One of the most delightful aspects of One Piece is that there are characters who, when you meet them, seem like single-use characters, and then turn out to be anything but.
Surely, you think, these characters’ usefulness will last just for the arc. But then Eiichiro Oda will bring them back down the line and endear you to them even further. Somehow, these weirdos stay relevant to the story, even into the final saga. Mr. 3 is a prime example of one such character.
Like many of these kinds of characters, Mr. 3 starts out as an antagonist and an asshole. He’s still kind of an asshole, but now he’s our asshole. He works himself into becoming a kind of straight man and a proxy for the viewer. The kind of guy who you expect to look dead into the camera and go, “You see what I have to put up with?”
Oh, and he has the powers of the Doru Doru no Mi Devil Fruit, which makes him into a Candle Man. He can create and manipulate vast amounts of wax, while also creating flames from his hair-wick. Good stuff.
Mr. 3’s introduction
Spoiler-free for those of you waiting for the live-action!
We first meet Mr. 3 as one of the two main antagonists in the Little Garden arc, which happens shortly after Luffy and company venture into the Grand Line. Mr. 3 and his partner, Miss Goldenweek, are on a mission to take care of the meddlesome Straw Hat Pirates.
You see, Mr. 3 is one of the top officers at the shady Baroque Works organization. Baroque Works, incidentally, is secretly at the root of major unrest in Alabasta. But because the head honcho is someone who’s actually smart and capable, it’s a well-organized system that branches out into neighboring islands as well. Remember, they even tried to recruit Zoro in his pre-Straw Hat days.
As Mr. 3’s number suggests, he’s the third-highest-ranking male in the entire organization. Just two below the head honcho! The way Baroque Works organizes its officers, the men get assigned numbers while the women get assigned holidays or dates. Except for Mr. 2 Bon Clay, who is genderqueer and therefore gets both. One Piece has always been good, folks.
As this all suggests, Mr. 3 is a codename. His real name is Galdino. But even further into the story, he keeps his trademark “3”-shaped hairstyle intact. So you can call him Galdino, and he might even like that. But we all very much still think of him as Mr. 3.
Mr. 3 after Alabasta
Major spoilers ahead for Alabasta and everything thereafter!
After Luffy defeats Mr. 3’s boss, Crocodile, in Alabasta, Baroque Works goes kaput. Crocodile and the vast majority of Baroque Works’ upper brass get shoved into Impel Down, the Navy’s heavily fortified prison. Unfortunately for him, Mr. 3 is no exception to this fate.
But Luffy is nothing if not a disrupter of fate. Several arcs after Alabasta, Luffy breaks into Impel Down in order to free his brother, Portgas D. Ace. In the process, he becomes responsible for a mass prison break. Mr. 3 was imprisoned in one of the top floors of Impel Down (which descends into the ocean), on the very same floor as—yes, that’s right—Buggy and his famous sexy prison ponytail.
Both Mr.3 and Buggy end up as Luffy’s reluctant allies for the rest of the Impel Down arc. They also escape on the same ship as Luffy, which—unfortunately, from their point of view—heads straight for the war between the Navy and the Whitebeard Pirates at Marineford. As relatively weak curmudgeons, Galdino and Buggy stick together.
However, through a truly impressive combination of coincidence, choice tomfoolery, and cherrypicked information, Buggy ends up making a name for himself at Marineford. Galdino essentially becomes his second in command.
Through the accumulation of manpower and clout he achieves at Marineford, Buggy establishes an Underworld organization known as Buggy’s Delivery during the timeskip. He and Alvida are essentially the two smarter people at Buggy’s side, at the top of command, wondering how their lives ended up like this. Even when Buggy’s Delivery evolves into the Cross Guild, and Buggy’s stake in the pirate world becomes even higher, Galdino is still there.
Which brings us into the final saga. Buggy is absolutely going to have a role to play in the arcs beyond Egghead. And that means we still haven’t seen the last of Galdino.
Published: Jun 25, 2024 04:32 pm