Sakazuki

Sakazuki (サカズキ, Sakazuki), commonly known by his alias "Akainu" (赤犬, Akainu), is a fictional character and antagonist of the One Piece series. He is the current fleet admiral of the Navy, the primary military power of the World Government, succeeding the previous fleet admiral, Sengoku in the One Piece series.

During the first half of the series, he was one of the three admirals, and the last one to be fully revealed. During the timeskip, he ascended to the position of fleet admiral after defeating Kuzan in a ten-day duel that left Punk Hazard in its current state. One of his first decisions was to relocate the Navy Headquarters into the New World in preparation for the New Pirate Age.

In the manga, he was first mentioned by Nico Robin during the initial encounter with Warlord, Bartholomew Kuma. In the anime, he, Aokiji, and Kizaru was mentioned earlier by Vice Admiral Jonathan during the anime-only G-8 Arc, which aired after Akainu had been revealed in the manga.

Because of his actions, Akainu was one of the main antagonists of the Navyford Arc and after his promotion, he became one of the main antagonists of the series.

Sakazuki is a strident follower of Absolute Justice, to the point where his extremism prompted an equally high-ranking colleague to resign from the Navy. He believes that a person's heritage is a reflection of how big of a threat they pose - a belief which caused him to target Portgaz D. Ace and Monkey D. Luffy during the Battle of Navyford for the purpose of purging their "bad blood", which ultimately led him to personally kill Ace and attempt to kill Luffy, which he failed to do - managing only to leave a massive scar on his chest.

"This is something we can no settle with words."
 * —Sakazuki.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Andrew Love (English), Fumihiko Tachiki (Japanese), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (German), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (French), Not Known (Latin American Spanish)
 * Voice Actor (young): Not Known (English), Michio Nakao (Japanese), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (German), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (French), Not Known (Latin American Spanish)

Biography
Navy admiral also known as Akainu.

With the power of the Logia Devil Fruit, “Mag-Mag Fruit”, he can turn his body into magma.

He is a believer and vicious extremist in "Absolute Justice" that he believes as the True “Justice” of the Navy and otherwise defined as “Evil”, in which believes all evil must be eradicated.

Appearance
Sakazuki is an incredibly tall, light-skinned, unusually muscular man (the most muscular of the former admirals). He's about as tall as his fellow admirals, with a square-shaped face, very pronounced facial features and short black hair.

The Young Past Days
As a child, Sakazuki still had the grim disposition he retained as an adult. He also wore tattered clothes and carried a dagger. He wore a cap similar to the Navy's cap he would don in the future, except it has the kanji for "justice" instead.

In his youth, Sakazuki wore an open red shirt and carried a Katana on his back, as well as a set of khaki pants held up with a loosely tied yellow-orange ribbed belt with a silver bullseye-shape buckle, and pair of red sneakers.

Twenty-two years ago, at the Ohara Incident, he wore a simple white Navy cap under a dark gray hood that seemed to be a part of a cloak he wore beneath his suit, or Navy coat. Until getting off his chair in order to destroy an incoming iceberg during the Battle of Navyford, his face was always hidden by the bill of his cap.

Pre-Timeskip
He usually wears a standard Navy cap and sports a crimson, double-breasted suit, decorated with what appears to be a pink rose on his left buttonhole. Unlike many high-ranking Navy, he does not wear a tie, but instead leaves his light colored flower-patterned shirt unbuttoned showing his muscular neck and part of his tattoo. He wears black gloves and shoes. Although not canon, the anime shows his height was somewhat taller than the 301 cm. tall (9'8") Jimbei.

The tattoo on the left side of his chest is black (light-blue in the anime), containing numerous images of flowers integrated into its design. Sakazuki's tattoo has flame-shaped edges and it extends from the admiral's left shoulder to his hip, covering part of his back and ribs. He has another, smaller tattoo in the shape of a black sword on his right deltoids and a small part of the biceps. In the anime, his eye color is seen to be brown and this was also shown in a colored drawing by Eiichiro Oda.

