Sea King

Sea King
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Japanese Name:	海王類（かいおうるい）
Romanized Name:	Kaiō-rui
Official English Name:	Sea Kings (uncut Funimation dub); Neptunians (4Kids, VIZ, edited Funimation dub, Funimation subs)
First Appearance:	Chapter 1, Episode 4 (Seen); Chapter 92, Episode 42 (Named)
Literal Meaning:	Sea King Species
Habitat:	Blue Sea (particularly Calm Belt)
Size:	Over 5000m (16,400') by estimate

Sea Kings are huge, carnivorous monsters that inhabit all of the world's oceans. They are especially prevalent throughout the Calm Belts surrounding the Grand Line, and as such are one of the most common—and notorious—hazards encountered by seafarers in the area.

Though somewhat similar in habitats and behavior, they should not be confused with Sea Beasts, the (generally) smaller and more docile mammals that also inhabit the world's oceans.

Quick Answers

What distinguishes Sea Kings from Sea Beasts in One Piece?

In One Piece, Sea Kings are classified as giant, non-mammalian marine creatures, distinct from Sea Beasts. Sea Beasts, like Momoo, resemble real-world marine mammals, including seals and whales. This classification is not based on size or power, but on their correlation to actual aquatic species.

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Are Sea Kings prevalent in the Calm Belts surrounding the Grand Line?

Indeed, Sea Kings are abundant in the Calm Belts encircling the Grand Line. These regions serve as nesting sites for the largest Sea Kings globally, posing a substantial risk to any vessel trying to navigate through. The absence of wind and currents, coupled with the Sea Kings' presence, turns the Calm Belts into a formidable obstacle. They should not be mistaken for Sea Beasts, which are generally smaller, more placid creatures that also reside in the global oceans.

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What are the physical characteristics of a Sea King?

Sea Kings in One Piece exhibit diverse physical characteristics, with no two having identical physiques, proportions, or colors. They often have long, serpentine bodies, but exceptions exist, such as a frog-like Sea King with toes instead of fins. Some Sea Kings feature sharp teeth, small eyes, and large tongues.

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What role do Sea Kings play in the world of One Piece?

Sea Kings in One Piece are summoned by Shirahoshi to aid Luffy in safeguarding Fish-Man Island, particularly by preventing Noah's ship from colliding with it. They are a unique class, separate from Sea Beasts like Momoo. The Straw Hat Pirates encounter a nest of Sea Kings in the Calm Belt. Characters such as Monkey D. Luffy, Kozuki Oden, and Gol D. Roger have the unique ability to hear the Sea Kings.

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Overview

Appearance

Sea Kings vary radically in physical build, to the point that no two individuals have been observed with matching physiques, proportions, or even colorations. How many—if any—of these are distinct species remains unknown.

All Sea Kings are non-mammalian creatures. The feature most common to Sea Kings in general is a long, vaguely serpentine body, though this is by no means universal. One particular specimen encountered by the Straw Hat Pirates, Googly-Eyed, was even noted to look like an oversized frog, complete with distinct toes instead of fins or flippers. Sea Kings have been shown to resemble fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects and birds.

Apart from this, Sea Kings are defined mostly by their size. The smallest known individual, Dawn Island's Lord of the Coast, can comfortably swallow a grown man (and most of a dinghy) whole; another, felled by one of Franky's early battleships, was estimated at roughly 100 meters long. The largest known specimens are known to easily dwarf whole cities and even islands.

The Lord of the Coast, a relatively small Sea King.

The Master of the Waters was bigger than many large ships.

The largest structures on Little Garden are the skulls of two Sea Kings slain by Dorry and Brogy over a century ago.

Behavior

They are classified as Type "C" creatures, "Big Savage". This is largely justified by their near-constant preying on other creatures, even comparatively tiny humans; once a Sea King has zeroed in on prey, it will attack relentlessly, and only retreat in the face of overwhelming physical (more rarely, mental) force.

