after my similarly titled mihawk post took off I decided to make a zoro post, since he’s my second favorite character and also arguably the most ridiculous character in all of One Piece. here we go
– I know what you’re all thinking. i’m gonna open this list with how he wields three swords, right? no. no, Zoro has done so much ridiculous bullshit, this doesn’t even seem weird anymore. i don’t even bat my eye at this. this is nothing. now that i’ve got that out of the way, let’s begin
– this dude has like, an obsession with cutting off his own limbs? and MAYBE i can understand trying to cut his feet off when they were stuck in wax—you’re trying to save your friends, i get it—but what about when he was sword shopping in loguetown? who’s first response when buying a cursed sword and testing if it’s really cursed is “i’ll toss it in the air n see if I get amputated lol.” plus there’s that old filler where luffy gets his finger stuck in a bottle and, when he asks zoro for help getting it out, zoro tries to CUT IT OFF. im convinced he lost that left eye of his bc he got dust or something in it and then tried to stab it out
– there’s like, several occasions where Zoro has been directed to head up a staircase and gone some other direction. it happened in enies lobby and in dressrosa? like, what’s the dude got against stai—… oh, wait
– his reintroduction post timeskip. get on the wrong boat? just cut it in half! who even cares! how’d you even end up on the wrong boat? you had to walk towards that boat, which means looking at the boat. that boat looked nothing like the sunny, wouldn’t zoro have noticed that? he also has to make an effort to climb on, which means, you guessed it, looking at the boat! he probably sees the crew members, maybe even gets helped up by one or a few. how did he not at any point in time notice that wasn’t his boat?
– also when they landed on sabaody the first time and zoro was like “i’m gonna go take a walk!” and both Sanji and Usopp tried to stop him, talking to him like concerned parents of a troublemaking toddler, like “Zoro you can’t go out there you’ll get lost!” to which Zoro replies “yeah but the grottos are numbered, I can find my way back if I just remember the number!” and Sanji and Usopp are like “okay, solid logic, even YOURE not dumb enough to mess that up” and what does Zoro do? what does he fucking do?
– I want to emphasize he messes it up because a bubble covers the 4 in “Grotto 41” so he thinks it’s grotto 1. BUBBLES. ARE. TRANSPARENT
– “sorry, I don’t pray to god” fuckin edgelord
– Zoro’s epithet is “Pirate Hunter” and it’s super lame. he could’ve been “Demon of the East Blue” but they went with pirate hunter, even though he became a pirate. even Chopper’s is better than his lbr
– THERES A SCENE WHERE SANJI THREATENS TO PUT RAZOR BLADES IN ZOROS FOOD N ZOROS LIKE “do it u won’t” SO SANJI DOES AND ZORO JUST EATS THEM? ODA EVEN GOT ASKED ABOUT IT IN AN SBS AND CONFIRMED YES, ZORO DID IN FACT EAT RAZOR BLADES. THIS 2EDGY4U BITCH JUST. STRAIGHT UP. ATE RAZOR BLADES
– in film gold he wears that black jacket under the white one. mind you he had no way of knowing he would be trapped in gold by tesoro or that they’d all have a dramatic coordinated outfit change once he was free so what the fuck was he doing? why did he wear that? who wears two jackets for no reason?
– “if i’m gonna be a statue I want it to be in this pose” “i’m glad I struck a pose”
– remember when zoro fought mr. 1 in alabasta and mr. 1 dropped a stone building on him and he was just like “this is a rocky day” or smth equally awful? i hate him
– the tarzan yell in skypiea
– actually, the goggles too.
