“Ghost Princess” (jap. ゴーストプリンセス, Gōsuto Purinsesu) Perona was a commander in Gecko Moria’s pirate gang. After being flung off the Thriller Bark by Bartholomew Kuma, she landed on Kuraigana Island, where the Samurai of the Seas Dracule Mihawk had taken up residence. With him and Roronoa Zoro, who also landed here shortly after her by Bear, she lived on Kuraigana during the time jump.
Contents
Appearance
Perona is a young, slender woman. The most distinctive thing about her is probably the large crown on her head, her trademark as the “Ghost Princess”. She has long, pink hair that she has twisted into two spiral braids. Her large, round eyes with long eyelashes are also striking. Around her neck she wears a big red bow. Over her belly-baring white top, which features a skull in a heart, she wears a very short red cape that only covers her shoulders. Over her horizontal black and white striped tights, she wears a red mini skirt with a flashy belt. Her shoes are red and brown boots that come up to her knees. She is also often out and about with her red and purple umbrella. Since her feet always point inward, it appears she has knock knees.
After the time jump, her appearance has changed significantly. For one thing, she has grown considerably taller, and for another, she simply looks more grown up. Her hair is now permed with long strands. She has exchanged her colorful outfit for a long strapless dress in black color. This is trimmed with lavender ruffles and reaches her knees. With it, she wears red high heels and a large black hat adorned with a flower necklace instead of her previous crown. On her left wrist is a wristwatch and on her upper left arm is a purple tattoo.
Her constant companion is Kumashi, a teddy bear zombie.
Personality
Perona’s personality can be seen as very conflicting. On one hand, she can be very serious and can put the fear of God into her opponents. She is also very stern to her serf zombie, Kumashi, when he makes a sound, as she does not find it cute when he speaks. On the other hand, she can be very childish. Macabre is that she loves the wild zombies more than anything because they are so cute. Her dream is to one day rule a country full of cute animal zombies. What she doesn’t like at all, however, are cockroaches. She immediately panics at the sight of them. She also has her own room in Moria’s Mast Villa, with stairs leading from the balcony directly to her Wonder Garden. The Wonder Garden is home to wild zombies of all varieties, who obey her commands exclusively. When Absalom tries to command them, they refuse, proving her authority and popularity.
All the wild zombies and surprise zombies of the Thriller Bark are subordinate to her.
If she were ever to take a trip, Perona would prefer to travel to a dark, musty castle and sing creepy songs.
That’s where she eventually ends up, thanks to Bartholomew Kuma. Here, however, she lets her princess manners out again. She wants a servant who will do anything for her, and a cute puppy dog. Shortly after Zoro also lands on her island, she acts very out of character. She tends to his wounds, even though she knows he’s from the Straw Hat Pirates. Eventually, after two years, she also helps him back to the Sabaody Archipelago and helps the Straw Hat Pirates escape with their ghosts. A certain kind of friendship seems to have formed between the two.
She is also very forward thinking, as she quickly makes the decision to flee the Thriller Bark, seeing no hope of defeating the Straw Hat Pirates.
Skills and Strength
Perona has eaten of the ghost fruit. It allows her to create ghosts. These spirits are immaterial and cannot be attacked with physical attacks. The spirits, when floating through a victim’s body, can evoke certain emotions in the victim. The spirits can be controlled as spies at a distance. It can also separate one’s spirit from one’s body. However, the latter is very easy to attack, while the spirit is self-sufficient. To protect it, she hides the body, but never strays too far from the hiding place.
Perona’s fighting tactic is to first touch the opponent with a spirit to make them lose their fighting spirit. She usually uses the Negative Hollow to do this. Then she sends her animal zombies into battle to do the rest.
In Usopp, she has found her natural enemy, so to speak, and was defeated by him in battle, despite everything. This one is so pessimistic by nature that the spirits have no effect on him, and with his salt projectiles the wild zombies are no match for him either.
Past
Perona was born 25 years ago. Who her parents are is unknown. Gecko Moria took her under his care when she was just a child. Perona still feels for him today as if he were her biological father. She then joined his gang over ten years ago, by her own account just for fun. She was present when Moria hired Hogback.
Furthermore, she didn’t notice Brook’s big attack five years ago, because she slept through it completely. Kumashi tried to wake her up, but as usual, she ordered him to be quiet.
Present
The Night Attack
In the wake of the night attack, Perona makes her first appearance. She ordered her wild zombies to attack the Straw Hat Pirates. Like Hogback and Absalom, Moria ordered her to join them. A short time later, she also witnessed Oars come to life.
