What One Piece Teaches Us About Character Design

Hey Game Afternooners, prepare yourselves to be inspired. I've decided to move outside of the realm of gameplay design to give you some inspiration from a character design. I find a lot of joy and creativity in dissecting a character from a show and watch a few content creators who make a living from doing it. For some really great content you should look up https://www.youtube.com/@TBSkyen he goes really in depth with characters from Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and League of Legends. I highly recommend his content as its incredibly interesting and he's far better at it than I am.

INTRO:

Straw Hat Pirates

• Captain Luffy - eater of the Gum Gum Fruit his entire body is made of rubber and he can stretch
• Zoro - The Pirate hunter swordsman that uses three swords fighting style (a sword in each hand and one sword in his mouth)
• Nami - a money obsessed thief and the navigator of the ship. she also can control weather creating lightning fog or even a mirage of herself
• Usopp - the sniper king and compulsive liar. He uses a slingshot for all sniping(my least favorite character...)
• Sanji - the cook that has dedicated his hands to his craft to the point that he only fights with his feet. He's also obsessed with women would rather become useless to his crew then attempt to fight a lady
• Tony Tony Chopper - A reindeer who ate the Human Human Fruit that allows him to turn into a human and communicate with the crew. He acts as the crews doctor
• Nico Robin - an archaeologist/former assassin who's entire continent was destroyed by the world government for studying a 100 year gap in history. she is the eater of the flower flower fruit which allows her to sprout replicas of her limbs
• Franky - the cyborg shipwright who rarely wears pants and often boasts about being manly.
• Brook - the skeleton musician who ate the revive revive fruit which allows him to still be alive despite being a skeleton.

THIS SHOW IS WILD. There is literally a character that flicks boogers at people and those boogers explode...

THE MEAT:

Okay let me finally introduce the character that I want to talk about. I'll forgo telling you his backstory or any of the important details to his plot but I will tell you his name is Jack.

Lets hit on a few obvious pieces here: the sharp horned shoulder pads, massive leather fur coat, metal jaw guard, and wide build are all great indicators of this character being evil. Clearly he is part of a pirate group denoted by the Jolly Roger on his MASSIVE belt buckle. His hands which are in fists are larger than his own head maybe for crushing skulls? The overall shape of this character makes me think he was made for smashing through walls rather than using the clearly marked doors. Add in the horns and its clear that this guy isn't going to be told no or ask questions.

Now let's talk about Jack's Devil Fruit. Jack is the eater of the mammoth mammoth fruit and because of it can turn into a full mammoth or some sort of mammoth hybrid. His design in many ways resembles the mammoth that he transforms into. He maintains his hair but the shoulder pads move to the new form along with the coat he wears transferring to the fur of his new form. Now while the hair is a little weird going from human to mammoth forms it is a very distinguishable characteristic between these two. If you saw both of them separately you would almost 100 percent think to yourself: "are they the same person?" It's a fantastic way to bring the two characters together as one. Jack's human form also carries the same lack of emotion that his Mammoth face does, linking these forms far beyond just the outfit and color scheme.

Now my favorite thing about Jack is his weapons when in human form. You remember the giant set of tusks that hang over his shoulders? Those are actually sheaths that he uses to hide his massive tusk shaped swords. How genius to take a commonplace weapon and do something interesting with them. To me this brings fascinating life to an otherwise very dull weapon(don't get me wrong swords are cool but we have a character in this show that uses 3 of them! Once a character uses 3 everyone using 2 swords just becomes boring) This small change of shape leaves me questioning how might this character use his blades in a way that makes it better for them to be shaped like that. How does that affect how my favorite characters might fight with him? DOES HE USE THEM AS A SWEEPING TOOL LIKE THE ELEPHONTS DO IN LORD OF THE RINGS???? The possibilities are endless.

The point of all of this is to say that character design can be a really cool way for a storyteller to shape a story without words. As proof of this I'd like to quote Nate Franklin when i first showed him this picture of Jack:

"That dude kind of looks like a mammoth" - One of my good Friends Nate

OUTRO:

Eiichiro Oda is one of the craziest writers I've ever seen. He creates incredibly diverse characters who often tell the story of their character without the character even saying a word. Jack is an awesome example of Character design conveying abilities, attributes, and nature. ALSO HE HAS TUSK SHAPED SWORDS ITS SO FREAKING COOL

TLDR:

Use Design to convey intent. Characters have an opportunity to craft a story and oftentimes it is far more interesting to never explain it outright and allow the consumer to craft one of imagination. Jack is an awesome character design because he is clearly evil and devoid of emotion or connection to other characters. On top of that he resembles some of his abilities. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY LOOK AT HIS SWORDS THEY'RE SHAPED LIKE TUSKS OF A MAMMOTH WHICH HE CAN TURN INTO HOW COOL IS THAT!!!!??????

Thank you for coming to my TED Paragraph and until next week It's Ya Boi Steve Michie.