One Piece is a series known for the cartoony, goofy, yet outright terrifying villains it produces. From the original threats like Buggy the Clown to the recent Kaido, every arc manages to introduce a new compelling villain to follow. So, with the incredible number of villains taken into account, it’s time to rank the 16 greatest villains throughout One Piece!
This article does contain spoilers for One Piece through the recent Wano arc. The fastest way to catch up is through the manga, available online from Viz, or from the anime online through Crunchyroll.
16. Kuro of the Thousand Plans
One of the first pirates Luffy has to actually think about fighting during the battle, Kuro is a menace thanks to his wit and savagery. He’s not below poisoning Kaya, or assassinating her parents as it’s insinuated he did when faking his death. Kuro is just all-around an absolutely evil, terrible person, and it shows in every panel. Then he starts fighting with Zoro and Luffy, showing off his enormous cat claw weapons and giving Zoro a damn good fight. It takes Luffy giving him a Gum-Gum Bell to take him out after wrapping him up immobile.
15. Arlong
One Piece introduces Arlong late into the East Blue saga despite his presence being so heavy throughout the entire story. Arlong is a vicious Fishman, and takes over Nami’s town when she’s just a little girl, killing anyone that resists his forceful entry to the town. He turns houses upside down, and eventually brings Nami personal tragedy by shooting Bellemere to death right in front of her. Evil is established right from the start in his backstory, and it’s only obvious after the reveal that Arlong has only become more monstrous.
Arlong only solidifies himself as a terrible person throughout his time in Arlong Park, ruining Nami’s life bit by bit. He takes her as a captive to draw him maps, while also promising her freedom for one hundred million Berries to rescue her town. Once she finally has the money and arranges to pay Arlong, the Fishman betrays her. Arlong has a brief return in flashbacks during the Fishman Island arc, but he’s still a villain-type opposite Jimbei.
14. Wapol
The Drum Kingdom’s former ruler sets himself up right off the bat as being an awful, awful person to everyone he knows. He takes bites out of the Going Merry and even tries to chomp down on Luffy. Wapol uses his despotic powers initially to keep all the healthcare in Drum Kingdom to himself, leaving none for the people of the villages around. While his kingdom died of injury and illness, Wapol sat comfortably in his castle atop Drum Mountain. He’s the perfect foil to the kind-hearted Tony Tony Chopper who just wants to cure every disease and help people, but he just gets worse.
Wapol is a sore loser, and when he’s kicked from the Drum Kingdom he becomes a hyper-capitalist businessman. Using his Devil Fruit power, he starts a toy company that he eventually opts into a corporate kingdom. He’s even able to leverage this into gaining a spot at the Reverie, where he has to interact with his former subjects from the Drum Kingdom. Wapol is just the Jeff Bezos of the One Piece world.
13. Caesar Clown
Just a diabolical villain in every sense of the word, Caesar Clown is one of the worst One Piece has to offer. The character starts out as the scientist on Punk Hazard being watched over by Doflamingo. He’s been creating a special chemical used to make artificial Devil Fruits that he calls SMILE Fruits. Of course, these aren’t complete and cause terrible side effects to anyone who eats them, but to Caesar, it’s all in the name of science.
He unveils just how evil he is by sacrificing his own henchmen to kill the Straw Hats and test his new weapon. Clown will experiment on anyone if it benefits his science, including children. He does experiments for Big Mom to try and gigantify children artificially, desperately trying to make her own giants after ruining her relationship with the Kingdom of Elbaph. Caesar even feeds the children drugs, making them addicted so that they can’t escape from his experiments.
12. Gecko Moria
The Thriller Bark saga was a fun foray into a more horror-themed One Piece world. A lot of it was thanks to Gecko Moria and his Shadow-Shadow Fruit powers, which allow him to control shadows. Moria makes bodies and other objects come to life by putting shadows into them, much like Big Mom would do to create her Homies in Totto Land. There’s something creepier with the shadows though, as they retain much of their original users’ personality. The only difference is they start to take on the body’s personality too, which is how the Samurai Ryuma gets Brook’s laugh.
Moria is diabolical too, because he steals shadows and then sends the still-alive humans out to drift on the seas. If they step out into the sunlight, they’ll burn away to ash in the breeze once it touches their skin. There’s no winning for anyone who has a shadow taken by Moria unless they’re able to defeat the Warlord at night or catch him off guard. It’s unknown where he is currently in the manga though, and his Devil Fruit could very well be in the hands of Blackbeard’s Pirates now.
11. Rob Lucci
Lucci is a stone-cold killer hiding it all behind a pigeon mask. He has no mercy as a member of the covert assassination team Cipher Pol 9, and won’t hesitate to murder anyone he has orders to. Even recently on Egghead Island, he doesn’t care that the World Government may kill him in the process while he tries to kill Dr. Vegapunk. Lucci is a monster through and through, with a reveal in Enies Lobby that he’s been this way since a very young age.
