Tropes A to B / One Piece

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2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The Thousand Sunny is very often rendered in full CG during full-bodied sailing shots. There are also a few examples in the movies, such as the stem of the Lily Carnation in Movie 6, the island turtle in Movie 7, Crocodile's sand in Movie 8, the avalanche scene in Movie 9, and the lions that Shiki conjures up out of stone and earth in Movie 10.
Abhorrent Admirer:
- Zombie Lola towards Absalom. Subverted when she turns out to be a sympathetic character.
- The real Lola toward any male who crosses her field of vision, though she's not Ax-Crazy about it like Zombie Lola was toward Nami initially.
- The ugly, friendless psychopath Vander Decken IX to Princess Shirahoshi. He's not her type.
Accidental Marriage: Hancock has twice mistaken otherwise innocuous actions on Luffy's part as a sign that they are married. Nyon sets the record straight. Luffy himself seems to finally get it post-timeskip, enough to tell her he isn't marrying her (not that it has any effect).
Accidental Tickle Torture: In the FUNimation dub Nami can be heard screaming "That tickles!" when Sanji is hugging her after Luffys defeat of Foxxy.
Achievements in Ignorance:
- Monkey D. Luffy lives on this trope. Quite possibly the best example of this is when he dived right into the God Eneru's ultimate attack: Raigou, which Eneru was going to use to annihilate the whole of Skypeia. Because Eneru forged a massive golden orb onto his arm, and Luffy was throwing his punches around him, the golden orb discharged the electrical currents and destabilized the ultimate attack, saving all of Skypeia. Word of God claims Luffy had no idea exactly what he was doing.
- A talking starfish that the Straw Hats meet named Pappug learned to speak human tongue because when he was a kid he believed himself to be a human. Why? "Hitode" is Japanese for starfish, and "hito desu" is Japanese for "I'm a human." A pun convinced him that he was human, and by the time he realized he was not, he had already learned to speak. Even Luffy questions how exactly that works.
- Zoro, who can and most likely will get lost under any circumstances, including running down a straight hallway with no exits. He also once got lost on the beginning of a narrow cliff. A trait shared with Ryouga from Ranma ½, who can get lost trying to go from one room in a house to another room. By going outside, and not noticing this is a problem.
- After the Skypeia arc, one of the side-stories shown on the title page is Gedatsu falling to the surface, where he ends up helping someone dig a hot spring, all while being his usual ditzy self and forgetting such basic human functions as breathing, blinking, eating food with your mouth instead of your ear, and not defying gravity and standing on the wall.
Achilles in His Tent: Usopp's whole deal during the CP9 saga, although he still participates to the battle as Sogeking. After falling out with Luffy, Usopp doesn't want to step besides his crew anymore but he cannot help but disguise himself to help.
Acquired Poison Immunity: Not immunity, but close to it. We find out in Fish-Man Island that ever since Luffy recovered from Magellan's various toxins, he is now incredibly resistant to ALL THE POISONS IN THE WORLD. Luffy would have to eat an enormous amount of poison, enough to instantly kill a giant, for it to affect him.
Action Bomb: Averted, as the same power that gives Mr. 5 his explosive abilities keeps them from harming him. Likewise, Doflamingo's executive Gladius can make anything including himself burst, although he isn't harmed by the explosions.
Action Girl: Due to the sheer scale of the cast, there are quite a lot of women who kick ass. Among the most prominent are Hancock, queen of the Kuja pirates which are an all-female crew; Robin; Nami; Big Mom, one of the Four Emperors... and Iva and Inazuma when they're in a "feminine mood".
Act of True Love: There are many of these in One Piece. Many, many, many. Some of them are about as flashy as it gets, like when the Straw Hats declared war on the entire world for the sake of one comrade, or when the Whitebeards went to rescue Ace in similar circumstances. But just as many are discreet and hidden, like Soldier-san's devotion to his daughter and protégés.
- Most noticeably is when Ace sacrificed himself to save Luffy, his little brother from a deadly blow from Admiral Akainu that intend for him.
Actor Allusion:
- In the dub, Jabra (voiced by Phil Parsons) yells about how there's no way Lucci's power level can be right.
- When Sabo is introduced in the anime, the character is voiced by Junko Takeuchi, famous for her role as Naruto. What do they do in their third episode together? Eat ramen, obviously.
  - A later episode shows him using a fishing rod in battle, referencing Takeuchi's role as Gon from the 1999 anime.
  Franky: Pirates Docking Six! Super Combination! YATTE YARUZE!
- Masashi Ebara ends up being cast to play Raizo. Not the first time he voiced a ninja.
- Katakuri is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita. It certainly won’t be the first time he’s played a character that’s predicted the lines of other characters.
- In the 4Kids Dub Dr. Kureha is voiced by Maddie Blaustein and goes by the Nickname Dr. K, another character Maddie Blaustein played, using the exact same voice.
- Also from the 4Kids dub we have J. David Brimmer as Crocodile. This wouldn't be the first time he voiced a villain with power over sand.
- In the English dub Kaido is voiced by David Sobolov, the voice of Gorilla Grodd another monstrously brutal animal-based villain.
Actual Pacifist: The royal Riku family has not brought a single war upon its country for eight hundred years. Even a threat of invasion did not get them to take up arms — they had to be taken over in order to force them to do so. The former king strikes with the flat of his blade when forced to fight, and his granddaughter has a reputation as undefeated despite never hitting her opponent at all.
Adaptation Distillation:
- Movie 9 is an alternate version of Drum Island, seemingly placed after the CP9 arc, and it manages to perfectly retain everything that made the original arc good, while also making some changes to keep things interesting for old fans.
- The 4Kids Entertainment adaptation dubs 142 episodes, but some of the plots are shortened to fit it into 104 episodes.
Adaptation Dye-Job: Quite a few examples, among major and minor characters alike:
- In the manga, Zoro's hair is a grass-green shade, and is almost exactly the same color as his haramaki (waistband). In the anime, it's a mint-green color, and definitely does not match the haramaki.
- Robin has brown eyes in the manga, Strong World, and Film Z, but blue eyes in the anime.
- In the manga, Law has dark blue hair and yellow eyes, but in the anime, has black hair and gray eyes. The coat he wears for the Dressrosa arc is also changed from black (manga) to chocolate brown (anime).
- Yasopp's hair goes from being black in the manga to a dirty blonde in the anime.
- Makino's hair is black in the manga, but an odd dark green-ish color in the anime.
Adaptation Expansion: Instead of relying on filler arcs to provide padding, the anime eventually took to following a 1:1 chapter/episode pacing, expanding on and lengthening the already-present material. It also fully covered the fates of the other eight Straw Hats following their defeat by Kuma presented while Luffy was traveling to Impel Down.
- Oda has admitted that despite the manga being so long and stuffed with ideas and happenings, if he had his way there would be even MORE. His editors tend to make him throw out a lot of ideas which aren't essential to keeping the story moving. These concepts often make it into the anime.
- They also show Rob Lucci's backstory in frightening detail.
- The anime also adapts the cover illustrations for Chapters 35-37, 39, 42-43, 46-48, and 50-51, which chronicle Buggy after his defeat at the hand of Luffy, from the time he is nearly eaten by a giant bird, to when he meets Gaimon, and the first time he joins forces with Alvida into two full-length episodes.
- Many of the major fights Post-Time Skip have been expanded, most likely for two reasons: 1. padding, and 2. so that the villains don't suffer under The Worf Effect so badly like they do in the manga.
Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
- The anime cuts out a scene from the manga where Luffy as a child scars himself to try and impress Shanks, thus it's never explained where he got such a scar.
- During the Baratie arc, as the Straw Hats head towards the titular restaurant, their guide Johnny tells Zoro that the "hawk-eyed man" he's looking for is said to show up there. Later, it's revealed he confused him with "Old Red-Eye, who drank so much, his eyes turned red." The anime keeps the first scene intact, but not the second, leaving Johnny's story hanging.
- The anime adapted only two mini-adventures (Coby/Helmeppo and Buggy's story). This became a problem for those who have not read the manga and don't know how, for example, Jango and Fullbody have become Marines or Hatchan escaped from the prison and met Camie.
- The Straw Hat's original entrance to the New World was excised in order to make room for more filler.
Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Has its own page.
Adaptational Early Appearance: The show has the anime artists adding foreshadowing of future characters that recently appeared in the manga by using an Early-Bird Cameo:
- Akainu appeared in the background of a group shot just over a month after his present design was unveiled in the manga, Jimbei was shown among the Warlords, and Shiryuu's shadow showed up in Impel Down. In Dressrosa, brief flashes of Corazon together with Child Law appeared before his proper introduction in Law's flashback.
- Nami is introduced in the first few episodes, with her own storyline, before her manga introduction during the Buggy arc.
Addiction-Powered: Franky's case is a bit different: He's a cyborg who uses cola as an energy source, mostly because he loves cola. (He can use other carbonated drinks, juices or even tea, with... mixed results)
Adipose Rex: Wapol, who is able to eat absolutely anything and is appropriately obese as a result. He can subvert it at will if he needs to, though.
Adopting the Abused: In his heart-wrenching backstory, Chopper was a reindeer born with a blue nose, who the rest of his herd perpetually neglected due to this abnormality. Things got even worse when he ate the Human-Human Fruit which granted him anthropomorphism, and the herd casted him altogether. Then Chopper would try to meet and befriend humans by using the fruit's power to assume a tall and burly humanoid form, but this resulted in him looking like a sasquatch, and the humans shot at him in fear. After all of that hardship, he'd finally be adopted by the kindly Dr. Hiruluk who treated Chopper like a son, and taught him the virtues of love and healing (this didn't last). Nowadays, Chopper has a place among the found family that is the Straw Hat Pirates surrounded, having people who love and accept him for who he is.
Advanced Ancient Acropolis: It's implied that there is (or was) one of these prior to the formation of the World Government, complete with superweapons powerful enough to destroy entire islands, during a period known as the "Void Century". Any and all knowledge of it has been suppressed, and anyone attempting to regain that knowledge will be hunted down and annihilated, along with any surrounding territory. Nico Robin's dream is to learn what happened.
Advancing Wall of Doom: Chief Warden Magellan becomes a rare non-videogame example in the latter part of the Impel Down Arc, once it becomes clear just how overpowered he is.
Adventure-Friendly World: The world this takes place in is an argument for Intelligent Design theory, as the very geography seems tailor-made for wacky pirating adventures, and it strains credulity that it could have occurred naturally. The planet is mostly covered with oceans dotted with small islands. The only large landmass perfectly bisects the planet at the prime meridian. The equator, known as the Grand Line, is bordered north and south by "Calm Belts" with no water or air movement, making it impossible to sail through, and they're infested with giant, incredibly powerful Sea Monsters so attempting to make it through by oar power or other means is inadvisable in most circumstances. Standard compasses don't work (because of reasons), so the only way to navigate is through a "Log Pose," which locks onto the magnetic field of the next island on the Line and requires a varying amount of time to "reset" upon arriving there, explaining why sailors have time to fool around at the Town of the Week on every island, why they can't just sail directly for the MacGuffin at the end of the Line, and why there isn't regular trade or cultural exchange between most islands (justifying some of the Schizo Tech in the process). The World Government has special navigational Applied Phlebotinum that allows them to bypass some of these restrictions, explaining why they're able to show up exactly where they need to be to cause trouble for Our Heroes.
A Dog Named "Perro": Tony Tony Chopper, a reindeer made sentient after eating the Human-Human Fruit, derives his name from the Japanese word for Reindeer, "Tonakai".
Adventure Series: The series is about Luffy's great adventure with his friends. Invoked, to the point where Luffy's love for adventure trumps his willingness to continue it if he gets spoiled about the ending!
Adventure Towns: Though usually these are destinations for story arcs, short or long, rather than Place of the Week.
Aerith and Bob: All over the place. Most of the groups tend to have members whose names have diverse linguistic origins. The nine enemy Supernovas actually stand out because the eight captains have a consistent naming theme.
Affably Evil: A fairly common trait, due to the moral ambiguity of many pirates and Marines. Many of the Marines who are incredibly cruel, sadistic individuals in combat behave pretty pleasantly towards their fellow Marines and even the pirates they fight, and the same is true of many pirates.
- Admiral Kizaru casually makes small talk with pirates before kicking them through buildings.
- Nico Robin was first portrayed this way, but actually undermined the Arc Villain at every turn, then joined the Straw Hats at the end.
- Big Bad Blackbeard is this to everyone, no matter the circumstance. Yeah, he tried to capture Luffy that one time, and he handed Ace over to be executed, but he doesn't mind if Luffy goes and saves him. Hell, he even praises Luffy for finding Skypeia and growing stronger. He genuinely seems to carry no grudges against people he slaughters/maims.
- Foxy, despite being a Dirty Coward and amassing his crew by winning them from Davy Back Fights he more than likely cheated in, genuinely does care about his crew as much as they care about him.
Afro Asskicker: Sengoku and Brook. Luffy also wore a fake afro during his fight with Foxy. It actually helped him win.
After the End: During the Egghead arc it's revealed that the world has spent the last 900 years recovering from the collapse of a highly-advanced ancient civilization.
Age Lift: Kitton, the boy whom Franky befriended with while he was stranded at Karakuri island, is much older in the manga adaption.
Agent Peacock: Emporio Ivankov, Cavendish, and Donquixote Doflamingo.