However, they are not entirely mindless predators, as proven by their mental link through Poseidon. Though incapable of physical speech, they can deliver wholly coherent thoughts through telepathy—chief among them a genuine reverence toward whichever mermaid currently holds the Poseidon bloodline. In addition, while they feel no special kinship toward humans as a whole, they are entirely capable of acknowledging, and even respecting, an individual human's strength.

When a Sea King goes "berserk", its eyes change, the irises and pupils becoming thin vertical slits.

List of Sea Kings

See also the associated category: Sea Kings.

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Abilities and Powers

Sea Kings make trade and travel difficult for anyone trying to cross their native waters, as they are exceptionally fierce and strong compared to many other sea creatures. They are powerful predators and attack unprovoked with no fear or signs of backing down. Cases have arisen where some islands in the Grand Line close to the edge of the Calm Belt (their natural breeding ground) have ended up almost completely cut off from the rest of the world due to the Sea Kings.

Most other creatures in the ocean fear the Sea Kings, with some notable exceptions:

• Bananawani, their only natural predator.
• Yuda, who are too ferocious even for them and also poisonous.
• Blue Gorillas, Impel Down guards who are extremely good swimmers and incredibly strong, cutting Sea Kings up for food.
• Giants, who are incredibly strong themselves.

Only the strongest of ships or captains can take on a Sea King. Confrontation with one by a few humans is inadvisable and is considered nothing short of suicide. The fish-man Jinbe also acknowledged the danger Sea Kings posed after summoning whale sharks into the Calm Belt, thus proving at the very least fish-men are also aware of their potential threat. Many people, such as Franky, see the act of killing one a sign of strength and achievement.

Their perception, however, can be easily fooled by Seastone. When something is covered in Seastone, they will not notice the object at all, as they'll mistake it for the ocean. The Marines use this to their advantage and cover their ships with Seastone to avoid being attacked by Sea Kings. Vice Admiral Momonga implied that Sea Kings cannot be fooled for very long, though, and that they'll eventually notice the ship anyway.

Poseidon

Further information: Poseidon

Even though the mermaids can communicate with fish in the sea, the Sea Kings are beyond their reach. This indicates that they are very different from the other aquatic inhabitants of the ocean. Ryuboshi once commented that he always dreamt of riding on the back of a Sea King. However, according to legend, once every few centuries a mermaid is born with the ability to speak to the Sea Kings; on that day the world will change forever, then one day a man will appear to guide that mermaid. The name of the previous mermaid turned out to be Poseidon, whose abilities were considered a weapon that is able to destroy the world and whose power is in line with the other two ancient weapons, Pluton and Uranus. This implies that the Sea Kings are very powerful indeed, but this ability is dangerous, if they are drawn into a rage due to the mermaid's lack of control, they can destroy and sink every land mass into the ocean.

The Sea Kings refer to the mermaid with the power of Poseidon as their Queen. However, even the Sea Kings do not know why their Queen always takes the form of a mermaid.

In the past, Vander Decken went looking for a mermaid princess of legend with this ability and was drawn to the bottom of the ocean in his search. The search continued with every member of his family thereafter until Vander Decken IX. Shirahoshi is the current mermaid with this ability.

Besides the mermaid of legend, the only other people who seem to be able to hear the Sea Kings have been Monkey D. Luffy, Kouzuki Oden, and Gol D. Roger. The latter was said to be able to "hear the voice of all things".

History

The Distant Past

800 years ago during the Void Century the Sea Kings made a promise to tow the ship Noah thanks to the mermaid known as Poseidon's and her abilities. However, Joy Boy, who made the deal with Fish-Man Island and Poseidon, failed to keep up his end of the bargain and Noah was never used leaving its mission unknown.

