Pt. II: The POP Series: One Piece is Love
Love is Love is Love is Art.
The Fun of Being a Fujoshi
One of my favorite things about being a queer anime nerd is that we create some of the best media, both original and fan-inspired. Living and existing in identities that are constantly marginalized, otherized, or entirely erased ironically opens up new fields and fresh canvases for creative expression of the human experience. When there is a fan space to occupy, queer fans immediately become queer artists and purveyors of other queer and subversive tastemakers in our fandoms, and then suddenly, there’s a whole online archive1 of incredible fan-made stories and transformative works for one to read, learn, support, and explore.
I say all that to say, I get to have fun reading and writing queer anime stories! Before they were called “ships” in the 1990s, these queer pairings were referred to as “slash,2” which pairs same-gender fictional characters into relationships (hence the slang term “ship”) with each other. But it’s not without risk, because nothing within queer life, love, or fun in this day and age ever is.
Even as LGBTQIA+ anime and manga are gaining widespread popularity, there is still much marginalization, stigmatization, criminalization, and overall oppression in the world and society. Where is leading to queer artists being doxxed and losing their livelihood because they create BL/yaoi/yuri art, there is a real risk to creating queer art. There is nothing progressive about being told to censor your art by the government or queerphobic fans in the same fandom. Queer ships in fandoms and their shippers receive a lot of flack for imagining and creating queer headcanons and art.
“The term yaoi was a self-deprecating acronym fan comic artists used to categorize their works as being fanworks made for the purpose of pairing existing male characters sexually.”
Aburime, 2025
The ABC’s of BL: Anti-Fujoshi Movements, BL, and Censorship
Before I venture into the land of my favorite queer anime ships, here’s an article on the history of Japanese queer fan art and fiction fandom terms ranging from G-rated to erotica, and a quick Japanese vocab lesson, in 3…2…1:
BL/Boys’ Love: male/male romantic fiction marketed towards female/women readers.
Doujin/Doujinshi: self-published, derivative works (manga, novels) made by fans.
Fundanshi: “a man who likes comics depicting male homosexual love (usually targeted to a female audience),” (Aburime, 2024)."
Fujoshi- largely refers to women and girls who are considered dedicated fans of BL media.
Yaoi- (pronounced, yow-wee) a genre of manga and novels that depicts stories about same-sex relationships between men, usually aimed towards female audiences. Yaoi
Yuri- female/female romantic fiction encompasses romantic, pseudo-romantic, and queerplatonic relationships between two women.
“The term Yuri (百合) is used to refer to stories that contain romantic or sexual relationships between girls or women or, sometimes more generally, stories with a lesbian character.” (Yuricon, 2000)
Now, to be clear, there is a lot of stigma and persecution about queer and BL shipping in shonen fandoms. Animanga fandoms are divided between strictly canon fans and shipping fans, especially in battle shonen series, where heteronormative tropes and story beats are often spoon-fed to the audience, even when they fall flat for the straight ships we’re supposed to believe in and root for3. But mangakas have found clever ways to tell deeply moving queer stories within their battle mangas (Naruto, JJK, MHA) that, to the keen eye and attuned mind, is easily clocked as, at the very least, queer-coded. (This must also be the reason why BL ships consistently rank highest on anime fanfiction ship rankings in Japan and worldwide.)
As I mentioned earlier, creating and appreciating queer art…BL is never without risk. I could go into another diatribe about the queerphobic and anti-feminist, anti-trans logic behind queer ship naming conventions, however, a simple search on the interwebs will learn you something about that. One day, I’ll write out my full thoughts about how Fujoshis are targeted by anti-Fujos, too. As a proud fujoshi in fujoshi online spaces, I see so much harm thrown at other fan writers and artists that is nauseating, at best, and cyberbullying at worst. This abusive approach to censorship has led to the ruin of many people’s lives and livelihoods. I just literally had to tweet the words of creative life into one of my favorite One Piece fujos because of the persecution their work was receiving.
And as much as I would like to detail the queer history of manga and anime in this Solstack, it’s far too extensive, complex, and involved of a topic for one newsletter. For instance, Fujoshi and Yuri are entire fields of academic research, essays, and scholarship in queer and gender studies.
However, this link provides a comprehensive list of definitions from Samantha Aburime, an LGBTQIA+ research archivist and scholar specializing in fandom, BL, Censorship, and media literacy, whose work I trust.
“Content that many in English fandom view as yaoi are actually technically BL, and BL includes content with graphic sex, they are not separate genres/categories.”