Post-Timeskip
After the time-skip, as a result of his intense battle with Kuzan at Punk Hazard, the right side of Sakazuki's neck and face are scarred, and a chunk of his right ear is missing. In addition to his injuries, he also grew a mustache and goatee. He has also replaced his trademark red suit for a white one, similar to what Sengoku wore when he was Fleet Admiral; however, Sakazuki still wears the same floral pattern shirt underneath and doesn't wear his black signature gloves. He is also frequently seen smoking a cigar.


 * Hair Color: Black
 * Skin Color: Not Known
 * Eye Color: Brown
 * Age: 53 (debut), 55 (after timeskip)
 * Birthday: August 16th
 * Height: Somewhat taller than the 301 cm tall (9'8")
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
Sakazuki is an adamant believer in Absolute Justice, and is ruthless in his maintenance of it; his motto is "Thorough Justice" (徹底的な正義, Tetteiteki na Seigi). He has a stern, dead-serious disposition, grim, expressionless, and was the most ruthless out of all three admirals two years ago. Despite this disposition, like Eustass Kid, Akainu seems to be able to restrain himself at times, having chosen to spare the life of Jewelry Bonney and her crew after they were left by the Blackbeard Pirates for Akainu to salvage, and letting his colleague Aokiji live despite Aokiji losing to him after a 10 day duel to the death for the position of fleet admiral.

Sakazuki's beliefs led him to go as far as destroying a refugee ship because of the possibility that a scholar could be hiding on board. His logic being that if even one of the scholars of Ohara had escaped with it, the mission would have been a failure, much to the dismay of Kuzan, who called him a fool for overdoing things. Akainu takes his extremist attitude as far as to kill anyone who does not share his point of view, as he attempted to execute Coby for his plea to stop the war.

Additionally, he has no tolerance for Navy who desert their posts, which the only consolation he does offer is that they should not dishonor their families by running away. Caesar Clown also believed that Sakazuki would desire his ideas of mass-murder weapons and inhumane experimentation on prisoners, in contrast to the more pragmatic Sengoku. To Akainu, any Navy who is not willing to fight for justice is not worthy of being called a Navy officer. Again though, despite all of this, even Sakazuki could not kill his former compatriot Kuzan.

As Fleet Admiral, Sakazuki holds immense pride in the name of the Navy, as when he learned that Fujitora let the world know of what transpired in Dressrosa, Sakazuki was furious. His pride is so great he would rather cover up the ordeal to ensure that the Navy are adamant and credible to his doctrine of Absolute Justice. This conceited behavior also led to him yelling at the Five Elder Stars for declaring Doflamingo's resignation from the Seven Warlords of the Sea as a false report, as he knew the world's confusion would damage their trust in the Navy.

Despite his position as an admiral prior to promotion, Akainu is willing to lie to and/or deceive his enemies in order to achieve Justice. So far, Akainu's manipulations have been incredibly successful, such as when he managed to deceive Squard through Sengoku's master strategy, or insulting Whitebeard to get Ace angry enough to stop his attempt at escape. He finds people who attempt to interfere with him as nothing more than irritating obstacles. Furthermore, he seems in many ways unafraid of older legends and comments on this when Whitebeard claims to his men not to be intimidated by Garp, while Akainu says that he and Garp are of the same generation and promptly attacks him. While other Navy men, such as Sengoku and Garp, share a decent amount of respect for their accomplished enemies, Akainu has no such empathy, instead disparaging them at every chance he gets.

Prior to Sengoku making it public, Akainu is one of the few who knew that Luffy was Rex's son. It is unknown if he has some past relationship with Dragon or if it was simply common knowledge among the higher ranking Navy that Rex and Dragon are Garp's sons. As such, Akainu deems that Luffy's mere existence, due to being Rex's son, is enough to be a threat to the world and therefore must be eliminated.

