How to refer to Yamato from One Piece

This is a thread to discuss how to refer to the character Yamato from One Piece. Spun off of this ATT thread.

If the characters use He/Him pronouns when referring to Yamato, then I believe that this site should also use He/Him too.

THE GOLDEN AGE WILL RETURN AGAIN!

I agree.

that's my position.

My troper wall

Stick with He/Him. Regardless of whether Yamato identifies as or is identified as a cis woman or not, use whatever he asks to be referred to until the character himself states otherwise.

Pronouns don't have to be a hard statement on gender identity, no reason not to stick with those pronouns, regardless of what Oda identifies the character's gender as.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 1st 2021 at 2:12:08 PM

To reaffirm my opinion in the proper location: he/him.

Agreed with the above. Yamato identifies himself as a man at this point in time; Oda may pull a curveball at some point in the future, but the characters in-story appear unified in considering Yamato a man.

It's been fun.

If there is already information that confirms that Yamato has to be considered as a woman, then feminine pronouns should be used.

The only thing that needs to be clarified on the page is that everyone in-universe treats her as a man and she treats herself as Kozuki Oden (not just a man).

Anything that refers to considering Yamato a man out of the universe would already fall into YMMV or worse, agenda territory.

Also keep in mind that the conversation is filling with people who do not even know One Piece, therefore this conversation is being contaminated.

At least make sure that those who have knowledge of One Piece, the arc and the character in question are the ones who have priority in commenting

Edited by RicardoRenegado on Sep 2nd 2021 at 7:19:27 AM

See, the thing is, being a woman does not automatically saddle someone with "she/her" pronouns. It just does not. They are not equivalent things.

If the character is using masculine pronouns in Japanese (which "boku" is), then it should be translated to masculine pronouns in English.

I don't know why we have to make this a gender identity issue when it's actually a matter of translation. Even if you can prove the character is a woman, that doesn't change the pronoun matter.

Edited by Eiryu on Sep 2nd 2021 at 7:44:54 AM

The "information that confirms that Yamato has to be considered as a woman, then feminine pronouns should be used" are the Vivre Cards, a secondary source that, in this instance, is at odds with what is in the primary source, the actual manga.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when a secondary source disagrees with the primary, shouldn't the primary take priority?

My own opinion is that either Yamato is identifying as a man, or is identifying as Oden, who is a man. Either way Yamato's identifying as male and there's no reason for us to do otherwise until he does.

To help with context for those who may join the thread while unfamiliar with One Piece, here's a list of what suggests male vs female in the manga itself I posted on it ATT (with an assist from PushoverMediaCritic)

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 2nd 2021 at 5:38:22 AM

I feel like the chapter numbers thing is a real stretch, and IIRC he doesn't react the best to being called Yama-o. Neither of that is a point against his use of male pronouns though, and it doesn't matter what his gender is, if he explicitly states that he wants to be referred to in masculine terms, then we do that.

I know a self-described cis lesbian who uses he/him pronouns to indicate his sexuality and opposition to patriarchal heteronormativity rather than his gender identity, so it would hardly be the first time someone's used divergent pronouns for reasons other than being trans.

I looked up the displeasure at the nickname thing. Chapter 986 for reference.

In the English version, at least, Yamato does react negatively to the nickname, but primarily by reminding Luffy of his actual name. So I'm not sure if that's Yamato reacting negatively to a masculine nickname or Yamato reacting negatively to a nickname, period.

@ post 8: Saying that fans of the series should have their comments take priority is ridiculous for a couple of reasons

1. How do we determine who is a fan of the series?

2. This discussion has broader implications. I doubt that this will be the last time that something like this comes up in any work.

3. It's falling into opinion territory no matter which side you're on, and saying disagreement with you falls into agenda territory is a bridge too far, imo.

Edited by Acebrock on Sep 2nd 2021 at 7:26:47 AM

My troper wall

Going to repeat what I said in the ATT: if nobody and nothing in the text itself is disputing Yamato's pronouns then there's no reason to change that now, especially if the only solid "proof" is supplementary material. If later in the story Yamato decides to openly acknowledge himself as a woman then we can go and change it. There is nothing wrong with waiting for the story to play out and responding only once that transition is clear. If that is truly Yamato's arc, him learning to be himself and thus accept his womanhood, then all this debate is doing is trying to jump ahead of the script and affirmatively stamp Yamato's gender identity down ahead of time and in defiance of the text itself.

And yeah, going to second that trying to "no real fan" this is in really poor taste, especially since this topic is actually fairly straightforward. The only thing that's really lore-centric is the series' earlier treatment of the Okama, and even then its more recent treatment of Kiku takes precedent.

As a completely disinterested party here as well as a moderator, I have to concur with the consensus that the pronouns used in the work itself are relevant here. If the character expresses a preference for male pronouns and everyone uses male pronouns to refer to them, then we should use male pronouns in our own articles.

The relevant policy is Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Language.

There are other tropes like Viewer Gender Confusion that can be used to describe the mentioned discrepancies.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 3rd 2021 at 10:00:36 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Yeah, it seems rather illogical to take the word of supplementary material over the character's own apparent preference.

