Antagonists

Antagonists are characters in the story of One Piece who oppose the protagonists—the Straw Hat Pirates—or their allies. Each story arc in the series typically features a main antagonist, and supporting antagonists of varying significance.

Overview
Antagonists in One Piece mainly come in two types: Enemy pirates and World Government forces, particularly the Marines. Because the protagonists are pirates themselves, they typically clash with other pirates, while the marines and other World Government organizations are naturally antagonistic towards them due to their criminal status. To date, the only canon arc to focus on antagonists wholly unaffiliated to any of the aforementioned groups is the Skypiea Arc.

Antagonist are usually defeated by the protagonists in the arc they appear in, but almost never killed. It is not uncommon for former antagonists to return in later arcs as allies of the Straw Pirates. By contrast, it is rare for a character to feature as a major antagonist again if they were already defeated in the past. Sometimes antagonists may feature in multiple arcs within the same saga, only being defeated for good in the last of arcs.

In order of descending importance, antagonists can be labelled as main, secondary, tertiary, major and minor. A main antagonist is the most significant enemy of the Straw Hat Pirates in a given arc. They are often the leader of an antagonist group and the most powerful or dangerous of the group. Typically the main antagonist is fought by the main protagonist Monkey D. Luffy.

Story Arc Antagonists
This section focuses on antagonists from the main storyline of One Piece, consisting of the canon story arcs and the anime-only arcs.

Antagonists by Saga
The following is a description of antagonistic forces by story arc.

East Blue Saga
This saga does not feature overarching antagonists, consisting of relatively independent stories.


 * Romance Dawn Arc: Features three separate antagonist forces: Higuma and his bandits, the Alvida Pirates, and Morgan and his Marines. Of these, Morgan is the only to play a role in more than one chapter, making him the de facto main antagonist.
 * Orange Town Arc: Buggy and the Buggy Pirates.
 * Syrup Village Arc: Kuro and the Black Cat Pirates.
 * Baratie Arc: Krieg and Krieg Pirates.
 * Arlong Park Arc: Arlong and the Arlong Pirates.
 * Loguetown Arc: Smoker, Tashigi and the Marines. The Buggy and Alvida Alliance acts as a secondary antagonist group.

Arabasta Saga
The overarching antagonist group of the saga are Baroque Works.


 * Reverse Mountain Arc: Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday.
 * Whisky Peak Arc: Mr. 5, Miss Valentine, and Baroque Works.
 * Little Garden Arc: Mr. 3 and Baroque Works.
 * Drum Island Arc: Wapol and the Bliking Pirates.
 * Arabasta Arc: Crocodile and Baroque Works.

Sky Island Saga
This saga does not feature overarching antagonists.


 * Jaya Arc: Bellamy and the Bellamy Pirates.
 * Skypiea Arc: Enel and God's Army.

Water 7 Saga
The overarching antagonist groups of the saga are the World Government and CP9.


 * Long Ring Long Land Arc: Foxy and the Foxy Pirates. Aokiji as a secondary antagonist.
 * Water 7 Arc: Rob Lucci and CP9. Franky and the Franky Family as secondary antagonists.
 * Enies Lobby Arc: Spandam, Rob Lucci and CP9.
 * Post-Enies Lobby Arc: Monkey D. Garp and the Marines.

Thriller Bark Saga

 * Thriller Bark Arc: Gecko Moria and the Thriller Bark Pirates.

Summit War Saga
The overarching antagonist groups of the saga are the World Government and the Marines.


 * Sabaody Archipelago Arc: Charlos and the Celestial Dragons. Kizaru, Sentomaru, Pacifista and the Marines.
 * Amazon Lily Arc: Boa Hancock and the Kuja Pirates.
 * Impel Down Arc: Magellan and the Impel Down staff. Marshall D. Teach and the Blackbeard Pirates as a secondary antagonist group.
 * Marineford Arc: Akainu and Marshall D. Teach. The Marines and the Blackbeard Pirates.
 * Post-Marineford Arc: Bluejam and the Bluejam Pirates.

Fish-Man Island Saga
The only overarching antagonist of the saga is Caribou.


 * Return to Sabaody Arc: Demaro Black and the Fake Straw Hat Crew. Caribou and the Caribou Pirates.
 * Fish-Man Island Arc: Hody Jones and the New Fish-Man Pirates. Vander Decken IX and the Flying Pirates. Caribou.

Dressrosa Saga
The overarching antagonist group of the saga are the Donquixote Pirates.


 * Punk Hazard Arc: Caesar Clown, the Punk Hazard staff and the Donquixote Pirates.
 * Dressrosa Arc: Donquixote Doflamingo and the Donquixote Pirates.

Four Emperors Saga
The overarching antagonist groups of the saga are the Beasts Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates.


 * Zou Arc: Jack and the Beasts Pirates.
 * Whole Cake Island Arc: Big Mom and the Big Mom Pirates.
 * Levely Arc: Charlos and the Celestial Dragons. Peachbeard and the Peachbeard Pirates.
 * Wano Country Arc: Kaidou and the Beasts Pirates, Kurozumi Orochi his forces, and Big Mom and the Big Mom Pirates.

Other Antagonists
This section goes over antagonists in other material, such as movies, TV specials, video games and one-shots.

Movies

 * One Piece: The Movie: Eldoraggo and his crew.
 * Clockwork Island Adventure: Bear King and the Trump Pirates.
 * Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals: Battler, Hotdog and Heaby.
 * Dead End Adventure: Gasparde and the Gasparde Pirates.
 * The Cursed Holy Sword: Saga under the influence of the Shichiseiken.
 * Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island: Baron Omatsuri under the influence of the Lily Carnation.
 * The Giant Mechanical Soldier of Karakuri Castle: Ratchet and his subordinates.
 * One Piece Film: Strong World: Shiki and the Golden Lion Pirates.
 * One Piece Film: Z: Z and the Neo Marines.
 * One Piece Film: Gold: Gild Tesoro and the Gran Tesoro staff.
 * One Piece: Stampede: Douglas Bullet and Buena Festa.

Trivia

 * In an SBS answer, Eiichiro Oda presented a reasoning as to why Luffy does not kill his enemies, stating that having one's dreams shattered is as painful as death and that victory and defeat matter more to pirates than their lives.