Yonkos vs Admirals (One Piece Power Comparison)

One of major questions of One Piece world is the strength of Yonko vs Admirals. Yonkos and the Admirals are some of the most powerful fighters in the One Piece world – the most powerful known, until the reveal of the Gorosei and the God Knights.

Bounties and Strength

But are bounties the good guide to character strength? I believe that they are, at least for the established characters. This can be seen in Blackbeard’s behavior pre- and post- -timeskip. But first to establish bounties, because we have two bounty systems. First one are bounties on pirates provided by the World Government, while the second system is newly established Cross Guild bounty system which places bounties on marines.

World Government bounty system is fairly straightforward: you have a pirate and a bounty. Luffy was given a 30 million berry bounty after defeating Arlong, and it has risen to 3 billion after he defeated Kaido.

Cross Guild system however is different: instead of exact figures, they use stars and crowns. Crown is 1 billion berries and a star is 100 million berries.

All Navy admirals as well as Garp were given three-crown bounties, making each of them worth 3 billion berries. Marine Captains normally have bounties of 100 million berries, but Coby had 500 million berry bounty. Ranks above the Captain are Commodore, Rear Admiral, Vice-Admiral, Admiral, and Fleet Admiral. It is tempting to assign commodores 200 million, rear admirals 500 million, and vice admirals 1 billion bounties.

Now it becomes possible to see how bounties relate to strength. Going back to Blackbeard, we know that he ran away from Akainu pre-timeskip (immediately after the Marineford War) with his entire crew, yet in recent chapters he had gained Kuzan as a commander, and Kuzan fought evenly with Garp. This sequence of events supports the idea that bounties are approximately proportional to person’s fighting strength, at least once one gets to well-known characters. Akainu and Kuzan as admirals will have had 3 billion berry bounty, while Blackbeard’s bounty at the time he had run from Akainu will have been either at or below 2,25 billion berries (his bounty in Chapter 925, well after the timeskip, was 2 247 600 000 B).

In fact, combined bounties of Blackbeard’s commanders will have been:

• Blackbeard: 2 247 600 000 or below
• Jesus Burgess: 20 000 000
• Shiryu: unknown
• Van Augur: 20 000 000
• Avalo Pizzaro: unknown
• Laffite: 42 200 000
• Catarina Devon: unknown
• Sanjuan Wolf: unknown
• Vasco Shot: unknown
• Doc Q: 72 000 000

If we assume that average bounty of unknown members is somewhere between 20 and 40 million berries, total bounty of Blackbeard Pirates at the time will have been 2,5 to 2,6 billion berries, well below an admiral’s 3 billion berry bounty, not even counting whatever forces Akainu had had with him. Adding to this the fact that Akainu is a lava logia psychopath, it becomes clear that running away will have been not just the best but the only choice available to the Blackbeard Pirates at the time.

But the situation had changed. Blackbeard’s current bounty is 3 996 000 000 B, which is well above an admiral’s 3 B berry bounty. And when Kuzan came to meet Blackbeard, he froze Blackbeard’s crew in order to hold them hostage against the Blackbeard, clearly not comfortable with facing Blackbeard head-on. While not conclusive evidence, it does appear to confirm that Kuzan was indeed weaker than Blackbeard at that point in time. Blackbeard himself would definitely not be comfortable having a potential traitor on the crew unless he felt confident in winning any potential confrontation.

Another datapoint to consider is the Marineford War. During the war, it was quite clear that Whitebeard was the only reason why pirates were a threat to the Navy. Whitebeard himself, despite being sick, dying and significantly slower than he used to be (compare Whitebeard to how Kaido fought in Wano), won every one-on-one fight against an admiral – but at the same time, these victories were close and costly, with Whitebeard accumulating injuries he could ill afford. By contrast, the admirals suffered far less extensive, if still considerable, injuries. All of them eventually returned to the fight after being defeated. And this is precisely what one would expect from comparing Whitebeard’s 5 billion bounty to admirals’ current 3 billion bounties, especially considering that admirals were Logias while Whitebeard was apparently having problems with Haki. Specifically, his Observation Haki (specifically Future Sight) was failing even before he had arrived to Marineford – earlier he had been able to stop Ace’s attacks even in sleep, yet here Squardo could stab him without Whitebeard realizing. Later, Whitebeard’s Conqueror Haki also failed. This also indicates that had two admirals decided to tag-team Whitebeard, they will have won then and there, despite Sengoku stating that the Navy may well have lost the war.

