Support NeoGAF

[360pages]

Well, I don't think the groups need 1:1 female to male ratio. And we do get a lot of female Pirates. Jewelry Bonny is a captain of her ship after all, at most I'd say there aren't really enough female grunts in the marines. That might more have to do with Oda just not really carrying about jobbers though.

Hell, the Doffy family actually had about 50/50 split in the female to male representatives.

Also, no ONE wants to see just the main hero do everything. Even in DBZ no one wants to just see Goku do everything. Luffy can take down the big bad, but give everyone male/female time to shine.

I was just complaing about how Sanji hasn't had a really cool fight since the time skip

 

[Veelk]

I suppose it is outrageous that the main protagonist of this comic, who is male, is the one who seemingly resolves most of the major plot points in the comic he is the main protagonist of.

This counter argument doesn't even address the point I am making and supposes that Luffy should be the only leader of influence in the entirety of the manga. By that logic, literally every other character, male or female, would be sitting in place for Luffy to punch them because he's the only person of power by virtue of being the protagonist. As 360pages points out, no one wants that. This reply is a borderline non-sequitur.

Well, I don't think the groups need 1:1 female to male ratio. And we do get a lot of female Pirates. Jewelry Bonny is a captain of her ship after all, at most I'd say there aren't really enough female grunts in the marines. That might more have to do with Oda just not really carrying about jobbers though.

Hell, the Doffy family actually had about 50/50 split in the female to male representatives.

Also, no ONE wants to see just the main hero do everything. Even in DBZ no one wants to just see Goku do everything. Luffy can take down the big bad, but give everyone male/female time to shine.

I was just complaing about how Sanji hasn't had a really cool fight since the time skip

My major point here is that I don't see a reason for why OP ought to have any discrimination in this regard. The world is so absurd and fantastical, so unbound by reality, the notion that gender is this nigh unbreakable barrier that few women ever overcome is unbelievable to me. That a only a few gangs in over a hundred have 'close' to equal gender proportions just means it's the exception that proves the rule, don't you think?

But more than that, if the actual representation of women, rare as they are, was equal to that of men (as in, they got into the same kind of fights as men), this would be less of a problem. Because then, while unbelievable, it would genuinely be about strength disparity, which still would be bs, but fair enough. But this doesn't happen. When men and women get into fights, the rules suddenly change, and it can't be a straight up fight on equal terms like it is with men vs men. Therefore, it's not a matter of strength, it's a matter of portrayal. Women are being portrayed differently as men, and that's basically the fundamental notion of sexism, that there is a discrimination based purely on sex.

Btw I don't think this is the place to discuss what is and isn't sexist in general. Which this is devolving into.

Why ever not? As a work of art portraying men and women, with even the notion of sexism being kind of a theme with one of the main character's story, it seems highly relevant. It's a perspective that should atleast be considered in all stories, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[360pages]

Their was also the number and Holiday gang which also had decent male to female ratios in them.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I'm still really curious as to what makes Shanks so strong

Strong crew and allegiances, and he himself is a master swordsman (so much that he is seen by Mihawk as a rival). He also has the most powerful conqueror's haki in the OP world - oda said that if Shanks were at fishman island, he would have easily dropped all 100k fishmen, including hody jones and his crew, with his haki alone.

 

[NHarmonic.]

Well, I don't think the groups need 1:1 female to male ratio. And we do get a lot of female Pirates. Jewelry Bonny is a captain of her ship after all, at most I'd say there aren't really enough female grunts in the marines. That might more have to do with Oda just not really carrying about jobbers though.

Hell, the Doffy family actually had about 50/50 split in the female to male representatives.

Also, no ONE wants to see just the main hero do everything. Even in DBZ no one wants to just see Goku do everything. Luffy can take down the big bad, but give everyone male/female time to shine.

I was just complaing about how Sanji hasn't had a really cool fight since the time skip

mmm, look how they resolved Baby5 conflict.

And don't play it that way, there are no female admirals or Gorousei and the only "high power female" marine is Tsuru, and you can argue Hina. People often go further and start using their DF powers to propel the argument but i'm not getting into that...

