essentially like the "arrows that blot out the sun" from 300 from hitting a building with only a sword. I'm not adding anything else to that.
add to that Date Masamune from Sengoku Basara since he can wield 6 swords at once
Drizzt Do'Urden would be my pick. Extreme aptitude for fighting with two scimitars. Was considered extremely overwhelming for his fighting skill, quick tactical thinking, and lightning speed even by his people's standards. Has had several book series written about him increasing his legend significantly for every novel.
I would say the protagonist from the movie "Hero" should be in the running. (Spoilers ahead)
Though it's unclear how true the details of his story are, it's clear that he was able to convince 3 of the most skilled fighters in all of China to trust his skill, speed and precision to be able to strike them with a non-lethal stab to the gut and eliminate the Emperor with one move from 10 paces away (without even bringing a sword into the palace).
I have to agree with you thiosk. Commissar Cain is absolutely the best swordsman. Maybe not the most deadly, but definitely the best.
Years ago, back when I was part of the Arraxis Prime PDF I had the privilege, no, The Blessing to see the great Commissar Cain in action. There we were, a lone squad of Arraxis' best, facing down a mob of chaos cultists. Our ammo was low, and our moral was even lower.
We could see them there, at the end of the street, massing for another attack. Our lieutenant was catatonic and our Sergeant was missing most of his face. The Cultist had started to move towards, slowly at first, but picking up speed as if they were a tidal wave ready to crash over the lonely bulwark that was our wall of sandbags and faith. All seemed lost when the Commissar came bursting on to the street through the plate glass window of one of the streets buildings. Cain stood there: gun drawn and chainsword brandished, staring down the cultist horde as blood dripped from the wounds he had received in the service of the Emperor.
The cultists stalled their advance with the sudden appearance of the Commissar. I swear on my Fathers grave that the only sound I could hear was the distant thud of artillery and the ragged breathing of the loathsome creatures. One of their number; a tall mutant with teeth sharpened to needle points and a wicked looking scimitar advanced towards Cain. The Mutant struck first, but Cain blocked, then faster than I've seen a man move before or since Cain flicked out his chain sword and beheaded the fiend.
If the mere appearance of one of the Imperium's greatest heros gave pause to the vile heretics then what Cain did next shook them to the core of their thrice damned souls.
In the middle of our two battle lines, the Commissar Cain knelt down on that bloodstained ferrocrete, bowed his head and offered what I can only assume was a pious prayer in thanks to the God-Emperor for a swift victory.
This simple act of faith was so inspiring that one of our number, Private James, jumped from behind the sandbags and ran towards the stalled horde, his las rifle singing in holy rage. And with that our squad's spirit was raised and we to joined the Commissar and James out past the barricade. With one martial action the Commissar had stalled the enemy, and with one simple act of faith Cain had restored ours. Afterwords, when Cain was being attended to by our medic for severe blood loss, I asked him where he had found the courage to do what he had done. He looked over the street with noble dignity and simply said "The Emperor Protects". Never has such profound wisdom been contained in such a common phrase.
Those words changed my life. That year's draft I volunteered for the Imperial Guard, and I can happily say i'm currently being shipped off to Armageddon, to help quickly crush the Cultist and Ork forces that have dared to sully one of the Emperor's worlds. That is why I believe that the Commissar Ciaphas Cain is the best swordsman. Because the Emperor Protects.
This was 25 years back and I read it in a russian language version of a Grimm fairy tale compilation, but one of the stories had a swordsman so badass that his epic quest was to stand in the rain for a full night and he had to parry every single raindrop, if even a single drop of rain landed on him he would fail.
I'm still trying to find the story, apparently it's not one of the more popular ones for the Yanks, I'll edit if I ever find the name or the story.
I think you mean 'The Three Brothers'. He didn't have to stand there for a full night but pretty badass nonetheless.
"Then the third son said, "Father, let me have my turn, if you please;" and, as it was beginning to rain, he drew his sword, and flourished it backwards and forwards above his head so fast that not a drop fell upon him. It rained still harder and harder, till at last it came down in torrents; but he only flourished his sword faster and faster, and remained as dry as if he were sitting in a house. When his father saw this he was amazed, and said, "This is the master-piece, the house is yours!"
Lurker mode disengage... [[Wheel of Time Spoiler-ish Details Within]]
After reading some people vote Rand as the better swordsman over Lan in WoT I couldn't stay silent.
The rules for the comparison are strictly all supernatural abilities and enhancements of any and all kinds are turned off. The contest is purely of swordsmanship and ordinary physical and mental prowess.
