'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/2wBDAAYEBQYFBAYGBQYHBwYIChAKCgkJChQODwwQFxQYGBcUFhYaHSUfGhsjHBYWICwgIyYnKSopGR8tMC0oMCUoKSj/2wBDAQcHBwoIChMKChMoGhYaKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCj/wgARCAAGAAoDASIAAhEBAxEB/8QAFgABAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMG/8QAFQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAX/2gAMAwEAAhADEAAAAJZkmI//xAAfEAACAQQCAwAAAAAAAAAAAAACAwEEBQYTABIRQcL/2gAIAQEAAT8AvGWVOV47cVsawKZ9TXU0yawI4HZE/XniLMvQvQ8hT1jpBLCZgfXP/8QAGREAAwADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIDAAQR/9oACAECAQE/ANqjTPFOf//EABgRAAIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAgMi/9oACAEDAQE/AKpZTP/Z'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
One Piece characters can excel in both durability and endurance, but also only in one of these two categories, which are notably different from one another. Durability is the body's passive ability to withstand hits without getting injured, while endurance denotes a fighter’s attitude to keep fighting even if injured.
King’s Lunarian powers and Marco’s Phoenix-Phoenix Fruit allow both, via different means, to remain undamaged even if struck with tremendous attacks. Other examples of durability include Kaido’s tough dragon scales, Jozu’s diamond physique, Mr 1’s steel body, and the Seraphim’s Lunarian-amped biology. They also include the Vinsmoke’s exoskeletons and Raid Suits, Big Mom’s hard skin, and more.
Endurance concerns a character’s health bar, i.e., how much he or she can bear damage and continue fighting after being wounded. Characters with high durability don’t get hurt at all, while individuals with high endurance can resist pain and go ahead, no matter how badly injured they are.
Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers from the One Piece manga. The rankings in the list are based on the writer's opinion.
The ten One Piece characters who can endure more damage, ranked from least to most resilient
10) Bartholomew Kuma
As a member of the mighty Buccaneer Race, Kuma had uncommon physical prowess from birth. Aside from the Pacifista modifications, which dramatically increased his passive durability, his endurance is pretty impressive too.
In the past, Kuma used to take the pain he extracted from the Sorbet Kingdom’s ill people via the Paw-Paw Fruit. Even though the procedure would always leave him in agony, Kuma would still undergo it, as, if no one were to take the extracted pain, it would return to its originator.
As a cyborg, Kuma defended the Thousand Sunny for two entire years, despite suffering many wounds and injuries. After the Celestial Dragons skewered him with several swords, leaving them stuck in his body, Kuma was still able to move, which earned him the fame of the “Invincible Slave”.
Despite having a foot and part of his head burnt by Akainu’s lethal Mag-Mag Fruit, Kuma managed to escape before receiving further damage. With the same horrific wounds, he intervened to block Saint Saturn’s attack, acting as a human shield for Bonney. Even then, Kuma didn’t succumb to his injuries but immediately started fighting Saturn.
9) Shanks
An elegant fighter, who stands out for his Haki-enhanced swordsmanship, Shanks typically dodges or blocks incoming attacks. However, this should not obscure the fact that he possesses insane levels of endurance and pain tolerance.
After having his arm bitten off by a Sea King, Shanks didn’t even flinch. Without a murmur, he calmly exerted his Conqueror’s Haki to scare away the monster. Sea Kings are very weak foes, but that doesn't make having a limb ripped off less painful. Still, Shanks was totally unfazed.
8) Kozuki Oden
Oden was able to hang onto a ship’s anchor for about three entire days, with the chain being dragged across the ocean. After going unprotected through the New World's many dangers and dire weather conditions, he was still unexhausted. He only let go of the chain to go and rescue Toki.
Another testament to Oden’s outstanding endurance, he was able to support a wooden plank that was holding his nine retainers, all while his lower half was submerged in boiling oil.
A normal human would die in seconds, but Oden endured the ordeal for over an hour. Astoundingly, he didn’t give in even when the temperature of the boiling oil was further raised, which left Kaido impressed.