There’s nothing he won’t do if it’s given as an order from a World Government official either. He was about to willingly capture Shirahoshi to be one of Charlos’ slaves at the Reverie, but thankfully stopped by Donquixote Myosfard. Lucci doesn’t care what the order is about or who it comes from, he just truly enjoys the act of killing and wants to do as much as he can. It makes him an incredibly terrifying villain, and he would rather die fighting than any other way.
10. Enel
First off, he’s just an asshole in general. Enel is the egomaniacal ruler of Skypiea when the Straw Hats get there, and he rules over the entire island with sheer terror. Enel has the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, a Logia that allows him to become and control lightning. This, in combination with his incredibly powerful Observation Haki, known as Mantra among the Skypieans, he rules with a roaring thunder. Enel won’t hesitate to zap someone for negatively talking about him, and everyone on Skypiea is constantly on edge.
His power is insanely high too, and arguably Luffy only won the fight against him as easily as he did thanks to natural immunity. The speed and power of lightning are nothing to joke about, and Enel uses both to massive effect in every attack he has. Though he hasn’t been seen since his adventures on the moon in the manga, Enel has to be ridiculously strong after the time skip, assuming he’s still alive. Why wouldn’t he be though, considering he’s one of the strongest Logia Fruit users in the series?
9. Big Mom
Big Mom is almost the polar opposite of Enel, as she rules by appearing relatively affectionate and kind to the people of Totto Land. Only those close to Big Mom know just how awful she is to humans, not to mention how she treats her subjects. Once a year they have to all line up and offer two weeks of their lifespan as a tribute to the Emperor, using her Soul-Soul Fruit. This transfer gives Big Mom more strength, longer life, and the ability to create even more Homies. The people who give it don’t even realize what they’re giving up until Big Mom goes on her rampage through Totto Land in the Whole Cake Island arc.
That doesn’t even bring in how stupidly evil she was to Otama in Wano. Despite Otama rescuing her when she washes up on the shore much like she rescues Luffy, even feeding her and bringing her to Udon, Big Mom tries to kill her. Her thinking is selfish, believing that if Otama won’t be loyal to her then she can only die, and it should be by her hand. That’s just a whole new level of evil considering she’s talking about an eight-year-old child.
8. Hody Jones
There is a whole subset of this fanbase that despises Hody Jones as a villain, saying he has a stupid motive. Except he doesn’t, when he tells Prince Fukoroshi that humans did nothing to him to deserve his hatred, everything clicks into place. Hody Jones is just the product of generational racism seeping into Fishman society through older figures like Arlong. The Sawtooth Fishman was already hateful of humans, and instilled that same hatred in Jones while he was a child. Arlong kept reinforcing it, making sure that he hated humans even though his only interactions with them were violent he starts.
When Hody Jones finally roids out he decides to destroy the entire Fishman Island, no matter how many of his own kind he kills. It’s this kind of generational instilled hatred that leads to terroristic acts like this in real life, and Hody was a great representation of that. This also marks the turn where One Piece starts to get a little more “in your face” with the creator’s take on social issues, and Hody shows a mature look at the realness of it.
7. Donquixote Doflamingo
Doflamingo’s evil comes from just how sadistic and cruel he is to everyone under his rule. He has Sugar turn people throughout Dressrosa into toys, uses them as slaves while making everyone forget they ever existed, and then profits. Doflamingo is just vile, and the insane lengths of violence to keep power are so brutal it’s hard not to be in fear of him. He’s called Joker on the black market, and it makes sense because he’s constantly cackling. Doflamingo runs Dressrosa as his own criminal empire, using the entire country to fund his operations and become a Celestial Dragon.
Doflamingo was actually a Celestial Dragon at birth, but his father decided to give up the family titles. He moves the Donquixote family below the Red Line, where he and his wife are quickly tortured to death. Doffy is taken in and molded into a monster by booger-man Trebol, while Rochinante becomes an adoptive son to Sengoku of the Navy. Of course, when he comes back as Corazon and takes his spot as Doffy’s right hand, he’s eventually murdered by Doflamingo before taking over Dressrosa.
6. Sir Crocodile
The founder of Baroque Works and former Warlord of the Sea, Sir Crocodile is a master of espionage. He prefers to do most of his fighting through his Logia Sand-Sand Fruit or poison he coats his hook with. Crocodile has plans for a utopian society where he rules as a demigod of sorts, but has yet to be able to pull through on his plans thanks to the Straw Hats’ interference. Though it seems he’s set his sights elsewhere in the manga recently, Crocodile was a steadfast ally to Luffy at the battle of Marineford, even helping him escape death. Quite the improvement considering he was trying to kill Luffy before being locked up a few weeks earlier.