Air Jousting: Taken to its literal trope between Gan Fall and Shura.
Alas, Poor Villain: The loss of his crew turned Omatsuri to sacrificing humans to Lily Carnation, yet you consider how much he missed his crew and tried to revive them even as hollow shells and how his voice started cracking at the end as he regretted the loss of his comrades. It's very sad.
The Alcatraz: Welcome to Impel Down, the most secure prison on the planet and home to its deadliest criminals. Modeled after the Buddhist hell, with multiple levels of torture and imprisonment, each more horrible than the last. Don't even think of escape, convicts, as this prison is built in the Calm Belt, entirely underwater, and surrounded by sea monsters. There's also a secret sixth level, made especially for criminals too dangerous to exist, but its existence remains unknown to the public. Until Blackbeard springs a good chunk of the population of Level Six and adds several of the worst criminals ever to his crew. So secure is Impel Down, one character went through the lengthy process of joining the Seven Warlords of the Sea just to get in, while the other had to practically crawl up a Warlord's ass.
- For a good sense of how tough Impel Down is? The last person who escaped? Shiki the Golden Lion? Had to CUT OFF HIS OWN FUCKING LEGS to escape!
The Alcoholic: We have Zoro, who loves drinking beer. We also have Nami, who can outdrink pretty much anyone.
All Amazons Want Hercules: More specifically, they want your balls. Made more apparent in Ch. 594, where you can see them doing this to Jimbei and Rayleigh!
All Deaths Final: The Devil Fruits and advanced technology have ways to skirt mortality (the Revive-Revive Fruit activating on their "first" death to return the eater's soul to their body, the Shadow-Shadow fruit transplanting shadows into corpses to animate them as zombies, Imu's apparent immortality) these are all extremely specific, contingent cases (and in the case of the Shadow-Shadow fruit not even ressurective - the shadows die if their owners do). In all other cases, death is irreversible.
All of the Other Reindeer: In the One Piece world, it is quite common for people to be born or become freaks of nature, leading to some heartbreaking ostracizations. Likewise, association with a truly unpopular person will cause this, too.
- Tony Tony Chopper is a literal example of this trope. His herd initially mocked him for his blue nose. What caused them to finally exile him was when Chopper ate the Human-Human Fruit. Even though the Devil Fruit made him appear somewhat human, his attempts to fit in with them went just as well, with similarly cruel and painful results. If Doctor Hiriluk hadn’t taken him in, he’d likely still be alone, if not dead.
- Likewise, Nico Robin was viewed as an outsider by the citizens of Ohara (the sole exceptions being her mother and Jaguar D. Saul) because she was an orphan and she ate the Flower-Flower Fruit which makes her limbs sprout anywhere so she was scary... then the World Government which placed a bounty on her head and pinned down a horrible crime on her, thus no one liked her. That is, until she met Straw Hats.
- Ace was indirectly subject to this because he knew his father was Gol D. Roger and everyone kept saying how he and anyone close to him should die. He's acquired quite a bit of a self-esteem problem because of that.
- King Riku Dold of Dressrosa was framed for an extermination attempt on the populace before Doflamingo "saved the day". Thus, the citizens hated Riku and his family for it.
- Sanji was the black sheep of the Vinsmoke family because he was born a normal boy instead of being genetically enhanced to be superstrong and fast thanks to Sora's efforts. Thus, his three brothers bullied and beat the crap out of him every day while his father Judge tried to ignore him and then locked him up in a cell.
- Doflamingo himself was subject to this for a time. His family of former World Nobles were targeted as scapegoats by the populace of the island they went to live, and were bullied, and horribly tortured as vengeance against the Nobles. Donquixote, a simple jerkass, became Ax-Crazy because of that.
All There in the Manual:
- Oda often clarifies minor plot details in his letter column which appears in the collected editions of the manga. Sometimes these ideas inspire parts of the story later on.
- The anime only adapted the first two cover stories from the manga, meaning many important story and character developments go unmentioned and can lead to confusion as they become part of the main plot.
All for Nothing: In a series about people following their dreams, this is invariably bound to happen. Usually, when it happens to one of the good guys, it's shown that what they wanted didn't matter so much because they gain something even greater or that someone else will carry on their dream even though they may not live to see it. When it happens to the bad guys it's a case of Laser-Guided Karma which tends to result in A Fate Worse Than Death for the baddie in question or might become Meaningless Villain Victory if they succeed but learn Wanting Is Better Than Having, Gone Horribly Right, or Becareful What You Wish For. Oda has even stated that he believes having your dream crushed is the worst thing you can do to someone and the worst punishment you could face.
- One of the biggest ones is for the Whitebeard Pirates and the result of the Paramount War. The World Government tries to publicly execute Ace, Gol D. Roger's son as an example of their power and to curb or even stifle the current age of piracy. Whitebeard brings all of his fleet and his allies to rescue Ace who, like any crewmember, is like a son to him. Countless pirates have lost the life while attempting to free Ace and, after Luffy manages to remove Ace's handcuffs (after facing a lot of obstacles and going over his own limits), Whitebeard decides to sacrifice himself so that the others could escape. Unfortunately, Ace falls for an obvious and petty provocation by Akainu and assaults him despite everyone else suggesting him to keep running, ending with Ace losing his life and all of the Whitebeard Pirates efforts have been vain.
- Judge's desire to reconquer the North Blue. To reach that goal, he goads Sanji into an Arranged Marriage with Big Mom's daughter Pudding to the point of blackmailing him with Zeff's safety. His plans fail, however, when Big Mom reveals that she intends to kill him and his family to get their technology from the get-go. This causes him to break into tears begging to be spared, while in the meantime his children, guests, and Morgans ridicule him for his cowardliness. By the end of the Whole Cake Island arc, the alliance is off, he's forever indebted to the "dud" of the family, and the World Government removes the Vinsmokes' rights as Royals and all privileges that came with them due to their attempts to ally with Big Mom and Sanji's connections to them being revealed to the public.
- The Wano arc retroactively reveals that the Alabasta arc was this for Crocodile. He went to insane lengths in order to claim the Ancient Weapon Pluton for himself, including spending three years destabilizing Alabasta's government, only for it turn out that the weapon isn't there. Worse than that, it's later revealed that Pluton was actually located in Wano, which is on the other side of the world and, at the time, ruled by Kaido, someone who is far beyond even Crocodile's level in both fighting prowess and military might. Even if Robin had told him the truth of its location, Crocodile's chances of claiming it would've been next to null.
All Women Are Lustful: Paulie of the Galley-La company apparently believes this very strongly, and accuses any woman wearing clothing that shows off her figure (of which there are many) of being perverted. He even tries to protect his boss Iceberg from seeing Nami in a bikini while at the pool. Making it even funnier, he not only appears to be the only person in the world with this attitude, but he's a Mr. Vice Guy who was introduced while running from creditors over his gambling debts.
Aloof Older Brother: Flashbacks reveal that Ace was, shockingly, one in the past.
Alpha Strike: The Buster Call is a villainous version of this. When a situation is so threatening to the World Government that even the slightest leak would cause irreparable damage, the Buster Call is summoned. Ten massive warships headed by five Vice-Admirals essentially glass the target island, wiping out any trace of whatever threat they were called to deal with, and make no distinction between innocents and their targets. They can't be called off, either.
Altar Diplomacy:
- Don Chinjao has planned to have his grandson Sai, the leader of the Happo Navy, to marry the daughter of the general of the Nippo Navy as a bridge for the two navies to merge and become stronger. Sai in the end decides not to, though.
- Emperor Big Mom's entire pirate fleet. She has 84 children from 43 husbands. She even tries to marry one of her daughters to Vinsmoke Sanji to get her hands on the Vinsmoke family's technology and empire.
Alternate Character Reading: The source of some translation confusion in the Skypiea arc; Noland's ancestor cured a native tribe's plague by harvesting a native plant to produce quinine(キニーネ), which is used in real life to treat parasitic diseases such as malaria and babesiosis. The first translators mis-read the first vertical stroke in that word, resulting in Conine.(コニーネ) That's one of the scientific spellings of poison hemlock. As in the stuff Socrates was forced to drink when he made too many of his contemporaries look like idiots.
Alternative Foreign Theme Song:
- One of the most infamous examples to date! When 4Kids dubbed One Piece they replaced the adventurous "We Are" opening with a rap about the plot, characters, and basically being a pirate. Many fans of the original were not pleased.
- The German version of One Piece also has a theme song different from the Japanese version. It can be found here.
Always Chaotic Evil:
- The World Nobles, the ruling power of the World Government. You can count the number of them portrayed sympathetically one hand (Doflamingo's parents and his brother, Rosinante aka Corazon, and his relative Donquixote Mjosgard, though not Doflamingo himself). If anything, they're even worse than pirates.
Always Someone Better: Mihawk is this to every other swordsman in the world, as he's the greatest, but especially to Zoro, whose goal is to defeat Mihawk and become the greatest himself.
Amphibian Assault: In the Punk Hazard arc, the Arc Villain Caesar Clown has a pet in form of a giant salamander-like creature he calls "Smiley". In a twist, it's a living blob of poisonous substance that takes form of a giant salamander after it "eats" the Sala-Sala Fruit, Model: Axolotl. Not only it can breath poisonous gases, it can shoot out chemical globs out of its body that are extremely flammable.
Anachronism Stew: One Piece is supposedly set during the same time period as the real world's Golden Age of Piracy. This doesn't stop several pirates from sailing functional submarines, everyone having telephones and cameras (that are actually snails), and several other out-of-place and/or weird technologies.
Ancient Astronauts: It is heavily implied that the Ancient Kingdom was founded by the Winged Humanoids who inhabited the ancient ruins on the moon in Enel's cover story. Not only was their technology far above anything not shown on Egghead (Which the ancient kingdom was stated to have), but they traveled to earth due to an energy crisis (Which, once again, happened with the ancient kingdom). In the Wano arc, it is heavily implied that the Lunarians (Winged Humanoids, just like those shown in the ruins) were the Ancient Kingdom's ruling class^note. This is also likely why the World Government hunted the Lunarians to extinction, as they’re relics of an era they want to erase.
Ancient Conspiracy: The Void Century, a century-long gap in recorded history. It took place about 800-900 years before the start of the story, and whatever happened during it is a secret that the World Government is genocidally protective of. The Will of D, the Poneglyphs, Laugh Tale (the final island on the Grand Line), the Ancient Weapons, Pluton, Poseidon, and Uranus and a person or a group of people called Joy Boy are all connected to it.
And I Must Scream:
- What happens to those who are transformed into toys and forced to obey any command from the Doflamingo family in the Dressrosa arc.
- King Riku and his army are controlled by Doflamingo into attacking and killing innocent people in the Dressrosa arc.
Androcles' Lion: When Luffy saves the adult Lapin from the avalanche, thereby reuniting him with the baby Lapin who had been tried in vain to dig his parent out by himself, he had no idea that same family would defend him from Wapol's lackeys later on.
Angrish: Sanji's reaction to his bounty poster.
Angry Cheek Puff: In Chapter 953, Kawamatsu offers to let Hiyori ride on his back since the snow is so deep, but Hiyori gets offended and refuses, stating she's not a child while puffing out her cheeks like a blowfish in a very childlike pout, which Kawamatsu immediately lampshades.
Angry Chef: The floating restaurant Baratie hires staff that have been kicked out of everywhere else, usually because they keep getting into fights. As a consequence it is filled to the brim with angry chefs. The frequent brawls within the restaurant are actually a customer attraction!
Animal Motifs: Oda loves these. Every CP9 member, the three admirals, and the original Seven Warlords of the Sea all have animal themes. The Straw Hats have them too, though theirs are a bit vaguer. However, Oda has stated he's sure of at least one. He thinks.... that Chopper is a reindeer.
Animal Talk: Averted with the Zoan Fruits. Simply eating, say, the Cat-Cat Fruit does not allow one to speak to cats. Chopper, however, can talk to humans and animals and act as a translator — but that's because he was originally an animal himself.
Animation Bump: Comes in several flavors. A handful of episodes are done in a style that is much brighter and more colorful and almost identical to the manga's art. Another handful of episodes are done in a more stylized manner that sacrifices detail for fluidity. The animation in general has over time been employing more detail and fluidity across the board, and the 10th Opening and especially the 15th Opening are exemplary of this.
- The highly-regarded G8 filler arc (Episodes 195-205) has significantly more detailed, on-model animation than anything in the series beforehand. The show jumps to HD immediately afterwards, which also bumps the animation standard up a bit.
- Episode 235 has very detailed lighting and shading, giving the episode a fittingly moody feel.
- Episode 474 brings us the best animation quality yet seen, though a few moments, such as facial expressions, look rather awkward as a result.
- The animation quality bumps up whenever Whitebeard does something awesome.
- You may begin to notice around Thriller Bark that the animation starts to take on special qualities during key scenes, suddenly becoming highly detailed, foreshortened/shiny, and really sleek. This continues on and off hereafter on the series. That's all the work of one person, Naotoshi Shida, who is praised as the top-notch animator on One Piece. When he puts his hands to a scene, you know things are about to get very badass up in there. However, due to the immense work his animation style alone needs, you won't see it in regular use. Most notable is Naotoshi's veritable crowning achievement in the Dressrosa Arc, when Luffy transforms into his Gear Fourth state for the very first time on-screen. It's so nice, the anime uses it twice! Then there's another huge scene he got the honor of depicting: the introduction of Kaido of the Beasts! As Christopher Kol of YouTube fame (KingOfLightning) put it in his review of that fateful episode (on his twin channel KingOfLightningII due to treading water with copyrights on his main channel at the time), it's as though the characters shined themselves up in baby oil and the Supernovas had liters of sweat pouring off of them in fear.
