One Piece: The 7 Most Bloodthirsty Villains

Many villains in One Piece display an active desire to injure or murder others. This tends to connect to violence itself being a method from which authority can be derived. There is a correlation between the most threatening villains and those who are most successful at violence.

Nonetheless, even by these standards, some villains have an especially strong desire to see bloodshed and the consequences that follow. Some are pirates trying to assert their own authority, others are government employees who use the pretense of order to enact truly massive levels of violence. Whatever the case, these One Piece villains are especially bloodthirsty.

7

Marshall D. Teach

Blackbeard

• Current Affiliation: Blackbeard Pirates

Marshall D. Teach, also known as Blackbeard, is a villain shown to relish bloodshed. He seems to both enjoy the act of killing, but also rationalize it as a tactical maneuver. He has killed two of his former crewmates in the Whitebeard Pirates for the sake of stealing their Devil Fruit powers for himself. He has seemingly continued this arrangement for his major crewmates in the Blackbeard Pirates, who had previously not consumed a Devil Fruit. He also sank the majority of the Heart Pirates, whose fate is left ambiguous for the time being. Regardless, one could reasonably interpret Teach as having intended to kill them.

While the concrete extent to which Teach has killed is unclear, he seems to view it as a reasonable course of action in many circumstances. However, his sadism is refined by reason, as he will instead take hostages in circumstances where doing so better suits his goals.

6

Donquixote Doflamingo

Justifying Atrocities

• Current Affiliation: Donquixote Pirates

Donquixote Doflamingo was once a Celestial Dragon, and his own desire to regain power pushed him to kill both his father and brother for obstructing his path. However, some of his most bloodthirsty actions are kept largely offscreen. Beyond his work as a trafficker, dealing in SMILEs, rare weapons, and slaves, among other things, he has notably killed all eight of Baby 5’s past suitors.

Baby 5 is a former subordinate of Doflamingo, whose own obsession with being validated after a childhood of neglect leads her to be susceptible to manipulation by others around her. This has led her to accept every marriage proposal she is given. In his own twisted way of protecting her from herself, Doflamingo kills her suitors and destroys their towns. It is likely that a not insignificant number of people, most of whom weren’t involved in the original offense, were killed out of justification for these actions.

Ironically, Baby 5’s ninth suitor, Sai, became the impetus for her to betray the crew, instead becoming a member of the Happo Navy under the Straw Hat Grand Fleet. Even incarcerated, Doflamingo still retains his bloodthirst, relishing the downfall of the World Nobles.

5

Shiryu

Too Brutal For Impel Down

• Current Affiliation: Blackbeard Pirates

Shiryu of the Rain was the former head jailer of Impel Down before becoming one of the jailed instead. His crime? Excessive brutality towards prisoners. Impel Down’s punishments include deliberately starving prisoners, boiling them alive in a pot of blood, and freezing them to the point of either death or severe frostbite. Yet Shiryu’s own murders were apparently too excessive for him to continue in his role in Impel Down.

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He was kept on the lowest level of the prison, put on death row, and was unable to receive a pardon even for aiding in the protection of the prison. Shiryu’s tendency to massacre prisoners was “erased” from public record due to the extent of his crimes. He eventually escaped, joining the Blackbeard Pirates, as he preferred piracy to his impending execution.

4

Dracule Mihawk

Marine Hunter

• Current Affiliation: Cross Guild

Dracule Mihawk was mostly known for his tenure as one of the Shichibukai. However, prior to this enlistment, he was known as the “Marine Hunter.” For context, Mihawk is generally considered the World’s Strongest Swordsman, and will often involve himself in conflicts for the sake of entertainment. He notably wiped out the majority of the Krieg Pirates, a crew numbering 5000, whittling it down to a fiftieth of its original size, with a flagship of only 100 men surviving.

One could argue that the offering of the Warlord rank was simply an attempt by the government to prevent its forces from getting trounced this badly. Although Mihawk is rarely seen relishing murder for its own sake, he will generally take on and even sink large swaths of marines or pirates simply to get them out of his way. He will also pick fights with many a powerful marine or pirate, and, due to his own superior skill, he generally wins in occasionally fatal conflicts against them. While not shown to be particularly sadistic, Mihawk’s own background in bloodshed and the ease with which he executes it warrant him being called bloodthirsty.

3

Akainu

Fleet Admiral

• Current Affiliation: The Navy

Sakazuki, better known by his codename Akainu, is the current Fleet Admiral of the Marines and is known for his authoritarian personality. He was one of the key figures in the Ohara Incident, where he ordered the destruction of both the island and the ships escaping it, all to prevent the escape or survival of any scholars. Ironically, one scholar survived that day, becoming the sole living resident of Ohara, Nico Robin.

This establishes his willingness to not only kill criminals, but also kill those they are close to, in case they use those individuals to slip away unencumbered. His magma powers, along with his philosophy that it is better to kill many innocents rather than let a criminal walk free, make him one of the most bloodthirsty villains in the One Piece series.

2

The Five Elders

Imu’s Public Face

• Current Affiliation: World Government

The Five Elders are a group of Celestial Dragons who are virtually immortal. They are collectively portrayed as having little regard for humanity, often likening them to cockroaches. The five of them are direct underlings of Imu, and they publicly enact their leader’s orders and act as the “official rulers” of the World Government, maintaining the illusion of it as an oligarchy rather than an autocracy.

Related

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Celestial Dragons are very elitist due to their heritage, here is every family affiliated with the most despised collective in One Piece.

While some of the Five Elders may show hesitation towards their orders, they are all generally bound enough to Imu to follow them to the letter. Independently, they care little for human life, and the only thing that really stops them from killing any potential victim is said victim’s refusal to die.

1

Imu

The One Who Orders All The Killings

• Current Affiliation: World Government

Imu is perhaps the most bloodthirsty character in One Piece. They possess an unclear Ancient Weapon powered by the Mother Flame, which allows them to wipe out entire islands in mere seconds at their discretion. They also killed Nefertari Cobra upon the discovery that he was secretly a member of the Clan of D.

Imu’s bloodlust is not strictly for personal amusement and seems to stem, at least in part, from a desire to zealously protect their power and identity. They appear to view murder, mass murder in particular, as the most efficient way to do this.

One Piece

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Network

Fuji TV

Directors

Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou

Writers

Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda

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  Mayumi Tanaka

  Monkey D. Luffy (voice)

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  Kazuya Nakai

  Roronoa Zoro (voice)