Smallest Known Pirate Crews in the Series

Pirate crews in One Piece tend to be fairly sizable. The majority of pirates look for power and, to some extent, there is such a thing as strength in numbers. That being said, not every crew has the luxury of having so many pirates.

Although many who are major antagonists tend to have squads of grunts in addition to their higher-ranked members, other crews tend to be fairly small in terms of their ensemble. This list will look at some of the smallest crews in the entire One Piece series, and how they came to be that way.

6 Straw Hat Pirates

Number of Pirates: ~10

• Crew: Monkey D. Luffy (Captain), Roronoa Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Nami, Chopper, Nico Robin, Franky, Brook, and Jimbei
• Main Ship: Thousand Sunny, Going Merry (Formerly)

The primary crew of the series is fairly small compared to the majority of pirate crews seen. When beginning his career in piracy, Luffy wanted only 10 or so crewmates. He currently has around 9, with Nami’s homie, Zeus, being viewed as an extension of herself rather than a fully-fledged member. It remains to be seen who his final crewmate will be, or if the self-imposed amount will be the actual final number of Straw Hat Pirates.

Although Luffy will extend invitations to anyone he thinks is sufficiently interesting enough to join his crew, in practice, each official crewmate has a designated job that they do upon joining the crew. Jimbei, their most recent official member, serves as the helmsman, using his strength and skill to maneuver the ship. Beyond their practical applications, it is acknowledged that each Straw Hat is a noteworthy pirate in their own right, as has been said by Marine Admiral Kizaru, who called everyone in the crew a monster.

The crew bolstered their numbers with the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, who swore themselves to Luffy out of gratitude for the crew. That said, they are not official crew members and are not even recognized by Luffy as subordinates, instead treating the group more like an alliance.

5 Fake Straw Hat Crew/ Fake Kid Pirates

Number of Pirates: 8-4

• Debut: Chapter 598 (Manga), Episode 517 (Anime)
• Crew: Demalo Black (Captain; Fake Luffy), Manjaro (Fake Zoro), Monblutain (Fake Sogeking/Usopp), Drip (Fake Sanji), Chocolat (Fake Nami), Nora Gitsune (Fake Chopper), Cocoa (Fake Robin), and Turco (Fake Franky)
• Main Ship: Unknown

This crew of impostors was formed to benefit from the reputation of the original. They tend not to resemble their counterparts, but share enough superficial similarities for this scheme to have been somewhat successful for a time. They notably lacked Brook in their ensemble, despite him being a crew member at the time of their debut. This is likely due to his status as a member being recent and not widely public knowledge at the time of their formation. The Fake Straw Hats are all voiced by the performers of the real Straw Hats, but reassigned to different crew members. For example, their captain, Demalo Black is voiced by Sanji’s performers. Giving the game away even more, some fake Straw Hats will brag about their bounties and connections, which is not commonly done by the actual members.

Black, unlike Luffy, cares little for his subordinates aside from using them to further his own goals. He attempted to cultivate a greater crew, assembling powerful pirates with high bounties to act as his subordinates in a manner not too different from Buggy. These crews included the Caribou Pirates, who wanted to kill them from within. However, this scam was quickly exposed around the time the actual Straw Hats made their return to piracy. The majority of the crew was thought to have been buried alive by Caribou, but this was apparently not fatal, as some of them were seen alive and imprisoned later.

At least four members of the crew continued this kind of grift while they were held at the G-4 Marine Base. Black, along with Manjaro, Drip, and Turco pretended to be the Kid Pirates, who were recently thought to have been lost at sea.

4 New Giant Warrior Pirates

Number of Pirates: 5

• Debut: Chapter 706 (Manga), Episode 639 (Anime)
• Crew: Hajrudin (Captain), Stansen, Road, Goldberg, and Gerd
• Main Ship: Naglfar

This crew was made up of five former mercenaries hailing from Elbaf. They worked for Buggy’s Delivery and were generally recognized as its top earners. However, after their leader, Hajrudin was saved by the Straw Hats in Dressrosa, he left the organization and created a pirate crew in the vein of the Giant Warrior Pirates. Hajrudin became one of the seven captains in the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, an organization of subordinate crews who dedicated themselves to Luffy.

Like the Straw Hats, each of these pirates has a respective role they serve in the crew. Stansen is the shipwright, Goldberg is the cook, Road is the navigator, and Gerd is the doctor.