– didn’t he try to convince someone he was fighting they were sunglasses bc they had some blinding light-based attack? I feel like he did but I don’t remember skypiea well enough to be sure
– Zoro vs the bird in skypiea. spent a fair amount of the damn arc running around skypiea getting messed w by a bird (which, according to Luffy, was more evolved than Zoro bc it had developed a sense of direction. burned by ur own captain)
– when asked why Zoro was able to speak with a sword in his mouth, oda said “IT’S HIS HEART SPEAKING”
– that colorspread Zoro where he reads a book about weightlifting while balancing a weight on top
– when Zoro fights that masochist guy in film gold (I think his name was dice?) and said some cocky ass one liner after the guy fell unconscious that went something like “What’s wrong? Didn’t it feel good? Aren’t you gonna scream in pleasure?“ awful
– Zoro almost gets murdered by Mihawk and then, later that day, tries to take on fishmen underwater. others r like “you cannot handle this, you will literally die” and Zoro doesn’t even care bc Luffy is in trouble
– he was sailing bc he left home to find mihawk and then couldn’t figure out how to get back
– remember that filler where Zoro taught Luffy how to skate but then forgot to teach him how to turn. I love both that this happened and the implication that Zoro is a person who knows how to roller skate and therefore has spent time roller skating. Zoro roller skating backstory when?
– when Zoro was fighting oz, a 500 year old corpse, he licked his sword. now, on top of licking his sword being ridiculous as hell because, listen, there’s NOTHING cool about licking your sword. you just look like a loser. but a sword that just came out of a 500 year old corpse? really? i know it was preserved by the cold and all but there’s no way it didn’t rot at all. that’s a rotted, frozen corpse. Zoro what in the HELL were you thinking. I hope you get sick
– i’m sure it probably wasn’t even the first time he licked his sword in a fight but I will say with absolute confidence he looked like a loser every single time
– I feel like he licked his sword while facing mr 1 but I can’t remember. if he did, that’s honestly iconic. stare down a dude that’s made of swords while licking yours? power move. only decent time to kick your sword
– Zoro, joining Luffy: “if you stand in the way of my dream i’ll kill you!” Zoro, a day later: “of course i’ll carry my captain in this heavy cage on my back to safety. oh this gaping wound in my side? nothing. who cares about bleeding to death, my captain needs me!”
– all those big weights he’s got. all of them.
– especially that time he was lifting weights post thriller bark after barely surviving kuma, still heavily injuries, complaining about how weak he is. buddy…
– that time in drum island where he decided to train by going swimming in the freezing ice-country water, then when he got out he got lost in the snowy mountains until he wandered into a random battle and took out some guy just to steal his coat
– this isn’t the only time he steals some random dude’s coat
– the chimney.
– that filler in smiles lobby where he gets, like, abducted by a bunch of children for a day and integrated into their family?
– Roronoa Zoro went fursuiting in dressrosa and that’s a canon fact you all must acknowledge
– speaking of being a furry anyone remember mugiwara theater?
– THE FUCKING MUGIWARA THEATER NAMES. mugiwara theater is a gift, alright? here’s some: nakamura hanzorou. zobear. ZOROMILK
– I FORGOT TO MENTION. THAT TIME ZORO N USOPP WERE HANDCUFFED TOGETHER AND ZORO TRIED TO CONVINCE USOPP TO PLAY ROCK PAPER SCISSORS WITH HIM TO SEE WHICH ONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE TO CUT THEIR HAND OFF
– also the fact that his logic was “it’ll be fine cuz chopper can just sew it back on”
– can we also talk abt how later that fight he uses Usopp as a sword because holy shit Zoro
– this isn’t technically zoro’s fault but the guy who sold him his sword to him in loguetown has a giant version of bounty image up above his bath, which……..