In fact, Akainu's beliefs about heritage run deep enough that he declares that even if every other pirate escapes, he would personally ensure that neither Ace nor Luffy were allowed to leave the war alive due to their bloodlines. This conviction fueled Akainu even to the point of actively hunting Luffy himself, even though Blackbeard was destroying Navyford at the time.

He also does not see it as his business to involve himself in the business of the Celestial Dragons.

Friends/Allies

 * Navy
 * Zephyr

Neutral

 * Seven Warlords of the Sea
 * Bartholomew Kuma
 * Monkey D. Garp
 * Issho/Fujitora

Enemies

 * Straw Hat Pirates
 * Monkey D. Luffy
 * Roger Pirates
 * Silvers Rayleigh
 * Whitebeard Pirates
 * Edward Newgate
 * Marco
 * Crocodile
 * Jimbei
 * Trafalgar D. Water Law
 * Jewelry Bonney
 * Blackbeard Pirates
 * Marshall D. Teech

Abilities and Powers
As the current fleet admiral, Sakazuki has command over the entire Marine organization, from ordering all soldiers and officers as he sees fit to issuing a Buster Call on any island he deems to be a threat, and to revoke any Warlord's title at any time, as well as including the authority to promote and demote any Navy's as he sees fit on top of granting the power, and authority to either temporarily grant others similar authority and power, or near-permanent power to anyone he wants, or has to. His only superiors are the World Government's Commander-in-Chief Kong and the Five Elder Stars.

Sakazuki's background, specifically his black-hearted behavior, is renowned, especially among the stronger figures in the New World, striking fear into the hearts of pirates and marines alike. After Van Ogre identified Akainu aboard a navy ship for negotiations, Blackbeard immediately fled, knowing the consequences of battling against him, even after Blackbeard had gained the powers of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, and strengthened his crew with several of Impel Down's most powerful criminals.

Many within the high ranking echelons within the World Government suggested Akainu to become the succeeding fleet admiral over Sengoku's personal recommendation for Kuzan, thus further supporting his incredible military might. Furthermore, Jimbei noted the Navy have become a much more powerful organization under Akainu despite the resignations of Garp, Sengoku and Kuzan, indicating great leadership on Akainu's behalf.

He is a very skilled manipulator, using his knowledge of his opponents to deceive them into doing what he wants. He feigned sympathy to Squard, and used his hatred of the late King of the Pirates to influence him into betraying his loyalty to Whitebeard. He also used Ace's devotion to Whitebeard to his advantage, insulting Whitebeard in order to provoke Ace into attacking him and preventing escape, and ultimately killing the young pirate by aiming for his younger brother.

Physical Abilities
Sakazuki has an incredible amount of superhuman durability, shown by the fact that not even two Armament Haki enhanced quake-powered blows which caused far more damage at point-blank range from Whitebeard were able to keep him down, the one of which was powerful enough to split Navyford in two, and he was still able to fight the Whitebeard Pirates and two former Warlords (Crocodile and Jimbei) all at the same time. He has enormous stamina, being able to fight numerous enemies and being able to keep going without showing any signs of exhaustion.

He was able to easily defeat Jimbei, Emporio Ivankov, and Inazuma. His durability also extends to Haki attacks since it took Whitebeard's own Haki to actually affect him.

He also is shown to possess unimaginable strength, as seen when he stopped Whitebeard's bisento with just one leg. He also has extremely acute hearing, being able to hear activity underwater before the Whitebeard War began. Furthermore, he was the one who emerged victorious from the ten day duel between him and Aokiji for the position of the fleet admiral, even though they both suffered grave injuries.

Devil Fruit

 * Main article: Mag-Mag Fruit

The Mag-Mag Fruit (マグマグの実, Magu Magu no Mi, literally meaning "Fruit of the Magma-Magma"), a Logia-class Devil Fruit, which possessed by Sakazuki, grants him the ability to transform his body into magma and manipulate it at will, turning him into a "Magma Human" (マグマ人間, Maguma Ningen). As a Logia, Sakazuki can let physical attacks pass through him without injury and can only be wounded with the use of Haki, Sea-Prism Stone, being caught off guard and his elemental weakness.

