Character Designs

chpollastrini

Dunno if i can make a thread like this, but let's try anyway…...

We all know about how good Oda can be with character designs, Oda has his own style, but almost all characters are unique...
To comparison, I'm a great fan of Toriyama, but his designs, to me, have a lack of DON, dunno, anyway....

For u, which one of the One Piece characters is the most well designed?

To me:
Franky - I'm not a great fan of the character, but really like the design, the big arms, small legs, cool poses......He's a winner....
Enel - Cool and different from everything u could expect from Oda

tonitonichopper

I say the strawhats. They are all so simple yet so complexed.

CosmicDebris

After just watching a marathon of Naruto I can't tell you how much I appreciate the character designs of One Piece.

They're not all winners, and perhaps the women could use a little work in setting their faces apart from each other, I find that overall One Piece characters, at least the main ones, are very pleasant and interesting to look at (or unpleasant if the situation calls for it).
It's hard to me to pick out any particular one that I think is better, I like them all. I think CP9 are my favorite villain designs. Enel was quite cool too, although the rest of the Skypieans were kind of dull compared to the rest of the series.

tonitonichopper

@CosmicDebris:

After just watching a marathon of Naruto I can't tell you how much I appreciate the character designs of One Piece.

They're not all winners, and perhaps the women could use a little work in setting their faces apart from each other, I find that overall One Piece characters, at least the main ones, are very pleasant and interesting to look at (or unpleasant if the situation calls for it).
It's hard to me to pick out any particular one that I think is better, I like them all. I think CP9 are my favorite villain designs. Enel was quite cool too, although the rest of the Skypieans were kind of dull compared to the rest of the series.

You saw that naruto thing too? It was on all toonami tonight T_T. the only characters in naruto that have some type of uniqeness are the main characters.

KamenRiderNeko

God its so hard to choose (cough Zoro cough) j/k
Anyways, I think they are all well designed, I love how Oda has pretty 'normal' characters like Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Sanji…. and then has very oddly proportioned characters like Franky, Fukuro, Blueno, Blackbeard, etc... Its these types of characters that I think sets One Piece apart from the generic anime/mangas, like Naruto or Bleach.

As far as the most well designed.... Its really hard for me to say, because even when I want to say a OP character is ugly, I just think to myself "He meant to draw them that way."

I mean, he can make long-nosed characters look good...(Kaku and Usopp of course) He makes big ugly characters really loveable (Saul, Blackbeard even though he's a bastard, Fukuro), and he keeps the average characters distinctive and interesting... Like Robin, compared to Nami for example. Robin has very sharp, yet feminine features that give her that older look, and Nami has big round eyes and well... she's cute lol.

And while Sanji does seem plain compared to most of the characters, he has that trademark eyebrow and his 'mystery eye' XD

Now with Zoro, its the little things that make him worth a second glance (or mooore) I noticed that his body type is like a smaller version of someone like Franky... broad shoulders, thick torso, and skinny legs. Whereas Sanji, Luffy and Usopp are really skinny... Usopp has sort of a gawkiness to him, but it fits his character.

I could go on, but I'm tired.....

chpollastrini

@pirateneko:

Now with Zoro, its the little things that make him worth a second glance (or mooore) I noticed that his body type is like a smaller version of someone like Franky… broad shoulders, thick torso, and skinny legs. Whereas Sanji, Luffy and Usopp are really skinny... Usopp has sort of a gawkiness to him, but it fits his character.

To me, what really makes Zoro a great design are his clothes, Zoro could be a really average design if Oda wouldn' give him those nice outfits….(Enies Lobby being the very best)

Shark

I've always liked Crocodile's design. The slicked back hair, scar across the face, golden hook, earing, and of course his pimp coat. I've also recently thought about the just how cool the Arlong Pirate Gang looked.

Aldrich

Sir Crocodile, Buggy, Yasopp, Aokiji, Vice Admiral Scarface, Sengoku, Shanks, Robin, Whitebeard, Van Auger… There's so many. What's great with Oda is he has an american cartoony style but can somehow draw characters who look more human than your typical shonen pretty boy (or girl).

