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.

Kawamatsu

Kawamatsu the Kappa is a Japanese puffer fish-man who is a yokozuna-ranked sumo wrestler. As a child, he was shipwrecked in Wano and orphaned soon afterwards. After Kozuki Oden rescued him from citizens ostracizing him, he went on to serve as one of Oden's Nine Red Scabbards until Oden's death 20 years ago. Kawamatsu would go on to be imprisoned by the Beasts Pirates for 13 years until he was ultimately freed by Monkey D. Luffy, and he reunited with the Nine Red Scabbards to fight Kurozumi Orochi and Kaido and avenge Oden. Kawamatsu is a large Japanese puffer fish-man whose appearance could be mistaken with that of a kappa. As such, he has webbed hands and green skin. Being almost as tall as Raizo at 271 cm, he has a round body, two blush marks on his cheeks, a beak-like mouth and he has extremely long and wild orange hair. He wears a green kimono, a red cape, sandals, and a large kasa with a dark diamond shape at its top. Kawamatsu is an extremely kind and caring person, as shown by his care for Kozuki Hiyori and his efforts to make her laugh after the trauma she went through. When one of the Beasts Pirates attempted to attack Luffy, Kawamatsu silently aided him by attacking his attacker with a fishbone. His compassion is best shown when he encountered an impoverished Onimaru and fed him with his limited amount of food, despite there being barely enough for himself.


Kawamatsu appeared to be very close to his mother, as she protected him from discrimination until one event led to her demise. In her dying moments, she told her son to act as a kappa for better survival. To honor his mother, Kawamatsu obediently heeded her last words for many years and has continued to refer to himself as a kappa in the present. He even named his personal swordsmanship style after it. As a small child, Oden saved Kawamatsu from death by discriminatory humans and offered him freshly cooked food, which Kawamatsu was extremely grateful for. From then on, Kawamatsu became one of Oden's most loyal followers. His trust in Oden is such that he revealed his heritage as a fish-man to him despite his mother's dying words for him to hide it to protect himself from persecution. As Oden's retainer, Kawamatsu is also extremely loyal to his lord's children. He was the one who helped young Hiyori escape from their enemies at Oden Castle and took care of her for 5 years during her childhood, even endured long term starvation to ensure Hiyori had enough food, making Hiyori chose to ran away out of concern for him. When she ran away, Kawamatsu desperately searched for her and was filled with regret when he could not find her. After reuniting with Raizo after twenty years, the first thing he did was asking about Momonosuke's safety, showing his concern for Oden's son. Unlike Ashura Doji (who refused at first), Kawamatsu had been eager to join the Kozuki Family in the war against Orochi and Kaido. When reuniting with Hiyori after many years, they were extremely overjoyed to see each other again.


As one of the Nine Red Scabbards, Kin'emon considers Kawamatsu, alongside Denjiro and Ashura Doji, to have been one of Oden's most powerful followers, being worth 100 men in battle. As a fish-man, Kawamatsu is a fast digger and swimmer, which enabled him to sneak Hiyori out of Oden Castle. Kawamatsu possesses tremendous physical power as he is stated to be the strongest sumo wrestler in Wano. Shortly after being released, Kawamatsu overpowered multiple members of the Beast Pirates with great ease. Kawamatsu possesses immense endurance as he has been fed poisoned fish every day for thirteen years by the Beasts Pirates without dying or even suffering any illness like Tama, a feat which has baffled his captors. However, it has been shown later on that Kawamatsu had to throw up once he was freed. He was also shown to go on providing for Hiyori while starving himself. He could withstand Onimaru violently biting his arm and survive the freezing cold winter climate of Ringo as well as days of hunger. Kawamatsu is capable of spitting projectiles with great speed and precision, potentially turning them into deadly weapons if they are sharp enough. Thus, his guards were ordered to remove the bones of the fish they feed him. When they failed to do this, he was able to take out a guard by spitting the bone as a projectile that pierced his neck. As one of the most powerful samurai in Wano, Kawamatsu is an extremely skilled swordsman and wields a shirasaya named Soto Muso. Raizo states that his skill has not waned at all even after thirteen years of imprisonment. He calls his personal style the Kappa-ryu, which is a Strong Blade swordsmanship incorporating his powerful fish-man strength and sumo skills to create rushing attacks that overpower large numbers of opponents with sheer force akin to raging waves.