- The animation style undergoes a noticable shift and improvement at the beginning of the Wano arc.
- Perhaps the most notable example in all of One Piece are the episodes directed by Megumi Ishitani. For each one, the lighting, smoothness of action, transitions, perspective, and many other details are far beyond what the show's production schedule usually allows. Queen's dance in episode 982 and Yamato's vision of Luffy and Roger both declaring their dream are standout examples even within the larger masterpiece of each episode.
Animesque: Inverted, as evident by the show's cartoonish aesthetic.
Anime Theme Song: There are over 20, most of them being optimistic and catchy. The themes seem to generally follow the mood of the story: during the Paramount War and immediately after they are slower and more contemplative, once the crew reunites again, the new song is even more upbeat by contrast.
Animorphism: The Zoan-type Devil Fruits allow the user to become a fully different species of animal, as well as a hybrid of that animal and their original form (and yes, even humans are counted as an "animal"). Most fruits have a certain "model" for animals that are in the same family (EX: Dog-Dog fruit, Model Wolf), and some of them have an additional sub-class depending on the animal — "Carnivorous", which tend to be more ferocious; "Ancient", which are for prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs; and "Mythical", for creatures out of legend, such as a phoenix or dragon, which also grant the user special powers beyond the transformation (such as a phoenix's healing flames). Any Zoan can also be "Awakened", which grants the user far greater strength, speed, and durability, but apparently at the cost of their intelligence, since the earliest seen examples were mentally more beast than man. The Egghead arc later revealed that in exceptional cases, Zoans could be Awakened and retain their intelligence, as happened with both Rob Lucci and Kaku.
- Even inanimate objects can "eat" a Zoan Devil Fruit: they gain characteristics of a living being and their corresponding animal's intelligence, and can also transform into the animal itself, a hybrid (in the absence of a better word) or their "original" object form.
- If an animal eats a Zoan fruit corresponding to its own species, it apparently "enlightens" them. This case appears in Fleet Admiral Sengoku, who ate a Mythical Zoan, Human Human Fruit, Model: Great Buddha.
- Post-timeskip, it was revealed that Dr. Vegapunk and later Caesar Clown had worked on creating artificial Zoan-type Fruits, Dr. Vegapunk creating a single known fruit using "Lineage Factor" from the user of the Mythical Zoan "Fish-Fish Fruit, Model: Azure Dragon"; the resulting fruit was significantly weaker than the original version and was regarded as a failure. Caesar Clown later created the mass-produced SMILES, which are grown on trees through absorption of a chemical called SAD, which contains "Lineage Factor" from all sorts of animals. Sadly, the results leaves much to be desired, as 90% of all SMILES grant no powers, but afflict their consumer with two permanent curses; the Super Drowning Skills that plague all Devil Fruit users, and an inability to express any emotion other than smiles and laughter. For the other 10%, the consumer gets to roll on a Superpower Russian Roulette where they will, at best, get a lame knock-off version of the normal Zoan's power, and more likely suffer all manner of animal-related Body Horror, up to and including gaining a fully sentient animal as either a conjoined twin or a replacement for a limb. The lucky ones just get permanent mutations, which may or may not come with the Required Secondary Powers needed to use them effectively.
Annoying Arrows:
- The Rumbar Pirates were able to spend their last minutes merrily partying and singing away with quivers of poisoned arrows protruding from them, the poison being what brought them down. In the anime, this goes on for nearly five minutes.
- Luffy's bedwetting "human pincushion" scene from Movie 6, although those were plant-controlled arrows.
- Completely inverted in Amazon Lily with stone-splitting archery.
- Whitebeard does this with swords, cannonballs, and anything else the Marines throw at him. It eventually takes the entirety of the Blackbeard Pirates attacking in tandem to take him down. And he still dies standing up.
Arbitrary Skepticism:
- Luffy, whose crew includes a talking reindeer, a singing skeleton, and a farting cyborg, is shocked that Law has a bear in his crew.
- Also the people from the Grand Line believe Skypiea to be merely a myth. This coming from a sea where islands have lightning rain and a good amount of people have strange abilities. That one of the world's most feared pirates has wings on his back, and comes from an island in the sky, for some reason does nothing to shake this view.
Arch-Enemy: Strangely, for a series that is primarily arc-driven, this tends to crop up very frequently. The most notable case however is the D. carriers and the World Nobles. The conflict between them is implied to have gone on for centuries — the World Nobles tell their children horror stories about the D, and whenever a D starts to make a name for themselves, all the elders moan and groan about how that D "will surely bring forth another storm!" One society even branded the D as "God's Natural Enemy" with God, of course, being the World Nobles. This has not gone unsupported — look no further than Luffy's actions throughout the series. His father Dragon is even leading a revolution against the World Government, while Trafalgar Law's enmity and conflict with Donquixote Doflamingo, a former World Noble (who still kinda acts like one), is the driving force behind the Pirate Alliance saga. Even Luffy's Grandfather, Monkey D. Garp, counts in a Downplayed sort of way, as he specifically refuses to be promoted beyond his rank of Vice-Admiral because doing so would make the World Nobles his direct superiors, and he absolutely despises that idea.
Arc Number:
- Whenever someone's past is mentioned, terrible events always occur on some multiple of 3 or 10 years ago. Compared to the number of people this does not apply to, it's almost like there's a triennial apocalypse... at least for any named characters.
- For some reason, Oda seems very fond of 16-year-old princesses (no, not in that kind of way). Every time a new princess is properly introduced, she is always 16-years-old: Vivi, Shirahoshi, Rebecca, and Scarlet (appears as a 22-year-old in Rebecca's flashback, but first gets an introduction box and becomes fleshed out as a 16-year-old in a later flashback).
- Another time-related Arc Number that infrequently popped up since the tail-end of Paraside Saga is "40 years ago". First used by Shakky to describe how long she has known Rayleigh, it became much more significant during Reverie arc when it's revealed that 40 years ago was the Age of Rocks, and how Big Mom, Kaido and Garp are all linked to them. It's mentioned a second time in the same arc by Marco as the time when Whitebeard and Bukkin were on the same ship.
Arc Villain: Any island the heroes visit and is occupied by some evil character who has made the latest friend suffer will have one Arc Villain for the heroes to fight. Most of the East Blue villains are one-off characters whom Luffy beats once and are never seen or heard of again like Kuro, or Arlong, while Buggy reappears but as an unwilling ally. Then in Grand Line comes Eneru who oppresses Skypeia and goes to the moon, never to be seen again, Gecko Moria from Thriller Bark who's defeated and has his standing decreasing dramatically thereafter. In the New World, Hody Jones in Fish-Man Island is soundly beaten and becomes harmless, then Caesar Clown and Doflamingo are respectively beaten in their own turfs by the Straw Hat.
Arc Words:
- The Will of D.
- The One Piece itself could count. It's rarely mentioned in the series (even Luffy talks about his goal being becoming King of the Pirates far more than finding the One Piece), but just the mention of it sparked two ages of piracy.
Aristocrats Are Evil: The World Nobles, who take this to downright absurd levels (rape, slavery, and genocide are something they consider their divine right to commit), the nobility of the Goa Kingdom, and King Wapol. Notable aversions are:
- The Nefertari and Riku families, as well as Fish-Man Island’s royal family—full of good people who genuinely care for their subjects.
- Sabo, who regrets being born into nobility when he witnesses their cruelty and disregard for human life.
- Donquixote Homing is a World Noble who gets branded a heretic simply for implying to his peers that they are human beings. He gives up his status to live among commoners. It blows up in his face, sure, but he still displays selfless behaviour in defence of his family. His son Rosinante grows up to be one of the most good-hearted characters in the entire series.
Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: One of the most memorable examples would be Luffy versus the weapon-loving Don Krieg. A good part of the fight revolved around Luffy trying a way to break his armor.
- Subverted during Thriller Bark, where Luffy randomly puts on an old suit of armor for no reason other than he thought it looked cool. Then Double Subverted when the actual danger begins and he fights bare-fisted, as always.
Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Eneru and Rob Lucci. Both somewhat justified, since the former was literally invincible until Luffy came along, and the latter was a government Tyke Bomb.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: This lovely quote from Inspector Shepherd in the filler G8 Arc: “Thanks to you, I’ve dealt with humiliation, incarceration, and being called Condoriano!"
Artificial Outdoors Display: Crocus the doctor decorates the giant whale Laboon's inside with paintings of the sky.
Artificial Human: The Germa 66 have an entire army of homegrown cloned soldiers made to obey the Vinsmoke family's every command, even be their human shields.
Art Attacker:
- Mr. 3, who uses wax sculptures, and Miss Goldenweek, who uses color to paint on Standard Status Effects or other powers. They are paired together due to their art theme.
- Giolla, of the Donquixote Pirates, who turns people into art.
Art Evolution: Oda's style has changed a lot over the years, becoming less round and cartoony, but also more variable. His panels are also much busier and full of activity, while in early chapters they were sometimes a bit barren.

This has carried over to the anime, which has tweaked its character designs every now and then. The style has gotten more clean, with fewer superfluous lines and details, in order to make the animation more fluid. Watch any later episode which contains a flashback to an earlier one; the difference can be surprising. Most noticeable with Chopper, who kept getting cuter little by little in the manga. In the anime, he remained the same for several years, then had his design changed to the cuter version all at once. Adorable, but jarring.

Early on, both male and female characters had fairly slim and smooth builds. As the series progressed, men got more obvious musculature, and women gained Impossible Hourglass Figures.
Art Shift: Three times in the anime: once in Movie 6 and in a later episode, the art (already done in a radically different style than the rest of the show) shifts to a black-and-white sketchy style. Then a minor shift appears in one of the Impel Down episodes: in the imagination of Hancock, whose fantasy version of Luffy is drawn to look Bishonen in a completely non-Oda style, complete with sparkles.
- The special released before the TV series, Defeat the Pirate Ganzack is notably the only time Toei wasn't involved with the anime, with it instead handled by Production I.G.
- The country of Wano is so excessively Japan-themed, the waters around it are made to look like Hokusai paintings like The Great Wave Off Kanagawa or The Kirifuri Waterfall.
Art-Style Dissonance: Even with the zany, cartoony art style, the series can get pretty dark at times. Case in point, Ace and Whitebeard's deaths and Kuma's backstory.
Ascended Fanboy:
- Hody Jones from the Fish-Man Island arc started out as a fan of earlier Arc Villain Arlong before becoming one himself.
- Oda counts somewhat, seeing as he started out as a fan of Akira Toriyama (and Dragon Ball in particular). Eventually, he impresses the latter enough that they end up doing a one shot crossover between both franchises.
- Bartolomeo the Cannibal: After hearing of Luffy's exploits in Marineford, Bartolomeo becomes a pirate and managed to amass a high bounty, a reputation as a Super Rookie, and got to the New World in the span of a year, not unlike Luffy himself. And then he gets to fight alongside his idols.
Asleep for Days: Luffy sleeps for three days after defeating Crocodile. After he's told this, he calculates that he missed 15 meals. Becomes increasingly subverted as the series progresses with Luffy first learning how to eat while unconscious, and then being able to hold a conversation, cry, express anger and eat while still sleeping!
As Lethal as It Needs to Be: It's stated that the best swordsmen can do this: Strike a sheet of paper or a tree branch harmlessly, yet cut rocks or even steel the next second. Zoro was taught this lesson by his first master without getting that pure cutting power wasn't the key, but he didn't reach this level until his battle against Mr 1 in the Alabasta arc where he consciously doesn't cut a tree leaf but then cuts Mr. 1's iron-hard body.
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: In one SBS, Oda lampshades the fact that Robin's attack names regularly mix and match English, Spanish, and French. "It's a bit jumbled up, but it sounds nice, so no worries."
As Long as There Is One Man: After Boa Hancock petrifies Vice Captain Momonga's crew, she mockingly states that his crew is down to one. He replies that "one" is not the same as none.
Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: A common part of Oda's design style:
- Usopp is designed to look like Pinocchio. His long nose recalls Pinocchio instantly, while his large boots, knobby body, and dark skin are specifically designed to look like wooden marionette. Fittingly, he's a constant liar, who desperately wishes to become a real man.
- Most of the male Baroque Works agents have their number integrated into their appearance. On the extreme end, Mr. 7 has a face consisting entirely of 7s.
- Chief Warden Magellan, who runs a Dante's Inferno-esque prison, looks like Satan wearing an SS uniform.
- Hilariously inverted with Commander T-Bone, who is one of the most peace-loving and compassionate human beings in the series, let alone the Marines. Despite this, he looks like a hideous ghoul.
- Prof. Clover's hair looks like an upside-down three leaf clover.
- Let's not forget that Dr. Crocus' head resembles the flower he was named for.
Astral Projection: Brook can have his soul leave his body, which allows him to look around places despite any confinement to his physical body.
Attack Reflector:
- Impact Dials can absorb the energy of a blow and store them to be released later. The more powerful Reject Dials return it with ten times the power, but can also hurt or even kill the user.
