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    A-D 
  • Accidental Aesop: The fact that every child that the physical discipline-happy Garp raised all grew up to be infamous criminals instead of Marines (Luffy and Ace became pirates while Dragon became a revolutionary) could be taken as an argument against excessive corporal punishment.
  • Ass Pull:
    • The most infamous is Pell's surviving his Heroic Sacrifice in the climax of the Alabasta arc. He carries a massive bomb with a two and a half kilometer blast radius high enough above the city that no one is harmed by the blast, and is at ground zero when it explodes. He not only survives the blast, but somehow avoids falling to his death.
    • Less infamous, but perhaps even more blatant — Pagaya, a completely untrained civilian, survives Enel's Bolt of Divine Retribution with nary a scratch when even Made of Iron badasses like Zoro, Sanji and Wiper were left half-dead from it.
    • The Straw Hats suddenly getting various upgrades during the Enies Lobby arc. Nami unveils a Perfect Clima Tact on the sea train, mentioning that Usopp gave it to her before he left, despite using her normal Clima Tact at the Galley-La Mansion. Usopp unveils his Kabuto when sniping the World Government flag, despite having used his normal slingshot on the sea train. Worst of all is Zoro's Ashura form, which rarely appeared since then and wasn't explained until Wano, fifteen real-life years later.
    • During the Marineford Arc Galdino (aka Mr. 3) managing somehow to disguise as a guard and reach the platform, all under Sengoku's nose, despite the latter being, supposedly, a great strategist who should have everything in check. It's all revealed at the last minute only to give Luffy a new key for Ace's handcuffs.
    • In the anime fillers, Luffy's defeat of Don Achino was easily this because Don Achino had the power to generate craptons of heat, enough to take casual lava baths. In the final moments of the fight he tries to ram right into Luffy, who grabs him with his bare hands, shouts a few times, and throws him across the battlefield, ultimately suffering only a few minor burns from the ordeal.
    • Bege and Chiffon's cover story reveals Pound inexplicably survived retribution from a pissed-off Oven, who'd seemingly killed him with a Gory Discretion Shot and just so happens to drift to Dressrosa to meet his two daughters.
    • During the Onigashima raid, the Mink doctor Miyagi reveals a special medicine that temporarily heals the recipient, albeit inflicting twice the pain later. Many saw this as an overly convenient way to bring Zoro back into the fight after his grevious injuries against Kaido and Big Mom, lasting just long enough to let him defeat King. Chopper is suitably surprised that the Minks have been hiding this the whole time.
    • Chapter 1030 reveals that Kin'emon survived being run through by Kaido, supposedly because his torso and legs were never properly reattached after Law cut him in half on Punk Hazard, despite nothing similar happening to any of the other people Law dismembered with his powers, and no one (neither Law or Kin'emon, who would be the first to notice) commenting on Kin'emon supposed unproper reattachment.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • The World Government is either a necessary evil that is needed in order to maintain order in a world populated by criminals with insane powers and monster strength, and which has to Shoot the Dog more times than it would like or it's a hopelessly corrupt organization that hides its flagrant abuse of power behind the pretense of justice for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Even Oda initially couldn't seem to make up his mind on the matter, though later arcs have the Government doing progressively more horrific stuff. What complicates matters is that it's usually only the Marines that are sympathetic with most of their crimes coming from serving the World Government.
    • To some, Luffy is a straight-up Idiot Hero, but to others, he purposely acts dumber than he actually is, possibly in order to challenge himself. There are times when he's surprisingly insightful, but also times when he does stupid things in life-threatening situations, despite being fully in Let's Get Dangerous! mode.
    • Kurozumi Orochi claims to be motivated by a desire to avenge his clan's persecution at the hands of Wano's inhabitants. However, this doesn't quite line up with his actual actions. For starters, he was perfectly content to live out a comfortable life working for the Kozuki clan and only took action upon finding out that he would have become shogun if not for the birth of Kozuki Sukiyaki. Later on, Orochi was completely apathetic when his clansman Kurozumi Higurashi was murdered by Kaido, only becoming angry at the pirate after Orochi himself was negatively affected by the New Onigashima Plan. Finally and perhaps most damningly, Orochi did absolutely nothing to help any of his clansmen who didn't help him come to power, with many of them (such as Tama and her family) suffering because of Orochi's regime. In the end, Orochi comes off less like the avenger he claims to be and more like a purely selfish tyrant only interested in using his clan's persecution as a tool to excuse his own monstrous actions.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: In Japanese polls, Shirahoshi and Rebecca are popular in their home country, but they are widely disliked in the West, with many considering them weak retreads of Vivi.
  • Arc Fatigue: Possibly the series' Achilles' Heel. The series is well known for its many, many, many characters, most with their own distinct backstories and motivations, as well its multilayered and intricate narrative, and penchant for extravagant fight scenes that often escalate as they progress. Consequentially, arcs (and fights at that) have a tendency to last a long time, to the point they can start to wear out their welcome, with some taking years to be resolved. Not helping matters is that outside circumstances often cause the series to take frequent breaks. It's even worse in later arcs of the anime (especially those that occur after the 2 year Time Skip) due to the producers using every Padding technique they can think up just to make sure that they don't overtake the manga.
    • Skypiea is a very long Story Arc and has relatively low stakes due to feeling disconnected from the rest of the setting.
    • The Water 7 Saga with the exception of the Davy Back Fight arc was effectively multiple arcs building off of each other with no break time in between and was so long that Oda actually had to cut a planned flashback for the story’s Dragon because he realized it would only drag things out further.
    • The Davy Back Fight is this in the anime due to how the arc was vastly extended. The Foxy Pirates only battled the Straw Hats to one Davy Back Fight in the manga while the anime pulls the Davy Back Fight twice back-to-back. This ends up feeling really repetitive as it increases the fight's game events you have to sit through from 3 to 6. Not to mention that Foxy and his crew aren't the most interesting or important of villains, which leaves some people feeling that they've overstayed their welcome during the second Davy Back Fight.
    • While the Paramount War Saga (Sabaody Archipelago until the Time Skip) is generally well liked, the rest of the Straw Hats are Put on a Bus for over three quarters of it. By the end, many fans just wanted to see the crew together again. The Marineford arc was also heavily criticized during its run for many repetitive moments that didn't serve any purpose except pad out the arc.
      • In the anime, the show's slower pacing could seriously be felt during Marineford. Particularly, the large string of episodes where it felt like Luffy was forever running across the ice trying to reach the platform where Ace was being held captive.
    • Oda's love of multi-chapter flashbacks, multiple characters, Call Backs, and all tropes Chekhov comes to a head at Dressrosa. To wit: 2 and a half years in real life spent on the same island, about 10 individual flashbacks, a little over 50 named new characters, the reintroduction of several old characters, and 102 chapters of content. This makes it the second longest arc in the series after Wano. Unsurprisingly given the Padding, Dressrosa in the anime ended up going even longer with 118 episodes aired in total; 16 more episodes than there were chapters.
    • Some grew tired of the Wano Country arc due to its excessive length; managing to go well beyond the length of Dressrosa to become the new longest arc of the series. Wano being broken up in a 3-Act structure compared to past arcs does help a bit by making Wano overall feel like it's an island consisting of multiple arcs, but it still doesn't change the fact that the Straw Hats were grounded on Wano for about four years between mid-2018 and mid-2022. The 3rd Act in particular is where people really start to feel fatigued with the arc thanks to two particular sections. First, the Kozuki Oden flashback ran a whopping 14 chapters (by far the longest flashback sequence of the series). And while it was generally liked and well received, to the point it's considered one of the peaks of the series writing-wise, it still left some fans wanting for it to finally end in order to get back to present-Wano for the war. Second, the following raid on Onigashima island that acts as the Final Battle of the arc goes on for 72 grueling chapters, which is more chapters than most whole arcs. This is primarily due to said raid being one massive chaotic battle that consisted of many fights going on all around Onigashima. Act 3 alone would end up lasting 100 chapters, surpassing any previous individual arc except Dressrosa.
  • Archive Panic:
    • As of 2023, the manga has reached over 1100 chapters, with no end in sight (although Oda did declare that it is officially in the "final saga" now). Viz Media put out omnibuses that collect three volumes each, but not only do they have lower quality paper than the single volumes, even if you're willing to look past that, it's still difficult to catch up even with them.
    • The Animated Adaptation has just as many episodes as there are chapters. With about 20 minutes apiece, it's over 360 hours (and counting) to watch as of 2023. Add to that 15 OAV movies.
  • Awesome Art:
    • While the art quality per se has been quite inconsistent, especially in later chapters as Oda's health declined, the panels where he shows off the absurd and creative places the Straw Hats visit fits perfectly with the series's cartoony style and are filled with details. Since the beginning, Oda has consistently received praise from critics for his paneling skills and the ability to make the pages enjoyable to read, being regarded as one of the best in the industry in that field.
  • Better on DVD:
    • One Piece is a manga planned more with a volume basis than with a weekly basis, resulting in some arcs appearing to be too long and dragged out if read chapter by chapter every week. However, many fans say that, if read in its entirety, the pacing problems are absent. This causes many arcs to be re-evaluated much more positively after a complete read.
    • Both the anime and manga have over a thousand episodes and chapters, respectively. With the manga, you can easily get the volumes to read at your own pace, but the anime has long arcs, some of them filler, that started off with adapting the chapters at a good pace, but after a while has resorted to adapting either one chapter per episode, or less than even that, so knocking out dozens of episodes by binging the show is the best way to watch it, especially when Oda loves to use Continuity Porn, Continuity Nods, and likes to bring back older characters after they previously appeared in earlier arcs. It's much more rewarding to binge the show in short bursts than it is to watch week to week.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
    • Near the climax of the Alabasta arc, a group of soldiers known as the Kicking Claw Squad (who'd never been mentioned before) show up to fight Crocodile. They then reveal that they drank the "hero water" (which also had never been mentioned before), which increases their strength at the cost of their lives shortly after consumption. Crocodile simply flies to a safe place and waits for them to die. Neither the scene nor the Kicking Claw Squad are ever mentioned again.
