Yes, for every well-beloved Luffy or Zoro, there are handfulls of characters that inspire rage, frustration, or the worst sin of all – boredom. Hate might be a strong word… but we’re taking it across a broad scope here. We’re ranking not just characters who are hated for being badly written or potentially useless, but also characters who are flawed in such a way that just really gets under our skin.
10. Foxy
It’s already difficult to take a place as a character in the most well renowned example of a poor filler arc and make it out unscathed. But when you’re as plain useless, unimportant, and as much of a waste of time as Foxy? You’re going to get the hate-stick from the Internet, no question. It’s a testament to how much of an effective blank space Foxy is that, in reality, he doesn’t actually do all that much wrong. He’s more of a mild annoyance compared to the baddies that come before & after him. Which begs the question: why even have him as a character at all? Get someone better in his place and save us all from the pointlessness of Foxy. Please!
9. Squard
Being a coward is a good enough reason to dislike someone. But on its own, that might not be good enough to make this list. Thankfully for us (or unfortunately for us?) Squard isn’t only a coward, but he’s a traitor too! The worst of both worlds. His actions range from taking vengeance against innocent family members of the people he hates, to being weak-willed enough to allow another character (which we’ll cover soon) to talk him into betraying his ally Whitebeard. Yep, Squard is just a flat-out worm of a person. We could forgive cowardly for the right reasons. There’s no room for penance in my heart from Squard though.
8. Absalom
Urgh. Just looking at this guy makes my skin crawl – and I bet I’m not the only one. If it’s not the physical appearance of the former leader of the Zombie Soldiers that gives you the chills, all animal parts stitched together in a gross way, then it’s no doubt his almost as gross perversity. Spying on women in the bath, deliberately seeking out weak women for a power advantage – just yikes, Absalom. If you’re so much of a perv that literal zombies have a degrading nickname for you, then you need to take a long look in the mirror and have a word with yourself!
7. Trebol
When it comes to true cruelty and senseless violence, Donquioxte Doflamingo is hard to beat. And what’s the reason he is the way he is? Look no further than Trebol. Yes, Doflamingo is definitely a product of his environment. A terribly sadistic, poorly raised sort of environment. The one that people nudge each other and point to the child and say “he’s going to turn out to be a mass-murdering pirate, that one, just you wait”. And it’s all thanks to one huge scruffy hunchback. Trebol is like Doflamingo on steroids – relentlessly awful, cold, and unfeeling, he’d just as quickly murder you as say hello. Though the murder might be preferable to his greeting. Especially when he gets far too into your personal space with all that mucus hanging off him.
6. Spandam
You know, for many other characters’ flaws, at least they go some way to either turning face again eventually, or doing something that helps balance out all the awful stuff they’ve done. Of course, when I make a statement like that it invariably means whoever I’m talking about is the exact opposite. Yep it’s Spandam, and my word, I hate him. Snivelling and cowardly, Spandam would do anything to gain even a sliver of recognition. Torturing Nico until she helps him to rebuild a superweapon? Not beneath his greedy little scheming. And what was it all for? To get a promotion in the seedy World Government. Men like Spandam are all too common in the real world, making it much easier to hate this little weasel.
5. Wapol
I wish Wapol didn’t look so cool. It makes it so much harder to balance out all the cowardly stuff he’s done in my mind! But seriously, Wapol is a spineless jellyfish of the highest order. At the first sign of trouble in his kingdom, he’s running off in the opposite direction. Of course, this means leaving his helpless subjects to fend for themselves. Did I not mention he was the ruler of the Drum Kingdom? And that’s not even the whole of it – we can also include taking away all of the kingdom’s best doctors to tend to just him, leaving everyone else in severe danger every time they get sick or injured. It doesn’t matter how cool he looks. Walpol is straight-up irredeemable.
4. Akainu
While a lot of the characters that made this list are infamous for multiple senseless acts or repeated poor behavior (to put it lightly), Akainu has garnered the outrage of the fans for just one act. SPOILERS AHEAD: When Ace stepped in front of Luffy to save his life and took a killing blow from the leader of the Marines, that was all the fanbase needed to blacklist him from their hearts. And who can blame them? Not me, that’s for sure. In fact, this act was so reviled that most people don’t even hate him for his ultra-extreme brand of Absolute Justice. And it takes a lot to ignore that. It’s like they say: build a thousand bridges and kill one beloved character, and nobody calls you a bridge-builder.
3. Sterry
This is part one of our “spoiled rich upper class member” section over the next two entries. Sterry is possibly the most punchable out of any character in the entire show. He just oozes smug self-centered arrogance from head to foot. You’d expect a certain royal air from a King, but this kid is far more Joffrey than he is, well, most other regents! He elevates money and status above even being a literal hero. And anyone who doesn’t have what he has is automatically his lesser. Repeat after me – status and money mean nothing if everyone hates you.
2. Saint Charloss
Saint Charloss beats out Sterry in the “spoiled upper class stakes” for a couple of reasons – first and foremost is his ceaseless and remorseless cruelty. It’s not even just the matter of torturing slaves to the brink of death. It’s the gleeful laughter while he does so that really marks him as one of the worst of the worst. He’s also a simpering, snivelling coward, who sucks up to his father with one side of his face, and lords his power over everyone else with the other side. It’s got to take something special to be hated more than this guy, right?
1. Arlong
This is one of the earliest characters to appear in One Piece, and Arlong is above and beyond the rest when it comes to being a shallow, ignorant, and violent piece of garbage. He’s very quick to anger, with his awful temper nearly leading to a town being burnt down for the slightest inconvenience. But the real reason he’s so universally reviled is his flat-out bigoted views on humans. Humans and Fishermen mixing is an idea that absolutely disgusts him. Humans, he believes, are just genetically inferior in every conceivable way. Sound familiar? It matches up with so many narrow-minded people in society today. The show should be rightfully praised for shining a spotlight on real-world issues. So we can all rest assured that Arlong is noted, hated, and justifiably #1 on this list.
