One Piece Chapter 1193: Zoro's Haki Grind Has Japan Calling Him the Real Protagonist

One Piece Chapter 1193 has Zoro sparring with Somers, an immortal member of the Gods' Knights guarding Elbaf, purely to drill his Conqueror's Haki — because Somers can't actually die, Zoro gets to land the same attack over and over until it finally counts. Luffy, meanwhile, spends the chapter still stuck in his cartoonish "Nika" form, laughing his way through his own fight instead of driving it.

Across 243 comments on a Japanese reaction video, the top comment (695 likes) skips the fight scene entirely and just names a winner in a different contest: right now, it says, Zoro feels like the real protagonist. Most of the thread agrees, though a smaller group pushes back — arguing that an opponent tough enough to survive but weak enough to lose on command is also just a suspiciously convenient plot device for a power-up arc.

By the end, nobody's arguing Luffy should disappear. They're just not talking about him nearly as much as they're talking about Zoro.

One Piece Chapter 1193 has Zoro sparring with Somers, an immortal member of the Gods' Knights guarding Elbaf, purely to drill his Conqueror's Haki — because Somers can't actually die, Zoro gets to land the same attack over and over until it finally counts. Luffy, meanwhile, is still stuck in his cartoonish "Nika" form, laughing his way through his own fight instead of driving it. It's a training montage dressed up as a battle, and on a Japanese reaction video with 243 comments, the very top comment doesn't mention the fight scene at all — it just names a winner in a completely different contest.

That single line sets the tone for most of what follows — but before the thread gets to agreeing or arguing with it, a lot of it is too busy feeling sorry for the guy Zoro's using as a punching bag.

There's real affection for the setup itself. An opponent who can't actually die means Zoro gets unlimited attempts, and more than one commenter treats that as genuinely clever writing rather than a cheat code.

Not everyone buys it that cleanly, though. Buried in the praise is a more skeptical read: an opponent who's tough enough to survive but weak enough to lose on command is also just a very convenient plot device for a power-up scene.

That skepticism doesn't kill the bigger conversation, though — it just gets folded back into it. Most of the thread keeps circling the same comparison: Luffy played for laughs, Zoro played straight, and readers deciding which one they'd rather be watching right now.

• “He's genuinely just fighting seriously, like normal... it's just that the protagonist is the one cackling through it...”👍53⇄ちゃんと真面目に戦ってるだけなんだけどね……。主人公がゲラゲラしてるから……— @upper_downer · 👍53
• “Even lately, this Zoro fight is genuinely fun to watch.”👍60⇄最近でもこのゾロの戦いはマジで面白い— @トロピカルせんべい · 👍60
• “He's way stronger than base Luffy at this point, right?”👍37⇄通常ルフィより遥かに強いよな— @さかな11号 · 👍37

By the end, the consensus reads less like hype for Zoro and more like a shrug about Luffy — nobody wants him gone, they just keep forgetting to talk about him.

The other running joke — about exactly how long this training arc is going to take — gets the last word, and it lands as much on Eiichiro Oda's pacing as it does on Zoro's Haki.

243 comments in, that's the closest thing this chapter gets to a verdict: readers are fully willing to wait for Zoro to earn his Conqueror's Haki the hard way, one immortal sparring partner at a time — they just aren't pretending Luffy's the one holding their attention while it happens.