    • The Davy Back fight that takes place between the Skypiea and Water 7 arcs is this. The battle against the Foxy Pirates has left no impact whatsoever on later events, and Foxy only ever reappears in irrelevant Filler. This is a case where Tropes Are Not Bad, however, since the arc was short and served as a Breather Episode between Skypeia (which was fairly long) and Water 7 (one of the most intense, dark, and emotional arcs in the series).
    • The magnificently bizarre "EVERYBODY! ZOMBIE NIGHT!" scene, where a bunch of zombies from Thriller Bark break into dance for seemingly no reason.
    • In Marineford, many scenes happen without consequences, like Sengoku rolling up one of his sleeves, ready to fight, only in the next scene to be still on the platform with the sleeve back down, or Garp sitting on the Admiral's Throne, which is treated like a big moment, only to leave no impact. This causes most of these moments to appear silly rather than epic.
  • Bile Fascination: Some people actually want to watch the 4Kids dub (which is becoming increasingly difficult), particularly the rap opening, just to see how awful it is.
  • Can't Un-Hear It: It's nigh-impossible to listen to the opening of the 4Kids dub without thinking of either Brock or Seto Kaiba, due to Eric Stuart narrating it.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • There is a surprisingly big factor going on in this series, but two characters stand out: Luffy and Robin. Both of whom mutilate their opponents. Special mention goes to Robin, who uses her Devil Fruit powers to break the spines of her enemies. Of course, all of her opponents were assholes, so they really deserved it.
    • Meta and in-universe example with the World Nobles, a group of rich snobs who seem to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Nearly every appearance has them do something that makes the cast and fans hate them more, and nothing gives both more joy than seeing them get retribution.
    • The legendary Enel Reaction face. Enel, the Big Bad of the Skypeia Arc, spends the majority of it in A God Am I mode because he could No-Sell whatever attack was sent his way. This expression finally came about when Enel realized that not only could Luffy hurt him, but he was also immune to his electricity attacks.
    • Whitebeard's vicious beatdown of Akainu after he had just murdered Ace. Admit it, you were cheering.
    • Luffy activating Gear Fourth and beating the shit out of Donquixote Doflamingo is utterly gratifying, given what a petty, repulsive monster the man had continually shown himself to be.
    • After almost 100 chapters and over 2 real-life years of shrugging off everything thrown at him and being an arrogant, murderous bastard in general, Luffy smashing Kaido's face into the ground and managing to draw his blood in the manga's 1,000th chapter is beyond fucking satisfying.
    • Big Mom has been shown to treat her family absolutely horrendously, whether it be abusing them physically and/or emotionally, sucking out their life force, sending assassins after those who defected, and even eating them, and this is on top of her being a petty, dog-kicking tyrannical despot. You'd have to be a patron-goddamned-saint to watch her get bloodied up and brutalized by Law and Kidd, then subsequently blown up by several bombs, and not feel any sense of euphoria from it.
    • Good luck watching Orochi getting immobilized by Hiyori, burned alive by a fire attack that he himself ordered and getting finished off by Denjiro without any sense of relief after everything the bastard didIncluding, but not limited to....
    • Saint Saturn quickly cements himself as one of the most monstrous and loathsome characters in the series (a feat onto itself) responsible for every single horrible thing to ever happen to Kuma's family. So it's no surprise that Kuma decking him in the face with a Megaton Punch that sends him flying across Egghead, through several buildings which then fall on him is one of the most satisfying moments in the series.
  • Character Perception Evolution: Hody Jones was originally seen as a flat replacement of Arlong, lacking the traits that made him a memorable antagonist. Overtime fans have come to see him as a shockingly realistic portrayal of how racists can be made from being born in an environment that encourages those viewpoints with nothing to oppose them.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Many fans believe that the Grand Line splits the One Piece world in two horizontally like an equator, while the Red Line, perpendicular to it, is vertical. In truth, as shown in some maps or when the moon's hump changes side between some arcs, they both cross the world diagonally. This is why the Blue Seas are named after the cardinal directions.
    • A minor case is with fans who consider Elbaf an island, while in-universe, it has always been referred to as a village or a kingdom.
    • Though fans continue to refer to her as such, Kaya is not Usopp's childhood friend. Usopp himself says he's only been speaking to her for about a year, shortly after her parents died - technically speaking Kuro has known her longer.
    • Many fans believe that One Piece's story is divided into "sagas" collecting story arcs of varying lengths, totalling 30 arcs collected into nine sagas, and that this is an official idea. This is decidedly not the case in the Japanese, and never has been (least of all because there exists no such verbal distinction in Japanese). The actual official listings for story arcs had existed for years, including the volume blurbs, but only became widely known with the publication of the 25th anniversary website.
    • There are many fans who believe that Conqueror's Haki is gained by having "Kingly Ambitions." This is not true, and the only way to be capable of using Conqueror's Haki is to be born with the ability to use it, which only one in every several million people are.
    • It's a widely held misconception even on this very wiki that Devil Fruits will transfer their powers to the nearest regular fruit when the user dies, likely inspired by a panel in Punk Hazard where a fruit becomes a Devil fruit. This simply isn't the case: the only concrete information that Oda has given on the matter is that Devil Fruits reappear somewhere in the world after their user's death: if it were true, it would beg the question of why every marine, pirate and bounty hunter wouldn't be carrying around a fruit basket, especially during executions.
    • Due to her similarities to Vivi and Shirahoshi (in terms of design and role) and the fact that she's related to the king, Rebecca is often regarded as one of the princess characters. Her meeting Vivi and Shirahoshi as well as her nickname being "Phantom Princess" don't help in that regard. Despite her blood relation to King Riku III, she was not born a princess, since her mother Scarlett was declared dead in order to escape her position as a princess. While Rebecca does become a princess, it happens after the conflict of Dressrosa is resolved, and she only holds that position for a few days before completely abandoning it in order to be with her father Kyros. She's currently a maiden-in-waiting for the true princess of the arc, Viola her aunt, who also has a similar role to Vivi in the Dressrosa arc, but is rarely ever compared to any of the three girls.
  • Continuity Lockout: So very, very much. It is a true test of character to try to describe the series to a person who has never heard of it. It's especially one of the reasons why the 4Kids dub is despised since the dub had a tendency to skip entire story arcs, creating a lot of continuity-related plot holes.
  • Crazy is Cool:
    • Luffy. Sailing up a geyser and once absorbing a hundred souls (when most badasses can only hold two or three), are some of his saner plans.
    • Franky. Take a guy, dress him up in a Hawaiian shirt and speedo, then watch as Oda consistently (and successfully) challenges himself to make that the least bizarre thing about him.
    • Brook's first appearance convinced Luffy this guy needs to be brought into his crew, due to this.
    • Kaido also deserves special mention. His debut involves him climbing up to Sky Island and fricking BODY SLAMMING his way down to the earth. He doesn't do this to attack, mind you, he does this to see if he can handle it.
    • Despite being probably the most certifiably insane character in the series, many fans love God Eneru for his undeniable badassery and hope for an excuse to bring him back down from the moon.
  • Creator Worship: Eiichiro Oda has been mentioned at least three times on this site as being awesome, crazy prepared and an author who never forgets. Fans also deem him the "Jesus" of Shonen (when Akira Toriyama is the "God"). Oda himself acknowledged this: In one SBS, when one fan asks him what his greatest treasure is, he answers "of course, it's ALL YOU READERS."
  • Cry for the Devil:
    • Donquixote Doflamingo, while never exactly a nice kid, suffered a childhood of persecution that left him filled with hatred towards the world. He was later approached by Trebol, who enabled Doflamingo to act on his hatred and actively encouraged all of his worst impulses, sending the kid on a downward spiral where he murdered his father in cold blood and formed a pirate crew. While you really can't feel any sympathy for him by the time of the story, you can easily tell how he ended up as twisted as he did.
    • Charlotte Linlin was born a freak of nature who had absurd physical strength even as a child. She started out as an innocent kid with a naive desire to make everyone get along, but would accidentally leave others either dead or injured due to her freakish strength. Her caretaker Caramel actively encouraged Linlin's behavior and did nothing to try to reel Linlin in, even after the child killed several giants in a hunger-induced rampage. It's really not hard to see how she ultimately became the tyrannical Womanchild that she is at the time of the main story.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Somewhat inevitable given the setting's Grey-and-Grey Morality, but a few examples stand out.
    • If the fanart is any indication, the Vinsmoke boys (other than Sanji, of course) have been getting this treatment from some fangirls (no doubt due to their appearance).
    • To a lesser extent, almost all of CP9 gets this but especially Kaku, Lucci and Kalifa. They're all assassins and rather unapologetic about the fact (Lucci even said that the main perk of their job is legally-sanctioned killing), including attempting to kill both Iceberg and Paulie immediately after their reveal. Lucci and Kaku are even revealed to have gone back to the government and joined CP0 during or after the time-skip. When Saint Charlos tries to enslave Shirahoshi, Lucci and Kaku are among those who stop Shirahoshi's family and new friends from intervening. But there's plenty of people who would love to see at least one of them join the crew or become allies. Funnily enough the Egghead arc had Lucci and Kaku returning to the story as allies of the crew, which can make it easy to forget the fact that they're still assassins of the World Government.
    • Caesar Clown, despite being an unrepentant Mad Scientist specializing in WMDs who views everyone (including children) as guinea pigs, has gotten plenty of readers sympathetic enough toward his plight since his capture at the end of the Punk Hazard arc to actually want him to join the crew. (No doubt his comedy bits help him out a lot). It got to the point where Oda had to remind readers of his actions in Punk Hazard when a fan in the SBS wondered why Nami insulted and wished death upon him at every opportunity.
    • Donquixote Doflamingo gets hit by this hard. His tragic back story combined with his very good looks (which are enhanced by the fact that he was around with an open shirt) make him very popular, which leads a significant part of the fanbase to depict him in a significantly more positive light in fan content. This is despite the fact that he's a bloodthirsty psychopath who killed his own father and brother, installed a reign of terror on Dresrossa, and whose ultimate goal is to create a world in which he could trample over anyone he wants to.