The Sea King Menace

Sea Kings occupy the Calm Belt. In the past their reputation and numbers have been the sole protection for Amazon Lily located inside the Calm Belt itself. However elsewhere, islands close to it such as Water 7 remained cut off.

Appearances Throughout History

Sea Kings summoned by Shirahoshi.

• During Mont Blanc Noland's return to Jaya, the two ships led by his king encountered a Sea King themselves. Terrified of such a beast, the king left Noland to handle it by himself. In a published false story, however, the king himself was the hero who defeated the Sea King.
• Sea Kings were the reason behind Dorry's and Brogy's contest to see who was the stronger warrior. They caught one each and began arguing over who caught the bigger Sea King.
• Yorki is believed to have perished when he attempted to flee the Grand Line via the Calm Belt.
• Franky began his attempt to beat one of these beasts as a child. He began building the Battle Frankies. Twelve years ago, he successfully kills a Sea King. However, his ships for killing Sea Kings would later become part of a plan hatched by Spandam.
• Twelve years ago, Higuma is killed by a Sea King and Shanks loses an arm to the same Sea King while saving the life of Monkey D. Luffy.
• Ten years ago, it is revealed that Shirahoshi has the ability to control Sea Kings, while unknowingly using this ability to save her mother.

Changing Times

After centuries of ruling the sea, the Sea Kings' control over the Calm Belt has been lessened. Dr. Vegapunk discovered that Seastone emits the same aura as the sea, resulting in the Marines lining the hulls of all their ships with it and thus are completely ignored by the Sea Kings. For the first time, ships can move in and out of the Grand Line freely. Also, the Sea Train was invented by Tom to create trade and travel between Water 7 and its neighboring islands, and was designed to create a noise that repels Sea Kings.

Fish-Man Island

Sea Kings moving Noah.

During the Fish-Man Island Arc, the Sea Kings were summoned by Shirahoshi's will to become Luffy's strength. The Sea Kings lend their strength to aid Luffy in protecting the island by stopping Noah from crashing into the island. In the process, they also protected the ship from being completely destroyed by Luffy. They then reveal to Shirahoshi that it was indeed her that called them and it was her wish to aid Luffy that led to their actions. The Sea Kings go on to say that Shirahoshi has been destined to be their queen and they move Noah to the Sea Forest where it will be fixed.

Translation and Dub Issues

Most professional English translations do not render the kanji 海王 literally—that is, as Sea King. Instead, they favor the more metaphorical translation Neptunian, referencing Neptune, the Roman God of the sea. This translation was likely inspired by the Japanese term for the planet Neptune (海王星, Kaiōsei^?, lit. "Sea King Star"), itself an homage to the Western astronomers who had discovered it.

(Note that the "Neptunian" translation predates the Fish-Man Island Arc by roughly half a decade. The significance that the term Neptune—and for that matter, Poseidon—would later have in the series is completely incidental.)

Funimation's "uncut" anime dub uniquely averts this convention and refers to the creatures as Sea Kings, though Neptunian is still used in both its edited-for-TV dub and its simulcast subtitles. In contrast, the 4Kids-dubbed anime removes the creatures almost entirely (as their largest roles in the early storyline were during the Reverse Mountain Arc and the Little Garden Arc, both truncated), and offers no specific term whatsoever.

Trivia

Birdy is regularly reused within One Piece.

• Sea Kings and the other large sized monsters of the world are most likely based on the illustrations of Sea monsters found on old maps, often placed on the map as a warning to sailors traveling in those waters as a result of local superstitions. This practice was abandoned with the use of modern cartography techniques.
• Sea King meat is apparently considered a delicacy as Luffy has claimed that food made out of Sea King meat is "very good stuff". It is also one of Zoro's favorite foods.
• The group of Sea Kings that Shirahoshi inadvertently summoned to stop the Noah from falling included many of the Sea Kings that the Straw Hats ran into when they inadvertently entered the Calm Belt, including Mottled, Birdy, Googly-Eyed, and Topknot.