Eiichiro Oda, workaholic and One Piece creator, was asked how to draw the curvy bodies of the characters in his famed manga and anime.
As noted on 2ch, the first question, actually, was whether or not Nico Robin’s first name, Nico, explicitly meant “ニ個” (literally, “niko”, or here “two round spheres”), because of her breasts. Oda replied no.
[Image: 2ch]
Continuing in this line of questions, the next question asked Oda how he drew the One Piece women. He replied, “The women’s proportions are three circles and one X. Please think and draw this way.”
Oda, however, added words of caution, saying that if you draw these body types a bunch, it’s necessary to be prepared to receive critical letters from women readers. Fair enough!
In One Piece, the body types — men and women — are exaggerated and overblown. They’re physical hyperboles. So, those criticisms, warranted or not, don’t address what keeps readers coming back, which is how the characters interact and the stories that Oda tells.
Top image via nifty
Comments
16 responses to “One Piece Creator On Drawing Boobs”
I have now understood how he drew all the female characters to my liking. All hail oda sensei.
So Nami’s breast size increased because it was easier to draw? Fair enough
Nami’s breast size increased coz she matured over a 2 year period…and coz ppl wanted to see her have bigger boobs.
Oda is great, in one issue a reader asks him if Luffy is rubber ALL over…
His response is: pretty much! Rubber schlong 😉
It’s odd, female One Piece characters don’t feel creepy to me the same way other huge chested anime characters do. I know in theory the way he draws them should set off all the usual sleaze alarms but it’s strangely consistent with the way everything else looks.
I’m not denying that Nico Robin is 90% cleavage or suggesting that because male characters show skin all allegations of sexist behaviour are negated, it’s just that the entire world has this warped sense of proportion about it that’s coupled with a tropical theme. The way the show messes with sizes and shapes of just about everything feels sort of natural.
It probably helps a ton that every character in One Piece has character and almost immediately either throws aside, or completely owns their wacky looks. Also helpful is that every perverted detail or moment is so heavily signposted with Looney-Toons style bulging eyes and lolling tongues or hearts in the eyes.
Nami and Robin are not just attractive, they’re as fun as every other cast member.
I think it helps that there is basically no romance between any of the crew.
So those ladies are not throwing themselves at people and are genuinely interesting characters, rather then in some anime where the overblown lady appears to have nothing except her love for whatever mc is the trope of the week.
I agree. Although at this point I don’t think it’ll matter. If one of the girls gets into a romance right now it still wont change the fact that the crews friendship is the strongest binding force of all.
I think it’s because One Piece is overtly cartoony and embraces it with gusto. When you take abstraction to a certain point, an easily recognisable or iconic female figure is indeed two circles and an X (narrow waist, wide hips). One Piece is not trying to say “this is how women should look”, but rather, “this is how a voluptuous woman looks when cartoonised”. That’s why his archetypical “tank” males are a big triangle of a shoulder-chest with a tiny rectangle of hips-legs, “stocky” characters are, literally, squares and so on.
This is not strictly related, but…
It has always pissed me off that the makers of Bishoujo Liara T’Soni were bullied into reducing her breast size, when Liara’s in-game breasts are enormous. They were obviously doing a reproduction of the in-game figure, but people accused them of over-sizing Liara’s tits.
Now, I’m an arse man, myself, but I do like a nice pair of jubblies.
Carry on.
lovely jubblies?
Clearly aliens can’t have big boobs. I mean it’s not like their entire race is apparently female or anything.
They had life-sized models of the one piece characters at odaiba in japan last year. Nico just looked bloody ridiculous
Personally would like to see a life-size Whitebeard.
not gonna lie, Boa Hancock had me going when i saw her the first time.
Nami and Robin look like characters that ‘just so happen’ to have big boobs. But Boa, I’m pretty sure she started that way.