    • Eustass Kid was an ally of the Straw Hats for most of Wano, in which he did fight against Big Mom with Law. This, combined with his punk rock aesthetic and sheer cool factor, have made many people forget that he's arguably the most villainous out of the Supernovas. His bounty by the time of Sabaody was higher than Luffy's because of the sheer carnage he wrought upon the islands he visited. He also only joined forces with the Straw Hats in Wano to get payback on the emperors, not because he'd had any kind of change of heart. In chapter 1079, when Kid is defeated by Shanks and his ship is destroyed, many felt sympathy for him. Despite the fact that he wanted to fire upon Elbaf and Shanks' fleet, which would have killed dozens or more people if not stopped, all just because he was annoyed Shanks didn't instantly take him seriously and bruised his ego.

    E-F 
  • Ending Fatigue:
    • The Dressrosa arc, already suffering from Arc Fatigue, fell into this as the final blow was stalled off for several chapters, since Luffy's Gear Fourth had worn out and he needed time to recover his Haki, putting focus on random citizens running and the protagonists trying to slow down the Birdcage to buy time.
    • Whole Cake Island. The Straw Hats had already accomplished all their goals of obtaining Big Mom's Poneglyph, retrieving Sanji, and saving Sanji's family from an assassination attempt, and the story had already established that Luffy wasn't ready to take on Big Mom yet. But there are still about three volumes of contents as the Straw Hats on the Thousand Sunny struggle to face obstacle after obstacle in their way while Luffy fights Katakuri, and Sanji bakes a cake for Big Mom.
  • Estrogen Brigade: While being a Shonen meant primarily for teen boys, the (surprisingly varied) amount of attractive men and no small amount of Ho Yay assured a dedicated female fanbase.
  • Evil Is Cool: It's easier to name the villains who aren't awesome, and many of them that aren't that impressive to begin with get better as the series continues:
    • Arlong the Sawshark fishman who sought to conquer the East Blue, was the series' first truly great and threatening villain, showing what a pirate of the Grand Line is capable of, and being the most dangerous enemy Luffy faced in the East Blue Saga.
    • A list of atrocities that Sir Crocodile has done or plans to commit can fill a book. However, he commits his evil acts while dressed like a blinged-out mafia don, complete with a ring on almost every finger and a pimpin' green fur coat. Not only that, but he controls an organization made up of World of Badass, owns a casino, trots around with a scantily-clad hot chick as his #2, keeps incredibly dangerous predators as pets, and is also made of and can control sand, and he has a hook for a hand. That's just darn cool. But he's such a bastard...
    • You can't one up a bastard-8 foot plus tall knight-marine-Godfather-pirate who kills people by touching them named Crocodile...unless you are a silent-8 foot plus tall super strong gangster-pirate-monk who is also a sword named DAZ BONES. He's like Raven from Tekken, only bigger, stronger, a pirate, has no need for weapons, and has the greatest name ever hands down. His loss or rather, both of their losses, lost the Straw Hats fans.
    • Eneru the tyrannical god of Skypiea whose power allowed him to rule over Skypiea and allow him to validate his claims of being a god, and could only at the time be countered by Luffy’s power.
    • Rob Lucci along with his fellow CP9 assassins for being brilliant and badass fighters whose skills have made them into the government's best assassins and pushing the Straw Hats to their limits.
    • Admiral Akainu for being a Manipulative Bastard, Determinator, and unstoppable Hero Killer, whose actions in Marienford showed off his overall badassness and control over the power of the magma Devil Fruit have labeled him as being one of the prime candidates for Luffy’s most personal enemy.
    • Donquixote Doflamingo, in addition to being one of Luffy’s most monstrous enemies, the unique abilities of his String Devil Fruit, whose actions are similar to Crocodile but far more successful in his plan to take over a kingdom and spent years secretly oppressing his people without anyone noticing for years.
    • Big Mom's strongest child, Charlotte Katakuri, who in addition to being a badass-designed powerhouse is a sympathetic protective Hunk (if you can look past his fangs) who cares deeply for his siblings and has a tragic backstory. Above all, Katakuri flips the rulebook on how antagonists should act as he does the unthinkable and gives Luffy a fighting chance out of pure Villain Respect.
    • One of the four pirate emperors Kaido king of the beasts whose willpower, strength and intellect have led him to carve out a pirate empire that led to him taking over Wano as his own weapons factory. A Respect to will and strength to both ally and enemy, Kaido kills those who dishonorably intervene in his fights with worthy opponents, clashing with Luffy proving himself to be one of the most difficult enemies of his career and comes to see Luffy as a true and worthy rival.
    • Kaido’s right Hand King the Wildfire, in addition to his full mastery of his Pteranodon Devil Fruit, he also possesses the natural abilities of his race the Lunarians. Who was able to keep Roronoa Zoro on his toes at every turn giving him the first serious fight in the New World.
    • Most of the villains are incredibly awesome in their own singular ways. Though the best way to put it is...
      Y: Ruler of Time: on One Piece's villains How is it possible that these guys are so awesome I want to root against the Straw Hats?!
  • Fair for Its Day: Gender-non-conforming characters always had a presence in the series, and especially in the earlier days, especially with the very infamous and unflattering Okama in the Kamabakka Kingdom, they were often drawn as caricatures and Played for Laughs - however, many of those characters proved themselves to also be very competent. For example: Bon Kurei, the first Okama seen in the manga, was a very deadly fighter enough to match Sanji blow-for-blow in their fight, and eventually ended up having a Heel–Face Turn and become an ally of the Straw Hats. Thanks to the manga continuing into the modern day, representation of gender-non-conforming and LGBT characters would significantly improve, especially in the Wano arc with the introduction of canonical trans woman Kiku, drawn as a Statuesque Stunner with none of the Gonk-ish caricatures of Okama characters, and gender-non-conforming Yamato*, who is born female but, since he considers himself the reincarnation of Kozuki Oden, also adopted Oden's gender. As if to affirm their identity even further, at one point the characters go into a gender-segregated bath house and Kiku goes in the women's side while Yamato goes to the men's side.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • With the other three big shonen series of the 2000's: Naruto (especially with the Dueling Shows dynamic), Bleach and Fairy Tail.
    • With Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, which was the first manga in twelve years to have dethroned One Piece as the best-selling manga of the year.
    • There seems to be one between diehard fans of Zoro and Sanji, not unlike the characters themselves.
  • Fanon:
    • It's widely believed that when he sailed the Grand Line, Red Foot Zeff made it as far as the New World before leaving for the East Blue. This is brought up because he's the first person to refer to the Grand Line, or rather its first half, as "Paradise".
    • A lot of fanart, especially in the West, draws Usopp with significantly darker skin than in canon, mostly because of his curly-looking hair. Helped by the fact that in an SBS on what real-world nationality certain characters would have, Oda listed Usopp as African. Similiarly, some fanartists draw Luffy with darker skin and latino-esque features due to the same SBS listing him as Brazilian.
      • On the topic of Usopp's "real world" heritage, many fans headcanon that he'd hail from South Africa rather than a non-specific African country, considering the large population of light-skinned people in Syrup Village.
    • While there's pretty much zero indication of it being the case in canon, fan works very frequently depict Hibari as Admiral Akainu's daughter, as the two of them speak with a similar Hiroshima dialect.
    • It's not explained how Zoro gained the scar on his eye between the time-skip but it's common to speculate that Mihawk was responsible.
  • Fan Wank: Oda often offers cryptic explanations on things (with intentions of fully explaining them months or possibly years down the line sometimes) or doesn't bother to explain things at all, leading to quite a bit of this among the fandom. Common topics include explanations for Pell surviving a nuke, Blackbeard's two Devil Fruits, or how exactly some of the abilities work (E.g. How Zoro can create illusions, how Luffy can spontaneously use fire or electricity, etc.).
  • Fetish Retardant: The overly hourglass-shaped proportions of female characters (especially post-Time Skip) comes off as too unnatural to be sexy to some people. The anime tends to exaggerate their proportions further (particularly with much larger breasts) as well as upping the Male Gaze, further pronouncing this trope.
  • Fight Scene Failure: Ever since Toei became adamant toward not going any farther than adapting one chapter per episode, the action-scenes, for the most part, have been showing an obvious drop in quality in an attempt to pad each episode out. Fights are painfully extended through the use of opposing stares and reaction shots, as well as the action itself coming off extremely slow-paced. Laziness will also crop up from time-to-time when all Toei will animate is a single still-frame, or even repeat the same scenes, most notable in the battle between Zoro vs. Pica when the anime took an entire episode for Pica to lumber all the way over to the King's Plateau and the exact same stomping motion of his foot was used at least three times. Worse, some adaptations will stagger at half-chapter pacing, causing certain scenes to be dragged out so badly that if Toei doesn't add new scenes to fluff things up a bit, the story will completely stall out. Though this has gotten somewhat better again starting with the latter portions of Whole Cake Island, due to multiple factors mainly boiling down to Oda himself sort of skimming through fights (leaving ample opportunity for the anime to expand upon things in a more natural fashion) and many new and incredibly talented animators coming in to work on the show, leading to far more standout moments.
  • Foe Romance Subtext:
    • Surprising absolutely no one, we have Doflamingo, who jokes about how Crocodile siding with the pirates instead of the World Government is "making me jealous".
    • Nami's fight with Kalifa. At one point, Nami admires how smooth Kalifa's skin must be and how she would want her to be her own Sexy Secretary. Lampshaded when she reminds herself that she isn't a Dirty Old Man.
    • Shiki and Roger. Shiki initially wanted Roger to join him (Roger fought back because it meant subordination), went on a rampage in Marineford to prevent Roger's execution, and the driving force behind his actions in the present is disappointment in how the seas without Roger have become.
    • Zoro and Tashigi. They seem impressed (to varying degrees) by each other's knowledge and commitment to swordsmanship when the first meet. Tashigi's resemblance to Kuina, Zoro's unwillingness to kill her, her mistaking this for chauvinism, and her subsequent The Only One Allowed to Defeat You attitude give their relationship some romantic subtext.
    • Trafalgar Law and Doflamingo, although it's mostly one-sided from Doffy's part. Law wants him dead, while Doffy wants him to be one of his subordinates... and he even chained Law to the heart seat of his castleContext. The fact that he saw Corazon (Law's idol and father-figure)'s name on Law's shirt and spitefully shoots Law's back for it is often interpreted as jealousy.
