As a side note, that pretty trans character you mentioned was also completely accepted in a women's bath by all the other women. She's canonically trans and it was still a non issue that she was in a women's bath with all the other women.

Lily Simpson's video on this gave me the best quote for explaining how Oda handles this stuff: "Oda thinks Trans people are freaks, but he also thinks being a freak is rad as hell"

Oda: *has a picture of Che Guevara in his office, and has addressed numerous social issues that leftists care about, very blantantly, in One Piece* Weeaboos: REEEEE!!! STOP SAYING ONE PIECE IS POLITICAL!!!

Iva's devil fruit power allows them to change just about every part of your appearance. Gender, voice, hair color, skin color, etc. And they seem to do so rather liberally as well. So it's implied that the okama and newkama look like that because they want to. If they wanted to change to look more "passing" i doubt Iva would tell them no. So everyone who follows Iva looks that way because they WANT to. And i honestly find them beautiful for it

I think it's worth noting that the way the Kamabakka treat Sanji is the exact same way he's treated women up until that point, so them chasing after him and acting predatory could be seen as a form of karma.

It's also important to state that Oda probably had some weird views on gender but ultimately he got there. This whole series, even ignoring the trans positivity, is ALL about found family and is heavily queer coded because of that. And ignoring that Oda literally modeled Luffy off of the good characteristics of Che Guevara and he modeled his dad, Dragon, after Castro. Luffy is always the liberator, and could be celebrated like a king. But he chooses to sail around and find another place to liberate. And now it's kind of getting to the spiritual liberation of the world and him saving the humanity thst is lost when you are ruled by a tyrannical government.

"Queers never die"

One interesting point: Even at the show’s least favourable depiction of trans characters, the Kamabakka Kingdom background characters, Sanji doesn’t kick them. Sanji has been more than willing to kick random non-women (like poor Momoo from Arlong Park) but he refuses to kick any of the Kamabakka characters, meaning he views them as women, just unattractive women, the same way he sees Kokoto from Water 7. Still not as good as he has depicted more recent trans characters, but still a point worth remembering.

I've heard people talk about Franky being a Trans icon. Transitions from human to cyborg, literally remaking himself, then he goes from calling himself Cutty Flam to Franky. He's says multiple times, don't call me Cutty Flam anymore I am Franky now. He becomes one of his own battle-franky's and just as Tom said, you have to love what you create, so he remakes himself as a show of love to himself.

Even ignoring the release dates and possible transphobia/ignorance of the Impel Down Arc, some people gotta realize almost EVERY side character is ugly, even non trans/gay characters. Like look at Big Mom, she’s clearly drawn to look ugly but is still cisgender. Ugly characters are the staple of One Piece, they’re meant to look stupid and strange and unrealistic, thats the whole point. Only the main important characters are drawn to look good.

To me, Oda has always been Pro Trans, but he was restricted in how well be could express it both ignorance and timeframe he was working in. Bon-chan is THE Nonbinary gender fluid icon. They take pride in who they are just a genuinely happy compassionate good person because of it. Even Crocodile,as shitty as he is, respected that identity. Mr 2 Bon Clay didn't need a female counterpart, as he WAS his own female counterpart. She's genderfluid and says as much by declaring they are both male and female. And Bon-chan has always been depicted in a positive light, and as a hero. Iva is in a smiliar vein. She's just happy being a queen, and is a total badass to boot. Wano gave us Kiku. Even she as a child,she presented as and said she was a girl. In fact when Luffy asked because he was confused, the exact answer she gave was "This one WAS born male, but has ALWAYS had the heart of a woman." Cause Wano is Edo Japan, checks out for how it was said. Yamato is in a similar vein. Introduces hinself as Kaido's son. Luffy doesn't question shit til the large breasts pressed against him. And only then does he ask, and once Yamato affirmed being a man, Luffy never questions it again. Even Kaido as shit of a man he is, respects Yamato's gender identity and calls him his son. Its weird, how even the worst of the pirates all just accept the gender identity and sexuality (via implications) of anyone they find.

Being genderfluid myself, I wish I had a drag queen friend who could just give me hrt whenever I felt like either gender. I honestly love the casual way that Inazuma just transitions off screen and no one questions them.

I’m still amazed that Oda wrote Bon Clay as far back as 2000. A queer character who immediately befriends the main characters and a fan favorite character. Sure, he’s technically an antagonist at the beginning, but he befriends them without knowing who they are and saves them from capture at the end of the arc.

Oda wrote bon and Iva as such badass characters they're fan favorites. If they wanted to be one gender they have the power but choose not to. I think the okama make their choice too or they'd just ask Iva for help. Okama is supposedly closer to queer than just trans which I think suits them best. Pretty cool video you covered so much so well.

