Beasts Pirates

The Beasts Pirates are an infamous and powerful pirate crew led by Kaido of the Yonko. They are currently in Wano Country, and due to their actions, they serve as the main antagonist group of the Zou Arc, and one of the central antagonist groups of the Yonko Saga.

Jolly Roger
The crew's Jolly Roger is a skull in the middle of a pair of intersected crossbones (similar to the Blackbeard Pirates's flag). The skull has horns similar to Kaido's, and there are two shapes flanking the skull.

Organization
Kaido, the captain, has full control over the crew. He is noticeably much larger than an ordinary human being and feared by his fellow crewmembers due to his drunken rampages and extremely violent mood swings. Most of his subordinates dress similar to barbarians and viking warriors, wearing armaments such as helmets, belts, furred and feathered cloaks with pauldrons, swords, gauntlets, long pants, and boots. Their chests, however, are generally left uncovered; the one exception, needless to say, is the female crewmember Ginrummy, who, while scantily clad in general, has metal breastplates. Like their horned captain, almost every single member of the Beast Pirates bears an ornamental headpiece of animal horns as well, or possesses actual animal horns, while others even have fangs or other animal traits, and a large amount of the crew sports hair that is some combination of long, wild, or flowing.

The crew is massive in number, with over 500 SMILE users, three Disasters, Kaido himself, and an unknown number of Pleasures. The crew is also affiliated with X Drake, an ancient Zoan-type user and a member of the Worst Generation, as well as fellow Worst Generation member Scratchmen Apoo.

Disasters
At Kaido's side are three beings known as the Disasters (災害). One of them, Jack, has a bounty of 1,000,000,000 and the ability to become a mammoth, granting him immense size and strength. Jack has authority over the Gifters and Pleasures.

Gifters
One division of the Beasts Pirates is called the Gifters (ギフターズ), a group of Artificial Devil Fruit users led by the Headliner Sheepshead. All the Gifters have a pair of black horns. The Gifters were created through the use of SMILEs, which gives them the ability to transform some parts of their body, such as their arms or ears, into different parts of an animal's body even some animals that live in the ocean. With the defeat of Doflamingo and Caesar's capture, however, Kaido's attempt at building up a giant army of Gifters was brought to an abrupt end.

The Grip Trio (トリオ・ザ・グリップ) are a non-canon group of three Gifters who can turn their arms into bats, snakes, or enormous crab claws. Though they easily defeated several ordinary mink fighters during the Beasts Pirates' invasion of Zou, the Gifters Grip Trio was effortlessly defeated by Sicilian, the leader of the Inuarashi Musketeer Squad.

Pleasures
Another division is the Pleasures (プレジャーズ), who resemble foot soldiers and do not appear to have any animal traits. They each have one horn, and smile regardless of the circumstance, even when taking damage.

Crew Strength
The Beasts Pirates are led by the Yonko Kaido, making them one of the four most powerful pirate crews in the world. Donquixote Doflamingo, a former Shichibukai and the former leader of an incredibly powerful pirate crew of his own who usually maintains a fearless attitude, was deeply scared of Kaido. Kaido also defeated another Shichibukai, Gekko Moriah, and massacred his crew. They attempted to attack the Whitebeard Pirates in the hope of killing Whitebeard, something few would dare, and took on the Red Hair Pirates. They were stated by the Gorosei to be one of the few entities capable of stopping Blackbeard and his crew. During the timeskip, they formed an alliance with the Drake Pirates, a crew from the Worst Generation. Recently, they also formed an alliance with the On Air Pirates, another Worst Generation crew, possibly after Kaido himself defeated Eustass Kid, another member of the Worst Generation with apparent ease.

Like the other Yonko, the Beasts Pirates possess territory in the New World, where they rule with an iron fist and brutally stifle any insurrections. Kaido currently possesses a "Road Poneglyph".

The true strength of this crew lies in their Underworld connections. Due to Kaido's alliance with Donquixote Doflamingo and Caesar Clown, they had access to SMILEs to help form an army of over 500 artificial Zoan Devil Fruit users. They also have access to Caesar's poison gas weapons, which they used to destroy a city of Minks.