Aburime, 2025
One Piece of Advice: Love is Love
Eiichiro Oda has never been shy about his queer characters and the romantic subtexts between his same-sex characters. So the Queer Piece agenda continues as canon! Oda writes very romantic dialogue between his male characters, between his female characters, and is loud and proud about how he depicts his trans characters in life, love, and friendships. I will further explore this in the final two installments of this series.
But right now, meet some of my favorite canon and headcanon queer ships in the One Piece Universe in a series within a series I really want to call “Queer Hearts Sink Pirate Ships” but it doesn’t convey the right message, so let’s call the mini series…
Queer Piece of Love
For the rest of Pride Month, I’m spotlighting some of my favorite queer ships in the OPU: starting with the original and iconic BL/yaoi One Piece ship that precedes many fans’ awareness of the animanga, itself—the swordsman and the chef!
“Don’t die.”
Zoro
⚔️🕒 Zosan: The Swordsman and the Chef 💚💙
[Also known as SanZo, SanZoro, ZoSanji, ZoroSan, ZoroSanji, ゾロサン, サンゾロ, ⚔️🕒, 💚💙]
Zosan is the original and iconic BL One Piece ship that precedes many fans’ awareness of the animanga, featuring the Straw Hat Pirates' swordsman and chef, which is One Piece’s most popular ship, period, and also its most popular BL ship. Their ship history within the fandom and even through official, unofficial art from Oda pre-dates the anime’s release.
Roronoa Zoro, the Pirate Hunter, First Mate, Swordsman, and Black-Leg Sanji, the ship’s classically trained French chef, are Luffy’s wings. They’re also emotionally constipated opposites who are attracted to each other and express it through their rivalry and bickering. However, it is evident that they’ve become close friends over their three years together (yes, it’s only been three years in canon, even though the animanga is almost 25 and 26, respectively).
While they aren’t my top slash OP ship, there is much to enjoy about their dynamic through their tropes.
“Hey, big guy! Rather than this moss-head swordsman... take my life instead!”
Sanji
ZoSan Slash Ship Tropes
Battle Couple: When Luffy says, “JUMP!”, these two are the first to ask, “How high?” The two strongest Strawhats after Luffy, the three form what the fandom calls the Monster Trio. A swordsman and a cyberhuman…what more could the King of the Pirates have protecting him from the left and the right as he charges forth? But for Zosan, if you harm one, you better believe the other is coming for your neck. It is Sanji who finds Zoro in Thriller Bark and keeps his secret. It is Zoro who notices that Sanji is acting off in the heat of battle in Onigashima. It is Zoro that Sanji forces to promise to kill him if he ever loses his humanity in battle.
(Also… how curly-eyebrows suspicious is it that Sanji's Onigashima eyecatcher is the only one with only two Strawhats, namely him and Zoro, hm?)
• Rivals to Friends to Lovers: They hated each other at first—I’ll assign that to Zoro’s jealousy about a new fine blond crewmate who can cook being all up in Luffy’s face.4 But by the time they’re across the Grand Line, their bickering has become their love language. By the time they’re in Skypeia, love has already bloomed in the form of Sanji bossing Zoro around and Zoro begrudgingly devotedly doing as he’s told. Also, how cute is it that they only have pet names for each other and no one else on the crew?
(“Curly Brow/Shit Cook” and “Marimo/Mosshead” — I’ll let you guess who’s who lol)
• Not So Different: On the outside, they look and act very different. Green vs. blond hair; stoic vs. simp; grumpy vs. groveler, misogynist vs. misandrist, drinker vs. smoker…I could go on about the ways and reasons they don’t see eye-to-eye. But when it comes to Luffy and fighting, they’re not so different at all. Luffy is their common ground, their stalemate, their Switzerland, their truce. Together, as they work to protect their captain and achieve his dream of becoming the Pirate King, they develop a level of respect that bonds them uniquely to Luffy and each other for life. They also both love seafood.
• Almost Kiss — two times. (*giggles in fujoshi*)
I enjoy this ship because they’re Luffy’s best friends and his left and right hands, and anyone who protects my sunshine is good with me.
☀️🏴☠️
Lastly, I’m a huge proponent of creating and sharing queer media, especially anime, so here’s a short list of some queer BL anime on my favorite, recommended, and pending Queer Anime Watchlist in alphabetical order, not ranking:
Blue Lock
Cherry
Jujutsu Kaisen
My Hero Academia
Naruto
Neon Genesis Evangelion
One Piece
Ouran High School Host Club
Yuri on Ice