Of course, Whitebeard also had the commanders with him. Many of these could have been handled by Vice Admirals, but Marco managed to face Admirals and stalemate them despite being clearly outmatched. At the end of the war, commanders alone managed to stalemate Admiral Akainu. So what does this mean?

Whitebeard Commanders at Marineford had following bounties:

• Marco the Phoenix: 1 374 000 000
• Jozu: unknown
• Vista: unknown
• Blamenco: unknown
• Rakujo: unknown
• Namur: unknown
• Blenheim: unknown
• Curiel: unknown
• Kingdew: unknown
• Haruta: unknown
• Atmos: unknown
• Speed Jiru: unkown
• Fossa: unknown
• Izou: 510 000 000

Ace, dead by then, had had 550 000 000 berry bounty while part of the Whitebeard Pirates.

Average bounties may be filled in by comparing with Big Mom Pirates. Her Sweet Commanders had bounties as follows:

• Cracker: 860 000 000
• Smoothie: 932 000 000
• Katakuri: 1 057 000 000

Further four officers were noted to be “monsters” nearly on the level of the Sweet Commanders. Of 74 officers, bounties are known for three: Perospero with 700 000 000, Oven at 300 000 000 and Daifuku at 300 000 000. Last of the “four monsters”, Compote, may thus be assumed to have 300 000 000 bounty as well. This means that all major Commanders will have had a combined total of 4,45 billion berries.

Overall, using 300 000 000 as an average for unknown Whitebeard Commanders would give additional 3,6 billion berries. Using a reduced value of 200 000 000 would give additional 2,4 billion berries, while 500 000 000 would give additional 6 billion berries. This would give a total bounty of Whitebeard Commanders as anywhere between 4,8 and 8,4 billion berries, with middle range of 300 million giving a total of 6,3 billion berries. Most of them however will have been useless against an Admiral due to significantly inferior haki, thus making it logical why Akainu will have been able to stalemate all of the Whitebeard Commanders – but fail to achieve anything more than that. This also indicates that average bounties of Whitebeard Commanders may have been around 300 million berries instead of 200 million, and comparison with Sweet Commanders makes it likely many had bounties well above 300 million.

Issue with Marineford War is that none of the top tiers were going all out at any point. Admirals were holding back because Marineford was symbol of the Marines, while Whitebeard’s goal was to save Ace. And by the time Whitebeard (may) have decided to stop holding back, he was already on death’s door (even more than he had been at the start of the battle) and likely severely weakened. There is however one clear datapoint: Dracule Mihawk clearly stated that he considered Whitebeard stronger than himself, deciding to “measure distance between ourselves and that man”. This is exactly what one would expect from bounties, with Whitebeard having 5 billion bounty and post-timeskip Mihawk having 3,6 billion bounty.

The idea that the Government (or rather Oda) uses bounties to measure fighting strength of an individual is also supported by the event which made Luffy an Emperor: tag teams of Kaido and Big Mom fought against the tag teams of Luffy, Kidd and Law. Kaido and Big Mom’s combined bounties came out to 8 999 100 000 berries; one third of this sum is 2 999 700 000 berries, and 3 billion berries that Luffy, Kidd and Law each received is just above this value. Of course, the Government either lacked the details of the fight or is trying to hide that Luffy is Nika. Since Luffy defeated Kaido on his own while Big Mom was tag-teamed by Kidd and Law, more realistic bounties will have been 4,7 billion for Luffy and 2,2 billion for Kidd and Law each.

Last fact that supports the bounty = strength idea is that bounties as a measurement of threat level don’t make much sense. Gol Roger and Whitebeard both were “live and let live” characters who didn’t trouble anybody unless threatened first, and Shanks spent time behaving as a party animal. Yet both Roger (5,6 B) and Whitebeard (5 B) have bounties significantly higher than a murderous psychopath (4,6 B) and a murderous devouring hag (4,4 B), while Shanks (4,05 B) has bounty that is still higher than the post-timeskip, two-devil-fruit-wielding Blackbeard (4 B).

