Tropes A to B (Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole, Arc Villain, Berserk Button, Beware the Silly One, Big Brother Instinct, Bowdlerise, Break the Cutie) | Tropes C to D (Call-Back, Chekhov's Gun, Cliffhanger, Combat Pragmatist, Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, Curb-Stomp Battle, Dark and Troubled Past, Deconstructed Character Archetype) | Tropes E to F (Early Installment Weirdness, Famous Last Words, Foreshadowing) | Tropes G to J (Heart is an Awesome Power, Hypocrite) | Tropes K to M (Laser-Guided Karma, Logical Weakness, Mass "Oh, Crap!", Moral Myopia, Muscles Are Meaningless) | Tropes N to P (Nice Job Fixing It, Villain, Oh, Crap!, O.O.C. Is Serious Business) | Tropes Q to S (The Reveal, Shout-Out, Spanner in the Works, Superpower Lottery) | Tropes T to Z (Wham Episode, Wham Line)
- Main protagonist Monkey D. "Straw Hat" Luffy is simultaneously a moron and a badass. He is always super powerful, and he casually does super human feats while acting like a moron. But the moron "act" is dropped whenever he decides to fight seriously; he may be an idiot in most things, but he's a genius when it comes to fighting, and can spontaneously come up with all kinds of effective attacks using his fairly mediocre Devil Fruit power.
- All of the other male Straw Hats also fit this trope, though none as well as Luffy. Zoro would be a perfect badass if his sense of direction wasn't so poor that he can quite literally get lost going in a straight line; Usopp is a coward and a liar (sometimes a Bad Liar, sometimes a good one), and often engages in childish behavior with Luffy; Sanji's nature as a Chivalrous Pervert often makes it difficult to take him seriously when he's not fighting; Chopper... well, he's not so much moronic as naïve, due to being so young, and he joins Luffy and Usopp in their childish antics; Franky is a Large Ham and pervert who has a tendency to start crying easily at things that are touching; and Brook is ridiculously blunt in regards to his perversion, and often joins Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper in childish antics. Each of them is a One-Man Army, and it is exceedingly rare for anyone to take them lightly, subsequently provoke them, and not end up half-dead as a result. Inverted with Nami; before Robin joined the crew, she was frequently the Only Sane Man, and regularly maintains that role... unless money is involved. In that case, she can be as reckless as Luffy.
- There's Luffy's predecessor Shanks, captain of the Red Haired Pirates, who loves nothing more than drinking and partying with his crew. He's an easy-going guy and will even take being beaten and humiliated by a bandit (a bandit so weak he could literally beat him without raising a hand, at that) with a self-deprecating laugh. But those familiar with the big names in the Grand Line know him to be one of the four strongest pirates in the world; mess with people he considers friends, and you better start writing your will! The first time we see Shanks outside of Luffy's childhood is when Luffy receives his first bounty. Shanks and his crew were suffering hangovers at the time from partying too much the previous night. And when he sees Luffy's wanted poster…he throws another huge party. Appropriate, sure, but not smart, as lampshaded by his old rival that shows up to deliver the news: Dracule Mihawk, the greatest swordsman in the world. Shanks' response is to force the ultra-serious Mihawk to join the party. But his appearance at the end of the war has yet to be trumped in terms of sheer badassery: After Coby's What the Hell, Hero? speech towards the Marines to stop the war, Akainu tries to kill him. Shanks shows up out of freaking nowhere and blocks Akainu. He's facing down the strongest Marines in the world, and thousands of underlings, on one side, and thousands of pirates loyal to Whitebeard on the other side, as well as Blackbeard, who just stole Whitebeard's Gura Gura no Mi (Tremor-Tremor Fruit) powers, and his crew. He essentially orders them all to stop fighting. They do. Later, he casually walks into the World Government capital for a chat with the Five Elder Stars. At the same time a meeting of the 170 kings of the World Government's constituent kingdoms is happening, meaning security would be even higher than usual. Yet one of the 4 most infamous pirates in the world was able to effortlessly penetrate this security and confront the leaders of the World Government, then just as effortlessly leave unharmed.