    • Sanji and Black Maria. The latter seemingly only seduces him to capture him and bait Robin, but that doesn't stop Sanji from declaring his love for her momentarily. The subtext increases when Maria reveals she doesn't just want him as bait, but also as a pet, who is going to love her and only her.
  • Foe Yay Shipping:
    • Koby and Alvida. After Koby became a decent looking marine soldier and Alvida got a devil fruit which turned her into a beautiful lady, fans started to pair them up in fanfictions despite their mutual hatred for each other in the past.
    • Eustass Kid and Trafalgar Law have quickly become one of the most popular pairings of the Supernovas due in part to their position as reluctant and snarky Enemy Mines.
  • Franchise Original Sin:
    • Some of the longer arcs have run into pacing problems, especially when it comes to flashbacks. For example, Skypiea had a flashback several chapters long in the middle of the climax, with plot-critical details (Noland's expedition to Jaya, how the Shandorans got blasted up to Skypiea, and the truth behind Noland's failed second expedition and execution). When Dressrosa had a longer and more drawn-out climax, including Law's flashbacks during the climax, readers started complaining.
    • Somewhat related to the pacing, while people have started complaining about padding in the anime adaptation since just before the Time Skip, the anime has always expanded on the manga in various ways, from adding new scenes and lines of dialogue to reaction shots and shots of characters walking. The difference is that in the past, the anime covered more than one chapter per episode, and used filler episodes to allow the manga to get farther ahead. Around the time the series got up to Sabaody Archipelago, leading to long arcs with no opportunity for filler arcs, the anime had to fall back on making anime episodes cover manga chapters, thus leading to the padding problem getting that much worse. This became an especially noticeable problem as of Dressrosa, which was already one of the longer arcs in the manga, and its pacing is slowed down to a drag by the anime adaptation.
    • For much of the series, some of the more epic battles happened almost entirely offscreen. In the early series, people didn't mind, since those glimpses of the most powerful fighters generally served to build up excitement for future battles (for example, Shanks and Whitebeard clashing aboard Whitebeard's ship post-Enies Lobby, or Ace vs. Blackbeard ending on a cliffhanger). However, as the series goes on, some people are starting to see this trope as a bit of a cop-out, such as when Kanjuro Kurozumi, the traitor in the Red Scabbards (a significant antagonist) is defeated and thought to have been killed offscreen, or when Jack, one of Kaido's Lead Performers apparently loses to Dogstorm and Cat Viper in their Sulong forms offscreen.
    • The series has long been reluctant to kill off characters outside of flashbacks. At the end of the Baratie arc, the fatally poisoned Gin's fate was left ambiguous, and while Igaram's survival seems farfetched, the fact that Robin pretended to kill him retroactively makes sense as her first act of betrayal against Crocodile. It only became a problem when characters' surviving is rather improbable (Pell surviving the detonation of a city-destroying bomb, Pagaya avoiding Eneru's lightning) and/or ruins the emotional impact of supposed character deaths (Bon Clay performing a Heroic Sacrifice twice and surviving). The series managed to buck the trend by killing off Ace and Whitebeard at Marineford, but later developments, like Sabo surviving his supposed death in Luffy's flashback, Pound coming back in a cover story and Kin'emon not dying after Kaido ran him through, prove that this trend hasn't quite gone away.
    • While some of the princesses after Vivi were criticized for being useless and being overly reliant on the Straw Hats and other protagonists, to the point of existing to give the protagonists a reason to fight, it's worth noting that some of this applied to Vivi, who was weaker than the Straw Hats and unable to win any fights on her own. The difference, however, was that Vivi was able to uncover Mr. 0's identity as Sir Crocodile, which was key to unraveling Baroque Works' conspiracy, and was able to convince Koza to end the rebellion, with only Baroque Works' interference thwarting her efforts. When you compare how Shirahoshi kept the identity of her mother's killer secret (thus allowing Hody to get as far as he did), Rebecca was unable to accomplish anything by herself and Komurasaki almost becomes a non-entity in Wano Act 3, only gaining relevance near the tail end of it, you can see why the other princesses aren't as well received. It also helps that Vivi was a far more proactive and goal-oriented character than the later princesses. She was the one who came up with the plan to take down Crocodile in the first place and was consistently driving the plot throughout the Alabasta arc.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • In general, fans of Dragon Ball are usually fans of One Piece, due to the similar art style and tone. It helps that Eiichiro Oda practically idolizes Akira Toriyama.
    • There is pretty strong overlap between fandoms for One Piece and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, primarily on the basis that they both have very distinct art styles, that Eiichiro Oda and Hirohiko Araki are extremely pop culture savvy in regards to both Japanese and western media and flaunt it in their work whenever they can, and that both series are Long-Runners whose stories have only gotten wilder and wilder since they began.
    • One Piece fans and Pirates of the Caribbean fans can get along quite well thanks to similar pirate theme between the two and Jack Sparrow, who is more or less an adult, Devil Fruit-less version of Luffy.

    G-L 
  • Gateway Series: Regardless of how bad the bowdlerizing is, at least the 4Kids dub had made some viewers become fans of the manga before or after they found out the source material.
  • Genius Bonus:
    • There are dozens of characters Named After Someone Famous, mostly pirates, but most are only famous if you're a historian and/or a fan of real-life pirates of the past. Many readers may recognize Edward "Blackbeard" Teach and the One Piece characters named after him (Edward Newgate and Marshall Teach), or Anne Bonney and her One Piece counterpart Jewelry Bonney. There are way fewer readers who will know Roronoa Zoro is named after François l'Ollonais, Cavendish is named after Henry Cavendish, or Scratchmen Apoo is named after Chui A-poo. Trafalgar Law gets a reference in both parts of his name: He's named after English pirate Edward Low and the Trafalgar-class submarine.
    • The idea of the Transponder Snail was not made up, at least not by Oda. The Pasilalinic-sympathetic compass was a 19th century attempt to create a telegraph-like text sending device based on the idea that snails form a psychic bond when they mate.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Carrot, big time. While Japan likes her enough, the rest of the world adores her. So much so that her popularity managed to propel her to 8th place in the first Worldwide Popularity Poll. Beating out titans like Ace and Sabo. Regional breakdown showed her getting 24th place in Japan, but anywhere from 4th to 8th place in the rest of the world.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • Many fans note that One Piece really starts coming into its own during the Arlong Arc (the first arc where Luffy and company profoundly stuck their noses out for someone who had been badly hurt and oppressed), and even after a few hundred chapters, simply hasn't stopped delivering in entertainment.
    • Alabasta is another moment for the series, being the highly anticipated payoff to the Baroque Works Saga, featuring a villain who soundly defeats Luffy twice and introducing some of the mysteries of the world, such as the Poneglyphs.
    • As for the anime, it really came to be its own series with the greater animation budget, fighting scenes and overall story with the beginning of the Water 7 Arc.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight:
    • Fisher Tiger and Koala. Even after the ambush from returning Koala to her village by the Marines, he declared on his deathbed that she, not knowing of the hatred between humans and Fish-men, represents the hope for a better future. Skip to fifteen years, and find out that Koala has joined the Revolutionaries, and when she's not starting uprisings against oppressive governments, she teaches Fish-man Karate. She's also a good friend of Hack, a Fish-man who's an acquaintance of Jimbei's.
    • After Sanji's tragic past that was revealed in Whole Cake Island, any scene between him and Zeff could qualify for this, especially in the wake of Koji Yada (Zeff's Japanese voice actor)'s death.
  • He's Just Hiding:
    • At the end of Luffy's flashback almost no one believed Oda would suddenly introduce Sabo, another "brother" of Luffy and Ace only to suddenly kill him off. Then Sabo appears during the Dressrosa arc, revealing he's been working with the revolutionaries and simply lost his memory.
    • In Chapter 986, Kurozumi Kanjuro, the traitor among the Red Scabbards, is shown lying in a pool of his own blood, surrounded by the comrades he betrayed, and a flashback scene shows them in happier times. Many fans don't believe that he's actually dead, since they find it hard to accept that the traitor would be Killed Offscreen in such an anticlimactic fashion. Sure enough, Kanjuro entered the fray once more in Chapter 1007.
  • Hype Backlash: Because of the high critical reception and how often fans consider the series "the best manga ever made", it's only natural that many people disagree with the notion and think the series, while usually considered good, doesn't deserve all the hype.
  • I Knew It!:
    • It was speculated among the fandom for many years that Ace and Luffy were not blood related, despite a remarkable physical resemblance and matching personality traits. Eventually, this was confirmed, but then the Wham Episode came when Oda revealed who Ace's actual blood family was.
    • Was that Dragon and his revolutionaries skulking in the port the night after Sabo's boat got blown up? Yes it was, and Sabo is alive, has signed on with the revolutionaries, and is absolutely badass, just as predicted.
    • There were numerous fan predictions and fake spoilers of Blackbeard showing up with the Level Six prisoners during Whitebeard's war on the Marines. Sure enough, he did, but not when they thought, him stealing Whitebeard's power and with Avaro Pizaro either.
    • There was speculation that Charlotte Pudding, Big Mom's daughter and Sanji's arranged fiancee wasn't as nice as she seemed, despite helping the Straw Hats get to Sanji's location and the appearance of two of her sisters who were in perfectly arranged marriages and were willing to betray their colossal mother. It seemed to die down when she implied she willing to die for the good guys, only to be revealed in the next chapter she was just pretending to be a nice girl and was evil all along (how evil? She tells Sanji's sister Reiju that she plans on killing the whole Vinsmoke family on Sanji's wedding day).
    • Most One Piece fans were able to correctly deduce that the Soldier toy was Rebecca's father given the scenes they were shown together in before the reveal.
    • Many One Piece theorists and readers were convinced that Lola is one of Big Mom's daughters long before her parentage was explored in full, because Oda didn't try to hide it and even hinted at her "mama" being a very powerful pirate as in Big Mom.
    • Many fans had speculated that Pudding was the three-eyed girl who first appeared with Big Mom in Chapter 651. This was confirmed in Chapter 850.
