Pappag

Colored orange and seemingly stitched around the edge, Pappag carries his face in the very middle of his body. A cap shaped like a tam or rastacap sits atop him. He measures roughly fifty centimeters and was 31 when introduced, becoming 33 after two years pass. Once the timeskip arrives he adopts shades carrying the Criminal emblem on their frames plus a small bow tie. A video game once gave his hat an incorrect palette.

Though a starfish, he handles human speech fluently. This traces back to his youth, when he assumed he was human, and by the time the truth dawned the talking habit had already set in. He plays guitar and sings capably too. A recurring gag has others tune him out mid-explanation, leaving him briefly glum. He bristles at how loosely the Straw Hats speak to King Neptune, and he once told an outright lie about being a close friend of Princess Shirahoshi, which later came to light as false. Running his own brand, he commands its entire inventory and can hand out a markdown or even a whole store's worth of stock on impulse, which is more or less what happened when Nami pounced on his offhand promise of free clothing and stripped his shop bare.

Pappag entered the story after a sea boar coughed him up together with the mermaid Camie. The two grew close with Hatchan, who then handed the pair over to the Macro Fish-Man Pirates in exchange for a map, kicking off a stretch of separations and reunions that ended with the three setting up a takoyaki stall as a team. Years on, separated from Hatchan and devoured once more by a sea beast, Pappag and Camie were saved by Luffy as he steered toward the Sabaody Archipelago, and they tumbled onto the Thousand Sunny. They led the Straw Hats to Sabaody so the ship could be coated for the voyage down to Fish-Man Island. The trip soured when slavers from the Hound Pets snatched Camie and put her up for sale before a World Noble at an auction house. Pappag fell into panic until Luffy crashed in, struck the noble who had shot Hatchan, and, helped by Silvers Rayleigh's arrival, got everyone clear. Over the timeskip Pappag turned into a celebrated Criminal designer in Gyoverly Hills, still keeping contact with Camie, who delivered clams to him. When the crew reached Fish-Man Island he reunited happily with them, surrendered his whole shop to a delighted Nami at his own expense, and traveled along to Ryugu Palace. He hung back during the New Fish-Man Pirates' assault, bolting in fright from Brook's spirit form until he recognized him, then helping Zoro recover his blades. He lived through the fight for the island, danced at the closing feast, and saw the Straw Hats off beside Camie and Hatchan. An underlying pun explains his speech: the Japanese term for starfish nearly matches the phrase for "I'm human," a wordplay translations cannot carry over.