Warning! Contains spoilers for One Piece Chapter #1087!One Piece has some of Shonen manga's most powerful villains, but the series just proved that one antagonist is way stronger than fans thought with a surprising feat. It makes sense that mangaka Eiichiro Oda would choose now to reveal the full power of this villain, given the series is now in its final saga, with enemies stronger than ever. But what makes this strength so impressive is that it doesn't rely on any of the series' power systems.

Chapter #1087, translated by Stephen Paul, features a flashback to Aokiji's days as a young marine being trained by Garp. The older man had him practice an incredibly difficult feat of crumpling the side of a battleship with a punch without using Haki or Devil Fruit abilities. At first, Aokiji was understandably unable to do this, but by the end of the flashback the future admiral was able to create massive dents in the ships just like Garp was. This means that Aokiji's base-level punch, unenhanced by Armament Haki or his Ice powers, is able to cause much more damage than fans expected.

One Piece's Aokiji Can Dent Battleships With One Punch

This is shocking partially because of how strong Aokiji was even without this baseline level of physical strength. Using the Ice Ice Fruit, Aokiji is able to not only coat his own body with ice but also to freeze his enemies. This power is so strong that even years after Aokiji fought against admiral Akainu, their battle had permanently locked one-half of Punk Hazard into an eternal winter. Aokiji also used this power to defeat the Blackbeard Pirates single-handedly before he joined them. Beyond this, as an admiral, Aokiji's Haki abilities are likely incredibly strong. In his flashback with Garp, Kuzan stated he barely knew what Haki was, but that was years ago and in that time he has likely honed his Haki skills to an incredibly strong degree.

All of these powers combined with his massive amounts of physical strength make Aokiji one of the most threatening antagonists for the Straw Hats to face in the Final Saga. It is almost guaranteed that Luffy's crew is going to clash with Blackbeard's crew before the series is over, and given that Aokiji is now part of Blackbeard's crew, this means he will be fighting as well. Any Straw Hat that could potentially match Aokiji in one aspect of his power will likely have a tough time against some of his other abilities. This puts Aokiji on a different level from Blackbeard's other Titanic Captains, for while some of them have incredibly strong Devil Fruit powers, many lack his well-rounded power set and experience using it.

One Piece Will Likely Reveal The Hidden Strengths of Other Villains Too

Despite his strength, Aokiji isn't invincible as Garp showed by punching him out this chapter. But even so he is still much stronger than fans thought and will surely be a major threat in the coming arcs. As One Piece continues to build anticipation for its final war, even more villains will likely be revealed as being more powerful than fans thought just like Aokiji was.

One Piece Chapter #1087 is available to read from Viz Media.