This article contains spoilers up to the Water 7 arc of One Piece
While every One Piece fan has their own personal favorite member of the Straw Hat crew, that doesn't inherently mean that these individuals are all that relatable. In the current story, characters like Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji have become absurdly strong after being involved in so many intense battles, and while they are still humans at the end of the day, their monstrous strength and Haki can admittedly make it a little hard to actually connect with them as people, though this certainly can't be said for some of their crew mates.
Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, tends to focus primarily on Luffy any time he is asked to comment about his character, but during the Water 7 arc, he actually gifted the spotlight to another character who, in his eyes, is the most relatable Straw Hat of the bunch. It's time to take a closer look at which familiar pirate Oda was talking about, and why exactly the average viewer or reader would feel a connection to them on a personal level more so than the other pirates.
Oda Feels That His Fans Relate To Usopp
He Made The Comment When Discussing The Well Known Argument Between Usopp And Luffy
- Usopp is significantly weaker than most other Straw Hats
- This became a major issue during Water 7
- Oda believes this is why so many fans are drawn to the sniper
Back during the Water 7 and Enies Lobby saga of One Piece, Oda commented on a particular interaction between Luffy and Usopp that he was eager to draw while he was still working on this portion of the story. The scene he's talking about is when Usopp decides to berate Luffy and challenges him to a fight after the Straw Hat captain makes the difficult choice to leave the Going Merry behind due to her picking up so much damage in the previous arcs. According to Oda, the lofty speeches that both men gave during this heated exchange were easy to write, since the words and emotions simply came to him as he went, but he actually goes a little deeper on why Usopp, in particular, was the perfect character to act as Luffy's opponent for this interaction.
When asked if Usopp is a nice character overall by Luffy's VA, Oda replies that he believes many of his readers connect with the sniper a lot more than the other Straw Hats. On the surface, this might seem a little debatable, but Oda's reasoning for saying this is because of how much stronger the other Straw Hats are in comparison to Usopp, before the timeskip had even happened in the story.
"Yeah, my audience feel close to him because most of the characters around him are so strong" - Eiichiro Oda
While the main focus of Luffy and Usopp's argument may have been the Going Merry, Usopp also clarified that he felt he was being left behind due to him not being a member of the Monster Trio. If the Going Merry was being thrown away for being too weak, Usopp had every reason to believe that this would happen to not only him, but also other characters like Chopper and Nami sooner or later, but this begs the question of how big this power gap actually was at the time.
Usopp Struggled To Keep Up
And It Took A Heavy Toll On His Confidence
Ever since he was first introduced to the crew in Syrup Village, despite officially being the sniper of the Straw Hat pirates, Usopp was often presented as little more than comic relief. He would often spend most of his days on the Sunny either desperately trying to catch fish to make himself useful, or simply lying about all of his grand achievements just to look good in front of Luffy and Chopper.
Once the Straw Hats liberated Alabasta though, it became clear that the stakes of the stories were becoming much higher, but while characters like Luffy, Sanji and Zoro were able to keep up with the competition, meanwhile, Usopp was struggling to hold his own. A prime example of this actually comes pretty early on in Water 7 when Usopp is brutally attacked by the Franky Family, and must then rely on the help of the Monster Trio to save him, due to being so weak.
"Listen, Luffy! It's not like everyone can live looking ahead like you do" - Usopp
Going back to Oda's comments, it starts to make a lot of sense why the author would see Usopp as the most relatable. After all, most people have been in situations where they feel inferior or out of place due to assuming that everyone around them is better in one way or another, so it was very easy to sympathize with Usopp in his fight with Luffy where he began experiencing the exact same feelings. Still, Usopp isn't the only Straw Hat who has been able to connect with fans due to being so relatable.
Can The Other Straw Hats Be Considered Relatable?
Another Member Could Also Be Considered "Normal" In The Eyes Of Fans
- Many of the Straw Hats can be difficult to relate to
- Nami is similar to Usopp in how "human" she seems compared to the other crewmates
It goes without saying that whether a reader or viewer relates to a character is completely subjective, since it all depends on the person's own experiences in their own life. On the whole though, there are a lot of reasons why Usopp in particular comes across as easier to connect with fans than some of the other Straw Hats. The Monster Trio, as the name implies, are all absurdly powerful pirates who possess such unbelievable amounts of strength that the average person could find it difficult to see themselves in these specific characters.
Crew members like Franky, Chopper and Jinbe also have very distinct appearances which aren't exactly all that human, while Robin is a wicked smart archaeologist who also possesses a bizarre Devil Fruit that she can use in combat when facing a tough opponent. Brook, on the other hand, is a walking talking skeleton who has been given a second shot at life thanks to his Soul Soul fruit, so needless to say, it can be difficult to relate to his own personal story due to how weird and strange it is.
Other than Usopp, Nami is probably the easiest character fans can relate to, considering she's not severely overpowered and also has a fairly straightforward backstory that has clearly resonated with a lot of people since it was first shown; hence why there have been so many remakes of the Arlong Park story arc. Therefore, while Oda understandably considers Usopp to be the easiest Straw Hat for fans can relate to, Nami definitely also deserves a mention within that conversation.
Source: X
- Release Date
- October 20, 1999
- Network
- Fuji TV
- Directors
- Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
Cast
-
Mayumi TanakaMonkey D. Luffy (voice) -
Kazuya NakaiRoronoa Zoro (voice)
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
- Franchise(s)
- One Piece
- Creator(s)
- Eiichiro Oda
