My Favorite Female Characters in One Piece
One Piece is an adventure manga written and drawn by the genius Eiichiro Oda. Spanning more than one thousand chapters, and still going strong, it has become the world’s best-selling work written by a single author. There are many reasons why this manga has become such a critically acclaimed piece of work. From the story structure and world building, to the characters and devastating emotional punches, simply no one writes a story like Eiichiro Oda. Naturally, I’ve become a big fan over the years, and I thought it was about time I gave some love to Oda’s masterpiece, hence, me making this list.
I originally planned to make this list including all my favorite characters, however, I decided to limit this list to only females, since I rarely see anyone discussing the many brilliant ladies in One Piece. Also, One Piece has several transgender characters and, to simplify things, I decided to keep this list limited to those characters born of the female sex. So, unfortunately, we will not be seeing characters like Kiku or Ivankov in today’s list. Now without further delay, let’s start the list with some honorable mentions.
Honorable mentions
Viola
Viola has an amazing character design and a overpowered devil fruit that grants her clairvoyance. Viola also gifted us with a “telenovela” style love story between her and Sanji, and her status as a princess of the Riku family provided with an additional emotional anchor that made us side against the Heavenly Demon, Doflamingo, in the Dressrosa arc.
Charlotte Smoothie
One of the best designed characters to come out of the Whole Cake Island arc, which in itself boasts some of the most imaginative art in the whole series, Smoothie is a strong fighter and a commander in Big Mom’s crew. Her devil fruit power, the “shibo-shibo” no mi, allows her to drain liquid out of people, which she can use as a direct attack, or to augment her own strength, making her a powerful foe. Hopefully, we will get to see more of her in the series.
Dadan
The bandit who begrudgingly raised Luffy and his brothers, Dadan is an amazing and funny maternal figure, who will fight to the death for her adoptive children.
Bell-mere
The last honorable mention is Bellemere, Nami and Nojiko’s adoptive mother. A badass retired marine with a gigantic heart, Bellemere’s relationship and story with Nami is one of the most memorable moments in the whole series, and the first moment where many of us became One Piece fans.
Nefertari Vivi — A tier
Vivi was the character at the emotional center of the Alabasta Saga. Her character agency and her dedication to her country motivated our small Straw Hat crew to get involved in an entire civil war, orchestrated by a charismatic and menacing antagonist in Sir Crocodile. For a long time Vivi felt like a crew member, and with recent events in the manga, such as the reverie and the foreshadowed “cleansing” mentioned by the “Gorosei”, it is becoming clear just what an important character Vivi is and will be for future plot developments.
Princess Shirahoshi — A tier
The mermaid princess of the Ryugyu family first appeared in the Fishman Island saga. Standing before our eyes, a giant mermaid and an annoying crybaby, it really took a while for me to warm up to her. However, in the Fishman Island arc, Shirahoshi proved to be a gentle, kind hearted and emotionally strong mermaid. Her importance in the story became exponentially larger when it was revealed that she was one of the ancient weapons capable of controlling the Sea Kings and destroying the world, ironically making her one of the most formidable characters in the story, and, probably, an indispensable ally for the imminent “final war”.
Charlotte Linlin (Big Mom) — A tier
Speaking of formidable characters, next on our list is arguably the strongest female character in all of One Piece, one of the four Emperors of the Sea, Charlotte Linlin, aka, “Big Mom”. A walking natural disaster, Big Mom is a danger to both friend and foe alike, and an unstoppable monster. With her Soul-Soul Fruit, Big Mom is able to remove lifespan from people, which she requires as payment if you decide to leave her country. She can also infuse souls into inanimate objects, creating a sentient servant out of anything. Armed with her strongest servants, which she infused with her own soul, Big Mom is a force to be reckoned with, and a foe I strongly suggest running away from.
Charlotte Pudding — S Tier
Another one of Big Mom’s daughters, Pudding is a member of the mysterious three eyed race and the wielder of a Devil Fruit that allows the user to alter other people’s memories. A character that fooled us many times during the Whole Cake Island arc, Pudding provided amazing plot twists and hilarious comedy, cementing her as my pick for future Mrs. Vinsmoke.
Vinsmoke Reiju — S Tier
Sanji’s blood sister, Reiju is a genetically engineered super soldier with the ability “Poison Pink”, that allows her to consume any poison and turn it into a weapon in various ways. Besides having poison powers, she also has supernatural strength, agility, an awesome raid suit design and a super cool transformation sequence. Most importantly, she is one of the more kind hearted members of the Vinsmoke family, and her loving nature earns her a placement on the S Tier.
