For a shonen series like One Piece, female characters prove that power and influence in the pirate world aren’t limited by gender. While they often face criticisms rooted in fan service tropes and secondary roles, many of them are still written by Eiichiro Oda with so much depth and care that they defy fan expectations.
One Piece: Oda Reveals The Truth About Romance Within The Straw Hat Crew
Shipping in the One Piece fandom is nothing new. Fans want to see couples within the Straw Hat pirates. Oda reveals how he feels about this.
Compared to other shonen series, One Piece features multi-dimensional female characters with fascinating backstories and layered personalities. There’s more to them than meets the eye, if only fans take the time to look past their exaggerated and cartoonish appearance and appreciate the care Oda puts into writing and developing them.
One Piece’s Women Are More Than Hourglass Figures
Eiichiro Oda’s Female Characters Have Variety
One of the biggest criticisms of One Piece is the character design for female characters. Series creator Eiichiro Oda has a habit of creating female characters with hourglass body shapes, which can make them prone to unnecessary sexualization and fan service. Admit it, most of them look the same, with tiny waists, exaggerated chests, and long legs, which usually overshadow their personalities. Fortunately, the series rarely put these female characters in overtly sexualized situations. There’s also nothing wrong with drawing female characters that look like women.
Eiichiro Oda also merits recognition for his efforts to introduce variety to his female characters. Perhaps the perfect example of this is Miss Monday, who breaks the typical mold with her muscular build. It's also true for the female child characters in One Piece, whom Oda drew with more realistic and age-appropriate proportions compared to other shonen series. The same can also be said of Oda’s old female characters.
If you think I'm just another cute girl, you're dead wrong! —Nami
Then there are female characters with unique looks, such as Big Mom and her daughters, whose varied body types stand out from typical designs. Yes, they look ugly and cartoonish, but their exaggerated features reflect their larger-than-life personalities and roles in the story. These distinctive facial features also help make them more memorable and instantly recognizable among the massive cast of One Piece.
One Piece’s Female Characters Are Often Rescued by Men
Female Characters Usually Rely on Male Counterparts
It’s no secret that Eiichiro Oda dislikes putting his female characters in situations that make them look like damsels in distress. Ironically, he usually finds ways to place the women of the Straw Hat Pirates in situations that demand or force them to rely on their male counterparts. Luffy, Sanji, and Zoro usually save the day for Nami and Robin every time they are caught in a life-threatening battle.
Fans have pointed out that while Nami and Robin are far from helpless, they never fail to depend on their male allies to bail them out. The same can also be said of other female characters, like Nefertari Vivi, Rebecca, and Shirahoshi, who, despite their valuable intelligence and skill sets, end up relying on Luffy and other male characters to resolve dangerous situations on their behalf.
In the manga I read as a kid, there was always a point where the heroine existed just to be rescued. That didn’t sit well with me; I didn’t want to create a story about women being kidnapped and saved. I depict women who know how to fight for themselves and don’t need to be saved. If a moment comes where they’re overpowered, their shipmates will help them out, and vice versa.
-Eiichiro Oda (The New York Times)
On the bright side, Eiichiro Oda never fails in creating female characters who still know how to fight for themselves. Yes, they need rescuing most of the time, but they aren’t so dependent that their strength and skills are completely diminished. They are still given fascinating abilities to defend themselves and make them formidable in their own right. Exhibit A, Big Mom.
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One Piece Struggles to Give Its Female Characters Real Growth
Eiichiro Oda Heavily Sidelines Female Characters
Understandably, many fans complain about the lack of realistic growth for Eiichiro Oda’s female characters due to limited opportunities to showcase their powers compared to their male counterparts. They usually lack real, solid fights that would push their abilities and allow them to grow stronger than ever. They also lack solid rivals who could truly challenge them and drive their growth in multiple ways.
For instance, Nico Robin was expected to learn haki, yet she has shown little to no progress or opportunity to fully tap into this power. She is smart and powerful enough to learn Haki, yet fans get nothing. As such, her full potential remains largely unexplored, like the other female characters in the series.
In general, when it comes to the female characters in One Piece, they have strengths and flaws that make them both underdeveloped and compelling at the same time. Eiichiro Oda isn’t a perfect mangaka, but he still succeeds in making the women of One Piece vital to the story.
One Piece is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. The series follows protagonist Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirate crew as they explore the Grand Line to find the King of the Pirates' ultimate treasure, the One Piece, in order to become the next king. The manga's popularity helped it spin off into a larger media franchise, including an anime with more than 1,000 episodes.
- Directors
- Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
- Writers
- Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
- Franchise(s)
- One Piece
- Creator(s)
- Eiichiro Oda
- Studio
- Toei Animation
- Producers
- Yoshihiro Suzuki
- Creator
- Eiichiro Oda
- Number of Episodes
- 1122
- MyAnimeList Score
- 8.72
