The world of One Piece is a wide and varied place with islands that have their own cultures contained therein. Sometimes these islands interact and have similar shared experiences thus leading to harmony in surrounding areas. Others are isolated monoliths that trade as necessary but allow for no blending.
Wano Country is one of the later areas. An isolated place that keeps to itself and has a very dominating future on top of a leading aesthetic. It is in this strict land of set stylization that One Piece fans will meet Yamato.
6/6 Yamato Is Tall
While One Piece fans have seen literal Giants, and there seems to be no set size for anyone in the human race, it’s still something to see those that are taller than the main cast regularly. After all, Luffy stands at 5’8,” and Zoro is just 3/8th of an inch under 6′ tall, so a lot of folks are of their height or shorter. Add in a 7′ 10″ Franky and the fact that Brook is over 9′ tall with his afro, and it’s hard to find folks that can stand eye to eye with some Strawhat Crew.
Yamato is one of those people. He stands at 8 feet and 8 inches tall. That’s eye level with the skeleton musician and taller than the great cyborg shipwright. He wears his height well and uses it to his advantage in combat often. Still, he is far taller than most in his home country, and as Luffy and Zoro seem to be a more average height for the world of One Piece, Yamato is a very tall man.
5/6 Yamato Is Quick To Make Friends
It’s no secret that Monkey D. Luffy makes friends wherever he sets sail to. That is simply inevitable. He’s charismatic, kind, silly, and willing to put his life on the line for those he believes deserve his protection. It isn’t every day that he goes someplace new only to have a friend already waiting to meet him. There are a few moments where his reputation has proceeded him, leading to quicker friendships, but this does not always result in a friendship from the moment he says hello.
Yamato considered Luffy a friend long before Luffy knew of Yamato’s existence. That’s because Yamato was friends with Luffy’s late older brother Portgas D. Ace. Yamato had been friends with Ace before the events of the Enis Lobby Arc. After hearing about the death of his friend Ace, Yamato vows to greet Luffy upon his arrival to Wano Country and is looking forward to making friends with the little brother of his late friend. Their meeting involved a fight, but that’s how true friendships are made in the One Piece universe.
4/6 Yamato’s Representation
Eiichiro Oda has never been one to shy away from topics others would have considered taboo or controversial. He’s touched on slavery and the slave trade many times throughout his series. Racism and stereotypes based on racial differences have been shown in various arcs in One Piece. Death and torture aren’t hidden from view when it comes to the horrors some folks face in the One Piece world.
Yamato is considered a transgender character in the series, but there may be some discrepancy to that. As with most languages, Japanese itself doesn’t have a lot of 3rd person pronoun options, so it could be there simply isn’t the language for Yamato being non-binary. However, he does refer to himself as Kaidou’s son, and most people, after meeting Yamato use masculine pronouns for him. Either way, he is an outlying representation of someone that doesn’t fit with the gender they are assigned at birth, and it is refreshing to see so many people just accept his identity as they interact with Yamato.
3/6 Luffy And Yamato Are More Similar Than You Think
It’s not often two characters with drastically different backgrounds from far-flung parts of the world hold a similar or even shared experience. This is made even stranger when one of the parties that share the experience is the Rubberman himself, Monkey D. Luffy. But it is true. On top of sharing a relationship with the late Portgas D. Ace and a desire to help people using their strength, there is another thing that ties the two strong men together.
Devil Fruits. While there are a multitude of Devil Fruit users in the world, most have varying reasons for consuming something that prevents them from swimming. Some seek power, others eat it by accident when trying to hide it from their crew to sell it off (Buggy), and others are forced to consume the fruit for other people’s entertainment. That being said, Yamato and Luffy ate their fruits for one reason and one reason only. They were hungry kids that didn’t know any better. Yup. Just two kids doing what a kid does best. Getting into something they shouldn’t.
2/6 Haki Trifecta
Few people can use any one of the 3 forms of Haki. In fact, it is seen as an amazing feat not mastered by the average person to wield even one form of Haki. Some can use Armament Haki to guard themselves or injure Devil Fruit users that normally couldn’t be touched. Others handle Mind Haki with a fever that allows them to predict their opponents’ attacks before the opponent even thinks about it. Then there is Conquerer’s Haki which allows someone with a strong will to exert that will over another person. This can knock them out or even kill them if their willpower is overtly mismatched.
Yamato is one of the few people in the world capable of implementing all 3 forms of Haki. This means that Yamato is a strong person in both his physical form and his overall willpower. This brings him on par with other powerhouses like his father, Luffy, Shanks, and even his hero Oden.
1/6 Yamato’s Loyal Fan-Base
Every so often, One Piece does a fan poll on characters. To date, this has been done 7 different times, and the 7th was the largest one to date. Being the first global poll, fans had 2 ways to vote. They could send in a postcard with their vote, which counted towards 10 votes on that character. Otherwise, they could log into the online site daily and cast a single vote for their favorite character. At the time of the 7th poll, over 1000 characters were up for a vote.
It was in the 7th poll that Yamato made his mark in the One Piece fandom. Out of 1,174 characters available, Yamato took to the top of the leader boards. Not just the top 100, top 50, or even top 25. No. Yamato came in at rank 11 in the 7th One Piece fan poll. There were over 12 million votes, and he took home a great deal of them.
