Characters / One Piece: Marine Admirals

All spoilers regarding the Super Rookies era are unmarked. New World spoilers are unmarked in character descriptions, and examples relating to the New World era can be spoiler-tagged if deemed necessary.

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Main Character Index > World Government > Marines (Marine Admirals | Special Science Group) | Cipher Pol

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Marine Admirals

The Admirals before the Time Skip.^CharactersLeft to right: Kizaru, Akainu, Aokiji

^{Click here to see the Admirals and Fleet Admiral as of the Time Skip.}

"The World Government calls these three the 'Greatest Military Powers'...and he is one of them!"

—Nico Robin describing Aokiji, Chapter 319

The Marine Admirals (the ranks of Commander-in-Chief and Fleet Admiral being bundled with the former) are the second-highest ranking members of the Marines, and are the strongest fighters they can offer, aside from the Fleet Admiral himself (who's usually confined to desk work most of the time anyway). The Marine Admirals are the very definition of Rank Scales with Asskicking, being feared by pirates and criminals everywhere, and are among the strongest individuals in the entire One Piece universe. On top of their fearsome combat abilities, they also have the authority to command whole fleets with the many Marines ranked under them, have a say on the overall strategy of the organization, and can issue special orders, such as enacting the Buster Call at any time while also granting anyone else such an ability. There are only 3 Admirals at any given time, all acting under a single Fleet Admiral.

The Admirals and other higher ranked Marines weren't shown at all until the Water 7 Saga, and weren't all revealed until the Paramount War, taking a central role in battling the Whitebeard Pirates. After the Paramount War, the higher ranks were shuffled, following several resignations and promotions.

Most Admirals tend to use an alias, consisting of a color plus an animal. The color aspect is often relevant to the ability they possess and their choice of attire. The animal aspect is usually incorporated into their named attacks in one way or another.

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In General

• Animal-Motif Team: Each Admiral is given a title based on a different animal, with each one fitting their personality in some way. Aokiji is a pheasant, Akainu is a dog, Kizaru is a monkey, Fujitora is a tiger, and Ryokugyu is a bull.
• Armchair Military: The Fleet Admiral's job is to sit down at the desk, attend meetings, evaluate the situation, and bark out orders. 99% of the time they won't even come close to fighting which Sakazuki finds too restrictive since he likes working in the field.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: To get to the very top — the Fleet Admiral position — one of the options laid out for Admirals competing for the spot is to have them fight for it, just so long as nobody "hears" about it. Kuzan and Sakazuki have roughly equal support in the World Government (though Kuzan's support came mainly from the Marines, particularly Sengoku, who personally selected him as his successor), and it turns out they have roughly equal power as well. But Sakazuki overcame him, and won the Fleet Admiral position. This is actually more problematic than it sounds: the losing Admiral may be too injured (or dead) to continue his/her duties, or simply resigns if they feel that strongly about their opposition, and the position of Fleet Admiral is a desk job unless there's an emergency. For that reason, the aforementioned conflict between Kuzan and Sakazuki is the only instance this option was used; in fact, it's likely this option was created specifically for them, as by the time it was implemented, their feud over the position had become extremely vicious.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: The admirals (except Fujitora, who wears a ronin-like robe, and Aramaki, who is shirtless) wear suits of their color-codename when on the job and are the strongest force of the World Government.
• Beef Gate: Rare non-video game example. Before the timeskip, each of the three Admirals all hands Luffy a crushing defeat, which proves to him and the other Straw Hats that the New World is too much for them to handle, convincing him to take two years for him and his crew to get stronger.
• Co-Dragons: Non-Villainous example (for the most part). The three Admirals are the second highest authority in the Marine besides the Fleet-Admiral himself, and they're usually the ones sent into action to deal with situations.
• Color Animal Codename: The Marine Admirals all have this as their Nom de Guerre. The first one we meet in the story is Aokiji (Blue Pheasant), the second is Kizaru (Yellow Monkey), and the third is Akainu (Red Dog). The animal halves of their codenames are a reference to the three animal companions of the Japanese folktale Momotarō, which adds an extra layer of Religious and Mythological Theme Naming. After the timeskip, there are replacement Admirals for Aokiji and Akainu. They are Fujitora (Wisteria Tiger) and Ryokugyu (Green Bull). Even two Vice-Admirals who were considered for the promotion to Admiral received their Admiral aliases, despite ultimately not getting the job.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: The Marine Admirals are feared far and wide for being people of mass destruction and some of the strongest characters in the entire story. However, as part of the World Government, the World Nobles have ultimate authority over them and the Marines are forced to do their bidding. Thus, when the Revolutionary Army attacked Sacred Marijoa and both Fujitora and Ryokugyu were mobilized to defeat them, they were unable to fight at full strength against Karasu and Morley respectively, with Fujitora being told off for trying to call down a meteorite and Ryokugyu even being threatened with death if so much as one World Noble ended up getting killed. Ultimately, this handicap proved so severe that not only was Sabo able to successfully sneak past them, but the Revolutionary Army Commanders were able to successfully accomplish their objectives and escape, much to the frustration of Akainu.
• The Dreaded: The vast majority of people in the world are terrified at the prospect of having to deal with an Admiral, and even the threat of one showing up in person is enough to get the vast majority of criminals to run away. Even the people who can hold their own against them seldom willingly do so - anyone short of an Emperor who can trade blows with one will still usually bail on the fight if it's an option.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: In the first half of the story, the 3 Admirals have Devil Fruit abilities roughly corresponding to this elemental trio, with Akainu's Magma-Magma Fruit (fire), Aokiji's Chilly-Chilly Fruit (ice), and Kizaru's Glint-Glint Fruit (light). This is averted after Akainu is promoted and Aokiji leaves the Marines, with the two new Admirals possessing different abilities.
• The Heavy: A non-villainous example. Although they are not technically the highest rank within the World Government or the Marines, Admirals are still generally considered the strongest combatants that the World Government has to offer. It has another reason: however strong the Fleet Admiral might be, he's ultimately bound to the desk and sees no action unless it's an absolute priority, such as a war against an Emperor. On the other hand, the three Admirals are the forces sent out in the field and thus have more direct influence on the world than the Fleet-Admiral.
  • From an individual perspective, all three members of the original trio are directly responsible for some of the most important world-altering events in the series: Aokiji presided over the Ohara massacre despite his own reluctance to do so (thereby becoming a major figure in Robin's backstory); Akainu directly ordered the shooting down of all ships escaping Ohara (he is personally responsible for Robin being the Last of Her Kind); Aokiji is the man above CP9, who are tasked with apprehending Robin in Water 7, and he gave Buster Call authority to Spandam (thereby causing Enies Lobby); Kizaru's rampage throughout Sabaody led to Kuma separating the entire Straw Hat crew for their protection; and Akainu spearheads the war effort against the Whitebeard Pirates by killing Ace in front of Luffy during the Battle at Marineford. Even post-Marineford, Punk Hazard's status as one-half ice and one-half lava is a direct result of Akainu and Aokiji's duel for the position of Fleet Admiral.
  • This tradition of having Admirals ignite global events that help change the foundation of the series continues with Fujitora, who expertly outmaneuvered his superiors by using his autonomy as an Admiral to push for the abolition of the Warlord system and its replacement by the Seraphim.
• Ki Manipulation: All of the Admirals have the ability to use Armament and Observation Haki, since these are requirements to become a Vice-Admiral. Sengoku is the only known admiral to be stated to also possess Conqueror's Haki. During the Paramount War, the three Admirals project their energy in front of them to deflect one of Whitebeard's most massive attacks, indicating they know advanced Armament Haki as well.
• Large and in Charge: The Admirals are second only to the Fleet Admiral among the Marines, and all of the Admirals seen in the story are about twice as tall as a normal person, showcasing their authorities among the Marines, who tend to be drawn much smaller by comparison.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • The Admirals of the pre-timeskip fall into a specific moral dynamic: Aokiji is the Nice of the trio, as the one most likely to show leniency to non-dangerous pirates (such as Nico Robin), Kizaru is the In-Between of the trio, as he doesn't bother to carry out brutal actions but he will do so if ordered or pressed, and Akainu is by far the Mean as a devoted follower of the Absolute Justice who emotionlessly executes pirates and anyone else who dares to try and stop him.
  • The Time Skip brings the new trio of Fujitora, Kizaru, and Ryokugyu: Fujitora shows himself to be the Nice, as his chief priority is protecting civilians and isn't afraid to game the system and use Exact Words to do it. Kizaru remains the In-Between, simply following the government's orders to kill his old friend Vegapunk without much fuss one way or the other. Finally, Ryokugyu is absolutely the Mean - and perhaps even moreso than Akainu - because not only is he a ruthless pirate killer like Akainu, he's violently racist and classist.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: With the exception of Fujitora, who ate a Paramecia, all of the admirals ate Logia Devil Fruits, which not only gives them massively destructive powers, but also an untouchable body that can be bypassed only through Armament Haki or an elemental advantage. This makes them even harder to defeat, especially for the pirates outside of the New World. Even Fujitora, while not a Logia user, is more than capable of warding off attacks from most assailants. Zigzagged with Ryokugyu, as he's significantly more vulnerable to harm than most Logia users, but he is well aware of this and knows how to work within its limitations, and he still has the classic Logia regenerative abilities.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: All of the Admirals' appearances are caricatures of famous Japanese actors while the look and/or personality is taken from one of their roles.
  • Sakazuki is based on famous Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara and his name comes from a series of films starring Sugawara.
  • Kuzan's appearance is based off of late Japanese actor Yusaku Matsuda, particularly the man’s role of drifter P.I. Shuichi Tsujiyama in Detective Story. He even wears the same sleeping mask as this role.
  • Borsalino's look is based off of Japanese actor Kunie Tanaka.
  • Issho is based on Shintaro Katsu and his famous role as the blind samurai Ichi.
  • Aramaki is based on Yoshio Harada, having the signature laugh: Rahaha, and is even named after a character Harada played
  • Vice-Admirals Gion and Tokikake, who were considered for the title of Admirals, are also physically based off two famous Japanese actors (Michiyo Kogure for Gion and Kiyoshi Atsumi for Tokikake, who has similar clothes to those worn by Atsumi in the Tora-san film series).
• One-Man Army: With their experience and powerful abilities, the admirals are the Marine's strongest powerhouses, and are usually enough to defeat an entire non-Emperor pirate crew by themselves.
  • During the Paramount War, Akainu deals more damage to the Whitebeard pirates than an entire army of marines and defeats multiple strong fighters like Curiel and Jimbei. He's the only Marine present whose actually able to engage Whitebeard in a one-on-one fight, who himself is a one-man army.
  • At Sabaody, Kizaru easily defeats multiple Supernovas, despite the latter being among the strongest pirates of Paradise.
  • Ryokugyu storms Wano all by himself, wipes out the surviving Beast Pirates and manages to very nearly overwhelm the Scabbards who comes to confront him right before he can hit the Flower Capital. Ryokyugo isn't actually beaten, and simply chooses to withdraw once he senses Shanks' Haki off in the distance.
  • At Fullalead Kuzan heralds his arrival on the battlefield with a storm of cold wind that instantly freezes the SWORD members that were preparing to escape with Koby. The only character present able to stand against him is Garp, who is defeated.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Zig-zagged. As long as they are still active as Admirals, they're mostly referred to by their nickname. Once they aren't Admirals anymore, they are more commonly referred to by their real names instead. Like with Sakazuki following his promotion and Kuzan following his departure from the Marine.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Justified since the Marines work on Asskicking Leads to Leadership, and therefore to become an Admiral, a Marine must be impressively strong and experienced. All of the Admirals have extremely powerful and destructive powers, such as the ability to freeze entire portions of the sea, give destructive light-kicks, rain down magma from the sky, summon meteors from outer space or tear up an entire battlefield by creating a forest.
• Power Stereotype Flip:
  • Aokiji has the Chilly-Chilly Fruit, and while he does exhibit the calm, cool, and collected personality you would expect, he's also a deeply empathic and warm-hearted individual.
  • Akainu has the Magma-Magma Fruit, and while he has the hot-tempered and aggressive personality, he also has none of the warmth of personality, being a cruel and cold-hearted individual.
  • Kizaru has the Glint-Glint Fruit. He lacks any of the speed or urgency that such a powerset would imply. He speaks incredibly slowly, drawing out his words and sentences, and is generally an extremely laid-back individual. Even his attacks, while they are fast once executed, have incredibly long charge-up times. Additionally, he heavily subverts Light Is Good, being one of the most outwardly sociopathic Admirals in the series.
  • Fujitora has the Press-Press Fruit. His personality, on the other hand, is incredibly light, lacking any of the heavy-handedness that the fruits powers would imply. Additionally, many works of Japanese fiction tend to associate gravity with darkness; Fujitora, however, is a shining example of Dark Is Not Evil, being a Marine Admiral that cares far more about helping people than he does about killing pirates.
  • Ryokugyu has the Woods-Woods Fruit. Such a power conjures up the image of a kind, caring gardener, but Aramaki is violent, ill-tempered, and revels in the enforcement of tyranny.
• Praetorian Guard: Admirals serve as guards for the World Nobles alongside CP0 and the Holy Knights. Unlike CP0 who serve as bodyguards and enforcers or the Holy Knights who mediate internal conflicts, Admirals are avengers called in to annihilate anyone who dares defy the "gods" of the world.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: All the epithets of the Admirals (except Sengoku) have roots in the Momotaro legends.
• Superpower Lottery: Each Admiral has a very rare and very powerful Devil Fruit power that makes them one of the strongest fighters of the world, and that's in addition to a massive Charles Atlas Superpower. Having a powerful Devil Fruit is not a strict requirement for becoming an Admiral though (as with Z, who has since been de-canonized, and Garp who, while not an Admiral, is easily Admiral-level and has been offered the promotion many times) — said Marine just needs to have a Charles Atlas Superpower to fall back on that is capable of matching the other Admirals.
• Worf Had the Flu: During the Reverie, Sabo and the officers of the Revolutionary Army successfully rescue Kuma and escape despite Fujitora and Ryokugyu confronting them. Kurouma speculates afterwards in a meeting with Sakazuki and Kizaru that the two Admirals were holding back on account of their surroundings, but the Fleet Admiral grumpily tells him not to make excuses for them.
• World's Best Warrior: The Admirals are the "Ultimate Attack Force" of the World Government, i.e. they're the strongest personnel that they have to offer. Only the most elite New World pirates can even hope to tango with them (and likely the top brass of the Revolutionaries, going by Sabo's performance). Garp, though not an Admiral, was given the title the "Hero of the Marines" for capturing big names like Don Chinjao, and his repeated clashes with the Pirate King Gold Roger, and is implied to still be as powerful as the current generation of Admirals even in his advanced age. Sengoku, who, alongside Garp, was described by Kong as one of "the two that carried the Marines on their backs", is assumed to be at least as powerful.

Fleet Admiral

Commander-in-Chief Kong

See his entry on the World Government page.

(Former) Fleet Admiral Sengoku "The Buddha"

(Former) Fleet Admiral Sengoku "The Buddha"

Voiced by: Takkou Ishimori (JP, 1st voice), Tōru Ōkawa (JP, 2nd voice), Ed Blaylock (first voice), Philip Weber (second voice) (EN), Gerardo Vásquez (LatAm SP)

Age: 77 (Pre-Timeskip), 79 (Post-Timeskip)

Debut: Chapter 234 (Manga), Episode 151 (Anime)

Devil Fruit: Human-Human Fruit, Model: Buddha

^{Click here to see his Pre-Time Skip appearance}

"The fortress... can always be rebuilt. But the island of Marineford is the hub of our world! For all the citizens of the world who fear an invasion of evildoers... this is an ominous day! But justice and righteousness will never be defeated! Don't you dare speak lightly of sinking this island, you fiend!!"

Fleet Admiral Sengoku, also known as "Sengoku the Buddha", was the supreme commander of the World Government's military force, the Marines. One of the few who still knows the seas from the olden days, he's even respected by figures like Whitebeard. He is stern and business-like, which often puts him at odds with his old friend Garp, whom he occasionally bickers with. He has eaten the Human-Human Fruit (Hito Hito no Mi), Model: Buddha, a Mythical Zoan-class Fruit which allows him to turn his body into a giant, golden, Buddha-like entity. He is one of the few people in the world that can use all three forms of Haki, and is the only Marine among them.

After the battle at Marineford, he resigned from his position because of his doubts about the World Government's actions, and thus personally nominated Admiral Aokiji to be his successor. Two years later, he's a General Inspector◊ for the Marines, so he hasn't totally retired from business yet.