CosmicDebris

@tonitonichopper:

You saw that naruto thing too? It was on all toonami tonight T_T. the only characters in naruto that have some type of uniqeness are the main characters.

Actually I was watching my own fansub marathon. XD

I think the character designs in Naruto are lazy and often just…dorky. One Piece characters that look silly are usually intended to be laughed at a bit, like Buggy, Fukuro, Mr. 2, Foxy etc.. but there's characters in Naruto that are so supposed to be so strong and serious and I find myself stifling laughter just looking at them.
Naruto must be fun for the animators though, so many charcters have their eyes and mouths covered, there's one less thing they have to worry about animating.

BTW I like the design of everyone in Blackbeard's crew except Blackbeard himself. Laffite and Van Auger are really cool.

KamenRiderNeko

@chpollastrini:

To me, what really makes Zoro a great design are his clothes, Zoro could be a really average design if Oda wouldn' give him those nice outfits….(Enies Lobby being the very best)

Oh god yes! Oda has a great sense of style… although sometimes its a bit quriky, it works for the characters.

Buuhan1

All of them.

Seriously, but if I had to pick. Enel and Crocodile.

himemiya

I'm torn between Robin and Zoro, and both for the same reason: they're strikingly beautiful characters who are not drawn in the conventional manga-beautiful way. It's rare in anime or manga to have a beautiful character who has a different kind of beauty from the typical bishounen/bishoujo character, and here Oda has shown us a very masculine and very feminine beauty that is nonetheless distinct. Good on him!

Although I do think Zoro's haramaki looks kinda silly. ;D

gaara d. lucci

Croc and Lucci for me. These two made me start liking the series. They look so badass in their Yakuza wear. Still gonna get me a coat like Crocodile's.

KamenRiderNeko

I totally agree with you, himemiya…. 100%

And yeah... Zoro does look silly with that haramaki... ~~in fact, he doesn't need clothes~~ :ninja:

Taleran

Dr. Hiluluk IMO

I don't know how to put it into words

verbatim

As far as design would go… I'd go with Franky. He's pretty much the most unique dude Oda ever drew.

For design matching personality... I'd go with Mr. 2. Seriously, just look at him and tell me that his design perfectly matches his personality.

Sofia Alexandra

Rob Lucci, I just can't get over how darned classy he looks. I guess that why he has Hattori, he needs a bit of comic relief or he would've been a total HotnessOverdoseTM.

Not that he isn't anyway but, ya know…

captain usopp

I like the haramaki. Oda could have drawn him with a sash, like all the other pirates. But because he is a swordsman, a japanese style one; having a japanese waist band thingy kind of fits his charicter. I think Zoro makes it look cool. Plus, he needs that green accesory. His charicter would look too dull without something there, to tie everything together.

anyways, ya, I love the variety and uniqueness of his charicters. Not everyone is beautiful. Not everyone is perfect, but all the charicters are cool in their own way.

and since I love Usopp, I think I should menchion him. Ok, egnore the nose and the big lips. besides that, Usopp is a hot guy. He's got a 6 pack ya know. I like how his charicter has the body, but he doesn't feel the need to flaunt it. Trusty overalls are good enough for him. And the nose and and lips have it's own quirky apeal.

KamenRiderNeko

@captain:

I like the haramaki. Oda could have drawn him with a sash, like all the other pirates. But because he is a swordsman, a japanese style one; having a japanese waist band thingy kind of fits his charicter. I think Zoro makes it look cool. Plus, he needs that green accesory. His charicter would look too dull without something there, to tie everything together.

anyways, ya, I love the variety and uniqueness of his charicters. Not everyone is beautiful. Not everyone is perfect, but all the charicters are cool in their own way.

and since I love Usopp, I think I should menchion him. Ok, egnore the nose and the big lips. besides that, Usopp is a hot guy. He's got a 6 pack ya know. I like how his charicter has the body, but he doesn't feel the need to flaunt it. Trusty overalls are good enough for him. And the nose and and lips have it's own quirky apeal.

