Looks can be deceiving: One Piece characters like Senor Pink and Pudding hide complex backstories and emotions.
Unraveling secrets: With layers and depth, characters like Kuma and Law require fans to dig deep for full understanding.
Emotional complexity: Characters like Kizaru and Vinsmoke Sanji showcase hidden depths that challenge initial impressions.
When a character is complex, it means that there is a lot more to them than may initially meet the eye. These are characters who have multiple layers to their past and personality that fans will uncover over the course of the story, and it’s fair to say that this applies to more than a few individuals who have been seen in One Piece. While this can make it pretty difficult to get a read on what these characters are all about, it also ultimately makes them much more interesting than the typical one-note hero or villain.
Looks can sometimes be deceiving. When the chips were down, these One Piece characters proved surprisingly strong.
Complex characters fit perfectly into One Piece, specifically, considering that there have been more than enough episodes and chapters to slowly unravel someone’s secrets over the long term, keeping fans guessing as to who these people truly are beneath the surface. With that being said, it’s time to take a look at the One Piece characters who can be considered the most complicated, and why exactly it’s so difficult to fully understand them.
Final spoiler warning for One Piece!
8
Senor Pink
Doflamingo’s Goon Doesn’t Dress Up As A Baby Just For Fun
First Appearance: Episode 632
Oda is no stranger to conjuring up some pretty weird and wacky character designs, which is why it can be easy to brush Senor Pink off as just another minor antagonist who looks silly for the sake of it. The truth is, there’s much more to this gangster than many fans may have realized when seeing him for the first time, as there’s actually a deeper and more emotional reason as to why he dresses up as a baby every day.
After tragically losing his son, and with his wife in the hospital after getting caught in a landslide, Senor Pink took it upon himself to dress as the couple’s late child in order to cheer up his partner in her final days. Despite being a dangerous member of the Doflamingo family, Senor Pink would continue to stick to this vibrant dress code, which just goes to show that you can never judge a book by its cover, considering how much this guy has truly been through in his life.
7
Kizaru
A Loyal Marine Who Often Hides His True Emotions
First Appearance: Episode 398
Up until the Egghead Island arc, Kizaru was largely presented as little more than a cold and ruthless Marine who was happy to take out anyone who was deemed an enemy by the higher-ups. This facade began to crack, though, when he was ordered to execute his old friend Vegapunk. During the mission, Kizaru, for the first time in the story, began to express doubts about his own position, as he made it clear that he didn’t really want to kill Vegapunk in cold blood, despite being ordered to do so.
Some of the most heartfelt and meaningful relationships are hidden beneath the chaos of battle in One Piece.
Once the ordeal was over and done with, Kizaru broke down in tears while on a Den Den Mushi call with Akainu, emphasizing that there’s much more to this guy beneath the surface that he’s just not willing to show other people. While Aokiji’s feelings about being a former Admiral have been made crystal clear, this isn’t the case for Kizaru, as clearly, there’s still a lot more to learn.
6
Charlotte Pudding
Pudding May Seem Sweet And Considerate, But She’s Actually A Lot More Complicated
First Appearance: Episode 571
Sanji wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea of being forced into a marriage as a way to propose an alliance between Big Mom and Germa, but one thing that kept him going at that time was the fact that Pudding, his bride-to-be, seemed like a pretty sweet young lady. Despite her kind words and joyful personality, Sanji would soon realize that Pudding is actually a pretty nasty piece of work who is always trying to put down others just for her own satisfaction and amusement.
Things start to get more complicated once the wedding is actually underway. After Sanji shows affection to Pudding and calls her beautiful, the Big Mom pirate starts to randomly switch between being her old evil self and acting as more of a sweet and considerate bride to Sanji. While it’s not exactly explained why she continues to jump between these two different personalities, it made it extremely difficult to get an understanding of who Pudding actually is beneath the surface, though it does seem that, in the end, her feelings for Sanji were genuine.
5
Trafalgar D. Law
An Emotionally Complex Pirate With A Bizarre Devil Fruit Ability
First Appearance: Episode 392
The majority of the Supernovas seen in the series have only been given very small and brief scenes to reveal their past, or no flashbacks at all in some cases, but Law is a little different. During the Dressrosa arc, fans were treated to a pretty lengthy flashback where they got to see just how much Law has actually been through leading up to the main story. While he was technically made a member of the Doflamingo family at a young age, Law also became close friends with Doflamingo’s brother, Corazon, who was on a mission to cure the young boy of his Amber Lead Disease.