– barto asked for zoro’s autograph and Zoro just wrote “sword”
– the grave of the rumbar pirates was finished right around when Zoro woke up from his coma post thriller bark and Zoro decided to walk over while Brook is sitting there mourning almost everyone he ever loved and just. plops his sword—an inanimate object—in the dirt by the grave of BROOKS ENTIRE CREW like “hey i’m gonna bury this here u don’t mind tho right? cool”
– he’s lucky Brook is such a cool dude cuz if I was mourning the death of MY crew and some fuck decided to plant a rusty sword there i’d just fuckin kill em
– in Zou they were talking abt whatever and Luffy mentioned how Sanji was as strong as one thousand men and Zoro, clearly jealous that Sanji got praised by Luffy, butt in with a stuttery objection on how HE was stronger than Sanji and worth TWO THOUSAND men, which luffy ignored, and Nami had to reassure him that yes, Zoro, we know you’re strong. toddler
– this is also not technically zoro’s fault but one time someone asked oda in an sbs which strawhats would eat ice in their drink and oda answered who would n wouldn’t (Luffy, Chopper, Brook, Usopp, and Robin would, if ur wondering). Zoro was on the wouldn’t list, and some fan sent oda a letter informing him of a panel where Zoro was shown eating ice to disprove this. someone pulled zoro ice eating receipts on oda and that’s a fact we all have to live with
– the first time Zoro meets mihawk—the strongest man in the world, the man he wants to defeat someday, and incredibly powerful and impressive dude—he cries like a baby
– zoro’s been crucified like 4 times now. once in his introduction than in three movies (6, gold, nebulandia). idk why this keeps happening but honestly? keep it up
– when Brook joined the crew, Zoro said he was sorry for Brooks bad luck as if one of the first things Brook ever saw Zoro do wasn’t to try and die for the crew via Giant Paw Ball of Pain
– speaking of, i’m pretty sure half the reason zoro DIDNT die in thriller bark is because if he died via smth as silly as a giant paw ball his injured pride would kill him again
– I was going to make fun of Zoro for wearing only a suit and a fake mustache in dressrosa as a disguise but then I realized, like, given how absolutely shredded Zoro was in Punk Hazard and how that suit somehow managed to squish it all down without zoro ripping the sleeves off? solid disguise
– when merry was burning and everyone’s bawling and remembering great memories on the ship and Zoro was standing there, 100% stoic, remembering a nap
– Zoro saw marines (Garp) coming to Water 7 while Luffy was still unconscious and ran off to warn the others but couldn’t find his way back to the hotel
– that G8 filler where he falls off a cliff in pursuit of his swords
– speaking of fillers, remember that amnesia one? (ha). highlights include Zoro trying to physically fight a small sea horse (plus Usopp doing a bad lip-syncing) and Zoro swimming through the Grand Line with his swords tied to his head by his bandana
– meets a dragon, eats the dragon
– it got mentioned once that Sanji and Nami canonly help Zoro and the other guys get dressed. so every time Zoro wears something absolutely ridiculous (which is often), it’s probably Sanjis doing
– “I can’t believe I cut a freaking booger!!”
– speaking of, remember that time Luffy flicked a booger into Zoro’s drink at the Baratie and Zoro tried to force him to drink it?? remember that?? I hate them both
– that time Zoro was trying to find the Right Eye in Skypiea, said that (though the path to get there was STRAIGHT AHEAD) all he had to do to find the right eye was just keep going right (even though that would just lead him in circles!). and then after that do you know what direction he went?? do you know?? he fucking went left
– the time Zoro got lost walking on a straight path in a filler.
– Zoro lost to a guy in a fight and just fucking let the dude cut him in half. like, yes, the baratie scene was all cool as all hell and I love it but Zoro did in fact basically invite a dude to cut him in half
– when they were hit by negative hollows and everyone else said stuff that was kinda funny but Zoro went straight up “I don’t deserve to exist” please honey talk to someone
– he was fighting Kaku and kept engaging in Kaku’s devil fruit bs and then berating himself for being uncool as if he wasn’t already fighting a giant giraffe
– to end this list, I want to get to Zoro’s absolute worst offense. remember when Zoro fought Kaku and he did that asura form thing? where he straight up grew four extra arms and two extra heads, all wielding swords? what the FUCK was that? and don’t tell me “fighting spirit” alright. that’s bull. people don’t just GROW EXTRA SWORD-WIELDING BODY PARTS because they’re just REALLY INTO a FIGHT. like I know this is One Piece and shit’s ridiculous all this time but this? this is too much. even for One Piece this is too much. this is so ridiculous. there has to be a line, even in One Piece, with what these guys are allowed to get away with. I can accept haki so good you can see the future. I can accept spinning so fast you set your leg on fire. I can accept being made of springs. I can accept booger bombs. I can accept all that and more, but this? this is where i take my stand. Roronoa Zoro cannot keep getting away with this! fighting spirit is just not an explanation. and the worst part? the absolute worst part?
