Top 10 Dark Realities of the One Piece World

The general image of the One Piece story within the anime and manga community is that of a happy-going adventure story full of laughs and smiles. However, the readers of One Piece know that beneath the demeanour of Luffy’s smile is a world of darkness, cruelty, and extreme dictatorship.

Well then, let’s talk about these:

“The Top 10 Dark Realities of the One Piece World”, and discuss the Dark Side of this uplifting grand Epic.

Note that the following realities aren’t ranked in terms of their darkness because depending on the context under which these events are happening, any one of them could get as dark as it can get.

10 - The Unreal Racism and Discrimination against Minorities

The One Piece world is terribly racist, and the first genuine indication of this was back in Arlong Park, when a Fishman who had seen the worst of Racism against fishmen and hated humans to death…

He ultimately decided to takeover the world instead, and through absolute dictatorship. Though he was a fish in a pond at the time and considering how East Blue was still the Prologue of One Piece, Oda didn’t show us the full picture back then. It was shown fully in Saboady archipelago and then expanded upon in Fishman Island.

The real tragedies of this racism and discrimination against not just fishmen but also other races, people being tortured, sold off slaves, and seen as mere fish.

9 - The Secret behind the Smile Devil Fruits

Having been Foreshadowed back in Saboady archipelago, the artificial devil fruits known as Smiles had a really dark secret to them.

The success rate of these devil fruits was unreasonably small, and those who ate the unsuccessful devil fruits were prone to spend their entire lives in absolute misery as they couldn’t feel anything but laugh.

Not to mention, Orochi abused this fact and distributed the unsuccessful fruits to normal citizens and even took away their ability to cry for their dead ones.

8 - Child Experimentation

Back in Punk Hazard, we were shown firsthand how children were abducted and then frequently experimented upon, even going as far as making them take insanely potent drugs just for the sake of experimentation.

All of this and yet the children were living under a farse.

They thought that they are just being treated and once they are cured, they’ll return to their parents.

However, what was going to happen in their end was their ultimate death.

7 - Extreme Scarcity of Food and Water

First in Alabasta and now in Wano - the darkness of Political Propagandas. How Crocodile caused droughts in Alabasta, and then how Kaido caused insane famines and extreme scarcity of eatable food. Most of which was expanded upon by Orochi.

The problem was so severe that a woman was even seen trying to kill her with her son rather than starve another day, until Luffy brought in some food and the people ate after all this time.

6 - Being Forgotten, “A Fate Worse than Death.”

As a great man named Hiluluk once said,

"When do you think people die? When they are shot through the heart by the bullet of a pistol? No. When they are ravaged by an incurable disease? No. When they drink a soup made from a poisonous mushroom!? No! It’s when... they are forgotten."

Dressrosa had many dark themes, but one of them takes the cake, and its Sugar’s devil fruit.

A broken fruit capable of turning you into a toy and in turn erasing all traces of your existence from the minds of everyone you ever met or had relationships with in all your life.

To be Truly forgotten, a fate exponentially worse than death.

5 - A Sickness that wiped out a Civilization

Within Dressrosa we had the Law and Doflamingo flashback, and also got a front seat view of how absolutely terrifying Law’s past had been.

Their entire civilization caught a plague like disease and were ostracized by the rest of the world. Nobody but he survived, and he had to pass the Border while being hidden in a mass of corpses.

If it weren’t for Corazon healing him from the inside, he could’ve been so much worse than Doflamingo.

4 - The Horrors of Impel Down

Impel Down is a hell like Prison that imprisons the worst of all pirates and criminals, but the thing is that this Prison is designed like hell on earth. An expected move considering how the Celestial Dragons consider themselves the supposed gods of the world.

The further down you go, the more dreadful it gets, and its not just criminals who are in there. Anybody who didn’t submit to the will of the World Government can be thrown into it (Jinbe and Invankov for example).

3 - Big Mom, The Emperor that Inflicts Fear

Big Mom has always been portrayed by Oda as an emperor that inflicts fear.

Her flashback is probably the darkest single panel in the entire series.

Hidden beneath the charming smile of a child, as everyone celebrates her birthday Party and she begins to eat… at one point, she is no longer sane anymore and in the process of eating, she also ends up eating all of the other children as well as Mother Caramel.

Yet till this day, she doesn’t recall what happened that day. There’s also her devil fruit which essentially works with fear as its basis.

2 - The great Cleansing

The World Government wants to rule the One Piece world with absolute dominance, they don’t want any rebels or people who try to uncover their secrets.

Which is why whenever they face a potential threat, they completely eradicate them from the world with no trace of their existence left whatsoever.

It is an event that happened at Ohara, most likely happened at God Valley, and will also eventually happen in the future of this series.

The fate experienced by the people of Ohara, how all of their life’s work was essentially the reason for the genocide that took place on their civilization.

It was genuinely heartbreaking, and was our first truly dark indication of what goes on behind the authority of the World Government.

1 - Absolute Slavery and Human Trafficking

Both the Celestial Dragons and the Human Auction was introduced in Saboady Archipelago, and that’s where the actual dark realities of the World Government began to surface.

Mermaids, fishmen, giants, minks, humans and even pirate captains.

If you get caught and then sold off at the Human auction, you’ll be subject to absolute slavery.

Some slaves even try to bite their tongues of because they’d rather die than be subjected to absolute slavery.

The Celestial Dragons have a stupid number of slaves, and they are also known for their human trafficking as it was seen in Amazon Lily.

Not to mention, when Sugar turned people into Toys, they were supposed to obey and work continuously till forever.

There are many dark realities in One Piece, and it’s like the worst is still yet to come.

If you take out all of the exaggerations and fantasy elements, the One Piece world isn’t all that different from our world.

And until Luffy brings about the Dawn of the World, it’ll stay the same.

An Honorable mention that I would like to mention is Brook’s past, considering how it very much is a dark reality just by itself.

That’s all folks!