One of my favorite fan theories is that Sir Crocodile, one of the first major villains of the series, is a trans man. (And also gave birth to Luffy, but that's more of a meme) There's a bunch of little things throughout the series that people use to support that fan theory, including the way that Iva talks to Crocodile.

so, i have a friend going through one piece (almost done skypeia). bon-chan is one of his favourite characters, and we've had to had the talk about how yeah, he's a japanese gay stereotype, but oda also makes him _rad as all hell._ one piece metatext is largely watching oda learn to navigate politics over the course of his life. remember, he started work on one piece unofficially as a child and got his first manga published at 17 before starting the series officially at about age 20. tell me your politics were perfect at 17 or 20 and i'll call you a damn liar, especially if you're a cis man in a conservative culture, which oda is.

Remeber the guy who shot at Iva and got force femmed? He wasn't happy about it. Iva was just giving the guard what she wanted. That's why they said the line about being more honest. Essentially their gaydar was able to pick up on her secret desire to be a woman.

My favorite part is that Mr. Two Bon Clay's battlecry gets transliterated from 'o-kama karate' to 'o-come-my-way karate' in the sub/dub, but the literal translation is just 'queer karate'

So most people don't mention her because most don't realize. My favorite trans woman comes during the reverie. She doesn't look like a conventional woman, but she's treated with respect by her comrads, anyway. I like that, if you give it the tiniest bit of thought, you under she had a choice and simply chose not to medically/surgically transition. Socially was enough for her. She's an important character to the over all story, and I'm so glad to be seeing more of her in thos final saga.

Honestly, I think we need more trans masc/trans man representation in media. We see trans women far more often. That being said, I might have to watch one piece now. Or maybe read it, because it’s a very long series. I find it funny how so many right-leaning people see Japan as a conservative heaven, when so much of the media has portrayal of queer people. Often better representation than the west (with obvious exceptions).

Without spoiling anything sensing emotions is a thing people can do in one piece so when Ivankov changed that guard to be female it was probably something that guard secretly wanted in the first place

Just a note- okama doesn't mean trans. It's more of a catchall at this point like queer, but used to just be used for feminine men that do drag. The "trans" translation is a mis-translation, in older translations it just says queer. So Bon says "queers never die" when he sees Luffy again, and the fighting style is actually queer-kenpo. Same thing goes for the kingdom. I can't find any info for the suffix "bakka" in Kamabakka but the closest is "baka" meaning "idiot" or "fool" and a "kama" is a type of scythe for harvesting crops. Since there's a possibility the "O" in "Okama" is dropped and the "k" in "Kamabakka" is added for the sake of styling, do with that what you will.

I read that Oda actually knew people from this Japenese trans/crossdressing subculture and that's where he got the inspiration from. However, since he spent like a grand majority of his life since starting OP on making OP he might not have kept up with the culture moving forward in the years since. He seems to have caught up now so that's good.

I wanted to point out that a lot of the scenes where the women of kambaka island are shown as monsterious were anime only or made worse then the manga. Like that first picture did happen in the manga but that was them helping the main charecter fighting the Navy. The anime animated them like shambling zombies but that's not how they come off in the manga.

I’m in the camp that wants to believe Sanji is trans, but deeply repressing it. He legit looked so happy when he was in a dress and makeup and didn’t snap out of it until he saw info about his crew. I think he realized he can’t have a gender crisis when there’s more important things at hand. Also later in the series he and Nami switch bodies and he begs not to be changed back. It’s also my personal theory that the trans women on the island are seen through sanji’s transphobic lense and that they actually look more like when Sanji first woke up.

Maybe a small correction, but Kuma's power just blows people away really fast. It does not read anyone's mind; Kuma just likes asking that question when he does it. Kuma chooses the location manually and he's just really accurate. Dude would kick ass at that paper football flicking game. His power is fairly similar to Nagato.

One Piece has its rough early parts (especially when it comes to lgbtq+ stuff) but Oda made it an important part of the world cause it is important. Iva is a important character same with gay bonclae Oda is also supper suportive

WAS LITERALLY THINKING ABOUT THIS THE OTHER DAY!! One Piece is super pro trans!