The encounter with “Captain Usopp
Her first big appearance was when the Straw Hat Pirates launched their big counterattack on the Thriller Bark. At this, Zoro, Sanji, Franky, and Usopp stormed into her room at the Mast Mansion. She used her usual strategy against the four of them. First, she weakens them with the Negative Hollow, and then her zombies fall upon the defenseless opponents. The Straw Hats had already made acquaintance with the ghosts, so they guessed that they were defenseless. Just when the situation seemed hopeless as they lay weakened by the ghosts on the ground, a hero appeared. It was Usopp. His special quality of being pessimistic by nature saved their lives. Fearlessly, he faced her for battle while his friends continued their journey inside the castle.
At the beginning she tried to escape and let Kumashi attack Usopp. Through a trick, the long-nosed pirate got rid of him a little later and could now go after Perona. At first she seemed clearly superior to him, as his projectiles had no effect on a ghost. In desperation, he turned to his alter ego Sogeking. With his help, he finally managed to defeat Kumashi, who had reappeared. Perona became enraged and brought the masked hero to his knees as well. Usopp continued to fight and figured out the trick that Perona had separated her mind from her body, and finally found the body. Now the tide was turning. What Usopp couldn’t pattern in strength, he once again made up for in psychology. He subjected the young woman to the worst mental torture and finally drove her to a nervous breakdown. This left Usopp the victor.
Escape from the Thriller Bark
A short time later, Oars began to rampage on Thriller Bark. The wild zombies took care of their defeated commander. The latter regained consciousness and, seeing the hopeless situation, decided to flee the Thriller Bark. The Straw Hats were unstoppable and Oars uncontrollable. She ordered all treasure and provisions loaded onto the Thousand Sunny, as she planned to flee on it.
Now she had only one insurmountable obstacle before her. The Samurai of the Seas Bartholomew Kuma had arrived to see Moria. Moreover, Nami now wanted to stop Perona from stealing the Thousand Sunny as well. However, Nami did not represent a serious opponent for the commander, so she preferred to devote her attention to the samurai. She was able to placate him at first to remain peaceful, but then he asked her his fateful question, “Where would you want to go on a trip?”. Perona promptly replied that she wanted to go to a musty old castle. Her zombies were outraged that she had simply answered. Perona then went on the attack. She sent her strongest spirits at the samurai, but with a wave of his hand, it was all over in a flash. The attack fizzled out into nothingness and Perona was gone without a trace. Panicked, her zombie entourage fled back to the Thriller Bark.
On Kuraigana
As it turned out, she was flung away by Bear’s devilish power and flew for three days and three nights until she landed on Kuraigana Island. Here she was terribly unhappy because she had no servant. However, she was as desired in an old musty castle. Her wasteland was suddenly disturbed. Someone else had crashed onto the island. It was Zoro. Though Perona realized he was part of the Straw Hat Pirates, she tended to the badly wounded swordsman.
It eventually turned out that Hawkeye lived on the island. The latter told the uninvited guest Perona about the supposed death of Moria in the newspaper, but also said that, contrary to what was described in the article, he was still alive after the battle of Marine Ford. Zoro, meanwhile, wanted to leave the island in a hurry, but received a secret message from his captain, according to which the Straw Hat Pirates was not to meet on the Sabaody Archipelago for another two years. So the swordsman trained under Hawkeye during that period, while Perona also stayed on Kuraigana.
Two years later
Two years later, Perona helped Zoro become the first of the Straw Hat Pirates to reach the Sabaody Archipelago again. Even a few days later, when the gang was about to reunite and flee from the Navy, Perona was still present and helped the formerly hostile pirates escape by using her spirits to pull down some soldiers’ spirits. Eventually, Perona made her way back to the Thriller Bark adrift at sea, where she was delighted to find the lifeless body of Kumashi. She then returned to Kuraigana to Mihawk. There they both learned of the Straw Hats’ bounty.
During the riots in Wano Country, as well as at the Levely in Mary Geoise, Perona learned from the newspaper that her former captain, Gecko Moria, was still alive and had once again raised a zombie army. She decided to leave Kuraigana and told her host, but he reacted unusually kindly. She thanked him, and Mihawk still gave her to understand that it was probably better to leave the place anyway, due to the events in the Holy Land.
Miscellaneous
- In chapter 442, one of her ghosts is seen behind Zoro even before the Straw Hats met Brook. However, this ghost went unnoticed.
- Like many characters from One Piece, Perona has a unique laugh, in her case it’s a string of several horos (i.e.: horohorohoro!).
- She is the only creature appearing on Thriller Bark whose face has no scars.
- She is dressed in the style of a Lolita fashion.
- She likes to stick her tongue out.
- She liked the Hippo Gentleman stuffed animal from Wapol’s Baku Baku Factory and had Hogback design a zombie in its likeness.
- In SBS volume 66 and in the end credits of One Piece movie Z, Perona can be seen as a child.
- Her favorite foods are bagel sandwiches and hot cocoa.