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• The Ace: Implied. By the main series, his service as the Fleet Admiral ensures that he never gets into a fight save for extremely rare situations, but between his very rare Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit - Human-Human Fruit, Model: Buddha, powerful enough to take on the Blackbeard Pirates; his reputation within the Marines and even among legendary pirates like Roger, the Vivre Card Dictionary confirming that he has mastery of all forms of Haki (Observation, Armament, and Conqueror), one of the few Marines known to do so, and an SBS showing Sengoku as a kid in karate gi with a black belt as well as being skilled in calligraphy, showing even in his youth, Sengoku has been honing his mind and body. He has two main epithets: "The Resourceful General", and "The Buddha". He's even implied to be at least as strong as Garp, "The Hero of the Marines".
• Action Dad: To his adoptive son, Rocinante. It eventually led to Rocinante following in Sengoku's footsteps as a Marine.
• Afro Asskicker: When his hat comes off, it's revealed to have a big afro underneath, which looks even more badass in his Buddha form.
• Armchair Military: During the Paramount War, Sengoku remains on the platform and doesn't join the battle since, as the strategist, he has to control the battlefield and keep note of everything that happens. However, by remaining idle, Sengoku allows Luffy to reach Ace and tries to stop him when it's too late.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: His Buddha form is very large, both in height and width, and imposing.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Sports an awesome suit back when Roger is still around.
• Call-Back: When the Human-Human Fruit was first introduced in the story through Chopper, an SBS asked Oda what would happen if a human ate one. Oda's response was misinterpreted as the user would just become enlightened. Sengoku's Fruit lets him turn into a giant Buddha.
• The Chains of Commanding: It really sucks to be head of the military arm of the World Government when you receive constant reports of crazy and powerful pirates, are forced to deal with disloyal privateers, have an irritating comrade laughing it up (occasionally) about the constant disregard for the law shown by his own grandson, and your corrupt and/or incompetent superiors telling you not to handle serious global threats simply to save face for their own screw-ups. It seems to have finally gotten to be too much for him, as he steps down shortly after the Marineford arc. When he appears two years later, Sengoku maintains a position of lesser responsibility within the Marines and is a great deal more relaxed and pleasant.
• The Chessmaster: Sengoku is also known as "the Strategist". In Marineford, he almost immediately turns a losing battle for the Marines into a near-victory by trapping the Whitebeard Pirates and allies around the bay, forcing the Marine warships in and sending powerful Artificial Humans in pushing them in the center, destroying morale by disseminating a lie about Whitebeard to his allies who had their own grudges about Gold Roger, activating a massive blockade impenetrable even to Whitebeard himself, and cut the video feed at some point after he reveals Portgas D. Ace is Gold Roger's son all so that Ace will be executed ahead of schedule if needed. However, said strategy is quickly foiled and the lie about Whitebeard only works on Squardo, while Sengoku doesn't notice that Galdino has reached the platform, right under his nose, in disguise.
• Chest of Medals: His uniform is adorned with dozens of medals. And a purple-red honour sash from left shoulder to his right waist.
• Cool Old Guy: Had shades of it in the first half of the series, but embraces it after the Time Skip.
• Enlightened Antagonist: As a human who ate a version of the Human-Human Fruit he should theoretically have some sense of enlightenment. Aside from his physical form this is more of an Informed Attribute.
• Everyone Has Standards: Sengoku is willing to do some very extreme things for what he views as the greater good, such as the slaughter of Ohara or the prosecution of newborn infants and pregnant woman to find the son of Roger. However, when the Five Elders decide to put people at risk just to cover up their own incompetence (i.e. cover up the escape of Level Six prisoners from Impel Down simply to save face), Sengoku freaks out and resigns very fast.
• Failed a Spot Check: In spite of being known as "The Strategist" of the Marine, and thus having everything in check during a war, Sengoku fails to notice that Galdino has disguised himself as a guard and reached Ace, all right under Sengoku's nose. Because of this mistake, Galdino makes the key that frees Ace.
• Foil: He adopted Donquixote Rocinante in the same manner Garp adopted Ace. Although it worked out differently in that Rocinante actually grew up to become a loyal Marine. However, leading back to similar circumstances, he would find out that Rocinante gave his life to save the life of someone he loved.
  • This also adds depth to Sengoku and Garp's friendship, remaining friends despite the headache Garp's family has given him. Also further adding that despite announcing on behalf of the World Government that Ace was to be executed for being the son of the Pirate King, Sengoku didn't truly believe this and remained professional in his Fleet Admiral status, considering he adopted a former Celestial Dragon and is the adoptive grandfather of Trafalgar Law, a Supernova pirate.
• For Great Justice: Sengoku adheres to "Reigning Justice." It seems to be closer to Absolute Justice, except practiced honestly: mercilessly destroying pirates (and even their children), but also defending the innocent, and resigning rather than help cover up the World Government's own crimes.
• Four-Star Badass: As the (previous) Fleet Admiral, and a regular Admiral before that, he's an extremely powerful fighter.
• Funny Afro: Has one hidden under that hat of his. Hilarious because he's The Comically Serious. It becomes truly epic when he uses his powers. And then after the timeskip it finally turns grey.◊
• Genius Bruiser: In the Paramount War arc, he's definitely got the genius down. He gets the "bruiser" part when he transforms. Given that he held down an enraged Garp, after they witness Akainu punch a hole through Ace's chest, it could be said he probably doesn't need to transform to have the "bruiser" part.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: His Buddha form makes his entire body golden.
• Good Is Not Nice: Well, he is the head of the entire Marines after all.
• Hero Antagonist: While Sengoku is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, everything's he's done is ultimately out of his desire and duty to protect the rest of the world. And it becomes clear that he's been suffering for it for quite some time. The last straw was when the World Government covered up a mass breakout of Level Six Impel Down prisoners in order to save face, instead of sending out wanted posters and warnings like he wanted to do in order to protect the public. After that, he decided to step down, having had enough of the World Government.
• Idiot Ball: In spite of being known as "the strategist", Sengoku's first true action during the Paramount War is to lose his temper and switch into his giant Buddha form to attack Luffy. By doing so, Sengoku destroys the platform over which Ace should've been executed, causing a lot of collateral damage.
• Ironic Nickname: He's titled "The Buddha", but he's comfortable with eliminating whoever he feels necessary, and takes orders from the World Government without question. Doflamingo actually calls him out on this in his first appearance. The nickname turns out to be a fair bit more literal: He fights by turning into a giant statue of Buddha with superhuman strength.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While at times Sengoku can come off as exceedingly proud and stern because of his duties as a Marine, he is actually very kind and compassionate as his drastic actions at the Battle of Marineford were motivated by the desire to protect innocent civilians from getting embroiled in conflict out of fear that when the secrets held in One Piece are discovered, it would turn the world on its head and lead to total war. Furthermore, learning about Donquixote Rocinante's death, a man he had adopted as his own son, was enough to break his heart and drive him to tears. He's also more than willing to emotionally comfort Law, who despite being a pirate, is also the child Roci gave up his life to protect.
• Ki Manipulation: As shown in the Vivre Card Booster Pack, Sengoku is one of the few Marines who are capable of all three types of Haki — Observation, Armament, and Conquerors.
• Large and in Charge: Sengoku is the head of the Marine for the first part of the story and he's also very tall, especially in his buddha form.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: After the Whitebeard Pirates gets through the barrier, Sengoku rolls up his sleeve and claims that it's time to join the action... only to do absolutely nothing until Luffy is right under his nose.
• Light Is Not Good: Averted. He's pretty harsh for a Buddha, but "Buddha" also in the original Sanskrit means "the awakened one", which can be taken to mean he is very intelligent, cunning, and wise, which he showed in spades during the Whitebeard War. Even more so when he called out the World Government for covering up arguably a bigger threat to the world than Whitebeard. In Sengoku's case, Light Is Good, but Good Is Not Nice.
• Like a Son to Me: How he views Donquixote Rosinante after taking him in.
• Living Statue: This is what the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Buddha (Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Daibutsu) allows him to become. Very bizarre, as Zoan Fruits are supposed to be about transforming into animals. It seems Mythical Zoans can be an exception to this rule so long as they're still about transforming into some kind of being (a daibutsu is a giant Buddha statue).
• Master of All: He's got ludicrous amounts of Charles Atlas Superpower under his belt in addition to being a skilled tactician, a rare Marine master of all forms of Haki according to Oda, and he has the power of a Mythical Zoan Fruit, a type that is even rarer than Logia.
• Meaningful Name: "Sengoku" is a fitting name for one involved in military operations. The name can be written in kanji as 戦国, which can mean "warring states", "country in civil war", or "belligerent country". The term "warring states" was borrowed from ancient Chinese to represent a period of history in Japan known as the "Sengoku Period", which involved constant military conflict with extensive use of naval forces.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His plan to orchestrate the public execution of Ace mostly on the grounds of him being the son of the late Pirate King and using Ace as bait to lure in and destroy the Whitebeard Pirates leads to a power vacuum which allows Blackbeard to take Whitebeard's Devil Fruit powers, Emperor status, and territories and throwing the world in bigger turmoil than ever.
• Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: He engages in an off screen fight with Jack, one of the the 3 top Beast Pirates and the right hand of Kaido. Jack is presumed dead afterward.
• Oh, Crap!: After his introduction during the Jaya arc, practically every scene he's been in, including flashbacks, has involved him going "Oh, Crap!" on some level, as the plot keeps shoveling poorly-timed crisis after poorly-timed crisis on him.
  • He has another epic one in Chapter 569, when Luffy unconsciously reveals his Conqueror's Haki.
  • His next Oh, Crap! moment was one that was so serious he couldn't help but to curse out loud. Whitebeard had declared that One Piece is in fact real and Sengoku knew in that instant that everything the Marines fought for, paid for, and even died for was All for Nothing because now a new age of piracy would begin which would be even larger than before. He literally yelled "Damn You!" at Whitebeard when the latter basically took everything Sengoku had done and took a massive shit on it.
• Older Than They Look: At least pre-Time Skip, he doesn't look like a 77 year old man, although this ends up no longer being the case after the Time Skip as his hair has turned grey and he is actually showing signs of his age.
• One-Man Army: He had the entire Blackbeard pirate crew (including the probable Big Bad of the entire series, a woman said the be the most powerful female pirate, and a man equal to Magellan with none of the morals) spitting up blood with one attack.
• Opt Out: Sengoku requests Kong to be allowed to stand down from the Marines in the aftermath of the Paramount War. He doesn't exactly go out, instead becoming a General Inspector with much less to work on and, the next time he appears, Sengoku is much more relaxed.
• Parental Substitute: Was this to Donquixote Rocinante after Doflamingo murdered their father and Sengoku took him in. That also makes him Law's pseudo-adoptive grandfather if you think about it, which has layers of irony considering their relationship with certain members of the Monkey family. Law meets Sengoku himself in Chapter 798 to have a talk about Rocinante.
• Person of Mass Destruction: When you can take out a crew led by one of the most dangerous men in the world and filled with a bunch of the worst criminals that the world has ever seen in one attack, you are this. Sengoku is also revealed to possess Conqueror's Haki, making him and Garp the only Marines revealed so far who have mastery of all three forms of Haki.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He adopted Donquixote Rocinante who, at the time, was a crying child left orphaned by his brother without anyone to help him.
  • Years later, when he meets Law, the child Roci died to save, he tells him that Roci didn't save him because of his name. Rather, he says not to sully Roci's love with such thoughts and to continue living free, as Roci would have wanted him to.
• Poke the Poodle: Eats Garp's crackers in an attempt to find at least some way to punish him for not taking things seriously. (It works).
• Reasonable Authority Figure: For all of his extreme measures, Sengoku truly does believe that what he's doing is for good, and he believes in protecting the lives of the people over the reputation of the Marines, shown when ending the Paramount War the moment Shanks offered an out and saving Rocinante. There's also the bit where he nominated Aokiji, another Reasonable Authority Figure as his replacement in place of Akainu.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Garp. Sengoku seems to be the blue oni with himself being stern and serious, while Garp is the red oni being Hot-Blooded and a Rebellious Spirit within the Marine ranks. However, Sengoku tends to lose his cool more often than Garp.
• Resign in Protest: He retires from the Marines after discovering that the World Government plans to cover up the Impel Down mass breakout.
• Retired Badass: After the Time Skip, he's semi-retired, though he still acts as a General Inspector and remains a force to be reckoned with.
• Sphere of Destruction: In his Buddha form, he can launch large spherical shock waves from his palms; probably a reference to the Buddhist Palm technique.
• Stout Strength: He has a very broad build in his Buddha form and is about as strong as you'd expect a giant golden statue to be.
• Superpower Lottery: A clear winner. He gets a Mythical Zoan, a type that is even rarer than Logia.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: It's made clear at their first meeting that Sengoku despises Doflamingo and would prefer not to work alongside any of the pirate Warlords. This blatant hatred from a usually stoic man makes far more sense when it's later revealed that Doffy murdered his own biological brother and Sengoku's adopted son, Rocinante.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Two years after his resignation from the position of Fleet Admiral, Sengoku seems far more laid-back and cheerful, laughing often and offering to donate blood to Mansherry's healing powers with a smile. It seems that much of his bitterness pre-Time Skip came from the heavy weight of his position, rather than his own personality.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He may often get irritated by his antics, but it's clear that Garp and Sengoku are genuinely close friends, and have been for decades.
• We Used to Be Friends: From Aokiji's recollection, Akainu was not happy to fight him and noted he recalled the days when he and Aokiji went up through the ranks together as the reason why. Aokiji dismissed his boiling blood over the prospect as just the magma.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: One of the few Marines that truly does fit this. He genuinely wants to make the world a better place but can do some bad things to help this goal. Though he leans more on the well-intentioned side than the extremist side what with his resigning when the government refused to announce that the Impel Down prisoners escaped so as to keep face.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Downplayed. After Ace is on the platform, ready for his execution and Sengoku reveals that Ace is the son of Gol D. Roger, Whitebeard shows up to save Ace. Instead of killing Ace right then, Sengoku engages a war with Whitebeard's crew and allies. Sengoku does order Ace to be killed a couple of times, with the execution being prevented both times, but for the most part Sengoku remains next to Ace and doesn't do anything, allowing Luffy to reach the platform and free Ace.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Wanted Rocinante to drive Buffalo, Baby-5, and Law (16, 10, and 12 respectively) out of the Donquixote pirates while spying on the crew. Ironically, Corazon had to take the Would Hurt a Child facade just for it.

Fleet Admiral Sakazuki/(Former) Admiral Akainu ("The Red Dog")

Fleet Admiral Sakazuki/(Former) Admiral Akainu

Voiced by: Fumihiko Tachiki (JP), Andrew Love (EN), Osvaldo Trejo Rodríguez (OP Gold), Mario Castañeda (Latin American Spanish)

Age: 53 (Pre-Timeskip), 55 (Post-Timeskip)

Debut: Chapter 397 (Manga), Episode 278 (Anime)

Devil Fruit: Magma-Magma Fruit

^{Click here to see his Pre-Time Skip appearance}

"If you're gonna do it, finish the job!! If, by chance, even a single scholar is hiding out in that ship, all this sacrifice will be for naught. You must destroy "evil" at its very roots!"

—Chapter 397

Real name Sakazuki, Akainu was one of the three Admirals (before being promoted to Fleet Admiral), the strongest fighters in the Marines. Akainu is apparently the most hard-line of the Marines, following the doctrine of Absolute Justice. During the destruction of Ohara, he destroyed an evacuee ship full of civilians on the small chance that one of their targets was aboard, saying that if one is to do a job it must be done thoroughly. During the Paramount War, he's the Marine most invested in destroying both Luffy and Ace because of their heritage. He has eaten the Magma-Magma Fruit (Magu Magu no Mi), a Logia Devil Fruit allowing him to possess the power of magma.

During the two years that Luffy was training, he battles Aokiji for the rank of Fleet Admiral and wins. He then moves the Marine HQ to the other side of the Red Line to put more Marine presence in the New World.