Here's the thing about Oda. He thinks that Trans are strange people. He also thinks that strange people are cool. His depiction of Kamabakka might have misses but he's improving. Kinda 😭

Worth mentioning, Ikanov's power doesn't change how you feel about the transformation. It's not explained, but I'd like to think that Ikanov is just so entrenched in queer culture that they just know, right? Like they just have this sage-like ability where they just look at someone and they can just tell if you're an Egg or not. It's like when a swordmaster knows someone's a novice or something, they can just tell at a glance. Also worth mentioning, One Piece recently introduced a non-passing Trans man as well, and it's one of those cases where it could be handled a bit more clearly since Oda still wants to use them for bikini pages with the other biological women and stuff, but it's one of those few times where it feels like something is actively ahead of the curve on the social conversation, right? Like it never gets questioned, everyone immediately runs with it, they're in the male hotspring and stuff, they JUST get to exist as a Trans man in universe, no questions asked.

Oda has been pro trans and pro LGBT in general, but he's also a from a place and time where there's legit gaps in his knowledge that makes him look really bad. I think the important thing is that as the series goes on, he gets better and better with his LGBT characters. As someone that grew up in a fundamentalist church, the difference between thinking your not bigoted and actually not being bigoted is the active attempt to constantly educate yourself and improve yourself and how you interact with any group. I think Oda has done this decently well with his writing excluding a drawback or two (damn you Sanji).

Super curious to hear your thoughts on the two trans characters in Wano! Kiku's great but the other person is, unfortunately, constantly misgendered by the fandom and r/OnePiece will eat you alive for suggesting that his self-declared identity-and quite literally being depicted using a public bath for his assigned gender along with Luffy and having zero pushback from the rest of the men/virtually all characters going along with the male pronouns when informed about them-is in any way legitimate

One small note: pronouns in Japanese act a bit differently so gotta be cautious about that. Unlike English they don't directly express gender. So e.g. a tomboyish girl may use pronouns that are more typical for guys but still identify as a woman. Think he/him lesbians but on bigger scale.

The actual message being told in the zoro/kuina backstory is to not give up on your dreams despite what you are told. No one can tell you what you can or can't do. It's amazing how many people miss that point despite Zoro practically screaming it at kuina.

Before he started One Piece, Oda designed the Rurouni Kenshin character, Katamari, a transfemme swordsman that was essentially the basis for One Piece's transwoman samurai, Kiku. This was back in like 1996.

Something not mentioned is that Ivankov is one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Army. He's literally part of the biggest anti-World Government group in One Piece. Also to clarify a little of Zoro's backstory, it's not exactly wrong to say that a man will just, by default, by stronger than a woman just due to biology. However, the point of it is that Zoro confronts this by saying it's an excuse. He doesn't want Kuina to stop trying because she feels like she's doomed to fall behind, saying that she's the reason why he works so hard to begin with. It's ultimately a message about overcoming limits set, whether by others or yourself. And yes there are some women out there that are insanely stronger than a lot of men. Hell, even in the Marines, an old lady is one of the most respected individuals within them.

Ssry my typing is super bad on phone. I think there is a lot of unintentional confusion over the words Newkama and Okama Conure. First of all the words used are Japanese and translations are NOT one to one at all nor have i ever once heard someone refer to that group as transvestites. Your also conflating the two words Newkama and Okama. Which do not translate directly to English and are explicitly two different groups. The majority of the early depicted OKAMA, in the story are most often translated as DRAG QUEENS or just generally QUEER. This is because Oda's best friend from childhood is a drag queen and was one of the major inspirations for putting them in the story. Never once heard transvestite used to translate Okama ever. It is not remotely an accurate way to translate the meaning of the word either. Queer is the closest word to okhama in English. I have never heard of the Okama in one piece translated or called trans or transvestite. Even by queer and trans one piece fans they are either queer or drag queens. Some of the other characters you meet in impel down are referred to as NEWKAMA. Those characters ARE trans and they don't have the same kind of depiction as the Okama. There is more confusion in the community about Newkama but those are the ones that sometimes take hormones and are explicitly trans. Some of them are also inspired by RHPS and I would consider it to be depicted as non-binary such as the fire and ice person. The Okama do not take hormones and are always clearly depicted as and referred to as Drag Queens or Queer men. Oda created the word Newkama to differentiate between the two groups. Iva is referred to as a Newkama and is therefore never referred to as transvestite by anyone. She is the queen of the Newkama which isn't the same as Okama and is therefore explicitly non-binary. Using Any/all pronouns The Newkama and the Okama have completely different martial art techniques because they are clearly depicted as two different groups with different cultures. Although there are okama, living on the island of newkama. I am really confused as to where you heard the word transvestite item regards to translating the word Okama because I've literally never heard it before ever. In a historical context Okama means girly man or a man with lots of bottom energy. Never anything to do with cross dressing or being trans. However, in a modern context it is more often used to refer to as queer generall. however, I have seen it in Japanese media referring to a man with a lot of bottom energy a few times. The association of the word in Japanese though, is never and never has been at any point anything close to transvestite or trans. In the one piece world it is usually just referring to and translated as queer and is often associated with drag queens as well. As from what I've heard, Odas main connection to the queer community are drag queens, his friends that are drag queens have even performed at his house parties. Bon clay fighting style Okama kempo. I've often even seen translated as the way of the queer. But I highly disagree with your characterization of those early negative depictions of trans people. As trans people. I've never heard of anyone refer to them as trans people. They are drag Queens and have always been referred to as such by everyone in the community. They are even based off of real life people that are drag queens.