3 Ideo Pirates

Number of Pirates: 4

• Debut: Chapter 799 (Manga), Episode 744 (Anime)
• Crew: Ideo (Captain), Blue Gilly, Abdullah, and Jeet
• Main Ship: Unnamed (Formerly owned by Orlumbus)

The Ideo Pirates were one of a couple of crews formed as part of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, a coalition of pirates who swore to serve the Straw Hats, as thanks for their actions in Dressrosa. Although some members were active as pirates prior to the crew’s formation, others decided instead to become pirates, for the sake of this goal. Unlike other crews formed to serve the fleet, such as the Happo Navy and the Yonta Maria Grand Fleet, the Ideo Pirates had no prior incarnation.

The four members of this crew were participants in the Corrida Colosseum, who later got involved in fighting the Donquixote Pirates. Notably, all four of them were cursed by Sugar, who turned them into toys that would serve as slaves to Doflamingo and effectively erased them from everyone’s memories, including each other’s. Upon being freed, they remained loyal to the Straw Hats and fought off those who wished to claim their bounties.

Ideo, the captain of the crew, is an accomplished longarm martial artist, who has won the New World Central Fighting Tournament twice. Blue Gilly is a practitioner of the Jao Kun Do style, belonging to the longleg tribe. The remaining two crewmates, Abdullah and Jeet, are a pair of ex-bounty hunters who tend to fight in tandem. They gained infamy for bombing a government building at some point in the past. In line with the martial arts theme of the crew, both of them are based on and named after famous Canadian pro wrestlers.

Their ship was gifted to them by Orlumbus, who, having been previously in control of a fleet himself, had the most ships and crewmates of any captain in the Straw Hat Grand Fleet. It is unclear if the Ideo Pirates seek to expand, seeing as their objectives have not been identified outside of wishing to serve Luffy.

2 Macro Pirates

Number of Pirates: 3

• Chapter 197 (Cover Story), Episode 386 (Anime)
• Crew: Macro (Captain), Gyaro, and Tansui
• Main Ship: Unnamed (Destroyed by Hatchan)

The Macro Pirates are one of two crews who splintered from the Sun Pirates after their new captain, Jimbei, became a Warlord. Due to this origin, they are an all-fish-man pirate crew. They are further distinguished by each member taking after a freshwater fish, with Macro being a pelican-eel fishman, Gyaro being a pop-eyed goldfish fish-man, and Tansui being an arowana fish-man.

As a member of the Sun Pirates, Macro was one of its more ruthless members, being fine with killing humans. Despite this, he, along with Gyaro and Tansui, doted on Koala, a former human slave who the crew delivered to her family. Unfortunately, this deed would splinter the crew, as their captain, Fisher Tiger, was killed, and Arlong was captured, after Koala’s family contacted the marines to apprehend them, in exchange for letting them overlook Koala’s slave status.

It is unclear how much this perceived betrayal shaped the philosophies of the Macro Pirates, but despite their history as members of the Sun Pirates, a crew led by and including former slaves, they seemed to have little problem with enslaving others. They notably attempted to capture Camie, a kissing gourami mermaid, 31 times, due to her high value as a slave. The Macro Pirates also tried to capture their former friend, Hatchan, on at least one occasion for similar reasons.

The crew is not shown to be particularly competent, having failed to capture anyone onscreen. They were previously connected to the Flying Fish Riders, but due to their leader, Duval, having a change of heart, this is likely no longer the case. The crew’s small size is likely due, at least in part, to the general unpopularity of slavery among fish-men.

1 Foxy Pirates

Number of Pirates: 3

• Debut: Chapter 304 (Manga), Episode 207 (Anime)
• Crew: Foxy (Captain), Porche, and Hamburg
• Main Ship: Sexy Foxy (Formerly)

The Foxy Pirates were once a gigantic pirate crew, boasting hundreds of members. They tended to expand their size through Davy Back Fights, a pirate tradition where crews fight, with the losers often being forced to give up crewmates to the winners. They once came across the Straw Hats, attempting, but failing, to humiliate them and steal their desired crewmates. Despite cheating at the Davy Back Fights a lot, their members do appear to be genuinely skilled at the events they decide to participate in. Their captain is Foxy, whose Devil Fruit allows him to temporarily slow anything trapped in beams he can emit.

However, even in their most competent form, they are put to shame by far stronger pirate crews in the New World, most notably, the Straw Hats. Since their initial failure, the crew tends to largely be a joke, mostly serving as a fixture of the non-canon events in the anime. The Final Saga confirms the Foxy Pirates to have hit rock bottom, as only Foxy, Porche, and Hamburg are seen in a small boat that is not their previously established primary ship, the Sexy Foxy. Although it is not stated outright, it is possible the majority of the crew, along with their ship, were lost in either one or multiple Davy Back Fights to another crew in the New World.