Gaimon

Gaimon is a former pirate who currently lives as a hermit on the Island of Rare Animals.

Appearance
Gaimon possesses a notably pear-shaped face, green hair, and a pronounced uni-brow. In his youth, he appeared to be a relatively scrawny man of average height.

Shortly after landing on the Island of Rare Animals, most of his body was irreversibly compressed into a treasure chest, leaving only his head, hands, and feet free (and one of his teeth dislodged). Over the next twenty years, he grew a sizable beard and an even larger afro, giving him a curiously shrub-like appearance.

Personality
As a young man, Gaimon was a stereotypically greedy pirate, caring about little more than plunder. This greed was slowly eroded (though never completely erased) by his decades of solitude on the Island of Rare Animals, causing him to prize peace and companionship more than any material wealth.

In any case, Gaimon is highly protective of anything he deems treasure, and as a result tends to be hostile to any strangers he meets. However, once his trust has been earned, he can prove to be remarkably friendly and helpful, especially to fellow castaways.

Rare Animals
Gaimon treats the rare animals as treasures of the island, and defends them from possible invaders. He has great affection for them and they are family to him, so he does not want to leave the island and abandon them.

Straw Hat Pirates
Although he tried to attack the Straw Hat Pirates at first, he ends up making friends with them after telling them about his past, and they tried to help him get the treasure chests he had been wishing for. However, with the chests empty, Luffy asked him to join his crew, but Gaimon declined the invitation to stay with the animals.

Buggy


He is good friends with Buggy despite battling him when the pirate first crashed onto the island.

Sarfunkel
Gaimon seems to have an affectionate relationship with Sarfunkel, the barrel woman, since she appears feeding him.

Abilities and Powers
Gaimon demonstrated no combat abilities in his youth, but appeared to be an above-average climber. Notably, he was able to scale the Island of Rare Animals' steepest cliff barehanded (a feat that Nami later deemed impossible).

After the accident that compressed his body, Gaimon adapted the best he could, and is able to perform most day-to-day tasks with his hands and feet (though he can no longer manage full-body movements such as climbing). According to him, the bulk of his body has atrophied so much that it cannot survive without the chest, leaving him severely disadvantaged against those he cannot intimidate or otherwise deceive.

Weapons
Gaimon carries at least one pistol at all times, having somehow maintained powder and shot for it despite being stranded for decades from any civilization. He is a marksman of at least some proficiency, preferring to shoot enemies from behind.

Past
Gaimon was once part of an unnamed pirate crew totaling some two hundred men, sailing the high seas on the Machina Hallelujah. In time, they followed reports of buried treasure to the Island of Rare Animals, searching diligently for three weeks but failing to find anything beyond a single empty chest. While his captain and crewmates deemed the island a lost cause and prepared to raise anchor, Gaimon turned his attention to the island's highest, steepest cliff, which the crew had frequently gathered under but never climbed.

Upon making the climb, Gaimon was delighted to find five treasure chests atop the cliff. As he turned to call his crew, however, he lost his grip and fell directly into the empty chest his captain had left below. The impact knocked him unconscious for several hours; by the time he woke, the Hallelujah had sailed off without him. Worse, his body was trapped inside the chest, leaving him in a permanently hunched position that could manage few movements beyond scuttling and crawling.

Though he could no longer reach the clifftop chests, Gaimon refused to give up on them. Over the following years, he adapted to his new condition and posed as the island's guardian (番人), driving off any newcomers through a combination of stealth, theatrics, and gunplay. Concurrently, he befriended the many bizarre animals that populated the island - a common target of poachers - and came to treasure them as well.

Syrup Village Arc
Twenty years after he was first stranded, Gaimon finally encountered a group he could not drive off: the Straw Hat Pirates, whose captain Monkey D. Luffy effortlessly survived his pistol. Staggered by this, Gaimon tried to flee, only to trip and expose himself to the bemused Luffy and Nami. Soon after, he was won over by Luffy's cheerful nature, and for the first time in his life explained his circumstances.

Sympathetic to Gaimon's plight, Luffy volunteered to scale the cliff and recover the chests, but in doing so confirmed the ex-pirate's worst fears: all five were empty, and Gaimon had spent decades "guarding" thin air. Learning this brought Gaimon to tears, but again he refused to despair, and - after turning down an offer to join the Straw Hats - resolved to spend the rest of his days protecting all the rare animals he had come to regard as his true treasure.

