“I Want Meat!”: Gendered Eating and Anthropocentric Fighting in One Piece

This chapter foregrounds the fictional and factual relations that inform contemporary human-animal entanglements in manga and anime through the series One Piece. The epic journey of the ‘Straw Hat Crew’ in search for freedom and empowerment is characterised by its multispecies cast, subversive themes, and social commentary. However, by examining its depictions of gender and multispecies relations through food and fighting I note that the story is cut short from its emancipatory potential. I reflect on how popular media contains neither value-free or inert narratives, in fact, they come with real-world implications for both human and nonhuman animals.