The world of One Piece is vast and complex, and the characters who inhabit it are just as diverse. From valiant heroes to despicable villains, to lovable comic relief, the cast has it all. Netflix is spoiled for choice when it comes to picking great characters to adapt to live-action.
Of course, with a roster of characters as large as this, there are also a few that we don’t need to see. Here are five characters we hope to see in the Netflix series, and five that are better left on the page.
Want: Chef Zeff
One Piece has no shortage of badass old people, and Chef Zeff is one of the first we get to meet. Formerly known as Red Leg Zeff, this restauranteur was once a fierce pirate. One fateful day he happened to attack a ship on which future Strawhat master chef Sanji was serving on.
Things go sideways, and the two are stranded on an island, where the pirate divides their food into a portion for him, and Sanji. Later we find out that he gave the boy all the food, amputating and consuming his leg to survive until rescue. No wonder the chef thinks of him as a father.
Don’t Want: Saint Charlos
The Tenryuubito, or World Nobles, are some of the vilest characters in the series. They view themselves as gods, and they act like it; torturing, murdering, and enslaving as they please. With the backing of The World Government, no sane person would ever dream of standing up to them.
Even among the Tenryuubito, Saint Charlos is scum. An avid slaver, he is cruel, callow, and thinks nothing of indulging his sadistic whims. In his first scene, he brutalizes an injured man because the doctors attending him happened to impede his path. He then decides to take the doctor’s nurse as a wife, shooting her fiance when he attempts to intervene.
Want: Bellamy
The first time we meet Bellamy The Hyena, he is a bully who relentlessly antagonizes those he perceives as weak. After assaulting a new friend of the Strawhats he is given a sound beating by Luffy. In many shows that would have been the end of him, but not in One Piece.
Hundreds of chapters later, Bellamy returns, a more mature, (and buffer) man. He apologizes for laughing at Luffy’s dreams and swears never to do so again. When he later realizes he idolized the wrong man in Donquixote Doflamingo and is forced to fight against Luffy, it’s harrowing. More like him, please.
Don’t Want: Foxy
Maybe it isn’t entirely Foxy’s fault that he’s as useless as he is. The Skypiea arc was always going to be a tough act to follow, so that was already one mark against him. But the fact that the only arc he appears in is utterly superfluous to the larger story is a death sentence.
Making things worse, he’s an annoying, arrogant antagonist who only stands a chance against our heroes because of the ridiculously convoluted rules of the game he plays. If Luffy had just straight up punched this moron the moment he swaggered onto the page, it would have saved him and the audience a whole lot of grief.
Want: Enel
Enel is almost the anti-Foxy in terms of what makes a character interesting. Like the previously mentioned pirate, his arc is largely self-contained, with only a few elements having an influence later on. Unlike Foxy, Enel manages to be an instantly memorable character despite only appearing in one arc so far.
Most of this is down to his sheer menace. The Devil Fruit he ate made him one of the most powerful enemies the Strawhats have ever encountered. With a body made of lightning, he is only defeated by Luffy because he happened to be made of rubber. A fearsome opponent who can hold his own even compared to later antagonists.
Don’t Want: Fake Strawhats
The Fake Strawhats are so meaningless to the story that they don’t even get an arc of their own. After the real crew takes a two-year-long break to train, these losers somehow manage to convince people that they are the real deal. How they accomplished this is anyone’s guess since they look nothing like the people they are impersonating.
The Fake Strawhats are worthless because they add nothing to the story, and are only used for a handful of bad jokes. Cut them out of the series and nothing of value is lost. So kindly do so Netflix.
Want: Mr. 3
Mr. 3 should be included in the series, and not just because he plays a vital role in one of the most popular arcs in the story. Like Bellamy, he is a prime example of a character who starts as a standard villain of the week who later turns into a genuinely interesting guy. In his first appearance, he’s little more than an obstacle for the Strawhats to overcome to progress forward.
Later he turns out to be a man who genuinely cares about his comrades. Despite being a normally cowardly individual, he thrusts himself into a dangerous war just to honor the memory of a fallen friend.
Don’t Want: Mohji
In a pirate crew with a circus theme, it was inevitable that there was going to be a guy with an animal tamer theme. It’s just a shame that the dude turned out to be so boring. Unlike his captain, Buggy the Clown, he is utterly uninteresting and seems to exist just to pad out the story.
You might think a guy with such interesting body hair and a tendency to ride around on a giant lion might prove some hindrance to our heroes so early in their journey. But the lion gets scared off, and the man himself goes down in one punch. Yawn.
Want: Pell
Ah, Pell. Allegedly one of the most skilled warriors in the Alabasta Kingdom, he completely fails to win a fight against a named character. But there are other ways to achieve badassery besides winning fights. Courage is measured in more ways than just battle, and Pell proves he has courage in spades.
Near the end of the Alabasta arc, it looks like a massive city-destroying bomb is going to go off; rendering our the struggles of our heroes moot. In that darkest hour, Pell steps in to fly the bomb up high enough that it fails to destroy the city. His willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good and his touching relationship with Princess Vivi makes him a character worth adapting.
Don’t Want: Spandam
Ugh.
While the Tenryuubito would eventually eclipse his capacity for wanton sadism, Spandam was for a while the most hated man in One Piece. He is selfish, arrogant, needlessly cruel, and worst of all, sickeningly self-righteous. Presiding over an outfit of black-ops badasses, the man himself is weak and cowardly; only willing to fight those who cannot stand against him.
On the plus side, his eventual karma is one of the most brutal beatings in the series. Plus he has a sword which turns into an elephant, so that’s kind of cool.
