Key insights
- Straw Hat Pirates have 10 members, each with a specific role.
- The Fake Straw Hat Crew consisted of eight members and was formed to capitalize on the reputation of the original crew.
- Ideo Pirates consists of 4 members who joined the Straw Hat Grand Fleet.
Pirate crews are here One piece tend to be quite large. The majority of pirates strive for power, and to some extent there is something like strength in numbers. However, not every crew has the luxury of having so many pirates.
Although many main antagonists also have groups of grunts in addition to their higher-ranking members, other crews tend to be rather small in terms of their ensemble. This list highlights some of the smallest crews around One piece Series and how it came about.
6 Straw Hat Pirates
Number of pirates: ~10
- crew: Monkey D. Luffy (Captain), Roronoa Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Nami, Chopper, Nico Robin, Franky, Brook and Jimbei
- main nave: Thousand Sunny, Going Merry (formerly)
The series' main team is fairly small compared to most pirate teams seen. When Luffy began his career in piracy, he only wanted to have about ten crew members. He is currently around 9 years old, with Nami's sidekick Zeus being seen as more of an extension of himself than a full member. It remains to be seen who his final crew member will be, or if the self-imposed number will be the actual final number of the Straw Hat Pirates.
Although Luffy invites anyone he thinks is interesting enough to join his crew, in practice each official crew member has a specific task that they complete upon joining the crew. Jimbei, their youngest official member, acts as helmsman and uses his strength and skill to maneuver the ship. Beyond their practical use, each Straw Hat is acknowledged to be a notable pirate in their own right, as stated by Navy Admiral Kizaru, who referred to everyone in the crew as monsters.
The crew bolstered their numbers with the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, who entrusted themselves to Luffy out of gratitude for the crew. However, they are not official crew members and are not even recognized as subordinates by Luffy, instead treating the group more like an alliance.
5 Fake Straw Hat Crew/ Fake Kid Pirates
Number of pirates: 8-4
- debut: Chapter 598 (Manga), Episode 517 (Anime)
- crew: Demalo Black (Captain; Fake Luffy), Manjaro (Fake Zoro), Monblutain (Fake Sogeking/Usopp), Drip (Fake Sanji), Chocolat (Fake Nami), Nora Gitsune (Fake Chopper), Cocoa (Fake Robin) and Turco (Fake Franky)
- main nave: Unknown
This group of scammers was created to profit from the reputation of the original. They tend not to resemble their counterparts, but have enough superficial similarities that this scheme was somewhat successful for a while. Notably missing from their ensemble was Brook, despite being a member of the crew at the time of their debut. This is probably because his status as a member was new and not widely known at the time of their founding. The Fake Straw Hats are all voiced by the actors of the real Straw Hats, but are assigned to different crew members. For example, their captain Demalo Black is voiced by Sanji's cast. To further give the game away, some fake Straw Hats brag about their bounties and connections, which is usually not the case with the actual members.
Unlike Luffy, Black cares little for his subordinates other than using them to further his own goals. He attempted to build a larger crew by assembling powerful pirates with high bounties to act as his subordinates, in a manner not too different from Buggy. These crews included the Caribou Pirates, who they wanted to kill from within. However, this fraud was quickly uncovered, around the time the Straw Hats proper returned to piracy. It was believed that most of Caribou's crew were buried alive, although this apparently was not fatal as some of them were later seen alive and imprisoned.
At least four crew members continued this type of argument while being held at the G-4 naval base. Black, along with Manjaro, Drip and Turco, pretended to be the child pirates recently believed to have been lost at sea.
4 New giant warrior pirates
Number of pirates: 5
- debut: Chapter 706 (Manga), Episode 639 (Anime)
- crew: Hajrudin (captain), Stansen, Road, Goldberg and Gerd
- main nave: Naglfar
This crew consisted of five former mercenaries from Elbaf. They worked for Buggy's Delivery and were generally considered top earners. However, after their leader Hajrudin was rescued by the Straw Hats in Dressrosa, he left the organization and formed a pirate crew in the style of the Giant Warrior Pirates. Hajrudin became one of the seven captains of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, an organization of subordinate crews dedicated to Luffy.
Like the Straw Hats, each of these pirates has a specific role in the crew. Stansen is the shipbuilder, Goldberg the cook, Road the navigator and Gerd the doctor.
