It doesn’t matter if they’re hassling a small village, a rival pirate, or if they’re a brutal ruler over the innocent. Today, we’re ranking the best villains in One Piece.
Characters in One Piece are fairly straightforward; what you see is often what you get with the Straw Hat crew and a good portion of the overall cast, with stories involving twists and betrayal being parts of just two arcs.
This is the same case for the villains, and while this does make figuring out the antagonist for the arc often easy, it does help keep the story in the anime simple.
The Straw Hats find themselves making friends wherever they go; however, with every ally they gain, they also earn the ire of an insanely powerful enemy that guns straight for Luffy and their friends. Each villain often has some form of tyrannical rule over the innocent or wrongdoing towards the Straw Hats, making it all the better when we finally see them fall.
10. Rob Lucci
Rob Lucci is the perfect soldier who follows orders without any trace of conscience standing in his way. This leads to brutal situations led by the strongest member of the Marine’s secret assassin group “CP9” including his fight with Luffy in Enis Lobby when old Straw Hat barely beats a win out of the leopard-man.
The secret agent has since moved up in the world to the CP0, where he wreaks havoc on Egghead Island in a fight against a Gear 5 Luffy and now Zoro as the chaos unfolds. Rob Lucci is a cold murderer who takes no qualms in killing whoever he is ordered to, be it a single target or an entire country’s army that’s being held hostage, so the opposition has nothing to bargain.
9. Sir Crocodile
As soon as the Straw Hat crew enter the Grand Line, they’re met with the hostile forces of Baroque Works, a criminal organization so secretive, even they don’t know who their boss is, and if anyone finds out, it’s a death sentence. Crocodile only reveals himself as the head of Baroque Works when his plan is finally implemented.
Crocodile’s big scheme to upheave the kingdom of Arabasta to find the hidden Ponyglyph in hopes of learning about the ancient weapon “Pluton,” fuelling an ill-informed rebellion against the kind king. He makes short work of Luffy, giving one of the most shocking scenes in One Piece at the time, until his weakness is revealed, leading to the downfall of one of the most impactful villains in the series.
8. Donquixote Doflamingo
Born the son of a Celestial Dragon, Doflamingo had everything he ever wanted and reveled in it, so when his father makes the family leave, abandoning their title, resulting in the family being hunted down and his father killed and splitting from his brother. Doflamingo was fueled with hatred to regain his status by any means necessary, leading to a rise in the criminal underworld.
With the formation of his crew, he follows the idea that they always take care of their own to the extent of brutal means. Doflamingo is one of the cruelest individuals ever to hit the scene in One Piece, making a king and his forces murder and attack the citizens in Dressrosa, which they took over and ruled with an iron fist, and killing his own brother because he “betrayed” him.
7. Admirals
The strongest military force of the Marines, the Admirals are a bunch to look out for. They’re some of the strongest characters in a series, even matching the strength of the Yonko. We see some of their tremendous feats during the Marineford War where they posed as the biggest threat to Whitebeard Pirates.
After the time skip, Kuzan left the Marines while Sakazuki was promoted to become the new Fleet Admiral. Fujitora and Ryokugyu have taken their places, with Kizaru remaining in his old position. Every one of this group, including the new additions, are some of our heroes’ toughest enemies.
6. Sakazuki aka Akainu
What gives Akainu his infamy is the way he treats his own subordinates as disposable; if they don’t see things his way and obey orders, they’ll face this lava-filled wrath. Of course, we need to mention how Akainu is the one who gave Luffy his X-shaped scar on his chest and killed his brother Ace during the Summit War at Marineford.
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While we haven’t seen much of Akainu since he became Sakazuki, we know his promotion to Fleet Admiral of the Marines was met with contention from the more conscious Admiral, Aokiji. This led to a huge fight that divided the climate of Punk Hazard and Aokiji, losing part of his leg. Since the Marines have been even harder on pirates since the time-skip, it’s clear that Sakazuki’s tenure as the top brass of the Navy is a scorched-Earth approach, to say the least.
