One Piece Fans Upset with WIT Remake Changes to Character Designs

The One Piece remake released concept art, featuring key scenes from the East Blue Saga, the first section of the manga’s story that the WIT remake will adapt. Among the production materials shown were character design sheets for the Straw Hats that appear in the story early on.

From the characters sheet for Usopp in particular, One Piece fans over on Twitter have expressed dismay over the seeming “whitewashing of Usopp, sniper of the Straw Hat pirates led by protagonist Monkey D. Luffy.

If you're to much of a loser to acknowledge the white washing at least acknowledge that all of them having the same genshin ass pale skin tones just looks bad. They don't even look pale, just grey https://t.co/RId0gcuqQT pic.twitter.com/eU64m1ShV2

— ★ Orbis/Noah ★ (@Orbis2D) August 11, 2024

For added context, in the SBS for Volume 56, Oda reveals that if Usopp were a real person, he would be of African descent, though Oda does not specify which part of Africa he might come from. The One Piece live-action casted Jacob Romero, a Jamaican-American, to play the part of Usopp.

Some fans have also made similar remarks to the timeskip portion of the original One Piece anime as darker-toned characters such as Nico Robin and Usopp.

However, other fans have pointed out that the original manga design for Usopp and Robin did not give them distinctly darker skin colors and that the remake had in fact gone back to Oda’s intent, unlike the anime that committed the error in their color schemes during the pre-timeskip story.

Nobody was whitewashed, the remake just follows how oda colored the characters, these are among the earliest covers colored by oda himself. the anime just made some errors in color schemes for new characters back in the day pic.twitter.com/ssUrBJpBs8

— Jason Klum (@PokemanZ0N6) August 12, 2024

White washing it's when they are being faithful to the manga's aesthetic (?)

These are drawn and colored by Oda.

If Usopp was black like some of you said then you would complain again because the lips would make him a racist caricature. https://t.co/QNOZ9KYDeq pic.twitter.com/sQROBvrFA2

— Krerart (@Krerart) August 12, 2024

One Piece will have a remake by Studio WIT set in an unconfirmed date. The remake was recently announced with its staff and some concept art revealed. 

One Piece is a manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda, published in 1997 under Weekly Shonen Jump. The story is set in a world of pirates, where a boy named Monkey D. Luffy sets on an adventure with his Straw Hat crew to find the legendary One Piece.