 

[360pages]

Strong crew and allegiances, and he himself is a master swordsman (so much that he is seen by Mihawk as a rival). He also has the most powerful conqueror's haki in the OP world - oda said that if Shanks were at fishman island, he would have easily dropped all 100k fishmen, including hody jones and his crew, with his haki alone.

To be fair, Hody was a super jobber, as I recall Enel was actually rather powerful. Close to the 7 warlords. The only reason Luffy won was because he had type advantage. I wouldn't mind seeing him again.

According to oda he would have had a bounty of Beli500,000,000

 

[Jigolo]

Strong crew and allegiances, and he himself is a master swordsman (so much that he is seen by Mihawk as a rival). He also has the most powerful conqueror's haki in the OP world - oda said that if Shanks were at fishman island, he would have easily dropped all 100k fishmen, including hody jones and his crew, with his haki alone.

Whaaaat he did? Can you link me breh

 

[360pages]

mmm, look how they resolved Baby5 conflict.

And don't play it that way, there are no female admirals or Gorousei and the only "high power female" marine is Tsuru, and you can argue Hina. People often go further and start using their DF powers to propel the argument but i'm not getting into that...

To be fair, there were other female in the gang outside of Baby5. Though I agree it's a problem, though I'm sure no one is arguing against giving Robin and Nami a good fight. Honestly, I want all the Straw hats to get a good fight since its been kind of skewered towards Luffy, Law and Zoro lately.

 

[Tathanen]

Vaguely on topic, I remember this from the SBS way back in vol 28:

D: HI!! Eiichi! In Volume 27, you spouted some crap about the theme of the Jaya arc being "A man's passion", didn't you?! I may only be 18 years old, but I'm still a woman! How do you explain my "love for adventure" and "infinite dreams", huh?! Just looking at every panel of your manga sets my blood dangerously a-boil!!!! Take responsibility for this!!! Please. Take responsibility and put "woman" in there, too! The passion thing. FROM Her new eye co.

O: "A woman's passion"?! No. Look, sometimes I use "man" in an adjectival sense. As in, the best women have manly qualities in them. They were called "true women" in the past. So this is what I say. Men and women have "A MAN'S PASSION"!! So the women are included!!

 

[Lunar15]

Vaguely on topic, I remember this from the SBS way back in vol 28:

Man... that's really not a great answer, lol.

 

[NHarmonic.]

Yeah, not at all...

 

[Veelk]

Vaguely on topic, I remember this from the SBS way back in vol 28:

This is actually a good example of how ingrained sexism can be. Oda is trying to be inclusive here, but he defines 'good' qualities as being inherently masculine qualities. Basically, it's saying that to be considered actual human beings is to be considered a man. Again, I have a video on racism rather than sexism, but the same logic really applies.

https://vimeo.com/102286311

Skip to about 13 minutes in and watch about 5 minutes of it. It's over 20 years old and still very relevant. It gets intense.

This documentary is basically a group therapy session where they get men of different ethnicities to talk about things. It's an interesting video, but the section between 13 - 17 minutes is basically addressing the same issue from a racial perspective, how white people essentially make being a 'human being' and being 'American' and being 'white' synonymous, and how offensive it really is. Oda here is making 'man' and 'good person' synonyms.

Oda isn't intentionally sexist. Most sexist people aren't. But that's why sexism is such an issue to deal with, most people don't even realize how horrible it is to say something "Women can be good people too, they just have to be men"

 

[LonelyGreyWolf]

Whaaaat he did? Can you link me breh

I'm also curious on this!

Vaguely on topic, I remember this from the SBS way back in vol 28:

That's a pretty bad answer, but it's also a bit of a strange translation. This is back when I was reading One Piece in my first language, and it's not translated as "a man's passion" here. I have all my books in front of my so I grabbed this volume and am looking at it now. It's still a bad answer, but he was using slightly different terminology. He's talking more about a male kind of romance; while "female romance" is more about finding a man, the "male romance" would be more about the lust for adventure or some emotional treasure, which is the theme here. Still stereotypical though, yeah.

 

[Sibersk Esto]

I think "sexist" is a bit harsh to throw one piece's way. Just because the females of the series haven't gotten as many fights does not mean the manga actively promotes the idea that women are inferior to men.