– Zoro makes four extra limbs and two extra heads, all armed with swords, MATERIALIZE out of THIN AIR with absolutely NO REAL EXPLANATION and then pretty much NEVER DOES IT AGAIN! he did it once in sabaody (and once in strong world) and then hasn’t done it since! everyone else uses the power ups they got in enies lobby all the time but Zoro, somewhere out there, knows how fuckin sick this attack is (bc yeah it’s ridiculous as hell but like I still enjoy it) and he just won’t do it again. not once post timeskip has he used it at all. Roronoa Zoro knows what he’s doing and he is out there, right now, laughing
– roronoa zoro is one of my top three favorite one piece characters and I make this list entirely out of love. (feel free to add on more moments I may have missed and i’ll add them)
the only thing I wanted was to forget ‘’zoromilk’’ once and for all but ya’ll won’t let me have it
i cant believe u made me read “roronoa zoro went fursuiting in dressrosa” with my own two eyes
what’s really telling about Akainu isn’t even that he is a dick to pirates, but how when his fellow comrade of decades, Kuzan, who has never willingly moved a finger in his life unless he really, really had to and doesn’t care about rang or promotion at all, heard that Akainu is also a candidate Fleet Admiral went like “lmao I’d rather literally fight him to death than letting that happen”
the small details and joys that make One Piece so great
what I truly love about One Piece that it’s full of unexpected joy. I mean really, really unexpected joy. The kind that exists pretty much nowhere else. I’m not talking about Luffy’s kindness, because that’s connected the plot, part of the main storyline – I’m talking about the little, absolutely unnecessary little details that could be easily omitted from the main story, yet, here they are.
Let’s take Buggy, is there anyone who tought he’d be more than the baddie of the week? Yet he just kept appearing, and the fact that he’s a Shichibukai now is just. Goddamn. Hilarious. We all know that he has no buissness doing any serious piracy, but damn, we can’t help but root for him at this point. Fake it till you make it, Buggy boi.
Or take Bon-chan, he started out as a annoying caricature, turned out to be pretty cool and then a noble-hearted dude after Alabasta. After a while, after we’ve forgotten about him a long time ago – Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark and Sabaody happened, duh – we meet him again in Impel Down!! A little friendship and kindness in the dark. How he helps Luffy through the hardships of Impel Down, rooting for him as he fights the poison, how he stays behind, sacrificing himself again is just. Wow. Bon-chan truly is the real MVP.
It would have been easy to write around him – don’t poison Luffy, let Ace destory the Marine ships at Alabasta, have Boa or the promotion-hungry Hannyabal open the Gates of Justice at Impel Down. It’d even have been way easier than spending the ink and pages on him, yet here he is.
We have Zoro, Mikawk and Perona, the three of them not only being polar opposites, but they have literally no reason or means to even really meet at all in civil life. Like, Zoro is with Luffy, Mihawk is either nagging Shanks or some random pirates, or pouting in his castle, while Perona is at Thriller Bark.
And yet, somehow fate – and Kuma – brings them together, and they became the wierdest and most unexpectedly candy-colored goth family in existence. Think about how we got to know Perona! She was just some random annoying one timer side-villian. And a few hundred chapters later she’s accompanying Zoro to Sabaody!! Simply because she was worried that he’d get lost!! And, as we see on the cover pictures, she even stucks with Mihawk after that. The only reason being is that they just simply got to like each other’s company during those 2 years. No villianous plot against our heroes, no planned revenge, no some mystery alliance, no further advancement to the plot. They just do everyday stuff like farming and playing with baby bears. Probably daydrinking a lot. Just two very extra human beings being absolutely mundane. I love them.
There was no reason at all, from a writer’s point of view, to bring back Perona. No one would have cared. These kind of characters are always kept separate, they live in different circles. No one even liked her – but this is just great:
(u bitch, as if you didn’t remeber breaking two of his).
Or, a wierd example at the first glance, Sengoku. Law already had his sob backstory, a truly tragic, sad, and well-written one. The amber lead poisoning, the whole Dofflamingo-Rosinante Tenryuubito affair, etc. It gave a lot of depth to the charaters, gave information about the Goverment’s corruption, reason for the upcoming battle against Dofflamingo. It would have been more than enough for Corazon to die saving Law from his brother. Honestly, it’s fucking tragic even by One Piece standards, where everyone and their dog’s got a past that makes you cry.
