Topknot

Topknot is an immense Sea King shaped much like a slug. Deep purple covers its back, broken by a white belly and an orange fin running along its spine, while a small purple tuft, the knot that gives it its name, crowns its head. Because its face sits underneath its body, the creature tends to arch upward to look out. Early anime episodes painted it entirely light blue with a turquoise fin, and the Digitally Colored Manga first rendered it navy with a beige fin.

Like the rest of its kind, Topknot honors Poseidon, in the person of Shirahoshi, as its queen and comes whenever she calls. It holds the ark Noah in high regard, stepping in to stop Luffy from wrecking the vessel because it is keeping the ship safe for a promised day still to come. Its exchanges with fellow Sea Kings and with Shirahoshi reveal a clear intelligence behind the great bulk.

Around twenty-six years ago, Topknot and Scales were drifting through the depths when the Roger Pirates' ship sank past them. The two spoke of their coming sovereign and of another due to be born in a far-off sea, words that Roger and Oden caught through the Voice of All Things, startling both Sea Kings. Later, when the Straw Hats strayed into the Calm Belt aboard the Going Merry, Topknot surfaced alongside others of its kind before slipping back under and leaving the rest behind. During the Fish-Man Island Arc, Shirahoshi unknowingly summoned it as Luffy tried to destroy Noah; Topknot and five companions seized the ark's chains to arrest its fall, spoke with their sovereign, and noted afterward that Luffy seemed to have heard them just as Roger once had. They wondered whether the ship could be mended before the promised day, then towed Noah to the Sea Forest and swam away.