#bon-clay

Jesus Burgess is me right now.

Praise Oda, for I am not worthy...

I only planned to watch one episode, but the preview happened, teased Blackbeard and... bye, restraint, it was nice knowing you! First the return of Crocodile, and now my favourite OP villain makes a comeback? I feel like I’ve won the plot lottery!

Spoilers for One Piece, but it’s very specific parts. One Piece is huge and I don’t think reading this will effect your potential enjoyment of it.

Disclaimer: this is under-edited and I’m not getting paid for this, so I haven’t gone out of my way to make this the best piece of writing it could be. It’s mostly stream of consciousness.  

“You can stray from the path of a man, you can stray from the path of a woman, but you can never stray from the path of a human!” - Bon Clay in One Piece Chapter 129

So looking at when the English Viz editions came out, I’ve determined I started reading One Piece in 2004, at age 13, and Bon Clay probably wasn’t introduced until I was 15. I remember putting the Bon Clay quote above in my Myspace profile. I even had Bon-chan’s character song on my ipod. There was something that seriously resonated with me like Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” or The Kink’s “Lola” or Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U”---all that same sentiment “I'm not a woman, I'm not a man, I am something that you'll never understand.” But Bon Clay wasn’t coming from decades-old culture, manga was a booming phenomena when I was teen. With it I felt part of a thriving community complete with new books every month, cosplay, conventions. I loved learning about Okama, a slang term for Japanese drag queens. At the same time I was learning about American drag culture as well. Around this time I watched Rocky Horror, which led me to Hedwig, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and To Wong Foo. None of this media led me to any proper medical or academic thoughts about gender, but dang I loved spending time finding Ru Paul and Tom Rubnitz clips on Youtube. To me anime started to blend with other queer media, one of the first things I used Youtube for was to find Psycho Le Cemu music videos, a costume J-rock band with GNC members. 

"Want to be one of my new breed? Come on, transcend the boundaries of gender!" -Ivankov

As I was graduating High School, One Piece was on the Impel Down Arc, chapter 525. By now Bon Clay hasn’t appeared that much, but is at least an established BFF to the main character, Luffy. Back in chapter 129 Bon Clay starts off as a villain, the 2nd strongest in a criminal organization. Luffy immediately loves Bon-chan’s fun and free-spirited attitude, and eventually Bon Clay turns on the organization and makes a meaningful sacrifice to help Luffy’s crew escape. 300 chapters later, Bon Clay is alive and ready to help Luffy escape again. This time from the World Government’s most awful torturous prison. It is in this arc where an entire clan of Okama are introduced. Including Ivankov, whose fingers can transform into needles that induces instant Hormone Replacement Therapy. There’s some sort of beautiful metaphor here, in this horrendous deathprison a bunch of gender varying Queens have carved out a sanctuary to be themselves. The Okama clan eventually escapes with Luffy, but Bon-chan once again sacrifices himself so they can escape. 

“A true Okama never dies” 

I feel like at this point of Tumblr in 2017 it goes without saying that all this media is hecka problematic. I started unraveling the implications of this type of media in college where I was finally in an environment that could teach me the different types of transgender identities. I became aware of how dangerous tropes about gender non-conforming people permits a culture of violence toward folks living their real lives as trans folks. I wonder what effect One Piece, as the most popular manga in the world, has on trans and GNC individuals. “Okama” seems to somewhat be used as a slur in Japanese Culture, but I wonder if it could be subject to as much debate as the T-slur was in the states. I remember taking a break from Ru Paul’s Drag Race (something I had loved since it’s premiere) in college when the discourse has hit peak. It annoyed me that this increasingly mainstream drag show couldn’t understand its effect on how the world sees transgender people. I’ve since gotten back into Drag Race, because it seems they’ve sorta listened and have adjusted the program, but also I think the lines are so dang blurry. There’s no line in sand where gender non-conformity ends and being transgender begins. Cultural differences aside, there are definitely instances where One Piece participates in violent tropes of gay panic and trans trickery. It’s amazing that the Okama have their own island, but it’a disappointing that all we get to see of it is lady-obcessive Sanji’s constant fear of getting queer cooties. We can’t expect much from a manga geared to boys, and drawn by a man who draws all his women characters with the exact same skinny figure eight proportions. One Piece remains one of my favorite comics, but it’s important to criticize its regular missteps. 

At the same time, I love Bon Clay. I love the unabashed flamboyant dancing mixed with fearsome strength. I love that he lives, both times! Most of the American queer media I’d experienced at the time were tragic, or at least showed the characters getting fucked with because of the way they presented themselves. Bon Clay is instantly beloved by the crew even though at first he threatens them. Ivankov is revealed to be a higher up in the Revolutionary Army, along with their partner Inazuma, both are sure to be major players in the One Piece world. Okama are a big enough part of One Piece to warrant their own wiki page, I like that they are an important part of this popular story. Though I do wonder how a queer person from Japan would parse this, maybe the representation is more hurtful than helpful. I don’t want to impose western interpretations on manga, though I do plan on visiting the Japan Society’s current show “A Third Gender” to try to expand my own historical context. I recently read My Brother’s Husband by the iconic Gengoroh Tagame. This page keeps coming to mind:

I feel like the logic goes like this: If the larger population only sees queer people as stereotypical flamboyant trickers, than that isn’t going to create a culture where every type of personality feels safe to come out. At the same time, these vibrant cultures originally developed under the cover of nightlife and have since been co-opted into media at large, which is perhaps more accessible, i.e. more kids get to see glances possibilities. Dissecting media is a lot, I don’t think I’ve read enough Adorno or whatever to truly develop any of this as thesis. All I know is my personal experience, the empowering feeling I get when I revisit the queer characters of One Piece.

Ø.K. Fox is a digital printmaker and little weirdo in Queens. They are currently co-editing @comics-for-choice, an anthology dedicated to abortion rights, raising money for the National Network of Abortion Funds. Support the project here.

Has been, and always will be, this mother fucker.

Before i saw this guy on onepiece, i always thought i had to be all wimpy and pathetic, cause thats how they were always displayed, but i remember being like 10, and watching onepiece on toonami, and seeing this fucker stop those pirates in Alabasta, all for his friends.

That honestly really left a huge impact in who i am today, and how i view myself as a homosexual, and others. This guy proved that just cause of how gays are shown as fairly flamboyant and negatively in television, doesn't mean they aren't human, it doesn't mean they are weak, and Definitely doesn't mean they aren't brave.

This badass motherfucker ran around in a too-too and kicked all the asses for what he believed was right. He sacrificed his own freedom so his friends could get away from danger.