Rand's fate-bending and Channeling are off.
Looking at both men, Rand and Lan are both blademasters, both have trained with Aiel, both have extremely sharp reflexes and vast willpower.
However where I feel Lan wins is in breadth of experience. He's been living in a permanent state of war and training since the cradle. He's fought in/led wars against supernatural Shadow Spawn and Aiel. Within the series he's one of the handful of swordsmen who are shown to be able to truly use their sword as an extension of themselves. It's a mental thing not a physical thing. From memory Rand is not one of them.
Rand may have the memories and experiences of his past life however his current body has not physically lived them.
It would be an incredibly long and close fight POST Rand's acceptance of who and what he is, but Lan would win.
I would say Miyamoto Musashi. I know what you're saying..."But he's a real person". Well, a lot of the stories about his life start being a little like Davy Crockett, so the line might be blurred a little between history and story (get it!?!). Anyway, the guy supposedly started sword training at 7 years old. Fought his first duel at the age of 12 (in which he beat an adult samurai...oh, did I mention it was to the death?). He won over 60 duels in his lifetime. Despite his penchant for dueling people to the death, he lived to the ripe old age of 61.
Drizzt is a good fictional option, as he's clearly represented as the most OP thing in Faerun. While I dig the various contenders from the 40K universe, I have to draw issue with the fact that GW would never have a "best" in anything. Each race has it's own version of best swordsman and, since GW refuses to ever move story along past the current point, we'll never really know what would happen if Lucius and Lilith were to throw down.
I guess that's after I stopped, I gave up after those 5 assassins who could teleport, jump on air, and were nearly impervious to harm (thanks to their almost iron skin, even though zoro had previously cut through steel) showed up, occasionally I looked up a bit after that where I learned that if your entire body was turned to ash except your ankles, you'd still be fine, soap makes you impervious to physical attacks, poison can melt things, the main character forgot everything he could do (learning to smash a ship isn't impressive if you could do it in chapter 1, how the hell do you forget how to do that?) and the fire guy can't regenerate himself even though he could previously.
That series started out good, but went to shit fast after they reached the Grand Line.
Ah, you are talking about CP9 and their Tenkai ability, that ability hardens the users muscles to be powerful like Iron to mitigate attacks, Zoro eventually used one his techniques to counter it and eventually won.
They were the strongest the characters had faced up to that point, so its no surprise they had a hard time.
Also, I find One Piece to still be excellent and its the only super long running series I still read (I dropped Naruto and Bleach ages ago)
The problem I had is that it mostly played it straight in the beginning, but later it got absurd with what people could do, not to mention it eventually felt more like an RPG than anything else, with people's levels being decided by their bounty, people with a lower bounty have no chance at beating ones with a higher bounty (whereas in the beginning everyone was on the same level, how they use their ability is what sets them apart), then it got to the point where they would establish that somebody was evil just because he shot somebody else (but didn't kill him) despite the fact that the main characters are wrecking buildings and doing far more horrible things to people, and in the beginning people were dying left right and center.
The fight lengths also got completely absurd, the arc with that lightning guy went on for way to fucking long, then it ended with the villain blowing up a city and getting away scot-free.
Also: "that ability hardens the users muscles to be powerful like Iron to mitigate attacks" this is way after he cut apart a guy made out of steel, there's no reason they should have stood a chance.
The personalities are also all over the place, the main character is occasionally a narcoleptic, their navigator (I forget her name) is occasionally greedy for literally no reason, things like that.
I think my favourite bullshit moment is when they establish how there's no antidote to the poison wardens attacks, and how apparently the pheromone person is the only person who can heal anybody poisoned, and that by doing this it'll take away several years of their life, and just a few chapters later the other prison warden who was locked up was apparently hiding away an antidote (how'd he get it?) for 5 people for 5 years.
Lastly they eventually got really absurd with how people could use their powers, soap making you invincible to anything physical stands out, as does wax that's stronger than steel (but gets melted by poison), not to mention poison that doesn't work like poison (if it affects you when you haven't eaten any of it then it isn't poison), and the scissors person is where they really stopped caring (I don't know if they ever gave them an excuse for why they could literally cut the air and make a staircase out of it).
Overall I'd say it's worse than Naruto (which I also don't think is very good) but leagues above current Bleach, Holy Shit did Bleach ever go bad, it went from being mediocre and very stupid to one of the worst things I've ever seen, both in how it's written, and in how it's drawn.
