gothfeli saturday ualanee
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So as you can see, though One Piece is often a step above its shōnen brethren in terms of its female characters, it also has much room for improvement, and specifically, indulges in tropes that would likely be off-putting to a good chunk of the Western viewers the live action adaptation no doubt hoped to court.
As a writer and editor, I envy the ability to shuffle plot points around this elegantly; as a human being who just wants to see the world be a better place, I applaud their willingness to update the source material to make the world of One Piece even just a little more friendly towards its female viewers.
Love this piece, Spencer. My relationship to One Piece is that I have been stuck in the Syrup Village arc for about a decade. Each year, I get maybe one or two episodes deeper, and then give up again (I think I'm currently on episode 17). One of the main reasons for me is that I found, in the manga, the character motivations to be somewhat inscrutable (especially compared to contemporary characters like Naruto). Luffy just seemed like a sociopath more than anything. But transforming the characters into live action people, I could actually understand their emotions meaningfully and it has given me renewed excitement to return to, if not the the show, then the manga.
I also have, for years, sought out feminist analyses or accounts of anime - and it wasn't until maybe 2017 that I found anime feminist ( ). They had an article about My Hero Academia (a 2010s shonen) and how it still fails women, but, specifically, the female characters are given more agency - and a chance to fight! I really don't love 'fanservice' and it has also been a barrier to getting father in One Piece, but at least I know the Live Action has been doing a great job. Thanks for exploring women in One Piece!
This guest post comes courtesy of , who writes \u201CDo You Know What I Love the Most?\u201D newsletter about his relationship with the stories he loves. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy.
When it was first announced that Netflix was creating a live action adaptation of One Piece \u2014 one of the most popular manga/anime of all time \u2014 I was perplexed. Hell, I was a straight-up hater about it. One Piece is my favorite manga, so part of that was just me being protective of a property I adore, and another part came from my frustration with live action adaptations in general.
The biggest issue, though, was that One Piece seemed uniquely unsuited for live action \u2014 a series as strange, over-the-top, and full of unlimited possibilities as One Piece is tailor made for animation, and I couldn\u2019t see how live action could ever hope to do it justice. Yet, in late 2023 live action One Piecepremiered to surprising, unexpected success, finally breaking the live action anime curse.
Despite my concerns, the limitations of live action actually ended up benefiting the series \u2014 those limitations forced the writers to approach the material from new angles, to prioritize dialogue and character over action, to develop a willingness and ability to change the story while still showing a clear respect and love for the source material. It actually gives Live Action One Piece a reason to exist \u2014 something most live action adaptations do not have \u2014 but it also allows the series to sometimes improve upon its source material!
And let\u2019s be clear, as much as I love One Piece, it\u2019s not without its flaws. One of the most common complaints about the manga and anime is the way they treat their female characters, and those complaints are not without merit. Live Action One Piece, much to my surprise, finds ways to address many of these complaints and improve upon how the story handles nearly all of its important female characters. It\u2019s an impressive feat, one I intend to explore throughout the rest of this piece by discussing, one by one, four of Live Action One Piece\u2019s most significant female characters and how it\u2019s expanded and improved upon the source material\u2019s treatment of them.
One Piece, as a manga and anime, belongs to a genre of story known in Japan as \u201Csh\u014Dnen,\u201D which translates to \u201Cyoung boy.\u201D Sh\u014Dnen stories are fast-paced, action-centric, and aimed at a demographic of adolescent boys \u2014 despite that, though, it has gone on to become perhaps the most popular and best known genre of anime, with dedicated and passionate readers of all ages and genders.
The most important thing to know about sh\u014Dnen is that these stories don\u2019t just have a lot of action \u2014 they revolve around fight scenes. In the same way musicals utilize song and dance, sh\u014Dnen stories use their fight sequences to explore theme, character, and emotion \u2014 everything significant that happens in a sh\u014Dnen story happens during a fight, and how important or popular a character is is usually determined by how often they fight. Remember that \u2014 it\u2019s important.
