One Piece: Genderbent Law’s Road to Canon (2024)

One Piece meta has an odd way of tying back into the main story. Additional material, like side-stories and how certain characters looked as children, can be snuck into the story with some fans never knowing where it came from. For example, Kidd’s flashback to his childhood was written in an SBS, but wasn’t shown in the manga. The anime, however, incorporated his story into one of its scenes. Similarly, the canon genderswap of Trafalgar Law has made it into the main story.

As of Chapter 1063, "My Only Family," Trafalgar Law has officially been shown off as a woman. Before, this was only presented as a concept and nobody could have anticipated it would make it into the main story, yet Eiichiro Oda found a way to sneak in this wild what-if scenario. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first reference to Law as a woman. Diving into the history of Law’s journey into womanhood provides insight into the inclusion of his changing gender in the anime.

Updated on June 17, 2024, by Natasha Elder: Law’s unexpected genderswap is intriguing, not only because of the insight into Sick-Sick fruits abilities, but also because of the way that Law is depicted. With gender implications, and a surprisingly long history, Law’s genderswap is an interesting topic. We wanted to re-visit his change in order to discuss the deeper implications of his unwilling transformation

When Was Trafalgar Law Turned Into a Woman?

It Took Some Time Before His Transformation Was Made Canon

Trafalgar D. Water Law’s genderswap happened as the Heart Pirates were being chased by the Blackbeard Pirates. One of Blackbeard’s crewmembers, Doc Q, had used his Sick-Sick Fruit to infect Law and others in his crew with the feminization disease. As the name implies, it turned any man infected by it into a female. Law only stayed a woman for a couple of pages, or the equivalent of a few minutes in the anime, before breaking through the disease with Haki, but that the change happened at all can't simply be overlooked.

• The female version of Law in SBS 72 is asking X Drake how many people he killed, while female Bege is asking the others if they want to form a "Lady's night" alliance.
• Oda didn’t want to genderswap Blackbeard since, at that point, he hadn’t shown Blackbeard since the timeskip and didn’t want that to be his first reappearance.

Despite its momentary presence, female Law left quite the impression both in the manga and in the anime. While Doc Q clearly meant to change the crew in order to weaken them for the Blackbeard pirates’ follow-up attack, Law’s impressive capability with Haki managed to keep his own crew from remaining in their altered states. His quick reactions prevented Doc Q and the rest of the Blackbeard pirates from properly taking advantage of the attack.

While to those that only consumed the anime or manga, Law being turned into a woman came as a surprise, this genderswapped version of Law has actually appeared in other One Piece media. In an SBS for Volume 72, Oda drew Law and other members of the Worst Generation, such as Hawkins and Bege, as the opposite sex. This even included a depiction of Jewelry Bonney as a man. This SBS came out back in 2013 when Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hats were still in Dressrosa.

The Feminization Disease Made Law's Genderswap Possible

Though The First Instance of Law’s Feminization Occurred Much Earlier

A similar Rule 63 version of Law appeared as a collectible figure distributed by MegaHouse, a subsidiary of Bandai, in 2016. Female Law was the first of their Portrait Of Pirates Informal Request ONE PIECE (I.R.O.) line. The I.R.O line was specifically focused on genderswapping popular One Piece characters, namely Law and Luffy. Where Oda only provided a headshot of female Law, MegaHouse was generous enough to show the Surgeon of Death in all of her curvaceous glory -- she even got her nails done.

• MegaHouse is one of Japan’s major toy manufacturers.
• Megahouse was founded in 1962 under the name Kaken.

As interesting as these designs were, they were pure speculation. Law was as likely to become a woman as he was to meet Emporio Ivankov, which is to say: not very. For the longest time, there was no reason to believe that Law would ever actually become a woman. At least, not outside of non-canon sources. While Law’s eventual canon transformation doesn’t match exactly with the I.R.O. figure, there are enough similarities that it would be no surprise to learn that Oda took inspiration from the figurine.

With the "help" of the feminization disease, this what-if scenario was finally brought to light. Even if it was just for a moment, seeing Law swap genders in the series proper came as a surprise to longtime fans of the franchise. It took nine years to pull off, but Oda finally found a way to make Law into the beautiful woman that he had already been pictured as many times.

