2. No enhanced abilities for the combatant or the weapon. For example Luke Skywalker of Star Wars could compete but he would not have access to the Force, nor would his lightsaber be able to cut through his opponent's weapon.
Don't forget the time he cut a radish in half and then stuck it back together into one piece because his cut was so precise it "didn't damage any of the cells" or something. Melodramatic plot aside this was a very silly series and seemed to have strained relationship with physics, biology, common sense...
The point is I maintain is that even without those aspects Kenshin would still be a very capable fighter. I'm not familiar with GI Joe but I like you pick. : )
I'm gonna nominate Colbey Calistinsson from last of the Renshia series by Mickey Zucker Reichert.
He's just a human, but he focuses totally on mastering the sword, eventually becoming a god basically and does so over a decent number of books showing the progression of his sword skills past the level of the gods. Awesome series...and the best depiction of someone becoming an ultimate sword master I have seen.
Drizzt was not defeated by Dahlia btw, he just refused to fight her. He figured she would not actually kill him/hurt him...so I guess he was wrong...and lost the fight, but her combat skills where not better then him, he just wouldn't fight back.
While Drizzt is an excellent fighter, he's a mortal fighter with mortal skills that can be stopped or held back by other mortal fighters (even if it takes more then one sometimes). Colby on the other hand surpassed that even as a mortal, being so good that he trained the Renshai and could take on many of them at once even at the start of the series. He just continued to progress from there, and I would surmise that he would have been at least the equal of Drizzt at the very start of the books.
While Colby does get other powers eventually, his basic definition is his dedication to the sword. He does not rely on magical items that boost his abilities (bracers of speed, magical weapons etc) like Drizzt...who would actually be at a strong disadvantage without them after fighting that way for so long.
Even in the recent books Jaraxle was trying to keep drizzt away from another drow (forget his name) because even though Jaraxle thought drizzt would beat him, he thought it would be a close fight. If you take Drizzt's magical items away...well....he would still be exceptional, but he would also be beatable by many fighters throughout forgotten realms (especially if they still had their magical boosts like that other drow).
Drizzt loses many fights, or would have without his friends/panther. He is a great character, and a good fighter, but I would not consider him in the same league as the best swordsmen in literature.
I've got to throw my vote in with Rand as well. With very little training and no magical assistance from heightened senses or increased strength/agility AND having a wound that pulsed with evil in his side the whole time he is training and fighting. From this we see he has:
Incredible will power
Focus like you wouldn't believe
Superior reflexes (from a hard life and blood of savages and kings)
Humble (He trains against multiple commoners and noblemen at the same time giving them incentives to beat him fair or not)
Pragmatic (he keeps training with the sword despite having wielded magic capable of remaking the world)
His own style (Was trained by Lan, the Aiel and I want to say others but I can't think of any one else at the moment)
Fearlessness and determination (You have been blessed/curse with magic that will drive you to destroy everything you love and have to go fight Satan, good luck)
on one hand, shishio beat kenshin, and only lost through time-out. however, on the other hand, kenshin hit him with the amakakeru ryu no hirameki. you could say kenshin would have beat shishio, and only lost because he was wielding the reverse blade sword.
since the thread is just asking for pure skill, let's gauge kenshin's ability with a normal sword rather than the reverse blade.
No, not the character he played in that small, rather unknown trilogy of movies called Lord of the Rings. The real Viggo Mortensen. Send your klingons and your conquerors, your moody manga and anime Mary Sues, your knights of honour and deceit, wizards wielding swords and wannabe rangers of that neverending Wheel of Time; let them taste the blade of reality and fall to skill of not only a masterful swordsman, but also a good man.
Given that we are to nominate a swordsman who is either a human or who is reduced to human-level ability, I am going to have to put forth the somehow over-looked Cohen. There are those who are swifter, stronger or even more skilled, but none combine both sheer athleticism and skill to overcome any enemy!
Considering her identity is revealed in the first episode, and it isn't a plot-point, I didn't think it was important enough to put in a spoiler tag. Also, I haven't seen or played Fate/Stay Night, only seen Carnival Phantasm lol, so I'm not too familiar with him aside from his love for a Temple gate. Still waiting on the ufotable remake you see.
Mugen or Jin from Samurai Champloo... One fights to his own instinct and improve while the other fights with technique and skill... Despite being polar opposites, they are too equal to beat each other in combat...
(Everyone else said the ones I had in mind before and afterhand...)
It's been a while (by which I mean like a good 5 or 6 years) since I watched the anime, but didn't it take both of them to beat the samurai who smelled like sunflowers? And also, didn't Jin get his ass kicked pretty hard by a blind woman? Yeah, not exactly what I would consider the strongest.
They are VERY good, but you're right, they have in-lore people who can thrash them. Although it wasn't the sunflower samurai they fought. I won't go any further than that, because I want people to watch the series and enjoy it fully.
OT: I was going to say Roronoa Zoro, but where I am, Mihawk is probably still better than him. I'm watching the Funi dub, so no spoilers, please.
Al Lan Mandragoran. Is just a man, no superpowers, no cheating move, just skill with a blade. He was an infant while the kingdom of Malkier fell. In his cradle you was given a sword. As other children played withe toys, he learned the blade.
At the age of 16 he took the Malkieri oath of kings a:"To stand against the Shadow so long as iron is hard and stone abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be defended."
His kingdom and people lost he fights the armies of the shadow.
Al Lan Mandragoran. Is just a man, no superpowers, no cheating move, just skill with a blade. He was an infant while the kingdom of Malkier fell. In his cradle you was given a sword. As other children played withe toys, he learned the blade.