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• Advancing Boss of Doom: After he kills Ace in Marineford, he sets his sights on a traumatized and catatonic Luffy and gives chase. It's all that Luffy's allies (Buggy, Ivankov, Inazuma, Jinbei, and others) can do to stall him (and even then they get beaten up pretty badly) in the process of getting Luffy off the island and to safety with Law.
• The Alleged Boss: Since the Dressrosa Arc, he continuously loses face as Fleet Admiral and is unable to keep a grip on Fujitora and Ryokugyu, who use technicalities to get around his orders or have outright ignored them while Sakazuki is powerless to do anything about it. Fujitora's stunt at Mariejois infuriates Akainu while Sengoku pops in just to troll him over it.
  Sengoku: The job is difficult, isn't it... Fleet Admiral?
  Sakazuki: Shut up, you semi-retired old man!!!
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Luffy holds a big grudge on Akainu for killing his adopted brother Ace and leaving a permanent X-shaped scar on his chest as a reminder of that.
  • Akainu heavily contrasts Aokiji from an ideological standpoint — the resulting feud over the Fleet Admiral position was so bad that the higher-ups went ahead and had them fight a Duel to the Death just to get the position filled already. Subverted in that Akainu still holds some level of care towards his comrades to not kill Aokiji.
• Arc Villain: He's one of the two major antagonists alongside Blackbeard during the Marineford Arc, with Akainu being the person most persistent in trying to kill Luffy and succeeding in killing Ace.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: After Sengoku retires, the Five Elders suggest Akainu as the next Fleet Admiral, while Sengoku himself nominates Aokiji as his successor. To decide the matter, the two contenders fight for ten days on Punk Hazard. Akainu emerges victorious and earns the promotion.
• Authority in Name Only: Like Sengoku he finds out that the position of Fleet Admiral means very little: the Five Elders keep him in the dark, the Admirals do what they want, Garp does what he wants, CP0 works directly under the World Nobles and he is not in the Pacifista's authority hierarchy.
• Bad Boss: He kills his own men for wanting to retreat from a battle they had no chance of winning and doesn't really care much about their lives compared to ensuring the destruction of all pirates. In fact, he's so horrible to work for that after he became Fleet Admiral, Aokiji chose to resign from the Marines rather than work under him. Then, on top of that, Fujitora flat-out defies him because if things were done Akainu's way after the Donquixote Pirates were rounded up and arrested, the World Government would have received another ill-gotten pat on the back for a job well done in a situation where an entire country was anything but okay in the aftermath of a huge and bloody battle.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Sakazuki hates pirates with a passion and considers every single one of them scum not worthy of mercy as shown in the Paramount War where he brutally kills multiple pirates. While for the most part pirates are indeed evil, there are also some exceptions like the Straw Hats, and Sakazuki's methods and obsession to eradicate the pirates make him as cruel as them if not moreso.
• The Brute: Among the three Admirals, Sakazuki has the Devil Fruit with the most destructive power which, combined with his absolute justice, makes him the most dangerous Admiral.
• The Chains of Commanding: After being promoted to Fleet Admiral, Sakazuki is constantly busy because of the troubles caused by other Marines and doesn't like that he has to either take merits he has nothing to do with or hide the atrocities and troubles made by the World Government. Former Fleet Admiral Sengoku even mockingly asks Sakazuki if he's having fun with his new position. As events continue to escalate in the world with the Straw hat's arrival and absolute dismantlement of the 2-year status quo, it becomes clear that Sazazuki's position is literally holding him back from being able to muster the might of the Marines to absolutely crush the rampant piracy of the era like he dearly wants to.
  Akainu: (On being told of a clash between Blackbeard and Trafalgar Law) And here I am once again...waiting for a fight to conclude...Nobody told me that being Fleet Admiral would be so frustrating!!!
• Charles Atlas Superpower:
  • Besides his Logia powers, he shows enough strength to stop Whitebeard's quake-enhanced Bisento with his foot and Punch Parry Whitebeard. Because of this trait, he takes little damage even from Haki attacks known to devastate normal Logia users. The ground even cracks when he prepares to kill Ace because of his raw strength.
  • According to Oda, Akainu is so goddamn powerful that if he was the protagonist of the series, he could find the One Piece within a year! Remember that this is a sacred treasure that pirates spend their entire lives searching for, so for someone to find it in this short of a timeframe means that they are one of the strongest humans alive. This really speaks endless volumes about the sheer magnitude of strength that he possesses.
  • Later revelations of what this would actually entail show Sakazuki's strength in an entirely new light. To get to Laugh Tale, you have to decipher the four Road Poneglyphs. One of these is in possession of the Minks, a tribe of born warriors capable of fighting off an Emperor's crew. Another is in the possession of Big Mom, one of the Four Emperors herself, the third is Kaido's, and the fourth is missing. So not only would he have to track down the lost Poneglyph, he'd have to fight or sneak his way past two of the Four Emperors plus their crews (who certainly aren't pushovers themselves), fight off the Minks, and find someone who can read the language. Sakazuki would manage all that in less than a year.
• Cigar Chomper: After the timeskip, Sakazuki is often seen smoking a cigar, possibly as a way to deal the stress that comes with his new position as Fleet Admiral.
• Conscription: After the Battle of Marineford, Sakazuki issues a mandatory draft to bolster the forces of the Marines since two Admiral spots were now empty. To his credit, two sitting Admirals are recruited from his conscription.
• Convection, Schmonvection: He's made out of and attacks with lava, but nothing takes any damage unless it actually comes into contact with something. Even then, it acts more like a solid projectile than something that should vaporize everything around it. We'll forgive this one though, since if it was actually treated realistically, no one would be able to beat him. Also, proper and trained Logia users affect only what they want with their power.
  • Actually gets played with in the anime: Ivankov attacks Akainu with a weaponized kiss, getting his face burned. He then pulls his usual "it was just thick make-up" joke, showing an undamaged face... and then collapses from having his lungs burned by the heat and fumes.
  • Also, both in the Anime and the Manga, he can melt and move through solid rock as if it was air, again showing his control.
• Create Your Own Villain: Sakazuki couldn't bring himself to kill his comrade Kuzan when the two of them had their duel. Kuzan would later go on to join the Blackbeard Pirates.
• Cultured Warrior: The cover page for Chapter 592 shows Akainu calmly trimming a bonsai tree.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Implied to have one in an SBS with Oda, which shows a drawing of him as a child, armed with a knife and in bloodstained clothes.
• Death from Above: His "Ryuusei Kazan" (Meteor Volcano) move has him launching multiple fists of lava into the air, which then fall down like a meteor shower from above.
• Determinator: He is absolutely determined to bring the end of all pirates under his absolute justice, especially Luffy and Ace for their heritage, to the point where just about nobody else during the Paramount War can waver him. Not even getting his ass kicked by Whitebeard stops him at all, with him continuing to hunt down Luffy as if nothing had happened. He's also so determined to hunt down and kill Luffy that he ignores Blackbeard's assault on Marineford despite Blackbeard being the more dangerous threat at that moment.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Sakazuki calling out the Five Elders - and by extension, Imu - is shocking, if not outright unthinkable, given that the six of them are beings of extreme power who are entirely unafraid to outright erase those who defy them. It's unknown how much of that Sakazuki is privy to, but he basically tells the true rulers of the world exactly what he thinks.
• Disproportionate Retribution: At Marineford, he decides to punish a deserting captain who was only trying to save his own life and see his family again by murdering him. He also decides to execute Koby for trying to prevent any more needless bloodshed at Marineford after Whitebeard's death. He is entirely obsessed with directly killing Ace and Luffy no matter the cost or the dirty tactics required, purely because of their heritage and the fact they were born into the world.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Before the Time Skip, Akainu is only subservient to the Fleet Admiral Sengoku in terms of authority within the Marines. Unlike his boss, he’s completely psychotic and without remorse and he manages to cause more damage to the Whitebeard Pirates than Sengoku does during the Paramount War by succeeding in murdering Ace.
• The Dreaded: Even among Admirals, Akainu terrifies people. He's utterly ruthless and is known far and wide as the least merciful of his colleagues. During the Paramount War, he's given a wide berth by other Marines, who simply opt to stand back and let him work. He's feared enough that after Blackbeard learns that the Marines sent Akainu after him, he chooses to run rather than stick around. Note that at this point, Blackbeard was in possession of Whitebeard's insanely powerful Devil Fruit in addition to his own and has five incredibly dangerous Level 6 Impel Down prisoners on his crew, and he still decided to flee rather than face Sakazuki. Even Kuma post-roboticized decides to halt his assault on Marijoa and flee when Sakazuki shows up and swiftly immolates his foot and half of his head.
• Elemental Punch: Barring the Inugami Guren technique, Akainu is much less flashy in his use of his powers than other Logia users. His basic game plan is: 1. Turn arm(s) into lava; 2. Enlarge it as necessary; 3. Punch until target is vaporized. Since he's literally living lava, it's pretty damn effective (and is probably one of the few times where this is a good idea in the first place). This attack is even just simply named Dai Funka (Big/Great Eruption).
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: As it turns out from his battle with Ace, lava beats fire. Not only is it hotter than fire, it also cuts off the air supply of it.
• Establishing Character Moment: Sakazuki first appears in Robin's flashback as one of the Vice-Admirals summoned for the Buster Call of Ohara. Although the order is to destroy the island so to get rid of the archeologists, Sakazuki orders to blow up a boat full of Ohara's innocent citizens, despite the Marines promising they would be allowed to leave, just in case one of the scholars stowed away on the ship, thus rendering the entire campaign pointless. It immediately settles Sakazuki as a man wholly devoted to fulfilling his orders to the letter and willing to eradicate the enemies of the World Government at any cost.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He calls out the Five Elders for the stunt Doflamingo did involving his faking out of his resignation as the King of Dressrosa and makes it clear that he hates how the Marines are essentially attack dogs for the corrupt Celestial Dragons due to their influence.
  • In One Piece Film: Z, even he finds Z's plan to turn the entire Grand Line into a fiery wasteland too extreme because of all the Marines and civilians who would die in the crossfire.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It’s implied that he has some attachment to his old instructor, Z, as he has no desire to kill him.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: Downplayed. Akainu's intentions are not evil, but he's the Marine most devoted to Absolute Justice; he's fine with killing innocents people without any hesitation if it ensures that an enemy of the World Government dies as well and, with the Magma-Magma fruit, he inflicts a terrible death to any criminal he encounters.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: He speaks in a deep and gravelly voice to convey his menace.
• The Fettered: Akainu draws his strength from his complete belief in absolute justice and refuses to bend his devotion to achieving it even slightly. However, as a result of following this justice so closely, Akainu will exterminate anyone who threatens it regardless if they're a friend or foe. This is best shown during Koby's What the Hell, Hero? speech to him during the Paramount War, where he is notably the only person who isn't even slightly stunned by the young Marine's reckless actions and heartfelt speech and simply responds by telling Koby that the Navy is no place for someone who doesn't believe in righteousness before trying to kill him.
  Akainu: "You've wasted several seconds of my time. The Navy has no use for soldiers who aren't righteous!" (raises his magma fist to punch him)
• Flaming Meteor: Akainu can use his Magma Man abilities to fire fist-shaped lava projectiles upwards. They rain down like burning meteors. The attack is appropriately named Ryusei Kazan, literally meaning "Meteor Volcano".
• Flaw Exploitation: When Luffy and Ace attempt to escape Marineford during the Paramount War, he exploits Ace's devotion towards Whitebeard by verbally insulting his captain. Sure enough, Ace falls for Akainu's bait, allowing Akainu a successful opportunity to kill him.
• Flower Motifs: He wears a pink rose on his suit, and has a large tattoo featuring many flowers on his left shoulder.
• For Great Justice: He wants to eradicate the pirate plague in the name of justice, but he's definitely a villain who goes way too far in trying to preserve peace, making him as bad as (if not worse than) the very pirates he's trying to stop.
• General Ripper: His relentless crusade against pirates and other enemies of the World Government reaches some rather frightening lengths, as he's willing to blow up innocent civilians just to ensure his enemies are eliminated.
  • And then there's him killing a captain who tried to flee the Marine HQ battle out of fear for his life simply because he isn't devoted towards finishing off the pirates at Marineford.
  • He also tries to murder Koby for pointing out that, by trying to kill a few pirates with no guarantee that they'll be able to do it, they're letting many more injured Marines die when they could easily be saved. The reason Akainu tries to murder him? Because during the minute or so Koby was talking, pirates weren't dying.
  • The reason he wants to kill Luffy and Ace so badly is solely because of who their fathers are. Sure, them being pirates is part of the reason, but he would probably still want them dead if they were civilians or even Marines.
• Genius Bruiser: Akainu is just as clever as he is strong, best showcasing his intelligence on two occasions:
  • He insults Whitebeard to goad Ace into staying behind and fighting him, knowing how deeply Ace cares about his captain.
  • After becoming Fleet Admiral, he correctly susses out that the Five Elders are merely puppets to some other force. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the Five Elders are the men in charge with the existence of their true ruler, Imu, being a very closely guarded secret. So even though Akainu is wrong in assuming that the force controlling the Five Elders are the Celestial Dragons, he's a lot closer than others in discovering the truth.
• Hell Hound: His signature move and the one that gave him the moniker 'Red Dog' is the Inugami Guren (Dog Biting Crimson Lotus) technique, making a giant doghead made of magma. He also has his similarly named Meigou (Dark Hound) technique, which is a simple claw-thrust with his magma powers.
• Hero Killer: While Ace isn't a conventional "hero", Akainu still manages to kill him by provoking him into a fight, leading to Ace performing a Heroic Sacrifice to prevent Akainu from killing Luffy as well.
• He Who Fights Monsters: While most of the pirates in the One Piece world are genuinely terrible and dangerous criminals, Akainu's obsession with eliminating them and willingness to sacrifice anyone necessary to stop them makes him just as brutal and arguably more monstrous than the criminals he hunts down.
• Hidden Eyes: During the Ohara flashback, he is shown with his Marine baseball cap and a hood covering his face. When he shows up in the present, he still has the cap obscuring his eyes until the scene is dramatic enough to show them.