Seems to me that in any Pronoun Trouble situation the priority should go something like:

1. How the character refers to themselves in-story
2. How other people refer to them in-story (in good faith)
3. How primary supplementary material (eg. manga footnotes) refers to them (>=) How Word of God refers to them
4. How merchandise and other third-party supplementary material refer to them

In this case the first one and most of the second one are "he/him" so using that makes sense to me.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 3rd 2021 at 2:04:23 PM

Even if Yamato explicitly declares himself a woman later in the story, if he still uses boku at that point, then stick to masculine pronouns, and use another trope like Ambiguous Gender Identity and Bokukko to explain the situation.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 3rd 2021 at 3:05:00 PM

I think the answer to this depends on if the standard for things like this are how characters are referenced in the work itself, or outside of it.

Because if it's the former the answer is masculine pronouns. If it's the latter, feminine. Not super important, but I'm seeing the word "supplementary material" used as if it casts doubt on validity, where from my understanding it shouldn't in this case, because the information is presented and reviewed by the author himself, and from what I can tell mistakes are usually identified pretty fast.

But again, that's not super important to this. It's just the standard if the wiki is going by In-Universe reference or Out-of-Universe.

I'm not really seeing why Yamato's usage of "Boku" should factor into either way, to be honest. Yeah it's "gendered", but in a way Japanese speech generally is, that English isn't. It doesn't inherently say anything about how Yamato would want others to refer to them (though, again, we already have plenty of context on that from other things).

Edited by LSBK on Sep 3rd 2021 at 11:03:11 AM

Just to toss out there, Yamato doesn't identify as a man. Yamato identifies as Oden (a person who she admires), for the context. One could even argue that calling her Yamato instead of Oden as she prefers is deadnaming her, if you really wanted to, but that's beside the point. I just wish to toss this out there since it's gone unsaid.

It's never been a matter of gender to Yamato. It's always been a matter of taking on the role of the person she admires and was the mortal enemy of the person she hated most, her father Kaido. There's been quite a bit in the main series that supports what the supplement says, such as her being introduced in the actual caption as Kaido's Daughter. Her identity issues aren't related to gender so much as her lineage.

Contrast this is O-Kiku, who explicitly identifies as female. The supplementary material which brought this up with Yamato supports O-Kiku's female identification and this whole thing with Yamato has been an issue in the past between those who believe she identifies as male and those who argue no she isn't because she identifies as Oden, which the series has portrayed as her oddity since Oden was an actual person and she's done things like act like Oden's actual son is her son.

I personally don't care what anybody labels her as on the pages before anybody jumps on me. I just wanted to see this information presented here. Everybody is free to do as they please.

Improving as an author, one video at a time.

I also want to add to this; Charlotte Linlin from the same manga uses the more masculine "Ore (俺)" to refer to herself, so there isn't a reason for Yamato's use of "Boku" to factor.

"In the work" is my feeling. To use a separate example, I've seen people refer to characters by their given names when the work only ever uses their surnames. There's a place for that, such a distinguishing between members of the same family, but outside of that it tends to strike me as needlessly confusing when you could use what the work does and be much more clear.

Re: supplemental material, presented and reviewed by the author himself or not, it's still a secondary source compared to the primary source, the work itself. If the two conflict, as I feel they do in this instance, I'm giving priority to the work itself.

---

My own feeling on this point is Yamato is identifying as a male either way.

Not sure on the deadnaming thing. Very least I've never seen Yamato object to being called Yamato that I can think of.

---

Is that possibly also an old woman thing? The main character of a completely different manga I follow, Granny Girl Hinata-chan, is a little girl with the mannerisms is an old woman due to reincarnating with Past-Life Memories, and one of those past life mannerisms we see is referring to herself as "ore" instead of "watashi" as her mother tries to get her to do, or as a Third-Person Person more common among small children.

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 4th 2021 at 11:03:40 AM

Women using “Boku” is a tomboy thing and uncommon in real life…much like how gay men might call each other “girl” or “queen” to emphasize their perceived femininity, girls use it to confer masculine traits on themselves. It’s actually much more common with young generations than older ones because of the gender defiance.

Edited by Eiryu on Sep 4th 2021 at 1:17:01 PM

>The "information that confirms that Yamato has to be considered as a woman, then feminine >pronouns should be used" are the Vivre Cards, a secondary source that, in this instance, is at odds with what is in the primary source, the actual manga.

>Correct me if I'm wrong, but when a secondary source disagrees with the primary, shouldn't the primary take priority? (I don't know how to do quote lines) The problem with that logic is the Vivre Cards aren't like the Naruto Databooks which are instantly ignored (Two people 9 years apart being in the same class for example). Oda oversees the Vivre Cards and follows all that information, making them also a primary source. The only time (I know of) that the Vivre Cards were wrong about literally anything is when they said Sabo was dead, which wasn't "wrong" so much as it was "lying".

Edited by TheSinful on Sep 5th 2021 at 5:13:55 AM

All is not lost. Not yet.

I'm pretty sure it isn't, but someone more knowledgeable about Japanese culture can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I've never heard of old women using boku, no. It is true that characters who identify/present as female can also use "male" personal pronouns, at least in fiction - the majority of Bokukko don't present themselves as male, and neither do most of the few girls who use ore that I've seen (or "oira", for Paimon in Genshin Impact, for instance).

In this case, it's more about the fact that Yamato says "I admire Oden, so I became a man". The pronouns are less significant and I wouldn't really call "boku" a firm piece of evidence.

It's been fun.