Difficulty lying in your complete dismissal within your first post. You stated that it was "random guessing" and to that I simply simplified how it wasn't random for you. And that it could be something as simple as that. I even finished off with saying that it may not be true as of now but it's probably the most logical thing going. There's not 2 flaws. There's 2 assumptions that make it all fit. And they're not outlandishly made in order to do so as it's not illogical to think pheasant = bird, rooster = bird, thereby through association that would equal 10. If Kuzan (2 different versions) equal 20, which are the same person at the end of the day, then it would be 20 / 2 = 10. Which fits the signs of the Chinese Zodiac in being a bird = Rooster. See the logic. It's not been mushed together or anything and there aren't 2 flaws, they are simple assumptions. To which Monkey D. Luffy, and Yellow Monkey, both by association have Monkey. If this was an equation in writing, you could swap the word monkey for X and it fits your world perfectly. So they aren't two different variable with the same value. The variable is Monkey by association, not their pictures. It does fit without making up or concluding just to make stuff fit, it's pretty sound and simple reasoning.
And as I said previously, it could be wrong, but it seems to be the most logically correct so far.
It's not some huge conundrum, University Challenge algebra question or anything like that, this has been posted in a magazine involving Japanese comics.
Which dismissal? I only pointed out that there were some flaws in some of the ideas posted here and then made the objective, correct statement that we don't know the whole context in which this riddle was posted and hence what we are doing, and this included my own remarks in regards to the riddle, is akin to random guessing as how are you going to find a solution to a riddle you don't even know properly? Phrasing it as 'random guessing' might have been a tad too much, but honestly it's a complete fallacy that you started jumping on that when I was even including myself. Then you are the one who is plainly difficult as you cause a ruckus for absolutely no reason.
There are two genuine flaws. Lets assume you want to make a OP riddle based on the Chinese zodiac. How many example equations would you need to be sure to solve the equation with Luffy? One is in fact enough, but a 2nd one is probably needed to make sure it's not a coincidence. A third however is rather pointless, especially when that one contradicts the rule that character = zodiac animal and number. What does the Kuzan equation actually do there then? As you had enough information from the other two. And no you can't just make assumptions, that's not how riddles work and especially not when you're not being consistent about it.
If you would actually follow your own reasoning through, you can end up with probably any solution you want. I mean who says Akainu has to be the dog zodiac? Why not the ox? Both mammals, four legs and a tail. You can't just nilly willy decide that you're going to follow another reasoning for another character purely because it's more convenient for you. That's not how riddles work, that in itself shows there is something wrong here.
Same thing with Kizaru. Assuming it had to be a Chinese zodiac riddle, they are countless of characters that can easily be associated with any of the zodiac, yet they chose two affiliated with the exact same one? The truth is you could have made a far easier and clearer riddle if this truly had to be a zodiac riddle. If you deduced from the equations Chinese zodiac were the key, you can automatically make the connection that Luffy represents the monkey, Kizaru is just not particularly needed there. So either this riddle simply sucks or what you say is, at least partially, not true and you can't really blame me for either. Unless there's some information missing here, but then we would end again with my OP.
The reason I started talking about the lack of context was to make things easier as it's possible people were thinking too much about this due to lack thereof. So it comes down to that you jump on my post saying I make things difficult, which is the only thing you have been doing so far.