From the beginning the women of one piece have been shown to be smart, capable, and overall well rounded. Yes the male characters get more screen time (debatable) but pretty much all of them are headstrong buffoons.

Going even further than that, Oda has routinely mocked the concept of the macho man and machismo, portraying them as pretty stupid unless you're an idiot or a little boy.

Could the female characters use more fights? Of course. But everyone reading One Piece KNOWS they will, it's inevitable.

Just my two cents.

 

[360pages]

The answer wasn't super good honestly.

Though the thing is, why female on male fights are always portrayed differently is mostly because most people don't really like drawing or writing females getting hurt really badly.

AT does tend to avert this. 18 Beats down Vegeta horribly and a lot of horrible one-sided beatings tend to happen to the characters.

Then he treats Videl the same way he treated Vegeta and have a really bad beat down by Sopaviche. A lot of people find that scene unsettling, despite it not being too much worse than when Vegeta got beat down by Frieza.

 

[Lunar15]

Well, and you know, not taking your two main female leads and throwing them in ridiculous outfits and giving them next to nothing to do when shit hits the fan. It's just so constantly repeated that it's more annoying on the grounds that it's such an antiquated view being repeated. Like, I'm not looking for 1:1 representation or any thing of that sort, but.. you know, mix it up every once in a while. Throw some curveballs. Surprise us.

What's weirder to me is that, at some point in time, Oda was much better at this. Not perfect, but way better. At one point, Oda even threw around the idea of Nami being half cyborg.

And look at the rational breast size! He got progressively worse over time. It's so weird to me.

 

[NHarmonic.]

Well, and you know, not taking your two main female leads and throwing them in ridiculous outfits and giving them next to nothing to do when shit hits the fan. It's just so constantly repeated that it's more annoying on the grounds that it's such an antiquated view being repeated. Like, I'm not looking for 1:1 representation or any thing of that sort, but.. you know, mix it up every once in a while. Throw some curveballs. Surprise us.

What's weirder to me is that, at some point in time, Oda was much better at this. Not perfect, but way better. At one point, Oda even threw around the idea of Nami being half cyborg.



And look at the rational breast size! He got progressively worse over time. It's so weird to me.

Nami Post Timeskip for me it's a different character. From the looks to the awful, awful speech shared with usopp on punk hazard when they took down buffalo and baby5.

I really miss this:

Personally, i think as a design, it has lots of charisma and Oda's personal "seal" or style (like the long skinny legs and huge feet). I'm so happy i own that volume...

I really don't know what happened.

 

[Imperial Bishop]

It's called "art evolution". Every character design pre-Alabasta and way earlier (as in Wanted! early) had big hands and feet in comparison to their body.

That picture of a girl that looks like Nami with robotic limbs was pre-One Piece, before the character tha would be Nami was figured out. That probably would have been a completely different person than the OP Nami.

 

[Veelk]

It's called "art evolution". Every character design pre-Alabasta and way earlier (as in Wanted! early) had big hands and feet in comparison to their body.

I think they're wondering why they evolved into this in particular. You can say 'sex sells', but I don't think it applies when OP is more popular than any other manga by several magnitudes. OP doesn't need to objectify women sexually like this to make it's buck anymore, if it ever did, yet it still does.

 

[360pages]

I think they're wondering why they evolved into this in particular. You can say 'sex sells', but I don't think it applies when OP is more popular than any other manga by several magnitudes. OP doesn't need to objectify women sexually like this anymore, if it ever did, yet it still does.

Actually Oda went on note saying that he actually doesn't get to see his wife much anymore since he's working all the time. That is why he draws females like he does now. Though I'm sure he was making a joke you never know.

Kishi strangely actually spends a lot of time with his wife. So that's probably why he doesn't have a lot of fanservice...of course once again probably just a joke.

 

[Veelk]

Actually Oda went on note saying that he actually doesn't get to see his wife much anymore since he's working all the time. That is why he draws females like he does now. Though I'm sure he was making a joke you never know.

Kishi strangely actually spends a lot of time with his wife. So that's probably why he doesn't have a lot of fanservice...of course once again probably just a joke.