. In the universe of his book, he was feasibly able to defeat any other swordsman who walked the Earth. It was kind of his deal, being one of the best warriors in a tribe that pumped out the best warriors.
I have, and was thinking Colby from the same series:
Taught Rache.
When his mind was invaded by the consciousness of dozens of dead wizards, he systematically put them all to the mental sword.
Has practiced so much that when he runs through katas without swords people imagine the sword in his hand, because that's the only way he can move that way.
Got stuck in a mental trap where he believed he had to die in battle to reach Valhala, but there was literally nobody on the planet who could beat him and give him that death.
Basically cuts his way through everything that tries to kill him, including but not limited to: non viking heroes, Viking heroes, demons, elves, wizards, Thor, fire giants, Surtr, Surtr's fire that is consuming the world, Odin.
Is the third son of Thor - his norse name literally meant skill.
Can possibly up Rand Al'thor on the wives front: only one wife, but she is Freyja, the norse goddess of love, beauty and war.
his deity which he would be without are:
unaging
immune to mental control
magic sword that can hurt demons/supernatural things.
So have very limited effect in this contest. He goes through most of the series thinking he is just a regular dude until Thor turns up and tries to splat him.
Rand is definitely in my top 5, awesome pic of the ladies.
This was 25 years back and I read it in a russian language version of a Grimm fairy tale compilation, but one of the stories had a swordsman so badass that his epic quest was to stand in the rain for a full night and he had to parry every single raindrop, if even a single drop of rain landed on him he would fail.
I'm still trying to find the story, apparently it's not one of the more popular ones for the Yanks, I'll edit if I ever find the name or the story.
I think you mean 'The Three Brothers'. He didn't have to stand there for a full night but pretty badass nonetheless.
"Then the third son said, "Father, let me have my turn, if you please;" and, as it was beginning to rain, he drew his sword, and flourished it backwards and forwards above his head so fast that not a drop fell upon him. It rained still harder and harder, till at last it came down in torrents; but he only flourished his sword faster and faster, and remained as dry as if he were sitting in a house. When his father saw this he was amazed, and said, "This is the master-piece, the house is yours!"
Okay, this is going to be long, I apologize to the mods if the post is too long, but I did my best to straighten it out.
Warachia said:
The problem I had is that it mostly played it straight in the beginning, but later it got absurd with what people could do, not to mention it eventually felt more like an RPG than anything else, with people's levels being decided by their bounty, people with a lower bounty have no chance at beating ones with a higher bounty (whereas in the beginning everyone was on the same level, how they use their ability is what sets them apart), then it got to the point where they would establish that somebody was evil just because he shot somebody else (but didn't kill him) despite the fact that the main characters are wrecking buildings and doing far more horrible things to people, and in the beginning people were dying left right and center.
Can you give an example of the bounty thing? I never noticed, for the most part, the eleven supernovas (ranging from 101 million to 315 million) were all shown to be thriving in the New World, Luffy beat Crocodile who had a huge difference in bounty and in One Piece, bounty equates to how much of a threat you are to the World Government, the higher the bounty the bigger the threat, so its no wonder strong pirates have appropriately high bounties.
Also, the heroes are pirates who more often than not, fight against a bigger bad, the Straw Hats are not strictly good guys. Luffy: "Heroes are people who would share their meat, a villain would hog it for themselves, I want my meat all for myself"
The fight lengths also got completely absurd, the arc with that lightning guy went on for way to fucking long, then it ended with the villain blowing up a city and getting away scot-free.
At least they served a purpose and didn't exist for no reason (unlike that Arrancar Vs Soul Reaper fight in Bleach that went on for fucking ever with almost nothing accomplished at the end) Also, you mean Enel? He tried to destroy Skypeia, got his face smashed in and left on a broken ship with his goals screwed over, he hardly got off scot-free.
Also: "that ability hardens the users muscles to be powerful like Iron to mitigate attacks" this is way after he cut apart a guy made out of steel, there's no reason they should have stood a chance.
The guy wasn't made out of steel, he could turn any part of his body into sharp blades, Zoro couldn't harm him, but Mr 1's attacks didn't seem to slow Zoro down (despite visible injuries) Mr 1 decided to kill him with a big attack, but this attack left him open to a final powerful attack from Zoro (who Mr 1 thought was too injured to hurt him)
The personalities are also all over the place, the main character is occasionally a narcoleptic, their navigator (I forget her name) is occasionally greedy for literally no reason, things like that.