Ivankov Has a Similar Ability To Doc Q

Intentions Are The Difference Between the Two

It is also worth mentioning that Doc Q is not the only One Piece character that is able to turn others into the opposite gender. Emporio Ivankov is also able to change gender through his Horu Horu no Mi Paramecia-type Devil Fruit. But Ivankov’s motivation for changing others’ gender is very different than Doc Q’s. Although Ivankov has been shown to use his abilities on unwilling people, he has largely used his abilities to help anyone that wanted to change their gender.

• Doc Q is the doctor of the Blackbeard pirates, despite his apparent ailments.
• Emperio Ivankov is one of the founding members of the Revolutionary Army.

Ivankov’s ability is different from Doc Q' s for several reasons, the first of which is that he needs to be much closer to the person that he is changing. The second, and more important, reason is that Ivankov's ability is linked to freedom. He changes those that want to be changed in order to enable others to live the lives that they always wanted to be living. In contrast, Doc Q changes people in order to weaken them, assuming that being a woman innately makes someone easier to beat. This reasoning is why he changed Law and the other Heart Pirates into women.

So, despite the surface similarities, the purpose of Ivankov’s transformations differs greatly from Doc Q’s. Unless threatened, Ivankov would never have changed Law’s gender without express permission from the man himself. Even in Impel Down, Ivankov managed to create a place where people could celebrate themselves. Law’s transformation, unwilling as it was, is counter to Ivankov’s purpose. For all those that wanted to see Law as a woman, it was lucky that Doc Q was there, for, even if he had met Ivankov, the change would most likely not have occurred through the use of Ivankov’s Paramecia-type Devil Fruit due to his morals.

The Troubling Implications of the Feminization Disease

It Feeds Into Problematic Gender Stereotypes

The swapping of Law’s gender was not without its controversy, however, given the implications of turning Law into a woman in order to weaken him. This has underlying, sexist messaging about the relative strength of men and women that is not refuted in the show as Law changes back into a man before he has to fight as a women. So, while it is interesting to see Law being swapped into another gender, it is not entirely harmless as it feeds into harmful stereotypes.

Given that Oda has been called out for his female character designs, it is not a new idea that he is not always representing women in the best way. In this case, female Law’s character design is very similar to Nami and Robin’s, both of whom have been accused of feeding into inappropriate fan service. The briefness of Law’s stint in a female body negates the possibility of him really being a component of fan service, but it is telling that he is designed in a very similar manner.

• While the female character designs are controversial, Oda purposefully ensures the women in One Piece are capable because he didn’t want to follow other manga where women mostly existed to be rescued.
• Oda has largely dismissed complaints about his design of women.

Additionally, while many of the female pirates’ strength cannot be questioned, such as Robin, Nami and Big Mom, many of the non-pirate female characters are put in positions of vulnerability. Characters such as Rebecca and Shirahoshi, who are ultimately powerless in fights, are more common than truly strong female fighters. Thus, the hidden rhetoric of the feminization disease is feeding into a more insidious classification of women as weaker, an idea that is present throughout the series. However, this is most likely unintentional, as Oda will always go for the joke and most likely found Law's transformation funny.

Without Law’s ability with Haki, he would have had to figure out how to deal with his forced gender change. To be fair, taking gendered implications out of the equation, Law still would have had trouble fighting as he would have had to adjust to a whole new kind of body. That would have been difficult for anyone, even a previous Warlord of the Sea. He is lucky to have been able to change back into his normal body before having to take on Blackbeard’s formidable crew.

One Piece (1999)

TV-14

Animation

Action

Adventure

Where to Watch

*Availability in US

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Follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his pirate crew in order to find the greatest treasure ever left by the legendary Pirate, Gold Roger. The famous mystery treasure named "One Piece".

Release Date

October 20, 1999

Creator(s)

Eiichiro Oda

Cast

Mayumi Tanaka , Akemi Okamura , Laurent Vernin , Tony Beck , Kazuya Nakai

Main Genre

Animation

Seasons

1

Studio

Toei Animation

Creator

Eiichirô Oda

Production Company

Toei Animation

Number of Episodes

1K+

Streaming Service(s)

Crunchyroll , Hulu , Funimation , Adult Swim , Pluto TV , Netflix