7) Monkey D. Luffy
Luffy was able to climb an icy, nearly vertical, huge mountain, clinging to it with his teeth and bleeding fingers, while carrying Nami and Sanji’s unconscious bodies. He further proved his endurance in direct combat, as he repeatedly kept fighting even after bad injuries.
Whether cuts, explosions, or percussive blows, Luffy has endured countless direct attacks. He even survived Devil Fruit techniques or Haki-enhanced moves from some of One Piece’s most dangerous characters. Luffy’s own transformations, the Gears, have been stated to strain his body to the point of shortening his lifespan.
In Enies Lobby, a severely injured Luffy pushed beyond his limits to use his Gears. Luffy overused the Gears in Thriller Bark, and surpassed his limits even further between Impel Down and Marineford, as, with the help of Ivankov’s hormones, he forced his body to keep fighting just out of pure willpower.
Already injured by Katakuri’s previous techniques, Luffy kept fighting even when the former stabbed him with a trident. In Wano, Luffy was only briefly knocked out by Hybrid Form Kaido’s Conqueror’s Haki-amped Ragnarok move. After unlocking the same advanced form of Haki, Luffy endured many direct hits from the Yonko’s strongest Haoshoku-coated attacks.
6) Roronoa Zoro
Zoro possesses immense endurance and pain tolerance, which allow him to take insane amounts of punishment, and keep fighting even if badly injured. According to Nami, Zoro is the toughest among all the Straw Hat Pirates.
After receiving an awful wound from Mihawk, Zoro got back in fighting shape incredibly fast. However, the injury left him weakened during the battles against Hatchan and Arlong. In Arabasta, Zoro kept fighting Mr 1 and beat him despite losing liters of blood.
In Thriller Bark, Zoro took all of Luffy’s pain and fatigue from having overused the Gears, whose aftereffects, at the time, strained his body terribly. All that damage, which was enough to knock out Luffy, was added to the one Zoro had already suffered on his own.
Even Kuma, a Buccaneer, admitted that he would pass out if he tried to take the pain he extracted from Luffy. Zoro, instead, fully endured it, all while remaining conscious, and even standing on his feet.
Two years later, Zoro kept fighting against Kaido and even inflicted a deep wound on him. Zoro managed to do so, despite having suffered heavy damage from the Hakai, a combined attack from Kaido himself and Big Mom. This absurd feat left Trafalgar Law speechless.
Zoro then collapsed but resumed fighting thanks to the Minks medicine, a special drug that would instantly heal him at the cost of making him feel double the damage later. When the time came, Zoro had to experience all the harm from his fights against King, and the Yonkos, including the Hakai, increased twofold.
5) Marshall D. Teach "Blackbeard"
According to Marco, Teach’s body has a unique structure, different from that of other humans. This might justify his ability to possess two Devil Fruits at once, which is totally unprecedented in the entire series, as well as explain his superhuman feats of endurance.
Teach’s body isn’t particularly durable, but he can endure pain and damage like a few others. He kept fighting without any problem even after Ace pierced his chest with Logia-powered fire spears. Likewise, he quickly got up after being struck by one of Sengoku’s shockwaves.
In Marineford, Teach suffered a slash by Whitebeard’s bisento, as well as a direct hit from the same Yonko’s ravaging Quake-Quake Fruit. Even then, he didn’t lose consciousness and stood back up almost immediately.
After being hit by Shock Wille, Trafalgar Law’s second strongest attack, Teach shrugged off the injury without any lasting consequence in a matter of seconds. Considering that the Dark-Dark Fruit has the side effect of amplifying any pain that Teach suffers, his endurance is absolutely astonishing.
4) Charlotte Linlin "Big Mom"
Owing to her abnormally tough skin, Linlin had exceptional durability, which prevented her from being harmed by most attacks. Still, she was no stranger to bearing punishment. If anything, in the very few circumstances in which the famed “Big Mom” was injured, she displayed insane endurance.
During the Onigashima Raid, Trafalgar Law and Eustass Kid exploited their advantage in numbers over Linlin to strike her repeatedly. However, even though Kid and Law hit her again and again with the best techniques of their Awakened Devil Fruits, she resisted all their attacks without losing consciousness.