    • Due to one online fan translation changing Katakuri's name to "Dogtooth", it was speculated that Charlotte Katakuri was hiding an array of sharp, animalstic teeth beneath his cape. Ironically, this was a complete coincidence, since this translation missed the intended theme of his name ("Katakuri" is a type of starch, which fits with the Edible Theme Naming of Big Mom's children) and mistakenly changed it to English because "Katakuri" is also the Japanese name for a flower called the dogtooth violet.
    • While many theories about what exactly happened at the Reverie circulated in the years before readers began to learn, one popular theory was that Sabo had been framed for the assassination of Cobra.
    • From pretty much the moment she was introduced fans easily deduced that Komurasaki was actually Hiyori because in the very next scene Momo talks about his sisters, making it pretty easy to connect the dots. At the same time, though less so, many correctly guessed that Kyoshiro is actually Denjiro thanks in part to the Anime Opening giving a visual clue, spoiling even the manga readers.
    • Fans accurately predicted that Luffy will achieve Gear 5 during his fight with Kaido and will use it to defeat him.
    • Fans begin to suspect that Admiral Ryokugyu has Green Thumb related powers based on the comments made during the Levely arc, where it's implied that Ryokugyu sees eating as unnecessary. Chapters 1052 and 1053 does confirm that he does have Green Thumb powers with the latter chapter showing a way of how he can gain nutrients without eating.
    • Most fans speculated that the late revolutionary Ginny was Jewelry Bonney's mother due to their similar quirky personalities. They were right.
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: One Piece is the best selling manga in history and the second best selling comic book of all time. It's also been consistently popular all over the world for almost two decades. Naturally, some people are taken aback by this popularity and consider the series overrated.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
    • In general, most One Piece arcs tend to follow the same formula and, while some argue that each arc manages to have its own identity and different feel, other fans have gotten sick of the formula and the series has gotten too repetitive; it doesn't help that its length means there have been many arcs and therefore it's very easy to find the plot-formula.
      • One of the most commonly cited examples is Dressrosa, compared to Alabasta. In both arcs, the Straw Hats seek to defeat one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, who is trying to/has taken over a country, and they gain help of that country's princess and an honorable Marine. Some members of Doflamingo's crew (Gladius and Machvise) even have similar powers to members of Baroque Works (Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine).
      • Whole Cake Island also caught flak for its similarities to Enies Lobby; a Straw Hat feigns hostility to keep the crew out of harm's way as their Dark and Troubled Past comes back to haunt them, leading to a Rescue Arc. This even drew ire toward Sanji for thinking the same tactic would work after their experience with Robin. Their backstories also have Saul and Reiju spouting nearly the same lines about how the relevant Straw Hat will someday find True Companions.
    • Kaido's defeat had a few fans complaining that it was too similar to Doflamingo's; Luffy flies up into the sky with his new Gear, creates a big black fist, punches down through the villain's final attack and sends him underground. It doesn't help that unlike Doflamingo's final clash, which was in a single chapter, this got drawn out over three before Luffy's final blow connected.
  • It Was His Sled:
    • The Going Merry gets replaced by the Thousand Sunny. Since the Straw Hats' ship is often shown in promotional material, it's hard to hide the Straw Hats getting a much larger ship that looks rather different from the old one.
    • The identities of the 9 Straw Hat crewmates before the two year Time Skip. Again, the main cast is prominently featured in promotional materials, even members like Robin or Franky, whose joining comes as a bit of a surprise.
    • Ace being the son of Gold Roger himself.
    • Both Ace and Whitebeard die in Marineford.
    • There's a 2-year Time Skip.
    • The identities of Luffy's two "brothers." Ace is revealed early on in the series, but Sabo doesn't debut until just before the Time Skip.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: There are plenty of heinous villains in the series, but most of them are so charismatic that they become popular characters in their own right. Donquixote Doflamingo, for instance, is about as evil as you can get yet is very much a fan-favorite character. Instead, the character who receives the most ire from fans is Vinsmoke Judge who, ironically enough, actually allies with the crew during the Wholecake Island arc.
    • In the Egghead Arc, Saint Jaygarcia Saturn is absolutely despicable, but his presentation of his terrifying devil fruit power as well as being an absolute menace once he arrives to Egghead Island did give a Love to Hate quality to him. In contrast, Alpha, who was the caretaker of Bonney while Kuma was working for the government became even more hated due to her unnecessarily cruel action of ripping up Kuma's letters that were sent to Bonney, and generally being abusive to her.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Obvious joke aside, several major characters get this treatment, such as Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, Robin, Ace, Nami, and Law.
  • LGBT Fanbase:
    • While the series rarely touches upon the subject of romance, it has its share of shipping, especially between the crew of True Companions. In particular, Nami is often believed to be Ambiguously Bi given her interactions with many female characters.
    • The series is also popular among Asexual and Aromantic communities due to Luffy being one of the very few aroace characters, let alone protagonists, in any manga or anime.
    • The Wano Arc has been incredibly well received by gay and trans people in the West due to the introduction of several trans characters who are not treated for comic relief; O-Kiku, who's a trans woman, and Yamato who might be a trans man. While there is a lot of discourse about whether Yamato counts as a trans character (see here) almost every trans fan was immensely pleased in chapter 1052 when Yamato and O-Kiku go into the baths of their chosen genders rather then their assigned genders and the other characters accept them and don't treat it as weird with many seeing this as a positive step forward in representation especially in a genre rather infamous in terms of trans representation.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: The large number of Disney Deaths had led to fans taking many supposed death scenes with a grain of salt. One of the more notable examples was the Onigashima raid, where Kinemon and Kiku are dramatically stabbed, but ultimately survive... which left many gobsmacked when Ashura and Izo are revealed to have died by the end of the raid.
  • Love to Hate: Arlong, Sir Crocodile, Eneru, Spandam, Admiral Akainu, Blackbeard, Caesar Clown, Doflamingo, and Saint Saturn are many things, but forgettable villains aren’t one of them.

    M-O 
  • Macekre: The 4Kids dub gets a lot of flak for skipping entire arcs, unnecessary character name changes (Smoker gets Bowdlerized, which makes sense, but Ace is a problem?), generally weird edits, and a host of other problems that are associated with the company. Though to be entirely fair, 4Kids themselves wanted nothing to do with the show, as they were well aware of how un-family friendly it was, but they were forced into dubbing the show by Toei themselves, as they wanted to get it into foreign markets as soon as possible and would only license other shows to 4Kids as part of a packaged deal, so they were basically forced into dubbing One Piece against their will, hence why they dropped it after a year.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Buggy, both in-universe and out. He's a goofball who was defeated early on, but his history as a former cabin boy on the Pirate King Gol D. Roger's crew, as well as several coincidences during the Marineford War, leads to many lauding him as one of the most powerful pirates of all time.
    • Many characters who are silly and weak such as Gaimon, Foxy, or Tonjit are hyped up as secretly as strong as the Four Emperors or the Admirals.
    • Arlong became a bit of one after an obviously-fake leak came out saying that Arlong would make a reappearance in the story, having undergone a Heel–Face Turn and become a Marine Admiral. The leak also claimed that he would be capable of utilizng a unique type of Haki called "Blue Haki".
    • Maynard became one overnight after a "Blind Idiot" Translation stated that "Maynard the Marine" came along to stop the pirates rampaging the town,note  implying him to be a One-Man Army. Later, the translation stated him to be an Admiral, even though he is a Vice-Admiral.
    • Don Krieg, who aside from his endless arsenal of weapons is no stronger than the average marine, is endlessly hyped up as powerful precisely for that reason, with many edits of him coming back to the story and crush any powerful adversary the story needs to defeat.
  • Memetic Loser:
    • Ace, after his not-so-glorious death that leads many to compare him to a donut, as well as the fact he doesn't win any on-screen fight except against mooks and an anime-only hunter who has no powers. He was a bit salvaged after he stalemated Yamato, who can stall Kaido for a while.
    • Kid cannot catch a break to save his life, with mockery of him running rampant due to most of his panel time post-Timeskip involving him being beaten up, betrayed or screwed over in some way. And just when this started to change after the raid on Onigashima where he has been given more badass moments and Kid teaming with Law defeated Big Mom, he and his entire crew would get effortlessly wiped clean off the map by Shanks and his allies. There is a VERY good reason he got the distinguished nickname "Useless Captain Mid".
    • Bellamy the Hyena is best known as "that guy Luffy beat with one punch". Though this died down quite a bit after he came back in the Dressrosa Arc and Took a Level in Badass, and even when he still went down in one punch again he earned Luffy's respect this time.
    • Vice-Admiral Smoker. Post-timeskip has not been kind to Smoker. His only major appearance in canon material was Punk Hazard. His three main fights in Punk Hazard were against Law (who beat him), Vergo (who he needed Law's help to beat), and Doflamingo (who would have killed him if Kuzan hadn't saved him). It's a stark contrast to pre-timeskip Smoker who was such a threat, that the Straw Hats' only real strategy to deal with him was "run away." The main issue is that Smoker is a Logia user who hasn't really learned how to fight against Haki-users in the New World, so he frequently ends up jobbing.
    • Kelly Funk from the Dressrosa colosseum, for his incredibly weird and out-of-left-field Devil Fruit power that lets him turn into a jacket. If you asked One Piece fans to name some of the worst Devil Fruits in the series, his would often come up, on the grounds of "Do you really want to be the guy who can turn into a jacket".
    • Giants are seen as a powerful race, and Big Mom believes she would have become Pirate King if she's gained Elbaf's allegiance, but more often than not, their imposing size simply serves to hype up their opponents who easily defeat them.note  Special mention goes to the Numbers, who are effortlessly trounced despite being hyped up as Ancient Giants like Oars.
    • In a similar vein to giants, the Marine Vice-Admirals in general are treated as a joke. Aside from Garp, their only major appearances in the story involved them getting worfed by other characters (i.e. Whitebeard effortlessly beating a couple of them in Marineford). In fact, many fans were rolling their eyes when a Buster Call was initiated on Egghead with nine Vice-Admirals, instead of the usual five plus Admiral Kizaru, involved.
    • Jack is treated as a complete joke by a notable portion of the fandom as, while he has the first ten figure bounty shown in the series, he never wins a single straight fight since his introductionnote . Not helping matters is his tendency to charge headfirst into fights, even when he doesn't need to, which invariably comes back to bite him.
