Eiichiro Oda Broke Famous Manga Tropes by Giving Law a Subtle Quality that Makes Him a Better One Piece Character

Battle Shonen is something fans come back to watch or read again and again because it’s fun watching the main character power up and beat the sh*t out of the villains. Since its advent in the form of Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka, the series coming under this genre have a bunch of troupes that authors stick to.

Some of these troupes are way more popular than the others. For instance, fans are well-acquainted with the “Power of Friendship” troupe, in which the main character spontaneously gains a powerup after witnessing a friend suffer grave injuries or death at the hands of the villain. While troupes such as these define Shonen as it is today, some authors make the mistake of overplaying these troupes, making it “clichéd.”

Lucy and Juvia | Credits: Studio A-1 Pictures

One Piece is a battle shonen but different from the traditional ones. Yet, the author Eiichiro Oda still fell victim to one particular troupe that annoys fans to this day.

The one troupe One Piece fans wish it didn’t exist

Luffy beaten up | Credits: Toei Animation

Battle Shonen has this annoying troupe where the female main character beats whoops the sh*t out of the male main character for apparently no reason other than the notion that he looks really punch-able. And One Piece isn’t an exception.

There are a bunch of times where the Straw Hats, especially Nami, beat up Luffy just because he’s there.

One of the instances that got quite the traction in recent times is a scene in One Piece episode 1086. As the Straw Hats leave Wano Island, Nami is enraged with Luffy, who decided to descend Wano through the waterfalls instead of the official port, which is a safer route.

She was furious that her captain was stupid enough to fall for Kid’s gaslighting to take the risky route and put the lives of his crewmates in unnecessary danger. Nami even unleashed her Conqueror’s Haki to put Luffy in a cage and make his face all swollen up.

While everyone in the community enjoyed this kind of humor when One Piece first came out, some fans are getting sick of it. They believe it is unnecessary, repetitive and more importantly, undermines Luffy’s strength, intellect, and love for his crewmates.

Hence, fans took to X to relay their frustration on this subject matter, basically telling the creators that they need to stop this recurring gag.

However, there are some fans who still enjoy this kind of humor because One Piece gets a little bit dark from time to time and fans would like some light heartedness once in a while. Additionally, some of them think Luffy deserves to get beaten up especially at times when he puts the lives of his crewmates in danger for no proper reason.

Like it or not, there’s one character who doesn’t hit Luffy no matter how many times he gets pissed. And it’s none other than Trafalgar D. Water Law.

Oda wrote Law better than the others because of this reason

Trafalgar D. Water Law | Credits: Toei Animation

As fans already know, Law is one of twelve pirates who are referred to as the “Worst Generation”. He became one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea during the timeskip, but his position was revoked for allying with the Straw Hat Pirates.

So whenever Law and Luffy get together, there have been plenty of times when Luffy fumbles up pretty bad, making Law totally pissed. However, he’s the only character in the series who refused to hit Luffy even when the latter asked him.

The reason why Law doesn’t hit Luffy is because some fans suspect that Law grew up with a loving, safe family at one point in his life. As a result, he would never dream of touching someone he loved so dearly in such a rough way and was taught not to.

After living such a nightmare as a teen and seeing so much chaos around him, he could never think of being violent himself with his friends and family. Law very gentle with his crew too, in a way that’s how he shows care and respect to his comrades.

He’s always there for his loved ones and Luffy coming from the “D” family, Law would make sure he’s safe and sound from the deadly vultures of the seas and the Marines. Also, he’s quite interested in the One Piece treasure while also desiring to know the purpose of the Will of D, being a “D” himself.

Somehow or the other, Eiichiro Oda refrained from letting Law bonk Luffy at all times, inadvertently earning the respect of fans. While Oda loves to disprove fan hypotheses and blow their minds, followers have one expectation. And that is, to completely throw the “randomly hitting the main character cause’ it’s funny” troupe into the trash.

One Piece is available to watch on Crunchyroll and Netflix.