Although significantly injured, Linlin endured one after another, two Shock Wille and one Puncture Wille from Law, plus Kid’s Punk Clash-Assign, Punk Corna Dio, and Damned Punk. Despite their joint effort, Law and Kid couldn’t knock out Linlin, which is telling of the latter’s outstanding endurance.
Law and Kid’s combination of attacks just pushed Linlin into the void. This still resulted in her defeat, as some bombs suddenly fell on her, causing her to detonate within a subterranean erupting volcano. Unbelievably, however, even then, she was still fully conscious.
3) Sakazuki "Akainu"
The current Fleet Admiral has one of the highest endurance in the entire series. During the Paramount War, Akainu endured two point-blank punches from an enraged Whitebeard, the World’s Strongest Man, who imbued his blows with both Armament Haki and the destructive Quake-Quake Fruit.
Whitebeard’s second punch was powerful enough to split Marineford in half just as a side-effect. The two ravaging attacks inflicted significant damage on Akainu, but, remarkably, the latter managed to endure the harm without losing consciousness.
Shortly after taking Whitebeard’s all-out strikes, Akainu reappeared on the battlefield, with enough energy to go on a rampage. He faced several Commander-level fighters at once, easily taking down the likes of Jinbe and Emporio Ivankov, with the others barely able to slow down him.
To determine the new Fleet Admiral, Akainu challenged Kuzan “Aokiji”. After a ten-day-long battle, Akainu ended up as the undisputed winner. As evidenced by the scars now present on his body, Akainu was injured by his fellow Admiral but endured the wounds, and eventually overwhelmed his powerful opponent.
2) Edward Newgate "Whitebeard"
Despite his old age and declining health, Whitebeard displayed outrageous resistance and pain tolerance. With his body already weakened by Squard’s treacherous stab, Whitebeard received 267 sword stabs and cuts, 152 gunshot wounds, and 46 injuries from cannonballs.
He suffered life-threatening injuries from the Admirals, as Kizaru pierced his chest with a laser, while Akainu burnt his insides with magma, and literally blasted a portion of his head off.
Despite all of this, plus a heart attack, Whitebeard continued to fight, proving his exceptional, almost unreal endurance. He nearly destroyed Marineford and easily overpowered Blackbeard, and only died after being assaulted and ulteriorly injured by the entire collective of the Blackbeard Pirates.
Even then, Whitebeard died standing, a stunning feat of tenacity that recalled Zoro’s “Nothing Happened” moment in Thriller Bark. Whitebeard’s surreal showcase took place when he was a terminally ill 72-year-old man, which implies that, when he was younger and healthy, his endurance was even more absurd.
1) Kaido
Owing to the extremely hard dragon scales covering it, Kaido’s body is almost impervious to damage. However, Kaido’s endurance is comparable to his staggering durability, if not even higher. He continued fighting despite being struck and injured by countless fearsome moves in quick succession.
Kaido easily endured a combined attack from the Red Scabbards, even mocking it as too weak. He then faced the strongest Supernovas, with lethal moves such as Law’s Injection Shot and Gamma Knife, as well as Killer’s Sonic Scyther, barely tickling him. Luffy’s Kong Gatling and Zoro's Dragon Twister injured him, but he kept fighting without any problem.
Zoro’s Ashura wounded Kaido deep enough to leave him with a permanent scar, but the Yonko still recovered the damage quickly. Even when Luffy started empowering his strikes with Advanced Conqueror’s Haki, and even when he added a further boost from Gear 5, Kaido, although injured, wasn’t even remotely close to being defeated.
He endured many Haoshoku-coated moves from Luffy, including Gum-Gum Hydra, Kong Over Gun, Gum-Gum Gatling, and Gum-Gum Jump Rope, plus many other unnamed hits. Kaido only went down to the sum of the aforementioned attacks, plus Luffy’s all-out, island-sized Bajrang Gun.
Notably, while fighting his opponents and taking their attacks one by one, Kaido was spending some of his energy to keep Onigashima suspended in the air. This makes his endurance even more terrific and, in all likelihood the highest in the series.
Be sure to keep up with all One Piece anime, manga, and live-action news as 2024 progresses.
