Sadly, One Piece doesn’t take place in the real world. But if it did, have you ever wondered where the Straw Hat Pirates would be from?
A while ago, One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda was asked this. Long time fans might know the answer, but a scan of Oda’s reply has recently been floating around on 2ch, Japan’s biggest online bulletin board. Let’s take a look.
Q.) Nice to meet you Oda Sensei. I have a question. If One Piece took place in the real world, what country would each nine members of the Straw Hats gang be from?
Oda replied that, one way or another, the characters do have a certain “image” and in the original article, listed the countries next to each character’s name in parenthesis.
Luffy (Brazil)
Robin (Russia)
Zoro (Japan)
Sanji (France)
Franky (U.S.)
Usopp (Africa*)
*Oda wrote “Africa,” which, of course, is a continent and not a country.
Chopper (Canada)
Nami (Sweden)
Brook (Austria)
That’s a fairly international group of pirates, no?
Character screenshots via the One Piece Wiki
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter@Brian_Ashcraft.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.