Strangely, knowing that Oda sexualizes every women in his manga because he's horny does not garner much sympathy from me. Indeed, I can't think of another reason why an author would sexualize his characters with such rampant consistancy.

That said, keeps it to women of age and doesn't sexualize kids. We can give him that atleast.

 

[BobTheFork]

I imagine Fujitora will take Doffy to Impel Down at the end of all this, unless some emperor captures/saves him.

I could see Kaidou coming in and taking him away. I don't expect this to be the last we see of Doffy regardless

 

[Man God]

I definitely get where you're coming from and I agree with all of it, but by the same token, I don't put that much into it because it is not Oda's job to portray equality or any of that. He's just creating a manga which is definitely extremely popular all over the globe at this point, primarily targeted at teenage boys in Japan. That doesn't excuse anything, just kind of the way it is. IMO, of course.

Kuina outright believes that her sex holds her back. Now whether it is the case or not in this universe doesn't really matter as belief seemingly conquers all in this world.

 

[Sibersk Esto]

The comment about oda's horniness was made by the anime staff as a joke

 

[360pages]

I don't really mind the character alternations and what not. Just him changing and trying new thins and what not. I'm sure the next 100 or so chapters will bring more subtle changes in artwork

 

[Veelk]

I don't really mind the character alternations and what not. Just him changing and trying new thins and what not. I'm sure the next 100 or so chapters will bring more subtle changes in artwork

The sexualization started at maybe 200 chapters in, and has been hanging around for the last 600. I don't think it's going anywhere at this point.

 

[Man God]

The sexualization started at maybe 200 chapters in, and has been hanging around for the last 600. I don't think it's going anywhere at this point.

It clearly ramped up after the time skip. The anime had the hilarious tradition of bust sizes expanding during the arc then resetting back to a new normal early on though.

 

[pelicansurf]

Kuina outright believes that her sex holds her back. Now whether it is the case or not in this universe doesn't really matter as belief seemingly conquers all in this world.

Is that a bad thing? I get that it's not sending a good message and unfortunately she eventually dies before her story resolves, but not everyone should be happy-go-lucky and I CAN DO IT, all the time. That's what the character thought, regardless of the positive/negative stereotypes associated with it. Maybe she would've willed through it, learned haki, whatever, but we'll never know.

I don't think one should limit their writing to spare feelings, as long as it's done properly. Her equivalent character now, Tashigi, even though she isn't the beacon of strength in comparison to all the OP freaks, is still a perfectly strong woman. She protects her crew and is a super strong swordsman in her own right (knows the CP9 techniques, Haki, etc). I know you guys want her and other females to basically be Zoro, but maybe they will be down the line. The women in one piece are by no means portrayed to be worthless.

 

[Man God]

Tashigi is great as she is. Way stronger than normal marines, not quite at the top of swordsmen with haki/devil fruit/all that other bs, but she also didn't take two years off of straight training with the best. I bet she gets her moment before the end.

 

[Veelk]

It clearly ramped up after the time skip. The anime had the hilarious tradition of bust sizes expanding during the arc then resetting back to a new normal early on though.

It started around the Alabasta arc. I mean, I guess it made Nami's figure even more busty, but before that we had Amazon Lily that had an entire island of women in tribal bikini's, before that Nami was sexualized heavily (even having a rapey plot) in Thriller Bark....honestly, the most you could say is that it didn't become her default outfit until post time skip, but pretimeskip wasn't light with the fanservice either.

I would like to remind everyone defending Tagashi that she gets jobbed every time she decides to try anything. Her greatest accomplishment is deflecting a random cannonball in post time skip, something characters could do with ease early on. This is the kind of the point I'm making, the few women that are theoretically powerful (Robin, Tagashi, Gladiator girl, etc) rarely actually do anything with all their supposed power and when they do, it's rarely in the same vein of accomplishment that men do it. When Tagashi got Smoker's body, she did nothing with it. When Sanji got Nami's body, he had a badass moment utilizing powers Nami's body should not have.

 

[pelicansurf]

Tashigi is great as she is. Way stronger than normal marines, not quite at the top of swordsmen with haki/devil fruit/all that other bs, but she also didn't take two years off of straight training with the best. I bet she gets her moment before the end.