Bounty List

Who would be the strongest characters according to the bounties? Looking at highest bounties (at or above 2 billion B) in history of One Piece, we have:

• Gol D Roger: 5 564 800 000
• Edward Newgate (Whitebeard): 5 046 000 000
• Kaidou: 4 611 100 000
• Charlotte Linlin (Big Mom): 4 388 000 000
• Shanks: 4 048 900 000
• Marshall D Teach (Blackbeard): 3 996 000 000
• Dracule Mihawk: 3 590 000 000
• Monkey D Luffy: 3 000 000 000
• Crocodile: 1 965 000 000

However, bounties are not a perfect guide. I omitted Buggy’s bounty here, because his 3 189 000 000 berry bounty was gained by the fact that he has Crocodile and Mihawk as his subordinates. Just like everything about him, his bounty is a fake.

If we assume that each of the OG Yonko had crews that added about 4 to 5 billion berries in bounties, then bounty totals will have been as follows:

• Whitebeard Pirates: 9 – 10 billion
• Beast Pirates: 8,5 – 9,5 billion
• Big Mom Pirates: 8,4 – 9,4 billion
• Red Haired Pirates: 8 – 9 billion

This will have given them a combined bounty of 34 to 38 billion berries. Four Yonkos alone will have had a combined bounty of 18,1 billion berries.

By contrast, Navy Admirals + Garp will have had a combined total of 15 billion berries (Sengoku, Akainu, Kizaru, Aokiji and Garp were all Admiral-level fighters), and adding stronger Vice Admirals and such may have raised that to 20 billion or above. Thus, the Navy alone can fight two to three Yonkos at the same time, and this is supported by how the Navy was concerned over the prospective alliance between the Big Mom and Kaido – yet the two Emperors were still waiting for additional weapons before even attempting to fight the Navy. This does not count the Warlords, of whom at least one (Mihawk) is an Admiral level fighter at least. Warlord bounties were as follows:

• Dracule Mihawk: 3,59 billion
• Bartholomew Kuma: 269 million (pre-freeze)
  • estimated actual bounty: 2 – 2,5 billion
• Boa Hancock: 1,66 billion (80 million pre-freeze)
• Crocodile: 1,97 billion (81 million pre-freeze)
• Gecko Moria: 320 million
• Blackbeard: unknown
• Jinbei: 438 million (pre-TS), 1,1 billion (post-TS)

Thus the combined bounty of the Seven Warlords post-timeskip is equivalent to at least 11,14 billion. IF all the Warlords except Mihawk and Moria grew similarly to Jinbei, then their pre-timeskip bounty will have been a combined total of 6,6 billion berries.

As a result, the overall strength at the time of Marineford will have been:

• Admirals + the Warlords: 21,6 billion (minimum) to 26,14 billion (maximum)
  • Admirals + Mihawk: 18,59 billion
• Original Emperors + Commanders: ~25,2 billion berries
  • Original Emperors: 18,1 billion combined

I added “Admirals + Mihawk” in the list since Mihawk is the only Admiral-level individual among the Warlords, though Boa and Crocodile were not too far off.

This seems to lead to three basic conclusions:

• Navy + the Warlords equals Four Emperors + Commanders
• Admirals + Mihawk equals Four Emperors
• 2 Admirals > 1 Emperor > 1 Admiral

Garp specifically states in the manga (Chapter 432) that the Marine Headquarters and the Warlords are there to balance out the Four Emperors, which Oda also repeats in the data book. This statement makes it canon that the Navy alone (that is, the five Admiral-level fighters) is weaker than the Four Emperors, while Navy + the Warlords balance out the Four Emperors. It also shows why the Warlord system could only be abolished once replacements – the Seraphim – had been found. This is also confirmed by the Databook Green stating that “The Four Emperors and their [combined] forces are said to be equal to even the Marine HQ and Shichibukai.”.