5. Big Mom
Big Mom, also known as Charlotte Linlin, wants nothing more than a big family and to live without judgment of who you are. While this sounds noble, she’s also the terrifying ruler of Totto Land, where if you don’t obey her, you’ll forfeit your life, as she possesses soul-manipulating abilities that can literally take years off of your life.
When it came to forging an alliance with Kaidou, Big Mom reunites with her former fellow Rocks pirate. She causes a lot of trouble for Wano, going through a stint of amnesia and fighting Kaidous’s forces before being taken down by Trafalgar Law and Eustass Kid. Big Mom, unfortunately, has the situation of the villains surrounding her, which are much more compelling and, overall, more villainous.
4. Kaidou
“The strong deserve to live” is Kaidou’s mantra as he despises weakness and do-gooding involves himself with Kurozumi Orochi in a conspiracy to take over the kingdom of Wano, which he rules with extreme disdain for the populace, using them as fodder with the artificial Devil Fruits “SMILE” as they try to live their lives in peace after killing the heroic Kozuki Oden and laying waste to the land.
While Kaidou does involve himself with the grand scheme, he’s ultimately looking for a good fight with someone who can finally take him down, as we find out he’s a depressing drunk who doesn’t care too fondly for the infrastructure Kaidou’s created outside of his crew, going as far to admit he only saw this endeavor as a way to increase his crew’s strength and wants to destroy Wano and everyone on it until a Gear 5 Luffy puts the “World’s Strongest Creature” in his place and liberates the island.
3. The Five Elders (Gorosei)
While we’ve known about their presence for some time now, the Five Elders, aka the Gorosei, have never played a major role in the story (at least directly) until the Final Saga of One Piece. They play the primary antagonist in the Egghead Arc, revealing their powers for the first time and giving the Straw Hats their hardest obstacle yet.
Each Elder can transform into a huge mythical being, though whether their powers come from Devil Fruits hasn’t been confirmed yet. Saturn can turn into a Gyuki – an ox-spider demon. Mars becomes the Itsumade, a bird-snake demon. Warcury and Ju Peter can turn into a massive boar and worm respectively. Most interestingly, Nusjuro transforms into a skeletal horse demon known as the Bakotsu.
2. Blackbeard aka Marshall D. Teach
Where to begin with Blackbeard, from almost befriending Luffy to hunting him down, taking out in his brother Ace and turning him over to the Marines for execution, breaking into Impel Down, killing Whitebeard and stealing his abilities, he’s easily up there with the best villains. Now he’s stealing fellow Devil Fruit user’s abilities, with them seemingly dying in the process.
Blackbeard has shown a remarkable amount of similarity to Luffy in terms of their worldview for adventure and belief in dreams. However, where Luffy represents the good, lighthearted, idyllic form of piracy, Blackbeard is the gritty, realistic, murderous side pirates revel in. Blackbeard’s most recent act of villainy is the destruction of Trafalgar Law’s Heart pirates, who are missing in action and most likely captured by the evil pirate.
1. Imu
The point of the World Government is that outside of the Celestial Dragons, no one entity rules the world; this all changed when Imu entered the scene, taking the throne and demanding answers about the mysterious “Will of D” from Nefertari Cobra. The ominous Imu represents what shouldn’t be and the injustice in the world imposed by a single person’s view.
So far, their death count is one of the highest you could imagine in One Piece, with the destruction of the entire Lulusia kingdom and the aforementioned killing of King Cobra. Only Eiichiro Oda knows how Imu will come into play in the grand scheme of One Piece’s story, but from what we’ve seen, they’re one of the best villains in the series.
Those are our picks for the best villains in One Piece. For more pirate action, check out our explainers on the Void Century, Joyboy’s history, and Bonney’s Devil Fruit.