For Bantham, Mr 3 Bonclay, it’s not stated but it’s heavily implied they are gender fluid. Even the code name Mr 3 Bonclay is a combination of the male code name designation ie a number and the female code name designation a holiday Bon Kurie is a Japanese holiday so they got both from the jump and that shit was released in like 2000-2001

i cant wait for you to watch wano & talk about Kiku & Yamato theyre also very important to the story with out them the story couldnt happen (& im curious what stance youd take on Yamato perception & contreversy & why you think some people are refuse to acknowledge them)

I find it a bit funny how Kuina was told that women are always weaker than men, when one of the physically strongest and most dangerous people in One Piece is Big Mom, a woman who uses a sword as her weapon of choice.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. ONE OF MY FAVORITE STREAMERS TALKING ABOUT ONE OF MY FAVORITE ANIME FOR OVER AN HOUR!?!? YES PLEASE ❤❤❤ Also Luffy is our aero/ace king 👑

Bro I've been so starved for queer One Piece video essays. This was a great snack.... but Conure, Imma need you to record yourself watching all of One Piece & then release weekly OP video essays along with your normal content. Ty for complying with my request without any questions

Luffy is an ace icon. It’s not even headcanon for me, he just is

I love the detail that luffy refers to bon clay as "bon chan" he uses male pronouns but female japanies suffixes for them which is inline with the fact bon clay is fluid

im LOVING how many queer analyses of one piece are cropping up recently!! there is SO much there to discuss and disect, i hope even more and more people do it. i genuinely dont know how you can watch/read one piece without wanting to get into the nitty gritty of its philosophy/morality, including the queer stuff and the found family/queer alegory stuff. its just all so good. even with these rather unfortunate-looking drag-queen characters (in terms of what most people think of as trans women stereotypes), as youve proven in this video, there is still just so much nuance and stuff to discuss. i fucking love one piece, its the best

Would be cool to see you and Lily Simpson have a conversation about this because Lily had the opposite, though nuanced and generous, take from you. I was planning on totally skipping the episode Cheong posted about that Lily also went over. Seemed gratuitous and unimportant to the story and I'm watching with my mom so I'd rather not show her that.

I also felt like trans people were treated rather well in One Piece, especially compared to trans rep in the west. 1. Bon Clay basically says he's both a man and a woman, so bigender. And we first meet him as a friend, then an antagonist, then a friend again. Boy Clay (excluding Robin cuz obviously) was the only baraque works agent in alabasta to be presented positively upon introduction, and then legitimately became an ally. 2. The kamabakas do seem questionable in design, but Ivan always could have used his fruit on them if they wanted him to, which means they wanted to stay like that on purpose, so they read more a drag queens to me. (We literally see this in Inazuma, being genderfluid). Plus everybody in this show is ugly. They're not an outliar but any means. 3. The main thing that stuck out to me in Impel Down was that, in an old Japanese manga, the allies and protagonists of the prison break arc are trans people. Usually trans people aren't portrayed the best in the media, or they're bad guys of some kind. But the way Ivan, Inazuma, and Bon Clay are framed in the show is as the good guys, 100%. Like I couldn't get over how unequivocally the good guys they were. So getting mad about how they look seems rather overblown. For One Piece characters, their ugliness fits right in. And could the kamabakas have been portrayed better? Yeah. But so could Sanji. It never struck me as a trans specific shotcoming. Oda kinda bombed on that one, but he bombs with Sanji all the time. And even tho they were kinda questionable, they still weren't framed as villains. They helped Sanji get to where he needed to go, and you could tell when he left them that he had a bit of a begrudging respect for the main queen at least. All in all, I think One Piece treats transness (and overall weirdness) as something normal or positive. Edit: the only thing I genuinely disliked was Ivan "forcibly transing" 2 people.

I can't wait to hear about Yellow Flash's meltdown when he meets characters like Kiku, Iva, and all the other queer characters, since he apparently started watching recently, or when he reads Fishman Island.

