One Piece: Character Analysis

[Captain Cadaver]

Inspired by Keedounan's thread for DB characters, inspired by my threads for the arcs and movies. The plot thickens...

- Characters are rated on a scale of 1 to 10
- An analysis must be provided alongside them. The length is flexible, though it must be enough to show a concise opinion.
- One character per two days.

Once the time has passed, the votes will be tallied up to find Zeta's Mean Score for the characters.

We'll start off with the main character, "Straw Hat" Monkey D. Luffy.

Even in the early portion of the series, I had problems with Luffy's character just feeling like a poor Goku clone. Whereas Goku's dumb character in Part 1 was as a result of his naivete and lack of experience, however, Luffy just seemed uncharacteristically dumb for someone with his upbringing. He was still tolerable due to being characterised well as fairly funny at times and the strength of his ideals making him somewhat inspirational, so I wouldn't say he was completely bad for just his idiocy.
However, Enies Lobby and Marineford changed all that. Despite the emotions between both he and Usopp and what Usopp said to him, Luffy accepts him back with open arms as soon as Usopp wanted to come back, without much of a reason to forgive him when he was unaware Usopp was Sogeking. As for Marineford, whilst it was a good chance for his character to grow by learning from his mistakes and taking the journey seriously, the timeskip forgets all this by having act the same as ever and Zoro even calling him out on this. Due to the events surrounding the end of the Marineford Arc, this is a definite case of character regression and the perpetual repetition of these stagnant character traits only damages his character further with each arc.

2/10

 

[ahill1]

Not much too add to what CC has been said, but I'd say that Luffy, whilst being a silly and rather carefree character, is still intelligent on his own way. He mastered the Rokushiki abilities over a first glance over it, he exploited the elasiticity of his body to create efficient attacks like the Giant Pistol, he combined his body's stretch specialty with Haki and condensced that on Bound man, he noticed that an efficient way to counter Eneru's mantra was "not thinking in anything", and being as tranquil as possible. So whilst a carefree and simple character who doesn't like overthinking things and acts more with his instinct, he is still a relatively depth character in what he is setted to do: fight for what he thinks it's righteous (I say "relatively" as in relative to the One Piece's own world, because it doesn't feature characters with the sama level of strategies and smart thinking in a fight as in a series like HxH for example)... that I'd say it's a plus for Luffy.

Even though upon his brother's death Luffy has matured somewhat (e.g having a more in depth knowledge about the Akuma no Mis and its powers, like when he found weird Doffy was a Paramecia despite his abilities), his usual silly and driven-by-instinct -- and consequently careless -- behavior is still found in a lot of his actions (e.g when he gave two fucks about escaping from Dressrosa and jumped at the opoortunity of fighting Fujitora, having a silly approach to things in general on Punk Hazard, being because of it defeated the 1st time by Ceaser, an opponent whose abilities pale in comparison to Luffy's), which is definitely... disappointing, but I think Oda kind of fears changing Luffy's approaches on things in general due to the amount of success such silly and simple approach made in the 1st part of the series.

So, while a simple character but still with more in depth than one would imagine (even though he has an otimistic approach on everything and knows things will be solved in the end, he is still the first to blame when things don't go the way he expected, like when he blamed himself by the defeat they suffered on Archipellago Sabaody), he is still in general kind of a generic character with an approach that was still unchanged even after experiencing a huge blown.

So, an average score -- 5/10 -- would be fair here imo.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Luffy's mean score - 3.5/10

Now for the Straw Hats' swordsman, "Pirate Hunter" Zoro.

Zoro is one of the best characters in One Piece in my opinion, for what it's worth. His personality has enough faces to it to seem believable; ambitious and serious in achieving his goal of world's strongest swordsman, having enough justification to pursue it and being very loyal to his allies, such as at the end of the Thriller Bark Arc. He also acts as the voice of reason in many situations, such as bringing up the glaring flaw in Luffy allowing Usopp to come back to the Straw Hats. Despite this, he also has his comical side, constantly going the wrong direction (though this gag has been overused to the point of being cringey) and brief glimpses of a childish aspect such as insisting his friends do the Tarzan call when swinging from a vine in Skypiea.
He's also the only one of the Straw Hats to show at least some level of development from their experiences (other than perhaps Robin) after the timeskip. Whilst some complain about Zoro becoming too serious, that's because the situation calls for it. He even makes such apparent by calling Luffy out on not taking things seriously, despite the events at Marineford giving Luffy the biggest reason to change out of any of the crew. This makes Zoro's character one of the few that remained even somewhat engaging after the timeskip and places him as one of the most consistent characters in the series. That's not to say the way he's acted since the timeskip has been engaging, as he's actually been pretty boring due to just soloing all the opponents he's faced (minus Fujitora). However, becoming blander is still far better than having his character regress and therefore hinder all future development like his peers.

