About

Mihawk Upscale refers to a trend of "upscaling" One Piece character Dracule Mihawk on the anime powerscaling ranking because he's considered the "World's Strongest Swordsman" in the anime and manga, meaning to some fans that's he's more powerful than all swordsmen characters in fiction. The viral debate spread in 2025 and led to Mihawk Upscale memes on TikTok, Reddit and elsewhere, in which any character who was seen with a sword (even though they might not necessarily be a "swordsman") upscaled Mihawk by default. An image of Mihawk crudely drawn over Kure Raian smiling in the manga Kengan Ashura was used for many Mihawk Upscale memes and became an exploitable.

Origin

Mihawk Upscale debates first surfaced on the /r/OnePiecePowerScaling^[1][6] in June 2022, and the /r/Piratefolk^[8] subreddit in September 2022. The debates mostly discussed powerscaling One Piece characters Dracule Mihawk and Shanks. Similar posts surfaced on X^[7] soon after. However, none of the aforementioned posts went viral.

On May 23rd, 2024, Redditor^[2] Zoteku posted a comment under a post on the /r/OnePiecePowerScaling^[3] subreddit, which asked the question, "Dear lowerscalers, if Luffy can Pizza diff Kizaru while also fighting St. Saturn, then why can't Luffy defeat Mihawk?"

Zoteku's comment included an image of Dracule Mihawk smiling with a speech bubble that read in all caps, "ARE THOSE SWORDSMAN FEATS I SEE??!!" (shown below). It is currently the earliest discovered post with the meme. The image later became a leading symbol for the Mihawk Upscale memes.

The abovementioned image was drawn over a panel from the manga Kengan Ashura of Kure Raian smiling (shown below).^[4][5]

Spread

Heading into the mid-2020s, the image of Mihawk drawn over Raian resurfaced in comment sections on Reddit. For instance, on January 1st, 2025, Redditor^[9] Special-Remove-3294 commented the image on an /r/OnePiecePowerScaling subreddit post, captioning it, "'Shanks now has a twin who is also a swordsman' / Live Migawk reaction," which roughly followed the Live Tucker Reaction format. The comment received over 120 upvotes in five months (shown below).

On February 25th, TikToker^[10] @phangito posted a video of himself reacting to the comments on one of his previous posts, which were mostly about powerscaling Mihawk and Shanks. The TikToker also referenced Mihawk Upscale in the video. The video received over 22,400 likes in four months (shown below).

On April 3rd, 2025, X^[13][14] user @DRXCUL3 quote-tweeted a post about Chapter 1145 of One Piece, using the Mihawk Upscale image to joke about the character Rocks D. Xebec using a sword. Over three months, the tweet received over 2,600 likes (shown below).

On May 29th, TikToker^[11] @tamirsverse posted a video about Mihawk Upscale, gaining over 17,800 likes in three weeks (shown below).

On June 6th, 2025, TikToker^[12] @akceoalt posted a photo slideshow, which showed Dragon Ball character Trunks holding a sword. The text on each slide read in succession, "Trunks is so cool bro / Wait… Is that? / A sword… ?" The final slide showed the smiling Mihawk image. Over 12 days, the slideshow received over 37,100 likes (shown below).

On June 16th, X^[15] user @swissboss876 tweeted four variations of the Mihawk Upscale meme, showing different characters from One Piece drawn over the panel of Kure Raian smiling. They captioned the image, "Please stop making these," gaining over 8,900 likes in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References