Calico Yorki led the Rumbar Pirates, a music-loving crew that took in the baby whale Laboon and eventually entrusted him to Crocus at Twin Cape. A cheerful, selfless captain, his story ends in tragedy when disease forces him to part from the men he loved.
Yorki was a fair-haired man marked by two facial tattoos, one resting beneath his right eye and the other below his lip, both shaped to mirror the katakana syllable yo. A white cowboy hat sat atop his head, and he favored a green captain's coat trimmed with gold epaulettes, finishing the look with a gold and red pendant. Anime audiences first met a different version of him, a plain pirate in a tricorne with a red coat, before later footage matched the manga reveal.
Lighthearted and easygoing, Yorki rarely dropped his grin and delighted in needling his crew whenever they squabbled over nothing. His one rule for joining the Rumbar Pirates was a love of music, and he declared their true mission to be making children laugh. That warmth ran deep: facing a fatal illness, he chose to remove himself and the other sick men so the rest would not be infected. He shared the One Piece habit of a signature laugh, a rolling Nuhahaha.
About fifty-two years before the present, while crossing the West Blue, the crew found a weeping baby island whale. At Brook's suggestion they soothed it with song, named it Laboon, and the creature began trailing them. Fearing the Grand Line was too perilous for so young a whale, Yorki tried to drive Laboon off by silencing the music, then sailed up Reverse Mountain only to discover the whale had followed anyway. After three months repairing their ship and singing alongside Laboon at Twin Cape, he asked Crocus to mind the whale and promised to return within a few years. The crew pressed on through countless hardships, even raiding a Marine base, which raised Yorki's bounty. Disaster struck in a forest where Yorki and several others caught an incurable sickness. To spare the healthy men, he gathered the infected to slip away through the Calm Belt, asked them to give Laboon his love, and kept only Brook behind to play his beloved song, Binks' Sake, as a farewell.

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Calico Yorki was the captain of the music-loving Rumbar Pirates, the crew that took in the baby whale Laboon and eventually entrusted him to Crocus at Twin Cape.
Calico Yorki and several crewmates contracted an incurable illness in a forest, and to protect the healthy men he gathered the sick and slipped away through the Calm Belt, leaving only Brook behind to play Binks' Sake as a farewell.
Yes, Calico Yorki is portrayed as lighthearted and selfless, a captain who cared deeply for his crew and chose to isolate himself and the other sick men rather than risk infecting the rest.
An incurable sickness contracted in a forest struck down Calico Yorki and several of his Rumbar Pirates crewmates.
Brook's old captain was Calico Yorki, who led the Rumbar Pirates before Brook eventually joined the Straw Hat Pirates.
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