Island of Rare Animals

The Island of Rare Animals is an island in the East Blue populated by bizarre "hybrid" animals. It is currently known to have only two human inhabitants: Gaimon and Sarfunkel.

Geography and Layout
The island is completely undeveloped, and mostly overgrown with forest. Its most significant landmark is a tall, almost sheer butte topped with five empty treasure chests.

Flora and Fauna
The island is named for its distinctive wildlife, most (possibly all) of which blend the traits of two or more conventional animals, e.g. pigs with lion manes and rabbits with snake bodies. These creatures are notably docile, and highly sought-after by poachers.

Inhabitants
The animals inhabiting the island include:


 * A Fox/rooster hybrid (Cocox)
 * A Snake/rabbit hybrid (Usagihebi)
 * A Pig/lion hybrid (Lionbuta)
 * A Giraffe/dog hybrid
 * Poodle/duck hybrids
 * A Bear/tiger hybrid
 * A Zebra/ostrich hybrid
 * Panda/bat hybrids
 * A Hippo/gorilla hybrid
 * Platypus/sheep hybrids
 * A Tiger/elephant hybrid
 * Rhinoceros/kangaroo hybrids
 * A giant cow/tortoise hybrid
 * A giant crab

Past
Some time in the past, a number of empty treasure chests—at least six—were left on the island by an unknown party.

Roughly two years after Gold Roger's execution, pirates on the Machina Hallelujah came to the island seeking treasure, but only managed to uncover one empty chest after three weeks' search. While most of them gave up, a lone crewman named Gaimon thought of climbing the butte, and found the five chests atop it; in the same instant, however, he lost his grip and fell into the chest discarded beneath the cliff, permanently trapping himself inside.

Unable to stop the Hallelujah from sailing off, Gaimon was effectively marooned on the island; though his compressed body could no longer climb the butte, he refused to give up on "his" treasure. Over the next twenty years, he posed as the island's guardian (番人), driving off any newcomers through a combination of stealth, theatrics, and gunplay. Concurrently, he befriend the island's many strange animals, coming to treasure them in and of themselves.

Syrup Village Arc
Eventually, the Straw Hat Pirates chanced on the island, and easily exposed Gaimon. After learning his story, a sympathetic Monkey D. Luffy volunteered to scale the cliff and retrieve the chests, but in doing so only confirmed that they had been empty all along. Though driven to tears, Gaimon again refused to despair, and resolved to spend the rest of his days protecting his animal friends from poachers.

Buggy's Crew Adventure Chronicles
Some time later, Buggy—sans most of his body parts—crash-landed on the island, and came to blows with Gaimon. However, they soon befriended each other over their mutually bizarre physiques; with Gaimon's help, Buggy departed the island in a newly-built raft.

From the Decks of the World
After the timeskip, the island has a new resident, the barrel-woman, Sarfunkel.

Anime and Manga Differences
The manga depicts the island as a relatively obscure stopover between the Organ Islands and the Gecko Islands, which only Luffy and Nami actually explore (Zoro staying behind to recover from prior injuries). In contrast, the anime relocates the island between the Gecko Islands and the Baratie, and has Zoro and Usopp going ashore—and meeting Gaimon—with Luffy and Nami.

In addition, while the manga version of the island has little backstory (and initially goes unnamed—"the Island of Rare Animals" being given by extra-canon sources such as databook Red), the anime frames it as a Legendary Treasure Island (伝説の宝島) famed among pirates, with Nami deliberately seeking it out via a treasure map. Accordingly, the anime version of Gaimon defends it 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.

Trivia

 * Canonically, this is the island the Straw Hat Pirates spend the shortest time on, with only one chapter (and one corresponding anime episode) dedicated to it.
 * The island's name would be reused for the third film's title, though the film proper names its setting Crown Island.
 * In addition, many of Crown Island's background animals are obvious recolors of this island's animals.

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