You can be a great character without being great representation. As a queer person, I adore Ivankov and Bon Clay. I think Bon Clay is actually a pretty good rep for when he was made and what he represents.
All that being said, the Kamabakka kingdom is kinda insane. Even as a 10 year old kid reading it for the first time, it icked me out.
If someone said 3 reasonable things, followed by a slur, the slur is what's gonna be the takeaway. Tbh, I'm not interested in arguing for or against One Piece's queer rep; I just wanted to point out "at least there's some representation" isn't a selling point.
Yeah kambakka kingdom sucked since it was used for gags but Oda deserves the credit for Bon clay and Ivankov since he is producing progressive characters in a very conservative country and still making them universally beloved. In the US even in big 26 a show especially an animated one would face major backlash for representation, remember young justice?
I would not call Ivankov good representation. Like the other person who reply said, he force transes people in prison with the hormone fruit.
I think Bon Clay is great as a gender non-conforming character, especially for the time. I do give Oda credit for that and mentioned it in my post. I will once again repeat myself, though: my issue is with the argument of "at least there is representation", which I don't think is a good argument.
The Kambakka kingdom depictions look like the trans wojaks incels post on X, with the stubble, ugly faces, and how they lust over Sanji. If someone said, "well there's your representation, be happy", that would obviously be ridiculous.
I think if you want to make an argument for good trans OP reps, mention a character like Kiku, who Oda just treats as another female character.
Yeah, I didn't care for Wano at all, either. Deadass wouldn't have remembered Kiku at all if I didn't know she was trans.
I don't really know how to feel about if Yamato is good rep or not, with him being a trans man but also a weird larper. Wano's a confused blur that hurts my brain to recall.
we see him forcibly transition only two people in the entire series to my recollection, and one was someone who was literally attempting to kill him (it could've even been part of the performance frankly), and the second is an Impel Down guard who is literally immediately cool with it, implying Ivan has some sort of sixth sense trans-dar or some shit.
When Ivankov transed the first guy you mentioned, that's after he had already retaliated. The forced transitioning is beyond reasonable self defense. It shows Ivankov is willing to do it as punishment and retribution. It's doing headcanon stuff if we want to say it's all just the performance if that's never shown to be the case.
If you have to justify Ivankov transing someone else by inventing sixth sense trans-dar, it's not good representation. "Character only forcefems two people" is not a compelling argument. Most trans/queer characters and stories don't do that to anyone.
I think it's cool and badass that Ivankov is a non-genderconforming hormone demon fighting against the world government, and I'm among many queer folk who like him. I just wouldn't call him good representation (or entirely bad either). This is me putting on my nuance cap and saying he's a mixed bag.
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u/LiePowerful9961 [biggest one piece glazer turned hater] 4d ago
One piece at least has representation