The "joke" of the okamas was horrible, but I have a theory, hear me out... I think that there is two types of queer people that travels to this Kindom: Frist people searching for the legendary Queen of Queers that can fully transition them in a second and then leave Second people who are not gender conformative and are despiced because of their apearance searching for the legendary kindom where Queer people are accepted no matter how they look like and stay to live there Also, most of those transphobic segments where anime only and most of the One Piece character are ugly looking I leave this comment in the Lily Simpsoms video a month ago

I want to get the phrase "Queers Never Die" framed and hung up on the wall of my office. I know it's probably not a perfect translation of what they say in Impel Down but it was so fucking iconic to me when I saw it in the anime.

holy shit based? might have to watch it

I've watched an former, homophobic, transphobic friend be super happy with the depictions of trans people in one piece. But as he watched more and more he slowly started realizing the series is quite supportive of trans people and this made him quit the series. Which is just amazing to me. For hundreds of episode this was his favorite show and now in the end, he wasted all that time because he can't get over his bigotry and will never see the end of the adventure.

I've been watching One Piece since it first aired. I've not always known about my Queerness but I've always known about my identity as a nonbinary person and seeing someone like Bon Clay becomes friends to the Strawhats and savior of them made me so happy and seen.

Common misconception about Magellan's Venom Venom Fruit, he's not made of Poison, that would constitute a Logia (or Special Paramecia), rather he produces poison like Mr. 3's Wax Wax Fruit, making him a Paramecia

I think Ivankov simply asks Inazuma every morning: Which gender you want to wear today? The guard scene is anime exclusive and not part of the manga (the guard doesn't even exist there).

Gender is a blur in One Piece. People like Bon Clay and Ivankov are more genderfluid, and their representation in the series is pretty badass. The focus is being pulled away from how characters look or dress a lot, and preferred genders are just accepted pretty easy throughout the series. I think the writer did very well on trans representation.

One Piece was my first exposure to queer people and it made me think highly of queers very early in my life, since Bon-chan and Ivankov are such important and powerful characters. Bon-chan is to this day one of my favorite characters even outside of One Piece. I can understand how to some the depiction of queerness in One Piece can look bad or very outdated. Just to me it had such a positive effect by the characters being so badass, fun and most importantly accepted by most other characters. Even Sanji shows respect towards the okama after the timeskip. This series has contributed a lot to me developing into an accepting and open person. Now most of my friends are lgbt+ and i'm kinda dating a transwoman. And I give some of the credit for that to Odas writing. :3

I think its really good when a mangaka is able to realise their faults and learn and grow. Lots of the ways early One Piece handled LGBTQ characters were uncomfortable at best, but ut always had the vibe of someone who was at least intending it to be positive and just didn't understand. Im honestly really proud of Oda for how far he's come! But also its totally good that we still have videos discussing and critiquing those earlier problems. Its completely fine to love a series and still think parts of it could have been done better. So im glad there's been an increase in nuanced videos lately instead of just "shut up, theyre not really trans" or "Oda is a woke king and the manga has always been progressive". Sometimes stuff is just somewhere in the middle, yknow?

I think when you go into assuming the best with its representation , instead of assuming the worst (which I get as queer people is needed a lot of times as a defense mechanism to protect your self from actually transphobic content ) you see that the queer characters are almost never the ones being talked down on even the kamas for their issues when I went into them assuming the best It didn't feel like they were the butt of the joke it felt like sanji was

i geuninely can't imagine that Eichiro Oda had malicious intent when he created the characters that would be considered "tranny" or trans.. Especially since Bon Clay aka Mr 2 is very beloved by the community at large. Oda went out of his way to create an entire section of Impel down full of trans people and Bon Clay was their "Queen" Like honestly if Oda was "fishing for ally status" than he would have gotten it with the Impel Down arc specifically because of how Newkama Island is handled. I'm reminded of the discourse that was surrounding the My Hero fandom when Kenji(One of the League of Villans) was found out to be trans and it got worse when Tiger of the Wild Wild Pussycats was found to be trans.. So many "shounen fans" got out their pitchforks in riot because apparently trans people can't exist in shounen anime and if they do they can't be powerful.. Heavens forbid they watch Hunter x Hunter or ANY of Naruto

When Ivankof was introduced, I'd totally thought they'd be a useless gag character but they were competent as hell. Bon Clay & Ivankof are the only reasons Luffy didn't die from his poisoning

I generally describe Oda as a very well-meaning Bull who does not always realize he's in a China Shop.

