One Piece
The 'One Piece' character that Eiichiro Oda's assistants want to kill as soon as possible
The manga artists have been asking for his head for 15 years, and the author took revenge by making him a recurring secondary character.
One Piece” has always liked to celebrate its anniversaries in a big way. While a few days ago we announced that Netflix will soon be adapting the untold story of Nami to celebrate the anime’s 25th anniversary, today we remember how the anime celebrated its first decade. It was with a book, the wonderful ‘One Piece 10th Treasures’, a compilation of behind-the-scenes anecdotes, spoilers we didn’t know existed, and illustrations of the Straw Hats drawn by other mangakas.
From this book comes one of the funniest curiosities of the series. We are talking about the one that reveals the character that Oda’s assistants want to see dead. It is none other than Crocodile, and the animators’ animosity towards him is due to the sand he uses for his powers. He’s so hard to make and so time-consuming that everyone wanted him dead sooner rather than later.
Oda’s revenge
If someone had told those poor artists how many times Oda would save Crocodile over the course of the story (and that they would have to keep drawing him for another 15 years), more than one of them might have given up. As if it was the author’s revenge, the sandman and tyrant of Arabasta has continued to cross the path of the Straw Hats, becoming a recurring supporting character in One Piece.
First, he was freed from Impel Down by Luffy himself to fight alongside him in Marineford and help him rescue Ace. But not content with that moment of glory and redemption, Oda recently brought him back for a second time to form a new criminal organization with Mihawk and Buggy the Clown. Now Crocodile is living a second youth in the Cross Guild, a group that puts a price on the heads of Marines and hunts them down. The hunters, the hunted. Their bounty has skyrocketed to over 1.965 million berries, more than all the new Straw Hat bounty posters.
It is possible that sooner or later, given the Cross Guild ringleaders, we will have a new Buggy vs. Luffy, the expected Mihawk vs. Zoro, and the mythical Crocodile vs. Sanji (or should we say Mr. Prince?) that was stolen from us in Arabasta. They only met there for the Den Mushi, but it was enough to start a legendary rivalry. Let the cartoonists get ready...
A legendary villain
Crocodile marked a before and after in ‘One Piece’. It was a turning point in Eiichiro Oda’s work, the first villain to defeat and “kill” Luffy, piercing his stomach with his hook while uttering a devastating line: “That’s the difference between 30 and 80 million, kid. Because of this line, episode 126 was called “I will overcome you and rain on Arabasta”. Goosebumps.
Crocodile served to introduce the then-feared Sichibukai (the seven pirates or warlords who worked for the Marine) and was in charge of Baroque Works (a criminal organization that served as the cradle for such emblematic characters as Robin, Bon Clay, Vivi or Galdino). With his charisma, he supported the longest arc of the beginning of “One Piece” (more than 40 episodes, while none had exceeded 15 until then). A villain simply and simply memorable.
Hopefully the actor chosen to bring him to life in the live action will be up to the task.
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