• Hypocrite: His goal of serving "absolute justice" makes it hard for him to practice what he preaches. He argues with the Five Elders in regards towards Doflamingo's false resignation from the Warlords because of their need to make sure the Government doesn't look bad in the eyes of the public, yet once he learns of Fujitora revealing to the world Doflamingo's crimes and how the Straw Hats took him down, Akainu furiously argues with Fujitora for not reporting it sooner so that they could have covered up the incident so as not to disgrace the image of the Marines. Fujitora calls him out on his hypocrisy, since he's more concerned with the image of the Marines rather than taking responsibility for the Governments actions in turning a blind eye to Doflamingo's crimes.
• Implacable Man: When you plow through a whole Badass Army during the Paramount War and effortlessly shrug off everything but punches from Whitebeard in the pursuit of your enemy, you definitely deserve the title.
• Insane Admiral: He will go to any extreme to protect the World Government and any extreme to ensure the extermination of their enemies, no matter how little of a crime said enemies may have committed. This includes killing over one hundred innocent Oharan refugees to ensure none of the Oharan scholars escaped from the attack and killing his own men during the Paramount War for deserting a battle where they had no chance of doing the enemy harm.
• I Shall Taunt You: While Ace is escaping from Marineford, Akainu purposefully insults Whitebeard to goad Ace into attacking him. It works: Ace gets angry at Akainu's insult to his foster father and faces Akainu, with Akainu easily killing him shortly after.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: While Sengoku outranked Akainu during the Marineford arc, it is the latter that Luffy feels animosity toward due to his killing of Ace.
• Jerkass: At best, Akainu treats his allies at expendable, and is all too willing to kill any pirates or allies who are insufficiently dedicated to his brutal version of justice while insulting their viewpoints.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Akainu justifies his destruction of the evacuation ship in Ohara that if even one scholar was on the ship, the whole point of the mission would be defeated. Notably, Robin, one of those scholars, attempted to get onto the ship before being denied, so Akainu was actually correct about the risk of scholars being on board.
• Kick the Dog: In his introduction in Robin's flashback, Sakazuki, still a vice-admiral, orders the destruction of Ohara's ships to prevent even the little chance that one of Ohara's scholars might escape. The scene immediately sets him as a brutal marine who wouldn't hesitate to kill innocent people to follow his Absolute Justice.
• Knight of Cerebus: Not only is he played more seriously than any antagonist before, but he breaks the Status Quo by killing major character Ace. Up until that point, no major named characters outside of flashbacks were killed off before.
• Knight Templar: Akainu is the most prominent character for the "Absolute Justice" ideal for the Marines. While his intentions of eliminating the criminals are good, his methods and his dedication are too extreme since he's willing to kill innocents for the sake of assuring justice.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • When the Warlord system is abolished, he absolutely refuses to interfere in Kaido and Linlin's activities in Wano. Even Sakazuki knows warring with the former Warlords and two Emperors simultaneously will spell the end of the Marines.
  • Despite his animosity towards Luffy (and vice versa), Sakazuki still knows better than to pick a fight with him once Luffy becomes a genuine Emperor, as it now risks a massive war.
• Lack of Empathy: He has little to no care about the lives of innocent people or his own subordinates compared to carrying out Absolute Justice. This is best shown when Koby screams that the charge being led by Akainu to finish off the Whitebeard Pirates was piling up needless casualties. Akainu doesn't even blink in response and simply tells Koby that "a few seconds have been wasted" before trying to murder him on the spot.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Despite his position as Fleet Admiral, Sakazuki has repeatedly been left uninformed about the higher World Government's actions and activities, apparently because despite his devotion to Absolute Justice, there are a very few lines that he won't cross in enforcing it, running counter to the top brass' motivations.
  • First, he gets duped by Doflamingo's fake resignation from the Warlords and acts on it while CP0 is sent to handle the real situation. When confronting the Five Elders about why Doflamingo could pull stunts like that and demanding that it not happen again, they brush him off and dismiss his reputation as Fleet Admiral as a trivial matter.
  • Later on, Sakazuki is unwilling to send Kizaru to the Land of Wano due to not knowing anything about the country's forces. Then CP0 are shown having an audience with its shogun, Orochi, on the matter of buying weapons "from pirates to fight pirates" as he puts it. Not only that, but CP0 is aware of Doflamingo being the underworld broker Joker (something the Marines were ignorant about) and use him as a middleman for this business.
• Made of Iron: Even without his logia intangibility, Akainu is extremely durable. During the Paramount War, he's struck twice by an enraged Whitebeard, with the second blow managing to heavily damage a whole fortress. It only manages to make him go out of commission for a short while before he gets back up to resume his chase on Luffy, fending off a dozen powerful pirates and revolutionaries in the process.
• Magma Man: Sakazuki has eaten the Magma-Magma Fruit, which gives him the ability to turn himself into a literal magma-man and provides part of the origin of his epithet "Akainu". His Devil Fruit is among the most destructive ones shown in the series, and he uses it mainly to create huge magma punches or giant meteors. Judging by the damage done to Punk Hazard following his 10-day rumble with Kuzan, he can evidently do much, much more than that.
• Manipulative Bastard: As Ace is fleeing, Sakazuki intentionally provokes him by insulting Whitebeard, hurting Ace's honor. Despite the situation calling for an escape, Ace falls for it, and their fight ends with Akainu piercing Ace's chest with a magma punch.
• Meaningful Name: The "Inu" meaning Dog in Akainu, thus automatically making him Monkey D. Luffy's enemy by default since there is a common myth that dogs and monkeys are mortal enemies. He is also overzealously loyal to the government like a dog to its master.
• Moral Sociopathy: He always strives to do what he believes is right. Unfortunately, he also doesn't have any mercy towards criminals and doesn't care about who he has to kill to ensure his justice is carried out. He's even willing to kill innocent civilians without remorse so long as it ensures that the World Government's enemies are properly disposed of.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Sakazuki is very brutal and, if he encounters a criminal, he tries immediately to kill the perpetrator, more often than not with extreme measures.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: He's the most muscular admiral, as a cover image of him shirtless shows. It is also a sign of him being the most dangerous of the three and one of the strongest characters in the world of one Piece.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After he kills Ace, Akainu suffers a complete beatdown by Whitebeard, including an earthquake being sent straight to his face. It only slows him down, and once he's back on his feet, he keeps pursuing Luffy doggedly despite the injuries from the World's Strongest Man trying to take his son's killer to the grave with him.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Unlike most of the previous villains, he does not play around with his enemies and tries killing them as quickly as possible. This type of attitude is what helps him successfully kill Ace. When Akainu is sent after pirates, their deaths are basically assured.
• Non-Standard Character Design: He's drawn in a much more realistic style compared to all of the other characters in the manga, which may very well be Oda's way of intentionally plunging him into Uncanny Valley to make him creepier. Although he and his fellow Admirals follow this, he's the most intricately drawn and meant to resemble the actor he's based on.
• Obviously Evil: He's supposed to present as one of the seemingly upstanding marines, but with his dark, grimacing look and choice of suit, he looks like he'd be a lot more at home as a Yakuza captain.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • After Akainu kills Ace, Whitebeard appears directly behind him and the admiral remains paralyzed in fear, knowing he's about to withstand a demonstration of just why Whitebeard is called "The Strongest Man in the World".
  • He's very surprised when Shanks introduces himself and his crew by blocking a magma fist with his sword.
  • When Lucci jumps at the chance to have a rematch with Luffy on Egghead Island, Akainu is extremely worried because Luffy is an Emperor, which means it might set off another war if they provoke him.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Subverted. After he becomes the Fleet Admiral, he's mostly referred to by his real name. While his nickname "Akainu" is still there, he's rarely called as such. The Celestial Dragons still refer to him by his nickname, which is fitting considering that he's essentially their "dog".
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Through all of the Marineford Arc, he's completely unflappable and vicious as he maintains the upper hand in power alone. The first sign of this breaking is after he kills Ace, and an unfathomably pissed Whitebeard step right behind him to beat Akainu senseless; you can see the fear in Akainu's eyes the moment this happens.
• Orcus on His Throne: After his promotion as Fleet Admiral Sakazuki spends most of his time reading reports and fuming about everything going poorly for the World Government.
• Out of the Inferno: After punching through Ace and the Whitebeard Pirates' blast him with a counterattack in response, he emerges from a set of flames without much reaction. In the anime, it's rather terrifying — he has chunks of him torn off with lava dripping from his body.
• Perpetual Frowner: Akainu only seems to know two emotions: frowning and anger, and even the latter is just him frowning even more intensely than usual! His SBS picture as a child even shows him frowning and also looking pissed off. The one time we see him smile is during Marineford while taunting Ace, which means it was quite insincere. This deepens his contrast with Luffy, with Akainu's new position after the Time Skip giving him nothing but more stress and reasons to scowl, whereas Luffy eventually awakens his Devil Fruit, becoming the reincarnation of a legendary figure that turns him into a Perpetual Smiler, regardless of the context.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Thanks to his Devil Fruit, he's a living volcano capable of launching huge gobs of devastating lava on top of his enemies. His lava is proficient enough to where he permanently changed the climate of half of an island into a blazing inferno after his fight with Kuzan.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Considering that Kuzan directly opposes Akainu's ideals and fights in a battle to the death with him to prevent him from becoming Fleet Admiral, it would be in-character for Akainu to kill him after winning their fight. Instead, in a rare act of mercy, Akainu decides to spare Kuzan's life instead.
  • During the Marineford war, Akainu saves a Marine from Whitebeard by stopping his bisento attack with his foot, though his primary concern was stopping Whitebeard's earthquake powers from further damaging Marineford.
• The Peter Principle: Sakazuki's main strength as an Admiral is that he's an Implacable Man that can clear out the battlefield by himself, something he can't do after he becomes Fleet Admiral since he has to read reports and decides where the Marine should focus their attack when he'll rather fire from all front if he could. He also has a bad time ordering Admirals around as he can't just melt them like his rank and file.
• Punch Parry: He meets Whitebeard's quake punch with his magma fist at the start of his duel with Whitebeard.
• Real Men Wear Pink: As seen here◊, he has a pink flower he wears on his uniform. He's also got a flowery tattoo on his left shoulder, which does have pink, and apparently enjoys gardening during his free time.
• Rocket Punch: Some of his techniques involve him throwing his magma fists like a giant rocket.
• Say My Name: During the Paramount War, Sakazuki screams Edward Newgate's nickname: "Whitebeaaaard!!".
• Scars Are Forever: He receives a nasty scar from the left side of his face to his neck and a chipped ear, courtesy of Kuzan/Aokiji. What's scarier is while his power leaves obvious fire burns, Aokiji's scars him through ice burns.
• Shaping Your Attacks: His "Inugami Guren" attack has him creating a Hell Hound out of magma, indicating where his epithet (Akainu means "Red Dog") comes from. It's the only move that he shapes while most of the time he just relies on explosive bursts of magma or magma punches.
• Signature Move: Sakazuki's distinct attack is the Inugami Guren, making a giant dog head out of magma, which is where he his epithet (Akainu means "Red Dog" in Japanese) from.
• Skewed Priorities: Becomes more focused on killing Luffy, the son of the Revolutionary Dragon who's not even a threat at the moment, rather than fighting Blackbeard, who's vastly more powerful and is actively trying to sink Marineford.
• Superpower Lottery: His Devil Fruit makes him able to convert his body into lava. Not only does that mean that you can't get anywhere near him without being vaporized, but it's also superior to (as in, can outright kill) at least two other Logias (up until seeing Akainu's powers in action, Logias are shown to either mutually nullify or have no effect on each other).
• Tattooed Crook: Despite working for the law, Sakazuki is by far one of the most brutal and underhanded antagonists in the story, and his large floral tattoos on his left arm and shoulder evoke the appearance of a Yakuza. The marks translate to "double suicide at death river".
• Theme Naming: As with the other three Admirals, he's named after a companion of Momotaro, specifically the dog ("Inu" means dog in Japanese).
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: It's doubtful that he even knows the concept of overkill exists given he often tries to kill people with the full extent of his overwhelming magma powers, even people who are vastly weaker than him.
• Time-Passage Beard: He grows a beard over the Time Skip to indicate his promotion to Fleet Admiral, which makes him appear older and stricter.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: He eventually replaces Sengoku as Fleet Admiral, and as a result the Marines lean more towards Sakazuki's brutal Absolute Justice and leads to the resignation of Aokiji/Kuzan.
• Undying Loyalty: He's wholly devoted to his Absolute Justice and, by extension since they can uphold said justice, the Marines. However, Sakazuki is an interesting case in that while he is unshakably loyal to the Marines, it is nuanced by the lack of Blind Obedience he has towards the World Government. Others who follow Absolute Justice like him defer to this on some fashion, but not him, and he's already starting to chafe with his superiors over it. On some level, even he recognizes how corrupt the World Government and the Celestial Dragons are, and hates it as much as those who ideologically opposed him do, such as Kuzan, Issho, and Smoker.
• Viler New Villain: As the new Fleet Admiral, and as his ruthless actions during the Paramount War and Sakazuki's prior act of blowing up a ship full of innocent refugees to ensure the elimination of some of the World Government's targets show, he is much worse than his more heroic predecessor Sengoku.
• Villain-by-Proxy Fallacy:
  • The first thing he does in his introduction is blow up a ship full of evacuees that the Marines had promised to spare on the grounds that there might be the slightest possibility that there is a scholar on board who could read the Poneglyphs.
  • The reason why he thinks that both Luffy and Ace deserve to die more than anybody else at Marineford is not because they're pirates, but because they're the sons of two of the most wanted men in the world, thus making their existence an unforgivable crime to him.
• Villain in a White Suit: Although Sakazuki wants to get rid of pirates and criminals, he's so extremist in his views that he doesn't hesitate to murder innocents if doing so could eliminate a pirate. After becoming the new Fleet Admiral, Sakazuki begins wearing an all-white suit similar to Sengoku's, which contrasts heavily with his blood red outfit from Marineford.
• Villain Respect: Although he wants nothing more than Luffy's death for being Dragon's son, he isn't above giving him praise for his determination to save Ace when he comes face to face against him, Aokiji, and Kizaru during the Paramount War.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Akainu's main motivation is to exterminate every evil pirates, which on paper is a good goal, however, not only does he consider every pirate evil (including the likes of the good-natured straw hats) but his methods are so extreme and violent that he becomes as dangerous to the people as the pirates he wants to kill.