3 Ideo Pirates
Number of pirates: 4
- debut: Chapter 799 (Manga), Episode 744 (Anime)
- crew: Ideo (Captain), Blue Gilly, Abdullah and Jeet
- main nave: Unnamed (Formerly owned by Orlumbus)
The Ideo Pirates were one of several crews formed as part of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, a coalition of pirates sworn to serve the Straw Hats in gratitude for their actions in Dressrosa. Although some members were active as pirates before the crew's formation, others chose to become pirates instead. Unlike other crews formed to serve in the fleet, such as the Happo Navy and the Yonta Maria Grand Fleet, the Ideo Pirates had no previous incarnation.
The four members of this crew were participants in the Corrida Colosseum and later took part in the fight against the Donquixote pirates. Notably, all four were cursed by Sugar, who turned them into toys to serve as Doflamingo's slaves, effectively erasing them from everyone's memories, including others. After their release, they remained loyal to the Straw Hats and fought against those who wanted to claim their bounties.
Ideo, the crew's captain, is an accomplished long-arm martial artist who has won the New World Central Fighting Tournament twice. Blue Gilly practices the Jao Kun Do style and belongs to the Longlegs tribe. The remaining two crew members, Abdullah and Jeet, are former bounty hunters who tend to fight in tandem. They gained notoriety for bombing a government building at some point in the past. In keeping with the crew's martial arts theme, both are based on and named after famous Canadian professional wrestlers.
Their ship was gifted to them by Orlumbus, who previously had control of a fleet himself and had the most ships and crew members of any captain in the Straw Hat Grand Fleet. It is unclear whether the Ideo Pirates are seeking expansion, as their goals other than a desire to serve Luffy have not been identified.
2 Macro pirates
Number of pirates: 3
- Chapter 197 (cover story), episode 386 (anime)
- crew: Macro (Captain), Gyaro and Tansui
- main nave: Unnamed (destroyed by Hatchan)
The Macro Pirates are one of two crews that split off from the Sun Pirates after their new captain, Jimbei, became warlord. Because of this origin, they are a pirate crew made up entirely of fish people. They are also notable in that each member follows a freshwater fish, with Macro being a pelican eel fishman, Gyaro a goldfish fishman with bright eyes, and Tansui an arowana fishman.
As a member of the Sun Pirates, Macro was one of their more ruthless members and could easily kill people. Despite this, he, along with Gyaro and Tansui, became infatuated with Koala, a former human slave who the crew handed over to her family. Unfortunately, this act would divide the crew, as their captain, Fisher Tiger, was killed and Arlong was captured after Koala's family contacted the Marines to arrest them in exchange for allowing them to overlook Koala's slave status.
It is unclear how much this perceived betrayal shaped the Macropirates' philosophy, but despite their history as members of the Sun Pirates, a crew led by and including former slaves, they seemed to have little problem with others to enslave. In particular, they attempted 31 times to capture Camie, a kissing gourami mermaid, due to her high status as a slave. For similar reasons, the Macro Pirates also attempted to capture their former friend Hatchan at least once.
The crew turns out not to be particularly competent as they failed to capture anyone on screen. They were previously affiliated with the Flying Fish Riders, but since their leader Duval had a change of heart, this is likely no longer the case. The small size of the crew is probably at least partly due to the general unpopularity of slavery among fishermen.
1 Foxy Pirates
Number of pirates: 3
- debut: Chapter 304 (Manga), Episode 207 (Anime)
- crew: Foxy (Captain), Porche and Hamburg
- main nave: Sexy Foxy (former)
The Foxy Pirates were once a gigantic pirate crew with hundreds of members. They tended to increase their size through Davy Back Fights, a pirate tradition in which crews fight, with the losers often being forced to give up crew members to the winners. They once encountered the Straw Hats and attempted to humiliate them and steal their coveted teammates, but failed. Although cheating is common in the Davy Back Fights, its members seem to be really skilled at the events they choose to compete in. Their captain is Foxy, whose devil fruit allows him to temporarily slow anything caught in beams he can emit.
But even at their most competent, they are put to shame by far stronger pirate crews in the New World, most notably the Straw Hats. Since their initial failure, the crew has largely been a joke, largely serving as an integral part of the non-canon events in the anime. The Final Saga confirms that the Foxy Pirates have reached rock bottom, as only Foxy, Porche and Hamburg are seen in a small boat that is not their previously established main ship, the Sexy Foxy. Although not stated directly, it is possible that most of the crew, along with their ship, were lost to another crew in the New World in one or more Davy rematches.
