Arlong Pirates

Every hand aboard this crew was a fish-man apart from Nami, who was eventually freed when she defected. The group predated the Sun Pirates but merged into them, then broke away once more after Fisher Tiger died and Jinbe accepted a seat among the Seven Warlords. Holding humanity to be a lesser breed, they ruled by intimidation.

Their flag depicts a saw-nosed shark curling its tail inward, ringed by a half-oval with three trailing curves and set against a crossbone. Each crewmate bore the design as a tattoo, and admirers like Hody Jones and Hammond of the New Fish-Man Pirates later inked it onto themselves out of devotion to Arlong's creed.

Born fish-men, the crew were ferocious in battle and nearly untouchable beneath the waves, counting among the strongest of their kind thanks to their Grand Line experience under a Warlord-caliber captain. They posed the toughest test of the Straw Hats' early voyage, pushing the whole crew to their limits. Arlong shrugged off Luffy's rubber powers and leaned hard on the boy's helplessness in seawater.

A decade before the present, they overran Cocoyasi Village and imposed a brutal monthly tax, killing Bell-mere when she could not pay for her daughters. Spotting Nami's gift for cartography, Arlong pressed her into service with a cruel bargain: gather a hundred million Berries and he would liberate her village. With her sea charts and a corrupt deal struck with Marine Captain Nezumi, the crew conquered over twenty villages and aimed to seize all of East Blue. When Nezumi confiscated Nami's savings, the villagers rose up, and the Straw Hats ultimately shattered the crew, with Luffy toppling Arlong and razing Arlong Park.

Arlong captained the crew alongside his officers Kuroobi, Hatchan, and Chew, each of whom fell to a different Straw Hat and was arrested. Nami served as their unwilling navigator before joining Luffy's crew, while the giant sea cow Momoo was beaten but never captured. Hatchan alone later escaped imprisonment, gave up piracy, opened a takoyaki stall, and befriended the Straw Hats. For all their extremism, the crew showed unusual loyalty to one another, and Arlong vowed Nami would remain his crewmate forever even as he fought to keep her.