With the destruction of Ceaser and Doflamingo's operations, Kaido can no longer gain more Gifters for his army. In addition to these losses, many Gifters and Pleasures were defeated when Zunisha destroyed Jack's fleet.

Ships
The Beasts Pirates possess multiple ships, as a fleet of them was used during the war against the Mink Tribe in order to bring reinforcements. This fleet was also utilized in a rescue attempt on Doflamingo's prison convoy, and though unsuccesful, they managed to survive. The fleet later returned to Zou in preparation for resuming its attack on the Mink Tribe. Though the fleet launched an attack on Zunisha attempting to kill it, the giant elephant was ordered to fight back, who then destroyed the entire fleet with one swing of its gargantuan trunk.

Mammoth
The Mammoth (マンモス号) was the ship captained by Jack. It was a fairly large pirate ship, with its most noticeable trait being its mammoth head figurehead. Jack sailed it into battle against Doflamingo's Marine escort, and he was defeated and reported as deceased. Both the ship and the captain survived, albeit heavily battered. However, it was fully destroyed by Zunisha during Jack's second attack on Zou.

Past
At some point in the past, Kaido formed the Beasts Pirates in hopes of fulfilling his dream of forming a crew consisting solely of Devil Fruit users. Within the last twelve years, Kaido and his crew defeated Moriah and killed his entire crew.

Sometime within the last four years, they formed an alliance with Donquixote Doflamingo and Caesar Clown in order to gain an army of artificial Zoan Devil Fruit users.

Marineford Arc
Upon hearing that the Whitebeard Pirates were headed to Marineford, the Beasts Pirates tried to intercept them so their captain could kill Whitebeard. However, they were stopped by the Red Hair Pirates.

Post-War Arc
After the Battle of Marineford, X Drake docked at one of Kaido's islands. When Scotch confronted him, Drake asked him if Kaido would be angry if he were to be attacked, which Scotch confirmed, prompting Drake to transform into a dinosaur and attack him. Sometime after this, Drake began serving under Kaido.

Timeskip
At some point during or shortly after the timeskip, the Beasts Pirates began occupying Wano Country, killing the daimyo of Kuri, Kozuki Oden and his wife, with the aid of Wano's shogun. Oden's son, Kozuki Momonosuke, alongside three of his retainers, Kin'emon, Kanjuro and Raizo, fled the country sometime after this, looking for assistance at Zou from two other retainers, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi.

Caribou's Kehihihihi in the New World
On one of the islands Kaido ruled in the New World, a revolution had been going on. The rebelling soldiers picked up their attack when the pirate Caribou entered the island, who they thought to be their deceased leader Gaburu. Scotch easily put a stop to the rebellion and later captured Gaburu's grandmother, planning to use her as an example for the revolutionaries.

However, Caribou staged a counterattack and succeeded in defeating Scotch. Suddenly, Drake arrived and defeated Caribou, carrying the pirate onto his ship.

Punk Hazard Arc
Upon seeing Caesar Clown being defeated by Monkey D. Luffy, a man with two horns told another that he was going to inform Jack about what just transpired. The other man was scared, however, fearing what would happen if Jack got involved.

Invasion of Zou
Led by Jack of the three Disasters, several of the Beasts Pirates entered Zou to search for Raizo the ninja. They came into conflict with the Mink Tribe, who easily beat back the Pleasures, leading Jack to send in the Gifters. Soon afterward, Jack and the Gifters came into conflict with the Musketeers led by Inuarashi. However, when the sun set, the Musketeers were forced to retreat and the Guardians took over. Their leader, Nekomamushi, dealt a powerful blow to Jack, and the battle between the Beasts Pirates and the Guardians commenced.

The battle lasted for five days, with the Musketeers and Guardians switching out every 12 hours. The minks eventually managed to gain the upper hand, though they were never able to suppress Jack himself. Finally, Jack lost his patience and used Koro, a gas weapon invented by Caesar, covering the Mokomo Dukedom in poisonous gas. With the minks now easily subdued, the Beasts Pirates began slaughtering the warriors. Jack crucified Inuarashi, Nekomamushi, and the strongest warriors and tortured them to find Raizo's location. However, they received no answers as the minks passed out.

