What is the difference between 黒い剣士 and 黒の剣士?
Hello, sometimes when authors write colours in character "titles" (for lack of a better word) they use different forms to attribute a colour to a noun

For example, Guts from Berserk is referred to as 黒い剣士 whereas Kirito from Sword Art Online is referred to as 黒の剣士.

Is there any functional/implicit difference between these two forms? As far as I can tell with my very limited understanding of Japanese, they're just different ways of saying "Black Swordsman."

Question

What is the difference between 黒い剣士 and 黒の剣士?
Hello, sometimes when authors write colours in character "titles" (for lack of a better word) they use different forms to attribute a colour to a noun

For example, Guts from Berserk is referred to as 黒い剣士 whereas Kirito from Sword Art Online is referred to as 黒の剣士.

Is there any functional/implicit difference between these two forms? As far as I can tell with my very limited understanding of Japanese, they're just different ways of saying "Black Swordsman."

Answer

Hi, Martin-san.

Form grammatical point of view, as you say, there is just different ways of saying "Black Swordsman".

This is just my personal opinion, 黒い for Guts is used to represent its nature or property, and 黒の for Kirito is used to express the color of his costume.

I don't know much about both Berserk and Sword Art Online, and I just know them by titles. So, my opinion might be wrong, but if I was to say it, that would be the difference.

Answer

黒い is adjective and 黒の looks like a possessive form that is similar to "of" and "s"in English. 
I think ”黒い” and ”黒の” are interchangeable in this case. 
I'm not an expert in grammar, so there could be other answers.

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