Netflix’s One Piece staff writer Randy Troy has claimed that the villain is based on President-elect Donald Trump, despite the character first appearing in the Japanese manga in 2000.
The character, Wapol, is an absurd dictator who ruins his kingdom.
Bounding Into Comics reports that Wapol was confirmed to be a character in the second season of the live-action adaptation in June.
The report explains:
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.”
Troy was almost immediately called out by One Piece fans, one of whom pointed out, “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.”
“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,’” Troy replied.
Troy has since deleted both posts.