I was joking I love Zoro's haramaki~ In fact, I love that it was easy to mimic that in real life using a really ugly green tanktop XDDD

Dude… The long nose is hot XD Same goes for Kaku You just gotta love those guys.

CosmicDebris

Of course I love Usopp's design but I was trying to not be so obvious. XD Although even though I like it, I feel like shaking my fist at Oda sometimes and saying "don't you know that eyes should NEVER be flat round circles/ovals?! XD Hence I don't draw his eyes Oda's way.

Oh yeah, and also, you are never supposed to connect lip lines. (Yes I know he can do whatever he wants and I appreciate that, I'm just kidding around)

captain usopp

konks fellow usopp lover on the head his eyes are cool. They are uniquely silly, and I love all the great variety of emotion usopp shows, despite having such bland eye design. Oh, and that lip thing, is a total rip off of Akira Toriyama. He always draws black guys lips that way.

KamenRiderNeko

@ Cosmic - Aw but they look cartoony that way, and that's good, right? XD
(I know that you were joking lol)

Roz

Kaku and Usopp pull off the circle-with-a-dot-in-it eye thing pretty well. I guess it just goes along well with the goofy-ass noses.

Mr. All Sunday

Plus Kaku has funny eyebrows to go with his odd eyes and nose; I still have no idea why anyone thought he and Zoro's fight was going to be very serious. I personally like almost all of the One Piece characters designs. My favorite non-Mugiwara designs (as I like them all, their simplicity makes them more likable and real for me) are Kaku, Lulu, Coby, Ohm, Mozu and Kiwi, Aokiji, Van Auger, Hina, Smoker, Ms. Goldenweek, Pell, Ms. Valentine, Vivi, Crocus, Hachi, and Makino. They're all aesthetically interesting, if I had to pick a favorite out of these, I'd probably say Aokiji.

Cochise

Chopper really pulls off the circle eye thing. If he didn't have that then his look would be bizarre.

Offtopic: I never thought of Mr Popo as black. Not to be funny or anything but that just never popped into my mind.

gaara d. lucci

@Cochise:

Chopper really pulls off the circle eye thing. If he didn't have that then his look would be bizarre.

Offtopic: I never thought of Mr Popo as black. Not to be funny or anything but that just never popped into my mind.

I didn't know Popo was black until my cousin pointed out to me while watching DBZ. Popo does look like one of those black charictures. I don't know how I feel about that.

HEATXZ

I thought that Mr.Popo was Indian because of the turban

KamenRiderNeko

@Mr.:

Plus Kaku has funny eyebrows to go with his odd eyes and nose; I still have no idea why anyone thought he and Zoro's fight was going to be very serious. I personally like almost all of the One Piece characters designs. My favorite non-Mugiwara designs (as I like them all, their simplicity makes them more likable and real for me) are Kaku, Lulu, Coby, Ohm, Mozu and Kiwi, Aokiji, Van Auger, Hina, Smoker, Ms. Goldenweek, Pell, Ms. Valentine, Vivi, Crocus, Hachi, and Makino. They're all aesthetically interesting, if I had to pick a favorite out of these, I'd probably say Aokiji.

Yeah, I was thinking of Ao Kiji as well! He's such a snappy dresser for a marine XD He's just so cool… And Smoker~ I love that jacket

Oh and I really did love that only half of Zoro and Kaku's fight was serious XD

Captain Kuro

My favorite designs are Kuro and CP9. That's my idea of style (even with the comical elements like those things on Kuro's jacket and his shoes).

Geese

Dragon, the Blackbeard Pirates, Franky, Crocodile, all of CP9, Bon Clay, Shanks…too damn many.

dinty

… he has an american cartoony style but can somehow draw characters who look more human than your typical shonen pretty boy (or girl).