I don't really like to say this, but I think it's always worth pointing out that the Anime is more homophobic than the Manga. Like I definitely think it's a goal of Oda to be pro-LGBTQ, pro-Trans, but especially during the Impel Down and so arcs it seemed like the Anime wanted to try to be more politically neutral... now they seem less pressured to do so. (Putting more transphobic filler scenes into the episodes) Still, that Oda was still trying to put trans characters and make them more complex and sympathetic and likable even when he was only an assistant working on Rurouni Kenshin I think says good things about him. I mean, Japanese homophobia isn't the same as Western or US one, they have a different history and culture with those issues, but It's good that Oda is there breaking the stereotypes of making them vain or perverted villain characters destined for tragedy, and even making them just straight up heroes speaks a lot I think.

i'm trapped on whole cake island and can't get past it because i fell off before Quarantine and never got back on the boat.... I think I just need to accept the reality that I might have to reread the arc from the start....

I think it's important to clarify something: Okama. The word that's getting translated as Transvestite, is actually a japanese term for a broader category of queer people that I believe includes trans people, drag queens and others. So 'transvestite' is an artifact of the translation. side note: it's a bit of hyperbole to say the marines are always depicted as being bad. They're just depicted that way a LOT. If I'm a random human in the One Piece world and I need to choose between trusting an unknown pirate ship or an unknown marine ship with my wellbeing I'm going to the marines.

so a thing about invankov's powers, he used it on a guy that was attempting to assassinate them during that party during their introduction, and he force femmed him, and he was freaking out, so no, it doesn't change their mental.

I’m hoping that the live action show will have someone non-binary or gender fluid play bon Chan next season. I mean Koby, who isn’t even trans is played by a trans man :) On another note: I’ve noticed that trans men really love Zoro and I always see him drawn with top surgery scars, out of all characters I see him drawn as trans the most. I see ace a lot too

"there's also like a Vaush-type character" LMFAO THAT'S GREAT

Vaush viewer here, hi Vaush's roommate! Ive been reading One Piece for 20 years and im up to date on the manga. I've also been watching one piece with my kids and we just went through impel down and are finishing marineford. Oda has absolutely improved on this, the stuff with Sanji being chased around was definitely kind of gross, but even then i think Ivankov and his followers in impel down were depicted in a fascinating way. I've actually used them as an opportunity to talk about freedom with my kids. Real true liberating freedom means the ability to live as you want without the restrictions of gender conforming hierarchies. I like to think not everyone at impel down was put there for being pirates, some of them may have ended up there for being gender non conforming, some may have been gay, trans, non binary, gender fluid, or any combination of these things. The world government would probably have to be conservative as well since strict hierarchies are so important to them. I think it's important that my kids understand the inportance of real freedom and that a diversity of different kinds of people is great actually. The conservative view of freedom, the christian nationalist yay america muh freedums BS is a mockery of true freedom. One Piece is the most important anarchist theory out there. Read theory, read One Piece.

You know, it’s weird… Like some years ago and if I knew there would be so much of this in One Piece, I would’ve never read it. But, going in blind, I’ve not only borne witness to the greatest story of all time, but one which showed me the human side of others, helping me look past my own fears. To love in their way is there decision to be in their own way is their decision. But, looking past that all is a person, one who wishes to best understand themselves. And that’s something I can respect 🫡 Thank You Oda, you didn’t cure my actual Phobia (Fear, not Hate), but you reinforced that they’re people, and in the world of suffering, family too! Family who will live, laugh, and sacrifice by your side! Be Well Bon-Chan! We miss you!

SPOILER: His name shouldn’t be Monkey D Ace 👀

Honestly glad you are covering this better than the other video I heared about this, and yea Oda’s gags for characters go to far sometimes but the story is so much deeper than surface level designs and I don’t want to spoil the story so I’m glad you can look past designs. Plus Ivankov is a great character

What's cool about the societal expectation that Kuina has is that Tashigi, Smoker's right hand, is actively proving the societal expectation wrong. Tashigi can hold her own against Zoro and other sword fighters after the time skip and becomes a vital character during the Punk Hazard arc.