- Kuma's Paw-Paw Fruit allows him to repel all attacks with his palms, regardless of how powerful they are.
- Luffy can also do this due to being rubber, but after the timeskip, he's learned to return attacks with twice the power.
Author Appeal:
- It has become increasingly clear over the past few years that Eiichiro Oda really, really, really likes afros.
- Apparently, the reason that Nami was redesigned after the Time Skip is because Oda married a model who portrayed her in cosplay.
- Crossdressers (Rurouni Kenshin author Nobuhiro Watsuki confirmed that then-assistant Oda was responsible for the creation of crossdressing villain Kamatari).
- A disproportionate number of Badass Longcoat wearers wear their coat as a Coat Cape.
- Feather boa coats have been popping up everywhere since Doflamingo's rise in prominence during the Dressrosa Arc. Jack, Kaido, Charlotte Galette, and Charlotte Brulee have all sported one.
- It's probably safe to assume that Oda is a leg man. Virtually every attractive female character has very long and shapely legs, and a majority of the Male Gaze in the series is decidedly aimed at them.
- Confirmed by Word of God, he really likes pirates.
Author Avatar:
- In the Dream Soccer King! special, Eiichiro Oda is depicted in it as a soccer player called Odacchi; what's funny is that he's the worst soccer player in the special, despite his claims to the contrary.
- Also in Gigant Battle for the Nintendo DS, Oda is depicted again as a man with a large pencil and a fish for head that draws manga panels to trap opponents.
Autocannibalism:
- In a plot point exclusive to the manga, Zeff cut off and ate his own leg while stranded on a deserted island with Sanji, who he had secretly given all the stockpiled food to.
- Later, a villain gifted with Munch-Munch Fruit eats himself to make himself thinner when he gets stuck in an entryway.
Award-Bait Song: Some of the songs used in the anime and movies could qualify. "Asu wa Kuru Kara", "One Day", "Compass" and "Mata ne" come to mind.
Awesome, but Impractical: Artificial Devil Fruits, or SMILE, although valuable because they are Devil Fruits that can be mass-produced, are really, really hard to create and parts of the process are total potluck.
- To boot, only one person in the world can make SAD, the chemical which produces the Fruit, and a race of plant experts enslaved to farm the Fruits can still only produce one viable Fruit out of ten because of its unnatural existence.
- Even then, only one in ten "viable" Fruits actually gives the one who eats it Zoan powers, while the other nine only gain its side-effects (the standard lose of swimming on top of the permanent inability to express negative emotions), and it's impossible to tell which are good Fruits and which are the bad ones before you eat them.
- And even then, the artificial Fruits' effects are much less predictable than regular Zoan Fruit, and sometimes even cumbersome for the user. For example, you might get animal powers, but your physical human body might not be able to keep up with them, or instead of becoming a whole lion-man, you instead become a man with a lion growing out of his stomach, who has a mind of its own and can attack you if it wants.
- The one notable upside to SMILE versus normal Devil Fruit is that they actually taste good.
Awesomeness Is a Force: Essentially, Conqueror's Haki (Haoshoku no haki) that the likes of Rayleigh, Hancock, Luffy possess is literally them manifesting their inner strength of character, immense will and charisma, to dominate others which mostly translates into them choking and going unconscious from sheer fear. People with this Haki are really stubborn, really don't like to be told how they should do things (unless it comes from their True Companions) and do whatever they want, whenever they want. It's treated in-universe as a big O.O.C. Is Serious Business moment if a known wielder of Conqueror's Haki apologises or begs for something.
Ax-Crazy:
- Most of the Warlords have specific goals (Crocodile, Moria, Blackbeard), and some of them have codes of honor (Jimbei, Mihawk). By contrast, Slasher Smiling Donquixote Doflamingo appears to be absolutely batshit insane and just enjoy causing havoc and killing people… until we actually get to know the guy.
- "Iron Wall" Pearl, once his Berserk Button took a hit, went completely out of control to the point of nearly burning down the ship he was fighting to capture. Even his own commander was ready to squash him.
- And Magellan locked co-warden Shiryu up in the deepest level of the prison when Shiryu started killing prisoners for fun. The first thing Shiryu does upon being released to help with the prison break? Attack the guards who opened his cell.
- Admiral Akainu responds to almost anything he perceives as a threat with absolutely ridiculous amounts of force... and, considering how many things he sees as threats, he goes from being ruthlessly pragmatic to a complete psychopath.
- "Wet Hair" Caribou, one of the new infamous rookies that arrives on Sabaody around the end of the timeskip, may very well take the cake on this one. To drive the point home, his shirt even looks like an undone straitjacket.
- Implied to be the case with Kaido, since after the failure of his latest suicide attempt he asked Joker to "start the war that will destroy the world". (May also be a case of Who Wants to Live Forever?)

Back Story: Everyone. If a character is fighting one of the Straw Hats for more than two chapters, expect them to have some sort of backstory.
Back-to-Back Badasses:
- For some (or perhaps many), Luffy and Ace at Marineford. Unfortunately, not for long enough... and never to be seen again.
- We've got none other than Whitebeard and Roger on the cover page of Chapter 597.
- Usopp, Nami and Brook pull a three way version of this trope when they're fighting off the palace guards on Fish-Man Island.
Backwards-Firing Gun: The anime only G8 arc had the Straw Hats (specifically Luffy, Ussop, Zoro, and Robin) when the Marines corner them in a storage vault (They had raided it to recover the treasure they had gained from Skypeia). When a Marine Commander named Shepherd pulls out a gigantic gun dubbed the "Eagle Launcher" and goes to aim. But the Marines around him tell him he's pointing it the wrong way. When he doesn't believe them, he fires and predictably ends up hitting the troops behind him. What's more Robin uses her Hana Hana powers to take control of him and the gun to keep firing it, giving the Straw Hats a path to escape.
Badass Adorable: Chopper, Nami, Luffy, Vivi and Tashigi, among others. Robin and Hancock also count, to a lesser extent (They're definitely badass and cute, but they're not as cute as the aforementioned examples).
Badass Boast:
- Luffy's declaration of war on the World Government.
  Spandam: You really think you can survive now that the entire world's your enemy?!
  Luffy: Bring it on!!
- After taking out 50,000 New Fish-Man Pirate warriors, Hody declares his intentions to be the Pirate King:
  You can play at being a regular king all you want. But there's only room in this world for one... Pirate King!! I don't care how many of you there are! Come on!
- I AM WHITEBEARD ^note.
- Luffy at Enies Lobby.
  Marines: We have ten thousand men guarding this island! This is the greatest fortress of justice in the world!
  Luffy: Yeah and I'm alone so GET OUT OF MY WAY!
- Trafalgar Law, to Vergo:
  Law: Payback... is gonna be a bitch.
Badass Bookworm:
- Nico Robin reads a lot of books on a regular basis and is an archeologist, but kicks ass in battle.
- Chopper is an educated doctor, but whenever he needs to battle, he brings on the heat with the help of his medicines.
- A flashback during the Skypiea arc reveals that Montblanc Norland was an awesome example in his day as well.
Badass Crew:
- Blackbeard's crew are a delightfully evil example, recruiting not only four of the most notorious criminals but also the insane swordsman who once guarded them, along with a former Admiral
- Shanks and his men qualify for stopping an effing war by showing up and giving everybody involved a stern talking-to.
- The Straw Hats. They are currently only ten, but all are extremely efficient in their specialties and grow stronger exponentially. Their strengths and wide areas of expertise mean they always have each other's back and they have defeated whole armies. With only the first five people, they manage to beat Arlong, the most fearsome pirate of East Blue. At six (or seven people) they manage to beat Crocodile, a Warlord of the sea as well as his entire organization of bounty hunters and save the kingdom of Alabasta. It helps that they always make friends along the way though.
Badass Family: The Monkey D. clan. Garp is a Vice-Admiral who was a rival to Gol D. Roger, his son is the most wanted man in the world, and his grandsons are some of the strongest pirates (barring the Four Emperors) in the world; this might extend to other Ds like Saul and Teach as well.
Badass in a Nice Suit: Here and there, a badass character will have a suit as his outfit.
- The members of CP9 carry out assassinations and government conspiracies while looking absolutely sharp. But it's also important to note that several of them look really ridiculous wearing suits like that, especially the fat Fukurou and the hyperactive Kabuki actor Kumadori.
- This seems to be spread to the Marines as well. Just look at Admiral Kizaru.
- Sanji wears a black tuxedo, is elegant and kicks ass with his foot battling skills.
- The entire Straw Hat crew get into the art in the tenth movie. And they all look damn sexy to boot.
- Capone "Gane" Bege always wears a suit and gets all of his crew to do so too. He even made the whole Straw Hat crew wash up and put on nice clothes before discussing his plan to take down Big Mom with them.
Badass in Distress: Every main crew member (and Vivi) goes through this during their focus arcs in some respect^noteZoro in the Morgan Arc, Nami in the Arlong Arc, Usopp in the Kuro Arc, Sanji in the Baratie Arc, Vivi in the Alabasta Arc, Chopper in the Drum Arc, Robin and Franky in Enies Lobby, and Brook in Thriller Bark, to clarify.. Additionally, and despite (or due to) being the two more powerful members of the crew, Luffy and Zoro get captured/restrained/incapacitated a lot. It usually gives other characters the chance to shine.
- Luffy was thrown to a pool by Arlong (rescued by Nojiko, Genzo, and Sanji), nearly executed by Buggy twice (saved by Nami and Zoro, and then by a lucky flash of lightning), thrown to a seastone cell with the rest of the crew by Crocodile (saved by Vivi and Sanji), buried alive by, again, Crocodile (rescued by one of his subordinates) and he was also rescued by Law after he lost the will to fight or live after Ace's death.
- Zoro was about to be executed when Luffy met him, and Mr. 3 almost made him, Nami, and Vivi wax figures (in this case, they were saved not solely by Luffy, but by Usopp and Carue).
- The Monster Trio was captured by Moria and all of them got their shadows stolen.(Aside from this, though, Sanji is almost never captured, thus averting this trope).
- Luffy and Ace also go through this badly in Impel Down and Marineford, respectively. Luffy gets better with help from Bon Clay, Mr. 3, Buggy, Crocodile, Mr. 1, Ivankov, Jimbei, and numerous others. Ace doesn't.
- Trafalgar Law numerous times in Dressrosa, allowing Luffy to return the favor from Marineford.
- Sanji in the Zou/Whole Cake Island arcs, as his family and Big Mom have kidnapped him to try and force him into marriage.
Badass Longcoat: It should be stated that 97% of all the Badass Longcoat wearing characters' arms are NEVER within their coat's sleeves and just have them hang from their shoulders while they fight (or many cases Curb Stomp) as per Rule of Cool. The characters who wear them are:
- Most high-ranking Marine officers.
- Mr. 5 of Baroque Works.
- Alvida.
- Gold Roger and John Giant, who seem to have been the only character badass enough to actually wear his badass longcoat with his arms in the sleeves.
- Eustass Kid, who wears a coat sleeve on his right arm, but not his left.
- Luffy in the tenth movie.
- Z and Ain in the 12th.
Badass Minds Think Alike: When Luffy and Zoro first meet and are pitted against Navy captain "Axe-Hand" Morgan and his marines. Morgan's son Helmeppo attempts to take Luffy's friend Koby hostage to stop him attacking Morgan. Luffy doesn't hesitate to launch an attack at Helmeppo to save Koby, despite this leaving him wide open to attack by Morgan. The attack goes nowhere, however, because Zoro steps in to stop the attack by bringing down Morgan. Luffy had full faith in Zoro doing his part despite having only just met him and seen him in action.
Badass Normal:
- Usopp doesn't have Devil Fruit powers, but can keep up in fights to some extent with his gadgets and gimmicks.
- Sanji and Zoro are just a cook with insanely good foot battling skills and an excellent swordsman, respectively. They can easily face enemies that have Devil Fruit powers.
- Nami has very little physical power or fighting skill to speak of, and no Devil Fruit powers, but still manages to take down fairly tough opponents (and cuts large swathes through the Marines' Red Shirt Army) with her Clima Tact, a Weather-Control Machine that her navigational skills allow her to do things with that not even Usopp, its original creator, could think of.
- Mihawk is kinda this compared to the other Seven Warlords of the Sea, being the only one to so far possess neither Devil Fruit powers or Fish-man abilities.
- Surrounded by guys who shoot lasers, freeze oceans, and turn into Buddha, Garp stands out as a Marine capable of extreme badassery (he was the Pirate King's nemesis) despite having no apparent Devil Fruit power.
- Roger himself also counts. To the best of our knowledge so far, he had no Devil Fruit powers. He appears to have had the ability to understand any language, but that isn't what made him the greatest pirate to ever live. His crew also seems to have been this.
- Out of the former members of Gold Roger's crew that we've seen so far, only Buggy has been shown to have a Devil Fruit power, and he ate his entirely by accident. In Buggy's flashback, the crew express the opinion that losing the ability to swim isn't worth the power, and when Buggy, probably one of the lowest-ranked people on the ship, declares that he's going to eat it, no one really seems to care. In fact, the rest of the crew comment on how stupid he's being.
- Red-Hair Shanks parried a fist of lava with a sword. Note that Shanks only has one arm.
Badasses Wear Bandanas: Zoro and Whitebeard are the primary examples. Blackbeard also wore one in the past and bandanas in general, as you might expect, are popular among pirates and pop up fairly often.