"Our powers are in a relationship of superiority!"
 * —Akainu states the reason of how he defeated Ace.

His ability is naturally of a higher order than Ace's pyrokinetic abilities, as the higher heat and smothering abilities of his magma allowed him to successfully harm Trace despite Trace's Logia-defense, and ultimately kill Ace due to this superiority. The destructive heat and explosive powers from the magma enables Akainu to cause massive damage, and to take on people like Emporio Ivankov and Jimbei with minimal effort. During the decisive ten day battle on Punk Hazard for the position of fleet admiral, Akainu showed the furious power of his Devil Fruit as he changed the weather of one side of Punk Hazard and left it in a blaze.

Techniques
The named techniques that are used by Sakazuki that involve the Devil Fruit are as follows:
 * Great Eruption (大噴火, Dai Funka): Sakazuki's signature technique. He transforms his fists into pure lava before throwing it forward, like an over-sized rocket (similar to Luffy's Gum-Gum Giant Pistol or Ace's Fire Fist). The explosion causes volcanic rock to hit the ground, in a method similar to meteors. This was first seen when he used it to evaporate an iceberg hurled at his fellow Navy by Jozu. According to spectators, the battlefield resembled an apocalypse after this one attack.


 * Meteor Volcano (流星火山, Ryūsei Kazan): Resembles Great Eruption, but with multiple magma fists rather than just one. Sakazuki points both fists into the air and fires a great number of magma fists upwards in order to let them rain down upon the battlefield, causing enormous amounts of area damage. It resembles a cross between a volcanic eruption and a meteor shower. This was first used to destroy the ice floor that Aokiji created, along with the pirates who were standing on it. It also boiled the seawater, scalding anyone who remained in it. He managed to take out Whitebeard's flagship, the Moby Dick, with this technique. In the anime, the meteors first fly high into the sky and above the clouds, and then fall back down as if though they truly descended from space. The anime also added a fireworks' sound effect during this attack. In the anime, Sakazuki can also use Ryusei Kazan as a close-range rapid projectile attack, as seen when he fired it off against Whitebeard, and as his Kizuna Rush/Level 2 special in Pirate Warriors 3.


 * Hound Blaze (犬噛紅蓮, Inugami Guren): Sakazuki creates a wave of magma, shaped like a dog's head, and launches it against his opponent. It was first used against Whitebeard. Notably on the more specifical note and so, Inugami (犬神, Inugami; literally meaning "dog god") is the name of a mythological Japanese creature, which resembles a dog. Although it remained unnamed in the manga, the technique's name is introduced in the anime. In the video game Gigant Battle, the technique is alternate called Magma Dog Fang (岩漿犬牙, Ganshō Kenga). However, it is still unknown if either of the names are officially given by Oda or not.


 * Hell Hound (冥狗, Meigō): Sakazuki transforms his hand into magma and lashes out at the opponent with a claw-thrust. This technique is powerful enough to melt off part of Whitebeard's head with a glancing blow in the manga. In the anime, in order to severely censor the gore, this technique's execution and function are different: Sakazuki punches into and pierces his opponent's body with a molten fist in a stance similar to Great Eruption, and then detonates it, filling the victim's body with magma and causing massive internal damage. This caused Whitebeard's stomach to be burned from the inside, while leaving a residual fire flickering at the wound.


 * Explosive Volcano (爆裂火山, Bakuretsu Kazan): Sakazuki transforms one of his hand into magma, and then punches the ground. This results in an eruption of volcanic rocks around the punch area and several spots around it, inflicting damage to anyone within the blast radius. This technique is seen only in One Piece: Pirate Warriors (as Akainu's final basic attack string input, his C2 firsti input and used as a CPU) and J-Stars Victory VS. (as a special move; the latter game allows the attack to strike at far distances underneath someone, and is more clearly named).