Agreed. Honestly, I'm sure she'll bring Zoro down a peg before her storyline is over. Then Zoro will ascend to become a God and that'll be that.

 

[Man God]

It started around the Alabasta arc. I mean, I guess it made Nami's figure even more busty, but before that we had Amazon Lily that had an entire island of women in tribal bikini's, before that Nami was sexualized heavily (even having a rapey plot) in Thriller Bark....honestly, the most you could say is that it didn't become her default outfit until post time skip, but pretimeskip wasn't light with the fanservice either.

I would like to remind everyone defending Tagashi that she gets jobbed every time she decides she tries anything. Her greatest accomplishment is deflecting a random cannonball in post time skip, something characters could do with ease early on. This is the kind of the point I'm making, the few women that are theoretically powerful (Robin, Tagashi, Gladiator girl, etc) rarely actually do anything, and when they do, it's rarely in the same vein of accomplishment that men do it.

Of course the fanservice went up gradually as it went along, I'm saying it ascended to a new level right around the time skip. Amazon Lily is a good breaking off point if you want to go a bit earlier, but the timeskip was an escalation in the arm's race.

Rebecca did seemingly get an overwhelmingly easy block in the arena. Tashigi doing nothing but jobbing is how I know she'll eventually get hers in the end. Robin has ultimate mook killing potential but isn't really interested in fighting, which is fine but will always hold her back.

 

[LonelyGreyWolf]

I don't really mind the character alternations and what not. Just him changing and trying new thins and what not. I'm sure the next 100 or so chapters will bring more subtle changes in artwork

The art for One Piece has changed a lot from year to year, yeah. This image really isn't the best as it's quite lacking and only shows faces, and even then some faces are awkward panels or expressions only done once, but still, it's better than nothing.

Re-reading earlier chapters is always interesting because the art was so much different all those years ago. Of course this is also related to Oda getting better at drawing, getting new influences, creating new styles et al.

 

[360pages]

It started around the Alabasta arc. I mean, I guess it made Nami's figure even more busty, but before that we had Amazon Lily that had an entire island of women in tribal bikini's, before that Nami was sexualized heavily (even having a rapey plot) in Thriller Bark....honestly, the most you could say is that it didn't become her default outfit until post time skip, but pretimeskip wasn't light with the fanservice either.

I would like to remind everyone defending Tagashi that she gets jobbed every time she decides she tries anything. Her greatest accomplishment is deflecting a random cannonball in post time skip, something characters could do with ease early on. This is the kind of the point I'm making, the few women that are theoretically powerful (Robin, Tagashi, Gladiator girl, etc) rarely actually do anything with all their supposed power and when they do, it's rarely in the same vein of accomplishment that men do it.

I'd bring up Handcock more, kind of wish that they focused more on her martial arts than her ability. And her hating all male characters can get just a grating as Sanji inability to actually fight a female character.

 

[Veelk]

Of course the fanservice went up gradually as it went along, I'm saying it ascended to a new level right around the time skip. Amazon Lily is a good breaking off point if you want to go a bit earlier, but the timeskip was an escalation in the arm's race.

Rebecca did seemingly get an overwhelmingly easy block in the arena. Tashigi doing nothing but jobbing is how I know she'll eventually get hers in the end. Robin has ultimate mook killing potential but isn't really interested in fighting, which is fine but will always hold her back.

It's nearly 800 frikken chapters, with hundreds of characters, plenty of opportunities for badass moments, and you actually believe "Wait for it, it's coming" is a valid argument to have?

Unless something significantly changes Oda's mind to portray women as more competent, no, it's not. Even if Tagashi gets her moment, or a few others get a moment or two, it's not ever going to erase the significantly fucked up female portrayal that has been plaguing OP for atleast half the series (according to the author). As I said before, the exception only serves to prove the rule.

To get to equal representation, there would have to be a significant influx of female characters that haven't been there before, with suddenly different power dynamics, which would be extremely jarring to the narrative of the series. The OP world has been set up as extremely limited female representation and would have to go significant change to fix that, so to argue that it's suddenly going to turnabout any day now is unlikely.

