Hyougoro

A tiny old man, Hyougoro measures a hundred centimeters, which makes him the smallest grown male human anywhere in the franchise. Flame-shaped tufts of cyan form both his hair and goatee, while a blue tattoo runs over his shoulders and upper back like a vest, decorated with pink blossoms inside a bordered frame. While confined in the mine he dressed in a striped black-and-white yukata loosened at the waist, leaving his chest exposed apart from a thin orange scarf, paired with round orange glasses and warabi sandals, later adding a short cloak. For Onigashima he changed into a pale yukata printed with dark cherry blossoms beneath a bird-marked cloak echoing the Kouzuki crest. Two decades earlier he was a tall, heavyset figure with longer hair and a wilder fiery goatee, a body he briefly recovered when the Ice Oni virus surged through him, then sporting lengthened nails and jagged molars on one side.

Despite his standing as a boss, Hyougoro is a deeply honorable and gentle man, once renowned throughout Wano for chivalry that even Oden revered. He loathes the cruelty of Orochi and the Beasts Pirates, refused to submit to the shogun, and longs for a time when principled people still lived. Seeing Orochi's retainers abandon their murdered master to grovel before Kaidou filled him with revulsion. Prison broke him down in body and mind, yet he still grumbled about his meager rations at the risk of punishment, and when Luffy shared extra dango, he treasured that kindness enough to face death content, his memories rekindled. Learning that Raizo, the Scabbards, and Momonosuke survived restored his will to live and his drive to join the alliance.

More than forty years ago, under the Kouzuki, Hyougoro reigned as the best-known yakuza boss across Wano, heading his own family and holding sway over the bosses of the other regions; Shinobu trusted that he alone could still rally the samurai against Orochi decades on. Twenty years before the present he was captured, his wife Taka and his men slain for refusing the shogun, and he was handed to the Beasts Pirates to rot in Udon's Prisoner Mine, where inmates called him Grandpa Hyo. Luffy saved him there from the deputy warden and shared meal tickets, reviving his spirit. Threatened with death by Daifugo over hoarded dango, he refused to back down, and Luffy intervened again. Thrown into Queen's lethal Sumo Inferno, Hyougoro survived by trusting Luffy's predictions, and when Luffy chased advanced Armament Haki, the old man showed the technique by felling Alpacaman without a touch, then took him on as a pupil. After Raizo revealed the truth, Hyougoro requested to join the rebellion against Kaidou and Orochi, weathered a crushing blow from Big Mom by guarding with Haki, and helped seize the prison once Babanuki fell. Disguised by Kin'emon's power, he infiltrated the Skull Dome, broke cover for the war, and led the samurai. When the Ice Oni virus struck him, he briefly regained his towering prime and cut down the Mimawarigumi and Orochi Oniwabanshu before Chopper's cure shrank him back and spared his life. He sensed Luffy still alive atop the dome late on, then celebrated Wano's liberation. In the Final Saga, Yamato called on him and Nekomamushi before journeying across the country. Beyond his legendary might, Hyougoro is a master of the Flower's One Sword Style and a skilled user of both Armament and Observation Haki, becoming the second person after Rayleigh to teach Luffy the art.