 * You're Next!: Sakazuki transforms his body into magma and performs a uppercut with his left fist made of magma, then follows up the attack with a punch with his right fist (when facing a single opponent). If fighting against a team of opponents, the uppercut will force the opponent to swap out and the follow-up attack will hit the teammate that is swapped in. This technique appears in One Piece: Burning Blood as Sakazuki's Unique Special Attack.

Haki

 * Main article: Haki

It was stated that all vice admirals possess Haki, so being two ranks above vice admiral, Sakazuki can also use this ability.

He was seen using his Armament Haki to negate Whitebeard's attempt to destroy the execution platform, by creating, with his fellow admirals, a shield combination of their three Haki.

Weapons
Sakazuki was seen wielding a knife as a child, and a katana during his youth as a Navy.

Joining the Navy
At the age of 23, Sakazuki joined the Marines alongside a 26 years old Borsalino, and came under the tutelage of instructor Zephyr. The two were already considered "monsters".

A Storm in the Edd War
When the Navy learned that the Roger Pirates and the Golden Lion Pirates were about to battle in the Edd War, three years before the death of the King of the Pirates, Sakazuki was seen in Navyford, walking with Garp, Kuzan, Saul and Tsuru, listening to the conversation about Garp's efforts to capture Gol D. Roger.

Ohara Incident
He was known as Vice Admiral Sakazuki before his promotion. He was present at the Ohara incident, being one of the five vice admirals leading the Buster Call bombardment. He ordered the destruction of an evacuation ship of civilians and soldiers, claiming it needed to be destroyed in case a single scholar managed to sneak on board (an action that horrified even Spandine).

Canon

 * Akainu, Kizaru, and Aokiji vs. Monkey D. Luffy
 * Akainu vs. Whitebeard
 * Akainu vs. Curiel
 * Akainu vs. Marco and Vista
 * Akainu vs. Emporio Ivankov and Inazuma
 * Akainu vs. Marco
 * Akainu vs. Portgaz D. Ace
 * Akainu vs. Jimbei (trying to finish Ace off)
 * Akainu vs. Monkey D. Luffy (after killing Ace)
 * Akainu vs. Crocodile (Crocodile attacks from behind)
 * Akainu vs. Crocodile and Whitebeard Pirates Commanders
 * Akainu vs. Monkey D. Rex and Shanks
 * Sakazuki vs. Aokiji (unseen)

Non-Canon

 * Akainu vs. Squard

Translation and Dub Issues
Sakazuki's alias, "Akainu", means "Red Dog" in Japanese. His real name Sakazuki (盃) means "sake cup".

Anime and Manga Differences
The anime-only vice admiral Jonathan is said to be Sakazuki's protege, but unlike his mentor who is a pure believer in Absolute Justice, Jonathan believes more in Moral Justice.

Notes & Trivia

 * The way Sakazuki's character design is drawn resembles the famous late Japanese actor, Bunta Sugawara. Akainu's real name, Sakazuki, is apparently based on the three movies of Bunta Sugawara with "Sakazuki" in the title. Even Sakazuki's birthday is based on Sugawara's.
 * His nickname, along with the other admirals' (Aokiji, Akainu, and Kizaru), are taken from Momotaro legends (Momotaro met Pheasant, Dog, and Monkey as friends to accompany him in his journey).
 * According to a Mid 2014 interview between Eichiiro Oda and Yasutaka Nakata, Oda said that if Sakazuki were to become the protagonist, he is so strong that he could find the One Piece within a year, suggesting that he alone could be compared to a Emperor.
 * In the 5th fan poll, Sakazuki ranked 47th.
 * Before his full appearance was revealed, many non-canon sources had attempted to depict Sakazuki after the timeskip, which would later turn out to be highly inaccurate to his actual appearance in the manga. In these sources, his face is depicted as being totally intact, as well as having identical attire to the clothing he wore before the timeskip in non-canon sources, including One Piece Film: Z, Wake up!, Hard Knock Days]] and Super Grand Battle. In One Piece Film: Gold, Sakazuki is depicted with the scars on his face but he still wears his pre-timeskip clothing.