@Al!naJames:
Let's face it: most of female characters in One Piece are very similar in personality.
Oda is not completely hopeless and there are good examples of both visual design and personality writing, still - since One Piece is so huge and long and there are so many and you just start seeing this pattern after a while and it really gets onto you.
Thankfully Nami and Robin who are a part of the main cast tend to act differently, Nami is much louder and pushy and emotional and Robin is more calm and serious and smart than other girls, still - we see them do mostly nothing nowadays (like I said - it used to be better). But if you look outside of the crew - girls tend to act cute, think about fashion and love all the time, they are hardly ever in the lead of something, they always get in trouble and need saving, they are also kind and obviously they don't get things that boys like, i.e. robots. If you're evil you can only be ugly. If you're not ugly that means you're just a poor soul working under a villain guy for some reasons and you will end up being on the good side after a series of events anyway. If you're a pretty girl you're also not allowed to have any major flaws that would affect your personality, like you can't be alcoholic or really dumb or anything of the like, you have to stay in certain borders. Hell, you can't even act like a bitch. Also you can't be strong and fight properly, pfft, that's a given.
While I agree with some of your points in general, I think your analyzation of female characters is a little one-sided and unfair. First of all, Imho Nami and Robin are among the most complex and well-developed characters on the crew. I think their personalities are quite subtle in comparison to Sanji, for example, and their backstories are both amazing and even explain some of their little quirks (for example, Nami loves money because she comes from a very poor family and never had the means to get stuff she wanted, like books on navigation). While their clothing and looks may have become more sexualized, I think thats a different matter and not the same as their character detoriating. They didnt have a fight on Fishman Island and that did annoy me, especially Robin would be due for an actual fight. But thats not the same as doing "mostly nothing". But to your actual point about other female characters: I honestly can
t think of a single female character who fits your description. Think about fashion and love all the time? Who does that? Yes, Hancock was in love with Luffy, I guess thats what you are talking about. But that is only one character, thats like saying that male characters in this series only think about meat. Romantic love has been mostly a non-issue in the One Piece world, both from the male and from the female side. Just like fashion. I must have missed the countless times that girls have given out or exchanged fashion tips. As someone mentioned, Camie wanted to be a designer, but that is such a minor character thing, you can`t be seriously taking that as an example of major female characterization.
"They are hardly ever in the lead of something" Hina, Tashigi, and Tsuru are all major Marine officials that have been shown to order around groups of men. Bonnie is the captain of a pirate crew, as are Lola, Hancock and Alvida. Vivi is more or less the queen of Alabasta now. Im sure there are other examples. **They always get in trouble and need saving**. Again who? Name one female character except Camie. And Camie
s character trait of always getting in trouble and needing saving was portrayed as an completely overthetop, ridiculous joke. Usopp and Chopper also often get in trouble and need saving. It seems pretty fairly balanced to me. They are also kind, no they are not! I mean yeah, there are kind female characters, just like there are a ton of kind male characters. This is not portrayed as a typically female trait at any point!
You claim that "If you're evil you can only be ugly. If you're not ugly that means you're just a poor soul working under a villain guy for some reasons and you will end up being on the good side after a series of events anyway", but again, its just not true. For example, how many actually evil, ugly women are there in One Piece? We have Big Mom, who we know next to nothing about, so she may very well have other traits to her character than just being evil. Then we have Dadan, Lola, and Kokoro, all ugly, very sympathetic, good characters. Is there any other ugly evil female character? I would mention Miss Merry Christmas, but she was treated the same as the pretty girls, like Kalifa, Miss Doublefinger or Miss Valentine, so it would be unfair to count her as evil but not them. And those good looking females were never, ever portrayed as "poor souls working under a villain guy for some reason who end up on the good side after a while". Monet gave drugs to little children and laughed about it. She may have some qualities like her loyalty to Doflamingo that make her more of a three-dimensional character, but she was still portrayed as very, very evil. Kalifa was just as evil as Jabura or Kumadori, and I would say more evil than Kaku. Just like the female Baroque agents weren
t any less evil than the male ones. Miss Doublefinger tried to freaking stab Nami through the head! Miss Valentine tried to slowly crush Usopp while laughing sadistically about it! And yes, they later got a coverstory that showed them in a more positive light, but you forgot to mention two things: 1. So did all the male villains too, this does not only happen to good-looking females, it happens to everyone: Mr. 5, Hachi, Gedatsu, freaking Lucci, even Caribou has shown more positive character traits in the new coverstory when he saved Granny and 2. Being redeemed does not mean that all the evil things the character did before werent **really** evil. Mr. 3 got redeemed in Impel Down, but when we first met him, he was still an evil, sadistic asshole who tried to slowly suffocate the main characters. If Monet would get a cover story that shows her in a more positive light and redeems her character in some way, it doesn
t mean that she wasn`t an evil bitch when she drugged those children and bit peoples arms off.
If you're a pretty girl you're also not allowed to have any major flaws that would affect your personality, like you can't be alcoholic or really dumb or anything of the like, you have to stay in certain borders. Hell, you can't even act like a bitch. Also you can't be strong and fight properly. Camie is a dumb clutz who has crazy face faults. Shirahoshi was a weakling and a crybaby. All the female characters I mentioned in the last paragraph both acted like a bitch and were able to fight properly. So are Hancock and, to a lesser extent, Rebecca.
