‘One Piece’: Horse Yokai Explained
Sorry, horse girls. The Horse Yokai from One Piece is not a horse that you wanna saddle up on. You’d have better luck with a sapphic equestrian Christmas movie or the 2005 tour de force Racing Stripes.
“But I can fix him!” No, you can’t.
Unlike actual horses, which can be loved and cared for and taught to be good, this horse is bad to the bone. In fact, bones are all this horse has. It’s a skeleton horse! Like the ones you find in the Tabantha Region in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild! While even those horses can be tamed by Link, I don’t think Hyrule’s Most Powerful Twink could get a bridle over this guy.
The horse yokai from One Piece isn’t actually a horse at all, but a person—and not a young, sexy animorph-style transformer. He’s actually an OLD MAN. And not a kindly old man, but totally tyrannical and dastardly sort of old man. Silver fox hookup sugar daddy material maybe, but not someone you’d want date.
Meet Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, the Warrior God of Finance
Wait what? That’s Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro is this dude’s ACTUAL NAME? This has to be the greatest that One Piece manga author Eiichiro Oda has ever come up with, and that guy comes up with names like Trafalgar D. Water Law! So who is Saint Ethanbaron V. Whateverhisface? *Cracks knuckles* This is gonna require a bit of explaining …
If you’re submerged in the wet and salty lore of One Piece, you should know a thing or two about the World Government. If you don’t, this is who they are. The World Government (a.k.a. the Celestial Dragons) are one of the Three Great Powers that rule the known world alongside the Four Emperors and the Seven Warlords of the Sea. The World Government has a plethora of politicians bouncing around the bouncy house of power, but the biggest steppers are the Five Elders (on paper, at least). The Five Elders, a group of five graybeard-type men, are the top of the food chain in the World Government. Officially, they answer to no one. Unofficially, they lick the boots of the secret de facto leader of the WG, a mysterious man named Im.
Since ruling the world is a job that’s too big for even the most conniving of men, Im delegated scraps of his power to the Five Elders, no doubt pacifying their egos with lofty titles like “saint” and “warrior god.” Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro is the Warrior God of Finance, and no doubt handles the many monetary decisions that go into maintaining a stable global economy. But CFO isn’t his only job description. Nusjuro also functions as Im’s private muscle, along with the rest of the Five Elders. Although they may not look like it, these old dudes are able to thrown down with the best of them. Each of the Five Elders is able to transform into a yokai from Japanese myth (except for Saint Ju Peter, who can transform into a giant worm straight out of Arrakis … or Alaska, if that one SpongeBob episode is to be believed). While the Five Elders are all extremely powerful, Saint Ethanbaron is arguably the most powerful of all.
So what’s up with all this horsing around?
Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro is able to transform himself into a Bakotsu, a demonic skeletal horse from Japanese myth. According to legend, a horse that is burned to death will return to haunt the mortal realm as a fiery skeleton, seeking vengeance on those that caused its fiery demise. Nusjuro is able to both fully and partially transform himself into this incendiary equestrian beast. By transforming his lower half into a skinny little horse-leg skeleton, he is able to move around the battlefield at breakneck speeds. This allows him to get the most out of his sword-wielding upper body.
In case you didn’t know, Ethanbaron is one of the most powerful swordsmen in the One Piece universe, and possesses what is likely to be one of the 12 Supreme Grade Swords. So far we’ve only seen a handful of these weapons appear in the series, wielded by the World’s Strongest Man Whitebeard and the World’s Strongest Swordsman Dracule Mihawk. If that’s the case, Luffy and the gang have their work cut out for them, no pun intended.
(featured image: Toei Animation)
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