Admirals

Admiral Kizaru ("The Yellow Monkey")

Borsalino/Admiral Kizaru

Voiced by: Unshō Ishizuka, Ryōtarō Okiayu (Episode 881 onwards) (JP), Ray Hurd (EN), René García (LatAm SP)

Age: 56 (Pre-Timeskip), 58 (Post-Timeskip)

Debut: Chapter 504 (Manga), Episode 398 (Anime)

Devil Fruit: Glint-Glint Fruit

"I'm just another cog in the machine."

—Chapter 1089

Real name Borsalino, Kizaru is the only pre-timeskip Admiral to have retained his position after the timeskip, after Akainu was promoted and Aokiji left. He has somewhat of an absentminded and out-there personality, committing such acts as mistaking his snail wiretap for his phone, and politely asking the pirates who just shot at him if they could help him find his acquaintance. Befitting this, his Justice is "Unclear Justice", a purposely unspecified type of justice that allows him to simply do what is ordered of him. He has eaten the Glint-Glint Fruit (Pika-Pika no Mi), which allows him to manipulate, create, and turn into the element of light. Several of his abilities include being able to fire laser beams and traveling at the speed of light.

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• Achilles' Heel: His light powers can only go in straight lines, and despite his powers themselves moving at the speed of light, several of his attacks have been shown to have slow start up times.
• Affably Evil: Makes polite small-talk with pirates right before he roundhouse kicks them into oblivion. In Japanese, it should be noted he rarely speaks in any style that is impolite.
• Apologetic Attacker: Kizaru doesn't want to kill Vegapunk, but has been ordered to and his own 'Unclear Justice' means he'll follow the order, something he makes that clear when preparing to try killing Stella. He asks Bonney to back off and leave for the same reason, as he's distraught enough at having to kill Vegapunk and prefers to not to kill her as well.
• Badass Boast: While trading blows with Sentomaru who takes pride in having "the strongest defense in the world", Kizaru reminds him his own defense isn't that shabby right before blasting him into unconsciousness.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Kizaru wears a striped yellow suit that hints at his light devil fruit.
• Beam Spam: His Yasakani no Magatama technique fires a hail of light bullets at his target.
• Big Entrance: After some background and off-screen moments before, how does he arrive at Sabaody Archipelago? Riding a cannonball.
• Blinded by the Light: Kizaru attacks Hawkins with a bright flash of light, temporary blinding him before shotting multiple light beams.
• Bright Is Not Good: Is an antagonist with light powers.
• Brightness Shadows: Borsalino's light powers manifest very dark shading even in broad daylight.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Has his share of quirks (riding on cannon balls, asking fleeing pirates if they've seen his subordinate, talking into a black transponder snail he's been repeatedly told isn't capable of outbound communication, etc) but he's also one of the most powerful and effective Marines in the series.
• Character Catchphrase: He tends to mockingly say "Ooh, how terrifying!"
• Cloudcuckoolander: Kizaru is very much "out-there" when without a specific quarry, and apparently is unaware of the trail of mass destruction he's creating in Sabaody. Some of it may be Obfuscating Stupidity, but at least some of it is genuine.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Kizaru follows his orders to the law, but his mission to kill Vegapunk, along with his former friends Sentomaru makes it clear Kizaru is not happy with what is going on and is filled with guilt. His lack of enthusiasm in comparison to his normal demeanor makes it obvious his heart isn't fully into the mission, something Saturn takes note of.
• Cool Shades: Kizaru always sports a pair of amber-shaded glasses that go along with his yellow outfit.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: His proper introduction consisted of asking pirates where his subordinate is. When they wouldn't answer and ran away instead, he showed everyone why he's a Marine Admiral by blasting down a mangrove tree the size of a city with a kick.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In the Sabaody Arc, Kizaru annihilates every pirate in his way, including multiple supernovas. Fortunately for the Straw Hats, Rayleigh can hold him off.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: In the Egghead arc, when matched against the true unlocked power of the sun god Nika in Gear 5 Luffy, Kizaru can put up a good fight and pressures Luffy mainly by avoiding direct conflict in favour of attacking his targets, but both times Luffy lands a direct hit on him he's instantly knocked down and needs a moment to recover. Even with the hints that his heart's not truly in the fight because he's being forced to attack his former allies, Kizaru coughs up blood merely from being manhandled by Luffy's grip strength in giant form, making it clear he simply can't overpower Luffy's brute force like he has any other opponent up till then, and ultimately Luffy is able to end Kizaru's participation on Egghead by throwing him into a Marine ship.
• Deadpan Snarker: Kizaru has a rather dry wit, considering his often calling adversaries "scary" even while he's shooting laser beams at them (and through them). Then there's his response to Sanji kicking away a beam and declaring love is stronger than light.
  Kizaru: If that's true, then physics as we know it is dead...
• Doppelgänger Attack: Kizaru can create a series of duplicates via his Yasakani no Magatama move, which he demonstrates to attack Gear 5-Luffy.
• Double Knockout: His evasive manoeuvres and ability to distract Luffy with light clones allows him to contend against Gear 5 for a while despite the form easily overpowering him in pure strength, but when Luffy succeeds in a last-second Megaton Punch straight to the head that directly connects just as his Hour of Power runs out, Kizaru literally sees stars and is stunned prone on the ground for a while, admitting to Saturn that he can't resume the fight immediately.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: A non-canon example, but in One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 it's shown Eneru's lightning manages to block Kizaru's light much to his surprise.
• Energy Weapon: He can fire light blasts from either his fingertips or his foot, with their power varying between "pierce someone's body" and "blow up buildings".
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Borsalino has no problems attacking anyone the World Government asks him to attack, even seeing it as a game and taking smug pleasure out of it. The only thing he argues his superiors about is to ignore someone who challenges him, as Borsalino finds it deeply insulting. In this case, it's also because the one challenging him is an old friend.
  • In a flashback, Kizaru is visibly shaken by Kuma's willingness to become the World Government's weapon if it means saving his daughter's life.
• Extremity Extremist: He rarely attacks anyone physically with anything except a single kick. He uses his hands in combat, but only to fire his laser beams from or swing lightsabers at the enemy with, showing a noticeable aversion of Good Old Fisticuffs when attacking close-range.
• Eye Beams: Kizaru is able to shoot out multiple laser beams from his eyes, though he apparently only does this when the rest of his body is restrained.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: During the Sabaody Archipelago arc, while he is preparing to execute Basil Hawkins, Scratchmen Apoo uses him as a guinea pig to showcase his powers. Apoo attacks with a sharp cymbal strike and cuts Kizaru's right hand clean off of his body! Then, he uses a much more powerful percussive blast and blows apart Kizaru's body, turning him into Ludicrous Gibs for a moment.
  Kizaru: Ooh, how terrifying! That was quite the shock!
• Fighting Your Friend: Him and Sentomaru were close friends, but the events of Egghead put them on opposing sides. Kizaru doesn't exactly want to fight him, but is at least willing to give him the fight his former friend deserves, before moving in to kill Vegapunk.
• Finger Gun: Kizaru can fire lasers from his fingertips as a weak but precise attack.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Kizaru is sent to Egghead to assassinate Vegapunk, and he prioritizes that objective over seriously engaging Luffy. This is a problem for Luffy because Kizaru is simply much too fast for Luffy to keep locked down, ditching the fight the second he sees an opportunity to take out Vegapunk. This wastes enough time that when Luffy does finally manage to land a serious blow on Kizaru, taking him out of the fight, Luffy is also burnt out from his use of Gear 5 and left vulnerable when Saturn arrives.
• Hard Light: His Devil Fruit lets him shape light into weapons like swords.
• Hero Antagonist: Although Kizaru is brutal, merciless, and incredibly destructive (unintentionally), his enemies are pirates that, excluding a few such as the Straw Hat or Sun Pirates, are very much evil, and all his actions are for the protection of civilians.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The Egghead Arc reveals that Kizaru has a particular soft spot for Sentomaru, Dr. Vegapunk, Kuma, and Jewelry Bonney despite being on opposing sides due to a shared past. He extends to them courtesies he never gives any of his other opponents. As much as he'd like to be as apathetic as he presents himself, it gradually becomes clear he sincerely doesn't want to kill Vegapunk and feels genuinely guilt for it.
  • He's also shown to have an interest and genuine appreciation for the subject of physics, in part because of how they relate to his powers, informing his genuinely friendly relationship with the genius scientist Vegapunk. He actually gets his first Face Fault at the physically-impossible sight of Sanji parrying his light beams with a kick, and on hearing his nonsensical explanation for it, gets annoyed by it because it'd mean that "physics as we know it is dead".
• Honor Before Reason: When Saturn advises him to fly over Sentomaru to save time in order to kill Vegapunk, Kizaru vehemently refuses, saying that having to fight Sentomaru is bad enough, but simply flying over him and denying him a fight, is simply too dishonourable an action for his former friend.
• Implacable Man: Thanks to his Devil Fruit allowing him to turn into light itself, it's very difficult to stop Kizaru when he's on the chase. At Saobody, Rayleigh has to stop him from hunting down the Straw Hats, and even then, Kizaru duels with him pretty evenly. Vegapunk is immediately worried upon learning Kizaru's leading the Marine forces surrounding Egghead, seeing as the Admiral can just laser beam himself right past any and all defenses; which he does. Even Sentomaru can't do more than slow him down with a fight. It's only when Luffy (at this point an Emperor) steps in that he hits a roadblock, and he's still able to do fairly well against Luffy in Gear Five, lasting long enough for a temporary Double Knockout when Luffy's Hour of Power runs out, as opposed to the same mode allowing Luffy to curb-stomp Lucci with ease. And even then, Kizaru recovers and gets back on his feet slightly faster than Luffy does.
• Just Following Orders: Kizaru adheres to the "Unclear Justice", which consists of him simply following the orders he's given, no matter how reprehensible they might be or whether he disagrees with it. While he avoids hurting innocent bystanders, Kizaru has no qualms with beating a former friend who stands in the way of his directives. Or so it seems, as the longer the Egghead Arc continues, the more Kizaru's facade of apathy falls apart and it becomes apparent he's lying. He still carries through on killing Vegapunk, but he's not particularly proud of his accomplishment.
• Just Toying with Them: Kizaru's idea of blowing off steam before the big battle against the Whitebeard Pirates is to take down the Eleven Supernovas at Sabaody Archipelago. It's clear that even when he's just screwing around he's still way too much for them to handle, and it's not until Rayleigh steps in that he's forced to take things seriously.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Kizaru strictly follows the orders he receives and ends up being the one to lay the fatal blow on his old friend Vegapunk, shooting a beam of light through the scientist's back. While Vegapunk, at that point, has already gotten impaled by Saint Saturn and said he was a Dead Man Walking regardless, Kizaru definitely accelerates the process.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: He's not a borderline suicidal Blood Knight like Akainu is; when he's told to stand down at gunpoint by a rifle-toting Benn Beckmann during the armistice negotiations between Shanks and Sengoku, he gracefully puts his hands up and surrenders.
• Laser Blade: His Ama no Murakumo technique creates a literal lightsaber.
• Lean and Mean: He's tall, skinny, and serves as an antagonist. Just like his co-workers.
• Light 'em Up: The Glint-Glint Fruit gives him power over and turns him into light.
• Light Is Good: Even if he's an antagonist to the Straw Hats and more morally neutral than most Marines, Kizaru is only seen beating evil pirates and avoids involving innocents.
• Lightning Bruiser: Thanks to the Glint-Glint Fruit being a Logia type, he can practically teleport himself anywhere within sight, and his lightspeed kicks deal a lot of damage. Judging from his words right before he temporarily sends Luffy in his Snakeman Form flying, the more Kizaru charges up his attacks, the more powerful they become.
  Kizaru: Acceleration... is power!!!
• Master Swordsman: He's good enough with his lightsaber to keep Rayleigh occupied.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Each technique he uses is named after (and has traits that relate to) one of the Imperial Regalia of Japan. Yata no Kagami is a mirror, Ama no Murakumo is the shortened form of Ama no Murakumo no Tsurugi (more commonly known as the Kusanagi no Tsurugi), and his beam spam Yasakani no Magatama is (believed to be) a necklace made of jade magatama stones.
  • This applies to the video games also. While he has not shown off his signature move that presents his epitet (Akainu and Aokiji have already done so), he has one in One Piece: Gigant Battle. He shoots a powerful massive laser beam from his feet in the form of a monkey head; the technique is named Ama no Iwato, from the cave of Shinto mythology.
  • His real name, Borsalino: which comes from 1) A role played by the person he was based on, Kunie Tanaka; 2) A French film called ''Borsalino'' where the title character takes the same approach he does while fighting crime (read: laid-back and care-free); and 3) An Italian hat company. All of the above has been referenced in the character.
• Mellow Fellow: He is very laid-back and easygoing, speaking rather slowly and occasionally drawing out the last word of his sentences, which is strange considering this behavior is very contradictory with his Devil Fruit power. No matter what happens he never gets angry or raises his voice. Ever. Nor does he ever lose his cool under stress.
• Mentor Archetype: He notes he taught Sentomaru everything he knew shortly before he wins their battle.
• Moral Sociopathy: He fully understands the letter of the law, but couldn't care less about the spirit of the law and looks at hunting and killing pirates like nothing more than some kind of game. He has absolutely no regards for collateral damage, and, as shown in the Fisher Tiger flashback, will target civilians, like Koala's home village, if he thinks doing so will make the pirate, or criminal, take the blow instead. Fisher Tiger's death was a direct result of this kind of tactic.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Borsalino follows a very simple justice, where he simply follows what the law, or his superiors, say. He has zero qualms about doing anything, as long as its what his superiors wish of him. His form of Justice is best shown during the Egghead Arc, specifically in chapter 1089, where he tries to defend himself from Sentomaru's accusations of him betraying him and Vegapunk, calling himself a "cog in the machine" who is Just Following Orders. That said, Saturn notes that his efforts in actually eliminating Vegapunk thus far are "rather sluggish" by his usual standards, and whilst he attributes that to the sheer power that the Awakened Nika fruit bestows Luffy being too much for Kizaru, it's implied that having to attack Bonney and Sentomaru on top of killing his old friend means that his heart's not fully in the mission.
• Nerves of Steel:
  • Never shaken, never bothered, never surprised. It might be a product of his Logia invulnerability, but even when his hand has popped off, he’s Half the Man He Used to Be, and when one of the Red-Hair Pirates has him at gunpoint, he remains as calm and spacey as ever. While he's certainly surprised facing Luffy in his Awakened state, Kizaru recovers quickly and is back to his usual easygoing demeanor during the battle.
  • When Luffy throws him out of Egghead towards the open ocean, he calmly takes note of his current circumstances, takes aim and shoots himself back to the island.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: He's very tough even when compared to the other Admirals: at least lava and ice are part of an established Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors and have their weakness; the same doesn't apply to light without using Haki. Even when Marco does manage to hit him and send him flying, the impact causing an explosion the size of several battleships, he pretty much shrugs it off without a scratch. Only Luffy in Gear 5 is able to do serious damages to the Admiral, with Nika's reality-warping power being enough to not only consistently knock down and incapacitate Kizaru, but also draw blood from him.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed:
  • His personality is based on Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a unifier of Japan, who was nicknamed 'monkey' and was known for being crafty, polite and resourceful, while working with a man who was known for utterly destroying anyone who stood in his way and another guy who was known for his coolheadedness, general laziness and knowing when (or not) to strike.
  • Same can be said for the French fanbase, looking suspiciously like a formerly famous comedian named Ramzy.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis:
  • For all of his idiosyncrasies, when it comes time to get his hands dirty, he tries to end fights as quickly as possible and uses the maximum level of force.
  • When given an order, Kizaru follows it and generally doesn't let himself be distracted by other opponents. This proves to be a serious problem on Egghead, as Kizaru's order to kill Vegapunk means he will turn his fire on the helpless scientist if given the slightest bit of leeway.
• Not So Stoic: For someone who's known for keeping calm under pressure, he finally gives a nervous, shocked expression when Sanji parries his laser beam.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • It's comparatively low-key, but a gigantic Gear Five Luffy grabbing him visibly rattles Kizaru. Notable as, subdued or not, it's the first time in official canon Kizaru appears nervous.
  • As he is about to kill both Bonney and Kuma on Egghead, he notices a bit too late that Luffy has fully recovered and that a Gear 5 Haki-infused punch is heading his way, making his face form a rather pained expression, visible even through his sunglasses.
  • He gets startled in Film Z, when Z throws a Dyna Stone right in his face.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In the original Japanese, Kizaru's laid back manner of speaking is always represented by a series of squiggles at the end of his sentences; for instance, it's present when Kizaru is confronting Marco or Benn Beckman. The squiggles briefly disappear after blocking Luffy's kick in Egghead, showing Luffy's attack is enough to make Kizaru drop his relaxed manner of speaking for a moment.
  • As the Egghead Arc continues, Kizaru begins to show clear guilt over the amount of suffering he's inflicting or helping inflict on his old friends.
• Only Friend: Implied to be the only friend to Sakazuki, being the only one who isn't shown to carry some level of disdain towards his ruthless tactics and disregard towards life. All There in the Manual notes they also joined the Marines at the same time, and them both being from the North Blue hints they may go back farther than that. And while Aramaki respects Sakazuki's ruthlessness, it's implied that their relationship is just between boss and subordinate.
• Perma-Stubble: Seems to go with this look. Even after the timeskip◊, he hasn't changed a lot.
• Perpetual Smiler: He has a resting Troll-face.
• Person of Mass Destruction: He blasts a mangrove tree the size of a city with a kick. Even more unnerving is that he seems not to be fully aware of the destruction he is capable of.
• Pet the Dog: He sticks up for Sentomaru when St. Jaygarcia Saturn demands Kizaru avoid him out of respect. Borsalino later takes the role of the Apologetic Attacker when the time comes to eliminate Dr. Vegapunk, repeatedly emphasizing that he really doesn't want to do it. A flashback shows him visibly enjoying the time spent with Vegapunk, Sentomaru, Bonney and Kuma, even participating in a group Nika dance.
• Power Stereotype Flip: He's pretty laid-back and relaxed, in stark contrast to his aggressive, high-speed light powers.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Kizaru follows what he calls "Unclear Justice," which basically comes down to 'whatever I'm ordered to do is justice.' As such, he's only a villain when his orders make him one, otherwise he seems laid back and mellow. He makes it clear that having to kill Vegapunk is painful for him and he doesn't want to do it, but orders are orders, and he gives Bonney a chance to pack up and leave because she's also an old friend and he doesn't want to kill two in the same day, but would do it regardless if she persists.
• Reflecting Laser: His Yata no Kagami technique allows him to quickly bounce between objects and rematerialize in another location; he usually uses it to get from point A to point B, which is usually right up in some pirate's face. It also helps him avoid the perils of the sea, as he can simply shoot himself away from the water if he's sent in that direction.
• Sand In My Eyes: Mentions in chapter 1104 that he "should have brought darker sunglasses" as he's clearly not happy about having to kill his old friend Vegapunk.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: You wouldn't think so when he was first introduced, but after observing him for a while, you'll see why every pirate on Sabaody was terrified of him. Made even more literal when he uses his Devil Fruit powers to utterly curb stomp everyone in his way until Rayleigh showed up.
• Shaping Your Attacks: The Ama no Murakumo sword is entirely made of light. In one of the Video Games, he has a move named "Ama no Iwato" (Heavenly Cave Entrance) which consists of a massive laser shaped as a monkey head.
• Shoot Everything That Moves: But to his credit, while he has caused enormous property damage, he hasn't hurt either civilians or Marines so far.
• Shoot the Dog: He doesn't want to kill Bonney, even giving her a chance to escape Egghead, but once Saint Saturn orders Bonney and Kuma to be immediately killed, he doesn't hesitate to move in for the kill. He at least promises Bonney to give her a quick and painless death.
• Squashed Flat: Gets flattened like a pancake and then tossed away by Gear 5 Luffy, crashing into a Marine ship.
• Superpower Lottery: His Devil Fruit is extremely powerful even among Logias and is one of the most broken powers in the entire series. He can move at the speed of light (He even mocks Luffy as being "too slow," even in Gear Second and Gear Five barely allows Luffy to keep up with him). Tanking a kick to the face at (near) the speed of light is just not gonna happen, as Hawkins and Luffy found out. He notably has no conventional weaknesses outside of seawater and Haki. And even then, trying to throw him in the ocean like other Fruit users is near impossible since he can just beam himself back up before he hits the water, and unless you're on the level of Rayleigh or Whitebeard, good luck.
• Super-Speed: Borsalino can move close-to or at the speed of light in his elemental form. The only real defense most people have is Observation Haki.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: His light-based powers allow him to move at lightspeed, blast his enemies with lasers, blink himself across large distances, create a Laser Blade and even create multiple mirages of himself.
• Theme Naming: As with the other two Admirals, he's named after one of Momotaro's companions, specifically the monkey. His attacks are also named after Japan's Three Sacred Treasures.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: One example has him giving an almost literal One-Hit Kill to Basil Hawkins several times. The "almost" bit comes from Hawkins' Devil Fruit abilities to fall back on.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Downplayed. His brutal curb-stomping of Arlong is one of the reasons Arlong ran off to the East Blue to live out his ambitions of being "the rage of all the Fish-men" — he served as a Wake-Up Call Boss for the Fish-Man and made him realize that he'd never measure up to the real monsters that sail the Grand Line, so he settled for being a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond in the weakest sea instead. To be perfectly fair to Borsalino, he had Arlong imprisoned in Impel Down after defeating him; Jimbei is the one who used his authority as a Warlord to get Arlong released and let him loose in the East Blue.
• Villain Respect: During the Egghead arc, he openly acknowledges how much the Straw Hats have grown from their last encounter with him during the Sabaody Archipelago arc and seems to be impressed by their strength. While going toe-to-toe with Snakeman during his fight with Luffy, he outright states that if this is the power Luffy has at his command, then Kizaru can definitely see how he's the man who defeated Kaido.
• Villainous RRoD: Taking multiple brutal hits from a Gear 5-enhanced Luffy, on top of having just killed his friend Vegapunk, shakes Kizaru enough that when Luffy throws him into a Marine ship from the center of Egghead after literally flattening him, Kizaru can only lie down on the ship's deck while commenting about how severe his injuries are and asking to be let to rest.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: His arrival at Sabaody shows that the Straw Hats are not ready to take on the top fighters of the world, and he, along with Kuma, causes the bleakest ending to any One Piece arc up until that point.
• We Used to Be Friends: Borsalino was Sentomaru's mentor and close friend long before he was promoted to Admiral. However, after Vegapunk sides with the Straw Hats and Sentomaru follows the scientist's allegiance, Sentomaru and Borsalino are forced to fight, something they both regret to do.