And since the news of the Big Mom – Kaido alliance came immediately after abolishing the Warlord system, the Navy was right to be concerned. Admirals’ combined bounty was 15 billion berries, and that was only if Garp could be counted on to come out of the retirement. Without him, four admirals had 12 billion berry combined bounty – still more than Kaido’s and Big Mom’s combined bounty of 9 billion, but not comfortably so. Navy thus had to count on SSG to restore the balance.

Strategic Situation

This in turn also explains why the Navy had to tolerate the Emperor system and why the Kaido-Big Mom alliance was such a threat (Akainu called it a “disaster” in Chapter 957). The Gorosei were a secret – they never were supposed to be seen or to go into public. As a result, Navy could ill-afford to go after the Emperors, as these two Emperors will have represented a combined bounty of 8 to 9,5 billion berries, and at least as much as that in terms of their crews. Such a threat will have required presence of all four admirals to ensure victory. Strength of the Yonko is the reason why they are the Emperors in the first place, as the Navy simply cannot afford to send forces to crush them one by one – risk of losing an Admiral will have been to great, and sending an overwhelming force would have left the Navy significantly understrength. And while the World Government as a whole may have such forces, the ideals and the goals of the Navy and the World Government are not necessarily the same.

This is the reason why the Schibukai were so crucial in addition to the naval forces. The Government relied on a combination of the Navy and the Schibukai, and after the Schibukai were disbanded, the SSG. And when the Whitebeard Pirates attacked, the Navy collected all four Admirals as well as the Warlords to stop them – and Sengoku acknowledged that the Navy could in fact be defeated, though much of his fear may have been due to destructive nature of Whitebeard’s Devil Fruit.

Portrayal

As noted, Yonko are clearly stronger than Admirals on average, but not by much. There are exceptions (pre-TS Blackbeard being weaker than an Admiral, for example), but in general, Whitebeard had won every battle he fought against an Admiral. This was in spite of all Admirals of the time having been Logias and Whitebeard being in terrible health in general.

By contrast, none of the Whitebeard Commanders could fight an Admiral one-on-one and expect even indefinite stalemate, let alone a win.

Before the series, Shiki attacked Marineford and required combined efforts of Garp and Sengoku to stop him. Even so, he destroyed half the Marineford before being ultimately subdued. Rayleigh, retired first mate of the Pirate King, fought Kizaru on equal terms and avoided being captured or defeated at all.

During Marineford, Marco managed to fight Admirals on somewhat of an even footing and even block some of their attacks. While this was likely an artefact of regeneration power of his Devil Fruit, Big Mom in a similar situation managed to quickly catch and immobilize him – something an Admiral could not do. Yet because of Marco’s Devil Fruit, she still asked Persopero to finish him off. Big Mom also easily defeated Queen in just two hits earlier. By contrast, Ace managed to block Kuzan’s attack, and Akainu implied that his own attack was only effective against Ace’s attack due to elemental superiority of magma over fire. Of course, this does not make Yonko Commanders equal to Admirals – it took all of Whitebeard Commanders to stall Akainu and a bunch of fodder, and Akainu was in no danger of being overrun. In fact, the Commanders may have lost had the fight continued for much longer, as Curiel was taken out by Akainu’s attack (though we later learn that he had in fact survived). Akainu himself relatively easily avoided Marco’s and Vista’s attacks, indicating that he has future sight.

Whitebeard also faced off against Akainu, winning that fight. Akainu did more damage to Whitebeard than the reverse, but this was largely due to Akainu being a Logia. When it comes to the fight itself, Akainu was defeated (if only temporarily) and only came back after Whitebeard had already died. Yet while Akainu got defeated by Whitebeard, none of the Admirals were actually in mortal danger during the war, while it soon became obvious that the Whitebeard Pirates are in an unwinnable position. In fact, none of the admirals were even seriously injured during the war. Akainu was the only admiral who got beaten up. Kizaru and Aokiji were not injured at all, while Sengoku and Garp saw nearly no need to involve themselves until Blackbeard arrived. In contrast, Akainu had inflicted mortal wounds onto Whitebeard despite technically losing the fight, and Aokiji was arguably winning his exchange with Whitebeard until Jozu intervened.