Dressrosa Arc
While this happened, other members of the Beasts Pirates received word that Donquixote Doflamingo had fallen.

The next day, Jack received word of Doflamingo's downfall and left Zou to go rescue him, leaving behind some subordinates. Led by Gifters headliner Sheepshead, the remaining pirates continued terrorizing the survivors and searching for Raizo. The Straw Hat Pirates led by Sanji entered the island and came into conflict with the Beasts Pirates by preventing Sheepshead from chasing after a mink. The Straw Hats managed to defeat Sheepshead, and the pirates following him retreated. Tired of Raizo not showing himself after all their effort, the Beasts Pirates decided to report that Raizo was not there, and it was reported that they left the island.

Meanwhile, Kaido attempted suicide by jumping off a Sky Island and landed on the Kid Pirates' base. However, he survived the fall and prepared to have Doflamingo help him start the greatest war in the world.

A few days later, Jack attacked the Marine convoy that was escorting Doflamingo. Though he succeeded in sinking two of the ships, Jack was eventually brought down and reported as dead, though his body was not found.

Zou Arc
Jack survived the battle and recovered from his wounds on the Mammoth, which was surrounded by other Beasts Pirates ships. Soon after, the fleet returned to Zou as Jack punished Sheepshead for having failed his search for Raizo. A subordinate suggested that they attack the minks while they were still weakened, but Jack declared that he would simply kill Zunisha instead.

The attack commenced, with the fleet shooting at Zunisha's front left leg in order to bring it down, with Jack intending to make it kneel so he could attack its face. They succeeded in bringing the elephant to a knee, but Zunisha immediately stood back up after conversing with Kozuki Momonosuke. Under Momonosuke's command, it annihilated the entire fleet with a swing of its trunk.

Immediately afterwards, Scratchmen Apoo reported to Kaido that they had lost contact with Jack's fleet.

After hearing about Jack's failure to rescue Doflamingo, Kaido lamented on the loss of SMILE, growing emotional that he could no longer have a crew of entirely Devil Fruit users. Some of his subordinates wondered if they should start taking the Straw Hat and Heart Alliance seriously, but Kaido hit them out of the building with his mace, saying that they are nowhere near at his level and pointing to the defeated Eustass Kid as an example. As for Jack, he remains underwater, impatiently waiting for rescue.

Translation and Dub Issues
The crew's name, Hyakujū Kaizokudan (百獣海賊団), literally translates to something along the lines of "Many Beasts Pirates", "All Beasts Pirates", or "Hundreds of Beasts Pirates".

The term "Hyakuju", meaning many or all beasts, is a compound word that combines the characters for Hundred (百) and Beast (獣). It is seldom used and most often found within the Japanese idiom Hyakujū no Ō (百獣の王), or "King of Beasts" in English, consequently causing confusion amongst One Piece translators on how to render the term.

Additionally, Viz decided to take the translation into a whole new direction by opting to use the title "Animal Kingdom Pirates". According to Stephen Paul, the translator of One Piece for VIZ, "Animal Kingdom came from 'Hyaku-juu' which literally is the kanji for "hundred" and "animal" but it actually means 'all manner of beast/animal.' A common use of that is 'hyaku-juu no ou' which is 'king of the beasts' aka Lion. Kaido's title is 'Hyaku-juu no Kaido' so, given the implication, and the reference to him as the strongest creature alive, I called him 'Kaido, King of the Beasts.' As an analogue I decided to go with Animal Kingdom for his crew, since it's implied that he rules over them, and they obviously have a wide variety of animal-powers in the Gifters."

Trivia

 * The crew seems to have a card games theme with Sheepshead and Ginrummy. Jack and Scotch are references to Blackjack (or simply the Jack playing card rank) and Catch the Ten (also known as "Scotch Whist") respectively.
 * This is the fourth card-themed crew after Spade Pirates, Donquixote Pirates and the non-canon Trump Siblings.
 * The Beasts Pirates have the third highest total bounty of any currently known pirate group, following the Big Mom Pirates and the Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance.
 * Counting the combined bounties of the Straw Hat Pirates and the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, they are demoted to the fourth place.

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