Yamato is one of the few One Piece characters, that have gained immense popularity amongst fans even before their anime debut. According to One Piece global popularity poll, Yamato was ranked 11th which is quite surprising considering the fact that Yamato wasn’t introduced in the anime (meaning only manga readers voted for Yamato) at the time the of the poll, and they also outranked Straw Hats like Chopper, and Usopp.
Yamato was initially introduced as Kaido’s son, and the Beast Pirates also referred to Yamato as “he/him” pronouns. The majority of the fans believed Yamato to be transgender at this point. In fact, Yamato’s interaction with Luffy also solidified this view after Luffy called Yamato as “Yama bro” or “Yama guy”, the same nickname that Luffy uses for Trafagar Law as “Tra guy”. Yamato also calls himself as Kozuki Oden who is a man, and that is why Yamato refers to themselves as a man too.
You can see a strong evidence which supports that Yamato is a transgender character, however, this all changed when Eiichiro Oda released Yamato’s Vivre card (character profile information) where Yamato gender was stated to be canonically female. This new information caused a lot of stir amongst fans, but Yamato was widely accepted as a cisgender, but the recent chapter of One Piece manga is again causing confusion about Yamato.
Some context about the recent One Piece chapter, and I promise not to spoil you too much about the manga. After a big event, Straw Hat decided to take a bath. Nami invited Yamato to take a bath, but instead of going with the women, Yamato decided to take a bath with the boys. This decision is confusing fans as Eiichiro Oda has already confirmed her as female, but then why is she taking a bath with the male crew?
Another One Piece character in this scene is Kiku, who is canonically transgender (a man who is a woman at heart), and she can be seen bathing with the ladies. This bathing scene is a strong evidence supporting the fact that Yamato sees himself as a man. It will be interesting to see how Eiichiro Oda handles Yamato’s gender identity, and if Sanji and Brook are shown having a crush on Yamato, will that make them canonically bisexual?
Yamato key word is currently trending on Twitter because of this situation. What are your thoughts on this recent One Piece development? Let us know your opinion in the comments section.
No….people are just trying to make the character into something they are not. The only reason that Yamato even stated she wants to be called a man is because she is assuming the identity of her hero Oden….please stop with the woke focused BS….not everything has to be as deep as you think it is
Thats what im saying. She is a girl but she just likes what oden stood for as a person. She aint transgender and she isnt making others bisexual.
Also that kiki is a girl not a boy and he think she is a boy 😂
But the official translation I read had the following conversation.
When Nami asked Yamato to take a bath together, Yamato appologised because there were no mixed baths. And this lead into this scene with Yamato at the male side of the bath.
Yamato/Oden didn’t say (s)he would like to take a bath like Oden, but that the baths aren’t gender mixed. I don’t know.
I agree
Yamato is girl role playing Oden…… She likes him so much she wants become like him. She never said my heart is a boy, she said she is Oden….. It’s a simple concept out here in Asia.😐 But in the west they simply can’t take a girl acting a little boyish. They really think if a girl plays with some boys she is now trans….😒 Like WTF bruh Shut Up…. Youroichi took a bath with Ichigo does that make her trans?, every single shota out there acts like girls does that make him trans? Why are you guys so delusional??😑
Youroichi also didn’t look like a woman and use He/Him pronouns either.
Maybe as an Eastern person, should stop looking at everything so black and white?
yknow the onsen in bleach was unisex ? literally nowhere around it said it was a mens bath.. also yamato is not acting little boyish. he wanted to be a man and now he identifies as a man. He doesnt want to be “like” oden, he wants to be oden himself. Do you think he says he wants to be oden without “his heart being a boy”???? why would he say that if he didnt really wanted to be one ? i dont think we are reading the same one piece…..
Okay your saying that the bleach example isn’t really valid how about the character yukimura from the anime Haganai where for the whole first season viewers thought she was a boy until the second season when she goes to the male public bath and takes a bath with Kodaka and he realized she’s a girl and what was her reason for dressing and acting like a boy it was because she wanted to “be like” Kodaka…so this type of situation is not the first of its kind in anime
Yamato is a female. In Japanese she uses pronouns that are more masculine but are commonly used by tomboyish girls. It’s something not easily translated in English due to there not being different types of pronouns so we wind up with translations using he/him.
But Yamato has never been portrayed as trans in the story. An easy way to tell this is to compare Yamato and Kiku. Kiku’s vivre card says “woman at heart” while Yamato’s says “female”. Yamato’s introduction box calls her “Daughter of Kaido” while Kiku’s calls her “A Waitress”.
There’s literally no argument here. Oda himself has stated that she is a girl that is a tomboy which have different types of pronouns. There is no misconception, there’s just people looking for something that isn’t there. She idolizes Oden that’s it. Stop trying to make something out of it plus there’s already a transgender character which openly admits to being a women instead of a man. If oda wanted the same thing for Yamato he would have done so.
Well said bro don’t understand why people are trying to twist something that is so simple to understand…before I got into One Piece cuz of the controversy that was going at the time about Yamato I genuinely thought she was trans but when I got to watch it and she made her appearance I was like “Oh she’s just a girl trying to be like her hero” that’s all no deeper meaning to it
Fr now we have random people who’ve never even read one piece getting mad at Oda because they want a transgender character (which there already is). They don’t understand the story or even read it. If they did, they would understand why she wants to be called a man. It’s not that she wants to be a man, she just wants to be like Oden.
I would call this as meaning she’s bisexual or gender-fluid,
“Sanji and Brook are shown having a crush on Yamato, will that make them canonically bisexual?”
Uh no. Because they’d be having a crush on a biological woman, who is canonically a woman trying to be masculine to mimic her hero.
Thank you. I can’t stand having to see all this bullshit everyday here in the US. Its crazy how weird and sensitive people are when looking at this easy to understand concept.
Yamato is clearly female… Not cisgender or transgender. She is clearly just cosplaying as Oden. Otherwise, oda wouldn’t have censored her boobs in the recent chapter.
Who cares?
Sanji and Brook aren’t bi, don’t bring that woke garbage to manga, you’ve already ruined American comic books, leave Japanese ones alone. The fact that Yamato bathes with the men is played for a gag.
Totally agree, there shouldn’t even be a discussion.
I’m surprised that Yamato is what’s being discussed and not Kikunojo; an openly trans representative character.
Kikunojo could join the straw hats
If Yamato didn’t want to be Oden, she wouldn’t call herself a guy. I don’t think that’s how being trans works.
It’s funny to watch some people freak out at the idea of a trans character. I don’t really care what their gender is, but god forbid someone’s favorite character might not be as straight as they think. You’d have to be really fragile and insecure to get angry over that lol