Subsequently, Gaimon helped his new friends resupply with the island's fruit, and saw them off as they resumed their voyage.

Buggy's Crew Adventure Chronicles
Some time after meeting the Straw Hats, Gaimon encountered a new castaway: Buggy the Clown, recently defeated and unwittingly separated from his crew as well as most of his body parts. The two almost immediately fell to blows, but came to see a kinship in each others' strange physiques, and became friends. Once night fell, they held a party with all the island's rare animals, feasting on fruit and Gaimon's handmade liquor. With Gaimon's help, Buggy soon built a new Super Flashy Raft and resumed his search for his crew and body parts. The two parted on good terms, each blissfully unaware of the other's history with the Straw Hats.

From the Decks of the World


Eventually, Gaimon found a long-term companion in Sarfunkel, a woman similarly trapped inside a barrel. To date, the pair have continued living happily together on the Island of Rare Animals.

One Piece Film: Red
Gaimon and Sarfunkel held hands while Uta's childhood song "Where the Wind Blows" was played.

Anime and Manga Differences


In the manga, Gaimon's debut is a relatively low-key event taking place between the Orange Town Arc and the Syrup Village Arc, with Luffy and Nami being the only Straw Hat Pirates he meets (as Zoro was too battle-exhausted to go ashore). The anime places Gaimon's debut between the Syrup Village Arc and the Baratie Arc, incorporating both Zoro and Usopp into the meeting and somewhat expanding the overall story.

The anime also depicts Gaimon with more elaborate tactics, titling himself the island's Guardian God (守り神), claiming that the rare animals are all pirates he magically transformed, and setting multiple booby traps on the island to fling spears and drop boulders on intruders.

Translation and Dub Issues
Upon meeting Gaimon, Luffy initially calls him a boxed son (箱入り息子), prompting Gaimon to muse over his "coddled" childhood; this joke is based off the term "boxed daughter" (箱入り娘), a somewhat archaic description of girls over-sheltered by their families. As the term has little cultural significance outside Japan, each professional English translation adapts it into a different joke:
 * The Viz manga uses the term "boxer".
 * The 4Kids-dubbed anime uses the term "heart of gold" (with Gaimon at first thankful for the "compliment").
 * The Funimation-dubbed anime uses the term "Jack-in-the-box" (with Gaimon sarcastically claiming his name "just happens to be Jack").

Other Media

 * In One Piece 10th Treasures, Gaimon was drawn by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, the creator of Toriko.

Merchandise
Gaimon has appeared in multiple lines of One Piece merchandise. He was a secret figure in Set 2 of the One Piece Amazing Log Collection, a secret figure in Series 1 of One Piece DeQue, and a figure in Volume 7 of the One Piece World Collectable Figure series.

Playable Appearances

 * One Piece: Unlimited Cruise
 * One Piece Treasure Cruise
 * One Piece Bounty Rush

Enemy Appearances

 * One Piece: Treasure Wars
 * Treasure Wars 2 Welcome to Buggyland
 * Aim! The King of Berry

Support Appearances

 * One Piece: Gear Spirit
 * One Piece: Gigant Battle
 * One Piece: Gigant Battle! 2 New World

Non-Playable Appearances

 * One Piece: Become the Pirate King!
 * One Piece: Grand Battle!
 * Birth of Luffy's Dream Pirate Crew!
 * One Piece: Grand Battle! 2
 * One Piece: Grand Battle! 3
 * One Piece: Grand Battle! Rush!
 * One Piece (Game Boy Advance)
 * Dragon Dream!
 * One Piece: Pirates Carnival
 * One Piece Bon! Bon! Journey!!

Trivia

 * Eiichiro Oda stated that Gaimon was his favorite character in an interview from One Piece Color Walk 1 (published in 2001).
 * Gaimon's pairing with Sarfunkel is a possible spoonerism of the singing group Simon and Garfunkel.
 * Gaimon is the first (effectively) retired pirate the Straw Hats meet.
 * Gaimon's favorite food is melons that can be harvested on the Island of Rare Animals.

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