Baddie Flattery:
- Foxy complimented Luffy on his new look before their fight.
- Rob Lucci in the anime commended Luffy during their battle for standing up to the World Government, but was too haughty to admit that a ~~rebel~~ pirate could actually be a Worthy Opponent for him.
- Blackbeard does this constantly.
Bad Future: When asked in the SBS to draw what the main characters would look like at ages 40 and 60, Oda will draw two sets of drawings. One depicts them in a good future that seems to be an extension of their canon personalities, while another depicts them in a future where they look much worse for wear, both in looks and in circumstances:
- Ace becomes an indulgent deadbeat, as he gains more weight and constantly asks Luffy and his crew for money.
- Luffy simply gives up on his dream of becoming the Pirate King.
- Sabo returns to his noble roots and adopts their corrupt ideology, but by 60 he's fallen into poverty and alcoholism and attempts to coast on his relationship to Luffy.
- Zoro falls out of shape and gives up swordsmanship as it makes his back hurt. This results in him becoming a beggar by the time he’s 60.
- Nami becomes more desperate for money, resorting to schemes such as selling "magic pots."
- Usopp regresses completely on his Character Development, lying about Luffy and Zoro being his disciples and presumably not having any power to back up such a reputation.
- Chopper has a falling out with the crew, and by 60 he's the leader of a sacrificial cult.
- Robin abandons archaeology for the slave trade.
- Franky modifies himself to become less and less human. At age 50, he's upgraded to BF-50, indistiguishable from an android, with a robotic fixation on the destruction of all ships. At age 70, he's upgraded to BF-70, a heavily armed battleship.
- Sanji stops caring about food and cooking, then by age 60 he's started dressing like his father and poisoning water supplies
Bad Liar: Usopp simply because his lies are mostly boasts about being badass and that he doesn't look the part, Luffy because he cannot make up a good story, and Sanji at one point during Thriller Bark. Though it's important to note that Sanji is usually a pretty good liar, even able to trick Crocodile.
Bait the Dog:
- Blackbeard is first introduced as a rather jolly Boisterous Bruiser whose negative interaction with Luffy during his introduction is played for laughs. Fast forward to the Marineford battle where he gleefully and brutally murders Whitebeard who he once called "father" for twenty years and steals Whitebeard's Devil Fruit abilities, revealing himself to be always a power-hungry megalomaniac.
- Eustass Kidd is first seen disgusted with the World Government slave auctions and setting himself as a Worthy Opponent to Luffy and Law. A hundred chapters later, he's seen crucifying pirates attempting to flee the most dangerous sea of the New World.
- Law himself isn't as mellow as he was once thought to be. In Chapter 659, it's revealed he sent 100 hearts of pirates to the World Government to become one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
- Completely inverted with Jimbei. When he was first mentioned by Yosaku as Arlong's former captain and the one who set Arlong into East Blue, everyone assumed that Jimbei would be set up as a major villain later on. Who would have thought that he was in fact a honorable and decent person, became one of the Straw Hats' biggest allies and be the tenth member of the Straw Hat Pirates?
Balance of Power: The world is in an uneasy state of equilibrium of power between the World Government and their Admirals, the Seven Warlords of the Sea allied to the former vs. the Four Emperors, each of whom are perfectly able to take on the World Government but not without leaving themselves vulnerable to another Emperor. No one is happy that they aren't on top, but everyone gets that starting a war first will only leave one vulnerable.
- One of the reasons the Straw Hats are so infamous is that they always manage to upset the balance somewhat by defeating a Warlord here and there, thinning their ranks, make the government look weak, and Luffy has lately committed a raid against Big Mom and survived, also making her look bad.
Balloon Belly: Luffy's rubber body and his enormous appetite inevitably lead to him being bloated with food and looking like a balloon. However, he burns through calories pretty quickly so goes down to athletic again in no time.
Barefoot Suicide: A humorous subversion happens where Nami takes off her sandals before pretending to jump off a cliff in Weatheria, to trick some old men into letting her stay for two years.
The Baroness: Kalifa from the Galley-La company is of the sexpot kind.
Base on Wheels: Capone "Gang" Bege is a base on legs. His insides appear to be more like a fortress, where an army of tiny people, cannons, and horses reside. And while they may look puny from inside his body, they grow to normal size instantly after moving a foot or two away from him.
Bastard Angst: Ace is the bastard son of Pirate King Gold Roger, and as such he has a big stigma put on him. All his life he always wonders whether he deserves to be born because of this.
Batman Gambit:
- Blackbeard is the man with a plan. He successfully defeats and captures Ace and hands him over to the Marines, earning him the title of Warlord of the Sea. Knowing Whitebeard's familial protectiveness, a chain of events would lead up to a war between the Whitebeard Pirates and the Marines at Marineford, which gave him a clear opening to break into Impel Down and recruit the most dangerous and powerful prisoners into his crew.
  
  But the gambit doesn't stop there; after that part's success, he takes his crew to Marineford, where he knew Whitebeard would have been worn down from taking on the World Government's full force. He then has his entire crew attack Whitebeard, finally killing him, and then proceeds to steal the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit from him. And as if his threat level wasn't already up to eleven with that move, he then proceeds to usurp Whitebeard's territories and titles, both that of the Strongest Man in the World and that of one of the Four Emperors. The bottom line? A monster pulled off a successful Batman Gambit, and has officially become the series' Big Bad.
- Featured heavily in one of the TV specials, Adventure of Nebulandia, where the villain keeps employing the Batman Gambit to get the better of The Straw Hats every step of the way. Parodied in the same special at the end by Nami, who preemptively counteracts against Foxy when she just "knew" that he was going to attack Luffy again.
Battle-Interrupting Shout: Happens not one, but many times. First, it is subverted by Princess Vivi as per Rule of Drama when she tried to stop the revolutionary army from attacking the royal palace. Played remarkably straight by Luffy later on: when he screams for a crowd to stop, he can actually cause an entire battlefield to faint and froth at the mouth.
Battle Tops: Captain Buggy's First Mate uses spinning tops in one of his attacks.
Battle Trophy: Impressed by Shuusui, Zoro stated that he will claim it as his own. When the battle was over, Ryuuma acknowledged his loss by giving the sword voluntarily to Zoro.
Beat Them at Their Own Element: It is stated that Logia type Devil Fruits have a superiority system when it comes to the elemental power granted by each fruit clashing with one another. The best example is during the Maineford Arc when Admiral Akainu manages to defeat Ace in a direct clash of their respective elements, Magma for Akainu and Fire for Ace, with Akainu himself stating that Magma is superior because it can burn even fire. Said superiority is what allows Akainu to deliver a fatal killing blow to Ace moments later.
Be Careful What You Wish For: When the Toy Soldier/Kyros was human and no one let him forget he was murderer, he wished that people would simply forget his existence. After building a happy life for himself, his wish came true where everyone including his loved ones forgot they existed.
Beam Spam: When he feels up to it, Kizaru can unleash an absolute hail of laser blasts. The Pacifista also have lasers as their main weapons and are quite trigger happy.
Bears Are Bad News:
- Straight plays:
  - Kumacy, Perona's pet Zombie Teddy Bear.
  - Bear King, Big Bad of the second movie.
- Subversions:
  - Bepo, of the Heart Pirates, is a Kung-Fu Bear, but he's a pretty nice guy... er, bear.
  - Bartholomew Kuma can get rid of anyone just by touching them with his hand, but spared the Straw Hats twice, even though he had orders to kill them the first time, and he's supposedly the Warlord who's most loyal to the World Government. [[spoilers: The Egghead arc reveals him to be fully benevolent until he got his free will removed.]]
Beard of Evil: Blackbeard, full stop. He's gained a full beard during his time as Emperor. Brownbeard manages to take this trope up to eleven. He has an evil beard which splits into three additional beards although he ultimately isn't too bad for a pirate.
Beast Man: The Minks are a diverse race of anthropomorphic animals inhabiting an island in the New World. Several have become important characters: Bepo, the navigator of the Heart Pirates; Pekoms, one of Big Mom's top lieutenants; and Carrot, a warrior of Zou assisting the Straw Hats against Big Mom.
- The mink tribe fit the trope even more as they naturally have both human and beastly features.
Beat Still, My Heart: In Chapter 662, Law literally pokes out Smoker's heart. Law then is seen holding Smoker's heart as Smoker himself slumps down.
Beat Them at Their Own Game:
- In the Davy Back Fight, one pirate crew challenges another to a series of games with crew members as the prize. Naturally, the Straw Hats win, but there's still some drama along the way.
- The members of CP9, confident in their skills, make a game out of rescuing Robin by dividing five keys between themselves, one of which unlocks Robin's handcuffs. Of course, we all know what happened there. And even earlier in the Arlong arc, when the titular Fish-man throws Luffy into the water and proclaims to Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp that it's a game to save him by beating the Quirky Miniboss Squad. Three Fish-men beatdowns later (as well as some CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable on the part of Nojiko and Genzo; the crew didn't quite get to their captain in time), and Luffy is freed to deliver some much overdue pain onto Arlong.
Beauty Equals Goodness: Generally speaking, most of the overtly evil or otherwise unpleasant people range from brutish looking to exaggeratedly ugly in comparison to the Straw Hats, other good guys, or even the morally neutral characters. It is occasionally subverted though; Sanji's brothers are all pretty boys much like Sanji himself, but they're some of the nastier characters around. And on the flip side, we have Lola who's a Gonk but is one of the nicer characters in the series.
Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
- Double Subversion in Nami's case. Her skin sometimes shows pretty serious damage during her more intense fights, but in the long run, it is still ~~practically~~ flawless, despite the fact that she's been slashed or stabbed more than any character besides Luffy or Zoro. Hell, this trope might count for everyone besides Zoro, who's the only one in the entire ~~crew~~ series to retain the scars from his battles. It should be mentioned, though, that in the illustrations from an old light novel set in Loguetown, Nami does have a rather noticeable scar on her shoulder where she stabbed out her Arlong tattoo.
- An especially egregious case is Rebecca, a gladiator forced to fight repeatedly in the Corrida Colosseum. Whereas her male colleagues have all sorts of terrible scars and disconfigurations, her body is totally devoid of them. Justified, as it is mentioned that she has never been hit in a fight.
- The anthropomorphic personification of this is the Slip-Slip Fruit, which makes the eater so slippery that attacks slide right off them.
- For what it's worth, this trope was finally and disturbingly Averted in the case of Vinsmoke Niji and his chef. Cosette, the head chef of the Germa Kingdom, is a cute young woman that Sanji defends from his brother when he decides to attack her due to not liking the food she made. When Sanji's back is turned, Niji brutally beats her bloody, bruised, and unconscious to a level that Oda normally reserves exclusively for male characters.
- Sanji used one of his strongest known attacks on Luffy, causing him to lose a tooth. The tooth stayed lost for a few chapters, but was restored when Luffy drank some calcium-rich milk, restoring his original looks.
Because You Were Nice to Me:
- During the Baratie arc, Gin of Don Krieg's crew ends up fighting Sanji and having the chance to kill him. Gin can't bring himself to, though, since Sanji was the one who gave him the food he asked for. Apparently, it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him up to that point.
- Chopper was treated as a monster for his whole life, but when Dr. Hiluluk met him, he gave Chopper a name and treated him as his own son. Even years after the doctor's death, Chopper won't hear a single bad word about him, even fighting Wapol and his two henchmen for trying to destroy Hiluluk's flag.
Behemoth Battle: On Little Garden Island, there are two giants who have battled against each other for about a century. They've forgotten the cause for their battle, and now they just do it for fun.
- Also, Oars Jr vs the Marine's giant squad.
- Oimo and Kashi vs Sodom and Gomorrah at Ennies Lobby.
Believing Their Own Lies: God Eneru is aware that "God" is merely a title in Skypiea, but is so powerful he convinced himself he is the real thing.
Bemoaning the New Body: At the climax of the Water 7 arc, Sanji fights an annoying Gonk chef named Wanze while trying to rescue Robin from the World Government. Fed up with his antics, Sanji kicks Wanze so hard he turns into a Bishōnen, horrifying Wanze and leaving him wailing about how ugly he looks before Sanji kicks him back to Gonk and finishes him off.
Bequeathed Power: Whenever a Devil Fruit user dies, their powers are reborn into a new Devil Fruit, which is the case of Ace's Flame Flame Fruit. It is implied that a Devil Fruit's power will go into the nearest intact Fruit(s).
The Bermuda Triangle: The Florian Triangle is full of fog and many ships are said to have disappeared. The Straw Hats eventually find out that an island ship called Thriller Bark was responsible for this and put a halt to it. However even with the crew of Thriller Bark defeated, the end of the story arc reveals that there's still something lurking within the fog.
Berserk Button: Has its own page.
Berserker Tears: Since most of the People Puppets Doflamingo controls can't do jack about it, several of the controlled people cry these tears as Doflamingo forces them to kill each other. Two notable examples include King Riku being forced to slaughter his people, and Rebecca being forced to charge at and attack her aunt Viola (Though Luffy and Law fortunately saved them both in the nick of time).
Best Her to Bed Her: Alvida is infatuated with Luffy because of this trope, though she's apparently okay with killing him. If he's able to be killed, then he wasn't the man she was looking for. She has faith in his ability to survive.
Beware the Nice Ones: Luffy is a pretty nice guy. There are just some things he won't tolerate◊.