    • SMILE users in general have this reputation, primarily due to their atrocious combat record, ridiculous designs, and they seem to avert Heart Is an Awesome Power as most of them manifest animal features in bizarre and borderline useless ways, with some even being more of a hindrance than a benefit. Granted, the fact they are made by Caesar should have been a clue as to their quality. This gets taken up to eleven when we learn that there's only a 10% chance of the Fruits even yielding these flawed powers; the other 90% of the Fruits are duds that come with only the drawbacks (becoming unable to express any emotions but smiling and laughing, and unable to swim) and none of the perks. It's quite telling that everyone above the rank of Headliner in Kaido's crew (including the man himself) have natural Zoans.
    • Mihawk OF ALL PEOPLE got hit with this because of chapter 1082 where fans misinterpreted his refusal to pursue the newly crowned Yonko (the reason is because sending all of their forces at them would just result in pointless casualties. Buggy retorted that all they need to do is get to the one piece first) as him saying he's actually not as strong as them. Cue the fandom calling him a hakiless fraud and saying that all of his feats were just a coincidence that occurred when he was around.
    • Ryokugyu/Aramaki was the second of the two new Admirals to be introduced after the Time Skip, and unlike Fujitora, who put in an impressive showing, Ryokugyu didn't. While he did curb stomp both King and Queen, it's made abundantly clear that they were both fighting with a massive handicap, as they were still injured and exhausted from their fights with Zoro and Sanji, respectively, something that Ryokugyu himself points out. He then proceeds to fight against Yamato, Momo and the surviving Akazaya Nine, none of whom (except for Yamato, who can stall Kaido for a while) are particularly challenging opponents for an Admiral. Then, finally, before that fight can conclude, he is sent running when Shanks uses his WiFi Haki to intimidate him from clear across the country. All of this has led fans to brand him as a coward who runs from fights where he doesn't have an overwhelming advantage, and declare him the weakest Admiral in the series by far.
    • Monkey D. Dragon, despite being the protagonist's father, being the leader of the Revolutionary Army, and having the title of "The World's Worst Criminal," has fans commonly dunk on him for the fact that he doesn't do anything onscreen besides deliver exposition and that he never rescues his captured teammates, like Ivankov or Ginny. It's especially glaring considering that Dragon was introduced during the Loguetown arc, at the beginning of the story and, for over a thousand chapters, has minimal impact on the main plot.
    • Sanji was always dunked on by a good handful of fans. However, what is perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back is when the Egghead Arc saw him getting knocked out by Saturn's Deadly Gaze and rendered immobile and helpless while supposedly weaker individuals like Bonney and Kuma were seemingly unaffected by it or able to snap out of it. Cue uproar of fans calling him a "hype tool". And just when his status as such seemed to be dying down in Chapter 1107 where he squares up against Kizaru, the following chapter has him not only kicked away by the latter but also carrying Vegapunk's body to escape. This caused many fans to call him "Runji". The fact that Oda once jokingly said to Hirata, Sanji's VA, that Sanji will no longer have any highlight scenes in the future is not helping matters. And what drives the knife even further is when Episode 1095 of the anime, which came out around the same time as Chapter 1108, had Sanji getting thrown across the room by S-Shark, despite the manga not featuring such a scene.
    • Zoro was also brought down to this hard after, starting from Chapter 1091, fighting toe-to-toe with Lucci, who was also a bit of a Memetic Loser himself. Not helping matters was Chapter 1105 where Nami sent Jimbe to help Zoro on the fight and also to not get lost. His status as such grew even more after Chapter 1107 not only showed Zoro still fighting against Lucci, but Sanji, who was also labeled a Memetic Loser, kicking away Kizaru's laser and confronting him. This led to an explosion of memes involving Zoro's apparent struggle against a previous foe.
  • Memetic Molester:
    • A lot of fans, whether jokingly or otherwise, call Boa Hancock a pedophile for falling in love with Luffy when he was 17 years old while she was 29, making it a 12-year age gap between the two.
    • Sanji was always portrayed in the canon as doing borderline sexual assault at worst. However, he became a bit viewed as a pedophile after One Piece Film: Z saw him getting a little too excited at the thought of watching a de-aged Nami grow up. Later on, the Whole Cake Island Arc would see him falling in love with Pudding, a 16-year-old girl, despite him being 21.
    • Blackbeard took Bonney hostage soon before the timeskip and said he wanted her to "be his woman." With the revelation that Bonney is chronologically just 12 years old in the present, meaning that she was only 10 when he made this comment, fans have, jokingly or otherwise, called Blackbeard a pedophile.
    • A lot of fan art from the Japanese fandom tends to play up Uta's (implied) feelings towards Luffy to yandere-tier obsession, likely due to the fact that Uta was especially determined to keep Luffy trapped in Uta World, even going as far as to ask him to quit being a pirate and stay with her while lingering around Luffy's unconscious body in the real world.
  • Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Luffy is beloved by many aroace viewers in spite of his dimness and falling under the stereotype that asexuals only care about food.
  • Misaimed Fandom:
    • Marines are often played as evil by the fandom; the Marines are run by corrupt Jerkasses and Smug Supers, while the pirates are romanticized as freedom-loving people who want to live life to the fullest outside the law. For the most part, the Marines are portrayed as morally questionable, and several good pirate crews are seen (such as the Straw Hats). However, it is made clear that crews like the Straw Hats are exceptions. Several pirates are evil, cruel, and murderous, many of them infinitely worse than most Marines. For the most part, the Marines are at least trying to do the right thing, and want to protect people from pirates and other criminals. The dynamic between pirates and Marines is more a case of Grey-and-Grey Morality, while fans tend to simplify it to pure Black and White.
    • Several fans believe that Sanji's inability to hit a woman is a trait that makes him weak and that calling for Robin's help after being captured by Black Maria is a sign of cowardice. However, Black Maria herself voices this belief while Robin promptly shuts her up and replies to like that Sanji trusted her, while it's later shown that Sanji's refusal to hit a woman is one of the traits that makes him human in contrast to his cold and emotionless siblings. And Sanji redeems himself shortly after when he realizes Queen made him think he hit a woman and humiliates him.
  • Misblamed:
    • Those who don't like the Hotter and Sexier post-Time Skip female design often criticize Oda. While Oda is a self-admitted pervert and women have gotten curvier over the course of the story, he actually still does draw his women's breasts to be much smaller and at a more consistent size than Toei, who are the ones really responsible for ballooning up bust sizes.
    • As it has been pointed out multiple times by multiple people in the industry, Toei approved every single alteration 4Kids made to One Piece. Changing a gun into a spring-controlled mallet... thing? Somebody at Toei approved that. Digitally altering Laboon into an easily-destroyed iceberg to completely skip a rather important dozen-plus episodes of plot simply to get to the "cute" character more quickly (and causing severe plot holes had the show run for much longer)? Yep, somebody at Toei signed off on that too. The "One Piece Rap"? A Toei exec... well you get the idea.
    • It's also widely believed that One Piece was the root cause of 4Kids' financial woes, but Chaotic actually played a much larger role in that due to how much they spent on its entire inception combined with the economic recession of the late 2000s.
  • Narm Charm:
  • No Problem with Licensed Games: While most One Piece games haven't seen a release overseas, they're genuinely fun to play regardless, ranging from role-playing games, mini-game mashups, and even a dungeon crawler with Tony Tony Chopper as the main character is on the Wonderswan Color. Additionally, Unlimited Adventure was a pretty good Survival RPG/Beat 'em Up, with its own unique level up and item creation systems. And Unlimited Cruise (1 and 2) isn't just a good licensed game, it's a good game overall, with ratings ranging from 7 to 10. And then there are the epic Pirate Warriors games.
  • No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: As hilarious/awful as the 4Kids dub was, it still attracted people who eventually became fans of the Japanese dub, the Funimation dub, or the manga.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • Many SMILE users appear for just one single scene or even as a background character, but many of them have such goofy and absurd designs that gain the attention of many fans. Particularly Four Tricks, Hamlet and Briscola (the latter is beloved by Italians due to being named after an Italian card game)
    • Female Law as a result of the Heart Pirates being infected by Doc Q's "disease" in Chapter 1063 and Episode 1093 has recieved a lot fanart as of its release in both the manga and anime alike for being an official Rule 63 design.

    P-T 
  • Padding:
    • Since Toei Animation has pretty much abandoned all usage of long Filler Arcs ever since the Straw Hats separated, which previously allowed for the manga content to space itself out from the anime, this trope is Toei's current day answer to make sure that their anime adaptation never overtakes the manga. As a result, a single anime episode will go to great lengths to extend the content as much as possible to fit in one manga chapter's worth of content. Sometimes even less, which has resulted in the later Story Arcs of the series having more episodes than there are chapters. While this Padding technique can be looked at as completely justified, it can be grating as well since it causes the pace of the story to drop drastically. Even though Toei still adds filler arcs, they tend to be short-lived and not too ambitious unless a really good idea comes up or Oda gets on board with production or they tie in to a movie.
    • One of the most notorious cases is the flashback of Rebecca and the Soldier, which plays roughly 48 times during the anime adaptation of the Dressrosa arc.
    • For the Whole Cake Island Arc, Luffy, Nami, Chopper, and Carrot getting lost in an enchanted forest was used as a means to simply keep them preoccupied while Oda used that time to develop Sanji's current problem regarding his Vinsmoke family joining up with Big Mom. It's especially bad in the anime, which adds scenes from Luffy's ten-hour battle with Cracker to pad things out in the middle of episodes focusing on Sanji and the Vinsmokes. One video estimated that one sample episode from Luffy's fight with Katakuri was 43% extraneous material.
    • Some have joked that if you removed the opening, ending, last episode recap, and the use of seeing everyone's reaction to a scene, there is about five minutes of new content per episode.
  • Periphery Demographic: In Japan, One Piece is most often read by people who don't normally read manga. For very obvious reasons, it is especially popular with middle-aged housewives. Thanks to its extremely long run and its handling of more mature themes, a good part of its readers are grown up adults in spite of it being a manga published in a magazine aimed at teens, and in Japan whole families read One Piece together, since people who started reading One Piece as kids might now have families of their own. It has also gathered the interest of many history buffs thanks to the often obscure references to many historical events, figures or famous legends, particularly around piracy.