Admiral Fujitora ("The Wisteria Tiger")

Isshô/Admiral Fujitora

Voiced by: Ikuya Sawaki (JP), Charles C. Campbell (EN), Gerardo Reyero (LatAm SP)

Age: 54

Debut: Chapter 701 (Manga), Episode 630 (Anime)

Devil Fruit: Press-Press Fruit

"Not having sight is a blessing. The world of men...is full of filthy things not worth layin' eyes upon."

—Chapter 701

Real name Isshô, Fujitora is one of the new Admirals who replaced Aokiji and Akainu after the timeskip, and is the first new Admiral to be introduced after the timeskip. He has eaten the Press-Press Fruit (Zushi Zushi no Mi), which is a Devil Fruit that allows him to manipulate gravitational forces at will, granting him truly destructive combat abilities.

Fujitora was enlisted into the Marines through a World Government draft alongside fellow newcomer Ryokugyu, and was promoted to the rank of Admiral within two years. He has shown to be kinder than most Marines, and follows his own sense of morality and justice dubbed "Blind Justice", which oftentimes causes conflict with his superiors.

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• Actually Pretty Funny: When he asks why Luffy would announce where he would attack him (and then attacks him exactly in that place), Luffy answers by stating how he can't help but doing it because he, in his own way, pities Fujitora. He's so baffled at his response that he can barely hold his chuckle.
• Always Need What You Gave Up: He voluntarily blinded himself because he was so disgusted and fed up with the things he's seen in the world. But when he hears the thoughts of the Dressrosan citizens regarding Luffy, he thinks that the young boy may not really be a bad person after all, and gets curious enough to want to see what he looks like. Predictably, he then laments the fact that he took his own eyes.
• Animal Motifs: The tiger, of course.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In Chapter 792, he tells King Riku the situation in Dressrosa is the World Government's responsibility (specifically, how they made the Warlord system and how easy it is to exploit by less-than-well-meaning pirates), and on the Government's behalf, he and his subordinates kneel down in front of the king, begging for forgiveness.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While he's the nicest of the admirals, Issho remains a very powerful swordsman with the ability to control gravity. After learning that some henchman were taking advantage of his blindness to cheat, Issho crushes them with his Devil Fruit power.
• Blind Justice: He's a high ranking official in the world's primary police force and is also blind.
• Blind Weaponmaster: He is a blind Marine Admiral and is proficient with a sword.
• Brain Bleach: Played for Drama. He's had enough of the evils he saw in the world, which led him to blind his own eyes.
• Colony Drop: He can apparently make giant meteors fall out of the sky at will!
• Combat Pragmatist: He lampshades the trope when he realises Luffy is pitying him by announcing his blows, saying Luffy's ideals are illogical and there is no place for love, hate, and sympathy in a fight.
• Conscription: He joined the admirals during the time-skip, along with Ryokugyu, by being choosen by Akainu.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Hinted at. Apparently, he was so distraught by something or things he saw in the past to the point of slicing out his own eyes, saving himself from gazing at the world's evils any longer.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?:
  • After Luffy defeats Doflamingo, Fujitora promptly starts a broadcast where he bows to King Riku in a grand apology for all the trouble the World Government put him through — which includes saying pirates took down Doffy in front of the whole damn world, then going on to chew out his Fleet Admiral and the Five Elders because he knew they'd change the story and cover it up like they did with Alabasta.
  • He shows up for the Reverie at Mariejois despite Sakazuki making a point that he wasn't allowed because he was technically a Marine exile until he captured the Straw Hats. He's willing to use the Exact Words mentioned just below on a man who can turn into magma and has the temper to match, knowing that he was in the right, and that Sakazuki, with his absurdly destructive powers, couldn't do a damn thing to punish his insolence in the most sacred place in the world.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: He gets pretty pissed off when he realizes that Luffy is calling his attacks because he's blind.
• The Empath: When the citizens of Dressrosa pretends to chase after Luffy for "kidnapping" Rebecca, Fujitora, despite being blind, senses no anger in their voices, and realizes that they are covering for the Straw Hats so they can escape safely.
• Enemy Mine: With Doflamingo, as he wants to end the Seven Warlords system but considers preventing Luffy from rampaging around Dressrosa to be more important, at least for now. At least until Chapter 760, where he states that like King Riku, he'd be "betting" on Luffy to beat Doflamingo.
• Establishing Character Moment: Luffy runs into him gambling in Dressrosa and having fun even as he keeps losing, but the moment he learns he's actually being swindled he whips out the sword and flattens the cheaters as punishment. That's Fujitora in a nutshell: he'll take risks like gambling on the Straw Hats defeating Doflamingo in his place or destablizing the world by abolishing the Warlord system for a better future but when the chips are down, he's got a strong sense of justice and he's not afraid to act on it.
• Exact Words: Fujitora enters Mariejois, despite Fleet Admiral Sakazuki's orders to not return and enter a Marine base until Fujitora brought him Law's and Luffy's heads. Technically, Mariejois isn't a Marine base, though, so the Marines didn't deny him entry, which makes Sakazuki furious.
• The Exile: Fujitora is banned by Sakazuki from stepping foot in any Marine base until he brings in Law's and Luffy's heads as punishment for blowing the whistle in Dressrosa. In practice, the only thing keeping Fujitora in exile is Fujitora himself, as he's far too powerful to be stopped by anyone below his rank, and Ryokugyu declines to enforce the ban because a fight between Admirals would just end up destroying the Marine base (or in this case Marijoa) anyways.
• Expy: Issho is based off the title character of Zatoichi, being a blind swordsmen who fights for justice.
• Eye Scream: The X-shaped scar covering both his eyes doesn't leave the most comfortable implications about the cause of his blindness, until it turns out he did it himself on purpose. He was just that disgusted by the things he'd seen in the world and decided he was better off not seeing anything at all.
• A Father to His Men: Sort of — it's a weird relationship, considering that his men act as spotters for his DF's area-destroying capabilities (think of it like Heavy Artillery), but he makes sure that they are out of his own immediate combat zone and cares about their well-being more than you would expect a Sakazuki-promoted Admiral to.
• Flaming Meteor: His gravity abilities can bring down meteors from outer space, and they're all predictably fiery.
• Foil: To many of the more moral Marines including Smoker and Kuzan. As he was drafted during the timeskip, he doesn't have the same attachment or loyalty to the Marines or the World Government. While Smoker and Kuzan are both beginning to question the World Government, Fujitora is questioning from the getgo and has the courage to expose Doflamingo's actions and the World Government's culpability.
• Friendly Enemy: A downplayed example but still there. Luffy regards him as this, and if their bout is any indication, it's clear that the feeling is not one-sided, his comments about having to put aside feelings in the middle of this may also be an example, he clearly doesn't like to fight someone as kind as Luffy, especially considering the fact that he just saved all of Dressrosa.
• The Gambling Addict: He loves gambling and keeps on going even when he's on a losing streak in Dressrosa.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Fujitora tries to break through Doflamingo's Birdcage with a meteor. Not only does it fail, but it reduces the meteor into smaller, spread-out chunks, worsening the damage when they land on the ground. Only made worse when you realize that the Birdcage is made out of Doflamingo's strings, which were demonstrated to be able to slice through the meteors easily...though since Fujitora didn't actually see that happen, his mistake can be at least partially excused.
• Gravity Is Purple: He follows the tradition of Admirals having names and being dressed according to the colors of their Elemental Powers.
• Gravity Master: His Devil Fruit power allows him to manipulate gravity in a certain area. This power is obscenely strong, as he's capable of pulling down meteors, and that just as a test of his abilities. He can also decrease gravity, allowing him to stand and float on rock platforms, as well as change the gravity in an area to any direction he wants, such as sideways.
• Handicapped Badass: And he does it all while blind. Recent chapters reveal that this was self-inflicted. Thanks to Observation Haki, he's able to stay fairly sharp in battle, though his handicap does still leave him vulnerable to certain tactics and trickery.
• Heavier than It Looks: Fujitora ate the Zushi Zushi no Mi (Press-Press Fruit), making him a Gravity Master. His most basic use of this ability is to squash people by increasing the force of gravity on them.
• Hell Is That Noise: Being blind, he relies upon his Observation Haki and his hearing to get around and fight, and while it allows him to hear things such as Nami's thunder attacks from halfway across Dressrosa, it also means he can't see the aftermath, which makes him vulnerable to certain tricks like Law using a Marine's heart to get one of Fujitora's subordinates to have a literal heart attack, which immediately got Fujitora's attention because something just happened to his subordinates — which in turn allowed Law to "Room" out of Fujitora's relapsed gravity due to Fujitora's concentration being momentarily broken.
• Hero Antagonist: He, like Smoker, is a good man who, despite being a Marine, is willing to ally himself with pirates and the Revolutionaries for the greater good. And due to his moral code, he immediately — and without consulting Sakazuki — informs the public about the corruption of the Doflamingo family in Dressrosa due to the machinations of the Celestial Dragons and the Five Elders, specifically because Smoker, who's been in a similar situation with their corrupt practices, correctly predicts that they just might try and cover it up again like they did in Alabasta two years prior. Sakazuki is pissed when he finds out.
• Honor Before Reason: After leaving Dressrosa, Sengoku notes that Fujitora could resolve all of his issues with Sakazuki, namely being forbidden from entering any Marine base in the world until he defeats both Luffy and Law, by simply apologizing to him. But Fujitora refuses, citing his pride and principles as reasons he can't do so in this instance.
• Humble Hero: When being heckled by Doflamingo about his power, he admits he's still a rookie compared to the other Admirals when it comes to Marine politics.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Fujitora is well aware of how hypocritical he would be for arresting Doflamingo due to his position as an Admiral knowing of his crimes. To that end, he bets on Luffy and his allies being the ones to defeat Doflamingo and ensure that the world knows of what happened in Dressrosa to ensure the government can't cover it up like they did in Alabasta with Crocodile. He later acknowledges to Riku Dold how he has no right to preach about justice for working for the very organization that turned a blind eye to Doflamingo's actions up until this point.
• Kneel Before Frodo: This is invoked and played with. While King Riku has higher authority than an Admiral, Fujitora is also a representative of the World Government and bows before Riku, both as an apology for not having freed Dressrosa during the 10 year tyranny of Doflamingo, and to symbolically have the World Government bend before him, an action Fujitora is aware would piss off the higher ups of the World Government.
• Loophole Abuse: He is quite adept at using these when facing To Be Lawful or Good situation:
  • He can't refuse a direct order from his boss, Sakazuki. But he also knows that if he reports to his boss of how Doflamingo laid waste to his own country until Luffy stopped him, they'll give an official report deviating from the truth of what happened. So he broadcasts the ruined state of Dressrosa, and makes a public apology to the deposed king, Riku Dold III, on the World Government's behalf. Sakazuki is furious, but gives him one last chance to fix it by going after Luffy and Law like he was ordered to in the first place.
  • Too busy engaging the Revolutionaries is a legit excuse for not rescuing Doflamingo.
  • Likewise, Mariejois is not a Marine base, so Sakazuki's order is irrelevant there.
• Mêlée à Trois: He's locked into a three-way duel between himself, Trafalgar Law and Donquixote Doflamingo.
• Metaphorically True: He uses this as justification for engaging Sabo. Yes, Fujitora is personally sick of Doflamingo's bullshit (and his treatment of Fujitora's Marines), but he can't officially admit that as an Admiral... so he has the Revolutionaries blamed for their clever, dastardly plan of playing on Fujitora's justice to make him choose between protecting the country (which means protecting Doflamingo, his assigned job), or protecting the country's people (which is what Fujitora actually wants to do).
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: Fujitora's Devil Fruit allows him to grab meteors from space and launch them down on people.
• Mundane Utility: It's implied, if not outright stated at some point, that Issho likes to use his gravity-based powers to secretly manipulate dice results, which would explain how he was always calling the correct results when gambling (he was only losing money because the others at the table were lying to his face). He even states, when rolling a die to determine whether or not to pursue Luffy and Law, that he is not using his powers on it this time.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis:
  • He doesn't waste time making small talk or starting with weaker attacks that would make it a more even fight. If you come into conflict with him, he will pull out all the stops to end it as quickly as possible.
  • This is subverted in that he was actually playing around for nearly the entire arc (likely because of the whole Birdcage situation), only seriously intending to take down his targets come the arc's end.
• No-Sell: He blocks attacks from both Zoro and Doflamingo with no visible effort, though he did acknowledge the power of Zoro's attack.
• Not So Stoic: Although usually stern and reserved, his battle with Luffy has him becoming pretty emotional, breaking into an absurd chuckle when he realizes how silly Luffy is, and showing deep frustration and anger due to his conflict in fighting the savior of Dressrossa.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction when he realizes Sengoku overheard his thank-you to the Straw Hats for their help.
• Paying for the Action Scene: Compensates the owner of a restaurant for blowing a massive hole in the floor.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Issho can blow a massive hole in the floor, demolish city blocks by changing the direction of gravity, or summon meteors from the sky. When he gets truly serious, it is quite a sight to behold. Issho reveals he can manipulate gravity on a country-wide scale, with Pica's mountain-sized golem looking like an ant to his powers as he levitates the destroyed remnants of the country's buildings all at once to use as artillery. He uses it to annihilate an entire fleet of ships owned by New World pirates and brokers.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: At the end of the Dressrosa arc, three days after Doflamingo's defeat, Fujitora comes down, trying to apprehend the Straw Hats, and Luffy actually attacks him first. Though it comes to a halt when Hajrudin grabs Luffy to force him to get away from the island quickly.
• Power Incontinence: He's yet to get the "I probably should warn people of incoming meteors" bit down, though, and it doesn't help that he can't see the size of the meteors he is bringing down or the collateral damage it could do.
• Purple Is Powerful: Fitting to his Admiral name, he wears purple attire under his Marine coat. His Gravity Master powers are also given purple coloring in animation.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He's a lot more reasonable and intelligent than most high-ranking Navy officers, but alas, he is still a Navy officer. Once Doflamingo is beaten, he goes after Luffy and Law, although he gives them 3 days to recover first.
• Ramen Slurp: While riding on a ship he's using his gravity powers to propel through the air, no less! And his reaction to Law redirecting one of his own meteor attacks back at him is to keep eating the noodles.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Let's face it, when you're the only one sent to deal with a renegade Warlord who has shown himself to be one of the single strongest non-Emperor combatants in the entire series and who very nearly killed Smoker and would have if Kuzan hadn't shown up just in time, along with said Warlord's treacherous reality-warping former underling who happens to be a Warlord himself, you are this.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • His reaction to finding that Dressrosa is full of New World Pirates and there's probably going to be a fight later? Call in lots of medics for the inevitably wounded, and make sure to count how many civilians there are in Dressrosa so the Marines know who to protect and how many need that protection. He seems to have taken Kuzan's place as the resident example of this trope among the Admirals.
  • One of his goals that he can pursue now that he is an Admiral? Remove the Seven Warlords from their seats of power by ending the system.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Fujitora knows that once Navy HQ learns of Doflamingo's defeat at the hands of Luffy, they'll twist the truth into something that helps the Navy save face in a similar vein to Alabasta. Fujitora has none of it and broadcasts the truth to the whole world at the first opportunity before the Navy HQ even has a chance to learn of it, then proceeds to call out Sakazuki on the Navy and the WG's tendencies to tell lies to its people.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • He outright states his desire to end the Seven Warlords of the Sea system, and remarks that there's no way to know how that will affect the Balance of Power until it's been done. He also claims he has other plans as well, and given what accomplishing the only one we know of could cause...
  • By begging for forgiveness in front of King Riku for what the World Government had (indirectly) done to Dressrosa and then broadcasting the country's current state and the fact that the Warlord Donquixote Doflamingo was defeated by the alliance of Straw Hat and Heart Pirates, he has already become one for the Marines' and World Government's practices of truth-twisting for the public.
• Superpower Lottery: His Fruit powers allows him to control one of the fundamental forces in the universe, with what he can do with that it would be staggering with what he can do if he wasn't blind.
• Sword Cane: As part of his Zatoichi reference, he carries his sword in a blind man's stick.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Fujitora makes it crystal clear that he hates working with Doflamingo and will put and end to his machinations at the first opportunity.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Like Sakazuki, his definition of "reasonable force" generally means "wide-scale destruction". Unlike Akainu, he tries to cause as little casualties as possible and will make sure that any collateral damage is repaired or paid for. He also has his men identify civilians who might end up in the battle's fray and get them to safety.
• Tiger vs. Dragon: First, with Doflamingo. Because he's a Celestial Dragon. Though subverted since Fujitora needs to side with him against the Straw Hats to ensure Dressrosa's safety. Second, with Sabo, who has many dragon themes. Naturally, the two clash directly with each other.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Fujitora is a good person who's working for tyrants, and he often chooses to be good over lawful. He's just usually very intelligent about exploiting Exact Words and loopholes, like when he waits to hunt down Luffy after the events of Dressrosa. He ends up siding with the Revolutionary Army to liberate the slaves of the Celestial Dragons in Marijoa, resulting in him clashing with Ryokugyu.
• Token Good Teammate: With the reveal Ryokugyu is a racist who supports the World Government's oppressive practices, Fujitora stands out as the only Admiral who behaves in a genuinely heroic fashion. He puts actually helping people over the letter of the law, is willing to form an Enemy Mine with the Straw Hats and thank them for their help, and admits the fault of the World Government in a situation. He even sides with the Revolutionary Army, at least when it comes to liberating slaves.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He seems very fond of ramen and other noodle dishes.
• When He Smiles: After several chapters giving a (mostly) stern expression, he finally gives a wide smile in Chapter 800 as he thanks Luffy for what he did in Dressrosa.
• Worthy Opponent: He compliments Zoro on his Razor Wind, stating that although he was able to No-Sell it, it was still pretty brutal.
• "X" Marks the Hero: A downplayed example. He has an X-shaped scar on his forehead that goes to his eyes and despite acting as a Hero Antagonist to Luffy and his crew, Fujitora is one of the most noble members of the Marines.

