Why is Admiral Akainu so hated by One Piece fans? Explained

Throughout One Piece’s publication history, many characters have been heavily loved and hated by fans alike, and often for varying reasons. Whereas some are loved or hated for their actions or beliefs, others receive such sentiment from simply being present in a negatively or positively viewed section of the story.

However, few One Piece characters can evoke such a visceral reaction from as large a portion of the series’ fanbase as Admiral Akainu (now known as Fleet Admiral Sakazuki) can. While Akainu’s stern views on justice and how all pirates are evil have always put him at odds with fans, the hatred for him has become so intense in recent years.

While those fans who’ve kept up with the series for the majority of its 25-year-plus run are intimately familiar with why Akainu is hated, other One Piece fans are lost on the matter. Thankfully, there’s a very simple and straightforward explanation as to why Akainu is so hated by the series’ fanbase.

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One Piece’s Admiral Akainu has been hated since his initial introductions

Why is Akainu so hated? Explained

Technically speaking, the first time One Piece fans are introduced to Admiral Akainu is long before he was an Admiral. During the Oharan Genocide, he’s seen captaining one of the Marine battleships summoned to the island by the Buster Call. As civilian ships escape all around him, he chooses to have his ship fire on them, not wanting to let any Oharan scholars slip through the Marines’ fingers by hiding onboard.

Already, this is clearly a villainous introduction, which fans of the series responded to in kind. Flash forward a few hundred chapters and episodes, and Akainu is now a direct antagonist to Monkey D. Luffy during the events of the Marineford arc. Alongside Admirals Kizaru and Aokiji, Akainu stood in the way of Luffy rescuing his adoptive brother Portgas D. Ace from his death sentence.

While Luffy does free Ace in the end, Akainu nevertheless pursues the two in an effort to kill the son of the former Pirate King in Ace. The two initially ignore this pursuit, but Ace is goaded in by Akainu as he insults Whitebeard. As One Piece fans are so familiar with, a mistake by Luffy here resulted in Akainu killing Ace, who sacrificed himself for Luffy.

His role in killing the fan-favorite character Ace is arguably the biggest reason why Akainu is so hated by fans of the series. Combined with the earlier mention of his idea of “justice,” it’s clear that he views the sacrifice of lives as necessary to combat piracy and evil. Ironically, Ace was far from the levels of evil that some of the pirates in the Shichibukai, pirate allies to the Marines, have been known to stoop to.

Ever since the Marineford arc, One Piece fans have hated Akainu with a fiery passion. His actions since then haven’t amounted to much in terms of spurring on more hate, with Akainu only recently getting more involved in the series’ endgame story. Nevertheless, his morals, past actions, and continued efforts to indiscriminately annihilate pirates everywhere serve as foundational reasons for why fans detest him.

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