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“so the sword geek can fight too.” “better than you.” — one piece live action’s take on tashigi

i am really kind of obsessed with the modifications OPLA has made to tashigi’s character and the tashigi-zoro dynamic. i think some of these changes were made because the live action isn’t interested in preserving more “single-panel gag” elements of the manga/anime, and that’s fine, they’re targeting a different audience in a different medium, but there’s one change in particular that i think was instead made in the service of character arcs—tashigi’s and zoro’s both—and i want to talk about it.

like, yes the “can’t see without my glasses, but i keep taking them off for no clear reason” bit is cute, but it would just serve as a distraction in a live action show where bits like that kill the pacing of a scene.

and yes, the meet-cute moment of bumping into each other doesn’t remotely compare to zoro watching tashigi publicly kick enormous pirate ass, but as their first meeting in OPLA flows directly into the sword purchasing scene, it doesn’t make sense for tashigi to have shigure with her. if we had two episodes for loguetown, maybe we could space these encounters out and have that sequence, but OPLA doesn’t have that kind of time to spare. (plus, i obviously like the “so the sword geek can fight” line a lot, and we wouldn’t have that if their first meeting was more like manga canon.)

on the other hand, making tashigi very much not the novice ipponmatsu calls her in the manga—that does some really interesting things for us.

it removes a frustrating element of naïveté from tashigi’s character, where she could easily identify sandai kitetsu but didn’t know it was cursed, while retaining the good-hearted sword nerd who was so excited to see wado ichimonji in person that she failed to notice ipponmatsu attempting to trick zoro.

it allows tashigi to provide another perspective on zoro as a swordsman—something more specific and meaningful at this time than the gulf that lies between him and mihawk. she’s not good enough to beat zoro outright, but she is good enough to immediately spot a flaw in zoro’s technique (one kuina also saw), and she can spell out both why zoro beat her and why he’ll struggle to beat others: because he is strong, easily pushing and pulling her around in their fight, but he’s far stronger than he is skilled. (go back to his fight with mihawk if you don’t believe tashigi! look at how much muscle zoro uses while crossing blades with mihawk, who looks like he’s about to fall asleep holding that tiny sword out. mihawk may or may not have the physical strength to match zoro, but he doesn’t need it; the bare minimum of his skill is more than enough.) (this claim is also more or less kuina’s puberty fears made manifest, btw—that over time zoro would gain a physical advantage that closed the gap between their abilities independent of how hard both of them trained. i don’t know if he’s made that connection, and it’s not like he ever fought tashigi as a child so he can’t know whether beating tashigi now is proof he would have beaten kuina eventually... but i have to imagine it's something zoro’s thinking about. i’m certainly thinking about it.)

this also allows tashigi to unknowingly hit zoro where it can hurt most: by telling him with that face and those eyes that he’s not worthy to wield wado ichimonji. listen. as much as i love the sexism accusation and copycat bickering, they don’t actually do much for zoro’s character besides adding someone new to the short list of people that can rile him up. he’s offended by tashigi’s existence (as an indication that kuina’s insecurities might have been based in reality, a concept he flatly rejects) and insists he isn’t sexist. tashigi has no reason to believe him, and doesn’t—and the story struggles to ever move past this. it’s just he said/she said. but tashigi saying zoro is unworthy of wado… now, what are the odds zoro has had that very thought before? or dreamed of kuina saying those words? especially after he lost to mihawk so completely. and, unlike the simple rebuff of “i ain’t sexist, i dislike you for other reasons,” it’s more difficult for zoro to say or do something to prove tashigi wrong on this front. put plainly: there’s character development potential here.

beyond this point i’m in a pure speculation space, guessing at what will happen in the alabasta arc/season 3, but i think another potential benefit to making tashigi more experienced is that she comes off as a bit jaded, as far as sexism goes.

manga!tashigi is bright-eyed with tears and bristling with anger about the injustice of it all, about being treated as lesser and not taken seriously. (not that we really see her being treated poorly at any point prior to this moment—not in any way that’s unambiguously about her sex and not her inexperience, anyway. a common telling-not-showing flaw in oda’s writing of tashigi, imo.) she seems, somehow, new to this kind of mistreatment.

opla!tashigi is, i think, resigned to it. she’s a loyal customer to ipponmatsu but zoro is the first worthy swordsman he’s seen in years. she asks zoro why he won’t kill her and when he just leaves she goes for the “unworthy” insult—she doesn’t have any expectation of getting an answer from him. miss all sunday suggest she’s being kept in a cage, her potential squandered, skills wasted, and tashigi doesn’t deny it—her only objection is to the comment about her wounded pride. smoker tells tashigi to “wait with the other kids” (koby and helmeppo, who are still fairly new recruits while she’s an MCPO). smoker’s told her to shut up about her (childish, emotional) dreams enough times that the instruction is starting to stick, even when she’s talking to a sword guy like helmeppo, or an attentive guy like koby, who are both clearly willing to listen. her demands to join smoker on this assignment are denied until she defiantly offers a reason that he can respect—a gold roger of her own to hunt down—and even then, he doesn’t want her celebrating in a (silly, girly) way he disapproves of. mr 11 patronizingly calls her dear girl and it barely gets a reaction, not the way the sight of kashu in his possession does. the way she’s treated may be unjust, but this is just how things are. she hates it, but she’s used to it.

(i’m not trying to hate on smoker in particular for this stuff, btw, it’s just that he’s the only higher-ranked marine we see tashigi interact with—garp simply does not acknowledge her existence one way or the other—so he’s the only reference point we have for her treatment by the marines as an institution. and his attitude reeks of the institutional sexism you see in military programs—of valuing strength (and to a lesser degree uniformity) above all else and subconsciously viewing the feminine as inherently weak/disruptive—but i don’t think that means he hates tashigi. disrespects her a bit, yeah. wants to train her out of these “unprofessional” behaviors, maybe. but he’s probably not her first-ever commanding officer, and he’s certainly not the only marine above her in rank who’s treated her like this, if she’s willing to put up with this attitude from him. that’s part of what makes it institutional, it’s found throughout the organization.)

i’m hoping this is some very intentional show-don’t-tell storytelling at work, that we’re going to continue to see tashigi be disrespected by pirates and marines alike, explicitly for reasons of sex. (the show is clearly not afraid of making sexism explicit; wapol is textbook in his shitty treatment of miss all sunday.) then, maybe, we might see zoro and tashigi clash again in alabasta—or we might see zoro refuse to fight her, as the anime had things go iirc—and her frustrations over this treatment will boil over, an accusation burst out of her, and that will be the straw that breaks zoro’s back and gets him to make the kuina comparison out loud.

...of course, i could be wrong. the copycat thing might be one of those exaggerated character beats that OPLA decides to drop altogether. zoro and sanji’s fights are much less extreme/more bickery in OPLA vs the manga, so the show trading out the big shouty zoro-tashigi moment for something more restrained is a very real possibility.

that would be a shame for me as a zoro-tashigi argument enjoyer—but i don’t think that would mean the show is dropping tashigi’s frustrations with sexism entirely, not with that added scene between her and miss all sunday. that feels very tied up in sexism—especially given that the woman from an organization with very intentional near 50-50 gender parity in its upper ranks is attempting to recruit the only named female marine we have met in present day, and only the second one we’ve met at all (bell-mère being the other).

if you have thoughts on tashigi’s characterization in the show, scenes i’ve overlooked or forgotten that support/counter my argument, please share! i’ve been spiraling about this since the day the new season came out and i would love to talk to people about her.

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