6/10

 

[Warmmedown]

I think Luffy is just autistic.

 

[ahill1]

Zoro is -- alongside Sanji -- the character that fits best the setting they are on. He is more realistic than Luffy, and even though he also acts by instinct sometimes and doesn't seem to measure the consequence of his actions that much, he is still sensible enough to know the Captain ought to have some authority in the crew and that someone who challenged the captain can't return to the crew unless they excuse themselves, otherwise a crew whose captain doesn't have his/her due respect might be about to be ruined.

I still dislike how, at least imo, his badassery comes rather forced through (imo) some forced lines, and that that's sometimes kind of a try hard in Oda's part so we'd see Zoro as a badass character. Under an objective analysis though, he isn't a bad character, and such complaint stems mostly from my dislike of such type of characters.

Same score seems fair, 6/10.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Zoro's Mean Score - 6/10

Now, time for the slutty navigator of the Straw Hats, "Cat Burglar" Nami.

Nami started off as a decent character, only using her feminine charm on occasion to get by and having quite a gripping backstory to both justify her attitude and provide some genuine development for her in the Arlong Park arc. The character moments involving her made for some of the best emotional scenes of the series by far. Her resourcefulness and intelligence also made her one of the more engaging members of the Straw Hats.
However, her character went downhill after Alabasta. Her constant obsession with money becoming a running gag was a great disservice to her character arc in Arlong Park and should've been a trait that lessened over time. Not only that, but her design became far sluttier with each arc until peaking at the timeskip. Currently, like most Straw Hats, all she exists for is to display some skills, recycle long expired running gags and like most female characters in the series, exist as nothing but fapping material.

2/10

 

[ahill1]

Nami has a good backstory and her importance to the crew via her sailing skills can't be denied. She isn't so happy go luck/driven by instinct and knows how to behave herself when the situation calls for it, being therefore good balancing-wise for someone like Luffy. Besides it though she doesn't have much more going for her with her gag side also abusing from her old obsession with money and beating up Brook when he asks to see some girl's pants, both which have already become old real quick. So an average-low score seems fair to me.

4/10

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Nami's Mean Score - 3/10

Now for the lying sniper, "Sogeking", "GOD" Usopp.

Usopp started off as perhaps the most engaging of the Straw Hats in the early arcs in the same manner that Kuririn was the most engaging cast member throughout most of DB. His physical weakness compared to his peers and lack of confidence made him feel the most relateable out of the Straw Hats and his simple goal of wanting to be a brave warrior of the sea made him feel far more real than the other Straw Hats with their grandiose goals. His focus on winning battles through trickery and tactics also made his battles far more interesting to watch than those of any crew member other than Nami, since the others would just get through with brute strength or willpower.
Things started to change permanently with the CP9 Arc, however. Whilst it started off good with there being some genuine conflict in the crew and Usopp leaving opening up many new opportunities for character development, this is completely squandered by the finale of the arc. Without having truly proved himself to Luffy (with him being oblivious to who Sogeking was) and having made his decision to abandon the crew, he suddenly starts blubbering in a plea to come back and his events in the early stages of the arc are practically forgotten from that point on. This ruined his character for me. Not to the same extent as this arc and Marineford would ruin Luffy, but still a permanent stain upon him.
Whilst the timeskip did seem like it was starting to develop Usopp into a confident fighter (though was more of a rewrite due to us never seeing his training and adventures), this falls apart in Dressrosa with him quickly regressing to his old self in the face of Sugar, before winning with a Shonen resolve plot hax.
Overall, Usopp started off great, but was ruined by Oda constantly flip-flopping with where he was taking his character arc, making him feel highly inconsistent.

3.5/10

 

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Even in the early portion of the series, I had problems with Luffy's character just feeling like a poor Goku clone.

There are many dumb characters in Shonens, so they are all copies of Goku?

 

[Captain Cadaver]

There are many dumb characters in Shonens, so they are all copies of Goku?

Most of them are inspired by him, but Luffy in specific seems to be a Goku clone, especially when considering Oda even stated Dragon Ball was one of his major inspirations and that he was mainly inspired by Goku when creating Luffy.