Why Do The Girls From One Piece All Look The Same?

By Hayley Armstrong

Being a female fan of One Piece can be….. rough.

Fan service aside, one thing I can’t seem to make sense of is why so many of the young female characters who are considered in-universe to be conventionally attractive…. look so similar.

This does not happen with the male characters.

The men, in my opinion, are some of the most well designed, diverse looking characters I’ve seen in anime, period.

And I’ll give Oda this: when he designs female characters who are old/older, heavier set, or dark skinned…

(As a Black Woman I don’t want to discuss Miss Monday, we’d need all day to unpack that)

…he allows himself to get creative and interesting with how they look.

But when it comes to female characters who are young and considered “pretty,” something happens in his brain that goes, “Okay, hear me out, Nami…. but with blue hair”

“Nami…. but a half naked gladiator”

“Nami…. but with glasses”

“Nami…. but in the sky”

Now, I thoroughly enjoy this series and I can deal with a lot of things that the shonen audience comes for, I get it.

This is less about the general sexualization of female characters in anime, and more about why this cookie cutter character design seems to define this genre of female character in One Piece.

Yes, in anime, the characters tend to look alike, or at least like they live in the same universe, as a style choice.

One Piece is different to me because the character designs are so varied and inspired.… until we get to a woman that Sanji would harass.

Then… the women start looking real familiar.

I can’t draw for anything, so maybe my view of this is different because of that and because I’m female, but I would think, for animators and character designers, that female characters would be the most fun to come up with unique designs for.

There’s so much more you can do! There’s so much fashion to be played with! So many types of beauty to explore through facial features/skin color/body type, etc.

I wouldn’t begin to know how to draw/design an interesting male character.

But there are so many ways that a girl can have depth AND be pretty, so why do the designs become stifled when conventional beauty (as defined by One Piece) comes in?

I’m honestly asking, because so many of the female characters are so well written! The actual female characters, are awesome.

Nami is so fleshed out, she’s capable of making mistakes, she’s got a great backstory, she’s business savvy and money focused, she’s independent, strong, cunning/crafty, smart, etc.

Lots of the One Piece women are written so well, that their designs fall short by comparison.

And that’s where I get confused. The (pretty archetype) female characters are so diverse and different as far as their personalities and stories go, but once we hit the design phase, they all become cartoonishly “hot” (which is par for the course in anime) in…. the exact same way.

The only female character I can think of who is considered cute/pretty, but in a non-Nami way is Perona.

As evidenced by Sanji’s interest, it is clear that she’s considered at least in-universe cute, but she has a face and general look that is markedly different from the other “cute” One Piece girls.

One could argue that Nico Robin also fits this bill.

I will agree that Robin isn’t a Nami clone, but her look still blends in with the other One Piece girls, ESPECIALLY post-time skip. (bangs! why did her bangs have to go?!)

Perona’s design stands out in a way that so deviates from the other “pretty” girl character designs, that even if the other women don’t all look EXACTLY alike, Perona’s presence makes them look like Nami clones, compared to her.

Pudding has three eyes and Perona is still the most unique character design here.

And this is different from the phenomenon of anime characters being drawn in the same style because, “that’s just anime.”

Example: Studio Ghibli characters also have same-face syndrome, but the difference is that the girls AND the guys in those films have that face.

That’s an animation style they keep consistent regardless of gender, everyone in Ghibli looks like that.

One of the things that set One Piece apart, is that unlike other anime, it doesn’t really adhere to one strict facial style when it comes to its characters.

…EXCEPT for when we get to a pretty girl. That’s when the Oda-isms and patterns start to show.

One Piece only consults the same-face template when it comes to girls who are supposed to be pretty. That’s the difference.

I’ve spoken to male friends about it, and they do not see it.

They’ll hit me with, “there’s so many different types of female characters! What about Big Mom???”

Like, cool story, but she’s not the type of female character I’m talking about and I think you know that.

Big Mom is an amazing character.

But let’s be honest, she is allowed to look different because, well, she’s older and, as her name and design state, big.

We know Oda can deliver a unique female character design if she doesn’t fit the One Piece standard of beauty.

It’s like beauty trips him up, so he retreats to the one type of beauty he knows how to design, which tends to lean Nami-esque.

The depictions of the women who aren’t considered gorgeous are… not flattering (that’s another conversation) but they are consistently allowed to look different from each other, at least.

We know One Piece allows women it doesn’t consider attractive, to be unique looking.

My question is, why can’t the depictions of conventional beauty have different interpretations, too?

And god help me for sticking up for conventional beauty, but in a series that tackles so many complex topics and conveys nuance very well,

I find it perplexing that it struggles to see beyond one type of beauty.

Or that, when depicting beauty, it keeps going back to the same layout, just adding different colored hair and a new outfit to show us, “hey, this is a different girl!”

So much time gets devoted to how the male characters look, whether they’re handsome or not, and that’s fun!

There seems to be a lot less effort put into how the ingenue/princess type girls look.

And actually, I would love that if it were a choice to criticize how focused people are on how women look, but that’s not what this is, and you know how I know?

Because while they look the same, they’re still depicted as super attractive. It’s just the same type of attractive, every time.

If the women were intentionally designed to be similar looking as a way to get us to focus more on their personalities instead of their looks, then the show wouldn’t focus on how they look, but there is so. much. focus. on how they look.

It’s just that “hot” only comes in one flavor on One Piece.

Anyway, I do enjoy the series very very much, which is why I’m even putting energy into writing this.

One Piece does so much so well, that I want the female character designs to get as much love and differentiation as the guy characters.

It’s unfortunate that these women characters are so well written, while their designs feel so stale.

And maybe this is a gender thing and men and women just view this differently.

Maybe men really do look at characters like Nami, Princess Vivi, Boa Hancock, Bonney, Tashigi, Koala, Rebecca, Viola, Conis, Reiju, and think the show doesn’t have a same-girl/different hair color problem.

But to me, every one of those characters could switch hairstyles, and nobody would notice.

-Since I’m on the topic of asking One Piece questions, does anyone want to explain to me what they’re doing to our boy, Usopp?

Did he eat the Michael Jackson-Michael Jackson fruit? GIVE THAT BOY HIS MELANIN BACK.

Explain how he spent two years in the jungle and came back white.

Zoro is darker than Usopp now. What are we doing.