Tashigi

Tashigi keeps her black hair somewhere between chin and shoulder length, peers through red-rimmed rectangular glasses, and has dark brown eyes. Her resemblance to Zoro's departed childhood rival Kuina is striking. Before the two-year gap she favored colorful short-sleeved tops worn under a white-trimmed blue leather coat reaching the waist, usually with dark jeans and black footwear. Afterward her hair grew long and was fastened with a clip, her figure filled out, and she swapped the blue coat for a pink take on the standard officers' coat to match her new captaincy, often pairing it with floral prints, capris, and pink gloves and boots. Her subordinates dote on her even as they respect her command.

Skilled with a blade yet notoriously clumsy, Tashigi often exasperates her mentor Smoker, who treats her as a protege all the same. Swords fascinate her to the point of obsession; she can name a katana's make and lineage at a glance and may freeze up over a famous weapon even in a crisis. Her stated dream is to pry every renowned blade away from wicked owners, not to hoard them but to keep them out of evil hands. Brave to the edge of recklessness, she will challenge any foe regardless of fame, a drive that has cost her dearly, from a shattered knee against Nico Robin to being sliced in two by Law. She refuses to concede when she feels belittled, famously demanding a rematch from Zoro because he declined to actually cut her, which she took as gendered condescension. Reserved about her body, she buttons her shirts high and reacted with fury and embarrassment over the indignities of having her mind swapped into Smoker's body. Above all, her notorious absent-mindedness defines her, never more so than her long failure to recognize that the three-sword swordsman she had befriended was the Pirate Hunter himself. Like Smoker, she holds to her own conception of justice and will defy orders to uphold it.

Born in the East Blue and captivated by swords since childhood, Tashigi first appears in Loguetown as a Master Chief Petty Officer. After felling two fugitive pirates, she dropped her glasses, and the newly arrived Zoro returned them, shaken by how much she looked like Kuina. At an arms shop she excitedly identified his Wado Ichimonji as a Great-Grade blade and tried to befriend him, still oblivious to who he was. When Zoro revealed himself a pirate at Roger's scaffold, an enraged Tashigi cut off the Straw Hats' escape and attacked him to seize the Wado Ichimonji, only to be disarmed and infuriated that he would not strike her down. She became the first to join Smoker's pursuit onto the Grand Line.

Through Arabasta she confiscated the famed blades Kashu and Shigure from criminals, and during the Alubarna civil war she came to aid the Straw Hats against Crocodile. Robin broke her knee, but Tashigi rallied her troops, publicly arrested the defeated Crocodile, and chose to spare the exhausted pirates. Promoted to Ensign afterward, she vowed to grow strong enough to catch the Straw Hats under her own justice. She later reported to Marineford during the Whitebeard War, where she tried to fight Luffy before Smoker intervened.

By the time-skip she had become a Captain at G-5 under now-Vice Admiral Smoker, her swordsmanship sharp enough to deflect a cannonball with her katana the way Mihawk parries bullets. She relies on speed and agility, wields Soru of the Six Powers, and commands both Armament and Observation Haki, though her Haki could not overcome Law's powers. On Punk Hazard she was cut in half and had her body swapped with Smoker's by Law, yet she pressed him to spare them so they could save their soldiers and the captive children. Discovering that the admired Vergo was a traitor, she shielded her subordinates from the truth, was rescued by an enamored Sanji, and fought Monet alongside Zoro, finishing the harpy herself. She afterward took charge of the experimented children, delivering them to Vegapunk for treatment. In the Final Saga she joined Garp and SWORD in the raid on Hachinosu to rescue Koby, recovering comrades amid the chaos before regrouping with the Marines.