Each of the Straw Hat pirates must deal with their own histories and origin stories before they are truly able to join the crew in One Piece. Nami especially, as her first effort at joining was cut short when she saw a wanted poster for Arlong. This resulted in her abandoning the rest of the crew and eventually recruiting their aid. This diversion resulted in an extensive arc involving the Arlong pirates and Arlong Palace. But the main antagonist was of course Arlong himself. Compared to previous antagonists such as Captain Morgan, and Buggy the pirate, Arlong was more extreme, and perhaps also more archetypal.
One Piece follows the story of Monkey D Luffy and his efforts to recruit the best pirate crew that he can, with his main goal is to become the King of the Pirates by conquering the Grand Line and claiming the One Piece. The second person that he recruits is also the final person to commit to his crew before they head to the Grand Line: Nami, the crew’s navigator.
Who is Arlong?
Viewers are slowly fed information about Arlong and his backstory over the course of the arc. Fundamentally he is a Fishman who believes in the superiority of his own race as well as having a surprising amount of honor when it comes to contracts. It is also known that he is one of the Three Great powers that keep the world in balance.
As the leader of the Arlong Pirates, he enslaved Nami with the promise that she could back both her own freedom and that of her village for the price of 100 million berries. For eight years he allowed Nami to struggle and attempt to gather the prodigious sum by herself. But after she teams up with Luffy and the straw hats and grows very near her goal, he begins regretting having made his deal and attempts some underhanded methods to maintain her servitude.
What Makes him Such a Good Villain?
Arlong is the first antagonist who is truly a villain and completely unabashed about it. Buggy largely felt insane, and was given a humanizing back story, Captain Morgan is ostensibly a highly decorated Marine which leads to conflicting feelings regarding his character, the Butler was also a villain but played second fiddle in his own story behind the story of Usopp and his paramour, Krieg was left in a similar position with the majority of his time being taken up by the background of Sanji and Zeff. But the Arlong Arc was truly about Arlong and the impact that he had on those around him.
As a pirate, Arlong perfectly blends honor with treachery in a way that feels truly horrible. This is seen by the breakdown that his actions cause in Nami herself when faced with his twisted sense of logic. He promised that he would never break a deal regarding money; that if Nami saved 100 million berries he would set her free. However, he wanted to keep her services and so enlisted a corrupt marine to confiscate all that she had stolen before she could reach her goal.
Technically this was not against the letter of their deal, even had he stolen it himself it wouldn’t have been against the deal. But this backstabbing action felt to Nami and viewers as though he had changed the rules halfway through the game.
At the same time, this abrupt action still felt entirely in character for the abrasive shark, and it only added to the general air of tragedy that followed in his wake. The most villainous thing about him is that he does operate within a sort of rules that would have allowed for success if only Nami had been clever enough to foresee his interpretation of those same rules.
Arlong & His Ideology
In addition to his clever and heinous actions, Arlong also held to an idea of racial superiority and a cult-like familial attitude towards his own race. Violent racial superiority is one of the simplest ways to create a villain, between the extreme xenophobia and the references to evolutionary inevitability, his speeches frequently sound like they are taken from an Evil 101 handbook.
In short, between the set-up of Arlong as a haughty superior being, and his actions directly toward Nami being soul-shatteringly cruel, Arlong is a unique villain in the early days of One Piece. None of the other antagonists are truly shown to have the depth of cruelty or intense beliefs that are found in Arlong. Buggy simply wants treasure and doesn’t tolerate interruption. Captain Morgan has a power complex, same with Krieg, although the latter’s seems to come from a sense of fear regarding failure. Only Arlong takes the time to truly understand those he tortures, and only Arlong has a facade of reason that makes one feel as though they truly stand a chance before he rips the rug out from under their feet.