Aldrich, that's interesting – I had the same reaction, but I felt that the series had more of a European style than an American style (The first words out of my mouth after seeing it were: "Sweet!! It's like Kenshin crossed with TinTin!" )

I agree completely about the lack of bishonen and bishojo: I love the fact that beauty doesn't go hand-in-hand with heroism or with evil (that you can't automatically guess if someone is good or bad just by looking at them, as you can with other series). In this one, the bad side has just as many "dogs" as "hotties" – and the good side does too!

Speakng of dogs and hotties : I also like the wide spectrum of attractiveness that Oda presents to us -- how easy and natural it seems for readers to devlop fondnesses for characters with what might be considered "imperfections" in other series : vividly colored hair (Franky, Hina, Vivi, Zoro), prominent noses (Robin, Usopp, Kaku, Laki), curly eyebrows and/or odd facial hair (Sanji, Mihawk, Lucci), oddly enlongated torsos (Nami,Tashigi, Robin), receding hairlines (Ben, Zoro, Khoza, Smoker), tattoos (Nami, Ace, Wiper), horrific scars (Khoza, Luffy, Shanks, Zoro) and etc.

In this way, Oda's world is more like our own : where we see very few examples of pure beauty or pure ugliness, but many examples of the wide range in between.

In terms of non-human character design, I really like the fishmen. None of them look stereotypically (think : Disney) like "mermaids" and yet all seem sound and plausible. I like the extra care that Oda took in giving the bulky fishmen webbed hands or "winged" arms or etc, so that they'd still seem fully capable of swimming, yet also be well-suited for life on the land. I'm looking forward to this next arc, where we'll see them in their natural habitat!

Fukurou The Silent

All of the Straw Hats and CP9 won in everything, they're just so frick'n awesome! Character design was WOW luv Oda's style of art and characters.

Bounty1Berry

I like Oda's ability to group characters while retaining their distinctness.

The best example is the Marine.

Morgan and Smoker are both Marine captains, yet you'd never confuse 'em.

But also CP9 did a very good job of looking distinctive even though they were wearing perhaps the most standardized uniform of any set of people in OP except Generic Marines.

I liked the gyojin because, honestly, several of them have very nice bodies,, yet at the same time, they don't make it to bishie perfection. Chuu is pretty as long as you never look at his face, Kuroobi can't wear shirts without his armfins tearing them open, and Arlong's nose doesn't exactly encourage cuddling.

Ubiq

There's quite a few character designs I like.

The Blackbeard Pirates for one, which range from truly unique (a luchador pirate?) to Teach himself. I like Teach's design largely because he's one of the few characters in the entire series that I could see being a real world pirate if you reduce him to normal size.

Pretty much all of the Shichibukai; there was quite a bit of talk about Mihawk's eyes prior to the first appearance of the character and I think that Oda pretty much lived up to that with his character design. While not as physically intimidating as somebody like Bartholomew Bear, I can believe that Mihawk could seriously freak people out just by glaring at them.

Crocodile is a walking pirate stereotype in a pimp coat. That alone makes him awesome.

I've always been fond of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers since their first appearance; outside of Blueno, who was oddly amusing with those bull horns, I wasn't hugely impressed by the CP Agents. Then Oda just up and introduces three new members, two of which just don't look like anybody else.

bevin

One of the things that attracted me to this series (and still does) is the unique character designs that strayed away from the typical "pretty boy/girl" stuff. I got really tired of seeing the same character with different hair running around in every show I watched, it was boring to my eyes. Not only does Oda have a distinct style, he takes pains to make characters look like individuals, even one-shot background characters. Okay, his women looked very similar at first, but he's really made an effort to get away from that– You'd never be able to swap Nami and Robin's hair and not be able to tell them apart.

I love the weirder designs like Wanze, Porche, Kaku, Usopp, Enel, Kamakiri, etc, but I just really like his designs in general. I love that the Square Sisters have big pointy noses, but they're obviously still attractive, and same for Porche. I love that none of the guys would ever be considered "pretty"-- attractive, sure, but not in a girly/androgynous way as in so many series. I geeked out the first time I saw a guy with body hair, but that's just how tired of cliche anime art I'd gotten. I love the scars, tattoos, cigars, cigarettes, weird hair, and best of all, the bizarre and quirky personalities everyone has. I love the things that set this series apart from all the rest out there.

