Usopp’s the most underappreciated member of Luffy’s crew, but the One Piece pirate has saved the day & accomplished wonders more than readers realize.
One member of One Piece‘s Straw Hat Pirate Crew is often spoken down on more than the rest, but Usopp has a more impressive list of achievements than he usually gets credit for. He was first introduced as Eiichiro Oda’s version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” but it didn’t take long for one of the original members of Luffy’s crew to establish his unique character quirks. While he has been known for telling tall tales and being one of the first members to overreact to peril, he’s proven reliable and essential to One Piece‘s best pirate crew.
Each member of Luffy’s crew has come a long way since their introductions. Usopp was a young man who left his close friend Kaya and the East Blue’s Syrup Village to become a great warrior of the sea, like his father before him. Years later, many of the stories and lies he told Kaya in One Piece have come true throughout his adventures. The Straw Hat’s sniper has also accomplished wonders that will be sung about as Legend throughout the One Piece world even years after the adventures of the Straw Hats end.
6. Claiming Credit For Big Mom’s Conquer Haki
Wano was the largest arc the series has seen so far and it saw much of the cast gain new weapons and abilities. Usopp didn’t gain some ultimate endgame powerup in One Piece’s Wano, but survivors of the Raid of Onigishima would say otherwise. Big Mom’s battle against Kid and Law saw bursts of her conqueror’s haki surge throughout the stronghold. Usopp happened to be fighting enemies in an area where this energy appeared, knocking out dozens of Kaido’s soldiers. Usopp took credit for this, ensuring warriors who survived the battle would spread the word that he could use a power often reserved for the world’s strongest fighters.
5. Movie Moments From Stampede and RED
Usopp has more than a few non-canon feats from One Piece Stampede and RED that were so cool that they needed to be mentioned. Whether it be a rouge member of Pirate King Roger’s crew or a misguided musician with a world-ending devil fruit, Usopp was there to save the day. Stampede‘s antagonist Douglas Bullet single-handily made short work of Luffy and other Worst Generation members. Still, he was ultimately foiled by underestimating Usopp’s skills with strategically placed binding plant seeds that restrained the mighty foe, allowing Luffy to land a powerful new technique and win the battle.
The Dressrosa arc appears later in this list, but Usopp’s awakening of observation haki truly shined in One Piece RED‘s climax. Using the ability to read life energies allowed Usopp to communicate with his father while being locked away in a separate dimension. Each faction battled RED‘s ultimate threat, the “Demon King of Songs,” in two separate dimensions (RED was one of the weirder films.) Without Usopp and his father’s use of observation haki and team coordination, a large group of One Piece‘s world would have died due to Uta’s ability.
4. Winning Against Perona In Thriller Bark
Much like Usopp, Thriller Bark is an underrated One Piece arc that often gets more criticism than it deserves. Containing many outstanding moments to shine for each of the Straw Hat crew, the arc also provided an opponent that Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji had no chance of defeating in “Ghost Princess” Perona. However, her ability to drain the morale and will to live of anyone it touched was useless against Usopp, whose constant negative outlook rendered the ability ineffective. He used his wits and this advantage to devise a strategy that successfully knocked Perona out with a humorously large, fake 10-Ton mallet.
3. Putting Up A Fight Against Luffy In Water 7
The Water 7 and Eines Lobby arcs belong on readers’ lists of top arcs in the series and contain two of Usopp’s top three feats on this list. Usopp begins questioning his usefulness and starts feeling like the most expendable of One Piece’es Straw Hat pirates after the crew’s money is stolen under his care, and the heavily-damaged Going Merry was deemed unfit to sail. In a time when Merry had seemingly outlived its usefulness, Usopp was terrified the same was true for himself, and that stress caused him to lash out against Luffy. After one of the crew’s most intense conversations, a battle many readers consider One Piece‘s best transpires between Luffy and Usopp.
Usopp wasn’t expected to be able to put up much of a battle against the Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, a crew that hosts powerhouses like Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro and Black-Foot Sanji. The constant One Piece power level debate fueled the tension for this battle and also helped shock audiences when Usopp pulled out all the stops and used everything in his arsenal to prove his ability and usefulness to Luffy—using many explosions and Skypia’s impact dials to land several devastating blows. While Usopp ultimately lost this battle, he proved he could be an effective battle asset with proper planning, even against someone as talented in fighting as Luffy.
2. Sogeking Long Distance Shots in Enies Lobby
As Enies Lobby approached its thrilling conclusion, most of the Straw Hats were in life-or-death battles against the powerful CP9 government agents. During this time, Robin was being escorted to one of One Piece‘s many mysterious locations, the Gates of Justice, where rescue would have been impossible until soldiers started dropping one by one around her. The long walkway was more than a mile from the sniper’s position, who successfully knocked out several marines with a special slingshot. Due to the tensions between Usopp and the crew, he donned the Sogeking persona to help save Robin. This moniker claimed to be the King of Snipers, a title his most incredible feat would help him accomplish in earnest.
1. Usopp’s Dressrosa Shot Against Sugar
If Usopp wasn’t a big deal in the One Piece world before the events of Dressrosa, Doflamingo’s impression of him definitely changed that. The Sniper knocked out an integral member of Doflamingo’s team named Sugar. Her terrifying ability, one of One Piece‘s most overpowered devil fruits, transformed people into toys while erasing memories of the victims from everyone. After she passed out, people and memories of them returned, and a revolt in Dressrosa began. Due to his master plans starting to deteriorate, the leader of the Donquixote Pirates’ enclosed the island in the deadly shrinking cage and put out bounties on Luffy and the largest bounty on God Usopp. Still, Usopp was only warming up for his most impressive moment.
Usopp first knocked out Sugar by accidentally swallowing a spicy candy meant to incapacitate the young girl. The face he made shocked Sugar into passing out, but she returned and attempted to use her ability on Luffy and Law, whose powers don’t make any sense and never will. Usopp was on another side of the city, in a lower position, and separated by a castle wall with windows barely larger than his ammo. At this moment, Usopp unlocked observation haki, allowing him to see life energies. Using a giant slingshot, he launched a mini-rocket that boosted several times, altering its trajectory to reach its target, traumatizing Sugar again with a balloon in the shape of Usopp’s face.
The ingenuity and sharp eye of the Straw Hat’s Sniper deserves more praise. One Piece is not the type to focus on constant large-scale battles and ranking the most and least powerful One Piece crew members. Instead, the series focuses on the adventure and the strong relationships of its cast. Usopp represents the closest thing the Straw Hat Crew has to an everyman, someone the audience can closer relate to in a crew-filled with super-powered pirates. Usopp has proven reliable and has long since accomplished his goal of becoming a brave warrior of the sea. He’s on his way to becoming more than that by the time One Piece ends.
Src: screenrant.com