- Buggy, one of luffy's first foes and reoccurring minor antagonist/ally of necessity, Zigzags this. On the one hand, despite his goofy mannerisms and theme, he's a legitimately dangerous opponent, especially with his Buggy/Muggy cannonballs and when starting out with the relatively weakest sea of East Blue, actually beats Zoro through exploiting his ignorance of his Devil Fruit ability and immunity to blades, and gives Luffy his first really challenging fight in the series. However, whilst he does improve incrementally in subsequent appearances, his actual power level remains relatively the same, whereas the Straw Hats are forced to improve leaps and bounds to keep up with the dangers of the Grand Line and their opponents, meaning he's actually outclassed by them on a personal fighting skill level. However, when the World Government finds out about his past as a cabin boy on the Oro Jackson and learns of his involvement in the mass prison break of Impel Down, they assume he's been pulling this all along, and offer him a position as one of the Seven Warlords in the aftermath of the Marineford arc, meaning he gains a position that is based mostly on the asskicking ability of its holders mainly by sheer dumb luck and the world mistakenly believing he's stronger than he is, but he decides to roll with it. Furthermore, after the abolishment of the Warlord system he takes this a step further by utilising the monetary and mercenary connections he'd built up through his position as a Warlord to start issuing bounties on Marines, an audacious move that elevates him to the rank of Emperor of the Sea, especially with the fact he managed to apparently make allies out of notable individuals such as Sir Crocodile and Dracule Mihawk. Luffy, himself recently elevated to the role through defeating Kaido, lampshades how unsuited for the position Buggy is on a personal level. It can be argued that Buggy's skill lies not in being stronger than his foes, but able to use good management skills and connections to make a serious threat out of many divisive groups, and use their strengths to substitute for his own. Additionally, Word of Oda says that Buggy has the same potential as Shanks if he applied himself, but he's presently too lazy to have actually done so yet.
- Borsalino, a.k.a. Admiral Kizaru. He talks casually with pirates powerful enough to singlehandedly take out an army, never showing the slightest concern even in a battlefield; in short, he takes everything incredibly lightly. That, however, is justified because of the power he has from the Glint-Glint Fruit; even for those who have the power and training to neutralize the Nigh-Invulnerability granted from Logia fruits, he's still an extremely powerful man.
- Kuzan, a.k.a. former Admiral Aokiji, is this as well. Quite frankly, it's to be expected from someone who blatantly states his motto is "Lazy Justice." When he has nothing to do, he talks with pirates as casually as the aforementioned Kizaru, and he has no qualms about laying down in the middle of a conversation when he gets tired of standing; he always acts like everything is cool. But that's following the pattern of the pun in the Kizaru example; he gets his power from the Ice-Ice Fruit, giving him just as much Nigh Invulnerability and the power to freeze the ocean with a touch of his hand, and we've never even seen him go all-out in a fight. The one fight of his in which we know he was not holding anything back, quite possibly the only such fight in his life, was completely off-panel... but the result of that fight is shown: his half of the battleground, half of an entire island and its surrounding waters, plunged into a never-ending ice age.
- Some of the members of the government-sanctioned assassins, CP9, fall under this category. Fukuro has a big mouth and a love of gossip, and a rather childish personality as well, and Kumadori... well, in a nutshell, he's a Large Ham. But while those two are among the weaker members of CP9, they're still One-Man Armies, and there's nothing moronic in their fighting. That is, unless you count Kumadori's antics; he fights mercilessly enough, but the hamminess never even falters until he's beaten within an inch of his life. Inverted with Kalifa, who's portrayed as cold and collected from the time she's revealed as one of the assassins to the time she starts to fight Nami; even the comic relief she provides by saying "That's sexual harassment" (as a response to anything from saying her name to her boss simply existing) doesn't make her seem any less dangerous.
- Bartolomeo is a hyperactive fanboy of the Straw Hats and more than a bit strange. He also cries a lot. But his Barrier-Barrier Fruit allows him to create literally indestructible barriers that he can contort into any form he wants, up to and including boxing gloves to go with his own considerable physical strength. And let's not forget that he started off as a mafia boss.
- Pound. A humorously tragic character who seemed woefully outclassed and out of place in the superhuman kingdom of Totland. And he is. Doesn't stop him from pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to buy his daughter Chiffon the time she needs to escape from Oven, despite Chiffon not even knowing who he is.