But there’s also Sengoku in the picture. We don’t really know anything about him, how he is as a person. It doesn’t really matter. But here it turns out that he too, like Law, loved Corazon as family, as a son, and now the only person he can share this feeling is the kid-became-a-pirate that he died saving. His grief, his connection to Law doesn’t give any plus as far as the story goes. It’s like Perona’s and Mihawk’s case – normally no other writer would connect two charaters as separate as they are.
Garp taking in Ace, saving the Pirate King’s son was absolutely crucial to the plot, to Luffy, to the main events unfolding on the long run, not that it takes any of his credit away. But in Sengoku’s case it doesn’t change a thing – he didn’t raise Law or saved him at Dressrosa. He could have been completely left out. He’s just another big name character, an antagonist, a fleet admiral who helped to kill Ace. Yet turns out he’s also just another human being, who grieves someone he loved.
Koala is similar too – she shoudn’t have been more than a plot device little girl to show us how bad the tenryuubito were and how kind Fisher Tiger was, maybe how the human-gyojin realtionships were going, but then! We see her again as an adult in the Revolutionary army! As Sabo’s partner! She’s a gyojin-karate instructor now! She’s alright and happy!! Like, it could have been just some other random girl, but then we never would have known that. Thanks, Oda.
Laboon! We all shed some tears when Luffy promised him to visit him after becoming Pirate King, didn’t we. And we kind of put him aside too – we knew it’d take a long time till they can meet again, and we’d just have to hope this scene woudn’t get lost by the – probably very eventful – end of the manga.
But then! Then! We meet Brook at Thriller Bark!! A member of the original crew that sailed with Laboon! And they haven’t forgotten about him at all, they were planning to go back! And Brook still does, and can only be persuated to stay with them after hearing about the new promise. Now the both the old and the original one will be fulfilled the same time!!!
It’s supposed to be a small thing, bc what is meeting a whale compared to the grand events unfolding. But maybe that’s it – it’s so small, so “meaningless” in the bigger picture, all of these are, that it’s really just nothing but the endless kindness and love this series is just full of with. They are really nothing but a wonderful gift to the reader.
And the best thing is, they all work by the inner logic of their world, they aren’t just random lucks and miracles. Why wouldn’t Kuma send Perona to the next best horror island he knows? He sent everyone the best place possible, and Peronsa likes this stuff. Why wouldn’t Bon Clay be in prison after getting caught by the Marines? After experiencing what she had, of course Koala would leave her village and join the rebel army. Buggy did really serve on the Pirate King’s ship, escaped Impel Down, was at Marineford, buddies with Shanks, no wonder people mistake him for a bigshot.
(These are also great for worldbuilding – there is an actual, lived-in world with people and their motives surrounding our heroes. The Earth doesn’t revolve around them, after all.)
This kind of attention to detail One Piece has is just wonderful, we all know that – but what really makes is so awesome (and heartwarming) are the little unimportant events ones like these.
Alright can we talk about how multifaceted Katakuri is?
– Loyal to his mother (but perhaps more out of obligation than genuine ambition) – Cares about his siblings – But also knows when to reprimand his siblings – Killed like 5 people – Blushes when he’s embarrassed
– Sings to himself while eating donuts
– Biker goth aesthetic
– Made out of squishy mochi
– Has a literal Glasgow Grin and the teeth of a shark
– Could actually step on you
– Could literally bite your head off
– Straightforward, smart and level-headed
– But still concerned and feels pressure from his family to perform to a certain standard?
– And gets angry when he’s caught in a vulnerable position?
– Honourable, respectful (shown over the course of the fight with Luffy)
– Able to develop genuine connections with people
– Not a sore loser
We’ve got a leather-wearing, tattooed giant who could kill you in several different ways, who gets upset about his afternoon tea and sings about desserts, feels pressured by his family and has to deal with insecurities, but would still kick your ass while doing so.
In conclusion, what the fuck. How Oda continues to pump out characters as interesting and empathetic and genuinely believable as Katakuri is just astoundingーa character this complex despite only being in the manga for 40~ chapters. I already miss him.
Stressed, Depressed, and Story Obsessed 