Speed is one of the stars of the Beasts Pirates and resides with Basil Hawkins and Holdem in the Bakura District of Wano Country. Since being tamed by Tama using her devil powers, she has fought alongside the alliance around Monkey D. Luffy.
Contents
Appearance
Speed is a tall and slender woman whose appearance is strongly influenced by the consumption of the Smile fruit, type: horse. Thus, she has the lower body of a horse and the upper body of a human, similar to a centaur. Her face is also marked by features of a horse, such as she has large horse ears, her left of which is pierced, and once she smiles, her mouth resembles that of a horse, though this is not the case when she is not smiling. She has long hair, half of which is kept white and the other half dark blue. This pattern also runs through her long-sleeved and tight-fitting top, which is colored white on the right and light blue on the left. Furthermore she has dark epaulettes and a short feather cape. Her lower and upper arms as well as the back of her left leg are adorned with jewellery and her hands are covered with light-colored gloves. On her horse’s back is a saddle.
Personality
Speed is a dutiful woman who remains calm even in the face of chaos. So she hadn’t lost her cool when a fire broke out in town and sounds of fighting could be heard coming from Holdem’s house. She seems to have a few problems with large gestures of affection, so she briefly cried out and blushed when Luffy hugged her from behind, thinking she was a horse. Similar behavior was displayed by Speed when Tama told her how much she liked her. Due to her horse genes, she has a habit of always putting on a big smile when she’s happy and eating anything you put in front of her. After eating Tama’s dumpling, she became Tama’s most loyal servant and stood in Kaidou’s way herself to protect Tama….
Skills and strength
Speed is one of the headliners of the Beasts Pirates and thus has command over the lower members. This also says something about her strength, although other subordinates of Kaidou’s rank were little match for a caliber like Luffy. As a weapon, she carries a bow on her back. However, this has so far only been used in the anime, with which she shoots haki-enhanced arrows.
Furthermore, she has eaten from a Smile fruit of the horse type and has thus taken on characteristics of one. According to her, her field of vision has expanded to 350° and she is able to run very fast, even carrying people on her back. However, eating the Smile Fruit also created a great weakness, so she is now susceptible to O-Tama’s Devil Fruit, which she can use to tame animals.
Present
Wano Country
Speed was first mentioned by O-Kiku when she, along with Luffy and Zoro, pursued the Gifter Gazelleman, who kidnapped O-Tama and was heading towards Bakura. There, Speed was to reside alongside two other headliners, Basil Hawkins and Holdem. Luffy and Zoro caused turmoil in said town, attracting Holdem’s attention, while Speed collected supplies for the Beasts Pirates at the nearby Paradise Plantation. The riots and a resulting fire alarm alerted Speed to what was happening in Bakura, and she made her way there along with the supplies.
She witnessed Holdem’s defeat and wondered who was strong enough to defeat him. Luffy had thus saved O-Tama, and was now trying to escape with her from the angry mob. He jumped onto a horse with the girl under his arm, which turned out to be Speed. Initially enraged, she was able to be “tamed” by O-Tama’s devil power and brought them both to Okobore. She henceforth referred to O-Tama as her master and herself as her servant, and set out to bring them safely home. As it turned out, they hadn’t made it, but had been discovered by Kaidou earlier.
Speed was unable to protect her master and was badly injured in the attempt. She was able to get back to Okobore with the last of her strength, but then collapsed and was later discovered by Luffy. She told him what had occurred, whereupon he got her out of harm’s way and confronted Kaidou. After the Alliance to Overthrow Kaidou made its way to Onigashima, the recovered Speed met Tama, who expressed a desire to join the battle as well.
Onigashima
Speed then took Tama with her on her ship to Onigashima. During the crossing, Tama produced a number of Kibi Dangos, which Speed, Gazelleman, and Daifugo used to attract more Gifters to their side on Onigashima. Speed assured the Beasts Pirates Pirates in the process that she was sent by Queen and that the Kibi Dangos would speed up their healing.
Miscellaneous
- Its name could be a reference to the card game Speed or to the poker variant Speed pokerHoldem (also Poker), Sheepshead and Ginrummy also have names of card games.
- Luffy always calls her Umami. Uma means horse in Japanese and mi is a common syllable in female names.
- In the SBS to Volume 99, Oda ranks Speed as the Smile user with the third best design. Only Hamlet and Holdem surpass her.
- Oda created Speed as a sort of female centaur, since centaurs are usually thought of as muscular, beefy men. However, to make it a beautiful woman, he decided not to draw her horse legs. However, he left the horse laugh as a contradictory character trait to make her more likeable.
- Her favorite food is apples, which she eats whole.