- The Strawhats overall count as this. They're not saints, and they may he violent(Zoro), greedy(Nami), and deceitful(Ussop), but as pirates go they're among the few that stand up for and aid civilians. In fact they spend most of their time fighting other pirates and only act against the world government when provoked.
Beware the Silly Ones: Has its own page.
Beyond the Impossible:
- Sanji's "Diable Jambe" works underwater.
- Blackbeard has two Devil Fruit powers and hasn't exploded].
- Spandam has a sword that ate a Devil Fruit, and Mr. 4 had a gun that ate one. Both of these have the same explanation which has been touched upon but not yet fully explained — somehow Dr. Vegapunk managed to figure out how to get inanimate objects to "eat" Devil Fruits. This may be expanded upon in the future.
- Zoro's ability to get lost seemingly transcends the laws of physics.
- A Seraphim disobeys a direct order because Luffy asked her to do it, and the Seraphim in question is a clone of Boa Hancock and has inherited her crush on Luffy. This manages to baffle Vegapunk himself.
Beware the Skull Base: The island of Fullalead (Pirate Island) where the most prominent feature is a huge rockformation in the shape of a skull, with a carving that makes it look like the skull is wearing a bandanna (including a knot). This is a subverted case however, as the island is a place of festivity and fun for pirates, described as their paradise. But it's also part of the Blackbeard pirate crews' territory which is one of the Four Emperors, the strongest crews in the One Piece world. It is however played absolutely straight when the islands' history is taken into account, as it was the place where the legendary pirate crew the Rocks Pirates were formed, which was so dangerous and destructive that it posed a legitimate threat to the World Government. For this reason, the crew was struck from all documents and their very existence hidden from the world.
BFS:
- Mihawk's sword, the Kokutou Yoru, is nearly as tall as he is, and about five times as wide, due to the cross-like hilt.
- Arlong's kiribachi was a saw-tooth sword big enough that Luffy's head fit between just two of it's teeth
- Justified in Squad's case, since he only used it to stab the shit out of Whitebeard.
Bicolor Cows, Solid Color Bulls: Ucy the Bull is brown while Momoo the Sea Cow is black-and-white.
Big Bad: As one of the modern day pioneers of the Arc Villain format, it takes a while before we get an idea on who the Final Boss will be, let alone who the primary antagonist will be. Every arc has a main antagonist, but each arc is part of a greater saga, and the prime villain of that saga is the Big Bad, who typically not only survive their defeats, but return to continue shaking up the status quo in parallel to that of the heroes. This helps develop the world more (as characters stories don't end just because the crew finished their arc), keeps changing the balance of power up, and allows the series to finally develop a Big Bad Ensemble by the halfway point of the series made up of villains who've lasted the longest, pose the biggest threat to the world and the heroes, and have the most personal stakes against Luffy's crew.
- East Blue Saga: No central villain, instead featuring numerous Arc Villains that—while certainly dangerous by the East Blue's standards—aren't quite the major threats they think they are. A few manage to have greater roles than that of one-off antagonists:
  - Buggy the Clown is a Starter Villain who gains a grudge against Luffy, but lacks the ability to follow up on it. Nevertheless, he manages to blunder his way into becoming one of the Seven Warlords and eventually one of the Four Emperors.
  - "Saw-Tooth" Arlong is a Fish-man pirate who controls Nami's hometown, acting as the Climax Boss of the saga due to being the toughest opponent Luffy faces and a Predecessor Villain to future Fish-men antagonists.
- Alabasta Saga: Sir Crocodile of the Seven Warlords of the Sea is the mastermind behind both Baroque Works and the Alabasta civil war. He returns as a prisoner of Impel Down, forced to help Luffy escape in search of Ace, and joins as a reluctant ally in the Battle of Marineford, before reuniting with his former Number Two (ironically named Mr. 1) and teaming up with Buggy and Mihawk by recruiting both into his new group, Cross Guild.
- Sky Island Saga: Enel is the tyrannical "god" of Skypiea, who seeks to destroy the "unnatural" floating island and all of its inhabitants.
- Water 7 Saga: Spandam, the chief of CP9 and Enies Lobby, orders the kidnapping of Robin and the theft of the Pluton blueprints. However, to say that Spandam is completely and utterly incompetent at whatever he puts his mind to is a huge understatement, so most of the threat instead comes from his Dragon-in-Chief Rob Lucci, who personally kidnaps Robin and serves as Luffy's primary opponent during the climax.
- Thriller Bark Saga: Gecko Moria of the Seven Warlords of the Sea is the ruler of Thriller Bark, stealing the shadows of travelers (including Brook and Luffy) in order to create powerful zombie warriors.
- Summit War Saga: Fleet Admiral Sengoku starts out as this, wanting to execute Portgas D. Ace, prompting Luffy to attempt to rescue him. However, due to him remaining mostly as a Non-Action Big Bad, Marshal D. "Blackbeard" Teach and Admiral "Akainu" Sakazuki both act as the Climax Bosses of the Marineford Arc.
  - Blackbeard sets the war between the Marines and Whitebeard in motion by kidnapping Ace in order to become a Warlord. He proceeds to take advantage of the Impel Down breakout to recruit powerful pirates onto his crew, and kills Whitebeard at the climax of the Marineford arc. After the time-skip, he becomes one of the Four Emperors.
  - Akainu is a Marine Admiral who, while technically under the command of Fleet Admiral Sengoku, takes the most ruthless and actively antagonistic role in the war by killing Ace after he's rescued from execution. After the time-skip and Sengoku's retirement he becomes the new Fleet Admiral, sending Marines after the Straw Hats whenever he can. So far, he's the only foe to hand Luffy so crushing a defeat that it broke his will.
- Fish-Man Island Saga: Hody Jones, who seeks to enact Arlong's dream of fish-man superiority. However, he's a Big Bad Wannabe when fighting the Straw Hats, who easily walk through him and his allies in almost every encounter.
- Dressrosa Saga: Donquixote Doflamingo is one of the Seven Warlords, the infamous underworld figure "Joker", Caesar Clown's employer, the ruler of Dressrosa, and Trafalgar Law's Arch-Enemy. After being built up throughout the series, the Straw Hats team up with Law to dethrone Doflamingo and end his production of SMILE for Kaido.
- Whole Cake Island Saga: Charlotte "Big Mom" Linlin of the Four Emperors has Sanji kidnapped in order to trick the Germa 66 into a trap disguised as wedding alliance. After the Straw Hats try to assassinate her (and ruin the wedding cake) she pursues them to Wano for revenge.
- Land of Wano Saga: Kaido "The King of the Beasts", the most malevolent of the Four Emperors, wants to start a massive world-wide war so he can finally die. He employed Doflamingo in the production of SMILE, and helps Orochi keep the populace of Wano suppressed so that its lands can be used for weapon factories.
- The films also feature Big Bads of their own:
  - One Piece: The Movie: El Drago, a pirate who wants to find Woonan's Pirate Booty for himself.
  - Clockwork Island Adventure: Bear King, who kidnaps Nami and tries forcing her to marry him.
  - Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals: Count Butler, a poacher snooping around the Crown Island to find the Crowning Treasure horns.
  - Dead End Adventure: General Gasparde, a former marine turned pirate who tries cheating his way into winning the Dead End race.
  - The Cursed Holy Sword: Saga, a former acquaintance of Zoro who was Brainwashed and Crazy by the Seven Star Sword.
  - Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island: The titular Baron Omatsuri, who has made a deal with Lily Carnation to consume visitors of his island to bring his deceased crewmates back to life.
  - The Giant Mechanical Soldier of Karakuri Castle: Ratchet, who tries manipulating the Straw Hats into finding the hidden treasure on the Mecha Island so he can dominate the Grand Line.
  - Episode of Chopper Plus: Bloom in Winter, Miracle Sakura: In this reimagining of the Drum Island Arc, Wapol stays the main antagonist trying to reclaim the Drum Kingdom.
  - One Piece Film: Strong World: "Golden Lion" Shiki, captain of the Golden Lion Pirates and a former Impel Down inmate who plans on building an army of evolved beasts to Take Over the World. He also kidnaps Nami at the start of the film to make her his navigator.
  - One Piece 3D: Straw Hat Chase: Buzz technically counts as this, being the bird (later revealed to be a Devil Fruit-using dog) who's stolen Luffy's prized straw hat.
  - One Piece Film: Z: "Black Arm" Z, a former marine admiral who intends to lead the Neo-Marines to set fire on the Grand Line and end piracy once and for all.
  - One Piece Film: Gold: Gild Tesoro, the owner of the casino city Gran Tesoro.
  - One Piece Stampede: Douglas Bullet, a former crewmate of Gol D. Roger who wants to obtain Roger's treasure by gathering all powerful pirates and killing them.
  - One Piece Film: Red: Uta, the adopted daughter of Shanks and Childhood Friend of Luffy who wants to create a new era of peace by using her Sing-Sing Fruit powers to trap the world inside of her Uta World. She eventually summons the Ancient Evil Tot Musica, who acts as the Climax Boss.
- Some video games have main antagonists exclusive to them:
  - Great Hidden Treasure of the Nanatsu Islands: Simon, who kidnaps Vivi to force the Straw Hats to collect the titular treasure and give it to him.
Big Bad Duumvirate: Several major antagonists will form alliances once their interests happen to align.
- Fishman Island arc: Hody Jones and Vander Decken both team up to launch a coup in Fishman Island right around the Straw Hats arrive. Hody is motivated by his hatred of humans, his opposition to the "appeasers" in King Neptune's royal family, and his desire to carry out Arlong's legacy. Meanwhile, Decken seeks Princess Shirahoshi, who is actually the ancient weapon Poseidon which allows her to control the Sea Kings.
- Wano Country arc: Kaido and Big Mom, themselves former teammates on the Rock Pirates, had their territories invaded by the Straw Hats, their resources poached or sabotaged by the Straw Hats, and their valuable allies or commanders defeated by the Straw Hats, and so in response, they form an alliance in Wano to settle scores with Luffy for good.
Big Bad Ensemble: Due to the saga/arc formula, it took all the way up to Marineford before we had any idea who the best contenders for primary antagonists could be. The most likely candidates for the series as a whole are Marshall D. Teach, better known as Blackbeard, who became one of the Four Emperors after killing Whitebeard and usurping his territory and Imu, the mysterious Shadow Dictator of the World Government and the only person who can order the Five Elders around. Subverted with Kaido and Big Mom, two other members of the Four Emperors, while they both separately played the role of Greater-Scope Villain through several arcs in the New World, the final saga of the series begins only after they're both defeated by the end of Wano, thereafter leaving the aforementioned three as the series' proper villain ensemble.
The Big Bad Shuffle: As the Final Saga of the series unfolds, we gradually learn the top contenders for the primary villain role. There's Marshall D. Teach, aka Blackbeard, who rose to power as one of the Four Emperors after killing Whitebeard and taking over his territory by capturing Ace, Luffy's brother, thus instigating the Marineford conflict. There's also [[spoier:Imu, the mysterious true leader of the World Government who wields authority over the Five Elders.]] Who will emerge victorious in the end is yet to be revealed.
Big Bad Wannabe: Entirely determined by events outside of his control, Buggy the Clown has become this in the Impel Down and Marineford arcs. The World Government assumes that he's Four Emperors level because he was on Gol D. Roger's crew along with Shanks, an actual Emperor]]. Every action he takes will inevitably be interpreted by the followers he picked up at Impel Down as part of some massively elaborate gambit. It doesn't help that after both Luffy's and Buggy's crews enter the Grand Line, nearly everything that Buggy does ends up helping the Straw Hats out in some way. Post-Timeskip, the farce escalated to such a point that Buggy's now one of the Seven Warlords, eventually ending up as Emperor after Kaido and Big Mom are defeated.
Big Ball of Violence: Played straight. Mr. 2 sacrifices his freedom for Luffy and the Impel Down escapees. Luffy cries, Buggy mocks him, Luffy punches Buggy on the nose, Buggy retaliates.
Big Brother Instinct:
- Ace, the older brother, is rather protective of his younger brother, Luffy.
- Once Sabo meets up again with Luffy, one of the first things he does is protect his little brother from one of Blackbeard's men who would have wiped the floor with Luffy at the time.
- On a not-literally-siblings note, Zoro tends to be most protective of the crew's youngest member, Chopper.
- Likewise, Luffy tells Momonosuke he thinks of him like a little brother, even after the latter becomes an adult. He also acts as one to Tama, who affectionately calls him Big Bro Luffy.
Big Brother Is Watching: Thanks to his extremely advanced Mantra power, Eneru is able to sense the movements and thoughts of EVERYONE on Skypeia. And thanks to his Devil Fruit power, he's able to punish anyone he wants with a giant frickin' lightning bolt (That move is essentially a human version of the Kill Sat). It seems like the only reason he doesn't just single-handedly wipe out all resistance completely is that he would get bored.
Big Brother Mentor: Ace and Zoro to Luffy, as well as Marco to Ace.
Big, Bulky Bomb: The bomb at the end of the Alabasta arc.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: The forests of Jaya are swarming with 'em. Shiki's also got a number of giant insects among his beasts.
Big Damn Heroes:
- The entire Straw Hat crew seems to constantly be doing this on the large scale. They arrive at an island JUST in time to be around as the various events come to a head.