Amazon Lily - the only females we saw there that did some relevant fighting were Boa sisters. Hancock was amazing when she was introduced, but quickly got ruined by sexist love fruit that makes men lust for her and terrible love for Luffy that made her dumb, completely eliminated her fantastic and original (for Oda) huge bitch personality and made "aiding Luffy" her only motivation and purpose in the story. Her sisters? Pretty much all of their quotes and thus personalities limit to "Hancock-onesama" and their fighting, devil fruit and haki abilities? That's right, they just had to be nullified by FAT + ULGY rule.
The females were still portrayed as tough and able to fight. Just because we didnt see each of them fight doesn
t mean they were weak. I can definately agree with your statement about Hancock though. While I still find her kinda funny afterwards, I liked her a lot more when she was kicking around baby seals, lol. I didn`t think her sisters were that ugly though. I mean yeah, Marigold was fat, but her face was pretty normal. And Sandersonia just looked weird, not necessarily ugly, imho. I distinctly remember people finding her kinda hot back then.
Shakky - strong, but sadly only present very briefly, pretty much same personality as many other females like Paula (who was also a bartender?) - generally calm, logical and nice and, even though she's the same age as Rayleigh, she just couldn't have been a normal-looking old lady, she had to have the same old usual pretty faceTM and hourglass-shaped figure at her age of 60+ by some miracle.
So, whats your point? The personality of a female character only matters if she is also ugly? Shakky is an excellent female character. Tough, intelligent etc. If you don`t like that she had a pretty face, then take Kureha instead who did look her age (well maybe not quite, lol) and was also a great character.
Rebecca - yet another pretty, nice, poor, gentle pink-haired princess who looks 99% like Nami (even for people with most trained eyes) and same personality as Vivi, wears a chainmail bikini as her gladiator outfit for fighting in the Colosseum (!!!) and who's never received a single scratch during fights and wins over her opponents by pushing them off the ring and never leaving a scratch on them as well?
The whole thing about not really harming her opponents isnt about her gender though, but an actual plot point. Ricky did the same, if you remember correctly, he only used the back of his sword to not injure his opponents, and he is male. Using too much brutality and the bloodlust of the spectators is a theme in this arc, and I
m pretty damn sure that Oda is trying to make a point here that has nothing to do with gender. I`m pretty pleased so far with Rebeccas character. Her outfit is a different matter, though.
Kalifa - lowest douriki of the group by far, generic look, generic personality (same old calm-logistic-nice) with overly-sexualized and fetishized traits (sexy secretary + sexual harassment jokes), sexist bubble fruit and finally going down the usual bad-gone-good as soon as her whole gorup went there, so she wasn't essentially evil, her asshole dad probably forced her into Ciper Pol. Only lasted due to happening to be Sanji's opponent and he can't fight girls. Thankfully to her Nami had her last 1 on 1 fight in the series so far? At least? Thank God?!
Already covered her. I`m not a fan of her character in general, and I do agree with you on some points.
Monet - well, here goes our first logia female user. Which honestly happened so random? I'm kind of used to logia users to be themed with their fruit and hers was out of nowhere really. And yukionna character could have been so great? I love Japanese legends and films on her, but Oda went the opposite way and made her look like a tropical bird instead of snowwhite. Her fight didn't last long, her look is, again, sadly, identical to Nami and her personality is basically that of Kalifa's and others before that. She did evil things under Doflamingo's command… which will be probably explained later when she gets her side-story and we find out she was madly in love with him/put under hypnosis? I will be happy if she stays on the bad side, but knowing Oda it's not likely to happen.
Complete disagreement here though. Monet is one of the most evil female characters introduced so far, with a dangerous devil fruit ability and a distinct look, who even managed to give Luffy quite a lot of trouble. Imho, you are kinda reaching here with your criticism.
Lola was fat, ugly and obsessed with marrying guys. As far as I remember she didn't really do any fighting personally. Come again?
Which goes against your stereotype of only ugly females being strong. Also she was a pretty sympathetic character.
Bonney - her personality really stands out among other girls and her fruit is good. Even though she loves to eat and does that all the time she doesn't get fat so that won't ruin her appearance… it's a miracle. Still, she even did some plot-relevant stuff on Sabaody. Sounds good so far? I think so, but then she went on and lost her first and only fight in the series off-screen and then was used in possibly the most misogynistic scenes of all One Piece when Teach swine'd and offered her place on his ship as a piece of meat cause little cute girls have nothing to do with serious pirate buisness. Ugh. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Blackbeard is the villain, and him behaving like a sexist pig underlines that. Spandam also beat up Robin, does that make One Piece mysogynistic too, when the character was clearly shown as being despicable? And if I remember correctly, wasn`t her response to him being a sexist pig kicking him in the face? She went directly against the subservient stereotype.
Robin - now this one is the subject of my EXTREME pain and suffer. Robin was amazing. She had amazing personality - she was super smart, funny in her own way, cruel and with one of the most original powers ever - and with all of that she got in the main cast. Brilliant. She had amazing looks - her own sense of fashion that was often quite modest and her face was original and beautiful. She had fights to fight and things to say. However, she is like that no more :( I'm mourning the old Robin on daily basis. Her once outstanding face is now completely gone, her style erased along with her role in the story. Why is this happening.
She only had one real fight, and thats a shame, but I think that has more to do with Oda not really being able to think off a good fight for her devil fruit ability. She still has stuff to say, or did you forget her conversation with Neptune about the ancient weapon? Most of the stuff you say about her is still true, the only thing about her personality that changed is that she opened up more to the other Strawhats, and thats good character developement.