ONE PIECE VILLAINS # 6 : ARLONG

ARLONG

In my opinion the first truly great villain in One Piece is the sawfish fishman Arlong who was once a member of the Sunny Pirates. This was a pirate crew of all fishman that was once led by Fisher Tiger and later Jimbei. After they broke up Arlong took some of the remnants of the crew and created hsi own pirate crew. Arlong decided it was best to take over the world one sea at a time starting with the weakest East Blue. With his years of experience as a pirate he knew East Blue was well known for being the easiest prey for Fishmen who are far stronger than ordinary humans. His arrival in East Blue was around the time when Nami was but a small child and way before Luffy's adventure began. He used an idea of extorting money for protection form villagers rather than going through the trouble of wreaking havoc on numerous island to gain his wealth and power. This method worked well for him until the fateful day Monkey D. Luffy arrived at Arlong Park.

Arlong's design and strength went way beyond those of other villains Luffy had faced until this point and made him a very memorable villain even to this day. Arlong's main characteristic was his hatred for humans as far as calling them lesser life forms than Fishmen. This trait is one thing that probably allowed him to torment them so easily with no remorse. This aided him with his excessive love for money and enable him to take advantage of the physically weaker humans in East Blue for his own motives. Also as we later find out more of Fishman history we can see how truly well developed Arlong's character is at this time. His motives and past once revealed allow us to see he had much more to him than most other villains at the time in One Piece. His racist attitude is a new concept because he does not just despise people he actually thinks they are inferior to Fishmen in every aspect. He is also a villain which hurt to a vast extent one of Luffy's soon to be crew mates in the form of Nami. With this we actually begin to have more vested in hating him as a villain since he destroyed the life of someone we had gotten to knwo and care for throughout the journey. This could be one reason most people still remember him vividly when they think back to old viallins in One Piece. Another thing is he has some redeemable qualities in the fact he cares for his crew as opposed to most of the villains we have seen so far. Once he finds out they have been injured by the human scum of Luffy and the others he goes into a great outrage. Although he shares this trait with Luffy he still far away from being a good person, but we can understand his pain once we learn of the Fishman history in the Saobody Arc.

His skill and power as a fighter are supposedly unmatched in East Blue, because of his Fishman strength and crew. He also has brought a creature from the Grandline which also garners him more fear an power. He has tremendous fighting capabilities as well as certain attributes that make him a very dangerous opponent to Luffy. He can regrow his teeth and has a supposedly unbreakable razor sharp nose at his disposal that inflicts great damage on all he touches. As he fights he even gets stronger with his rage and it powers him up even more. With all his advantages Arlong seem to be a shoe in to defeat Luffy, but once Luffy understands the pain Nami went through there is no stopping him. As this fight ends the entirety of Arlong Park is destroyed and all the Fishmen are soundly defeated. The island and Nami's village are finally free from this horrible tyrant. This is the beginning of Luffy developing his true strength of character that he will use much throughout  One Piece .

As I stated before Arlong is a very important villain in the scheme of things and not only is he unique, but he also helps to improve our understanding and love for Luffy. Many people have said the Arlong Park arc of One Piece is what sold them on the story and made them true fans. This is mainly due to the greatness and believability of Arlong as a villain. Therefore to me Arlong is the best villain of the entire East Blue saga and still to this day ranks up there with many of Luffy's other great enemies. Feel free to let me know what you thought about Arlong and give me your perspective on him. If you liked this feel free to share it with other like minded people and if you hated it do not tell me so I don't cry.

ONE PIECE VILLAINS #5: DON KRIEG

DON KRIEG

Don Krieg was a monstrous pirate captain know for being a pirate who commanded an armada of 50 ships with over 5,000 men. Even though Krieg had tremendous brute strength his real strength was in his vast fleet and crew. He also used many underhanded tricks and weapons to win his battles, but he did not have the true heart of a great pirate. He let his success in East Blue go to his head and he ventured to the Grandline and was easily defeated by one man, Mihawk.

When we first meet him he has just come crawling back to East Blue in an attempt to try and regain some of his former power by procuring the Baratie to be his new secret weapon pirate ship, so that he can use it for sneak attacks. These dirty tricks of his show his lack of true fighting spirit. This is realized by Luffy especially when he disregards the safety of his own crew to win a battle. No matter how many men or weapons or tricks Krieg employed he was defeated by one man Luffy.

As Krieg went i did not care for his character on iota. He was rotten even by pirate standards and the gran scheme of things was a very small pirate. the character design as fine and had its unique traits. However, the character itself was limited and was just carbon copy of lots of greedy uncaring villains that have come before him. Feel free to let me know what you thought about Krieg in comments and such. While he was a challenge to Luffy at the time I would not even come close to labeling him a great villain or even worth remembering as compared to others created by Oda.

ONE PIECE VILLAINS #4: CAPTAIN KURO

CAPTAIN KURO



Kuro is a fearsome pirate who when we first meet him is secretly in disguise as a butler named  Kurahadol. At the time we think he is nothing but an over protective butler for Kaya, but it is soon revealed that he is no ordinary butler, but Captain Kuro himself. For Kuro had not liked the life of a pirate because he hated being hunted down by the marines and grew weary of doing so. Therefore he developed a plan to fake his own death and hide away until he could gather a fortune in another method. Kuro was well known for planning and have a brilliant intellect which he always used to his advantage as a pirate and would make extremely elaborate plans. This plan involved becoming friendly with Kaya and having her sign over all the wealth to him then having the Black Cat pirates kill her. Well fortunately Ussop overhears this and Luffy attempts to help him in doing so. This is when we finally get to see Kuro in action and learn even more about his horrible ways.

Once Luffy and the others interfere with his plans Kuro himself decides to fight. Although he is a very smart man he still has great prowess in the area of combat. His two main attack advantages are a set of giant claws and his ability to have superhuman speed with which to move faster than most people can perceive. In employing these two methods of attack he becomes a very tough opponent for Luffy and so far into the story cause alot more damage to him than any other enemy before . As he fights he reveal how he set his plan into motion, as any good villain would do, that he had faked his own death. The methods he use to do so are deplorable and horrendous to an average person, but to Luffy and many pirates would be the worst crime possible. He got a crew memeber who looked like him and had Jango hypnotise him to believe he was Kuro and turned him over to Morgan ( who was also hypnotised) and then he was executed in his place. The lack of respect for his crew makes Kuro a evil pirate even more so than many others. This code of protecting your crew is very important to some of the most infamous pirates in One Piece . Also as Luffy put it Kuro was worthless for not being willing to except the life of a pirate so he should not be one. These traits make Kuro a very despisable character to me and many others.

For overall Kuro was a terrible person who did not value his crew in the least and would use any method at hand to stay free and safe. These lack of ethics and morals are possibly what led to his downfall as well. Since we see most major pirates have a great crew which care for one another, while Kuro only had people who feared him. The lack of understanding this makes me think Kuro was not as smart as he thought he was . Although he was supposedly more powerful and more intelligent than Luffy he was handily defeated by this unknown rookie. So obviously he was missing some key ingredients to being a great pirate captain. So feel free to let me know what you thought of Kuro and where you place him amongst the villain Luffy faced. Overall to me at the time he seemed a very powerful pirate, but as the show progress it was easy to see he was nothing more than an arrogant bully.

HAKI DISCUSSION BY JMANSPRODUCTION

I have not talked about this subject much yet, but i liked his video so I'm linking it here so check it out and if you like it go to his channel and subscribe and leave him some comments.
his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/jmansproductions