Rule of funny, Luffy falling asleep when his grandfather is hitting him (who also falls asleep) is played for laughs, not serious out of character moments. For example, a punch from Nami shouldn't hurt Luffy who is made of rubber, but it does because its funny when Nami hits him for his antics. Nami herself is very greedy for money (welcoming a former enemy and assassin on-board once she shares some treasure) Once again, it is played for laughs.
I think my favourite bullshit moment is when they establish how there's no antidote to the poison wardens attacks, and how apparently the pheromone person is the only person who can heal anybody poisoned, and that by doing this it'll take away several years of their life, and just a few chapters later the other prison warden who was locked up was apparently hiding away an antidote (how'd he get it?) for 5 people for 5 years.
This was explained I believe, if inflicted with one poison, an antidote would easily heal it (BB and his crew were hit with only one type of poison from Magellan and went down) However, during Luffy's fight with Magellan, he was inflicted with a multitude of poisons, meaning an anitode would be completely inificent, also, unlike BB, Luffy's body was completely wrecked from the fight and all the poisons, its not hard to believe that during Shiliews rampage, he came across some anitodes to take with him in case he encountered Magellan.
Lastly they eventually got really absurd with how people could use their powers, soap making you invincible to anything physical stands out, as does wax that's stronger than steel (but gets melted by poison), not to mention poison that doesn't work like poison (if it affects you when you haven't eaten any of it then it isn't poison), and the scissors person is where they really stopped caring (I don't know if they ever gave them an excuse for why they could literally cut the air and make a staircase out of it).
Well, it would be boring if they simply made everything straight-forward wouldn't it? Also, with that logic, in Naruto, how did Yamato (who was using his wood powers to repair the village) use his wood powers to make fully hollow interior buildings with carpentered ornaments and roofs? How does Sasuke pull so many fucking ass-pull powers out of nowhere to save him, how does his eye shoot magic squiggle line fire? How many powers does his damn eyes have that get new powers when the plot demands it.
I mean, how does Luffy making his heart-rate faster with Gear Second result in him become super fast? It makes things exciting and makes things less straight-forward than they appear, if we had to explain all of it, it would cease to be an exciting fight series and be homework. Its explained in a way that fits with the universe (how does the One Piece universe have a city and civilization in the sky?)
Overall I'd say it's worse than Naruto (which I also don't think is very good) but leagues above current Bleach, Holy Shit did Bleach ever go bad, it went from being mediocre and very stupid to one of the worst things I've ever seen, both in how it's written, and in how it's drawn.
I consider it the best of that 3 because it has been the most consistent with its story and lore, very few plot holes and inconsistencies exist (most exist because of the anime and around the character Gekko Moriah, these inconsistencies are visual at best)
As for Naruto, the fact that everyone is trying to redeem Sasuke (a mass-murdering psycho) and evidence pointing that he will be redeemed is awful, also, Itachi was a prick even with revelations... (actual spoiler ahead)
(the Uchiha were still planning a coup on the village, making Danzo's action completely justified) Also, why does Sasuke want to destroy the village? He killed Danzo, the man responsible for all his hatred, and what is his excuse for trying to destroy Konoha?
"He is a true avenger"
Fuck off, that makes no sense in any context, he isn't avenging anything after Danzo's death, he is just being a murderer.
If you think something is too long, just put it in a spoiler so it doesn't take up a massive amount of the page, leave a bit like I did here to let other people know that you aren't spoiling anything, just saving space, as such I'll quote a bit of each of your arguments, but I'll still be replying to the whole argument:
"Can you give an example of the bounty thing?"
A big example is when Luffy meets up with that clown guy again (the one who can split apart), and he's almost completely useless (they really had to shoehorn a reason for him to be useful), he spends most of his time smacking the security of the prison all over the place, but because he doesn't have a high enough bounty, he can't hurt them (I seem to recall some guards also laughing at this and deliberately pointing it out) and then Luffy comes along and effortlessly destroys everything without resorting to any of his special moves. Another funny bounty inconsistency is when Luffy's bounty first got to 30 Million, it was apparently enough to call together almost every high ranking officer their navy had and tell them to watch out for this Luffy guy, he's dangerous, and then almost every pirate in the Grand Line had a higher bounty, yet nobody really seems to care that much (they don't even care about anybody with a 250 million bounty and below).
"Also, the heroes are pirates who more often than not, fight against a bigger bad"
And more often than not, they put themselves second, and others first, they're just greedy heroes.