 

[LonelyGreyWolf]

I'd bring up Handcock more, kind of wish that they focused more on her martial arts than her ability. And her hating all male characters can get just a grating as Sanji inability to actually fight a female character.

She hates everyone, not just male characters. Everyone but Luffy.

 

[Man God]

She hates everyone, not just male characters. Everyone but Luffy.

Luffy and her sisters, yep.

 

[360pages]

She hates everyone, not just male characters. Everyone but Luffy.

Which is a shame since if she was a bit more mature and everything I would enjoy her character a lot more. Though still like her design.

 

[Aaronrules380]

One piece is nowhere near perfect in regards to sexism, but it's still way better than most manga. Also, why is the value of females in one piece always about fighting ability?

 

[Sibersk Esto]

It's nearly 800 frikken chapters, with hundreds of characters, plenty of opportunities for badass moments, and you actually argue "Wait for it, it's coming" is a valid argument to have?

Unless something significantly changes Oda's mind to portray women as more competent, no, it's not. Even if Tagashi gets her moment, or a few others get a moment or two, it's not ever going to erase the significantly fucked up female portrayal that has been plaguing OP for atleast half the series (according to the author).

To get to equal representation, there would have to be a significant influx of female characters that haven't been there before, with suddenly different power dynamics, which would be extremely jarring to the narrative of the series. The OP world has been set up as extremely limited female representation, so to argue that it's suddenly going to turnabout any day now is unlikely.

What are you talking about? Of those 800 chapters Tashigi appeared halfway through (439), was always a competent swordsman with room to grow.

Where is she now? She's a respected captain. She can use soru, Haki, and can deflect cannonballs with her swordsmanship.

 

[360pages]

One piece is nowhere near perfect in regards to sexism, but it's still way better than most manga. Also, why is the value of females in one piece always about fighting ability?

This also somewhat.

Lets face it, Bulma from Dragon Ball is not a fighter. But she had an important role from the start of Dragon Ball all the way to mid Cell Saga. If it wasn't for her, they wouldn't have reached Namek. Hell the series would have never started.

 

[Man God]

Also doubting One Piece's ability to pay off years later isn't a position I'd personally take.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Also, still think Robin not getting one on ones is more because her power is really hard to write a decent fight around

 

[Veelk]

What are you talking about? Of those 800 chapters Tashigi appeared halfway through (439), was always a competent swordsman with room to grow.

Where is she now? She's a respected captain. She can use soru, Haki, and can deflect cannonballs with her swordsmanship.

I was talking about awesome badass moments for women in general, not Tagashi specifically. Again, with such a small sample pool of badass female characters, they pretty much never have moments to shine in 800 chapters of content.

Tagashi being a 'respected captain' doesn't mean much when captains are basically cannon fodder relative to aspects of the show. Her being able to deflect cannonballs is a laughably small achievement when Zoro was able to casually cut through 4 of them when they raided Franky's house. Wow, she's as strong as Zoro was forever ago, what an achievement.

Look, you can give Tagashi or any female as much informed ability as you want, give her a high ranking, abilities listed to her name, but when the actual narrative has her failing laughably at everything she tries since her introduction, regardless of how powerful Oda tells us she is, it doesn't mean much.

Also, still think Robin not getting one on ones is more because her power is really hard to write a decent fight around

I've heard this comment passed around, but this is absurd. Why would someone as creative as Oda have such trouble writing around an ability that is as nonsensical as any other. There are so many ways around this. Have her up against someone who she can't beat until she breaks the outer shell. Okay, so to beat him, she has to use power techniques. How does she do that? Well, we already know that since the timeskip, she can make giant limbs of herself. Okay, boom, she can make a giant punch ala Luffy 3rd Gear, breaking the dudes shell, and thus ending him within.

That's just one example, but the idea that her ability to break bones via grapples making her invincible unless the opponent is immune to that is BS. Have an enemy that can survive his bones being broken. Have an enemy without bones. Have her use the environment.