This is reinforced by the fact that Kizaru couldn’t get past Rayleigh earlier at Sabaody. Rayleigh used to be the right hand of the Pirate King, but was also old and retired by this time. Kizaru and Sentomaru both quite clearly stated that Rayleigh stopped Kizaru, which is further supported by the fact that Kizaru had to “vent his rage” afterwards by capturing random pirates. This same Rayleigh later stated that he would not be able to win against the post-timeskip Blackbeard. After Marineford, the Elders stated that only other Yonkou may have been able to deal with Blackbeard, but this statement is countered by Blackbeard running away from Akainu.

Post-Time Skip, Don Chinjao asked Luffy if he had what it takes to overcome the Admirals and the Emperors, placing them both in the same category.

Kizaru offered to go to Wano to stop Big Mom from meeting Kaido. This shows he was confident in his ability to stall a Yonko, though one of the weaker ones. Akainu refused the offer, but not because of the Big Mom – rather, he refused due to presence of an “unknown force” in Wano.

Admiral Ryukogyu (Aramaki) defeated two of the Kaido’s Commanders, specifically King and the Queen. The battle was offscreened, so it is impossible to tell how difficult it is, but the outcome is one that would have been expected by using bounties as a guide. King had 1,39 billion berry bounty and Queen 1,32 billion bounty, for a combined total of 2,71 billion berries. If Ryukogyu was equivalent to 3 billion berries, then the two commanders will have given him a very difficult fight, but the outcome will never have been in doubt unless they managed to unlock a Haki powerup mid-fight. After that, he was raring to go and face an entire island full of enemies.

Yet Ryukogyu himself claimed that he would never have attacked Wano had Kaido still being there. He then proceeded to be outright paralyzed (and terrified) by a Conqueror’s Haki blast sent by a single Emperor, specifically Shanks – far from the strongest Emperor ever, though he likely was the strongest surviving Emperor by this time. Since Conqueror’s Haki depends heavily on person’s strength (Luffy’s blast paralyzed fodder at Marineford but failed to affect any of combatants stronger than himself), this shows that Shanks is in fact far stronger than Ryukogyu. Kizaru did offer to go to Wano with both Kaido and Big Mom local, but since he didn’t, that only proves that top tiers feel invincible.

When Admirals clashed with Revolutionary Commanders, latter claimed that they were lucky the clash happened in the Holy Land (Marie Geosie), as anywhere else the power of two Admirals will have been enough to turn any battlefield upside down. And what they didn’t know was that Fujitora was basically helping them by getting into Greenbull’s way, since Fujitora didn’t care if the World Nobles died or not.

And in the most recent arcs, Luffy fought one Yonko (Kaido) and one Admiral (Kizaru) after gaining the Gear Fifth. Here too portrayal is different: Kaido took Luffy head-on, while at the same time keeping Onigashima afloat and having fought several other pirates (including Zoro who had managed to wound him). Kizaru by contrast mostly kept running, attempting to outrun Luffy’s Gear Fifth time limit. This implies that Kizaru is in fact weaker than Kaido, though it is hardly conclusive proof: Kizaru may well have simply have prioritized the mission. Nevertheless, Kizaru got eventually knocked out by Luffy’s “White Star Gun” punch while Luffy ran out of Gear Fifth time limit, indicating that Kizaru was inferior to Gear Fifth Luffy, though not greatly so. (I will note here that people who thought Admirals were significantly inferior to Emperors thought Kizaru would be beaten by Sanji or Zoro).

Yonkos being superior to Admirals is supported even by reputation. Doflamingo didn’t mind fighting Fujitora, where even a prospect of angry Kaido made him terrified. Of course, not all Emperors are equal: as noted before, a pre-Timeskip Blackbeard ran away from Akainu and with a good reason. Doflamingo likewise didn’t even think about fighting Aokiji, suggesting perhaps that he only fought Fujitora because he believed his connections to the government would protect him. Kaido himself got captured eighteen times, only to escape and wreck Navy warships most of these times. This makes it likely that the sequence of events will have been Kaido gots drunk > Kaido goes to fight the Navy in drunken stupor > Kaido passes out drunk and gets captured > Kaido sobers up in the cell and escapes.