  • Questionable Casting:
    • Many of the fans and critics mercilessly questioned the choices of the voice actors/actresses for the 4Kids dub, particularly David Moo/Sanji.
    • In Marc Diraison's case, the fans pitied him for being chosen to voice Zoro.
    • Alejandro Orozco is considered one of the best Mexican voice actors of the modern era, but the tone he used to voice Usopp in the Latin American Spanish dub of One Piece on Netflix is considered as not good by the fanbase. This has decreased over time, however, as Orozco started to adapt better to the character during the Alabasta saga, and fully dropped the shrill tone he used during the early arcs when voicing Usopp in Strong World and Stampede, at which point the fanbase warmed up to his performance.
  • Realism-Induced Horror: While the series is well known for having a wide array of fantastical villains with strange powers and grand evil plans, the scenes showing the evils of slavery and the suffering of those who are enslaved are never played for anything but pure horror, and rightfully so. In a world full of many different kinds of terrifying monsters, villains, forces of nature and supernatural elements, the parts showing the dehumanizing and commodifying of sapient peoples is often when the story is at its darkest, with the Celestial Dragons being some of the worst sources of it. And of course, slavery is a very old and still-living horror in the real world.
    • Arlong and later on Hody Jones. While they are shark fishmen that’s not entirely what makes them terrifying. It’s their heavily racist views on humans and superiority complex being very reminiscent of the Nazis that makes them scary. Although monstrous, Arlong had a Freudian Excuse due to what happened to his former captain, as well as a personal bad experience with humans. Hody on the other hand? Never had any bad experiences with humans. He's a racist purely from the environment of the slums he was raised and being told humans were inferior. Many real-life racists gain similar viewpoints from being raised with nothing to oppose what they have been taught.
    • Additionally, at one-point Hody forces the people of Fishman Island to declare allegiance to him by forcing them to step on a picture of their Queen Otohime. This is similar to something done in Imperial Japan in the 1600s where Christians were forced to renounce their faith by stepping on a likeness of Christ.
    • Wapol's ploy of purging the doctors of Drum Island either by hoarding the 20 that gave in or leaving the rest to be exiled or executed has basis in reality reminiscent of the aptly named Doctors Plot done in 1950s Soviet Russia.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: For a long time Momonosuke was generally despised for being a bratty Dirty Kid. Throughout the Zou and Wano arcs, however, Momonosuke received quite a bit of Character Focus where he struggled with living up to his father's legacy as Shogun and eventually became a far more confident person. Growing into a strapping adult courtesy of Shinobu's Ripe-Ripe powers (even though he's mentally still an eight-year-old) certainly helped too. When Momo and Kin'emon said goodbye to the Straw Hats at the end of the Wano arc, many fans who had previously hated Momo admitted that they had warmed up to the guy.
  • Salvaged Story: The anime adds a filler episode right before Wano's finale focusing on farewell scenes that were left out of the manga, such as Carrot, who many felt had been sidelined after accompanying the Straw Hats to Whole Cake Island.
  • Self-Fanservice: Despite Yamato's figure being very similar to most female characters in the series (thin with large breasts), it is very common for fanart, especially from the western side of the fanbase to draw him much more muscular and masculine looking than he's drawn in the manga.
  • The Ship's Motor: In Shipping fanart, it’s very common for Tama to be depicted as Luffy’s and Nami’s adoptive daughter, as she is an orphan who had very warm interactions with both of them in canon.
  • Signature Scene: As a very long series, it has a several iconic scenes.
    • Gold Roger's last words at his execution, enticing pirates all over to find his titular treasure left behind at Laugh Tale. This is the very first scene in the manga, kicking off the Great Age of Piracy that serves as its plot, and his words are heard at the start of some of the anime openings.
    • Shanks losing an arm, and passing down his straw hat to Luffy is easily a cover shot for the series.
    • Ace tearfully dying in Luffy's arms at Marineford. It's the first major unambiguous death scene outside of flashbacks in a story somewhat infamous for Disney Deaths.
    • Whitebeard dying on his feet after declaring "THE ONE PIECE IS REEEEEEAL!!!" is one of the biggest memes in the series, and also is a fitting display of the series' themes.
    • Luffy's and Katakuri's final blow, which is illustrated in the cover of Volume 89 as well.
    • Roger's laugh upon finding Joy Boy's treasure has quickly become one of the most famous and referenced panels of the manga.
    • Luffy's hysterical laughter as his fruit (which is simultaneously revealed to be a Mythical Zoan based on the secret Sun God Nika) Awakens to Gear 5th, confirming him as the current incarnation of the legendary Joyboy. His laughing fit is also depicted on the cover of Volume 104, and in-universe, becomes his bounty picture by the end of the Wano arc.
  • Smurfette Breakout: Uta is the only main antagonist in a One Piece movie to be female and is by far the most popular. The amount of fanart and promotional material she's received in comparison to Shiki or Tesoro is rather staggering.
  • So Bad, It's Good:
    • The Singaporean English dub by Odex. There's a particular moment you can hear the Japanese voice track (around 1:44 in the video), but with the volume turned down.
    • The 4Kids dub is this for some as a way to heckle at, and the addicting rap. The original rapper, Shawn Conrad, must've thought the same, as he released an official contiuation in 2021 to include remaining Straw Hats up to Jimbei.
  • Spiritual Successor: While many shonen manga running in Jump and other magazines are heavily influenced by Dragon Ball, One Piece, more than any other series, is seen as its generation's equivalent to that manga, having reached the same level of ubiquity and success in Japan, critically and financially. In an inverse of how it compares to Kochi Kame, it's run much, much longer than Dragon Ball but has similar content and characters.
  • Superlative Dubbing: It's common consensus among fans that Funimation did a much better job dubbing the show than 4Kids did. It's well-written, well-acted, and well worth your time to listen to. For the first 206 episodes, when they redubbed the episodes 4Kids had done (including the episodes that they skipped), and the next 100, the acting and production work was largely good, but not great since they had to rush them out, but at 207 where they picked the series back up a few years later and the show went full HD, the acting got phenomenal. Everyone feels comfy in their roles, the scripts were really well done, and everything is just superb all around.
  • Tear Dryer: At the climax of the Skypiea arc, Enel throws out his strongest attack, "Raigou", a gigantic sphere of lightning that he'll use to decimate the whole Skypiea. We then get multiple shots of different Skypieans in despair who are saying their prayers. Then Luffy shows up and uses a special technique (aided by the golden ball that's grafted to his right arm [long story] and his Rubber Man powers) to disperse the lightning sphere; this brings back joy to the watching Skypieans and the other heroes.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • There was a lot of outcry after Toei forced 4Kids to edit the series as part of a licensing package deal in 2002; even 4Kids wasn't happy with the result. When Funimation acquired the license to the series in 2007, a different section of the fanbase criticized the Funimation voices for not matching the ones 4Kids used.
    • While Robin had a tanned or dark complexion for the pre-timeskip anime, her complexion became paler after the Time Skip. While this does match the manga, in which she's always had a pale complexion in the colored pages, the change angered fans who'd liked Robin's pre-timeskip design.
    • Some readers who'd grown attached to Franky's pre-timeskip design, which is one of the most colorful and memorable Straw Hat designs, weren't thrilled with his post-timeskip appearance, particularly the buzz cut he had in the first few post-timeskip arcs.
    • Chopper's character design became this down the line for a lot of people who miss the more normal looking reindeer shape that he had early on. As the series went along, especially after the Time Skip, Chopper's body morphs down to midget form that at times looks really off-putting due to how massive his head looks compared to his tiny body.
    • The anime adaptation of Luffy's first fight with Kaido made a few changes that made it seem like Luffy had more of a chance than he did, such as him landing one last King Kong Gun on Kaido just as Kaido took him out. As a result, manga readers complained that the scene didn't do the sheer power gap between the two justice.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • In the Dressrosa arc, when Rebecca reaches Diamante, the man who killed her mother, instead of fighting him, she flees from Diamante and cries until Kyros saves her and hijacks her revenge arc (In fairness, Kyros had his reasons to fight Diamante as well and also wanted Rebecca to never hold a sword again), while Rebecca ends the Dressrosa arc without getting any meaningful fights.
    • The Barto Club parting ways with the Straw Hats at the start of the Zou arc was mainly a thinly-veiled excuse to get a group of superfluous characters away from the main plot, who by their own admission felt they were getting in the way of things, but one can't help but wonder what would have happened had they stuck around.
    • Despite the presence of bounties and their importance in the story, after the Baroque Works saga, there have been almost no more bounty hunters in the canon story (the Accino family being anime-exclusive in the Ice Hunter Arc) and only the marines are shown hunting down pirates with bounties.
    • A very common occurrence throughout the series is for a character to seemingly have a heroic and/or tragic death, only for it to later be revealed that they survived. Many feel that this retroactively ruins a lot of otherwise poignant moments and that the series' overuse of fakeout deaths removes a lot of tension from otherwise high-stakes arcs. The most infamous example of this is by far Pell from the Alabasta arc, although plenty of other examples exist.
    • Throughout Wano, it's repeatedly implied that Zoro had some kind of connection to the Shimotsuki clannote , but this subplot never gets explored beyond vague hints. It is eventually discussed in an SBS, although some questioned why it wasn't revealed on panelnote .
    • Tama being a member of the Kurozumi clan is never mentioned in the main story at any point, only being discussed during an SBS in volume 105. Given that Tama is a very prominent character throughout the Wano arc and that one of the arc's major plotlines was the conflict between the Kozuki and Kurozumi clans, many feel that Tama's heritage being discussed in the main story could have been a great way to tie together the themes of the arc.
  • Took the Bad Film Seriously: While the dialogue left a lot to be desired, even detractors of the 4Kids dub enjoyed Marc Diraison's performance as Zoro/Zolo since his voice was considered the most unique among the cast. Some have even admitted to liking it better than Christopher Sabat's performance in the much better received Funimation dub.