Yamato — S Tier
As of August 2021, Yamato remains a spoiler for anime only watchers. Yamato is a self-proclaimed “Kozuki Oden” and the only offspring of Kaido “The King of Beasts”. As expected from the daughter of the strongest creature in the world, Yamato is a beast when it comes to combat. Using a kanabo as her primary weapon, Yamato has fought Kaido many times in the past while trying to become free of her abusive father, as well as trying to make Kozuki Oden’s wish of opening Wano’s borders come true. In on of the most recent chapters, it was revealed that Yamato has the mythical Dog-Dog fruit model Makami, a legendary wolf in Japanese mythology and the guardian deity of Wano. Besides having an awesome character design and being ridiculously strong, Yamato has an incredibly quirky personality, running around dressed like Kozuki Oden, and even going as far as stealing Oden’s identity. In a short span of chapters, Yamato has already become a fan favorite character, and I cannot wait to see what Oda has in planned for this character. Yamato for nakama!
Perona — S+ Tier
Perona is a ghost girl with a gothic looking character design that I just never get tired of looking at. She was one of the highlights of the Thriller Bark arc, and one of my favorite secondary characters. With her “negative ghosts” who made anyone who touched them lose the will to live, Perona provided a legitimate challenge to the Straw Hats in Thriller Bark, and some incredible comedy when Zoro met her at Mihawk’s mansion. I cannot wait until we get more Perona back in the story!
Boa Hancock — S+ Tier
The Snake Princess and leader of the Kuja Pirates, Boa Hancock is probably the second strongest female in One Piece, just behind Big Mom. One of the rare people who can use all three types of Haki, Boa is a queen in all possible ways. Considered the most beautiful woman in the world, her character design screams beauty and status. With her beauty used to compound her devil fruit ability, the Mero-Mero no mi (love-love fruit), that allows her to turn into stone anyone that feels sexual desire towards her, Boa is capable of destroying 99.9% of the in-universe characters in just one shot. However, behind all that proud, cold-hearted exterior, Boa is just a lovely, big hearted girl with a tragic past that made her toughen up her exterior to defend her family and her country. Her school girl crush on Luffy has provided some of the best comedic moments in the series, and her badass attitude and strength is not to be underestimated.
Nico Robin — S+ Tier
Nico Robin is the archeologist of the Straw Hat pirates, and one of the main girls of the story. Nico Robin is the only person alive who can read the ancient language, and effectively decipher all of the secrets of the One Piece world, including what the Will of D is and the true history that happened in the void century. Nico Robin is such an important part of One Piece, that the story could not exist without her. I could talk all day about how tragic her past is, how she is a pure soul we must protect, how the world government put a bounty on her head when she was 8 years old, or how her devil fruit powers grant her the ability to make body parts appear wherever she wants. From her quiet and collected personality, to her morbid and frightening sense of humor, Nico Robin, the “Devil Child”, is one of the most beloved members of our crew, and a devil to all who hurt her friends.
Nami — S+ Tier
We cannot talk about One Piece females if we don’t include our lovely navigator, Nami. Nami has always been present in the story, since the earliest of Oda’s sketches. An integral part to our journey, without Nami, our crew would have drowned at sea ages ago. Not only is she the world’s greatest navigator, but she is also really good at stealing, earning herself the epithet “Cat Burglar”. Although Nami is one of the weakest fighters in our crew, you cannot underestimate her ability to create storms and lightning using weather science, which she uses to quickly dispatch fodder and even high ranking commanders in strong crews. She is also a scary cat who tries to hide or manipulate opponents instead of fighting, leading to many funny scenes in the story. Nami’s talents for manipulating, stealing, weather controlling and navigating are only matched by her proficiency in cartography, which she uses to make her dream of drawing a map of the world come true. In spite of all this, the most character defining trait that Nami has is her loving relationship with each and every single one of the Straw Hat crew members. She scolds them when they do stupid things, she cries when they are sad, she fears for them when they are in danger, she tries to mediate when there is an argument, she defends them when she needs to, and she takes care of them every day, navigating the ship safely on the worlds most treacherous of seas. The big sister of everyone on the crew, Nami is arguably the most important female character of this amazing manga, and a brilliant character.