Right now though, he’s on the board as a player in the race for the One Piece. Forming the Cross Guild with Dracule ‘Hawkeye’ Mihawk and Buggy the Clown, Crocodile now runs the show with Mihawk while the clown takes the heat. It’s just as he likes it too, preferring to work in relative anonymity behind the scenes while everyone else gets the hard work done. Crocodile may even prove to be an ally to Luffy again in the future, as it was the Straw Hats presence at the Punk Hazard demonstration that made him start Cross Guild. Of course, he had to collect on some loans from Buggy, but that worked in his favor.
5. Kaido
Another Emperor with a somewhat tragic backstory, Kaido was sold from his country into Navy service. All this to gain their own entry into the Reverie, but Kaido couldn’t be contained, and eventually joins the Rocks Pirates. The God Valley incident makes history, and Kaido is captured by the Navy to perform genetic experiments on for artificial Devil Fruits. Here he forms the Beast Pirates, beginning with King the Lunarian, who he recruits from the lab he breaks out of. From there they make their way across the seas, bringing terror before Kaido makes his way to Wano.
His takeover of Wano is brutal, and he murders Kozuki Oden while also killing the country slowly over the next twenty years. Kaido allows Orochi to rule over the land as he and his pirates establish weapons factories all over the country. He poisons the land, turning the waters deadly while rendering the ground unable to grow crops. Even after his defeat by Luffy, in a ruthless battle, his shadow will linger over Wano for years to come.
4. Akainu
Though he’s technically just doing his job, Akainu is still a dick. He’s only for the black-and-white versions of justice, with no moral grey area in between. When the Navy has the idea to set a trap using Ace, Akainu is one of the main backers. His Magma-Magma Fruit is incredibly powerful, a Logia with flames even hotter than Ace’s Flame-Flame Fruit. There’s no end that Akainu won’t go to for justice, and as seen in Marineford, that can sometimes evolve into an extreme state of bloodlust.
Most recently he’s taken over as Fleet Admiral, and his views on justice have been shaken by being closer to the Celestial Dragons. Being in the Fleet Admiral office in Marijoa at all times has given him a clue about just how awful they are, and it’s beginning to change Akainu’s view on things. That’s still no excuse for him punching a hole in Ace big enough to drive the Thousand Sunny through.
3. Buggy the Clown
The original Genius Jester of the East Blue, a former apprentice on the crew of Gold Roger, Buggy the Clown! He’s a classic villain of One Piece, making his debut all the way back in the Orange Town arc, only the third one of the manga. Though Buggy first appears as a terrifying villain with no law he won’t stoop to and a penchant for explosives, he becomes a surprising ally. When he’s freed from his rather easy existence in Impel Down by Luffy, Buggy starts his brand new lease on life and rises to fame at Marineford. Through some really terribly done promos that would make the worst WWE actor wince, Buggy convinces people he’s a hero of the Marineford battle.
The hits keep coming from there, as he leverages things in Marineford into a Warlord of the Sea position for even more easy money. This comes from loans thanks to Crocodile though, and when the Warlord system is dissolved, Buggy is almost immediately targeted. Almost eliminated too, but was saved by Croc at the last moment. Unfortunately, Buggy’s falling upward curse strikes again when Kaido and Big Mom are toppled, and he becomes the fourth Emperor of the Sea.
2. Blackbeard
Such a strange character, and an even stranger villain. Blackbeard doesn’t even have a singular mission, with his only want seeming to be creating a country of pirates. Which kind of takes away the point of being pirates, doesn’t it? Either way, after he kills his first Division Commander Thatch, Blackbeard goes on the run from the Whitebeard Pirates. Specifically, Ace, who he then kidnaps and hands over to the World Government for a Warlord of the Sea position. Except he immediately uses that for chaos as he invades the undersea prison Impel Down, freeing numerous terrible criminals to join his crew. Not content with all that, he makes his way to Marineford, kills Whitebeard, and steals his Devil Fruit.
After the time skip he’s an Emperor of the Sea, controlling the territory he takes by force after killing Whitebeard. Blackbeard is gathering Devil Fruits and terrible pirates in equal numbers, with some way found to steal Devil Fruit powers directly from users. There’s no telling what he plans, but his recent capture of Gecko Moria, while also taking Koby and Pudding as prisoners, isn’t a very promising for anyone.
1. Imu
There’s barely any information about Imu except that they’ve been alive since the time of the Void Century. Whether they’re male or female is unknown, but the Gorosei bow to them and are fearful of the power they wield. Imu controls all in the World Government, the only one to sit on the throne that nobody ever should sit on. It seems that they’re the ones who killed Joyboy in the past and set Zunesha out as punishment, as they pass a massive straw hat in the castle atop Marijoa. There’s still so little information though, it’s hard to make a decisive call as to what Imu may be planning in the grand scope of things. However, they do prove their power by annihilating an entire island while leaving a massive hole in the ocean.
One Piece keeps introducing new villains with every arc of course, with some former characters taking the spotlight. In the Egghead Island arc of the manga currently, Kizaru seems to be the main villain, much like he was in Sabaody. It still remains to be seen, but perhaps by the end of this final saga, the greatest villains in One Piece could rank very, very differently.