As a boy, not only would Law be forced to watch the death of Corazon with his own eyes, but he would also consume the Ope Ope no Mi, which can be a pretty tricky Devil Fruit to wrap your head around, considering how bizarre it is in practice. All of this results in Law being someone that fans really need to dig into and learn about to fully understand.
4
Vinsmoke Sanji
Sanji’s Life Has Been Anything But Straightforward
First Appearance: Episode 20
Sanji was unwilling to tell the Straw Hats about his past until he was forced to during the Whole Cake Island arc, where it is revealed that there’s actually a lot more to his character than anyone could have initially realized. Despite still technically being a human, Sanji was supposed to be an emotionless killing machine when he was born, just like his brothers and sisters, who were raised by the despicable Germa leader known as Judge.
These are the strongest characters to sail the seas of the One Piece world.
Because Sanji was the only one not affected by Judge’s experiments, he was thrown into a cell and forced to starve, though thanks to his sister Reiju, he managed to escape and eventually got caught up with a chef by the name of Zeff. In order for fans to fully understand some of Sanji’s personal characteristics, such as his unwillingness to hit women or his love for cooking, it’s necessary to dive deep into his long and emotional backstory, which molded him into the lovable but complex pirate that he is today.
3
Vegapunk
It Only Seems Fitting That The Smartest Man Alive Would Be Difficult To Understand
First Appearance: Episode 1090
Vegapunk is a character who is mentioned numerous times over the course of the Straw Hats’ adventure, but the man himself doesn’t appear in the flesh until the Egghead Island arc. While it was obvious that Luffy wasn’t going to understand much of what this guy would tell him, considering how wicked smart he is, Vegapunk himself can often feel like he’s light-years ahead of everyone else in everything he does. For starters, by the time the Straw Hats actually enter Egghead Island, they quickly realize that Vegapunk himself has actually separated his personality into multiple different bodies.
Not only that, he’s also found a way to shorten his own elongated head by extracting all the information he and his other bodies gain until one giant database known as Punk Records. There are also many scenes where Vegapunk can be seen rambling to himself or the Satellites about mechanisms and gizmos that can be tricky to pick up on for the audience, though very easy to understand for the smartest man in the world.
2
Uta
Uta’s Desire To Save The World Turned Into A Dangerous Dream
First Appearance: One Piece: Film Red (2022)
Uta is a character who only appears in One Piece: Film Red, though it is heavily implied that she is still considered canon within the wider story. Through the use of her Sing Sing fruit, Uta dreamed of being able to pull the people of the world into an illusion where all they could think about was her peaceful melodies, forcing them to forget about the pain and suffering that is going on around them. At first, this seems like a pretty selfless idea, but things quickly start to spiral out of control once Uta begins to restrict her subjects of their own free will.
Uta is definitely one of the best original villains that have appeared in a One Piece movie, considering how there’s a lot more to her than simply wanting to take over the world. She’s actually a much more layered character whose gradual shift from hero to villain is a fascinating one, to say the least, and just like her father, Shanks, there’s a lot more to read into with Uta than initially meets the eye.
1
Kuma
Nobody Could Have Realized What Caused Kuma To Become A Mindless Robot
First Appearance: Episode 151
As a formal Warlord of the Sea, it was easy to assume that Kuma was simply just another pirate who decided to partner with the Marines for a bit of extra cash or power, but this couldn’t be any further from the truth. Kuma is actually a Buccaneer, a race that was believed to have been extinct after being wiped out for rebelling against the World Government. As a result, Kuma’s parents were killed when he was young, and the boy was quickly made into a slave whose only chance of freedom was joining up with the Revolutionaries.
After failing to protect his beloved Ginny from being killed by a deadly illness, Kuma then made the bold decision to volunteer to become an emotionless war machine for the Marines, in exchange for Vegapunk curing Ginny’s daughter, Bonney, from the same illness. It’s well known by this point that Oda is a master at creating heartbreaking and emotional backstories, but with this one in particular, he managed to completely change the way many fans saw a key character by highlighting just how complicated and messy his life has been up to this point, and why he became a villain in the first place.
