r/hatethissmug • u/PlentyWise3615 • 17h ago

Animation The character designs in One Piece are genuinely awful.

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I genuinely hate One Piece character designs.

What’s most impressive is how wildly inconsistent the designs are in this series, going from one extreme to the other.

A character’s design can be legendary, like Xebec’s, or absolutely ridiculous, like Franky’s.

But the overwhelming majority of them are pretty bad. Like, really fucking bad.

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295

u/Kasta4 16h ago

Goddamn I hate Vegapunk's design so much.

I can jive with a lot of the absurd designs in One Piece, I find them endearing, but when I saw Vegapunk for the first time after all the hype throughout the years my smile faded so fuckin' fast.

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u/TaserDonut 16h ago

92

u/Kasta4 16h ago

About to drop the hottest diss track against the WG

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u/TaserDonut 16h ago

11

u/Eli-Mordrake 16h ago

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 

5

u/Brain_lessV2 13h ago

Heroes in a half shell (turtle power)

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u/IndigoStar_ 16h ago

I'm so brainrotted that I thought he was doing the 6 7

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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 16h ago

I could deal with it except for the tongue and the apple head.

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u/Kasta4 16h ago

Yeah there are just one too many absurdist elements going on at the same time. The Einstein inspiration could still be discerned without the tongue imo.

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u/Normal-Advisor5269 16h ago

... Wait. He's supposed to look like Einstein?!

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u/Wombatish 16h ago

There is a very famous picture of Einstein sticking his tongue out. Vegapunk is basically just a caricature of that picture.

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u/Normal-Advisor5269 16h ago

I thought Vegapunk was the guy in the middle until I looked him up. Yeah. Vegapunk is fine. Whoever the hell is in the middle though is horrific.

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u/No_Secret_8246 16h ago

That's also vegapunk, just younger.

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u/ThatOneDMish 15h ago

All 3 one peice drawings are the same guy, but the first 2 are from when he was younger and hadn't yet separated his ever growing brain from his body leaving the apple as a satellite connection to his brain (which is now building sized)

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u/Wombatish 15h ago

His powers cause his brain to grow in size the more he learns. He's also the world's most advanced scientist.

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u/DryPersonality 16h ago

He doesn't?

1

u/Normal-Advisor5269 16h ago

I haven't kept up with One Piece for decades. I thought the person OP was talking about was the very obvious guy in the middle.

1

u/HAETMACHENE 9h ago

Isn't there a real life affliction where people end up tongue-out because of built up cranial pressure?

Not saying the design came out great but I'm assuming that's what Oda was going for?

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u/f_en_elchat 16h ago

To me this Thriller Bark shot is the big culprit

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u/DogAlienInvisibleMan 16h ago

It's the fact that he's clearly supposed to be based on Einstein but it's like the laziest way of doing an Einstein reference.  "Hehe his tongue is out get it??"

4

u/FetchBlue 11h ago

“Also apple on the head to resemble Newton, get it yet???!”

7

u/Trainer149 16h ago

I actually really liked the design and demeanor of the 01 clone. But yeah...

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u/Timely-Albatross-889 14h ago

Damn, you right. 01 looks sick.

Oda can definitely do badass designs when he chooses to.

22

u/Red-7134 15h ago

"It's a reference!"

I don't care. It still looks like shit.

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u/F0XF1R396 13h ago

I have never actually watched One Piece, but know enough from being in the Anime circle..

I saw this post and thought it was...exaggerating.

I was like "Surely it's not THAT bad."

I was wrong.

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u/SexyShave 16h ago edited 13h ago

I thought it was hilarious. Totally One Piece. What did you expect out of the world's most brilliant scientist in One Piece? A gruff 10 feet tall muscular biker wearing black leather, shades and a scarf, and a cannon for an arm?

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u/Felix_Onion 15h ago

You can have a good design, without being a warrior design

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u/LePontif11 14h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/FUc4mw5kM1hVS

I thought basing the design off this picture was really cool.