- If one of the weaker Straw Hats are in jeopardy, you can expect Sanji to materialize from nothing to deliver a kick to a villain's face.
- Right in the middle of the war between Whitebeard's Pirates and the World Government, Luffy and the Impel Down escapees fall in from the sky.
- At Enies Lobby, Merry saves the crew when they get trapped between Marine battleships. That's right, in One Piece a boat can be this trope.
- In Chapter 578, Trafalgar Law pops up at Marineford to save Luffy's life. Moments later, Shanks steals Law's thunder by ending the whole war without firing a shot.
- A particularly strong example was in Strong World when the whole crew, minus Nami, marched into Shiki’s HQ carrying cannons, which never appeared anywhere else in canon yet, and then proceeded to use them against the rather large force of Pirate Captains and mooks gathered there as a way of saying “hello” before the action really started.
- The Straw Hats showing up to save Robin and Franky.
Big Eater:
- Looks like Luffy's family is fond of eating a lot. We have seen Ace and Garp do this.
- Jewelry Bonney eats huge amounts of food at an amazing speed, yet she's totally slim and attractive. She's also known in-universe as the "Big Eater". Yes, the name of this trope.
- Lucky Roux, one of Shanks's crewmates, is notably the only big eater in the series who is actually fat (or indeed, in anything but amazing shape).
- Crappy king Wapol, whose Devil Fruit allows him to eat everything, from planks of wood to cannonballs, and take on their proprieties. And yet his powers enable him to become as slim as the aforementioned examples.
- Luffy takes this up to eleven at the end of the Alabasta arc. He's given an entire cartful of fruit to snack on while he waits for dinner to be prepared. He eats all the fruit, within a nanosecond; literally if you blink you'll miss it. Also added that he doesn't even bother to peel said fruit or that he eats two cardboard boxes along with it. Zoro and Sanji shout out of what Luffy just did was some kind of trick.
- Luffy finally met his match in Totland. When Pudding "hired him to dismantle her shop" because he found it too good not to eat, he and chopper together couldn't finish it in a single sitting.
Big Entrance: Invoked by Monkey D. Garp. How does he make his entrance? Busting straight through a wall when There Was a Door. Why? Because it's cooler that way. He then goes on to have his men fix the wall.
Big Fish in a Bigger Ocean: This is a common problem pirate crews face, especially those originating from the Blue Seas. Some may rise to become the strongest in their home seas, but upon entering the Grand Line and/or the New World they will often find themselves pitted against opponents who are leagues stronger than they are. The Strawhats would become a prime example of this after leaving the East Blue, as their enemies eventually got so strong that Luffy actually chose to pull a retreat instead of fighting lest the whole crew be slaughtered. This would inspire Luffy to have the crew take a two-year hiatus from their journey to train and prepare themselves better for what lies ahead in the New World.
Big Good: Shared and switched amongst various contenders throughout the story. Chronologically speaking, Gold Roger kickstarted the Golden Age of the Pirates, but he's a Posthumous Character, while Dragon remains the most powerful opponent to the World Government, as head of the Revolutionaries. Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate had this role before the Time Skip until his death near the end of the Marineford arc, while "Red-Haired" Shanks (a former crewmate of Roger) operates as something of a Bigger Good. After the Whitebeard War, Silvers Rayleigh (Roger's first mate) briefly worked as Luffy's mentor and trainer prior to the Time Skip, but there's a chance he'll return once again.
Big "NEVER!": Uttered by pretty much everyone aside from Luffy in Thriller Bark, when Kuma offered to let them live if they handed Luffy over.
Bilingual Bonus: Usopp's least favorite food is mushrooms. Sopp is the word for mushroom in Norwegian. U put before a word is like un-something in English. So if one think of it as Norwegian, does his name mean Unmushroom.
Billing Displacement: In-Universe example: after escaping from Impel Down, the Marine holds Luffy and Buggy responsible — completely ignoring the two former Warlords that were involved.
Bishōnen Line: Rob Lucci uses Seimei Kikan to make his half-leopard form smaller and more maneuverable, but he has to change back to normal to use his strongest attack.
Bittersweet Ending: The ending of Marineford. Ace and Whitebeard have been killed, Luffy stays without his nakama for about two years (though it was his choice), and the world is now under a new age of even more piracy. Despite this, Luffy and his crew resolve to continue their adventure with high spirits and never give up on their dreams.
Bizarro Elements: Due to Oda disallowing the creation of any Devil Fruit power he plans on using in the future, the makers of non-canon media have to get pretty creative with making up Logia Fruit elements for their fillers. Some of their gems include the "Pasa Pasa no Mi" (Paper) and the "Ame Ame no Mi" (Candy syrup). These elements were made canon by Charlotte Katakuri and his Mochi-Mochi Fruit ("Mochi Mochi no Mi"), abit as a "Special Paramecia".
Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: At first, Boa Hancock kicking a cat out of her way is played as horrific, but then later, after it's revealed that she's a Broken Bird beneath all her harsh attitude, she's then shown kicking a puppy and a baby seal and it's Played for Laughs.
Blank White Eyes: Happens to every villain who has been deafeated by Luffy and won't be getting back up again (for the moment). Also happens to Luffy when he realizes that Ace died right in front of him.
Blessed with Suck: A highly uncommon trait in this series, since important characters tend to be very good at exploiting their strengths, no matter how weak they may seem.
- Brook's Revive-Revive Fruit allows nothing more than coming back from the dead. His soul took so long finding his body that it had rotted to only bones by the time Brook fully revived. Plus, it's implied this power only works once, so Brook is now left with the negative effects of a Devil Fruit. Regardless, even Brook has found ways to put his light, bones-only body to good use.
  
  The Revive-Revive Fruit also keeps you in whatever state you were in when it kicked in permanently, essentially bestowing semi-immortality; the user can't age or die of natural causes, but they can be killed by other means. This turned out to be more of a curse for Brook since it led to him spending fifty years all alone on a deserted ship.
  
  And the most horrific side-effect of all: if someone cuts off Brook's afro, it will never grow back. Though it does mean a lot in Brook's case, as his afro is the only thing that will allow Laboon to ever recognize him. Hence why he's so protective of it.
- Coby spontaneously ends up developing Haki. Observation Haki, to be specific, meaning he can hear voices of people from far away and know exactly what they're doing. Cool, right?... except he developed it right in the middle of the Whitebeard War, meaning his first experience with it is masses of people dying. And he hears every single one. Oh... and he can't control it yet, meaning he'll keep hearing people's voices and pain until he learns to turn it off.
- Pierre is a giant bird that ate the Horse-Horse Fruit, which gave him the power to transform into a horse or into a hybrid form that (supposedly) resembles a pegasus. Since he can already fly and is big enough to carry his owner, the Horse-Horse Fruit only made him unable to swim. On the other hand, since Pierre doesn't have flippers, he probably could never swim anyways.
- Subverted for Corazon, whose Calm-Calm Fruit allows him to erase all sound, either from the environment or from a person's own actions. Even he can't explain what it's good for, other than some peace and quiet. Until he has to steal the Ope-Ope Fruit, which is under guard by a large pirate force. He very cleverly uses lack of sound to distract them and steal the Fruit before they realize what's happening. Later, he uses the power to allow Law to remain undetected by the Donquixote pirates.
Bloodier and Gorier: The Paramount War contains the most graphic injuries in the series thus far.
Blood Knight:
- Whenever Zoro gets in a swordfight, he's pretty much always seen smiling. Really makes you wonder how much he's enjoying it while it lasts.
- Rob Lucci deliberately allowed Luffy to discover the Enies Lobby secret passage, just so they could fight. Later he admits he works for CP9 so he can kill people for a living.
Bloodless Carnage:
- In one of the filler arcs, an amnesiatic Luffy and Zoro get into a fight. Luffy gets hit with Zoro's Oni Giri attack, which tears his vest and leaves visible cut marks that remain for the rest of the episode, but there's no blood, despite the fact that he was previously shown bleeding from a cut on his cheek.
- All fights are this way in the 4Kids version, replacing any blood with dirt and bruising, or nothing at all.
- Even the main series, which doesn't shy away from showing blood, has suprisingly little of the stuff when the dragon on Punk Hazard is beheaded.
Blood Upgrade: Pearl from Don Krieg's crew, who becomes more unpredictable when he realizes he's bleeding.
Bloody Hilarious: In an early Fish-Man Island chapter, Sanji ended up having his face squeezed into a mermaid's breasts whilst hiding from the three mermaid princes. The result is that Sanji has a nosebleed so powerful that it erupts into the air in the shape of a mermaid. This proves disastrous because just moments ago, Chopper told everyone that Sanji has a rare blood type and he had just run out. So if Sanji had another high-pressure nosebleed, he would be in big trouble.
Bloody Murder: Crocodile's only weakness is liquid, as getting wet prevents him from using his sand powers. What does Luffy use when he has no water? His own blood. In the 4Kids version, this was changed to sweat.
Blush Sticker: The following people have oval blushes at one point or another in the series: Boa Hancock, Bon Clay, Miss Goldenweek, the mermaid princess Shirahoshi and Chuu the Fish-man from the Arlong Arc^notein the anime, at least.
Body Bridge: At least one Filler episode has Luffy stretching his rubber body over a cliff to act as a bridge. He even names it as a technique!
Boisterous Bruiser: The giants of Elbaf are a Proud Warrior Race in this vein from what we've seen so far. Blackbeard fits the trope to a T despite being a villain. If anything, his cheerful big guy attitude is what makes his evil actions unsettling. His crewmate Burgess is one with a little bit of Blood Knight mixed in.
Boke and Tsukkomi Routine:
- Big Bad Gold Lion Shiki from the tenth movie and his assistant doctor Indigo have this going on. The OAV of "Chapter 0" shows they were going at it over 20 years back as well.
- Often happens between Nami, Usopp, and Luffy.
Bond Villain Stupidity: The CP9 agents, attempting to eliminate people who know of their existence, tie up Paulie and Iceburg and leave them in a burning building. This is after they've fully explained how they can kill a man with no more than their index finger.
Bonding Over Dislikes: In the cover story "Germa 66's Ahh... An Emotionless Excursion", Caesar and Judge re-unite many years after they went their separate ways. There's a shared flashback showing the pair as part of the scientific institution MADS in their younger days, as the two beat each other up in the present. Until they remember they both hate Vegapunk far more than they hate each other, set their differences aside, decide to join forces, and found NEO MADS.
Boob-Based Gag:
- When Sanji's body-swapped in Nami's body he introduces "herself" by removing the coat, pushing both her breasts up with her hands and shouting "WE ARE NAMI SAAAAN!" at the top of her lungs.
- Luffy actually steps and bounces on the gargantuan boobs of the giant-sized Mermaid Princess Shirahoshi, mistaking them for some sort of pudding.
Bookends: Many individual story arcs have a consistent theme, and begin and end with a similar event. For example, in the Arlong Arc, the first flashback we see of Nami's childhood has her stealing from the villagers. At the end of the arc, as she's leaving with the Straw Hats, she pickpockets a number of them on the way to the ship.
- Chronologically in One Piece's tenth movie Strong World, the crew's adventure began with receiving a tone dial from Shiki. At the end of the film, there were some silly antics by Luffy, Usopp and Nami concerning the same tone dial.
- In One Piece Film: Z, the movie begins and ends with a fight scene between Z and the Marines to the song of Ocean's Guide.
- "The Pirate King" Gold Roger was executed in the city of Loguetown, where he was born and raised. It's for this reason that Loguetown is called "The Town of the Beginning and the End". To top it off, the last arc of the East Blue Saga has the protagonist's "execution" (attempted murder) upon the very execution stand where Roger died twenty-two years before, and as the blade comes down to end his life, he smiles, echoing Roger's death. At which point he is saved by dumb luck (lightning strikes his would-be executioner), and his actions spurn a Marine Captain who witnessed Roger's execution decades before to chase after him, starting the adventure of the next Pirate King.
- The Skypiea arc begins with a ship falling from the sky, and shortly thereafter, giant figures appear in the fog (who are actually people on the sky island above). The arc ends with Luffy appearing in the clouds in the same way just after defeating Eneru, thereby giving Noland the answer he'd sought for much of his life, and some time later, the Straw Hats' ship falls from the skies, landing safely in the sea below with some help from the Skypieans.
- Luffy, carrying an injured Pekoms, leaves Zou to rescue Sanji. During the climax of the Whole Cake Island arc, both Pekoms and Sanji get their turns to carry an injured Luffy to safety.
Boom, Headshot!: In Luffy's flashback to his time with Shanks, Shanks is held at gunpoint by a mountain bandit. Shanks calmly tells the man that guns are for killing, not threatening, at which point Lucky Roux headshots the bandit point blank.
Both Sides Have a Point: This trope applies to the dispute between Luffy and Usopp over whether to abandon the Going Merry. On the one hand, Luffy is correct that the ship is irreparably damaged due to its broken keel and that Usopp, whose carpentry skills are amateurish at best, can't keep it in working order. Usopp admits that he knew the Merry was doomed, and the Merry finally falls apart after saving the Straw Hats from Enies Lobby, fulfilling Franky's prediction that it wouldn't make it to the next island. On the other hand, Usopp has an understandable sentimental attachment to the ship that was a gift from his friend Kaya, especially after becoming aware that the ship is a living being (something that the rest of the crew doesn't learn about until the Going Merry's final moments). In fact, Luffy and even the rather pragmatic Zoro had difficulty accepting the news that the Going Merry had been beyond repair. The only reason Usopp is considered to be in the wrong in the dispute is because by refusing to accept Luffy's decision and leaving the crew, he showed a lack of respect for Luffy's role as captain.
