Despite Character Making Manga Debut In 2000, Netflix’s ‘One Piece’ Writer Claims Series Villain Wapol Is “Based On Donald Trump”
Ah, another American presidential election, another round of politically-poisoned attempting to read each and every piece of popular entertainment, regardless of such details as ‘creation date’ or ‘context’, as some sort of commentary on the entire affair – and spear-heading this latest instance of this phenomena is none other than Netflix’s One Piece staff writer Randy Troy, who has come out and attempted to claim that the character of Wapol was intended by mangaka Eiichiro Oda to serve as a direct commentary on Donald Trump.
Introduced in the manga’s 131st chapter all the way back in 2000, the stocky and purpled-haired Wapol is best described as ‘a comically stereotypical dictator’, his greatest accomplishment in life being his absolute ruining of his inherited Drum Kingdom, whose people have been left in a state of constant poverty, starvation, and sickness thanks to their monarch’s own selfishness, as he regularly pillages the nation’s resources in service of funding his own pleasures.
Assisting Wapol in his dictatorial ambitions is the Baku Baku no Mi (Eng. Munch-Munch Fruit), whose consumption by the villain bestowed upon him the ability to not only eat pretty much anything, but also physically duplicate their qualities upon his own person for a max of 24 hours, as well as ‘mash’ together anything he has consumed in order to produce a new item.
And in case there was any doubt as to Wapol’s awfulness, perhaps the most memorable moment from his rule was his decision to exile all but a handful of doctors from the Drum Island, which he did in order to control his subjects by making them fully reliant on his permission for any and all medical treatment.
His initial reign of terror ultimately brought to an end by a well-placed Gomu Gomu no Bazooka (Eng. Gum Gum Bazooka), Wapol would spend the next few years wandering the seas eating any and everything he could, resigning himself to a new life as an exiled drifter rather than a king.
However, in the process of eating his way across the Grand Line, the former King realized that not only did he have a knack for using his Devil Fruit power to create toys, but that it was also capable of taking all the garbage and debris he had eaten into a new type of shape-memory steel aptly named ‘Wapol Metal’.
Eventually, Wapol is able to angle his toy and steel making business into a full-blown enterprise, in doing so marrying his equally-as-dastardly wife Miss Universe, re-establishing himself as one of the world’s major power players, and, in a reward from the World Nobles for his hard work in restoring his reputation, being crowned the new King of the as-of-yet-unexplored-on-page-or-screen Evil Black Drum Kingdom.
(And though some may presume Wapol has fully turned to the light side given how recent chapters have shown him teaming-up with Straw Hat ally Nefertari Vivi to evade the clutches of the World Government, it should be noted that he is not helping the blue-haired princess out out of any specific desire to do good, but rather simply to save his own hide from being completely obliterated by the government’s highest ranking members, the Five Elders.)
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A major villain in the early era of One Piece, Wapol was confirmed to join the cast of Netflix’s live-action adaptation in June, when the streaming giant revealed that The Main Saints of Newark star Rob Colletti would be portraying the villain in Season 2.
Yet, despite the villain making his on-paper debut nearly a quarter-of-a-century ago – and likely in development for some time before that – the aforementioned Troy believes that the whole of Wapol’s character was created by Oda as some sort of precognitive criticism on the newly-reelected Trump.
An experienced Hollywood production assistant who ostensibly caught the attention of the Netflix series’ production team by way of his own personal One Piece-centric YouTube channel, Troy took to his personal Twitter account on November 8th to absurdly allege that “The greedy and petulant Wapol is based on Donald Trump, whose family name comes from the German ‘Drumpf’, hence where ‘Drum [Kingdom]’ gets its name.”
“In an almost prophetic turn from Oda,” he added, “Trump’s U.S. policies were/are riddled with healthcare management issue.”
Contrary to Troy’s assertions, not only does it make no actual sense, as discussed above, for a character created decades ago to have been conceived as a commentary on someone, thing, or event that literally had not yet come into being, but the name of Wapol’s Drum Kingdom has absolutely nothing to do with Trump.
Rather, as explained by Oda himself in the manga’s 25th ‘Log Book’ (the colloquial title for the current run of multi-chapter One Piece ‘catch-up’ collections), “One day, I read a book and found a photo about Drum Rock. If I remember correctly, Drum Rock is located in Canada. The rock looked cool, so I drew an island called Drum Island with a mountain called Drum Rocky. Thus, the so-called ‘Chopper Arc’ started.”
In response, Troy was met with pushback from fellow One Piece fan @nomarthenomad, who asserted, “I find this pretty hard to believe given Trump wasn’t relevant to politics at all in 2000 when Wapol made his first appearance. Also, hate to say it but Wapol may end up; being a good guy (or at least a help to the good guys) by the end, so not sure you want to go this route.”
Defending his take, Troy attempted to counter, “He planted seeds as early as 1986, leading to many jokes about him as a US president in pop culture well into the early 2000s when Drum was serialized. Even the famous Simpsons episode ‘Bart to the Future’ referenced this idea, predating the start of the Drum arc.’
Following further criticism from One Piece fans, Troy eventually deleted the above pair of Wapol-related tweets, and has since declined to further comment on the matter.
At current, though filming commenced in August, Netflix has yet to announce an official start date for One Piece‘s second season.
NEXT: ‘One Piece’ Anime Censors Eiichiro Oda’s Original Design For Stussy’s Vegapunk Outfit
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