King is one of the three disasters of the Beasts Pirates and holds the position of a main representative. ), in reference to his extraordinary strength. His nickname is Firebrand King (jap. 火災のキング, Kasai no Kingu).
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Appearance
King is a tall, muscular man whose entire body is covered in dark clothing. His entire face is covered most of the time with a spiky-headed mask that only has two holes for his eyes.
He is wearing a dark jacket buttoned up with ten buttons. A light skull symbol can be seen on his left chest and a light-colored shirt can be seen under his jacket. He is also wearing dark pants and gloves. Due to the many studs and spikes, his overall appearance seems quite brutal and scary. Noticeable about him are two large black wings and a constantly blazing flame on back due to his race.
Personality
King’s personality can be described as reserved and quiet. This contrasts with King’s lively and expressive nature, who is much more likely to let his emotions run wild. Even once King is shocked, he doesn’t show much reaction. For example, he wasn’t much intimidated by Big Mom’s arrival on Onigashima and directly rejected her invitation to join her, although he was surprised that the Empress survived the fall from the waterfall. Furthermore, he seems to be very ruthless as he had no problem with Momonosuke’s execution. This also fits with Queen’s comment that King loves torture.
King seems very critical of his comrades. He scolded Jack for failing again. He also called Queen an idiot. Apparently Jack, who was previously portrayed as very fearless, also has a great deal of respect for King and Queen and apologized to them for his failure. He also showed no qualms about punishing his own men for their betrayal, who had switched sides due to O-Tama’s Kibi Dangos.
King is loyal to Kaidou and. So he wanted to take care of his problem with Yamato, who had disappeared. To do this, he called together the Flying Six, to whom he made believe that Kaidou had summoned them. King did this because he knew that they wouldn’t have shown up if they had received the summons from him.
Skills & Strengths
King is one of the three disasters of Kaidou’s pirate gang and holds the position of a main representative, with only Kaidou as captain above him as such. Based on his position alone and the bounty of 1,390,000,000 placed on his head, as well as compared to Jack, who has tremendous strength, it is clear that King also possesses great power.
At his hip, King carries a large sword, which he occasionally uses in battle. It resembles a rapier breaker (note: needs link), with which he can catch enemy swords and thus disarm his enemies, as he also demonstrates in the fight against Zoro. Other weapons he wears are gloves and shoes from which he can drive spikes.
He is proficient in armor and observation haki.
Devil Powers
King possesses the powers of the dinosaur fruit: Model Pteranodon, an ancient zoan fruit. Through this Devil Fruit, he can transform into a flying Pteranodon, further enhancing King’s already immense natural physical strength. In this state, he was able to clip the Big Mom pirates that appeared in Wano Country, including Big Mom herself as well as her ship Queen Mama Chanter, from the migrating fish and plummet towards the ocean. His beak, on the other hand, can be used to impale enemies, for example, as he attempted to do to Sanji, who was unable to break free from King’s grip due to his speed and strength and was hurled into a tower.
Past
23 years ago, King fought alongside Kaidou in Ringo on Wano Country against Gecko Moria and his band of pirates.
Twenty years ago, when Kozuki Oden and his henchmen faced Kaidou for battle, King also participated, fighting Raizo and others. In the end, the Beasts Pirates were superior and the samurai were sentenced to death. He was later present when Kaidou set Oden Castle on fire to wipe out Oden’s entire family, most notably Momonosuke.
Present
After Monkey D. Luffy’s capture, Jack returned to Onigashima and met the other two disasters, King and Queen. The two reprimanded Jack for his failure in Kuri, so Jack meekly apologized to them.