For christ sake, this is ONE PIECE. Luffy is a rubber man, you're argument is invalid. There are literally endless examples of how techniques work when they shouldn't or don't work when they should, because OP uses reality as a guideline at best, but when a woman is involved, suddenly the crushing bonds of logic and reason prevent her from being an equal participant in this silly, zany world? Bullshit.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Okay? I never said that nobody liked female cahracters, and I mentioned how Oda does give them actual characters and stuff.

This isn't the point I am making at all. The point here is about how the OP world is sexist and how women are clearly inferior to men in power for no real reason, which can severely limit how people in general (not you specifically) can regard women.

Besides, that you respect the character development doesn't mean that the character itself is empowering. Gollum, for example, is a very strong character (in that he is written well) that is, in the story, pathetic and weak.

I'm not saying OP is badly written. I'm saying it's sexist. There is a difference.

I'm not saying that you're saying that either. I was directly responding to this:

And while I'd like to believe that's what many boys think that about Nami and Robin, it's speculation. I've seen plenty people talking just on the last few pages how cool Luffy is and stuff, but I've never seen a single poster on gaf or anywhere else that actually stated how cool Nami or Robin were. At best, some off hand comment on how Robin's powers were cool, but not how Robin was cool. Most comments related to them are related to their sexual fanservice or comedy gags. Even if admiration for those characters peaks through with some poeple, it would happen a lot more if women weren't constantly portrayed as fundamentally weaker.

You have a point, but it's not 100% substantiated. Big Mom, Hina, Kuina (pre-death, obviously), and Robin are all usually portrayed as strong characters. Other characters, like Bonney, are also portrayed as strong despite possibly sexist moments of weakness (her defeat at the end of part 1). Kalifa was portrayed as someone in a position of authority and someone who had all of their shit together. Females aren't relegated to sex symbol status, or damsel in distress status, NEARLY as much as you would expect for a shonen. Do they have gigantic breasts? Sure. Are they sexualized? Yeah. Do some of them (Nami, Shirahoshi) portray the princess in distress archetype? Yeah. But a good number of them are portrayed as strong willed, powerful, capable human beings, too. Tashigi is basically like the female Coby of the series - an extremely driven, talented person who has a long way to go, but who is written to be a likable character with lots of potential.

Basically, what I'm saying is this. I don't disagree with you, but there's also moments in the series that portray females in a positive light. I wouldn't use One Piece as the poster child for anti-feminism or poor portrayal of women. And it does a better job of making them important than Fairy Tail, Bleach, Dragonball, or Naruto ever did.

 

[pelicansurf]

This also somewhat.

Lets face it, Bulma from Dragon Ball is not a fighter. But she had an important role from the start of Dragon Ball all the way to mid Cell Saga. If it wasn't for her, they wouldn't have reached Namek. Hell the series would have never started.

Without Nami there would be no One Piece, if you put it that way. So there are important female characters. It's also BECAUSE One Piece is a battle manga, that being extremely useful and being a VITAL part of the overall journey is not enough. You need to fuck people up too. Allegedly.

 

[Sibersk Esto]

Nami>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bulma

 

[Aaronrules380]

For all flack tashigi gets post time skip, the only one who beat her who didn't also beat smoker was also female

 

[Byakuya769]

I think "sexist" is a bit harsh to throw one piece's way. Just because the females of the series haven't gotten as many fights does not mean the manga actively promotes the idea that women are inferior to men.

From the beginning the women of one piece have been shown to be smart, capable, and overall well rounded. Yes the male characters get more screen time (debatable) but pretty much all of them are headstrong buffoons.

Going even further than that, Oda has routinely mocked the concept of the macho man and machismo, portraying them as pretty stupid unless you're an idiot or a little boy.

Could the female characters use more fights? Of course. But everyone reading One Piece KNOWS they will, it's inevitable.

Just my two cents.

Come on. Depiction of women in OP physically is hideous/old or breast on stilts. In terms of plot, cunning or damsel. The strong women are only props to be surpassed.

I mean, the target demo is young boys but call a spade a spade.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Come on. Depiction of women in OP physically is hideous/old or breast on stilts. In terms of plot, cunning or damsel. The strong women are only props to be surpassed.

I mean, the target demo is young boys but call a spade a spade.

I love how your judgement is based entirely around how they look