This gets more interesting if you look at the actual Japanese words used. For example (and I'm going off of what those who really know the language have said): 1) The word that gets translated as "transvestite", okama, was originally a slur that some have reclaimed that is more of an umbrella term for AMAB people who present feminine to some degree. So can also encompass feminine gay men, nonbinary people, trans women, etc. So I've seen it suggested that something like "queer" or "gender-queer" would capture the vibe Oda is going for better. 2) Bon Clay and Iva should almost certainly NOT be called "he". Japanese doesn't have gendered 3rd person pronouns, but the 1st person pronouns (the "I") can communicate information about gender. So, how do these characters refer to themselves? Bon Clay has a song in the manga that goes "This world was made for men and women. But when you're me, you're a man AND a woman. That's why I'm the strongest!" Oda has also confirmed in the Q&A that this is the case, and that's also why this character has a double moniker: "Mr. 2" (like the male Baroque Works agents) and "Bon Clay" (which is based on a holiday name, like the calendrical female code names). Bon Clay uses "achishi" as a 1st person pronoun...which no other One Piece character does, and I can't find any gendered meaning for that version, but it sounds halfway in between two others used by male and female One Piece characters, respectively. Therefore, I tend to go for "they" when talking about Bon Clay. Iva actually uses a neo-pronoun, vatashi! So something like "xe" would get THAT vibe across better! 3) Throughout the Impel Down arc, Bon Clay and Luffy call each other "Mugi-chan" and "Bon-chan". This gives VERY queer vibes, because "chan" is the cutesiest honorific, which is generally used where and English speaker wouldn't find it odd to call someone "dear" or "honey", or where it is OK to imply that they are adorable. In other words, it is NOT typically used by teen-and-up straight men toward each other. Not that this is implying anything romantic between these characters! (Luffy is probably ace, given his immunity to Boa Hancock's 'love-love' beam and the fact that he doesn't seem to fully understand why attraction makes other people act dumber). But Bon Clay's crew call them "Bon-chan" and they often refer to other characters with that honorific (sometimes probably to annoy them, like calling Crocodile "Zero-chan"). And Luffy is clearly 100% fine with being called the equivalent of "Little Straw"/"Straw-Cutie".

There is a fan theory that Crocodile is actually Luffy’s mother because he was a women a long time ago. This one done with Ivankov’s power apparently. It’s just a fan theory but it makes sense 🤷‍♂️

Great video! Would love to see similar about the 2 in the picture that you haven't met yet. The one issue I have with this is Zoro's backstory analysis. As much as Kuina was programmed to believe she couldn't be the strongest Zoro yelled into her that she could. The promise to be the best was made before she died that one of them would the strongest. Given the nature of the world and crazy amount of powers and abilities i fully believe that if she had survived she would have been a recurring character and Zoro probably would have started of weaker. He might have even just used 2 swords for a while.

17:50 "supposed to be monkey d ace" no it's not but i guess you'll find that out soon enough

Melontrees did a pretty good video on exactly this a while back, I'd recommend it.

Yvankov didn’t create level 5.5, but the one who did isn’t less queer I can assure you!

As a note for 33:22 I heard from a series of videos about being trans in Japan and stuff, that if you transition, that's whatever, but the thing is, culturally, it's more acceptable to "act" in the way of whatever body you end your journey in. Now I don't know if that's true, but it's basically saying like "well if you're gonna be a woman, then you'd best BE a woman", and the same for men. So... I mean, if you were really reaching, you could sell this scene (in that context) as like "well he's now a woman, so he's gotta act like it. I don't know if that's true or not... I sorta assume that Iva has like some (spoiler, future content, I won't say anything, but for folks who know what I'm talking about) kind of way of observing someone, and like feeling their trans-ness. If that makes sense. Just like how Enel could like smell it when people were talking bad about him, and how Luffy can always see the best in people. I just sorta assumed it was the same thing for Iva

Great Video! I can't wait for you to get to Wano! TRANS PEOPLE ARE MY FRIENDS! TRANSPHOBES GONNA CATCH THESE HANDS! **** MINOR SPOLIER ***** . . . . . . . . . Knowing what I know now about Kuma, it's actually very cute he sent Sanji to Ivankov's Island, being someone he implicitly trusts and knows has good in their heart. Also, I love all the Transvestigations in OP. I am a huge fan of Trans Crocodile. Knowing that Ivankov has a secret of his that he is willing to stop in his tracks completely to keep Ivankov happy. When Law was turned into a woman, he was able to break it using Haki, we have never seen Croc use Haki *cough cough*. Not a fan of Crocomom theory tho. **** Major Spoilers **** . . . . . . . . Yamato, the person you didn't know about its a very controversial trans man, and I hate the controversy. Yamato is presented as a very hot woman but wants to be a man more than anything. He wants to model his life off a man in his past that inspired him. Yamato is the son of the villain of the arc, and even though Kaido imprisons, chains, and beats Yamato, never once does he misgender Yamato (Real "I'm a villain, not a monster" vibes).