Bouncing Battler:
- Bellamy fights by bouncing around until he's fast enough to hit enemies hard.
- Luffy, when in Gear Fourth.
Bowdlerise:
- The first North American dub had to meet 4Kids' standards and practices for syndicated childrens' shows to earn a TV-Y7 rating.
- The Japanese anime also did this occasionally, with respect to the manga. When Luffy gets hit by Jango's chakram, it originally goes straight into the back of his head; the anime changes this into a mouth catch that slightly cuts the corners of his lips. Bellemere is shot between the eyes]] in the manga, while the anime has her shot in the chest. There are various other incidences as well, though they're relatively minor.
  - ... Except for one: According to the anime guide One Piece RAINBOW, Sanji is 20. Eiichiro Oda states unequivocally that he's 19, and none of the characters are getting any older. This may have to do with Japanese broadcast TV standards, which allow adults to be shown smoking ("adults" being defined as anyone age 20 or over), but not minors.
- Another instance in the anime. During Sanji's fight with Absalom, Absalom stabs him in the back with a knife, and Sanji manages to locate him thanks to him stepping in a pool of his blood. However, thanks to the Akihabara Massacre about a week prior, the knife and blood was hastily edited out in the anime, resulting in Sanji apparently getting hit with a normal blow and locating Absalom without help. Completely averted with the foreign broadcasts and the DVDs, where they remain unedited.
- Similar above, Episodes 679 and 680 of the anime were censored for broadcast due to real life trageties at the time involving terrorists. These changes included editing the episodes so we don't see Donflamingo's marionette without its head, and editing some blood out when it did a scratch attack on Luffy's back. Like above, this was uncut on the DVD/Blu-ray release.
- There were two major bowdlerizations done in the Marineford Arc: when Ace was given the killing blow from Akainu, the carnage done to his torso was heavily reduced to a blank hole and much less blood. Also, most importantly, while Whitebeard got half of his face blown off from one of Akainu's attacks in the manga, the anime changed it to losing half of his moustache] Understandably, if the anime kept this gorey detail in, it would definitely change the rating closer to those of darker anime.
- In Nami's flashback, Bell-Mere offers to pay for a book by "paying with her body", and at one point, 10-year-old Nami offers the same, apparently having learned to mimic Bell-Mere's feminine wiles a bit too well. In the Danish translation, Bell-Mere's line is kept, though rephrased to be a bit more subtle ("I'll give you something in return... tonight"), but when Nami parrots it, her line is changed to "I'll pay you with a kiss", probably to avoid the unfortunate undertones of the original line.
- Any instance of a character Flipping the Bird is cut from the anime. This happens to Law (twice), Sanji, and Pudding. In the latter's case, it's changed to a weird looking finger point.
- One of the most infamous examples is what happened to Zeff's leg. In the manga, he cut it off and ate it after giving all his food to Sanji. In the anime, it got trapped in some rubble so he cut it off to save Sanji. Even the Truer to the Text TV Special Episode of East Blue skirted around the fact Zeff ate his leg.
Boxing Lessons for Superman: Fruits don't change, the users just get more creative in how to apply them.
Brainwashed and Crazy:
- Zoro in the anime filler episode 223.
- Also Luffy in the Syrup Island arc briefly, though in this case it didn't work so well for the villains.
Bratty Food Demand: During Brook's introduction to the crew, he speaks about being a gentleman and well-practised at waiting for a meal, then starts shouting, "Dinn-er! Dinn-er!", which demonstrates how he speaks in a refined way but is also thoughtlessly rude.
Braving the Blizzard: In Drum Island arc, Luffy and his friends are getting fever after some hours on the island due to the sheer cold temperature. Luffy has to cross a blizzard and then climb a tall mountain while carrying his friends in order to find a doctor; he was wounded from fighting wild animals, too.
Bread of Survival:
- Chopper's very first positive interaction with any human (hell, possibly any living being) came from Dr. Hiriluk taking him into a warm bed with a loaf of bread after finding him critically injured.
- Inverted(?) in Sanji's backstory, where after a month of being stranded he's whittled all his provisions down to a single moldy chunk of bread. Which he accidentally drops into the ocean, hammering in just how much utter starvation he's in for.
Break the Cutie: Nami, Robin, Zoro, Chopper, and Franky's backstories all have at least elements of this.
- The Impel Down and Marineford arcs are all one long and painful line of Break the Cutie for Luffy.
Break His Heart to Save Him: A non-romantic example in the Totland story arc when his father threatening Zeff's life forces Sanji to turn on the Straw Hats, telling Luffy he's sick of hanging around with a loser like him when he can be on the winning side by staying with his family and marrying Charlotte Linlin's beautiful daughter Pudding, even brutally beating the stuffing out of Luffy to try and drive him away. It doesn't work because Luffy's faith in Sanji is too strong for him to even consider that Sanji really means it.
Breakout Character: Currently no character, Straw Hat or not, has nearly the popularity Tony Tony Chopper enjoys in Japan. From the sheer amount of merchandise featuring him — shirts, hats, figurines, watches, candy, underwear, his own spin-off Chopperman — and Luffy sometimes, you'd think both are the only pirates in the series.
Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario:
- Nami left with the Going Merry to try and pay off her debt to Arlong.
- When Robin leaves the crew and they go after her in the CP9 arc. She was coerced into leaving in exchange for keeping the Straw Hats safe.
- Earlier in the CP9 arc, Usopp leaves the crew when he fights Luffy over what should be done with the crippled Going Merry. It was a brutal fight with Usopp losing. Later at the end of the arc, after spending much of the time fighting with the crew under a pseudonym, he hopes to be Easily Forgiven with him saying nothing about his actions, but Zoro puts his foot down to stop it as unlike what Robin went through, it was his choice. Until he apologizes, he shouldn't be allowed back in the crew.
- On Totland, Sanji fought Luffy with all his strength and insults him to get Luffy to leave the island without angering the Vinsmokes. Sanji eventually learns Pudding plans to kill him and his family so goes to apologise to Luffy, who tells him it's water under the bridge.
Breath Weapon: Several, including Franky's ability to literally breathe fire and Kuma's ability to shoot lasers from out of his mouth.
Brick Joke:
- One that isn't entirely a joke but becomes funny through the effect: Luffy lunges at Wapol, saying "Gum Gum Bul—" right before a three-chapter flashback. Once the flashback is over, it cuts right back to Luffy finishing the "—let!" as he punches Wapol. Even funnier is that it lands on the last page of the volume and comes out of nowhere after all that flashback.
- There's a Running Gag about Sanji's wanted poster not resembling him in the least. Then, they encounter Duval, a poor sap who perfectly resembles the poster, and has been pursued by bounty hunters due to mistaken identity. In Chapter 495, it's revealed he was born that way.
- At the start of the Fish-Man Island arc, Luffy complains to Jimbei that he is not a hero, because heroes have to share their meat. At the near end, Zoro says the same thing, but with booze.
- In the letters column of Chapter 452 Oda says that while Chopper is not attracted to human women, he might fall in love at first sight if he sees a pretty reindeer. 362 chapters (roughly seven years) later Chopper sees a deer Mink and instantly pops heart-shaped Wingding Eyes.
- Back in Skypeia, while Luffy, Sanji, Usopp are on their way to rescue Robin and Nami, Sanji makes note that there three priests left to fight and notes that Chopper and Zoro are likely facing their ordeals, prompting Luffy make reference to an "Ordeal of Love" while imitating Sanji. Much later, while fighting Satori, Sanji mentions Nami and Robin again, then refers to his combination attack with Luffy as "the Ordeal of Love".
Bring My Brown Pants: Usopp tends to balance out Luffy's red shirt moments nicely, to the point it just gets funnier when you notice they wear the garments in question. Though currently, Buggy had almost done this when Whitebeard called him out on wanting to take his head.
Bring the Anchor Along: In the Skypeia arc, Luffy's first fight with God Eneru ends with Eneru throwing Luffy off his airship with a giant gold ball attached to his arm. That ball stays on Luffy's am for nearly the entire rest of the arc. It's broken off of Luffy's arm and smashed to pieces in the course of the final attack against Eneru.
Broken Bird: Robin's detached nature is due to years of being a fugitive from the World Government and persecution due to her ability to read Poneglyphs. It wasn't until the Straw Hats actually declared war on the World Government to prove how they considered her one of their own that she realized that she had found her place.
Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu:
- This happens to Wyper, who is exhausted from "killing" Eneru, who restarted his own heart, and eliminated the former.
- Subverted in the case of Luffy (naturally), who should've been completely exhausted from taking in 100 shadows to pulverize Oars, but when the former rises up to fight again, Luffy prepares to get up, ready for action, merely stating "Damn, I'm too tired for this!", then leading the Straw Hats to defeat him anyway, with him giving the finishing blow.
- In the same battle, the Arc Villain Gecko Moria took in a thousand shadows and Luffy simply went into Gear Second, made Moria spit some of the shadows out, before using Gear Third on top of it and knocking him into the mast, defeating him. Using either one of the Gears puts great strain on him, so you can imagine how stacking them worked out.
- Played painfully straight one arc later. When confronted with Impel Down's Chief Warden Magellan, whose entire body is covered in paralyzing, flesh-melting poison, Luffy decides to strike him down with one Gear Second-enhanced attack, hoping that poisoning can be resisted with sheer willpower. Magellan takes the attack head-on, seems knocked out for a brief second, then swiftly recovers and curbstomps Luffy, who is nearly disabled by poison.
- And let's not forget Luffy's battles with Crocodile, the first two fights go without saying. During the third fight, Luffy had been bleeding profusely, only when covered in his own blood was he able to hit Crocodile. Coupled with that Crocodile's poison hook had infected Luffy with a lethal poison multiple times throughout the fight. By the time Crocodile had finally been knocked unconscious, Luffy was laying there dying of poison.
- Ace got sidetracked by one particular enemy badmouthing Whitebeard, and decided to make him pay for it. Big mistake.
Brought to You by the Letter "S": Over the course of the series, Luffy, Nami, Sanji, and some others can be seen with shirts that have numbers on them. Not surprisingly, Luffy's number is 1. Also, Nami's number is 57. Also on the cover of Chapter 775, the crew is seen cycling down Route 325. These digits in Japanese are san ni go, or Sunny Go, the name of the Strawhats' ship.
Brutish Bulls: In the Dressrosa arc, during the Corrida Colosseum tournament, one of the "participants" is a bull called "The Brutal Bull" who plows through the gladiators by the dozens. Not long after, however, Luffy manages to tame it and then ride on it to smash more gladiators.
Built with LEGO: Cover 622 has the Straw Hats building a Lego structure.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The author, Odacchi. Seriously, the fans wouldn't put up with all the unexplained nonsense he comes up with if he wasn't so darn good at it!
- Luffy is quite a bit of this, too. Considering Trafalgar Law's willingness to team up with Luffy, even with knowledge of Luffy's immaturity.
  - Law had no knowledge of Luffy's immaturity. Both times he saw/met Luffy prior to the time-skip, Luffy was in "business-mode" and Law is visibly shocked at the Straw Hats' carefree behaviour when he gets to know them better.
- CP9 is a double example. Despite being a group of wacky and quirky individuals, they are a frighteningly effective group of assassins. Despite being a frighteningly effective group of assassins, they are capable of being legitimately talented shipwrights too, shipwrights who themselves have a number of bizarre characteristics.
Buried Alive: "Wet Hair" Caribou and "Blood Splatterer" Coribou have a reputation for doing this to Marines.
Burn Scars, Burning Powers:
- Luffy gets an X-shaped burn scar on his chest after being hit by Admiral Akainu's magma punch. After the Time Skip, Luffy is able to generate fire when using his Gum-Gum Red Hawk attack.
- Sabo, the adopted brother of Luffy and Ace, gained a burn scar around his left eye as a child after surviving an explosion. Over a decade later he gains the power to control fire using the Flame-Flame Fruit, which had previously been Ace's Devil Fruit before his death.
Burning with Anger: Sanji can literally project great heat and flames by various means like scraping his feet against the ground or just remembering his hellish time in Okama Island, supposedly because "his heart burns hotter" according to Oda. However, it makes more sense if you consider the Vinsmoke siblings' Elemental Powers.
Butt-Monkey: Usopp and Sanji at times. Usopp is the most susceptible to Amusing Injury and is the funniest person to put under pressure because of his cowardly nature. Likewise, Oda makes the most of Sanji's perverted instincts and has fun just making any of Sanji's attempts at scoring as unsuccessful as possible.
- When they were learning about dials, Luffy is told to speak into a tone dial to record his voice. What does Luffy say? "Usopp's an idiot!"
- Sanji has quite a problem with his wanted poster. His wanted poster picture is a hand-drawn piece of crap, someone who looks JUST LIKE THE PICTURE tries to kill him because of it, not to mention getting blasted to an island of TRANSVESTITES — oh, and later he gets turned into one.
  - One Word, and a letter: Pirate A.
- Mohmoo. Every appearance he's made on this show has resulted in some new trauma for him.
- Spandam gets several funny injuries in Enies Lobby. Including getting crushed by an elephant.

One Piece / Tropes A to B

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