Admiral Ryokugyu ("The Green Bull")

Aramaki/Admiral Ryokugyu

Voiced by: Keiji Fujiwara, Jun'ichi Suwabe (Episode 1079 onward) (Japanese), Matthew David Rudd (English) (Episode 882)

Debut: Chapter 905 (Manga), Episode 882 (Anime)

Devil Fruit: Woods-Woods Fruit

"So... you know how things work outside of here? The Celestial Dragons are are the gods of the world!! And here in this country unaffiliated with the World Government... you have no human rights!!"

—Chapter 1054

Real name Aramaki, Ryokugyu is the other new Admiral introduced after the Time Skip. Ryokugyu is an enigmatic character who makes his debut in the Reverie Arc at Mariejois as a security detail and Isshô's keeper. He's an easygoing man who's on an extreme fast that has persisted for three years, and has a close connection with "old man Vegapunk". He remains enigmatic until finally dropping by at the end of the Wano Arc. Upon his full introduction, Ryokugyu reveals himself as a huge supporter of Akainu's brand of thorough justice and wants to bring down Luffy to get his superior's approval.

Ryokugyu ate the Woods-Woods Fruit (Mori Mori no Mi), a Logia-class Devil Fruit that gives him the power to create and command various plant life in both harmless and violent ways, depending on what goal lies in front of him. Being a Logia, he can also transform his body into various plants/wood. He is able to sprout vines and branches from his body like tentacles, which is also how gets his nutrients without eating, simply by using his vines to sap them from various sources... and sometimes from other people. His flippant personality is hard to read, because he can abruptly switch from lawful and reasonable to destructive and disobedient, which has earned him a few tongue-lashings. This makes sense when Aramaki shows his true personality: a man with no mercy to anyone who doesn't side with the World Government, even if they live in seclusion, or there is disparity imposed on them. The man takes it all in stride as if the inequality builds character and loyalty.

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• Ax-Crazy: Despite his introductory appearance portraying him as a friendly and fun-loving guy, it turns out that Ryokugyu is batshit insane. He's perfectly willing to kill thousands just to get to Luffy, claiming that since Wano isn’t part of the World Government its people don’t have any rights. He spends the first half of the fight with the vanguard that came to intercept him ranting about the fact that he thinks the people of Wano are subhumans.
• Bait the Dog: His silhouetted cameo with Fujitora at Marijoa and his decision not to arrest Fujitora under Sakazuki's orders suggests he's a nice, laid-back and reasonable guy. Once he appears on Wano, he shows himself to be a ruthless monster and a dog of the World Government who has an unfair attitude toward anything outside the realm of its control, saying outright that he doesn't consider slaughtering Wano's inhabitants a crime.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Ryokugyu is an easy-going man to the point that he flat-out ignores Sakazuki's orders, both out of concern for the damage his fight would cause, and the fact that it would be too much trouble for him. Yet in his debut, he takes on King and Queen - both of whom gave a grueling fight to two of the Monster Trio - with absolutely zero effort. He then goes on to state his intention to kill Luffy — the man who just beat Kaido in a fight, by himself, and shows no fear whilst strolling toward the capital where the entire allied force that just defeated two Emperors of the sea is reveling in their victory, apparently without fear of himself potentially losing against such odds.
• Black-and-White Insanity: With him, you're either under the law of the World Government or a menace to society. There is no middle ground, even if you are an upright person.
• Blind Obedience: He's such a devout follower of both Sakazuki (which explains their shared views) and the World Government that he believes that anyone not under the law of the World Government is its enemy and deserves to be destroyed, even if said people are innocent otherwise.
• Body Horror: The people who get their nutrients sucked out by his roots become empty and emaciated husks unable to move.
• Conscription: Like Fujitora, Ryokugyu was one of the many conscripted by Akainu, and is strong enough to land the Admiral position to replace the spots left by Akainu and Aokiji.
• Dark and Troubled Past: According to SBS 106, Ryokugyu may have had a sad past involving women, hence the tattoo on his chest.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Ryokugyu was first mentioned as having joined the Marines via conscription. However, Ryokugyu is probably the single most diehard supporter of the World Government in the series, actively approving of the Celestial Dragons' authority. Really makes you wonder how someone like him didn't voluntarily join from day one.
• Energy Absorption: Ryokugyu can grow roots and vines from his finger to suck nutrients from people and get stronger. Before heading off to catch Luffy, Ryokugyu sucks energy from the Animal Kingdom Pirates to get ready for the fight.
• Exact Words: At Marijoa, he states that he hasn't 'eaten' anything in three years, but his Devil Fruit allows him to grow plant roots from his body to attack with, allowing him to drain moisture and nutrients through them without eating or drinking anything, or achieving such through photosynthesis. He remarks upon the taste of a barrel of alcohol he drained with one such root as not having aged enough, confirming that he is feeding through them.
• Faux Affably Evil: Ryokugyu seems to get along surprisingly well with Fujitora at the Reverie. He also really likes Sakazuki despite acting irreverent towards him and wanted to surprise him with Luffy's head to cheer his boss. He drops that affable attitude when dealing with people that aren't part of the World Government's jurisdiction and will violently beat them down while yelling at them.
• Fertile Feet: With his Devil Fruit, even in the desolation of Wano, he leaves behind a veritable patch of grass and flowers wherever he treads. Whether this is a passive or active ability of the fruit remains unknown.
• Foil: Ryokugyu and Fujitora, the two new admirals following the timeskip, are polar opposite personality wise. Unlike Fujitora's formal and polite demeanor, Ryokugyu's personality is very laid-back and informal. He also has a Willfully Weak stigma for an unspecified but meaningful reason in that he refuses to eat anything (or may not have a choice in the matter anyhow), much like how Fujitora willingly blinded himself. Also, while both Fujitora and Ryokugyu have a habit of disobeying Sakazuki; Fujitora does it due to his own sense of justice clashing with Sakazuki's orders, while Ryokugyu aims to surprise and impress Sakazuki with a great feat, like capturing or killing Luffy. Most importantly, Fujitora despises the cruelty and suffering caused by the Celestial Dragons and the World Government as he is a paragon of human compassion. Aramaki on the other hand believes them to be gods and are allowed to do whatever they please, and any and all atrocities they commit, no matter how horrific, are justified as rulers of the world. This opposing stance each man has put them into actual conflict, as Ryokugyu becomes enraged that Fujitora allows slaves to escape Marijoa during the Revolutionary Army's raid.
• From a Single Cell: He's capable of regenerating from a single sapling even if the rest of his body is incinerated.
• Good Powers, Bad People: His Woods-Woods Fruit lets him create life and enrich the earth in even the driest and most inhospitable places in the world. Too bad he mostly uses it to indiscriminately slaughter anything and anyone not under World Government control.
• Green Thumb: His Woods-Woods powers allow him to wrap up and drain his enemies with Combat Tentacles, fly around on a helicopter rotor seemingly made out of large leaves, and transform his body into a giant tree-like form.
• Hate Sink: As an Ax-Crazy Psycho Supporter of the Celestial Dragons who indulges in ruthless Dehumanization towards anyone who the World Government considers worthless, he's actually a worse human being than Akainu. Akainu, for all of his brutally extremes, legitimately follows his own sense of justice, believes the Marines to be a force of justice and everything he does in his twisted morality is done for the betterment of the world, not to mention even he detests the Celestial Dragons. Aramaki is actually the first high-ranking Marine who openly agrees with all the most blatantly racist views and the worst prejudiced actions the World Government perform, to the point he actually has a confrontation with Fujitora just after the Reverie just because Fujitora dared to help the Celestial Dragon's slaves escape their situation. He's very much the Token Evil Teammate among The Admirals, without question.
  "Humankind has lasted through the ages by creating and defining the inferior!! All the rest of us can look down our noses at you unaffiliated countries!!! Discrimination creates solace!!!"
• I'm a Humanitarian: Downplayed. He doesn't actually 'eat' people, but he can use the plant roots that he grows from his body to drain their blood and body fluids and leave them as shriveled-up dried husks. With his commentary about the flavour of an alcohol barrel he drains with one such root, he makes it clear that this is how he eats, and that he can taste what he absorbs through his roots, and has no compunctions performing such an act on an entire prison full of enemy pirates.
• Insane Admiral: He's a brutal and cruel marine, in a different way than Akainu, but not less dangerous or terrifying. Aramaki seems to be almost fanatical in his loyalty towards the most brutally racist and dehumanizing dogmas that the World Government endorses because in his mind “discrimination creates solace” and he’s perfectly willing to kill thousands of people in order to get to Luffy. The way he sees it, since Wano is outside the World Government, they don’t count as having human rights in the first place.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: In his first appearance, Aramaki attacks the remnants of the Beast Pirates, and flat out admits he only dares step foot in Wano because Kaido was beaten. However, after a short fight with the Scabbards, Yamato, and Momonosuke, Aramaki feels a blast of Shanks's Conquerors Haki, and immediately decides to leave rather than potentially fight an Emperor.
• Large Ham: When he faces off against Wano's samurai, Momonosuke and Yamato, Aramaki loudly boasts about his Woods-Woods Fruit and his philosophy, dominating the entire scene.
• Logical Weakness: Subverted. As the user of the Woods-Woods Fruit, he'd normally be vulnerable to fire. However, he's aware of this weakness and went out of his way to develop a technique to make himself more resistant to fire. However, it has its limitations, as powerful enough fire attacks can still overwhelm it and harm him even without Haki. Momonosuke's Blast Breath completely overpowers it and incinerates most of his body, forcing him to regenerate from a sapling.
• Made of Iron: Even taking his Logia powers into account, Ryokugyu can take some serious punishment, such as getting a Conqueror's Haki-enhanced conk to the head from Yamato or multiple fire blasts from Momonosuke's dragon form, and keep fighting without any real issues.
• Messy Hair: Ryokugyu's most prominent part in his silhouette is a big mess of curly hair.
• More Despicable Minion: Akainu is a Knight Templar, a war criminal, and an all-around unpleasant guy, yet he looks outright reasonable compared to Ryokugyu. Akainu, for all his faults, actually disapproves of the Celestial Dragons and genuinely does see the Marines as a force of justice. Ryokugyu wholeheartedly supports the Celestial Dragons' tyranny and doesn't even see members of non-affiliated nations as human beings.
• Odd Friendship: Ryokugyu gets on surprisingly well with fellow recent admiral appointee Fujitora despite their radically opposing views on justice, though it is unknown how open either one is about their true beliefs.
• Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: In chapter 1073, during the Egghead Arc, Bakking tells Marco that Ryokugyu responded to a call for backup and defeated Edward Weevil, whose strength was compared to a young Whitebeard, taking him prisoner. This feat also gives Aramaki the distinction of being the only known Marine to have successfully apprehended an ex-Warlord since the system's abolishment.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • He's caught by surprise when Momonosuke's Blast Breath overpowers his fire resistance and incinerates his giant tree form. It turns out to be a downplayed example, as he completely recovers moments later.
  • He's all set to keep plowing on through Wano's defenders when a massive burst of Conqueror's Haki from Shanks makes him freeze up.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Beats up the remains of the Beast Pirates who were trying to recover from the Wano arc's climactic battle on the sly before confronting the protagonists.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He justifies the rampant discrimination the World Government endorses as a completely necessary part of human existence, saying that the world runs off creating and defining "the inferior". And that's right after he declares that anyone not part of the World Government falls in the category of “non-human” and lacks any form of human rights.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: After Kaido is defeated on Wano, he shows up to wreak havoc for Momonosuke and the remaining Scabbards. It doesn't last long, though—he bails once he senses Shanks' Haki.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: Downplayed. Ryokugyu developed a technique specifically to counter his obvious weakness to fire attacks, but an extremely powerful one can still hurt him.
• Rule-Abiding Rebel: Aramaki is okay with disregarding rules or orders when it doesn't go against the World Government. When Issho comes to the Reverie despite being ordered by Sakazuki to never step foot on government property again, Aramaki just laughs the whole thing off and doesn't raise a finger to stop him (although he does justify it by noticing it would be a very bad idea for two Marine Admirals to fight in the middle of Mariejois, especially during the Reverie). And at the end of the Wano Arc he disregards his orders to stay back from Wano and goes in to capture the Alliance. In spite of his lackadaisical attitude, he fanatically supports the authoritarian dogma of the World Government and follows the Absolute Justice.
• Signature Laugh: "Rahaha!"
• Small Role, Big Impact: Aramaki only shows up at the tail end of the Wano arc, and gets scared off by Shanks' Haki just a few chapters after setting foot in the country, but his brief assault makes the samurai realize that Kaido's oppressive presence was also deterring outside threats, and ultimately convinces Yamato to stay and protect Wano despite his long-desired dream of seeing the outside world.
• Tattooed Crook: While he's a powerful man of justice, Ryokugyu has a large kanji tattoo ("死川心中") that means "double suicide at death river". The tattoo underlines his brutality and racist philosophy.
• Treants: When he transforms his body using his Logia power, he takes on an appearance highly reminiscent of a humanoid tree.
• Transflormation: His Logia allows him to transform into plants. He primarily takes on the form of a man-faced tree, and he can sprout a new body from the ground if he takes significant damage.
• Underestimating Badassery: Ryokugyu assumes he all by himself can take on the alliance that defeated Kaido and Big Mom, but Yamato outright says that Luffy and his crew can take him down. And sure enough, Luffy with Zoro, Sanji and Jinbe are watching Aramaki's confrontation with Momonosuke and the samurais from afar in a relaxed mood, ready to step in and slightly disappointed when they don't need to get involved.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Ryokugyu's easy victory over the samurai is what makes Yamato realize how defenseless Wano truly is compared to the outside world, causing Yamato to stay behind and serve as Wano's guardian.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: He doesn't wear a suit as part of his attire and goes shirtless instead, hinting at his confident and rebellious personality.
• The Worf Effect: After defeating the remnants of the Animal Kingdom pirates, including King and Queen (though they were still recovering from the battle), and holding his own against the Scabbards, Shinobu, and Momonosuke (plus Yamato, briefly) by himself without any serious issue, Aramaki immediately decides to cut and run after Shanks blasts the area with his Haki and threatens to get involved, showing how powerful the Emperor is.
• Worf Had the Flu: While Aramaki was unable to defeat Morley during the Reverie, the situation pretty much prevented Aramaki from doing anything against her. They were fighting in the middle of the Holy Land surrounded by Celestial Dragons and Aramaki would have received the death penalty if a single one of them got hurt, meaning that he needed to focus almost entirely on mitigating the damage caused by Morley instead of attacking her himself. It's really not hard to see how the Revolutionaries ended up getting away.

Kuzan/(Former) Admiral Aokiji ("The Blue Pheasant")

Kuzan/(Former) Admiral Aokiji

Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu (JP), Jason Douglas (EN, Funi), Bob Carter (EN, Unlimited Adventure), José Gilberto Vilchis (One Piece: Z, LatAm SP), Carlos Hernández (Netflix Dub, LatAm SP)

Age: 47 (Pre-Timeskip), 49 (Post-Timeskip)

Debut: Chapter 303 (Manga), Episode 225 (Anime)

Devil Fruit: Chilly-Chilly Fruit

^{Click here to see his Pre-Time Skip appearance}

"But justice changes shape depending on one's standpoint. That is why I won't criticize your idea of justice."

