The One Piece anime has taken a controversial scene from the manga and extended it, making it even more problematic.
The One Piece anime has stirred up controversy with a recent episode by taking an uncomfortable sequence from the manga and making it even worse. The anime has consistently drawn out various scenes to fill its runtime. However, the scene extended in its latest episode is much more risqué than normal and has far more negative implications.
In episode #1090, Luffy, Chopper, Jinbe, and Bonney fall into the sea off Egghead Island, getting separated from the rest of the Straw Hats. After finding shelter in a cave, the group spends some time recovering, with Bonney drying out her clothes. Throughout this process, Bonney is topless, and the scene caused controversy when it appeared in the manga, due to Bonney being only twelve (as revealed later).
Rather than censor it, the anime seems to revel in the scene, extending and extracting a lot of fanservice from it. The scene takes up a handful of panels in the manga, but the anime pads this out to a couple of minutes Due to revelations about Bonney’s age that are discovered later in the Egghead Island arc, this extension and addition of fanservice becomes a lot more morally questionable.
The One Piece Anime Made Bonney’s Fanservice Worse
During Kuma’s tragic flashback later in Egghead Island, it is revealed that Bonney is only twelve years old, using her Devil Fruit Powers to appear older most of the time. This makes any scenes with her being sexualized or presented as partially nude incredibly controversial. While her body in those scenes may be aged up, she is still a child mentally. The anime had a chance to avoid the uncomfortable presentation of this scene in the manga but instead, it doubled down on the problem.
Part of why this may have occurred is the anime’s pacing issues. Most modern episodes of One Piece only adapt one chapter of the manga at most. This means that some moments are dragged out or given more focus than they were in the original story. This isn’t inherently a bad thing as many fans like how much attention every detail of the manga gets in the anime and the Wano arc fixed some of the issues with this approach. However, when it comes to parts of the manga that are more problematic, this slow pacing can just serve to exacerbate the issues present in the source material.
One Piece‘s Anime Needs To Improve The Manga, Not Just Extend It
Given how Bonney’s changing scene was treated in episode #1090, this is unlikely to change soon. In the manga, she was only seen half-naked from behind, while the anime adds a full frontal shot. Luckily the rest of the Egghead Island arc that has been released so far doesn’t have many more problematic moments like this, but it is a worrying sign. If the One Piece anime is more preoccupied with filling time than improving flaws in its source material, then it will ultimately just make its story worse.
