Why One Piece Has Never Shown A Pirate With An Eyepatch
"One Piece" has become arguably the biggest pirate world in fiction. This is one of the most popular anime and manga of all time — a show with a reputation as legendary as "Dragon Ball Z." Not only has that reputation resulted in a hugely successful and Guinness World Record-holder best-selling manga, but also one of the best live-action anime adaptations out there — and a soon-to-be remake for the still-ongoing anime.
The show is about a world full of pirates, all engaged in a worldwide hunt for the titular One Piece, a legendary massive treasure left behind by the former Pirate King Gol D. Roger. It is a lengthy story worthy of its legendary reputation, with unparalleled worldbuilding, a lot of variety in the tones, and even genres of stories explored as our main Straw Hat crew of pirates travel from island to island on their way to finding the One Piece. The series can go from a "Scooby-Doo" horror adventure to a "The Great Escape" story in just a few episodes.
Of course, there's also pirates. Lots and lots of pirates. Creator Eiichiro Oda clearly loves history and he did his research, because "One Piece" is filled with references to real pirates of history and legend. The Q&As at the end of the early volumes of the manga detail how he pulled from real history into both the worldbuilding, and also the characters, like pirates based on Blackbeard and William Kidd, but also Long John Silver and Sadie Farrell.
Still, as many pirates, Jolly Rogers, and pirate ships as there are, there is one crucial piece of pirate iconography we haven't seen in "One Piece" in any of its over 1000 episodes — an eyepatch.
What's a pirate without an eyepatch?
"One Piece" has already covered much of the classic pirate iconography throughout the years. There's a pirate with a big golden hook for a hand, a former pirate with a wooden peg leg, plenty of pirates with hats, and a pirate with a pet bird, but no eyepatch.
In the "One Piece 10th Treasures" a collectors' book full of fun facts and trivia about the manga, creator Eiichiro Oda addressed the lack of eyepatches in his story about pirates, saying that the moment you show an eyepatch that character becomes synonymous with a legendary pirate. But for "One Piece," Oda wanted to do something different, "the story of a normal-looking boy's pirate story."
"I thought, if there's an image in everyone's head about what a pirate is, then I thought I would write/draw about the process of the boy getting there. But it's not like I dislike eyepatches, so in the final scenes of 'One Piece,' there is one pirate who appears with an eye patch."
What's funny is that one of the main characters, Zoro, lost an eye during a two-year time skip, yet he doesn't wear an eyepatch.
That Oda has been teasing the introduction of a pirate with an eyepatch since at least 2007 is a cause of excitement for fans. After all, this is one of the most meticulously crafted worlds in fiction, with Oda masterfully calling back to and paying off the smallest of details years if not decades later. So when we inevitably do get the eyepatch, you can rest assured it will be more than a background joke.