Kodama

Kodama is a young girl whose short black hair parts down the middle under a knotted red headband, with purplish-red kabuki paint beneath her eyes. She dresses in a blue robe edged with yellow spiked motifs that may stand for fireworks, layered over an orange shirt and cinched by an obi at the waist. On her feet she wears light-brown flip-flops above a pair of shorts in a brownish-white shade.

Spirited and stubborn, Kodama will not let go of a dream, setting her heart on building the perilous Ball 205 even while aware of its danger. She was ready to go against her grandfather and to place her faith in a near stranger like Usopp to see it through. So confident in her craft that she declared herself his equal as a pyrotechnician, a boast that earned her a rap on the head, she holds that no shell is truly complete until it blooms across the night sky, which is why she counts none of those in her home as finished.

A talented fireworks maker in her own right, Kodama labors year round with her grandfather and even rebuilt the dangerous Ball 205 her parents had been developing when a malfunction claimed their lives. She can gauge a shell's workmanship by handling it, judging Usopp's shell a touch loose in its assembly though still fit to fly, and she is quick enough to sweep him off his feet.

One year after losing her parents, she secretly hired a delivery crew to launch the Ball 205 during the festival behind her grandfather's back. When Usopp turned up seeking gunpowder, she mistook him for a would-be apprentice, confided her plan and her parents' fate, and asked him to draw Odama away. After her grandfather talked the delivery team out of helping, a crushed Kodama ran crying to her parents' grave, wondering whether the falling rain meant their refusal. Standing behind her, Usopp spoke as though giving voice to her parents, assuring her that she herself embodied their dream and that they wanted her to keep the tradition alive. The rain cleared, and that night Odama startled her by launching the Ball 205 himself, leaving her awestruck and loudly thanking her mother and father.