"At least they served a purpose and didn't exist for no reason (unlike that Arrancar Vs Soul Reaper fight in Bleach that went on for fucking ever with almost nothing accomplished at the end)"
But that's EXACTLY what happened with Enel, they had a ridiculous amount of chapter that resulted in nothing because he can just regenerate (stuff only happened when Luffy got there), and he did escape scot-free, he got away with almost all of the gold (I'm not sure why he needed it seeing as how he can just conjure it up whenever he wants), he did destroy the sky city (the actual floating one, not the one on the floating ground), his ship got him to the moon, so it clearly wasn't broken (shown in future chapter covers, and he leaves in the ship to begin with), and finally, why does it matter that he got his face smashed in? He can just regenerate, like he did every other time he got hurt, because people who are elements can regenerate, except when the plot says they can't (Luffy's brother for instance).
This also happened with that shadow guy, they had this bit where they put 100 or so shadows into Luffy so he could have the necessary skills to take out the shadow guy, then it turns out that was entirely meaningless.
"The guy wasn't made out of steel, he could turn any part of his body into sharp blades" And what do you think the blades were made out of? He doesn't cut the guy where he's vulnerable, they had him find faults in the blades the guy was making when he moved/breathed (since every blade has a fault on some level no matter how well crafted), and the CP9 event was also after he cut cannonballs in half, so that's still no excuse.
EDIT: Actually I just looked this up (for fear that I wasn't remembering correctly), he IS made of steel, Zoro just uses a technique that can cut through steel to beat him.
"Rule of funny"
Fine, I never found that funny and just think it's inconsistent writing, but to each their own.
"This was explained I believe, if inflicted with one poison, an antidote would easily heal it"
You're going to have to link this, because I remember them saying that there isn't any antidote to his poisons (as in random antidotes won't cut it). Period.
"Well, it would be boring if they simply made everything straight-forward wouldn't it? Also, with that logic, in Naruto, how did Yamato (who was using his wood powers to repair the village) use his wood powers to make fully hollow interior buildings with carpentered ornaments and roofs? How does Sasuke pull so many fucking ass-pull powers out of nowhere to save him, how does his eye shoot magic squiggle line fire? How many powers does his damn eyes have that get new powers when the plot demands it."
I could go on about this point actually, but the main difference between Naruto and One Piece is in Naruto people have a lot more variety in what they do, not to mention there's setup, if somebody can reshape the earth, then it's not so much of a stretch to believe he can reshape the earth to a specific shape, like a building, whereas with a lot of One Piece the majority of the powers come out of nowhere, there's no setup, just X can do Y, and that's it.
Also in Naruto they attach more limitations to what each power does (barring plot bullshit powers like the sharingan), if you have a technique that lights things on fire, then it will always light things on fire, you can't suddenly make it an ice fire that gives off cold instead of heat. One Piece did something like this with the cyborg who could push things, this means he could push people (by that I mean he could throw them hundreds of miles too), and could heal people by literally pushing out their injuries, which doesn't make any sense no matter how you look at it.
"I mean, how does Luffy making his heart-rate faster with Gear Second result in him become super fast? It makes things exciting and makes things less straight-forward than they appear"
I thought he just learned how to do that teleport move (it happens during his fight with the door guy of the CP9), and Gear Second, for the most part, just made him faster and stronger, but not to a ridiculous degree, which I can buy. It seems more like an extension of an existing power, not to mention gear second was just him remembering how to do things he could already do, rather than pulling a new power out of his ass, and before reaching the Grand Line he could already move super fast and already had Super Strength (he got both by stretching a part himself out in one direction, then firing off in the other direction), I just figured second gear just shortened the process.
I guess I'm just not as forgiving towards the powers in One Piece because they are trying to pass them off as something relating to real life, for example I can buy the wax guy suffocating people, I can buy him making a wax body, and wax walls, I can't buy the wax being stronger than steel, by virtue that it's supposed to be wax, if it's stronger than steel then it isn't wax any more.
Actually there's something I just thought of, sea water takes away their powers, except the Ice admiral, who freezes the water, but given that it's sea water and devil fruit powers don't work on it, he shouldn't be able to freeze it in the first place.
I do agree with how you feel about Naruto though I feel it's a little better than One Piece, mostly for the same reason You think One Piece is better than Naruto, although I'll agree that it is better than Naruto if you can tell me how it makes sense that a woman can stay pregnant for two whole years just because she wants to be, and how 2 people can survive months on an island with no food (after the first month anyway) or water (which they had none of).
I don't think I could agree in my head on a favourite character from WoT, but I always liked the arcs with Mat and Perrin (and their ensemble cast) the best. With Mat 'flaming' Cauthon definitely being the most entertaining.
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