    U-W 
  • Ugly Cute: The Den Den Mushi can be a bit uncanny but are still incredibly endearing to look at.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • Boa Hancock can fall under this, being an extremely self-centered misandrist and petty bitch who embodies Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful! to such a degree that it's almost painful to watch. Her Freudian Excuse that she was enslaved by World Nobles doesn't make her misandry any less irrational, as there are plenty of female World Nobles and male slaves, and the later Fish-Man Island arc's narrative is quite adamant about not judging humanity as a whole based on the World Nobles. And all it took for the narrative to turn a blind eye at her attitude is that she fell for Luffy.
    • While it's easy to feel sorry for Luffy as his brother Ace is killed by Akainu, many fans don't feel the same way for Ace himself. Not only did he go after Blackbeard against Whitebeard's orders because he couldn't stand that Blackbeard had disgraced their father by betraying the crew like that, but when he's finally freed after no small amount of bloodshed, which caused him plenty of grief during the first half of the arc, he stops escaping because Akainu has insulted Whitebeard. Despite his allies, including Luffy of all people, pleading with him to ignore the jibes, he fights the Admiral and is killed by him. It can be difficult to feel terribly sorry for him when he not only disregards the sacrifice of the dozens if not hundreds of his allies that died for his sake, but gets himself killed in a glaring case of Idiot Ball, rendering all their efforts pointless.
    • Caesar Clown's mooks in Punk Hazard are intended to be seen as pitiful for placing their faith in their "Master" who not only views them as expendable guinea pigs, but caused the catastrophe that he supposedly saved them from in the first place. However, Caesar's mask of benevolence was rather thin, and even when he outright rants that their lives mean nothing to him while demanding that they let his Deadly Gas inside his lab, they still somehow twist this into a ploy against Luffy, leading to many dismissing them as Too Dumb to Live.
    • Momonosuke on paper is a poor orphan kid whose parents were killed horribly, his country was taken over, and has a massive amount of responsibility laid on his shoulders as heir to his clan. But because Momonosuke is also a Dirty Kid who spends a lot of time exploiting his apparent innocence to grope Nami and Robin and acts like such a Bratty Half-Pint, most readers/viewers would rather throw him under a bus than respect and sympathize with him before Wano dials it back.
    • The conflict between Marines and pirates runs on a Grey-and-Gray Morality. However, because the series tends to portray marines in a much less sympathetic light, and the World Government being close to A Nazi by Any Other Name, any efforts of high-ranking marines to act responsibly often doesn't get welcome by fans. The likes of Garp, Sengoku, or Fujitora working in the interest of the people are accused by fans of being hypocrites for not doing much to prevent people from being oppressed until their job requires doing so.
    • Rebecca can fall into this somewhat. Granted, her desire to aid her father and aunt in their respective battles with Diamante and Doflamingo is admirable, but all it ends up doing is making said battles even more difficult than they would have been if she had just stayed the hell out of both of them. While the former can be somewhat forgiven as Diamante did ambush her, the latter is much more egregious as Rebecca knows what Doflamingo is capable of and that her going into battle would be nothing but a burden. Lo and behold, she gets possessed by Doflamingo and is forced to kill Viola. Had it not been for Luffy's intervention, Viola would've been dead by her unwilling hand.
    • Though many parental figures suffer from some Values Dissonance, Yasopp is frequently criticized by fans for abandoning his family to be a pirate, with his wife dying and Usopp developing a massive inferiority complex and abandonment issues, while the narrative frames his choice as a downright admirable and romantic one that only he himself really criticizes.
  • The Un Twist: The Tenth Titanic Captain of the Blackbeard Pirates is Kuzan. It was known that Kuzan was allied with Teach since Dressrosa, but it was never confirmed that he was the Tenth Titanic Captain until Egghead. Although it could be argued that the reveal was less about being a "twist" and more about cementing the fact that Kuzan is completely serious about working for Teach.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • As per typical of most Shonen series, an uninitiated American might be surprised that such a bright, colorful show that's ostensibly "made for kids" (according to Oda himself) features swearing, alcohol use, heavy tobacco use, scantily clad women, and the occasional Family-Unfriendly Violence like bloody mid-combat amputations — all of which have increased over the series' run. The most dissonant value though would probably have to be the buxom, Stripperific, and Male Gaze prone Rebecca (among a few other teens like Vivi and Shirahoshi, who often had the 19/21-year-old Sanji hitting on them) who's only 16-years-old, which would be a major no-no on a kid's network in the West. So, it's no surprise that, aside from Funimation, this show has largely been Bowdlerised whenever it's green-lit for America.
    • It's not uncommon in One Piece to see a loving parental figure hit their child at least once or even actually beat them frequently, such as Garp, Zeff, or Bellmere. Disciplining through corporal punishment in Japan, however, is largely seen as perfectly acceptable as long as it's warranted and done to make the kid a better person. Out West, however, this depiction of parenting is far more likely to be scrutinized as child abuse regardless of the preceding circumstances.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • While not the most common, Chopper in a few cases, being the Ridiculously Cute Critter with a female VA and pink as his main color. On the Drum Island arc commentary, some of the dubbers at Funimation admitted they weren't sure of his gender until hearing his scream about being a man.
    • Dellinger, though flat-chested, acts flamboyantly, has rather shapely legs, and wears high heels. On Oda's SBS Volume 76, a writer congratulated Oda for finally including a flat-chested female to his cast, but Oda corrected him and said that Dellinger is male. His Justification is that Dellinger was raised from birth by Giolla, another member of the Donquixote Pirates, who brought him up with her own feminine tastes.
    • Since the release of Chapter 1085, people have debated whether Crocodile's Seraphim is a boy or a girl since they found the character in question to be pretty for a clone of Crocodile, causing the "Crocodile used to be a woman" fan theory to resurface.
  • Vindicated by History: Happens to most of the post-timeskip arcs. Since the majority of the fandom has been following the series weekly since the timeskip, it causes most of the arcs to appear weaker when read chapter by chapter than in their entirety like happened to the pre-timeskip arcs.
    • When it first came out, the fans' reaction to Fish-Man Island was very negative, because it was often considered the worst arc of the series, since the Straw Hats had very little trouble with their enemies, and it didn't help that Fish-Man Island had been built up since Enies Lobby. With time, its reception among the fandom has improved thanks to its nuanced story about racismnote  and doing a good job at showing the skills the Straw Hats have learned during the time-skip.
    • The Dressrosa arc wasn't exactly well received at first because of its incredible length and its refusal to end but, once it ended, many fans noted that most of the pacing problems are absent if read or watched without having to wait a week for every chapter and it is now mostly regarded among the best story arcs of the entire series, as it was able to balance a large number of characters and concurrent plotlines while still keeping a strong emotional throughline. This is moreso in the manga, as the anime is still considered painfully slow.
    • While the Wholecake Island arc was somewhat divisive when it was coming out weekly, especially due to how long the post-Wedding chapters went on for, as time has gone on it's considered by many to be one of the best arcs in the series. In particular, many feel that the last couple chapters did a very good job at tying everything together. The fact that the arc features one of the few actual naval battles in the series certainly doesn't hurt.
    • The Skypiea arc was for a long time considered one of the weaker arcs by many fans, largely due to it seemingly having nothing to do with the overarching narrative. More recently, however, many fans have since warmed up to the arc, in large part due to its strong sense of adventure with the Strawhats exploring a fun and unique landscape. Additionally, many have come to appreciate it more as its role in the larger Myth Arc has become more clear.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome:
    • Any scene animated by Naotoshi Shida, like Luffy kicking Hody to save Neptune, or his first transformation into Gear Fourth.
    • The Wano arc in general takes it to a whole new level, with nary a single episode going by without at least one big show-stopper moment. Even within the arc though, episodes directed by Megumi Ishitani (957, 982, 1015) stand out and have been likened to what is, essentially, 20-minute movies.
    • Opening 26, "UUUUUS!", also directed by Megumi Ishitani and animated by Masami Mori, is commonly regarded to have the best visuals out of many of the openings put on the show. It's vibrant colors and jumpy animation, with amazing transitions and breathtaking visuals give it a unique feel differing from other openings.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This is a Shonen manga in the vein of Dragon Ball (Eiichiro Oda's main inspiration for the series) that's supposed to be meant for all ages, but it surprisingly features a huge amount of adult content that seems to push every single boundary of the Shonen genre to the extreme, what with insane amounts of extreme violence (including all sorts of extremely bloody and messy fights), some sexual material, foul language beffiting of a sailor, frightening imagery, a gigantic plethora of surprisingly incredibly heartwrenching moments; racism, slavery, torture, and genocide that would make A Song of Ice and Fire look like a picnic; some truly vile and heinous villains, one of the most horrific and utterly evil totalitarian governments in all of fiction being largely responsible for all the suffering in the series' otherwise optimistic setting, and so much more. It's telling that the U.S. version of the anime adaptation tried to make it kid-friendly by reducing most of the violence and language for any kids channel, including Cartoon Network, but after 4Kids dropped the license, Funimation averted this trope when they released the anime in its uncensored form, now with a well-deserved TV-14 rating.
  • Win Back the Crowd:
    • Many fans were feeling downbeat about the series given the negative reception of the 4Kids adaptation. However, they were delighted when it was revealed by Funimation licensed the series in 2007 and made a more faithful adaptation. Even better received was the revelation nearly eight months later that they would actually re-release the first 143 episodes of the anime in their unedited version with a new dub.
    • Or at least quell the riot. Several veteran animators returned partway into Whole Cake Island, bringing back a bit of the quality seen in the first half of the series. While the quality's still nowhere near what is was and the pacing is still a nightmare, it's starting to cool down the fans complaining about the state of the anime.
    • The Anime's adaptation of the Wano arc takes this even further, and is easily the most consistently well animated arc in the entire series, arguably looking as good as some seasonal anime. While the less-than-a-chapter-per-episode pacing is still an issue, it's much easier to deal with thanks to generally more well done Adaptation Expansion and less obnoxious padding than prior arcs.
  • Woolseyism:
    • The Swedish translation of the manga translated Baroque Works as Barockbruket and Crocodile's president title as Patron (the title the owner of a Swedish iron factory had prior to the 20th century) giving them a definite steel factory theme.
    • While the 4Kids dub is infamously terrible, its version of Gol D. Roger's last words ("My fortune is yours for the taking, but you'll have to find it first. I left everything I owned in One Piece.") is still popular for the Title Drop it added, even if that wasn't in the original.


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