One Piece: What Kid vs Shanks Says About Law and Luffy

The nature of Captain Kid's fight with Red Hair Shanks redefines his, Luffy, and Law's capabilities in terms of battling Emperors one-on-one.

Chapter 1079 of One Piece, "The Emperor's Crew, the Red-Haired Pirates," ended in tragedy for the Kid Pirates. Not only was their captain taken down, but they also lost their Road Poneglyph rubbings and their ship. This outcome could say a lot about other pirate crews and their chances of finding the One Piece.

Eustass Kid and his Kid Pirates were presented to be on par with two more pirate crews in the New World. There are the Straw Hat Pirates led by Monkey D. Luffy and the Heart Pirates led by Trafalgar Law. If Kid's fate is anything to go by, then either of these crews trying to face an Emperor alone could turn out similarly catastrophic.

How Strong Are Luffy, Kid, and Law Compared to Shanks and Blackbeard?

The tragedy of the Kid Pirates was short and brutal. While challenging the Red-Haired Pirates, Kid was planning to use his Damned Punk attack to sink several ships in the fleet. Shanks foresaw this grim outcome with his advanced Observation Haki and rushed over to Kid's ship, the Victoria Punk, to take him down instantly with a Divine Departure; he didn't even give the Supernova a chance to fight. Following this, the remaining crewmates surrendered their Road Poneglyph rubbings in the hope of earning Shanks' mercy, but their ship was still sunk. According to the narrator, this all but marks the end of the Kid Pirates.

This is about how Kid and his contemporaries are expected to come out in a battle with an Emperor-level pirate crew. Things only turned out well on Onigashima because they all combined their forces with those of the people of Wano. When fighting together like this, they could take on the likes of Kaidō and Big Mom even with a general strength disadvantage.

If it's just the Supernovas and their own crews, however, the results will be much different. The captains simply aren't good enough to fight Emperors on their own, at least not yet. If Luffy or Law tried to fight Shanks right now, they'd likely be similarly manhandled.

This is especially troubling for Law as his crew is currently in a confrontation with Blackbeard, another Emperor. So far, Law has been doing well, but that shouldn't be expected to last; it also might have something to do with him being more popular than Kid. The Surgeon of Death will likely end up losing this fight just as Kid lost to Shanks, just not as badly.

What Can Luffy Do to Overcome the Power Gap?

All of this is meant to show the kinds of challenges Luffy will face coming out of Egghead. Since Kid and Law are supposed to be comparable to the Straw Hat captain, their losses will give audiences an idea of the power gap between the three of them and the Emperors. At the same time, Luffy is the protagonist, so he's narratively obligated to fight against Shanks and Blackbeard at some point and win. Kid and Law are losing their Emperor battles so that Luffy doesn't have to.

As for how Luffy can get strong enough to fight Shanks or Blackbeard, he's got at least one more arc before he has to worry about that. Right now, his biggest upcoming challenge is learning to handle Admiral-level threats on his own, namely Kizaru; some are also theorizing that the Blackbeard Pirate ship headed for Egghead has Aokiji on it. Luffy will likely overcome this obstacle and grow stronger from it.

This won't be enough to completely surpass Shanks or Blackbeard, but it should at least give him more of a fighting chance than Kid and Law. If he's lucky, he might get some mini arcs between fighting Shanks and Blackbeard to really hone his strength; perhaps he'll end up paying Cross Guild a visit. For now, however, as far as fighting Shanks and Blackbeard is concerned, he's in the same sinking boat as Kid and Law.

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