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During 2024’s celebration of One Piece Day, an annual event for new announcements for theOne Piecefranchise, new details of the upcoming reboot,The One Piece, were finally released. While there still isn’t a trailer or a release date, the staff at Wit Studio finally spoke at length about what they were trying to do with the series, and more importantly, concept art for the series was finally released.
The concept art forThe One Piecewas met with largely positive reception, with most people praising it for faithfully recreating Eiichiro Oda’s art style, but a major point of contention arose with Usopp’s design. Usopp’s design also captures the basic aesthetic of Oda’s art style, but beyond that,Usopp’s skin tone inThe One Piecehas been depicted in a way that’s drawn accusations of racism from fans and critics alike.
This isn’t the first time the franchise has been met with those sorts of criticisms, and the issues surrounding it are far more complicated than one might think.
The One Piece Is The Latest Series Accused Of Whitewashing Usopp
One Of One Piece’s Biggest Controversies Continues
One of the signature hallmarks of Usopp’s design has always been his dark skin tone, with Eiichiro Oda even stating thatUsopp would be African in the real world. For the most part,One Piecehas consistently depicted Usopp with darker skin than the rest of the Straw Hats, most of whom would be from Western or Asian countries if they existed in real life according to Oda, yet surprisingly,The One Piece’s concept art depicts Usopp with noticeably pale skin that isn’t that much darker than anyone else’s, thus sparking accusations of whitewashing and racism toward the series.
What makes things worse is that this isn’t the first time those sorts of criticisms have been levied about the anime’s depiction of Usopp. While Usopp is usually depicted as having darker skin than the rest of the main cast, there have been numerous times when Usopp’s skin tone has been inconsistent, the most noticeable and recent example being howOne Piece’s Egghead Island arc depicts Usopp as being completely light-skinned from the very start.The One Pieceis just the latest example of something like this happening to Usopp, and unfortunately, it’s unlikely to be the last.
One Piece’s Long History Of Allegedly Whitewashing Its Cast
Usopp Isn’t The First Time One Piece Has Been Accused Of Whitewashing
The accusations of Usopp being whitewashed in theOne Pieceanimeare bad, and they’re far from the only example. A rather infamous example of this is how Nico Robin was depicted with dark skin in the anime for years, but after the timeskip, it was completely erased and she was depicted as having pale skin in all the years to follow. Granted,the change in Robin’s skin tone was theOne Pieceanime correcting the original change they made to her character, but it’s still a very egregious example that undoubtedly caught many longtime viewers off-guard.
A more straightforward example comes from the Seraphim introduced in the Egghead Island arc. The Seraphim were created partially from the lineage factor of King, another character with dark skin, and while the Seraphim also have dark skin,One Piece’s anime consistently depicts S-Snake as having lighter skin than the other Seraphim, even though they’re all drawn with the same skin tone in the mangadue to all of them being created from King’s genes. That example always shows itself when the Seraphim are standing next to each other, and with every new episode, it becomes increasingly hard to ignore.
Why The Issue Of Usopp’s Skin Tone In One Piece Is So Complicated
Usopp’s Skin Tone Isn’t As Cut & Dry As People Think
On the surface, everything surrounding Usopp would seem to be part ofOne Piece’s long and unfortunate history of whitewashing its cast, but the issue is far more complicated than that. While Usopp is typically depicted with dark skin in colored illustrations, not only is it never to the extent of the anime, but in the regular black-and-white pages,Usopp is drawn with the same skin tone as the majority of characters inOne Piece, despite being a canonicallyblack anime character.
Another point to consider is Usopp’s in-universe heritage. While Yasopp is consistently depicted as a dark-skinned character, Usopp’s mother, Banchina, had white skin in both the anime and the manga, so Usopp should canonically have lighter skin than other dark-skinned characters inOne Pieceand anime and manga, in general. Because of that,any instances of Usopp being depicted with white skin inOne Piececould stem from his canonical biracial heritage, but it goes too far with that, either way.
With how Eiichiro Oda draws Usopp,The One Piecetechnically isn’t wrong to depict Usopp with lighter skin, but it’s an odd decision, nonetheless. Not only is Usopp explicitly stated to be African, butthe casting of Jamaican actor Jacob Gibson inNetflix’s live-actionOne Piecereinforced the idea of Usopp being a black character, as does the casting of the South African actor Chante Grainger as Banchina. It’s been made increasingly hard to deny Usopp’s African roots, and that makes the times when he’s not depicted in a way that’s inconsistent with that all the weirder.
Why Usopp’s Alleged Whitewashing Is A Problem For One Piece
Whitewashing Will Never Not Be An Issue In Media
Usopp being whitewashed inThe One Pieceand other media is a major problem for several reasons. For starters, there’s an inconsistency with Usopp, Robin, S-Snake, and other characters not having consistently dark skin while characters like Yasopp, King, Kuzan, and Blackbeard, with Blackbeard being Somalian according to Eiichiro Oda, have been consistently depicted with dark skin since their debuts. That creates the idea thatOne Piecehas been reinforcing the idea that it’s wrong for a major character in a story to look too dark, an extension of colorism that’s unfortunately far too common in modern day.
Another problem is how the whitewashing runs contrary to one of the major themes ofOne Piece’s story. Ever since the early days of the series,One Piecehas gone to great lengths to celebrate all cultures of the world as tastefully as possible through artwork and allusions, and the Western influence put into many of the characters has always been a big part of that. Because of that,theOne Pieceanime repeatedly downplaying Usopp’s canonical status as a dark-skinned character goes against the international themes of the story, and it’s always disappointing to see that crop up.
Usopp is a rare example of a black character in an anime being a major character and being treated respectfully from their debut, something that was especially uncommon in the 90s, soOne Piece’s habit of whitewashing Usopp erases one of the most progressive elements of the series for reasons that are hard to see as anything but negative. Whether there was any ill intent withThe One Pieceand other media doing this is unknown, but regardless, it’s a major problem that’s unfortunately unlikely to be solved anytime soon.
One Piece
Created by Eiichiro Oda, One Piece is a multimedia franchise that began as a manga series and follows the adventures of the Straw Hat Pirates as led by Monkey D. Luffy. Luffy, an enthusiastic pirate with a thirst for adventure, is afflicted by a mysterious curse that gives him various powers he uses to protect himself and his friends. The manga eventually gave way to the anime series, with the two being some of history’s longest-running anime and manga series. Along with over fifty video games made over the years, the series entered the live-action world with Netflix’s 2023 adaptation.