Big Mom Pirates Arrival
A short time later, after Queen had sent out the two stars X. Drake as well as Page One to take out Sanji, Big Mom appeared along with her ship and crew, which included Candy Commander Charlotte Smoothie as well as Charlotte Perospero and Charlotte Daifuku. Beaming with joy, Big Mom announced that she was going to exact revenge on Monkey D. Luffy as well as take Zeus back with her. All attempts by the Beasts Pirates to fight off the Big Mom pirates came to naught, until suddenly a shadow fell upon the pirates. The latter were shocked to discover that this shadow was none other than King, who also separated them from their fish, causing the entire crew, including Big Mom and the Queen Mama Chanter, to fall into the sea. This taunted the gang as to what they thought they were going to accomplish with only one ship.
Onigashima
Later, Queen brought the Empress Big Mom to Onigashima, whereupon King swore that he had pushed her and the ship down the waterfall. Big Mom wanted to forgive him for this, provided he would join her gang afterwards, as he is one of only three races not represented in her country. King, however, refused. He later noted that the Numbers had returned. Then, when the Fire Festival had begun and the Flying Six stood before Kaidou, King revealed that he had in fact summoned them to Onigashima and was merely using Kaidou’s name, as they would not have listened to him. They were summoned to bring Kaidou’s son Yamato here, and as a reward they were given a fight against one of the main representatives for their position. Jack and King, who were present, had no problem with that at all. Later, he stood with Queen and Jack at Kaidou’s side as he executed Orochi and touted the New Onigashima Project. When they were subsequently attacked by the Akazaya and Izou, he was unable to prevent them from catching Kaidou head-on as Izou shot the sword out of his hand. After Kaidou flew to the top of the skull with the enemies, King noticed Shinobu trying to free Momonosuke and hurled her against a wall. However, she was able to release the Kozuki heir’s restraints beforehand, and as King was about to grab him, Sanji appeared in his Raid Suit. A brief exchange of blows ensued. Afterwards, he stopped Luffy from reaching the roof and issued new orders to the Flying Six; they were to stop looking for Yamato and instead equally stop the enemies from reaching the roof.
Shortly after, he received information about Momonosuke’s whereabouts through Bao Huang and gave orders that his head be brought to him, as the death of the Kozuki heir would also break the samurai’s morale. King, on the other hand, rededicated himself to securing the path to Kaidou, but Marco grabbed Zoro and in his phoenix form, he flew towards King and Queen towards Kaidou. The two main representatives were unable to stop Zoro from getting to the roof and had to continue dealing with Marco. When King was later informed that the red sword sheaths had escaped Kaidou, he reported that he was too busy himself and asked that someone else take care of them. Black Maria wanted to take care of this. He then attacked Marco again, but took a hard hit in return and was slammed into a building, where Marco went one better.
Zoro vs King
After Momonosuke contradicted the announcement about Luffy’s supposed death and boosted the morale of the enemy alliance again, Marco could not continue the fight against the two main representatives. In exchange, Zoro was ready to fight again and Zoro and Sanji took on King and Queen. The samurai present, Kawamatsu and more made sure that the fight would not be disturbed from the outside and so Zoro finally faced King and Sanji Queen. King immediately managed to disarm Zoro and land a hit. During this fight, King also heard Luffy return to Momonosuke in his dragon form.
Miscellaneous
- “King” is the English term for the king of a deck of French hand cards.
- His name first appeared on a notebook of Oda’s, which was on a picture of his work office. On the notebook were the names “Kaidou”, “Jack”, “King”, and “Queen”. This was printed in the first issue of “One Piece Newspaper” in June 2016.
- In Road to Laugh Tale, Part 2, earlier sketches of King were published. In them, he can be seen with different hairstyles and personalities. Sometimes he was supposed to be a still stoic character, other times a more boisterous character who was also prone to trashtalk. Also, at an earlier point, Oda planned to give Queen the Pteranodon Devil Fruit.
- King and his abilities may be based on Rodan, a famous Japanese movie monster. He has the appearance of a Pteranodon.
- According to his Vivre Card, King also wanted to leave for the great decisive battle of Marine Ford, but like Kaidou, was stopped from doing so by the Redshirt Pirates.
- His favorite dish is sashimi of flying fish.
- In the SBS to Volume 101, Oda shows how King can eat despite his mask.
