Arlong

"Saw-tooth" Arlong (アーロン, Āron) is a fictional anthropomorphic fishman from the anime and manga One Piece.

Appearance
Arlong is a large blue fishman of the sawshark variety. He wears what appears to be a brown Ushanka. On his hands are what appear to be rings. According to Oda in response to a fan about these rings, these aren't rings at all. They are actually more like piercings that go straight through Arlong's fingers.

Personality
Arlong displays the Fish-Man tendency to consider humans as inferior beings, and is very cruel to them and even kills them without mercy. He also enjoys exploiting them for all their worth.

He does not seem frightened by anything, and his Fish-Man strength has made him extremely confident that he and his crew are virtually invincible. He also has an eye for spotting talent that he can use for his goals and is an excellent planner; he spent years using Nami and her maps to plan their takeover of the East Blue.

Crew
He cares for his own crews, while many of his crew share his ideals. They would call him "Lord Arlong" while Arlong would call his crew "Brothers". He can be very angry when someone hurts his crew.

Enemies
As a pirate with a bounty he is the enemy of the Marines. His cruelty against Nami and her village as assured him an enemy of all of them, as well as the Straw Hats who defeated him.

Other
It is unclear about any feelings between him and his "equal" Jimbei as of current storyline.

Abilities
Arlong is one of the Fishmen, massive humanoids that are taller and stronger than any normal human. Arlong, however, is a giant even among fishmen, and one of the strongest fighters in the East blue. He is seen lifting a house with his bare hands in pursuit of Usopp, and his powerful shark-like jaws are capable of rending metal, stone and flesh alike. Predictably, as formidable an opponent as Arlong is on land, in the water he is nearly invincible.

Weapons
Arlong's weapons are mostly natural features of his sawfish-man body. With his great strength, something as harmless as a handful of water can strike as hard as a bullet. Even his nose a weapon- it is over a foot long and lined with razor-sharp points, and more than sturdy enough to use as a melee weapon. Swinging his head back and forth, Arlong defeated even Roronoa Zoro in a swordfight with this natural blade, although Zoro was injured at the time. In addition, he can remove his massive, needle-like teeth and use them as hand-held weapons, snapping them at opponents like castanets. The teeth are replaced by a new set in mere moments, each regrown mouthful stronger than the one before.

Near the end of his battle with Luffy, he uses a massive sawlike sword called the Kiribachi.

Past Story
The Saw-Fish Fish-Man was once a member of the Fish-Man Pirates, of which Jimbei was captain. But when Jimbei joined the Shichibukai, Arlong split from the group for as of yet unknown reasons, along with his own "Arlong Pirates," and left the Grand Line for easier targets.

Arlong set up his domain on one of the larger islands in East Blue, with a number of smaller villages in the vicinity under his control. Arlong dismantled his original galleon and used the materials to build Arlong Park, an eight story building that served as his headquarters. From Arlong Park, Arlong hoped to conquer all of East Blue using superior underwater tactics through maps drawn by Nami that charted underwater terrain.



When Arlong and his crew (consisting of Hatchan, Chew, and Kuroobi), first arrived on the island that would someday become Arlong Park, the first village he encountered was Cocoyashi Village (Coco Village in the English version), the home of Nami. Arlong then proceeded to extort money out of the residents of Cocoyashi Village. Adults would have to pay 100 thousand beli, children would pay 50 thousand or be executed by Arlong's men. Bellemere (Nami's adoptive mother) only had 100 thousand beli so she decided to pay for Nami and Nojiko and sacrifice herself. Arlong shot her in front of her children as an example of disobedience and then kidnapped Nami.

He forced Nami to become a part of his crew as a map maker, and told her that if she brought him 100 million beli he would free her village and everyone in it, including her adoptive sister Nojiko.

Present Storyline
Years later, when Nami was about to fulfill her end of the bargain using money she stole from Monkey D. Luffy, Arlong arranged to have a corrupt Marine captain confiscate the money from her so she would be forever under his control.

Luffy, who followed Nami after being robbed by her, saw Nami brutally stabbing Arlong's tattoo on her arm in desperation. Angered by the obvious suffering Arlong had wrought against her, Luffy stopped her from hurting herself and unquestioningly accepted her plea for help. A long and arduous battle ensued between Luffy, Arlong, and the elites of their crews.

By the end of the fight, only Luffy and Arlong were left standing and Luffy was taking a beating from Arlong's high-speed diving attack Shark On Darts and his sword Kiribachi (Saw Shaped Sword), which resembled a long steel saw with teeth shaped like a shark's. Luffy seemed on the verge of defeat until the battle moved into the top of Arlong Park, where Nami slavishly made her maps for Arlong as a child.

After feeling the turmoil and desperation that had seeped into the room over the years, Luffy became enraged and the tables turned dramatically.

Using the full power of his attack Gomu Gomu no Ono/Gum Gum Axe, Luffy managed to send the full force of Arlong's attack Shark On Haguruma (Gear) attack through to the bottom of Arlong Park, breaking Arlong's cartilaginous back and destroying the building in the process. Arlong makes a reappearance in the "Ocean's Dream" filler arc for the One Piece anime, but this is not considered canon in relation to the manga. His reappearance was in image only, the actual Arlong did not reappear.

Dub and Translation Issues
In the original manga and anime, Arlong was mean, cold, nazi-minded Fishman. He thinks of himself as a god, would make the village pay tribute or die.

However in the dub he was turned into a money-loving guy who don't care about his ideals. Yet he was givin a fish pun jokes. He was more lighten with the villagers.

Trivia

 * Many of One Piece's characters are given an distinct laugh. Arlong follows this tradition by starting his laughs with "Sha" (i.e Sha ha ha ha ha!)