At the age of 16 he took the Malkieri oath of kings a:"To stand against the Shadow so long as iron is hard and stone abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be defended."
His kingdom and people lost he fights the armies of the shadow.
+1 to Lan. Someone mentioned Rand as being better than Lan, but if you stripped away Rand's saidin enhanced senses, I'm quite sure Lan is the better swordsman.
I am more impressed by swordsmen who live in more "realistic" universes and at least try to follow the laws of physics, like not being afraid to show the truly gruesome results of having a sword cut through you.
If I have to start naming any swordsmen from goddamn Bleach or One Piece (who can cut the world in half) then doing this would seem pointless.
1) Afro Motherfucking Samurai
Silent, badass, hell-bent on only revenge. Is fast enough to cut bullets in half and dices though his fellow man like they're made out of butter, sending heads and limbs flying at whim.
2) Guts - Berserk
Insanely strong and waves that car-sized sword around like it was a feather. But not in the Final Fantasy sense, when you watch Guts fight you genuinely FEEL the weight and momentum he builds when he swings/slices with that thing (literally cutting through medieval armor, etc).
3) King Bradley - Fullmetal Alchemist
Nobody in the FMA universe stands a chance against Bradley in a 1-on-1 fight, funnily enough he doesn't get much screen-time - but when he does, shit is guaranteed to serious. It took the combined effort of like 5 people (all main characters) to slowly wound him and eventually kill him.
Well I don't know if she's the best swordsman but I'd say she's up there. Known as Sabre, I present King Arthur of Nausverse fame.
I suppose taking away all her magical abilities, Excalibur is a magical weapon initself I believe, doesn't do her any favours but that doesn't take away her ability with a sword.
Nope. In the Nasu-verse there are several better swordsmen then her, though they tend to be less powerful in some other way- for example, while it never outright says it, it's implied that Lancelot (while sane) is actually a better swordsman (if only slightly), but is slightly lower ranked in other things, and also only wields Arondight- The Unfading Light of the Lake, which is less powerful than Excalibur- The Sword of Promised Victory.
Heracles qualifies for several classes (Saber, Archer, and Berserker), and, as he was able to defeat the Hydra with nothing but a normal sword and just his own speed and power (compared to Saber always having access to a Noble Phantasm), he may be better than her.
Sasaki Kojiro is outright stated to be a better Swordsman then her, and in fact, the visual-novel makes a whole big deal about how the only reason Saber wins their fight (in UBW route) is because Monohoshi Zao is just a normal sword, while Excalibur is a Last Phantasm, a miracle given form, "the crystallization of the prayer "Glory" is the form of a Sword Illusion." Sasaki Kojiro, in their first fight, had his blade slightly damaged because it was inferior to Excalibur. This made his "Hiken: Tsubame Gaeshi" imperfect, and allowed Saber to grasp a victory in their second fight.
Sasaki Kojiro does fight off Lancer, Saber, Archer, Rider, and Berserker at separate points (off screen). Caster does help, but mostly against Berserker (because Heracles).
Now that I've sufficiently Nasu-verse'd out, and probably been kind of rude in the process (sorry!), here's my pick.
Miyomato Musashi as he would appear in the Nasu-verse. He was the one, in the legends, to defeat Kojiro, so even though Kojiro is a false Servant who never existed, Musashi would be greater, and due to how Nasu-verse magic works, even if he also never existed, he could still be summoned as someone with a "Skill greater than Kojiro's."
Not actually a retelling, but an alternate universe- the second True Magic, Kaleidoscope: Operation of Parallel Worlds, allows us to understand there are an infinite number of alternate universes. In fact, the sequel to Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, takes place in a 4th alternate universe where the events of the 5th Holy Grail War are different then what they appeared in any of the routes (actual end or bad end) in F/SN. Every single bad end is also not just a "bad end" but an alternate universe where that "bad end" is the actual event that ocurred. Which means that F/SN details the events, in part or in full, of over 40 Parallel Worlds.
Well, the obvious answer would be Sephiroth, since he's insanely skilled and overpowered.
Assuming you only want "normal" warriors, however, I'll throw my lot in with Guts, the Black Swordsman. He's insanely strong, but he wins the majority of his early fights by either playing dirty or outsmarting his opponent. I would say he could easily take down any human opponent on this list, since they can't use magic. The only competition I can think of would be Link. Without the Berserker armor it's a close call, but I think Guts takes it since Link can't use any gadgets. With the Berserker armor it's basically a curb stomp battle in Guts's favor.
Pretty much this. Insanely strong, fast, skilled. I mean if you think of all of his achievements, even before the berserker armor, it's crazy. I can't claim to be familiar with every character offered up (I'm sure Drizzt has pulled of some pretty insane stuff) but I mean, going toe to toe with Zodd the immortal and coming out on top, that's pretty much like beating the highlander yeah?
He might not be the most powerful in this thread, despite his inhuman reflexes and all. However despite being raised by a bunch of mercenaries he develops a strong sense of morality, and uses his sword as a last measure.
Part of being a good swordsman is knowing when to use it, aye?
(+ hes a darn cool dude)
I don't have any images like a lot of you guys do since mine is from a novel/series of novels from The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron, he's fought demons, elements of nature, armies, ships, a goddess.
Josef Liechten is the best swordsman in the world and has the best sword in the world the Heart of the Mountain, it is a mountain condensed down into the shape of a sword and can only be lifted by those it choose to let it and it only lets the best lift it. For so long during the series he didn't use the sword because he felt it was to easy to use and didn't make him the best swordsman out there.
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