One thing about Sanji, is that the storys really hammers the fact that most women hate being trated like that, and as Sanji matures he stops being so wierd and has a lot more sucess with the ladys. Like Pudding, that he trated like a normal human would, and she is fully in love with my guy

I just caught up to last week episode and havebto say, One Piece surpassed my expectations in every way, it's so good I'm mad I didn't read/watching earlier. I hold it dear to my heart, also Inazuma is my icon, they really are whobthey are, whenever they want :')

"The indomitable human spirit of a himbo" re luffy getting poisoned during the impel down arc fuckin GOT me I'm still cracking up about that like 45 mins later

Ok this won't make sense for you where you're at but think of this comment in the future: I think Ivankov has to have an OP Perception Haki, that he uses kind of like a super gaydar. Literally when the guard is seen, Ivankov knows that the guard was a woman inside.

another really cool fact is that ivankov was also inspired by a drag queen that oda is friends with, who ended up voicing iva in the anime!

"It's supposed to be Monkey D. Ace." Lol

I think the trans themes in One Piece, even if shaky when they were first written, age like the finest of wines. Oda wrote Bon-chan as like, most likely, a light-hearted depiction of what back then was most commonly seen as gnc people (transvestites), but now we, the goated wokies in his audience who KNOW that your gender is just whatever you want it to be, can read bon-chan as this honestly pretty cool character that is confident in the way they present, is loved by the characters in the show and leads a happy gnc life in which none of his problems are related to them being gnc. I think that shit was pretty ahead of it's time. Apologies if my comment is messy, I'm ESL lol I hope the message comes across

I'm sure someone else has mentioned this but in japanese Culture Okama are different than trans people. Okama are more like full time Drag Queens, Gay men who live like women. Its a whole ass subculture that we just don't have a reference point for.

I personally subscribe to the theory that the guard was in fact an Egg already, and that Ivankov is extremely perceptive to such things, probably due to being monarch of Anarchist Trans Island.

Ivankov is honestly one of the most inspiring character in the series even without being trans icon. Same for Bon Clay And you are right about drag queens. Okama term isnt just for trans people, it covers a lot of other stuff. An effeminate man, drag queens, someone who doesnt identify as either and some more, it all falls under the okama term. Like the samurai woman was born in male body but identifies as woman, always dresses like one- definitely trans, on other hand Ivankov and some of his friends, we arent certain. They change their body constantly depending on how they feel about things Like some of those people in caricature-ish portrayal could've been born in a woman's body, decided to change to a man's but still liked to wear their dresses Oda even today can go a bit overboard with cartoonish or a stereotypical-ish display which can be a bit negative to most, but Oda never seems to consider it negative or that it would have negative effect, cause he still makes them into amazing characters we truly love. They are free

Someone pleat tells him about the Crocodile theory.

Sanji got that dawg in him

As for how Pirates in general view gender... Even a villain that appears later, the Main Villain of a very BIG arc, an absolutely disgusting and evil person, calls his child, a Trans Man, as his Son. And that Son is the other character from that image accompanying the Trans Woman, so he pretty clearly doesn't pass. But they still treat him as the Man and Gigachad he is. Pirates dont' give a flying sh*t about the social rules imposed by society, from the most good to the most evil, they all use the correct pronouns.

really excited to watch this video gonna go finish the 800 episodes i havent seen yet so i don't get spoilers then brb

Sanji said this to Bon Chan in alabasta : "The person is the soul" Bon Clay said this when saved luffy in alabasta from marines : "One may stray from the path of a man, one may stray from the path of a woman, but there is no straying from the path of a HUMAN!" what do you think?

But even in that depiction, they were still the good guys. Lmfao 7:58 14:35 it's been 3 days, btw. Lol I don't think the people on the island are trans, or they would have transition. One of my favorite characters constantly changes gender 25:44 , and has a badass devil fruit. So, if these people were trans they would have transition already due to Iva's devil fruit. I think this island is full crossdressers who are okay with being male, but like to dress feminine. 16:20 Woke: Oda is based Broke: Oda hates trans Bespoke: Oda understands crossdressing and genderfluid people fall under the trans umbrella. This is the second time Bon saves Luffy, the first time is from a Vice Admiral known for always catching her prey, with devil fruit that turns her into a cage. So, Bon has saved the series from ending twice. Up to that point 50:34 I can't believe no one brought up Crocodile might be a transman

After impel down is basically the avengers infinity war of one piece where most of the characters in the manga aside from the full straw hat crew come together in one big war. And after that is the fishman racism arc which was done pretty well. Even shows how the most cold hearted bigots can change.

the hormones does not change the person`s mind, as you can see the guy who seeks revenge at Iva when his powers were revealed does not like what was done to him. And the way the word "newkama" is used to describe the people in level 4.5, looks more like a new concept of gender, as non-binarity and fluidity is the standard for them

17:50 Actually Ace is not Luffy's biological brother, at most distant relatives but that would depend whether or not the D. is given to the members of a specific family or if it is a title that is passed down to those who belonged to a certain crew/culture. Anyways, coming back to Ace, his surname comes from his mother.