—Chapter 397

Real name Kuzan, Aokiji is one of the three Admirals at the beginning of the series. He follows a form of justice that he calls "Lazy Justice", resulting in a very relaxed, almost self-assured attitude. When he first meets the Straw Hats, he shows no intention to fight, calmly discussing things like their bounty increase and even making a pass at Nami, leading the group to initially wonder if he really is an Admiral or not. He has eaten the Chilly-Chilly Fruit (Hie Hie no Mi), a Logia Fruit that allows him to turn his body into ice, as well as produce and manipulate limitless amounts of ice. Overall he's a pretty chill guy.

During the two years Time Skip, he battled Akainu for the position of Fleet Admiral and lost, leading to him leaving the Marines. Kuzan would later ally with Marshall D. Teach and is currently a member of the Blackbeard Pirates, specifically as the Titanic Captain of their tenth ship.

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• All Men Are Perverts: Played for Laughs — Upon first meeting the Straw Hats, his first reaction to Nami is to point out her bust and ask if she's free that evening. And when they meet in One Piece Film: Z, he laments the fact that Nami isn't very busty anymore.
• Always a Bigger Fish: In the end of Punk Hazard arc, Doflamingo takes Vice-Admiral Smoker down easily, but opts to leave without a fight when the former Admiral arrives.
• Ambiguously Evil: While Kuzan is clearly not a bad person, he isn't exactly a saint either. He's taken part in some very questionable actions as a Marine and, for one reason or another, he genuinely sees value in allying with Blackbeard. In chapter 1081, after initially preparing to fight them all off, the exact circumstances that led to Kuzan joining the Blackbeard Pirates were shown. While he certainly hasn't been seen doing anything evil under Blackbeard, he really does seem to get along with Teach and his crew just fine and even looked taken when Blackbeard was trying to talk him into joining.
• Arch-Enemy: From an ideological standpoint, Aokiji and Akainu are complete opposites, eventually culminating in their conflict escalating into full-blown hostility after they're both recommended as candidates to replace Sengoku as Fleet Admiral. Aokiji got off his lazy ass for once and fought vehemently against allowing Akainu being appointed to the position, despite originally having little interest in the title himself. So against it that he was willing to fight a Duel to the Death over it. When he lost the fight but was spared, he was so opposed to the idea of serving under Akainu that he gave up his position as an Admiral and left the Marines.
• An Arm and a Leg: He lost his leg in his fight with Sakazuki and replaced it with a prosthetic ice leg.
• Artificial Limbs: Lost his leg thanks to his duel with Akainu, but created an ice prosthetic from his Logia powers.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: A brief scene in the anime has him sitting atop a mountain of frozen corpses.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Aokiji wears an elegant jilet under his Marine uniform.
• Big Damn Heroes: Aokiji shows up on Punk Hazard in the nick of time to save Smoker from being killed by Doflamingo.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Being an Admiral, he's part of the World Government's "Ultimate Assault Force" and the strongest combatants the World Government has to offer. However, Aokiji himself is a very carefree and lazy person. He even upholds what he dubs as "Lazy Justice", leading to people not believing at times he is such a powerful fighter. This philosophy does not mean you can take him lightly, however. This aspect of Kuzan's personality is implied to be part of why Teach won him over because, unlike the Marines, the Blackbeard Pirates don't force him to be something he's not.
• Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. He wasn't exactly blind to the flaws of the World Government pre-Time Skip but after resigning he tells Smoker that he has become much more aware of how corrupt those he once served under really are.
• Character Development: In the past, his philosophy was "Burning/Fired Up Justice" and he was more loyal to the World Government. It took Saul's own rebellion and his fellow Marines' excessive actions to make him start questioning the World Government, though it's a long while before he decides to leave the Marines.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: While training with Garp when he was young, Kuzan was able to rend battleships with his punches even without Armament Haki.
• Combat Pragmatist: Fights with few reservations and little honor as a pirate. If he can gang up on someone he's duking it out with, he will do that.
• Cool Shades: He used to wear round shades back when he was a Vice-Admiral. After the timeskip, he wears them again as a hint to his affiliation with the Blackbeard Pirates.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Luffy attacks him with his up-to-this-point strongest attack, the Logia user just shrugs it off by shattering into ice shards and reforming himself, then taking him down with Ice Time.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: While Garp partially has the upper hand during their battle, being able to manhandle Kuzan with ease while also having to deal with a horde of pirates and four other Titanic Captains, Kuzan holds his own and even gets some strong blows in.
• Defector from Decadence: Significantly zigzagged. While Kuzan did leave the Marines after becoming disillusioned with the World Government, his later decision to join the Blackbeard Pirates is... interesting, to say the least.
• Deliberately Non-Lethal Attack:
  • Aokiji easily defeats the Straw Hats but doesn't kill them, he just incapacitates them and give Robin a message.
  • It's revealed that his "Time Capsule" attack on Jaguar D. Saul wasn't lethal but simply froze him.
• Double Knockout: His bout against Garp at Fullalead ends with both parties punching each other in the face that sent them both flying and causing a large explosion.
• The Dreaded: As an Admiral, he's incredibly feared as one of the Marines' most powerful forces, terrifying the normally unflappable Robin into a frenzy. This fear becomes Harsher in Hindsight when you realize she's afraid of Kuzan specifically because he participated in the Marines' destruction of her home and her family, and (apparently) killed her protector Saul in front of her. Even after leaving the Marines, anyone who knows of him, including the irreverent Doflamingo, is rightly anxious of his presence.
• The Drifter: An SBS reveals he spent his childhood as a vagrant. After leaving the Marines, this is the life he returns to.
• Enigmatic Minion: Thanks to his Lazy Justice, Aokiji's attitude towards the Straw Hats (and the Marine) is complex. In his first appearance, he first helps the Straw Hats to them send Tonjit back home, then spares Robin as a favor to Saul, but explains it's out of favour to Garp. And shortly after he makes a complete 180, making a cool analysis of the Straw Hats' potential, flat-out admits that their rapid rise scares him, and then openly wonders whether or not it would be better to kill them all now before they can become a serious threat. He also gives Spandam the authority for a Buster Call and intends for Robin's story to end at Enies Lobby but he does not anticipate that the Straw Hats would go to such lengths to rescue Robin, and shows some optimism for her future.
• Everyone Has Standards: Kuzan was utterly disgusted when Akainu (then known as Vice-Admiral Sakazuki) blew up a ship of innocent evacuees on the off chance that one criminal managed to get on board. So much so that twenty years later, when the Fleet Admiral position opened up, he did whatever he could to ensure that Akainu did not become Fleet Admiral, despite originally displaying little interest in the position himself (Sengoku originally nominated Aokiji for the position; Akainu only became a candidate due to the support of several high-level government officials), to the point that the two had a death match just to fill the position. Then when he lost, he was so opposed to serving under his rival that he ditched the Marines and gave up his position as an admiral.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: After the timeskip, he wears a glove on only one hand presumably to hide the burn scars covering it.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Following Akainu's promotion, Kuzan leaves the Marines and joins the Blackbeard Pirates.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: At the start of his Marine career Kuzan was a remarkable yet otherwise normal Marine personnel, being about as strong as a normal human and unable to even use Haki. He ended up becoming one of the strongest people in the entire organization, possessing a highly powerful fruit, potent Haki abilities, and physical strength that rivalled his mentor Garp. Chapter 1087 even shows his progression through the years by beginning the flashback of his battleship punching training with a weak 'slap' sound effect beside Garp's DOOM which progressively became louder until it had the same DOOM sound effect as Garp's.
• Harmless Freezing: Averted. The dangers of him freezing you solid are mentioned and shown several times. One character even lost an arm because of this. When a character survives Aokiji freezing them solid, it usually means they're just very strong such as Doflamingo or have an agreeable fruit power like Buggy.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Kuzan left the Marines during the Time Skip for ideological reasons after his defeat by Sakazuki... only to later join the Blackbeard Pirates. Kuzan allying with Teach is a means to an end more than anything else. Kuzan has the sense to recognize that, for better or for worse, Teach is a man who is going to change the world. For a man who has grown disillusioned with the farce of justice the Marines promote, it isn't exactly hard to see why Kuzan chose to take a chance and throw his lot in with Teach.
• Hero Antagonist: There's nothing really villainous or evil about him; he just happens to oppose the protagonists by default, since he's a Marine.
• Honor Before Reason: His honor is the only reason he doesn't capture the Straw Hats when he first meet them, as he agrees to fight Luffy one-on-one and not harm Luffy's crew.
• Human Popsicle: Aokiji can freeze entire people with his ice powers.
• I Am What I Am: At the end of Punk Hazard, Kuzan tells Smoker that, no matter what he's getting up to, he's still the same person he always was. He reiterates this to Garp, making it clear that he's living his life on his own terms by joining Teach's crew.
• An Ice Person: The Chilly-Chilly Fruit gives Aokiji a large variety of strong ice-related powers. He can turn himself into ice, freeze an entire chunk of sea, his own enemies and create ice attacks of all shapes and sizes.
• I've Never Seen Anything Like This Before: When his first meeting with the Straw Hats starts going sour, he admits to having faced several ruthless villains over the years, so the rapid rate that the Straw Hats are gaining strength and infamy is legitimately scary to him. This causes him to make a half-hearted attempt to kill them before they can grow any stronger.
• Kick the Dog: He casually mocks Garp's bad luck with his apprentices going rogue during their fight on Fullalead.
• Kill It with Ice: Aokiji's standard method of attack is his ice Devil Fruit power which can freeze you solid in an instant and create a plethora of deadly weapons.
• Kill the Ones You Love: He makes it fairly clear to Robin that Saul was a good friend of his. Judging from what he says, he didn't like having to kill him, but he was under orders. Chapter 1066 indicates he didn't actually kill Saul but rather staged his death via freezing so Saul could go into hiding.
• Knight of Cerebus: Right after the relatively light-hearted and humour based Davy Back Fight, the Straw Hats bump into Aokiji, who causes Robin to freak out and then almost kills Luffy in a fight, sparing him only because of a debt he owes to Garp. As a whole, Aokiji's debut provides a dour warning for things to come.
• Literally Shattered Lives:
  • Aokiji's Chilly-Chilly Fruit allows him to turn into ice; he shatters when hit, but since his fruit is a Logia class, he can simply pull himself together like the T-1000.
  • Aokiji can freeze his enemies and then shatter their fragile bodies. He makes a half-hearted attempt to do this to Robin the first time he meets the Straw Hats. Fortunately, the others are both fast and gentle enough to get her out of the way.
  • When facing Diamond Jozu, the only person capable of hardening his body to a degree that can outdo this, he catches Jozu while his guard is down and his powers aren't shielding his skin, and causes him to freeze. Jozu crashes to the ground in a way that snaps off his entire arm. This shows just how frightening Aokiji's powers can be, because all it takes is one misstep to instantly disfigure his opponent.
  • Notably, the few times his foes come out unscathed from his ice powers involved fruit powers (Jozu, Whitebeard) or immensely strong Haki and physical prowess (Whitebeard, Garp. When faced with the latter foes he seemingly mostly falls back on his own innate strength, using his fruit to augment his strikes instead.
• Logical Weakness: Having eaten the Chilly-Chilly fruit, Aokiji is weaker to fire and magma attacks. It allows the weaker Ace to block one of his attacks completely, and during the timeskip he loses to Akainu, even though Jinbei explains that he put up an immense fight.
• Meaningful Name: His given name, Kuzan — if written in Kanji, it can mean "Nine Mountains" (九山), which in One Piece is a phrase that stands for "all the land (of the world)".
• My God, What Have I Done?: Kuzan carries around a lot of guilt from being a perpetrator of the atrocity that befell Ohara. While the guilt wasn't enough to make him end his service in the Marines, it's implied to have been a major factor for why he resigned during the Time Skip.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: He's based on Tokugawa Ieyasu. The lazy justice mentality is just one of MANY similarities.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: For all his playfulness and lazy ways, he doesn't toy around much once he decides to take action, trying to defeat any opponent in as few strikes as possible.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Aokiji realizes that he can't freeze Whitebeard's shockwave-based Tremor-Tremor powers, he reacts in shock.
  • Aokiji has a minor freak out when Luffy uses his Conqueror's Haki at Marineford and knocks out a significant portion of the battlefield. At that point he has already acknowledged that Luffy and his crew have a dangerous amount of potential, but that moment makes him realize how high their ceiling really is.
• Older Than They Look: He's pushing 50 but looks like he's in his 30s. He's actually three years older than Crocodile, who looks much older than he does.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Aokiji is usually a lazy bum who only puts in as much effort as he feels is absolutely necessary to fulfill his duties. But when Akainu is recommended to succeed Sengoku as Fleet Admiral, Aokiji decides that this will not stand and fights him to the death just to deny him the position, even if that means his own duties will increase.
• Opt Out: He leaves the Marines after Akainu becomes Fleet Admiral because he doesn't want to work under him. Instead, he becomes a member of the Blackbeard Pirates.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: While he does follow orders, he also follows "Lazy Justice", only going after those who he deems a legitimate threat.
• Redemption Rejection: For a debatable definition of redemption, Kuzan explicitly shoots down Garp's order to rejoin the Marines when they meet as enemies on Fullalead.
• Resign in Protest: After losing to Akainu, the latter became the new Fleet Admiral and Aokiji decided to leave the Marine rather than following Sakazuki's orders.
• Scars Are Forever: Has a few nasty burn scars from his duel with Akainu.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He was strongly opposed to Akainu becoming Fleet Admiral, so much so that they ended up having a fight to the death for the position that went on for ten days!^note The aftermath of that fight was still etched onto Punk Hazard after the Time Skip. Ultimately, Akainu won, but spared Aokiji's life. Aokiji was so averse to serving under Akainu that he ended up ditching the Marines and giving up his position as an Admiral.
• Shaping Your Attacks: "Ice Block: Partisan" (makes ranseurs out of ice) and "Ice Block: Pheasant Peck" (creates a giant pheasant).
• Sleep Mask: Is often seen wearing one before the timeskip. Post-timeskip, ditches the sleeping mask and goes back to wearing a bandana like his pre-Admiral days.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: His Logia powers usually render the battlefield into an Arctic wasteland — He even turned the entire Marineford Bay into a giant ice rink.
• Super Drowning Skills: While he can't swim, Kuzan can use his Devil Fruit powers to freeze the sea below him, giving him a good advantage over other Devil Fruit users.
• Superpower Lottery: On top of his intelligence, years of experience, and immense combat training, his Chilly-Chilly Fruit has all the typical advantages of a Logia Fruit while having the additional nasty ability of freezing opponents solid at immense ranges, and he's so skilled at using it that he can do this effortlessly, essentially allowing him to control the tempo of any fight for free; leaving enemies open to his more straightforwardly damaging attacks or to being assaulted by his comrades. It also makes him immune to drowning, the natural weakness of any devil fruit user, by virtue of its power, as he can just freeze any body of water he comes into contact with before he has any chance of sinking.
• Token Good Teammate: Kuzan is a member of the Blackbeard Pirates but he isn't really a bad person, believing that being a member of the crew lets him enact justice in ways that were impossible in the Marines.
• Übermensch: Even back when he was a Marine, Kuzan's loyalty to the World Government was half-assed at best, signified by his personal code of "Lazy Justice." He chooses to live by his own personal justice after defecting, leading him to join the Blackbeard Pirates who, strangely enough, share a similar ideology.
• Verbal Tic: Prone to saying "arara" ("Wait just a moment").
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Aokiji represents the strongest foe the Straw Hat have faced up to that point in their journey into Paradise, being among the strongest warriors in the world. Even Robin, normally the most well-composed and immovably calm among the bunch, is absolutely terrified upon seeing him. In short order, Aokiji freezes an entire sea, beats Zoro and Sanji just by touching them, freezes Luffy and Robin's whole bodies and almost literally shatters both of them into pieces. The Straw Hats only survive because he has history with Robin and he wants to thank them for beating Crocodile. They still take four days to recover from his "play-fighting", and nothing would have stopped him from freezing Going Merry in the water and finishing the job if he wanted to. These events make Luffy realise that he can't afford to continue his journey at his current level, and he begins to work on pushing himself in secret.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Carries out his orders as his morals interpret, even if it involves destroying an island of people. He was willing to let everyone else go, however... until Sakazuki eliminated them.
• Wild Card: After having left the Marines and realizing just how truly corrupt the world is, government and Marines, it becomes clear that Kuzan seems to be only looking after his friends and appears to have some contact with Blackbeard, who's become one of the Four Emperors. It's revealed that, during the timeskip, Kuzan formally joined the Blackbeard Pirates as their tenth Titanic Captain, cementing his role to be in direct opposition with the Marines. However, his loyalty to his new crew is also in question since Burgess warns Blackbeard that Kuzan is not to be trusted.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: He let a young Robin escape Ohara instead of killing her, which was the Government's orders.

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