Despite its universal appeal, sh\u014Dnen has quite stubbornly clung to its original demographic of adolescent boys, and this is most apparent when it comes to its female characters. Due to the perceived non-interest of young boys, throughout much of sh\u014Dnen\u2019s history women have largely been non-entities. In the 80s and 90s, the women of stalwarts like Dragonball or Yuyu Hakusho were relegated to minor supporting roles, a small roster of wives, mothers, sisters, and assistants with virtually no bearing on the story, just there to cheer on their love interests, pump out babies, be kidnapped, or used as fanservice for (straight) male viewers to leer at.
Around the turn of the century, some series started incorporating more female characters as secondary protagonists (such as One Piece\u2019s most notable contemporary, Naruto, with Sakura), but these characters were very much treated as \u201Cthe girl,\u201D usually only allowed to fight other girls and with their motivations and storylines almost always tethered to a romance with one of the male protagonists. The possibilities for female characters seem to have expanded over the last few years, but even then, they lag behind what we\u2019re used to in America/the West (not that we don\u2019t have plenty of room for improvement ourselves!)
The early chapters of One Piece were about on par with their late-90s contemporaries when it came to their female characters \u2014 there weren\u2019t many, and they didn\u2019t fight. However, even then it differentiated itself via its primary female protagonist, Nami, who was an adventurer in her own right, not defined by romance, and given her own complex personality and motivations that drove the first 100 or so chapters of the story more than any other primary character\u2019s bar the main protagonist Luffy.
As One Piece continued, its number of female characters would balloon and a good number would take on important combat roles in the story, but it\u2019s always been this aspect of One Piece\u2019s storytelling that has set its female characters apart from other sh\u014Dnen: every single one of them has an interior life, has their own unique personalities, motivations, wants, and needs that drive the story, and none of them exist solely to be love interests or mothers. Maybe that\u2019s a low bar, but it\u2019s one the majority of sh\u014Dnen have historically failed to clear, and I think that deserves recognition; it\u2019s certainly led to One Piecehaving an unusually high number of popular, beloved female characters among fans of all genders.
On the flip side, the greatest criticism of One Piece\u2019s female characters is how similar they look to each other, and hand-in-hand with that, how sexualized they are. One Piece author Eiichiro Oda loves to draw sexy women, and the majority of the series\u2019 \u201Cbeautiful\u201D female characters share the same ridiculous hourglass proportions and standard pretty faces, with only their hair and clothes differentiating their designs.
These characters are subjected to frequent revealing fanservice shots and sexual jokes \u2014 nothing too outside of typical sh\u014Dnen tropes, but moments that can still be uncomfortable for Western audiences, especially those without a familiarity to the genre. By contrast, most female characters who aren\u2019t supposed to be beautiful are drawn with ridiculous designs and proportions and made the butt of jokes about their size, age, and appearance, though these have lessened as the series has gone on.
So as you can see, though One Piece is often a step above its sh\u014Dnen brethren in terms of its female characters, it also has much room for improvement, and specifically, indulges in tropes that would likely be off-putting to a good chunk of the Western viewers the live action adaptation no doubt hoped to court.
Just the jump to live action alone solves one of these issues \u2014 the similarities in appearance among Oda\u2019s female characters \u2014 but beyond that, what changes did the Live Action One Piece make to address this?
Despite being the first opponent Luffy ever defeats \u2014 and despite popping up sporadically throughout the rest of the series \u2014 Alvida is a rather inconsequential, one-note character. She\u2019s taken down in all of one chapter, and she\u2019s really more of an opponent for Koby, a meek boy with dreams of being a Marine who\u2019s being held captive by Alvida, than Luffy himself; Alvida is truly defeated when Koby finally stands up to her, and Luffy knocking her out is just a reward for Koby\u2019s bravery.
Alvida works well in this regard, but unfortunately, the one note Oda gives Alvida to play in terms of her personality just plain sucks: Alvida is \u201Cfat\u201D and \u201Cugly,\u201D but thinksshe\u2019s beautiful. Alvida is constantly asking her terrified subordinates who the most beautiful pirate throughout all the seas is, and they know that answering anything other than \u201CLady Alvida\u201D means certain death. Oda twice plays this as a \u201Cgag.\u201D First, he introduces Alvida from off-screen, with her asking her subordinates this question and being praised as the fairest on the seas, only for the reader to turn the page and see this:
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