Tsuru

Tsuru (つる, Tsuru), also known as "Great Staff Officer" Tsuru (大参謀のつる, Dai-Sanbō no Tsuru), is a fictional character and deuteragonist from the Fairy One Piece Tail series. She is a Navy Headquarters vice admiral.

"You're a million years too early to defeat me."
 * —Tsuru after defeating young pirates.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Juli Erickson (English), Minori Matsushima (Japanese), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (German), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (French), Not Known (Latin American Spanish)

Appearance
Tsuru is a tall, thin and elderly woman with gray hair tied in a bun. Her attire appears to be less formal than the other high-ranking officers', consisting of a shirt left hanging out, with the sleeves rolled up and a tie around her neck, and calves-long pants, which makes her somewhat resemble the animal of her name, the crane. She sports earrings made of beads, and on her right wrist she has two bracelets.

The Young Past Days
In her youth she was quite beautiful and had dark blue hair tied up in a loose pony tail with sidebangs that framed both sides of her face. She wore a standard Navy uniform with a rifle strapped to her back.

Twenty-seven years ago at age 49, her skin was already wrinkled.

Post-Timeskip

 * Hair Color: Gray (formerly Dark Blue)
 * Skin Color: Not Known
 * Eye Color: Black
 * Age: 74 (debut), 76 (after timeskip)
 * Birthday: March 26th
 * Height: Not Known
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
She is a veteran Navy who is not without wisdom for her age. She seems extremely knowledgeable; she knew who set the Navy to fight each other in the Navy and Warlord meeting when all others thought the two were simply messing around, and knew who Raffit was on sight. She is not above telling off the younger navy that show concern for her well being when she steps up to fight the incoming pirates at Navy HQ. She then justifies her being on the front line with the other vice admirals by stating there is no longer a safe place left in the world for her to run to anyway. According to Garp, she is an empathetic woman although she does not show this disposition very often.

Her crew is shown to consist solely of female Navy.

Friends/Allies

 * Navy
 * Gion
 * Sengoku
 * Monkey D. Garp

Abilities and Powers
As a Navy Vice Admiral, Tsuru is easily one of the most powerful Naval officers in the series, being a part of the same generation of prominent Navy officers as Garp and Sengoku.

Even in her elderly age of 63, Tsuru was strong enough to strike intense fear into Doflamingo who is an extremely powerful pirates before he became one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, as he was quick to flee during her many pursuits of the Don Quixote Pirates throughout the North Blue, and despite his initial plans to reclaim Law from the Navy's custody to use his powers to immortalized himself, Doflamingo quickly changed his plans and swore upon seeing her battleship off the coast of Minion Island when he heard that the Navy had taken a boy (whom he wrongly believed to be Law) into custody. Several years later, when Doflamingo lost his title as a Warlord, he still showed respect for her, a stark contrast to his usual disrespect to other high ranking Naval officers.

Master Tactician
Tsuru is a Navy who is exceptionally well-versed and skilled in military tactics and strategies. She is a master tactician with extraordinary wisdom and could able to instantly formulate new plans and the next step right on the spot, earning her the nickname "Great Staff".

Curséd Fruit

 * Main article: Wash-Wash Fruit

The Wash-Wash Fruit (ウォシュウォシュ実, Woshu Woshu Mi), a Paramythia-class Devil Fruit that was eaten by Tsuru, allows her to literally "wash and hang out to dry" people and objects as if they were clothes, turning them into very flat and hihly malleable like clothes, making her a Laundry Human (洗濯人間, Sentaku Ningen). This disables the opponents by rendering them unable to move. This can also "clean" a limited amount of evil off the victims, which is considered a dangerous ability against pirates.

Haki

 * Main article: Haki

It was stated that all vice admirals possess Haki, so Tsuru can also use the ability. However, she has not yet been shown using it.

Weapons
In her youth, she is seen with a flintlock rifle. How proficient she is in using it is unknown.

Past
Twenty-seven years ago, Tsuru is seen walking with fellow vice admirals Monkey D. Garp, Jaguar D. Saul, Kuzan and Sakazuki. Garp asks her if he can borrow a ship, but she refuses because he always breaks them.

Thirteen years ago, Tsuru was stationed in the North Blue, where she continuously pursued the Don Quixote Pirates at the time. Doflamingo noted that her chases stopped after Rocinante left the crew, which led Doflamingo to suspect that his younger brother was giving away his crew's location to the Navy.

Three days before the scheduled exchange between the Navy and Diez Barrels for the Op-Op Fruit, she was stationed at Swallow Island following Rocinante's intel that Doflamingo and his crew would be there, unaware that they actually had gone to Minion Island instead. She was then contacted and informed by the Navy scouting Minion Island about the fire at Barrels' hideout and ordered them to investigate the coast while avoiding being spotted. Doflamingo, who was tricked by Corazon, had assumed Law was with Tsuru as he heard the Navy had retrieved a young boy; while this was a coincidence, it was enough to convince Doflamingo to undo the Birdcage and go after the wrong person which allowed the real Law to escape.

Jaya Arc
Tsuru is seen present for the gathering of the Seven Warlords of the Sea to choose a replacement for Crocodile.

Canon

 * Tsuru's crew vs. Don Quixote Pirates (at least once)
 * Navy and Seven Warlords of the Sea vs. Whitebeard Pirates and Allies.
 * Doflamingo's Navy escort vs. Jack

Anime and Manga Differences
In her first appearance in the anime, she does not say anything. In the manga, she talks to Don Quixote Doflamingo, ordering him to be a good boy and calm down.

Notes & Trivia

 * Eiichiro Oda has stated that he tends to name female characters after birds. This tradition continues with Tsuru, whose name means "crane". Her name can also be translated as "to hang", depicting her ability.
 * Tsuru is introduced as Navyford's second-in-command despite being a vice admiral. Whether she holds more power than a normal vice admiral is unknown.
 * She is currently the highest ranked female Marine along with Gion.
 * When Tsuru and Sengoku were mentioned by Bartolomeo, they were shown in the latter's imagination, hardly resembling their real appearance at all.
 * In the special Adventure of Nebulandia, it is revealed that she follows her own motto of Justice like the admirals. Hers is "Clean Justice", fitting her Devil Fruit abilities.