Kozuki Oden

Kozuki Oden was the daimyo of Kuri in Wano Country and the son of the former shogun Kozuki Sukiyaki, being a member of the Kozuki Family. He was the husband of Kozuki Toki and the father of Momonosuke and Hiyori. Additionally, he was the leader of a group of legendary and powerful samurai known as the Nine Red Scabbards, with all of them serving as his retainers and most trusted allies. For 5 years of his life, Oden set out to sea and became a pirate, serving as the 2nd division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates and later becoming a member of the Roger Pirates. After finding Joy Boy's treasure on Laugh Tale, Oden journeyed home and made it his goal to open Wano's borders to the world by finally taking his father's place as Shogun. However, he met opposition from his usurper Kurozumi Orochi and pirate Kaido, who executed him 20 years before the present. Oden was a muscular man of towering height that is shown to have been about half that of Whitebeard (6.6 m), much taller than normal people. He had long, wild dark hair that was notably gathered into a large, flat, circular plane at the top, and also included a prominent widow's peak and triangular sideburns. He had relatively small dark eyes, prominent, highly arched eyebrows, a square jawline, and a large, expressive mouth. During the five years before his demise, he grew a short goatee. He typically wore an orange kimono, leaving most of his legs exposed; the kimono had two yellow crescent moon designs on it. Oden also wore a large purple and white nio-dasuki tied around his shoulders that ran down his back. He would often alternate between this and a similar longer kimono, with his nio-dasuki worn as a belt and tied in the front. Oden also wore his favourite swords Enma and Ame no Habakiri across his left waist tucked inside an obi belt. While partying with the Whitebeard Pirates, he wore a light colored shirt, dark colored pants, and crown on his head.


Oden was an extremely brash, confident, and self-willed man. This motivated him to commit outrageous and violent actions for his own benefit during his youth and adolescence, such as burning down the yakuza casino after being banned from it and kidnapping women at night to form a harem in the mountains. Overall, Oden was known for getting into a significant number of violent fights, and he cared little for the consequences of his actions, as he gladly stood his ground against the yakuza and the loved ones of the women when fighting broke out as a result of the two aforementioned incidents. Although most men were appalled by his actions, his attitude made him very attractive to women, including the ones he kidnapped for his harem as they stayed with him willingly. After being sentenced to work in the quarries, Oden became less selfish and started acting to improve the lives of the Flower Capital citizens around him.


However, these actions were just as outrageous and ill-thought-out as the ones Oden committed to benefit himself. The most notable example is when he attempted to help out the citizens during a drought by diverting a river into the city, which caused the city to become flooded. Additionally, when a Mountain God attacked the Flower Capital, Oden quickly went to action to try to deal with it. Oden seemed to often mean well, but acted in ways that were reckless and potentially alienating to those around him. For example, to honor a deceased man he once knew, Oden cooked a pot of oden soup over the cremated remains and "shared one last drink" with his former friend, much to the dismay of his mourning family members. After being exiled by Sukiyaki, he seemed to have found an outlet for his unconventional attempts at heroism, as he was able to bring peace to Kuri and rebuild its infrastructure in only two years. As daimyo of Kuri, Oden had a large amount of power and influence over the region before his death. He also had the ability to hear the "Voice of All Things", which his son also inherited. Being a former member of both the Whitebeard Pirates, as a former Divison Commander, and the Roger Pirates, Oden was regarded as being a tremendously powerful pirate with a great level of influence in both crews. His influence even extends toward the members of the Mink Tribe on Zou, with the leaders Inuarashi and Nekomamushi being members of the Nine Red Scabbards. As a descendant of the Kozuki Family, Oden also inherited from his ancestors the knowledge and skill to read Poneglyphs and write its ancient language.


Additionally, the rest of the Mink Tribe has shown enough respect and loyalty toward the Kozuki Family that all of them were willing to die rather than to allow one of Oden's retainers from being captured even after Oden died. In spite of all the conflicts that he had with the Yakuza over the years, his death had such an impact on the leaders of the Yakuza that they staged their own rebellion against Kurozumi Orochi who had allied with Kaido before they were all captured and sent to Udon prison. Oden possessed a tremendous combination of combat skills and charisma. His combat prowess was seen at an early age, when he got into massive battles and altercations with powerful samurai and yakuza and survived, causing an implied high number of casualties over the years. Despite being frequently pursued by authorities in his youth, he was only captured once and eluded capture many times afterward. His combat and charisma combination was best seen in his restoration of peace to Kuri, where he defeated the powerful Ashura Doji and then proceeded to round up the rest of the dangerous criminals and get them to work under him, including Ashura. Prior to this, he also demonstrated his charisma by quickly becoming a figure of high repute as a laborer in the quarry. As Oden admitted himself, he had no talent in sailing and navigation. Oden had tremendous physical strength since infancy, during which he flung his wet nurse across the room. By age two, he could catch rabbits with his bare hands, and at age four, he killed a bear by throwing a boulder at it. At adulthood, Oden could carry a giant Koi carp which he caught at sea by himself and exerted enough physical power in his swordsmanship to clash with Whitebeard's Meito Murakumogiri. To match his tremendous strength, Oden also had astounding tolerance to pain, as he could hold a hot pot with his bare hands. He had immense stamina and endurance, as he was able to fight against the criminals and ronin of Kuri joined led by Ashura Doji for an entire night alone with multiple wounds such as arrows sticking out of his body yet still came out victorious. Additionally, he held onto a chain pulled by the Moby Dick and faced the many dangers and climates of the New World ocean with no protection for three days before eventually letting go, more because he went to rescue Toki than due to exhaustion. When he washed ashore on an island afterward, he received slight treatment from Toki and slept for one night before getting up with exuberant energy, leaving Toki surprised about his tremendous recovery speed. As a testament to his monsterous strength and endurance, Oden was able to hold up all nine of his retainers, each who are very large, on a thick wooden plank while his lower half was submerged for an extended period of time in a large pot of boiling oil, which killed an average man in seconds despite getting out. He survived being boiled alive in oil while the temperature continued to increase to over 700 degrees of heat for almost over an hour, a feat no one has managed before, which impressed even Kaido. Despite being near death, Oden could still muster the strength to throw all nine of his retainers a great distance away from the execution site. However, it appeared that Oden reached his limit from this as Kaido noted that his body was dead.