Black Cat Pirates

The Black Cat Pirates are an East Blue pirate crew formerly headed by the infamous Captain Kuro, and for a time his ex-first mate Jango. They serve as the main antagonists of the Syrup Village Arc.

Jolly Roger
The Black Cat Pirates' flag is a standard jolly roger with a skull the shape of a cat's head, completed with slitted eyes, and crossbones.

Nyaban Brothers
The Nyaban Brothers (ニャーバン・) are the ship guards of the crew, and consists of the officers Sham and Buchi. It is their duty to watch over the Bezan Black while the rest of the crew leaves for pillaging or other purposes. Together, they earned a bounty of 7,000,000. They are also the top fighters of the crew, each wearing a pair of clawed gloves for combat and fighting cooperatively to overwhelm their opponents. They are called by Jango to deal with more troubling enemies when necessary, and were supposedly stronger than him when fighting together.

Crew Strength
Most of the crew is weak by the standards of Luffy's and Zoro's strength, but to the average person, like (at the time) Nami and Usopp, they were formidable and deadly. Aside from their captain they have little strength as a whole. Jango, Buchi and Sham were the only other crew members aside from Kuro himself with any real fighting ability. The standard members seemed to be unaware of the existence of Devil Fruits believing it to be a myth. The crew mostly relies on their first captain's cunning schemes and instructions for effective plundering and second captain's hypnotism for increasing their physical strength to higher levels. Upon Kuro's departure, he had taught them to survive on their own, in order to use them three years later for his own machinations.

Kuro views the crew as expendable and his habit of indiscriminately killing them due to his fighting style also weakens the crew's overall manpower (through injury and death) and undermines any true loyalty and respect they might have for their former captain, since most (if not all) of them follow Kuro out of fear. This is shown when they started cheering for Luffy to defeat Kuro. Another sign of the crew's disloyalty is the Nyaban Brothers' failed attack (an act of mutiny) on Kuro, due to their mistaken belief that Kuro's fighting skills had dulled during his three years disguised as the butler Klahadore.

Other Information
Every member of the Black Cat Pirates has a cat theme: for Kuro, this is in his weapons, the Cat Claws and his stealthy speed and agility, as well as his cunning intellect. Jango is the only member that does not represent a house cat; he is depicted as a sphinx, a lion with a human head in Greek and Egyptian mythology, since he has striped beard like the ones worn by pharaohs. Most of the other members have their hair in a cat ear style, and the Nyaban Brothers added a pair of clawed gloves as well to further their theme.

Past


Three years before the start of the series, the crew's captain, Kuro, had built up his infamy via his well-planned out plunders. He was also known to have killed many of his subordinates with his indiscriminate fighting style. However, as time passed, Kuro could no longer put up with the Marines and bounty hunters pursuing him, and decided to falsify his death by sacrificing a lookalike member. The first mate, Jango, became captain, and Kuro taught them all how to survive without him, while instructing them to answer to his calls three years after his departure. Without Kuro, the crew continued to pillage, maintaining their infamy throughout East Blue, while believing their former captain has grown weak from inactivity.



Kuro then feigned being washed up on shore of a local town where the father of a rich girl named Kaya found him, and he was nursed back to health by the family. He then took the identity of Klahadore the butler, slowly earning the villagers' trust by building a reputation of an honest and humble man with a distaste of senseless violence and pirates. Sometime around, Kaya's parents died under mysterious circumstances, to which Jango speculated (much to Kuro's denial) was Kuro's doing. Kaya then fell ill, in which Klahadore looked after her, secretly plotting to assassinate her when the time is ripe.

Syrup Village Arc


After the three years have passed, Kuro meets up with Jango and his crew, plotting to have Jango hypnotize Kaya into signing a will that would leave her fortune and estate to "Klahadore". The second portion was to have the crew assault the village to create chaos and distraction, and that the cover story was that Kaya died in the pirate attack. Since Kuro spent three years building his respectful reputation, no one would find it odd that everything was left to him, thus leaving him with the peaceful and wealthy life he desired. Unknown to the crew, however, Kuro plotted to kill them all as well, in order to destroy all evidence and witnesses of all those who know of his true identity, and that nobody would question that a band of pirates died for their criminal statuses makes them untrustworthy.



After Usopp and Luffy overheard Kuro explaining the plan to Jango, Usopp tried to warn everyone in town, but Klahadore's reputation and Usopp's tendency to lie led them to not believe him. Thus, the Straw Hat Pirates took it upon themselves to protect the village. On the eve of the attack, Kuro's bloodlust made him reveal himself to his colleague, Merry, in a failed attempt to kill him for satisfaction; Merry's survival allowed him to notify Kaya of Klahadore's true nature and the Black Cat Pirates' impending attack to be true. Through a difficult battle, which Kuro attempted to slaughter his crew as well, Luffy managed to keep up with Kuro's insane speed and defeat him, and at the same time Usopp managed to protect Kaya from Jango.Luffy threw the defeated Kuro at his crew, who took him to their ship and fled the island (sans Jango, who was left knocked out in the forest). At Usopp's request, Kaya and the Usopp Pirates kept this attempted attack a secret, hoping to maintain the peace of Syrup Village.

Loguetown Arc
The crew appears to have remained active after their defeat, acquiring a replacement prow for the Bezan Black and even retaining Kuro (still thought dead by the Marines) as captain. Some time after Luffy's first bounty was posted by Marine Headquarters, one crewman acquired a copy of the poster and rushed it to an apathetic Kuro.

Jango's Dance Paradise
Left behind, Jango set off on his own, and through a series of adventures, had his criminal record erased and joined the Marines under Captain Hina.

Trivia

 * In One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3, the Black Cat Pirates appear as generic enemy pirates lead by Kuro. During the game's Syrup Village Arc, a few of the Black Cat Pirates defect and ally themselves with the Straw Hats (becoming Allied Units) after Kuro starts indiscriminately killing them. They assist the Straw Hats in defeating Kuro allowing them to survive. While this does not occur in the original storyline, the Black Cat Pirates do cheer Luffy on when he manages to stop Kuro's Shakushi attack.
 * Canonically, it is unknown what became of them after the Syrup Village Arc, though some sources indicate Kuro's bounty was eventually reactivated.

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