Non-Canon Characters Who Make No Sense

Summary

• Douglas Bullet, a non-canon character, challenges the lore of One Piece with his brutal strength and imprisoned backstory.
• Willy, a mammal fish-man in Dead End Adventure, poses a challenge to canon logic due to his existence diverging from established fish-men species.
• All-Hunt Grount, a Marine with unique powers, defies Zoan Devil Fruit norms by only affecting his arm, raising questions about his creation within the series.

For various reasons, including the existence of films, filler episodes, and other merchandise, many non-canon characters have been created for One Piece. These characters are never intended to be a part of the actual story, and as such, are not taken into account when developing or advancing the lore.

Nonetheless, they are commonly created in pockets, to the point where the lore has yet to contradict them outright. However, as the lore develops, it becomes even harder to account for the possibility of certain characters existing within it. The result is these non-canon characters making even less sense than they once did previously.

5 Douglas Bullet

Too Brutal To Live

• Debut: One Piece: Stampede (Movie)
• Medium: Anime (Film)

Douglas Bullet is the main antagonist of One Piece: Stampede, who is something like a mixture of Kaido and Eustass Kid. Bullet was once a Roger Pirate, as Gol D. Roger was the only man who ever proved stronger than him in combat. Like Kaido, Bullet’s youth as a child soldier instilled in him a “might makes right” ideology, which led to him distrusting others. After a Buster Call, exclusively dispatched to deal with him, where pirates even aided marines, Bullet found himself locked in Impel Down’s sixth floor.

He was apparently incarcerated for 21 years, escaping at the age of 43, during Teach’s prison break. Despite the Blackbeard Pirates’ own lack of camaraderie, Blackbeard was too terrified of Bullet to properly recruit him and instead just left him to his own devices as he escaped. Bullet subsequently made an effort to kill all other pirates in an effort to surpass the late Roger, which he believed would both make him the strongest (and the new pirate king). Accordingly, it once again took a number of pirates, marines, and a few other strong fighters to take down the mighty Bullet.

Considering the World Government’s willingness to commit mass murder and dispose of anyone they view as too threatening, it seems odd that a mass-murdering Bullet, who created huge problems for the marines, was kept alive for over two decades. Roger himself, who was always stronger than Bullet, was executed by the World Government with much less issue. Short of his resilience, which itself doesn’t explain why he couldn’t escape on his own, it seems unclear as to why Bullet was kept alive — especially when he did later escape and once again proved deeply problematic.

4 Willy

A Mammal Fish-Man

• Debut: One Piece The Movie: Dead End Adventure (Film)
• Medium: Anime (Movie)

Fish-Men in One Piece have grown in prominence since the timeskip, with one even joining the Straw Hat Pirates. But, around the point in the narrative shown in Dead End Adventure, little had been seen of them since the Arlong Pirates. This film, which, like most of the earlier One Piece films, is only voiced in Japanese, introduces Willy, an Orca fish-man who is an apparent rival of Arlong, participating in Gasparde’s rigged race.

Arlong’s own backstory, which doesn’t immediately contradict his existence, had not been established at this point. A more contentious aspect of Willy’s existence is that he takes after an aquatic mammal, rather than a fish or a cephalopod. Although a diverse number of species that fish-man can take after have been established, there has yet to be another aquatic mammal fish-man confirmed in canon. The exact reasons behind this are unclear and may or may not be cleared up if One Piece identifies the confirmed common ancestor between fish-men and humans, as well as when and why they branched off.

3 All-Hunt Grount

A Unique Zoan User

• Debut: Episode 780 (Anime)
• Medium: Anime (Filler Episodes)

All-Hunt Grount is a Marine Captain who used to report to Kuzan — before his own defection from the marines. Grount has a bizarre Zoan Devil fruit that he could not yet control. Kuzan pacified him with his ice powers, and Grount enlisted in the marines under him. Grount was very ambitious, looking to take down opponents like Big Mom and Monkey D. Luffy. Ultimately, he lost to Luffy but swore to defeat him the next time they met.