And when I first started watching it, I saw some similarities to Jamie Hewlett (artist for Tank Girl and the Gorillaz), although I see more in terms of weirdness in the color spreads these days than anything I saw at the begining of the series.

Thrior

I love the things that set this series apart from all the rest out there.

I totally agree with that…

I absolutely LOVE OP's character design. It was a one of the most important reasons why I became interested of the series. Characters look really unique and that's a thing what I really appreciate because anime/manga characters almost always look copies who only have a different hairstyle, different eyecolour or different clothes. But in OP almost every character has unique features.

Also... the overall design is just great. All the characters are not those god damn pretty boys and girls. Oda actually can make males look masculine and that's one thing I really appreciate.
Women instead aren't as original looking as men, but I think their design has became better. At first every female character looked like Nami, but then Robin came and she has an original looks. Same thing with Califa. Only thing which could be more variable are their bodies. With male characters there are no problems with that. Everybody can see that Zoro, Sanji and Smoker all have a different kind of build. But I don't complain. OP's character design is the best I have seen.

Clothing is also a one thing I really like. Oda has a good sense of style. Every character has an outfit which suits with their personality. And I also love those all little things Bevin mentioned. Like cigars, tattoos etc.

My favorite character designs? Oh boy. There are so many so I'll just point out some.

I for example just adore Lucci's design. He's cool and stylish but the best idea of his design is Hattori. Yes. That pigeon. It's just so original idea that it really got my attention. If Hattori wasn't there, I think Lucci wouldn't be as interesting as he now is. Same thing with Kuro. I really like his shoes because they gave his overall outfit a really nice touch.
And Kaku. I mean... just how in the hell can character be so cool with a nose and eyes like that? He's like an opposite to Usopp. I mean... Usopp is pretty much a comical relief and his design is something that suits with his character but it was a big surprise that Oda actually can make those characters look really cool, mysterious and intimitating. Even Usopp can be very convinsing.

dinty

And when I first started watching it, I saw some similarities to Jamie Hewlett …

I did as well !
To me it was most noticeable in the two-page spread of the WG leaders.

I saw a bit of Daniel Clowes, too (in the scene where Smoker tells Tashigi to get stronger) … Little Garden's dinosaurs occasionally seemed like Winsor McCay's dinosaurs and Calvin and Hobbes' dinosaurs to me ... And Gedatsu made me think of Samurai Jack's nemesis, Aku.

Yet none of these echoes ever felt like plagarisim. Probably because each was so fleeting. So I guess in that way, they were more like "jumping off points", than like "steals" ... as if Oda was saying to us "You like this artist/style, too? Great! So do I, so let me show you what I can do with it ..."

Mog

Well, I second just about what everybody's already saying, but my absolute favourite designs are probably Van Auger, Teach, Lafitte, Mihawk, Doflamingo and, well… there are so many I adore but I'll leave it at those.

Sofia Alexandra

I was thinking a bit about this thread last night and came to the conclusion that one of the things I like the most about OP is the high percentage of hot/handsome/loveable guys there are and how different they all look.

Lucci, Kaku, Iceburg, Ben Beckman, Sanji, Zoro, Shanks, Usopp, Paulie, Ace, Smoker, Coby* and probably heaps of others that I can't remember right now, all of them great reasons for a girl like me to keep watching.

*The upgraded version.

*Meh*

The character design initally threw me. "This is manga?" I said to myself. But, upon reflection, Lucky Man is a Jump manga. Kochi Kame has been in the pages of Jump since waay back. Neither of them are 'traditional manga style', yet both are popular. Still, character design alone wasn't what sold it for me. It was the method of storytelling. Here, from my experience, was the first Japanese comic written in the "Mighty Marvel Style" of the '60's: Action told the story, but not to the point that several pages went dialogue-free. And actions were exaggerated, often to the point that you'd look at it and go ,"Okay, he hit them. But how does he keep from falling over after overextending himself like that?" Oda made me remember how much I missed that style.