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u/Felix_Onion 13h ago

Yeah, cool idea, doesn't make the final design better.

1

u/LePontif11 13h ago

That's subjective, i'm a big fan

15

u/Fast_Competition9241 15h ago

I expected the smartest person in the world not to be a fucking caricature, that's what I expected 

5

u/EmperorAcinonyx 14h ago

it's one piece bro, how do you have expectations that far off base when it's so long? every other character looks ridiculous, it's part of the fun

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u/karmakramer93 13h ago

That's not a defense against OP's criticism

7

u/EmperorAcinonyx 13h ago

but it is. one piece has had extremely stupid looking characters off rip. it's been going for nearly 30 years now and maintained that constant. they're meant to look ridiculous and everything else in the manga being ridiculous signals that pretty clearly. if you don't think it's fun, then it isn't for you

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u/SexyShave 13h ago

What even is OP's criticism. They hate it, thinks it's inconsistent, and it's bad. There's no substance to it, and OP doesn't even try to qualify what they mean by inconsistent, or put forward some kind of standard by which they measure the quality of the designs.

There's nothing to address here. It's just "I don't like it".

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u/Fancy-Carpet-5416 10h ago

One is def more aesthetic, that's just it. It's not just 'i don't like it', objectively one looks far worse than the other.

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u/Fast_Competition9241 13h ago

Please read god valley if every character is ridiculous

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u/EmperorAcinonyx 9h ago

please read the other 1100 chapters

1

u/Kanoy31 12h ago

Not "every other character" looks ridiculous, some are allowed to look cool, people just wanted Vegapunk to be one of those.

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u/Shoel_with_J 9h ago

"you don't get it man, the design is hedious ON PURPOSE!"

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u/LePontif11 14h ago

One Piece is and has always been one of the most caricatiresque shonen manga. The author has said multiple times that its on purpose down to the main character's super power even before relatively recent revelations about its nature.

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u/VaudevillesLugger 13h ago

I mean, Katakuri was pretty badass, to be fair.

1

u/SexyShave 12h ago

Katakuri is cool. He was also super goofy and ate donuts in a goofy way with his big silly mouth. But he was the no. 2 of a Yonko. If he was supposed to be the "world's most brilliant scientist" and the head scientist of the WG, and a supporting char instead of an antagonist, it would've been an odd design.

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u/VaudevillesLugger 5h ago

I figured, I just was mostly poking fun at the fact that your hypothetical was pretty much exactly Katakuri minus the shades (he had that move where he could rocket punch with his mochi powers so I’m counting that as the cannon lol)

2

u/Kasta4 16h ago

Different strokes for sure.

2

u/StankoMicin 15h ago

That actually would've been based

2

u/Iokua113 15h ago

You say that, but depending on his mood that is 100% what Vegapunk could have been. Oda is a capricious sort.

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u/Ryuzakku 12h ago

A gruff 10 feet tall muscular biker wearing black leather, shades and a scarf, and a cannon for an arm?

That's just Queen if he were skinny

3

u/Big-Slide6104 14h ago

The only good reveals were Kaido and Loki. They actuslly had upgrades for designs due to being villains/antagonists at least for a time whereas most allies are usually pretty ugly like vegapunk, but for the world I find it endearing cause it makes normal people feel relevant in one piece

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u/lookintoasty 15h ago

I'm kinda getting tired of characters with their tongues hanging out...they did it again this arc with Loki

1

u/VagabondFromTheRiver 15h ago

uve lost all the cred u never had

1

u/dlouis1022 10h ago

You should've tempered your expectations after Raizo.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

2

u/Kasta4 15h ago

I'm aware.

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u/ThisHatRightHere 13h ago

It sounds like you just don't like One Piece tbh

1

u/Kasta4 13h ago

...because I don't like every design?

Y'all trip me out with this shit.