Otohime

In contrast to her towering husband and daughter, Otohime was a mermaid of plain human size. An orange ornament gathered part of her golden-blonde hair into two loops, a shorter echo of Shirahoshi's style, and she had green eyes, rendered blue in the anime, framed by heavy lashes above pink lips. Her usual garment was a long white kimono edged at the hem with a cream carp-scale motif, a shoulder sash drifting behind her head much as her children's did.

Otohime met the world with open arms, urging fish-men and humans toward friendship on the reasoning that both live beneath one sun, and refusing to blame all of humanity for the kidnappers and slavers who reached her island. Her Observation Haki convinced her that distance was a heart shutting itself away, so she went among her people in person rather than relay prepared speeches, letting no gap form between the crown and its subjects. Compassion drove her to ignore her own fragile body for the common good, even handling a burglar herself and talking him into reform. She stayed bold and stubborn through endless setbacks, once escorting a cruel World Noble to the surface to show that the world above need not be feared, and above all she would not hate, sparing even the man who shot her and begging her children to forgive him as well.

Once a commoner mermaid notorious for stirring political protest, Otohime wed Neptune and gave birth to Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi, Manboshi, and at last Shirahoshi. Alongside Fisher Tiger she stood against the prejudice fish-men faced, though the two differed sharply, with Tiger wanting the races kept apart while she longed for them to live as one. Born with Observation Haki like Aisa, she was a gifted orator who descended to the island again and again to preach unity and gather petition signatures, rescuing shipwrecked humans and teaching children about the surface even as support drained away. Physically she was frailer than an ordinary person, and subduing a thief once left her hand bruised and broken, yet she kept striking until he fell. A wrecked World Noble vessel marked the turning point: she saved the heartless Mjosgard from vengeful Sun Pirates, took a graze meant for him, and traveled to Mary Geoise to win approval for fish-man emigration, coming home after seven years of struggle with the document called The Hope of Fish-Man Island and finally drawing her people's signatures.

The victory collapsed when the box of signatures was set ablaze in Gyoncorde Plaza and Otohime was shot in the turmoil. Dying among her sons, she forbade revenge, reminded them to guard Shirahoshi, and linked pinky fingers with each of them one last time. Hody Jones promptly slew a human pirate and pinned the killing on him, sapping the people's will to integrate, though her children rallied the crowd at her funeral. Her vision outlived her: Jinbe carried her cause forward, the citizens refused to truly betray her even when made to trample her fumi-e, and her earlier reform of Mjosgard later spared Shirahoshi from slavery, an act for which Figarland Garling ultimately executed Mjosgard.