One of the most iconic and recognizable things about the One Piece world is the concept of Wanted Posters and Bounties. Conceptually, they aren’t anything new or innovative and have always existed in fiction and in history in some way. shape or form.
However, One Piece managed to give those seemingly simple concepts a heavy lore-oriented purpose. Here is everything you need to know about One Piece Wanted Posters.
One Piece Wanted Posters
The numbers displayed represent the bounty or reward for capturing or defeating that Pirate. Higher bounties indicate more powerful pirates who are deemed serious threats. For example, Luffy’s first poster had a modest 30,000,000 Berry bounty, but now as an Emperor’s bounty, it stands at a whopping 3,000,000,000 Berries.
Unique aliases or titles are bestowed upon notorious pirates, like “Straw Hat” Luffy, “Pirate Hunter” Zoro, and “Surgeon of Death” Law. These epithets reflect their signature traits, abilities, or actions. Zoro’s “Pirate Hunter” moniker originated from his bounty-hunting days.
Getting a Bounty
Typically, defeating other pirates, allying with infamous crews, damaging government property, resisting arrest, and acts of pillaging can raise a pirate’s bounty. Luffy’s bounty skyrocketed after defeating Warlords Crocodile and Doflamingo as well as leading the attack on Enies Lobby.
- The increase in Bounty of a Pirate is often seen as a sign of growth both in terms of power and reputation.
- The portraits on wanted posters help identify the visual features of high-profile pirates. However, some pictures are drawn hastily or inaccurately, forcing the Marines to issue updated versions with better likenesses.
- Usopp and Sanji have suffered from badly wanted photos while Nami somehow manages to get professional-looking model-like photographs in every arc.
World Government’s Manipulation
The World Government doesn’t shy away from manipulating bounties and poster information for its own agenda. For example, Robin’s bounty was inflated simply because they wanted to hide her knowledge about the Void Century, even though she was just a child when a bounty was placed on her head.
- Similarly, they try to hide the presence of ‘D’ in a wanted poster whenever possible.
- The most infamous of such examples would be the Pirate King Gol D. Roger himself, whose name was intentionally publicized as Gold Roger to hide his connections to the Will of D.
- In certain special cases, the posters are altered to make sure that the criminal is taken in alive. This was what happened in the case of Sanji’s ‘Only Alive’ bounty poster due to Germa 66’s influence.
Conclusion
For notorious pirates, Wanted posters symbolize achieving grand infamy and influence on the seas. Earning an exceedingly high bounty means you have the power to potentially shake the world, however, it also puts a Pirate in the crosshairs of people from both sides of the law.
While it is officially just a system to give incentives to bounty hunters and make it easier to nab Pirates, Wanted Posters and Bounties have turned into a sort of status symbol among Pirates in the world of One Piece.