The bizarre aspect of Grount is that his Devil Fruit seems to only affect his arm. This is unlike every other Zoan, which affects the user’s entire body. Grount’s arm’s need to be controlled reflects the apparent will inherent to every Zoan Fruit pre-consumption (which was admittedly not established fully at this point), yet the extent to which it affects the body is more similar to a SMILE, which tends to only partially take shape in a somewhat permanent manner. While SMILEs, and to a lesser extent to their users, were established at this point in time, their existence as a resource produced by Doflamingo and funneled to Kaido makes it less likely a marine would get ahold of one, especially considering how young Grount was when he ate his own Devil Fruit.

No Mere Middle Man

• Debut: One Piece Odyssey
• Medium: Video Game

Margin is an Alabasta-based pirate who somehow has special clearance from the World Government to claim bounties. He uses this role to get other pirates, namely the Straw Hats, to give him defeated pirates with bounties, in return giving them a cut of the profit as a sort of finder’s fee. However, Margin used this position to create a pirate crew for himself, known as the Bounty Pirates, consisting of pirates with high bounties that he deemed especially promising.

He later confronted the Straw Hat Pirates with the intent of adding them to the Bounty Pirates once he felt his crew was strong enough to face them. However, he deeply overestimated the capability of his own crew, especially considering the Straw Hats had already defeated most of its members on his behalf. Ultimately, the position is apparently supplanted by the Evil Brothers, two pirates with bounties that Margin declined to recruit.

Margin and the existence of his position seems highly dubious for multiple reasons. Firstly, while Warlords were not abolished at the time of One Piece Odyssey‘s release, they appeared to be the only pirates the government directly claimed as affiliates, which included the freezing of their bounties. Secondly, Margin apparently still has an active bounty, with the Evil Brothers deciding to turn him in themselves in their effort to replace him. It is still unclear why exactly he is given the position if he has both an active and fairly high bounty, especially considering that this game takes place after the Dressrosa Arc, when concerns about pirates with government connections were more heavily scrutinized.

1 Z (“Black Arm” Zephyr)

An Entire Backstory Cut Down By SWORD

• Debut: One Piece Film: Z (Film); Episode 577 (Anime)
• Medium: Anime (Movie and Filler Episodes)

Of all the characters in One Piece who are outright incompatible with the current narrative, Z, or Zephyr, is likely the most incompatible with it. Z was a former Marine Admiral who defected from the organization due to what he perceived as an inability to properly deal with pirates. His response was to create a terrorist organization, which he dubbed the Neo Marines, that he hoped would kill all the pirates in the New World. Z was also deeply admired by a majority of the marines, with his students including a number of future Admirals and Vice Admirals.

Z held a deep hatred for pirates, stemming from when his wife and son were murdered by one. He stayed on as an instructor, but the majority of his division, as well as his arm, were lost to an unnamed pirate with a Devil Fruit. Said pirate was invited to become a Warlord during the timeskip, which ultimately led Z to defect.

The main issue with Z’s existence and his pivotal defection is that it presupposes there is no way one can illegally kill or confront certain pirates on behalf of the marines. More recently, the existence of SWORD has been confirmed, which proves this is false. SWORD is an organization consisting of marines who have retired “on paper,” but in practice are not only part of the structure, but given significantly more freedom in their actions, provided the World Government can disavow them later.

Seeing as X Drake, the leader of SWORD, has been an undercover pirate since before the timeskip, it can be safely assumed the organization was active prior to Z’s defection. This means that Z could do everything — seemingly up to and including killing all the pirates in the New World — without needing to leave the marines. It is unclear if being a Warlord may take the pirate who killed Z’s unit out of the equation, as SWORD was made known to readers while Warlords were being phased out entirely. Seeing as Drake fought against the World Government and marines as a secret member of SWORD, it likely wouldn’t be off the table, as the World Government could once again disavow their death. The only thing that seemingly prevented Z from joining SWORD, rather than leaving the marines altogether, is it not being an established plot point back in the early 2010s.