Jango

Jango (ジャンゴ, Jango, romanized in English adaptations as "Django") is a marine that used to be the first mate and hypnotist of Captain Kuro. He uses disks that double as chakrams to hypnotize people to his advantage in battle.

Appearance
Jango wears strange clothes, including a long coat covered in the disks he uses to fight and hypnotize, and red-lensed heart-shaped glasses (Later, his eyes were revealed to actually be heart-shaped). It can be assumed that his character was based on the late popstar Michael Jackson, as when he travels he usually moonwalks, and he uses flashy gestures similar to Jackson's dance moves. Other notable similarities include his trench coat and his heart-shaped sunglasses; not to mention the socks, gloves, and Jackson-like facial features (the thin nose, etc.). Even his name is similar, as various publications referred to Michael Jackson as "Jacko" when Jackson was alive.

As a marine, Jango wears a gaudy yellow button-up shirt with purple spots all over, a blue tie, and the standard marine baseball cap. He still keeps the heart-shaped sunglasses.

Personality
Jango is a powerful yet somewhat bumbling hypnotist. He is mostly carefree and was fully aware of Kuro's tendency to lash out at even his own crew mates (leaving Jango to feel uneasy being around him). Jango was loyal to Kuro, even knowing his Captain could kill him at any moment and went along with any plans of his.

As a Marine, he takes the role of Hina's admirer and Fullbody's friend. While they have become friends through a rather bizarre set of circumstances, Fullbody and Jango have become inseparable and are always together on appearances. Often Jango and Fullbody will copy each other or dance beside each other in sync. Ironically, he now has the life his former Captain Kuro coveted, planned, and failed to achieve.

Friends
Jango is currently good friends with Fullbody, as they participated in the dance competition together and cooperated to defeat invading pirates, and Fullbody helped save Jango from his death sentence. Jango is romantically attracted to his commanding officer, Hina, but she rebuffs his advances.

Enemies
Jango is the Straw Hat Pirates enemy, both because he threatened Kaya's life as a pirate and his duty to fight against and arrest pirates as a Marine. Usopp in particular bears a grudge against him, and in the Jango's Dance Carnival special, seems pleased that he is being pursued by the Marines.

Hypnotism
Jango possesses the power of hypnosis, which he uses to put people to sleep, to make Captain Kuro's crew far more powerful and fierce and to serve other purposes necessary to help fulfill his plans. His only technique is named One, Two, Jango (ワン・ツー・ジャンゴ) which are the words he says to perform the hypnosis. He is not, however, perfect with his hypnosis - when he puts people to sleep, he usually falls asleep as well. And when he hypnotizes the crew to make them stronger (to the point of being able to crush part of a cliff with ease), he also accidentally hypnotizes Monkey D. Luffy - with unpleasant results. So when he perfectly do his hypnotism, he puts down his hat at the last moment to not see the ring. According to the answer to some fan mail Eiichirō Oda received, Jango gained his powers after eating a mushroom that had grown on his chin while he was sleeping. He only ate the cap and the trunk of the mushroom still resides on his chin (whether or not this is a joke from Oda or not is yet to be proven).

Weapons
As well as being able to use it to hypnotise, Jango's Pendulum used for hypnotising can also be thrown through the air as though it was a chakram. It has a sharp outer edge that can easily cut through flesh as well as branches. He carries several spare ones in case something happens to the first.

Past Story
Jango first appears walking strangely backwards through Usopp's hometown of Syrup Village. This type of walking resembles Michael Jackson's famous "moonwalk". Later, he meets with his former Captain Kuro to help carry out his 3 year plan to kill Kaya and inherit her wealth. When Usopp and Luffy overhear the plan, Jango puts Luffy to sleep and allows Usopp to escape under Kuro's orders, because no one would believe him as he was the village liar.

Jango is ordered by Kuro to hypnotize Kaya into writing her will, then kill her after it is done, so that Kuro inherits everything. Jango is put in charge of the Black Cat Pirates who are to invade the village and kill Kaya to remove any suspicion from Kuro. However, the Straw Hat Pirates intervention delays the Black Cat Pirates and Kuro, unable to wait any longer, heads for the shore to take matters into his own hands. Kaya arrives to convince Kuro to leave, but fails. and Usopp orders the Usopp Pirates to take her into the forest. Jango pursues them, and is intent on killing them before Kaya threatens to kill herself if they are harmed any further. Jango agrees to let them go if Kaya writes the will, but warns them that they will most likely not survive with Kuro willing to kill everyone who knows his true nature. Kaya signs the will, but before Jango can kill her, Usopp shoots him with an Hissatsu Kayaku Boshi, knocking him out. While Luffy throws Kuro to his retreating crew, Jango is left where he fell.

After the Plan


Jango wakes up, too late to get on the ship, and the Usopp pirates chase him off the island. He makes his way to a nearby island and, disguising himself, enters and wins a dance contest. He celebrates his victory with Fullbody, who does not recognize him, and realizes that he is a Marine. When pirates attack the town and Fullbody fights against them, Jango initially flees to avoid the danger the pirates present and to avoid being captured by Fullbody. The pirates take a woman hostage to prevent Fullbody from fighting back, but Jango saves the woman and defeats the pirates together with Fullbody. His identity revealed, Jango surrenders, and is sentenced to death as a pirate, but Fullbody's "friendship dance" manages to secure an acquittal. Jango then goes to hypnotize Fullbody into forgetting the friendship, but the sight of Hina stops him before he can. He and Fullbody go on to enlist in her marine unit out of admiration for her.

Jango joins the battle against the Straw Hats as they attempt to escape Arabasta, but accidentally destroys two of the Marines' ships while trying to stop them.

Current Events
When the execution of Portgas D. Ace was announced, Jango reported to the summoning of the Marines to reinforce Mariejois. 3 hours before Ace's execution, he was seen behind Hina listening to Sengoku's speech about Ace's past and then he was alongside Fullbody watching the two tsunamis created by Whitebeard.

Major Battles

 * Jango vs. Usopp's Pirates
 * Jango vs. Usopp
 * Jango and Fullbody vs. Pirates
 * Jango, Fullbody and Hina vs. Straw Hat Pirates and Mr. 2 Bon Kurei

Translation and Dub Issues
In the English manga and 4Kids dub, Jango's name is romanized as "Django" with a silent "D". However, it's spelled as "Jango" in the FUNimation dub.

In the 4Kids dub, Jango speaks with a beatnik accent and uses such words as "groovy".

In the FUNimation dub, Jango speaks with a slight British accent, and speaks with an affectation sounding similar to David Bowie.

Songs

 * 1, 2, Jango!

Trivia

 * Jango also makes an appearance in the featurette of the 2nd One Piece Movie called 'Jango's Dance Carnival'.

Related Articles

 * Captain Kuro
 * Fullbody
 * Hina