Yonko have also shown generally superior Haki and physical abilities. Neither Big Mom nor Kaido could be damaged by physical attacks except in a) exceptional circumstances or b) by attacks which bypassed their natural resistance such as Conqueror’s Haki. While this also holds true for pre-timeskip Admirals, it is only because of their Logia devil fruits; Fujitora however has no such natural immunity. None of the Admirals so far had displayed the Conqueror’s Haki, though Sengoku and Garp at least were stated to have it. This alone shows that an Emperor is superior to Admiral in one-on-one fight.

Still, the strength difference is not a massive one. More often than not, Admirals and the Yonkos are mentioned in the same breath and considered comparable. Roger stated that Marines should bring Garp or Sengoku if they wanted to give him a challenge. This may imply that other Admirals of the time were not up to the task, but since the current Navy is the strongest it ever was this hardly works against Akainu and other current Admirals. Luffy states that he cannot be a Pirate King if he runs from Navy Admirals or the Emperors of the Sea, and both Garp and the databook equate the Navy + the Warlords with the four Emperors as a collective. It should be noted that at the time the Navy had six Admiral-level fighters: Fleet Admiral Sengoku, three Admirals (Akainu, Kizaru, Aokiji), Vice Admiral Garp and Dracule Mihawk. Looking at it purely arithmetically, average Admiral would be 66,7% the strength of an average Emperor. Interestingly, Admiral’s Cross Guild bounty of 3 billion berries is 66,3% of an average bounty of a pre-timeskip Emperor (4,52 billion berries). This feels too exact to be a coincidence, but even if it is, it shows the intent quite clearly.

Conclusion

It seems quite clear that an average Emperor is stronger than an average Admiral in terms of fighting strength, but most Emperors are not overwhelmingly stronger than Admirals. This also does not exclude the possibility of an Emperor being equal to or weaker than an Admiral, since Emperors (though perhaps not Admirals) are in a spectrum of strength rather than a single “level” of strength. Thus, the idea that an Emperor would easily win against an Admiral as well as the idea that average Admiral is precisely equal to average Emperor are both wrong.

So as far as powerscaling goes, it should go something like Emperor > Emperor > Admiral > Emperor > Admiral > Admiral > Emperor > Admiral > Emperor > Emperor > Admiral > Emperor… but even this is just informative. Just because one character is slightly stronger than another character doesn’t mean he will necessarily win, and the Emperors and the Admirals are in the roughly the same tier even though Emperors should be slightly stronger on average. To put it simply, any Admiral has a chance of beating any Emperor, but a top-tier Emperor will be more likely to win against a top-tier Admiral than the reverse.

As a Reddit user put it:

• Peak Admirals (Prime Garp, Prime Sengoku, Prime Kong, Prime Akainu) ~ Peak Yonkos (Prime WB, Kaido, Shanks and Mihawk)
• Average Admirals(Aokiji, Kizaru, Fujitora, Aramkai, Old Garp and Old Sengoku) ~ Average Yonkos (Luffy, BB, BM, Old WB, Oden fight Kaido)

In general terms, most likely scaling would be as follows:

• Navy + the Warlords equals Four Emperors + Commanders
• Admirals + Mihawk equals Four Emperors
• 2 Admirals > 1 Emperor > 1 Admiral
• 2 Emperors > 3 Admirals

On a less relevant note, bounty powerscaling actually works as long as care is taken to eliminate obvious outliers. In fact, we can check the above powerscaling by using average Emperor bounty of 4,5 billion and average Admiral bounty of 3 billion:

• 4 Admirals (4 * 3 = 12 B) + Garp (3 B) + Mihawk(3,6 B) = total 18,6 B
  • equals 4 Emperors = 4 * 4,5 = 18 B
• 2 Admirals (2 * 3 = 6 B) > 1 Emperor (AVG 4,5 B) > 1 Admiral (3 B)
• 2 Emperors (9 B) > 3 Admirals (9 B)